Zeph Kaizen's Arc

Chapter 9 of 51

Zeph came down the slope with the tiger beside him. Snow slid under his boots. At the bottom, Keji lay face down. The two hunters heard the tiger first. They turned together, blades up. Zeph counted the ground between them. Twenty paces. Too far to cross before one of them cut Keji's throat. He needed to hide Keji, or move him, and there was nowhere. Bare slope. Open snow. No cover for a wounded man. Behind him, higher up the ridge, he heard more boots on stone. More hunters, drawn by the lockbox alert before he broke it. Four voices at least. They would be on the shelf inside a minute. He stopped ten paces from the two below. The tiger stopped with him. Its shoulders were low. Its tail twitched. "Guard him," Zeph said. The tiger moved past him and put itself over Keji's body. It bared its teeth at the two hunters. They stepped back one pace. They did not run. Zeph turned uphill. He would not fight two directions at once. He would climb back and meet the four on the shelf before they saw Keji at all. He reached inside his coat as he climbed. His fingers closed on the vial Keji had pressed into his hand three days ago in the shelter. Keji had said, only if there is no other door. The glass was warm. Silver light moved inside it like water under ice. He uncorked it at the top of the shelf. The four hunters were already there. They spread wide when they saw him. He drank. The cold went down his throat and did not stop. It ran into his arms, his legs, behind his eyes. The warmth of refusal was a candle. This was a flood. He named nothing. He did not need to. The first hunter swung. Zeph watched the blade come and stepped inside it without deciding to step. His hand was on the man's wrist. The bone gave. He was already turning to the second. He did not see himself move. His body knew before he knew. The second hunter fell. The third tried to run and did not clear three steps. The fourth dropped his spear and raised his hands. Zeph put him down with an open palm to the sternum. He stood alone on the shelf. His breath came even. The silver was fading from behind his eyes already. He could feel it going. It had lasted less than a minute. He went back down. The tiger still stood over Keji. The two hunters below had run. Zeph knelt in the snow and turned Keji onto his back. Keji was breathing. His lips were blue. The empty vial was still in Zeph's hand. He had bought them the minute. He had spent the door Keji saved for last.