Read The Other Lands for Free Online

teeth and snarls. She hacked her way at a dead run toward the fallen men. She found them writhing and screaming, entangled together beneath a biting, scratching mound of tentens. The animals did not notice her until she had hacked the heads from two, limbs from even more, split another down through the skull, and spilled the guts of another in a gush that coated the two men.
    A wave of soldiers rushed to help her. She stopped them all with a slash of her palm. “No!” she yelled. She knew that if they continued it would break the formation. There would be no order and they would not be able to carry out the rest of the plan. It would be chaos and many more than just she would die in it. “No!”
    They stopped, tripped over each other, stood stunned and unsure until she motioned them back. She had barely managed to do so before another tenten leaped at her. She ducked beneath it and sliced its leg clean off.
    “Come on!” she hissed. “Get loose of it!” She smacked the bowman with the palm of her free hand and then stood upright. With the same hand she drew her short sword.
    The foulthing was some thirty or so strides away. It had paused to watch her. For a moment it was a statue amid a whirlwind of motion. Mena saw something like intelligent curiosity on its face. Its eyebrows seemed to lift slightly; the corners of its mouth twitched. She had not noticed how human its hands were, long-fingered and delicate as they caressed the rope. She experienced the moment as one of shared silence. She almost felt the creature was going to say something, do something. But the moment was short-lived, and the foulthing spoke no words. It seemed to grow tired of studying her. Those humanlike hands yanked on the cord again.
    When the line went taut, Mena caught it between her two blades and sliced through the rope. The beast was thrown off balance and went down again. Mena turned and pushed, dragged, and shouted the two men to their feet and back to the safety of the circle.
    “Remember your rings!” she shouted. “Every second, tie the ropes down!”
    With that, the princess raised her arm, then immediately let it drop. Before it even reached her side, her generals had shouted in answer. In the next instant a confusion of bolts and ropes flew at the foulthing from all directions. Many hit it—in the chest and groin, deep in its calf and punching right through its other ankle, in its lower back and just above, in the muscled flesh of its upper torso, in the neck. Several passed through the curve of its horns, the ropes tangling in them as the creature spun. A few took out the lesser apes, skewering three or four at a time before losing momentum. And the bolts that missed sped straight toward the opposing bowmen and troops. This was when the seconds came into play again. They shifted from pressing forward on the bowmen to pulling back against them. The ropes snapped taut before reaching the other side, and the crossbows, even if yanked out of their wielders’ hands, were held fast by the sling straps.
    Once the ropes were secured, archers stepped between them and lofted ropes attached to blunted arrows over the creature. Others retrieved them on the opposite side and anchored each end, further tightening a web of bonds on the foulthing, catching many tentens in the process. Mena watched until the injured and bound foulthing was pressed tight to the dry ground. She turned away as Halaly spearmen began to move into the circle, their long, narrow pikes able to impale the tentens at a distance. The auditory chaos was no less than before, but she knew the difficult task was over.
    Melio found her walking slowly back toward the rock outcropping from which she wished to take in the horizon again, to see the largeness of the world and marvel at it. “You really must let others risk their necks on occasion,” he said, grinning. “You’re lucky your men fear you as much as they fear your death. If they didn’t, they might have stormed