The Fires of Vengeance

by Evan Winter

  Tau let his fingers play across his sword hilts, passing time as he waited for his turn to take part in the fight. Then, when he was almost too nervous to stay sitting, he heard a single shout that joined with other voices to forge the riotous sound of hopeful cheering.

  He raised his head to the skies and was just in time to see three black dragons dive through the evening’s clouds and into the same air as Odili’s beasts.

  Tsiora’s Guardians had come to call.

  DRAGONS

  Beneath the dragons’ swooping bulk, Odili’s soldiers, having crossed the river, sprinted over the deadened grasslands. Fastest among them were the Indlovu, and in their hundreds, they ran for the men Tau had spent a season gathering for this very battle.

  The two sides met in a cacophony of bronze that resounded across the plains like a mountain echo, and Tsiora’s Ihagu and Ihashe never had a chance. Their battle lines dissolved under the weight, strength, speed, and ferocity of their Noble brethren, and the Lessers were cut down.

  Tau watched them drop, dead or soon to be, while backlit by torrents of spiraling fire that shot from the mouths of flying monsters. Odili had five Guardians in the air, Tsiora three, and in a scene better suited for the mind and memory of bards or sculptors, Tau witnessed what it was to see the gods at war.

  The largest of the dragons, a newcomer and so one of Tsiora’s, launched itself at a smaller beastling, leading with a blaze of wildfire so vast it etched motes of flickering lights into Tau’s vision. The dragon, the black wrath, buried the beastling’s body in an inferno, and over the shouts of the men and the clashing of their swords, Tau heard the beastling scream.

  Careening out of control, the burned dragon burst clear of the fires in which the black wrath had engulfed it. Tau tried to track the falling creature, but his eyes kept jerking and slipping away from the beastling’s light-absorbing scales. He did catch its end, though. He saw it plummet to the ground and smash into the grasslands, obliterating tents, wagons, women, and men.

  It had to be dead. Nothing could survive that, Tau thought, but the beastling struggled to its feet, scanned the skies, and saw its true death coming.

  The black wrath, diving too fast for Tau to see, struck the beastling with it claws, driving talons through the body of the smaller dragon and into its neck, forcing the beastling’s head to the dirt. The bigger dragon roared, the sound setting Tau’s heart to pounding, and then, maw wide as the gap between the living and the dead, it snatched the beastling’s head in its jaws and cracked its skull, breaking the smaller dragon’s bones, scales, and face to pieces.

  “Goddess wept,” said Tau, watching as the beastling’s body caved in on itself, collapsing like an unstable cliff that turned to ash and then vanished. “Goddess wept,” he said as the black wrath beat its edgeless wings and hauled itself back to the skies to rejoin the stars and the storm of savagery taking place among them.

  Airborne again, Black Wrath blew gout after gout of columned fire at its new target, a dragon of near equal size. Nearby, two others were entangled in the air, spinning muzzle over tail as they plunged their talons into each other, ripping at bellies, backs, and wings.

  Tau couldn’t look away. The zealotry with which the two dragons slashed at each other had him transfixed, and he watched them spin through the sky like a boulder hurled by a giant until they came crashing down and into one of the walls of Palm City. They hit the barrier, built with quarried stone from the Central Mountains, and blew through it like it was the side of a canvas tent.

  The expanse of wall they’d hit tumbled down like a landslide, coming apart in small pieces that brought larger sections after them. In turn, the larger sections were chased by entire columns of disintegrating rock, and in wave after wave of collapse, the wall north of Palm City’s main gates came tumbling down.

  A cheer went up from Kellan’s Indlovu, who had yet to see combat, but Tau wanted to tell them it hadn’t helped. The wall that had fallen had collapsed in on itself. There was no way to pass it without climbing the mass of rubble, and the rubble was almost as great an impediment as the wall it had once been.

  Meanwhile, behind the debris there was a bonfire of light, a howl from a dragon; then one of the two beasts drew itself back into the air, flying straight at Black Wrath.

  Tau had no way to be sure, but somehow he knew that Black Wrath was the dragon Tsiora had called.

  “Behind!” he yelled to the gargantuan as if it could hear him. “Behind!” But it was too late, and the dragon from the wall, legs and talons extended, smashed into Black Wrath’s back.

  Black Wrath snarled, contorted its serpentine neck, and took one of its attacker’s legs between its teeth. Once the grip was firm, the dragon clapped its mouth closed around the appendage and shook its head back and forth, wrenching, tearing, then ripping the limb away. The lifeless leg still in its mouth, Black Wrath blew fire and turned it to dust.

  The dragon from the wall threw itself from Black Wrath, frantic to flee the pain that had been dealt it, but Tsiora’s monster was not finished. It turned back to the brute it had been fighting and blew enough flame to draw a screeching keen from that one, and then Black Wrath barreled for the dragon from the wall.

  The wall dragon, bleeding corrosive blood from its amputated limb and having no desire to face Black Wrath alone, reached for the clouds, urging as much speed as it could from its damaged body, but Tsiora’s dragon trailed it like a shadow, catching the wall dragon, digging talons into its rump, ribs, and then spine.

  With its hold secure, it clawed and climbed its way up the back of the wall dragon, until in position and holding the helpless creature in its grasp, Black Wrath blew fire, coating its prey in a sluice of flame so hot and bright it turned night to day. The wall dragon writhed and screamed, but Black Wrath held it tight, blanketing it in a sheath of blazing suffering that burned the ensnared drake in a pyre of its own flesh.

  “Tau, they killed it,” Yaw said.

  “What?” Tau asked, eyes fastened on Black Wrath.

  “Our other dragon.”

  He made himself look, and there, in the waters of the Amanzi, two dragons ripped into the carcass of a third until it went to ash and disappeared.

  “We’ve only got one left,” Themba said. “Odili still has three.”

  “Champion!” It was one of the two Gifted who were set to watch the others in Isihogo. “It’s time. The shrouds of those with the queen, they’re failing.”

  “Tau,” said another voice, Thandi’s.

  Tau stood, breaking the circle of Ayim. “What’s happened?” he asked.

  Thandi stumbled toward him, barely able to stand. “My dragon, she … she died at the wall.”

  Thandi fell and Tau caught her. “What’s happening to you?”

  “The break in the leash … it … I’ve never had a dragon die before…. I felt … I felt her die.”

  Tau called to the Queen’s Guard closest to them. “You there! Do you know the face of Priestess Hafsa Ekene?”

  “I do, Champion.”

  “Find her or some other from her order. Bring them here as fast as you can. Our Gifted, they’ll need Sah attention.”

  “I’m well,” Thandi said, “it just … it felt like I died with her.”

  “Rest easy, you’ve done your part. It’s our turn.”

  “Nyah is still in the underworld,” Thandi said. “Her dragon died too, but her shroud is intact. She’s—”

  “I’ll see to her. Rest.” Tau waved over another of the Queen’s Guard. “Watch her and tell the others to mind the Gifted. I think it’ll be a bad time for them, when they return to Uhmlaba.”

  “Yes, Champion!”

  Tau went back to the circle and sat down.

  “Ayim,” he said to the six. “Now we fight!”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  SACRIFICES

  Form the circle!” Tau bellowed, determined to be heard over the squall of Isihogo’s winds.

  The moment he landed in the und
erworld, the other Gifted, whose shrouds were a breeze blow from gone, began to leave Isihogo. They’d been asked to fly their dragons past the limits of their shrouds’ protection, but with their dragons dead, the Gifted in Nyah’s and Thandi’s Hexes served no purpose and endangered everyone with the extra light from their souls’ glow. So, the shroudless left Isihogo and the only Gifted who remained were those in Tsiora’s Hex and Nyah, her shroud translucent and fading.

  “Leave, Nyah,” Tau shouted. “You’ve done your duty.”

  The vizier shook her head. “My dragon fell and I no longer need to draw power from this place. My shroud will hold for a while yet and I’m staying with the queen. ”

  The mists were not the place for drawn-out discussions, and nodding to the vizier, Tau ran to stand near to the opaque void that was his queen’s armor. The shrouds of the five women in Tsiora’s Hex were papyrus thin, and he could see the golden glow of the souls within. Unlike the others, Tsiora’s defenses were strong as ever, and such visible evidence of her power was a comfort. But unable to see her face, Tau worried about the strain she was under.

  “Eyes to the mists,” he shouted at the Ayim. “Now that we’re here and glowing like embers, the demons won’t be far behind.”

  But it wasn’t the Ayim’s souls that called the monsters. Within a breath of Tau’s last word, one of Tsiora’s Gifted lost her shroud, and filled with power, she didn’t glow; she shone.

  “Cek!” said Themba as a demon soared through the mists, dragging the thick fog in its wake as it leapt for the glowing woman.

  Tau’s sword brother jumped into the monster’s path and was joined by Auset, the two of them closing the gap through which the demon had hoped to dive. The creature hit Themba square, knocking him down, and Auset whipped it about the head and neck with her dirks, sending it into a snarling rage and giving Themba the chance to crawl clear. As one, they fought the thing, sword and dirks slashing and cutting, rending demon flesh from demon bone.

  The Gifted, her features revealed without her shroud, held up shaking hands to her mouth as if to scream, but shock stole all sound from her.

  “Trust in the Ayim!” came Tsiora’s voice, booming out from the impenetrable dark of her shroud. “Trust them and stay with the Hex.”

  The Gifted, young and shaking like she were standing atop a mountain peak, slammed her eyes shut so she could not see the demon that wanted her blood. She turned away from it, trusting blindly that her defenders would keep the monster from her, and she returned her powers to the Hex.

  She’s right to be afraid, Tau thought. She’d lost her shroud first, marking her as the weakest among the Gifted in the queen’s Hex. When it came time to leave the underworld, the other Gifted would force their power into her. They’d make her burn bright enough to become the focus of the dragon’s ire, and it would latch on to her soul, trapping her in Isihogo with the demons. The young Gifted was moments from her own death. Knowing that, she still did her duty, and bearing witness to such courage made Tau feel like he’d taken a spear to the heart.

  A demon came for him, and with his mind still on the young Gifted, he unleashed a barrage of attacks on the monster. The thing he fought was shoulder-high, stocky, and twice as thick as he was. It also had short arms and legs. It could not reach him easily and Tau punished it for its lack.

  But before he could put the demon down, a second fiend joined it and the two of them began hounding him together. He kept them both back, and between blows, he could see that the rest of the Ayim were fighting skirmishes of their own.

  To his left, Uduak laid waste to anything foolish enough to come near, while on his right, Jabari moved as ineludibly as death. In choppy glimpses gained only when his fight turned him round, he saw Yaw and Ramia on the other side of the circle, giving no ground to demons that loomed over them.

  The Ayim were holding.

  “Queen Tsiora?” Tau called, hauling his strong-side sword from the eye socket of the thickset demon.

  “One more Guardian to fell,” she said. “The big one.”

  The Dragon Queen had evened the score, and Tau, fighting one demon only, backed up a step, making space, and took a risk.

  It was like moving each eye in a different direction, only more disorienting, but he did it. Tau split his vision and pushed a portion of his consciousness back to Uhmlaba, where, from his body’s sitting position in front of Tsiora’s tent, he caught a moment of the battle for Palm City.

  Low in the skies, Black Wrath blew fire and dove down toward Odili’s last dragon, its wings frozen in time like a painter’s rendering. Wrath’s prey was wounded, and though Odili’s dragon’s light-drinking scales prevented Tau from identifying where it had been cut, he could still see blood pouring from its side and out over the battlefield like obsidian rain.

  The men below looked carved from stone. Tau saw swords raised to kill, soldiers cut down or dying on the ends of blades, and still, the most unfortunate were the few caught in the rain of dragon blood. Those few, though far from Tau, had expressions of agony so broad that even the distance could not soften them.

  In Isihogo, the demon was moving and Tau let go of Uhmlaba to fight it. It swiped at him, misjudging the distance and missing. Tau thrust at it, connecting. It howled and jerked away, pain blooming, and with the circle of Ayim still holding, Tau split his mind again.

  Little had changed or moved in Uhmlaba, and so Tau paid attention to the things he had not before. He saw that Kellan’s Indlovu were only now entering the fray. He saw that the Ihagu and Ihashe had suffered a massacre at the hands of Odili’s Nobles and enraged Ingonyama. He saw that Black Wrath was strides from catching the dragon, the one with its blood pouring down, in its claws and Wrath’s target had no room to maneuver. Fighting back, Blood Pour had its maw open wide and Tau could see flame lighting its jaws as it sought to deluge Black Wrath in fire.

  A new demon attacked. Tau let Uhmlaba fall away, defeated his enemy, and was about to split his mind again when he saw the strangest thing. From the mists, moving faster than should have been possible, came a dozen shrouded Gifted, running right for the circle of Ayim.

  “Tau!” shouted Themba.

  “I see it,” he called back, swinging his head toward Nyah. “What are they doing?”

  “Those are … they’re Odili’s Edifiers. I don’t know what they’re doing,” she said. “If they try to breach the circle, cut them down.”

  “Nothing gets through!” Tau yelled to the others as the dozen shrouded Edifiers ran closer.

  It didn’t make sense. Though the Edifiers could use their Gifts to move through Isihogo at great speed, which was what allowed them to travel to one another and exchange messages in the mists, their use of power that night meant they were corporeal in Isihogo. It meant that, when they came close enough, Tau and the Ayim could either kill them in both realms or send them back to Uhmlaba with grievous psychic wounds.

  It made no sense, Tau thought, as the first of the Edifiers stopped just outside the range of his swords and dropped her shroud.

  The other eleven Gifted did the same. They surrendered their shrouds while holding as much of the Goddess’s power as they could bear, turning themselves into a dozen blinding suns of golden light.

  Realization and terror hit Tau together, and he held his swords tight. Odili had sent these Edifiers, loyal to the point of fanaticism, to sacrifice themselves and draw the demon swarm, and the tumult of howls that answered the glowing Gifted, the voiced hatred of a thousand demons was loud enough to drown out even the wailing of Isihogo’s eternal windstorm.

  Death was coming.

  CHAMPIONS

  The first of Odili’s Edifiers to die did so in a grisly fashion. From beyond the mists, sucking and slicing tentacles lashed out and latched on to her glowing flesh to pull her screaming into the gloom. Another demon, eight-legged, scuttled into view, its bulbous compound eyes reflecting the glow from the souls of everyone present. With its forelegs it reached for the Edifier nearest
Tau, and he stepped forward to greet it in kind.

  “No! Hold the circle!” Nyah shouted to Tau and the Ayim. “They’ll feed on the Edifiers first. It gives us time.”

  Tau hesitated, looked into the frightened face of Odili’s Edifier, and rejected Nyah’s words. He stepped forward to defend the Gifted, but another demon, this one winged, flew overhead and punched through her body with the hooked talons on its feet. Her mouth fell open, and without even the chance to call for help, she was taken into the air and the mists overhead.

  Tau shouted in frustration, checking the skies. She was gone and things were bad. The fliers were dangerous, rare, and if they had been lured by the Edifiers’ glow, then the worst of Isihogo was on its way as well.

  “Protect the queen and the Hex!” Nyah shouted, this time to Tau specifically. “The Edifiers sowed their field. They know what harvest it brings.”

  Another Gifted was assaulted and destroyed.

  “We can’t just watch them—”

  “Yes, you can!” Nyah shouted. “The demons will come for us next.”

  “Odili’s Guardian has fled.” It was Tsiora, speaking through the deep of her shroud. “It means his Hex has wearied its strength. They’ve abandoned the underworld, and you must do the same while we finish this.”

  “My queen, you need to leave as well,” Nyah yelled over the winds, her voice frantic. “If Odili’s Gifted have abandoned the underworld, then we must do the same. Already this battle has taken too much power from Isihogo…. It could be noticed.”

  “Then pray that the Cull aren’t keeping watch,” Tsiora said. “We can’t leave until we finish this!”

  If they said more, Tau didn’t hear it. A demon attacked, he was forced to fight it away, and when next he had a spare breath, he stole a glance at the young Gifted in Tsiora’s Hex, the one who’d been first to lose her shroud.