WarEye

Blood and Soil and Flesh

Sam's POV

I feel nothing for the man that Pux killed. If anything, I wish I had killed him myself. I know that it’s just my protective Lupa genes getting the better of me, but I still wish it.

Dahem doesn’t say a word as we walk away from the bathing tent. I hear people murmuring, but I ignore them. I simply clasp my hand around Pux’s wrist, and hold on to her. She has a way of out-walking me when she wants to.

Pux somehow snags a cleaning cloth, which she then uses to clean her knives. I hold the knife she isn’t cleaning, trying to ignore the song playing in my head. It’s the siax magic, the calling of the asara. I’ve felt it once before, deep in the Comeane Woods, and I don’t want to feel it again. It’s an alien magic. 

We walk to the other side of camp, the side closest to the battlefield. Already, birds of prey flock to the bodies. Along with them fly the jagahawks of Alala. I can smell the scent of rotting flesh, blood and bone, and saliva fills my mouth against my will. It’s rare that my animal instincts try to overpower my human ones, especially when I’m not defending Pux. 

My mate glances at me, her pupils tinged a rainbow of colors. She hardly ever shows her emotions--except when it’s anger--so this takes me by surprise. I press my side against hers, and her emotions flit through my mind like a swarm of butterflies.

She’s angry at Zia for not letting her go and kill King Witu. She’s nauseous about her hunger for the decaying bodies, because she always ate fresh kill. She’s afraid, so very afraid. Afraid for me, for the child growing inside her, for Zia, for the drago alogo, for the people of Saraq as a whole. But not afraid for herself.

I pull away from her emotions, which leave sticky threads of spider silk on my mind. I feel Pux pull away likewise. With us, you can never go one-way. You must share, no matter what. It’s what being mates means.

Dahem enters the huge tent before us. I sigh, and move to follow, holding the flap open for Pux to duck through. Then, I duck through, and halt in my tracks.

The thick walls of the tent had blocked the noise from outside. Now, within, the shouting makes my ears want to bleed. One side of the room, clothed in the blue-and-white armor of Siquin, shake swords and spears at the other side of the room. The other side is clothed in the many colors of the Alalan, Maran, and Yaerian armies. Some of them shout back at the angry Siquins, but I see Zia and Mansken wear matching frowns.

Pux takes one look at the undiplomatic mayhem and growls. Everyone quiets down immediately, though I know that Pux didn’t put a spell on them. She simply exudes an aura of listen-to-me-or-else whenever she walks into a room. She also holds a very sharp knife that glows silver, so that’s a bonus.

“All of you are squabbling like newborns,” Pux says, curling her lip in distaste. I hold myself back from telling her that newborn humans don’t squabble, but only barely.

My mate paces to the center of the room, perfectly between the angry halves. She seems to shimmer: an apparition, a ghost, a diety. I know that it’s no spell, but the Tilvani NightEye and Great Eye blood within her that’s making them listen to and see her. 

“This is negotiations, not a pissing contest,” she continues. She looks down at the dirt floor, and sees dark splotches on the ground. “Apparently, though, some of you are childish enough to think that it is,” she growls. Some of the soldiers turn red.

Pux turns to the Siquins, knife angled so she can throw or stab, and says, “Here are the negotiation rules: surrender, and you’ll be free to live your lives under Alalan rule. Or, keep fighting, and die bloody, shameful deaths.”