Seven Blades in Black

by Sam Sykes

  Tahir’s head was stubbly, his skin dry, and his uniform hung off a wasted body. Worse, it was difficult for Tsiory to keep his eyes from the stump of Tahir’s right arm, which was bleeding through its bandages.

  Tsiory needed to calm these men. He was their leader, their Inkokeli, and they needed to believe this was a fight that could be won. He caught Tahir’s attention, tried to hold it and speak confidently, but Tahir’s eyes twitched like a prey animal’s.

  “The savages won’t last against dragons,” Tsiory said. “We’ll break them. Once we have firm footing, we can defend the whole of the valley and peninsula indefinitely.”

  “Your lips to the Goddess’s ears, Tsiory,” Tahir muttered, without using either of his honorifics.

  “Escaping the Cull,” Dayo said, echoing Tsiory’s unvoiced thoughts, “won’t mean anything if we all die here. I say we go back to the ships and find somewhere a little less… occupied.”

  “What ships, Dayo? There aren’t enough for all of us, and we don’t have the resources to travel farther. We’re lucky the dragons led us here,” Tsiory said. “It was a gamble, hoping they’d find land before we starved. Even if we could take to the water again, without them leading us, we’d have no hope.”

  Harun waved his arms at their surroundings. “Does this look like hope to you, Tsiory?”

  “You’d rather die on the water?”

  “I’d rather not die at all.”

  Tsiory knew where the conversation would head next and it would be close to treason. These were hard men, good men, but the voyage had made them as brittle as this strange land’s wood. He tried to find the words to calm them, when the shouting outside their tent began.

  “What in the Goddess’s name—” said Harun, opening the tent’s flap and looking out. He couldn’t have seen the hatchet that took his life. It happened too fast.

  Tahir cursed, scrambling back as Harun’s severed head fell to the ground at his feet.

  “Swords out!” Tsiory said, drawing his weapon and slicing a cut through the rear of the tent to avoid the brunt of whatever was outside the actual entrance.

  Tsiory was first through the new exit, blinking under the sun’s blinding light, and all around him was chaos. Somehow, the savages had made their way past the front lines and Tsiory’s camp was under assault.

  He had just enough time to absorb this when a savage, spear in hand, leapt for him. Tsiory, Inkokeli of the Omehi Military and Champion to Queen Taifa, slipped to the side of the man’s downward thrust and swung hard for his neck. His blade bit deep and the man fell, his lifeblood spilling onto the white sands.

  He turned to his colonels. “To the beach!”

  The majority of their soldiers were on the front lines, far beyond the trees, but there were fighters on the beach, held in reserve. They had to get to them.

  Tsiory cursed himself for a fool. He should not have let the colonels convince him. They’d wanted the command tent pitched inside the tree line, to shelter the leadership from the punishing sun and, though it didn’t feel right, he’d been unable to make any arguments against the decision. The tree line started well back from the front lines, and he’d pulled enough soldiers to ensure they were protected. Somehow, it had not been enough.

  “Run!” Tsiory shouted, pushing Tahir along.

  Tahir began to move when his escape was blocked by another savage. He fumbled for his sword, forgetting for a moment that he’d lost his fighting hand. He called out for help, and reached for his blade with his left. His fingers hadn’t even touched the sword’s hilt when the savage cut him down.

  Tsiory lunged at the half-naked aggressor, blade out in front, skewering the tattooed man who’d killed Tahir. He stepped back from the impaled savage, seeking to shake him off the sword, but the heathen, blood bubbling in his mouth, tried to stab him with a dagger made of bone.

  Tsiory’s bronze-plated leathers turned the blow and he grabbed the savage’s wrist, breaking it across his knee. The dagger fell to the sand and Tsiory crashed his forehead into his opponent’s nose, snapping the man’s head back. With the man stunned, Tsiory shoved all his weight forward, forcing the rest of his sword into the savage’s guts, drawing an openmouthed howl from the man that spattered Tsiory with blood and phlegm.

  Tsiory yanked his weapon away, pulling it clear of the dying native, and swung round to rally his men. He saw Dayo fighting off five savages with the help of an Indlovu soldier and ran toward them as more of the enemy emerged from the trees.

  They were outnumbered and Tsiory knew he and the rest would die if they didn’t disengage. He kept running but couldn’t get there before Dayo took the point of a long-hafted spear to the side, yelped, and went down. The closest Chosen soldier killed the savage who had dealt the blow and Tsiory, running full tilt, slammed into two other heathens, sending them to the ground.

  On top of the two men, he pulled his guardian dagger from his belt and rammed it home in the first man’s eye. The other savage, struggling beneath him, reached for a trapped weapon, but Tsiory shoved the hilt of his sword against the man’s throat, using his weight to press it down. He heard the bones in the man’s neck crack, and the savage went still.

  Tsiory got to his feet and grabbed Dayo. “Go!”

  Dayo, bleeding everywhere, went.

  “Back to the beach!” Tsiory ordered the soldiers near him. “We can’t fight them in the trees.”

  Tsiory ran with his men, looking back to see how they’d been undone. The savages were using Gifts to mask themselves in broad daylight. As he ran, he saw more and more of them stepping out of what his eyes told him were empty spaces among the trees. The trick had allowed the savages to move an attacking force past the front lines and right up to Tsiory’s command tent.

  Tsiory forced himself to run faster. He had to reach the rest of the army and order a defensive posture. If the savages had a large enough force, this surprise attack could overrun the reserves, and then the savages would be among the Omehi populace, with no one left to stop them.

  Tsiory heard galloping. It was an Ingonyama, riding double with his Gifted on one of the few horses the Chosen had put on the ships when they fled Osonte. The Ingonyama spotted Tsiory and rode for him.

  “Champion,” the man said, dismounting with his Gifted. “Take the horse. I will allow the others to escape.”

  Tsiory mounted, saluted before galloping away, and looked back. The Gifted, a young woman, little more than a girl, closed her eyes, focused, and the Ingonyama began to change, slowly at first, but with increasing speed.

  The warrior grew taller. His skin, deep black, darkened further, and moving like a million worms writhing beneath his flesh, the man’s muscles re-formed, thicker and stronger. The soldier, a Greater-Noble of the Omehi, was already powerful and deadly, but now that his Gifted’s powers flowed through him, he was a colossus.

  The Ingonyama let out a spine-chilling howl and launched himself at his enemies. The savages tried to hold, but there was little any man, no matter how skilled, could do against an Enraged Ingonyama.

  The savages engaged, fought, and died. The Ingonyama shattered a man’s skull with his sword pommel, and in the same swing, he split a running savage from collarbone to waist. Grabbing a third heathen by the arm, he threw him ten strides into two more of the enemy.

  Strain evident on her face, the Ingonyama’s Gifted did what she could to save more men. “The Champion has called a retreat,” she shouted to the Omehi soldiers within earshot. “Go to the beach!”

  The girl—it was hard for Tsiory to think of her as much else—had her teeth gritted as she drew a continuous line of energy from the underworld. She poured it into the Enraged warrior, struggling to maintain the Ingonyama’s mutated state, as six more savages descended on him.

  The first of the savages staggered back, his chest collapsed inward by the Ingonyama’s fist. The second, third, and fourth men leapt on him together, stabbing at him in concert. Tsiory could see the young Gifted staggering with eac
h blow her Ingonyama took. She held on, though, brave thing, as the target of her powers fought and killed.

  It’s enough, thought Tsiory, leave. It’s enough.

  The Ingonyama didn’t. They almost never did. The colossus killed eight more savages, and then he was surrounded. They swarmed him, battering and cutting him, doing so much damage that he had to end his connection to the Gifted or kill her.

  The severing was visible as two flashes of light emanating from the bodies of both the Ingonyama and Gifted, and it was difficult to watch what happened next. Unpowered, the Ingonyama’s body shrank and his strength faded. The next blow cut into his flesh and, given time, would have killed the Omehi warrior. The savages gave it no time. They tore him to pieces and ran for the Gifted. She pulled a knife from her coal-black tunic and slit her own throat before they could get to her. That did nothing to dissuade her attackers. They fell on her and stabbed her repeatedly, hooting as they did.

  Tsiory looked away from the butchery and urged the horse to move faster. He would make it to the reserves of his army. The Ingonyama and Gifted had given him that with their lives, but it was hard to think it mattered.

  Tsiory had seen the number of savages pouring out from the tree line. They had come in force and the Chosen could not hold. The upcoming battle would be his last.

  if you enjoyed

  SEVEN BLADES IN BLACK

  look out for

  THE THRONE OF THE FIVE WINDS

  Hostage of Empire: Book One

  by

  S. C. Emmett

  Two queens, two concubines, six princes. Innumerable hidden agendas. Yala, lady-in-waiting to the princess of a vanquished kingdom, must navigate their captors’ treacherous imperial court.

  The Emperor’s palace—full of ambitious royals, sly gossip, and unforeseen perils—is perhaps the most dangerous place in Zhaon. A hostage for her conquered people’s good behavior, the lady Komor Yala has only her wits and her hidden maiden’s blade to protect herself—and her childhood friend Princess Mahara, sacrificed in marriage to the enemy to secure a tenuous peace.

  But the Emperor is aging, and the Khir princess and her lady-in-waiting soon find themselves pawns in the six princes’ deadly schemes for the throne—and a single spark could ignite fresh rebellion in Khir.

  And then the Emperor falls ill, and a far bloodier game begins…

  Little Light

  Above the Great Keep of Khir and the smoky bowl of its accreted city, tombs rose on mountainside terraces. Only the Royal and Second Families had the right to cut their names into stone here, and this small stone pailai1 was one of the very oldest. Hard, small pinpoints about to become white or pink blossoms starred the branches of the ancient, twisted yeoyan2; a young woman in blue, her black hair dressed simply but carefully with a single white-shell comb, stood before the newest marker. Incense smoked as she folded her hands for decorous prayer, a well-bred daughter performing a duty.

  Below, the melt had begun and thin droplets scattered from tiled roofs, both scarlet and slate, and almost-budding branches. Here snow still lingered in corners and upon sheltered stones; winter-blasted grass slept underneath. No drip disturbed the silence of the ancestors.

  A booted foot scraped stone. The girl’s head, bowed, did not move. There was only one person who would approach her while she performed this unchaperoned duty, and she greeted him politely. “Your Highness.” But she did not raise her head.

  “None of that, Yala.” The young man, his topknot caged and pierced with gold, wore ceremonial armor before the dead. His narrow-nosed face had paled, perhaps from the cold, and his gaze—grey as a winter sky, grey as any noble Khir’s—lingered on her nape. “You do not have to go.”

  Of course he would think so. Her chin dropped a little farther. “If I do not, who will?” Other noble daughters were escaping the honor in droves.

  “Others.” A contemptuous little word. “Servants.”

  Yala’s cloud-grey eyes opened. She said nothing, watching the gravestone as if she expected a shade to rise. Her offerings were made at her mother’s tomb already, but here was where she lingered. A simple stone marked the latest addition to the shades of her house—the Khir were not ostentatious. The newly rich might display like fan-tailed garyo,3 but not those who had ridden to war with the three kings of the First Dynasty. Or so her father thought, though he did not say it.

  A single tone, or glance, was enough to teach a lesson.

  Ashan Daoyan, Crown Prince of Khir, newly legitimized and battlefield-blooded, made a restless movement. Lean but broad shouldered, with a slight roundness to his cheeks bespeaking his motherblood, he wore the imperial colors easily; a bastard son, like an unmarried aunt, learned to dress as the weather dictated. Leather creaked slightly, and his breath plumed in the chill. “If your brother were alive—”

  “—I would be married to one of his friends, and perhaps widowed as well.” Now Komor Yala, the only surviving child of General Hai Komori Dasho, moved too, a slight swaying as if she wished to turn and halted just in time. “Please, Daoyan.” The habit of long friendship made it not only possible but necessary to address him so informally. “Not before my elder brother.”

  “Yala…” Perhaps Dao’s half-armor, black chased with yellow, was not adequate for this particular encounter. The boy she had known, full of sparkstick4 pride and fierce silence when that pride was balked, had ridden to war; this young man returned in his place.

  Did he regret it, being dragged from the field to preserve a dynasty while so many others stood and died honorably? She could not ask, merely suspect, so Yala shook her head. Her own words were white clouds, chosen carefully and given to the frigid morning. “Who will care for my princess, if I do not?”

  “You cannot live your life that way.” A slight sound—gauntlets creaking. Daoyan still clenched his fists. She should warn him against so open a display of emotion, but perhaps in a man it did not matter so much.

  “And yet.” There is no other option, her tone replied, plainly. Not one I am willing to entertain. “I will take great care with your royal sister, Your Highness.”

  Of course he could not leave the battlefield thus, a draw achieved but no victory in sight. “I will offer for you.”

  “You already would have, if you thought your honored father would allow it.” She bowed, a graceful supple bending with her skirts brushing fresh-swept stone. Her palms met, and her head dropped even further when she straightened, the attitude of a filial daughter from an illustration scroll.

  Even a prince dared not interrupt prayers before a relative’s tomb. He turned, finally, boots ringing through thin snow to pavers she had not attended to with her small broom, and left the pailai with long, swinging strides.

  Yala slipped her hands deeper inside her sleeves and regarded the memorial stone. Bai, of course, would have sniffed at the prospect of his little sister marrying a man with an honorless mother, no matter if the king had legitimized him. Bai would also have forbidden her to accompany Mahara. He was not the clan head, but since he came of age, their father had let him take heavier duties and listened to his counsel. Bai’s refusal would have carried weight, and Yala could have bowed her head to accept it instead of insisting on her duty, as a noble daughter must before a distinguished parent.

  Perhaps that would have been best. Was the cringing, creeping relief she would have felt cowardice? The other noble families were scurrying to keep their daughters from Mahara’s retinue, marriages contracted or health problems discovered with somewhat unseemly haste.

  No, even if Bai had forbidden her, Yala would have had no choice. Or so she wished to think, now.

  Burning incense sent lazy curls of scented smoke heavenward. If her brother was watching, he would have been fuming like the sticks themselves. A slow smolder and a hidden fire, that was Hai Komori Baiyan. She could only hope she was the same, and the conquering Zhaon would not smother her and her princess.

  First things first. You are to pay your respect
s here, and then to comfort your father.

  As if there could be any comfort to a Khir whose only son was dead. Hai Komori Dasho would be gladdened to be rid of a daughter and the need to find a dowry, that much was certain. Even if he was not, he would act as if he were, because that was the correct way to regard this situation.

  The Komori, especially the clan heads, were known for their rectitude.

  Her fingertips worried at her knuckles, and she sighed. “Oh, damoi,5 my elder brother,” she whispered. “How I wish you were here.”

  She bent before her brother’s grave one last time, and her fingers found a sharp-edged, triangular pebble among the flat pavers, blasted grass, and iron-cold dirt. They could not plow quite yet, but the monjok6 and yeoyan blossoms were out. Spring would come early this year, but she would not see the swallows returning. The care of the pailai would fall to more distant kin.

  Yala tucked the pebble in a sleeve-pocket, carefully. She could wrap it with red silken thread, decorate a hair stick with falling beads, and wear a part of both Bai and her homeland daily. A small piece of grit in the conqueror’s court, accreting valuable information like nacre.

  There were none left to care for her father in his aging. Perhaps he would marry again. If Bai were still alive…

  “Stop,” she murmured. “He is not.”

  Khir had ridden to face Zhaon’s great general at Three Rivers, and the eldest son of a proud Second Family would not be left behind. The battle had made Daoyan a hero and Bai a corpse, but it was useless to Khir. The conquerors had dictated their terms; war took its measure, reaping a rich harvest, and Zhaon was the scythe.

  Even a cursory study of history showed that a farm could change hands, and he who reaped yesterday might be fertilizer for the next scythe swinger. There was little comfort in the observation, even if it was meant to ease the pain of the conquered.