The Broken Kingdom (43 page)

The two combatants whirled round and round.
It was so fast and deadly Vann couldn’t catch half the moves. But
he heard the sounds, saw blood splatter across the grass as the man
scraped Riley’s arm.

He was fast, and strong. Faster and stronger
than her. But she didn’t let that break her focus. She had to be
smarter.

Riley saw the openings, caught the mistakes.
But he moved so fast she couldn’t take advantage of the openings.
So were they really openings?

Slowly it came to her that she was losing.
She tried to attack, but he moved too fast and stopped her. When
she managed to hurt him, the sword did not cut deep enough. And
when she tried to dodge, she was never quite fast enough. There was
nothing wrong with her strategy, with her moves. They just weren’t
fast
enough.

It was a horrifying realization. Everything
seemed to slow down. Her movements became distant. Was this how
other people felt? Was this how the gemengs had felt when she
fought them?

Vann’s face flashed past, Karesh next to
him. Did they realize she was losing? What would happen to them
when she did? Would this man just walk away, or would he kill
everyone here? Or take them over? Would Vann be safe?
Vann…

The ferocity with which Riley fought
suddenly increased. And for a moment she seemed to be beating her
opponent back. But she could not keep it up. Slowly it shifted
back. And it suddenly occurred to Vann she might lose.

Vann excused himself and pushed back, out of
the crowd. He ran back to his tent. It did not take long, and soon
he was back at the fight. In the short time he’d be gone the
situation had changed drastically. Riley was being beaten around by
the other man. She couldn’t dodge fast enough. When she tried to
block he just batted her sword away.

‘What’s that?’ Karesh asked, once Vann was
back beside him.

‘A SIGPEW. I’m not going to let her
die.’

‘She’s the Master, she’s not going to
die.’

With every passing second, the situation
worsened. Maybe there was still a chance she could beat him, but it
got smaller and smaller with every passing moment.

‘You can’t interfere.’ Karesh said urgently,
suddenly putting a hand on his arm. ‘If you do, the tribe won’t
respect her.’

‘Fine. You can keep the tribe. She and I can
go somewhere else.’ He tried to raise the SIGPEW.

It was hard, but Riley let go. He was too
strong and too fast. The only way she was going to beat him was if
she could trick him into leaving her an opening. And it had to be a
big
opening. So she stopped fighting so fiercely. She let
him beat her around, hurt her more than he could just yet. His
confidence grew, and Riley stumbled more and more.

It wasn’t all faked though. She was hurt.
She was getting hurt. If he didn’t make a huge mistake soon, he was
going to kill her.

It was terrifying and painful. She was
vaguely aware of a commotion in the crowd. She thought she heard
Vann yell.

But she had to focus.

And then she slipped. She was surprised.
Then she realized her leg was bleeding, did not have the strength
to hold her up. She looked up. He was above her. It was too late.
His claws gleamed and dripped with her blood.

He raised his claws above his head, far
higher than they needed to be to rip her to shreds.

Riley didn’t think. She lunged with her
sword. His face changed from glee to shock. The sword buried into
his chest and emerged from the other side. He slowly crumpled to
the ground and the sword was pulled from her grasp by the weight of
his body.

Riley tried to stand. But she slipped
again.

And then someone’s arms were around her.

‘Are you alright?’ Vann was saying angrily.
‘Go get Aerlid!’ he shouted to someone.

‘Yes… yes, I’m ok.’ Her mind seemed to be
moving very slowly. ‘No… no, don’t let him near me!’

‘Riley you’re hurt. You’re really hurt.’

She shook her head. ‘No, I don’t care. Don’t
let him, Vann. Get the ones he’s been training… get Adila…’

Suddenly tired, Riley wasn’t really aware of
what happened next.

She seemed to be swaying far above the
ground. And then she was in her tent and people were all around
her. She spotted a flash of silver hair.

‘No! Don’t let him near me!’

‘Riley, please,’ Vann was saying, still near
her. ‘You need help.’

‘I would rather die.’ she said vehemently.
Summoning all her strength, she turned to Aerlid, ‘Get. Out.’

Chapter 54

‘
I
s she going to be ok?’
Aerlid asked from within his circle.

‘Yes.’ Vann said heavily. ‘You trained them
well… and Adila helped.’

Aerlid sighed in relief. ‘She was
unreasonable as a child too.’

Vann didn’t respond to that. ‘So was that
man really the son of the Ehlkrid King?’

‘Considering his strength? I can’t think of
any other explanation. That’s not too unusual, he and Andalla
probably have quite a few descendants wandering around.’

‘Are any more going to show up?’

‘I can’t say. Unlikely, considering what
happened to this one, if there are any more nearby with enough of
the King or Andalla’s blood in them to be a threat.’

‘Do you think the King sent him?’

Aerlid shrugged. ‘I’d be surprised if the
King even knew about him. He could have just been ambitious.’

Vann nodded and headed back to Riley’s tent
to share the knowledge. He entered the tent to find Riley, heavily
bandaged and sitting up. Karesh was with her.

Vann gave Karesh an icy look. ‘Riley, we
need to talk.’

‘About what?’ she said almost irritably. She
didn’t like being cooped up in the tent.

‘Karesh wouldn’t let me help you.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It was clear you were losing. I was going
to try shooting him with my SIGPEW. Karesh stopped me.’

‘Is that where those teeth marks came
from?’

Startled, Karesh covered his forearms.
‘Master,’ he said, ‘if I had let him he would have destroyed the
tribe. You won, it was unnecessary.’ A flash of irritation crossed
his face as he said, ‘I do not want you to die.’

Riley sighed. ‘Alright. Karesh, I want you
to listen to Vann as you would to me. Vann can deal with the
consequences of his choices.’

Karesh frowned but he nodded. ‘Yes,
Master.’

He left soon after. Vann sat down next to
Riley, carefully putting an arm around her.

‘I don’t like it in here.’ she said
grumpily.

‘Look, you can see outside.’ Vann pointed to
the open flap.

‘I want to
go
outside.’

‘Alright.’ Vann replied easily. ‘Go outside
then.’

He got a dark glare for his troubles.

Though Riley was shuffling around outside
her tent in a little over a week, she was by no means recovered.
Her carers would have preferred she stop moving and stay inside,
but that wasn’t likely to happen.

Mostly she was too weak and sore to go far,
so she would sit outside her tent looking grumpy. She soon got the
idea to take over teaching the gemengs Astarian writing and
reading, leaving Aerlid more time to work on his book.

The gemengs were learning a new word for
themselves; Mixed.

From the looks on the faces of her students,
it was clear her teaching had not improved. However, they kept
their views to themselves, she was the Master after all. Vann took
great pleasure in pointing it out to her though.

Slowly, she recovered, and her little walks
around the campsite grew longer. The camp grew slowly during that
time, the gemengs that were not yet with them were much further
away, and not all could be convinced to leave their refuges.

No further action could be taken until she
was better, but she and Vann began to talk about contacting the
humans themselves, as it looked like the humans weren’t going to
find them.

Eventually Riley started hunting again, and
then finally she was declared fit by her carers. Considering she’d
spent the last week hunting with the warriors, Riley didn’t think
much of that proclamation.