Lightning Only Strikes Once - Clexa

Chapter 103: On Thin Ice

Clarke tries to think about her options.

Okay, she's looking down the business end of a lot of arrows. The way out of the cave is blocked by multiple rows of vicious looking gona. She's huddled in a corner with the others, hands raised.

Option one: attack with a sword. She can use Ontari's sword hanging at her waist, or she can grab Lexa's off the ground and surprise them. Of course, she'll be shish-kebabed in seconds if she tries this.

Option two: attack with a bow. Get Costia's one off Lexa's back, along with an arrow, and a string – who is she kidding? She doesn't even know how to string a bow. She'll get shish-kebabed.

Option three: get Raven to pass her a grenade. They have three, after all. Then she can throw it at their attackers... who will deflect it back towards them. When something comes flying through the air that's the natural response, after all. They might knock it aside with their sword or their arm, but either way, whatever she throws could end up anywhere in this cave, and that's not a story that ends well.

Plus, raising her arm to throw? Will get her shish-kebabed.

All right. Maybe she doesn't have options. Maybe her only option is to wait for a better opportunity. No doubt that's why Lexa's going along with this.

Assan takes several steps so that he's in front of Clarke, right next to Lexa. As she watches he reaches down for his sword as subtly as possible, hand trembling, probably about to try some foolish and suicidal attack on the enemy to defend his Heda. One of the gona makes a tutting noise and Assan's gaze flashes up to the arrow still pointed at his throat. With a growl he raises his arms again.

"You left quite a trail," the gona at the front – presumably the leader - drawls, holding up a few curling white-blonde strands. He looks along the row of them, gaze flicking over Lexa's dark head immediately and coming to rest on Raven and Clarke.

Both of us have our hair covered, Clarke remembers.

Lexa is looking at a tall woman beside the leader. Her eyebrow moves infinitesimally, but Clarke recognises the question in them anyway. Lexa's asking what the woman's plan is. Instantly Clarke feels a rush of relief. They're not alone. They have an ally.

"That girl is a brunette, and Wanheda is a blonde," the leader says dismissively. "Check the other two and frag -"

"Hod op," the tall woman beside him interrupts, and the leader turns to scowl at her. "She is around the right height, just as the others are. We do not know how old the hair we found is and hair colour can be easily changed. We should keep them all alive just in case."

"Mind your tongue," the leader warns her softly. "You do not lead here."

"We would not wish to ignite the Azplana's wrath," the woman continues speaking anyway. "After all, she will be infuriated enough when she discovers the southern gonakru have been stopping at their home villages to pass out food against her orders, and that this has delayed them so they will not reach us for another day. I do not think she will react any better to our unintended betrayal than she will to them falling prey to selfish affection for their families. Do you wish us to meet whatever fate she has in store for them?"

A message, Clarke thinks. The woman's trying to tell them several things – one of them is that there's a second gonakru, because she had no way of knowing they're already informed of that, secondly she wants them to know exactly how far that gonakru is and that the villages won't be safe to stop at when they run, and lastly that Nia's hold on her people is slowly slipping. Right now the gona risk Nia's cruel punishments to stop their families starving, but they wouldn't do that unless they doubted her ability to keep them safe and fed without that food. It doesn't make the second gonakru any less likely to try and use Lexa, Clarke or the others as bargaining chips to reduce their punishment, but in the longer-term it does mean that the stalemate between Azgeda and Trikru can't last. Nia's own people will turn against her eventually.