“You think me feeble?” Accora said. “You think me a tired old woman, easily disposed?”
“If you have fight in you, old one, I welcome it. My orders were only to kill you.” He smiled wickedly. “My new master has not yet learned to be specific.”
“Your master. Of course.” She slowly got to her feet, her joints aching, her robes torn and dirty. “Well, I have fight in me, sirrak; more than you could guess. Bazira are trained from childhood in swordcraft. But alas, I have left my blade in my sleeping chambers.”
Svoz retrieved a slender short sword from the pack of weapons strapped between his wings. “Let it be known in your afterworld that I was honorable to the aged.” He laid it on the ground between them. “Go ahead. Take it. I swear upon my honor I will not slice you to ribbons until you are armed.”
“A sirrak’s honor,” Accora sneered. Still clutching the glass jar, she closed and then opened her other hand. “Krystak!”
Water, culled from her own body, rushed to her hand instantly, and her magic morphed them into daggers of ice that lanced out of her open palm. She did not wait for them to find their mark but scrambled to her feet and ran down the narrow path, Svoz’s screams of pain chasing after her.
She was almost at the door when a plume smoke burst in front of her. Her instincts—honed years ago in training with the Bazira—flared again, and she ducked as the curved sword arced out of the smoke, whistling just above her head. It struck a wooden support beam and was held fast. The smoke dissipated and Accora’s breath caught in her throat to see Svoz, his face contorted with rage and pain. On his midsection a white-gray splotch of frozen skin stood out from the red like snow in a puddle of blood. Accora turned and ran back the other way.
Another plume of smoke barred her way and another sword strike came at her own midsection. She curled away but wasn’t so fast this time and felt the agony of the sirrak’s blade bite her in the meat of her shoulder—what little she had left.
Blindly, she screamed, “Krystak!”
Svoz answered with his own roar of pain that seemed like to burst her eardrums. As the smoke cleared, she saw another patch of white, this time on his neck. He swung his sword back, shattering the glass tray of pinned insects hanging on the wall beside him. Accora fell at his feet to duck the return swing, and called ice again. From her prone position on the floor, the shards struck Svoz in his groin and he staggered backwards, unable even to scream, before toppling over a broken bench to land on his rump.
The magic was draining her. A terrible thirst wracked her and her skin felt tight and hot. She worked frantically at the stopper on the glass jar but the damned thing was stuck fast and her fingers trembled so she could hardly control them. Just as she was certain she hadn’t the strength to pull it free, the stopper loosened ever so slightly.
Svoz was climbing to his feet, scraping his sword along the ground as he picked it up. She expected a scream of rage or curses, or threats. She didn’t expect to hear him laugh. A bone-chilling chuckle that seemed to originate from the ground.
“Oh, very good, old one,” he chortled. “A low blow…I can appreciate that.”
“I have more…if you want them,” she panted.
He cocked his head at the glass jar she cradled. “What is that? A souvenir of the days when you were young and had more years ahead of you than behind? I’ve heard the aged are fond of knick-knacks.”
“Knick-knacks, yes.” Accora said. “This one…very valuable. It is from the desert isles of Juskara. Have you heard of them?”
“There is nothing that is unknown to me, witch.”
“Then you know the Juskaran isles are serviced by djinn. Djinn are like your kind: subservient and weak. Like you, they are beholden to their human masters. Like you, they are slaves.”
“A slave, am I?” Svoz scoffed lightly enough, but rage boiled beneath the surface. “Slaves are not permitted to indulge in their thirst for blood.”
“Aye,” Accora said. “Bound by blood instead of chains, but bound just the same.”
The sirrak’s face contorted into a horrifying snarl. “I’ll show you blood…”
Svoz lunged, his blade swinging, but Accora lifted the stopper out and held the crystal jar before her. Immediately, the sirrak dissolved into his customary plume of vile-smelling smoke and Accora feared he was escaping her. But the smoke rushed for the mouth of the bottle and poured itself inside. Svoz’s final scream of rage sounded as if it came from a great distance. With a satisfied tilt of her lips, Accora returned the stopper with trembling hands.
“You talk too much,” she told the bottle. “I’m certain I’m not the first to tell you that.”
The dusky smoke inside the bottle churned and rolled. The brilliant blue of the crystal was made dull by Svoz’s’ vapor and the jug no longer caught the eye with its beauty. It felt as if it weighed a thousand stones, and she thought to take it to the shore that night and send it to the Deeps.
“But I may yet need him. A bartering tool to keep the captain’s own sword from my back.”
“Accora?” Selena called from the front of the greenhouse. “I heard a crash…” Booted footsteps rushed toward her.
“Here, child. I’m here.” Accora set the jug behind two other vases deep on the shelf so that it was lost to shadow. “The gods be damned, I’m still here.”
The Hardest Lesson
Tables were overturned or smashed, and the beautiful multi-colored glass of one wall was shattered where another table had been hurled through it. Selena rushed inside and a dozen Yuk’ri tribesman followed after. She called for Accora and heard the answer at the rear.
“Tergus did this to me,” Accora said. She clutched her shoulder and Selena saw blood seep from between her fingers. The Bazira waved irritably at the tribesmen and they reluctantly retreated, leaving the women alone.
Selena lowered her sword. “Julian did this? No. He wouldn’t have…”
“He would and he did. He sent his pet sirrak to kill me.
Selena glanced around. “Where…? Did you…best him?”
“In a matter of speaking,” Accora said. “I have him in my keeping and there he shall stay until we make new arrangements for the duration of our voyage.” She reached for the flask at her belt. Selena had learned that Bazira carry their own ampullas, but of fresh water, to replenish them after creating ice. Accora drank deep; her battle with Svoz must have been fierce.
“But…how did you defeat Svoz? And what kind of new arrangements?” Selena asked. The mounted frame had been shattered and the insects lay amid shards of glass. They looked as if they would get up and scuttle about at any moment. She shivered.
Accora was studying her through narrowed eyes. “Aye, if you ever want to feel the intolerable heat of this island or any other, you’d best heed my conditions. I won’t be besieged as second time.”