Chapter 57: Sacrifices

The N’korans had always been known as one of the most radical of the beast tribes, if not the most. It was strange, because cats tended to be the most unbothered of all beasts. But somewhere along the way, when the N’korans banded together every feline tribe under a single banner, forming the first beast kingdom ever to exist, they developed a sense of unity, duty, and pride that went unmatched.

They did not fear death. What they feared was defeat. And sometimes death wasn’t defeat at all, but the most satisfying way to give your enemies the middle finger they deserved. The N’korans had been planning this moment not for the last decade, but for hundreds of years, ever since it became obvious they were nothing more than tools and weapons for the Zar Draconic Empire to use however the hell it pleased.

The entire line of felines broke apart, and the result was chaos like nothing Kren had ever witnessed. The first of the elders simply turned and leaped onto an Ale officer standing too close to the line. The Snake-kin yelled in surprise and tried to shove the old man off him, one hand scrabbling at the iron collar around the feline’s neck.

Instead, the old man slammed his forehead forward. It barely scratched the snake, given the sheer gulf between their cultivation levels, but it bought the elder’s companions the seconds they needed. They slipped past the stunned soldiers on either side, and that was when the carnage truly began.

Perhaps it was panic, or perhaps it was simply that the Ale had come here with no good intentions. A venom gourd exploded, and it wasn’t one of the elders’. It was a child’s. A girl no more than nine, standing near the rear of the line, had the gourd behind her burst open. She collapsed almost instantly, her back peeled raw and burned through by the violence of the blast as the venom spilled out. A sickly purple haze rose from the wreckage, flickering through the air, ready to be carried off on the wind. Unfortunately for the Ale, Lasthold sat with its back against the sea, and the winds that rolled in off that ocean were not the kind that could be denied. They pushed the haze straight back toward the Snake-kin ranks, and the nearest soldiers recoiled, coughing, shielding their faces with their sleeves.

But the wind wasn’t the real problem. With a child down and a gourd going off on an unplanned target, the scramble stalled into a sudden lull. And then the Snake-kin responsible did something so stupid that he would be remembered for it for years to come.

"Do you see this?" he screamed, holding up a cylindrical rod no longer than six inches. "This is the key to your salvation and your end! Do as you’ve been commanded and march, or I’ll blow every last one of you sky high!"

All eyes landed on him. For just a second, he was able to bask in the knowledge that he’d put the felines on their back foot. For just a second, he felt exactly the way he wanted to, a man holding hundreds of lives in his hand. But the moment passed when he realized the eyes on him weren’t wide with fear. They were burning with absolute fury. Death ahead and death behind. And the death ahead meant fighting family, friends, the last remnants of their people, who were only now preparing to fight back. These were a people with nothing left to lose, and that little cylinder looked very much like the key to their freedom.

"S-stay back!"

The confidence had drained out of his voice. His second of invisible power was gone, and he’d just given them the final push they needed to put everything on the line. Behind him, his own soldiers shifted uneasily, glancing from the officer to the chained lines, hands tightening on spear hafts and sword grips. One of them muttered something under his breath. Another took half a step backward.

"FOR N’KORA!"

"FOR BLACKMANE!"

"FOR THE KING!"

The Felines screamed their affirmations to the air, so much so that even with their restrictions, aura reacted to them. They pressed forward.

The snake kin holding the key was the same one who’d spoken to Kren. It was obvious Selvin hadn’t even had the decency to show up himself. He saw Kren and whatever resistance his people could muster as inconsequential, and had turned the rest of his focus to the other princes and the Jackal King. That knowledge burned far hotter than Kren liked. But the time for anger about being underestimated was over.

The first of the elders hit the commanding officer like a wave. He’d been foolish enough to stand close, confident the felines had been brought to heel and there was nothing they could do with their lives in his hands. The gray-haired old woman Kren had noticed, reached him first, her chained wrists looping over his head from behind and dragging him backward by the throat. An old man followed, then a second, then a half dozen more, shuffling, stumbling, throwing themselves forward with everything they had left. Their chains clanked and sang. Their claws came out, yellowed and cracked, and found cloth, then skin.

The officer shrieked and thrashed, stabbing wildly with a short blade. It sank into a feline’s ribs, then another’s belly, but the elders didn’t let go. They didn’t even flinch. One had her teeth sunk into his forearm, worrying at it like a hound. Another clawed at his face, ripping furrows across his cheek, and the officer’s other hand came up to bat him away, which was exactly what they wanted.

"Get them off me!" he screamed. "Get them OFF me!"

His soldiers hesitated. It was the worst possible time to do so. They stood in a ragged ring, spears lowered but trembling, staring at a seething knot of old bodies that had gone from prisoners to a pack of wolves in the span of a breath. Every one of them was looking at the same impossible thing: the feline elders were dying in droves and yet nothing was slowing them down. One soldier tried to stab through the pile and caught an old man in the shoulder. The old man turned and sank his teeth into the soldier’s wrist, and the soldier’s scream was shriller than the officer’s.

The officer panicked, and in his panic, he pressed the key.

Eight felines directly in front of him blew apart. Chunks of their flesh, mingled with the venom from the gourds on their backs, sprayed across the officer in a hot, stinking wave. He screamed, tearing at his own face, as his allies surged forward to reach him. It was already too late. A tide of N’korans closed over him, claws and fangs extended, tearing at a body whose cultivation should have made him untouchable. He fought, he truly did, and for a moment Kren saw the flash of Aura burst outward from the heap. It was swallowed in seconds by sheer, suffocating numbers, until what remained beneath the pile could not truly be called a man anymore.

Kren, though, had eyes only for that key. It was the only way to save them. The only way to stop more deaths from unfolding in front of him.

As more elders piled onto the heap, the remaining Ale soldiers broke into a scramble, desperately trying to reach their commander. Dozens were cut down in the crush by their own panicking allies, spears swinging blindly, bodies colliding. A younger Snake-kin soldier stood frozen at the edge of the melee, his face gone pale, staring at the feline he’d just driven his blade into. The feline grinned at him with bloody teeth, wrapped both hands around the spear shaft, and pulled him closer. Kren shrugged Aki’s hands off his shoulders, ready to charge in. No matter what, they needed that key. But Aki held on, his grip unshakable.

"Wait, Your Majesty. I’ll go and get it myself—"

"YOUR MAJESTY! AVENGE US!"

Someone screamed over him. Both of them turned toward the voice and saw a teenager of fifteen or sixteen, not much younger than Kren and not much older than Jomin. In his bloodied hands was the key, and the moment he raised it above his head, every Snake-kin on the field snapped around toward him. They rushed him, and Kren saw the moment the boy smiled, small and almost peaceful, before he threw the key with all his strength in Kren’s direction.

Aki caught it a heartbeat before a spear punched through the boy’s chest. Then a blade took his head clean off his shoulders, a triumphant smile still frozen across his face.

"NOOOOOOOO!"

Kren’s cry was a roar of anguish and fury. He couldn’t take any more of this. He couldn’t sit here while the people he was supposed to protect died for him. He had to fight. That was the last thought that crossed his mind before a heavy blow to the back of his skull took him out like a snuffed candle, his limp body falling into Aki’s arms.

The older cat looked out over what remained of the felines, the younger ones still standing, watching their parents and grandparents, their uncles and aunts and neighbors, die so that their king and they themselves might have a chance. It was a chance bought with a great many lives, and it had delivered a decisive blow. Aki was under no illusions. The commanding officer was dead. They had bought time, and with it, the chance to save more lives.

"Retreat! Retreat in the name of the king! Brothers and sisters, we have the key! Back to Lasthold!"

Then Aki turned, hauling Kren off his own mountain goat and onto his, and spurred the beast hard toward Lasthold, his king slumped limply in his arms, unconscious and clearly in terrible pain.