The Fires of Vengeance

by Evan Winter

  Tsiora was angry and Esi’s sister always did stupid things when she was angry.

  “No Guardian scale, bronze only, one sword each,” her sister agreed.

  “And the victor is the champion of the true queen,” Esi said, a teacher prompting a student.

  “The victor is the champion of the true queen,” Tsiora echoed, and Esi could have laughed and twirled and danced.

  She’d done it. In a single step, she’d walked the whole of the path back to victory, saving herself, Abasi, and the peninsula, because her faithful sister was a faithful fool.

  Tsiora moved away from her. “We feel sorry for you, Esi. You’ve been in Odili’s clutches for so long you can’t see that he is evil and forsaken, but we’ll show you. Tomorrow, when our champions fight, you’ll bear witness to the Goddess’s will at work.”

  Esi swallowed a mocking laugh. Any woman comparing the two men could see that her champion—tall, strong, and royal—would crush the scarred Lesser in a fair fight. She looked to Bas, to share in the triumph that words had won over war and weapons, but what she saw on her lover’s face seized her heart and set her quiet voice screaming.

  On him, like a million insects crawling, Esi saw dread, despair, and death.

  FIGHT

  Esi had not slept. After the confrontation with her sister, she’d been sent to rooms in one of the palace’s towers and guarded. The guards, Lessers, had scoured the rooms, removing anything that could be used as a weapon against others or herself. They’d checked the windows too, to ensure they were too small for Esi to slip through. They’d even taken the thicker bedsheets, in case she thought to strangle herself with them.

  They needn’t have bothered. Esi would not send herself to the Goddess while Bas still breathed, and he who kept her world turning did still breathe.

  She knew he did because he was, at that very moment, standing in the Great Circle, in the hot sun, on the far side of the roped-off area where the fight would take place. He was facing her and she wondered if he could see her, if he could pick her out among all the faces.

  It was only the second time in her life that Esi Omehia found the Great Circle of Palm City to be too small for its purpose. The first had been the mourning ceremony for her grandmother, Queen Ayanna, and it had been unseasonably hot then too. Given the many parallels to that awful day, when her sister had become queen, it was no surprise that the memories came back to her. Esi was even sitting in the same red-canvas-covered pavilion that had been used then.

  The pavilion, seating Tsiora, the Lesser general, and Kellan Okar, and guarded by Auset and Ramia, who, once cleaned and decently clothed, looked like themselves again, adjoined the fighting space and offered the best view of what was to come. It also managed to keep the worst of the heat away but could do nothing about the stink of thousands of sweating bodies. The smell in the circle was so thick it was palpable, assaulting her nose in much the way the riotous clash of colors worn by the citizens of the city, soldiers, Sah, Proven, and Drudge attacked the eye.

  It seemed that, in spite of the oppressive heat, the whole world had come to watch a man die, when most of them wouldn’t even be close enough to see it. The crowds in their gaiety, like multicolored walls of fetid flesh, were too thick to see through, and for other than those who had stood overnight in the circle or those who were privileged enough to be escorted to its center by armed Indlovu, the fight might be heard, but it would not be seen.

  Esi knew it didn’t matter. She didn’t have to be of or among the people to understand their desire to present themselves. In one night, thousands had died, more were wounded, the city’s walls had come down, and dragons had burned women, men, and even themselves to ash, yet two queens still stood. The city needed to make sense of its fear and loss. The people needed the night’s carnage to have a purpose, and the Great Circle of Palm City stank and overflowed with people because if all the death they had borne wasn’t given meaning, then the life the city had left would have none either.

  At some signal he’d been waiting for, Kellan Okar stood from his seat and walked from the pavilion to the center of the fighting circle. Seeing him, the crowd hushed to an occasional cough or rustling of clothes, and Kellan’s powerful voice carried through the space.

  “We are here to ask the Goddess’s blessing. We are here to see Her will done. We are here to satisfy the challenge that Princess Esi offers to Queen Tsiora, and in full faith that the Goddess’s hand steers the swords of men, our queen agrees to this contest between the Royal Noble Abasi Odili and her champion, Tau Solarin.”

  The crowd erupted at the mention of the Lesser’s name and Esi felt sick to see so many faces caught in the ecstasy of the moment, mouths gaping, hands raised, and feet stamping in approval of such a base and vile creature. The Omehi were losing their way, and the only thing offering her hope was the neutrality on the faces of the Nobles whom she could see.

  The Petty, Greater, and Royals stood in staid silence, the only acknowledgment of the unwashed around them being the occasional handkerchief held close to diffuse the stench that sought to overrun them and replace everything decent and good with rot and wretchedness.

  “This contest ends with death,” Kellan said after the cheers had faded. “Its victor, in sight of Goddess, women, and men, shall confirm and substantiate the rule of the true Omehian queen.”

  Oh, how they roared at that. It was a thing for the history books, after all. Two sisters, spilled from the same womb, vying for one crown, and their men ordered to die for it on the hot stones of the Great Circle of Palm City.

  The reckoning had come, and though she had everything to lose, Esi’s blood rose, pumping so hard it stoppered her ears and made her fear fainting from its rush. Hearing only her heart beating in her chest and echoing in her head, she missed it when the young Gifted woman walked in from the rear of the pavilion.

  “Thandi, what is it?” her sister said.

  The Gifted leaned close and whispered in Tsiora’s ear, and though Esi’s sister tried to hold her expression steady, Esi had known her for too long. All it took was a slight parting of Tsiora’s lips and the barest fluttering of her eyelids and Esi knew that a storm had rolled in. Something was wrong, and, smiling on the inside, Esi returned her attention to the fighting circle, wishing Tsiora the full brunt of whatever it was that came for her.

  Eyes alighting on Bas, Esi forgot her sister, the Gifted, and their petty concerns. In front of her, not two dozen strides distant and looking determined, both Bas and the limping boor wore the black-and-red armor of an Omehian champion. Both men held a single bronze sword, with the Lesser holding his in the wrong hand, but only one of them bore a shield and helmet.

  It should have been shaming to see her champion take more protection than his opponent in a battle before Chosen, queens, and Goddess, but Esi felt none. Instead, she wished she could kiss the shield and helmet and pray over them to keep Bas safe.

  She hadn’t been able to shake the feeling she’d had the night before, and though she was not her sister, always ready to look to the Goddess, in the breaths before the fight began, Esi closed her eyes and sent Ananthi a prayer.

  “He is a good man, he’ll be a great father, and I love him,” she whispered to the Goddess. “Spare him today and I will be a true queen who honors you and your Chosen,” she said. “Keep him safe and I swear I’ll spend the rest of my life doing the same for our people.”

  She opened her eyes, and in the light of a new day, her nighttime fears felt less real. In the light of a new day, she could look out at the fighting circle with clear eyes to see that Bas was head and shoulders bigger than the Lesser. She could see that he almost doubled Tsiora’s champion in weight and that the bastard limped badly. In the light of a new day, Esi Omehia held hope that without his Guardian swords, the Lesser had lost his last advantage over a better man.

  Kellan Okar walked to the front of the pavilion, turning his head from one champion to the other. “May the Goddess be with you,” he sai
d, raising his hand into the air.

  “Spare him, Ananthi. Spare him,” Esi breathed as Kellan’s hand knifed down.

  “Fight!”

  MOTHERS

  The contest opened with cheers and screams from the crowd as the two champions, one of them destined to die, approached each other. When they were close, the men exchanged words, but it was impossible to hear them over the roars of the Omehi there to see blood.

  Esi tried to read their lips, but the way the two champions were circling each other stymied her efforts.

  She thought she saw the Lesser say, “justice” and “father,” maybe the words “at last.” She thought she saw Odili say, “surrender,” “queen,” and “Noble.” In a flashy and pointless show, she saw the Lesser swing his bronze sword in a circle, and then he advanced.

  Bas let him come and Esi held her breath, waiting for him to strike the maggot down. The Lesser stepped into range and, without hesitation, Bas slashed at him. His helmet obscured most of his face, but Esi could still see his eyes as he focused on his victim.

  “Yes!” she shouted, losing herself in the moment as Bas’s sunlit-bronze blade careened through the air to meet … nothing.

  His swing, so clean and true, passed through where the Lesser had been, and Esi’s mind twisted in on itself as she tried to make sense of how Bas had missed. She tried to understand how the Lesser had come to be behind him, but her thoughts gave way to fear. The Lesser could attack.

  But Tsiora’s thrall did not strike. He spurned his advantage and walked off, demeaning Bas’s nobility by treating him like he was a less-than-worthy adversary. The Low Common was making a mockery of a duel that could only end in death, and the Lessers watching roared in approval, loving his lowbred behavior.

  Facing his opponent’s back and being a better man, Bas chose to end the farce. He charged forward, bold and beautiful as a shooting star, his war cry and blade leading the way, but with his back still to Bas, the Low Common lurched out of reach.

  The near hit had Esi’s heart thrashing against her rib cage. “Kill him,” she whispered, and it was like he heard.

  With his shield raised and his sword flying left and right, the man who risked his life for her moved across the cobblestones with the grace of a grassland wind. Bas pushed his body to its limit, the muscles on his thighs and arms rippling beneath the bulk of his padded armor as he pressed forward without opposition, obligating his opponent to give ground before his onslaught.

  Bas’s charge and the sequence following it were blinding, brilliant, beautiful. He was a Royal Noble and a true son of the Goddess, but, somehow, his every move was thwarted. Tsiora’s savage, behaving as if it were all a show, danced away from each strike, scuttling about like a scorpion soon to sting, making light of the real life on the line.

  The Low Common seemed to want to make Bas look foolish, and Esi hated the half man for his dishonesty. She hated that the Nobles around the circle, who had begun to hang their heads, and the Lessers, who were raising theirs, couldn’t see what it was that Tsiora’s champion truly sought. Like Isihogo’s demons, he wanted to destroy the way of the world, and like them and everything else evil, he had to be stopped.

  But Bas was unable to land a single strike, and gulping down air, he ended his attack before having killed the Lesser. He still pursued his opponent, but it was slowly and on shaky legs. His assault had drained him.

  Meanwhile, Tsiora’s champion walked back and forth in front of Bas, snarling and blathering like a madman. He limped and hopped and hunched, moving like some predatory insect. He cawed at Bas, pointing his sword at him, and Esi began to have trouble breathing. Her nerves—scrubbed raw—were getting the better of her; they made the crowd sound too loud, her mouth taste too dry, and the Lesser seemed to be transforming before her eyes.

  She saw his face split and swell, his mouth becoming too large by far, and his teeth grew pointed and dripped saliva. His hands became clawed, the fingers ending in talons meant to strip flesh from bone, and then there were his eyes. They’d frightened her before, but glowing red with rage and violence, they terrified her.

  The worst of it was that no one else saw him as he really was, and Esi, feeling fixed in place, could do nothing but watch what was to come.

  Tsiora’s demon attacked, and Esi’s dread built as she watched the man she loved struggle to defend himself against it. Steps behind the creature’s pace, Bas stumbled, looking sluggish against its inhuman speed. His blocks were mistimed, his counters erratic, and he couldn’t hold the monster back. It slashed him once, twice, and then a third time, the last strike sending his blood spraying skyward in a thick stream of red that reaped startled screams from several onlookers.

  It was seeing Bas bloodied that broke her; he was being overwhelmed, and unable to hide from that fact, Esi’s faith fled. What could two people do in the face of so much wrongness? They had love and right on their side, and she’d wanted to believe them enough, but in the harsh light of day, she could tell that they were not. Just like when she’d been a child, nothing would stop the demons.

  Feeling tears coming, Esi blinked, and when her eyes opened, she found herself reliving her firmest memory. She was a little girl, wearing the new dress her mother had given her. She remembered that she’d been holding her favorite wooden toy horse when the women in black robes came. Telling her to be brave, Esi’s mother pushed her into their arms, letting the women tear Esi’s mind from the world. Her mother had given her to them so that they could send her to that cruel place where the monsters waited.

  She’d try to hide from them, the women and then the monsters, but both would find her, and the monsters, they would tear her apart, the pain and agony of it crashing through her small frame and into her head, ricocheting through every memory and moment until she’d be lost for days, stuck in a body she couldn’t move and a mind she couldn’t control.

  For as long as Esi could remember, the demons had stalked the edges of her life, but Tsiora had done something to change that. Her sister had given them a way to enter the world completely, and one of them, Tsiora’s creature, was hurting Bas, and Bas was screaming.

  Out there, in front of her in the circle, Bas was crying and bloody and hurt and begging, begging for mercy, but no one could see that it was a demon that cut at him, and even if they could have seen the truth, Esi had been through enough to know that none of them would have the decency to stop it.

  She watched as Bas’s helmet was bashed in until it did more harm than good and he had to snatch it from his head, casting it aside. His shield was battered until he let it fall to the cobblestones and the arm that had been holding it was a mass of welts. The fight went on, he could barely keep his head up, and the demon beat him about the legs so badly that Bas had trouble moving.

  “Stop,” she wanted to say, “stop it,” but watching her friend and lover tortured had stolen her voice, and Esi sat in silence as he was mutilated.

  “End it, my queen,” said Tsiora’s general with tears in his eyes. “You have to make him stop.”

  Her sister turned to the general and then turned away. Tsiora was so much like their mother, Esi thought, but Esi was not. She was no longer a helpless child, and she would never let someone suffer as she had been allowed to do.

  Springing to her feet, Esi ran for the fighting circle. She was fast but not fast enough, and one of Tsiora’s handmaidens grabbed her, holding her back.

  “Let her go,” her sister ordered, and the hand on her wrist vanished, and Esi ran.

  “Get away from him!” she shouted at the demon. “Get away!”

  It spun to face her, locking red eyes on her, its lips quivering in rage over pointed teeth. “He’s mine,” it snarled, turning back to Bas so that it could hurt him more.

  She pounded her fists on its back, and she shouted at it, but she couldn’t stop it.

  It stalked its way over to Bas, who was lying on the cobblestones of the Great Circle and taking shallow, desperate breaths.

&
nbsp; “Why won’t you help us?” she said to the faces around her. “What made you so cruel that you’d let this happen? That you’d let monsters tear away everything we are? Why won’t you help?”

  Surrounded by thousands, Esi was still alone. They stared back at her, blank Noble and Lesser faces, unmoved and unmoving, all except the demon.

  “You call me a monster because I won’t let you treat me like my life is worthless, a thing to be used and thrown away?” it said. “You call me a monster because I refuse to live like you think I deserve? If that’s what you mean by monster, watch me be monstrous!”

  It raised its twisted sword to keep hurting Bas, but Esi would not let it, and she stood between it and the man she loved.

  “Goddess’s mercy,” she begged, bringing her hands together and intertwining her fingers.

  “I’ll grant you as much as She’s always given to me and mine,” it said, stepping forward and bumping into her.

  Although she was frightened beyond reason, she held her ground against it. “His name is Abasi,” Esi said. “He’s the son of Ayanda and Lungile Odili. He was born and raised in this city, and when his sister died giving birth, he gave a third of his estates to the Sah so they could find a way to prevent what happened to his sister from happening to more women. He’s spent his life fighting for our people’s safety, and he is the man I love.” Esi put her hands out to stop the demon’s advance. “Goddess’s mercy.”

  The demon watched her with its red eyes. “That’s not everything he is or all that he’s done,” it said. “He put so much pain and grief inside me, it’s driving me mad.” The demon showed its teeth and drummed a clawed fist against its chest as if it would rip its heart free from the cage of its body. “He gave me this rage that consumes me, and I will finish this so I can finally have peace.”