by Terah Edun
That wasn’t the only surprise that Ciardis found about their new opponents. Like shifters on the sand, the nine spread out until they were in a straight line. With synchronized movements they shifted into battle ready positions. Armed with only their fists and feet, Ciardis had to wonder what they possibly thought they were going to do. It might have been nine against eight, so they had a slight advantage while holding the dragon captive, but they were still defenseless.
No weapons. No swords. No armor. Just their flesh and bone, Ciardis thought in disbelief.
Not quite, thought Sebastian grimly.
You see something that I don’t?
Their skill, Sebastian replied as he stared straight ahead, I recognize the martial arts style they seem to be employing.
He hesitated.
And? she demanded.
It’s the deadliest hand-to-hand combat style on this side of the Western Isles.
Ciardis tossed her neck from side-to-side to get the cricks out of it before the fight began.
It’s never anything less than the best fighters in the land, she thought ironically, For once couldn’t we get some armed farmers that don’t know the difference between a hoe and a scimitar?
Sebastian laughed. Dream on. Besides ... I thought those harpies in the north weren’t so bad.
You wouldn’t have, she thought back dryly.
Then there was no more time for laughter or conversation. Just concentration.
She moved into position and checked her weapon at her waist. She didn’t plan to use it. No, if she got in close combat with a knife it was because her opponent had gotten way too close. Surrounding her, Terris, Sebastian, the two soldiers, Rachael, and Christian did the same. But now it was Rachael and Christian on the front lines.
The strangers wasted no time: with fluid moves that made Ciardis think they were trained in some kind of fighting style, they flew across the sand with their arms up and hands pointed down like cranes. She didn’t recognize the move, but she recognized the significance. They were on the attack.
Calling forth the lightning that was resting in her hands like an ever-present itch, Ciardis threw the energy out from her palms and toward two of the middle opponents. They fell down in their tracks. Their comrades, however, didn’t falter. With a scream that reminded Ciardis of a banshee, they attacked.
Rachael faced off against two. She’d conjured a slim wooden staff, more of a pole, really, from somewhere and was energetically exchanging blows. Wood against hardened muscle.
Then Ciardis noticed something quite odd.
Their opponents weren’t fighting as individuals. They were fighting as a unit. She noticed just as Terris raced past her with a howl of her own, jumped in the air, and met another head-on. They exchanged blows midair, nunchucks for hands, until they fell to the ground. But this one didn’t wait around for Ciardis’s best friend to finish it off. Instead it got up and ran, not to get away, but straight towards Rachael. Heart in her throat Ciardis summoned her voice to warn the shaman that a third assassin was coming to join the fray against her. But just as she did, a second assassin ducked a blow from Rachael’s staff and peeled away.
Without words and with barely seconds lost, Terris’s opponent jumped in against Rachael with renewed attacks and Rachael turned to face the Kithwalker.
They had switched opponents mid-battle, Ciardis thought in amazement.
Unfortunately, Terris’s new opponent either hadn’t realized that Terris’s fighting style was quite different or he didn’t have much defensive training, because in the minute that the exchange took, Terris had moved into a more offensive position. The assassin had no more warning than the whistle of nunchucks through the air before Terris cracked down with a sharp blow to the head that Ciardis heard from seven feet away. It fell to the ground with copious blood soaking into the sand.
Looks like we’re not the ones who will feed the mother desert our blood, Ciardis thought with grim satisfaction as she palmed her knife and rushed forward to take advantage of one of Rachael’s opponents’ distractions. Ciardis thrust her long knife up straight into the base of his spine, where his neck and shoulder blades met. As he fell forward with the princess heir-in-waiting riding his back down to the ground with a whoop, she pulled out her knife and stabbed in again in the throat for good measure, and pulled out with a wrench of her hand.
She wasn’t an expert at killing, but he looked pretty dead.
Ciardis stood up to see Rachael grab some dust from a pouch at her waist. She blew it into her second opponent’s eyes, and then a third. They both fell back screaming into the sand while clawing at their bleeding orifices. Ciardis grimaced as blood poured from their eyes and dark pools showed on the cloth that covered where their noses and mouths should be.
She couldn’t see what any of them looked like, as they all wore light fabric that covered them from head to toe, but now that quite a few were dead she was determined to find out.
As soon as we can be sure that the threat is contained, she told herself grimly as she got a surer grip on her knife and turned around.
To no surprise, she saw that the soldiers, Sebastian, and Thanar had dispatched the remaining opponents already. Ciardis looked behind her to see Raisa scrambling down the hill with her arms still tied behind her back. As soon as she made it, Ciardis raced over and cut the cloth bands that bound Raisa’s hands. With fury in her eyes, Raisa untied the one that remained around her mouth.
As soon as she did, fire spewed from her lips. It incinerated two bodies and almost lit Sebastian on fire before a guard hastily pushed him out of the way. Then it died down to a flicker of a small fire on Raisa’s lips.
Harmless, Ciardis thought weakly. That is if harmless and flames could conceivably be strung in a sentence together.
But Ciardis could see that the dragon ambassador was so furious that she didn’t even seem to realize that she was still conjuring the flames.
I also highly doubt she would care, Thanar thought at her dryly.
I liked you better when you weren’t reading my mind every other minute, Ciardis replied.
Can’t always get what we want, now can we? Thanar thought.
Ciardis winced. She had been hoping it was a mistake, but the bond between her and Thanar seemed to be growing stronger, not weaker, with every passing day.
Perhaps because he’s not fighting it anymore, Ciardis thought as she bit her lip and stepped back from Raisa.
That worried her. Not that him being closed off and surly earlier that day hadn’t made her uncomfortable. But this was troubling it in a different manner.
Shaking her head, Ciardis surveyed the damage. “Looks like we all survived.”
“We’re not the only ones,” Sebastian said while breathing heavily.
Ciardis frowned and looked over at the prince heir with a raised eyebrow.
He smiled grimly and stepped aside. His soldiers grabbed one of the opponents’ bodies by the armpits and lifted it up into a kneeling position. Or rather dragged.
When the upheld opponent opened his eyes and stared at them all, Ciardis asked, “Why leave it alive?”
Sebastian paced around to the front and slowly pulled back the cloth protecting the opponent’s face.
“Because this is their leader and he’s going to tell us everything he knows about the city of Kifar.”
Chapter 26
Sebastian’s dark tone left nothing to the imagination. Torture was in the cards.
But Ciardis wasn’t troubled by that revelation. The leader had tried to kill them after all. Looking over at the fierce determination in Sebastian’s eyes, she gripped her knife firmly in her hand and walked over. She had no intention of hurting the leader, but she didn’t know what it was capable of either. The knife was both a show of strength and a way to be ready for anything that happened.
As she got closer, Ciardis stared carefully into the person’s eyes. It was a person of that she was sure. It had two arms and two legs and the torso of
a human. No other anatomical features that would differentiate it from the humans that surrounded it and not enough innate magic to make it inherently kith.
What she didn’t know was whether it was male or female. Not that she cared. They’d question it regardless. But it was hard to tell as it was veiled from head to toe with bright blue gauzy fabric that wrapped around its face and neck like a shield, extended to an airy set of tunics and pants of the same color, and beyond that into leather boots of the same hue that were laced up to the calves.
“Who are you?” Ciardis whispered more to herself than to the kneeling person before her.
She couldn’t see anything but the dark brown color of its eyes and the dusky skin that marked it as slightly darker in nature than her own. Intellect sparked in its eyes as it stayed silent. Wisdom lined the sliver of face she saw, from the quiet fortitude in its gaze to the crow’s feet that crinkled on the edge of its eyes.
They watched each other like wary animals encountering a new creature for the first time. Even now Ciardis didn’t get a sense of evil from the person ... just resignation.
Resignation to its fate? she wondered.
She didn’t know.
As she blinked, the leader turned its head this way and that. First it stared at Terris, who stood off to the side with nunchucks hanging from her crossed hands. Then it took in Thanar with blood dripping from his wings and slight panting breaths indicating he had fought a good fight. Ciardis was sure the crazed look in Thanar’s eyes made the leader pause longer on the “bat-winged idiot,” but it was only a guess. She watched intently as its attention moved over the freed dragon ambassador, with Ciardis beside her, and then turned to the shaman Rachael. Its gaze rested longest there, but still it did not say a word.
A moment later the leader slowly raised its hand. Ciardis stepped back—wary. The guards tightened their grips on his arms and unsheathed their swords. With barely a pause, steel met cloth and Ciardis watched the leader halt his hand from whatever he was reaching for.
Once again its gaze met Ciardis and she was drawn to whatever it was she saw in its eyes. Hope. Perhaps desire. Maybe a hint of determination? She wasn’t sure what it was. Perhaps all three, but she licked her suddenly dry lips and said, “Let it continue.”
The guards didn’t say a word, but the gaze of the one on the right flicked to her and then back to his captive. He nodded tersely, a motion the captive leader didn’t see but certainly understood when the swords against its throat were withdrawn.
The leader resumed lifting its hand and they all watched with bated breath.
Ciardis felt an anxiety that she couldn’t place. She didn’t know what its objective was ... but for some reason she didn’t want it harmed.
Not yet, she told herself. Why she couldn’t say. Perhaps it was the will of the gods.
No, she decided, I’m not that far gone into lunacy. Let’s just see what it does.
It wasn’t drawing on magic, but she and the others around her watched the moving hand like a hawk. If she saw so much as a spark of magic though, its aura wouldn’t be the only thing lighting up. They all watched its movements until it slowly unveiled the cloth ties over its right ear and underneath a fold, by pulling back the cloth.
With a shuddering breath, the only living Kifari untied the edge of the blue-wrapped cloth that covered everything but its eyes.
As it slowly drew the covering away, Ciardis raised up her other hand with uncertainty. She had the sudden urge to pull the cloth away faster. To see what it would reveal in good time. She noticed with guilt that her left hand wasn’t empty. Instead golden lightening jumping between her fingers, but she didn’t tamper the lightening down. Not yet.
Anything could happen in the next few seconds after all.
It let the cloth fall and she took a shuddering breath. The first thing that Ciardis instinctively recognized was that it was definitely a he. A masculine jaw with a strong cleft in his chin and the little stubble of beard just above the knot in his neck that indicated a particularly large Adam’s apple sealed her decision. But his gender wasn’t what caught and held her gaze. She had processed all of that information as if it were but an afterthought as she sought to comprehend what she was seeing now.
His mouth ... or rather the orifice that was supposed to be his mouth. On a human that is. Which she firmly believed he was.
His mouth was a network of scars and veins. It looked like acid had been poured on his flesh until the skin had been eaten away. But it was more than just scar tissue and lumpy flesh. The curiously bright blue veins, almost neon in their intensity, radiatied from the hole where his lips should be like a spider’s web. The pattern was intricate but detailed.
Beautiful and disconcerting, she thought to herself whimsically as she tried to drag her eyes from the weird web-like network of scar tissue and veins to his eyes.
Ciardis knew it was impolite to stare, so she tried to refocus her attention on his eyes. An effort that failed as he spoke and she realized that he did in fact have a tongue. It was bright blue as well. But he had no lips. Instead the circle where his mouth should be, widened like a sinkhole growing in the soft ground with every word and then shrank again. It looked like the circumference of the circle that was his mouth would grow from half an inch in diameter to three inches as he spoke.
As disconcerting as it was to watch his mouth as it lay still, it was outright creepy to watch it move and hear the words issue forth once the fabric was removed. Ciardis wasn’t sure if it because the cloth was spelled somehow or she just hadn’t been hearing him before, but his voice now had a reed-like quality, as if he were speaking his words through a long tunnel and winds were blowing in behind his shouts. Making the effect sound like they were coming from a long distance away and giving the notes a higher elasticity.
What an interesting phenomenon, Ciardis thought with a perplexed look as she refocused her attention on his words.
“We are the Muareg of the Kifar desert, protectors of the Kifari people, and slayers of all who move in the desert,” he said with increasingly slow breaths.
“You are from the Kifar city then?” Ciardis said without blinking.
“No, I am not.”
Ciardis frowned and looked up at Sebastian.
The prince heir walked around to the front of his captive and stared for a moment.
Ciardis expected the prince heir to finally reveal who he was and demand to be taken to the city gates. But Sebastian did no such thing.
Instead he asked, “What are you?”
The leader turned his gaze upon Sebastian, “We are the Muareg.”
“You alone are the Muareg?” asked Sebastian. It was a question of clarification rather than a statement meant to initiate confrontation. It was if Sebastian had never seen anything like him before. Ciardis thought while looking around at her group that it was fair to say none of them had.
The male leader blinked. “We are.”
What a strange man, he almost seems to be speaking for all of his group not just himself, she thought.
Perhaps he is, said Thanar.
How is that possible? Why would that be possible?
We’ve seen stranger things Ciardis Weathervane, and lived through greater enemies.
She didn’t share the thought, but she had the feeling that perhaps the Muareg might not be their enemy after all. But it was nothing more than a hunch and certainly not backed up by the actions of this entity moments prior.
Ciardis sighed and caught Sebastian’s eyes. The confusion in her heart was mirrored in his eyes. The prince heir had no idea what to do with this “enemy” either.
Raisa stepped forward at that moment.
“Do you know who I am, Muareg?” she asked.
“Yes,” he answered while staring at the seemingly calm ambassador standing before him.
“Do you know what I am?” This time it was unmistakable. Flames were tickling the edge of Raisa’s mouth.
The Muareg shuddered, bu
t Ciardis didn’t see fear. Just resignation.
“Yes,” he answered while keeping his head unbowed.
The dragon smiled. “Speak my name.”
The Muareg trembled. “Never.”
“Speak my name!” This time the desert trembled with the dragon’s roar that came from a very human mouth.
The Muareg shuddered, but he did not bow. “No.”
Raisa hissed and her hand shot out. But it was no longer covered in the pale pink flesh of human skin. Instead, green scales had taken over, and her five fingers had transformed into four digits with dangerously sharp claws.
Ciardis gasped in horror as she watched Raisa clamp that transformed hand around the Muareg’s neck and dragged him to his feet.
Raisa wasn’t even bothering to retain her humanity. Flames licked at her lips and a long sinuous tongue darted through the air, and she held up the Muareg just by his neck and spoke again.
“Speak my name and bow before me or leave this earth a broken vessel.”
The Muareg was gasping for breath with involuntary flails of his feet, but Ciardis could read the determination in his eyes. He wouldn’t obey Raisa’s command and Ciardis knew that the dragon’s transforming face would be the last thing he ever saw if he did not.
Racing forward she clasped the green scaled-forearm of the irate dragon and pleaded, “Raisa, let him go!”
Back away, sarin!
No, we need him. Calm yourself.
A roar of fire that stopped just before the Muareg’s face was Raisa’s only answer.
Ciardis looked up at the quivering man frantically and saw that Raisa’s claws had pierced the flesh of his throat. Blood dripped down her claws freely and Ciardis knew that it would only take the slightest pressure for Raisa to rip his throat in half.
He was the only lead they had before entering the fabled city. They couldn’t lose him.
Ciardis called in the lightning, tightened her grip on Raisa and let loose a massive burst.
