Page 16 of Warrior of the Wild
My ax embeds into its shoulder, and I yank it back out as the other ziken decides to pounce again. In the same motion, I swing my body around, connecting with the smaller ziken’s side.
I remove its head with the next swing.
That leaves the big brute. It eyes me warily, takes in the dead ziken we’ve already dispatched—
And runs off down the way Torrin and I just came from.
“Get back here!” I yell as I bound for it.
Torrin catches me by the arm and halts me. “Leave it, Rasmira. Let’s see if we can reach the middle of the maze before the time runs out!”
I wipe my bloodied ax blades on the leather covering his greaves.
He leaps backward. “Disgusting.”
I grin. “Race you there!”
It doesn’t take long to reach. The middle of the maze is a vast opening. It seems that everyone else has already arrived, and they’re all battling their own ziken—some taking on two or three at a time.
Torrin takes no time at all to launch himself into the fray as if he didn’t sustain an injury. I hop in after him. The hourglass must be done soon, and I don’t want to waste a minute of this experience. It’s an opportunity to show everyone what I can do.
The ziken are everywhere. It’s a wonder we ran across any in the maze. But they are no match for us. We have been trained for the last ten years to do one thing: kill them. They don’t stand a chance.
Axes swing. Heads roll. Brown blood flies everywhere. It’s disgusting and thrilling and freeing. I don’t care that I’ve got blood in my hair, that Havard will probably pass his trial and continue to cause trouble in my life. I don’t care if my mother still doesn’t approve. In just a few more seconds, I will be a woman. I will be free from my father’s household. Torrin will court me.
Everything will be different.
I step onto a loose head and nearly lose my balance. I huff out a laugh before continuing onward, swiping at the nearest beast to me.
Torrin sidles up next to me, holding a ziken head with one hand below its mouth and the other at the apex of the head. “Rasmira,” he says in a childish voice, moving the ziken’s mouth so it looks like it’s speaking. “Torrin has killed eight beasts. How many have you killed?” His puppeteering act draws a laugh from me.
“Just because we have to kill them, it doesn’t mean—” I start.
A loud howl rises above everything else. The entire crowd leans out of their seats, straining to get a better look.
Over on the far edge of the maze’s center, Havard battles with his own ziken.
Did he get bitten?I wonder with equal parts eagerness and pity.
No. It is merely a battle cry. Undoubtedly an intentional one so everyone can see him swipe the head off the largest ziken in the maze, the brute I faced earlier. It must have found its own way to the center. The crowd’s quiet anticipation allows us all to hear the ziken’s head bounce onto the stone floor.
A sharp pain takes hold in my left forearm. I suck in a breath and look down only to find nothing there. I look around me. There are no ziken nearby. Yet, as I squint at my arm, I can see—
No.
How can it be?
My first instinct is to look up into the stands to check if anyone saw. But everyone is still awing and clapping over Havard’s kill.
Everyone except my mother, who watches me as if I’m the only person out here.
I start to panic. I don’t understand. What happened? Where did the teeth marks on my skin come from? The leather is torn there, right in the gap between the two sheets of armor. How—
I finally catch sight of the head still grasped in Torrin’s hand. Only now it has red coating its teeth.
My blood.
Stupidly, I think Torrin must have accidentally hit me with it. But once I find the courage to drag my eyes up to his face, my world shatters.
