Lion's Blood

by Steven Barnes

  More murmurs. Aidan felt an unaccustomed dizziness, a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach. What had all this to do with him? Let all the fucking blacks have their hearts torn out by cannibals. Hell, he'd help the Aztecs sharpen their knives.

  "You may wish to know what this has to do with you. Well, know this: any able-bodied man who fights with our army, and acquits himself honorably, wins his freedom!" There were the words. There was the offer Aidan had dared to hope for.

  No one made a sound.

  "Who will be a man this day? Who will throw off his shackles and join our cause? That man, should he live, is a slave no longer!"

  The servants looked back and forth at one another, eyes wide, shifting weight from foot to foot nervously.

  Finally Olaf raised his reedy voice. "We don't know how to fight, sir!"

  Judging by his performance during the uprising, Aidan thought, that was certainly true.

  "You will be taught! All we need from you is your hearts, and your strong bodies. If a drop of true blood runs in your veins, if you commit yourself to our righteous cause, you will be free!"

  Olaf and a stout quarryman named Cennedi nodded to each other and stepped forward.

  Ali beamed. At this moment Aidan bet he was glad he had spared so many. "Good! To Kebwe, my quartermaster. Who else?"

  Two more stepped forward, and Ali motioned them out as well.

  In the back row, Aidan was listening, eyes hooded. What were the chances? The blacks would not offer freedom unless they knew few would survive to claim it. But any chance at all was better than the hell his life had become. He stepped forward.

  "Ah, good—" Ali began. Then Kai, dressed not in full battle regalia but wearing his sword sashed around a black robe, trotted Djinna forward until he was even with his brother. He whispered in Ali's ear, and the Wakil nodded grimly. "No, Aidan," he said at last. "Not you."

  Aidan felt as if the ground had opened beneath him. He forced himself to step back in line, his eyes locked with Kai's, some kind of painful, primal communication passing between them.

  This wasn't over.

  "Good," Ali was saying. "You, and you, and . . . you."

  Chapter Sixty-three

  Kai strode through the lunging, thrusting, screaming and straining rows of prospective soldiers. All across the lawns and pastures of Dar Kush hundreds of young men, black and white, were pushing their minds and

  bodies to the breaking point. Black commoners from nearby farms drilled with muzzle-loading rifles, the slaves strove to master their pikes.

  Here Kebwe, whose father had been a decorated soldier before retiring to a successful shipping career, pushed them mercilessly. "Points up! Step strong! You! That's a pike, not a plough . . . !" Kebwe seemed far more assured and mature than he had during their regiment's monthly drills.

  In another part of the grounds, Ali struggled with the black soldiers. "Squeeze the trigger—don't pull. And reduce your profile. You're not hunting breakfast. These squirrels shoot back!"

  This was good, and right. Kai felt the demons of lethargy burning away in the intensity of preparation for holy war. Alert for the slightest opportunity to teach a willing and capable hand, Kai walked the line of slaves. He saw a pair of Berhar's servants struggling to appear fierce. In trying so hard, they had achieved only low comedy. "No—step as you thrust," he shouted. "And you! Truly Al-Mu'akhkhir placed you behind all thinking creatures! Do you want to be some Aztec's supper?"

  The servants were confused and sullen. "No, sir."

  "Here," Kai said. "Then—thrust at me. At me!"

  "But, sir—"

  Kai slapped his face. The slave lowered his pike and charged. Effortlessly, Kai sidestepped him, tossing him to the ground.

  "Perhaps you should join the women and cowards!"

  "No, sir."

  "Then try to learn."

  The slave nodded, and Kai strode on, heading to the barn.

  There, savoring the rare moment of calm amidst the excitement, Kai fed sugar to his beloved Djinna. "Well, old girl. It looks as if we'll finally see battle after all." She biinked at him, or perhaps at the fly circling her eye. Kai batted it out of the air. "Don't worry," he said. "We'll take good care of each other."

  Kai spun as he heard footsteps in the doorway.

  It was Aidan. Of course. "Kai," he said hoarsely. "Why did you deny me?"

  Kai's expression was cold, but his blood was heating rapidly. Yes.

  "Why?"

  "I don't have to give you reasons."

  "Please, Kai. The burden of my days is almost more than I can bear."

  Kai was apparently unmoved. "Go back to the village, Aidan. This is not for you."

  "Damn you! We were friends once!"

  Kai turned away, almost placid amidst the storm. "If anything of that friendship remained, it was discharged when I lied to save your life."

  Aidan's head slumped. "Yes. I am so sorry. I wish I could take that moment back."

  "You used me."

  "As you have used me, all my life. All I ask is a chance to win my freedom."

  "So that you can buy Sophia and your child?"

  "Yes!"

  Kai felt pain that he dared not allow into his voice. "It will never happen, Aidan. You'll die." Despite his best efforts, Kai found himself telling Aidan more truth than he had intended. "All of the mamluks will die. Go away."

  "I . . . I challenge you, Kai! Fight me! I'll prove I can do this."

  Kai turned his face away from Aidan, not wanting to reveal his emotions. His heart swelled with a strange, pale satisfaction. Truly, he was a child of war, as Malik and Shaka had always said. Aidan was both friend and enemy. In a sick, twisted vining of motivations, he both wanted to save Aidan and to see him die, to proclaim his love and see his old friend crawl.

  He had promised no repercussions. He had kept his promise. And now he would have his revenge.

  "Very well," Kai said.

  He removed his sword, squared himself, and Aidan came at him.

  I am a twisted thing, a thing of war. The younger brother, who must make his mark by killing men. This has Allah decreed. And so it is.

  I am not my father. I am my uncle, Malik.

  As Aidan came at him, Kai did not evade, did not seek to use speed or power or fancy technique.

  He stepped in, cutting the line of Aidan's attack, his fist thrusting squarely at Aidan's nose.

  The impact sent a jolt along Kai's right arm and into his shoulder, but that right hand was supported by the left, and it was as if Aidan had collided with a swinging beam. His feet went out from beneath him. He went down as if poleaxed.

  Aidan rolled over, dazed and shocked by the impact, and rose unsteadily to his feet.

  Kai watched him impassively. Aidan circled him, crouched, spiraling closer and closer. In the instant he decided to charge, Kai's right foot lashed out, the toes hardened by years of thrusting into baled straw, then dried beans, and then gravel. They were buttressed by his leather sandals, controlled by a mind that asked no questions and felt no doubts.

  The toes speared precisely into Aidan's solar plexus, paralyzing breath and thought, only kites from the pressure necessary to stop the heart itself.

  Aidan dropped, face gone pale with shock, vomit surging into his throat and only partially swallowed before gushing sourly out of his mouth onto the straw beneath his hands.

  "Stop," Kai said calmly.

  In mindless desperation, Aidan fumbled a pitchfork out of the hay and came at Kai with it. Kai sidestepped as if he and Aidan had practiced this dance a thousand times, twisting his right leg behind him as he grasped the shaft, uncorking his hips and twisting the pitchfork so that Aidan's momentum and his grip on the shaft sent him hurtling through the air, smashing through a horse stall shoulders-first.

  Aidan lay dazed and beaten, barely conscious. Kai picked up the pitchfork.

  "Stay," he said, as if speaking to an animal. "Live."

  Aidan was barely able to repress h
is tears.

  "I cannot," he said. "Kill me."

  Kai's eyes narrowed. "Our friendship cost me my honor. My father's life." Kai hurled the pitchfork to within a digit of Aidan's head. The Irishman blinked, but did not move, and despite himself, Kai felt a flash of approval. Aidan was a man, and Allah granted every man the right to risk death in a righteous cause. "Go, then. And I hope the Aztecs take your heart."

  "They may as well," Aidan said. "It is dead already."

  Kai left the barn without reacting. Knowing that it had ended in the only way it could. Because he was Kai.

  And Aidan was Aidan.

  And the immortal God who had fashioned both had not finished with either of them.

  The young nobles, foot soldiers and mamluks lined up, better than four hundred in all, drawn from the surrounding farms and communities. Malik himself had emerged from self-imposed isolation to present Ali and Kai with their captaincies. Despite the solemnity of the ceremony, his uncle struck Kai as somewhat distracted during the entire process. Malik's armor and garb was so polished and pressed that it was almost a caricature of itself. His hair seemed . . . a bit unkempt, his beard ratty, his eyes wild. The mare beneath him was better groomed.

  Malik raised his sword. "Nobles! Soldiers! Mamluks! This day you fight for the glory of Allah! I wish I could travel with you, but the eldest in each family must remain to protect the holdings—"

  Seated comfortably on Djinna and Qaldanna, Kai and Ali glanced at each other. While what Malik said was technically correct, merely by raising his voice he could have led the Wakil's forces, demanding that either of the Wakil's sons remain behind instead.

  One more campaign, he had requested only a few years ago. Physically, he was still the greatest warrior Kai had ever seen, or ever hoped to see. What had happened to him?

  "—I believe no Aztec will come this far. I believe that you will end this threat, and run the river with their blood. Send them home with their hearts in their mouths!"

  Malik raised his fist to the cheering throng, then walked his horse to Ali and clasped hands with him.

  "Are you sure you will not accompany us, Uncle?" Ali asked. "We would happily make a place for you in our tent."

  Malik's eyes were just a touch evasive. Just a touch, but enough. "I wish I could, Nephew. But I know you and your brother will do the family proud."

  Ali nodded. There were more questions, painful questions, but it did not appear that he would get any answers that day. "Forward!" he called. "March!"

  And the troops took to the road. Malik and his men stood to the side, watching.

  As Aidan marched by, his eyes met Malik's. Malik smiled a hard, cruel, ironic smile. "Farewell, mamluk. Die with honor."

  Kai cringed but remained silent: he had done what he could. Babatunde drew him to the side for a moment. "Kai," he said, "the man you are will change in the weeks and months to come. You have heard many stories about the glories of war."

  "Since childhood," Kai agreed.

  "There is no law at the western frontier, save that made by strong men. You will be under the hand of Shaka Zulu. I think that in his world, he knows no law but his own."

  Kai said nothing, but remembered Cetshwayo's estate, the night hunt and Shaka's killing of the wounded man.

  "Would you have me betray my family?" Kai asked brusquely.

  "You know me better than that." said the little man. "You go into battle because it is what you were born to do, and it is a righteous cause. But Shaka fights for Shaka's glory, and no other reason. Watch him. Do not let him infect you with his madness."

  "He need not," Kai said. "We have madness enough of our own."

  Babatunde smiled sadly. "Perhaps I cannot reach you now. But remember my words: Whatever you do, remember that the act is not the impulse. The thing is not the essence. War is the worst thing short of hell itself."

  "How do you know?" Kai asked, already sensing the answer.

  "There are things in my past I have not spoken of," said El Sursur. "I have not always been a teacher. It is the worst thing," he continued, "but the men who fight it can be good—if they never lose sight of Allah." His voice dropped. "As your uncle has done."

  Kai felt a shock run through him at those words, an echo of his father's. Before he could question or probe, Babatunde said, "Know that you are more than a man—you are a spirit. Whatever the man may do, if it is done for Allah, the spirit remains pure. Remember."

  "I will," Kai said. What was Babatunde telling him? There was no time left. Teacher and student clasped hands.

  Kai turned to see Ali saying good-bye to Lamiya. She kissed his brother on the cheek. He grasped her around the waist, raised her from her feet, and bruised her lips with his. "On my return," he cried, "Lamiya and I will be wed!"

  As the men cheered she smiled demurely. Her eyes met Kai's. There was an actual jolt at that instant, an emotional impact that seared him like a firebrand. Then she looked away.

  Tightly leashing his mingled sense of pride and shame, Malik watched the troops march out. How proud they looked! He remembered his own first deployment, more years ago than he cared to count. Remembered the doubts and questions, the almost unbearable excitement, the hunger to test his steel in battle.

  How long ago that had been. Now he had nothing left to test, nothing left to prove, felt only ashes where once had roared the greatest fire in New Djibouti. He turned to face his men. "Half of you remain here in protection of Dar Kush," he said. "The rest, come with me." He wheeled and headed back to his own estate, an hour's ride north.

  When Malik reached his castle, he dismounted and went directly to the greenhouse. In the midst of fronds and flowers he found Sophia, caring for both infants. She seemed shrunken, but calm. He had taken her to bed a half dozen times since her return. Her body had been pliant and warm, but without the feigned passion that had deceived him. And yet. . .

  Somewhere within her that passion lived, and the place within him that now held only ashes longed to feel it again. There was a way, yes. He would find it, no matter how long it took.

  There were several other slave women in the greenhouse as well, sewing and speaking in low voices.

  Malik entered. "Leave us," he said to the other women, who had begun scurrying out even before he spoke.

  Shielding her eyes, Sophia bowed before him. He took her shoulders roughly, felt his fingers sinking into her soft, warm skin. "Your Aidan is going to war," he said. "He thinks that he can win honor, perhaps gold. That he will be free, and purchase you from me."

  Sophia trembled in his grip.

  "He will never return," Malik continued. "And if he does, he will never have you."

  He drew his jambaya and placed it against her throat. That lovely throat, whose pulse had fluttered to his kiss. "I would sooner see you dead."

  Say something.

  She was silent.

  I could slit your throat, he thought.

  She didn't flinch, and Malik grew uncertain. For the first time it was his eyes that shifted, just a hair. Damn you! He screamed silently. She was a witch, to cause so much death, so much chaos and dishonor.

  Kill her now, before it is too late.

  Before he could do something he would regret, Malik sheathed the knife, and stalked off.

  Chapter Sixty-four

  The company traveled the road west. The noblemen carried breechloaders and expensive, experimental revolvers, handmade by Beninian craftsmen. At their sides swung swords and jambaya. Common blacks carried muzzle-loading rifles. The mamluk carried pikes, and sometimes sharpened staves and staffs.

  As they traveled, they were joined by contingents from other farms, estates, villages, and common households. Now well over a thousand strong, they marched and rode off to the west, to the frontier. To war.

  On the evening of the third day's westward march they reached Shaka Zulu's war camp, a vast tent city housing the greatest war machine in the Western empire. It was well patrolled and fully protected, consisting of al
most seven thousand men. The slaves were escorted to their rude housing, and the nobles and commoners to theirs. In the freemen housing there were torches and rich savory smells, dancing slave girls and plenty of good food and camaraderie.

  Ali, Kai, Fodjour, Kebwe, and Makur were welcomed in.

  "Enter!" Shaka roared. "Welcome, warriors. Take food and drink!"

  "Meat and water," Ali emphasized. "We are empty and parched."

  Shaka grinned. "That is right—you don't take beer. Pity. More for us! Hah-hah!"

  Shaka's tent was spread with maps, hung with furs, spears, swords, and knives. Two gigantic redbone Zulu ridgeback hounds gnawed beef joints on his rug.

  Kai reckoned that it required a dozen men to break down and erect Shaka's war tent. The colonel himself wore a tailored tunic that combined the black-and-red severity of the Pharaoh's army with the more flamboyant fur trimming and feathered crests of traditional Zulu war garb.

  Kai's fatigue dissolved as he concentrated on the maps spread on Shaka's table. He didn't want this war, and yet on some level he needed it. Perhaps in the company of men like Shaka he would find himself.

  "What are your plans?" asked Ali.

  Shaka swept his hand at the maps. "We'll divide our main force tomorrow, with two-thirds circling to feint at the Aztec settlements here and here." He indicated spots to the south and southwest of the little model marking the shrine. "We, the core, will proceed directly toward the mosque, capturing and destroying any Aztec forces along the way. Once attacks on their underbelly have drawn away the mass of the shrine's defensive troops, our core force, commanded by me personally, will strike."

  Ali seemed unconvinced. "But won't they guess that our strikes at their homes are just distractions?"

  Shaka grinned. "Yes—but they'll have to respond just the same. Abu Kwame is dug in at the Drift"—he jabbed his finger at a spot a day's ride northwest of the shrine—"and the Aztecs will be fearful of a pincer movement. The shrine is of tactical value to them, but it is far more precious to us. If they hold the shrine and lose their family lands, they have gained little. Listen and learn: a principle in war is to exploit the difference between a resource's value to your opponent, and its value to you. Understand?"