When she drops, it’s at the edge of death, but not over the line of it.I’ve had more than enough experience to know the difference.It’s a calculated choice, but one I choose thanks to Onu and Carrigan’s explanations of this process, pressing hard with my knee instead.The force pushes the last of her air out, encouraging her body to recoil.When I stand, her lungs expand in a gasp to bring her back to life, if unconscious from the chokehold.
All the while, I’ve held Romouth’s eyes, since I knelt and chose not to kill, and now I do something I haven’t in a very long time.Not since I was young and challenged my mother after such a bout.It’s an old memory, something she used to do, laugh about, that her father taught her.
I stomp one foot in the sand and lower my chin, snorting through wide nostrils like a warhorse would.
“Next,” I snarl, that bit added on all my own.
Bring it fuckingon.
Vunoshe’s beaming at me, turning toward Romouth.“There, you see?”He clasps his hands under his chin.“Isn’t sheperfection?”
“How much?”The woman’s tone hasn’t changed, but she’s no longer looking at me with curiosity, but with acquisitiveness.If she’s impressed by that ridiculous show, this might be easier than I thought.I pity the girl at my feet who’s just coming around.Whoever trained her taught her to pretend to be a fighter, to show off.She spent so much time proving she could fight to everyone around us that she fell too fast to someone with nothing to lose.
This might, in fact, turn out better than I hoped.
“A thousand goldranan,” Lhanin says.
Vunoshe gasps, turning toward the captain who’s standing with his arms crossed over his chest, glaring at the warrior woman.Her face has settled into mild astonishment, and it takes her a moment to reply.
“No one,” she says quietly, “not even the Sun God Himself, has paid so much for agladatte.”She laughs then, deep and low, shaking her head.“I’m afraid, despite her skill, the Rae would not pay such a price.”
“Nor should she,” Vunoshe says, spinning on the captain.“It’sridiculous.”
Lhanin is clearly trying to interfere with this deal.Why?Does he have his own in mind?“A thousand,” he insists, staring the slavemasterredown.“Firm.”He shrugs.“I’d rather sell her for pennies to a brothel than take less.”
No, he has no other deal.He fully intends to do just that.He’s going to squander me, the money I could make him, all for vengeance and retribution.
Because this has nothing to do with me.He hates Vunoshe, blames him for more than just the treatment I’ve witnessed.Their animosity is mutual, and Lhanin appears to have finally found the means to strike where it will hurt Vunoshe the most.
Except, he’s getting in my way, too.And I won’t have it.
I don’t think about the consequences of my actions.There’s no contemplation of anything past the results.All I know is that the plan I have is the best option available to me, and the only person in my way has had this coming since we met.
My toe hooks the hilt of the girl’s closest sword and flips it up toward my hand, the spray of sand an arc that hasn’t reached the ground again before I’m leaning back, the well-balanced weapon launched toward the captain.The point cuts through his throat with a sucking sound, the force of my throw driving it halfway up the blade.
He spins and stares at me, eyes wide, mouth open as though to protest this new development.But the thin stream of blood that spills over his bottom lip, staining the ring there before dribbling down into his beard, is all that answers his gurgle.
When he falls, it’s a slow and graceful collapse, straight down as his knees give way.He’s dead before he hits the ground, the blade sticking out of the back of his neck propping his torso up when the point digs into the dirt.He’s a broken puppet with his strings cut, limp and lifeless, blood pooling beneath him.
I exhale slowly, straightening from my throw, letting my arm fall to my side.It aches, but it shouldn’t, my muscles still weak.Not that I show it.Instead, I again stomp my foot, snort.
“Next,” I say.
Vunoshe stares at me with huge eyes.And now anxiety punches me in the chest.I’ve just killed one of my captors, murdered him in front of all of these witnesses.I was brought here to fight, but have I stepped over some line I didn’t know I shouldn’t cross?
Have I just signed my own death into being with that throw?
To the fire with it.My jaw tightens as I slowly twist the balls of my feet into the sand to ground myself deeper.If so, I’ll go down fighting.
“Vengeance claimed,” Vunoshe says abruptly.“Rendered on order.”
No one argues.I think he just saved my life.
“You intend to be less unreasonable,” Romouth says quietly in the silence of the circle’s watching crowd.
“Of course,” Vunoshe says, perking as though he hadn’t just been staring at me.“A mere four hundred goldranan,mistresse.As you can see, she’s more than worth that price.”
He told Hanso he’d get as much.I don’t look away as she pays him without complaint or counter barter.Surely, that bodes well.
