Amazon Chief (87 page)

"Oh good, you have our skins," she said. She stepped closer, taking the skins from me but inserting her head between Lia's and mine. "Beria, you are wanted in the kitchen. Alone."

I nodded once, kissed Lia quickly, and said, "I'm going to steal a bite to eat. I'll meet you at the river."

Maya pulled Lia and the girls towards the river, and I headed for the kitchen. Omie and Vorine were guarding the doorway. "Lia said if I sneak in quickly, I can find a treat she left for me."

Neither of them said anything, but I stepped between them, and I knew they were blocking the entrance after me.

Standing in the middle of the kitchen was Malora with Nori to the side. Nori had her arms crossed and was leaning against the cupboards. Malora was bright red.

"What in the hell was that?" she hissed. "You have been ordered to win this tournament, not play with the fiercest competition!"

I carefully considered the queen before responding.

"That woman has been leaving five big bruises on each of her last four companions. She twice made serious attempts to incapacitate or kill me. She now has nine or
ten bruises she didn't have before. I was giving her a taste of her own medicine. In spades."

"This is not a training ground!" Malora said, her volume barely under control. "This is not the time for a lesson in humility. This is not the time for payback. Beria, I need you to win this tournament, and win it decisively. I am so angry with you right now, I can't see straight."

"Queen Malora, with all due respect, you are the one who declared my strikes were not points."

"And when I did, you should have stopped trying to teach her a lesson and won your match."

"To be honest, I thought I could win that way." I shrugged. "She parried my strike and I slipped. I didn't forfeit the match."

"No," she said, "for the sake of delivering a lesson to a single warrior, you may have undone a great deal of work. You had orders to win this tournament, not deliver messages to one particularly brutish woman."

I paused. "You are right," I said quietly. "You were clear. But for what it's worth, I didn't deliver a message to one woman. I delivered a message to everyone there, after you made sure everyone of importance was watching."

"Oh?" she asked. "And what was that message? That two can play at that game?"

"No," I said, "that I will not tolerate a bully."

For the first time since I arrived, Nori spoke. "Malora, she hasn't lost yet. And she's right. She delivered her message, and everyone saw it. I saw a lot of smiles every time sh
e left Jalad with a new bruise." Then she turned to me. "Stop screwing around. You damned well better win your remaining matches. Do you hear me?"

"Yes, Nori. Queen Malora, I'm sorry. I don't understand why this is so important to you. I felt my message was important, too."

She stood there for a full two minutes. Her breathing slowed, and finally she slumped. "I need a better apology than that, Beria."

"Queen Malora, I am sorry," I said. "I didn't set out to disappoint you. And it wasn't in my mind I was disobeying your orders. I'm sorry."

"All right," she said after a moment. "Go on. I'm sure my companion has plans for you. Don't get hurt."

"Of course not," I said. "Thank you, Queen Malora. Nori."

I backed to the doorway and then turned around, passing between Vorine and Omie. Omie stopped me with a hand. "I'll be down shortly."

I nodded and continued to the water.

* * * *

I stepped out onto the rocks. Maya was watching for me, and I hurried to her.

"Got any skin left?" she asked me quietly.

I shrugged. "So, am I too late for your event?"

"It's just about to begin." She stepped away and raised her voice. "All right," she said. "We now have the doubles water wrestling competition. Rules were posted on the board, but I'll review them. I see seventeen teams on the list. Jasmine will take your two-skin entry fee."

She immediately turned to Jasmine and handed over the two skins I'd given her a few minutes ago. The remaining teams provided their skins, and then Maya asked, "Is everyone here, Jasmine?"

"We're missing one team," she said. "Omie and Aren have not paid their entry fee."

"I'm here!" said Omie from behind me. I turned to see her rushing forward carrying her two skins. "Sorry I'm late. Where's my companion?"

"Here," Aren called from the water. "Pay our fee."

Maya explained the rules. It was the same water wrestling we always did, but two against two. That promised for some chaos. There would be two matches at a time with Jasmine judging one, Ralla the other. Someone was out if she tapped out or was held under water for more than thirty heartbeats. The win went to the team with at least one swimmer still active.

"This is not a game of keep away," Maya explained. "The judges may issue warnings at their discretion. You are not obligated to engage in toe-to-toe combat, but it's not a chase, either. However, wearing down your opponents is a legitimate strategy." She took a few questions then asked everyone to step out of the water. There were ample towels waiting, so everyone was comfortable sitting on the rocks overlooking the pool.

"First match," Jasmine declared. She called out the teams.

It was interesting to watch the strategies involved. Some of the teams treated it like normal wrestling, standing in shallow water and going after each other. Some of the teams treated it like two separate, one against one fights at the beginning, which eventually turned into a two against one. A few of the teams waited in deeper water for their opponents, but no teams actively tried to drag opponents into deep water.

Maya and I went during the third round. Our opponents were a couple of warriors I didn't know well.
Maya and I didn't even need to discuss strategy. We would start in deep water, and if they came to us, Maya would pick a target and I'd help her, separating that target from her partner then helping Maya as much as I could while keeping the other partner from interfering.

We dived in and swam to the middle of our side of the pool, well into deep water. Our opponents stepped into the water then began taunting us, wet only from the waist down.

"Think they can swim?" Maya asked me.

"Probably, but probably not well. Guess we need to go get one of them."

We moved in slowly, and even when we could touch bottom, we swam, letting them think the pool was deeper than it was. We got close, and they both lunged, one for me, one for Maya. I stepped back out of the lunge, pushing the woman underwater. Maya grabbed hers, letting the woman push her under, but I knew my sister would start hauling her opponent backwards. I grabbed an arm of Maya's opponent and yanked towards deeper water. Seconds later, we were towing her, struggling, out to the deeper water. Her partner tried to pull her away from us, but I ducked under the water and pulled the partner's feet out from under her. By the time I had surfaced, Maya had dragged the first one into water well over the woman's head, and I swam along backwards.

The woman continued to struggle, but once I was sure the second one wasn't a threat, I jumped onto the first one's back, wrapping arms and legs around her, and down she went.

Maya added her weight to the mix and began calmly talking about what the second one was doing.

"She's coming, but she's slow. I've got her when she gets this far."

I felt frantic tapping on my legs. I immediately pulled a sputtering woman to the surface and began pushing her towards the edge. As soon as she was okay, I reversed direction to assist Maya, but she had it well in hand.

Finally, sixteen teams had fought but there was one odd team remaining. Jasmine said, "Is there a team that wants to fight Nalla and Ambina? You will not be out of the tournament for a loss."

Maya immediately volunteered us. That fight went almost exactly the same as the first one had.

For the second round, there were eight teams left for four matches. We still ran two at a time. This time our opponents still stayed in shallow water, but they both managed to grab Maya and held her under water. I finally pulled one of them off my sister and dragged that one into deeper water, trusting Maya to handle herself.
But I used a combination of a submission hold and holding the woman under water, and she tapped out nearly immediately.

Maya hadn't freed herself by the time I reached her, but Ralla hadn't called her out, either. I simply grabbed our opponent, yanked her off her feet, and when she stood up, Maya had the woman's legs. She held onto the legs and I pushed her under. She tapped out.

Our third match was against Omie and Aren. We waited for them in deeper water. They tried to taunt us into shallow water, and we had a standoff for a while. I thought they could win if we came to them.

"You're not really going to play it that way, are you?" Maya asked.

"We sure are," Aren said.

So we began moving closer, then we began a splashing contest. They splashed back, and I kept it up while Maya ducked under. Suddenly there was a surge, and Omie said, "Oh shit!"

Maya began dragging her to deeper water. Aren immediately latched onto Maya, but Maya kept pulling Omie into deeper water. I went in to help, and together we pulled Omie away from shore, Aren latched onto Maya and dunking her repeatedly, but every time she did, she pushed Omie down at the same time.

Finally they both went under. I helped hold Omie down.
Aren was struggling with Maya. But then I felt Omie go way down and Maya popped out of the water, catching one breath before Aren pushed her under again.

Omie never came up, and Ralla called out, "Omie is out. Release her!"

I immediately pulled Omie to the surface. She came up sputtering. I launched myself at Aren, Maya came to the surface again, and thirty seconds later, it was over.

Our fourth and final match went about as opposite as it could. They waited for us, and when we tried to drag them away, they successfully resisted. They got Maya first, and then they got me.

In the end, we were second, Omie and Aren third.

I had a good time.

* * * *

I woke the next morning bruised and a little stiff.
It was the third morning of the tournament, and we'd gone from seventy participants down to twenty-two. Four of the warriors were undefeated. I had to win the rest of my fights, and they would be against very good opponents.

I had been trying to decide if I'd been wrong yesterday afternoon. I'd gone around and around about it. But yesterday evening, a few people had made a point of seeking me out and mentioning in some way or another how good it was for Jalad to get a taste of her own medicine.

Maybe I'd been wrong yesterday. I just couldn't decide. But I knew one thing: Malora had to do something about her. She was going to be trouble in the future.

I wouldn't want to be a companion in her village. No one from Knotty Oak had complained to me the times I had visited, but I wouldn't have wanted to be a young companion in her village. At least she wasn't the training leader at Knotty Oak, so maybe she didn't help train the companions there. It wasn't a village I'd stayed during training very often, and when I had, she had worked with the warriors.

I finally decided it wasn't my problem, but when this was over, I'd talk more to Malora about it. I had something more important to deal with. I needed to get up and work out the stiffness.

But th
e bed was warm, and even better: my arms were full of a warm Lia. She was facing away from me, almost rolled onto her stomach, but she was on top of one of my arms, and I couldn't have gotten out of bed without waking her. So if I were going to wake her anyway, I may as well have a little fun in it.

I began stroking her back. She was wearing a long shirt as a shift, but it wasn't difficult to reach underneath and begin caressing bare skin. And as long as my hand was there, and her
delectable bottom was there...

"Beria," she whispered. "Stop it."

"I don't want to stop it," I said into her ear. "And you don't want me to stop it."

I wasn't being too naughty, just caressing her lovely bottom. I loved caressing her. Her skin was smooth and soft. After two years as an Amazon, her muscles had grown tight, and I appreciated them, but she had curves I loved, curves I enjoyed spending hours exploring.

I contrasted her skin to mine. Early on, even before we had become lovers, she had seen my back. Of course she had. We went swimming at Lake Juna, after all. Everyone saw my back. She hadn't said anything to me, but I remembered hearing Annalise ask her, "Who drew on Chief Beria's back?"

My skin wasn't soft and smooth like Lia's.

"Does it bother you?" I asked her.

"That you are getting me worked up? Yes, a little."

"Hmm. I always thought you could read my mind."

"I can," she said. "I know exactly what you're thinking."

"No, you don't," I said. "I was wondering if it bothered you that my skin isn't smooth like yours."

She rolled over to face me, one of my arms still trapped under her neck.