Chapter 44 Nothing Left to Draw

Kessa went toward the horns.

Jin's stomach dropped.

Then she turned sideways and dropped to one knee.

The first horn passed over her shoulder. The second caught her loose sleeve and tore it open.

She cut upward behind the beast's foreleg.

The ramshield stumbled, its shoulder slamming into the wall where she'd been standing.

Kessa rolled clear.

Dessa reached her first, caught the back of her shirt and dragged her beyond the swinging head.

Jin hit the creature's flank with both hands.

He couldn't shove it across the pit.

He could keep it turning for the moment the two women needed.

His boots dug trenches. The ramshield's hot side heaved against his palms.

Kessa got to her feet.

“Let go!”

Jin did.

The tail struck his hip as he fell back. He landed hard enough to knock dust out of his clothes.

Dessa's cleaver came down behind the wounded foreleg.

The limb buckled.

The ramshield dropped on that side, then lurched up on the other three, wrenching the blade from her hand.

It charged sideways with the cleaver still lodged beneath its shoulder.

Dessa jumped clear.

Jin caught her wrist before the next sweep could put her down.

They ran together.

Above them, the crowd had stopped chanting food names.

Jin heard somebody shout for the gate crew.

The ramshield struck the outer wall.

A crack spread up the stone.

It backed away, dragging the wounded leg. Blood made its footing uncertain. That seemed to make it angrier.

“It's going to keep doing that,” Dessa said.

Jin looked at the crack.

Then at the post he'd broken to turn the first beast.

A splintered length lay beside the dropped shield.

“Kessa. Left side. When it turns.”

This copy was taken from the author's official page without their consent; readers can support the work at its source.

She nodded once.

He picked up the timber with both hands.

The wood had felt heavy when he'd brushed past it earlier. Now he could lift its jagged end to shoulder height without dropping his elbows.

He backed toward the wall and waited.

The ramshield looked at him.

Its hooves scraped dirt.

Jin tightened his grip.

“No food?” someone called from the rim, voice too high.

“Having trouble swallowing,” he answered.

The creature charged.

He held until the frill filled his view.

Then he stepped aside and drove the broken end of the post into the open angle beneath its tilted neck.

Wood split further.

The ramshield hit the wall with the beam trapped between stone and flesh.

Its own weight forced the jagged end deeper.

Jin lost his grip and let it go.

Kessa was already moving along the wounded side.

She planted a boot against its rear hock, hauled herself up the flank and caught the ridge behind the frill with her free hand.

Her knife drove into the soft fold above the embedded timber.

The creature heaved.

Jin seized the timber again, forcing it sideways as the head tried to turn toward her.

His arms shook.

The wall groaned behind him.

Kessa pulled the knife across the wound.

Blood ran down the post.

The ramshield tried to back away. Its injured foreleg folded under it.

Kessa dropped clear before the frill hit stone.

The body shuddered once.

Then it dissolved, dropping the timber and Dessa's ordinary cleaver into the dirt.

He put two into Strength, two into Agility and one into Endurance.

The tremor eased in his elbows. He set the timber down before the new strength persuaded him to do something foolish with it.

Dessa picked up her cleaver.

Kessa found the larger half of her bow beside the gate.

She took the broken string off it carefully.

Jin went over.

“I can—”

“Don't offer me money yet.”

He stopped.

She pulled the last loop free, wound the string around her fingers and put it in her pocket.

“Just let me hate it for a minute.”

“All right.”

Dessa sat beside her without speaking.

Jin collected the smaller pieces.

One still had a strip of leather wound around it. The leather was dark where Kessa's fingers had worked it smooth.

She reached for it.

He gave it to her without offering anything else.

“I knew this thing,” she said. “When it rained. When I was tired. Exactly how far it would pull.”

Dessa rested a hand beside hers on the flat stone.

“Keep the grip.”

Kessa pressed her thumb into the worn leather.

“I am.”

Jin put the remaining splinters beside her. His knife felt clumsy at his own hip.

He wanted a useful thing to say. None came.

Kessa wrapped the leather around the saved string, tied it once and tucked the small bundle inside her shirt. Then she stood.

On the rim above them, a boy began to call Fish Cake and was hushed by the woman beside him.

Across the divider, Lark's team stood beneath a green flag. Their two beasts were gone. The netman was wrapping a cut on his calf; the clubman offered him his shoulder.

Lark wasn't looking at the flag.

He was looking at the crack in Jin's wall.

When he caught Jin's eye, he pointed toward the deeper arena beyond the first pits.

Jin followed his finger.

Workers were raising a heavy stone barrier there.

Behind it, something breathed out.

Dust burst from every joint in the barrier at once.