by Evan Winter
She nodded. “Those things first.” She still seemed distracted, disturbed by what had happened that evening and, perhaps, the talk of her sister. “Are your fighters ready?”
“They’re ready,” he told her.
“Then let us end the story of our history and begin writing one for our future.”
She rose and walked to the flaps of her tent. Tau followed her outside and into the evening’s oppressive heat, made worse by the keep’s still-burning slag and the sweating bodies of the women and men they’d displaced. The crowd was held back from the queen and from him by soldiers, and he tried not to look at them. They made him feel guilty.
He tried not to look at the keep either. It made him picture the umbusi’s end, and he didn’t want to do that. His mind conjured the images anyway.
The umbusi, he knew, would have been roped to that chair, the one that’d been a symbol of her power. She’d have screamed as smoke filled her lungs and heat bubbled her flesh, the fires consuming her sons’ bodies before coming for her.
Tau shivered in the warmth. He’d experienced more horrors than any single lifetime could hold, yet the ones he could create in his head still had the power to turn his stomach.
“You’re sure?” he asked Tsiora, uncertain if his concern was for the queen or himself. “You’re sure you want to go to Isihogo tonight?”
Tsiora stopped and gazed out at the keep’s remains, a wall collapsing in on itself as she watched, its adobe crumbling to dust. “We’re sure,” she said, her profile limned by the fire’s light. “We need to see what your fighters can do.”
TRIBUTE
Discounting the battle for Daba more than two cycles ago, Tau had never been with so many souls in Isihogo. His six fighters had surrounded Thandi, and off to the side and observing were Nyah and the queen. Even with so many souls in the underworld, Tau had a hard time keeping his eyes off Tsiora.
Not that he could see her. That wasn’t it. It was her shroud. She was enveloped in a globe so dark he could have held his dragon-scale swords up to it and they would have matched. The queen’s shroud reflected no light whatsoever, and looking at her was disorienting. It made him feel like he was falling into something immeasurably vast.
“They’ve found us,” she said.
Tau couldn’t see her through the shroud, but he’d have recognized her voice anywhere, and heeding Tsiora’s warning, he looked to the horizon. What little of it he could discern through the shifting mists seemed to tilt his head like he’d a belly full of gaum.
Goddess blessed, indeed, he thought of Tsiora as he blinked away afterimages of her shroud.
“There,” said Uduak. The big man stood to Tau’s right and was using his sword to point.
Tau saw it, a big one, walking on two legs. “Mine,” he called, flexing the muscles on his wounded thigh by habit, though his body was whole in the underworld.
“Welcome to it,” grumbled Themba from Uduak’s far side.
“Shhh,” Auset said, fingers flexing over the handles of her dirks.
Themba said something else, but Tau couldn’t make it out over the howling winds. He did, however, hear Jabari hiss. His friend’s throat, like his body, was whole in Isihogo. Jabari could speak there, but he’d been doing it less and less.
Following Jabari’s gaze, Tau caught glimpses of a short but thickset demon stalking along the edges of the mist, moving back and forth, parallel to them. It loped along on four legs and had a mouth that took up most of its bulbous head, a mouth filled with teeth like glass shards.
“I am Omehi. I am Chosen.” Tau heard the words from behind him, from the other side of the circle. “I am of the Goddess and for the Goddess. Her will is my destiny. Her grace is my salvation.” Yaw was praying.
“Her grace is my salvation,” echoed Ramia.
“Hold the circle,” Tau said loudly enough for everyone to hear. “Stand firm. Remember, the women and men to your left, to your right, they’re your sword sisters and brothers. Keep them safe and they’ll do the same for you.”
Uduak grunted and squared his shoulders.
“I’ll do that for everyone ’cept Auset,” Themba said with mock cheer.
“Maybe I kill you before the demons,” Auset said right back.
“They come,” Tau said, and the big one burst through the mists, running alongside the thing with the teeth like jagged glass.
Feet planted, Tau twirled his swords, loosening his wrists. He was ready. His fighters were ready.
“Her grace is my salvation!” It was Yaw, screaming loud enough to be heard above the winds, and as he blasted his twin swords into the big demon’s hide, Tau wished his sword brother well.
The demon, long-limbed and quick, struck out at Tau with the speed of a thrown spear. It used claws and fists, lunging with mouth open to bite and rip, kicking with legs tipped with hooked nails as thick and almost as black as his swords. It fought him with the fury of a wildfire at full burn.
But Tau moved like the mists, sweeping in and cutting with harsh blows before billowing away. He tore at the creature, paring it down with cut after cut, and like a carver whittling wood, he left the thing twitching on the murk of Isihogo’s ground bearing little resemblance to what it had once been.
“Hold the circle!” Tau yelled, chest heaving from the fight, eyes fever bright. They’d lost no one in the first charge, but the second was already upon them.
Ramia was first to fall, dead to a blow that opened her up from groin to chest. Yaw was next, though Tau didn’t see it happen. Third to be cast out from the underworld was Themba. He died fighting back to back with Auset, who was quickly overwhelmed after he fell. Uduak, battling like he was demon-haunted, was the only fighter to give no ground at all, and achieving the near impossible, the big man pushed the demons back toward the mists, churning through their number like a scythe until he went too deep and was surrounded and pulled down.
Jabari, having downed three or four monsters by Tau’s best guess, was last to fall. He lost his life to the four-legged demon and its pack. They slashed him to ribbons with their glass-shard teeth, but Jabari was silent to the end.
That left Tau, Thandi, Nyah, and the queen. Thandi’s shroud failed and she vanished. Nyah’s shroud was thin, evaporating, dew under the sun. The vizier took her leave.
The demons encircled Tau. He was cut and hurt, limping and tired. He spared the queen a glance. Her shroud was as deep a black as ever. He could not see her face and knew, anyway, that her eyes were on him.
Tau brought his mind back to the task at hand, and the crowd of demons pressing in at him recoiled. They weren’t human, but the language of violence is universal and their actions spoke of grudging respect.
It was going to hurt, Tau knew. There were too many and they had not swarmed him. That meant they wanted it to go slow, his end … and with a last look to his queen, Champion Tau Solarin hefted his swords and charged the thickest mass of the demons.
Demons and men had a language in common, Tau thought, and he meant to have a pointed discussion.
“It’ll work,” Nyah said. “Goddess be praised, it’ll work.”
Coming back to himself, Tau saw that the rest of his fighters were still in various stages of distress. On shaky legs and laboring to ignore the pain in his poisoned thigh, he stood.
“It’ll work,” he said to Nyah as the muscles controlling his mouth came under his command in sections.
“From your lips to the Goddess’s ears,” the queen said. “With warriors bold enough to brave what you have, there’s nothing that can’t be done.”
The queen was behind Tau, and he turned to her. She looked concerned for him, but when he gave her a shaky smile, she offered him one in return that was so full and free it made her face glow. The warmth of her expression, the affection in it, made Tau feel more whole than he had in forever. It was just a smile, but it helped him shake off the rest of the underworld and reminded him that there was something to celebrate.
They’d
done it. They could give the Gifted more time in Isihogo than Odili’s Gifted would have. They could win the battle for Palm City.
He felt his body tingle with the idea of what they’d accomplished, and if Tsiora had been anyone else but his queen, he’d have wrapped her up in a big hug and twirled her around. The moment was too big for just words or smiles. It called for more.
Uduak clapped Tau on his shoulder hard enough to make him stumble. “That was a circle,” the big man said.
Tau’s smile broke into a toothy grin. “Yes, that was definitely a circle.” They’d done it.
“We held for long enough, neh?” Themba said, looking a bit gray. He’d probably spilled his dinner into the grass.
“We did,” Tau said.
“And we would have held longer, if Auset hadn’t needed me to sacrifice myself for her.”
“Kudliwe, you fight like a drunk child,” Auset said over her shoulder as she helped Ramia to her feet. She seemed set to say more, but the queen was coming and Auset held her tongue.
The queen went to stand beside Tau, looking at the rest of the seven. Everyone was on their feet, and though Tau didn’t want to get ahead of himself, the pride he felt when glancing at the faces around him took him by surprise.
There was Jabari, standing tall and impossibly strong. There were Yaw, Themba, Auset, Ramia, and Uduak, each of them doing the same. Tau knew that traditionally a scale was fifty-four men, but tradition had never met fighters like the six with him that night.
Cool fingers brushed his wrist, startling him from his thoughts.
“My queen?” he said.
She let her hand remain on his wrist as she spoke. “You have done more than we could have expected. You have taken our faith and returned it alongside hope, and for this we offer a humble gift.”
Nyah came forward carrying something long and heavy wrapped in a roll of skinned and cured leather. She placed it on the floor in front of Tau.
“Some of you already have this gift,” the queen said, “and now it’s time for the rest to receive them.”
“My queen?” Tau asked.
“Open it, Champion,” she said.
Tau bent down, unrolled the leather, and gasped.
Themba’s reaction was less restrained. “Nceku!” he said.
“Goddess be praised,” Yaw said, rubbing a hand over the sun-flaked skin on his shaved head.
“So black,” Uduak offered. “Beautiful.”
“Champion Solarin, Auset, Ramia,” the queen said, “you already have such gifts, but …”
“They’re perfect,” Tau said. “I can’t tell you how perfect.”
He picked up the first guardian sword from the roll of leather and knew it was Themba’s. It was longer than the average sword the Ihashe wielded and thicker.
Themba knew it was his too. He stepped forward, as reverential as Tau had ever seen him.
“I am yours, now and forever,” Themba said when Tau placed the blade in his hands. “You brought me here, Champion Solarin. I’ll not forget it.”
The next weapon was Yaw’s, and it was so slender it was almost invisible. It was a weapon built for a master of precision and speed.
Yaw bobbed his head to the queen and to Tau. “The Goddess is too kind to Her humble servant,” he said, taking the sword in shaking hands.
The third guardian blade could only belong to one person. No one there but Uduak would have been capable of wielding it. It was massive.
Hanging back, the big man stared at it. “How?” he asked.
“How?” Tau asked.
“How can I be worthy?”
“Uduak, you’ve always been worthy,” Tau said, and the big man came for his gift.
“Jabari,” Tau called, lifting the last dragon-scale sword from the leather wrap as the man Tau had known since he was a child ambled over on legs too stiff to bend well. Jabari came for his sword in a broken gait, but his head was held high.
Tau offered him the blade. It was an archetypal guardian sword and the dragon scale had been shaped to flawlessness. Jabari’s sword was the type given to the greatest of the great Ingonyama.
Bowing his head, Jabari eased his way to his knees in front of the queen and Tau.
“Rise, Jabari Onai,” the queen said. “Rise as a member of Scale Solarin.”
That did it, and Tau felt water in his eyes. “My queen, if I may, there is another name.”
“Is there?” she asked, eyes fixed on him.
He nodded.
“Tell it to us.”
Tau looked to the two women and four men with whom he’d braved so much. He looked to the sisters and brothers who had followed him to death and beyond, and from his heart he spoke to them.
“Who I am, who we are, it began with an umqondisi. It began with Jayyed Ayim,” he said. “His philosophies, his teachings, they brought us here. We are from him.”
“You honor him, Tau Solarin,” the queen said. “You honor him with this. Now speak it into existence. Speak it to the Goddess and the world. Tell them who you are.”
“We are the Ayim,” Tau said.
Yaw closed his eyes and lowered his head, overcome. Themba was grinning. Jabari, face hidden behind bandages, but eyes sharp, held himself at attention, and Ramia reached over to put an arm around her sister, holding Auset tight.
All that, and it was Uduak’s words that broke through the shield behind which Tau had placed his emotions.
“Good name,” he said in approval. “Good man.”
Tau’s tears spilled over and he closed his eyes, trying to keep himself together. It didn’t work. Too much had been lost, too much sacrificed, and his shoulders shook as he wept.
With a kindness he didn’t need to see to understand, he felt the queen’s fingers intertwine with his, and holding his hand like that, she spoke.
“We welcome the Ayim,” she said. “In the Goddess’s name, we welcome you.”
CHAPTER NINE
KEREM
A few days later, at the head of their modest host, Tau rode through the gates of Citadel City with Tsiora. The paths were lined with residents and soldiers cheering for their queen, greeting her like the civil war was already won.
The celebration, however, was not universal. As they rode the paths to the keep, Tau saw dour looks on many Noble faces. He didn’t need to wonder why. No doubt the news about the fate of Luapula’s umbusi and the burning of her keep had reached the city before they had.
Tau tried to shake away his worries. They’d not made friends in their travels, but the queen had her army, and the ecstatic members of the crowd, tossing talaki-dyed sand to celebrate them, were hard to ignore.
The sand, royal purple in color, dazzled the eye as it was thrown into the air in waves that crested in pace with the procession, and playing her part, Tsiora smiled and waved at the people. Tau found it odd to see the same woman, the one who had so captivated Jabari when she’d ridden into Kerem, from the perspective of his new role.
Her smile was still beautiful, no one living or dead could deny it, but Tau knew that this was her public face. It was the mask she wore when she needed to be seen as Queen Tsiora Omehia, first among the Chosen, and though he’d never think to call the queen a friend, he had spent more time with her. He knew the way she smiled around people with whom she felt safe.
That smile, the one that came from deep inside her, would first show at the edges of her lips, and they’d tremble like she was trying to stay serious. More often than not, the trembles increased, then gave way, and Tsiora would brighten everything around her with a smile that touched her eyes, crinkled her nose, and dimpled her cheeks.
He’d seen her smile like that in her tent amid unforgettable stories, the smell of honeyed wood crackling in the fire pit, and the choral sounds of male drum bugs. Those had been moments of calm, moments to hold close, and though Tau told himself it was well past time to be on the path to Palm, it didn’t make him happy to think that those moments might be gone for good.
/> “Champion! Champion!”
A group of Lesser women were yelling his title, seeking his attention, and feeling a fool, he waved to them. Collectively, inexplicably, the women lost their minds, either reeling as if about to faint or screaming. One even raised her voice in the ululating cry often reserved as a greeting for couples who’d just sworn their marriage oaths.
Uncomfortable, he turned away, happening to catch the queen’s look. Her almond-shaped eyes, the same brown as a mountain butterfly’s wingtips, sparkled in the sunlight, and she looked like she was on the edge of laughter. It made his face grow hot.
Grumbling to himself, Tau shifted in his saddle and focused his attention on the back of Fury’s head, choosing to count the hairs the horse had there.
It was easy for her, he thought, glancing at Tsiora again. She was born to this, raised for it, and looked the part of a story princess. He watched her smile and wave, and he tracked the recipients of her grace. Women or men, Noble or Lesser, it didn’t matter. She drew them in and held them captive, making the men feel more handsome and bolder and the women wiser and more powerful. Tsiora enriched everyone with just a look, and Tau knew firsthand how beggared they’d feel by her absence.
Tau trained to fight. Tsiora trained to do this. It had to be why he missed the nights in her tent. He’d been under the spell of a lifetime of training that had taught Tsiora to be something for everyone. To him she offered peace, and in that tent, even if only for a span or two, he could forget the world with all its pain and strife.
He shook his head, hoping to knock loose such foolish wistfulness. Those nights and the peace they’d provided were never more than temporary. The world had too many people prospering from the pain and struggle of others to leave a man like him untouched.
And Tau had no intention of remaining a victim like the ones who closed their eyes to the whippings of their peers, thinking that because they were not yet the targets of the powerful, they would never be. The problem with feeling safe in a tent is that though it may hide the dangers outside, its canvas is no protection from them.