Lion's Blood

by Steven Barnes

  Kai's pulse quickened whenever he strode these halls. These were his people. These were the men of Dar Kush. He felt a terror deep within him, knowing in his bones that he would never measure up to them, and in those moments glad that he was the younger son. Ali was the diplomat and legislator, the leader with an inherited military ranking. He would win glory, and inherit his father’s castle. Kai's destiny was a different one, a quieter one that lay in Ali's shadow. As Malik would have remained in Abu Ali's shadow, had he not transformed himself into the greatest warrior in New Djibouti.

  But certainly Kai could not do such a thing . . .

  Could he?

  Malik's main training hall was in the very center of the house, a wide courtyard with a glass ceiling imported all the way from Alexandria, both natural and artificial light illuminating the place where young men learned to survive on the field of honor. The sounds of combat rang loudly: clangs and thuds, scuffles and shouts.

  Kai entered to find his uncle conducting a practice dual with one of Ali's friends, a round, rubbery boy named Kebwe. Kebwe looked as though he should have been clumsy but moved with the explosiveness of a leaping frog, with deceptive balance and a tigerlike aggression.

  Kebwe wore leather armor, Malik none at all. Every muscle on Malik's body was etched like a surgeon's chart, his every motion spontaneous, reflexive and yet calculated for maximum effect. No slightest breath was wasted.

  His sword was a miracle of fluidity: here, there, to the side, a flickering fire in the waxing light. Kebwe was intuitive, precise, strong, fast. . . and a straw in the wind compared to his teacher.

  A second student sat on a bench, heaving for breath and perspiring profusely. Obviously, he had just finished a round with the master. His dour expression suggested that he wasn't eager to begin the next.

  Malik and Kebwe stood on a silver floor painting of a triangle within a circle, about four cubits in diameter. Even from where he stood, his eyes wide and heart tripping to the lightning pace of the engagement, Kai could tell that Uncle Malik's footwork moved precisely along the corners of the triangle. His thrusts and parries were, more often than not, in parallel to its lines.

  Kai glanced at his footboy, curious as to the effect of this display. Wide-eyed Aidan seemed utterly entranced. Kai deliberately and elaborately slouched into a bored posture.

  Malik's arm corkscrewed, and Kebwe's sword clattered to the ground.

  "Pitiful," Malik snapped. Kebwe could not meet his teacher's blazing eyes. "Sit. N'Challa!" Malik called out to the second student. "Once more!"

  N'Challa rose heavily to his feet. He tried to elevate his spirit to the challenge, but it was clear that this round-robin had been going on for some time, and both younger men were near exhaustion. Malik was still uncannily fresh, as if his exertions had consisted of little more than a brisk walk.

  N'Challa was clumsier than Kebwe, but quicker, lurching into position with unexpected speed. Time and again, Malik countered him with casual and unnerving ease.

  After a quarter hour of thrust and parry, in which Malik touched the armor over N'Challa's heart a dozen times, the master called a halt.

  "Enough!" he roared. "If you are going to waste my time, restrict yourself to kitchen cutlery. Bah!"

  Without a word, the boys slunk out of the training hall, heads down.

  Malik stood in the middle of the silver triangle within the circle, his point pressed against the ground.

  "They were good, I thought," Kai ventured.

  The very thinnest of smiles shaded the warrior's face. "Improving," he granted grudgingly. "Most men respond better to blisters than to praise." Then almost as if a spell had been broken, the darkness slid from him and he embraced his nephew warmly. "You, on the other hand, are another matter entirely." Malik finally seemed to see Aidan, who stood huddled in the corner, his shoulders tight. "Outside, boy."

  Aidan nodded humbly and scurried out. The door boomed shut behind him.

  Malik turned back to his nephew. "Now, Kai. Let’s see what you retain from last week's torture, eh?"

  Kai drew his sword and took his place on the triangle. As Malik spoke, Kai automatically executed one short, choppy series of set patterns after another.

  "One!" Malik called, triggering a set of six motions: high circle, low circle, riposte, attack at a left oblique, straight right, straight left. Very formalized, keeping his balance well forward on a deeply bent knee, concentration focused to a tunnel. Malik nodded approval.

  "Two!"

  Kai shifted to the left, passed the sword from his right to his left hand, and lunged. Then low parry, high parry, a thrust to the outside, beginning to enjoy himself—

  "No!" Malik called. "You were sacrificing clarity for speed." There was irritation in his voice, but Kai didn't flinch: Malik's occasional irritation masked a deep well of affection.

  "Now," he said, as he had a thousand times before. "Count with me." He stood at Kai's side, right hand forward. "One." Kai swooped his sword up, then down toward the center starting from the top right corner of an imaginary box. "Two." The sword glided up to the top left corner of the imaginary box, and slashed to the center. "Three." With a flick of his wrist, the sword went down to the bottom right corner and slashed up to center. "Four" took it down to the bottom left corner, slashing up to center in a kind of backhand, and "Five" took him in a lunge directly down the center.

  "Now you," Malik said. And slowly, Kai repeated the motions. In his mind was the square, divided by lines, each of Malik's Five Strikes taking a different line. According to Malik, all of physical motion could be subsumed under those five angles of attack. All other motions were merely variations or combinations. Kai bent himself to the purpose as Malik called them out.

  A One was a One regardless of the hand holding the sword. It merely became a backhand motion if in the left hand. And a Two was a Two, and so on. It made a pattern reminiscent of a starburst, and it was dynamic, and could rotate a bit so that the lines of entry were parallel to the ground.

  Some systems of combat have seven angles, or twelve, Uncle Malik had said time and again. They are organized despair. The fewer choices you have to make, the faster you can respond. Think five angles. They are the only directions from which an opponent can attack. And if he hops or twirls or leaps or spits, still your defense against the line remains the same. Think simply. In combat there is no room for the complicated, only the complex.

  "Halt!" Malik called, and the boy froze in position, a human statue.

  Malik circled Kai, checking legs and shoulders, adjusting here and there, prodding and probing. Finally, at the point when Kai's thighs began to burn, Malik deigned to nod approval. Then he faced his nephew and took up position with his own blade. "Begin."

  Now Malik made the classic strokes to provoke Kai's defense. Thrust, block, parry, a series of motions practiced countless times, engraved upon Kai's mind by the chisel of a master sculptor.

  But despite frequent encouragements and proclamations of excellence, his father was right: his heart was more in scrolls than swords. He would sweat his way through his exercises because he loved his uncle, who had taught him to walk. More importantly, he loved and obeyed his father. But the concept of actually facing a sword-wielding Aztec, a barbarian who intended to drive that unyielding sharpness into his guts, made him wilt internally.

  For just an instant he allowed himself to fantasize that Malik was actually attempting to kill him. Kai's concentration faltered, and sweat beaded beneath his arms. Panic crawled in the pit of his stomach, but despite the wandering of his mind, his reflexes had served him well: the rhythm remained unbroken.

  "Good," Malik nodded. "Better than last week. Let us begin again, and freeze on my command. One—"

  Kai began the motion, and Malik cried, "Stop!"

  Kai froze, sword extended toward his uncle. Malik tapped his blade against Kai's.

  "Look," Malik said. "Granted that you are fast, but you opened the line here. Do you see that man?" Mal
ik pointed toward a full-size model of a scowling Aztec warrior in leather armor and feathered mantle. Next to it was an equally menacing image of a fur-coated Viking carrying a double-bladed axe.

  "Yes, sir?" Kai said, trying to keep the quaver out of his voice. Allah preserve him if Malik grew angry!

  Malik leaned forward. "He would be eating your liver. Or the Viking? Cleft you in two." He swept his sword down, the tip coming within a digit of Kai's nose. Kai fought not to tremble. Malik sighed. "Boy, you have lived your life in comfort and luxury because your father, and our father, took their lessons very seriously. I expect you to do the same, so that your sons may enjoy the same pleasures, hey?"

  Kai nodded his head vigorously. Malik squared Kai's shoulders and set him to practicing his lunges against the Aztec dummy.

  "Now!" he said. "Lunge!" And Kai lunged. "Recover. Roof block! Recover. Stroke number two! Recover—"

  Kai performed each technique with full energy and commitment. If not all of his most secret heart was in it, his uncle either didn't sense it or pretended not to notice.

  Every stroke touched a vital spot. Every lunge was accompanied by a sharp exhalation that precisely matched the duration of the strike. Kai's eyes narrowed, mind simultaneously on the target and roaming though his body striving to keep the arm aligned, the hip properly positioned, the rear heel flat on the ground to transfer the shock. If fate was with him, if his technique lanced his blade into the dummy, then that additional leverage would insure that steel would drive deep, not be deflected by armor or bone.

  Again and again and again, until the circle of his concentration had contracted to exclude fear, and all awareness of self was consumed in the flame of focus.

  And as he entered that strange and special place, his uncle smiled.

  Night had fallen. The cart was trundling along the road slowly, as if Kai had all the time in the world. The moon hung swollen on the eastern horizon, its lower edge kissing the Tagaday Plain, named for an Abyssinian wrestler fabled to have won land concessions from the Tonkawa native tribe by besting their champion.

  Kai had been quiet for the last half hour, reveling masochistically in the ache in his legs and arms and back. It would fade into stiffness in the morning, leaving behind a sense of greater connectedness. And in a few years, he knew, the same lessons would shape his body into manly perfection. Not the awesome machine that was his uncle, or his father as he had appeared in old portraits, but manly nonetheless.

  Finally, he turned to the boy next to him. They had shared a basket of warm pastries sent by Fatima; after all, the footboy had carried some quite sweaty clothing and light armor. Ai-Den would clean them, too, in the morning. It was only fair for him to share in some of the good things. And he was, Kai suspected, sharing more than the food. He chuckled to himself when the servant made subtle thrusting and blocking motions in the air.

  "You were watching, weren't you?" he said. Aidan looked at him curiously, but without recognition. Kai gestured with his sword, and said it again, raising his voice and pronouncing the words more carefully. "You . . . were . . . watching?"

  Aidan's eyes sparkled. He picked up a stick and pantomimed his response. "Wahid, atnen, yudafi! One! Two! Block!" he said, moving clumsily through the paces.

  But Kai rather liked what he saw. Aidan had learned more by just watching (through a grille? through a crack in the door?) than did some of his uncle's students in the actual presence of the Master. "Not bad," he allowed.

  Aidan mimed a salute, his hand to his heart. "Yes, sir!" he said.

  Kai grinned. Just like a little monkey, Aidan was. Kai lay back against the grain bags, resting his sore muscles. Indeed, he had made a good choice of footboys. This was going to be fun.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Festus stopped the cart before the gate to Ghost Town, the blacks' derogatory name for the slaves' compound. The wire fence around the entire settlement was shoulder-high, but not barbed. Try as he might, Aidan was unable to avoid comparisons with O'Dere crannog, the home that he had been torn from barely a year before.

  "Here y'go, boyo." Festus grinned. Festus would take master Kai up to the big house, drive back to the barn, rub down and feed the horses, and then, finally, return to the compound for his own meal and a night's sleep.

  Kai waved his hand and said something in Arabic. Aidan was learning as fast as he could, but there was so much to learn, so many things that he sometimes despaired. There were only two words he recognized: "Gadan." Tomorrow. And "Ma'ah Salame Aidan." Good-bye, Aidan.

  He waved his hand back. "Gadan," he said in return. The alien word felt odd in his mouth, and he felt a little chill, knowing that in time those sounds would be natural to him. If he did not find a way out of this trap, a way to return to the land of his birth, he was afraid he might become as some of the other slaves, speaking Arabic more readily than Gaelic.

  Luckily, most slaves in the village were from Eire, and spoke the same tongue. He had heard that this was unusual, that on most farms and land holdings they were mixed from over the Isle and the Far Lands as well, forced out of their languages and customs and made to accept those of their new masters.

  He would not. He would learn this terrible, ugly speech, but never forget who he was. And one day, he would find a way to take his mother away from this place, and they would find Nessa . . .

  The utter helplessness of his situation suddenly threatened to overwhelm him. Since arriving in the harbor he had seen so much, done so much, and so much had been done to him. Weeks of the meanest, most mindless labor as he learned enough basic Arabic to respond to commands. Then rotations in the fields, weeding and hoeing. More weeks in the barns shoveling shit, and heaven help him if he touched one of their precious horses! Then weeks of kitchen duties: scrubbing floors, carrying wood, shoveling ice in the ice cellar. If he hadn't found a way to catch Kai's eye, he feared he might have been unhinged by the mind-numbing combination of boredom and fatigue.

  Topper, a strapping black-hair who was one of the village's two blacksmiths, saluted him. Topper was a kind man, with a round face and a back like a boulder. Knowing that Aidan had yet to learn their master's language, Topper addressed him in their own tongue. "Had a good day with the young master?"

  "It was all right," he said, grateful to feel, for a moment, sane and free. "He's not all bad, I guess."

  Topper's wrinkled face creased in a smile. He laid his slab of a hand on the boy's shoulder. "They're all bastards, boy," he said. "It'll be easier on you if you learn their speech and their ways. There is no way home."

  Yes, there is, Aidan said to himself, but his mouth replied, "Of course not."

  Topper slapped his shoulder and swung his way past, whistling. There was something haunted in the man's eyes, and Aidan knew that he was not as cavalier as his words implied. Not at all.

  A pretty, freckled, red-haired girl walked past, carrying two buckets of water in a yoke across her shoulders. "Hello, Aidan," she greeted him. She was only a year older than he, but there was a wealth of sad knowledge in her eyes, concealed behind the joviality. Her hair and smile reminded him of Nessa.

  He greeted her in return. "Molly," he said, and she seemed to glow at him, which made him feel uncomfortable. He wanted to avoid her. He had enjoyed poor Morgan's flirtations, yes, but now any fascination with girls had been lost to his overriding preoccupations: Survival. Freedom. Nessa. Home.

  He had been here for ten months. In some ways the village was reminiscent of O'Dere crannog. But there were new elements added by their masters, strange mud that dried like stone and cloths from someplace called Kush and Ee-Gyp, which he now understood to be worlds away but somehow still influenced this world. So many things, so many dizzying sights and sounds. He wore the blacks' cast-off clothes, he would learn their language. He gawked at their houses, so much larger and more luxuriant than anything he had ever known. He had to understand. He had to know this world, and was afraid that he wouldn't ever be able to truly grasp it.

&nbs
p; What kind of strange beings were these black men, who built such terrible and wonderful things? Were they really human, or something else?

  Could they possibly be gods? He didn't think so. Kai, whose favor he had carefully cultivated, certainly seemed to be much like an ordinary boy, except for his power and knowledge. He had watched Kai piss against a tree, and what he pulled out of his pants certainly looked human, but with demons and fairies you couldn't be sure.

  Aidan had to be very careful indeed.

  He strode the narrow streets of Ghost Town, long since memorized. About two hundred slaves lived within its walls. There were a few more on the grounds, living in the main house or in shacks next to the quarries. Aidan struggled not to become overawed by the wealth. Slaves he had known in Eire, but he had never known anyone who owned more than two. Over two hundred? The "Wah-kill" was unimaginably powerful, and if his son seemed nothing but a normal human, mightn't the "Wah-kill" be more?

  These and other riddles plagued him as he returned home. It was a mean shack by O'Dere standards. The wooden walls were flimsy, the roof thinly thatched. It was hot in the day and cold at night. The floor was earthen, but not the good dark clay he had known, only months ago. He could smell the difference, feel the difference when he ground his bare feet against the reddish dust. This was alien, all alien, and the pleasant, sympathetic faces of the other slaves were no more than a further snare to entrap him.

  When he walked through the door, the first and most wondrous sight was his mother, Deirdre. Without being able to halt himself, he burst out in his "Mama!" and ran to her, grasping her around the waist. "An airtonn tu ceart go leor?" Are you feeling better?

  "Tà mé go maith," she replied in Gaelic. Hardship had stripped flesh from her body. She was gaunt now, and her hipbones dug into his arms when he hugged her. There was plenty of food, but Deirdre had not eaten or slept well in the months since their arrival.