Eona - Alison Goodman [204]
“Ido, look out,” I screamed.
Too late. With a harsh battle cry, Yuso charged into the center of the grapple. The collision knocked the two men apart. Sethon reeled backward. Ido crashed onto his hands and knees, his broad back unprotected. I forced one last spurt of speed into my burning muscles, but Yuso was already lunging into his attack.
Straight past Ido.
For a moment, it didn’t make sense. Then Yuso hooked his arm around Sethon’s neck and drove his blade into the man’s bare chest. Yuso wasn’t after Ido; he was trying to kill Sethon. With a physician’s knife.
Sethon swung Yuso off balance. Both men fell to the ground, Kinra’s sword flying out of Sethon’s hand and sliding across the boards. Ido rolled away from their thrashing bodies and hauled himself to his feet. Straight into my path. With no time to pull up, I slammed into his chest, the impact driving out all my air. With a grunt, he staggered back a step and caught me. I doubled over and gasped for breath.
“Were you coming to help me or kill me?” he said, halflifting half-dragging me farther away from the vicious fight on the ground.
I struggled out of his grasp. “Where’s the pearl?” I managed.
“Sethon still has it.”
I caught a flash of metal as Yuso plunged the tiny knife down again. It must have found its mark, because Sethon roared with pain and punched the captain in the side of the head, loosening his grip.
I finally drew in a full breath. “Can we use the lightning? Like the beach?”
“No,” Ido said. Around us, the shrieking thrum of the dragons was like the song of a thousand cicadas. “I don’t know what would happen if we called our beasts in the middle of this circle. And we’d risk destroying the pearl.”
We would have to get the Imperial Pearl the hard way. I tightened my hand around my sword and looked for an opening in the struggle before us.
Sethon slammed his elbow into Yuso’s face, then dived for his sword. Yuso slashed wildly, the too-small knife slicing across Sethon’s bare back in a crimson arc. He pulled back just as Sethon flipped over and swung Kinra’s sword at him, missing his chest by a hair’s breadth. Both men drew up into wary crouches. Breathing hard, they stood and faced one another, my position in their sightlines. I had lost my chance.
Sethon spun Kinra’s sword in his grip. “You’ve just killed your son,” he said. “And yourself.”
Yuso’s hand flexed around the knife hilt. “I am already dead.” He looked at me. “Lady Eona, this buys my son’s safety.”
I felt my whole body tense into expectation.
Yuso ran at Sethon, the short knife raised, his whole body open to attack. Sethon plunged Kinra’s sword into the captain’s chest. The thrust was so hard that I saw the tip emerge between Yuso’s shoulder blades and heard the thump of the hilt spring back against his breastbone. Yuso dropped his knife and grabbed the grip over Sethon’s hand, holding the sword and Sethon against his body. With a deep guttural groan, he swung Sethon around until the man’s back faced us. Sethon jerked at the hilt, trying to withdraw the blade.
“Do it,” Yuso gasped.
Ido sprang forward and drove his long knife up into Sethon’s sacral point, all of his strength behind the strike. Sethon screamed, his body arching, the shock to his Hua locking him against the knife. Ido twisted the blade upward.
“Shall we explore that pain?” he said against Sethon’s ear.
My innards froze; the words and tone were a perfect imitation of Sethon’s torture.
Ido jerked the blade again, forcing a moan from Sethon. “Exhilarating, isn’t it.”
He wrenched Sethon’s weight away from Yuso. Without the brace of the High Lord’s body, Yuso slowly folded to the platform and pitched