by Evan Winter
“Seriously, Tau?” asked Hadith.
“Not the whole plan. The issue. What’s the issue?”
Hadith’s eyes thinned, but he did as Tau asked. “Odili’s Gifted can field dragons for longer than we can, and the few dragons he has left, after we lose control of ours, will be more than enough to burn through our main force like a Hoard brushfire.”
Turning to Tsiora, Tau captured her eyes with his and spoke quickly, trying to tell his tale before grief could stop him. “During the battle for this keep, I was in Isihogo with Gifted Zuri when her shroud failed.” Saying her name hurt more than he cared to admit. “The demons came for her, but I fought them away. It allowed her to draw energy from the underworld for longer than she could have otherwise.”
“We see …,” the queen said.
Tau thought she might reach out to him, and he pushed on before she could, worrying that her pity would make him give in to his emotions. “I can train warriors to fight in Isihogo,” he said. “We can protect you and the Gifted. We can give you time you wouldn’t have otherwise.”
Kellan gawked at him. “Train in Isihogo to fight demons?”
Tau nodded, trying to look calm as he waited to see if the queen would allow it. The evening prior, she’d worried that telling Tau’s sword brothers his secret, before knowing if they could maintain their sanity in Isihogo, could lead to a group of unstable men using the underworld to become unstoppable killers. But now that they had another reason to commit men to the training, Tau’s sword brothers would think they did it just to defend the Gifted.
The excuse gave Tau the chance to evaluate each man so that he could reject the ones in danger of losing their sanity before they could grasp what Isihogo really offered. Only the men able to withstand the underworld’s torments, and whom he and the queen could trust, would be told the truth. It was perfect, unless Tsiora thought it wasn’t.
“We see that you may have solved last night’s dilemma,” Tsiora said with a raised eyebrow, her words making Nyah glance at them with suspicion.
“Beg pardon, Your Majesty,” Gifted Thandi said. “I’m worried that the champion is mistaken. As best we know, the underworld’s demons can’t be killed.”
“We don’t need to kill them,” Tau told her. “We just need to keep them from getting to you.”
“Have you, by any chance, discussed this before?” Nyah asked the queen.
“We saw our champion fight the demons in Gifted Zuri’s defense,” Tsiora told her.
Nyah appeared neither convinced nor satisfied by the queen’s response but nodded as if she were both.
“Well, if it’s true that the demons can be held back,” Thandi said, her words coming faster as her excitement grew, “it’s possible our Gifted could keep their Guardians in the fight for as long as Odili’s Gifted keep hold of theirs.”
“We’ll be able to eliminate Odili’s last advantage, and Hadith’s plan to take the city can work,” Kellan said. He was grinning, and Thandi, abandoning all reserve, grinned back at him for long enough that Nyah felt it necessary to clear her throat, startling Thandi back to the present.
Tau imagined the young Gifted’s reaction to Kellan was the kind of thing that happened often. Okar’s face and body were annoyingly symmetrical in that way that always drew attention. The man, thought Tau, needed more scars.
“A main army, water army, reserves, and men in Isihogo to protect the Gifted,” said Thandi to the vizier, as if she’d had nothing on her mind but battle plans.
“And men in Isihogo to protect you,” echoed Kellan, his words drawing Thandi’s eyes back to him.
“Your Majesty?” Hadith said, asking for the queen’s approval.
The queen had remained focused on Tau as the others talked. “Isihogo warriors,” she said. “Very well, Champion. You’ll have your way after all. Train them for us.”
Tau’s blood was up. He was going to do this. “Your will, my destiny.”
“Take care in whom you trust,” she said. “If those you train cannot stand with you, loyal to the end, we may lose more than our battle with Odili.”
That seemed to deepen Nyah’s suspicion. “Take Thandi for this training,” she said. “She’ll stand in for the Gifted you must protect. With her there, you’ll see how long the shrouds of most Gifted can last.”
Tau, who moments ago had felt near collapse, couldn’t hold still. “We have our plan.”
“We do,” the queen said.
“And little time,” Tau said.
The queen nodded.
“I’ll begin immediately.”
“What?” Gifted Thandi looked aghast. “When last did you sleep? What men have you chosen for this?”
“I go to choose them now,” Tau told her.
CHAPTER SIX
NO
Tau had gathered his chosen in a small open-air circle tucked away behind the stables. It was quiet and the ground was soft sand, where a man in a panic could curl up in reasonable comfort. Most important, it was private.
He’d explained the basics to the five facing him, starting with how to enter Isihogo. They’d all done that several times already, leaving long before the demons could come.
As the queen had wanted, he’d told them nothing of his own training. The five fighters knew only that, if they could manage this, they’d be giving their Gifted a desperately needed advantage in the battle for Palm City.
“Not to be dense, but to confirm, we’re going to Isihogo to fight demons that can’t be killed and that will, without doubt, kill us?” Themba asked.
“Yes,” Tau said.
“So, we’re to be a meat shield and everyone is fine with this?”
“Lessers,” Uduak said.
“Neh?” Themba asked the big man.
“We’re Lessers,” Yaw said. “We’ve always been a meat shield.”
“He’s not a Lesser,” Themba said, pointing to Kellan.
Since Hadith had to return to the infirmary to rest and recover, Tau tried Hadith’s trick in his place. “I trust Kellan. That’s why he’s here.”
The Greater Noble, standing tall, drew in a breath and held it, his broad chest puffing out, making Tau want to shake his head at how well some of Hadith’s silly tricks worked.
It was true, though. Tau might not have wanted to admit it, but he trusted that Kellan would fight harder than any other man he could field, so he’d selected him. Kellan was also the only Noble he’d picked.
In fact, he was the only man in the circle who had not been in Scale Jayyed. And if that was favoritism, so be it. The queen had asked that this training go to no man Tau couldn’t trust, and the five men standing with him in the circle were men he trusted.
“I’ve taught you to enter Isihogo and how to leave it,” Tau said to them. “I’ve told you that, once the demons attack, you cannot leave and there remains only one escape.”
“And you’re sure they can’t kill us?” Azima asked.
The drum player from Scale Jayyed was the last man Tau had approached for the training. He needed at least six men to be able to encircle the Gifted they would have to protect, and after the fighters who’d been part of Jayyed’s six, Azima was the scale’s strongest survivor.
“So long as you do not take any of the underworld’s energy into yourself, your body here cannot be harmed by the demons there,” Tau said.
“Note well, he said body,” muttered Themba, tapping his head.
“Themba, I’ve done this before.”
Themba opened his hands in Tau’s direction, as if to say the point had been made for him.
“Would you prefer I select another in your place?” Tau asked.
Themba cracked his neck from side to side. “I’ll fight.”
Uduak nodded at that.
“We’ll all fight,” Kellan said.
“Then let’s begin,” Tau said.
“Aren’t we to wait for Gifted Thandi?” Kellan asked.
“We don’t need her for this.”
&n
bsp; “But Nyah said—”
“It’s early in the training and we don’t need a Gifted to act as our timer.” It had bothered Tau, having Nyah force the Gifted on him, and after the frustrating conversation with her outside the stables, he was only too happy to get started without one of her Gifted looking over his shoulder.
“Sit,” he told the men, and the five of them did so.
He joined them on the sand, letting his gaze touch the faces of the others. It was what Jayyed would have done. At the last, he came to Yaw.
“Where we fight,” Yaw said, voice low.
“The world burns,” Tau and the men from the scale said.
“Kellan?” Yaw asked. The Greater Noble hadn’t offered the response. “You’re with us now.”
Kellan paused, then, making up his mind, he inclined his head. Yaw turned to Tau, waiting.
“Where we fight,” Tau said.
“The world burns,” came the call from the five warriors around him. “The world burns!”
Tau watched his sword brothers close their eyes, slow their breathing, and send their souls to suffer. He was about to do the same when he heard sandaled feet slapping against the sand. He looked over and saw Thandi running toward them.
“No!” she screamed. “No!”
“The world burns,” Tau whispered, closing his eyes and joining the fight.
FINE
Tau, his swords out and up, scanned the mists. They were in the same circle behind the stables and yet they were not. The air was thicker, taking more effort to draw in and out. The ground was not the sand of the circle they’d left, but a shifting murk the consistency of wet mulch. And of course, Isihogo lacked true color. It was as if he was seeing the world through squinted eyes. The amber brown of the stable’s rearmost wall had become the gray of decay, and the twilight sky lost its star-stained blue, replaced by an infinite black.
Isihogo was a realm with the substance of a waking nightmare, holding only enough detail to keep the mind captive. It was a quarter-formed world where the only things that seemed whole were the golden glows emanating from each of his sword brothers.
“They’ve found us,” Tau shouted against the blowing winds, catching snatches of movement out in the deep mists.
“Goddess save us,” Yaw said, pulling closer to Tau’s shoulder.
“Do not take the power Isihogo offers you!” Tau reminded them. “Take it and you’ll die back home as well as here.”
Home, Tau thought. How much time had he spent in the mists? How much time before someplace foreign becomes home?
“To the left! I see it!” Azima shouted.
It was unfortunate. They’d hit a nest their first time in the underworld. That was what Tau called it, the times he came to Isihogo only to be overrun by a pack of demons. Typically, he’d run into nests toward the end of a long night of fighting, but looking to his left and right, he wondered if the glow of six golden souls might have drawn more of Ukufa’s thralls than usual.
“Spread out,” he ordered. “Form the circle. Fight them!”
Kellan was first to obey. His huge sword held defensively, he jogged several strides distant, covering Tau’s back. Uduak was next, taking up a position to Tau’s right.
Themba shook his head at Tau. “Madness,” he shouted before running to stand near Uduak.
Yaw had his eyes closed, and his mouth was moving, praying. He finished quickly, his eyes snapped open, and with a nod to Tau, he moved into position.
“Azima,” Tau said.
“I can’t. Goddess wept, Tau, I can’t.”
Tau understood. “Stand with me. We’ll do it together. Remember, take nothing from this place. The gift it offers is poison to—”
Feeling the presence appear beside him, Tau whirled, weapons ready. Her shroud was thick and thin, a multifaceted patchwork crystal that masked her features and hid her soul’s glow.
“Thandi?” Tau shouted.
She ignored him, running straight for Kellan and trying to pull him back, but the Greater Noble wouldn’t be moved. Tau couldn’t see Thandi’s face or mouth, but he knew they exchanged words. He saw Kellan shout his response to the Gifted, though his voice did not carry to Tau across the distance and gale, and then it was too late. The time for talk or retreat had passed. The demons had come.
“Umama!” cried Azima when the first demon leapt for him.
Tau shoved him clear, spun off the demon’s killing line, and hammered his twin swords into its back, sending it crashing to the ground. It growled and began to rise, but the next demon, a centipede-like thing, had reared to attack, thinking to decapitate him.
Tau flowed beneath the creature’s claws and came up stabbing, driving his black blades into its core. The demon shrieked and slashed at him with four of its legs. Tau was already out of reach, kicking the first monster in the back of its head and driving it back to the ground.
“Azima, to your left!” Tau shouted.
A thing on eight legs was charging his sword brother, and by the time Azima saw it, it was too late. The demon barreled into him, bowled him over, and drove the middle pair of its spiked legs into his torso. Azima howled and dropped his sword. His shield, still strapped to his arm, hung limp as he grasped at the demon’s legs, desperate to pull the spikes from his rib cage.
Tau raced to help and skidded to a stop when the six-legged monster plowed its spiked forelegs through Azima’s skull. Spinning, Tau took stock. Themba was on his back, kicking and slashing at the thing on top of him. Yaw was surrounded but moving too fast and fluid to have been caught yet. Uduak, mouth open in an unending war cry, fought a demon that had to be double his weight, and Kellan was in front of the still shrouded Thandi, trying to protect the only one among them who was actually safe.
The Greater Noble was facing two creatures working in tandem. He was determined that they would not get past him, not realizing that they had no interest in a shrouded Thandi, and as Tau watched, the demons attacked.
Kellan slammed his shield into the body of the first and swung his sword for the misshapen head of the other one. His sword found its mark and the demon collapsed, its head nearly severed from its shoulders. That surprised Tau. Isihogo’s revenants were usually harder to hurt.
Thinking the demon he’d downed finished, Kellan turned back to the creature he’d stunned with his shield. Tau screamed a warning and started running to help, but he could not overcome the winds and Kellan did not hear. Still running, Tau saw the demon on the ground twitch and spasm while the sword-separated sides of its head stitched themselves back together. The process took no more time than a few short, gasping breaths, and then the demon rose.
Tau called out again. That time Kellan heard and the Greater Noble turned as the reanimated demon attacked.
He could have blocked the blow. Tau knew how well Kellan fought. He could have returned the demon’s strike, but Kellan froze, unable to comprehend how the thing he’d destroyed could be standing against him, and with razored fingers the length of Tau’s forearm, the demon latched a hand around Kellan’s neck, driving him back as it throttled him.
Kellan’s mouth opened to yell, and though Tau was close enough to have heard him, there was no noise. The demon’s barbed fingers had cut through Kellan’s neck in seven places, digging deep enough to sever the arteries in his neck, the muscles in his throat, and the cords that made his voice.
“Kellan!” Tau called, and the Noble’s eyes rolled to Tau, terror in them.
Tau threw himself at the demon, chopping his strong-side sword into the appendage with which it held the Greater Noble. The demon reeled and lost its grip, and Kellan lurched free, staggering toward Tau, arms outstretched and fingers dragging at the air, begging for help. Kellan caught Tau’s wrists and pulled Tau to his knees as he fell to the ground, dead.
Thandi, still hidden behind her shroud, went to her knees beside Tau. She was leaning over Kellan and Tau could hear her crying. As soon as the last of the Noble’s golden light winked out, she v
anished from the underworld too.
Tau had little time to consider her odd behavior. The two demons he’d fought at the start were coming for him again. The one Kellan had beaten down with his shield had regained its feet, and the thing that had killed the Greater Noble had recovered its senses and its arm was whole again.
Tau searched the circle. Azima was gone, Yaw too. Themba was dead and Tau watched Uduak deliver a sacrifice thrust into the chest of the demon he fought, forcing his sword through to the hilt. In turn, the demon wrapped its arms around Uduak and ripped away his face with its teeth.
And that left Tau.
He got back to his feet. “I know I can’t kill you,” he told them, his swords twirling in lazy circles as he spoke, “but I think you feel pain, and tonight, that will do!”
Snarling, laughing, jeering, the nightmare among them attacked and the demons fought back.
After falling to the monsters, Tau was forced back to Uhmlaba, where his mind pieced itself back together like it was made from demon flesh. When he was enough of himself again, he realized he was no longer sitting, but on his hands and knees. Still, he was doing better than his brothers.
Yaw was facedown in the dirt, breathing and snorting, creating puffs of sand with every exhalation. Themba was scrunched up against the stable’s wall, mumbling and twitching as his eyes flitted back and forth, following afterimages of things that did not exist in the real world.
Azima was on his feet but in bad shape. The drummer moved like a drunk, shouting to no one and nothing. “They’re not supposed to be able to kill us!” he said. “They’re not supposed to be able to kill us!” Over and over again.
Uduak, near Tau, rocked himself from his knees, jaw clenched and hands running up and down his face. He looked at Tau, and though the big man’s eyes did not seem able to focus, there was some clarity in them. He rocked and watched Tau, as if truly seeing him for the first time.
“You’ll be well,” Tau said to the big man as he got to a knee and then stood, shaking off the last of Isihogo’s hold. He looked for Kellan last and found him. “Don’t do that,” he told Thandi.
