The Rage of Dragons (Book of the Burning)

by Evan Winter

  "You think?" said Hadith. "You think we'll be anything against a Scale of Nobles?"

  "I'll fight," Uduak growled.

  "Oh, I'll fight too," said Hadith. "Mostly cause we don't have a choice. Fighting isn't my worry. It's the winning I'm not convinced of."

  "We'll kill them," Tau said.

  The other men fell quiet. Tau knew he should have kept his mouth shut.

  "Your mouth, Goddess' ears," Hadith said as the five men went into their barracks to tell the rest of their Scale that it was time to fight.

  BRONZE

  It felt strange, holding bronze again. Tau had his practice sword in his off-hand and a shield on his right, more to protect the broken wrist than anything else. It wasn't much and the shield felt awkward, but some protection was better than none.

  He stood on one of the Isikolo's several small battlefields. This one was square, extending a hundred strides in each direction, and the valley's water-starved grass rose to mid-calf, making it somewhat difficult to run full tilt.

  Tau was beside Yaw and Chinedu, near the front of their Scale's formation but a row back from Uduak and Hadith. They were facing Scale Chisomo. It was a good first test, Jayyed's fifty-four against Chisomo's.

  Chisomo, a newer Umqondisi, was Jayyed's opposite. He was much younger than Jayyed and already a staunch traditionalist. His training focused on forms and he placed little stock in free sparring. And, while Jayyed was tough on discipline, Chisomo exalted it as an art. His men polished their bronze swords and shields every evening and spent a substantial amount of time marching around the training grounds in perfect time.

  Tau wasn't sure how well they'd fight. He did expect them to work together though, something he wasn't sure Scale Jayyed knew how to do properly, if at all.

  Aqondise Bowale and Aqondise Gwando stood between the two Scales. They would act as the skirmish's judges. The rules were simple. A fighter was 'alive' until they broke something, touched the ground with anything but their feet or knees, were rendered unconscious, or called for the Goddess' mercy.

  The Aqondise watched for cheaters and the skirmish was won when one side was eliminated. Easy, like real war, all you had to do was survive long enough to slaughter the other side.

  "Scale Jayyed, weapons up! Scale Chisomo, weapons up!" called Aqondise Bowale.

  The sound of bronze blades being unsheathed rang out across the field. Many of the other Umqondisi, Aqondise, initiates, Maimed, and even a few Drudge had come to see the first day of skirmishes, and Tau was near enough to the battlefield's edge to hear men making bets. The odds were in Chisomo's favor. Scale Jayyed was filled with beasts but, the thinking went, beasts were no match for disciplined men.

  "Fight!" Aqondise Bowale screamed.

  The Aqondise ran for the sidelines and the men of Scale Jayyed charged, howling like predators thirsty for blood. Chisomo's men were not cowed. They split into three smaller but equal teams. Tau recognized the formation. It was a standard Chosen military tactic, usually executed by an entire Wing, but the principles were the same even with one-tenth the men.

  The outer splits of the three-pronged attack aimed to flank Scale Jayyed, while the middle split joined shields and held fast. The middle would take the brunt of the charge, but if they held against the initial assault, the outer splits would be able to pick off half of Jayyed's men in short order. There was only one thing for it. Scale Jayyed had to smash through the middle and break free of the flanking maneuver.

  Hadith saw the same thing. "Three-prong flank!" he shouted. "Break the middle!"

  They crashed into their opponents and were among swords and shields. Everywhere was snarling faces, flickering blades, and the metallic tang of oiled bronze and leather. It was nothing like the training. It was more like Daba. Chaos.

  Tau saw Uduak knock a man off the Chisomo defensive line and follow him into the middle of the enemy. Hadith tried to call him back, but Uduak either didn't hear or didn't care. Chinedu was bludgeoning one poor sod whose only defense was to hold his shield high enough to avoid being brained, and Yaw had already dropped a Chisomo man and was working on his second.

  A lanky Chisomo fighter faced off against Tau and poked at him with a sword, like he was trying to prod a fire to life. Tau batted the attack off target, smashed his shield into the man's helmeted face and he went down.

  The man behind him stepped up. He was tall with rheumy eyes. They crossed blades. Tau was adjusting to the heavier weight of bronze, after so long with wood, but the man he fought was having a worse time. Tau's opponent moved like he was encased in thick mud. He was slow, brutally slow, and trying to work his way through the Intaka form.

  Tau avoided the form's first and second sweeping attacks and crashed his sword into the man's side, just above the waist. Tau followed that with a cuff to the nose, and then he plowed him over with his shield. The man with the rheumy eyes went down.

  Two men came at Tau next and seemed more concerned with keeping out of each other's way than getting to him. Tau cut high, expecting a block from the first. None came, so he clubbed the man in the helmet, sending him to the dirt. The second man squealed a war-cry and swung. Tau caught the blow on his shield, wrist pinging with pain, and used the shield to force the man's sword low, before coming overhead with a blow that smashed into the Chisomo initiate. The squealer crumpled, but didn't go down. Tau hit him again. He went down.

  Tau looked up, watching for the next attacker. There was no one in front of him. He had, along with Uduak, Hadith, Yaw, and Chinedu, blasted through the Chisomo middle split. The fighting was behind them now. The left and right splits were heavily engaged with the rest of Scale Jayyed, and it was a mess. Scale Chisomo's discipline had melted in the furnace of first contact.

  "Uduak, Tau, with me to the right split," said Hadith. "Yaw, Chinedu help against the left."

  "Why?" asked Chinedu. "Why should I... listen to you."

  "Let's just win," Tau told Chinedu and he started towards the right.

  "Other right!" Hadith shouted. "The right split, from when we were first facing them."

  Tau stopped, shrugged, not quite sure what difference it made, but he changed direction and followed Hadith and Uduak to help out the rest of their Scale.

  "C'mon then," Yaw told Chinedu, and off they went in the other direction.

  Fighting beside Uduak, instead of against him, was a more pleasant experience. Tau knocked one more man out of the skirmish, but saw Uduak blood one, almost break the leg of another, and charge a third to the ground. Tau, having adapted to the momentum of the skirmish, glanced about for his next opponent, but there wasn't one.

  Scale Chisomo had been eliminated, to a man. The thirty-two men from Scale Jayyed, who were still standing, let out a cheer. Tau saw Yaw, a few strides away, with an ear-to-ear smile as he patted Chinedu, who was having a coughing fit, on the back. Uduak and Hadith had survived as well. Jayyed's five had made it through the skirmish and the contest had been won.

  Tau knew the rest of the day was his to do with as he saw fit. Surviving skirmishers were gifted that as a winner's bounty, but he didn't want to waste the day.

  "Well fought," Jayyed said, addressing the Scale. "But, we took more losses than necessary. I'll take a share of blame for that. I've paid too much attention to individual sparring, thinking fifty-four brutes could ensure victory. It's not so. If we are to be the best, we must fight better as a Scale.

  "Chisomo had us on that front and we won't be caught in the same mire again. We're going to learn how to work better together... tomorrow. Survivors, you have your day. The defeated, I leave you in Aqondise Anan's capable hands."

  The men who fell in the skirmish couldn't look less happy.

  "Think the mess hall serves MasMas this early?" Hadith asked Tau and Uduak, drawing a smile from the big man.

  "Do have a thirst," Uduak said.

  "Let's gather Yaw and Chinedu, those slackards, and find out," Hadith offered.

  "Going to spar with the rest
for a bit," Tau said. Uduak tilted his head at Tau, staring at him like he was an oddity, or an idiot. Hadith looked like he was going to say something, thought better of it, and walked away instead.

  "Uduak," he called, "let's ease that thirst."

  Uduak waited a breath, still watching Tau. He grunted and strode off.

  "Out of the dirt," Anan shouted to the men from Jayyed's Scale who had gone down in the skirmish. "You thought that was a beating. You've seen nothing. Run twice round the grounds and we spar!"

  The men, who didn't have to be carried to the infirmary, looked wearied and defiant, but they got up and they ran, and Tau went with them. He could feel Jayyed's eyes on him.

  Let him watch, Tau thought, as Jayyed's words came to mind. 'The days without difficulty are the days you do not improve.'

  Tau ran harder. He was not the strongest, the quickest, or the most talented, not by any measure. He knew this and knew he could not control this. However, he could control his effort, the work he put in, and there he would not be beaten.

  He made a pact with himself, a pact he swore on his father's soul. If he were asked to run a thousand stride, he would run two thousand. If he were told to spar three rounds, he would spar six. And, if he fought a match to surrender, the man who surrendered would not be him. He would fight until he won or he died. There would be, he swore, no days without difficulty.

  CHAPTER SIX

  BATTLEGROUNDS

  The moon seemed to speed through its cycle and, in that time, Jayyed lived up to his promise. The Scale trained teamwork and tactics, which was new to Tau, who found the concept of coordinating battle efforts complicated. It worked though.

  Scale Jayyed fought two more skirmishes and won them. Tau survived both. So did Yaw, Chinedu, and Hadith. Uduak was 'killed' in the second one, after men from Scale Thoko targeted him.

  In that battle, several of Thoko's men swarmed Uduak, using the same strategy the hedeni did against an Enraged Ingonyama. Uduak made them pay. He fought like one of the mythical beasts from Osonte, dropping three of Scale Thoko's men before going down. One of them had a cracked skull.

  Before Uduak fell, Tau tried to help. He forced his way to the big man's side and, for a time, they fought back-to-back. Thoko's men ignored Tau, thinking the scarred Common unworthy of their attention. Their minds changed after Tau battered two of them to the dirt. They realized the full extent of their error when Yaw, Chinedu, and Hadith joined him, rampaging through their ranks.

  Tau spent the rest of that day training with the men from Scale Jayyed who had fallen. When they ran, Uduak ran beside Tau. When they sparred together, Uduak was less violent.

  Tau noticed but didn't think on it. His training consumed him. His dedication was absolute and the hardest fights were not with the other men. They were with himself.

  Every day a part of him whispered that he could rest, that he had done enough, that he could stop. Every day, the lies were whispered and, every day, Tau made himself relive the moment his father died. It was sick, masochistic. It was the only way he could keep himself going.

  Time blurred, days cascaded one into the other, the Omehi's endless war with the Xiddeen raged, and an initiate from Scale Idowu died in his bed. He was found in the morning. He'd bled from his eyes, nose, ears, and mouth, and his skin had ruptured like meat cooked too long on a spit.

  Demon-death, the rumors went. It might even be true. Tau knew a family back in Kerem who had lost a child to a Demon-death. Whatever the actual case, everyone paid more attention to their morning and evening prayers.

  It was around this time that Tau's wrist healed enough to wield a blade. He didn't trust it and still fought with his off-hand. It made sense, he was better with his left than he'd ever been with the right and, on the day they marched for the Crags, to watch some of the other Ihashe Scales fight the Indlovu, Tau was a difficult match for everyone at the Isikolo.

  The march to the Crags took from predawn to mid-morning and Jayyed counseled his Scale on what they were going to see. "All of this prepares us for war. The skirmishes in the Crags allow Indlovu initiates to experience fighting against heavy odds. For us, and the Northern Isikolo, it's a chance to hone our tactics."

  "And get the bones kicked out of us," Themba mumbled, as he marched beside Tau.

  "The Citadel fields men from all three cycles," Jayyed continued, "and some skirmishes have Enervators, so the battle can emulate true combat as much as possible." He waited a beat and asked, "Who here has felt enervation?"

  Tau considered staying silent. "I have," he said when no one else answered.

  "Indeed?" asked Jayyed.

  "I fought with my... I fought at Daba."

  "Daba? That's the largest raid the South has seen in a while. You were there?"

  "I was."

  "Got caught in an Enervator's wave, neh? Care to describe it for your sword-brothers."

  Tau did not care to, but cared to express that to Jayyed even less. "It drags you into Isihogo. Time slows and I saw..." he felt foolish.

  "You saw..." Jayyed urged.

  "Demons."

  The men muttered, one snorted.

  "It's true," Tau said, voice harder.

  "You did. Everyone does," Jayyed told the Scale. "Enervation draws a man's soul to Isihogo."

  Several men formed the Dragon span with their hands, the winged sign to ward off evil.

  "The demons from Isihogo cannot harm you, but they'll make you suffer," the sword master explained. "Once Enervated and forced into the underworld, you will be attacked by the things that exist there." Jayyed had the mens' attention, even Chinedu held his coughs. "In war, a talented Enervator will hold your spirit in Isihogo until the demons have torn it to pieces, forcing it out of their realm. This is even worse than it sounds. The victim feels the agony of the demon attack as if it were real, and the experience is incapacitating. It renders men senseless on the battlefield, where they can actually be killed.

  "A well timed and placed blast of enervation can mean the difference between victory and defeat for the Chosen, between life and death. Our Enervators, Enragers, Edifiers, and Entreaters are critical to the defense of The Rend."

  "Umqondisi? They'll do it to us when we skirmish?" asked Oyibo, a muscled and talented fighter with boyish features. "They'll send us to the demons?"

  Boyish features aside, Oyibo was steady. Tau had seen that in training. Oyibo did not look steady then.

  "They will," Jayyed said. "But the Enervators at the Crags are initiates. They do not have the strength to hold you in Isihogo for long, and they are asked not to try."

  Themba whispered to Tau. "They used to try. My older brother is Ihashe. He told me the stories the Umqondisi told him. The Citadel had to leash their Enervators a few dozen cycles ago, cause no one would fight in skirmishes." Themba snorted. "Not fair, nor decent, letting a man's soul get ripped up by monsters."

  "If Enervated, you'll see Isihogo," Jayyed said. "You'll see the demons in its mists. They'll come for you. You'll be released before they have their way."

  "Umqondisi?" asked Oyibo.

  "Oyibo." Jayyed said.

  "Yesterday, I heard one of the Maimed in the mess hall. He was telling stories to the initiates about his time at the Isikolo. He wasn't old, a few cycles up on me. He said that, during one skirmish, a demon got him. He's a rough sort, Umqondisi, but he was talking about his nightmare. Said it's the same one every time, the one with that demon tearing at him."

  Jayyed didn't answer right away. "The fast ones may get to you," the Sword Master conceded. "Time is different in Isihogo. A single breath taken on Uhmlaba will feel like fifty or even a hundred in the underworld. That makes it difficult for the Gifted initiates to time things."

  Themba leaned over to Tau, his sour breath an assault. "Would rather the Ennies not send me at all." He hawked snot into his mouth and spat. "Still, we're better off'n what the hedeni get. Ennies hold them until the demons turn 'em inside out."

  Tau and the rest of the
men of Scale Jayyed marched in silence after that and, by midmorning, the flatlands had given way to the rockier crumble that formed the base of The Fist. The men marched upwards then. It was tougher going and a few Flatters found it unpleasant, navigating the climb.

  It was nothing to Tau, who wondered how, when compared to the Southern Mountain range, any reasonable person could call The Fist more than a big hill. Well, a hill that had been worked over by a giant with a sledgehammer.

  The Fist was uneven and dry. Its shrubbery thin and loose-rooted, easily dislodged with a kick. Still, the hill or mountain, was well positioned. It divided the point of the Chosen's peninsula and, like the Central Mountain range, it separated North from South. Moreso, The Fist was a natural barrier against heavy raiding from The Roar.

  Tau had never been to Citadel City, but knew it wasn't a long walk from where they were. The training city for the Gifted and Indlovu had been placed at the eastern base of The Fist as an additional layer of protection against sea raids.

  Xiddeen would need to navigate The Roar, march over the Fist, attack Citadel City, conquer it, and still march another day inland before reaching the Palm and the other Omehi settlements. To do it, the Xiddeen would need a thousand ships filled with warriors, a full invasion force. They'd have to risk all those lives on the water and make it ashore with enough fighters to battle past The Fist and Citadels. It wasn't wise and it wasn't done.

  Instead, the major fighting happened at The Wrist, the deadened lands separating the relative lushness of the Chosen's peninsula and the Curse. There, the Xiddeen came in endless waves. It was where the majority of the Omehi military were stationed, lived, and fought. It was in The Wrist's wide open spaces that the Guardians had the greatest effect, and the desert sands were said to be littered with the charred bones of a million hedeni dead.

  The Omehi had been blessed to find the valley they called The Rend. When Queen Taifa led her people from Osonte and across The Roar, they had traveled further than any other race of man was known to have done. They had languished on the open ocean, short on food and water. They were dying when the Dragons guided them to land, to Xidda.