Page 64 of The Witch who Trades with Death
Chapter Sixty-Four
Sava
Sava had never been as tired as he was in that moment. The witch had drained all life and vivacity from him.
Yet he’d never been so angry.
The witch walking in front of him had Athicha slung over his shoulder, their arms and beaded hair dangling down his back.
“Athicha,” he whispered. “ Athicha .”
One of the witches smacked him. “No talking.”
Sava gritted his teeth. He was on his own.
The guards took them outside, into the warm night air. They had walked through the whole town to get to the flimsy wooden building at the foot of the mountains, the entire rest of the town/military camp stretched below.
“Don’t we have a dungeon?” one of the witches complained.
“No, the emperor doesn’t keep prisoners long enough. But we’ve got chains and stakes.”
The ones carrying the unconscious Poison Darts set them down on the grass and went to get what they needed. Xopil still had Sava’s bow and quivers in the bag on his back, just a few feet away.
Sava’s two guards set him down and glared at him. Much as he wanted to face his fate on his own two feet, he couldn’t. He could barely sit upright.
“What were you thinking?” one of them demanded. “The emperor is descended from the gods of death! You can’t win.”
His friend frowned. “I thought he was chosen by the gods.”
“They chose him because he’s descended from them.”
“No, I heard he’d proven himself in battle, so they chose him to be immortal.”
He rolled his eyes. “He was born immortal, you idiot. Because he’s descended from immortals.”
“If gods slept with mortals, there’d be a bunch of immortals running around!”
“They don’t sleep with just any mortal.”
“Who’s his mother then?”
“I don’t know! Some pretty face.”
“What does it matter?” Sava grumbled. “He’s a monster.”
One of the soldiers punched him, sending him sprawling on the grass. “Shut your mouth.”
Blinking the pain from his eyes, Sava turned and spat out a mouthful of blood. A plan formed in his mind. “You want to talk about gods? Khana sees and talks to one of them. The goddess of death.”
One guard snorted, but the other looked intrigued.
“She used a deal with a goddess of death to escape your emperor the last time,” he continued. “She’ll do it again.”
“You’re lying.”
“No, no, let him talk,” the other insisted.
Sava shook his head, letting his eyes fall closed. The grass was a very odd, somehow soft and spiky cushion for his head. “Said she knew how to kill the emperor…”
“What? How?”
He didn’t respond, pretending to drift to sleep. It wasn’t hard.
Someone slapped him. He moved with it but didn’t open his eyes.
“He’s not going to wake up. We took too much saviza.”
“He said she knew how to kill the emperor.”
“He was bluffing!”
“How do you know? If he’s telling the truth, then we need to know about it.”
“Ugh. Fine. Get him on his feet, and we’ll question him.”
“With what, my life force?”
“You’re the one who wants to hear what he has to say.”
“Can’t we use one of the servants? Or infantry? You! Get over here.”
Footsteps hurried closer, whispering on the grass. Sava bottled up his frustration. If he was careful, he could take all three of them.
“Yes sir?”
“I need some of your life force.”
“Sir, please, I have another six hours in my shift…”
He was cut off as the witch inhaled sharply. Then suddenly a jolt of energy rushed through Sava. He jumped, opening his eyes.
The witch – no longer glowing – snapped his fingers. “You back with us?”
Sava groaned, testing himself. He wasn’t completely recovered, rather feeling like he had run a few miles in a blizzard. But he could work with it.
The two witches loomed over him, their armor thicker and more intricate than the poor foot soldier they’d stolen from.
“What?” he grumbled, rubbing his eyes. The handle of a knife winked at him from the witch’s belt.
“You were talking about the traitor. How you planned to kill the emperor?”
“Right, right… it’s…” He went into mumbling, letting his eyes drift closed.
“What?” The witch leaned closer, almost touching their foreheads.
“Wait, I think he’s–”
Sava snatched the knife and drove it into the witch’s neck.
He rolled through a waterfall of blood as the witch fell. His friend yelled, drawing a sword. Sava got up to a crouch and threw the knife straight through the witch’s eye.
As neither witch glowed, they both succumbed to their injuries, and did not get back up again. The infantryman gaped at the carnage, terrified, before Sava tackled him. There couldn’t be any witnesses.
They rolled and scrambled along the ground, bumping against Itehua as they scratched at each other’s faces and necks. Sava had the extra protection and weight of the prince’s ridiculous metal armor, rendering his opponent’s attacks useless. He managed to get on top and get his hands around the man’s throat. The soldier beat against Sava’s arms, but it didn’t even leave a bruise. Eventually, he stopped struggling.
Sava kept squeezing for another moment before letting go, making sure the soldier was dead. He dragged himself to his feet, collecting his bow and quivers from Xopil’s unconscious form.
He checked everyone’s pulse, starting with Athicha, breathing a sigh of relief as one after the other proved alive. Yamueto’s witches had immaculate control…
Except for one.
Lueti wasn’t breathing, and she didn’t have a pulse.
He shoved that problem aside for now, focusing on the much bigger issue. He was alone in enemy territory, and he needed help.
“How do I get you all up?” he muttered. He needed Khana. He wanted Khana. She was being tortured by a puppet with Haz’s face. He had to get her out of that hell immediately –
He wouldn’t be able to get to her. Not without the surviving Poison Darts on their feet. But the corpses he’d just made complicated things, and there was no way he could convince any of the empire’s witches to revive all of them…
I can get one, he thought.
He put the helmet over his head, silently apologized to the others, and started for Athicha.
He paused. His best friend was an excellent soldier, but what he needed was a strategist.
He changed course and hauled Neta over his shoulders, along with her stolen sword. He’d noticed a few people marked by elite witch armor at the behemoths’ stables. Hopefully they hadn’t heard about him being an imposter yet.
Sava got a few odd looks as he speed-walked to the behemoth stables. The quicker he did this, the sooner he got Khana back. He was breathing hard when he found someone in the right armor and pointed to them. “You! You a witch?”
“Uh, yes, Your Highness,” he stammered.
The power of confidence and the right uniform was a wonderful thing.
“Good,” Sava said. “Get some saviza and come with me.”
The witch turned to a few random people on the street: two soldiers and a civilian. “You three. On me.”
Sava went into the nearest building, which turned out to be a bakery connected to a small house. The family was asleep until he barged down the door. He tried not to feel guilty as the children immediately cowered and their father – unshaven and bulky – got between him and them, bowing his head. “Sir prince?”
“Out. All of you.”
They obeyed.
Sava laid Neta on one of the beds – really just blankets on the wooden floor – as the witch returned glowing brighter than the stars. “Revive her,” Save ordered, quietly pulling a knife.
The witch pressed a hand to Neta’s chest, and the glow transferred from him to her. She jerked awake, and Sava shoved the knife into the witch’s neck, stabbing him repeatedly until he went down and stayed down.
“That didn’t go well,” Neta grumbled, sitting up. “Where are we?”
He told her everything that had happened, stressing that Athicha was alive (which made her relax a bit), Haz was a night creature (which made her swear), and that Lueti was dead (another swear).
She huffed. “We can’t go back there. The two of us will get slaughtered.”
“Maybe you didn’t hear me,” he gritted out. “Khana is being tortured. By Haz.”
“And there’s nothing we can do about it,” she snapped back. “Not alone.”
“Then what can we do?”
She glanced out the door, then smirked. “What Itehua suggested. Start burning shit down.”