by Liz Penn
Gaia took a deep, slow breath and released it in tune with her fingers. The Derki howled, medallion flying out of his grip. Gaia sat back, grinning.
Fingers closed around her ankle. She tumbled from her perch. Though she curled as best she could to brace her fall, it still hurt. Her ankle seared with pain. The bow snapped beneath her weight. Gaia tried to rise and then cried out as her ankle gave beneath her.
A burly arm curled around her neck and hauled her against his broad chest. Pinned as she was, Gaia screamed hoarsely around his grip as his free hand explored her body. She shoved her elbow back and he cut off more of her air.
Other Derki warriors surrounded them in a tight group. Gaia could smell the stench of male sweat and drying blood. They whistled like a pack of younglings as her captor loosened the laces of her tunic, exposing fair skin to the air.
She writhed in his grip. He bashed his hand against her skull. Head spinning, she groaned as her shoulders hit the ground, and his weight straddled her body.
An accented voice swore. Warm blood spattered Gaia’s mouth and neck. She blinked, certain her vision betrayed her. The warrior who had seized her toppled to the side, a headless corpse.
Hope soared. And died.
Ákos had not freed her, but the scarlet-haired leader. He smirked at her, and then snarled at the surrounding Derki. “I’s warned ya. The Chuia is mine,” he spat. He growled again, blackened lips peeling away from his teeth. The warriors backed away into a loose circle.
Gaia scrambled to her knees, one hand clutching her torn clothing over the bared skin. “You will never take me.”
The leader smiled broadly. “I will take you as oft as I please.”
She scooted backwards, curling her hand around a tree trunk. She heaved her body upright. Her ankle throbbed. It would not hold her weight. Not if she must run to escape this man.
The Derki leader sauntered toward her, dark eyes glittering with lust. Her eyes darted over the foliage.
Her arrows were scattered at the base of the tree she had fallen from. At that distance and with only small iron heads, they would be of little use against her enemies. Her broken bow lay crumpled behind the leader's feet. Her dagger was closer, at the foot of a second tree. Even as she glanced at it, the leader kicked the blade aside and it skittered into the bushes.
He winked at her as their eyes met again. “You’s no need of pretty toys like that.”
Gaia took slow, deep breaths and focused on each individual sound and sight around her. She could not afford to be bound or otherwise hindered. Acting helpless was not her strong suit, but then again, the Derki were not known to be particular clear-headed in the heat of battle.
Picturing the dead of the moonlit camp unfolded grief within her. Tears pricked in her eyes. She swiped a hand at her nose and sniffled, cringing away from the scarlet leader. He smirked at her. “Ah, you’s poor thing. Afraid we’ll slice that pretty throat? Nay, more use we can find, I assure you, dearie.”
Gaia choked down the disgust and hot words rising in her throat. She whimpered and covered part of her face with her hands. But while the leader turned to jeer and smirk at the others, she studied her surroundings with an urgent fear boiling within.
Most of the Derki warriors had spread out, clustered to watch the fun, but not close enough to be a danger to her right away. The only problem was the leader. His intentions were all too clear, made more apparent as he hooked a thumb in his belt.
She inhaled and held her breath. So close. Almost… His breeches were halfway off when she moved.
Gaia threw herself at him in a wild leap. Her shoulder and skull smacked into his chest, throwing the unbalanced warrior into a heap with her weight sprawled across him. He bucked against her. Writhing with his motions sent her sprawling on the opposite side of his body. He seized her shoulders. His grip on her wounded arm tightened until she cried out.
He shoved her off him and slammed her spine against the ground. Her head cracked against the earth. Gaia blinked as her vision spun. She extended her hands above her head, flailing as if panicked. His weight on top of her shoved the air from her lungs. The leader cackled.
As his knee pushed her legs apart, her fingers caressed what she had been searching for. The smooth wood of her bow. She clasped it tight and swung it toward the leader’s face. Splintered ends scored shallow gashes across his cheek. He shrieked and pulled back. Gaia swung again, harder.
The solid smack was like music. His weight fell away from her. She scrambled to her feet and seized an air elemental. Weariness sang in her bones. In a few minutes, she would not be able to use the elementals at all.
The breeze picked up, whirling leaves around her in a mad dervish. Dirt and grass joined the churning leaves. Those few Derki who remained to watch the leader’s conquest stared at her, wide-eyed.
Eyes narrowing, Gaia screamed into the wind the vilest curses she knew. They glanced at their groaning leader, then at her, and scattered. She released the wind immediately.
She hobbled through the trees and back into the battlefield. Gaia scanned the corpses sprawled across the grass. A light weapon, such as a dagger or lance, would be all she could manage now, with both ankle and shoulder damaged.
Derki screamed. She snapped her head away from the corpses. Once again, she could only stare in awed fascination as the Ishtar shape-shifted of his own accord.
Massive shoulders, small ears, and an elongated snout revealed his shape to her even before he roared. A grizzly bear charged into the midst of the Derki. He seized a warrior in massive jaws, jerking his head from side to side. Arrows rained ineffectually against his thick fur.
Gaia winced at the audible snap. The warrior in his mouth convulsed, neck broken. Ákos flung him aside and roared again. He reared back on hind legs, clawed forearms tearing gaps in the Derki ranks.
Strong arms wrapped around her. She screamed. A clenched fist rapped the back of her head and she crumpled to the ground. As her head cleared, the leader came swimming into view. Scratches and shallow gouges bled on either side of his face, soaking blood into his already-red hair. His eyes narrowed, face twisting into a mask of hatred and disgust.
“You’s I’m going to take so hard and so often, you’ll scream as if you’s be givin’ birth,” he snarled.
Horror and revulsion cascaded through her. Gaia rose halfway, only to be shoved down once more. He locked one hand around her throat and the other over her mouth, stealing her air.
Gaia bit down hard. A thick, tart liquid filled her mouth, the vileness of Derki blood. The leader yelped again and backhanded her. She clawed his face. The man howled and scrambled back. She shoved him away and grabbed a broken blade from its place in the eye socket of a dead Derki.
As she whirled back to face him, the leader had already risen. He was hunched slightly in pain, but his eyes gleamed with manic fervency. Gaia shivered as he stalked closer.
She leaped toward him, and feigned a quick stumble. As he shifted to meet her, Gaia twisted aside and drove her blade into his groin, then dragged it upwards.
The man howled his agony. She stared at him, panting for breath. His blood spattered her legs and ankles as he slid to his knees. Turning, Gaia started to limp across the blood-drenched field.
Shaking hands grabbed each shoulder. Gaia stumbled beneath the weight of the dying Derki. His voice rasped by her ear. “If I’s can’t have ya…” he wheezed. “No one’s will.”
His feet tangled with hers. They fell. He rolled atop her, yanking the embedded blade out of his body and slashing deep across her abdomen. Gaia screamed as pain sizzled up her belly and across her ribs. She shoved him free, staggered upright, and clutched the gaping wound. The slickness in her hands had a sickening weight to it.
Heavy footfalls pounded behind her as she dropped to her knees. The world was softening at the edges as she studied the approaching figure.
Emerald eyes in a fur-lined face filled her vision. “Ákos.” Her eyes flashed to his sides. Blood m
atted the fur, some of it the deep scarlet of his own body.
“You’re…hurt,” Gaia murmured.
He nuzzled her aside and stepped in front of her, snarling. Gaia leaned back against his warm flanks. More and more Derki slinked forward. None were bold enough yet to leap into attack, but neither were there any gaps for them to escape through.
Dusk painted the edge of the horizon in funereal gray. When night fell, the Derki would slaughter them both.
The world swayed, shimmered, and was gone.
< >
Gaia moaned softly as consciousness awakened her into dizzying pain. Bands of pressure drew taut over her aching stomach and ribs. The soft whisper of wind through the leaves hummed with a counterpoint of crickets, chirping in the night. A haze of pain blurred the dim darkness of the huddled trees.
It was hard to draw breath, hard to even focus on the face looming over her. A gentle hand swabbed her heated face with a damp cloth. A voice spoke, linked to the hand. “Gaia?”
The rich tenor was utterly familiar, comforting and infuriating at once. She brought her hands up to loosen the tension across her body. Ákos caught her arm and pushed them down to her sides again. “No. The bandages are holding the…blood…in. Leave them there.”
Her eyes narrowed. He had been about to say something else. Gaia blinked as her vision twisted, then settled again. “What happened?” she croaked.
“What do you remember?” The Ishtar returned to pressing the cloth to her forehead and cheeks. The coolness felt good against her skin.
“I’m feverish,” she muttered. “The wound must…must be festering.”
His hand stilled and he said nothing at all for a long minute.
“Yes,” he murmured finally. “That may be true.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, Gaia. Rest.” Ákos rose from his place and stepped away. Her awareness puzzled out the anomalies—pattering water and the loamy smell of wet earth. She swiveled her gaze upward. Slender green limbs, the fingers of the willow, arched above her head in a comforting embrace. They must be close to the pool they had seen when first approaching the Derki camp.
The Derki. Gaia swallowed and started to rise. Ákos hurried steps rejoined her and then he eased her down again. “Stay still.”
“Where are they? The Derki—they were all around and—“
“Shh.” His fingers brushed her mouth. “Save your strength.”
“But they didn’t all run away!”
A muscle clenched in the Ishtar’s jaw. “A few did. The rest I—“ The pulse in his throat throbbed as he swallowed hard, before looking away. “I killed them.” His eyes shifted to the ground. Ákos clenched and unclenched his hands.
“What…” she winced as pain spiked along her ribs. “Don’t…understand.”
He drew his legs up and rested his chin on bent knees. The expression mimicked that of a lost child. “I kept them away.” His gaze shifted to her. “Away from you.”
Gaia blinked. Words escaped her. Ákos smiled wanly. He pushed a curl of her hair behind one ear. “You risked everything to save those prisoners. And then, after all I have said and all I have done you…” his voice choked and he clenched his eyes closed. “You shattered the medallion. You came back for me. You could have run, but you came back.”
The swelling pain clogged the words in her mouth. They were reduced to little more than soft moans. She struggled to ask the questions tingling through her mind.
The Ishtar stroked her hair. “I take back all I have said of your people,” he said. “No Ishtar would have fought so bravely, or so fiercely, for another he barely knew. And surely not when their own life could have been lost.”
“Ákos…”
“Hush.” His voice softened. “We have been observers far too long. Your land lies between ours and theirs. If the Chuia should fail against the Derki, then where would we be? And already they seek the elementals power, by doing such unspeakable things. They must be stopped.”
Agony sank into her belly like searing coals. Gaia inhaled sharply and clenched her hands into fists. Ákos dribbled water onto her hair and face. She gasped for breath. This wound was far more serious than he had let on.
The Ishtar leaned over her, fingers gently smoothing her matted hair. Flecks of dark worry spattered his emerald gaze.
She reached for him. He leaned down. She caught his sleeve and pulled harder. Ákos dropped his head close to her mouth.
Biting her lip against the rising pain, she pressed one hand to her stomach. “I’m dying…” she murmured. “Is it true?”
Ákos shifted back. She ran her fingers over her belly. Ákos caught her hands and pulled them away from the bandages. “Leave them.”
“It’s bad, isn’t it?”
The Ishtar closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and sighed. “Aye. It is bad. He…he gutted you, like a deer.” Ákos dropped his head. “If we were closer to your camp, perhaps a mage-healer could mend the damage. But out here, there is nothing to be done. You have lain feverish for a night and a day, and I cannot drag you much longer. I lack the strength.”
She swept her eyes over him then. The dimness of the shadows had hidden the wounds from her, but as she watched him return to the trickling stream to soak another cloth, his care of motion was obvious. He had not escaped the battle unscathed.
“Hurt…?”
“Nothing serious.”
“…See,” she hissed. “Let me…see.”
Ákos sighed and held up his left hand. Wrapped clumsily, his pair of broken fingers remained obvious. He motioned at his side. “I think tis a broken or bruised rib, also. It hurts to draw deep breaths.”
And to pull her litter too, though he had not said as much. He walked closer, dropping to sit next to her. Closer now, she could see his face clearly. He sported a matched set of blackened eyes.
She pointed at his face them, arching a brow. A slow, crooked smile curled his lips. “One of them took a shield to my face. I took a claw to his.”
A shiver passed through his frame, from head to toe. His body stiffened. Ákos grunted in pain.
“Hurt…more?”
“N-no,” he said. His eyes screwed closed, brow furrowed. “Not…just…moment.”
He gasped and shuddered hard. The fit passed. His body relaxed. “Gods,” he moaned.
“What…”
“It is nothing.” He stood and reached for the edge of her litter. “Noth—“
His abrupt cut-off made Gaia struggle to turn and study his face. Leaves whispered as he writhed out of her sight, groaning.
“Ákos?” She writhed, agony sprouting across her belly. “Ákos!”
“M-m-m-moment.”
“What…wrong? Ákos?”
“F-flux…remember?”
“Shifted?”
There was no response but muted gasps of pain and the rustle of his body’s thrashing. The fit passed. She heard his cries soften and then cease.
“Gods,” he muttered. “Never going…get to a mage-healer…like this.”
“Go.” Gaia pressed a hand to her throbbing belly. “Go to healer. Come back. Me. Later.”
“It is not I who need a healer.” Ákos touched her hair again and then shifted in front of her. His face hovered above hers. “And even then. You came back for me. I will not leave you now.”
Something was wrong. His skin had paled, from the richness of fresh honey to the creaminess of a newborn fawn. Streaks of white, red, and gold marred his dark hair.
She lifted a hand toward his face. “Something. Wrong. Ákos?”
“It’s all right, Gaia,” he whispered. “I’ll get you home.”
The simple words held a sharp determination she had only heard once before from him, when he had spoken of ‘a Chuia.’
Gaia glanced from side to side; what could possibly have induced that tone?
There were no enemies that she could see. The trees hung low and protective around them. Shadows speckled the ground in a
relentless black cloak, broken up by spangles of silver moonlight caressing the grass.
Moonlight. Gaia craned her head. Like a stunning pearlescent pendant, the moon bared its face to the world, accompanied by a train of smaller stars. Their stately procession across the sky was worth far more than the shed light.
Her mind flashed through the days and nights, the rise and ebb of the moon, and settled on one dread fact. This was the third night since they had stalked the edge of the Derki camp. The Flux, he had said. By Tehys…surely
The agony sprouting across her ribs and blossoming in her belly prevented any words from escaping. Even as she felt the rising hum of elementals, and not from her own power. She pushed his hands away weakly with one arm. No. No. No.
