Chapter 13 #2
the sound of metal clanging on metal rang out over curses and
grunts from Aleksi and Yago.
“Lay down your puny stick,” Taweel said, “and
I’ll make your death swift and merciful.”
“Lay down your sword,” she countered,
shifting her weight onto her toes, “and I won’t cut your stones off
and gift them to your father on a golden plate.”
Her words had their desired effect as Taweel
sputtered and choked on his sneer, and she sprang straight for him,
swinging the stick hard and whacking him on the outside of his
knee. He bellowed and stumbled. She turned full circle and whacked
him on the outside of his other knee. His knees buckled and he
stumbled forward, but he saved himself from falling by stabbing his
sword into the ground and bracing himself with it. She considered
trying to sweep the sword out from under him but didn’t want to
chance embedding the stick into it and giving Taweel a chance to
wrest her weapon from her.
She swung the stick high and brought it down,
aiming for the side of his head, but he dipped and rolled and
pushed himself up onto his feet as the stick hit the ground, the
force of it shooting waves of pain up her arms and into her
shoulders. Taweel brought his sword down onto the stick, numbing
her fingers and wrists, but she didn’t let go. He raised his sword
high, readying for another blow. She gripped the stick with all her
might and heaved it away as Taweel’s sword came crashing down and
hit earth. Putting all her weight behind the stick, she swung for
Taweel’s sword arm, grunting with the effort. It struck the meat of
his upper arm with a satisfying thunk, and she stepped back and
positioned the stick to jab, jumping away as Taweel pivoted and
slashed out with his other arm, the cold gleam of his waist blade
shining in the light of the dwindling campfire.
He straightened and shook himself as she set
her feet and shoulders.
“I am going to kill you, bitch,” he barked,
charging her with teeth bared.
“Sahar?” Aleksi yelled.
She dipped one way and leapt the other,
dodging Taweel’s clumsy charge and ducked behind a tree, glancing
over to where Aleksi was raining blows down on Yago, who looked to
be struggling to keep his sword up in a defensive posture. Aleksi
could kill Yago at any time, but he was keeping his word and
working on beating the Wolf down and capturing him alive.
“I’m fine,” she yelled back, grinning and
taunting Taweel as she danced from one side of the tree to the
other.
The heel of her boot caught on a root, and
she tripped and fell, landing flat on her back, knocking the breath
from her. She gasped trying to suck in air, but her throat had
closed and her chest had seized, and Taweel was standing over her,
the point of his sword at her heart and a sickening smile on his
face.
“I told you I would kill you,” he said,
planting a booted foot on her throat. “I’m going to enjoy doing
it.”
Her vision narrowed to a pinprick as she
grabbed at the Tall’s boot on her neck, but without air in her
lungs the strength was quickly leaving her body. Somewhere far away
a wolf yelped, a stallion bellowed, and the earth beneath her
thundered. As the world was going black, the weight of Taweel was
lifted from her, and she sucked in great, gasping gulps of air as
she rolled over onto her hands and knees. A cursing, grunting mass
of flailing arms and kicking legs rolled and tumbled across the
camp as she slowly pushed herself up onto her feet, finally able to
take in a complete breath. She felt for her waist blade, her
fingers wrapping around the hilt when a pair of hands grabbed her
from behind and threw her face-first into the tree’s trunk.
When she came to, it was to the sound of
clanging metal and the hazy sight of Aleksi’s sturdy legs and broad
back standing between her Yago and Taweel, holding them off and
trading them blow for blow. Leaning against the tree, she slowly
rose to her feet and braced herself until her vision stopped
swimming and her legs stopped shaking.
“Ride, Sahar,” Aleksi yelled over his
shoulder. “Ride away now.”
She shook her swirling head. Aleksi was a
strong man and a good fighter, but it was two against one, and
although he was more than holding his own against both princes, she
couldn’t trust he would come out victorious, much less alive.
“Ride, Sahar,” he yelled again when she
hadn’t moved.
“I will,” she yelled back, wincing at the
instant throb in her head. She drew her waist blade. “But not
without you and Lasair.”
“By the gods, woman,” Aleksi cursed as Sahar
stepped up beside him. “You are as stubborn as—”
“You.”
He laughed, short and harsh, and would have
kissed her then and there, but Yago and Taweel pressed their
attack. She was a good fighter, but she was still unsteady on her
feet, and her waist blade was no match for a sword. By unspoken
agreement, Yago turned all his attention to her, while Taweel faced
off with Aleksi.
It was impossible for Aleksi to concentrate
on beating Taweel down while watching her and Yago out of the
corner of his eye, trying to make sure she was in no immediate
danger as she danced around the Wolf’s strikes, jumping back and
forth and nipping at him with her puny blade. She didn’t look to be
losing any ground, but she wasn’t gaining any either. Though Aleksi
had given his oath to capture the princes alive, this fight was
past tiresome.
He doubled the speed of his blows, keeping
Taweel on the defensive until the Tall was barely able to lift his
sword to block Aleksi’s. He glanced over at Sahar and saw that she
was still staying out of the Wolf’s reach. He resumed his attack on
Taweel, a jab here, a feint there, waiting for the right moment to
strike.
“Yago,” the Tall cried out, “slay the bitch
and come help me kill the bastard.”
Aleksi swung down, and Taweel got his blade
up to block the blow, but as soon as Aleksi’s blade hit Taweel’s,
he swung his sword out and up in a slicing arc, laying the Tall’s
underarm wide open. Taweel screamed and dropped his sword, pressing
the gash with his other hand to stanch the flow of blood. Aleksi
turned to check on Sahar and saw the blade flying through the air
only a breath before it sank into his left shoulder. Switching
sword arms, he grabbed the hilt of the dagger and pulled it out as
Yago charged him, sword raised high. Aleksi blocked the Wolf’s
sword with his and stabbed him in the belly with his own dagger. He
pulled the blade out to stab again, but his injured arm was pulled
back with a vicious yank. The heavy weight of a man landed on his
back and an arm snaked around his neck.
He slammed his elbow into Taweel’s belly,
once, twice, three times, and felt the Tall’s grip begin to
slacken, but then Yago was standing before him with a sickening
sneer on his bloodied face, gripping his sword with both hands.
“Say farewell to your whore princess,” Yago
said. He slammed the flat side of his sword down on the wrist of
Aleksi’s injured arm, and his sword dropped from his numbed hand to
the ground.
Yago raised his sword for the killing blow
and a tigress roared. The Wolf went heels
over ass, his feet swept out from under him,
then the loud, resounding thunk of wood on skull reverberated
through Aleksi’s ears. The Tall’s grip slackened and fell away.
Aleksi heard the dull thud of a body hitting earth as he sucked in
air and watched the Wolf turn tail and run.
Aleksi bent down to pick up his sword, but
the ground came up to meet him as everything around him shimmied
and swayed. He braced himself on his hands and knees and took in
several deep, steadying breaths.
“Curse this dizzying weakness,” he grumbled.
“The Worm is getting away.”
She laid a hand on his good shoulder. “It
doesn’t matter,” she said.
Aleksi glared up at her. “It does matter.
Taweel is dead and you don’t have a prisoner. You don’t have your
proof of the Wolf’s treachery.” He shook his clearing head and sat
back on his heels. “Quickly, bind my wound and I’ll go after
him.”
“Do you think Yago will come back at us?”
“No. I gutted him. He will be in no condition
to stand and fight. With any luck, the wound will fester and kill
him, but not before we get him back to your father.”
Sahar stared off in the direction Yago had
fled on Tor. “Let him go,” she said.
“What?” Aleksi couldn’t believe what he was
hearing.
“Let Yago go,” she said, meeting Aleksi’s
angry glare. “The Wolf will live or not and the Ox will have his
war or not. Either way, we need to warn my father, and get your
wound tended to properly. I will cauterize and bind it
tonight.”
She stood and walked over to the horses,
ignoring Aleksi’s gaping jaw as she reunited with Lasair, horse and
mistress cooing and nickering into each other’s necks.
“Do you mean to tell me,” Aleksi stood and
glowered down at Taweel’s lifeless body, “that I could have killed
the Tall and the Wolf at any time? That this”—he tapped his
bleeding shoulder—“was for nothing?”
“Of course not,” she snapped. “It was for
your one hundred gold pieces. You needed me alive to collect it,
and I needed you alive to… It was them or you, I chose you.”
“Am I supposed to thank you?”
“Why are you so angry?”
“Because,” he yelled, “you almost got
yourself killed, and me in the bargain.”
Sahar reeled back at Aleksi’s stinging
accusation as if he had struck her, but what he had said was true.
She’d almost gotten him killed, again, and herself. Not that that’d
been her intention. He knew she needed to save Lasair and to keep
anyone else from being killed, especially the thousands who could
die if a war broke out between the tribes. It wasn’t her fault the
conniving vipers had been lying in wait and put up such a fight.
Aleksi could’ve quickly dispatched them both had he not been trying
to wear them down and capture them.
True, he’d agreed to her plan when he could
have refused. She’d given him fair warning the night after Munir’s
injury to stay away from her, far away from her. She’d told Aleksi
then that she was bad luck, but he hadn’t heeded her.
Shooting him an angry glare, she gave him her