Lily gasped.
Solomon dropped to his knees, skewered by the sword, and he looked over at Lily, locking eyes with her, uttering, “I am sorry, I tried,” a moment before Warano sliced his head from his body.
Solomon’s corpse slumped to the ground, headless.
The crowd roared.
Tears flowed down Lily’s cheeks. Zoe clutched her to her chest, holding her tight. Wizard and Alby just stood on their slab, watching in abject horror.
Warano raised his fists in triumph, his eyes insane, before casually using Solomon’s body to wipe the blood off his blade.
Then he kicked the body off the Fighting Stone, leaving the crocs to fight over it.
“Are there any other challengers!” he roared. “Does anyone dare oppose me now!”
The crowd of natives cheered.
Lily sobbed.
But as she did so, in a distant corner of her mind, she heard a strange voice coming from Ono’s radio saying,“—picked up a residual heat signature about a half hour ago. Just found it. Looks like a downed Huey, UN markings. Near a strange-looking forest. Sending you my co-ordinates now, sir—”
The cheering died down and suddenly there was silence around the Fighting Stone.
Long silence.
The only sound was the foul crunching of the crocs tearing Solomon’s body apart.
“So there is no one then!” Warano shouted again, quickly translated by Cassidy. “Excellent! I shall take my new woman and enjoy her…!”
But then someone spoke.
“I challenge you.”
This time it was Zoe.
THE RESPONSE from the assembled Neetha said it all. They had never seen anything like this.
A woman challenging a royal son.
They murmured animatedly, aghast.
“Unless the chief’s son is too cowardly to do battle with a woman,” Zoe said.
Sensing the moment, Diane Cassidy immediately translated Zoe’s words for the others and the crowd went into total apoplexy.
Zoe shouted to Warano, adding the sweetener. “If he defeats me, this Warano can have two white wives.”
When Cassidy translated this, Warano’s eyes lit up like lightbulbs. To own a white woman might have been the ultimate status symbol, but to own two…
“Bring her to me!” he called. “After I beat her, I shall keep her, but as a master keeps a dog.”
Zoe was released from her platform, and she strode down the long plank that gave entry to the Fighting Stone.
Once on the Stone, the plank was withdrawn, and she faced off against the giant Warano.
Wearing only a singlet, cargo pants, and boots, she wasn’t exactly big. But her lean muscular shoulders, glistening with sweat, contained a wiry strength.
Standing before the Neetha chief’s number one son, the top of her blond head came level with his shoulders. The great black warrior loomed over her.
He kicked Solomon’s sword across to her, saying something derisive in his own language.
“Is that so?” Zoe picked up the sword. “But I don’t think you’ve ever met a woman like me before, asshole. Let’s dance.”
With a roar, Warano lunged forward, swinging his sword in a crushing downward motion that Zoe parried away with some difficulty before sidestepping out of the way.
Warano stumbled and turned, snorting like a bull.
He engaged Zoe again, raining a flurry of blows down on her, only for Zoe to desperately deflect each one, her sword vibrating terribly with each thunderous hit.
Warano was obviously stronger, and he seemed to gain confidence with every volley of blows he unleashed. Zoe was doing all she could to defend herself, so much so that she hadn’t even been able to attack once. This, it seemed to the assembled Neetha, would be easy.
But as they continued to fight—as Zoe continued to parry all of Warano’s lunging blows—it soon became apparent that it wasn’t going to be so easy at all.
Five minutes became ten, then twenty.
As she watched the fight tensely, Lily could see Zoe just weathering the storm, blocking blows and then retreating and waiting for the next flurry.
And gradually, Warano’s attacks became slower, more labored.
