In Her Name: The Last War (129 page)

“Beautiful and brilliant.” He grinned as Valentina blew him a kiss before turning to Steph and the black man, who had the look about him of someone who’d been in the military, and began to tell them what she’d learned. 

Steph made her pause for a moment, then took the vidcam gear from Valentina and put it on Allison. Then she aimed Allison’s gaze toward Mills, and he shot her a few blinks with the laser. 

The girl put her hands to her face and burst into tears. But when she took her hands away a moment later, he could see that they were tears of joy, and her mouth kept forming his name. 

Then Steph took the vidcam gear from Allison and put it back on herself. She gave Mills the thumbs-up sign as Allison gathered the other children around her and began to tell them what was happening, her hands gesticulating wildly. All of them turned to look toward the woods. Toward him.

“Hang in there, sweeties.” Mills prayed the fleet would be on time, and that he could contact them. “Just a few more hours.”

* * *

“We’ve got to make sure everyone knows,” Valentina told Jackson. “Mills thinks that when the fleet arrives, the Kreelans will be distracted. When that happens, he’s going to try to contact the fleet to let them know where we are. That’s his first priority. Then he’s going to take down as many of the warriors along the back fence as he can.”

“Then we make a break for it,” Jackson finished for her. He looked around at the people who were still crowded fearfully at the back of the compound. “I don’t know how far we’ll get with this many warriors guarding us, but it’s better than being slaughtered like cattle.”

As he spoke, there was a sudden spike in the volume of the nearby Kreelans watching the arenas. Then the huge gong sounded again, and the warriors instantly fell silent.

“Uh-oh.” Steph wasn’t sure what the silence meant, but doubted it was anything good.

“Get the children back.” Valentina took Allison’s hand and pulled her toward the rear of the enclosure. As she approached the people at the edge of the crowd, she shouted, “Let the children move to the back!”

“Go to hell.” A well-muscled man who stood a head taller than Valentina gave her the finger. 

She stepped closer, still holding Allison’s hand, and stabbed her free hand, flattened like a blade, into his throat in a lightning-fast thrust. It was a blow that could easily have killed him, but she only intended to make a point. Literally. He collapsed to the ground, gagging. “Let the children through!” “Now!”

Those nearby, many of whom looked at the man with undisguised contempt, stepped aside and offered welcoming hands to help the children. 

“No!” Allison begged as Valentina tried to guide her after the younger children. “I want to stay with you!”

“Allison,” Valentina told her, kneeling down to look Allison in the eyes, “you can’t. What I have to do now...”

“Look!” Steph pointed toward the gate. Everyone looked up.

The warriors who had taken the people earlier had returned. To everyone’s shock, one of the men who’d been taken in the first group was with them. He was bloody and battered, but alive.

The gates opened, and they marched in, stopping just inside. One of them motioned for the man to continue inside, and as one the warriors bowed their heads as he moved through their ranks and into the relative freedom of the compound. 

The warriors remained where they were.

Valentina waited to make sure the warriors weren’t going to rush forward to seize more victims before she ran to where the man collapsed under the nearest shelter. Steph and Jackson were right behind her. As was Allison.

The rest of the crowd hung back, still fearful of being taken by the warriors.

“What happened?” Valentina asked the man, who was slim and wiry, his head clean-shaven. Steph rushed over from where she had grabbed a container of water in another shelter and handed it to the man, who drank from it greedily. 

“They made us fight,” he explained after chugging down half the water. He had a gash in his scalp and a set of puncture wounds in his left side. Valentina pulled out her medical kit and began applying an antibacterial salve to the wounds as he went on, “It’s one on one, to the death. No point in trying to run. If you don’t fight, they just kill you and bring up someone else.”

“What style of combat are they using?” Jackson asked grimly.

The man laughed. “You choose your own poison, Swords, knives. Other stuff I don’t have a name for. Just hands and feet if you like, I suppose. But no guns or anything like that.”

“What did you do?”

“I used a knife.” He grinned. “That’s what I was in for.”

“What do you mean?” Valentina asked.

“Prison. I was in for murder. Stabbed a guy. Did the same thing to that warrior bitch in the arena, although she put up more of a fight.” He shrugged. “Sort of ironic, huh?”

“I guess you could say that.” Valentina accepted the cold logic of it. A killer would stand the best chance of surviving against the Kreelans. In this war there wasn’t much of a distinction between killers such as Mills and herself, and a murderer such as this man. Their fight was for more than morality or justice, it was for the survival of the human race. “I can’t say that you’ve atoned for your sins, my friend,” she said as she finished with the first aid kit, “but it certainly didn’t hurt.”

“They’re waiting.” Steph eyed the warriors, who stared back. The leader stepped forward, a hand on the handle of her sword.

Valentina stood up and looked at them, then at the mass of people muttering nervously behind her. She held up her hand to the warriors, hoping they’d understand, before moving close enough to the crowd that they could hear her. 

“I need volunteers,” she shouted. “People who can fight hand to hand. The fleet will arrive in a few hours, and we’ve got to buy some time. If you fight and win,” she gestured toward the former inmate who gave them a wave, “you’ll get to live.”
At least for a while
, she thought darkly, doubting that the Kreelans would simply let go any survivors. “If we don’t choose to fight, they’ll choose for us!” 

A young man, deeply tanned and with shoulders as broad as Mills, stepped forward. Then two more. A woman moved up from behind the front row. Then more. 

There was hope now, Valentina knew, seeing the determination in their eyes. Most of those who stepped forward had been fighting the Kreelans since the invasion began.

Valentina took the first nineteen volunteers, then turned and strode toward the warriors, pausing momentarily to talk to Steph. “Get as many of the others as you can organized into groups of twenty for when the warriors come back.” Looking at the survivor of the first round, she added, “Hopefully we’ll do a bit better than one out of twenty.”

“God, Valentina,” Steph said, squeezing Valentina’s hand. “Be careful.”

“Don’t go.” Allison threw her arms around Valentina. “Please.”

Valentina gently pushed Allison away and put a hand on the girl’s cheek. “This is the only way we have any control over this. And I have no intention of dying. Not today.” 

She leaned forward and kissed Allison on the forehead. Then she turned and looked toward the woods where Mills lay hidden. 

“I’ll be back.” She waved at him before turning away and leading the others to where the Kreelans stood waiting.

CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

Ku’ar-Marekh watched as the next group of humans was brought forth. She noted that the female human warrior, the one who was of special interest to her, was in this group. 

She was pleased, or as close to being so as her empty heart allowed. Ku’ar-Marekh also saw that this group of humans, led by the dark-haired female, whose gaze was fixed on Ku’ar-Marekh, walked with heads held high, clearly proud and showing no fear. They carried themselves like warriors, come to do battle, and were not mere beasts waiting to be slaughtered like most of the animals in the first group.

Around the arenas, the gathered warriors who awaited their turn to fight the humans were quiet in respect, curious as to how this group of opponents would fare.

Warriors gestured for the humans to divide into five groups of four and guided them to the arenas, with the dark-haired female stepping forward onto the sands of the central one. She barely took her eyes from Ku’ar-Marekh.

The first challengers of each of the other groups moved into the other arenas to face the warriors who awaited them on the bloodied sands.

While the priestess could have taken this challenge for herself, a junior warrior had already been chosen by the lottery, and Ku’ar-Marekh would not dishonor her by claiming first right of combat. 

Instead, she watched with cold eyes as the warrior, Ayan-Ye’eln, strode toward the human, then gestured toward the table where the weapons were arrayed.

The human glanced at the table, then turned to face the young warrior. Shaking her head in a gesture Ku’ar-Marekh had come to understand as a sign of negation, she raised her hands toward Ayan-Ye’eln, then clenched them into fists.

Tooth and claw.

Interesting
, Ku’ar-Marekh thought to herself as Ayan-Ye’eln, understanding the human’s intent, bowed her head in acceptance. 

With a brief glance at Ku’ar-Marekh, the young warrior began to remove her armor, placing it carefully on the table beside the weapons arrayed there. In a moment she wore only the black garment that formed the under-layer for the armor. 

She strode back to her place near the dais, then turned toward the human, flexing her hands, her black talons glittering in the sun.

The greater honor is yours, child
, Ku’ar-Marekh thought approvingly. Ayan-Ye’eln was trying to even the odds for the human as best she could by removing her armor, something that was never demanded by tradition.

The human moved forward, coming to stand a few paces away from Ayan-Ye’eln, but her attention remained on Ku’ar-Marekh.

The priestess returned the human’s gaze as she again raised her arms, signaling her warriors to kneel and render their salutes.

Then Ku’ar-Marekh once more spoke the words that preceded every Challenge.

“As it has been,” she said, her voice carrying across the five arenas and the
Kalai-Il
, “and so shall it always be, let the Challenge begin.”

“In Her Name,” the warriors echoed once more, excitement plain in their voices, “let it be so.”

* * *

Valentina listened as the lead warrior on the dais at the center of the arena spoke, then the other warriors answered in unison. 

As they finished speaking, the huge gong sounded again and the warriors rose to their feet.

Unlike with the first group of human victims, when the Kreelans had immediately broken out in a huge uproar at the sound of the gong, this time they remained quiet. 

They know we’re different
, Valentina thought, sensing their curious anticipation.
We’re not lambs to the slaughter. Not this time.

The warrior opposing her turned side-on with one hand extended forward and the other back, both with fingers spread. Her nails, vaguely similar to the claws of a bird of prey like an eagle that Valentina had seen once on Earth, glistened, and Valentina knew they were incredibly sharp. 

Have to watch those
, Valentina cautioned herself. She knew she could have chosen one of the many weapons arrayed on the table when she entered the arena, but decided not to. She had plenty of experience with knives and had trained with swords in various styles, but for one on one combat, the weapons she knew best were those that were already part of her body. 

She suspected that the opposite was true for her opponent. Everything Valentina had read and seen during her brief time here indicated that the Kreelans greatly preferred edged weapons in combat. While hand to hand fighting wasn’t unheard of in combat reports, it was rare.

She hoped fighting hand to hand without weapons would help achieve her main goal, which was to draw out the fight as long as she could. She felt confident she could kill the warrior quickly if she wanted to, but the longer the fights went on, the fewer people would have to set foot in the arenas before the fleet arrived.

She stood still, her body relaxed but ready, waiting for the warrior to attack.

* * *

Ku’ar-Marekh watched as Ayan-Ye’eln lunged at the human, trying to grab the animal with her leading hand before impaling her with the talons of her trailing hand. It was a basic attack that typically worked well against the humans, who seemed universally afraid of the talons of the warriors.

The priestess was impressed with the speed of the attack, but was more impressed with the human’s response. In a smooth motion, the human animal sidestepped Ayan-Ye’eln’s strike. 

Then with one hand the human grasped the warrior’s leading arm, immobilizing it, before slamming the elbow of her free arm into Ayan-Ye’eln’s head. 

That probably would have been enough to put the dazed warrior on the ground, but in a seamless continuation of the elbow strike, the human wrapped that arm around Ayan-Ye’eln’s head, twirled her halfway around, and flipped her backwards onto the ground in a spray of sand.

It was a fluid, beautiful move, the likes of which Ku’ar-Marekh had never seen.

The human, who clearly hadn’t even exerted herself, backed away a few paces as the young warrior fought to regain her senses.

A roar went up from the gathered warriors, not of anger, but of approval. Like Ku’ar-Marekh, none of them had ever seen such a fighting style, and they knew that whoever bested this human, who was clearly a formidable warrior, would bring great glory to the Empress.

That honor shall be mine
, my children, Ku’ar-Marekh thought, for she did not believe that any of the warriors here could beat the human in a fair match. 

Ayan-Ye’eln got to her feet, and with a roar of anger charged the human again.

* * *

Valentina continued to spar with the warrior, who became increasingly frustrated at her inability to inflict even the slightest injury on her human opponent.