THE LAST KEEPER

Kun Nakia kept her soldiers ringed around the basin without ordering the first strike. Well, even the beast wrapped around her neck and hands and the one at her feet radiated fear of the bigger one of their species.

No hunting snake would dare move against Zaira. She was the queen of her kind.

’She wants information before blood,’ N’varu thought, watching her officers hold their shields low, ’that gives us more time anyway’

”My beasts don’t smell the abomination. Well, not enough of him. So where is he?”

”Do you wish to kill him, or do you perhaps think you can?” N’varu said slowly after a moment

Kun Nakia answered, chin lifting, ”My orders concern the man who illegally crossed three territories.” She said, watching N’varu’s hands instead of his face, ”If he reaches the West, the decision becomes mine, understand?”

”You are worried he will cross your border without permission,” N’varu said, jaw loose, ”or you are worried he will kill you for voting for his death when he was weaker.”

Something shifted behind Kun Nakia’s eyes, and N’varu understood the second worry had already reached her before the first one did.

She asked, eyes narrowing, ”What does he want beyond my border? He is not the type to seek revenge over a vote.”

”A man tied to the fall of N’folu,” N’varu answered, ”and I doubt you want that man moving through your territory either. Because he must die by Sagiri’s hand. You protect him, and you will die too”

”I only wish to protect my people from a rampaging southerner, and you being here with his beast tells me you are buying time. For what exactly, I will find out soon.”

’She is good,’ N’varu thought.

An officer near the ridge called down a range estimate, and Kun Nakia answered without turning, trusting her people to hold their line while she finished reading the ground.

”You are telling me the South and North are ready to fight over a man who is not even here,” she said.

”I am telling you that punishing the wrong people will not stop him,” N’varu replied, jaw tight. ”It will only cost you soldiers you need for something else.”

Kun Nakia raised two fingers, and her line shifted along the ridge without advancing, tightening the circle by narrowing the distance between shields.

N’varu recognized the gesture as a test meant to provoke Zaira into revealing her temper, so he pressed one hand against the beast’s foreleg before the western line could bait her.

”Not yet,” N’varu said quietly, hand steady on her leg, ”We drag the fight as much as possible. Sagri should be almost where he wants to be.”

Zaira’s eyes stayed fixed on Kun Nakia, though her bottom scales withdrew from the soil and left the first challenge unanswered.

The restraint unsettled the western soldiers, since their formation had been built to answer force rather than a creature choosing patience.

’They trained for a monster,’ N’varu thought, watching two officers exchange an uneasy glance, ’nobody trained them for a calm beast.’

Kun Nakia ordered three fighters down the slope, splitting them wide to reach Zaira’s undefended side while the rest of the line held its ground.

The three soldiers reached the edge of the camp, closing the gap with one deliberate stride.

She did not roar or lunge, instead pressing one massive paw into the earth and forcing the soil upward until their boots lost their footing.

Kun Nakia called her soldiers back to the ridge, then sent a rider toward the eastern slope before N’varu could ask who deserved the message.

N’varu asked, eyes tracking the rider’s path, ”Who are you calling?”

”I hear the eastern and central chiefs already reached the southern line,” Kun Nakia said, ”you’ll be sharing this route with them once the South stops waiting.”

N’varu weighed the threat against everything he had already spent to hold this ground, since the West could not leave the basin while Zaira and the Sandshades remained, yet another front could still make the decoy worthless.

’Three chiefs closing on Sagiri at once,’ N’varu thought, throat tight, ’Sagiri was tired from the archive and relics and whatever weighed on him constantly that he could not share.”

”If your chiefs reach the South before Sagiri does, you’ll have three wars instead of one missing man,” N’varu said.

Kun Nakia’s mouth curved without warmth as she answered, ”If Sagiri reaches the West, I’ll have one war inside my own borders.”

N’varu looked past her toward the empty road behind the western line and said, ”Then keep us here, since that’s exactly what you’re already doing.”

Her eyes narrowed, since he had named the choice she seemed to be hiding from her own officers.

She said nothing for a long breath, and N’varu let the silence stretch. A woman deciding against her own instincts rarely wanted company in the decision.

”Tighten the ring until nightfall,” Kun Nakia ordered, turning her shoulder toward the ridge, ”no one attacks unless I say.”

A southern rider crested the ridge before the order had finished traveling down the line, carrying a sealed strip stamped with Zifara’s crest against the failing light.

The rider’s horse stumbled on the loose scree, and two western guards caught the reins before the animal could carry the message any farther off course.

Kun Nakia read it once, jaw tightening, then looked toward N’varu before saying, ”The South gave the eastern and central chiefs until nightfall to bring Sagiri back alive, whatever that’s worth to you.”

”It is worth nothing to me, but Kun of the west, I advise you to pick your fights carefully this time.”

Kun Nakia folded the strip between two fingers without answering right away, studying the seal while her officers waited beside the ridge for a decision she had not yet made.

’She wants to leave and cannot,’ N’varu thought, reading the pause the way Seyika had taught him to read every hesitation, ’that stall is working.’

”You speak as though you are winning,” Kun Nakia said, ”your people are surrounded, your beast is waiting on your word, and your missing chief may not even know what you’re buying him.”

”Winning is not important to me, but I am not sure I will lose if you fight me,” N’varu answered, one hand still resting on Zaira’s leg, ”Unless you wish his beast to feast on yours.”

Zaira shifted behind him, shaking her massive head, forcing the nearest officers to raise their shields without waiting for an order.

Kun Nakia’s mouth tightened, though she did not order the attack.

The southern deadline kept closing in, that was a fact she could not ignore

She folded the message once more, looked toward the darkening horizon, and N’varu understood that every hour now depended on the decision the chiefs at the front would make and Zifara’s decision.

And that decision will require the Kun of the west to make a choice.