Page 53 of Humans Don't Have Horns
“You’ve got to be kidding.” Emek turns to Lian. Finally, they speak. But Lian only bites her lip and holds Daton’s gaze on her. It’s like they’re having a fucking conversation with their eyes. She is probably bewitching him some more. He keeps his face reticent. But I notice the muscle jumping at his jaw. He’s worried, and that’s a new thing for him. “You will protect us in the valley, Lian?” Emek frowns. During his trial, Daton said she saved his life more than once and that she controls nature.
“I can’t promise that,” she answers quietly.
“We’ll kill the demichads,” Daton grunts while holding Lian’s gaze. He can’t be serious. It’s fucking suicide.
“But we will be completely exposed to those assholes’ arrows,” I cry in frustration.
Daton ignores me and asks Lian, “When?”
“Thirty days from now, the sun and moon will meet at midday. Then,” she answers and bites her lip again.
“No fucking way,” I snarl. I’m his second in command, not because he favors me but because I earned my place in combat. I’m not going to lead our people to death just because that witch has a hold of him. The Aldonians smirk at my frustration. I shouldn’t have spoken against Daton in front of them. I know better. Emek glowers at me, but Daton seems unfazed. He was never unfazed until she arrived. She changed him.
The Aldonian general says, “Come now, even your mother favored us,” and I go rigid. My red hair and red eyes can only mean one thing. For him to speak of it is beyond disrespectful, beyond humiliating.
Daton pulls me to him and says in a low voice, “Humiliation is worse than death,” and gives me a little shove in the direction of the Aldonians. Humiliationisworse than death. It means I must reclaim my honor right now. But it also means I don’t get to kill him, only humiliate him. The fucker deserves to die though.
We left our weapons outside the tent. The Kozaries insisted. But as I step in the direction of the general, he pulls a knife out of his boot. It should stop surprising me by now how these people have no honor. At least not when it comes to us. But I’m glad he pulls his knife. I’ll get to have some fun, hopefully. He straddles and spreads his arms wider, his knife in his right hand. He’s scared under his façade of bravado. I can see the beads of sweat beneath his hairline, the too-shallow breathing.
I move my right leg as if to kick him, and when he moves his hand to deflect my leg, I punch him hard in the throat. He’s slow, even for a Shavir. He stumbles a step back. His eyes widen in alarm. Aldonian men, forever the sexist bigots they are. They can never view me as a deadly threat, even though I’ve been killing them for more than forty years already. I knee him in the groin. He falls to his knees, groaning.
Too easy. Disappointment bubbles in me. I won’t get any relief from my aggression with this one. He’s a slob and, by the smell of him, drunk. Many of the Aldonians I encounter are. Even though the True Religion doesn’t allow alcohol. They are only religious when it suits them. They say we’re too contaminated for them to engage with us in any way. Yet they don’t fear for the purity of their souls enough not to rape Mongans like my mother.
I grab his right hand and bend it behind his back, then take the knife from him. I flip him to the ground with one leg motion and straddle him with my thighs. My sex is on his chin, his eyes wide with terror. That’s the thing about Aldonian men. They think so poorly of women that this right here is the greatest humiliation for an Aldonian warrior. I toss the knife aside because I don’t need it to hold him down. And as that is well known, he is even more humiliated between my thighs. His hands try to claw at mine to get free. I clamp my thighs harder at his nape until he gasps in an attempt for air. “So you were saying of my mother?” I drawl, and his hands are limp now as his life starts to leave him.
“Niska.” I can hear Daton’s low, soft voice. Right—humiliate, don’t kill. I push my sex to the man’s face before I rise, and I actually hear Lian gasp in mortification. She hurries to cover her mouth with herhand, her cheeks burning.How the fuck can he want this pathetic excuse of a woman?I ask myself in frustration for the millionth time.
I walk out of the tent, meeting Daton’s eyes, and he smiles impishly. He hasn’t smiled at me for weeks. These are the things that make my father proud of me. She will never get it. She will never get him.
***
Daton joins me outside the tent.
“Are you seriously agreeing to this suicide?” I snap at him.
“You don’t want them fighting by your side. They will die so quickly, and their bodies will only be in your way,” he tells me.
That actually sounds right. But it still doesn’t mean we can agree to them standing with arrows aimed in our direction. “But what will stop them from killing us after we finish off the demichads?” I insist.
“Ifwe finish off the demichads,” he grunts, and I raise my eyebrow at him. Doesn’t he think we can beat the demichads? This is even worse than I thought. So why are we playing along? I know why, and rage washes over me.
“So we’re doing this just so you can fuck that witch?”
OK, now he’s pissed. His eyes turn obsidian black. Everything about him screams danger.
“Is this any way to speak to your father?” I hear Emek behind me. The damn woman walks quieter than a cat. I know the scolding is actually to help me this time. He looks like he’s about to explode. But he says nothing. Besides, I don’t need Emek’s help. I’m not scared of him.
“Say something!” I yell at him. “Deny it.”
“I owe you no explanations,” he growls at me.
“You’re the warlord, for fuck’s sake. This is our people’s survival on the line. And all you care about is getting inside her,” I cry out.
“I swear if a child of mine spoke to me this way, I would rip her tongue out with my bare hands. What is wrong with you, Niska?” Emek glowers at me.
“You wouldn’t have chosen a Shavir over your daughter,” I snap at her.
“You are a fifty-year-old woman, for Goddess’s sake. Pull yourself together,” she hisses at me. I didn’t even notice when Daton took off, but it’s only Emek and me now. My people worship the Goddess, but I have always worshipped my father. Kings are not allowed in our religion, but if they were, he would be crowned.
