Page 54 of The Witch who Trades with Death

Chapter Fifty-Four

The sky stopped its bleeding, going from red to purple to black of night. The whole town held its breath. Khana and her unit stood by the small herd of animals, eyes to the sky. No clouds obscured the stars or half-moon. She counted constellations. She had not killed the animals yet, waiting for the very last minute to preserve as much life force as possible. They grazed on the short, tough grass. Xopil cooed at them, kept them calm and close together. With how well he fought, it was easy to forget that he’d been a farmer all his life.

Haz broke the silence: “Ten coppers says the emperor was bluffing.”

“How are you this bad a gambler?” Lueti laughed.

“Yamueto doesn’t bluff,” Khana replied gravely.

Haz gave her a breezy smile. “I’ll bet that right after he flew off, he realized, ‘Ah, shit, I can’t attack them tonight. I have something else going on.’ And then he got embarrassed, so embarrassed that rather than come back and reschedule with us like an adult, he’s just not going to show up.”

“Sure, Haz. A three-hundred-year-old emperor cares enough about that shit to get embarrassed,” Itehua snorted.

He shrugged. “I see it happen all the time at the inn. People are strange.”

“He never expresses emotions, never mind embarrassment,” Khana said. “He barely even feels them anymore.”

“Maybe that’s how he lives forever,” Itehua suggested. “Traded emotions for long life to the gods, or something.”

Khana bit the inside of her cheek, sharing a look with Haz.

She rubbed the back of her neck, already sore from craning up at the sky. This was going to be a long night. It was an echo of palace life: suspecting that Yamueto would call on her to attend his bed and dreading every moment leading up to it.

“You should’ve brought your lute,” Itehua commented.

“I’m not in the mood to play right now,” she said.

“And we’re on watch, not being idle,” Neta scolded.

Itehua held up his hands. “Just trying to pass the time. Get our mind off things.”

Haz grinned. “You know, if you really want to pass the time, the inn has some of that really strong mead–”

“Haz,” Neta scolded.

“Kidding! Obviously, a special occasion like this calls for vodka.”

“Do you take anything seriously?”

“That is an honor that I only bestow upon people and things that deserve it,” Haz said. “Emperor Asshole and his creepy scare tactics don’t get that level of respect.”

Something shrieked, piercing the night air. Everyone jumped.

“Emperor Asshole’s night creatures, on the other hand…”

“Line up!” Neta ordered.

The war horns blew. Khana swallowed, rushing into the middle of the herd of panicking animals. Xopil barely managed to keep them under control, encouraging them to move around Khana. Another animalistic shriek filled the air, followed by another.

She inhaled, pulling aji from every living thing within spear distance. The animals dropped dead around her. The grass shriveled and blackened. Her skin exploded in blue, yellow, orange, and ebony light.

Another shriek, closer this time. Dark wings fluttered just outside the edge of the town’s fires. Units around them tightened into protective formations and archers readied their bows.

Lueti stepped up to her. Khana set down her spear, grasped her shoulders, and breathed out, hoping it would work, hoping it wouldn’t.

A good chunk of the aji, and Lueti glowed. She grinned and sprinted for town. “Come and get me, you ugly fuckers!”

Yxe quickly stepped up to fill her place, pulling off his yellow wool hat. Khana did the same, and he darted off in the other direction. Neta was next.

Foot soldiers hid under their shields in turtle formations. The smaller winged nightmares joined the shrieking. One smacked into the shields, trying to get at the prey within, and got stabbed with a dozen spears for its efforts. A few others got lucky, able to snatch a soldier, pulling them crying into the sky before tearing them apart or dropping them from fatal heights. The air filled with wings and teeth.

As Khana got Neta glowing, a behemoth shrieked so loud, so close that Khana’s ears rang. The massive creature consumed the night sky, charging down at them.

Neta stepped back, flipped her spear, and threw. It soared farther and faster than any normal human strength could throw it. The projectile went straight through a diving behemoth’s chest, and it plummeted to the ground.

“Poison Dart Frogs, you bastards!” she cheered.

Its rider – not Yamueto – swore and jumped off as the body slid to a halt on the ground. Half a dozen soldiers slumped dead in the saddle, and where the rider’s skin peeked out of his armor, it cast a faint multi-colored glow. He must have absorbed their aji to survive the impact.

Khana charged. The other witch drew a sword and slashed, hitting her shield, but she got close and breathed in. The man choked, tried to reclaim it. But Itehua, Xopil, and Haz backed her up, jabbing him with spears safely out of breath’s reach. It took only seconds for him to die.

“Good work,” Neta cheered, jogging backwards to her route. Her glow was only half as bright now. “Keep going.”

Haz bounced up and down on the balls of his feet. “My turn, my turn!”

Khana had quite a bit more aji now, and she gave the rest of it to the three men in quick succession.

“All right, jerks, get moving,” Itehua ordered, jogging to his route, which would take him to the heart of town. Xopil went toward the Pinnsviri estate.

“Be careful,” Khana urged as Haz started down his own route, toward the inn, of course.

He grinned. “When have I ever not been care–”

A nightmare snatched him, pulling him into the air.

“Haz!” Khana screamed, running after him.

By now at least three other behemoths had landed briefly to deposit their cargoes of soldiers, all carrying flaming torches. The Ghuran foot soldiers, now with an enemy they could reach, attacked with gusto before they could light the fields afire. Sava’s father, Thriman, beheaded a man with a single swipe of his massive sword, while Chief Phramanka watched his back with shield and spear. Sipah, the Pinnsviri guard, clashed with another group of Reguallian soldiers, and got speared through the leg, then the gut.

Khana kept her eyes on the nightmare in the sky as she chased it into town.

Haz twisted, making the nightmare scream, almost like a human in pain. It released him, dropping him eight stories down.

He turned in midair and landed on one knee. That would have broken the leg at best, killed him at worst. But the aji seeped into his body on impact, the multi-colored glow vanishing in a poof.

The sudden kidnapping had left him without a spear, but he held a bloodied knife aloft. He grinned as Khana got close. “Not bad for a first-time witch, huh?”

She gave a breathless laugh, checking him for injuries and finding him thankfully intact.

Every rooftop near the farms was covered in Ghuran archers, shooting at nightmares and behemoths in the darkness. More than one got snatched and torn apart. The behemoths swooped down time and again to grab soldiers – three or four at a time in their talons – and cause chaos in the ranks.

Haz looked up and behind her, and the blood drained from his face.

A behemoth came straight at them. It only had one rider.

“Run!” she ordered, grabbing Haz by the armor and pulling him down the street.

But they couldn’t outrun a winged creature. As it dove down, Khana pulled them to the nearest building and pressed them against the stone walls. Fly past, fly past, fly –

The behemoth landed on the street with a growl, membranous wings scraping against the buildings. Yamueto sat astride its elegant leather saddle and looked right at her. “Idiot girl. Did you really think you could hide?”

Haz gripped her shoulder so tight it’d probably bruise even through the armor. “Oh, go back to your miserable fucking jungle. You don’t want to conquer this kingdom – it gets so cold your tiny balls would freeze off!”

“What are you doing ?” she hissed. Just because Yamueto no longer felt emotion didn’t mean that he tolerated disrespect.

“I’ve had quite enough of your chattering, boy,” Yamueto said, tone so level you’d think he was complaining about tea.

Haz pushed Khana to the side and replaced his knife with his axe. “Run,” he ordered.

Yamueto urged the behemoth forward. This close, Khana could count the tiny hairs on its long face, and the dagger-sized teeth in its mouth as it snapped at them.

Haz drove his axe into its snout.

Sava – somewhere from the rooftops – shouted, “Fire!”

A dozen arrows hissed through the air. Some hit the behemoth. Three hit Yamueto. He grunted at the impact.

Khana gaped. They’d hit him. They’d hit Yamueto .

Snapped out of her stupor, she lurched forward and inhaled, focusing on the behemoth. Yamueto could drain its aji to heal himself, but not if she got there first.

“Fire again!” Sava shouted.

Arrows flew. Two more landed in Yamueto. The behemoth shrieked, deafening Khana, and snapped at the nearest target: Haz.

His shield blocked the attack, the monster’s teeth digging into the layers of leather rather than his arm. He struggled with it, and Khana increased her inhalation of the behemoth’s life force to weaken it. Haz hacked at the straps of his shield while the behemoth jerked him to and fro, then pulled his arm free of the leather. The shield crunched in the creature’s mouth, shredded by its massive teeth.

“Fire!”

More arrows. The behemoth was almost dead, whether by Khana or Sava, she didn’t know. And Yamueto had almost ten arrows sticking out of him. Khana almost laughed. They could do this. They could kill him!

The creature moaned one last time and died. Yamueto slid out of the saddle, knees on the ground.

Haz started to approach, but Khana grabbed his arm. “Don’t get too close!”

“Right. The life force,” he said.

They watched the emperor’s chest rise and fall. “Is he dead?” Sava asked from the rooftop.

Despite her own advice, Khana crept closer. Close enough, barely, to hear Yamueto mutter, “Vigerion, I wish to trade.”

Oh, no.

She grabbed Haz and yanked him back before Yamueto exploded in multi-colored light, so bright it blinded her.

Dammit, Death! Why are you trading with him ?

Khana and Haz scrambled away as Yamueto rolled to his feet, now unbothered by the arrows sticking out of his chest. The two took shelter behind the behemoth’s corpse as Sava’s units unleashed another volley; Khana couldn’t tell how many of them hit.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Of course he was going to trade!

“Only you’re allowed to cheat like that,” Haz complained. Something caught his eye behind her. “Reinforcements.”

He was right: another behemoth flew for them.

“He’s coming to you!” Sava shouted.

Khana grabbed Haz’s hand and ran. They couldn’t fight Yamueto. He was too powerful. There was nothing they could do but run.

Haz stopped with a yelp, hand ripping from hers. She staggered forward a few feet, carried by her momentum, before she managed to turn around.

Yamueto had Haz by the back of the neck.

He tried to escape the way Neta had taught them – swing at the elbow to break the hold, then swing at their face to break the nose. But Yamueto barely flinched when his inner elbow was attacked, still glowing far too bright to have anything less than the strength of twenty men. Haz tried striking him in the face with his axe, but Yamueto blocked it with his hand.

“You are such a cheater ,” he wheezed.

“Haz!” Khana cried.

Yamueto tsked. “Consequences, dear.” And he inhaled.

It barely took longer than a second. Haz stiffened, then went completely limp.

No.

Khana stared, too shocked and terrified to move.

No, I can revive him. I know how. I can do it.

Yamueto stepped toward her, and Khana scrambled back.

An arrow shot him through the eye. He grunted at the impact, stopped in his tracks. The other behemoth landed, its rider calling, “We can’t break through! We need more men, more behemoths!”

The emperor pulled the arrow out of his head only for two more to hit his chest. His eye healed, and still he glowed, but only just, as the archers continued to fire at him, the new behemoth, and its armored rider. At this rate, Yamueto would need to make another deal with Death or drain this new behemoth to survive. Khana continued moving away.

How much does he have left to trade for? she wondered, eyes still on Haz’s limp form. Most of his army is still stuck on the other side of the mountains. Is it worth it for him to continue the attack?

Apparently not.

Yamueto tossed the body – Haz’s body – over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes andjumped right into the behemoth’s saddle behind the rider, covering a distance of ten feet as easily as a child hopping over a pebble.

“Until next time,” he promised. The behemoth snapped its wings, sending wind and dust across the street, and shot into the sky, leaving Khana alone.