It stood frozen upon the wall like a green gargoyle. Its lanky body was breathless, unmoving, rigid with the anticipation of the ambush she had just ruined. Muscle coiled beneath scaly flesh banded with black tattoos. Nostrils quivered at the end of a long, reptilian snout. It did not move. As though it hoped that she might simply forget it was there if only it sat still long enough.
She wasn’t sure why it hadn’t shot yet. Maybe it wasn’t sure if it was faster than her, had better aim than her. Or maybe it was waiting for something else.
“This isn’t fair, you know,” she called up to it. “I didn’t even think your name.”
The Shen’s tail twitched behind it, the only sign it was even alive.
“Can you understand me?”
It said nothing.
“Look, I can admire anyone who can sneak up on me.” Her ears twitched resentfully. “Even if you are all the way up there. So, one hunter to another, I’ll give you this.” She gestured with her chin. “Walk away. You’re not who I’m looking for and this is an ambush you don’t want to waste. Come back later. I’ll be distracted. You can take another shot at me then.”
A low, throaty hiss slithered between its teeth. Whether it understood her words or not, the creak of a slackening bowstring, if only by a hair’s breadth, suggested it recognized intent. She returned the gesture, by an even scanter hair’s breadth.
It stood still.
Just a breath longer.
In another breath, it had dropped its bow and reached for something at its waist. In one more, her bow sang a one-note dirge. No more breaths came after that.
Its eyes didn’t go wide, as though it wasn’t particularly surprised that this had happened. It didn’t grope helplessly at the quivering shaft lodged in its throat, merely grabbing it purposefully and snapping it with one hand while the other clenched whatever it was at its waist. It met her gaze for a moment and she saw in its yellow stare something determined, unfazed by death.
And then, it pitched forward.
She hurried over as it struck the stones with a muffled thump and lay still. It was most certainly dead, unless its spine had always bent that way and she just hadn’t noticed. But in death, it still stared at her, still resentful, still clinging to that resolve.
Just as it clung to the item in its hand.
She leaned over the lizardman, reached down, prised apart its clawed fingers with no small effort. And there, curved and cylindrical, she saw it.
“A. . horn?” she muttered.
Another question. Another complication. Things never got less complicated when walking lizards were involved. And now she would have to go back to Lenk and tell him all about this.
“KATARIA!”
Assuming he didn’t come to her first.
She saw him rushing toward her. She heard him curse through fevered, rasping breath, felt his voice like a knife in her flesh. His legs pumped, his eyes were narrowed, his sword was drawn.
And bloodied.
The arrow was nocked before she even knew it was in her fingers, raised before she knew whom she was aiming at. It was so instinctual to draw on him. So easy to see him as a threat.
So easy to just let go of the arrow and-
No, she thought. Not again.
She lowered the weapon and sighed as he came charging toward her. She closed her eyes as he came within reach of her. She grunted as he shoved rudely past her and kept running.
She furrowed her brow, opening her mouth as if to call after him. No words came, though; she was far too confused.
“SHENKO-SA!”
Right up until she heard the warcry, anyway.
The Shen came surging up the highway in a riot of color. Lanky green muscle trembled beneath tattooed bands of red and black, weapons of bone and metal flashed in their hands, yellow eyes grew gold with fury at the sight of her.
Great webbed crests rose from their scaly crowns, displaying colorful murals tattooed on the leathery flesh. Giant fish on some, serpents on others-various peoples in various stages of dismemberment seemed a rather popular choice.
They bent at the waist, long tails risen behind them as they picked up speed, raised their weapons, and howled.
Like hounds, she thought. Big, tattooed, ugly hounds. With weapons. Sharp ones. She glanced up the road. Why aren’t you running, again?
If her head couldn’t form a response, her feet did. And they spoke loudly and in great favor of screaming and running away. She agreed and tore off down the highway, folding her ears over themselves to block the sound of a dozen warcries growing louder.
She saw Lenk a moment later, the young man leaning on his knees and trying desperately to catch his breath. She opened her mouth to warn him, to tell him that they were close enough behind that he had to keep moving.
“YOU SON OF A BITCH!”
That wasn’t a warning, but it made him move, regardless. He sheathed his sword and took off at a sprint, falling in beside her.
“You could have warned me,” she snarled between breaths.
“Did you not see me running?” he screamed back. “What, did you think I was just that excited to see you?”
“You had your sword drawn! I didn’t know what was happening!”
Her ears pricked up at a faint whistle growing steadily louder. She leapt and the arrow cursed her in a spray of sparks and a whine of metal as it struck the stones where she had just stood.
“How about now?” he asked. “If you’re still confused, they’ve got more arrows.”
And in symphonic volleys, the arrows wailed. They came screaming from atop the walls, making shrill and childish demands for blood, skulking in clattering mutters when they found only stone.
The archers took only a few opportunistic shots, shouldering their bows and racing atop the wall after their fleeing pink targets as soon as they moved out of range. But there were always more archers and ever more arrows.
Precise shots, Kataria noted. Hungry shots. Little wolves of metal and wood. And like wolves, they came from all sides.
She glanced over to the side. The kelp had thinned out, giving way to another, stranger forest.
Coral formations rose out of the sand and into the gray sky. Jagged blue pillars, spheres of twisted green, great cobwebs of red thorns, and sheets of yellow blossomed like a garden of brittle, dead gemstones.
It might have been beautiful, had each formation not been host to yellow eyes lurking in their towering pillars, green feet perched upon the colorful branches, bows bent and arrows drawn.
They ducked, weaved, hid where they could, tumbled where they had to. Arrows snarled overhead, jagged tips reaching with bone-shard barbs. They darted behind one of the twisted bells to avoid a volley. The arrows struck, sent the misshapen metal wailing, screaming, weeping, laughing, grinding sound against sound in a horrifying cacophony.
Kataria clamped hands over her ears, shouted to be heard. “How far back are they?”
“I don’t care!” he shouted back. “Just keep going until we can find someplace to hide!”
She glanced over her shoulder. The tide of Shen seemed a distant green ebb. They had checked their pace, pursuing with intent, not speed. They were up to something. Or maybe lizards just weren’t meant to run on two legs.
“Must be the tails,” she muttered. “We’re bound to lose them soon. For a bunch of crafty savages, you’d think they’d have a better plan than just chasing us and-”
“Damn it, Kat,” Lenk snarled. “Why the hell would you say that?”
She didn’t have to ask. The moment she turned, she saw it, looming overhead, its gray so dark it stood out even against the cloud-shrouded sky. The monolith statue stood upon the wall, palm outstretched, a symbol of a great, unblinking eye set within its stone hood.