by Evan Winter
"Tau! Tau! Tau!" yelled Jabari.
And, Tau went at Dejen, stabbing, swinging, and firing his swords at the enormous man as fast as he could, aiming as often as he could for the Greater-Noble's remaining eye. The attacks alarmed Dejen and, for the first time, the Enraged man fought defensively, terrified of losing his sight.
Tau buried him under an unrelenting barrage of blows that could not cut Dejen deeply, but that was not their aim.
"The Goddess curse you, Dejen! Kill him!" the KaEid howled as Tau continued his assault, delivering attacks that forced the KaEid to pour more and more energy into maintaining Dejen's enraging.
"Release me!" the KaEid demanded, the alarm in her voice at a fever pitch. "Release me!"
Her shroud, Tau knew, was gone. The demons would be coming. Tau increased the pressure. His ribs protesting every movement while his will drove him on.
"You will pay, Dejen!" Tau taunted. "You will die, Dejen! You will burn blind in Isihogo with Ukufa for eternity, Dejen!"
"Release me!" The KaEid stumbled towards them. "Let me go, you fool!"
Dejen would not do it. Tau could see the fear in the man's eye. Dejen knew that when the Enraging left him so would his life. Tau would take it.
So, Dejen did what he could to turn the tide of battle. He used his strength, his speed, his cunning, his training, to push an injured Tau back. He gave Tau a wicked, but glancing cut to the thigh and came close to taking Tau's wrist, but Tau turned his father's sword in time to catch the brutal swing on the blade's hilt. The move saved him from amputation but broke three of his fingers.
Dejen pressed on, Dejen was desperate, and Dejen ran out of time.
The KaEid screamed with enough anguish to cause both men to jump away from each other. She fell to her knees, clawed at her neck, and blood erupted from her ears, mouth, nose, and eyes. She convulsed and seized, the skin on her face blistering, bubbling, rupturing. Those screams became gurgles and the KaEid choked on her body's fluids, going down to her hands, tossing this way and that, spattering them both with putrescence. With fingers clawed, she tore at her face, peeling stripes of flesh away in rolls. She opened her mouth wide, as if to give birth through it, and vomited a torrent of filth, her arms giving way as she did. She fell to the floor, no longer looking human, and she died.
Tau swung back to Dejen. The Ingonyama was no longer Enraged. His black leathers hung loose and he was hunched from the pain of his many wounds.
"You killed my father," Tau told him.
"You do this because a Lesser is dead?" Dejen spat, the words muddied by his mangled mouth. "He was worth nothing. You are nothing!"
Dejen charged, his sword leading. Tau slipped the killing thrust and stabbed his father's broken blade through the Greater-Noble's chest and into his Noble heart.
"Perhaps," Tau whispered, feeling the man's lifeblood pulse from the wound, through his fingers, and down his hand," but you are dead."
Dejen gasped, trying to breathe. His eye fixed on Tau's face. Tau put a hand over the Ingonyama's shoulder and pulled him close, driving the blade deeper. Dejen's lips twitched, but he said nothing, and never would.
"Tau!" It was Jabari.
Tau ripped his father's broken sword from Dejen's body and let the Noble drop to the floor. He stepped beyond the dead man and staggered over to the room where Jabari fought for his life, and where the Queen hid to preserve hers. Tau went to murder Abasi Odili.
ESCAPE
Tau burst into the room. He saw Jabari and the Indlovu first. They were facing off and the Indlovu moved like he was drunk. Jabari was bleeding from several cuts and having trouble holding his sword. The Queen was there too. Tsiora, in a high-backed gown of purest white, had her back to the wall and was standing next to a lavish bed stacked high with thick pillows and silken blankets. She was not alone. There was a middle-aged woman with her. The woman had a stern but attractive face and, at that moment, she had her hands out to the Indlovu. She dropped them when she saw Tau.
She was Gifted and had enervated the Full-blood. She was the reason Jabari was still alive. Tau went for the Full-blood when he heard a noise behind him. He spun, sword leading, and smashed the earthenware jug that Abasi Odili had thrown.
Abasi stood in the opposite corner of the room, as far as he could get from the Gifted and fighting men. Without a breath, the Guardian Councillor and architect of the Royal-Noble's coup ran from the room. Tau took off after Odili and heard Jabari cry out in pain.
Tau was at the door. He looked back. The Queen had her eyes on him, locked on him, and the Gifted woman looked grim, lips pursed tight. She wouldn't be able to access energy from Isihogo for a quarter-span at least. She was defenseless. Worst was Jabari. He'd taken a deep cut from forehead to chin that had just missed his eye. The floor was slick with blood and, as Tau watched, the Indlovu stabbed him in the bicep of his shield arm.
"Tau!" Jabari screamed, tumbling back and onto the ground.
Tau looked out the door. Abasi was getting away, but Tau could catch him. He took a step to do it, throwing a last look in the room and seeing the Queen, who couldn't be more than a cycle or two apart from him in age.
It was madness to think she could lead them all. It was madness to place their survival on this girl's ability to renew peace with the Xiddeen. The effort would fail, and Tau could still catch Abasi. He could still...
Tau yelled his frustration and ran into the room, the Indlovu heard him coming and swung to meet the attack. Tau and the Indlovu crossed blades. Tau feinted high, with his broken sword, and thrust low with his strong-side, his ribs blazing pain the entire time. The Indlovu had no shield. He blocked the high thrust and was impaled on Tau's strong-side blade.
The man had spirit though. With his free hand he pulled a dagger from his belt and went for Tau's chest. Using the sword embedded in the Noble's belly, Tau dragged the impaled Indlovu in a semi-circle throwing off his attack and turning the attempt at a mortal stab into a glancing gash.
As they spun, the Indlovu tried to maintain his balance, yelling in agony. His lips were pulled back and his mouth was open, blood-tinged saliva sloshing around his teeth. Tau fired his left hand forward, planting his broken sword in the man's clavicle. The Indlovu sighed, the air going out of him, and the fight was over.
Jabari, bleeding everywhere, slid his back up the wall that was behind him until he was sitting. He wiped at the cut on his face, smearing the blood and making it look like he was wearing a gruesome mask.
"You fight for the Queendom?" Queen Tsiora asked, trembling.
Tau didn't answer. He had to catch Odili. He ran for the door and into three men. He jumped back, swords ready.
"Tau, easy," Kellan said, "It's me."
"Where's Odili?"
"Odili? We didn't see him." Kellan was with Hadith and Uduak. "My Queen." Kellan dropped to a knee, facing the ground in front of his foot. Following his lead, Hadith and Uduak did the same. "We came as soon as we could," Kellan told her.
The stern Gifted woman spoke first. "Where is the Queen's Champion? Have we won the keep?"
"How is Abshir?" Queen Tsiora asked
Kellan raised his head. "My Queen, Champion Okar has been killed, fighting in your defense. I am his nephew, Kellan Okar, third cycle initiate of the Indlovu Citadel."
"Abshir is dead?" Tsiora asked.
The Gifted walked over to Kellan. "Has the attack been repelled?"
"Vizier Nyah," Kellan said, addressing the Gifted woman, "the Queen's Guard holds the Keep, but it is under siege by Odili's Indlovu."
"My Queen," the Vizier said, "we must rejoin the Guard. We must see to the defense of the Keep and ensure the safety of the warlord's son. Odili has shown his hand, and he will be punished. However, if we lose the warlord's son, if Kana dies—"
"How did you not see him?" Tau asked a kneeling Kellan.
"Lesser," the Vizier said, "when in the presence of Her Majesty—"
"He can't have gone far," Tau insisted. "I have to find—"<
br />
"Lesser!" the Vizier shouted over Tau.
"Tau, kneel," hissed Kellan.
Tau did not. He rounded on the Vizier, taking a long step in her direction. "Call me Lesser one more time."
The Vizier seemed unable to believe her eyes. She gulped, opened her mouth, then shut it.
Tau spoke to Kellan. "I'm going to find Odili."
"Nyah is right, Ihashe," the Queen told Tau. "We must go to the battlements. The men have to know that we are alive and that there is still value to this fight. We do not believe we can make it alone. Will you accompany us? Will you protect your Queen."
"We will, my Queen," said Kellan.
Tau could not allow Odili to escape.
"May we know your name?" Queen Tsiora said to Tau.
He didn't want to admit it but every time she spoke to him it was a shock
"Name? My... Tau. Tau Solarin," he told her.
"Will you come too, Tau Solarin?"
Tau's pulse was racing. He had come so close. So close and his chance was lost. He nodded to the Queen.
"We thank you," she said. "Rise Kellan Okar. Rise men in his company. We ask that you take us to the battlements of our Keep. We would see this coup crushed."
GATES
They marched past the bodies of the fallen Indlovu, Dejen, and the KaEid. The Queen closed her eyes, letting Nyah guide her beyond the carnage. The Vizier did not seem able to believe the scene before her.
"The KaEid is dead from a demon-death," Nyah said, describing what she saw to the Queen. "Ingonyama Olujimi must have been Enraged, but he... he appears to have been killed by a sword." Nyah turned to Tau. "He was Enraged and you were alone. How did this happen?"
"The KaEid's shroud collapsed. She was first to die. Dejen was not Enraged, when the blade took him through the chest," Tau told her.
"A sword through the... you fought an Enraged Ingonyama until his Gifted's shroud collapsed? Is that what is being suggested here?"
She emphasized the word shroud, bringing attention to the fact that Tau had used it first. Tau ignored that, saying nothing more, but he could feel Nyah's eyes on him, her stare making his back itch.
As they rushed toward the battlements, Kellan told the Queen and her Vizier everything they knew. He told them about Jamilah and what they believed had taken place at the Xiddeen Conclave. The news seemed to age the Vizier. Queen Tsiora was more stoic but also couldn't hide her alarm.
"Abasi and Taia have doomed us," the Vizier said. "They've killed us all."
"We will tell the Xiddeen we were betrayed," Queen Tsiora said as they arrived in the Keep's central courtyard.
Tau wasn't sure they had to worry about that. Throughout the courtyard was scattered fighting. The Queen's Guard were winning and that should have been encouraging. It wasn't. The Keep's heavy bronze gates shook and buckled every few breaths.
"Battering ram," Kellan said.
Hadith pointed to the battlements above. "Up there."
There was fighting. A few Indlovu had scaled the walls and the Queen's Guard, fighting alongside the warlord's son, did their best to send them back down the way they'd come.
"Kana," said the Queen.
"By the Goddess!" exclaimed the Vizier. "If the savage gets himself killed..."
"They need help," Kellan said.
"Stay with the Queen," Hadith suggested to Kellan, looking to Tau and Uduak. Uduak grunted his assent and the three men ran up the stone stairs to the top of the battlements, Tau's injured side torturing him with every step.
At the top, Tau looked out and down. Odili's men were everywhere. The Keep was surrounded and it would not take long for the Indlovu to breach it. A swarm of them were using roped hooks to climb its walls and there were two units of Indlovu driving a battering ram into its gates. Behind the fighters manning the ram, a few hundred Indlovu waited, their bronze weapons flickering with reflected torchlight. The hot night stank of burning pitch and the coppery tang of blood.
Tau dashed to the walls, cut at one of the roped hooks, doing his best to dislodge it. The rope was thick as an arm and taut with the weight of climbers. It was difficult to cut and Tau had to abandon the attempt to kill a man.
"Leave it!" yelled Hadith. "Get to the Xiddian."
Kana was fighting heavy odds. In pain, Tau staggered to his defense, splitting an Indlovu's face as he went.
Uduak got there first. He faced down a Full-blood and they battered at each other's shields. Hadith joined the fight, coming in low, driving his sword through the crotch of Uduak's opponent. The Indlovu fell away, screaming.
Next to Hadith, a Queen's Guard died to a straight thrust and Kana, the man they were trying to protect, stepped into the gap.
"Get back!" Hadith ordered.
Kana shook his head, his long braids flying around his shoulders like angry serpents. One of the Indlovu swung for him. Tau was not close enough and Kana had his shoulder to the man.
"Watch!" Tau screamed and Kana ducked, losing a braid instead of his head to the Indlovu's blade. Kana thrust his short spear at the man. The Indlovu blocked the attack with his shield and Tau buried his blade in the Noble's throat.
The four men, Tau, Uduak, Hadith, and Kana, along with a few Queen's Guard, held their section of the battlement, killing the remaining Indlovu that had made the climb. Uduak went so far as to disarm one man then throw him from the walls, onto another climber, dispatching them both. Area clear, they chopped at the rope hooks, dislodging them.
"Battlement secure!" Hadith yelled to Kellan.
Three breaths later they were joined. The Queen stood on the inner side of the battlement, the one closest to the Keep. Down below, her Guard had won.
Queen Tsiora looked out at the massacre on the courtyard's stones. She was statue still and her head was held high. It was as if she was waiting to be painted. Tau did not understand what she was doing. Then, one of the Queen's Guard saw her and cheered. The rest of fighters, the ones in the courtyard and on the battlements looked. They all saw their Queen, their reason for this fight, and the loyalists gave a shout. Tsiora raised her royal hand and waved it at her men, like she was blessing them, and the ragged cheer grew louder.
Yaw came jogging up the steps with Themba. "Brothers!"
"Yaw, Themba," said Hadith. "Good to see you're still alive."
"For now," said Themba, eyeing the Indlovu outside the walls.
Yaw, seeing the Queen, started. Then he bobbed his head up and down like driftwood on The Roar before dropping to his knees, pulling Themba down with him.
"You may rise," Tsiora said. They did and she spoke to Kellan. "Who leads our men now?"
Kellan pointed to the group of men behind the Keep's gates. "My Queen, the highest ranking officer of the Queen's Guard is likely to be down there. When the gates fall, it will be the source of the heaviest fighting"
"You are a third cycle initiate?"
"I am, my Queen. Inkokeli of Scale Osa. I was to be trained as an Ingonyama, pending royal approval."
"We see. You are now an Ingonyama, Kellan Okar. You have received royal approval. You shall also lead the men upon the battlements."
Okar glowed with pride. "I will honor your name, my Queen."
"Kellan Okar, Ingonyama, can we defend this Keep?" she asked. "Can we hold, if we are clever and if we are lucky?"
Okar's face fell, he was unwilling or unable to lie to his Queen.
"We understand," Tsiora said and, for the briefest measure, Tau saw a frightened young woman with far too much responsibility. "Our challenge is significant," she said. "Thus, we command those loyal to the Queen to be particularly clever and amazingly lucky."
Hadith chuckled and, worried he might offend the Queen, he pretended to be coughing. Queen Tsiora smiled at him, her eyes lighting up mischievously. Hadith lost the cough and smiled back.
Tau couldn't believe it. With a few words and a smile, this child Queen had charmed the same Lesser who had worn Tau's ears thin with talk of Noble oppression.
"Betrayal?" Kana asked, speaking in halting and accented Empiric.
"It is," Queen Tsiora told him. "We were betrayed by the highest ranking members of our Nobility."
"Nobility..." Kana said.
Uduak pointed off in the distance, to the City's low walls. "Look!"
"Xiddeen?" Kana said, brows knitted. "... My father comes."
Kana was right. The invading force had reached Citadel City and Odili had not yet taken the Keep or killed the Queen. The Guardian Councillor's plan was unravelling, and so was the Chosen's chance for peace.
"Why... my father here?" Kana asked.
"We have been informed that the Noble's treachery goes beyond us," the Queen told him. Kana waited for her to say more, and Tsiora gathered herself. "It is likely that the Gifted sent to you was an agent of the coup. She was a... a caller of Fire-demons."
Kana's face darkened. "She was covered and masked." He looked from face to face, and Tau knew he would find no comfort. "The Conclave?"
Tsiora held Kana's eyes with hers. "We are told that your father's presence may be an answer to what happened there."
Kana leaned in, disbelief etched on his severe features. "A Fire-demon was brought down on the Conclave?" His body was tensed and Tau prepared himself, in case the Xiddian attacked the Queen.
"My father," Kana said, "will kill you all."
"We will tell him we were betrayed," Tsiora explained. "We will—"
"Queen," Kana interrupted, earning a sharp sniff of disapproval from Vizier Nyah, "you do not understand. Achak, my father, will kill everyone, all Chosen everywhere."
As Kana spoke, Tau heard the screech of wrenching bronze. It was almost human, the wail the gates gave as they ripped from their moorings and toppled.
Hadith swore, Uduak shifted his weight beside Tau, and the Queen gripped the crenellations with so much force that Tau thought she might crack the adobe. The gates had fallen and Odili's Indlovu swarmed the Guardian Keep like a plague of locusts.