Chapter 43
“No!”
Oppuk found himself lunging at the brazen creature before he had even known he was in motion. Of all the insults heaped upon him, this was the one impossible to bear.
“This is an animal, a savage!”
Oppuk struck her down with a single slapping blow. Unfortunately, she jerked her head back at the last instant, so only his fingers made contact with her cheek. Had he struck her full-handed, as powerful as he was, he would have broken her neck.
As he’d intended. No matter. Fury was still surging through him. He would make good the lack.
The Stockwell female stumbled back and fell, then stared up at him; dazed, but her hands still forming the curves of profound-respect. In that moment, she represented all of Terra to him, a world of barbarians who would not yield to his rightful authority, yet fawned upon the first Pluthrak who flattered them. He threw himself on her.
She tried to fend him off, though it was impossible to do so, as pathetically weak as she was. Oppuk gripped both her fragile wrists in one hand and raised the other for a killing blow. He should have put her down the first time he saw her parody that guard’s postures! He—
* * *
Iron fingers jerked him off the struggling female and cast him aside as though his weight meant nothing. His head rocked with a blow, then another and another—and then sheer agony paralyzed him. The same iron fingers had dislocated his ankle; then, the other; and then, so quickly it all seemed as one moment of torture, both of his wrists.
Stunned and crippled, Oppuk sprawled on the sand. Still, he struggled to rise—until iron fingers seized his shoulders and iron landed on his back, low down where it was most vulnerable even on a Jao, and ruptured his spine.
* * *
Yaut was already moving the instant Oppuk began his strike at Caitlin. Moving, in the way that only a great kochan fraghta can move, at a moment of clan outrage. To all those who watched, he seemed more like a predator than a Jao.
But Yaut krinnu Jithra vau Pluthrak was far more dangerous than any predator. With its power and vast associations, Pluthrak could select and shape the finest fraghta. Deadly as well as shrewd—and Jithra was a kochan famous for its savage fighting skills.
Large and powerful as he was, Oppuk had no chance at all. Nor would he, even had he been facing Yaut’s charge directly. What followed would simply have taken a bit longer. Not much.
* * *
“Holy shit,” hissed Tully. Even his glee at seeing Oppuk brought down was an undertone. Mostly, he was just shaken, finally seeing Yaut’s full fury unleashed.
Yojimbo, for sure.
Oppuk’s great Jao bones were crushed and mangled in the fraghta’s hands like so many chicken wings. Each grip perfectly placed, the maximum possible leverage applied—each blow, the same. Then, a sudden and utterly vicious kneedrop to the lower spine, done while Yaut positioned Oppuk’s shoulders to prevent any cushioning of the impact. Tully could hear the vertebra give way.
And I thought he gave me a hard time!
It all took but seconds. Yaut ended by seizing Oppuk’s heavy nape and, one-handed, heaving the broken body back onto its knees.
Then, slapping the back of Oppuk’s head to lower it and expose the neck vertebrae, Yaut half-crouched and drew a dagger from his harness.
Staring green-eyed with fury at the Narvo representatives, the fraghta bellowed: “I demand his life!”
His posture meant something too, Tully was sure, but he didn’t know what. He’d never seen that posture on any Jao before.
Specifically, that is, Tully didn’t know what it meant. The general idea was clear enough.
Readiness-to-dismember, let’s call it. Or, how about: give-me-any-shit-and-you’re-all-dead-meat?
* * *
Nikau krinnu ava Narvo did not think to argue. Oppuk’s transgression of custom was so extreme that his life was forfeit the moment the first blow landed. No, the moment the blow was even launched.
Human or not, the female was in Pluthrak’s service, not Narvo’s—and the fact that the Pluthrak in question was now kroudh was simply irrelevant, under the circumstances.