by Evan Winter
"Hold the line," Tau's father ordered the Ihagu. "Move back, slowly! Don't push. The Ihashe and Indlovu are here!"
In the time it took for Aren to issue orders, the Ingonyama had cut his way through an entire line of hedeni, whipping his sword around hard enough to slice through two men in a single blow. Three more savages attacked the Ingonyama. He batted the first away with his shield, kicked the next in the chest, flinging him ten strides away, and cut the head off the third.
More hedeni came, delivering strikes that should have ended the Ingonyama's life. He shrugged them off and, with the pommel of his sword, cracked a savage's skull like it was a rotten nut.
"Tau! Over here—" It was Jabari. He was blood-spattered and the blade of his sword dripped gore.
"Everyone, towards the Gifted," shouted Tau's father and the Ihagu did as he bid.
"Incredible," Jabari said, pointing to the Ingonyama. "He's incredible."
When they were kids, Jabari would play at being an Ingonyama and Tau hadn't forgotten how heartbroken Jabari had been when he'd learned Enraging could not work on Petty-Nobles. Their blood was too weak and Gifted could only Enrage a Greater or Royal-Noble.
"Move faster!" said Aren, yanking on Tau's gambeson.
They were near the Gifted. Tau could see them, though not well. They were protected by a ring of Indlovu warriors, who guarded them against the savages and kept the Ihagu at a distance.
Tau counted the Gifted he could see. There were eight of them, in the traditional coal-black and flowing robes. Their hoods were up, but the gold necklaces, that all Gifted wore, shimmered with light from Daba's guttering fires.
Having reached a measure of safety, Aren's men let their exhaustion take hold. Some dropped to their knees and one scrawny Ihagu sat on the ground, staring at nothing. The man beside him had his sword up, as if expecting his companions to turn on him.
Tau sought out the Ingonyama. He was out there, in what was left of Daba, destroying all who faced him. Around him, the Noble Indlovu flowed like dancers. They plugged gaps and attacked flanks, following the giant's orders.
The ease with which they had turned the tide of a losing battle shouldn't have been surprising. The Indlovu were the Chosen's most brilliant fighters and the Ingonyama were selected from the Indlovu's most talented Greater-Nobles. Still, seeing it was different from knowing it.
Tau glanced at Jabari. The Petty-Noble had found water and was drinking, spilling much of it. Tau found it hard to believe that little more than a test and time separated the optimistic young man from being a Full-blooded Indlovu. Jabari would test this Hoarding season and, if he passed, he'd become an initiate of the Citadel, train for three cycles, graduate, and go to war.
Tau hoped to follow a similar path, as an Ihashe. He planned to take his Ihashe test this cycle, after Jabari had his Indlovu one. If Tau passed, he'd train at the Southern Ihashe Isikolo, the closer of the Rend's two elite fighting schools for Lessers.
Ihashe, being Lessers, were no match for Indlovu, but they made Ihagu, the footmen of the Chosen military, look like children with sticks. Becoming an Ihashe also meant status. It was Chosen tradition to treat them as if they inhabited the gap between Lessers and Nobles.
Before Tau was born, Tau's father had passed the testing, attended the Southern Ihashe Isikolo and, a cycle later, he'd graduated, serving for the mandatory six cycles. It was in his final cycle of service that Aren had met and fallen in love with Imani Tafari, a beautiful and strong-willed High-Common. Aren wooed her and they'd run away to Kerem, to escape her father's wrath at the poor match.
In Kerem, Aren became one of Umbusi Onai's Ihagu and Tau was born soon after. In Tau's first few cycles of life, Imani grew weary of living like a Low-Common and left Aren. She left Tau too.
Having lost his wife, Aren gave his life to two things: raising Tau and being the best soldier in the fief. In time, he became the commanding officer of Umbusi Onai's fighting men and was placed in charge of training Jabari. He taught Tau as well.
Tau knew it was the best his father could do to give him a decent future, and it was a future Tau embraced. Already Daba was changing that. Tau had killed. He'd ended a life, taking away all the hedena woman was and stealing everything she could ever be. He may have killed others. How horrible was it that, in the night's insanity, he couldn't even be sure?
Tau felt drained, empty. It was like his dreams had gone hollow. He didn't want to kill and realizing that frightened him.
A long and shrill howl sounded across the flats. At the far edge of Daba, a hedena held a horn. The savage blew it again, three short blasts followed by a longer one. Tau hoped he was calling a retreat. Something felt wrong though. There was a man beside the horn-blower.
"What is it?" asked Jabari, startling Tau. He hadn't heard the Noble approach.
"The one beside the horn-blower," Tau said. "I think that's their Inkokeli."
"What does he look like?"
"He's tall, well-built. He's wearing more than they usually do, and he's carrying one of those bone spears. He... He's burned, not just Cursed. It looks like he's been through a fire. Half his face is a ruin."
"They aren't retreating."
Jabari was right. They weren't. They were doing the opposite. The hedeni, hearing the horn's notes, came together, but they did not rush the barricade or the military men facing them. As one, the raiders went for the Enraged Ingonyama, ignoring the Chosen warriors around him.
"Stop them, Amara!" the Gifted nearest to Tau said to another black-robed woman.
The one named Amara lifted her hands, aiming past Tau and at the hedeni attacking the beleaguered Ingonyama. "They're too far. It'll splash," she said.
"Try, damn you!" said the first Gifted, and Amara did.
Energy began to radiate from her fingers. It looked like pulsing waves of heat, that thickened as it flew out and away. Tau wondered what she was doing, when the edge of Amara's wave struck him and the world disappeared.
VICTORY
Once, when he was younger, Tau climbed down the cliffs of Kerem to the beach below. He went with several other Commons. One of them dared him to go into The Roar, up to his waist. He said no and they called him a coward.
Tau went into the ocean. He made it four strides and, with the water swirling around his knees, was swept off his feet and dragged out.
The Roar pulled him under, tossed him around, threatening to drown him. He only lived because it was low tide and the water, so close to the beach, was shallow. The other boys made a chain of arms to reach to him. They pulled him from the churning waves.
Being blasted by the Gifted felt like drowning in The Roar, only in deep water. It was as if Tau's body was being dashed to pieces while the world around him warped and spun and, when the spinning stopped, things got worse.
Tau saw Daba, but everything was different. The colors had been sucked away, leaving the hamlet, earth, and sky in shades of gray. An unnatural wind buffeted him, shrieking, burying the other sounds, while impenetrable mists obscured anything further than twenty strides away.
Tau could see what had to be the other Ihagu, the men who had been standing near him, but couldn't make sense of what he saw. The men, all in varying degrees of distress, were glowing with golden light. Tau looked down at himself. He was glowing too and the glow had attracted something from the mists.
The creature was hidden and indistinct. Tau could see enough though. It moved in a lurching run on two feet, its balance aided by club-like hands on arms so long they could touch the ground when the thing was upright. It had a flat face, red eyes, a slavering mouth, and its skin seemed diseased.
The monster caught Tau in its crimson gaze and roared. Tau couldn't make himself move and it came for him, careening out of the mists, reaching for him with its misshapen club-like hands. Tau's legs gave out, he opened his mouth to scream, and he fell and kept falling, through the ground and beyond.
Tau gasped, pulling in air and ash and the stench of blood. He was on his
knees. It felt like his mind was on fire and fear, unlike anything he'd ever known, thundered through him. He felt warm wetness soak his trews. He'd soiled himself.
He didn't care, couldn't care. It was enough to stay on his knees and not collapse into the battle-churned muck. The Ihagu around him were similarly affected and Tau saw that many of the hedeni, the ones near the Enraged Ingonyama, were also down.
"Tau?" It was his father.
"Da?" Tau said.
"Be at ease. It'll pass. It'll pass."
Tau's head pounded, but he looked to the Gifted anyway. Amara was still pushing out the wave of twisted energy. Tau realized his father had pulled him out of the way, and just in time. Amara's wave of enervation had forced his soul into Isihogo, where one of its demons had almost gotten him.
His head was a muddle, but Tau thought he understood. The Gifted was trying to disable enough of the hedeni to allow the Ingonyama to flee. Her efforts weren't enough. Too many of the hedeni had gotten to Enraged fighter.
The Ingonyama battled ferociously, but the hedeni had hurt him, badly. He was bleeding from a hundred cuts and for every fighter he killed two more joined the fight.
"I can't hit more of them," the Gifted named Amara said. "I can't!"
"He has to drop the Enraging," the other Gifted said. "It will kill Nsia."
The Gifted needn't have worried, the Ingonyama, with a bellow, killed another man and stepped back. There were two flashes of light. The first flared around his body and, when it vanished, so did the effects of the Enraging. The Greater-Noble shrank into himself, diminishing in height, bulk, and strength.
The second flash of light was further up the flats, it came from the half-closed doorway of one of the abandoned homes. As if waiting for this, the horn-blower fired off two sharp blasts, and a group of hedeni broke from those swarming the Ingonyama. They ran straight for the abandoned home.
The ones who remained finished off the Ingonyama. He was stabbed by spear and hatchet. They opened his belly, letting his entrails spill out onto the dirt. His head was severed from his shoulders and held aloft.
Amara had tears in her eyes and the Gifted woman beside her cursed, raising her hands to the sky. Her robes fell back from her wrists and Tau heard the Guardian roar.
The Dragon circled, the Gifted twitched her fingers, and the monstrosity dove for the hedeni that were running for the abandoned home. The horn-blower sounded off again and the hedeni, who had killed the Ingonyama, charged the barricades, coming straight for them.
The Gifted had no choice. Her fingers twitched and the Dragon altered course, engulfing a dozen of the barricade-bound hedeni in fire. The Dragon beat its way back to the skies for another pass, and Tau saw what had been in the abandoned house. The hedeni had captured a Gifted.
"Nsia!" the Gifted communing with the Dragon shouted.
The savages, holding the captured Gifted, sped towards the horn-blower and the warlord with the burned face. At the warlord's signal, the horn-blower lifted his instrument, blowing a final note, and all the hedeni retreated.
Pockets of fighting persisted, the men and women involved too far along in their life and death struggles for any horn to halt. These pockets were the exception. When the horn blew, it ended the raid on Daba.
A few of the Chosen sent up a cheer. Most of the townspeople were safe, the Ihagu had held until the Citadels had arrived, and they had witnessed Ingonyama, Indlovu, and Guardians in full glory. The cheer was almost loud enough to drown out the sounds of choking.
It was one of the Gifted. Not the one who had skimmed Tau with her enervating blast and not the one directing the Dragon. This Gifted had stood there still and quiet, surrounded by Indlovu, and far from combat. She was convulsing, her skin bubbling and bursting, and she was coughing up blood. It looked like she was being torn to pieces from the inside out. It looked like what had happened to the hedena that Jabari had captured and questioned.
An Indlovu took hold of her and, with surprising tenderness, helped her to the ground. The other Indlovu tightened the circle around her, blocking Tau's view. He could still hear though. He could hear her dying. Tau started towards them, thinking he could help, should help, when a hand fell on his shoulder.
"No," his father said. "That is Gifted business."
"She's dying."
The choking Gifted had gone quiet.
"Come," his father said. "We won."
CHAPTER TWO
KISS
Tau saw the hedena's face, reliving the moment when his sword went in and her eyes went wide. In his dreams, she didn't die silent. She screamed, deafening him with the sound of her voice, crushing him with her hate.
Aren woke him near midday and Tau couldn't be sure he'd slept.
"You'll feel raw," his father said, stoking their hut's small cook fire. "During a fight your blood's up and your body does everything it can to keep going. When the danger passes, it shuts down." He offered Tau the vegetables he'd boiled. Tau waved them off.
"You should eat," Aren told him. "I want you training today."
Tau wanted to protest.
"Listen," Aren said, staring into the pot's murk, "you're all I have, and I know Jabari's story about duty calling him to Daba isn't the full tale. Don't say anything. I don't want you lying. But, you should know I'm going to push you.
"When it's the Hoard, you'll test. I thought I was preparing you for that, a test. It's not true. I'm teaching you how to kill and, more importantly, how to stay alive when people try to kill you."
Tau nodded. It seemed to be what his father wanted.
"It'll be double training sessions from now until the testing. We'll add mornings to our normal afternoons. I have my duties, so your mornings will be with Nkiru and some of the other men. The ones with a good head for sword work." Aren stood, told Tau to eat, and left.
Tau dressed, rolled up his bed, munched on the sour Daba potatoes, washed the pot, and went to buckle on his sword. The blood had been washed away from the blade. Aren had made Tau clean his gear, before letting him sleep, but Tau could see it on the bronze. Not the blood, but the places it had been.
When Tau arrived, Jabari was already in the fighting circle, swinging his sword. "Well met, Tau."
"Well met, Nkosi."
"I feel like a mountain fell on me," the Petty-Noble said. "Could hardly get out of bed. I've pain in places I didn't know were there." Jabari smiled. "I nearly didn't have to worry about any of that, though. I had to face my mother this morning. I thought she'd kill me."
"Guess not?" Tau said, making Jabari laugh.
"She'd heard Aren's report, before seeing me. She was angry, very angry, but proud. You should have seen Lekan! He had to stand next to mother, listening to her praise me. He looked like he'd be sick." Jabari's eyes glittered. "I could get used to this hero thing. Jabari Onai and Tau Tafari, the Chosen's most feared warriors!"
"From your lips to the Goddess' ears," Tau told him as he lifted his practice sword and stepped into the fighting circle.
Jabari smiled. "May we always be pleasing in her eyes," he intoned. "At you!" he said, attacking.
No one came to instruct them. Aren and his men would have a busy few days, as they recovered from the raid. The toughest part of a battle was afterward, Aren always said. Part of his duty, as Inkokeli, was to travel to the homes of all the men who had gone to the Goddess. Tau didn't want to think about Aren visiting Tendaji's family. He couldn't imagine having to tell Tendaji's wife she'd never see her husband again.
"What's going on in that head?" Jabari asked.
They were sitting and sweating on the edge of the fighting circle. Jabari had, for the most, gotten the better of Tau. That was normal. The ease with which he had done it was not.
"I can't get past last night," Tau said.
"Of course not."
"Did you sleep?" Tau asked.
"Barely," Jabari said. "I was sore and the rush hadn't left me. I actually considered waking Lekan to tell him about it. Can you b
elieve that? Lekan!"
Tau slumped. "Not sure he would have appreciated it."
Jabari laughed again. "As you say! Well, I'm not sure I could swing a blade of grass. I'm for the Keep. Father wants Lekan and me to help the rebuilding effort at Daba. I need to figure out when works best."
"I'd like to help, in Daba, if you don't mind," Tau said.
"Kind of you, Tau. We'll do it together." Jabari stood. "I'll let you know when we make the first trip over."
"Do you think... will they come back?"
"Don't know. They don't usually attack the same place, but they don't usually raid with that large a force either. Not a good start to the new Queen's reign. It's also..." Jabari's hesitation was unusual. He was always certain. "When Aren reported to my mother, he told her they'd identified five Xiddeen tribes among the dead, but the tribes don't raid together. They join forces in The Wrist out of necessity. It's the front line of the war. In raids, though, the tribes go it alone." Jabari shook his head. "I'll never understand the savages. They're separate races. They feud with each other. But, they also cooperate and... mix." Jabari's distaste dripped off the last word.
The Chosen had been surprised when they'd discovered the Xiddeen were several races of man, each with unique Gifts. They'd been shocked to learn that the races mixed, polluting their blood lines and risking their Gifts. Some in the Sah priesthood preached that it was this profane behavior that caused the Goddess to curse them.
"So, they're allying for raids now." Tau said.
"Let's hope last night was unique."
"From your lips," Tau said, eliciting a nod from Jabari.
Jabari walked over, placed his hands behind Tau's head, and pulled him close. Their foreheads touched. "Whatever comes, we are sword-brothers. We'll face our trials as the Chosen have always done, with sharp bronze." He let go, slapped Tau playfully on the back of the neck and walked off.
Tau prepared to leave. His body ached, but there was a nervous energy in him that wouldn't let him rest. Groaning, he limbered up and pulled his sword free of its scabbard. He went through his forms, trying to be as perfect as possible. Blinking stinging sweat from his eyes, he made himself move faster and faster.