by Evan Winter
He spluttered awake, slapping at his wet face. It was raining in his chambers, which didn’t make sense. Then he saw the shutters were open. Lekan sat up. He was going to close them, but there was a demon at the foot of his bed.
He squealed and scrambled back, about to shout for the guards, though what they could do against a demon he did not know, when the shadowed creature moved into the light. Lekan relaxed, then went tense again. It wasn’t a demon, but seeing Jabari’s pet Common at the foot of his bed wasn’t much better.
“What are you doing here?” Lekan hissed.
“I’m not here to kill you,” the filthy and wet Common told him.
“Kill me?” Lekan said. “You dirty cek!”
“That’s all we are to you, neh? Nceku? Not men, not people. Is that why you threw my father’s life away?”
Lekan didn’t like the boy’s tone and looked him over for weapons.
“I’m not armed, nkosi. I’m not here for your life, yet.”
Lekan risked a glance to the night table beside his bed. His dagger was there, its blade hidden among the avocado skins.
“I’m here to tell you how you’ll die,” Aren’s son said, making Lekan’s arm hairs stand on end. “I’ll join the military as an Ihashe initiate. I’ll pour my soul into the craft of killing, and I will wait for you to rise to fief leadership. Palm will give you military status, and you will know despair.”
“Despair?” Lekan forced a chuckle as he shifted closer to the table.
“Every day, every season, every cycle, you’ll live in fear, unable to enjoy the taste of food, the sun’s warmth, or the night’s breeze, because one day I’ll come. I’ll challenge you to a blood-duel, Petty Noble Lekan Onai, and you will die on the end of my father’s sword.”
The Lesser had gone mad, Lekan realized, and his mother had the right of it. Aren’s son needed to be put down.
“I am your curse,” the Lesser said. “I am your end.”
“Are you?” Lekan asked, snatching the dagger from the table and lunging, slashing the madman across the face and feeling the blade bite into skin and skitter across bone.
The Common squawked and fell back, blood spraying across the floor in a staccato line of red as Lekan threw himself on the small man, bearing him to the ground. He weighed more than sixteen stone and the Lesser couldn’t have been a sand-grit over eleven. With the dagger in both hands, Lekan pressed it toward the fool’s blood-covered face, using his weight to drive it downward.
“Kill me? Kill me!” Lekan said through clenched teeth as the wretch wriggled beneath him. “I’m going to burn your whole family. You have sisters?” he spat. “Yes, Jelani? I’ll have her with this knife!”
Pain erupted in Lekan’s seeds, seared through his crotch and into his gut. He gasped, his strength gone, as he succumbed to the agony the Common’s knee had caused. The Common slapped the dagger from his hand and pushed him away, using the space to scuttle to his feet.
Lekan stood, swinging for the Lesser’s face, but his target ducked and tackled him, driving the air from his lungs and carrying them back to the ground. They knocked over the bedside table, the dregs from the jug of olu spilling on them. They wrestled there, beneath the open window, as the storm raged.
Lekan used his greater strength to beat and batter Tau. He rolled on top, hit the Common, disengaged, and kicked him in the thigh. He’d aimed for the bastard’s ribs but missed.
Tau began to rise and Lekan dashed to retrieve his dagger. He plucked it from the stone floor, put his back to the wall, and turned in time to see the Lesser running for him. He thrust his arm forward, to skewer the scrawny man, but the Common tripped on the fallen jug of olu and stumbled, making Lekan miss and causing his blade to tear through Tau’s dirty tunic instead of his belly.
The two men slammed together, becoming entangled. Lekan sliced at Tau but couldn’t land a killing blow, his knife trapped in torn cloth. Fumbling with the dagger, he tried to work it free, as the Lesser’s fingers scratched their way round his neck. He made to shout, ready to call in the guards, ready to end the farce, but his head was smashed into the wall.
Lekan saw bursts of light flare in his vision, and before he could recover, his head was whipped against the unyielding adobe again. He scrabbled at the bastard’s arms, couldn’t get a grip, and his head was slammed a third time, turning the light bursts into suns.
Remembering the dagger, he tried to stab Tau, but the blade was still trapped in the mess of torn fabric and Lekan couldn’t get a clean thrust. Desperate, he cut away from his assailant’s body, freeing the short blade. He cocked his arm, ready to plunge the knife into the Common’s heart, when his head was blasted into the wall, and something cracked.
Lekan’s legs went limp and he tried to yell at Tau to stop. His mouth wouldn’t work and he couldn’t see anything from his left eye. He patted at Tau’s face, his hand coming away wet and sticky. Lekan didn’t know where he was or what he was doing. He didn’t—
The back of Lekan’s head crashed into the wall again, and he saw his mother’s face. She was young, leaning over him. He was in the bed he’d slept in when he was a child and she was cooing. He reached up to touch her and she shattered into a million pieces as time stopped and pain unlike anything Lekan had ever known consumed him.
FALLEN
Tau’s face burned where Lekan had slashed him. The cut was deep and went from the bridge of his nose down to the middle of his right cheek. He was lucky he hadn’t lost an eye. He was lucky Lekan hadn’t killed him.
Tau looked down at the Petty Noble’s body and his stomach heaved. The back of Lekan’s head was collapsed inward. There wasn’t much blood, but the man was dead.
Tau began to panic. He could leave, but the body would be discovered and he’d be suspected. They’d search for him, find him missing, and punish his mother, his sister, his mother’s husband. The only option was for all of them to flee.
They wouldn’t get far. The umbusi would have them hunted. They’d be found and executed. He’d ruined everything. He’d murdered his own family.
The door to Lekan’s chambers flew open, and a keep guard, wild-eyed and sword at the ready, burst into the room.
“Hold!” the guard ordered. “Tau?”
“Ochieng,” Tau said. He’d been caught by the man his father helped place on the guard.
“What are you… Goddess wept!” Ochieng said, seeing Lekan’s body. “What have you—”
“I didn’t come to kill him.” Tau shut his mouth. What could he say that would matter?
“Why me? Why tonight?” Ochieng muttered. “Why, Goddess?”
Tau hung his head, and blood from the wound on his face dripped on the floor. He wouldn’t fight, not against Ochieng.
“Get on, then,” Ochieng said.
“What?”
Ochieng indicated the open window. “Get on. I’ll close it behind you.”
“I… I can’t. They’ll know it was me. My family—”
“They won’t know, Tau. Get, now, before I change my mind.”
Tau didn’t know what to say, could think of nothing to say. He got onto the windowsill, found the handholds he’d used to climb up, and stopped, locking eyes with Ochieng.
“Go on. Quick, now.”
Tau nodded, began to make his way back down the wall, and Ochieng got to work, picking up one of Lekan’s shirts, balling it up, squatting down and wiping at the blood in the room. He swished the scrunched cloth back and forth, diluting and scrubbing the blood into the rain-dampened floor. Then, when he got close, Ochieng paused, crouching over the Noble’s body before hawking up phlegm and spitting on Lekan’s face.
“That’s for Anya, for Nkiru’s family, and for Aren, you heartless cek,” he said.
It was slow, slower going down than up, and Tau’s heart hammered in his chest. He worried about being seen, and when he heard a bang and clatter from Lekan’s room, he came close to falling off the wall.
Ochieng’s voice followed the tu
mult. “Guards! Guards! Goddess, no! He’s fallen down the stairs! Nkosi Lekan needs help, please!”
Tau moved faster, as fast as he dared, and his heart didn’t slow till his feet touched the ground. He stepped back, taking his hand from the wall of the Onai’s keep, where his mother, her husband, Tau’s sister, and Jabari were sleeping, and he considered turning himself in.
He couldn’t imagine Ochieng’s ruse would work, and though he’d be killed if he surrendered, he could beg for mercy for his family. It was a child’s hope, he knew. Ochieng would be executed for trying to fool the Onai, and Tau’s family had a better chance in the hands of Ochieng’s story than in mercy from Nobles.
Tau closed his eyes and prayed to the Goddess. Prayed she would see fit to spare his family. Prayed Ochieng would be believed.
He hadn’t finished the few muttered words when he heard more voices from the keep’s second floor. He needed to hurry; the incomplete prayer would have to be enough. Taking a last look at the keep, he locked the image of it and of Kerem in his mind. He was unlikely to see either again.
A scream from inside pierced the night, startling him. It was a woman’s voice, though not the umbusi’s. Even so, Tau was out of time.
He ripped a strip of cloth from his tattered shirt and pressed it against the cut on his face, hissing at the pain. He couldn’t leave a trail of blood to bring doubt to the story Ochieng would tell. His face feeling like a mask of fire, Tau slunk off, sticking to the shadows and heading for the spot where he’d hidden his travel sack and weapons. He’d retrieve them and make for the southern capital, Kigambe.
Nothing had gone as planned, but Lekan was dead and the Petty Noble had paid for his part in Aren’s murder.
It didn’t help.
It had happened too fast, too unintentionally, and Lekan hadn’t had to face the evil he’d done, not fully.
As it stood, instead of seeing the scales tip back toward balance, all Tau could see was the Petty Noble’s caved-in head, the image bringing bile up his throat. He swallowed, forcing it down, along with the guilt. Lekan deserved what he got, deserved it far more than the hedena Tau had killed in Daba.
And if Tau didn’t feel better, it had to be because there was still so much to do. He needed to go to Kigambe and test to become an Ihashe. Then he’d have military status and the right to blood-duel anyone in the Chosen military. The old law was the only way a Lesser could kill a Noble with impunity.
Tau’s mind raced, flitting from Zuri, his mother and sister, and Jabari to his life in Kerem, to all he’d lost, and then to Aren, his father. He felt hopeless, helpless, but that wouldn’t do.
He breathed deep, taking the time to work his way back to calm, just like his father had always taught. That done, he took the first steps to Kigambe. He’d finish what he’d started.
“Kellan Okar, Dejen Olujimi, Abasi Odili,” he said to himself.
There were three men left to kill.
CHAPTER FOUR
KIGAMBE
It took Tau two days and most of the third to walk to Kigambe. He came down the mountains of Kerem and followed the Usebe path, paralleling the ocean. He watched the Roar as he traveled, letting the water’s fury, its fight against itself, occupy him instead of his own thoughts.
But there were no distractions at night, and Tau’s evenings were filled with dreams of the people he loved dying. The worst nightmare came on the second night. He had a dream of Daba and of driving his sword through the chest of the hedena warrior woman, but her face had turned into Zuri’s. He’d woken in a fit, reaching for his sword, staring out into the darkness for signs of danger. It had taken him a full span to go back to sleep.
In the daytime, he saw few others, and those he did see kept their distance from the young man who carried two swords and had a weeping wound across his face. On the afternoon of the third day, he marveled at how flat everything was. Tau had been born and raised in Kerem. He’d never been to Kigambe, or Palm, or any of the larger cities that stood on the valley floor of the peninsula. He’d never been to the North. Tau had never been anywhere, and when he came upon Kigambe, it stole his breath.
The capital city of the southern half of the peninsula was the color of polished copper. Its adobe buildings stretched as far as the eye could see, and surrounding it all was a series of defensive walls that formed ever-smaller concentric rings. It reminded Tau of the toy mazes that Kwaku, the Mawasian toy maker, sold.
Smoke from the city, from the cook fires and furnaces of its several hundred thousand citizens, rose into the air above the urban sprawl. The smoke curled up, billowed, then merged with and disappeared into the sky, leaving the city under a sheet of haze and trapped heat.
Beyond the city’s borders, Tau saw more people than he had believed existed in the whole world. Women and men from the Drudge, Common, Harvester, and Governor castes mingled on the paths leading to Kigambe, many of them crowding the countless market stalls stuck to its walls like ticks.
Kigambe was not on the water and the Roar was more than a three-span walk behind Tau, but the constant sound of so many voices made it seem like he was standing on a cliff overlooking the ocean. There were near on two million Chosen in the peninsula. Tau knew this, and to him it looked like all of them were in the city. Kigambe wasn’t even the peninsula’s largest city. Palm City was bigger, and Jirza, the North’s capital, was said to hold almost as many.
In a daze, Tau walked up to Kigambe’s outermost wall, the press of people and their stench growing as he got closer. He heard accents from the North and the Center, he saw styles of dress on women and men that must have been designed to shock, and he saw the cripples.
Everywhere had them, and Kerem had a few who had come back from the front lines or from other contested territories throughout the peninsula, but Tau had never seen so many in one place. He saw one-legged men hobble about on unknown errands, while men with stumps for arms carted heavy goods on their heads or strapped to their shoulders. The blind, they worked too, though with parchment and ink-dipped flaxen rods as they listened for calls from the market sellers before jotting down marks or counts.
Back home, men who had proven themselves in battle were given stipends and rations for their military service, and nothing more was expected. They had already given more than most, so the thinking went. The larger cities, it seemed, did not do it this way. Instead, they worked their Proven like they worked everyone else.
It seemed cruel. These men had already suffered.
“You’re staring, village boy.”
Tau started. The old man, who had just one arm and one eye, had spoken to him.
“It’s impolite,” the old Proven said. “B’sides, boy like you, looking like you, should be last to stare.” The old man drew his finger over his nose and across his cheek, drawing the shape of the long gouge cut into Tau’s face.
“I meant no offense,” Tau said, touching the still scabbing wound and wincing when his finger brushed the flesh.
“First time in Kigambe? You’re here for the testing.”
Tau said nothing.
“You look of age and you’ve already taken a cut or two.” The man laughed. “So don’t let my scratches scare you!” He raised his stump of an arm. “There’s no greater honor than to fight for the peninsula against the slough-skins.”
“They…,” Tau said, not knowing how to finish his question.
“They caught me after the Battle for Cata. They took the eye,” he said, pointing to the ruined socket with his stump. “Burned it out and let the pain of that stew with me. Then they came for the arm.”
Tau’s mouth was dry. “They’re savages,” he said.
“They are,” he replied. “No give in them, though. They fight hard and die harder.”
Tau didn’t know what to say to that.
“The Guardian Ceremony will be starting soon. You should see it before your testing. Inspirational to see the Indlovu Citadel’s best. Better hurry if you want a decent spot.”
; “The ceremony where the queen speaks, that’s today?” asked Tau.
“It is,” said the maimed man, flicking a rough tongue over yellowed teeth. “I’ll be there to watch. Always am. Find it heartening to see the next crop doing their duty. We must all do our part, neh?”
“We must,” Tau murmured.
“Take Kibwe all the way to Ejiro, then left. You can’t miss it, or everyone.”
“What?”
“The ceremony. Take the Kibwe path all the way to Ejiro. Turn left and you’ll see the crowd.”
“Ah, my thanks,” said Tau.
“Perhaps I’ll see you.”
“See me?”
“At the testing.”
“Perhaps,” said Tau, inclining his head and leaving for the nearest gate that would take him into Kigambe proper. He looked back and the Proven flashed his broken-toothed smile.
Inside the walls the sun’s heat bounced off the cramped adobe buildings and turned the skinny paths of Kigambe into open-air ovens. The city stunk of damp clothes, dried sweat, urine, and rot, and no one seemed to notice. Tau had to stop himself from covering his nose, and he was jostled left and right by people who hurried from path to path. He mumbled apologies but received no response.
The Chosen of Kigambe seemed mute and stiff of neck. Most of them walked with their heads down, mouths shut, and eyes forward.
“Care, young warrior!” a voice yelled in his ear.
Tau jerked back. He was face-to-face with a Sah priest. The priest, in a sand-stained cassock, had his shoulder-length hair locked into a series of thick braids. He had a feverish look about him.
“Hear the Goddess’s word!” the man singsonged to the people around him. “Hear her word today!”
Tau moved to the side to let the man pass.
“Come, pray with us, fellow Chosen. The Goddess should hear all our voices raised in devotion.”
“I have to go,” Tau told the priest.
“All you have to do is the Goddess’s will,” the priest said, eyeing the jagged cut across Tau’s face. “What else can matter?” He raised his voice then and began his singsong once more. “Hear the Goddess’s word! Hear her word today!”