The owl’s dark eyes popped open, and her head swiveled around to look at her surroundings. Her location did not amaze her, for she was where she expected to be-in a cage hanging in the headquarters of the Tarmak commander in Missing City. But something had startled her out of a moment of sleep. She pivoted on her perch and glared around the room at the Tarmak guards that stood at the doors and at the officers that sat at a table laughing and drinking. It was late afternoon by the slant of the shadows on the floor, and the owl usually napped this time of day. Yet deep in the quiet of her sleeping mind she had heard a voice, a beloved voice of someone she believed to be long gone. She had only heard a single word, Varia, and it was enough.
Linsha was out there far beyond the normal reach of their ability to communicate, and still she had found a way to send a word. Agitated, Varia fluffed her feathers and paced back and forth on the stick the Tarmaks called a perch. She would have to get out of this cage.
“You, Dog!” one of the officers snapped. “That bird is awake. Feed her.”
A Tarmak warrior stepped away from his position by the wall and slouched over to the cage. He pulled a dead mouse out of a basket sitting close by, opened the cage door, and tossed it in. Looking morose, he closed the door and resumed his place by the wall to wait for his next order.
Varia made a chuckling sound that made the Tarmak whip his head around to stare at her. From what she could understand of Tarmakian, that particular warrior was serving a sentence for failure to perform a certain task. His punishment was to serve in the Dog Units as a servant, errand runner, cleaner of privies, or doer of any other distasteful task his superior officers could think of until he was properly chastised and remorseful. He had been put in charge of catching mice for the Akkad-Dar’s owl and feeding her whenever she was hungry. What he didn’t know, what most of the officers didn’t know, was that Varia could talk and think.
She settled down her perch, hunched her head into her shoulders, and turned her round, wide eyes on the Tarmak warrior by the wall. She would give it some thought. There had to be a way out of this cage and out of this building, and once away she would seek help. Linsha was out there, still alive and still thinking of her. She had to get away.
“Linsha,” Lanther said beside her. “It is time.”
Linsha started violently out of her reverie, and the deep animosity she felt for him came snarling back. “If I die, wash this god-awful paint off before you bury me.”
“The Tarmak burn their dead,” he said and handed her an axe similar to Malawaitha’s. He stepped back when she snatched it out of his hands.
She stared at it for a moment, long enough to see it had a handle about two feet long and a blade with a long curve, then she glared down at the woman waiting for her. In a startlingly fast change of mood, her contemplation of the night ended and her fear vanished in a sudden onslaught of rage. Every pent-up frustration, every concealed irritation, every anger she had kept under control joined together and burst into a firestorm that roared through her mind and burned away every civilized restraint she had. She thought to give a Solamnic warcry, but the sound that came out of her throat was a primal scream of fury that was more animal than human.
Lifting the axe, she charged down the steps and attacked Malawaitha like a demon spawned of Chaos. The young Tarmak woman fell back. Malawaitha had thought she was weak and unwilling to fight, but now everyone knew otherwise, and after a moment or two of desperate parries, Malawaitha settled down and fought back.
The battle was not pretty, nor was it fought with any rules. The axes both women wielded were sharpened to a razor edge, and the long handles could be used like a staff weapon or a club. Malawaitha had the strength and training of years in a Tarmak school. Her skills with the axe were better and her endurance was greater, but she was too accustomed to her practice drills and the limited scope of her experience with other styles of fighting to defeat the Rose Knight easily. Linsha, trained by Solamnic Knights and thugs alike, had a fighting style that spanned many skills and weapons. She fought with fist and foot and fingers and teeth, and she fought with such an inflamed fury that it surprised even herself.
Deep in the center of the clouds of red rage that roiled in her head, Linsha kept a desperate grip on a small struggling core of self-control. She’d heard the term “beserker” before, but she had never experienced such a transformation until now. Her common sense whispered that yes, her rage was fueled from days of pent-up animosity, disappointment, loneliness, and guilt, but there was something more, something artificial that boiled in her brain and set her blood on fire. She wanted to damage Malawaitha, to spill her blood, and tear her to pieces by any means possible. It was both frightening and exhilarating.
In the cooler, detached center of her self-control, a little thought said, Be smart. Use your rage to your advantage. Don’t give in completely to the fury.
Easier said than done.
Linsha swung her axe up with both hands and just barely blocked a powerful swing by Malawaitha that would have removed her arm if it had connected. The shock jarred down her bones. Malawaitha grinned with malice and switched the handle to her left hand and swung again. Linsha ducked out of the way and landed a kick on the Tarmak’s ribs. Breathing heavily, she danced out of Malawaitha’s reach while her foe gasped for air. Linsha did not give her a moment to regain her strength. Malawaitha was too well trained with the battle axe. She knew how to hold the intricately carved brass handle that could slip so easily in a sweaty grip. From years of practice she understood the weight of the blade and how to use it to its greatest advantages. She knew the best way to use the butt end of the handle to smash it into Linsha’s nose or eye or mouth. With her longer reach and greater strength, she swung the weapon with bloody efficiency and skill. Linsha’s only hope was to stay out of the way of the blade and try to wear Malawaitha down before her own strength waned or this berserker flame in her body died.
With a wild shout, Linsha leaped again at Malawaitha. Her foot lashed out and deflected the axe far enough for her to knock the young Tarmak’s feet out from under her and send her crashing to the ground. She swung her blade toward her enemy’s head.
Malawaitha twisted out of the way and made a swipe at her ankles that forced Linsha to leap away. In that moment Malawaitha catapulted to her feet and faced Linsha again.
The crowd cheered wildly.
Linsha saw the pleasure in Malawaitha’s eyes, saw the sneer of confidence that she would soon be the victor. Her anger rose to new heights that seared away almost every sense but her sight. She felt no pain from aching muscles, or the bangs and bruises on her arms and legs, or the shallow slash on her abdomen, or the tingling of the blue paint on her skin. She did not taste the blood that trickled over her lip or hear the crude shouts from the spectators. All she saw, all she wanted to see, was her opponent. She noticed how the sweat glistened on Malawaitha’s face, and blood from a deep graze on her shoulder gleamed red against the blue paint. Her eyes followed the Tarmak’s every movement, every shift of her dark eyes, every twitch of her face.
They traded blows again, their blue bodies struggling back and forth across the stone paving. Their axes clashed viciously, blade against blade or blade against handle. Soon they both bled freely from lacerations on their arms and upper bodies. Linsha’s cheek and eye swelled from a hard blow from Malawaitha’s elbow, and the young Tarmak limped from a battered knee cap.