by Evan Winter
Tau scoffed.
“The queen couldn’t stop my dismissal. She was too new to her power and throne, but I’m loyal to her, as loyal as she is to the Goddess. I’m telling you this because you can be part of the new world. Tau, the old Royals have lost their way and the Omehi too, but their time is coming.”
“Old Royals? New world?” Tau asked. “You’re not even talking about a revolution. You just want to replace one master for another.” The whole thing made him sick. He gathered his swords and walked off, clutching his injured side, leaving his kneeling umqondisi in the dirt.
“Tau,” Jayyed called after him. “Watch for sacrifice counters. Your enemy doesn’t have to win for you to lose.”
Tau ignored him. He was thinking about the Jayyed he’d known on the first day of training. The Jayyed who had told a scale of Lessers that, though men had their differences, they were nothing compared to their similarities.
Two hands, two legs, one heart, one mind. Nobles shared more with Lessers than they didn’t. They were more akin to Tau than they weren’t, and to say different was to speak lies.
Tau’s limits were not decided by his birth or nature but by the bounds of his determination and the extent of his efforts. That was what Tau believed, and he was going to prove it. He was going to show them all.
CHAPTER NINE
LESSER
The day after he fought Jayyed and the day after that and the day after that, Tau slept no more than three spans a night. His life was offered like a sacrifice to the sword. Yet, when the moon had cycled, he was forbidden to attend the scale’s next skirmish.
He railed against the decision, demanding to speak with Jayyed, who had not come to tell him this himself. Aqondise Anan was stoic in the face of Tau’s anger, saying nothing could change the order. Word of the duel had reached the citadel umqondisi, and though Kellan Okar had relinquished his right to justice, Jayyed believed it best for Tau to remain beyond easy reach.
When his scale prepared to leave, Tau went to confront Jayyed. He was met by the men of Scale Njere. They were polite but insisted that Tau remain in the barracks.
Tau’s sword brothers returned before dawn on the next day. The skirmish had been close, but they’d lost. Tau threw over his cot and yelled in Hadith’s face; shadowed by a brooding Uduak, Hadith took a lesson from Anan and accepted Tau’s anger.
That day and the next and the next, Tau beat, battered, and embarrassed his sword brothers, as if doing so would make them better or soothe his disquiet. The lack of sleep, the overwork, the stress, and the tempers caught up to him, and he woke with a chill. He stumbled his way to the practice yards, made it through the morning run, and collapsed. No one could make him leave until Jayyed came.
Tau, feverish, threatened to fight his umqondisi. He demanded they finish what they had started. Jayyed and Anan dragged him to the infirmary. He spent two days burning off the sickness.
On the third day, Jayyed visited. He asked Tau if he was trying to kill himself. Tau, the fever gone, spoke as if he were still in its grasp. He told Jayyed he needed more time, that the days were too short for all he had to do.
“Every woman, man, child, Lesser and Noble, is given the same time in a day, and no more,” Jayyed had said.
The next morning, Tau was first on the practice yards and last to leave them. He battered the flaxen practice dummy, hitting it so hard its dented helmet spun in circles on its thin head. He sparred without relent, and even weakened from the fever’s aftereffects, he pushed himself harder than anyone else in the scale.
When his sword brothers left the yards, he fought mock battles with himself, replaying every sparring session. Then, when his body’s exhaustion could no longer be denied, he sat in the yards, eyes closed, reenacting every skirmish in his mind, mentally correcting the errors in his sword work. Still, it would not be enough.
Jayyed’s theory of training had been meant to turn cross-castes into the fighting equivalent of Petty Nobles, not Lessers into Nobles. Even so, Tau found no fault in Jayyed’s methods. They produced superior results, and those results did not depend on lineage.
The best way to become a better swordsman was through intelligent effort spent on swordplay. The more effort put in, the faster the fighter would become better. Jayyed had the right of it and Tau was trying. He was giving everything he had, but he could not match the citadel’s three cycles in the isikolo’s one.
The time remaining before Tau’s cycle of training ended was not enough for him to overcome a disciplined and trained Greater Noble’s natural advantages. A man like Kellan Okar would still be his better.
Startling the guard on top of the isikolo’s nearest wall, Tau threw his swords to the ground and yelled into the night. He went to his knees, sitting on his legs in prayer position, but had nothing to say to Ananthi.
What could he say to the Goddess, who had allowed his father to be murdered and who had made Tau a Lesser, so justice would be impossible everywhere but in his dreams? How could he treat with a creator who had given him the will but not the way?
A burst of lightning caught his attention, illuminating the black sky, forking a dozen times, and striking the distant water like a spear. That was rare. Storms and rain did not come often to Xidda. Tau waited for thunder. It came, booming across the distance, its sound reaching him in the same breath as the thought that promised to change the course of his life.
Tau rocked on his heels. He saw a way, a path waiting to be walked, and it frightened him beyond measure, because he no longer knew if he had the will. He thought to forget it, ignore it, reject it. He could go to bed, join his fellows in sleep, wake in the morning, and do as they did, training, laughing, drinking, and fighting in a war without end, against an enemy that Jayyed believed could not be defeated. He could let the memory of his father fade and become a great Lesser, a man with the skill to stand mere steps behind the Nobles on the Omehi’s march into history’s pages.
Or he could be more.
Tau, on his knees, closed his eyes, took slow breaths, and let Isihogo take him.
ISIHOGO
He was in the practice yards, but the training grounds and grasslands were covered in mist. He saw no guard on the indistinct walls of the isikolo, and the sky rolled, as unsettled as the Roar. Tau looked down at himself. He was glowing and knew it wouldn’t be long. He stood, feeling relief that his swords had come with him, and he drew them, hands shaking, bile rising. He resisted the urge to expel his breath and flee this evil place. He stayed and the demons came.
The one that saw him first was monstrous. It stood half again as tall as Tau, was covered in mottled chitin, and had two long limbs tipped with pincers. It scuttled toward him on six spiny legs while chittering from a circular maw that opened and shut reflexively, displaying rings of teeth that went back into its throat.
Tau twirled his swords with a bravado he did not feel. “Come on!” he shouted, charging.
The creature skittered to a stop, pincers frozen aloft. Tau used its confusion to land the first blow. His blade slammed into the monster’s right arm and claw. It shrieked at him, withdrew the arm, and with its other pincer snapped for his neck. Tau blocked with his weak-side sword, but the creature shoved his blade back, clamping down as it did, almost catching his head. Tau drew back and pulled his sword from its grasp, using both blades to attack the monster everyplace he imagined it could be weak. He broke small pieces from its shell but managed little else.
In the distance, hidden by mist, Tau could hear an ululating call that made the hairs on his neck stand. He didn’t dare look. His courage was failing. He focused on the fight he had, frantic to get around the monster in front of him so he could face both it and the incoming other, but the pincered monster could not be beaten.
His fear grew, threatening to overcome him. He would not be able to face the demons one-on-one and it was too late to leave Isihogo by expelling his breath. The demons would tear him to pieces before he could escape that way. There was only one
possible end. But he’d known that when he came.
He was going to die horribly, though knowing it and facing it were different, and in that moment, Isihogo became truly dangerous for Tau. As the demon behind him closed in and the one he faced lashed out, Tau could no longer ignore the underworld’s immense power.
He felt it all around him, and it would be a simple thing to draw it into himself. He could use it to stop them, to fight them. He could use it to blast them to pieces, to escape, to save himself. The power was there, offering itself as the pincered demon caught his strong arm and snapped the bone in two.
The pain and shock hit Tau at the same time, and without thought, he reached for Isihogo’s offering. The second demon got him before he could take it. The creature closed its jaws on the back of his neck, cracking his spine and dragging him to the ground. He fell, powerless and crippled, his body broken, his mind not far behind.
The unseen demon bit him again while the pincered monster scuttled over, one of its carapaced legs stabbing through the skin and bone of his right hip as it hurried to feed. With his spine severed, Tau could not feel the leg or his rib cage being torn open by the two demons. He could hear them, though, as they slopped up his innards and shook his body with their jostling.
When a third demon got to him, there was only room for it by his head. It bit into his cheek and jaw, its teeth slicing into him and tearing the ruined flesh from his face. That he felt, and the pain shattered him, splitting his consciousness into a thousand slivers, each one a suffering, a scourging without end. Tau’s tongue, mouth, and jaw had been torn to shreds, but as he died he found a way to scream.
He came back to the world in sections. He sensed a leg, his mouth, the beating of his heart, his eyes. His own body was disjointed, a thing apart, hard to reconcile and impossible, in those early breaths, to control. Moving from Uhmlaba to Isihogo was always hard. It incapacitated men inexperienced with it. Dying to demons was infinitely worse.
Tau opened his eyes. He was on the ground at the edge of the practice yards, moaning, rocking. No time had passed, but he had been to the underworld, fought there, almost taken its power into himself and come close to a true death. His nerves were on fire, his limbs trembled, and his mind was misery.
He tried to sit, couldn’t, and lay still, waiting for the shock to pass, the loamy ground warm against his cheek and lips. He’d soiled himself.
It was in this state of suffering and degradation that Tau knew he’d been given everything he wanted. The Goddess had answered his prayers. She’d shown him how to make one span worth a hundred, one cycle worth a lifetime.
Her gift was a generous one. If accepted, it would make him the greatest warrior in Omehi history, and all he had to do was fight and die to Isihogo’s demons over and over and over again.
COUNT
“What sme… Whassat smell?” Chinedu coughed out. “Tau, that you?”
“It’s not me,” Tau said, rolling out of his cot, eyes heavy, head heavier.
“Is that you, still in bed,” Chinedu clarified.
Tau thought he’d been able to wash himself well enough the night before. He’d been so tired, though.
“Surprised is all,” Chinedu said. “First time I’m up before you, neh?”
“It was a long night in the yards.”
“Not sure how much… how much value is in it.” Chinedu raised his hands, empty palms facing Tau. “Don’t mean anything by that. Way you fight is… is evidence enough. Just hard to see how swinging a sword at shadows helps, is all.”
“I think you’re right. I won’t stay out as late. Not if it means I’m sleeping in.”
Chinedu chuckled. “Sleeping in? Sun ain’t even up yet.” He buckled on his sword belt. “I’m… off.”
“I’ll be along in a moment,” Tau said, looking around the room filled with sleeping men. Hadith, Uduak, and Yaw were already gone. Tau rushed to catch up, trying to sort out what parts of the night had been normal nightmares and what parts were the nightmares he’d lived through. He touched his jaw and cheek. They were there and they were whole, though memory of the attack made the skin tingle.
Tau snatched up his practice swords, belt, and gambeson, which did smell like dung. He’d have to rush through the early practice, make an excuse, and wash it again. He’d have to go through the afternoon without it.
Tau strode for the barracks door, spotting the demon a breath before it could take him. With no time to yell a warning, he threw himself to the floor and rolled back to his feet, swords drawn, facing the shadows and nothing more.
“Cek! What’re you done?” asked Mavuto, still half-asleep and sitting up. “Tau?”
“Nothing,” Tau told his lanky sword brother. The demon was gone. It had never been. “It’s nothing.”
“What’s that smell?”
“What? Go back to sleep, Mavuto.”
The man grumbled, lay down, and pulled his rough blanket over his head. Tau left and went straight to the bathhouses. Practice would have to wait until he’d scrubbed his body and gambeson. He also needed a quarter span to center himself. He’d thought he’d seen a demon in the barracks.
The rest of the day fell in line with Tau’s routine. He trained hard, sparred well, ate supper at twilight, and went back to the yards alone. He was shaking when he went, because what he meant to do scared him. He wasn’t ashamed to admit that, and as the night deepened, he saw things beyond the yard, in the grasslands, crawling things, things with too many arms and legs. The hairs on his arms rose and his skin went rough, like on those Harvest nights when the air ran cool.
He cautioned himself not to overdo it. He thought to go back to bed to get proper rest. Isihogo would be there for him on the next night, or the one after that, if he needed two days to recover.
Tau wanted to believe his rationalizations more than anything, because the only other thing he could think to do was to sit at the far edge of the practice yard, farthest from the protective walls of the isikolo, where the grasslands began. The only other thing he could think to do was to sit there, slow his breathing, close his eyes, and allow his soul to slip from the world of his birth and into the world of death.
The demons came. Tau fought. They slaughtered him. Back in Uhmlaba he threw up his dinner and crouched in the grasses, heaving until he believed his seeds would come out his mouth. Throat burning from bile, he stood and took a step toward the barracks, but the night was young and would remain that way. Time was different in Isihogo.
Whimpering, cursing himself a coward, Tau sat in the grass, a step away from his spew, and let his soul fly to the prison Ananthi had wrought for Ukufa. He tasted blood. In his fear he’d bitten through his lip.
They came. He drew swords and battled them until a misstep allowed a demon to slice his leg off below the knee. He dropped to the ground and that was it. They had him and he was brutalized.
He went back. A pack of them found him and, losing his nerve, Tau dropped his swords and fled. They ran him down, the fastest of them ending Tau’s flight when it caught and tore the tendons in his calf with its hand’s-length claws. He went down and they had him. He begged and he pled. “Mercy,” he said, “Goddess’s mercy.” If they or She heard, it made no difference. He was eviscerated.
He went back. Only one found him. It was a war between them, like the stories old men told children around blistering fires meant to keep the darkness at bay.
The demon had two arms and walked on two legs. It behaved like a human, and this Tau understood. This he could fight. They roared at each other and fought bitterly, two demigods, their battle holding the fate of creation in its balance. Then the demon caught Tau across the throat, slicing him from ear to ear.
He collapsed, gulping for air and tasting copper. The demon stood over him, eyes glowing red as it watched his lifeblood pump through the trench it had carved in his neck.
Tau’s head lolled. He was dying. It hurt. It hurt so much and it hurt every time. The skin around the wound burned and he
could feel his heart pounding in his chest, desperate to keep him alive. Just let me die, he thought.
He rolled his eyes to the demon’s face. It had tusks and where its nose should have been there was a slitted hole. Tau couldn’t speak but tried to goad it, tried to make it put him out of his misery. It made no move, letting him suffer, watching him bleed to death.
Tau went two more times that night but could manage no more and stumbled back to the barracks. As best he could discern, he’d been out in the practice yards for less than two spans. He had to do better, he thought. He was wasting too much time between deaths. He could fight many more battles if, after he died, he went straight back in.
The next night Tau went back and fought more often than the night before. He began keeping a count of each evening’s battles. He forced more out of each night, and his work was not done until he’d bested his previous number. He told no one what he did, but the scale noticed.
BORDERS
“Yaw, Chinedu, Hadith, you’ll spar Tau,” Jayyed ordered. It was early afternoon and the scale was in the practice yards.
“Give us Uduak,” Hadith said.
“There’s three of you. Get on.”
“Three against Tau, we’ll take Uduak,” Hadith said.
“Uduak, stay where you are,” Jayyed said. “Fight!”
Hadith sucked his teeth, pulled his sword, and waved Yaw and Chinedu forward. The two men did as they were bid but were slow about it.
Tau waited until they were three strides out of sword range to attack. He feinted at Yaw with his weak side and caught him on the temple with the strong. Yaw crumpled, his helmet tumbling across the yard. Chinedu swung hard, but Tau’s sword caught the blow and, with the pommel of his other blade, he smacked Chinedu in the back, near his spine. Chinedu fell, cursing, and Tau was already chasing a backpedaling Hadith. Tau disarmed him, tripped him, and stood over him, sword point grazing Hadith’s throat stone.