Linsha could not reply. Pain registered in her mind, screaming in her neck and back and lungs. Blood pounded in her head and behind her eyes. Panic clawed at the rage that still fired her mind. Her hands tore at Malawaitha’s arm, but she might as well try to tear out stone. Her vision blackened as her eyes strained again the mounting pain and pressure in her head. Her feet kicked, trying to connect against Malawaitha’s shins or knees or feet. It was all of little use. The implacable pressure on her throat continued to crush the life out of her.

Then her fingers touched a familiar hard disk hanging at her neck. The chain was caught under the Tarmak’s arm, but the two dragon scales lay free on her chest. Linsha snatched them. She knew from touch which was which. Lord Bight had edged the bronze scale with a thin rim of gold. However, Iyesta’s scale had been given on the spur of the moment and there had been no time since to match the rim. The brass scale was hard as metal, thin as a disk, and sharp enough to do damage. Linsha’s fingers angled it and slashed the curved edge down Malawaitha’s forearm. The Tarmak made a gasping noise, but she did not scream or loosen her grip. Her strength ebbing, Linsha tried again. Desperately she slashed Malawaitha’s arm a second, a third, a fourth time. She could tell the scale was cutting deeply into the woman’s arm, because she shuddered each time and her blood ran down warm and slippery onto Linsha’s chest. Yet still she clung tenaciously to Linsha’s throat.

There was no air left in Linsha’s lungs. Her mind was shutting down; her head throbbed. Frantic now, she summoned the last tatters of her waning strength and hacked the dragon scale against the back of Malawaitha’s wrist. Something gave beneath the edge of the scale.

A sound somewhere between a gasp and a choked-off scream burst in her ear, and the Tarmak’s arm slid off just enough for Linsha to gasp for air. Her throat hurt abominably and her air passage felt pressed flat, but a thin stream of air slid out of her aching lungs and blessed fresh breath flowed in. She gasped again and coughed. Malawaitha shifted under her, and the woman’s uninjured arm moved as she sought to get another grip around Linsha’s neck. The terror of being pinned again shot a burst of energy through Linsha’s flagging muscles. She lifted her head as high as she could manage and brought it down hard on Malawaitha’s face. Pain shot through her head, but she guessed from Malawaitha’s cry that it was not as bad as the damage done to her enemy.

Taken by surprise, Malawaitha had taken the full brunt of Linsha’s head blow on her nose. Groaning, she clapped a hand to her injured face. Linsha rolled off and scrambling to her hands and knees, she sought for an axe. The Tarmak scrabbled away from her, blood streaming down her broken nose and pouring from her arm. They both saw the closest axe at the same time.

Both women lunged for the weapon. Malawaitha’s longer arm reached the axe a fraction of a second sooner, but Linsha’s hand swerved in mid reach, bunched into a fist, and smashed a powerful upper cut into Malawaitha’s broken nose. Blood splattered them both. The Tarmak sagged over the axe, stunned by the blow.

Trembling with the effort, Linsha lunged after the second axe, crawled to her feet and stood over Malawaitha, the axe dangling in her hand. The tonic Afec had given her still sizzled in her brain, but the red killing lust had gone, leaving only regret and a deep sadness at the waste of all of this. She stared down at Malawaitha through a sparkle of tears and listened to the crowd around her scream for blood. They wanted a death; it didn’t seem to matter whose.

“Live or die?” she offered in Tarmakian so softly only Malawaitha could hear her.

For a long moment there was no answer. The young Tarmak lay face down on the stones, wheezing for air and bleeding profusely. Overhead, lightning flared in the clouds that now covered the sky. Linsha could hear the thunder rumble over the voices of the spectators.

Malawaitha moved. Slowly she pushed herself to her knees to face Linsha and hefted the axe. “I will never share Lanther with a human,” she spat through the blood in her mouth.

“Lanther betrayed you,” Linsha replied sadly. “If you had helped me instead of fought me, you wouldn’t have had to share him with anyone.” Then, knowing there was no other way to end this duel, she slammed Malawaitha’s axe out of the way and brought her own weapon around in a swift arc that sliced into the woman’s neck and sent her head dropping to the ground.

The body stayed upright, swaying gently a moment, before it toppled forward and lay still on the stone paving. Linsha threw her axe to the ground. She stood still in the center of the watching Tarmaks and lifted her eyes to Lanther. The first few drops of rain splattered on the stones around her.

Lightning cracked in the sky over the palace, and thunder rumbled into the hills, but the Tarmaks paid little attention to the approaching storm. They watched as Malawaitha’s body collapsed to the stones. Without a moment’s hesitation to regret her death or mourn her passing, they burst into a wild chorus of warcries, vociferous shouts, and a spate of appreciative applause. The dead woman had failed and was gone. The victor had fought well, with surprising ferocity, and had won her position as the Chosen of the Akkad-Dar. The Emperor rose from his golden throne. He nodded once to Linsha, shouted a command to his people, then moved ponderously into the palace followed by his slaves and the Empress. The Tarmaks shouted with pleasure, and every man and woman carried their goblets, plates, clothing items, musical instruments, and in some cases each other up the stairs and into the large audience hall. Slaves brought the tables, the benches, the lamps, and the wine. The feast, it appeared, was moving indoors.

Linsha did not move. She stood by Malawaitha’s body and stared down at the corpse, her face expressionless. It was all she could do to stay upright.

Afec was the first to reach her through the streams of people moving up the stairs. He touched her arm and looked worriedly into the stormy green eyes that turned to look at him.

“What did you put in that drink?” she demanded.

He looked slightly embarrassed. “I may have given you a larger dose than you needed. In the rush of the moment, I did not take into account your smaller stature.”

Lanther joined them. His blue eyes sparkled with pleasure and pride as he slipped his blue robe over her shoulders and hustled her toward the stairs.

She was too tired to argue. The only thing keeping her on her feet was Afec’s tonic. She had a feeling that when it wore off, she would collapse like a sail in a dead calm. Just once she glanced back and saw Afec kneeling by Malawaitha’s body, his head bowed, while slaves collected her head and gathered her body to be carried off. At that moment, the rain dropped out of the sky in a deluge of pouring water, and Lanther pushed her inside the large double doors of the audience hall.

She hoped he would take her back to the Akeelawasee where she could lie down, have a long drink of water, and have her injuries attended to. The swelling on her left eye was getting so bad she could barely see through the puffy flesh, her throat hurt, and the laceration on her stomach stung like fury under the blue paint.

“We’re going this way,” he said, pushing her in a different direction, away from the festivities.

“Lanther, please,” she contested. “I’ve had enough.”

“We’re going to see the dragon egg.”

He would tell her nothing more in spite of her protests and questions until they had walked through several long corridors and stopped in front of a door.