Beside him stood the fat Neetha chief, looking proud and approving of what was to come.
The big warrior addressed the crowd in a loud booming voice that Lily translated quietly:
“Subjects of the High Chief Rano, our great and noble king, champion of the maze, conqueror of white men and owner of a white woman, listen to my words! As the firstborn son of our glorious chief, I, Warano, seeking to follow in my illustrious father’s footsteps, claim this white woman!”
Lily’s eyes boggled.What?
This ugly Neetha man was claiming Zoe.
“Unless another among you dares challenge me for her, I will, now and at this moment, take her to my bed and consider her my wife!”
The crowd remained silent.
No one, it seemed, dared to challenge this mountain of a man.
Lily spotted Ono in the back of the crowd, saw him bow his head sadly. She also spied Diane Cassidy, and saw her turn away in horror, covering her mouth.
Then Lily turned to Zoe—only to see that Zoe’s face was as white as a sheet.
Lily frowned, confused.
She spun again and this time saw that all the Neetha women in the crowd were pointing ather, looking her up and down and nodding approvingly.
And then it hit her.
This man wasn’t claiming Zoe.
He was claiming her.
Lily’s blood froze.
The crowd was still silent. The chief’s eldest son eyed her lustfully, his mouth opening slightly to reveal foul yellow teeth.
His wife? But I’m only twelve!her mind screamed.
“I will fight you for her,” a voice said evenly, in English, invading Lily’s thoughts.
She turned.
To see Solomon standing up on his platform, tall, thin, and gangly, yet firm and noble in his stance.
“I will resist your claim,” he said.
The chief’s first son—Warano—turned slowly to face Solomon. Clearly, he had not expected any challengers. He assessed Solomon from head to toe before snorting derisively and shouting something loudly.
Cassidy translated. “Warano says, ‘So be it. To the Fighting Stone!’”
PLANKS were laid out and Warano and Solomon strode across them, out onto the Fighting Stone—the wide square platform at the edge of the central lake.
This platform was lower than the prisoner slabs, barely a foot above the surface of the water. Several large crocodiles lay at its edges, ever watchful.
The Neetha villagers swarmed to take their places on the steps flanking the Fighting Stone, to watch the bloodsport.
Two swords were tossed onto the Fighting Stone.
Lily watched in horror as Solomon picked up his blade—he held it all wrong, as though he had never swung a sword in anger in his life, which so far as Lily knew, was probably true.
Warano, on the other hand, twirled his sword easily and fluidly in one hand: seasoned and experienced.
Ono appeared beside Lily’s platform, spoke across the ten-foot gap. “This madness. Even if thin man beat Warano, he be sentenced to maze for killing royal son. Is your friend skilled fighter?”
Lily’s eyes were filling with tears. “No.”
“Then why does thin man challenge Warano for you?”
Lily couldn’t answer. She just gazed out at Solomon, standing out on the Fighting Stone on her behalf.
Zoe answered Ono’s question. “Where we come from, sometimes you stand up for your friends, even when you can’t win.”
Ono frowned. “I see no sense in this.”
At that moment, a great drum was struck and the obese chief of the Neetha assumed his place in a royal box overlooking the Fighting Stone and called, “Fight!”
It would be the most horrific spectacle Lily had ever seen.
Warano lunged at Solomon with a flurry of powerful blows, and Solomon—gentle Solomon, kind Solomon, who had bounced Lily on his knee as a baby—parried them as best he could, staggering back toward the edge of the Fighting Stone.
But it was clear this was a total mismatch.
Wide-eyed and venomous, with five crashing blows, Warano disarmed Solomon and then without so much as a blink, ran him through, the bloody blade of his sword protruding from Solomon’s back.
