the road and swearing.
Paikan crossbowmen charged us from the side of the road where they’d walked around the burning debris. Bojdan ran at them as they reloaded their devices. He began slicing arms, throats, and bellies. I buried my axe into the chest of a startled man who pointed his sword at me.
But before we could do more, the ground shook, and out from the smoke of that last great explosion, the war elephants charged once more. Crossbowmen fired down at us from wooden platforms on the elephants’ backs.
A Paikan in purple robes stalked over to the Roadmaster, a crossbow in hand. “You have sinned against all,” he shouted. “You have failed to keep control of your people, and failed to keep them from using that which harms us all.”
“Get away from the caravan,” Bojdan said, shoving me away from what was about to happen. “It’s all…” he didn’t finish his sentence: a bolt buried itself in his neck.
He fell. I lunged forward, to go to him, but bolts struck the ground around me.
The battle is won long before the fighting, I thought. And this was a lost battle.
I spun and ran for the forest to the north of the road, where it looked thick and I thought I could lose myself.
The trumpeting of the war elephants faded as I pushed deeper into the wild. There was some bramble here, I could feel the soft needles tugging my skirts as I brushed past. But I couldn’t slow down, despite the dark. I could hear the sounds of someone following me, the glow of their torch bobbing through the dark shadows far behind.
With no light, I could only walk so fast without smacking into trees and branches.
There were three torches now, I saw with a glance back. They gained on me, as they could see what was in front of them.
Every step north away from the road, every minute bumping through the scrub, took me further from Paika, and my sons.
I began to regret the time spent enjoying the slow wend of the caravan along the road. The sweet smell of the ocean. The comfort of food, and of Bojdan’s company.
Yes, I missed him. It was a piece ripped away from me. Not like the piece missing inside me that was my family. But it was another cut that left me hardening up, like bramble when it wasn’t totally killed.
As I ran, I hardened even further than I had before. I pushed through tall grass and broke out into a clear area on the edge of a small lake. Pebbles crunched under my feet.
How long had I kept moving through the woods? An hour?
If I kept running, the Paikans with torches would exhaust me, then easily capture me.
So I crouched low by the grass’s boundary, axe readied, to make my stand.
The first man broke from the grass, his torch held high in one hand, spear in another. His spiked helmet glinted in the torchlight, as did the rest of the armor buckled to him.
I slammed the axe point first, as if it were a spear, into the face of the helmet as it turned, suddenly suspicious, in my direction.
Blood splattered the shaft of the axe, and the torch and spear clattered to the pebbles. I stepped back as the other two Paikans slowly parted the grasses on either side of me.
They looked down at their dead comrade, and kept their distance, but moved along the grass boundary to cut me off from running away. They tossed their torches down to the pebbles and gripped their spears in both hands. “You’re a woman,” the one to my left said, surprise in his voice. “Why do you face us?”
I backed up, my feet wetted now by the shallow water, trying to face both of them. “Because you attacked. Drop your spears and leave me be,” I said.
“You killed Massiaka there,” the man said, faceless behind his mask of protective bronze. “We will not turn back now.”
These were Paikans, practiced and deadly, in full armor. They were not the ragged rebels I’d bested this morning, which now seemed an eternity ago. These men wore armor and their spears gave them reach.
I’d killed their friend by surprise. They, on the other hand, would not die quickly.
I looked for some way to get out of this fight. “I was in the caravan. I did not ask to be attacked.”
“It is too late,” the Paikan on the right said.
My fingers loosened on the axe, getting ready for either man to attack me. The Paikans raised their spears, both of them out of reach of my axe, and they got ready to thrust them at me. But just as they stepped forward, crossbow bolts ripped out of the grass and smacked through their armor.
With grunts, they dropped to the pebble beach, armor crashing against the stone, spears clattering with them.
Five crossbowmen stepped out onto the pebbles. One of them was a short man with sweaty, raggedy hair limp over his forehead, dressed in a green robe. He slung the large wooden crossbow over his shoulder. “You are a brave woman, facing two Paikans on your own,” he said with a laugh. “You may thank us for the favor we did you later.”
I stared at the corpses.
“Three,” I said to the man. I pointed to the dead one almost at his feet, and he pushed a torch in the body’s direction to examine it.
“Well, well, well,” he said.
“And you did me no damn favor,” I continued. I didn’t like the sound of ‘thank me later.’ I wanted to make sure they would think a little further before making assumptions about me. “The caravan still burns, the Paikans still ravage the land as they please. Nothing is changed.”
The man looked thoughtful. “So you are from the caravan?”
“Yes.” I still stood apart from them, hoping that they would move on without me. I had it in my head that I would start walking west in the hopes of getting to Paika, somehow.
Though, as Jal had said, it was hard to get into the city. Without the caravaner’s help, I wasn’t sure how I would do it, but I would have to think of something.
The man in the green robes looked back at me, then gestured at the bloodied axe. “There is more than one man’s blood on there.”
“More than one man attacked me back at the caravan.”
He looked thoughtful. “Did you see how many war elephants charged?”
“I saw at least twelve from the Roadmaster’s wagon,” I said.
“Twelve!” said one of the other men. “I told you, we were sold bad information. They will rip through us like paper.”
The green-robed man looked down at the stones. “We will need to recruit more men.” His voice sounded bitter as he turned and looked out into the trees. “We will not try to take Paika this year, then.”
“You’re Jiva,” I realized.
“I am Jiva,” the man said. “My commanders here were about to go and scout the Paikan forces out there with our own eyes. We were hoping to avoid clashing with it until closer to Paika, but it seems they know we’re out here.”
One of the men behind Jiva spoke up. “What she says about the elephants is the same the other caravaners who escaped into the woods say. It’s not worth the risk.”
Jiva looked annoyed. “I know. I know. We’ll return to camp.”
“You have other caravaners at your camp?” I asked.
“A few survivors our scouts started finding in the woods,” Jiva said. “That is what prompted us to come take a look.”
I stared at him for a while, thinking about how to get to Paika. About the elephants. About what it would take to regain my children. Then I spoke without thinking. “If you are not going to use your army anytime soon, would you mind if I borrowed it to do what you wish to wait on?” I asked.
Jiva’s commanders spluttered with laughter. But Jiva did not. His dark eyes narrowed, and anger surfaced. “Who are you to mock me?”
I rested my axe over my shoulder, hanging my arm over the shaft to balance it. “I am the Executioness.”
One of the commanders stopped laughing. “You do exist!” he said.
