Wild Country (The World of the Others #2)- Anne Bishop Page 0,186

we are seen to concede after acknowledging that you’re the stronger leaders, the other men will have to agree or leave. And, frankly, it will prevent a slaughter on both sides.”

Tolya hesitated.

Gotcha.

“So this challenge will be made without you using human weapons? This will be done without a single shot being fired?” Tolya stared at him. “You do understand what will happen if I agree to this and a single terra indigene is injured or killed? One shot, Mr. Blackstone, and you all die.”

“I understand.” If he had to sell out the rest of the men who had come here in order to keep his family alive, so be it.

“I must take advice and will get back to you this evening with a decision.”

“Take advice? You’re the leader.”

Tolya studied him. “I am amazed by the human ability to be willfully blind. How can you come to a place like this and not understand what’s out there?” He stood. “I’ll have a decision this evening about your faux challenge. In the meantime, perhaps you should encourage the men you can influence to get as far away from here as possible before nightfall.”

Parlan smiled grimly. “Leave so they don’t die?”

“Oh, they’re still going to die. But they won’t be here to fire the shot that will kill you and your family.”

CHAPTER 33

Firesday, Messis 31

Air rode Thunder deep into the Elder Hills, the steed’s hooves drumming the earth, a herald for the oncoming storm. She rode until she reached the place where Namid’s teeth and claws met with Elementals when a decision was required.

The Elders were already there, waiting for her.

Air said.

a female Elder said.

Air looked at the Elders. She hesitated.

Air waited while the Elders considered what was about to happen in the town that bordered their home.

Elementals had their own connection to the world and took care of the world in their own way. They seldom interfered, for good or ill, with the creatures that lived in the world, and were usually indifferent to the help or harm they caused the smaller species—except when they or the Elders were needed to reshape a piece of the world. Then they worked with Namid’s teeth and claws to thin out herds that had grown unchecked—or to eliminate a species that had become too much of a threat to the rest of Namid’s creations.

They had joined with the Elders across the world to eliminate a certain breed of human, so Air waited now for the message she would take back to Tolya—and then share with the rest of her kin.

The female Elder sounded troubled.

Air replied.

Air agreed.

a male Elder asked.

another male voice answered.

Air felt the change in the rest of the Elders. This one hadn’t taken on a two-legged shape recently, when the decision had been made to assume a humanlike form in order to hunt down the humans who used to live in Bennett. Whatever its true form, this Elder’s shape stood on two legs but there was nothing humanlike about it. It was an ancient form, fanged and furred and terrible in its making—and, Air noticed, feared by the rest of the Elders.

That he was here, now, was a choice she found interesting. But she could afford to find this Elder interesting. She and her steed were the only beings here that he couldn’t harm.

he said.