by Evan Winter
“Fight the Nobles!” Tau shouted, shuffling forward on his good leg, ignoring the Indlovu’s feint and ducking his real attack. “Fight them!”
Otobong, five strides distant, raised his sword higher and looked around for the new enemy. When he realized Tau was calling out to the Drudge, he laughed. “You think they’d dare?”
“Omehi, my name is Tau Solarin. I am the queen’s champion and I call on you for aid!” Tau said.
He saw movement among the crops. It was the old man whom Tau had knocked to the ground. He was holding his large crate like it was a boulder, and when he was close enough, he brought it crashing down on the back of Mirembe’s head. The basket smashed to pieces, Mirembe squawked, and the Indlovu whom Tau was fighting turned to her.
He would have seen Mirembe crumble to the ground. He might even have noticed Nyah do the same. There was, however, no chance he saw Tau lunge for him, because Tau’s two blades took him in the back, killing him instantly.
Otobong swung at the old man, his sword, held in his off hand, moving in a crude arc. “Nceku!”
The old man, quicker than he looked, threw himself away from the blow but couldn’t avoid it, and the sword sliced him from shoulder to navel. He dropped to the ground, cradling himself with his arms, and his ragged shirt grew stained with blood.
“Damn you!” Tau said to Otobong.
“Get back,” Otobong said, pointing his sword at Tau’s heart.
Tau began to circle Otobong, moving so he could check on the Drudge and Nyah. The Drudge wasn’t moving.
“You’re going to die on the end of my sword, Otobong,” Tau growled, letting his eyes slip to Nyah.
The vizier was stirring, recovering from her battle with Mirembe, and at the same moment as relief flooded him that Nyah was well, Tau spun to block the blow Otobong had quietly launched for his skull.
Blade met blade, and Tau, ignoring his bad leg, stepped into the much larger general, moving Otobong’s sword farther out of line while pressing his second sword to the general’s armpit, aiming into his body and lungs.
“You think me a liar?” Tau asked. “I told you, it’ll be my sword that ends your life.”
“Champion Solarin, we must return General Otobong and Councilwoman Mirembe to Citadel City to face justice.” The queen had arrived.
“Champion?” Kellan had bumbled his way off the horse and marched over.
“What?” Tau asked, his body buzzing with anger. He wanted to spear Otobong like a fish for what he’d done to the old man. He wanted to gut Mirembe for what she’d done to him in the council chambers.
Uduak was there next, wide-legged and stiff from the riding. “I have him,” the big man said, taking over from Tau by placing his great sword against Otobong’s neck.
With another glance at Nyah, who was sitting up and holding hands with the queen, Tau went to the Drudge’s side. The old man’s eyes were open, staring sightlessly at the cloudy sky. He was dead.
It was torture to do it on his bad leg, but Tau knelt beside the man and gently closed his eyes.
“Champion,” called Kellan, “we’ll bind Otobong and Mirembe and throw them over the backs of the horses for the return ride. We need to get to the keep.”
Tau ignored Kellan. “What was his name?” he asked the others. No one spoke, and Tau pointed to a woman in ragged clothes. “You, what was his name?”
“He was a Drudge,” she said.
“Drudge have names,” Tau said, persisting.
She backed away. “Please, nkosi, I don’t want to be part of anything …”
“I’m not asking you to be.”
“Please, nkosi,” she said, slipping back into the stalks and the dark, disappearing.
Tau looked at the other Drudge, but they were leaving too. He saw a young man who still had some meat on his bones and made to speak to him.
The man dropped his eyes. “I’m sorry, nkosi,” he said, shuffling back. “I can’t.”
“Can’t what?” asked Tau, but the Drudge was gone.
Tau put his face in his hands, rubbing the skin there before standing stiffly and pointing to the old man. “He saved people tonight. He helped the queendom,” he said to the ones hidden among the crops. “I need to leave. I have to leave. Will you take his body? Will you honor him and burn it?”
Silence.
“The old Drudge was the one who struck Mirembe?” asked Kellan, walking closer.
Glaring at Kellan, Tau struggled back to his feet. “You don’t want him burned? What’s fitting for a Drudge who struck a Noble instead? Should we eviscerate the body?”
Flexing his jaw, Kellan stepped past Tau to kneel beside the old man’s body. He put his hands under it and carried him, moving closer to the row of crops that hid the nearest group of Drudge. As he went, Tau saw that the old man’s blood had smeared and filthied Kellan’s armor.
“If you do not object, I will carry him back to Citadel City,” Kellan said to the Drudge. “We will give him full military honors. We will burn him and send his soul to the Goddess.”
“If it please you, leave him, nkosi,” said a thin voice, a woman’s voice. “We will see to him.”
“And who are you?” Kellan asked.
“He watches out for … he watched out for me, nkosi.”
Kellan nodded at that, gently placed the man’s body back on the ground, saluted in the direction of the Drudge, and walked away to help Uduak bundle the chairwoman and general onto one of the horses. Tau watched Kellan go, unsure how to feel, and, still unsure, he turned back to the Drudge.
“I should have been able to save him,” he said to the women and men he could not see, and when no response came, he went too, giving the casteless the space to reclaim the man who was theirs.
“We worried about you,” the queen said when Tau came close. She was next to Nyah. “We worried for your safety and Nyah’s. She says you stopped Mirembe.”
“A Drudge did that, my queen,” Tau said.
“Queen Tsiora,” said Kellan, “we should return to Citadel City. It’s not wise for us to stay out here longer than we must.”
Tau was tired, his muscles ached, and his leg burned. The ride back would be excruciating, but they might as well get on with it. He had hobbled his way past Nyah and toward the horses when she put a hand on his forearm, stopping him.
“I saw how hard you fought and know you’re hurt and hurting. You saved me. Thank you.”
Tau shook his head. “You almost died because I couldn’t stop them. The old man … People keep on dying because I’m not enough to protect them.”
Nyah seemed to consider him.
“I’ll do better,” Tau said. “I’ll be stronger.”
He didn’t know why he said it, especially not why he said it to her, and she kept looking at him as if searching for something, but he was weary and in no mood for talk. He inclined his head to her and continued on.
“I think I can see why the queen picked you,” she said.
Tau stopped without turning. He could have asked what she meant. That night, in that moment, she might even have told him. But he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
“The storm is weakening,” Kellan called to them.
“No storm here,” Uduak said.
“It’s moving west, heading out to the ocean and beyond,” Kellan said. “We need to get back to the city to gather our men for the attack. If Hadith is right and the warlord is onshore, tonight is our only chance. The storm and Achak will be gone come morning.”
The queen, on her horse, held out one of her too-cool hands to Tau. He took it and fumbled his way up behind her.
“We ride hard and fast,” she said. “We race a dying storm in hopes to trade it for Achak’s life.”
More killing, thought Tau, and his blades hadn’t yet been cleaned from the last lot.
HOW
Mirembe and Otobong were taken to the keep’s prisons, but not before the queen made them a promise: They would meet justice at dawn. Having giv
en them her word, Queen Tsiora left the stables with Nyah, and Kellan and Uduak asked Tau to accompany them to the courtyard to finalize preparations for the attack on Warlord Achak.
Tau stayed behind, telling his brothers he had to clean his swords, and when they left, he dismissed the stable hands. Once alone, he clamped a hand over his mouth and screamed into it, desperate to expel the ball of hurt that seemed to live in his chest and heart.
The old Drudge had tried to help him and had died doing it. He’d gone to the Goddess in the same way that Tau’s father had, that Oyibo had … that Zuri had. They’d all come to his defense, but when they’d needed him, he’d failed them.
Still screaming, Tau slumped against the door to the nearest horse pen and slammed a fist against it, hitting the weak wood hard enough to bruise his hand. His eyes were squeezed shut, and his head hummed in turmoil, but that didn’t stop him from hearing it when the large black horse he’d ridden with the queen came closer. He heard its heavy steps on the hay-strewn floor and then its wet breathing, like it was blowing air against its cheeks as it exhaled. Not knowing what the beast ate and unwilling to be bitten, Tau opened his eyes and stepped away.
“Don’t even think it,” he said to the black horse, showing it his strong-side sword. “I have teeth too.”
Creeping closer, the horse paid him and the sword little mind. It had its ears back against its head, making them look small and pointed, but did the opposite with its eyes and nostrils. Both were wide, held open as far as possible. Tau was ignorant of the animal’s typical behaviors but couldn’t imagine these were signs of warmth and welcome.
“Leave me alone, nceku!” Tau said, raising his sword higher. “Ha-ya!”
The creature was on the far side of the low wooden wall of its pen, but the wood was weak and the horse could smash through the false barrier easily.
“What’s the matter with you?”
The horse bared its block of teeth, rolled its eyes, and reared, feet kicking. Sticking to the wall of the pen, Tau backed away and to the side. The animals were priceless and he didn’t want to hurt it, but he had both swords ready as he watched the crazed animal.
“Thought we were getting to be frien—” he began, realizing midthought that, when he’d moved to the side, the horse hadn’t followed him with its head or eyes.
The horse, Tau realized, wasn’t reacting to him, and with the hairs on his neck shooting up, he threw himself to the ground, rolling away as the wood where he’d been standing exploded in a storm of shards.
The howl he heard behind him was not a sound that could come from any animal he knew, and Tau lurched to his feet, tamping down the roar of pain in his leg as he spun to face the thing that had nearly decapitated him.
It wasn’t tall. Which was to say, the demon matched him in height. It was heavier than he was, though, and had thick yellowish skin that was bumped and mottled like a toad’s flesh. It stared at him with reflective eyes the size of fists and had the circular mouth of a suckerfish. Howling from that too-small orifice, it flexed the six clawed fingers on the ends of its short arms and ran at him.
“This can’t be real. You’re not rea—” Tau started, without the time to finish the thought before needing to jerk back and away from its slashing reach.
He made enough space to avoid disembowelment, hit his back against a wooden wall, and found himself facing the demon with less than two strides separating them. It leapt at him and Tau had nowhere left to go.
By this point, the black horse was in a frenzy, and though it looked to Tau like the demon was still howling when it jumped, he couldn’t be sure. It was impossible to hear it over the braying and stomping of the penned-in horse.
Tau brought his swords up to stop the demon’s claws from taking out his eyes and slid along the wall, hoping to get out of its way. The swords did their work. They stopped the demon from taking out his eyes and cut through the leather-thick flesh on its hands, but Tau couldn’t get clear, the monster slammed into him, and he slammed into the wooden wall.
The wall behind Tau caved inward and he was sent crashing into the stall’s hay-covered dirt floor hard enough to empty his lungs of breath. The demon was on top of him, its round maw slicing open and shut a fingerspan from his nose as he fought to hold it clear by pressing the hilts of his blades into its neck.
“How? How …,” he growled at it as it snapped at him and scrabbled about, trying to bring it claws or teeth to bear.
Working fast, Tau slipped his knees beneath its bulk, leveraged his feet against what he considered to be its hips, and kicked out, pushing it down and away from him. He screamed as he did it, his leg protesting with a particularly vicious stab of pain.
The demon, thick but not slow, got its legs back under itself, and on all fours, it scuttled for him.
Scooting back, Tau slashed his strong-side sword into its shoulder and made to stab it through the face with his other blade but missed when the demon’s head was trampled into the floor by the black horse’s front hooves.
The demon, its eyes wider than should have been possible, spasmed like it was seizing, and the black horse reared and came down again. Its hooves connected, hammering into the demon’s head, pulping it to mush and stilling the last of the monster’s movements. The horse rose and came down a third time, its hooves hitting the hay-strewn ground and the demon-shaped pile of gray ash that had taken the monster’s place.
The force of the blow scattered the ashes that had, one blink prior, been the demon, sending them swirling into the air, where each flake collapsed in on itself, falling out of sight and existence. Then, like sand flowing through the holes of an invisible sieve, the last of the ashes vanished until there was nothing of the demon left at all.
“How?” Tau asked again.
SHADOWS
Frantic and rushing, Tau limped his way out of the stables and ran for the courtyard. The rain had slowed to a drizzle and the keep’s guttering torches turned the wet mist, slick cobblestones, and shining keep walls into an endless array of undulating shapes and shadows, each one capable of hiding a monster that could cut his throat before he had time to warn the others.
He ran faster, racing headlong into three shapes detaching themselves from the shadows up ahead.
“Found you,” a voice said as the first of the three shapes stepped into the torchlight.
Cursing, Tau tried to stop but put his foot on a wet stone and slipped. To catch himself, he threw all his weight on his bad leg and the world contracted down to a singular, blinding point of agony.
“Cek!” he said, raising his swords.
“Tau, easy! What’s going on?”
It was Hadith’s voice. It had been Hadith’s voice earlier as well, and as Tau’s vision returned to normal and the pain subsided, he saw the others. Hadith was with Uduak and Kellan.
“We came for you,” Hadith said. “The storm’s heart has left the peninsula. It’s already out on the Roar and soon the warlord’s ships will be too. It’s time to go.”
Tau knew none of that mattered.
“They’re here!” he said. “In the keep!”
As one, the three men drew their blades and closed ranks around Tau, expecting an attack.
“Where?” asked Uduak, looking left and right.
“Stables,” Tau said. “It started there.”
“How many of them?” Hadith asked.
“One, so far. It attacked me.”
“One?” Kellan asked. “One Xiddeen? One of Odili’s men?”
Tau couldn’t catch his breath. “It’s not a man.”
Kellan nodded. “Xiddeen, then,” he said. “A woman raider.”
“It doesn’t mean she’s the only one here,” Hadith said, pointing to an archway that led deeper into the keep. “Move to the archway. If there’s many of them, they won’t be able to surround us.”
Uduak nodded and pulled on Tau’s arm, and the four of them dashed to stand beneath and within the archway’s protective walls, limiting the a
ngles from which they could be attacked.
“Can we call to our men?” Kellan whispered to Tau. “Or do we risk bringing the Xiddeen down on ourselves?”
“It’s not the Xiddeen,” Tau said, peering out beyond the murk of the dark archway. There were so many shadows and they all stretched off in the distance, long as spears. “It was a demon.”
Kellan’s sword point bobbed in the air. “A what?”
“Did you say demon?” Hadith asked, his whisper more of a hiss.
Still scanning the pathway, Tau nodded. “It attacked me in the stables.”
He heard Hadith sigh and then he heard him sheath his sword. “You fell asleep and were in Isihogo?”
Uduak and Kellan didn’t put their weapons away, but both let their sword points drop toward the cobblestones.
No,” said Tau. “It was here.”
“Where, here?” Hadith asked him.
“Uhmlaba.”
“A demon?”
“Yes.”
Uduak and Kellan sheathed their blades.
“You need rest,” Uduak said.
Hadith sniffed. “Tau, it’s been a long day. You’re wounded, exhausted. You probably fell asleep.”
“No! I told you what happened.”
Hadith put a hand on his shoulder. “And I’ll do you the courtesy of pretending that you didn’t.”
“Don’t you see?” Tau asked. “This could mean—”
“It could mean you get dismissed as champion. It could mean you and your story about stable demons contribute to the downfall of a queen whose rule already hangs by a strand as thin as spider’s silk.” Hadith shook his head. “Goddess wept, Tau, she made a Lesser her champion, a Low Common.”
Tau bristled. “High Common.”
“No one cares. Queen Tsiora is the monarch of a splintered queendom, ruling over a side populated by Lessers and the Nobility’s castoffs.”