The Fires of Vengeance

by Evan Winter

  He lifted his eyes, shifting his gaze to the east and toward the enemy. He was too far to see much, but what he could see awed and worried him.

  As he’d been told, Kana’s army was many times the size of theirs, and he could see Xiddeen riding those war lizards as well as bigger beasts that seemed to have more than four legs, though it could be the distance playing tricks on his eyes.

  One thing was clear: The fight would not be easy. In truth, even with dragons and the valley’s choke point making numbers less of a factor, Tau couldn’t say it looked winnable.

  So with worry making a nest in his guts, Tau took note of anything that Hadith might use, finally finding a purpose for all the things he’d been forced to learn in all those Goddess-awful strategy meetings. He remained in place for a half span before deciding that there was nothing more to get from being there but a headache.

  He’d been crouching and stood up to stretch his bad leg when he heard someone step on and crack a stick behind him. He turned, expecting it to be Auset come to ask what was taking so long. The hunching demon, then, was a surprise, and stumbling back, Tau almost sent himself over the cliff’s edge.

  Cursing, he caught his balance and pulled his swords free as the monster, long snouted, with sharp teeth, tusks, and pointed ears, stalked toward him on all fours, snarling and snapping its club-like tail behind it. Tau knew it was looking to leap on him, and he didn’t have much room to avoid it, if it did.

  Unwilling to wait for it to attack and send them both careening off the mountain, Tau raised his blades and jumped at it, roaring as he did. With a snarl, it sprang to meet him, they collided in midair, and Tau was knocked back.

  He shouldn’t have jumped. Once his feet were off the ground, he couldn’t dodge or reposition. Thankfully, his forward momentum meant the beast didn’t have the power to plunge them off the cliff, and instead of open air, the demon slammed him into the ground, blasting the air from his lungs. His head ringing from where the back of it had struck stone, Tau wrestled the writhing mass on top of him as it snapped its jaws in his face, its foul-tasting spittle running into his mouth when it splattered on him.

  It couldn’t tear into him, not yet. He had the hilt of his sword shoved beneath its chin and was pushing back, but his blocking blade wasn’t in a position to cut, and the demon was stronger. He couldn’t hold it off for long.

  Baring his own teeth as he strained to shift his other sword for a strike, Tau pulled the blade back as far as he was able and rammed it forward, stabbing the creature in the stomach and feeling his dragon scale slip inside it like oiled hands into a leather glove.

  The demon howled, reared, and came down fast, trying to crush him beneath its forelegs, but Tau was rolling, and when its legs hit the stone, he was already clear. Skittering around on his ass for a stride, Tau scrambled to his feet and readied his weapons. Only now, it was the demon that had its back to the ledge.

  It growled and snapped at him, raising its barbed tail over its back like a scorpion’s sting. Tau didn’t know if it could use the tail like a maul and didn’t want to know. Blades whirling, he attacked, cutting and slicing at anything the demon put in range.

  “This is my home!” he screamed.

  The demon roared, Tau roared back, they came together matched in murderous intent, and the moment it could hit him, the monster whipped its barbed tail down, flying it in like an ax, but Tau skipped away from the chitin-wrapped barb, dodging it and coming close enough to stab the demon in the shoulder of its left foreleg before moving away.

  It swung for him with its other foreleg, and Tau blocked with his strong-side blade. The block was good and true and didn’t matter enough. The demon knocked him down and off his feet. He lost sight of it, heard it charging, and sprang up, swords leading the way. They engaged, separated, tangled again, and spun away from each other.

  It hadn’t cut him and couldn’t break his defense, but Tau had been bashed about and was bruised all over. His head was still pounding too.

  Bad as he was, the demon was worse. It was bleeding from a dozen open wounds and panting. It had its oversized maw hanging open, the black-and-blue tongue within flapping up and down as it eyed him.

  “I don’t know where you go when I kill you in Uhmlaba,” Tau said as they shadowed each other, “but if you return to the mists, tell Ukufa how much it hurt when I sent you to him.”

  The demon, growling, raised the spiked barb on the end of its tail, and Tau attacked.

  The breaths that followed were a frenzy of claws and blades. The demon swung its tail and Tau severed it below the barb. The demon shrieked and reared to its full height, standing taller than Tau by a full stride, and it snatched at him with both front legs. Tau vaulted forward before it could bring its claws together and drove both blades deep into its neck.

  The demon clubbed him on the shoulders, its claws cutting into his armor, and Tau marched the dying monstrosity back. It tried to resist him, but he forced it to the cliff’s edge by wrenching his swords around in its neck like they were dragon-scale reins. The demon, one step from oblivion, flailed as it hissed and spit at him, its alien eyes full of malice.

  “Die, nceku,” Tau said, lifting his good leg to kick the underworld’s spawn from the mountain.

  It made no sound as it fell or when it smashed into the rocks below, bouncing once into the air, its body splayed, limp and lifeless, before falling to the rocks again and bursting into ash that floated in the breeze like motes of vanishing dust.

  Body aching, Tau backed away from the ledge. He wanted to sit, to rest, but he worried that there might be other things lurking in the mountains, waiting for him or …

  The realization hit him like a rogue wave, drowning him in fear, and, swords out, he ran recklessly down the mountain, desperate to get to Tsiora before it was too late.

  TRY

  Tsiora!”

  Tau’s thigh had long since seized up, and he almost turned his ankle on the path’s last turn. It didn’t matter. He didn’t slow down until he saw Tsiora and the handmaidens. Only then did his heart unclench.

  “Tau?” she asked.

  The handmaidens had their dirks out and had circled the queen as best as two people could.

  “Demon, in the mountains,” Tau said, sucking air.

  “Demon?” Auset said. “In Uhmlaba?” She was looking for confirmation.

  “Yes!”

  “Are there more?” Ramia asked.

  “I don’t know,” Tau said, running over to them and scanning the mountainside. “Have you seen anything?” he asked, the hairs on the back of his neck rising.

  “Nothing,” Auset said.

  Trying to shake away the sense that they were being watched, he turned to the queen.

  “We’re well,” she said.

  “I shouldn’t have left you.”

  “We’re well. We’re with Auset and Ramia.”

  “I thought something might have happened to you. I thought I might have lost you. Goddess, I can’t do it…. I can’t…. ”

  “We’re here.”

  He sheathed his swords and stepped closer to her, shaking his head. “You don’t know how it felt. You have no idea how it felt.”

  “How can you say that?” she asked. “We felt it when you went into Palm City after the battle. We felt it when you fought Odili. We feel it every time you’re in harm’s way, and we’re always the one putting you there. Don’t you dare say we don’t know how it feels, Tau Solarin. We do.”

  “Goddess,” Tau said, “I swear to the Goddess …”

  “Yes?” she asked, lifting her hands to his face.

  “What if I lose you?”

  “We’re here,” she said, stepping into him.

  “But, what if—”

  She kissed him, and he wrapped her up in his arms, lifting her from the ground and kissing her back, his whole being alive with the feel of her.

  “We’re right here,” she said.

  “So are we,” said Auset.


  Tau and Tsiora moved apart.

  “Don’t be shy now,” Auset said. “Not after all that.”

  “Auset, leave them be,” Ramia said. She looked as embarrassed as Tau felt.

  “Auset, Ramia, apologies,” Tau said.

  “Apologies?” Auset asked. “I think I would have gone mad if it’d taken even one more day for you two to do that.”

  Tau looked at Tsiora. She gave him one of her small smiles, no mask in sight, and it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen—until the worry hit, crashing over him in tidal waves that swept him up and over, drawing out the joy in the moment.

  “Tau?” Tsiora asked.

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  “You don’t look it.”

  “It’s the demons. It keeps happening. Maybe Nyah was right. Maybe what I’ve done, the things I’ve done … maybe they’re sinful. What if I am weakening the Goddess and Her powers? What if I’m letting them in?”

  Tsiora held his hands. “You’re a good man and what you’ve done isn’t sinful.” She gave him another smile. “In any case, we think that the Goddess is not so frail that Tau Solarin, fierce and incredible as he might be, can weaken Her.”

  Her gaze shifted to his lips and back to his eyes. “Since we were old enough to understand our destiny, we wondered if all we’d ever have was blood, fire, and death, but maybe, just maybe, the Goddess will allow us a different path.”

  Tau wanted to believe her, but he’d spent so long letting life lead him to Odili that he wasn’t sure what else it could be.

  “Maybe She’ll give us our tomorrow,” Tsiora said. “We need to believe that there will be time to heal, to live, to be.”

  “That sounds like peace, but can people like us ever have it?” Tau asked, wanting nothing more and nothing as much from life.

  She touched his face again, her skin soft, cool, no matter the heat of the day. “Can we try to find out?” she asked as Ramia shouted a warning.

  Tau swung round, pulling Tsiora behind him, just in time to see a short, heavyset Xiddeen shaman appear from thin air, alongside two armed Xiddeen warriors.

  TSIORA OMEHIA

  Tsiora’s lips were still tingling from her first kiss when Tau stepped out in front of her, pulling his swords free and moving to stand with Auset and Ramia. Protecting her, the three of them had their weapons aimed at the shaman and the warriors that had appeared with them.

  Tsiora hadn’t met many of the Xiddeen’s shamans and couldn’t be sure if the one in front of her was typical or not, but they were covered in curse scars, their flesh corrupted in places, like boils that had been popped and had the extra skin scraped away. The scars were common among the Xiddeen, though it was unknown why it seemed to afflict some of their kind so much worse than others.

  Besides that, the shaman’s hair was unkempt and knotted, they wore leather rags and had bone and bronze bangles fitted tight to their wrists and ankles, but none of that was what held her attention. What did have her attention, Tsiora thought, glancing at the warrior woman and man beside the shaman, was that she couldn’t tell if the shaman themselves was male or female.

  “Peace,” the shaman said. “I come as peace.”

  Tau had his swords pointed at the two Xiddeen. “Come in peace? Where did you come from at all?”

  The shaman pushed the Xiddeen male toward Tau as if he was an offering.

  “What are you doing?” Tau asked.

  “Justice, yes?” the shaman said, their voice a high croak. “We give you justice for one of your dead.”

  “How do you come to speak our tongue?” Tsiora asked.

  The shaman bobbed their head. “I’m shaman in the … Curse, yes?” They grinned, showing yellowed teeth. “I learn from Ihagu. I learn from Ihashe. I learn from Indlovu. Yes?”

  “From prisoners you capture and torture,” Tau said.

  “Justice,” they said, offering up the frightened-looking Xiddeen male again.

  “Justice for what?” asked Auset.

  She and Ramia had moved their way around the shaman and their warrior companions until they were standing behind them.

  The shaman looked over their shoulder to see Auset. “Your fighter. Justice for the fighter this one kill,” they said, poking the Xiddeen male in the back.

  “Who? Who did that one kill?” Tau asked.

  “In Omehi war camp. We need food, yes?” the shaman said, making the motion for eating. “We take food, but an Omehi fighter, see us, yes?” The shaman poked the male warrior again. “This one, he hit the fighter in back of head. Break head, and the fighter …” The shaman clicked their tongue and ran a finger across their neck. “The fighter gone, yes? Gone to the gods.”

  “Gods? Do not be blasphemous in our presence, shaman,” Tsiora said, drawing herself up to her full height.

  The shaman watched her, ducking their head in a motion mimicking a bow. “We come as peace,” they said. “Not to kill. We must give justice, yes? So you know it is peace.” They locked their eyes on Tsiora. “The first Omehi queen to come to Xidda, she always want justice, yes.” The shaman was not asking a question that time.

  “You’re talking about the soldier that was found killed in camp,” Ramia said. “We never found the killer and thought a demon had done it.”

  Auset shot Ramia a hard look and Ramia clamped her mouth shut.

  The shaman cocked their head at the two women, trying to make sense of the interaction, when Tau drew their attention back to him.

  “The soldier in camp? How long ago was that?” Tau asked the shaman. “How long have you been following us?”

  The shaman made a boat-on-water motion. “Water, yes? Sand, yes?” They made a walking motion.

  “What does that mean?” Tau asked.

  “They came here on a ship and landed on our beaches,” Tsiora explained.

  The shaman nodded vigorously. “Kana.”

  “You were with Kana? You’re spies? Messengers?” she asked.

  The shaman shook their head. “Not from Kana, no. Not from that one. He no more peace.”

  “We know that much,” Auset said.

  “I don’t understand,” Tau said. “You came on Kana’s ships but you’re not with Kana.”

  More head shaking. “We come with Kana. We not with Kana. We come with food, water, supply, yes?” The shaman pointed a fist at Tau. “You take this. You take our supply.”

  “What?” asked Tau.

  “When you look for Kana, yes? Kana not there. Kana gone. He leave ship, but I am there. I am there with this one”—they pointed to the warrior woman—“and this one,” they said, poking the Xiddeen male. “Then you come,” the shaman said to Tau. “You come and do not see us. You take supply.”

  “On the beach when we went to scout Kana’s ships,” Tau said to Tsiora. “We found abandoned supplies there.” He turned back to the shaman. “They were yours and you were there?” Tau asked, moving his sword point closer to the shaman.

  “Yes, yes.”

  “You saw us take them and we didn’t see you? How?”

  “How, yes? How?” The shaman grinned, closed their eyes, furrowed their brow, and disappeared along with the two Xiddeen warriors.

  Ramia yelped in surprise. Auset swung her head, looking for the pair of them, and Tau scowled, twirling his swords in a single circle.

  Before he had the chance to kill anyone, Tsiora took herself to the mists. She’d never heard of gifts powerful enough to move a Gifted through Uhmlaba, so, whatever the shaman had done, they hadn’t gone far.

  The mists swirled around her, and through the weight of her shroud, Tsiora saw what she was looking for. Directly in front of her, where the Xiddeen had been standing, she saw the shrouded shaman as well as the faint glow from the two Xiddeen warriors’ souls.

  The warriors glowed faintly because they were not actually in Isihogo. Instead, the shaman’s powers were keeping all of them hidden from eyes in Uhmlaba.

  To confirm her suspicion, Tsiora split her m
ind, forcing a piece of her consciousness to remain in the mists while the other part looked out at Uhmlaba with her real eyes. It was disorienting, and negotiating the time difference between the two realms always felt like it threatened her hold on sanity.

  “I see you, shaman,” she said in the mists, raising her hand, drawing power from the Goddess, and blasting them with expulsion.

  The shaman and their shroud exploded, vanishing from Isihogo, and the illusion they’d made in Uhmlaba collapsed, revealing them and two warriors to the naked eye.

  Tsiora let go of the mind split and drew herself out of the underworld. The shaman was reeling and then fell to a knee.

  “Powerful queen,” they muttered, nursing their head and shuffling back to a stand. “Very powerful.”

  “Where did they go, just now?” asked Auset.

  “Nowhere,” Tsiora said. “The shaman used their gifts. They can hide themselves and others in plain sight.”

  “This is how you followed us,” Tau said.

  “Yes, I follow,” the shaman said, squinting at Tsiora as if they could figure out what she’d done just by looking at her. “No one see, yes.”

  “Why did you follow?” Tsiora asked.

  “Why?” the shaman said as if it should be obvious. “Kana come to this stolen land to fight, but he does not come with all tribes. Only a few are with Kana, yes?”

  “Yes,” said Tsiora.

  “Other tribes already fighting,” the shaman said.

  It sent a shock through Tsiora, and she wondered how much of the peninsula they’d already lost. “Where are they fighting, Kigambe, Jirza?”

  The shaman didn’t answer her directly. “Other tribes tell Kana he must make peace. We need peace so all on Xidda fight the same enemy, yes?”

  “The same enemy?” Tsiora asked, relief flushing through her. Her people were still safe, for the moment. “Who is our common enemy?”

  “Tribes cannot make Kana stop.” The shaman pointed a knobby finger at Tau. “Because of you, yes.”

  Tau didn’t say anything. He had a habit of doing that, and she usually felt like she wanted to shake an answer out of him when he did it, but the shaman’s accusation had been leveled at the wrong person. She was the reason Kana was determined to have his war. She was the one who’d sent Tau to kill Kana’s father.