Amazonia

  Asena roared as she hurled herself at Titan, smashing blows at his head like a whirlwind, one after another.

  Titan stood like a grandfather oak weathering a storm. His tower shield absorbed most of the violence, the Ogri using his blade to block occasional blows, then cocking it back again as Asena looked for an opening. Baffled, she feinted a swing at his head and stepped back.

  The great-sword Titan wielded with one hand lashed out like a serpent towards her leg. The blade smashed into the side of her knee and Asena roared in pain, stumbling backwards. Titan followed, relentless as death, his great-sword striking out again and again as he continued keeping her off balance until she was only a few feet from the edge of the platform. Asena shook off the pain and charged...

  Into Titan, who was charging as well, his tower shield like a battering ram smashing into her and lifting Asena off her feet. The tower shield cracked as she bounced off it and flew backwards off the platform.

  Asena's back hit the paving stones hard. She bounced once, holding onto her weapons with her arms and legs splayed out as Argat put his face in his hand. Az laughed. "Never bet against Titan," she said with a grin as Argat's gaze met hers. "I've fought with him over the last couple years, and I've never seen him lose once."

  Prince Timur grabbed her arm. "Don't count the wolf-bitch out yet," he said, his other hand pointing down at the platform. Amazonia turned her head towards the center and her eyes went wide.

  Asena was getting to her feet. "That's impossible," Az said as Asena shook her head to clear it and lumbered for the stairs. "At the very least the impact should've stunned her."

  "The old ones tell stories, handed down for generations, about the war against the Daemo Princes," Bogen said as Prince Timur let go of her arm. "They say when the battle-fury comes upon the Wolf Mother, she cannot be stopped."

  Prince Timur leaned forward as Asena reached the stairs. "She's a different person than the one who drank and told stories the night I met you, Az."

  "Bells of Hades, it's the mana," Amazonia exclaimed as Asena roared and charged up to the platform. "Greywolf and Wysper restored her mana back to what it used to be."

  Prince Timur stroked his beard. "Indeed." Az went from sitting to kneeling forward at the same time Argat did, Timur chuckling as Argat began cheering for Asena while she yelled encouragement to Titan. The Ogri went back to his firm stance with the tower shield out, raising it to catch a head blow... no, it's a feint. Asena slammed the blunted blade of her axe against the split in his shield. Wood cracked, the split growing wider, and Asena raised her axe to attack the shield again.

  Titan struck back, his sword swinging down towards her knee, but she blocked the blow with her own blade and kept chopping away with her axe at the shield. Titan stepped back before rushing forward and shield bashing her again.

  The tower shield slammed against her and split in half. Asena went into a frenzy, her sword and axe striking like a smith's hammer on steel as Titan desperately unsnarled his arm from the shield straps. He staggered backwards, throwing the useless shield at her face. As she stopped to brush it aside, he wrapped both hands on the hilt of the great-sword and charged.

  Titan went into a frenzy matching Asena's, the two trading blows without any thought of blocking, and Az’s mouth hung open before she realized it and closed her jaws with a click. "Cerberus' rancid breath, I've never seen him fight like this."

  "Titan's realized he might not win this time," Timur replied as the two continued their relentless attack. Both helms were dented as were Titan's chest plates, their chainmail ripped away in places or dangling, with the leather underneath stained with flowing blood. Yet both kept fighting like berserkers, neither giving up an inch.

  Then Titan smashed his steel blade down on her elbow, driving the metal cup protecting it into the joint. Asena roared, dropping the sword, but as Titan raised his great sword over his head to finish her, Asena hurled the fighting axe straight at his face.

  The blunted axe blade struck between the metal bars protecting his face, breaking his nose, the Ogri bellowing in pain as he staggered backwards, one hand on the sword hilt as the other flailed helplessly. Titan tripped over his own feet and fell flat on his back.

  Asena picked up her sword with her good hand, cradling the other to her chest as she pressed the rounded tip to Titan's throat. "Yield," Asena roared down at him. Titan's tensing; he's about to try something, but she's onto him because she's increasing pressure on his throat. "Yield, or I swear by my bastard enemy Wotan that I'll crush your windpipe."

  Sometime during the fight, Az had grabbed Timur’s hand without realizing it, and now hung onto him with a fierce grip as Titan's fist clenched the sword hilt. "I'm trying to save your son," he yelled.

  "Wysper saved my son when she saved my soul," Asena snarled back. "She stood up to me with open arms like the druid priestesses did, hundreds upon hundreds of years ago, and like them, made me see what I’d become."

  Asena panted for breath as she swayed on her feet. "It's over, Titan. You want to train Greywolf to fight the same war you've been fighting since we destroyed the Daemo princes. Oh yes, you do," she replied to something he said too faint to hear. "You want Greywolf to take over fighting the injustices you and the other Ancient Ones of the Ogri were bred to stand up against, but it isn't our war anymore." With her free hand, Asena motioned towards the crowd around them. "It's their fight, the humans and the other races, to take up or not as they choose, and the sooner we get out of their way, the better."

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  She sighed. "We're relics, Titan. Relics of a different age, who used the people on Earth like bad parents use their children for their own selfish desires. Yes, like I did," she replied to him, "and like you want to do as well. The sooner we let them lead their own lives, the better off they’ll be."

  "What about the Brittani people?" Titan rumbled, loud enough to hear. "At the very least, I need to teach Wysper strategy, both on the battlefield and off, in case her family dies and she becomes their queen."

  "Wysper's my daughter now," Asena growled, "and if they make her queen, I will go with you and teach their warriors every terrible secret I know about how to destroy an enemy trying to occupy your land."

  Asena pulled off her helm and threw it down onto the platform with a loud crash. "But if they don't, then we'll stay with the Crimson Horde over the winter, and in the spring, travel east to the Xian empire."

  "Xian?"

  "Don't look so surprised. I want to show Greywolf the place where the last Daemo Prince died, then take both my children to the mist shrouded temples of Indus, to dream haunted Aegyptus and let them ask wisdom of the Sphinx, and after that onto whatever lands the road takes us." Asena sighed. "Once upon a time I wanted to die with my teeth in Wotan's throat for his turning the Germanic tribes against me for bearing Greywolf. But now, all I want is to die in bed with both my children, and Greywolf's father, beside me, though I know that's too much to ask." Titan said something to her and she nodded. "Yes, I'd very much like to have the last old friend I've got to be with me as well. I'd like that more than you'll ever know."

  Asena bared her fangs at him. "Now, will you please fukin yield so I don't have to kill you?" Titan raised the sword he held in his fist.

  Then reversed it, holding his sword by the blade with the hilt facing Asena. She threw aside her own sword and took it, a held breath rushing out of everyone as she threw the great-sword aside as well and knelt down beside him with her head bent over his chest. Az exhaled sharply as Timur squeezed her hand. "Now that was a fight people will talk about for the rest of their lives."

  "Agreed." Realizing she was holding onto Timur, Az quickly released his hand. "Apologies, my prince. If it hadn't been Asena fighting him—"

  "I understand completely and no apology is needed." Prince Timur smiled and looked towards his left. "Now, if Argat tries holding my hand instead, there may be words." Argat made an exaggerated expression of horror and the four of them laughed as Titan sat up, took off his own helm, then helped Asena get to her feet as he stood up.

  They left their gear, clinging to each other like a pair of old people heading for the stairs as the crowd cheered. Bogen cleared his throat. "Amazonia, if the Wolf Mother had killed Titan, would you have avenged her death by slaying Asena?"

  What's he talking about? "Why would I do that?" she asked, giving Bogen a puzzled look. "It was a fair fight."

  "Fair or not, Titan's your brother, and blood calls for vengeance."

  "That wasn't the way it was back in Konstanopolis," Az told him as Titan and Asena hobbled down the stairs and left the plaza together. "Titan and I fought for the amusement of the crowd, which Little Paulus' father often called a horde of easily bored children who craved novelty the way a drunkard craves wine. In the arena, today's brother-in-arms could be tomorrow's foe."

  Prince Timur raised his eyebrows. "Even Titan?"

  Az shook her head. "Titan made it clear in the beginning that he'd never fight me for any reason, and Lord Paulus backed him to the hilt, refusing several lucrative contracts to do just that. But everyone else in the Ludus knew they could be matched with anyone at any time."

  The prince gave her a sympathetic look. "That must have been hard at times."

  Amazonia shrugged. "As a slave, you don't make many friends anyway, at least close ones. That way you never get hurt."

  "Like wearing armor against the world." She nodded, and Prince Timur stroked his beard. "Except that Titan found his way through all the layers to the heart underneath. You're going to be torn when he finally leaves."

  Az sighed, unable to meet his gaze. "My prince, I'll get over it. In a way, it'll be good to have him gone, so I can concentrate on the mission without distraction."

  Timur raised his eyebrows. "When I was a boy about Little Paulus' age, my grandfather told me a story about a little boy whose nose grew every time he told a lie, and only shrunk when he admitted the truth." He held his hand out about a finger-length from her nose and pinched the empty air. "Honk, honk."

  Az snorted in wry laughter and he gave her a knowing smile, Argat grinning while Bogen frowned. "My prince, I don't understand."

  "That's alright," Timur said, reaching back to pat Bogen's shoulder. "Just keep watching for enemies, and—"

  "My prince," Argat said urgently, his face serious again, "there may be a problem in the Warghorse pens. Look."

  Their gazes followed his outstretched hand. In the wooden pens across the plaza, all of the Warghorses around Khan Khingla's old, silver muzzled Warghorse, had backed away from the beast as far as their pens would allow. The beast was running around its own pen in a circle, snarling at the assembled khans in riding leathers and those helping with the animals, as its claws tore at the paving stones. Khingla was the only one not getting snarled at. He was sitting on the fence, motioning for the Warghorse to calm down, and it seemed to be listening because it slowed down and stopped beside the old man.

  Khingla hopped off the fence onto the beast's back, positioning himself on the simple leather saddle and slipping his hand through the loop meant to keep the reins in his hand. Az peered forward. "Is that froth starting to come from the Warghorse's mouth?"

  "What's that old fool doing?" Prince Timur got to his feet and the other three scrambled up as well as Timur shouted, "Something is wrong. Get off his back."

  The old man was either ignoring him or couldn't hear Timur over the noise of the crowd, yelling at one of the people around the pen while motioning at the gate with his free hand. A man in a white slave's tunic lifted the latch and began opening the gate.

  The Warghorse took off like Cerberus released from the Underworld. The Warghorse smacked into the wooden gate, knocking the slave off his feet as khans and commoners alike scrambled to get out of the way. Khingla fought to stay on the saddle, the Warghorse snapping at people before bucking like a stallion in rut. The old man tumbled off its back and the beast took off.

  With Khingla's arm trapped in the reins. The Warghorse dragged him around the pens towards the platform where Titan and Asena had just fought, the old man slamming into fence post before scraping along the paving stones as screams and shouts erupted from the crowd. Khingla desperately clawed for the knife at his belt to cut himself loose, and got it out just as the Warghorse reached the platform’s stairs and started up them. His hand hit a step hard and the knife glinted in the sunlight as it flew away.

  The Warghorse reached the top of the platform and raced across it, sniffing the air as it seemed to search for something, or someone. It stopped in the platform's center, red flecked foam frothing at its mouth as its gaze seemed to pass by the four of them, its eyes searching... Its head whipped back and the beast snarled in their direction, Khingla feebly trying to pull away as the Warghorse stared straight at the prince.

  Then it raced straight towards him.