Page 45 of The Witch who Trades with Death

Chapter Forty-Five

Khana sprinted up to Xopil and jumped on his shield.

He lifted her up – she could feel it. But it didn’t matter. The strength of her own legs launched her as if she was a human-sized grasshopper, cracking his shield in the process. She soared through the air, hundreds of feet high.

And it still wasn’t high enough.

She smashed into the wall, sliding down the rock until she stopped at a ledge just wide enough to stand on. She dropped her spear to cling to the stone. Coughing up dust, Khana looked up.

All the archers stared down at her.

They aimed their bows.

She held up her shield just in time, cursing herself. She was too far down – ten to twenty feet, at least – to breathe in their aji. She could conceivably climb her way up, but that would leave her exposed the whole way. Since she had used all of her glow just to get here, that would spell her death. Gods, she was such an idiot for thinking she could do this.

I’ll have to trade again, she thought. She opened her mouth to say the words…

Fire raced across her vision. Dozens of arrows arched over her head. Rather than going at various targets along both walls like they’d been doing since the battle began, all of them concentrated on the archers attacking Khana. The Reguallian archers stopped firing at her, some ducking for cover, some killed by fire and steel.

Thank you, Sava, Khana thought. She put her shield on her back and climbed.

Sava must have paced out his archers, holding half of them back, because a second volley of fire arched over her head much faster than his company’s usual intervals. They all went to the same spot: the ledge Khana was climbing toward. One arrow smacked into the wall by her ear, making her yelp. The fire flickered on the padded shaft.

Khana froze, realizing just how high up she was. How easy it would be for one of the Ghuran arrows to stray and hit her. She had no magic in her. If she got hit or fell, that was it. She was dead.

“Keep going, froggy!” Haz hollered.

The dumb nickname made her roll her eyes, the fear and adrenaline making her giddy. It got her limbs moving, and she resumed climbing.

Sava unleashed another volley, thankfully without hitting her. A nightmare swung close to her back but was shot down before it could reach her. By the time one of the Reguallian archers approached the ledge to look down at her, Khana was close enough to breathe him in.

The archer pulled back before she could kill him, but she had enough of that beautiful life force to finish the last three feet of the climb in a single jump.

Not her best idea, though. She managed to snatch the top of the rock wall with her fingertips, but there were no footholds. Gravity twisted its fingers around her as her feet scrambled for purchase. Panicked and desperate, she breathed in any life around her.

Light bloomed across her skin. Strength roared through her blood. Using nothing but her fingers, she launched herself up and over the edge, landing awkwardly on her side and rolling.

“Ha!” she cheered. She’d done it. She was up!

The archers were not nearly as happy. At least forty of them stood on this wall alone – three of them already dead at Khana’s feet. Arrows notched and aimed right at her.

Khana turned at the last second, almost falling right back off the ledge as dozens of arrows hit the shield on her back. One grazed the side of her head, dragging a line of blood across her temple before disappearing into the night and battle below.

As they reached for their next volley, Khana turned and charged.

Though the front line tried to scramble back, they were too slow. Khana breathed in and watched their bodies drop like grass before a breeze. A few archers closer to the back managed to get a few shots in, some of them even hitting her. The pain made her pause and stagger, and she pulled out the arrows to conserve life force. But she glowed brighter than the moon, and within minutes, every archer on the rock wall was dead at her feet.

Khana smirked.

Then screamed again when another arrow hit her behind the knee.

The archers from the wall across the ravine had noticed her.

She dragged the arrow out of her leg, the agony pulling a punched whimper from her throat. She removed the shield from her back and hid behind it while she caught her breath, too raw to do anything else. The shield had been hit by so many arrows at this point that a few of the shafts managed to stay in the leather, making her look like a porcupine.

Ew. She never wanted to be compared to that animal.

She checked on the battle below. The entire ravine was filled with imperial soldiers, pushing and jostling each other. The front line at the lip of the ravine still contested fiercely; Khana didn’t think it’d moved more than a few feet in either direction. There were so many corpses that the Ghura were using them to build a wall to further prevent the Reguallians from entering the valley. Sava had re-directed his archers to concentrate on the night creatures in the sky, and they were much more successful without counter attacks from Reguallian archers.

Her knee finally stopped throbbing. The armor Amati had so kindly given her was covered in holes and soaked in blood, all of it her own. That woman was going to throw a fit in whatever afterlife she’d ended up in.

The archers on the other wall fired another volley at her, trying to get behind or over her shield. What if I just stayed here? she wondered. She was drawing the enemy fire, which was what Neta wanted. And the thought of risking another hit, of getting so much as nicked by a blade, made her shudder.

One of the archers turned away from her and shot his arrow at the Ghura below. A second archer followed suit, and another.

I guess not.

She drew her axe from her belt, guaged the distance of the other wall against the glow of her skin, deemed it sufficient, and – as they reached for more arrows – jumped across the chasm.

This time her aim was much better, and she slammed right into an archer. Before he could pick himself off the ground, she’d pulled the life out of him.

One by one the archers fell, either to her magic or her axe. Many dropped their bows and ran. With her shield in front of her this time, she’d even managed to avoid being hit. Soon, the top of the wall was completely clear of life.

She glanced down at the Reguallian foot soldiers again. Many of them focused ahead, trying to push through to the valley, but some had noticed her, staring with wide-eyed fear.

It was… odd. Part of her sympathized; she had worn that very expression for six years in the Reguallian palace. She even wanted them to make it out alive, to just turn around and run away.

The other part relished their terror.

They’re here to kill your friends, it said. Kill them first.

She dropped into the chasm.

The second her feet touched the ground, the soldiers slunk back. The ones who could run, did. Several others tried to rush past her and lost most – if not all – of their life force.

For a moment, she enjoyed it.

Then she heard someone order, “Drop the rocks!” followed by a rumbling.

The rock walls shook. The Reguallian soldiers screamed and pushed even more desperately. Something like thunder sounded from deep in the mountain path.

It’s a trap, she realized, and ran.

The doomed Reguallians blocked the way on the ground, but no matter. Remembering Xopil’s line game trick, she jumped onto one’s shoulder and ran on top of the men, bouncing from shoulder to helmet to rock wall. Like a desperate, glowing frog.

By now she could make out exactly what the Reguallian men were screaming, crying, begging: “Let us out! Let us out!”

She flew over their heads until she was out. She dropped and landed hard behind the Ghuran line, her momentum rolling her forward until she was face-first in the dirt.

She cringed as the screams cut off; the bodies squished under the weight of hundreds of boulders. The Ghura scrambled back, clearing the site of the avalanche. Eventually, the rocks stopped coming, and there was nothing but dust in the air.