Roar, Lioness. Roar

Unexpected Prey

Through the scope of Verlaine's rifle, Latisha watches Hadey's hunting party fight a group of Orange Kettle reavers eager to cash in the bounty on her head. Part of her yearns to lead her party across the sands and defend her fellow Yellow Suns. Part of her takes joy in watching Lexca's daughter fight for her life. Spite and loyalty war within the huntress. She looks below where Rebel and the others hide in wait, ready for a fight. Two weeks of stalking Hadey's pack has made them restless. Now that someone has finally taken the bait, they're eager for action.

"Maybe it's time we bring the others in on your plan," Verlaine whispers into her ear. "They don't understand why we've been following Hadey instead of hunting."

"They don't need to understand. They need to follow." Latisha returns her attention to the distant fighting.

"We all follow you without question, huntress... but constantly returning home with nothing to show and nothing to trade is getting costly."

Latisha rarely heeds other's counsel, confident in her own decisions. However, she accepts wisdom wherever she finds it.

Two Yellow Suns charge a gnarled Orange Kettle and the old woman lets fly with a hose full of her clan's bitter orange. The bubbling slime hits the women in globs, eating away at flesh and armor. Hadey shoots the reaver in the chest from a collection of rocks even as her women crawl away, screaming. She can't see the Orange Kettle reaver creeping up behind her, she has no idea that death is breathing down her own neck.

Latisha squeezes the trigger and Verlaine's sniper rifle spits death. She tosses the weapon to the shooter beside her.

"Cover us." Grabbing her own rifle, she hops down to the next ledge. "I'm changing the plan!"

At the bottom, Rebel and the others are ready to move.

"What are we doing, girl?" Bria asks as Latisha runs past her.

"We're killing some Orange Kettles."

Latisha ducks through an opening in the rocks and out onto the open sand. Rebel and Tick easily catch up to her.

"Killing Orange Kettles now?" Rebel grunts, her battle ax clutched in front like a battering ram.

"That we are. This pleases you, yes?"

"Yes!"

Rebel's strong legs and longer stride carry her away from the huntress. At the top of a flat crest, she raises her weapon over her head and sings a song of death. The others rush to join her singing with their own battle cries. Down below, Hadey's party cheers as reinforcements enter the fray. A bullet whizzes past Latisha's head as she takes the crest.

"Yellow Sun!"

Trapped between two pouncing packs, the Orange Kettle mob are outmatched despite superior numbers. However, reavers never just roll over and die.

Latisha fires from the hip, hitting a woman in the arm as she draws back a bottle of bitter orange to toss. The woman drops the bottle and Latisha shoots her in the chest. Scooping up the bottle, Latisha pitches it at the back of a burly Orange Kettle toting a massive tank with hoses and valves. The glass shatters and the bitter eats away at the tank. Chemicals interact and the tank explodes, sending even more volatile bitter in every direction. Latisha is thrown through the air and collides with something hard.

The desert spins while she struggles to get back to her feet. Rebel hacks into a reaver's leg with the head of her ax. Tick and Patch lay into an opponent with bloody machetes. Anya blows a woman's head off. Blood, guts, and bitter orange stain the sand. The burly reaver is a ruined mess. The Orange Kettle ambush becomes a massacre and when the fighting stops, it is The Yellow Sun who is victorious.