by Evan Winter
Then, once the rebellion was ended and Odili was pardoned, these Greater Nobles would get to keep their roles as councillors. Tau didn’t know how a Noble might rise in caste, but if there was any way to do it, he imagined this was it.
“I think you mean to let Abasi Odili live,” he said, putting a hand to his strong-side sword, “but so long as I draw breath, that won’t be possible.”
Nyah stepped close enough to be standing between them. “That’s enough, both of you,” she said, and, without giving either of them time to respond, she turned to Tsiora. “My queen, may we adjourn? These issues will be better discussed by the light of day, and—”
“You put your hand to your sword while we stand in council chambers with our queen,” Otobong said to Tau, towering over him. “You lack the civility of an inyoka.”
“Oh, you wish me to be civil?” Tau asked the larger man. “You want me to play the part of a Noble when you’ll never give me the same consideration as one. Is that the game?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I can smile and talk as sweet as cane sugar. I can follow every rule you’ll ever make, and it will never be good enough for people like you, because people like you don’t see me as people,” Tau said, pulling a handspan of black dragon scale free from its scabbard.
“Has this thing gone mad?” Otobong asked, backing away.
“General, that is our champion to whom you speak,” the queen said.
It took him a breath, but Otobong tilted his head in deference. “Of course. He’s your champion. Apologies, my queen.”
Tau knew what was expected. He knew it was his turn to apologize, so they could both play the part of noblemen in good company, but Tau wasn’t a nobleman. They’d never let him be one and he wasn’t sure being one was better anyway. So, staring up at the general, he dropped his second hand to its corresponding blade.
“I need no titles to defend me,” he said. “I can do it myself.”
Otobong’s nostrils flared at that and the queen raised her voice. “This meeting is over,” she said. “Mirembe, if you are determined to see a new ruling council formed, we’ll consider it at another time. For now, we’ll retire to think over the advice that has been offered.”
Tau let his eyes flit to Mirembe’s face. The self-named chairwoman looked like she’d sucked something sour, and then she caught him looking at her.
“My queen,” she said, “one last bit of advice?”
“If you must, Mirembe,” Tsiora said.
“Whether we like it or not, we should speak with Guardian Councillor Odili. It’s our duty to try to resolve this without Omehi spilling Omehi blood.”
Tsiora could have been made from stone. “Is that everything?”
“Almost,” Mirembe said, eyeing Tau up and down, “but I must ask, would our queen not be better served by a champion like Kellan Okar?”
“As chairman of our newly formed Guardian Council,” said Otobong, “I would like to second the chairwoman’s thought. Indeed, Okar and Odili are also well acquainted and—”
Tau’s twin blades kissed the bare flesh on Otobong’s neck and the leather armor on his back, the dragon scale selling the man on silence.
“Thief,” Tau said. “I warned you. You won’t steal Odili from me.”
“Champion.” It was the queen.
“I will have justice,” Tau said, keeping his blades in contact with the general’s skin as the eleven Indlovu in the room moved to their feet and drew their bronze.
“Queen Tsiora, it appears as if you’d be well served to seriously consider my suggestion about champions,” Mirembe said, her dispassionate facade thrown aside. Then, raising her voice, she spoke to Tau. “Put away your weapons, you insect.”
“Champion Solarin, we have not yet asked you to kill the general,” the queen said.
“This isn’t the way,” Hadith whispered. “It’s not it, Tau.”
Struggling to get his breathing back under control, Tau looked from face to face, seeing Hadith, Nyah, and at the last, his queen. He took a step back, lifting his black blades away from the general.
His life no longer in immediate danger, Otobong slapped a hand against his bleeding neck and pulled it away to stare in shock at the red smears on his fingers. “You drew blood.”
The guardian swords were sharp beyond measure, and Tau was not accustomed to them.
“You attacked me?” Otobong asked. “You attacked me!”
“General Otobong,” Nyah said, trying to take control, “do you honestly expect to heap abuses on others and receive none your—”
“No!” the general shouted. “It goes too far. This filthy half man shouldn’t even be allowed near dragon scale, let alone to wield it.” The general faced the queen. “Queen Tsiora, tell me, if you will, is this how you intend to rule? With blood drawn among those loyal to you and truces violated with assassinations? I thought you wanted peace. Why are you willing to offer it to our enemies but not to the women and men of your own kind?”
“General …,” warned Nyah, but Otobong would not be stopped.
“I would like to know,” he said, “will you rule with Lessers standing in the place of their betters?”
Nyah spoke first. “There’s only one Lesser that the queen has elevated, and he’s champion because of proven merit. Queen Tsiora has no intention of—”
The queen cut off her vizier. “We do what the Goddess wills and won’t be second-guessed.”
Otobong nodded. “Then we can expect more of them in these meetings, hmm? Whispering in your ear? Undermining your Nobles?” He sniffed. “Queen Tsiora, I understand that you didn’t get to join yourself with a savage, but that shouldn’t mean it must be done with a Lesser.”
“General!” shouted Nyah, pointing an open hand at him.
Otobong eyed her. “You’ll strike at me too, Vizier? Will you lay this Noble low with the Goddess’s own gifts?” He licked his bottom lip and let his mouth twist like he was about to spit. “What have we become?”
Tau didn’t know his queen a tenth as well as he knew Hadith, but he didn’t need to, to know that she was furious beyond reasonable measure, and for some strange reason, seeing her that way made him calmer. It was as if he could sense that having the two of them in a state of pique would not end well.
“Apologize to us, General Otobong,” the queen said, her voice as even and sharp as a newly made blade.
“Beg pardon?” the general asked.
“Apologize before you no longer have a choice in the matter,” she said.
“With respect, my queen,” Otobong said, “I wish to speak as honestly as I’m able before it’s too late for any words to make a difference. You’re too young to see the patterns in this, where it’ll drag us.” He looked down at Tau. “This person you want me to call a champion should be hung for even showing his blade in my presence, and if nothing is done about the affront, then we move in a direction that will eventually overturn the natural order. My queen,” he said, “as perilous as the battles we face are to us, if we let the binds of civility and society slip, then, before long, we’ll unravel everything it means to be Omehi, and when that happens, whether it’s by our enemy’s hands or our own, we cease to exist.”
Tsiora said nothing and the room was silent.
Otobong pointed to Hadith. “And what of the whispers coming from this other Lesser’s forked tongue?” He faced Mirembe and the rest of her ruling council. “Our queen is surrounded by base wretchedness. How can that not have a corrupting influence?” he asked, taking another step away from Tau and moving out of his reach as one of the eleven Indlovu came to stand between them. “My queen,” he continued, “it worries me that you seem so ready to abandon the advice of your generals, councillors, and even your own sworn words of peace.”
The queen’s look was a hard one. “Are you finished, General?”
Otobong ground his teeth but held his tongue.
“The Xiddeen shul and several hundred thousand
lost their lives in a torrent of dragon fire,” Queen Tsiora said. “Peace died then, burned away in flames the traitor Abasi Odili fanned.”
Otobong touched at his bleeding neck again and turned to the chairwoman of the Ruling Council. “I tried, Mirembe,” he said. “The Goddess knows I did, but I can’t be part of what she wants.”
“You wish to be relieved of your duties, then?” Nyah asked him.
“Oh, it’s far too late for that to be enough,” the queen said.
Otobong’s eyes widened at that.
“I understand, General,” Mirembe said, “and, after hearing everything here tonight, I’m inclined to agree.” She made a show of glancing to her left and right at the women sitting on either side of her. “The Ruling Council also agrees.”
Tau wasn’t sure what was happening, but he saw Tsiora’s pupils shrink to pinpricks and he made himself ready.
“We’re warning you, Mirembe,” the queen said, “do not go down this path. You won’t like where it leads, and we promise you, there’s no way back from it.”
“Queen Tsiora, we can’t win a fight against Palm City before the hedeni attack us, and we won’t survive their attack without the support of Palm City. Will you save your people and treat with Guardian Councillor Abasi Odili?”
Tau tensed.
“No,” Tsiora said.
Mirembe blinked and leaned back, the edges of her mouth fluttering up and down before settling on an empty smile. “General Otobong, as chairwoman of the Ruling Council, I call on you to help us fulfill our obligation to keep our people and monarch safe from harm. Separate Queen Tsiora from the vizier and these Lessers.”
The general had begun nodding halfway through Mirembe’s little speech. “Indlovu, Queen’s Guard, escort the queen to her rooms, and if any of the Lessers come between you, kill them.”
The Indlovu readied their weapons, their eleven bronze blades reflecting the room’s torchlight, and though she had every right to be scared, the only thing Tau could sense from Tsiora was fury.
Otobong turned his head to Kellan. “Okar, step away from them.”
Kellan raised his hands, balled them into fists, and shuffled closer to Tau’s sword brothers, placing himself in front of Gifted Thandi. “I don’t think I can, General.”
Otobong considered that, sniffed, and turned away. “Pity to lose you too,” he said.
The gap between life and death, Tau thought, was closing. He saw a weaponless Kellan standing poised for a fight he couldn’t win, while, beside him, Uduak breathed deep and widened his stance. Half hidden in the big man’s shadow, Yaw flicked his eyes from Indlovu to Indlovu, and in front of them all, Hadith was frowning, as if regarding bad behavior he’d known to expect.
The odds were not favorable, and since his brothers had been called from their beds, Tau was the only one among them who was armed. It didn’t help that his ribs hadn’t had time to heal, three fingers on his right hand were too broken for a firm grip, and he couldn’t be sure if the Queen’s Guard would side with the queen they’d sworn to protect or the general who offered them a life likely to last longer than the next few breaths.
Someone laughed, and the sound was strange in the moment. It was Themba. The Ihashe, grinning widely, winked at Tau and crossed his arms.
It seemed that the same man who’d once questioned Tau’s ability to stand against a few Indlovu had become confident that he would beat eleven of them. Fifteen, if the Queen’s Guard threw in with the general.
“Take them,” ordered Otobong, and his men came forward.
Poor odds, thought Tau, leaping for the Indlovu standing between him and his target.
ODDS
The Indlovu was quick. He had one sword and no shield and still blocked Tau’s weak-side strike as well as his strong-side follow-up. It was the third attack he couldn’t stop. The Greater Noble brought his blocking blade up late and Tau’s sword tore through his throat.
Tau didn’t see him fall. He ran past the dying man as soon as his weapon ripped free of the Indlovu’s neck.
“Kill him!” shouted Otobong, spit flying from his mouth.
The general needn’t have bothered with the order because the ten remaining Indlovu were already moving. Tau had to dash past the nearest of them, shouldering the larger man aside, while hoping beyond hope that Hadith was right and that cutting the head from the inyoka would be enough to stop it from hurting them. He had to get to the chairwoman and make her call off the Indlovu.
Otobong was between them, though, and he swung his sword at Tau’s head. It was a well-timed but obvious attack. Tau knew it was coming and dropped below the blade’s leading edge, letting Otobong’s wild swing shear through empty air, pulling the general out of position. Willing to end the Greater Noble’s life, Tau went to counter, but the thing that Otobong had become made him stop in place.
Standing where Otobong had been was a two-armed demon with the turgid skin of a bloated tick. Tau was facing the creature’s back, and without hesitation it swung round, sending a clawed arm for his face.
Skidding to a stop while trying to blink away the vision, Tau struggled to dodge the attack and regain his hold on the real. He couldn’t do both and felt the bite of bronze as the front of his leather armor was caught and torn by a blade point. The contact yanked him to the side, threatening to take him from his feet, but he held his balance, letting the momentum whirl him around until he was facing his opponent again.
This time it was Otobong he faced and not the monster. The demon had vanished and the general was still resetting his stance, having swung at Tau hard enough to chop him in two. As Otobong righted himself, Tau sucked in a breath of smoky air and glanced down. A strip of leather hung free from his armor, and his chest burned from the shallow cut he’d received. The moment he’d lost to the vision had come close to costing him his life.
Roaring at Tau, Otobong attacked again, hauling his sword to purpose in a backhand swing. Tau parried with his weak side, staggering under the strength of the blow but stopping it. Without hesitation, Otobong jerked his blade back and stepped away, seeking to move beyond Tau’s striking range while keeping Tau within his. But before he could do it, Tau ended the fight.
Using as much force as he could generate in close quarters, Tau slashed down with his twin swords. It wasn’t necessary. The blades were made of dragon scale and when the one held in his left hand crashed into Otobong’s sword, the one in his right chopped through the general’s sword arm like it was a stalk of drought-withered cane.
It was Otobong’s flesh that yielded first. It split, separating to reveal muscle, tendons, and the two thick bones that made up his forearm. The dragon scale bisected them both, and Otobong’s hand, sword, and a cup’s worth of his blood splattered across the painted floor. The general threw his head back then, screaming, howling in pain, the sound of it echoing through the council chamber from deck to dome.
No time to waste, Tau hopped back, ready to run to capture Mirembe or defend himself against the other Indlovu, but the Indlovu weren’t attacking. They were staring at Otobong and what was on the floor in front of him.
The general was on his knees and using his remaining hand to clutch at his ruined arm as blood poured from it. On the ground beside him was his sword, and the weapon’s blade had been cut in two. Tau’s dragon-scale swords had struck Otobong’s blade as well as his forearm, and they had destroyed them both.
Tau caught the movement as one of the Indlovu looked up at him from the kneeling general. The rest were also shaking off the shock. He knew he didn’t have long, and he spun toward the chairwoman, racing for her. He got two steps before she took control of him.
It was like running into a wall of knives. His body felt like it had been shredded to bits, then put back together too quickly. Tau would have yelled, but he couldn’t move his mouth. He could barely breathe, and even without having experienced it before, he’d seen enough with the dragons to guess what had been done. Desperate, he dove into Isihogo.
>
The gray mists and howling winds welcomed him home, and in front of him, exactly where the chairwoman had been standing, was an indistinct figure, masked by the shifting black opaqueness of a Gifted’s shroud.
“This is how you die, Lesser,” the woman behind the shroud said, her words faint in the underworld’s endless storm.
“You’d entreat a man?” Tau asked.
She barked out a laugh. “Do Low Commons count themselves as such now?”
Though it was painful to even think her name, Tau thanked Zuri for her lessons. “We’ll die together, then,” he said, finding the tethers that bound his soul to the chairwoman’s as easily as if the binds were physical. He pictured himself grabbing them, wrapping the tethers tight around his arms, and using them to hold her as firmly as she held him. “I’ll keep you here, and when your shroud fails, we’ll greet the demons together.”
There was a pause. He’d caught her off guard. She hadn’t expected him to know that Gifted did not entreat intelligent beings for exactly this reason. The tethers of entreating work both ways.
“You don’t have the time,” she said. “In Uhmlaba, my Indlovu will cut your head from your shoulders and I’ll use it to feed the scorpions in the rock gardens.”
Tau railed against her control, pulling and wrenching this way and that, looking for weakness or hoping to drain her power faster than he would if he let her control him. It was working. He could see her shroud quivering as he strained. He could also see that, even with the time difference between Isihogo and Uhmlaba, he had no hope of collapsing her shroud before the Indlovu killed him.
He fought harder. She laughed, and with the part of him that was still in his world, he heard her call out to the Indlovu.
“Kill … the … Common,” she said, her voice deep and slow, like someone had poured syrup over the moments, stretching them like the gummy sap from the bramble bushes in Kerem’s mountains.