She carried him through the ongoing battles. From afar she could see smoke rising as settlements descended into chaos.
He was unconscious.
She carried him despite his weight, pushed through and the kobels, seeing their legend on her shoulders, rushed to shield her path.
Already the battle was won. The suppletives had come to quell those that defied the kobel rule. And if it seemed to those lost in it like everything still hung in the balance, by now it was weakening, ever more, turning into pockets that would be crushed one by one.
They had counted on killing the kobel's head, their champion, to turn the tide.
It had not happened; that had sealed their fate.
For now, however, all Savae cared for was reaching a shaman. Any of Etelet's apprentices would do. Anyone capable of healing him. Of, at the vey least, keeping him alive.
She could feel that monstrous heart, that wounded heart, beat ever harder against an encroaching cold.
She pushed through the mayhem and further up, further again until the warrior found herself on the highest plateau. The gardens had extended all the way past the walls, with lines of trees and hedges, flowers and channels.
It was a peaceful sight.
But kobels pressed her to keep going, to the keep, to the keep where they lay Tunu down and poured blood on his wound.
They still knew nothing of medicine, only that to any other this was the surest way to call sickness. They also knew this was Tunu, the legendary kobel, and that balms and herbs were wasted on him. What he needed was to feed.
"Bring meat!" Savae shouted. "Their corpses, ours, anything you find! Get them or I'll make corpses of you!"
Those had only been garbled noise for the winged kobel. He had just emerged, nauseous and agonizing. Truly agonizing. His heartbeat kept going hard and weak, pulsing blood but through a wound that only drowned the body.
So Savae, not knowing what else to do, put both of her hands on his chest to press, to hold it pressed and stop the mad heaving.
"You filth!" She hissed. "You stay in there!"
There was despair in her voice. Her eyes were still murderous but long, long ago, hatred had lost its track. Madness followed madness.
If anyone could have read her heart, they would have seen her struggle against her own perceived death.
The others had gone, so when another kobel approached, steps echoing in the hall she turned, furious to see they were bringing no corpse.
It was Elua.
She stopped short, fearful of the warrior, fearful of the wounded, but not for long. Her feet carried her whether she wanted it or not. She threw herself at Tunu's side, saw him choking, struggled to turn his body on the side.
Savae threw her on the ground, enraged.
"Useless brat! Don't touch him!"
"You are killing him!" She protested. "Stop pressing the heart! He needs to breathe!"
For a few seconds all the warrior could think of was silence her, but she shook awake, turned to the wounded and, reluctantly, helped turn him so the blood would flow out of his throat.
They held him there, watching him cough, watching him wriggle. No corpse was coming, no relief. None was needed as the heart, still wounded, was starting to settle.
The monstrous heart had been able to recover, if somewhat. With it the beat had stabilized. Tunu, finally, was able to breathe. He gasped, struggled, pushed back on anyone but fell limp, the strain too much to endure.
"Rest!" Elua begged. "Don't move, please!"
"Savae..." Tunu called.
"What are those cowards doing?!" The warrior shouted. "I'll go and murder them myself!"
She would have, but could not leave Tunu alone, let alone leave him with that female. So all she could do was enrage.
And Elua could not stop crying.
"You are going to live!" Her strangled voice pleaded. "You always make it! Why won't the blood stop?!"
She tore her own cloth and Savae, snatching it, started to bandage the chest. No amount of layers would alleviate the open gash.
They were utterly powerless.
"Savae..." Tunu got the strength to talk. "It's all a lie... we are not... sons..."
"Don't talk!" Elua cut him, desperate. "You have scales, you have horns, you have wings! Soon you'll be a proud wyvern! And nothing will be able to harm you anymore!"
She was crying even though she had thought, after all this time, that her eyes had long dried.
Her dead dreams not even a memory.
"And we'll all grow wings and stand at your feet! The kobels will dominate the whole plain, the whole region! It will be beautiful! You will see, it will be so beautiful!"
They did not know it at the time, but outside the savages had been able to push all the way to the keep's wall. A last, hard battle had taken place after which the kobels, victorious, hurried with everything they had to their chief's side.
They heard them arrive. In their frenzy they killed the servants on their way.
The followers got there first, the females at their head, followed by fighters that carried corpse after corpse into the hall. Dozens surrounded the wounded, dozens more were forced to wait outside. By now the order to bring corpses had reached the whole hill.
Tunu felt no hunger.
His wounded heart was in no state to feed, so weakened that just pulsing was taking all it had. To beat, to maintain the kobel's life, was threatening its own.
But above all to maintain his scales, his horns, his wings. To preserve all he had the heart was ready to risk its own existence. This time it would not recede any further.
"He needs to feed!" A kobel repeated.
"Where is the shaman?!"
"Cut the flesh for him! Bring it to his mouth!"
Noise.
There was noise all around him.
There was so much, annoying noise all around the wounded kobel. There had always been so much annoying noise.
So his hand held on Elua's wrist. He held her dear, then talked.
"Savae... kill them..." And he coughed, repeated: "Kill them all..."
Elua did not understand what he meant. She did not even understand when the first blood splattered on her back. She turned and more hit her face.
Kobels were falling all around her.
Smooth scales cut open by their own blade. Savae had taken a new sword from them and started to chop in the mass.
After the first surprise, some fought back, only to be cut and fall. Some ran out and closed the heavy doors behind them, leaving the rest trapped in the vast hall. Those ones screamed. Screamed, begged, ran and fell.
The more kobels died, the more Elua could feel Tunu's grip loosen. His heartbeat soothed by the screams, by that death. By the smell of metal and flesh.
She was gasping for air.
Trembling. Shaking. Her scaled knees bathing in the blood of her brethren. She closed her eyes and all she could see was the lifeless bodies of all those she knew.
"We'll be... together..." Tunu struggled. "I won't... abandon... you..."
His voice was drowned by her long, piercing scream.