by Nathan Long
Kedac turned on me, eyes burning with hate. “You meddle too often in affairs not your own, demon bitch.”
He slashed down at me. I blocked one-handed and hauled Kai-La out of the way with the other. I shoved her toward the stairs. “Get out of here! Go down and help your pals.”
Kedac nearly cut my head off before I got back on guard. You couldn’t do two things at once around Kedac. If you weren’t one-hundred percent focused, he’d slip something by you and come away with your liver. My plan was to keep him busy until Sai got down off the balloon and challenged him like it said in the script, but right then I was too busy just keeping his sword out of me to worry about plans.
Christ, he was fast! Not even in gladiator school had I faced somebody this good. And I wasn’t exactly fighting fit. This wasn’t how I dreamed about facing him. Beat to shit. I couldn’t jump. I could barely fucking walk—especially not on this slanting deck. This sucked!
Kedac, glared at me over our swords. “To think I found you arousing, putting Lut-Gar in his place. I would have paid you handsomely for the pleasure of mastering you. Instead you defy me at every turn.”
I laughed. Even that hurt. “How are you supposed to master me if I don’t defy you once in a while?”
“You were to defy me in private! Instead, you continue to humiliate me in public. You reveal my coup before time, and worse, expose my nakedness and the inner secrets of my heart in front of the flower of Oran nobility!”
“Yeah? Well, after what you did to me, we still ain’t even.”
He actually looked confused. “I? What have I done to you?”
He didn’t know? “You stuck your finger up my cunt in front of a roomful of laughing yahoos, asshole!”
His face turned red. He looked like an angry plum. “And you found the attentions of a noble Oran insulting? You were offended that the Kir-Dhanan of all Ora favored you with his touch?”
I couldn’t believe it. He was actually pissed that I wasn’t thanking him for groping me. “Nobody touches me without asking first.”
Kedac laughed. “And should I ask my krae if I may mount her too?”
There it was, stripped naked. The fucker might be talking to me man to woman and fighting me warrior to warrior, but when it came down to it, I was an animal, an educated parrot that could talk but wasn’t really human. That’s when I really got mad.
I know you’re supposed to give people from other cultures a break on shit that they’ve grown up with—I’d cut Lhan and Sai some slack on the whole slave-owning thing, but Kedac was an asshole. Sure his culture didn’t treat women too well, but Sai and Lhan came from the same culture and they’d treated me like gentlemen. Kedac enjoyed humiliating me. That night at his party he’d got off knowing that no matter how strong I was, because he was an Oran noble, he could fuck with me anyway he wanted and I couldn’t fuck back. He was a bully.
Have I mentioned how much I hate bullies?
The red boiled up in my eyes like I’d put on blood-colored sunglasses. Everything except Kedac went away—the battle going on around us, my wounds, my pain, my exhaustion. Five minutes before I’d told myself I’d save Kedac for Sai. I’d honor my promise and let him have his shot. All that went away too. Fuck honor. Fuck promises. Fuck Sai, Lhan and going home. None of that mattered. Consequences were for afterward. The only things in the whole world were me and the fool in front of me. I’d never seen a man more in need of killin’.
I was so focused that Kedac seemed to be moving in slow motion. I watched him start moves and knew exactly where to be to stop them. My big sword moved twice as fast as his thin one. It took him longer and longer to parry my cuts. He was blocking inches away from his body now, and I’d opened up little gashes in his forearms and thighs. Blood was running across his fingers, slicking the handle of his sword. His grip was slipping.
But the best part was his face. It had a new expression on it. One I’d never seen there before. His eyes were wide. His teeth were clenched. His forehead was drenched in sweat. He was afraid!
My heart soared like an F-15. He knew he was going to die. Better than that, he knew that it was me, a low-class, outlander slut, an animal—worse, a female animal—who was going to kill him. Swallow that, fucker!
I batted a thrust aside like it was a fly and kicked him in the chest. He slammed back against the aft rail, arms thrown wide. He tried to get his sword in front of him. I chopped it near the guard and knocked it out of his hand. It pinwheeled down toward the city, flashing in the sun with every turn. Some lucky Ormoluian was getting a gift from heaven. I hoped it didn’t kill ’em.
I put my sword to Kedac’s throat. He was helpless—too scared and breathless even to beg. I smiled. I won. He was mine. A flick of my wrist and he’d die guzzling his own blood.
But not yet.
I grabbed his harness. I was going to do him like he’d done me. I was going to strip him naked and make him shake his dipstick in front of all his troops. I was going to stick my goddamn thumb up his ass.
He read it in my eyes, and his fear turned to horror. He knew I was going to destroy him, his rep, his macho, and he was more scared of that that he was of dying.
I smiled like a wolf, all teeth. “Time to dance, sweetcheeks.”
I ripped his harness off like it was made of Play-Doh, and was reaching for his loincloth when a hand touched my shoulder.
“Mistress, stop.”
I shrugged the hand off. I was busy.
“Mistress.”
The hand was there again. I shrugged it away again and turned, snarling. “Get the fuck away from me!”
It was Lhan. He was standing behind me, calm and quiet, like a butler in an old movie. “Mistress, Sai waits to make his challenge.”
Sai stood a few feet behind him, looking angry and noble.
I turned back to Kedac. “Well, he’s too late. I got here first.” All my shrugging had caused my sword to write a red line across Kedac’s Adam's apple. It made me think I should just kill him now before Lhan could bother me anymore.
“Will you truly betray the trust of your oldest friend in this world? Will you snatch away his one chance for happiness?”
I clenched my teeth. “You don’t understand. You don’t know what I owe this guy!”
Lhan leaned close, whispering in my ear, exactly the way he did with a frightened krae. “But I do understand. He stole your dignity. Violated your person. Your vengeance is indeed justified. It has happened to me.”
“Then leave me the fuck alone and let me finish what I started.” My hand was shaking from holding my sword to Kedac’s throat for so long. The motherfucker’s eyes were zipping back and forth between me and Lhan with a look of hope that made me want to beat him up all over again. There was no way I could let him go. No way.
Lhan’s voice came over my shoulder again, as soft as ever. He was getting on my nerves. “And yet, Sai’s need is greater.”
“Bullshit!”
He talked right over me. “For while you fight to avenge a wrong from the past, Sai fights to assure his future, and that of his bride.”
I slammed Kedac back against the rail and reset my sword at his throat. I don’t know why, but I was almost crying. It was hard to get the words out around the lump in my throat. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about the future! ’Til I beat this motherfucker, nothing else matters!”
Lhan chuckled, soft. “But do you not see, mistress? You have already beaten him. Look in his eyes. He has died a thousand times these last moments. Though you have not killed or humiliated him as you might have wished, there is no way for him to erase the knowledge that you could have, and would have, and he could not have stopped you. You defeated him utterly the moment you saw fear in his eyes. All else is redundancy.”
My lower lip was quivering. There were tears in my eyes. “But... but...”
Lhan touched my shoulder again, but this time it wasn’t to stop me. This time is was a friendly squeeze. “Come, Mistress Jae-En, you have had y
our victory. Let Sai have his.”
I held my sword to Kedac’s throat a few seconds more. All I had to do was lean forward, or trip. Yeah, trip! It could be an accident. I could just slip and it would be all over before anybody could do anything. What could they say? They might think I’d done it on purpose, but they’d never know for sure. Not for sure.
But I’d know. I’d know that Lhan had been right: that I’d already won, and gone ahead and ruined Sai’s chances out of spite, like a spoiled kid who breaks a toy rather than share it with his baby brother.
I shrugged like it didn’t matter, and lowered my sword. Kedac curled his lip. I could almost hear him thinking “weakling.” I slapped the taste out of his mouth.
He crashed to the deck, lip bleeding. I turned away and looked Sai in the eye. “Take him apart.”
Sai bowed and crossed his wrists. “Thank you, Mistress Jae-En.”
Lhan gave me a grim smile. “Your restraint ennobles you, mistress.”
I grunted. “Just get it over with.” I stepped past him and slumped against the rail, all my aches and pains catching up to me all at once. Down on the main deck things had changed. The battle was over. The pirates had won. I guess my deck tilting ploy had done the trick. All the surviving marines were kneeling in a little cluster surrounded by pirate guards.
I noticed vaguely that the ship was level again too. The pirates had cut the grapple ropes. We were on even keel, but sinking fast. The rip I’d made in the balloon was twice as long now and I could feel the ship dropping through my feet like I was in an elevator.
Lhan was talking behind me. “Dhanan Kedac-Zir, custom and courtesy demand that we offer you time to rest and recover from your recent exertions, but in light of your almost certain arrest when this vessel touches the ground, we must insist that you honor your obligation to Sai-Far now.”
Kedac sneered. “The little fop will only face me after your demoness has weakened me? Pathetic.”
Lhan ignored him, but I saw Sai stiffen up. Lhan continued. “There is at least one advantage to facing Sai-Far now. You will have the chance to avenge yourself upon the author of your downfall. Once on the ground even this will be denied you.”
I peeked over the side. We were still a thousand or so feet up, but the ground was coming up fast. I was amazed to see that while we’d all been fighting, the wind had pushed us all the way back to the Temple of Ormolu. We were going to set down not far from the temple where we’d started. I could see a crowd of people running along below us, looking up. Their faces were getting clearer every second.
Lhan’s voice pulled me back to the deck. “Gentlemen, when you’re ready.”
As I turned back to watch, something caught my eye on the main deck. Kai-La, with her head bandaged like a turban, was pushing Wen-Jhai out from below decks, and not being real gentle about it. Wen-Jhai looked around bug-eyed, probably afraid that she was a prisoner of the pirates again. Then she saw Sai and Kedac squaring off on the poopdeck and stopped dead. She clasped her hands together like the heroine out of a silent movie. I couldn’t tell who she was worried about.
I turned to watch the fight.
Sai spun his sword through the loop-de-loops of a fancy salute, but before he was done, Kedac lunged forward, trying to gut him where he stood. Sai jumped aside with a squeak and the fight was on.
Lhan sniffed. “So much for honor, noble Kir-Dhanan.”
Kedac barked a laugh. “And will honor save me from the noose?”
He laid into Sai like a combine harvester. I winced. This was going to be quick. I looked at Lhan, nervous. He made a “don’t worry” motion with his hand.
When Sai was still alive after thirty seconds I started to hope he might be right.
Something had happened to Sai. He was fighting like a totally different guy. He was fast and precise, and more important, he wasn’t choking. He was still nowhere near the fighter Kedac was, but unlike all the other times I’d seen him fight, where it looked like he was trying so hard to remember what to do next he couldn’t do what he needed to do now, here he was totally focused. He wasn’t berserk with anger. He wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t frustrated. He was calm, determined and patient. He took what Kedac was dishing out, and let him wear himself out hacking away like a weed-whacker.
On the other hand, thanks to me and Kai-La, Kedac was tired and beat to shit. And he was fighting like a crazy man, trying to end it before we hit the ground. He was the one who was distracted. He kept glancing over the side to see where we were and who was waiting for us.
A minute later the ship touched down on top of a low tree with a bump, and tipped slowly over to one side. The pirates and marines saw it coming and were ready. Almost all of them jumped clear. The wounded who couldn’t jump rode the ship down, holding on to whatever they could. Luckily the roll-over was so gentle that nobody got seriously banged up, even Wen-Jhai, who came down safe in Burly’s arms.
Sai and Kedac were another story. They were so focused that the wreck took them by surprise. As I hopped down to the blue lawn with Lhan, I turned and saw them both skidding sideways and slamming against the rail. Sai pitched over the side and landed hard on his shoulder and neck next to a bush. Kedac fell on the other side of it.
Before either of them could get up we were surrounded by the gang that had been running along under us.
I was a little worried about who the welcome wagon would be. When Lhan, Sai and me had run out of the temple it had been fifty-fifty whether Kedac’s posse or the Aldhanan’s guards were going to come out top dog. I was happy to see the red armor of the guards lining up around us, and right in the middle of them, the Aldhanan himself. I wasn’t so happy to see that they were pointing all their zap-guns at us.
The pirates went on guard, swords out and bows up. The guards did the same, screaming. The pirates shouted back. Too many fingers on triggers. Things were getting out of hand.
Lhan raised his arms and stepped forward, shouting over the noise. “My Aldhanan, these selfless privateers helped Sai-Far capture Kir-Dhanan Kedac and his renegade crew. Please, if it is your will, reassure them they will not now be shot for their valiant efforts.”
The Aldhanan waved his men back like it was an afterthought. “Where is my daughter?”
Wen-Jhai stepped around Burly. “Here, father.” She ran to him. He caught her in one arm and turned to his guards. “Now, place the traitor Kedac-Zir under arrest and bring him before me!”
Lhan took another step. “By your leave, my Aldhanan, Dhan Sai-Far and Kedac-Zir are at the moment engaged in the Sanfallah. The challenge was made on board and has yet to come to a definite conclusion.”
The Aldhanan made a face like he’d bit into a bad oyster, but he held up his hand. His guards stopped. “Then we will wait until the finish to arrest him.”
Nice to see what he thought of Sai’s chances.
So while Sai and Kedac recovered, the guards formed a ring around them, and all us lookee loos—which included the whole wedding party by now—crowded in behind them.
Kedac was up first, pulling twigs out of his hair. He limped around the bush toward Sai, who was on his hands and knees like a palooka after a knock-out punch. Damn it, get up, you little idiot!
I must have stepped forward without knowing it. Lhan put a hand on my wrist. “You must not. The Sanfallah is as sacred as marriage in Ora. None may interfere, not even the Aldhanan.”
I groaned. It was over. But no, Kedac tripped on some fallen rigging. Sai heard him coming and got his sword up at the last second. Kedac’s blade screamed across his guard and he staggered past, hissing and favoring his left leg.
Sai grunted to his feet and they were back into it.
I felt helpless. Fuck tradition. We were just going to stand here and let Sai die? By now everybody knew he was innocent and Kedac was guilty. They should stop this.
Nobody did. We all just watched. I held my breath. Sai was a mass of cuts, but he was still fresh. It was Kedac’s third fight in ten minutes. He w
as limping and blowing like a linebacker in double overtime.
In the end though, I don’t think that’s what got him. I think it was mind stuff that messed him up. He kept shooting glances at the ring of silent faces surrounding him. I think he was starting to realize that his world had already ended. His face twisted up into an angry pout like a baby who can’t reach a toy.
He screamed at Sai. “You cannot win! How can you win? You are no man!”
He bashed Sai’s blade aside and caught him a hell of a whack on the thigh. It bit deep. Sai’s leg collapsed under him. He went down screaming. The gash showed bone and meat.
Kedac shouted, triumphant, and raised his blade for the killing blow. It never landed. Half blind with pain, Sai somehow managed to stab up from the ground and ran Kedac right through the heart.
Kedac looked as surprised as the guy who’s just walked into the wrong restroom. He sank to his knees, wrenching the sword out of Sai’s hand, then collapsed to the grass. Sai joined him.
The crowd stared, totally silent, then there were twin shrieks and two women pushed forward. Mai-Mar threw herself prone on Kedac’s body, wailing like the sword was in her heart, not Kedac’s. Wen-Jhai ran to Sai and cradled him in her lap, blood and all, totally ruining her wedding get-up. She stroked his face. “Sai, my heart!”
Sai smiled weakly. “Wen-Jhai, beloved.”
Then he fainted.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
TRUE LOVE!
So everything was happily ever after. We all got patched up by the Aldhanan’s own personal surgeon, and one quarter later Sai and Wen-Jhai got married in the same white and gold temple, but with even bigger crowds than had been there the first time. Everybody wanted to see the guy who’d single-handedly stopped the plot to overthrow the Aldhanan.
Lhan and I did a graceful fade about that. Let Sai have all the glory. We didn’t have reputations to uphold in the first place. Besides, the Aldhanan came across with some fabulous parting gifts for our troubles—new armor, clothes, weapons, cash, krae, and swanky digs at the palace while we were in town.
