Page 17 of Tethered Thrones

Sun

Hadi’s claws slashed through my sleeve, trying to catch me as I was flung from the cliff’s edge. He desperately shot out a web to grab me, but it was already too late. The shadow and I spiraled mid-air before slamming into a tree, the air knocked out of me. But I didn’t have time to recover as we dodged a swooping nightwing, and then another and another until a swarm of them were upon us, claws and fangs bared.

Everything was happening too fast for my instincts to kick in, least of all my training. I groaned as a cobalt blue nightwing nearly took off my nose and a good chunk of my face. But then, the mighty beast that had captured me sprang into action.

A sickening crack of bone was very shortly followed by wails of terror as flesh was torn and teeth and claws rained down like snow. It, whatever and whoever this noc was, was defending me to the death.

And I knew it was a noc even without being able to fully grasp what kind, the flashes of white speckled fur yet oddly human shape unmistakable. When our attackers were butchered, the noc grabbed a hold of me again with surprising strength left in its body after dealing so much damage.

My chest burned, trying to tear away from him to no avail. My arm was like a toothpick in its huge paws, and I’d never been a wisp of a man.

The panthera, I realized, leaped from the canopy as shouts and protests sounded above from my nocturnal harem. He took the brunt of the blow as we fell to the forest floor, and when he released me, I was propelled into a nearby tree from the force of the impact. This skirmish had ended in our victory, but I needed to put some distance between us immediately.

It had taken Kiar, Bracken, and me to take down the tiger-like panthera who had chased Clem. Alone against the solitary creature, I knew I would meet my match. I reached wildly for anything to defend myself with, but it was useless.

Thankfully, the godstones were still safely tucked away in my pockets. However, my dagger was lost in the mayhem, and in the chaos of the crash, any other tools and weapons I’d stashed on me had disappeared in the fray.

It was me and him, hand to hand, and grappling with a snow leopard noc would end with me losing my head.

I sucked in a sharp, steadying breath, hoping Hadi and the rest made it to me before then, or else we were all goners. I could’ve laughed, escaping that hellish prison, fighting tooth and nail through Yin Valley, communing with the goddess… only to be mauled by a leopard and left for dead—an unceremonious end to an epic journey.

But as I waited for him to pounce, the beast standing to its full height, so large my neck strained to look up at him, he did…

Nothing.

One steady eye tracked me as I circled, and the other was unseeing. Scarred. Gods, he was so horrifically scarred! A chunk of ear missing, tufts of fur ripped out and burned long before battling the nightwings who lay dead in heaps around us. A scar curled above his lips as he snarled at me.

It was as if he’d tussled with every noc known and unknown to humanity and emerged triumphant. Only then did I see what was looped around his waist in a crude belt made of rope decorated with glass beads. He was carrying chunks of meat and the severed head of a…

“Panthera,” I breathed, and his ears twitched.

The eyes were gouged out, the face slackened in horror, a still life of the moment before its death, and yellow-orange fur matted with blood. But there was no mistaking it was a lion—a lion panthera, but a lion, nonetheless.

That wasn’t unusual. Pantheras were naturally loners and known to eat their own without hesitation, a trait unusual even among nocs. But I had never seen one carry another like some macabre trophy on a belt!

Something glinted in the snow, and I dove for it, bewildered when the panthera didn’t give chase. He only grimaced then grunted in a rhythmic way, similar to language. Fear colder than the freezing air pulsed through me at that thought.

Was it calling others? Was this an unusual panthera that hunted in a pack, and were his brethren not sated by the butchered beast on his belt?

I gripped the onyx shard until it cut into my flesh. The predator stalked me in a circle now, toying with its prey. Because that’s what I was, prey, only able to stave off my inevitable death, not win this battle without–

“Sun!” A demonically low voice sounded from above.

It was Hadi and wave after wave of relief flooded through me. But he was bruised and bloody, and I looked up in horror to see Bracken battling. But he wasn’t alone. Something, ah, another nightwing was fighting… with him?

None of this made any sense.

I lifted my arms as Hadi arrived like a long-gone cavalryman come to rescue me, and gratitude filled my trembling heart ashe swept me into a tight embrace. I crawled onto his back, and even from this vantage point, the panthera before us appeared unnaturally large and tall. He was a monster in every sense of the word.

“You’re hurt,” I whispered, shocked by the shallow wounds on his body. They weren’t just from swinging down the mountainside.

Hadi had been wounded, but by what? By who? The nightwing? But how had so many even spotted us? Had Daaku finally ambushed us? That didn’t make sense either because if these were Daaku’s noc soldiers, why in the world were some of them defending us rather than taking our heads?

Without thinking, I slipped from Hadi’s back before he could protest and flung my shard of blood onyx towards the panthera. It whistled through the air, and he dodged, allowing the shard to strike and splinter a tree trunk behind him, licking the shallow wound I'd made on its cheek. Still, the panthera did not move; his moss green eyes circled in sky blue, filled with something unreadable as he continued his rhythmic grunting.

Was the panthera trying to communicate with me? But why?

“What are you doing?” Hadi hissed with disdain at the panthera, who inched closer and closer until he was within arm’s reach of me.

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