They moved and they did it fast.
Lahn again didn’t look at me when he turned back to his warriors and kept thundering, “My seed has been planted in her womb and she carries my child. They attacked my tigress and your golden warrior queen. They attacked all that is the beauty of Suh Tunak and my unborn. They will know a vengeance that their grandchildren will understand and knowing it through the ages to come they will still quake in their beds!”
Okay, he wasn’t calming down, like… at all.
“Lahn,” I whispered, for some reason my voice not able to get any louder but Diandra squeezed my hand.
“No, Circe, not now. Not at all,” she murmured in my ear. “Even a normal warrior’s wife is off limits and the enemy knows it. The Daxshee is never penetrated, ever. In times far past, this happened and in that past, Suh Tunak has ridden just like our Dax now describes and the brutality of their vengeance has not been forgotten… until now.” I looked up at her and she finished quickly. “To invade a cham is akin to them taking you by force. It is symbolic. It is the safety he offers you as your husband and it was violated. He will taste vengeance and the Maroo will bleed for it.”
Oh God.
My eyes snapped to Lahn when I heard him ask, “She is taken?”
I saw he was glowering at a warrior who jerked up a chin.
Then Lahn ordered, “Bring me the traitor.”
Oh no. No.
No.
My body got tight.
He wanted Teetru.
“Still, my friend, still. Be strong. He will know vengeance,” Diandra murmured, her arm going around me and Claudine, at my other side, did the same.
I was glad for it for I was suddenly shaking and not just a little.
“Send messengers, my brother,” Lahn barked at another warrior. “They ride out tonight. Suh Tunak amasses.”
That warrior nodded, turned and stalked through his brethren, quickly disappearing.
Lahn suddenly turned and again looked beyond me. I looked over my shoulder and saw Zahnin outside the tent, his arm around his wife who looked tiny next to him and was visibly shaking at his side. He had her turned, front to his side, and held close with his arm around her shoulder but his eyes were on his king.
She’d seen, heard and understood and she was pressing her lips together probably in the effort not to whimper.
That was my girl.
Her eyes darted to me and I smiled at her. I knew it trembled. Hers trembled too when she returned it.
Yep, that was my girl.
We weren’t Korwahk but we sure as hell were learning to be.
Fast.
Then Lahn spoke and I turned back to him. “Your blood will be avenged.”
From behind me, Zahnin replied, “Yes, my king.”
He jerked his head my way. “It will also be rewarded.”
“Yes, my king,” Zahnin repeated and Lahn’s gaze cut to Bain who was standing several feet from him.
“The stains on your steel will be rewarded,” Lahn stated.
Bain jerked up his chin.
Then horses sidled, a pathway cleared and I sucked in breath.
Diandra and Claudine held on tight.
Thinking quickly, knowing in my heart what would happen, I twisted and caught Zahnin’s gaze.
“Hide her eyes,” I called, he grunted unintelligibly but his big hand lifted, covering Sabine’s eyes as he turned her to his front, burying her face in his bandaged chest.
He bent to her and said gently, “Cover your ears, close your eyes. I will tell you when it is done.”
I turned back when I heard a pained cry and then winced when I saw that Teetru had been tossed to the stone ground.
She’d also been mishandled, gravely. She wore no clothes, bruises had already formed around her arms, her wrists, her hips, her knees, her throat and there was a dried, white substance liberally splattered everywhere on her body including her face and I knew what that was.
My knees gave out but Diandra and Claudine closed in, holding me up until I forced my legs to stand strong again under me.
Teetru’s body was on its side but down, only her head lifted up and her eyes came to me then they travelled through the blood on my body.
They were full of pain but, to my shock, it was not just the pain she felt in her body. Mingled with it was a different kind of pain.
Then I heard her whisper, “You should not have been kind to me.”
My body jolted and tears filled my eyes.
“Prepare her,” Lahn barked.
Her gaze stayed locked to mine as Bain strode forward and, using her hair causing her to cry out but she still didn’t break her connection to me, he pulled her to her knees.
The wet streamed down my cheeks and pain burned my throat.
With a hiss of steel, Lahn unsheathed his sword.
“I wish you hadn’t been kind to me.”
Those were her last words before Bain stepped free and Lahn severed her head from her body with a vicious swing of his sword.
I turned into Diandra’s arms and shoved my face in her neck so I missed the flash of lightning that rent the sky, trailing down the cliff five hundred yards behind me.
“Throw it off the cliff. Return the head to the Maroo king with one of their warriors you captured. Unman him before you free him. Her head and his balls, my gift to their king before we lock steel,” Lahn ordered.
I stifled a painful sob by swallowing and that hurt even more.
“Bathe my fucking bride!” Lahn bellowed, I felt Diandra nod and then she and Claudine gently guided me toward my girls’ cham and I heard Zahnin’s soft, “Attend your queen,” as I went.
But I heard no more and felt no more and this was because I slunk into my head to sort it out.
I was Korwahk, Queen of Korwahk and we were at war.
I was Korwahk, I repeated to myself, Queen of Korwahk and we were at war.
I had to find some way to get my shit together.
Somehow.
* * * * *
“You must eat, my golden queen.”
I turned and looked down at Jacanda.
I was in her tent. Whatever belongings she and the girls had were gone, whereabouts unknown (to me). Our bed with a clean silk sheet had been moved in, our scrubbed trunks and our cleaned furniture. The tent was smaller, the stuff crammed in the space.
I was bathed, my hair washed and the skin behind my ears and at my wrists had been anointed with perfumed oil. I was wearing my robe of blue.
Incense Teetru had sourced weeks ago at my request burned, smelling of berries.
Packa set this to burning because she knew I liked it and probably thought it would soothe me. But I would find the stash and get rid of it later, when they weren’t around. It reminded me of Teetru whose actions could have killed me, or harmed me, they did harm Zahnin, but at the same time she did what she could to save me. A paradox I would never understand because she was no longer breathing for me to ask.
“You sleep with Diandra’s girls tonight?” I asked and Jacanda nodded.
“Yes, my true queen. But we will be here before the dawn in case you need us.”
“Sleep in, my doe, today has been busy. You and my girls need your rest. I will get on,” I assured her.
“We will be here,” she replied firmly.
“I will –”
She cut me off. “The king will expect it.”
I stopped talking and nodded because this was true, Lahn would expect it.
Then I lifted two hands and put them on her cheeks, dipping my face to hers.
“I’m so sorry about Teetru,” I whispered and I watched with surprise as her eyes went hard.
“She is a traitor,” she hissed, pulled away, turned her head to the side and then made a spitting sound with her mouth though no spit came out before she turned back to me. “I was born slave. I was lucky to have good masters, like Beetus. Packa and Gaal were not. This makes Packa timid and Gaal guarded. But we have talked
many nights of you, our golden queen, who laughs with us and speaks kindly, touches kindly, whose warrior provides us with plentiful food better than we’ve ever had. You are our true golden queen and she was of Maroo but she knew the gold of your touch, just like us all. Slaves are normally commanded, not asked and not included; we do not exist, even though we serve. We exist for you. It feels good to exist. She nearly took you away from us. This is unforgivable and this will not be forgiven, not by warrior, not by warrior bride, not by free man or woman, not by slave, not by anyone Korwahk and most especially not by what you call us, Your Girls. She was honored to be among us and now her headless body rots at the bottom of a cliff, a body that will never join her spirit in the next realm. We will not miss her, not one of us. Your Dax was too good to her. He should have turned her over to the warriors to do what they are forbidden to do even to the Xacto instead of taking her head.”
Okay, mental note, do not get on Jacanda’s bad side.
This was what I thought. What I said was a whispered, “All right, sweetheart.”
She nodded and moved to the cham flaps but stopped and turned back.
“I burned her bolt of fabric with your cham as well as her other belongings and Beetus threw her bangle over the cliff. She no longer exists.”
I nodded. I got the message. I was not to speak of her again.
She nodded back.
“Goodnight, Jacanda,” I whispered.
“Eat something,” she tipped her head to the table where she’d put food. “Then sleep well, my golden queen,” she whispered back then exited the cham.
I sucked in breath. Then I lifted my hands to my cheeks and pressed in.
Then I felt the tears and shakes come again and I struggled to keep them in check.
I won this fight as the tent flaps slapped back, my eyes flew there and I watched my husband bend low and enter, accompanied by Ghost.
I stared at him as he took a step in and stopped. Ghost didn’t stop. She ambled to me so I bent in a knees to chest squat and she kept coming until I had her head in my hands. When I had a hold on her, I started to scratch behind her ears.
“The animal sprung to your aid,” Lahn declared and I kept scratching as I tipped my head back to look at him. “From now on, she sleeps with us.”
I nodded and studied his face.
He still looked pissed.
I bit my lip.
This made him look more pissed.
I stopped biting my lip.
His eyes dropped to Ghost and he looked even more pissed.
What on earth?
He looked back at me and ordered tersely, “Rise, wife, and come to me.”
I didn’t want to, mainly because he looked pissed, but I did. I gave Ghost’s head a rub, straightened and walked to him.
I stopped a few inches away.
“Put your hands on me,” he commanded and I felt it prudent in the face of his continued anger to keep quiet and do what he said so I lifted my hands and rested them on his chest.
The minute they touched, his hands came up and, as they did earlier, they clamped on either side of my jaw but this time he pulled me roughly in and up so I was on my toes as he bent toward me.
“No one,” he ground out, his eyes an inch from my own, “no one touches my queen.”
“Okay, baby,” I whispered.
“No one threatens her with steel.” He kept grinding out his words between his teeth.
My hands drifted up to his neck. “All right,” I said softly.
“No one betrays her,” he kept going. “No one and especially not one she’s shown generosity and kindness, who has felt her golden touch.”
I nodded as best I could with his hands on me. “Yes, honey.”
He scowled into my face. Then he asked, “You have no words for the collaborator?”
“I…” I started, shook my head, again as best I could with his hands on me, then went on. “Honey, I promised you before you left that I wouldn’t again question who you are and what you do and I’m keeping that promise.” His burning eyes didn’t leave mine and I continued. “It’s hard, of course, because, you know me, I have something to say about every –”
I didn’t finish. His hands left my jaw, his arms locked around me, one hand at the back of my head, he tilted it to the side, slanted his the other way and his mouth crushed down on mine.
I held onto his neck as his mouth and tongue took their fill and then he tore his lips from mine. Then he shoved my face in his chest, I turned it so my cheek was pressed there and I pushed my hands under his arms and wrapped them around him.
“You came home early,” I noted (a little breathlessly) in order to take our conversation to the mundane.
“Zahnin says you felled a Maroo,” Lahn returned, not, obviously, in the mood for mundane.
“Tee…” I hesitated then went on cautiously, “she knew the attack was imminent and left my dagger that Bohtan gave me out for me. I had a moment to prepare.”
“That kut* did not save your life, Circe, Zahnin, Bain, Ghost and you did,” he growled on a squeeze of his arms. “I’ll listen to no talk of her giving you a moment to prepare.”
“Uh… okay,” I whispered.
Another mental note, don’t mention Teetru around Lahn either.
He was silent. This lasted awhile.
Then he said quietly, “I give thanks to my god you are warrior.”
I nodded. I gave it to mine too, on several occasions the last few hours. I had no idea I had it in me but I sure as hell was glad I did.
Then he went on. “And I give more thanks you hold magic. As you were battling, your lightning filled the sky. Warriors and everyone in the Daxshee knew the lightning storm was not natural but something to do with their queen. This gave warning and meant the traitor did not escape and other Maroo warriors lying in wait for the return of their brethren were also captured.”
Whoa.
Wow.
I didn’t know that. Any of it.
“Yes, magic is good,” I agreed, the light pressure he was exerting on my head relaxed and I tilted it back to look at him. Then I changed the subject. “Why are you home early?”
“Early this morning, we had a messenger from Keenhak. Keenhak spies close to the Maroo king heard of the plot and came to me. This decision was smart. They build alliances while Maroo seeks to end the Golden Dynasty. Keenhak will be rewarded for this act.” I nodded and he finished. “We rode hard to return to the Daxshee but we were too late.”
“I’m okay,” I said quietly.
“All day, I rode blind, the only thing I saw, visions of my golden queen covered in blood.”
Oh God. That had to suck.
“I’m okay,” I repeated.
“And I ride into the Daxshee only to see you covered in blood.”
My arms gave him a squeeze. “Honey, I’m okay.”
“I can see that and feel it, my doe, but I do not care. Vengeance –”
I pulled an arm from around him and lifted my hand to touch my fingers to his mouth.
“I know, Lahn. Rivers of blood. I know. It freaks me out and scares me and I don’t want you or anyone to be hurt but I know. This is what you must do. So you will do it but now can I ask a favor and can you be quiet for just long enough so that I can give you a welcome home kiss to add to your, ‘thank God my golden queen is all right’ kiss? Then you can rant all you want about vengeance.”
He stared down at me. Then he said against my fingers, “Remove your fingers, Circe, you can hardly kiss me with your hand over my mouth.”
I smiled up at him as my body relaxed in his arms and I moved my hand. Then I went up on tiptoe, he bent his neck and I gave my husband a welcome home kiss that was, I was guessing, pretty damned good. I guessed this because he lifted me up in the middle of it, my legs wrapped around his hips and he strode to the bed and I went down, him on top of me.
Ghost growled with irritation and jumped off her perch.
Eventually, Lahn’s
mouth left mine and he buried his face in my neck as my limbs tightened around him.
There he was. So big. So strong. My husband. There with me. In our bed.
Then it hit me and I couldn’t hold it back so my breath hitched.
His head came up and his eyes found mine. When they did, his warmed.
“Baby,” he whispered and my breath hitched again.
“I killed one and a half men today,” I whispered back, a tear sliding out of the side of my eye.
His head twitched and he asked, “A half?”
“Bain cut his head off but I’d already sliced through his innards, a wound he survived right then but he wouldn’t survive it for long.”
I watched Lahn’s jaw get hard and I didn’t know if it was to bite back laughter or a roar of fury.
Then he informed me quietly (and scarily), “I am glad you did for if you had not, they would have killed you. The plot was to capture you, take you outside the Daxshee but murder you close and leave your body for us to find. Instead, they encountered a warrior queen, her extraordinary pet and guards with good instincts. As things did not go as they had planned, they would have needed to execute their plan as best they could and instead would have killed you in our cham.”
I knew this to be true. The first man had grabbed me and done it unarmed, probably underestimating me. The last had not done the same and came at me with a knife.
That scared the shit out of me but I sucked it up as best I could and nodded.
Then another tear slid out of my left eye followed by one from my right and I felt my nostrils quiver.
“She betrayed me,” I whispered and Lahn’s face went soft, his hand lifted to cup the side of my head, his thumb moving through the wetness at my temple. “Why would she do that?”
“I do not know,” Lahn answered in his own whisper.
I sucked in a breath that broke twice on the way in. “And since she did, why would she put out my dagger… warn me?”
“I do not know that either, my golden doe.”
I didn’t either.