One of them made a lunge for Sheraptus, machete held high with the intent of smashing it into his black-crowned skull. He loosed a cry, leapt from a fallen longface high into the air and, like a bird beneath a metal hawk, was snatched from the sky.
Xhai’s blade screamed not as loud, moved not as elegantly as the lizardman, but its howl was metal and unyielding and its edge was vicious as it clove the lizardman from his leap and sent him to tumble and bounce upon the earth.
In two pieces.
Kataria quickly scanned the fight. The arrows still flew, but those netherlings they struck did not fall. They snarled, as if it were mosquitoes biting them instead of arrows stuck in their arms and legs, and swung their gigantic blades unhindered by blood loss or pain.
The metal ate of scaly flesh, separated limbs, shattered spines, clove skulls. No blow was clean. No blow finished them. The Shen fell to the ground, their flesh sizzling and burning as the venom coating the swords ate them alive. They writhed, they wailed, they screamed for as long as it took the nearest netherling to bring a spiked metal boot upon their skull and stamp them out like wet ashes.
And Sheraptus watched it all with a serene smile.
Whole and complete, he sat upon his beast’s back, unharmed. What had Asper done to him? Had she been lying? He looked completely fit, even more full of arrogant cruelty than she remembered. Perhaps this was not worth it. Perhaps retreat was the wiser-
No, no, NO.
Kataria swallowed her shock, bit back her scream and took aim. Now or never, she told herself. One shot. In his neck. Before he knows it. Then I run.
She drew the string to her cheek, released it.
One shot.
It wailed as it flew.
To his neck.
He looked up.
And before either of them knew it, the arrow had found a mark.
It lodged itself into flesh with the sound of meat being tenderized and breath being stolen. It quivered eagerly beneath a purple collarbone, pleased with itself. A purple hand, too twisted to fit into a gauntlet, reached up to seize it and snap it off at the shaft.
Xhai, looming before Sheraptus like a wall of metal and iron, scowled up at Kataria. She snorted, broke the remains of the arrow with a twitch of her ruined fingers.
Kataria stared for a moment, slack-jawed and unblinking. Sheraptus merely raised an eyebrow at the shattered arrow falling to the stones. He looked back up to Kataria. And, as he held out his hands in what almost looked like it could be a gesture of benediction if not for the blossoms of fire blooming upon his palms, she wasn’t quite sure what to do next.
Until someone told her.
Now you run.
Her head knew, but her legs didn’t. She fell backward, tumbling from her perch, just as the sky exploded.
Fire washed over the coral as a tide, blackening her perch and shattering it. It flooded the forest, turning coral into pyres, kelp into sheets of flame. Kataria could see the Shen now from their hiding places. She could see Yaike as he looked up at her, as unaware that she had been there as she had been of him. She could see him yell something, she could see his eye reflect the fire, she could see his mouth twist and distort as his face became scaly green melting wax as the fire rose up around him in a titanic sheet.
Warriors were fleeing. Fish were swimming. Fire was racing to catch them both and winning, engulfing the forest and eating it alive. Kataria hauled herself to her legs and told them to go. They remembered now, they remembered how to run and how to not stop and how to tell her lungs that they couldn’t stop breathing even as smoke rose up in plumes around her and she couldn’t stop running ever as the fire closed in around her, behind her.
And then in front of her.
The wall of kelp went up in a glorious burst. The coral collapsed around her and in her path, forming a ring of blackening spikes and fire around her. It ate everything, all color, all light, all sound. The screams of the Shen dying were engulfed in the laughter of the fire. The greenery of the forest was bathed in red. The fish fell from the sky, their colors painted black with soot.
Kataria could feel the sweat mingle with her warpaint, streak down her body in long tears of red. She could feel her heart beat as it struggled to free itself from her chest. She could feel the breath beginning to leave her.
She closed her eyes.
She gritted her teeth.
And she prayed. To someone.
From far away, the forest screamed. Its voice was fervent and choked with ash. Its blood was painted in a cloud of black and red upon the gray dawn sky. It wailed through a shudder of kelp and a groan of blackened coral before it finally fell to a broken sigh of ash and embers and then fell silent.
Lenk wasn’t quite sure how long it spoke. Lenk wasn’t at all certain how long he stared at its black blood pooling in the sky, bright embers dancing in it. Lenk didn’t know what to say when he finally found the words to speak.
But they came, anyway.
“Kat?”
As though she might pop up behind him, wrap her arms about his middle and say “just kidding.”
He whirled about on the stone staircase, casting a furious scowl at the creature one step above him.
“What the hell just happened?” he demanded.
Shalake looked down, yellow eyes narrowed through the sockets of his skull headdress. He made no answer. Not as Denaos and Asper both turned irate and suspicious scowls up the stairs. Not as Dreadaeleon looked agog from the devastation to him. Not as Gariath shot him a sidelong glance.
Only when Mahalar cleared his throat from one more step above did Shalake speak.
“They failed,” the hulking Shen said simply.
“Who? Who is they?” Lenk demanded, ascending a step.
“The brave warriors who gave their lives in the ambush,” Shalake replied. “They will be remembered.”
From beside Shalake, Jenaji, nearly as tall and half as tattooed, seized the Shen’s arm.
“How many?”
“Twenty,” Shalake replied, shrugging Jenaji’s grip off. “Twenty who will be honored at sunset.”
“Honored as charred husks of overcooked meat along with Kataria because you are a stupid, scaly piece of shit who can’t follow an order!” Lenk all but screamed.
“I am the warwatcher,” Shalake roared back, looking down at Lenk and taking an aggressive step forward. “I do not take orders from you and I do not trust pointy-eared weaklings to do the duty of the Shen.”
“Whatever just went wrong happened because your warriors couldn’t be trusted not to send everything to hell!” Lenk roared.
The hulking Shen glowered as he removed his tremendous warclub from his back, the tooth-studded weapon roughly half the size of Lenk sliding easily into his hands like it had been waiting for this for days. Lenk responded, pulling his sword free and hoping no one saw his hands tremble with the effort.
On the steps below, the green crowd trailing into the sand of the ring, close to two hundred Shen warriors looked up in anticipation of the brawl- or decapitation-about to happen.
Mahalar cleared his throat.
Shalake’s glare did not dissipate, but softened considerably as he turned it toward the elder Shen.
“He challenges me,” Shalake snarled. “He accuses me. I have the right to-”
“Of course. Later.” Mahalar gestured with his chin. “After that.”
“Holy. .” Asper began. The rest of her words were lost in the sight that came from the forest, with a herald of smoke and fire.
Like children called to supper, the netherlings came racing eagerly from the forests in a stream of purple skin and glistening black iron. A stream became a tide as they poured into the ring, tearing the earth beneath their boots.