“Seems Ackhlen is worried about the match, wearing all that armor.”
Barbarians near them muttered about the Chamra warrior seeming weak. She agreed, to a point. When one went up against a superior opponent, one did what one must to survive.
And watching Arghet move with the scitia, she had to admit had this not been a simple competition, she’d worry for Ackhlen’s life.
Arghet moved with fluid grace, dodging Ackhlen’s attacks while engaging with his own. Ackhlen wasn’t slow either, and as he blocked and ducked, he grew quicker. Both males did, until they seemed caught in a frenzied dance of thrusts and parries that had scitias glancing off armor and blades. Yet Ackhlen continued to miss hitting Arghet entirely.
“Arghet would have won by now if Ackhlen wasn’t so warded,” Talzec murmured. “He is something to watch. We do not take advantage of his skills often enough, I’m thinking.”
Skehl grunted but said nothing.
Raia understood, to a point. The scitia were mostly ceremonial. Since they were also hard to come by, few warriors had ever tested themselves with a scitia blade after their first contact with it at a young age.
She’d done her research, and from what she’d learned, all males touched the scitia when they came of age, from boyhood into manhood. Those selected by the blade itself went on to train with it, and then only to carry on a tradition, not that the blades were used in battle.
She thought that ridiculous, but it wasn’t her tradition to continue. Raia flinched when Ackhlen sliced a bloody line along Arghet’s ribs. A tactical error, one would think. Except Arghet didn’t shy from the contact.
She watched, anticipating his moves, and smiled. “He is quite good.”
Skehl glanced at her. “Ackhlen just drew blood.”
“Perhaps. But Arghet is setting him up for a series of strikes that will weaken the Chamra male. Watch.” She felt Talzec’s gaze, as well as the stares of several warriors who’d overheard her. But no matter. She wouldn’t be using this disguise much longer. She had mates to claim, a family to start, and a new business to run. Something she could do without leaving Ussed, because now that she’d returned, the phelthar would be impossible to replace should she leave.
In coming home, she’d ended up tying herself to her world. And this time, she didn’t think she’d survive if she left. She knew for sure her bond-mates wouldn’t. And that answered the question of where she’d put down roots.
“Mother Night, she’s right,” one of the Vyctore muttered as Arghet executed a whirling attack that set Ackhlen back. Not only did he counter every blow, Arghet struck the scitia from Ackhlen’s hand.
The crowd swelled with cheer, and the elders stood in applause.
Arghet grinned, his side bloody, and a small cut had bisected his brow. Ackhlen had a few cuts as well but otherwise looked no worse for wear.
She felt it before she saw it.Down,she shouted telepathically to her mates.Arghet, enemy overhead.
Skehl shoved Talzec back and tried to grab her, but she’d dodged him and raced past. A glance back showed Arghet and Ackhlen using their swords and arm-bracers to deflect pulser fire from above.
“What in the Hells of Fyanthul is going on?” Talzec yelled. Even as the warriors moved to intercede, Raia grabbed her stashed weapons, took her favorite set of throwing knives, and followed the glint she’d seen in the trees. The whispered sound of pulser fire didn’t tell her much. The warriors bellowed and sought cover, everyone trying to detect the threat of offworlder tech that shouldn’t exist outside the western resort.
There was a reason the offworlders kept to their side of the border, under a tech-shielded barrier protecting them. Alien tech didn’t—or hadn’t—ever worked on planet Ussed before. Somehow the enemy had gotten pulsers to fire in a place that didn’t tolerate technology.
Fascinating, and something she’d look into later. Just as soon as she took care of the threat from above. She climbed a nearby tree with ease, sighted her prey still firing down at Arghet, and threw a knife. It lodged in the attacker’s throat, the poison on the blade setting in for instant paralysis, then death.
He fell from the tree and landed with a broken neck. But she was already moving, taking out the second shooter now firing at her. He went down hard as well, the blade in his arm. Bastard had shifted or she’d have hit his jugular.
A glance at the ground showed Arghet and Ackhlen slicing through the remaining four interlopers still moving.
Warriors rounded their dead enemy while a few followed those racing from the skirmish. The barbarians let out a war whoop, pleasure at their victory a thing to celebrate. Arghet and Ackhlen grinned at each other, took each other by the forearm, and declared it a good fight.
Exuberant with the fire of battle heating her veins, Raia laughed. Then, realizing her cover had been revealed, decided to quietly leave and come back for her knives and mates. She’d retrieve them later, away from the others, and—
She gasped as an unseen force dragged her from the tree and held her suspended in the air, high above those below.
“Hurry, she’s heavy,” the Vyctore alpha’s mate rasped.
A true telekinetic then. Good to know. Raia struggled, but fighting against a foe without form was near to impossible. Unless she could regain her balance and throw one of her remaining knives at Skye. But she didn’t think her mates or their alpha would welcome a dead Vyctore at the Cloud Games.
She sighed, then felt her breath leave her as the force holding her vanished…and she plummeted to the unforgiving ground.
Skehl caught the slight female, plucking her from a drop that probably wouldn’t have been enough to kill her unless she’d landed wrong. But he had no intention of allowing her to take a chance.
