by Evan Winter
"Water?" Tau asked, trying not to beg.
"We leave for the Southern Isikolo once the trials are over," Hadith told him. "Uduak isn't sure he's coming. The Umqondisi said that if you died, Uduak would lose his place. He's been watching over you, like a worried mother."
Uduak glared at Tau, flexing and unflexing his fists. Tau tried to glare back, but glaring hurt.
"Water?" he asked, begging this time.
"Ask Uduak," Hadith said. "He's the one who needs you alive."
Hadith left and Uduak growled, as he slipped back into the shadows. Apparently, Uduak believed Tau would live without the water. Tau closed his eyes and tried to lose consciousness, if only to hide from the pain in his wrist.
He didn't think he'd be able to sleep, but when he opened his eyes again, it was morning. Umqondisi Jayyed Ayim was there. He had food and water. Tau, mouth too dry to talk, and still in the clutches of sleep, reached for the water with his broken arm. The pain woke him the rest of the way.
"Takes longer than a day to heal," Jayyed said. "How are you, otherwise?"
"Thirsty," Tau said, looking over the middle-aged Umqondisi, as Jayyed helped him drink.
Jayyed was big for a Lesser, and well-muscled, though nothing like Uduak. He had broad shoulders, sat straight-backed and, though his irises were dark, his eyes seemed to shine. He radiated strength and, somehow, there was softness there too. Maybe it was his mouth, Tau thought. He looked like a man who preferred smiling.
"I've accepted you into the Ihashe Isikolo," Jayyed told him. "It may be a mistake, but it's rare that I'm surprised, and yesterday surprised me. We Omehi are warriors and, even among us, few have your... determination.
"In a less cruel world, it would have made up for the gulf in skill between you and Uduak. This is not that world."
"Perhaps not," Tau tried, unsure how to respond.
"It's not."
"Why take me then?" Tau asked, pride pricking him.
"I know who you are, Tau Tafari," Jayyed said. "I remember you from the Citadel testing. Though, you didn't have that, then." Jayyed waved a finger at Tau's face, near the fissure Lekan had carved across it. "It would have become infected, you know. I had the Sah priests attend to it, as well as your... more recent injuries. I can also guess why you're here, why you want to become Ihashe."
"My name is Tau Solarin," Tau said, offering nothing else. He'd made it farther than it was fair to hope. He would not risk being put out by confirming whatever suspicions Jayyed might have.
"Solarin? Your father's name?" Jayyed guessed. "And, Low-Common instead of High?"
"My name is Tau Solarin."
Jayyed inclined his head, his eyes never leaving Tau's face. "So it is," he said. "Common Solarin, let me explain my interest, and you can tell me if it's warranted. Agreed?"
Tau nodded.
"I have been a military man for most my life and, throughout that time, I have chased the techniques, training, and men that make the perfect killer. The Isikolo, given my prior posting as advisor to the Guardian Council, are willing to indulge me. They have given me a Scale and will allow me to test my theories on its men. I'm interested in having you as one of them."
"...My thanks," said Tau, not sure if thankful was a good description for how he felt.
"Maybe." Jayyed said, offering that cryptic smile again. "I will push my initiates hard, taking them as close as I can to breaking, every single day. We will practice violence, we will hone it, and we will master it. I intend to turn the Lessers in my Scale into warriors that are a match for the Indlovu.
"I do it not for pride. I do it to prove that superior training methods exist that will produce superior fighters. I do it so these methods, once proven, can be adopted by all. I do it for our people's survival. Will you share my goal? Will you work towards it?"
Tau nodded, no hesitation this time. He thought of his father and he pictured Kellan, Dejen, and Abasi Odili. There was no limit to what he would do to face them as equals.
"I thought you might," said Jayyed. "I'm taking a chance with you, Common Solarin. You don't know how much of one, but if you will put yourself through the crucible, live each day of training like you lived each moment of yesterday's fight, we'll find the man you were meant to be. And, alongside the other men in Scale Jayyed, we will show Lessers and Nobles just how far a man can go."
Jayyed stood. "Hopefully, we are the beginnings of a new Chosen military and, Goddess willing, that military will be enough to keep us all safe. We travel to the Southern Ihashe Isikolo tomorrow. Training begins when we arrive."
Tau hesitated, but his concern had to be voiced. "Umqondisi... he broke my sword arm."
Jayyed's face was not sympathetic. "Praise the Goddess, she gave you two."
ISIKOLO
The journey from Kigambe to the Southern Isikolo took most of the day. Tau was one of three and a half thousand new initiates and, though it was hard for him to admit, he was excited. Since he'd been a child, he'd dreamed of this day, and all the men around him had shared that same dream. They had done it. They were Ihashe initiates.
Tau stole glances at his new sword-brothers. There was Uduak, of course. He marched near the front of the Scale, as close to Jayyed as he could get. Hadith was closer to the middle, chewing on a boiled root vegetable. The rest, the fifty-one other men Jayyed had selected, were Lessers, but that was where their similarities with Tau ended.
Physically, the fighters in Scale Jayyed were as close to Nobles as Lessers ever came. Every one of them looked like he had the strength to run to the horizon, hand-plough a field, fight a battle, and stay up drinking til dawn. Jayyed had been particular in the men he'd chosen, and Tau did not fit the mould.
The other Scales were more in line with Tau's expectations. In them, he saw the kinds of men he knew, men like himself. They didn't care about that though. They'd have nothing to do with him. It was the first day and there was a divide between Scale Jayyed and the others.
The Isikolo leadership had allowed Jayyed to hand-pick his Scale before the other Umqondisi had a chance to make their choices. Many were annoyed at the breach in custom, and their frustration had passed through to their initiates. Jayyed's group was disliked and, given the looks he got from everyone within and without Scale Jayyed, none were as disliked as Tau, the initiate who hadn't won ten matches or made it to day three.
"Double-time!" came the call from the front, one Umqondisi after another repeating the order. The column picked up the pace, running at half-speed over the tall and sun-browned grass that carpeted the valley floor.
Tau let his thoughts fade, focusing on the run. He was tired, injured, and would have loved nothing more than to stop. He refused to do it though. He told himself he could stop when he could no longer make the next step. He also told himself he could always make the next step.
He counted them that way, in ones. One step, one step, one step. It kept him going, to think of the task in its smallest pieces. One step, one step. When the call was made to return to a standard march, Tau was blowing hard, the slash across his face burned, and his broken wrist throbbed, but he hadn't stopped, and the run had taken them to their destination, with Scale Jayyed at the front of the column.
Tau's Scale had passed the others, setting the run's pace. It was Jayyed, himself, who had called the halt. Tau was beside him. Uduak and Hadith too, stuck to the Umqondisi's hip like twin scabbards.
Jayyed glowered at his Scale, but Tau could see through that. Their Umqondisi couldn't hide his pride.
"Welcome to the Southern Ihashe Isikolo," he said.
The military academy stood behind him, a soot-colored monolith similar to the Keep in Kerem in the same way a Dragon shares features with a grass serpent. The Isikolo was larger than the Onai's Keep, pentagonal instead of circular, and its walls were higher. It was located a thousand-stride from the ocean, built on the same ground where Champion Tsiory made his first advance camp, after he'd pushed the Xiddeen from the beach, or so the story went. G
iven its walls, twice as thick as Keep Kerem, the heavy bronze gates, and the watchmen posted at every corner, the Isikolo seemed impregnable. It would take a massive force to siege and take it.
"Inside," shouted Jayyed.
Inside the walls, the Isikolo was filled with uniform one-story buildings. Tau thought he could identify the ones that were barracks, but that was it. Jayyed handed them off to a Maimed attendant who would help the initiates learn their way around the compound.
"Name is Limbani," the sour-faced guide, missing an arm and eye, told Scale Jayyed. "I'll show you around, get you fed, and bunked."
Other Maimed were doing the same, acting as guides and introducing themselves to the incoming Scales. Limbani began walking, prompting Tau and the others to follow.
"Over there, mess hall," he told his group, pointing with his one arm to the hundred-stride long building near the center of the Isikolo. "That's the armory, there is the Umqondisi quarter, that way leads to the training grounds, latrines are there, there, and there. And, most important, over there is the infirmary." Limbani smirked. "You'll become well acquainted with the infirmary."
A few men muttered at that.
"On to your barracks. We'll settle you in, nice and comfortable, neh?"
Scale Jayyed's barracks, a long adobe hut with thin straw pallets running its length, was large enough for the fifty-four men in the Scale. Uduak was first to claim a spot and took the cot closest to the door. After that, there was some jockeying for position, though Tau wasn't sure what made one spot better than the other. He wound up with a cot near the rear of the building, next to a tall but slim-built man with a hacking cough that didn't stop.
"Tau," Tau said to him.
The man coughed, turned his back, and placed his pack on his cot. "Chinedu," he said, coughing again.
"It's meal time," Limbani told the initiates. "Better to be early rather'n late."
"Gonna ... go ... eat," coughed out Chinedu, and he left.
Most of the Scale did likewise. Tau stowed his gear under the knee-high cot, and sat on the bed that had become his.
He thought of his father, of Aren Solarin, who had deserved so much more from life than it had given. He lay back. Perhaps Aren had slept in this same spot, so many cycles ago, dreaming of what his life would bring.
Tau tried to imagine his own life, as it might have been. He couldn't. Only days had passed and, somehow, he was too far gone to ever go back.
He closed his eyes. Time to rest. In the morning, he'd begin day one of his cycle of training. One cycle to learn how to kill men like the Indlovu, to become a military man, to take vengeance.
Tau frowned, scratching at the raw skin on his face. This wasn't the life he wanted. He pictured Zuri, conjuring up a happy memory, trying to determine if there was a chance at something more.
His fingernail caught and pulled on the edge of his wound. He hissed at the pain, and a drop of blood slid down his nose and into the corner of his eye. He wiped away the red tear, and the memory. One cycle.
TRAINING
He was up first. The sun hadn't risen, but the barracks were hot as a furnace and stunk of sweat. Tau, dressed from the day before, gathered his gear and made his way to the mess hall.
There were a few other initiates and a couple masters there, eating at one of the hundred trestle tables in the huge space. The food sat in large heated pots along the north and south sides of the building. Tau ladled the pots' steaming mush into an earthenware bowl and found a seat.
He couldn't tell what he ate, but it was much better than anything he could make, and it boggled his mind to think he could finish his bowl, walk back to one of the pots, and refill. To prove it was possible, he did just that.
After eating, Tau left the mess hall to explore. It was getting busier. Drudge went about the work that kept the academy running and he saw several masters walking towards the initiate barracks.
"Tau!" a voice called. It was Jayyed. "If you're already up, follow me to the training grounds. Aqondise Anan, my Second, is gathering the others."
Tau fell into step with Jayyed's long strides, walking fast to keep up with the much taller man. They were headed for gates on the opposite side of the Isikolo.
"You've eaten? Good," Jayyed said.
There were two guards at the wall and they opened the bronze gates. Tau went through with Jayyed and got his first look at the Isikolo's main training grounds.
For a thousand-strides, in each direction, the grasslands had been cleared and the ground was an enormous fighting circle, surfaced with packed clay. Already, several Scales were at work, doing warmup exercises, sword forms, or sparring. Tau marveled at the scope of the training grounds, imagining what it would look like when the majority of the initiates were on it at the same time.
Marching over to Tau and Jayyed were Aqondise Anan and the woken and disheveled men of their Scale.
"Form lines," shouted Anan.
Tau ran over and everyone fell to order. Jayyed faced them.
"You've already met Aqondise Anan," he said. "He will help me make men of you." Someone sniggered and Jayyed rounded on the man. "Perhaps, in your little farming village, you were special. A talent among the Lessers there, neh? You could hold a sword well enough and batter most men with it? Now, you've gone through the trials and I've selected you. It's confirmation, isn't it? You must be special, a real warrior."
Jayyed had their attention and, when he drew his sword, their curiosity as well. The weapon he held wasn't sharpened bronze or even a dulled practice sword. In his hand was a sword made of wood.
Jayyed waved Uduak forward. Walking over, Uduak eyed him. He indicated that Uduak should draw his blade. Uduak did so, his bronze practice sword reflecting sunlight. Jayyed attacked.
"I have been an Ishashe warrior; an Umqondisi for the Isikolo; an Inkokeli, leading entire Wings against the Xiddeen on the front lines of our war; and an advisor to the greatest military power in the known world — the Omehi Guardian Council."
Jayyed spun past Uduak's defense and cracked him across the temple, sending the larger man to his knees. Uduak, a look of surprise on his face, stumbled back to his feet.
"The Goddess has seen fit to return me to the role of Umqondisi, a role I left more than twenty cycles ago." Jayyed punctuated the last word by slamming the pommel of his sword-shaped stick into Uduak's chest, returning him to the dirt.
Jayyed stepped away from him and waved the next initiate forward. It was Chinedu, Tau's coughing barracks neighbor. Chinedu glanced at Uduak, drew his practice sword and went for Jayyed.
"All my life," Jayyed said, knocking aside Chinedu's attack and bashing a fist into his face, "I've believed that we do not train optimally."
Chinedu reeled, blood oozing from both nostrils. He rasped a hairy forearm across his face, dragging the blood away from his mouth and onto his cheek. That done, he came forward, his sword up and knees bent, for quick movement. It made no difference. Jayyed was on him and Chinedu was disarmed and put into the dirt.
Jayyed waved him and Uduak back to the line. "The Ihashe can be better," Jayyed said, calling Hadith forward.
Hadith already had his sword out and had found a shield. He smirked at Jayyed's wooden weapon, keeping the shield between him and the Umqondisi. Jayyed jabbed and Hadith blocked.
"The testing exposed you to a faster pace of combat," Jayyed said, sending three strikes at Hadith. Hadith blocked the first two, but the third slipped between sword and shield, catching him in the guts, doubling him over. "That's why we cover the practice blades with linen."
Jayyed swung overhead and cracked Hadith over his exposed back. Hadith went down. "It makes you safer, so you can go harder, and that brings the fight closer to reality."
Without waiting to be called, the next man ran over, hoping to take Jayyed unaware. Jayyed side-stepped and struck the runner across the temple, knocking him out on his feet.
"You will all use wooden swords." Jayyed waved Tau over. "Our training will mimic
real combat as closely as possible."
Tau drew his practice sword with his off-hand. It was shaking. He had no practice fighting left-handed. Still, he refused to be embarrassed by someone twice his age. He stalked Jayyed, making sure to keep out of striking range.
"If you want to be a great fighter," Jayyed said, flicking his sword at Tau's broken wrist and causing Tau to jerk back, almost dropping his weapon without being touched, "you must practice fighting."
Jayyed closed the distance with Tau and they crossed swords, once, twice, three times. "Theoretical forms," Jayyed said, as Tau saw his chance, "and cautious sparring, with bronze swords, slows learning and advancement."
Tau changed levels, lunging for Jayyed's chest.
"We do not have time for slow."
Tau was mid-lunge when he felt his thrust being turned. Jayyed had his wooden sword whirling around Tau's blade and, with a flick of his wrist, Tau was disarmed.
"The Chosen do not have time for slow." Jayyed reached over Tau's lowered body, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, and yanked him forward. Tau's lead foot hit Jayyed's outstretched leg, and he went down.
"Too slow and you're dead." Jayyed was standing over Tau. "Too slow and we're all dead."
Jayyed paced, scanning the Scale for his next victim. "We fight an enemy that outnumbers us many times over," he said, waving an initiate over. "Every one of us must be worth multiples of them." As he spoke, he ducked an energetic swing and shouldered his new opponent away.
Without finishing the initiate, he waved the next one forward. It was two on one. The men were smart, they spread out. Jayyed feinted at the first man, backing him off, and then he slapped the flat of his wooden sword into the groin of the second.
The first man bellowed and swung hard enough to break bones. Jayyed bent out of the way like wind-blown grass and, when the initiate's blade passed him by, he hammered his stick sword against the man's legs. Jayyed's sword snapped in half as it swept the initiate from his feet.