by Cassie Wolf
When he set his eyes upon Masika, the girl was younger than his own and he saw the fear in her withdrawn cat eyes. The bruises offered all the physical evidence he needed and now he was going to save her and go home with his daughters, or so he’d thought until this young tribesman stepped forward.
He was barely a man and his clothes were ripped to shreds, but his hand gripped the sword firmly, despite his trembling and obvious fear, and told the Chief he was willing to fight.
Inari stopped in his tracks, and all eyes around the circle were drawn to this young man. Jasari was the first to break the silence with a laugh, one full of nerves and anger, as he raised his hand for his warriors to take the man away.
Pazade furrowed his brow behind his helm and signalled to his own warriors. In an instant, their spears were pointed towards the Shadow fighters, stopping them approaching. Jasari spun around and stood up.
“You can’t be fucking serious, Pazade! This boy is a no one! He failed to even earn his name!”
“Shut up,” Pazade mumbled. He leaned forward and motioned to the stranger, noticing the way the man’s eyes wandered over to his daughter. “What is your name?”
The young man turned to Pazade. “I don’t have a name. I am known only as Brother.”
“Brother,” Pazade said, ignoring the huffs and puffs of Jasari, “you have just opposed the binding of my daughter to your Chieftain’s only son. Do you even understand what that means?”
Brother shook his head but kept on looking straight and ready. “No.”
Inari let out a sigh of despair and seemed near breaking point as his glance met Pazade’s. “It means a fight to the death. The victor shall be the one who binds.”
The Chieftain was surprised when everyone gasped at the words. Not because so few of them knew what was actually entailed but the fact this stranger wasn’t scared. He saw his eyes meet with his daughter’s and all he responded with was a simple nod.
Jasari spat across the table. “This is fucking ridiculous! Warriors, take him to th-”
Pazade rose and towered over the stout man. “The Gods gave this male the strength to stand up. We have to respect to that.”
“Dia is my only son.”
“If you truly believe that your son should be bound to my daughter, you will let it happen,” Pazade said coolly. He glanced over at Dia, who was near trembling with nerves. Then he glanced back. “Daughter, this male is standing for your soul. Your say shall be final on this.”
With her gaze wide, she looked blankly at Dia before taking a couple of steps over to Brother. As she strode over, Pazade watched the body language of the young man. His eyes were drawn to Pazade’s daughter with a lost affection, as if he daren’t take them off her. It wasn’t a lust like he had seen in so many males; there was a protector within.
Zaki felt the heat, not just from the bonfire, but inside, coursing through his veins as the dress flowed over the dry ground, raised a faint cloud of dust with every step. He wondered what he was doing. There was no way in the world he could beat Dia. His equipment was nowhere near as good and the entire army would join in at first chance they could get. He was facing death in an instant but all he wanted to do was see her face behind the mask. He couldn’t let her become Dia’s and if that meant he died in the attempt, so be it. It would be his end.
The female brought her bangled arm up to his chest and traced her fingertips across his collar bone. She stood on her tiptoes and whispered so only he could hear, “win,” before she tore herself away. She nodded towards her father, and Jasari, the crowd and Dia’s siblings all starting yelling across the arena. The true colours of some showed in the way they wished Dia a painful death, others just wanted to be rid of the cursed flame boy.
Inari signalled the drummer boy to silence everyone and raised his hands in the air. “Then… I suppose there is to be a fight. Dia, step forward.”
With reluctance in his step, Dia took a couple more paces into the circle and held onto his sword by his side. His glare of hatred was nothing compared to the seething within Zaki. He had been waiting for a chance like this his entire life.
“You can’t be serious!” Jasari yelled in despair once more.
Inari quickly turned around. “I have to be. It is what I believe, Chief. It is what we all believe.”
Zaki didn’t for a moment take his eyes off Dia. He knew what his family were like, they would use underhanded tricks any chance they got. Inari stood between the pair. “This is to the death. Only one of you can make it out alive and no one can intervene.”
Zaki and Dia nodded. This is it, Zaki thought, Masika was going to find out about his death through his enemies but at least he was fighting for what was right.
“Both of you take five paces out. At the end of fifth drum, you may begin,” Inari said and stepped away.
Zaki turned his back and quickly took out his sword. His legs felt like jelly as he walked. The crowd was yelling incoherently in his direction. He couldn’t tell whether they were insults or cheers, but he could see them looking over his shoulder. He closed his eyes as the fourth drum rang out and brought his sword up in front of his ribs.
As he took a final, slow long breath, the fifth drum rebounded across. The moment the echo finished, Zaki spun around. His eyes widened when he saw Dia standing by the far side, against the enveloping flames, not even attempting to come near. He knew he didn’t have to.
Zaki swallowed hard and could feel his heart racing. It looked for a moment as though Dia was in the fire, setting the flames dancing around him and controlling the direction in which they went. His vision blurred and the screams flashed through his mind. His infant sister screaming and his siblings choking. Their crushed bodies beneath the debris and the tiny wrapped coffin he had to carry while Dia and his sisters laughed. Like he was now. Laughing.
“FUCKING CUNT!” Zaki roared. Trembling all over, the piercing pleas and cries for help running as sharp as they had that night, his legs didn’t care. He charged across the dry ground, sword held high, as Dia’s smug face split with pure panic.
The moment he went to slash with his blade, Dia stepped swiftly to the side, causing Zaki to nearly fall into the fire. The entire crowd yelled in either disgust or joy at the entertainment as he brought his hands up in front of the flames and took a couple of steps back. The screams echoed across his mind and wouldn’t stop. He couldn’t shut out the images or the sounds as the blaze before him radiated over his chest.
“SHUT UP!” Zaki howled from the back of his throat, bringing his hands to his ears to try and shut out the sound but it wouldn’t stop. When he closed his eyes, he could smell burning flesh once more and hear the males of the tribe saying they would still mate with his mother’s corpse.
A heavy weight crashed into his side and the force threw him to the floor. Zaki’s eyes were still tightly closed and he tried to shake off the weight but he couldn’t.
“Open your fucking eyes!” the voice above him yelled, but he didn’t oblige. Suddenly, fat fingers were on his eyelids and forced them open. Dia was sat right on top of him with his silver blade in hand, ready to make the final blow. He leant down beside his ear and whispered, “I will enjoy raping your sister to celebrate your death.”
The moment those words cut through the madness, a strength drove through Zaki. This was not his time. With the crowds booing, cheering and some throwing things, he rolled out from under Dia with all his strength, roaring, to leave him sprawled before the fire on his stomach.
Zaki threw his sword to the ground and before Dia got the chance to spin, he sat on his lower spine and grabbed his head by the ears, twisting them as the Chief’s son screamed in agony, unable to throw off his scrawnier opponent.
“You think it’s fucking funny?!” Zaki yelled. “Let’s see how you fucking like fire!” And with that he roared once more as he smashed Dia’s face into the rocks keeping the bonfire in place with all his strength.
Jasari yelled and tried to push past the B
lood-and-White’s warriors with Inari. Dia’s mother was in tears, screaming hysterically while his sisters cowered and weren’t sure what to do.
Zaki watched as Dia’s teeth scattered across the ground before him, the blood from Dia’s cheeks covering his knuckles. He yelled as he drove his head once more into the rocks.
“NO!” Jasari shouted. The armies were squaring up to fight. The crowd was still yelling and throwing things.
“ZAKI! STOP!” Inari tried to scream over the noise.
But he couldn’t hear any of them. All he could feel was the release each blow gave him. Tears formed as he thought happily about his mother, father, brothers and sisters in the heavens. He was finally getting them justice and it was the greatest feeling he had ever had.
“S… st… stop,” a voice mumbled beneath him. “Su… surr…”
Zaki listened and stopped, rolling off to crouch beside Dia. He grabbed the Chief’s son by the scruff of his neck and dragged him closer to the fire. Dia was barely recognisable. His nose had been flattened, his eyes had swollen to a point where it didn’t even appear he had any and his face was coated in blood and bruises. His face was streaked with real tears of fear and his voice was broken as he pleaded with Zaki.
Zaki returned the look with a simple smirk, one of those he had been given for years by Jasari’s family as they treated him and his sister like filth.
“Ple… please… stop…”
Zaki pushed Dia’s head as close to the fire as he possibly could, until he could smell that familiar scent of burning flesh. Dia yelled weakly, the terror running through him as the heat singed the hairs on his face.
“Your family will remember what a charred corpse looks like for the rest of their lives, and you know what? I will fucking laugh at everyone one of them,” Zaki muttered in his ear.
With a final pleading yelp, Dia tried to scramble away but he was too weak. Zaki kept his grip on the heavy-set man, shaking but determined to keep him in place.
Jasari and his sister-mate screamed at him to stop, the warriors were on the verge of joining in and Inari was pacing around in panic. Just as Zaki was about to give Dia a final push, he stood up and kicked the other man’s face away from the fire, rolling him onto his back. But before the battered Chief’s son had the chance to get his breath back, Zaki impaled his lower leg with the point of his sword. Zaki kicked his foot into the blade once more as it thrummed against Dia’s muscles. Dia could barely utter a single sound out of his broken face. Zaki knew that if he could see anything at all through his swollen eyes, it would only be Zaki standing over him, the other blade in his hand.
“You don’t deserve death. Live with your choices,” Zaki said.
- CHAPTER TWENTY -
Since the moment Pazade left, everything felt easier to put up with for Masika. The elder who usually came around to visit her had been too busy as part of hosting the event to attempt to teach her the lies of the Chieftain’s family history, but she had left behind some chunks of charcoal for Masika to practise her lettering with. Rather than bother herself with that, she took to drawing on the scraps to pass the time, mostly animals and how she believed the Goddesses would appear if they had a visible form.
She was often led to believe that the Goddess of Hunting had silver hair from the time she had spent caring for the creatures in the jungle. Inari had told her and Zaki that they had both been blessed with the skills of fighters such as these and should never use their techniques for greed. Only kill what you must, he would say, or to stop the suffering of a creature, nothing more.
Her fingertips were covered in black by the time the evening arrived and her drawing was near complete. The elder woman figure sat beside the glimmering water with a wild cat sleeping by her side. Masika had even included the smallest of details like her wrinkles and the whiskers of the wild beast as it snoozed while basking within the rays of the sun.
“Masika?” the voice of her young garasum slave came from behind the door. She opened it without waiting for a response.
Startled, Masika quickly tried to hide her drawing but the girl had already seen. Her eyes widened in awe before she faced Masika. “I was sent to check on you before the feast begins.”
“Don’t worry, I am still here,” Masika sighed. She gave the girl a weak smile as she heard the sound of tables being dragged out of the hut. “There is no way I can attend?”
The girl shook her head and sat down beside her. “The Chief said to make sure you stay in here. Some of the older workers up there will pass word down if anything happens.”
Masika nodded and sat back with her arms crossed. Her view of the hill was blocked entirely by jungle trees and the wall of the hut. She heard the feet of the tribesmen walking up to the clearing. She had never realised there were so many living in the village.
Most of the previous night, she had been thinking about Pazade and where he came from. From what she could see, his own tribe wasn’t as advanced in armour making but they moved in such perfect rhythm, she didn’t doubt for a second their ability, even to the point she wondered if they could beat Blood-and-Shadow warriors in a war. The fact she would become Chieftess was still yet to settle in her mind; going from nothing more than an orphan to the highest-ranked female in society was such a dramatic change. She kept on pinching herself to make she wasn’t dreaming that it had happened but then wondered if her life would be any different from where she was now.
Of course, she would have to follow a different culture, that was a given, but what of having children? She would have to mate with the Chief as part of her role, and how would his daughters, both of whom were older than her, think of her joining their family? Mating with Pazade felt like a much better alternative than Dia, but despite all this, she only wanted her brother. After a few hours of tossing and turning, going over all her different feelings and thoughts, she eventually slept and dreamt about a place where she wouldn’t be judged or looked down on or even looked up to, she would just be treated equally.
As Masika and the garasum sat in the room, she decided to take out the piles of torn paper she had stored for practising her scribbles. The girl seemed fascinated with the drawings, even though she was only glancing at them from the corner of her eye. Masika decided to try and teach her how to draw some simple animals out of charcoal to pass the time. Starting off with the smaller, fluffier creatures from the jungle, she told her the stories of each like Inari had told her and Zaki all those years ago. The childlike wonder in the garasum’s eyes made her feel sad for her; she had been born into this hut and knew less of the world then Masika did. She didn’t know about the plants, about having a family, and had never even seen the wild predators when they came close to the village perimeter.
“… the panthers of shadow give their movement to the sha-” Masika was interrupted by screams and shouts up the hill. The sun was near setting and she had gotten used to sounds of feet beneath her room. The garasum stuck her head out to look.
“Do you think that’s usual? For the people to be so noisy?” Masika asked, watching as the girl stretched her neck outside as far as she possibly could.
“I believe so. I heard another elder woman talk about the last time a Chief visited. She said they were tidying the village for days and fights broke out from the influence of alcohol.” The girl sat herself up on the ledge and continued to crane her neck to the point that Masika thought she resembled the ostrich they had drawn earlier.
“I hope nothing bad has happened to the guests,” Masika mumbled. Straight away her mind went to Pazade and what he had planned; she had dreaded the moment he would break it to the Chief but surely it wouldn’t have been a public affair. She had assumed from his wording that part was done in private after the declaration.
“I don’t think anything out of the ordinary is happening. I can see the bonfire is lit now. I think they must just be drunk and cheering the dancers.” The garasum slid from the ledge and walked back over to sit at the table with her charcoal in hand
once more, eager to continue. “The other workers said they would come here and tell us if something happened. I’m sure we will know if it has.”
Masika gave her a nervous grin and picked up her own black nub, scraping at the paper while her stomach churned. Just as she was about to draw the delicate lines of fur on the panther, the drums echoed again.
The two girls exchanged a look of horror as they both threw back their chairs and ran for the window. They scoured the scenery and squinted their eyes as much as they could, but all they could see past the thick jungle foliage and the wooden walls were the flickers of the bonfire on the hill.
“Could it be a duel? I know they happen at this type of event,” Masika said, hoping, while her stomach flipped once more.
“No, duelling doesn’t have drums. It’s a challenge.” The young girl’s eyes were sparkling.
Masika chewed on her lip anxiously. He must have refused in front of everyone and now Jasari wasn’t happy about it. The pair gave up trying to see anything and instead clung to the wall, squeezed side by side while they tried to listen to what was happening. The noise of the crowd was incoherent and uncertain and offered no clues. Both of them stared at each other as the minutes went past.
Then they heard light feet running below the window. The garasum snapped a glance through and then pushed herself away from the edge towards the door. “That is one of the women! She must be coming to tell us!”
Masika followed her and paced back and forth on the spot while they waited for the knock on the door. Please be alright, Pazade, she found herself thinking, please be safe. This woman who was coming didn’t even realise she was going to be the one delivering news her entire future depended on. Masika just prayed it was good.
There was a rapid knock at the door. The garasum opened it quickly and pulled the breathless middle-aged woman inside. The woman keeled over, holding her hip while she tried to regain her breath.
