The paint did have one advantage though, one she remembered from the wound she received in the ambush at Iyesta’s palace. A crossbow bolt had pierced her arm and caused a nasty wound, but Tarmak warriors had pulled the bolt out and slathered the blue paint on her wound. The injury had healed in less than half the time something of that sort usually needed. She suspected the blue paint had healing properties in it that bordered on magic.
As soon as the paint was dry, Afec ordered the slave girls to leave. He looked her over critically for a minute or two, then he shook his head. Gently he touched the dragon scales hanging on her chain. “Malawaitha has a long reach. Do not let her get you in a strong grip. She knows how to break necks. If she has a weakness, it is her arrogance and a tendency to lean too far forward in her swings.” His lips thinned to a line, and he hesitated as if unsure if he should take the next step, then he said, “Wait here.”
He was gone only a few moments. When he returned he was carrying a cup and a small stoneware jug. He unstopped the jug and poured out about two full swallows of a thick greenish-gold liquid. “This is a special drink the Damjatt devised for their warriors. It gives strength and clarity of mind and improves endurance.”
Linsha eyed it dubiously. “Do the Tarmaks drink this?”
He laughed. “The Tarmaks believe their own strength is sufficient and anything else is false. I fix this as a tonic for the slaves and the women during childbirth. But it does help, and tonight you will need all your skills and resources to fight Malawaitha.”
“And kill her?”
“It would be best now,” Afec told her. “If you do not, she will destroy you.”
Linsha picked up the cup and stared at the contents. “What will the Emperor do if I kill his daughter?”
Afec’s worry grew deeper. “I don’t know. He should abide by the law of the ket-rhild. But he is the Emperor, and his mood is often unpredictable.”
How ironic would that be? Linsha thought. Lanther tricks her into killing Malawaitha so he can marry her, but the Emperor has her executed in a fit of rage and grief and Lanther is left alone with the eggs.
“Thanks,” Linsha said dryly. Feeling queasy, she drained the cup to the dregs. The liquid slid down her throat in a warm slide that seemed to ignite a fire the moment it hit her stomach. Energy rushed into her bloodstream and sizzled into her muscles. Her eyes widened in surprise.
“Let’s go,” Afec said. “Before that wears off.”
He hurried her out of the palace and into the torchlit square where the crowd of Tarmaks and Malawaitha, now dressed in very similar garb, waited for her.
Linsha stood on the steps beside the Emperor and bowed low to him and to the crowd. She looked out over the square and saw the Tarmaks had been busy while the slaves painted her blue. A large area in front of the palace steps had been cleared away and was now ringed with excited onlookers. Malawaitha stood in the center of the space gently swinging a long-handled axe in one hand.
By the gods! Linsha took in a deep breath. Afec wasn’t joking when he said his tonic gave clarity of mind. The scene before her burned into her mind in sharp detail and magnificent color. Sounds were louder, clearer; the light from the torches and lamps shone brightly and dispelled the darkest shadows. She looked up over the palace walls and saw the brilliant streams of lightning dance across the northwestern sky. The storm had moved closer while she was inside, and she could feel the wind rising over the palace and could sense the approaching rain. The gathering energies of the storm tickled her skin like the souls of the dead, but this time she relished the touch and felt the power energize her rather than drain her. She lifted her arms to the coming thunderstorm and drew in a deep breath of cool air.
This was a good night. If she was to die tonight, then so be it. But there was one thing she wanted to do. With the Damjatt tonic firing her body and mind, she took her thoughts and hopes and extended them far out into the night. She knew she was too far away to reach Varia or Crucible by way of the shared link in her mind, but she had to tell them whether they ever heard her or not.
Varia, you are my friend, this night and forever. Crucible, forgive me.
The owl’s dark eyes popped open, and her head swiveled around to look at her surroundings. Her location did not amaze her, for she was where she expected to be—in a cage hanging in the headquarters of the Tarmak commander in Missing City. But something had startled her out of a moment of sleep. She pivoted on her perch and glared around the room at the Tarmak guards that stood at the doors and at the officers that sat at a table laughing and drinking. It was late afternoon by the slant of the shadows on the floor, and the owl usually napped this time of day. Yet deep in the quiet of her sleeping mind she had heard a voice, a beloved voice of someone she believed to be long gone. She had only heard a single word, Varia, and it was enough.
Linsha was out there far beyond the normal reach of their ability to communicate, and still she had found a way to send a word. Agitated, Varia fluffed her feathers and paced back and forth on the stick the Tarmaks called a perch. She would have to get out of this cage.
“You, Dog!” one of the officers snapped. “That bird is awake. Feed her.”
A Tarmak warrior stepped away from his position by the wall and slouched over to the cage. He pulled a dead mouse out of a basket sitting close by, opened the cage door, and tossed it in. Looking morose, he closed the door and resumed his place by the wall to wait for his next order.
Varia made a chuckling sound that made the Tarmak whip his head around to stare at her. From what she could understand of Tarmakian, that particular warrior was serving a sentence for failure to perform a certain task. His punishment was to serve in the Dog Units as a servant, errand runner, cleaner of privies, or doer of any other distasteful task his superior officers could think of until he was properly chastised and remorseful. He had been put in charge of catching mice for the Akkad-Dar’s owl and feeding her whenever she was hungry. What he didn’t know, what most of the officers didn’t know, was that Varia could talk and think.
She settled down her perch, hunched her head into her shoulders, and turned her round, wide eyes on the Tarmak warrior by the wall. She would give it some thought. There had to be a way out of this cage and out of this building, and once away she would seek help. Linsha was out there, still alive and still thinking of her. She had to get away.
“Linsha,” Lanther said beside her. “It is time.”
Linsha started violently out of her reverie, and the deep animosity she felt for him came snarling back. “If I die, wash this god-awful paint off before you bury me.”
“The Tarmak burn their dead,” he said and handed her an axe similar to Malawaitha’s. He stepped back when she snatched it out of his hands.
She stared at it for a moment, long enough to see it had a handle about two feet long and a blade with a long curve, then she glared down at the woman waiting for her. In a startlingly fast change of mood, her contemplation of the night ended and her fear vanished in a sudden onslaught of rage. Every pent-up frustration, every concealed irritation, every anger she had kept under control joined together and burst into a firestorm that roared through her mind and burned away every civilized restraint she had. She thought to give a Solamnic warcry, but the sound that came out of her throat was a primal scream of fury that was more animal than human.
Lifting the axe, she charged down the steps and attacked Malawaitha like a demon spawned of Chaos. The young Tarmak woman fell back. Malawaitha had thought she was weak and unwilling to fight, but now everyone knew otherwise, and after a moment or two of desperate parries, Malawaitha settled down and fought back.
The battle was not pretty, nor was it fought with any rules. The axes both women wielded were sharpened to a razor edge, and the long handles could be used like a staff weapon or a club. Malawaitha had the strength and training of years in a Tarmak school. Her skills with the axe were better and her endurance was greater, but she was too accustomed to her practice drills and the limited scope of her experience with other styles of fighting to defeat the Rose Knight easily. Linsha, trained by Solamnic Knights and thugs alike, had a fighting style that spanned many skills and weapons. She fought with fist and foot and fingers and teeth, and she fought with such an inflamed fury that it surprised even herself.