“Come any closer and we’ll see who plays nice,” Marya spat.
Past the sneering and bloodied poacher, Hamasa watched as Valerius drove his elbow into the other man’s chest, only to then grunt and fall forward as the woman slammed a crossbow across his back.
Hamasa’s attention snapped back to the man with the club standing right in front of him. Almost negligently, the sap arced through the air and the knife in Marya’s hand clattered to the ground. She clutched at her wrist with a bitten off shout, and Hamasa dropped, cheek to stone, as the sap whizzed over his head. He kicked at the man’s knees, only for him to move away easily and kick at Hamasa’s stomach, a lot more successfully than Hamasa’s flailing. He gasped, tears springing into his eyes at the pain. By all the Sun’s light, he hated pain. He was so weary of it.
Fingers dug into his hair, pulling him up, and Hamasa snarled, lashing out with his fingernails. They scored across a stubbly, sooty cheek, dragging up welts over the sunken expanse of the man’s thin face. Hamasa dropped back to the ground with a loud curse from the man, and he stared at his hand, eyes wide and lips shaking.
He had… he had done that. He’d tried to…
A boot cracked against his ribs and Hamasa gagged, bursting into messy, silent sobs against the stone. He’d… he could’ve… He didn’t even feel the next kick.
Though, maybe that was because Marya had let out a warrior’s scream and leapt on the man. Looking up through blurry eyes and wetly tangled lashes, Hamasa stared as Marya grabbed each side of the sap and tucked it under the man’s chin, shouting wordlessly as she yanked it back, hard, against his throat. His fist connected with her cheekbone, but she merely growled like the jaguar she’d tried to free, tightened her short, bow legs around the man’s waist, and yanked again with all her considerable strength. His head snapped back under the sap, there was a sickening crack. And his legs gave out, his knees smacked to the stone, and he slumped back, Marya falling to the ground under him with a wheeze and groan.
Hamasa crawled over and, with shaking hands, pushed the dead body away. Marya stared up at him, black eyes too wide and her face ashen under her tan. Slowly, he helped her sit up and she looked down at her hand. The one still clutching the sap in a white-knuckled grip. With a small, quiet cry, she dropped it. They watched it clatter and then roll a short length away.
“I did that,” Marya whispered. Even though the shadow spell was gone, her voice was reedy, thin. Nothing like Marya. There was a loud thud, a broken off shout.
“Valerius?” Hamasa gasped, spinning around.
The knight was already tying the two others back to back in a complicated series of knots. Both unconscious. Another shadowy lumped showed where the first poachers was left lying and tied up alone. Valerius met Hamasa’s eyes across the room. Then, he glanced towards Marya, who was still staring at the dead man near her toes.
“Finish the job,” Valerius said, voice clear and echoing. Emotionless.
Marya flinched as if struck and sniffled. “He’s right. They might come back. Dunno if the Salvatropas are out there yet,” she said grimly. She hesitated only a second before picking the sap back up again. The heavily weighted end of it was banded in iron. A lot easier to use than a knife hilt.
Hamasa looked back at Valerius. The knight nodded once and picked up a dagger. The same dagger that had almost stabbed Hamasa earlier. He swallowed hard and crouch-walked his way back to the lohas’ cages. Which were swinging open. The chanaces were nowhere to be seen, and the jaguar was already gone. Marya looked around wildly, her hand on the top of its cage.
“Let out the monkeys, Marya. The jaguar is safe,” Hamasa said, his smile weak and trembling. Marya blinked at him, and slowly returned the smile, though it didn’t reach her eyes.
“All right.” In the next second, she began to pound on the lock as the monkeys screeched sleepily.
Hamasa crawled to the last cage, where the páhalebra waited with golden eyes and drooping wings. “Hello, friend,” he whispered. It nodded, feathers rustling.
He reached for the lock, braced for the lightning, and gritted his teeth through it. Heat against fire might be inelegant, but heat against lightning was painful. A thousand cuts against his palm, and the heat make the blade dull rather than sharp. Not exactly helpful. As hot as he could make his skin, this was pushing the limits, edging up against a fine line between what was natural and too much. Deep inside his chest, there was a wound. An emptiness. And he was poking at it, prodding it, threatening to rip it a little bit deeper, wider. And then the spell on the lock burned with a eye-searing flash and the iron melted with ringing drips to the floor. He tugged the padlock off and the páhalebra slithered from its cage.
In awe, Hamasa watched it wend and wind its way through the air, stretching its full wingspan. The torchlight limned its scales, showing how subtly beautiful its deep blueish green body truly was. Tiny, clawed fingers tugged at his ears, his hair, and a loha fluttered right in front of his face, distracting him from the páhalebra. The tiny vain things always wanted all the attention, and Hamasa laughed, wincing and hissing as they inspected him closely.
“Too small, it doesn’t fit, where are your wings, poor thing,” they chattered and giggled at him, all their voices melding together inseparably.
His laugh broke off.
“Hamasa? What are they doing?” Marya asked, creeping closer. She had an armful of drowsing monkeys, their long golden brown tails falling over her arms like untied obi.
“They’re doing what they do best. Teasing,” Hamasa said with a quiet sigh. They all chittered giddily, one so close to his ear he flinched. They also liked to bite, and who knew when their little bit of restraint would end.
“Should I… help?” Valerius asked uncertainly from somewhere behind Hamasa.
“No, it’s fine. They’ll get bored—oh,” Hamasa broke off as the long, sinuous páhalebra draped gracefully around him. The lohas scattered, hissing their annoyance and inventive curses that made him very glad Marya couldn’t understand them. The páhalebra’s wings fluttered, Hamasa’s hair dancing and his eyes squinting against unsettled dust. After a long, silent moment of those golden eyes gazing at him, the páhalebra slowly, deliberately, raised its jaw.
Páhalebras looked like serpents, but they were armored like dragons, with thick scales that were deceptively supple and sleek. The only weak spot, the spot that could kill them, was just behind the jaw, where the scales were truly thin and smaller than Hamasa’s smallest toenail. The scales there were a brighter, bluer blue than any where else, and, when he placed his shaking fingers there, warm. Incredibly warm. His nails scraped gently. The páhalebra dropped its head and gazed at Hamasa.
He swallowed hard and slowly lifted his chin. Needle-like teeth pressed to his throat and those wings spread wide. Hamasa shuddered, eyes closing against the sting of more tears. This pain wasn’t physical like before. It was longing.
And then the páhalebra was gone, undulating through the air like the Storm Dragons of old Empire.
“What… in the name of the Sovereign was that?” Marya demanded.
“It said thank you.” Hamasa got to his feet and dusted off the knees of his trousers. “If they’re not back already, then the cabadonas must be outside waiting for us.”
“We can only hope. No one planned for a sudden fire,” Valerius said dryly. Hamasa’s ears burned and he ducked his head.
“I w-was improvising…”
“Some improvising. How’d you get the fire that big so fast?! And what spell melts locks? You gotta teach me that one!” Marya said with a wide grin. “That’s useful.”
“It is,” Hamasa agreed edgily.
Valerius hefted the lone poacher over a shoulder and grabbed the other two where they were tied together to drag them up the ramp. He got a few paces, Marya and Hamasa right behind him and Hamasa wondering how he could help as his vision went spotty and his balance wobbled, when the sound of footsteps echoed down from the corridor. Valerius’ feet slid over stone, his stance widening and lowering, and raised the long dagger he had apparently decided to keep. Next to Hamasa, Marya raised her stolen sap, expression set and pale.
A vaguely familiar woman with a shaven head and blue wren tattoo stepped into view.
“Well, looks like you did clean up. Good job, Señor Lance,” the woman said with a mocking grin complete with an Imperial salute—a double-tap of her fist to her heart.
Valerius scowled, his stance dropping with the dagger. “Your help is unnecessary.”
“I see that now. Though, leaving a body to rot in here is bad for the magic,” the woman—no, cabadona—said after a quick look around. Marya stiffened at Hamasa’s side, a tiny click in her throat audible only to her and him. “Gotta let the forest have that.”
Valerius grunted and dragged the unconscious poachers up the ramp. The cabadona made just enough room to let him pass, grinning when one of the prisoners groaned. Hamasa and Marya hurried after him, suddenly desperate to be anywhere else but there.
“Too bad his face is always like that. He’d be good breeding stock otherwise,” the cabadona said with a rather over dramatic sigh.
“Only if ‘good breeding stock’ means a pain in the butt,” Marya muttered darkly.
“I’m pretty sure that was a joke, Marya. Cabadonas don’t actually steal men for breeding,” Hamasa told her, shrugging a shoulder awkwardly. He didn’t know why his skin suddenly felt too small.
“Huh. Well, he does fight good. Let one get past him, but he didn’t even have a weapon. Would be nice to fight like that,” Marya said, her voice dropping low and pained. She looked down at her armful of monkeys. “I hated ‘em, all of them, for hurting these little guys and all those others. But I didn’t think… I didn’t think I could kill someone so easy.”
Hamasa glanced over at her. All the torches were behind them, and with nightfall outside there wasn’t any stray sunlight to help see her expression. But he didn’t think he needed to.
“You did it because you had to. You helped me, maybe saved me, pretty sure my ribs were one more kick from broken. You were brave,” Hamasa said softly. He reached out to pat her shoulder, affectionate and brief, as she often did for him. There was a quiet sniffle, but she didn’t disagree. “Thank you, Marya. Is your wrist…?”
“Ay, it’s still sore. I couldn’t even lift one of these little guys with it, but I’ll be fine in no time. Just need a wrap. Oh, mirda, my shovel,” Marya groaned, head tilting back. “Maybe that Salvatropa will bring it back up with the rest of the stuff?”
“I’m sure she will,” Hamasa reassured her, patting her shoulder one more time.