The Fires of Vengeance

by Evan Winter

  Whatever they thought of his purpose, the Xiddeen with Kana would not leave him to it, and though Tau could not hear their words, he saw them call out, shouting orders of their own to their sisters and brothers aboard the longboat.

  Warlord Achak was dead, his son was not in his right mind, and the Xiddeen on the ship had no reason to come ashore. Tau watched as it struggled to turn, battered by wave after wave until it seemed it must capsize and grant the Roar claim over two generations from the same family in a single night.

  It escaped, though. The Xiddeen oarspeople, its sailors, wrestled the vessel to rights and aimed its prow at the waves so it could cut through them again.

  “Look at that. They’re leaving,” Themba said, “and I thought you sawing the man’s head off would make them come ashore for sure.”

  Tau shook his head. “It’s like Hadith said in the council chambers. They’re not like our Nobles, and the Xiddeen don’t have castes. They won’t follow an order just because of who gives it. You had the right of it too, Themba,” Tau said.

  “Neh?”

  “They were coming back because they weren’t sure that Achak was dead. I had to show them that he was.”

  Themba began walking toward the rest of their men and past the spearwoman’s body. “You certainly showed them that,” he said.

  “The spearwoman,” Tau said, feeling a mountain’s weight in weariness setting in. “She’s holding something in one of her hands. It could be important.”

  Themba grunted, bent over the body, and took the papyrus from her. “What’s on it?”

  Tau shrugged and Themba unfolded the paper. He whistled, then held it out.

  Tau took it, and after a night of fighting one set of gifts, he saw a new and unexpected one. The papyrus held the image, made in coal, of two girls. Each one was holding a spear, and the girls looked enough alike to be copies. They looked enough alike to be more illusions woven by Xiddeen shamans.

  “I’ve never seen—” Words failed him.

  In the drawing, the girl on the left was smiling and looked so alive Tau swore he could see her eyes twinkling in the moonlight. Standing next to her was her sister, her birth pair, and she was stern, serious. She projected the aura of a grim warrior, but the solemn tilt of her lips and her knitted brows did nothing to hide the spark in her eyes.

  Tau swallowed, took time to fold the paper over its original creases, and handed it back to Themba. “It’s so real,” he said, his eyes wandering to the spearwoman’s dead hands, trying to picture them taking the time and care to create something so beautiful.

  “Savage could draw, neh?” Themba said, dropping the masterwork into the surf and letting it wash away.

  Tau watched the paper soak and sink, vanishing beneath the waves, and taking a deep breath, he lifted his gaze from the surf to look back to Kana’s ship. The distance had grown too great for even his eyes, and he could no longer make out anyone on the longboat, but he imagined Kana at the ship’s stern, watching him.

  “It was the only way I knew to save your life,” Tau whispered. “It was the—”

  “Tau …,” Themba said, pointing along the shore at the man thundering across the beach toward them.

  “What is it? More Xiddeen?” Tau shouted to the Indlovu.

  “No, Champion,” he shouted back. “It’s your sword brother. The one named Hadith.”

  “Hadith?” It was more an exhalation of air than a full-voiced word.

  The Indlovu kicked at the dead spearwoman with his boot. “The Lesser … uh … your sword brother joined the men who fought this savage when she was enraged. By the time she came for you, she’d already killed our Ingonyama and put a spear in Hadith’s chest.”

  Tau couldn’t speak.

  “Hadith’s dead?” asked Themba.

  “Not yet,” the Indlovu said, turning and running back the way he’d come. “This way.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SPEAR

  The spear was still in Hadith’s chest. He was on his back in the sand and the spear was sticking up and out of his midsection, its haft quivering with Hadith’s every labored breath.

  “By the Goddess, pull it out!” Tau yelled to the men around his friend.

  “Can’t,” said the particularly stocky Indlovu kneeling by Hadith’s shoulders and cradling Hadith’s head. “He’s only alive because that abomination left it in him. Even if we knew enough to pull it out clean, which we don’t, he’d bleed to death without it plugging him up.”

  Hadith’s eyes were open, but it didn’t look like he was seeing through them. His every effort was dedicated to wheezing out the next battered breath.

  “What, then?” Tau asked, seeing again the twin girls on the papyrus and wondering how hands that had rendered an image of such palpable life could be the same ones that had done this to Hadith. “What do we do?”

  The Indlovu looked up at him. “We hold the spear as steady as we can, as close to where it’s gone in as we can, and we break the rest away.”

  “With what hope?”

  “With the hope that the spear’s head, and the section of shaft we can’t cut, will be stable enough inside him that he can last till Citadel City.”

  “You’ve done this before?”

  “I have. I used to fight in the Curse. I’ve seen many men go down with spears still in them.”

  “And you’ve saved them this way.”

  The Indlovu spoke deliberately. “I’ve not been the last to see them alive … this way.”

  Tau turned from the man, desperate for someone, anyone, to fight.

  “Champion?” the Indlovu asked.

  “Get Hadith ready for travel,” Tau said. “We’re for the city.”

  “Your words, my will,” the Noble said, signaling to two other Indlovu to lend him aid.

  The two Indlovu knelt beside Hadith and put their hands on him, holding him down. Tau didn’t want to watch. He’d have preferred to be anywhere else to avoid seeing his friend suffer, but he’d never leave Hadith alone to his fate.

  “I’ll help,” he said to the men holding Hadith down. “Themba!”

  “Champion?” Themba asked.

  “Help us hold Hadith still.”

  “You sure you want to do this yourself, Champion?” the Indlovu playing the part of a Sah priest asked. “You can’t let him move and we’re … we’re stronger.”

  “We’ll be strongest if we do it together,” Tau told him, kneeling beside Hadith.

  “As you say.” The Indlovu grunted. “Grab his shoulders and hips. Put your weight into it. Don’t let him move. He’ll rip himself open if he does.”

  Tau nodded and leaned his full weight on Hadith. Themba did the same and Hadith moaned, already trying to shift away from them.

  “Good, good,” the Indlovu said, finding a way to use the two Nobles whom Tau and Themba had freed up. He had one of them place his hands flat on Hadith’s chest, around the spear, while the other one held the shaft above its entry point.

  When he was satisfied that they were all in place and steady, the Indlovu leading the operation pulled his dagger free and placed it against the spear’s bone shaft.

  “Wait!” Tau said, stopping the man from making the first sawing cut. “With something sharper, you can cut through the spear more easily.”

  “I don’t have anything sharper.”

  Tau handed the man the dragon-scale dagger that had belonged to Jayyed Ayim. “I do.”

  Bowing his head, the Indlovu reached out for the dagger. Even on a red sand beach, amid a forest of stone spires and dozens of the dead, the Indlovu couldn’t shake his reverence for the priceless weapon.

  “This could make a difference,” he said as he began to cut.

  The cutting went well until the dagger caught on a spur in the spear’s bone shaft. The shaft shifted and Hadith cried out, trying to fight free of the hands holding him.

  “Nearly done!” the Indlovu said. “Hold him, I’m almost there.”

  Tau clamped down h
arder on his semiconscious friend, speaking into his ear and saying words meant to give him comfort but that couldn’t have made much sense at all.

  “It’s free!” the Indlovu said. “Don’t let the shaft fall on him.”

  The spear was tossed aside and the Noble holding Tau’s guardian dagger handed it back, his hands shaking when he did so. “We’ll need to make a pallet to carry him,” he said.

  “It’s here,” a voice called out.

  Tau looked over. Four Indlovu and two Ihashe were stringing leather armor, cloth, and Xiddeen spears together to form a many-handled bed. It struck Tau then, seeing both Indlovu and Ihashe working to save Hadith, that he had a duty to them all.

  “How many?” he asked. “How many others can we save?”

  That kicked loose the stone holding back the avalanche, and reports of the injured and their chances of survival came in fast. He listened, giving what orders he could to save as many as he could, all while worrying over Hadith.

  He learned that their Gifted was still with the body of her Ingonyama, mourning him. He sent Themba to her, to tell her it was time to go, and ordered a few men to stay behind to burn the dead, reminding them to run in the unlikely chance that any Xiddeen returned. Then, taking up one of the handles on the bed on which Hadith lay, he gave the order to march, but Themba was back and he forced Tau to give up his place by Hadith’s side.

  “You’re too short, and with that leg of yours, too slow,” Themba said. “You don’t need to do it all yourself.”

  “Look what happens when I don’t,” Tau told him, choking up.

  Themba shouldered Tau away from the pallet and took his place. “It’s not your fault.”

  Tau wasn’t listening. “March! We go fast,” he said, praying to the Goddess that Hadith could survive the journey.

  THERE

  He didn’t think they’d make it. Hadith had wheezed and coughed and suffered for the first part of the march, but then he’d gone silent and limp for the rest. Tau had checked him often just to make sure he was still alive. He was, but he did not look good, and when they were within a sun span of the city, blood began to ooze from Hadith’s wound. Tau brought it to the attention of the Indlovu who had cut the spear, and he had torn strips of cloth and bandaged them tightly around Hadith’s torso to stem the bleeding.

  Hadith hadn’t moved or made a sound while it was done, and with nothing more than the expression on Tau’s face, the Indlovu had known enough to tell Tau that his friend was still breathing.

  “I can’t lose him too,” Tau said, or might have said. He couldn’t be sure.

  “The city!” The call came from one of their forward scouts.

  “Send someone in for the Sah priests,” said the stocky Indlovu.

  Tau nodded. “Bring the priestess named Hafsa,” he told the scout. “Find her and bring her.”

  The scout saluted and ran off, and they continued marching for the gates, when an alarm was raised.

  A rear scout, an Ihashe, pushed his way through the crowd of soldiers to Tau. “We’re being chased!” he said.

  “By how many?” Tau asked.

  “Maybe a unit,” the scout said.

  “Keep going,” Tau told the ones carrying Hadith. “Get him and the wounded into the city. The rest of you, stand with me.”

  Swords were pulled free, the injured rushed on, and though their numbers were too small to do it well, Tau ordered a three-prong formation with which they would face the eighteen or so warriors running headlong from the base of the Fist and into the brief stretch of flatlands that stood between the mountain’s base and the city gates.

  “They’re Omehi,” Tau shouted, seeing enough in the low light to know that much. “Lower your weapons. They’re Omehi.”

  “Where is he?!” one of the men running for them screamed. “Where is he?!”

  “Uduak?”

  The big man did not slow and the fighters with him could not match his pace. Uduak ran to Tau, grabbed him by the shoulders, and shouted in his face. “Where is he?!”

  “Being carried into the city. He—”

  Uduak pushed Tau aside and continued on.

  “Tau …” It was Azima, breathless and looking near collapse. “Didn’t find anyone on our beach,” he said. “Came to yours next … Oh, mercy.” He doubled over and retched, though nothing came up. “We saw the men you left to do the burning…. They told Uduak about Hadith. Been running ever since.” Azima dropped to his ass. “Been running ever since…. Water?”

  “Bring him water.” Tau put a hand on Azima’s shoulder, patting it. “Rest,” he said, leaving the exhausted Ihashe and hurrying back to Hadith and Uduak.

  Tau caught up to them inside the city gates. Uduak was walking beside Themba and the others who were carrying Hadith. He was holding one of Hadith’s hands in both of his.

  “Not good,” Uduak said, when Tau was beside him. “Not good.”

  Uduak’s face was tearstained, and seeing his friend so emotional, Tau dropped his head. There had been so much loss, and the weight of it kept trying to crush him.

  “Put him down.”

  Tau looked up. The priestess, Hafsa, was standing in front of them, and as the men lowered Hadith, she unbound his bandages and examined him.

  “You did well,” she said to Tau and Uduak.

  “I wasn’t there,” Uduak said.

  “There’s blood bubbling around the wound. It means the spear pierced his lung,” Hafsa continued. “If you’d pulled the spear free or left it whole, he’d not have survived.”

  “Will he … will he survive?” Tau asked.

  “You’ve given him a chance,” she said, waving at the men to pick Hadith up again. “Bring him to the hospital.”

  “I wasn’t there …,” Uduak said.

  “You are now,” Tau told the big man as they followed Hafsa to the infirmary.

  “You can’t come in,” she told them at the door to one of its rooms. Tau had seen inside that room before. It held all manner of small daggers, bronze pincers, and other instruments of seeming torture.

  “I have to open the wound, remove the spear’s head, and care for the lung. We’ll need to keep the wound and the rest of the room as clean as possible. Wounded men die from filth almost as easily as from swords and spears.”

  Uduak grunted and tried to make his way past her.

  “Uduak, let the priestess do her work,” Tau said.

  “I wasn’t there, Tau!”

  “I know, but we can’t—”

  “Where were you?”

  The words hit like a fist.

  “Where were you, Tau?”

  “It won’t be long,” Hafsa said, her eyes shifting between them. “Within the span, the spear will be out. I’ll have a better sense of his chances then.”

  She went into the room beyond, Uduak still tried to follow, and Tau took him by the wrist. Uduak shook Tau off, but he did stop.

  “I didn’t see it happen,” Tau said.

  “It was you who killed him?”

  Tau didn’t understand.

  “The warlord,” Uduak said, clarifying.

  “I killed him.”

  “Still not worth Hadith’s life.”

  “No.”

  Uduak nodded, like that settled it, and he sat on the ground in front of the closed door, head on his knees and hands on his head.

  “I … Uduak, I have to speak with the queen.”

  Without looking up, Uduak flicked his fingers at Tau in dismissal.

  “He’ll be well,” Tau said before walking away, no power in the words.

  He didn’t get far. He turned the corner in the infirmary, wondering where he might find the queen, and almost ran her over.

  “Champion,” she said. Her thick hair, pulled back behind a golden circlet, rose behind her head like it was part of a beautiful black shroud set to envelop and protect the rest of her at any moment.

  Tau saluted, noticing the Queen’s Guard as well as Nyah and Yaw. “My queen.”
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  “One of your … brothers was injured?”

  “Gravely, my queen.”

  She moved past him and around the corner, toward Uduak and the room where Hadith was being cared for. The Queen’s Guard and Nyah followed, the vizier eyeing Tau as she went.

  “What happened out there?” Yaw asked.

  “Nothing good,” Tau told him, following the queen.

  Uduak was on his feet, holding a tight salute. His eyes were red, swollen.

  “He is in there?” the queen asked, indicating the closed door.

  “The priestess and her physicians seek to remove the head of the spear that felled him,” Tau said.

  “We had hoped to see him.”

  “And, my queen,” Nyah said, “you may yet do so. Priestess Hafsa is as skilled a surgeon as exists on the peninsula.”

  Uduak looked at Nyah, hopeful for more, but the vizier had turned to Tau.

  “I am sorry to push you at a time like this,” she said, “but was it done?”

  “The warlord is dead,” Tau said.

  “Goddess be praised,” the vizier said. “Is it certain?”

  Tau dropped his eyes. “His death came at my hands.”

  “I won’t doubt it, then,” said Nyah.

  “You achieved all we asked and yet something troubles you, Champion,” Tsiora said, “something more than worry over your brother’s hurt.”

  Tau, unaccustomed to viziers and queens, decided, then and there, that he needed to learn to school his features to stillness. He did not enjoy people pulling his thoughts from his face.

  “I fear I’ve failed you,” he said.

  “But you have not,” Tsiora said.

  “Kana is alive…. Hadith, my injured sword brother, he cautioned me to act swiftly. I—I didn’t want to have to kill him too. I … Kana’s alive and it’s my fault.”

  “The son does not enjoy his father’s support among the Xiddeen,” Nyah said. “Kana is not his father.”