A/N: I mostly use the italic for sentences written in English but meant to be in another language, be it Trigedasleng or Italian. And if there are no " " it's someone's thoughts.
I'm sorry if there are mistakes, English is not my language.
If you like it, please leave a review! Enjoy!
I feel like I need to explain something about the language spoken during leaders' conversation. I guess it could be fine to say that leaders and warriors know their mother language, English and Trigedasleng (since Lexa is the leader of the Coalition), and common people mostly know their mother language and then other languages depending on who they are and what they do.
Chapter Eight: Take your shot
When Clarke finally manages to break free she runs toward the village as fast as she can. By the time she reaches it most of the screaming has stopped, children are still crying and hiding behind adults.
She looks around and sees people bleeding, wounded. She stops to help some of them but she just can't help everyone. "Who did this?" she starts to ask almost convulsively. But people look at her as if she's too stupid to be worthy of an answer and she gets it.
Soldiers of the Queen.
She hurries through the village but doesn't see any of them. Maybe they're already gone. Maybe she's too late to help anyone. She curses Asher for stopping her, for keeping her safe. She doesn't deserve to be safe, these people do.
Lexa has called a meeting with her generals, Luna and Deen. She tells them about the south clan who's allied with Ice. She already knows what she will do, but it's fair that she discusses it with them. Though also everyone of them knows that she will do as she thinks is best. Formality, that's what this is about. And keeping good relationships with her closest allies. And maybe Lexa is also taking every opportunity to get her mind off of painful thoughts.
"The Blood Clan" Deen, the leader of the Horse People, guesses as soon as she speaks about a clan from the south.
"That is what we think." Fern says.
"What do we do about it, Heda? Should we send scouts and ready an army?"
"Soon. We can not do anything as long as the others leader are still in Polis." Lexa answers slowly.
"I can have scouts on the borders with the Blood Clan in the time that it takes for a messenger to reach my lands." Luna offers calmly.
"It could work, but your scouts will have to be invisible. We can not afford for them to find out. And when the leaders will leave Polis and we will ready our armies, we can not have them find that out either. It could be seen as if we were planning an attack. And we are not. We will not attack first. Our people have just come out of a war, we will do our best so that they will not have to go right into another one."
Everyone agrees with her and Luna will send a messenger to her wife to give order that scouts are sent to the borders. Lexa will send scouts herself as soon as the leaders move from Polis.
"The Fire Clan borders on the Blood Clan too. Should we warn them? Maybe ask them to send scouts as well?" Deen asks again.
"We will warn them. And I think we can ask them to send scouts too."
"I am not sure they will support us, Heda." Xenobia, Lexa's general, speaks up.
"The Fire Clan is always trying to avoid war, they know their territory is not a tempting one to conquer. It would be hard for other clans to occupy it because they do not know how to survive there, they are not used to it. So they do not have to get involved in wars. But if the Ice Queen should manage to win this war, it would get bad for them too. They trade with us, but the Queen would not be as fair. It would be hard for them to keep their way of living, they should go back to the unpleasant life they had before the trade among the clans." Avah's voice is heard for the first time since the meeting started. She is a respected and feared general and Lexa knows she speaks right. But she will not force or blackmail a clan into a war.
"If they think that we can win this war, they will not get involved. If they are not sure about that, they will just wait until it is clear that we are going to lose." Eamon, one of Lexa's most trusted generals, says. "What you say is right, and I think they know it too, but Bry is a peaceful leader. She's strong, but she knows her people are not as strong as her, and she only wants peace for them."
He speaks what Lexa herself is thinking. But truth is that she doesn't expect the Queen to stop in front of an unforgiving land. The Queen does not care about lands, not as much as she cares about power. And to get power she only needs people, not every land on earth. Lexa thinks she won't stop at the Fire Clan's borders. She will conquer them and take the people as slaves in her lands. Then she will leave the Fire lands without a second thought. So maybe it's not about blackmailing, it's about making them understand.
"We will have a meeting with Bry and her generals. It is foolish to think that the Queen will stop at the borders of their clan. She wants the people not the lands. If we can make them understand this, they may fight at our side."
When no one seems to have anything to add, she tells them the orders again, as soon as the no-longer-allies leaders leave Polis, they will have a meeting with the other allies, send scouts to the dangerous clans and ready their armies.
When everyone has left, Luna lingers a moment at the opening of the tent. "We will make it, Lexa." she says simply, and then she's out, where she's not only Luna, but the leader of the Boat People, and she's not Lexa's friend, but her ally.
Lexa nods but doesn't even try to convince herself. She feels that this war will be different. And she's not sure they can win. And she feels oh so tired.
But she's Heda, so she straightens her back and starts pacing the tent, her brain working hard going over plan after plan.
Now she's half running and half walking, taking in the devastation that the soldiers have left behind. She feels anger and rage building up inside of her. She hasn't felt this way in a while, but here it is, back as if nothing happened. Her fierce passion. Her longing to help people, her heart screaming for justice. A small part of her acknowledges it and it feels wrong, because she has no right to talk about justice. But her mind pushes that thoughts aside, she needs to help these people. She needs that rage and that passion. For a moment she even realizes that she missed them.
Her brain is racing to find a way to help. She could use Asher's help, but he's still in the forest, probably for the best. Clarke understands why they hide, but she couldn't do that.
She suddenly hears a terrified scream coming from near. She runs toward the sound and here it is. A soldier.
A girl is on the ground, the man pinning her down trying to get rid of her clothes. He has already ripped her shirt and is now slapping her, telling her to stop fighting or it will be worse for her. She's crying and yelling at him to stop, she's begging him to let her go. But his eyes are cruel and his smile is vicious, twisted.
Clarke calls him, trying to distract him from the girl while she reaches for her gun under her coat. He smiles at her and gestures for her to come closer, he says some obscenities, but before Clarke can place a bullet in his head a sword crushes him down.
The steel cuts his back and then the girl appeared behind him shoves her sword in his throat. Clarke is stuck for a moment. The girl came out of nowhere and she is so graceful with the sword that Clarke immediately thinks about Lexa. The girl has long dark hair and dark grey eyes. She doesn't look like an Ice person, but her skin is indeed pale and white. Her eyes sparkle with a fire that reminds Clarke of Octavia.
But there's no time to indulge in those thoughts because suddenly other soldiers come and the girl turns to fight them. She throws herself into the fight with a fierce fury and never misses a strike. She swings her sword like if it were light as a feather. It looks like a dance, but the dancer is a lethal lion. She kills two of them with little effort, but they're too many. Five to one is not an easy match to win.
Clarke knows that a gun will be hard to explain, but she's not sure about her skill in using swords and knives and she has to help the girl. So she just pulls the trigger.
The girl jolts at the two shots and she turns to see Clarke aiming at her shoulder. Well, slightly beside her shoulder. She jumps to the side when Clarke fires, but then notices the soldier falling to the ground behind her. She looks back at Clarke, straight in her eyes and waits for a moment. Then she runs away, probably looking for other soldiers to fight.
Clarke expected the girl to say something, be scared, attack her, ask for explanation, but she didn't think the girl would have just understood and gone off to some other fights. However it is only better for Clarke. She helps the girl who was being attacked to stand up and searches her for bad injuries. There's nothing that can't wait, so Clarke asks her if she's okay and when the girl nods shyly, probably scared by the gun, Clarke runs after the dark haired warrior.
As she gets near to the south border of the village, she hears screams again. The soldiers haven't left the village yet, they just moved to the end of it. And this time Clarke fights.
The tightens her grip on the gun and aims it at a soldier who's beating a child. The bullet strikes right through his head and he falls dead on the ground. The child looks at her and for a moment there's fear in his eyes, but then Clarke sees something like recognition and he smiles weakly.
"Daire!" he shouts. Clarke forces herself to smile at him and nods. "You kept your promise to fight the soldiers."
Clarke nods again and asks the child if he's hurt. When he shakes his head proudly, she's off again, already knowing who's the next soldier that will be down.
She kills quite a lot of soldiers, but eventually Clarke runs out of bullets. Unfortunately that happens right when she's facing five soldiers fully harmed. She shoots down the first and then her gun makes the feared sound that tells her there are no bullets remained. And four well trained guards are striking toward her. So she picks up the first sword she finds, from the dead soldier, and hopes her short training will allow her to make it out alive.
But she soon finds out that fighting four men all together is not something she can handle. Here we go, this is the end for the Sky Princess who took down the Mountain.
She wards some blows off and then she loses the sword. It goes flying out of her hand and there's another one pointed at her throat. Last thought for...Lexa...no, what the hell Clarke? At least say Mom! She tries to get out of the way, but she's surrounded. She doesn't know what to do. But she probably won't have to do anything.
But just when the sword is starting to draw some blood from her skin, the soldier slumps on the ground, a knife in his back. She moves to avoid the sword when he collapses toward her, and while the others are distracted she lowers to pick up his sword. As soon as her upper body is bent towards the ground, another knife cuts the air above her and slams itself into the soldier behind her.
She jumps up and sees Wit drawing his sword and coming to her side. They kill the remain soldiers and take a minute to take each other in.
"You're a surprise, Daire, aren't you? Didn't know you were a fighter." he winks at her, but then becomes serious. "You have a gun."
But there's no time to answer him. "Behind you!" is all Clarke manages to say before the two of them are thrown into another fight.
Clarke and Wit manage to keep each other alive, and not long after their meeting the dark haired girl from before joins them. She looks at Clarke suspiciously, but she doesn't say anything before throwing herself into fighting by her side.
They slowly reach the border of the village and Clarke now sees that there are more people fighting off the soldiers. Most of them are young, she recognises some from Wit's group of friends and she knows that some others are hunters. She didn't expect to see so many of them. They must be at least sixty if not more. Some of them she has never seen in the village, but most are people she has met in the streets or seen around at dinner when the village gathers together.
Clarke spots Malaya some feet away and when the girl sees her she stops fighting for a second, looking Clarke in the eyes. She doesn't trust her. Malaya may be the one who understands Clarke best, she seems to know she's lying. And Clarke doesn't like that. But maybe the girl has just taken a dislike to her. However Clarke doesn't feel good with Malaya staring at her like that and then glancing her looks every time she gets a break from the soldiers.
Wit and Clarke are still fighting together and Clarke notices that everyone seems to be fighting side by side with someone else. The only one who fights alone is the girl Clarke has helped something like fifteen minutes before. She's strong and fast, her movements are ones of a real warrior, though not a trained one, and she doesn't miss a shot. She's beautiful. And terrifying. Absolutely terrifying. Clarke watches her in awe as she strikes every warrior who comes against her. But Clarke can tell she's not been trained as a real warrior. Her fighting is more like pure instinct and power. And she looks angry, bad for the soldiers, good for her friends.
When the girl looks at her again, Clarke has just killed a soldier with the sword of his fellow, there's something incomprehensible in her eyes. Clarke is sure the girl wants to ask her about the gun and she sees that she's unsure if to trust the stranger. But she also looks positively surprised by Clarke's skill in fighting. Which actually is not too good, but the sky girl has had time to learn surviving on her own and has practised with knives. Though swords are not her strong point. But it's going fairly well so far. She would probably be in troubles without Wit at her side, but maybe she wouldn't die even without him.
And of course, she has talked too early. Two soldiers attack her together and Wit is busy with a very big bad looking man. Her sword soon flies out of her hands and she has to be fast at picking up her knives. Now gods help her with fighting two swords with knives. She's doing her best and she actually manages to take a few good strikes, but she has no chances. Those men are big and strong, and she only has two knives. That's not good.
But maybe the fact that they're so bigger than her could be of good use. She may not be as agile as the girl who's still fighting on her own, but she can do it. She starts moving very fast, dodging their blows and slipping away under their arms when they try to catch her. It's way more difficult than she thought and she gets some bad wounds, but she doesn't give up. Eventually she manages to get behind one of them and finally shoves her knife into his neck, just to be sure that he dies immediately before having the chance to turn and hit her. As soon as he's down she has to resume fighting the other one and it's a long fight, but her knife sinks in his chest half a second before a sword goes through it as well.
For the second time today, behind a dead soldiers she sees the young warrior. After a moment of staring at each other, Clarke leans down to take her knife from the lifeless body and when she looks up again, the girl is offering her a sword. When Clarke takes it she immediately knows it's not one of the soldier's swords. It's way more light and thin, but as soon as she tries it, swinging it at a soldier that was approaching her from behind, she finds out that it's sharp and lethal and Clarke likes the weight of it in her hand. When she turns to thank the girl, she's gone, Clarke spots her fighting a few meters away.
Wit is back at her side, asking if she's okay before both of them have to face the Queen's men again.
The battle ceases soon after and the soldiers retire, leaving the village behind.
Most of the fighters are wounded and badly hurt, but all the younger ones are displaying wide smiles on their faces.
"We made it!" Wit tells her shouting happily. "This is actually only the third time we have managed to chase them away, but we fought very well. Thanks for helping us."
"Who are you?" he is interrupted by Malaya, who shoves Clarke backward away from him.
Clarke doesn't get to answer because the girl who gave her the sword is right behind Malaya, she places a hand on the other girl's shoulder and speaks more calmly. "You have a gun." she states and Clarke knows she's waiting for an explanation.
"Yes. I said I come from the south." she starts, looking at Malaya. She knows what she has to say, but for some reason it feels awful to lie in front of this new girl. She lied to the others, even to Aeryn, who she has started to be friend with, so it shouldn't be difficult to lie now. "I guess you have heard of Mount Weather and the Mountain Men."
"What have you got to do with them?" Malaya starts to raise her sword.
"You've been in the Mountain?" the young warrior's sentence is only half a question.
Clarke nods. It's not a lie after all, she actually has been in the Mountain. "That's where I found the gun and later I figured how to use it." okay that's a lie. "I was not a warrior and the gun has been helpful during my travelling. Meanwhile I tried to work out some fighting skill." and this is only half a lie.
"You have done a good job with that." the girl states. "So you're Daire, right?"
"Yes." when will she stop lying?
"I'm Nyx." the name fits her. Her eyes lock with Clarke's and the two don't break the contact for a while.
