Tannah the Warlord Pt. 05

Balter was behind Cavil, who had drawn a sword from somewhere. Its blade was already dripping red and she could see a second wounded lizard man, writhing from an injury to his chest a few feet away.

"Tovan?" Aretta thought, thinking ... fearing, for one confused moment, that she knew one of them as two lizard men ran at her and Tannah.

Tannah's blade whipped out and sliced the wrist of the one moving toward Aretta and came up for a thrust at her other attacker.

Aretta, seeing her opponent's disabled hand, stepped into him and buried her knife in his scaled neck. Her knee crashed against his ribs and he sank to the ground, winded and bleeding.

Metal clashed as Tannah bound up her attacker's blade and slammed her hilt into his, disarming him, stamping down on his tail as it swept for her feet, then driving the point of her sword down through his body as he hissed in pain.

Aretta looked up at the one remaining assassin that was squaring off against Cavil as the Duke held his blade raised like an experienced fighter, guarding Balter who was pale and sweating behind him.

The creature's head moved from side to side, like a bird, re-assessing as three armed foes, Tannah, Aretta, and Cavil, started to spread out around him.

He made as if to lunge at Cavil, then leapt back and scurried for the tent door, his tail whipping out behind him.

Aretta flipped her knife over, catching it by the blade, then hurled it, hearing it embed itself in meat and bone and hearing her target stumble outside and then thrash against the ground.

Disregarding the pain she was in, Aretta hopped over the body of a lizard man and over Alswain's lifelessly staring form to look out.

Beyond the two murdered guards outside she saw the last assassin pulling himself through the mud and hissing in anguish, her knife protruding from his spine.

She could see a gathering of men with weapons drawn. Some of them were watching the lizard man claw his way along the ground, others were looking at her naked and bleeding form, with concern in their eyes.

Aretta sank to her knees, feeling like she might pass out. She felt Tannah's hands on her shoulders and felt her pull her head against her chest.

She could feel her lover's heartbeat against her face as she covered the knife wound in her side with her hand and felt blood course between her fingers, hearing Tannah sob as she whispered something to her.

"I can't die like this," Aretta thought as Tannah held her in her arms, recognizing that there were worse ways it could all end.

There were whores who went missing, only to turn up in a rubbish heap outside Aumtgrist with no family to identify them.

After all these months she still thought of herself as a whore, she realized, laughing darkly on the inside.

"At least someone will know my name," Aretta thought, feeling Tannah's body shiver against hers.

"Ugh, no, I can't let it end here," she thought, "I won't, I ..."