Chapter 7
Ekkire
She’d left. Good. Finally, I could resume my own journey and travel into the mountains.
This was my responsibility as a naga male, and as a friend to those I knew at the outpost. Yet my coils remained rooted to the spot long after her determined footsteps had faded away.
I was done with her. She was Joxra’s mate, and it was to him she was returning.
Her aim with the bow had been impeccable, and during daylight, it was unlikely any predators would bother her. She was going to be perfectly fine.
Swinging my backpack onto my shoulders, I turned and followed her downhill toward the sky wreck.
Predators, yes, I had no doubt she could scare them off when needed.
The slithrazers would be sleeping anyway.
It was the survivors of the Thunder Rock attack party I was suddenly worried about.
I’d chosen to abandon them to their fate to search for Jasmine, and then to head to the outpost. They had chosen their fate by coming here to attack humans resting peacefully.
That did not mean they’d quietly retreated or forgotten about their planned attack.
My mind filled with images of what they’d do if they came across Jasmine with her small, far too light bow.
The sting of such an arrow would scare off a slithrazer and make it turn tail.
It wouldn’t even penetrate a naga’s scales.
Stung with something like that, I’d just be pissed.
Suddenly the landscape was dotted with dozens of potential hiding places for enemy naga lying in wait.
I tried to reason out what they might have done after the earthquake struck yesterday.
Some might have been hurt, injured, or even dead.
Any survivors would have aided them first, and then they might have retreated to regroup.
If I knew Sun Fang—and I did—they likely would have done that, but the warriors from Thunder Rock?
No, they would have doubled down. Perhaps they even blamed the presence of the humans for the earthquake itself.
Some of those hunters were extremely superstitious.
It kept the older outcast males from Thunder Rock from joining those at Haven, because Ahoshaga was a cave of the ancestors and was supposed to be haunted.
My pace increased until I was rushing downhill, completely in the wrong direction for the Sun Fang outpost. My mind kept supplying me with all kinds of images of what could have gone wrong due to my carelessness.
How could I have been so stupid as to assume she was safe to travel the rest of the way back to the sky wreck alone?
So what if she could shoot a bow and knew how to make fire with just a bit of string and some twigs?
Competence in survival skills didn’t equal the ability to fight off full-grown naga males, and they were out there.
I’d been fooling myself into thinking they’d either not survived the quake or were now too busy to make a problem.
I’d been the only one who’d laid eyes on the gathering attack force.
It was me who’d come back to warn Corin and his group at the sky wreck of the impending attack in time for them to summon reinforcements.
I’d seen who was in charge of the attacking group: Msera.
He’d become the new Thunder Rock Queen’s favorite and had gained much in status and power during the long winter.
He would not give up on his quest to destroy the humans, not until he was stopped.
If he was one of the survivors, he’d be on this hillside, ever closer to the sky wreck and full of righteous fury when he discovered tiny, vulnerable Jasmine.
Jasmine, with the lush pink and black hair and a furious glare in her velvety brown eyes.
Jasmine, who knew how to handle a bow and had all the survival skills of a hunter.
Jasmine, who spat fire with her eyes and coaxed loyalty out of a frightened sleara like a siren.
The female who belonged to Joxra, I reminded myself, but that did not absolve me of the responsibility to protect her.
My pace only picked up as my mind calculated the path of the sun in the sky.
How long had I waited in indecision before I followed her?
What kind of trouble could she have gotten into in such a short time?
It hadn’t been short, though. I’d hovered in that clearing for nearly half an hour, cursing myself for being unable to move from the spot.
She was so far away already. How had I not caught up to her yet?
Unless… they’d already caught her. They could have killed her and tossed her corpse into one of the newly formed gullies.
To my left was the one she’d been trapped in, and it was still raging with churning mud and water. I’d never find her if she was in there.
A feeling struck me then that was so powerful it felt like I was dying.
A tightening of my throat, a pounding in my chest so fierce it felt like my heart was about to burst. The sense of failure was so powerful I couldn’t shake it, couldn’t dislodge it no matter how firmly I tried to tell myself I would have heard something if she was under attack.
Sound carried in the hills, especially with so many of the trees still lacking foliage.
The sound of a scream, a spear striking, a warrior’s cry. I’d have heard it.
The sleara’s sharp screech howled through the air just then.
It sent chills down my spine, scales rattling not just on my back but all the way down my tail.
It could have been any sleara, but I was certain it was Dove, the sleara she’d named that morning.
Slowing down to hide my approach was possibly one of the hardest things I’d ever done.
I strained my ears, listening for more sounds, but the sleara was now silent.
I heard… the wind in the trees, the soft flutter of birds in the branches, and the pounding of my own heart.
Then, very faintly, I could hear Jasmine’s voice.
She was furious, but when wasn’t she? Her tone rose and fell in a sharp cadence.
If she was talking, she was alive; that was all that mattered.
I hunkered down low against the ground, stowing my backpack beneath the roots of a fallen tree.
Then I began to approach, slowly, stealthily.
As long as she spoke, she was breathing, and I counted on that.
My tongue flicked out, drew scent particles in, and pressed them to the roof of my mouth in rapid motions.
Analyzing, I teased out the notes that made up the environment and all those in it: Jasmine’s sweet, delicate scent now that she was clean of mud; the sleara’s silky pelt.
There were male scents too—Msera, two unfamiliar, and another from Thunder Rock whose name I couldn’t recall right now.
Msera spoke over her, his tone sharp, even more furious than she was.
“You are an abomination! You and your kind bring death and disease. I will regret nothing when I slay you.” He sounded like those from Bitter Storm, who had long shunned all technology and any naga not of the same scale color.
Only we, the Water Weavers, had been allowed safe passage through their territory to trade for the rich, coveted fabrics our females wove.
I saw them a moment later, all four warriors fanned out around her with their spears aimed directly at her throat.
One of them was bleeding profusely from a wound in his shoulder, and I could only surmise the fresh injury had been caused by the now-broken bow lying on the ground at her feet.
She was magnificent in her fur coat, braced on her legs, bow raised in front of her as if she intended to battle them even outnumbered. So brave, for a human.
The sleara clung to her shoulder and had perhaps warned her of the approaching danger.
Outnumbered, this would be a tough fight, even for me, but she seemed fearless.
I tasted only fury in the air, and confusion from the naga.
They did not understand why she did not cower in the face of what certainly looked like her final moments.
I had the element of surprise as I curled closer and formulated my plan of attack.
Had I not had that, I might have hesitated to charge in.
Later, I wondered why I had not hesitated over far more important reasons.
Being a Water Weaver male meant being neutral, and I’d decided to leave Haven to be true to my own Clan.
I should never have attacked anyone at all and risked my status as a trading partner with an influential Clan like Thunder Rock. But I did.
As Msera began listing the horrible way he intended to kill her, I circled.
When the wounded one pitched in with plans on how to make her pay for shooting him, I nearly lunged without thinking.
How far had they fallen? I had not realized that they had changed as surely as my time at Haven had changed me.
These males thought nothing of hurting someone they’d never met, and who’d never harmed them.
Well, granted she’d shot one of them, but I had no doubt he’d deserved it.
In fact, I was impressed she’d managed to hurt him as badly as he was with that puny little bow.
When the closest one moved to strike, I was in place, my tail whipping out and my trident striking true.
They had not scented me, had not seen me coming.
In only a handful of seconds, I’d injured all of them, and then my tail coiled tight around Msera’s throat, and it was all over.
I could have snapped his neck then—I wanted to, for the things he’d said—but I could not quite bring myself to do it.
The Thunder Rock hunter clawed at my coils and lowered his chin to stab me with his horn.
My grip grew tighter, and now he was clawing for air. He deserved to die for the things he’d said he’d do. He deserved every moment of agony. I rose above him, leveling my trident at the others until they backed away into the treeline, their expressions furious and bitter.
“What are you doing, Ekkire? Didn’t we share Abseal over the fire only a few nights ago?
” Msera spluttered, accusation burning in his eyes.
I bared my fangs at him, because none of that mattered, not even a little.
Yes, I’d passed through Thunder Rock Village when I left Haven a few days ago.
They’d welcomed me then with open arms, but after what he’d threatened to do to Jasmine?
Never would I share his Abseal with him again.
That seemed to sink in, his pale blue eyes growing wide with confusion, with fear for his life.
My tail tightened, his breathing growing labored, and bones began warping beneath the pressure of my grip.
A few more seconds was all it would have taken, but when the tiny sleara screeched…
I dropped Msera, tossing him aside, and spun for Jasmine.
There wasn’t enough time to do much, I’d allowed myself to get too focused on making Msera pay.
This was exactly why I tried never to let my temper get the best of me; it clouded my judgment.
Jasmine had moved back and raised her bow, but that was flimsy protection when two males charged her and the third circled around to strike at my back.
The sleara, with no regard for her fragile safety, dove on one of these males with claws outstretched.
Jasmine fired her shot, but it barely slowed the second one down.
I moved without thought, acting on pure instinct.
A roar sounded, so loud it could have rivaled that of the dragon.
Just like the sleara, I disregarded my own safety entirely; I hurled myself toward Jasmine and her attackers.
Trident leading, my vision blurring red until all I could see was the fear on her face.
When she screamed in pain, it was like something snapped inside me.
I recalled nothing after that beyond the rushing in my ears and a bright glow.
As the dust settled, I found myself curled tightly around Jasmine, with the taste of blood in my mouth.
Her head was tucked beneath my chin, though even blinded by rage I had avoided hurting her with my horn.
So soft, so small, she fit perfectly in my arms. Her features were lit by the soft golden glow.
“Ekkire,” she whispered. “I think my leg is broken…” Her fingers slid against my chest, touching my scales over the furious pounding of my heart.
I growled, still struggling to come back from the brink of that all-consuming fury.
Her touch, it helped, though. It helped a lot.
Until it sank in that I’d understood her; I’d heard that word for word.