I watch the three zhee prisoners in white. They’re milling about, bound with arms behind backs and hoods over their heads. Kublaren guards holding them, one on each arm. Pikkek turns to face them and the holocam is taking a shot that encompasses the prisoners as well as the big koob.
“The bot is translating Pikkek’s words into zhee,” Nilo says, adding softly to himself, “great shot. Excellent framing.”
Suddenly the zhee begin to stamp their feet, their obvious rage held in check only by the Kublarens and the binders.
“And that,” Nilo says, “is the message for the zhee. Pekk tribe just took responsibility for the destruction of the zhee temple. Pikkek is recounting how the zhee cowered and begged for their lives as his tribe slaughtered them. Oh, and how the mares begged to give their services to the Pekk chieftain in exchange for their lives. That’s… that’s a huge insult if you ever find yourself needing to piss off a zhee.”
The team crack smiles and chuckle. “I’ll take that under advisement.”
“Okay, so watch this,” Nilo says.
Two of the zhee, smaller in girth than the third but obviously better muscled and conditioned, have their hoods pulled away. I can see the sun glint off their black eyes; their heavy lashes blink under the sun and then settle against Pikkek. They strain to reach him, but the guards hold them back.
The third zhee has his hood removed. He’s older. The fur on his equine face peppered with gray and white, his muzzle and mouth having gone completely white.
“That big guy is the zhee equivalent of a grand high priest,” Nilo explains. “Nabbed him at the compound. There are a lot of competing factions inside zhee religious culture, but as the only temple leader on planet, he’s the holiest zhee on Kublar. The other two are his holy bodyguards, empowered by the four gods to prevent all harm from coming to their leader.”
Pikkek is talking to them. Saying something that seems to calm them down. The two zhee look at each other. Pikkek swings his tomahawk through the air and for a second I think the executions are going to begin. But that’s not what happens.
The Kublaren guards loosen their bindings, step back, and toss a kankari knife into the dirt before each donk. The zhee look around, as though not quite believing what’s happening—expecting a trap—and then stoop to retrieve the wicked little daggers.
At once and as one, the pair of zhee lunge for Pikkek, their kankari knives gleaming in the sun. The attack comes so fast, my first reaction is that the koob is dead. Caught flat-footed and by surprise. But Pikkek uses those legs to spring to the side, vacating the space he’d occupied a moment before by the thinnest of margins and causing the zhee to stab at empty air.
Outnumbered, the big koob doesn’t hesitate to even the odds he’s placed against himself. He swings his tomahawk down onto the top of the nearest off-balanced zhee, who lets out a piercing bray that seems to silence itself almost as quickly as it started as the incredibly sharp stone weapon bites deep between the donk’s eyes. In a practiced, swift motion, Pikkek lands a kick on the dead-but-still-standing donk, sending him tumbling toward his partner and allowing the koob to wrench free his bloody tomahawk.
The throng of koobs let out a unified wave of croaks and shouts at the sudden brutality. The fight was less than five seconds in and already a bloody fatality. And all the while, the bots I’d activated dance about the makeshift arena, red lights blinking to indicate they are recording.
“Damn,” Abers says. “Pikkek is legit.”
The two combatants circle each other, Pikkek feinting an attack while the zhee bodyguard brays. The zhee glances at the great priest, who bellows something in his language—maybe encouragements. Maybe prayers. I dunno. But he’s animated, stamping his feet and twisting his shoulders against the restraining hands of his Kublaren guards.
Pikkek whips out an equatorial backhand, sending the blade of his tomahawk toward the belly of the zhee, who leaps back and deflects the blow with his kankari. But the heavier koob weapon batters the knife from the zhee’s hand, sending it spinning downward until the blade bites into the dirt, the jeweled handle waggling in the air.
The zhee freezes and then adjusts its posture, seeking to finish the fight with tooth and claw. Pikkek straightens, relaxed, and gestures for the zhee to retrieve his weapon. A show of fair play.
With some hesitancy, the zhee stoops to retrieve his knife. Pikkek buries his tomahawk in the donk’s exposed neck a second later, sending great spurts of blood out onto the ground and inciting the gallery of Pekk warriors to bellow in rapturous support.
“Damn,” Lana says, this time her tone conveying the surprise at this tactic.
Koobs are tricky.
Pikkek flings his tomahawk in the air, a spray of zhee blood flicking droplets as it spins. The big koob catches it by the handle and motions for the donk high priest to be released. The big zhee stands trembling, his guards dead and feeding Kublar with their blood.
Binders removed, the zhee stands in place, sending a gaze of pure hatred across to the koob warrior staring him down. But he doesn’t move. Doesn’t stamp his hooves as he did when the fight was two-to-one and his divinely protected guards stood ready to put down the croaking infidel before him.
“He’s a coward,” Nilo says, watching the spectacle along with me. “They all are once they reach that point. Success makes you afraid of what you might lose. Makes you soft. This zhee may have been a warrior once. Now he’s hoping everything he peddled about his four gods and his own ascendancy on Kublar is true. It’s all he has left.”
The koob guards have to shove the high priest’s kankari into his hands because the scumsack refused to pick it up from the ground
