Page 129 of Tiger's Destiny
Lokesh came after me and just as he was about to wrap his arms around me, I closed my eyes and disappeared, reappearing on top of the stone wall.
“How did you do that?” he demanded.
“Give up and I’ll tell you.”
Ren crouched behind Lokesh, momentarily forgotten. His tail twitched back and forth, and he gathered himself to spring just as an arrow grazed his shoulder. Sunil had joined the fight and raced toward Ren.
Lokesh raised his hands, and a cyclone of air lifted him on top of the rock wall next to me. He attacked with a huge scimitar, but I blocked it with my sword. I advanced with a flurry of arms, dancing atop the thin rock wall, but Lokesh deflected each blow with shields of ice and stone. I realized he was playing with me and decided I needed to bring in the big guns. Gracefully, I backflipped off of the rock and landed lightly on my feet. I glanced at Ren, who was trying to overcome Sunil without killing him. One of his paws was bleeding.
Stay focused, Ren thought.
Lokesh brought his hands down and the rock wall sunk into the ground. I raised a hand to blast him with lightning power, but he combated it with ice. He sent a wave of water at me, which I turned to fog. Anamika must have finished off the remaining demons because some of our soldiers joined us in the fight. The plan had been that when the demon army was all cremated, she and Kishan would rally the others to help us.
The men fired arrows against Lokesh but he turned the arrows back on them using the power of the wind and killed many. The rest he turned to stone or ice statues, and I despaired knowing that our army—a half a million men—had been mostly wiped out in less than forty-eight hours. He tried to freeze me, but I gripped the Rope of Fire and moved myself to another location.
He raised a mist that crept over the entire battlefield, obscuring our position but still another small group of soldiers came upon us and threw spears at Lokesh. Once again, he reversed them in the air. In a flash I snapped the Rope of Fire and flicked the weapons away just before they hit our men. I shouted for them to go help Ren.
I felt a rumble in the ground. A boulder tore away, and heavy rocks lifted into the air. Trees were uprooted and then hurtled toward me, but I whipped the Rope of Fire in a circle beneath me and rose into the sky.
My foot touched an outstretched branch, and I leapt from treetop to rock to branch and rode a falling trunk until it crashed to the ground. Scraped but otherwise unharmed, I stood up atop the teetering mess and glared up at Lokesh. In an instant the Rope of Fire moved me to him, and my sword pressed against his throat.
“Impressive,” Lokesh said.
I cut the ancient medallion of black magic from his neck and burned it instantly.
“Your zombie army days are over.”
He shoved the sword away from his neck, grabbed one of my arms, and pressed me close. “Ifthat had been the real medallion, but it’s not. I learned the trick from you, my dear. Remember?”
I glanced down at Sunil. He was still fighting with Ren. An arm hung punctured and broken but he was obviously still under the power of Lokesh. Bitter disappointment washed through me but again I heard Ren’s voice.
We’ll get it.
I wiped Lokesh’s spittle from my cheek and prepared to fight anew, but before I could lift a weapon a rider charged in through the mist below. He bowed before Lokesh and his raven cape billowed behind him.
“General Amphimachus!”
“I delivered your message,” the traitor said to Lokesh.
Lokesh raised his head as if sniffing the wind. “Yes, she is close enough now, and he is not resisting.”
“What did you do?” I asked Amphimachus.
The general whirled. “The other goddess is on her way to rescue you, but that will not come to pass. Mahishasur, the demon king you call Lokesh, is going to make me the leader of his army. All I need to do is pick an animal, and because you love them so much, I will choose . . . a tiger.”
“You may not have this one,” Lokesh said. “You can have the other.”
“But she’s the one I want,” Amphimachus whined.
“Would you prefer having me remove your other leg?”
Amphimachus shook his head, and Lokesh waved him aside. “Go deal with the tiger,” he commanded.
Lokesh stalked toward me, and a long forgotten story Mr. Kadam had shared flashed through my mind. Taking a few steps back, I held up a shaking hand, fell to my knees, and said, “Please, don’t hurt me or my friends any longer. I . . . I give up. Spare me.”
Lokesh grabbed a fistful of my golden hair and tugged. “Perhaps,” he said lustily, “if you please me suffic—”
Before he could finish his gloating, I whipped my golden sword up to his throat. It cut deep into his thick neck, and he stumbled back, clutching at his wound and bellowing. For a moment I thought I had killed him, but Lokesh’s wound began to heal. The gurgle of his breathing steadied. In that instant, I knew that it would take much more to destroy him.
