When Comes the Fire

by Lisa Cochrane

  Three.

  She dodged out of the way as he struck out at her, falling even as he did. The man gasped as he landed on his hands and knees, his breathing ragged. Namida kicked the sword out of his hand, sending it skittering across the sand as she kicked him in the side, pressing her boot firmly against his chest. He scraped weakly at her leg as she flicked her sword out, unmasking them to reveal a middle-aged man's weathered face.

  "What," he said, gasping in pain, "what did you do to me?"

  Namida raised an eyebrow. "Poison," she stated matter-of-factly. "Now, tell me why you're here."

  "What, you own the desert now?" he rasped. "We're traveling. For work."

  Namida gave a bark of laughter. "Yeah, right. I know what kind of work you do," she said, giving his dark clothes a pointed look. "Who sent you?"

  The man gave a pained grin. "I'll never tell."

  "Hm," she said with disinterest. "I'd say I'll just get your partner to tell me, but they seem a little...torn up." She grimaced, not wanting to look at the state Nyago had left the poor person in. He was a vicious beast at his core, after all. He scared her sometimes, with all the blood he would be covered in when he came back from his nightly hunts.

  The man's eyes shone with grief. "You demon child!" he spat.

  Namida gave him a bitter smile. "I'm only the way I am because of men like you," she said, moving her sword to dig slowly into his left shoulder, twisting it as it went. The man keened in pain, but refused to scream. By now, his arms were limp at his sides, the paralytic poison in his system having quickly worked its way into his bloodstream. "Now, tell me what I want to know," she said, moving to the other shoulder and twisting the blade slowly, crunching her boots down onto the fingers of both hands. The man finally screamed.

  "F...fine! FINE! Just stop!" he yelled, and she paused, not removing her blade as she waited for him to continue. He panted, gasping for breath as though he had just run a mile. "Kaska hired us. To...to spy on Dorozi."

  Namida nodded. "Thank you," she said, then promptly slit his throat.

  Namida averted her eyes as the man's blood sank into the sand, straightening back up as she flicked the blood off of the blade of her sword and slid it back into its sheath. "Come, Nyago," she said, ignoring the hound's bloodstained maw as she headed back towards the complex. She was a warrior now, she told herself. This was only the beginning. There would be much more of the same yet to come.

  That didn't make her stomach turn any less at the realization of what she had just done.

  o—O—o

  Nineteen-year-old Darwe huffed as he entered the foyer where Namida sat, watching the flames flicker in the hearth.

  "You're going to get blood on the chaise," he said with a frown, not really worried about the chaise at all, but knowing that there was no point in speaking sense to the young teen when she was being her usual stubborn self. True to form, she just shrugged.

  "You can put those bandages you've got stuffed in your pockets away. I already told Kilish, I don't need medical attention."

  Darwe raised a challenging eyebrow despite the fact that she was facing away from him. He could tell from the blood that drenched the entire left side of her tunic that the injury was worse than she let on. It didn't take a genius to figure that out.

  "Yeah, well the difference between Kilish and I is that I don't take no for an answer when someone decides to be a blasted idiot."

  That got a chuckle out of her, at least. He relaxed a little as she turned her head part way towards him.

  "Well fine, then. If you insist," she said, wiggling her stump arm at him mockingly. "It's not like you can make it any worse."

  "My, what a dark sense of humor you have," he muttered under his breath, taking out the rolls of gauze and alcohol he had stashed in his pockets as he moved to sit on the chaise beside her. He frowned at the depth of the cut, wondering if maybe he should have brought supplies to stitch the wound shut, as well. He didn't want to run back for them, though, because he wasn't sure if Namida might change her mind if he took the time to do that. The important part was to get the wound cleaned and covered so that at least it wouldn't get infected.

  Darwe glanced up from the wound to find Namida staring at him. "What?" he said, annoyed. "Are you going to do that the whole time?"

  Namida smirked. "Maybe," she said. "If it annoys you, I will."

  Darwe shot her a disapproving look—which she promptly ignored—before rolling back the torn sleeve to better access the wound. He poured some of the alcohol he had brought over his hands to clean them before tipping it over Namida's stump.

  Namida hissed, flinching away from the liquid searing at the open wound. "Give me some warning next time, will you?" she snapped.

  "Maybe," Darwe mocked as he dabbed around the wound edges to clean up the half-dried blood. "If I feel like it, I will." His expression soured as he tossed the dirty gauze at the bin across the room, only for it to bounce off the rim. "How in Fate's name did you let yourself take a hit like this, anyway?" he asked as he soaked some more gauze in alcohol to continue cleaning the bloodied stump.

  Namida grimaced, turning her head away and mumbling something he didn't quite catch.

  "Sorry, what was that?"

  She scowled. "I said...my hair got in the way."

  Darwe had to resist the urge to throw everything on the floor and walk out. As it was, he ended up pressing a little too hard on the wound, causing Namida to hiss in pain.

  "You blithering idiot! How many times have Master Dorozi and I told you to tie your hair back if you're not going to let us cut it? This won't be the last time—"

  "I can't!"

  Darwe stopped, a little stunned that she had cut him off as he blinked dumbly. "You...what? Why?"

  Namida gave him a mocking smile. "It's a little hard to tie my hair back with one hand," she said, shaking the offending appendage at him. "You don't think I've tried?"

  Darwe's gaze fell to his lap as he gathered more clean gauze to wrap the wound with. "Well...I guess I never really thought about that," he admitted quietly as he mulled over his foolish assumptions of her independence. Just because she never wanted help didn't mean she would never need it, after all. Such was the price that came with the loss of her left arm; something that still caused a pang of guilt to run through him. He finished wrapping the stump and leaned back to inspect his work. It wasn't as neat as Kilish would have made it, but it would do the job for now, and she could get Kilish to change it in a couple days or if it bled through the gauze. Darwe shrugged then moved around to the other side of the chaise, perching on the edge of it behind Namida and grabbing a handful of her hair. She tried to flinch away, but he grabbed her good shoulder and held her still.

  "What the...what are you doing?" she asked uncertainly.

  "Just hold still for a minute," he said, ripping a strip of gauze with his teeth and separating Namida's long black hair—had it always been so dark, he wondered?—into three even sections. Braiding hair couldn't be that much different from braiding leather, right? He hesitated before weaving the strands between one another, frustrated that it was so messy from not being combed first. It only took him a couple minutes before he reached the end, hastily tying the strip of gauze around it before it had a chance to fall out of the hasty braid. "Er...there. That should do," he said. Although it wasn't the most attractive braid ever, it would do for now. He could always fix it in the morning before they trained.

  Namida reached her hand up, her fingers hovering over the braid before they gently felt along it, taking in the little bumps and loose hairs. Darwe waited impatiently for her reaction, only realizing after a moment that he was holding his breath. He gave a little huff, annoyed with himself that he was taking this so seriously.

  "...Thank you." Her voice was so quiet he almost missed it. "No one's done my hair for me before except...my mother." He heard her swallow, her voice thick with emotion. He turned away, somehow getting the feeling that she didn't want him to see ho
w affected she was by such a simple action. He pressed his back against hers and heaved a sigh, knocking his head gently against hers.

  "Next time you're having trouble with something, you ask me, okay? I promise I won't laugh at you, or judge you, no matter what it is you need." His lips tugged up in a half-smile. "And if you come see me before we train tomorrow morning, I'll fix that braid. You might not be able to see it now, but I can, and it looks pretty terrible."

  Namida laughed, bumping her head against his. "Deal."

  They sat like that for a few minutes as the clock on the wall ticked the seconds away, neither of them saying a word, simply enjoying the silent camaraderie that they both shared.

  o—O—o

  Master Dorozi folded his hands under his chin, his expression pensive.

  "So, these...spies you fought," he said slowly, "you're saying they told you Kaska sent them to spy on me?"

  Namida gave a terse nod. "That's what they said. Albeit...under duress," she said, not making eye contact with the swords master.

  Master Dorozi sighed, giving her an awkward pat on the head before standing, straightening his tunic as he headed for the door.

  "Very well, then. Thank you for bringing this to my attention," he said, dismissing her with an over-the-shoulder wave before he disappeared from sight.

  Namida was stunned. As was Darwe, it seemed, as the boy had been whittling a branch into a point on the other side of the room, pretending (poorly) as though he were not trying to listen in on the conversation between his master and fellow pupil. The two apprentices' eyes met, and they shared an equally perturbed look between them. Darwe's eyes darted to the open doorway before he hopped up from his seat, crossing the room in a few quick strides before plopping himself down in the chair directly across from Namida that Master Dorozi had just vacated.

  "What was that all about?" Darwe asked in a hushed voice, not wanting Master Dorozi to overhear him. Master Dorozi said that busybodies were the worst, and he didn't tolerate nosiness when it came to other people's secrets—unless, of course, they were potentially dangerous secrets. Which, with Master Dorozi, seemed to qualify just about everyone outside of their complex, and even some within it. His own secrets, of course, were something he guarded viciously and were best left alone. Darwe couldn't help his own curiosity, though, at the man's complete lack of reaction to the fact that Kaska—the horrible man that parents warned their children about to scare them into behaving—had sent legitimate spies after him. Kaska the Maimed! A legend all in his own right, albeit a terrible one, and he was after the man they called master; the man who had been not quite like a father to them, but a stern guardian, at the least.

  And he acted as though it were nothing out of the ordinary!

  Namida looked back to the open doorway, her brow furrowed with concern. "I...I don't know," she said honestly. "I don't get it. He's been trying so hard to stay out of this war, even going so far as to build this hiding place in the middle of the biggest stretch of uninhabited desert this country has to offer, only to act like Kaska sending people to drag him back into his and the Queen's fight is nothing to be concerned about!" she tugged at the end of her braid, exasperated at the man's confusing non-reaction. "If he's really that indifferent about being forced into a fight he didn't want to take part in, why did he go to all this trouble to hide himself away in the first place?"

  Darwe frowned, staring down at his hands folded in his lap. "Master Dorozi is...an unpredictable man," he said, not sure how much he should tell her, but deciding to enlighten her on some of what he had witnessed throughout his years at the complex. "In the time that I've known him, he's always been a rather quiet person, and very hard to read. So even if he's scared, or worried, or frustrated...except for listening very closely to the things that he says to you, it's almost impossible to tell what he's thinking or feeling most of the time." Darwe flicked his eyes up to meet Namida's, finding her listening with a small frown on her face. Her eyes flashed, encouraging him to go on. He took a deep breath to steady himself.

  "A couple of years ago, Master Dorozi...indulged in a fair bit of wine. Of course, being the kind of person I am, I took advantage of it," he said with a sheepish look. Namida smirked in response, but said nothing, leaning forward with her elbow on her knee and listening intently. "I asked him why he came out here in the first place. He said...he said he used to be in the Queen's army with Kaska, before he was Kaska the Maimed."

  Namida's eyes went wide, and she made a little choking sound. He held his hand up to stop her as she opened her mouth to interrupt.

  "Ah-ah-ah. Let me tell my story," he said, and she grumbled in protest before falling silent. "They went on the first and only expedition in history to explore what we now know as the Wildlands, to the North." Her eyes went wide again, but she covered her mouth with her hand to keep from interrupting. Darwe's expression was grim. "He wouldn't tell me what they encountered there. I don't think it's even written in the royal records what went on, or what they saw. All he would say was that Kaska saved his life, and lost his right eye and two fingers on his right hand in the process. He almost lost his life, too, if it hadn't have been for the healer they brought with them."

  Namida's hand fell back into her lap, her fingers trembling with ill-suppressed rage.

  "If he feels such sympathy for Kaska, then why doesn't he go be his lap dog already?" she hissed. This was the man whose soldiers killed her parents they were talking about, and here she was hearing about how the swordsmaster she'd so respected up until now thought of the man as a Fate-forsaken saint! Saving one man's life did not make up for the hundreds—thousands, even—of lives he had ended, by his own hand and those of his followers, just in the pursuit of power.

  Darwe sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose to ward off an oncoming headache. "Look, it's not that simple, Mida. Master Dorozi knows that Kaska isn't entirely innocent in this war. He knows that Kaska has become too power-thirsty for his own good. He just can't bring himself to declare war on one of his old comrades, especially the one that saved his life," he tried to explain, feeling exasperated trying to explain the knowledge that he was privy to to an outsider, especially one with such a bias as Namida understandably had. "But the Queen isn't entirely innocent in this whole fiasco, either. Sure, she may say she has the people's best interests at heart, but she's made some rather questionable decisions in the past. Where were the garrisons that she promised the towns, like yours when they first pledged their allegiance to her, when Kaska's troops attacked? They weren't in place yet, because we're half a country away from the capital. They started their construction of them in the towns closest to them, so that their troops wouldn't be far away from the royal palace in case of an attack, rather than starting at the furthest outlying villages, the ones they must have known would have been the weakest if Kaska chose to attack them." Namida was breathing heavily, trying to focus on her breaths—six in, hold, six out—so that she wouldn't pass out, emotions swarming her mind so thickly she felt like they would suffocate her. "To those villages, they barely gave any soldiers at all. Because as much as you'd like to think that this is a war between good and evil, black and white, war is never that simple.

  "This is a war between two selfish humans, and it doesn't matter whose side anyone chooses; we all lose in the end."

  CHAPTER SIX

  At age fourteen, Namida began to learn the art of stealth. The various inhabitants of the complex were forced to put up with several months of her failed attempts at spying on them, but eventually she became more adept at the trade, until it even took Kilish several minutes to realize that she was being spied upon. The woman did not take kindly to the intrusion, though, and Namida and Darwe sat side-by-side outside of Master Dorozi’s office wincing at the yelling and screaming coming from within, muffled poorly by the thin walls between them and the warring pair. Darwe placed his hand upon her head at seeing her nails biting into the skin of her palm, and she was grateful for the support. Living in the
same small space as a number of other people meant that it was inevitable to have spats with one another, but they weren't usually that bad. It made her feel guilty listening to Master Dorozi being screamed at by his own niece for something that wasn't even his fault. It rather smothered her prior enjoyment of spying, listening to the destruction that it wrought on the relationships of those involved.

  Needless to say, when Master Dorozi assigned her final stealth test to spy on Momal for a total of at least thirty minutes without getting caught, she dug her heels in.

  "Why?" she asked, scowling. "You know nothing good can come of this. We may not be especially close, but Momal is my friend. I do not want to ruin that by spying on him. You remember what happened with Kilish, right?" She watched the grim look that brought about on Master Dorozi's face with a sick sense of satisfaction. She didn't like making him feel bad, but if it helped to prove her point, she would do it.

  "That has nothing to do with this," Master Dorozi insisted, shaking his head a little as though to shake off the negative impact of her words. "Kilish is...a very private person. She loathes to have that privacy invaded, and I should never have allowed you to do that to her." He frowned. "Momal is not so...volatile when it comes to unleashing his anger. And even despite that, I doubt he would mind too terribly if you were to find out that he spends an hour every night maintaining his facial hair at the perfect length."