Queen Sonja#32(2012)

With the thrill of the arena pulsing through the air, Queen Sonja officiates the games to find a suitor for her hand in marriage. As she looks on she sits next to Sha’Shana who asked her who do you prefer and she stated neither. Also there was a muscular green hooded man looking intently at the contestants, but probably more so at Sonja. The two combatants not only injure each other but banter back and forth. Prince Turk calling Chief Ja-Rul from Kusan descendants of slaves. In the end he wraps his whip around the neck of the much larger structured combatant choking him into submission. Sonja congratulates the winner, but she says he still has one other combatant to face. He tells her that the place of the women is to obey the men and know their place. The Turk tells her that people from Khitai and Vendhya were already coming against her kingdom because of the death of the princess. Again the hooded man is seen in the shadows. Sonja tells him that she swore her hand to whoever won the tournament, but there was one more combat that must be defeated and it was her of course. As she slides beneath his whip with her sword she proclaims “Why must men always attempt to possess women? Was it not a woman who gave you life?” Again the green hooded observer looks on with a throwing dagger in his grasp. Perhaps the Prince of Turan is having second thoughts about the challenge and asks for the forgiveness of Sonja calling her a lady and perhaps even only discuss issues of a treaty instead of matrimony, but in short order she knocks him down telling him that she had been called worse by better men than him. Furthermore, “Believe me boy. I am doing you a favor. You could never handle me.” Sonja's keen hearing is alerted in time to hit a poisoned dart coming towards her with her sword. It came from a blow dart by a cloaked figure with female characteristics like eyelashes. The green hooded male looks on seemingly scratching his head. The assassin is revealed in a blue cloak, well-endowed bosom, leaving the arena. She leaps to a horse and it is none other than Sha’Shana. “Mitra stop her” bellows Sonja. The male who had been observing drops the green hood and gives Sonja a white horse to pursue Sha’Shana. Sonja makes her way through the city of Nicolla, then dismounts from the horse getting through the city gate. Once upright she is able to throw her sword into the haunches of the horse; thereby bringing horse and rider down. Sonja is in hot pursuit telling her “I must admit you had me fooled. I took you for a simple trollop who spread her legs for every man who crossed your path.” Sha'Shana then tells her that her father will conquer Emora to which Sonja replies “So it is your father who whores you out? You've lost Sha'Shana.” Sha'Shana has a sword in her hand swinging it at Sonja and Sha'Shana tells Sonja she's a traitor and that Hyrkania was her homeland. Further she says her father does not trade as her blade comes dangerously close to Sonja's face armor but with her two hands grasp the sword with her gauntlets stopping it “Then I was a traitor long before now. His predecessor tried to possess me, and kissed my steel instead. Sonja then disarms Sha'Shana and bludgeons her with her fists and perhaps even breaking some of her fingers in her left hand. Sha'Shana is there with her father Sartor and asks Sonja why let her live and Sonja explains I need her to avert the war she started.” With that settled the green cloaked individual introduces himself “I am Hashim.” He too is from Hyrcania and states that the people yearn for freedom. He asked her to lead the people “join the swords of Mitra.” In Julzu, the northernmost vestige of the Amoran Empire with a stream and windmill a young child skips across rocks and the brook. The advancing army of Hyrcania and Korax tells Duuzaar to give them a taste of fear. He blows out black powder that is carried by the winds. The army wears some sort of mask protecting them. The black dust seems to even form itself as a hammer killing some of the troops that the invading army did not kill in Julzu. The little boy urinates on himself and is told to bear the message of what just happened. At the palace in Nicolla, Zartur tells them that Hyrkania by approaching from the north and Khitai comes from the east and Vendhya advances from the South he also states the pirate and his ships rage against them in the Vilayet Sea. Suvara bids Sonja to retreat to Sogaria where she is Queen. Zartur says Lord Devi in Vendhya is the wisest and Zartur was going to meet with him first. The fat Sultan of Turan loves war the most he says. In the desert the sun is hot and Turk tells his sultan father “Sonja thinks she is Mitra herself.” The conversation is cut short, as a sudden fire and that black dust and this eldritch blades bring swift defeat to the Sultan’s men. Turk screams out as a blade is protruding from his chest, but it turns out it is no eldritch sword but the sword of Korax. And Sartor addresses the sultan about the promise by a blood oath that his son Turk would not be killed. Sartor replied there was plenty of blood with the oath!