The Fires of Vengeance

by Evan Winter

  “Step away from me, kudliwe,” Auset said.

  Tau tried to warn him. “Themba …”

  “You may be a handmaiden to the queen,” Themba said, pointing a finger in Auset’s face, “but I’m a full-blood Ihashe and—”

  Themba’s words were replaced by his squawk when Auset snatched his finger, hooked the crook of her other elbow beneath the armpit of his extended arm, spun, and bent at the hips, sending him flying over her shoulder to land on his back in a heap.

  “Goddess!” said Yaw.

  “Big throw,” Uduak said.

  “Nceku!” shouted Themba, jumping back to his feet and putting a hand on his sword.

  Tau didn’t think Themba would have drawn the bronze, but Auset and Ramia couldn’t know that, and the instant Themba’s flesh brushed the weapon at his side, the two women had their dirks out and aimed, leaving Themba facing four black blades.

  “They’re not only handmaidens,” Tau said.

  “Dragon scale,” Uduak noted appreciatively.

  Themba was smart enough to lift his hand away from his sword. “What is this?”

  It had been a trying time. Truth, it had been a trying life, so it lifted Tau’s spirits to find he could still manage a grin.

  “Themba,” he asked, “have you never met handmaidens with dragon-scale dirks before? How small is … ah …” Tau blinked. “I don’t know where you’re from.”

  Themba managed to look both shocked and hurt. “Nchanga. I’m from Nchanga, and I tell you stories about my home all the time. How do you not know where I’m from?”

  “Nchanga. Yes, I remember,” Tau lied. “Now, are we settled?”

  The handmaidens made their dirks disappear and they nodded. Themba sucked his teeth, but he nodded too.

  “Good, let’s begin,” Tau said, feeling the mood darken. He took another look at the women and men who would stand with him in this, his eyes alighting on Jabari last of all. “Everyone here knows our task and what must be done to achieve it. I’ll see you in Isihogo,” he told them, closing his eyes.

  FRACTION

  Even though there were so many of them in the underworld, Tau didn’t expect the demons to come as fast and hard as they did. His last thought, before drawing his swords, was that the trips with Jabari had agitated them.

  “Tighten up! Get closer to one another,” Tau shouted, hoping his voice was loud enough to carry.

  On his right were the handmaidens, Ramia the closer of the two. Jabari and Uduak were to his left, and past them stood Yaw and Themba. Thandi was in the center of the circle of fighters and safe behind the shadows of her shroud.

  “Jabari, the underworld suits you!” Themba shouted out, noting the Petty Noble’s unburned body.

  “Hush!” Tau said, peering into the rolling mists, trying to track the unseen monsters by their noises.

  “This waiting is, I can tell you, my least favorite part,” Themba said to the handmaidens. “I’d like to say I’ll save you, if it comes to it, but I can’t.” He spat in the muck. “There is no saving the damned.”

  Tau saw Ramia’s eyes widen at Themba’s words. Auset was different. She showed her teeth to the mists as she swiveled her head to and fro, searching for the enemy.

  “Tau!” It was Jabari. “The doorway.”

  He was right. In Isihogo, the infirmary’s main entrance had no doors, and through the entrance rushed three demons.

  “Waiting’s over!” Themba said. “And I was wrong, it’s not the worst part.” The first demon leapt for him, and snarling back at it, Themba said, “The dying is!”

  Themba and the demon met each other in a crash of bronze and claws. Tau’s sword brother tore flesh from the monster’s crimson hide, and it ripped three stripes of skin and leather away from his shoulder and chest.

  Yaw dodged the second creature’s lumbering assault and plunged his sword into what had to be its neck, causing the thing to shake its head, yanking his weapon away.

  The third demon through the doorway attacked Ramia, or it tried to. The handmaiden was as slippery as a river eel, and the demon’s teeth and claws found no purchase as she rammed the points of her dirks into it.

  “More coming,” Uduak said, lifting his chin toward four demons crawling through the underworld’s version of the infirmary’s windows.

  One of them had four arms, walked upright, and had an elongated face that made it look like a feral horse afflicted with some wasting disease. Tau shouted at that one, drawing its attention. He found he got more out of the fights with the big demons. The four-armed grotesquerie spotted him, and its eyes, buglike, shone as it ran for him.

  In the moments that followed, Tau saw Themba die, then Jabari was torn apart by a small but vicious thing, Yaw fell next, Ramia was cut down from behind, and Uduak dropped with a demon still latched on to his throat. Auset, bloodied, glassy-eyed, and with her left arm hanging uselessly, roared at the demons that had her surrounded as Tau fought his way to her side.

  He’d dispatched the four-armed thing, sliced the legs out from under another one with the eyes and mouth of a hammer-beaten fish, and gutted the maggot-colored demon with the slicing arms of a mantis. Then, blasting his twin swords into the neck and spine of another upright, he dashed past its neighbor and next to Auset.

  Their circle was no more, but it had gone better than all the times before, and just as Tau thought that, an idea came to him that filled him with hope.

  “What do we do?” Auset asked, her voice strong but shaking and her pupils so wide they filled her eyes.

  “We fight,” Tau said.

  “They’ll kill us.”

  “They will,” Tau said, launching himself at the nearest demon and admiring that Auset, in spite of her fears, did the same.

  Back in Uhmlaba, everyone was still recovering as Tau explained his revelation to Gifted Thandi.

  “We’re doing it wrong,” he said.

  “Of that there can be no doubt,” she said.

  “What happened?” Hadith called from across the infirmary.

  “They were slaughtered,” Thandi told Hadith.

  “Again?” asked Kellan.

  “Same as always,” she said.

  “We’re doing it wrong,” Tau said loud enough for the two bedridden men to hear.

  “Well, if you’re getting slaughtered, you’re unlikely to be doing it right,” Hadith called back.

  “Not the fighting part,” Tau said. “We can’t expect to hold for long, not in the beginning. Everyone still has to learn how to fight the demons. The issue is that the plan, as it stands, is unlikely to ever work,” Tau said.

  “Heartening speech,” Themba muttered, his stomach pumping in and out like he might vomit.

  “Goddess.” Auset was standing on feet so unsteady Tau worried she’d fall and crack her head on the edge of an infirmary bed. “That was even worse than the queen said it would be.”

  “The champion thinks we’re doing it wrong,” Thandi said.

  “Everything about this is wrong.” Ramia was sitting, slumped on the floor and staring at the dirks she held in her hands. “Everything.”

  “Told you,” Themba said. “I told—” His hand flew to his mouth, and through clenched fingers, he spewed the remnants of his evening meal onto the floor.

  “Yaw, you’re the one with the gift for stories,” Hadith said. “What happened?”

  Yaw’s eyes jerked about like they couldn’t settle on anything or anyone.

  “Yaw?” Hadith asked.

  Yaw shook his head, not saying a word.

  “It’s bad.” Uduak said. The big man was on his knees, leaning against Jabari’s bed. “The end.”

  Tau explained, “We don’t have to hold the demons at bay for as long as we think we do.”

  “Why not?” asked Thandi as she checked on Yaw.

  “Because the demons have no interest in you until your shroud fails,” Tau said, “which means that our fighters don’t even need to be in Isihogo until the Gifted are about
to lose their shrouds. If we wait until then, the amount of time we need to hold the demons at bay is a fraction of what it’d be otherwise.”

  “What?” asked Themba, sounding hoarse from all the retching.

  “We only need to enter Isihogo and fight once our Gifted are defenseless,” Tau said.

  “Good,” Themba said. “Good.”

  Thandi clicked her tongue. “Of course! By coming in while my shroud is still up, you’re drawing the demons and fighting them for longer than is necessary,” she said, tapping a finger against her lips. “You really don’t need to hold the demons for nearly so long as we thought. Goddess, we might actually be able to do this.”

  “I always had faith,” Tau said with a lopsided smile and surprising himself when it was enough to make Thandi laugh.

  “It can work,” she said. “And while you train, I can keep a count. We’ll see how long you can maintain the defensive circle and we’ll keep trying to do better.”

  Tau nodded. He liked this. It reminded him of how he’d done things when he’d begun his training in Isihogo. “Yes,” he said. “We’ll keep a count, and by our efforts, that count will rise.”

  “Let’s try it. Get them ready,” Thandi said, waving at the others.

  “Shouldn’t we wait for you?” Tau asked her.

  “I’m coming.”

  “It hasn’t nearly been a quarter span.”

  “Our shrouds aren’t depleted much simply by spending time in Isihogo. It’s pulling power from the underworld that does it.”

  “Ah …,” Tau said.

  “Haven’t you ever wondered how Edifiers transmit messages to one another over great distances?”

  “Why would I do that?” Tau asked.

  Thandi closed her eyes, breathed in through her mouth, and let the air out slowly. “Edifiers move through the underworld to distant meeting spots where they can deliver messages. If their shrouds depleted at the same rate as when Gifted are actively using their gifts, an Edifier would have no way to travel far enough to meet another Edifier.”

  “Hmm …,” Tau said, turning to the others to get them ready.

  “Then the Xiddeen can have Edifiers too?” Hadith asked.

  Tau rubbed his bald head, frustrated by all the talking.

  “No,” Thandi said. “Our Gifted can hold their shrouds intact for longer than the other races of man. Back in the days when Xiddeen … Gifted were more common, they couldn’t stay in Isihogo long enough to travel a great distance, even when they weren’t pulling energy.”

  “But if the Edifiers travel through the underworld, would they not emerge where they—”

  “Hadith …,” Tau said.

  “Apologies,” Hadith said. “Time is short.”

  “It is,” Tau said, facing his fighters and walking over to Jabari’s side. He placed his wrist in the Petty Noble’s hand. “If any of you cannot do this, let me know now.”

  Silence. It was an uncomfortable one, but it was silent, and Jabari’s hand, holding Tau’s wrist, didn’t move at all.

  The emotions running through Tau were in conflict. He felt sorrow, thinking about Azima and Duma. He felt concern, worrying that any of them could be next. He felt pride, that the women and men in front of him would not surrender, not even to unwinnable fights.

  “Get yourselves ready,” he said, finding it tough to talk. “Form a circle. We’re going again.”

  Faces solemn, the six did as Tau asked.

  “You’re right to question it,” Thandi called out to Hadith. “And, no, an Edifier doesn’t return to Uhmlaba based on where she is in Isihogo.” Thandi moved to the center of the circle of fighters and sat. “We send only our souls to the underworld, and our souls must return to our bodies.”

  “Close your eyes,” Tau told the circle. “It’s time.”

  They went back twice more, and the order in which they fell did not change much. Jabari, Yaw, and Themba were typically first to die. Ramia was usually next, and that left it a gruesome contest between Auset and Uduak.

  Auset was a remarkable fighter, and Tau believed her a match for many Indlovu. Her existence and capabilities would have thrilled Jayyed.

  “Who trained you and your sister?” he asked when he was back in Uhmlaba, sitting on the edge of Jabari’s bed and waiting for Auset to be in a decent enough place to form an answer.

  “Handmaidens to the queen,” Auset said from the floor. She was holding her head in her hands and swallowing constantly, doing her best to keep her stomach’s contents where they belonged. “We’re not the first to protect the Omehian monarchs.”

  “I’ve not seen the like, in Lessers,” Tau said.

  “You, of all people, think of it as Nobles and Lessers?” she asked, raising her head to see him better. “Tell me, then, how did you come to be as you are?”

  The room went so quiet Tau could almost hear everyone’s ears opening up like flowers in bloom.

  “Necessity,” he said.

  “Meaning?” she asked, unwilling to let his nonanswer stand.

  “Auset …,” said Ramia.

  “Form the circle, we’ll go again,” Tau said.

  Themba shook his head. “I’ll fight as hard as I can, Tau.” He was staring down the length of the infirmary, looking at no one. “I’ll do that for you, for Jayyed, for the queen, for each of us, but I’ve no desire to go the way Azima or Duma did…. I’m saying, I can’t do more tonight. I can’t.”

  “I can’t either,” Yaw said, quietly enough that it was hard to hear him.

  Push too far and anyone can break—Tau knew that. “Very well, we’ll stop for the—”

  Jabari was squeezing Tau’s wrist and moving his cracked and dry lips, forcing a word from his damaged throat. “More.”

  Looking down at his friend, Tau shook his head. “We can’t. We’re spent and the demons come too quickly. They’re waiting for us. We’ll continue tomorrow evening, at sunset.”

  Jabari released his wrist and turned away from Tau, hissing in pain as he did it. Jabari’s reaction left Tau not knowing how to feel. On the one path, it was clear that Isihogo had given his friend a renewed sense of purpose. On the other, what did it mean that Jabari was suffering so greatly in Uhmlaba that he’d willingly turn to the underworld?

  “We dismissed, then?” asked Themba.

  “You are,” said Tau.

  Themba groaned and stretched. “Thank the Goddess for that mercy. Yaw, you headed back to the rooms?”

  Yaw didn’t answer. He just walked off.

  “I think that’s a yes,” Themba said, whistling as he followed him.

  The whistle was a nice touch, Tau thought, even if it wasn’t enough to make him miss the looks Themba gave every dark corner and how he tight-knuckled his sword’s pommel. Tau didn’t blame him or Yaw or any of them for being unsettled. What they’d done, what they were going to do, it was inhuman.

  Uduak came over and placed a heavy hand on Tau’s shoulder. He drew close, speaking to him alone. “What do we become?” he asked.

  “Neh?”

  “In the end, what do we become?”

  Tau looked up at the big man. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Uduak watched him, unblinking. “You do.”

  A secret shared was a secret no longer, but Tau wouldn’t lie to Uduak. “I don’t know where it ends,” he said, “but I can tell you that whatever the end brings, we’ll be its equal.”

  Uduak grunted. “Where we fight,” he said, heading toward Hadith’s bedside.

  “If Uduak is looking to Hadith, maybe I’ll see to Kellan … before I leave,” Thandi said.

  “Thank you for your kindness, Lady Gifted,” Tau said.

  She smiled and hurried across the infirmary to sit beside the Greater Noble. Tau watched her go and turned to the handmaidens. “You both saw that, right? I’m not imagining her eagerness, am I?” he asked.

  Auset carried on like he’d not spoken. “You need to come with us,” she said.

  “Come
with you? Where?”

  “To the queen,” Ramia said. She was always looking at his forehead or chin when she spoke to him. That time it was his forehead.

  “You can’t be serious,” Tau said. He hadn’t seen the queen since she’d explained just enough of Omehi history for him to understand what had happened to Kellan in Isihogo. “It’s late.”

  “She told us to bring you to her when we were done,” Ramia said, her tone shaded with hints of sympathy.

  “I’ll go in the morning,” Tau said, the words leaving his mouth as he realized that seeing the queen so late at night was an opportunity to ask her questions without Nyah there to pinch her tongue.

  “The queen wishes to see you. So, she’ll see you,” Auset said.

  “As you say,” Tau told the handmaidens. He was beginning to look forward to the meeting. It was time to learn what other hidden truths the queen knew.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ARMY

  The handmaidens took Tau to the queen’s chambers. They walked him to the door, and though Indlovu lined the hallway behind them, Tau thought the handmaidens might stand guard too, but they saw him to the door and left.

  His mind tossing with the questions he’d ask, Tau knocked and heard the queen bid him enter. He walked in, hoping he wouldn’t find her in a nightgown, and came near to running Nyah over.

  “Vizier?” He knew he sounded disappointed.

  “Champion,” she said.

  Nyah had quarter moons beneath her eyes, and tufts of her hair, typically pulled back perfectly, had escaped the golden band that held the rest. She’d been standing near the door when Tau walked in, and the queen, sitting cross-legged in one of the room’s two chairs, was watching her.

  Tsiora had to be tired as well but didn’t look it. She seemed deep in thought and perhaps a bit distracted. Her brows were furrowed and she was wearing a flowing, amethyst-colored dress that was almost long enough to hide the bare foot she kept absentmindedly tapping against her chair.

  “My queen,” Tau said.

  She looked up at him and smiled. “Thank you for coming. We’d like your help.”