Avikan
Khayar as-Tevira was not having a good day. Admittedly, the sun was bright and the breeze was sweet, and the dew along the leaves overhead was pleasantly cool and thirst-quenching, but she was still bruised, still stuck in the human camp, and the damned creature had come to gloat again.
“Look at it drinking water off the leaves. Just like an animal,” the human laughed. Khayar didn’t remember enough xenobiology at the moment to know if humans came in was male, female, or neither, and frankly she didn’t care. She glared at them silently before finishing her drink.
The human walked over, crouching just out of her reach. “Your crew isn’t good at listening, lizard,” they said. “They still haven’t stopped defending that ridiculous keep. Do you know what we’re going to do to you, lizard?”
Khayar slowly and deliberately licked the last stray drops from her face, showing off her forked tongue and thin, sharp teeth. “Enlighten me, human,” she said, imitating their crude language flawlessly. Know your enemy, as she had been taught, and these robed cultists were undoubtedly enemy.
The human twitched back, though she couldn’t read their expression under the thick purple hood. “It speak, then. Good. Your people might reconsider if they hear you pleading for mercy before we make an example of you.”
Khayar considered this. “It is an interesting plan, human,” she agreed. “I am a valuable hostage. But there is a small flaw.”
The human snorted. “Don’t tell me something stupid like ‘you can’t break me.’ We’ve heard that one before. We always find a way.”
“I was not going to say that.” There was a quiet snap, the sound of the last strand of rope being cut. Khayar flipped back onto her hands, catching the human in the chest with both taloned feet. She stood up as they hit the dirt and flicked the last strands of twine away from her wrists.
“You got too close,” she said, showing all of her sharp, sharp teeth.
-
“Curious. Where have you been, Lady Khayar?” the ornate Glitch lord asked her when she joined him on the walls an hour later, rubbing salve into the cracked scales at her wrists.
“Having a chat with the enemy,” she said, pocketing the salve box again and surveying the field in front of the keep. “Have I missed anything interesting?”
“Bored. No, they simply keep charging the gates. Your lieutenant Medyiki said something about them trying to sabotage the walls, but we put a quick stop to that.” He looked over the field again. His eyes lit up as he glanced skyward. “Alert. Here they come again.”
“Never a dull moment,” Khayar muttered with a grim grin as she strung her bow. She really wished she had her line rifle right about now, but the Glitch were still repairing that. “Looks like I came back just in time.”
The Glitch lord glanced at her. “Thougthful. You do not have to help us, you know. You put yourself at risk in a fight that’s not yours.”
Khayar sighted along the arrow, lining up the shot as the first of the human flying contraptions came within range. “Don’t be silly. It became my fight the moment they captured me last night. Besides, you sheltered us.” She let the arrow fly. “The Avikan pay their debts.”
