by Ivy Cross
“I am ready whenever you are, Regar.”
“Splendid. I have already had the council of warriors roused and gathered outside of my hut in the typical spot.” He steps aside and gestures for me to lead the way.
I cast a glance toward Talia as a deep sense of unease courses through my veins. This is not right. I expected Regar to stall the challenge for as long as possible. He should have contested my Proving, even.
I stare out through the broken door of my hut at the first threads of dawn’s light. It paints the village landscape beyond in deep blues and blacks. The path on the other side of that door, once as welcoming as the bright midday sun, now seems a foreboding maw waiting to swallow me whole.
“Well? Come on. I would like to get this settled as soon as possible. These new females and our Calji allies are likely to keep me very busy in the days to come.”
Reluctantly, I take a few steps toward the door.
Regar stops me with a hand.
Here it is. I knew something was off. Here is where he tells me it is all a jest that he orchestrated to simply annoy me.
“You might want to bring your leathers,” he says. “I want you to be laughed at for your fighting skills, not your lack of clothing.”
I step back into the bedroom to retrieve my leathers, still utterly dumbfounded. Could it all really be this easy? Regar and I will fight this very morn, and all will be decided…
And I will lead this village with Talia at my side.
I step past Regar once again, this time appropriately attired. When I reach the threshold of my broken entryway, the early morning air greets me with the honeyed scent of sweetgrass from the valley walls. It is the first time I have smelled them this season.
A very good omen.
Behind me, I hear the shuffling of the Calji guards and then a sudden loud pop like the snapping of someone’s fingers.
A bright hot pain tears through my back and side. I look down to see one of the Calji’s curved blades protruding from my side like a strange glistening limb that I somehow sprouted.
Somewhere in the distance, maybe a thousand paces from me, I hear Talia scream.
I try to turn and find her—to run to her and let her know that everything is okay, but two sets of arms latch on to me at both sides and drag me out through the door.
“That is for my brother,” Regar whispers from right behind me. “And I hope you enjoy long fights because I’m going to make this one last all day.”
Chapter 22 – Talia
I hear my own voice screaming Dekkar’s name, but the sound seems to come from somewhere else—someone else. The screams can’t be coming from me because I’m too shocked to move even that much.
Regar turns back from Dekkar to look at me and, when he does, I get to watch in hyper slow motion as the Calji guard on the left pulls the vicious-looking knife out of Dekkar’s side. Dark blood flows freely down over his leathers and legs, finally dripping onto the dirt path. Too much blood.
A hand latches onto my arm and pulls me forward and back to my senses. “He will live. For now,” Regar sneers. I try to pull away, but he yanks me forward again, and I finally have to stare up into Regar’s cruel eyes.
“You did not think the murder of my brother would go unanswered, did you? But your Dekkar will still get his challenge before the council. I would call that merciful leadership.”
“He can’t fight like this.”
“Not well,” Regar chuckles. “But fight he will. This is his doing… and perhaps yours as well to some degree.”
Regar’s grip tightens and he drags me toward the door after him. The Calji already have Dekkar farther along the path ahead of us. I can’t tell if they’re holding him from both sides because they think he’ll try to escape, or because they have to keep him from falling over.
My eyes never leave Dekkar on our way to the leader’s hut. He stands tall and stiff through the whole ordeal like he doesn’t want to give Regar the satisfaction of his pain.
The leader’s hut is larger than the rest of the structures around it, but its construction is the same as all the other homes. A small crowd of male and female Vanthae warriors is gathered at the entrance, and they clear a path as we near.
“The challenge will commence in a few moments,” Regar bellows, jutting out his chest like a posturing gorilla. “Preparation will take a little longer… we need to get Dekkar cleaned up a little for this momentous event.”
“He is injured,” someone calls out from the huddle.
“Yes, yes,” Regar says with a shake of the head and a tone of regret. “I’m afraid that could not be helped. You see, after making his bold challenge, young Dekkar turned coward and tried to back out at the last moment. I suppose he thought this to be some kind of game… murder my brother and undermine my leadership.”
Regar spreads his hands and shrugs. “Who can know the thoughts of such a man? But still, the challenge was made, and I am not so dismissive of our tribe’s ways. It took some effort, and Dekkar was slightly injured—a flesh wound, really—but I was able to get him here in the end. And the challenge will move forward as planned.”
For a moment, I stand there dumbfounded. Regar’s lies are so obvious I expect someone from the group to call him out. Maybe even point and laugh.
But no one says a word.
“He’s a fucking liar!” I scream.
There’s a low rumble of words from the group of warriors, but nothing like what I was hoping. So, I try again.
“He had the Calji—”
The back of Regar’s hand blurs through the air and connects with my jaw with the sound of a cracked whip. I’m on my ass, waves of pain coursing through me, almost before I even know that I was struck.
“Unfortunately,” Regar continues, “Dekkar corrupted this female with his lies about me and our tribe. But I am nothing if not merciful. She will serve her purpose like the rest of her kind… after some light rehabilitation, of course.”
Regar reaches down and pulls me up by the collar of my tunic. The fabric groans in protest, but it holds long enough to get me back on my feet.
My legs feel unsteady like they might give out at any moment, but I’ll be damned if I give that pompous bastard the pleasure of seeing me fall again.
Regar watches me for a moment, almost like he’s hoping I will keel over, then turns and snaps his fingers to the Calji. The guards immediately prod Dekkar forward and through the open doors of the leader’s hut.
I shuffle in the same direction, intent on following Dekkar, but Regar’s hand clamps onto my arm once again. He dips his lips to my ear. “You move or talk again without my permission, and I will make him suffer even more.”
He shoves me toward the door, and I’m happy enough to oblige if it means getting the hell away from him for even a few seconds. As I enter the hut, Regar’s voice follows me inside. “Don’t get too comfortable in there.” Regar pitches his voice, and I get the feeling he’s talking to the crowd more than he is to me. “I want you out here to watch when the fight begins. Some lessons are hard, and this will certainly be difficult for you to see. But you will learn what kind of man I am—what kind of tribe this is. We do not tolerate rebels. Your fate does not have to be the same as his.”
I keep moving into the hut, doing my best to tune out Regar’s words. He may look the part of a warrior, but I swear he sounds just like some of those self-important politicians back on Earth. One of the ones that are too stupid to know just how wrong they are. Or, even worse, one of the ones smart enough to know that being wrong doesn’t even matter if you can convince enough people that you are right.
Inside the hut, the first room is a short hall of sorts. Dim candles line both walls, and the air is thick with the scents of several competing incenses. The acrid smoke makes my eyes water as I push through the woven mat that separates the hall from the next room.
“Talia!” Alex’s long, thin arms wrap around me before I’m fully in the room with her. “You have no idea
how glad I am to see you.”
“Me too,” I say, pulling back enough to get a look at her. If Gellis or Regar mistreated her, I can’t see the marks. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay. Better once I wasn’t alone anymore.” She steps aside to give me a view of the two women behind her. “You’ll remember Mel and Veronica from our last stint in captivity. God! That seems like another lifetime…”
I do remember Mel and Veronica, but more from sight than name. Mel is still wearing the almost nonexistent remains of her light blue footy pajamas. Veronica’s comical PJs faired better than Mel’s, but she still looks like she’s in dire need of a new outfit.
Both women look like they’ve seen some shit.
“I’m really glad you guys made out okay,” I say. “Regar brought you back from the Calji?”
“Yeah, I guess they traded us to these guys…” Mel says. Her black hair looks to have been recently hacked short with a knife. “Can’t say it looks like it’s going to make any difference. Same shit, different barbarians…”
I don’t say anything, but she’s probably right. With Regar in charge, they would have been better off staying with the Calji tribe… not that they were given a choice in the matter.
“Did you see where they took Dekkar,” I ask Alex.
She gives me a worried look, then points to a set of double doors at the back of the room. “Yeah, they took him through there. Tal, he did not look good.”
“I know. That fucking bastard out there had him stabbed. He’s going to fight Dekkar in front of the warriors outside, and this is the only way he knows he’ll win.”
Alex shakes her head and sits down on the long bench beside Mel and Veronica. “There’s no way he’s going to be able to fight, Tal. He didn’t even look like he could stand under his own power.”
“God, I know. I wish we had never come back here. We should have taken our chances and gone straight to the Calji.” My words tumble out progressively more slowly until it dawns on me what’s wrong with this situation.
“Wait a minute,” I say, turning my attention back to Mel and Veronica. “Where’s Bailey? Shouldn’t she have been with you guys?”
The two women glance at one another before speaking. “She… was with us,” Mel answers.
“Okay, then why isn’t she with you now?”
“It was her own fault.” Veronica's words pour out in a torrent. “We tried to tell her. And it wasn’t that bad with the Calji. They fed us and kept us warm. And they didn’t hurt us or anything. Not really.”
I bite my tongue to keep from shouting at her to get to the point.
“But she just had to do something. She wanted to get away from there, and she wanted to find you—see if you were safe.”
“So, she escaped?” I ask.
I understand Mel and Veronica have been through an ordeal, we all have, but when they glance at one another again, it’s all I can do to keep from shaking the words out of them.
“She—she tried to escape,” Mel says.
“What does that mean? She got caught? Killed?”
Round, glassy beads spill from Mel’s eyes. Veronica shakes her head with enough force to make me dizzy for her.
“What did you do?” Alex stands from the bench and moves away like the other two might have something that’s catching.
“We ratted her out!” Mel’s words erode into thick sobs.
Veronica’s wide eyes lock onto mine. She looks like she’s waiting for me to lay down the sentence for their crimes. I guess it’s just a matter of being seen for what they’ve done… up until now, they could probably just shove it out of their minds and forget that it happened.
But, regardless, I am neither their jury nor their priest.
“You fucking cowards—” Alex starts.
I put up a hand to stop her. There will be time for hard feelings later. Right now, we have more than enough on our plates.
“What happened to her after that?” I coax more gently.
“One of the Calji, their leader or someone important, came and got her the night before she planned to get out of there,” Veronica says. “We never saw her again.”
And she wasn’t included in the trade to Regar. That can’t be a good sign.
“We’re so sorry—”
“Ashamed,” Mel sobs.
“It was just… they were treating us so well, and we didn’t want that to change—we thought maybe they’d punish all of us if she tried something like that.” Veronica’s shoulders slump either in defeat or in relief that the truth is finally out.
“It’s okay,” I say, surprising myself a little. “This has been a hell of a thing for all of us. You both did what you did out of fear and stress and probably some survival sense. I’m not going to be the one to judge you.”
Mel’s sobs get even louder, but Veronica dips her head. Doubtless, my forgiveness is not what she needs right now. Her shame is her own, and maybe that’s okay.
Alex continues to scowl but, for the time being at least, she doesn’t say anything more on the subject.
“And maybe Bailey’s just fine,” I continue. “We won’t know anything until—”
My words are cut off by the arrival of our own, more pressing problem.
The double doors open, and Dekkar staggers through under his own power. The Calji guards are still within arm’s reach behind him, and it’s a good thing. The way he’s swaying, it’s very likely he will topple at any moment.
I rush over to him, and one of the two guards steps to his side and tenses but doesn’t move to interfere.
“Dekkar?”
His glazed eyes peer down at me, and for a few terrifying moments, I don’t see any recognition there. Finally, something shifts, and I can see that he sees me.
“Goddess.” The pain in his voice tears something inside me.
The Calji must have cleaned the blood off him. And there’s a patch on the entry and exit wounds—I guess they didn’t want to make it too apparent they were marching a half-dead man out there to fight in this farse of a challenge.
I wrap my arms around him, and his skin is so hot and clammy, I nearly pull away. “You can’t go out there like this. He’ll kill you!”
Dekkar sways like a large tree in the wind, then finds my face again with his faraway eyes. “I must. When Haelar is defeated, all will be well again, goddess.”
He’s delirious.
I step up onto my tiptoes to get a better look at his eyes. They’re glazed and partially dilated.
“You poisoned him! You coward!” I spit my words at the nearest Calji guard, and to my surprise, he actually flinches back a little.
The other guard prods Dekkar forward, and I have to move away to keep him from stumbling over me. He slouches down to me one last time and whispers. “Fear not, goddess.”
As they brush by me, one of the Calji guards turns back for a moment. His expression is a mask of stone but, before he speaks, a peculiar expression flits across his eyes—it looks like regret or maybe even sadness. He turns his eyes from me for a moment and looks toward Mel and Veronica.
Finally, he says, “You were talking about the other female? The one who was with these two in my village?”
“We were,” I say.
He casts his eyes below mine and shakes his head somberly. “I am sorry, but she is dead. I saw it with my own eyes.”
Mel and Veronica gasp as one.
The apology in his voice somehow makes it even worse. If he had been callous or dismissive about it, I might have been able to convince myself that he was only lying to hurt us. No chance of that now—it is clear he’s telling the truth. I almost wish he didn’t tell us at all.
But I guess it’s better to know the truth. “What happened to her?”
Before he can respond, Regar’s voice bellows into the room. “It is time for the challenge!”
Chapter 23 – Talia
“Female!”
When I hear Regar shout for me, I think hard abou
t ignoring him and maybe hiding somewhere inside so I don’t have to watch. There are several tall woven baskets at the back of the room that might work to conceal me for a little while at least.
But, no, that wouldn’t be fair to Dekkar. If this is going to be his last stand, I should be there with him. Even if he’s too out of it to even know I’m there…
I drag my feet on the way out of the hut, but I still make it outside more quickly than I would have liked. The sun is already blazing in the sky, and the air is humid enough to choke on.
The gathered warriors have added to their ranks, and now they’ve formed a large circle around Regar and Dekkar. I have to push my way in between two large Vanthae males, but they make room for me with only a little grumbling.
“There she is,” Regar shouts, pointing in my direction. “Now the challenge can begin.”
There’s strangely little life in the crowd for such a momentous event. The occasional raucous cheer splits the silence, but that seems to only come from two specific warriors—the same two that Dekkar put on their asses when they were guarding us at his hut.
I watch as Gellis totters his way out to the center of the circle with two intricately decorated spears. He hands one to Regar, then tosses the other vaguely in the direction of Dekkar. Dekkar makes a grab for the weapon but misses it wildly and almost drops to the dirt with it.
“All of you are here to witness this challenge made by the stripling—ahem, warrior—Dekkar against our honorable leader Regar.” Gellis’s high, quavery voice sings out over the crowd. “Let it be known that some of us dispute the claim of Dekkar’s Proving, but our leader, in his depthless mercy, saw fit to recognize the outsider’s claim of triumph in honorable battle against his very own brother.”
Gellis shakes his shaggy head, as though he cannot comprehend how Regar could do such a selfless thing.
I’ve never wanted to kick someone in the balls more in my entire life…
By the time Gellis is finished pontificating, Dekkar has just managed to scrape his weapon up from the dirt and wobble into position. He’s gotten close enough for me to see the subtle red streaks that are creeping up his neck.