Kwaide (The Ammonite Galaxy Series, Book 2)

Chapter Fifteen

 “Then you will have to look elsewhere,” he said. “If you can find anybody willing to put up with your numbship’s airs and graces, that is.”

“They should be so lucky.” Diva took another giant slice at an attacker, who ducked just in time, and the momentum of the unconnected blow nearly took Six’s head off.

“Hey! Mind what you’re doing – you nearly decapitated me.” he grumbled, and the moment was past. They were far too busy after that for more conversation. Six found the casual words Diva had uttered echoing lazily around in his head. ‘As if Divina Senate Magmus of Coriolis could ever be associated with any of them’!

Of course she couldn’t. Diva was a thoroughbred Coriolan aristocrat. There was no way she would consider an alliance with a tainted untouchable from Kwaide, even after all that she had gone through. If there were any such pretenders, he thought harshly, they would be well advised to drop their pretensions and settle for some other girl. Any other girl. That would be the most sensible advice he could give them. Definitely. There would be no point allowing them to foster false hopes. No. It would be much better – if there were anybody contemplating admitting how they felt – to tell them to forget the whole thing, bury their feelings under a surface of friendship, and abdicate in favour of some more appropriate – because virtually anybody would be more appropriate – person. By the time he had come to the end of this train of thought he had worked himself into such a fury for some unknown reason that he flung himself on the next sycophant who confronted him with his bare hands. He felt an imperious need to throttle someone. 

Diva knew from the chill air on her back that he was no longer immediately behind her. She half-turned to see if he needed any help, and was just in time to parry the attack of one of the sycophants in the Elder army.

“You nearly got yourself killed doing that!” she screamed at Six, as the boy gave a final shake to the sycophant, and regretfully let him go. 

“No need to exaggerate, Diva,” he told her. “I was just seeing if you were awake.”

“You were within an ace of being spitted!”

“Sorry. My hands got itchy.”

“Itchy! What do you mean, itchy? Where do you think we are – in the middle of a training exercise with Cimma?”

“Yeah, yeah – whatever.”

That only fanned the flames. “If you insist on coming over here to watch my back the least you could do is watch it!”

“All right! Keep your hair on! It was only a moment’s lapsus.”

Diva rolled her eyes up towards Lumina. “Men!” she sighed. “You lot can’t seem to concentrate on one thing for more than a couple of moments at a time.”

“Hang on a minute – I was only gone for a second or two.”

“But you were gone. I can’t see why you moseyed over here in the first place!”

“Oh, pardon me, milady – I was only trying to help!”

“Well don’t,” snapped an unrepentant Diva. “Nobody asked for your help, Kwaidian!”

“Fine by me!” Six glowered at her and retook his position at her back. “As soon as we have got rid of these attackers I will remove my sorry presence from your royal huffiness and get back to my own group.”

“You do that!”

“I will!”

HALF AN HOUR later the fighting was becoming less intense around the hill, although there were only five left of Diva’s initial group. Six was just about to congratulate himself on having successfully repelled the attack when he spotted a sycophant knife-slinger out of the corner of his eye. He swiveled round immediately. Knife-slingers were few and far between – it was an ancient art, which had been losing adepts in recent years. Rumour had it that an expert knife-slinger could bury his shaft in anybody he liked up to a distance of forty meters.