CHAPTER 399: 399: THE BATTLE SHIFTED TO ENEMY PART THREE

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They traded looks. Dagger cut. Knuckles. Mace head. Elbow. Knee. Heel. Forehead. Breath. Blood. The circle around them widened and then tightened when an officer shouted at it to hold. The crown hummed, a little dimmer each breath as the fear field bled down on its own timer.

Mardek laughed once, breathless. "Not unbeatable after all," he said. "Good. I like it better when monsters like you bleed."

Kai didn’t answer. He saw Miryam through the gap in Mardek’s shoulder, small in the cage, eyes open now, watching like she was trying to learn how to breathe by copying him. He let her see his mouth shape "I am here" one more time when Mardek’s head turned away for a heartbeat. That was the last soft thing he let himself do.

Mardek drove him back two steps with a flurry that put gray in the edges of his sight. Kai’s foot found the body of a fallen elite and slipped. He bent a knee to keep from going down. The mace caught his shoulder. His arm went numb from wrist to elbow for a heartbeat.

The army ring roared. It had a voice now, seven hundred throats and the scrape of many boots and the hiss of breath that comes before a charge. Officers’ whistles shrilled. Shields thumped.

A shadow slid across the center. Alka’s outline crossed the moon once as she banked to keep above the right place and fought her urge to fall before she was called.

Mardek smelled the change in the army ring and smiled with red teeth. He spat blood to the side and stepped in hard. He feinted high with the dagger, then snapped the mace up from below in a tight arc for Kai’s jaw. If it hit, it would put him down.

A shape fell.

Wings. Wind. Cold.

Alka hit like a thrown anvil. She didn’t hit Mardek. She hit the ground between him and Kai with one clawed foot and ripped a trench two paces long in the sand as she landed. Sand and light exploded up. The shock of it staggered both men. Mardek threw an arm over his face. Kai took a step sideways on instinct. Alka’s beak snapped on empty air where Mardek’s wrist had been. She snapped again. The mace cord whipped and tangled on a claw. Mardek yanked. Alka wrenched. The mace flew. It arced end over end and landed somewhere behind a shield line. A soldier yelled and then laughed, nerves breaking into noise.

"I am here, master!" Alka cried, voice like a bronze bell. She beat her wings once, twice, and rose a body-length. Three stars near her fell on their backs from the gust.

The ring woke all the way. Seven hundred bodies shifted. Seven hundred faces turned in. Seven hundred weapons lifted. The world got small in a hurry.

Azhara slid into the open on Kai’s left with the leash in her fist and her knives high. Her face shone. "Finally," she said, almost laughing. "I was going to chew the leash."

Skyweaver’s shape cut low over the first rank and pulled a scream from a row of men who had not planned to duck that fast. She climbed again, tight spiral as ordered, eyes on everything, waiting for "drop."

Silvershadow did not move. He let three men run right past him, so close their knees brushed his shoulder where he lay in the rope shadow. He held his breath and counted their boot-falls and the time it would take them to turn and return. He touched the knot with two fingers and lifted a finger-width of slack without making a sound. He waited for the now that would be a word.

Mardek took two steps back and lifted his dagger again. "Stand!" he screamed at his own ring, voice cutting across the confusion. "Shields! Defend!" He was angry and afraid and he felt both like a man feels his own skin when a thorn tears it.

He pointed the dagger at Kai. "You are mine," he said, voice shaking with heat. "You will kneel before this night is done. Throw your spear and I will let the child keep her blood inside for another hour."

Kai didn’t lift the spear. He couldn’t have thrown it with aura anyway. He set it butt-down again like a post. He put his body in front of Azhara because she would cut a path to the cage without asking if he let her.

He opened his mouth and gave orders to his own people one more time before the dampening set like stone.

Hold my word, he sent. Azhara — on me. Alka — up now, then orbit. Do not stay low; you will be netted. Skyweaver— spiral, cut eyes, scream when I say. Silvershadow— wait. The word is "now."

The window closed. The system dragged at his bones again.

[Ding! 80%... 35 seconds. Aura disabled. Pain resistance: 50% engaged. Predator Roar field—20%... 15%... Crown projection—steady.]

"So you got helpers. It won’t matter." Mardek saw the flick of Kai’s eyes and misread it. He thought Kai was looking for a way out. He smiled again. He gestured with the dagger at the soldiers pressing in. "Look," he said. "Seven hundred. I will not need them. But they will be here to watch when you beg."

He stepped in and hit Kai across the face with the flat of the blade. A cut opened high on Kai’s cheekbone. He stepped in again and drove his knee into Kai’s gut. The breath left. He followed with a fist to the ear. Sound went white for a blink. He smashed a plate across Kai’s mouth with the hilt. A tooth broke. Kai tasted more iron.

Azhara moved, but Kai put his hand out and she stopped without words. His eyes were on Mardek and only on Mardek.

Mardek used him like a drum for ten blows. He was a practiced beater. He knew how to make pain into the audience. He wanted the ring to see. He wanted the crown to look like a joke made of smoke.