Sabit opened her eyes to the sound of screams. Not far away, she could see the body of one of the brave, simple farmers—his spirit rising from his butchered body like a puff of breath on a cold winter morning. His dead eyes glared at Sabit with bottomless accusation: Why did you fail us? was written in long letters of blood on his face.
A man’s sandled foot blocked Sabit’s vision. “Napping in the midst of battle, Mongoose?” came his voice, shaking Sabit to her bones like thunder. Rolling onto her back, Sabit looked up at the mountainous form of Kehnan, the rising sun behind him like a halo of fury and blood.
Sabit tried to speak, but her tongue was thick in her mouth, coated with the taste of Regida’s herbs. Swallowing, she croaked, “I should have killed you before.”
Kehnan laughed “You’re right, as always, Mongoose,” he said. The mountainous man loomed closer, his knee digging into Sabit’s gut, the sharp pain driving the wind from her chest. “It’s a mistake you’ll never get the chance to learn from.”
Wrapping one massive hand around Sabit’s throat, Kehanan began to squeeze. Sabit’s blood was on fire with the desperate need for breath. Even as a veil of red fell across her vision, she could still see the vulture-beast over Kehnan’s shoulder, hungry for her heart. Her limbs felt like stone, heavy and stiff. Kehnan squeezed harder. The sutured wound on Kehnan’s face twisted his visage into a constant sneer of mockery.
The pain in Sabit’s throat was like a noose, drawing tighter and tighter as the bruises spread. A single pinprick of pain pierced the blur of agony and fury and death-vision. One sharp little tip of a seven-pointed star of the silver necklace she wore drove into Sabit’s flesh and mind and soul—like a clear, southern star on a black sea.
The star gave direction, and Sabit flung her hand where it led. She felt her fingers sink into the tight stitches of Kehnan’s wounded cheek, spit and blood coating her hand as it tore into his soft flesh.
With a roar, his massive mitt vanished from her throat. His knee retreated from her gut. Sabit writhed in the dirt. Catching glimpse of the far-off green of her forest, she gasped for breath like a fish in the bottom of boat, inches from the safety of the water, but surrounded by danger and death.
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Wayfarings of Sabit: Betrayal is copyright (c) 2017 by Michael S. Miller. All rights reserved. New chapters post every Thursday. You can support this and other stories on Patreon, https://patreon.com/michaelsmiller, or at http://ipressgames.com/fiction/.