Amazonia (19 page)

Her ears detected the sound
of several hooves, and Shale stood, listening intently. Despite the trees
surrounding the meadow, the horses were moving quickly, and they were
headed straight for her.

Shale knew that with her leg,
she would never reach the cover of the trees in time, so she circled
behind the boulder, hiding herself from view.

Six horses emerged into the
meadow, and the leader, a tall helmeted man, pointed toward where Shale
was taking refuge.

“There,” he ordered, in a
voice so deep it was almost a growl.

Shale’s heart started to
hammer in her chest. Was that Zale? She was drawn to him above the others,
but the faceplate on his helmet was down, so she couldn’t be certain.

More importantly, if it was
Zale, had he sensed Shale was here?

KALE OFFERED HER hand to
Blake, assisting her as she scrambled down a steep incline. “Thanks,
Kale.” Blake smiled at her. “Who knew you were this chivalrous?”

Kale scoffed. “Don’t get
carried away, I’m only doing it so you don’t slip. Shale would never let
me hear the end of it if you did.”

“Is that right?” Blake asked
amusedly, seemingly unconvinced by her tough act.

Kale held out her hand to
Amber, scowling at Blake when she giggled.

“I’ve got it,” Amber told
her.

Kale lowered her hand but
didn’t move away.

An instant later, Amber
cursed as the ground she was standing on shifted, throwing her off
balance. She fell forward, straight into Kale’s awaiting arms.

Kale stood her upright, but
her hands still remained on Amber’s waist. She felt Amber’s warm grip on
her shoulders, and their eyes held for a long moment. Kale cleared her
throat and pulled away.

“You planned that,” Amber
said playfully.

Kale chuckled, relieved that
Amber could see the humor in the situation. She didn’t want things to
become awkward again.

Blake, who had been
studiously examining the ground, looked up at the sound.

“Thanks for catching me,”
Amber said. “But next time, remind me to take your hand.”

Kale shrugged, an impish look
crossing her face. “I offered. It’s not my fault you’re so obstinate.”

Amber put her hands on her
hips. “So if the roles had been reversed, you’d have taken my hand?”

A short laugh. “No.”

“Well then, there you go.”

Blake shook her head at the
two of them. “Warriors. I just don’t understand you sometimes. Surely it’s
common sense to accept help when needed? Why you see it as a sign of
weakness, I’ll never know.” She shook her head again, and they both
grinned at her in response.

Kale faced Amber once more.
“But I wouldn’t have fallen,” she added egotistically.

Amber burst into laughter.
“If you say so.”

“I do.”

“I guess we know which twin
got the modesty,” Amber teased. “Speaking of which, we’d best get moving,
we’re going to be late as it is.”

THE HORSES STOPPED alongside
the enormous boulder, and the riders dismounted. Shale kept out of sight,
keeping herself pressed close against the rock.

“We’ll stop here to rest,”
the leader said.

Shale let out a relieved
breath. Zale hadn’t sensed her.

“They have to be around here
somewhere.”

“Sir, we’ve searched half
this region.”

“Then we’ll search the other
half!” he bellowed. “I won’t stop until every one of those Amazon bitches
are dead!”

Shale stiffened. She kept an
eye on the trees where Kale and the others would be coming from. She
couldn’t sense Kale yet, but silently urged her to hurry. This was a great
chance. If the scouting party and the leader didn’t return, Zale’s army
would disperse and the threat would be neutralised. And even if someone
else took command, it would be unlikely that he would share the same goal.
There was no profit to be made from killing Amazons, and their forested lands
were worthless to most people.

Shale would have fought them,
even with her injury, if it hadn’t been for Zale. But she’d seen his
fighting prowess in her dream, and knew he was of equal skill to her, more
so since she wasn’t at full capacity. Kale could fight him though, and
Amber could back her up if needed.

Shale knew she had no choice
but to wait, and hoped that the others arrived in time.

One of the men suddenly
turned and walked toward her, fumbling with his belt as he did so. Shale
moved as far as she could around the boulder, any farther would alert the
rest of them to her position.

The man kept coming. How much
privacy did he need? This was just her luck, she would have to get the one
man in all of Greece who was shy about urinating in front of others.

His eyes grew wide as he
spotted Shale, but her hand clamped over his mouth before he could call
for help. His mumbling was still quite loud though, as was the crack when
she broke his neck.

“Nicholydus?” a scout called.
“Is everything all right?”

“Leave him be,” another said.
“He’s probably just eaten something that disagreed with him.”

Shale heard them sniggering,
and she lowered Nicholydus’s body to the ground.

“Nicholydus?” the same voice
called again.

Shale silently drew her
sword, cursing the man who couldn’t mind his own business.

“Hey?” A new tone this time,
gruffer.

When they got no response,
Shale recognised the sound of swords being unsheathed. Three men circled
around from the left, one from the right.

Shale took out the man on her
right first, running him through so no one was behind her. She moved away
from the boulder, giving herself room to move.

The three remaining scouts
surrounded her, but she wasn’t worried about them. Shale briefly wondered
where Zale was, though she soon found him. He stood atop the boulder,
staring right at her. Even through his helmet, she felt his piercing gaze.

The men kept glancing to
their leader, and then back to Shale, confused expressions on every face.

“This is just too perfect,”
the leader said to Shale, his delight evident. “I thought you were dead,
since you weren’t at the tribe you were born into, but now I get the
pleasure of killing you myself. It’s turning out to be a very good day.”
He paused briefly. “I am Theron. Remember it. For I’m the man who will
wipe out the entire Amazon nation. Take her,” he ordered.

“Do you want us to kill her,
sir?”

“No, you fool! She’s just
saved me the trouble of mobilising my army. By kidnapping her, the Amazons
will come to us, and we’ll be on our own ground,” Theron said, speaking
slowly as if talking to a small child. He looked back to Shale. “Besides,
I want to have some fun with her first.” A cruel laugh erupted from his
throat.

The scouts attacked.

Shale couldn’t afford to take
chances, not with her weakened leg, so she showed no compassion, killing
each man at the first opportunity. It didn’t take her long to dispatch
them, and as the last fell at her feet, she heard the crack of a whip.

Shale threw herself sideways,
but felt it strike her back. Searing pain tore through her. She’d been
whipped before, but never had it felt like that. She scrambled to her
feet, seeing that it wasn’t an ordinary whip. Small, but sharp pieces of
metal had been inserted along its length, adding a monstrous cruelty to an
already vicious tool.

Shale now knew why her back
felt like chunks of flesh had been torn out—they had.

She immediately backed off,
knowing that if the whip got hold of her she would be in deep trouble.

Theron jumped down from the
boulder and advanced. “I would let you fight back, but...” He indicated
her bandaged knee. “Unfortunately you’re already hurt, so you’d hardly
test my skill.” He sighed dramatically. “Never mind, you’ll serve as bait
well enough.” Theron unleashed the whip.

Shale managed to block with
her sword, and the whip wrapped around her blade instead.

Theron pulled it out of her
hands. As he did so, Shale ran at him, knowing the whip would be entangled
for a moment. Thankfully, her leg held, and she tackled a surprised Theron
to the ground.

She used his surprise to her
advantage, pulling out the dagger from his boot and stabbing him in the
thigh with it. “Now we’re even,” she said. “Will you let me fight now?”

Theron growled in fury and
backhanded her, sending her flying. She rolled and stood, latching onto
her sword as she did so. She freed it from the whip, and kicked Theron’s
awful weapon out of his immediate reach.

Theron alarmed her by
laughing, a maniacal sound that sent a chill through her bones.

He pulled the dagger out of
his thigh, and tucked it calmly back into his boot. “I’m impressed. Though
I suppose I shouldn’t be, you do share my blood.”

Shale would have found this
reunion amusing if it had been under any other circumstance—he was even
more arrogant than Kale.

Theron removed his helmet. It
was definitely Zale, no doubt about that.

As the last born, Theron was
technically the youngest, but Shale thought he looked older than they did.
He was indeed handsome, as Blake had suspected. Shale met his ice blue
eyes, noting that his features were sharp and angular also. His long black
hair reached his shoulder blades as hers did, and the only major exception
between them—because of their gender difference—was their build. Though Shale
was well-muscled and toned, she still maintained her femininity, whereas
Theron was much broader, his bulging muscles dwarfing hers in comparison.

“You don’t look surprised,”
Theron said disappointedly.

“Oh, I am,” Shale replied
quickly. She didn’t want him to know about their extra sense regarding
each other. Just then, her extra sense alerted her to Kale’s nearing
presence. She wasn’t close by yet though, so Shale needed to delay things.

Theron drew his sword. “I’d
really like to continue our family gathering, but I’ve got Amazons to
kill.”

“I can’t let you do that.”
Shale levelled her sword at him.

“Do you really think you can
stop me?” he asked incredulously.

Shale noted that his name was
fitting, Theron meaning hunter. He locked his piercing gaze onto her, and
Shale realised that she had just become his prey.

“SO THERE I am under the
water, waiting for the bees to leave,” Kale said. “I’d got stung a couple
of times, but I figured it would be worth it. Honey was always in demand
in our old tribe, so we knew we’d get good trade from it.”

“How come you were the
distraction?” Amber asked.

“I drew the short straw.”
Kale began to chuckle. “But actually I ended up better off, because the
next thing I knew Shale was jumping into the river beside me. All the bees
hadn’t left as we’d intended, and another swarm had chased her. We had to
swim downstream quite a way before we could emerge.” Her chuckling
increased. “Shale was covered in stings, all red and puffy.”

“Did you at least get the
honey?” Blake asked.

“No. It was all for nothing,”
Kale said, making them laugh. “We’ve stayed away from beehives ever
since.”

“That’s probably wise,” Blake
said.

“We were so embarrassed going
back empty-handed. It wasn’t as if we could pretend it hadn’t happened,
the evidence was all over us.” Kale grinned. “We wore a lot of long
clothes that summer.”

“I bet.” Amber was still
laughing. “You should have...” She fell silent as Kale stopped dead in her
tracks, her features suddenly serious.

Blake watched Kale anxiously,
growing even more so when Kale met her eyes. “It’s Shale, isn’t it?”

Kale nodded and took off
running.

“I knew I shouldn’t have left
her,” Blake said as she followed Kale. “She’s still unsteady on that
knee.”

“It’s not her knee.”

SHALE DEFLECTED HIS sword,
parrying the strike with her own blade. She backed up swiftly, having no
choice but to go on the defensive. She blocked several more attacks, then
launched her own.

Theron was a skilled fighter,
and matched Shale’s speed and stamina. He was stronger than her though,
and as their swords locked, Theron pushed down, his upper body strength
overpowering her. Shale’s weaker knee gave out, and she dropped onto it,
but managed to keep her sword in place.

“That’s not too painful, is
it?” Theron taunted, grinning at her like some deranged animal.

Shale knew she couldn’t hold
against his superior strength much longer. She had to do something. With a
surge of energy she managed to get to her feet, and pushed him back. She
lashed out with her good leg, and it connected with the wound on his
thigh. He stumbled backward.

“Not as painful as that,”
Shale said, her own smile becoming feral as they faced off against one
another.

Theron roared at her, his
sword arcing high as he swung it toward Shale’s neck. The metal clashed
loudly as the blades collided, and Shale hoped the sound of a fight would
spur Kale on.

They wrestled for control,
and Shale shoved Theron away, swiping her sword across as he staggered
back. A trickle of blood appeared from his torso, but Shale had barely
nicked him.

Both grew fatigued as the
battle drew on, but neither slowed or lessened their pace.

Shale knew Theron had the
upper hand. Not because he was a better fighter—they were both equally
matched in skill—but because all he had to do was wait, her knee wouldn’t
hold out indefinitely.

She was surprised that he
hadn’t attempted to go for her weakness. Maybe Theron thought he was
better than that? Shale hoped her knee would hold out until Kale arrived,
but she doubted it, the limb was already beginning to buckle.

His sword got past Shale, and
it cut into her bicep. Theron took a step back, and used his forefinger to
collect some of the blood from his blade. He brought the finger to his
face, examined it intently, and then licked the crimson fluid away.