this? Before her, satrap Ma’ahd was recovering his composure. The wound was crippling but far from fatal. He roared and reached around with his right hand to draw his long, curved sword.
Asima swallowed and sighed. No going back now; she had to finish it.
As the wounded tyrant began to draw his sword, the blade rasping against the metal edge of the scabbard, Asima kicked him in the kneecap with as much force as she could muster. There was a satisfying crunch and, sword still half sheathed, Ma’ahd cried out in pain and fell heavily on to his back.
Now they were fighting on Asima’s terms and not his. Like all of her plans, carefully constructed over many years of harem life, this one had to be played out in the appropriate steps and carefully. First: the element of surprise. Well, she’d accomplished that easily. Second: leave nothing for your victim to use against you.
Taking a deep breath, she drew back the cleaver and let it fall with all the power she had behind it. The satrap, agonised and in shock, floundering on the floor with a missing arm and a shattered knee, could do nothing but watch in horror as his other arm, hacked off above the wrist, scraped across the gravel and came to a halt beneath a decorative rose bush.
“What?” he managed, blood bubbling around his lips as he managed to speak in a wheezy whisper. “Why?”
Asima smiled and the effect made the satrap recoil as far as his position allowed.
“You invaded our town, burned our homes, killed our people, turned on your own country and usurped your King, among many other smaller failings. There are countless reasons, I’m sure, why people want to see you dead, Ma’ahd. But not me. You see, I have changed since the days you sent me away from M’Dahz.”
As she spoke, she stooped and finished the job of drawing his curved sword from the sheath, flinging the cleaver, covered in viscera, into the bushes away from them. She became aware of the horrified silence that filled the garden and the increasing proximity of some of the other women, who were slowly closing in from behind her. They were hardly a worry.
“Quite simply, Ma’ahd, you took a happy young girl and turned her into me. For that I suppose I should really thank you. I am far stronger and more powerful than I could ever have hoped to be as Asima the merchant’s daughter.”
She paused in her speech for a moment to bring the long curved blade down in a precise blow that severed his other leg below the knee. The satrap shrieked. Third step: make sure you have them exactly where you want them and there is no escape.
She turned and the women approaching her stopped in their tracks.
“I’d wait there, ladies. I’m rather enjoying myself and I don’t know whether I’ll be able to stop at two.” She licked her lip hungrily
Without paying any further heed to them, Asima turned back to the maimed and bloody mess below her. He was flailing, but not a single limb remained intact to obey his brain’s desperate commands to flee this mad woman.
“No.” Asima stated flatly. “I’ve long ago got past hating you. I’m sorry if it bruises your ego, your lordship, but there are girls in this building that I consider more of a threat than you. No… I couldn’t have cared less about you.”
She gave three light slashes with the blade, delivering random cuts across the man’s torso, eliciting new cries of agony.
“No. This is quite simply self preservation. I will not go to my death, Ma’ahd. Some of these women may be stupid enough to think you might free them, but the only thing I’m not sure of is whether you would have had us shot full of arrows or simply locked us in a shed and set fire to it.”
And the last step? Make sure the game goes on long enough to enjoy it. She delivered a few more painful cuts. He was bleeding quite profusely now and his face had become gaunt and grey, the hollows of his eyes taking on a purple tint.
“More even than that, you see. Prince Ashar never liked me much. I don’t think I’ll thrive under his reign, but I may be able to begin closing the gap between us when I present him with your neatly severed head on a bed of rose petals.”
Without taking her eyes from the groaning heap below her, Asima gestured over her shoulder with her free hand.
“You girls… get me a few hundred rose petals and a silver serving dish. Satrap Ma’ahd’s reign is over.”
The last thing the mighty satrap Ma’ahd, power behind the throne of Pelasia and conqueror of M’Dahz, ever saw was the happy grin on the face of a blood-spattered beauty as she went to work, sawing through his neck with his own sword and whistling a lullaby as she did.
In which borders are redrawn
Asima stood glowering at the new King of Pelasia. Ashar, calm and collected, leaned back in his seat and placed his feet upon the table in a relaxed fashion.
“I understand you have a problem, lady Asima.”
She eyed him coldly and nodded.
“I am well aware of the fact that you do not like me, Majesty. I never expected to fulfil the same place with you as I did your uncle, but this is madness. It flies in the face of tradition!”
Ashar laughed lightly.
“Tradition, Asima? You would lecture me on Pelasian tradition? Unless I am mistaken you are only partially of our blood, born and bred in Imperial lands. Who are you really to take the high ground with me?”
Asima grumbled.
“I am the woman who dealt with Ma’ahd for you and prevented you returning to a ruined city. At least give me that.”
Ashar paused for a moment, a thoughtful look on his face.
“I will give you that, yes. I do not believe for a moment that it was motivated by selfless honour, rather than self-preservation and personal gain. It so happens that our goals coincided for a time.”
He sighed and sat forward once more, cradling his hands on the table.
“Asima, the world has changed. Pelasia has changed. For all their greed and wickedness, the three usurpers have changed the role of the Pelasian ruler forever. I shall not be a God-King; merely a King. I also have no need of a coven of women to fulfil my desires. There is one woman I have ever wanted and she and I will see out my reign together. I am disbanding the harem and that is all there is to it. You should be glad.”
“Glad?” Asima said, her voice rising with a dangerous edge. “Majesty, I was plucked from a comfortable and innocent life, put through hell and managed through my own strength to claw my way to a good position. And now you, ostensibly the hero of this little play, wish to take that away from me again. What do you intend to do with all the noble and delicate women you cast aside and make homeless?”
Ashar smiled.
“The ladies of the harem will be given estates and titles. I have no wish to see my uncle’s wives go without. Nobody will suffer as part of this… rearrangement.”
Asima settled to a quiet simmer.
“Well at least that’s something. We can continue to live appropriately for members of the Royal court.”
But there was something about the smile on King Ashar’s face that she didn’t like.
“I think you’d better take a seat, Asima.”
“I’ll stand.”
“Very well,” the King continued, straightening. “I have just concluded a treaty with the Emperor Darius. He really is a very amenable young man. As well as supplying a sizeable force to help me retake Pelasia, he has given me a number of trade and political concessions and has asked for almost nothing in return; just the return of certain territories claimed by my predecessors.”
Asima frowned.
“You are giving M’Dahz back to the Empire?”
“Yes. It is the least I can do. In fact, it was never worth fighting over in the first place. I suspect it was only
