The Rage of Dragons (Book of the Burning)

by Evan Winter

  "We shall see!"

  "Unless..." Hadith smiled his best grin.

  Mayumbu licked his lips. He seemed ready to order the attack. "Unless what?"

  "Unless we find another way."

  "What way, fool?"

  "Why risk all our men? Why risk our chance to make it to the semi-finals? Why risk anything at all? Here is my offer, Inkokeli Opeyemi — we, as leaders of our Scale, swear before the Umqondisi, Isazi, Gifted, and crowd, to duel for the win. To a man, the loser's Scale will call out for Goddess' mercy, leaving the winning Scale to go through to tomorrow's combat with the most men possible. With a duel, we give ourselves a real chance at victory, before Queen and country."

  Mayumbu inhaled. It was his first breath since comprehending the offer's gist. The man was caught on Hadith's hook and Tau knew that Mayumbu was already picturing himself before Queen Tsiora on the Melee's final day.

  "I fight you for the win?" Mayumbu asked, eyes closed down to slits.

  Hadith chuckled. "No. I may as well beg mercy now, were that the game. We present our best and you present yours."

  Mayumbu snorted. "You mean to test that two-sworded freak against me."

  "I may. I pick one man, you do the same. Doesn't have to be you, Inkokeli. If you do not believe you can win the match, put up another. That is the offer."

  Mayumbu pointed to Tau. "You think your kudliwe can beat me?" He laughed. "Give him three swords, I'll kill him just the same."

  There it was. Hadith had done it. Tau watched him turn to the crowd. "You have heard my offer. You have heard the Greater-Noble and Inkokeli, Mayumbu of Scale Ojuolape, declare that he can best our man in single combat. This duel is to mercy, or death, with the remainder of the loser's Scale to accept the result and surrender the skirmish. Men and women of The Rend, do we have your blessing?"

  The crowd screamed their blessings with the thunder of ten thousand voices that threatened to bring the mountain quaking down on all their heads.

  Tau had to respect Mayumbu's self-control. He could tell that the Inkokeli saw the trap into which he'd stepped. The impressive thing was how fast the man adjusted to the new reality, accepting that a new path had emerged, where there had not been one before.

  Mayumbu took a careful step on the path, testing its possibilities. "Can this be done?" he shouted to the group of Isazi and Umqondisi officiating the skirmish. The group huddled, conferred, and the lead officiant, a muscled but wiry Isazi, nodded to Mayumbu.

  The night prior, when Jayyed outlined Hadith's plan, he'd explained that the Melee's rules did not forbid this. So long as Mayumbu accepted, it could be done. Of course, Jayyed also explained, losing the duel did nothing to bind the rest of the Scale to its result.

  Scale Ojuolape could still attack, wipe out the Ihashe, and move on in the tournament. It was likely they did not know that. It was even more likely that, if their Inkokeli lost, their honor would force them to do as promised and they would forfeit.

  It was good plan, a simple plan. Hadith had played his part. It was Tau's turn.

  "Scale Jayyed calls Tau Solarin, Common of Kerem, Lesser of the Chosen, to fight," Hadith announced, both hands raised as if he was a priest delivering a holy proclamation. Tau unsheathed his swords and stepped up, beside Hadith. The Crags were quiet.

  A hundred strides away, Mayumbu's unit leaders tried to have a word, perhaps to put up another man, perhaps to offer advice. Whatever it was, Tau could not hear and Mayumbu would not listen. He was furious. Again, Hadith's plan in action.

  By naming Tau as both a Common and Lesser, he was goading Mayumbu, telling the crowds that here was a match where the outcome should be as certain as the sun's rising. A Greater-Noble and a Common dueling? What a farce. What a show.

  Mayumbu had been burdened with the weight of everyone's honor. He fought in the name of his Scale, the Citadel, the Nobles. If he did anything less than demolish Tau, the duel would feel a failure.

  "Come then, Common of Kerem," said Mayumbu, sword drawn, shield mounted, and advancing. "Let's get this done and chase the stench of your Lesser stock from the Melee."

  Tau said nothing. He twirled his swords, loosening his wrists, and broke into a loping jog. Mayumbu bared his teeth, joined Tau in a run, and bellowed the Noble war cry. "Blood. Will. Show!"

  COMMON

  The Crags lost their quiet and the bloodthirsty calls of men and women echoed across the mountainside. Tau imagined how confused the sequestered Scales would be, hearing the tumult. He centered himself, it was time to work.

  Mayumbu, bigger, holding a longer sword, came in range first, and sent a thundering blow for Tau's neck. His sword, moving faster than an untrained eye could track, ripped through the air, keening. Tau swept beneath it, came up, and smashed the hilt of his strong-side sword into Mayumbu's wrist, snapping it. Using both their momentum, he thrust the dulled point of his weak-side sword into the leather armor covering Mayumbu's guts. Tau's aim was true and he hit the gap between two protective bronze plates, piercing the expensive animal hide, the undershirt beneath, and Mayumbu's stomach.

  Mayumbu was a massive man. Tau braced. The collision pushed him back a stride and, though less time had passed than it took to draw breath, the men were entangled.

  Mayumbu, standing over Tau, grabbed him by the neck and crashed his sword arm across Tau's back. Tau was looking into his face. He wanted to see the moment when Mayumbu realized it was over.

  It wasn't until Mayumbu's broken wrist and empty fingers slapped across Tau's shoulder blades. It wasn't until he tried to draw a breath and the pain hit, from two hand-span's worth of bronze buried in his core, that Mayumbu realized he was undone. He screamed then, the pain catching up with the moment and taking him somewhere else.

  Tau ripped the Noble's weakened grip away from his neck and stepped back. His blade came with him, sliding out of Mayumbu with the sound of a stick pulled too quick from mud. Mayumbu fell to his knees, gasping and gawping.

  He was scared. Tau could see it in his eyes and, though it was not mercy, Tau took away the fear. He flew his sword's dulled edge into Mayumbu's head, smashing a dent in the man's helmet, over his temple, felling him, sending him to the grass in a heap.

  Tau remained over the body, glaring at the rest of the Indlovu, daring them to do anything other than what they'd promised. The Crags had gone quiet again, even the few wispy clouds in the sky holding their place.

  "Goddess' mercy," said the first Indlovu, going to one knee.

  "Goddess' mercy," said the next and the next and the next. Their calls for mercy flowing fast, like water from the bathtub tab in the Umqondisi Quarter.

  "The skirmish is won by Scale Jayyed," came the voice of the wiry Isazi officiant. He sounded shaken. "Scale Jayyed advances to the semi-finals."

  The tap opened further and the crowd became part of its flow, drowning the plateau in the deluge of their shouts, cheers, triumph and loss.

  Tau looked down. Mayumbu's blood was running through the grass and into the dirt. It was dark, arterial. Scale Jayyed surrounded him, celebrating, but he was wondering if Mayumbu's Omehi blood would feed the soil, or any parts of the Chosen's valley, as Warlord Achak had promised it would.

  Tau had never seen men so exuberant without MasMas or Gaum. If he hadn't known better, he would have sworn the Goddess had turned their cups of water to Olu. They were in the Scale's tent and men were dancing, hooting, Azima had his drums, which he took everywhere, between his legs and he beat them ferociously, if not rhythmically. Anan was soaked, the men of the Scale had doused him with water from the drinking pails.

  "Semi-finals!" crowed Yaw, pulling Tau around in a tight circle as if they were dancers at a Harvest festival. "Semi-finals!" He said, spinning off to find a new partner.

  Uduak caught Tau's eye, raised his water cup and drank from it. Tau returned the gesture.

  "You shouldn't have agreed, Tau!" said Hadith, weaving through the men as if he were drunk. "The plan only let you dispatch one man. You've fallen
from the list of greats slated to become Ingonyama."

  "There is tomorrow," Tau said.

  "That there is!" said Hadith. "To tomorrow!" he shouted, thrusting his cup of water high in the air and spilling its contents over Tau and several others.

  "To tomorrow!" came the voices of close to sixty men as the tent flaps were whisked aside and Jayyed strode in. The men hushed.

  "We have a match," Jayyed told them. "In the semi-finals, we fight on the urban battleground. Our opponents lost no men today and, tomorrow, we face them at dusk. Tomorrow, we fight Scale Osa."

  The men murmured, unsure how to react. Tau's eyes were bright. "Kellan."

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  OSA

  Everything had gone wrong. Uduak and his men had fallen, Yaw's unit hadn't been seen for half a span and Tau was trapped in a crumbling building, surrounded by twenty-seven Indlovu.

  The skirmish had started slow. Both sides had been cautious, taking ground in the cluttered urban battleground with care. To goad Scale Osa and fulfill his promise to Tau, Hadith gave Tau three men to use as a roving group of assassins.

  Tau, with Runako and the twins Kuende and Mshinde, had been like reapers at harvest. Whenever the Indlovu were otherwise engaged, separated, or distracted, Tau and his half-team found and dispatched them. It had worked well, until Kellan adjusted. After losing too many, he kept his men together.

  In spite of this, Hadith wanted Scale Jayyed divided into the Chosen's standard three units. He felt its flexibility gave them more options than Kellan's unified Scale. Perhaps that would have been the case, if Uduak's unit had not gotten cut off. Or, if Yaw's unit had not been blocked by buildings, unable to join the fight.

  At the time, Kellan had thirty-one Indlovu to Uduak's nine Ihashe. Tau demanded they go in. Hadith refused to do it. Without Yaw's unit, they wouldn't do much good. They'd join in Uduak's fate. Tau knew Hadith was right, but being right didn't help.

  As they held back, Hadith stared wild-eyed at the fighting, at Uduak, who was last to fall. The big man did not claim the Goddess' mercy. The Indlovu beat him unconscious before he could. Then, they continued to beat him.

  The nearest officiant was an Isazi. It was his duty to call incapacitated men out of bounds. When Uduak went down, he turned his back, letting the Nobles do as they would.

  Hadith, mind lost, ran in, shouting Uduak's name. That forced Tau and the rest of the unit into combat. It was nine Lessers against three times their number in Nobles. It was not winnable.

  Runako, Kuende and Mshinde were lost and Tau called a ragged retreat. They ran and Tau had to drag Hadith away with them. The Indlovu gave chase, but the six Lessers evaded their pursuers, taking cover in a set of buildings.

  As they scurried through the empty hulls, desperate to stay hidden from the hunting Indlovu, Themba cursed Hadith's hysteria. Tau grabbed Themba by the front of his gambeson and told him that, by engaging the Indlovu, they had saved Uduak's life.

  Hadith's attack had pulled the Indlovu away from the big man and, with the fighting moved on, the Isazi officiant had been forced to declare Uduak, and the other dispatched men in his unit, out of bounds. Uduak was carried off the battleground. Tau believed he was alive. He had to believe it.

  Themba quietened, saying nothing, and the six men heard combat. It was Yaw's unit. The fighting did not last long. That worried Tau.

  Moments later Chinedu pointed out the skulking forms of armored Indlovu circling the adobe longhouses, in which they hid. The Indlovu walked single-file, ducking beneath the building's windows, trying not to be seen. Tau saw them go past, their row of hunched backs reminding him of the stories his mother had told him when he was a child, the ones about the serpentine sea monsters said to hunt the open waters of The Roar.

  Tau didn't believe the stories about enormous sea serpents, but monsters did exist. Twenty-seven of them were closing in on him and the five men beside him. Maybe four men, he wasn't sure he could count on Hadith, if it came to more fighting. Their Inkokeli hadn't been himself after seeing the Indlovu try to kill Uduak.

  Tau let his fingers play over the hilts of his two bronze practice swords. There was no hope left. He had to admit it.

  He'd come so far, done so much, and he'd not faced Kellan. Scale Osa's Inkokeli was well-protected and Tau had not been able to get to him. It burned, especially when he'd watched the murderous Greater-Noble preside over Uduak's beating. Kellan had stood there, apart from the other Indlovu, disdain on his face, as if he were too good to dirty his hands.

  When Hadith lost control, Tau had been glad to go in. They went to save Uduak. That's what Tau told Themba, but saving Uduak was Hadith's reason. Tau, shamed by the thought, couldn't be sure it was his. He'd gone to meet Kellan.

  But the Indlovu had closed ranks. They'd blocked his way and Kellan had called for more men. Striving to reach Okar, Tau took his skirmish body count from five men dispatched to six, then seven, eight, and nine.

  He'd terrorized the Indlovu until Kellan stopped him again. The Scale Osa Inkokeli yelled for the men standing against Tau to fight him together. Tau could not get through and the Indlovu almost had him. The only reason Tau was still in the skirmish was Chinedu.

  Seeing Uduak safe from further harm, Chinedu and the rest of the unit joined the fray. With them beside him, Tau managed to escape, dragging Hadith along. They'd gone into the fight with nine men, come out with six and, given the odds, they had to consider themselves blessed.

  In the end, none of it mattered. They'd trapped themselves in the crumbling buildings. The Indlovu couldn't be sure exactly where they were, but they were searching and the noose was tightening.

  "It's over!" Kellan called from outside the buildings. "You're surrounded, outnumbered, finished. Come, take the Goddess' mercy, and put an end to this, with honor."

  Themba nudged Hadith. "Say something, damn your eyes."

  Hadith looked grim, but pushed hope into his voice and yelled out to Kellan. "You want to do this honorably?"

  Kellan laughed. "I will neither hear nor take offers from you, Inkokeli Buhari. The day is ours. You can take the painless path I've offered or we come in there and..."

  "You want to storm the buildings? Hadith said. "Please do. We have sixteen men to your twenty-seven. We'll make a battle of it and end your chances to take the finals."

  "Does the Common of Kerem count as ten men now?" replied Kellan. "There are six of you."

  "You think so? Come and count, Inkokeli Okar."

  There was no response.

  Tau, hands shaking, growled to Hadith. "The longer we wait—"

  Hadith shook his head, coming back to himself a little. "He thinks he's won, but he needs to finish us and keep enough of his men for tomorrow's finals. Our chance lies in the gap between where Kellan is now and where he needs to be."

  "Chance? We're six Ihashe against twenty-seven Indlovu—" Themba said.

  "If we wait for Yaw to get into position, his unit—"

  Themba sucked his teeth. "Hadith, come now! We heard the battle. Yaw and his men are gone."

  "The battle was too short. Kellan didn't have time to get them all. I think Yaw ran, like we did."

  "You think?" Tau looked away in frustration, and that's when he saw them. The dark corner of the building held three kneeling demons, their yellow eyes locked on him, their sharp teeth shining in the gloom.

  "Tau?" asked Chinedu.

  Tau shook his head, blinking them away. "I'm fine, but won't be for much longer. None of us will, if we stay here and let Kellan overrun us."

  "He won't do it," said Hadith. "These buildings are bunched together. He doesn't know which one we're in. He'll have to split his men to make sure we don't escape. If his men are split, he risks losing too many. That's why he's talking. He's looking for a better fight than this. If Yaw is out there, and we wait, we can strike together."

  "This is your plan?" Tau said.

  "You have a better one?" Hadith asked.

  "Common of Kerem
!" Kellan called. "Tau Solarin, I'm weary. Come out, if the rest of them won't. Come out and let us end what we started in Citadel City. My men won't interfere."

  Tau's swords were in his hands and he was standing.

  Hadith grabbed his wrist and yanked it. "Sit down, fool!"

  "I'm waiting, Tau," shouted Kellan. "Will you stay in there, hiding from me? After all you've done, all you've accomplished, are you still that boy? The coward whose father had to fight for him? I expected more from you, given your father's bravery. Given the man your father... was."

  Tau pulled away from Hadith's grasp.

  "Tau!" Hadith said. "You'll lead Kellan's men to us. He'll wipe us out. Wait for Yaw!"

  Tau's hand was on the door. "He helped murder my father," he said, pulling it open and walking out.

  KELLAN OKAR

  Kellan Okar watched the Common of Kerem, as he was being called, walk out of the southernmost of the four buildings he had ordered his men to surround. The Common was as Kellan remembered, dark as night, well-proportioned, but small. He was scarred but otherwise had an unremarkable face, except for his eyes. They were brown, which was typical, but they burned, which was not.

  Kellan signaled his men to attack. The Lesser had no leather or armor. Instead, he wore the slate-gray trousers that marked him as an Ihashe warrior and a filthy patchwork gambeson. In each hand he held a sword and he readied them, thinking Kellan's Indlovu were coming for him. They were not and they did as Kellan had ordered. They passed Tau by, streaming into the open door from which he'd emerged.

  The last man to pass Tau was the Noble that claimed to know him. Jabari Onai was his name. He had spirit, but like most Petty-Nobles his natural talent limited him and Jabari had fallen on day one of the Melee. Kellan had given him a spot in today's skirmish, in place of much better men, because of Onai's connection to the Common. Hadith Buhari, Kellan thought, was not the only Inkokeli who could play mind games.