by Evan Winter
"Tau!" Jabari's voice sounded far away. "Tau, are you hurt?"
"No... I hurt her, I think," Tau heard himself say.
"Get up. More are coming. We have to make it to the rest of the Ihagu."
Tau stood.
"Is that your blood?" asked Jabari.
"Blood?"
"Your face."
Jabari, the woman, and child were staring at him. The two hedeni that had faced Jabari, both men, were dead.
"It's not me," Tau told them. "Not me."
"We have to go," said Jabari.
Tau nodded, pulled his blade free from the body with a squelch, took a step, doubled over and retched. Nothing came up. He retched again, his stomach heaving when he forced himself upright. The child was staring at him. He wiped his mouth on his gambeson. "Fine," he said. "I'm fine."
Jabari looked Tau over. "We have to go," he said, moving.
Tau followed. The woman he'd killed lay in the mud like a broken doll. He'd never killed someone. He was shaking. He'd never—
"Follow me," said Jabari as the four of them weaved between huts and buildings, doing their best to avoid the fighting all around them.
Jabari was heading towards the barricade that the Ihagu were setting up at the edge of the hamlet's central square. They had used overturned wagons, tables, even broken down doors to block the paths that led to the square. They were making a stand. They wouldn't last long. There were too many Xiddeen.
"In here!" Jabari shoved the woman, who had picked up and was carrying the child, through the open door of a hut. Jabari dashed in after her and Tau followed. The hut was far larger than the one Tau shared with his father. It had four rooms that shot off the main living area. Tau reasoned it must belong to a High-Harvester. Maybe even Berko, he thought as the first hedena warrior burst through the doorway.
The man, hatchet out, made for Jabari. He hadn't seen Tau. Tau sliced at the man's side, chopping into his arm. The hedena, larger than Tau, hollered and stumbled into the nearest wall. Jabari ran him through.
The next hedena through the door had a spear. It was a woman. Tau knew the hedeni fought men alongside women. He knew it like he knew he had ten toes, but seeing a second female fighter gave him pause.
He should attack. He didn't. She thrust her spear at him. It would have taken him in the throat if Jabari hadn't lashed out, knocking it out of her hands.
The hedena woman drew a dagger from her belt. She wore no armor. The hedeni never did. Instead, she had on an earth-toned wrap that covered her breasts and looped round her back, where it dove into loose and flowing pants. She was sandaled and her hands were bangled, the golden metal bouncing on her slim wrists as she flicked her dagger at Jabari.
Jabari danced back. She came forward and Tau knew this was his chance. Jabari had coaxed her forward and Tau was behind her. He just had to stab her. He just had to end her life.
On weak knees, Tau stepped forward and swung his sword as hard as he could. The flat of the blade hammered into the side of the hedena's head, knocking her down.
Jabari kicked the dagger from her hand and leapt on her. He pressed his sword to her neck. "You speak Empiric?" he snarled. "How many ships did you land on our shores? How many raiders?" He pressed the point of his sword into her neck, drawing blood. "Who leads them?"
She smiled, spat in his face, closed her eyes and began to spasm. Her skin, scarred from the Curse, bubbled and boiled. Blood erupted from her nose, ears, mouth, and eyes, and she began to scream and scream and scream. Then, like a candle blown, her life was gone, snuffed out.
The child in the Lesser woman's arms was crying and the Lesser had turned away. Jabari had scurried away from the hedena when she began to spasm. He was still on his ass, facing the dead savage.
He turned to Tau, mouth open, brow furrowed. "Demon-death," he said. "Your father told us it's what they do when captured. I didn't believe it. I didn't believe anyone would really do it."
Tau could think of nothing worth saying.
Jabari, shaken up, wiped the savage's spit from his face and stood. "We have to keep moving."
He stumbled away, using the wall for support. Tau, along with the woman and child, followed him through the other rooms of the hut. Jabari bashed out a shuttered window at the back of the building and they crawled out of it, emerging in the middle of a square of tightly packed homes.
In front of them was a storage barn and they were at least a hundred strides from the Ihagu's barricade. Jabari tried the barn's door. They had not been seen and could go through the long building. With luck, they'd come out a quick run from the barricade and the rest of their people. Jabari smashed the lock off the door and went in.
The storage barn was large, but its interior was tight, crammed with shelves, most empty. That was bad. It was almost Harvest, only the Southern Tear had ground healthy enough for good growing, and the Grow season had been the worst in many cycles. If this storehouse was any indication, The Rend would have trouble feeding its people.
As they slunk through, Tau began to have trouble breathing.
"What are you doing?" Jabari asked.
Tau couldn't stop panting. He felt dizzy. "Too close," he said about the shelves and walls.
"What?"
Tau squeezed his eyes shut. It didn't help much and he couldn't get enough air. He'd come to a stop and didn't think he'd be able to keep going, when a cool hand slipped into his.
"It's just a few more steps," the Lesser woman told him. "Keep your eyes closed. I'll guide you."
Tau nodded and stumbled after her.
"Ready?" asked Jabari.
Tau, still nauseous and desperate to get out of the barn, opened an eye. They had walked the length of the storehouse and were at its front doors.
"If the Goddess wills," Jabari said, "we'll have a clear run for the barricade. We make it there and we're safe."
Tau wasn't sure anywhere in Daba could be called safe. He'd seen how many hedeni were out there. Either way, the only thing that mattered was getting out of the storage barn. It felt like the whole building was collapsing in on him.
"Ready?" Jabari asked again.
The Lesser, eyes wide, nodded. Tau groaned his assent.
"Go!" Jabari yelled, kicking the door open.
Tau pitched through the doorway, fixated on being free of the barn, and ran into a startled hedena. He bowled the man over and Jabari stabbed the downed savage. There were four, maybe five other raiders, but they were fighting Ihagu. Jabari joined the fight and Tau, head spinning, grabbed the woman's hand, pulling her along.
He saw the barricade, just ahead, and made for it. She was slowing him and a voice in his head shouted for him to leave her and the child behind. Without realizing it, he let his hand slip loose in hers. He was letting go.
Gritting his teeth, he did his best to tamp down his fear and, tightening his grip on the woman's hand, he pulled her after him. The men behind the barricade saw him coming and Tau thought he recognized one of them, but the blood, caked on the man's face, made it hard to tell.
The bloody-faced man shoved aside a pile of overturned chairs, making a climbable path for Tau and his two charges. Tau helped the woman and child clamber up the ramshackle wall.
"You now," the bloody-faced Ihagu yelled, reaching for him.
"Tendaji?" Tau said.
"Tau?" said Tendaji. "What are you doing here?"
"Not sure," Tau told the man.
"Get up here."
"Can't. Jabari is still out there." Tau turned and, with loosening bowels, he ran back to the fighting.
"Jabari?" The shock in Tendaji's voice spoke volumes.
Tau didn't run far. Jabari and the Ihagu were coming to him. Jabari was bleeding through the arm of his gambeson and the other warriors carried one of their own.
"I'm well," said Jabari, waving off Tau's concern. "Let's get behind the barricade."
Tau helped carry the wounded Ihagu and they ran for the barricade.
"Nkosi!" Tendaji s
aid, mouth dropping open. Tau had warned him, but seeing Jabari in the middle of a raid must have been too much for the Ihagu soldier to accept without shock.
Tendaji helped them climb the barricade and, once the last man was over, they shifted the blocking rubble back in place.
Behind the barricade, Tau hoped to feel safe. He didn't. Most of the Ihagu were injured, the ones fighting at the contested sections were being overwhelmed, and the townspeople were frantic.
Looking beyond the barricade, Tau saw that the hedeni were being reinforced. Savages were pouring down from the paths and into the flats. Tau looked at Jabari. Jabari had seen them too and, for once, the optimistic second son looked scared.
"Get back, Nkosi," Tendaji cautioned. "They're coming."
"Let them," Jabari said, stepping up to the barricade. Tendaji looked like he would say more. Instead, he shifted, making room.
Tau stepped up on Jabari's other side. "For The Rend," he said with more conviction than he felt.
"For the Goddess," intoned Jabari and Tendaji together. The three men hefted their weapons. The barricade wouldn't hold and they wouldn't last, not against the number of hedeni coming at them, but they'd give a good accounting of themselves.
GUARDIANS
The first wave of hedeni hit the barricade and it was madness. Tau stabbed and swung at limbs and faces. He sliced a hedena's fingers off and almost scalped another.
It didn't matter. There were too many. There had always been too many. It was why the Goddess had blessed her Chosen with Gifts. It was why she had given them Dragons.
The burst of fire exploded a hundred-stride in front of the barricade, singing Tau's eyebrows. He threw himself back, away from the searing heat. He looked to his right and saw Jabari and Tendaji on the ground too. He tried to speak. His spit had been cooked away.
"Guardians!" yelled a hoarse voice from further down the barricade. "Guardians!"
His vision swimming, Tau looked up and saw his first Dragon up close. The behemoth, its body a mass of pure-black scales that drank in light and twisted the eye, ripped through the air. Tau followed with his eyes, watching it course toward the hedeni, sinuous tail trailing behind, lashing the smoke from Daba's fires to hazy shreds.
When it was close enough, the black creature opened its maw and lit the evening with a twisting pillar of sun-bright flame, thick as three men. Tau jumped to his feet, wobbled, and climbed the barricade, watching the Dragon's chain of fire explode against the ground. The hedeni that were hit were vaporized and the Dragon flew on, past Daba's plateau, turning for another pass.
"Tau?" said a voice Tau would recognize anywhere.
"Father," he said, turning to face Aren Solarin.
"Why, Tau?" his father asked. "Why?"
Tau's mouth opened and closed, no words coming.
"I asked him to accompany me, Inkokeli Solarin," Jabari lied. "I heard there was a raid and it is my duty, as a Noble and son of the Umbusi, to fight with my men. I haven't tested for the Citadel, but I've reached manhood. This is my place."
Aren watched Jabari and shouted to the nearby listeners. "Shore up the barricades! The Guardians won't do us any good when the hedeni are mixed in with our own people and killing us." The gawkers snapped to action. "Jabari, as Inkokeli of your mother's Ihagu, I believe your place, among her fighting men, is best decided by me. By coming here, you have needlessly risked your life."
Jabari was forced to nod, accepting as strict a chastisement as Aren, a Lesser, could give him. Tau found himself nodding too. Aren spoke to Jabari, but Tau knew the words were meant for him.
"Please, Aren, accept my apologies," Jabari offered.
Aren grunted. "Stay back from the fighting," he said, marching away to give him men more orders. "It would break my heart to have to tell your mother that you'd died." More words meant for Tau.
"We fought through hedeni to get here," Tau said, loud enough for everyone near them to hear. He wanted his father to know what they had done, that they had saved Chosen lives. "We killed and—"
Aren stopped, but didn't turn. "And what does that make you, Tau?" His back was stiff, his fists clenched.
Tau had nothing to say and, after a breath, his father walked away.
"Ihagu," Aren shouted. "Form up and help the townspeople carry what they can." Everyone began moving. "If the Gifted have enough reason to call the Guardians, it means we must run. Run and don't stop."
"Run?" Jabari asked Tau.
The roar of several hundred foreign voices answered in Tau's place. The two men stepped onto the barricade in time to see the full force of hedeni raiders charging in their direction.
"Goddess..." said Tendaji, his voice little more than a whisper against the howling tumult racing their way.
"Away from the barricade," ordered Tau's father. "Run. Now!"
Jabari was off the barricade first, Tendaji and Tau right behind. They ran. Townspeople abandoned everything but their loved ones, and they ran.
"We're being herded," shouted Jabari. "When the flats end, we'll hit the cliffs. There are no paths this way."
Tau had never been to Daba, but he'd lived near the Southern range of mountains his entire life. All paths, throughout the mountains, ran across reliable ascents and descents. If there were no paths in the direction they ran, it didn't mean it was impossible to climb down, but it did mean there was no way to do it at speed. It would be an easy task for the hedeni to kill those who made their way down too slowly, and the mountain would claim the ones who went too fast.
The raid had been well planned. The initial attacking force was large, but not too large. The Ihagu and townspeople had been led to believe they could hold Daba. They had willingly trapped themselves with their backs to the cliffs. Once that was done, the hedeni had launched their real attack and the truth had become clear. This was not a raid, it was an extermination.
The Guardian made a difference. It would thin the hedeni's numbers, but like Tau's father had said, if the savages got in among the Chosen, the Guardian would have to hold its fire or burn the people it had come to save. Tau thought this through and knew what would come next.
"Ihagu," his father shouted. "Form up, battle lines."
It was the only reasonable choice. The Ihagu would stand and fight. They would slow the hedeni enough to allow the townspeople a chance at escape.
Tau stopped running and turned to face the horrifying mass of enemy flesh, with their sharpened bronze and bone. Tendaji was beside him, his presence a surprising comfort. His father ran up as well.
"Jabari, Tau," he said. "I need you to guide the townspeople down the mountain. Take them to safety."
"You ask too much, Aren," Jabari replied. "I'll be no help to them and you cannot save me from this fate. I'll fight, as do all the men in my mother's Ihagu."
Conflicting emotions played across Aren's face. Tau saw pride and fear warring with one another. He had been trying to save them.
"We'll show them what it means to be Chosen, father," Tau said, hands quavering, but voice steady.
"So we will," Aren said. He yelled his orders to the rest, "Tighten the lines. Stand firm. We hold here. We will not be moved. Remember, the men to your left, to your right, they are your sword-brothers. Keep them safe and they'll do the same for you."
Aren stopped there, waiting for the right moment. It came quickly. "For the Goddess!" he bellowed.
"For the Goddess!" they screamed back as the hedeni front lines smashed into them.
WARRIORS
The fighting was a nightmare of bronze and blood. Weapons flashed in and out of Tau's sight, he fought wildly, yelled himself hoarse, received a biting cut to the leg, and was pulled back by Nkiru, his father's Second. Tau tried to thank Nkiru, but the older warrior had already moved on, his sword chopping at anything not Chosen.
Tau spotted his father and Jabari and, on his weakened leg, he pushed to the front lines, following Nkiru's lead by stabbing at everything his enemy put within reach. As if appearing fr
om thin air, Tendaji was beside him, until he wasn't, the bitter fighting separating them.
Tau tried to get closer to his father and slipped. He went down and was trampled. He pushed himself to a knee and the head of a spear whizzed past his ear. Tau punched his sword at the spear holder, heard them curse, and saw them fall back into the clot of hedeni.
Tau scrambled to his feet, glancing at what made him fall. It was Tendaji, his head crushed. Tau stumbled away from the body, and a Chosen fighter sliced him across the arm with an errant swing.
The battle was insanity and Tau felt crushed by fear. He was about to run, flee down the mountainside with the townspeople, when a savage attacked the Ihagu beside him.
The Chosen man was fighting. He didn't see the spear coming for his back. Tau leapt forward, tried to yell, nothing came out. His voice was gone.
He crashed into the attacking hedena and they went down. They struggled, teeth bared, growling. A blade flashed over Tau's shoulder and into the hedena's cheek, slashing the savage's face in two. The hedena gurgled, scrabbled at Tau, and went limp.
Aren took Tau's arm, hauling him to his feet. Tau, blood and muck coating him like a second skin, looked for the man he'd tried to save. He found him on the ground, dead.
"Back," his father told him, his sword point dragging in the dirt. "Their attack is failing."
Tau stared at the body of the Chosen man. It didn't make sense. He'd been alive a breath ago.
"The Ihashe and Indlovu are here," his father said.
Tau looked past the skirmish, seething around him. Out there, among the savages, he saw them. The Ihashe and Indlovu, the elite Lesser and Noble forces of the Chosen Military.
Leading the main prong of the Chosen counterattack was a giant. He wore bronze-plated leather armor painted red and black. He had a shield on one arm, and a shining bronze sword in the other. An Enraged Ingonyama, Tau knew.
The Ingonyama must have been twice Tau's height, his arms bulged with muscle, and he moved faster than should have been possible for someone his size. He fought like a God.
