by Devin Madson
As we strode through the castle gates, a cohesive group despite our differences, I thought of the first time I had learned it. I had been too young to join Gideon and the other children in their lesson, so Mama had taken me a little way out of camp and sat with me in the grass, its tips scratchy in the late summer dry.
“The secret to learning ekkafo is its story,” she had said. “Everyone plays a part, but only one part; you can’t be more than one part, just as you can’t be more than one person. It starts with the oku owl. She leaves her nest in the east to fly to the west. Do you remember which way is east and which is west?”
I had looked up at the setting sun and pointed. Mama had smiled, warming me inside.
“And while the oku flies, she sings like this.” She had made its call, loud and clear like I had heard the other children do. “You try it.”
It had taken a few tries and a few frustrated stomps of my feet, but I had finally achieved something that sounded right at least to me. And I had run west.
“The flight of the oku owl scares the mouse.” Mama had made a high-pitched trill that wasn’t quite a mouse but was more distinctive. And I had wanted to be good enough to join the others, so I had practised that sound too. “The mouse runs for cover at the southern point of the circle. Do you know where that is?”
She had smiled again when I’d known the answer. “The mouse passing by excites the sand cat,” she had gone on, and there was another sound and another direction, moving southeast to west this time, and I had told myself I would remember it. Three animals were easy. Except there weren’t three. There were twenty-seven. That number had seemed impossibly huge.
“Don’t worry, Rah,” she had said. “You don’t have to remember them yet. I’ll help you.”
We had darted through the grass together, each of the animal sounds becoming a song on my mother’s lips. We must have looked ridiculous, trying to be all the animals at once, but I had felt like I was doing it, like I was part of the herd, like I belonged, and I had been happy.
She was gone now, but the ekkafo had long been rooted in my mind, able to be sung and danced without the need to think, yet despite Amun’s company the night felt chill and empty in the wake of such a memory.
It took longer than expected to reach the field where Grace Bahain’s army had camped. It was slow going in the dark, and we arrived with no time to go over the plan. We had our tasks—the empress took her archers and we split into twenty-seven small groups, each taking the role of one animal in the coming dance.
We had based our calculations on a map the Kisians had provided, but one look at the camp and I knew it all wrong. They hadn’t built fortifications, but the field was larger than we’d accounted for and not as round, which would throw out the timing.
“Shit,” I said as Amun joined me atop the hill. Below the camp was a constellation of lights in the irregularly shaped bowl between the hills. “We need—”
“I’m on it.” Amun crouched and started making something like the right shape out of sticks. He worked with only the barest moonlight, lips moving as he muttered through the problem—a task I’d only ever seen Kishava do as easily.
Other Levanti gathered, keeping back from the crown of the hill. It was dark, but any hint of our presence would only make this harder.
“Something wrong?” Lashak whispered.
“The field is not the same shape as on the map.”
“Shit,” she echoed.
“It looks like about a ten-second progressive delay to the south,” Amun said. “But it’s irregular enough that such rough planning will only be accurate for the first few passes. If we’re lucky.”
I’d never had to captain an ekkafo on my own, nor with so many Levanti from different herds, and despite the confidence I’d clung to, the enormity of the task swelled over me like a dark tide. We were not enough Levanti leading not enough Kisians, who we couldn’t even communicate with. It was going to be a mess. A mess we had to win.
“We could alter positions,” Lashak said, glancing back down the hill as the Kisians arrived, a grim army appearing from the night. “It might be easier.”
“That would put the cricket and the toad in a lot of danger,” Amun said. “Are we that sure they don’t know we’re here?”
The moment’s hesitation before anyone answered was answer enough. Lashak nodded. “All right, ten-second progressive delay to the south it is. I’ll make sure everyone knows, but we’d better keep moving or dawn will be upon us before we’re even in place.”
Leaving Amun’s oval of sticks upon the grass, we made our way back down the hill, Lashak catching a few words with each of the twenty-seven leaders as we went. By the time we rejoined the Kisians, I had schooled my features into as close an approximation of aloof assurance as I could muster. If they didn’t trust us, this would be even more of a mess than it already was.
There was nothing to say. To them the plan was unchanged, so with a nod to the shadowy figure of Tor standing at the empress’s side, we began to move out. Leaving one group behind in more or less the place we’d arrived, Lashak took thirteen groups west while the rest followed us east.
The ground was hilly and uneven, dense clumps of damp undergrowth making progress slower than we’d have liked, while thick stands of trees obscured our vision. At the first point in our no-longer-a-circle, we left Emmata en’Injit and her group behind before moving on. The scorpions were next, followed by the asps and the mice, and group by group we left Levanti and Kisians behind until it was just me and Amun with our soldiers in the depths of a silent night.
“Well, may Nassus be with us, I guess,” Amun said, looking out toward the enemy camp. My legs ached from so long and arduous a walk, yet somehow the worst was yet to come.
The Kisians fidgeted, eyes flicking warily about the darkness. They didn’t appear as out of breath as we were, perhaps more used to the uneven terrain, but that hadn’t stopped dark patches of sweat appearing on their sleeves and around their necks. They had opted for lighter garb, and though they would move faster they might soon regret the lack of heavy armour.
Drawing a deep breath, Amun made a cuckoo owl’s call as loud as he could, the sound filling me with heartache. No answering call came, so we crouched in the darkness, watching the camp.
“We wait,” I said to Captain Kofi, now a terrible time to hope he remembered the words we had taught them.
Ambushes are nerve-racking things, but knowing failure was not an option and every part of this was my responsibility… It was as much as I could do to keep from pacing while I ran through all that could go wrong. Until at last the call of a brown owl echoed its forlorn notes across the field. Lashak was in place. It was time to go.
We weren’t the first to run, but ambushes relied on speed. Usually we had horses and could trample over anything in our paths. This time we just had to be fast. Quick kills. Maximum chaos.
I tapped Captain Kofi on the shoulder. “Ready?”
“Yes,” he said, and I was grateful for those nights around the fire with Miko for teaching me simple Kisian.
He passed the whispered order on, causing a shuffling of feet and a shifting of armour. Knives were drawn. They had their swords with them, but I had laughed at the idea they could use swords as their main weapon if they wanted to move fast and kill faster.
A third owl sound—the oku owl—echoed across the night, and there was no more time to worry or prepare. Beside me, Amun started counting beneath his breath. Ten seconds passed before the first shout. Even with a good view of the field it was impossible to see their progress, only to hear the footsteps and the clash of metal, the cries and the thuds as Amun went on counting.
The mouse call came on time as the second group entered, followed by the third, more and more cries and thundering steps painting a picture of what was happening.
“Ready?” Amun said, and cried the call of the cuckoo owl to the night sky. “Three, two, one. Go!”
Brushing through the under
growth, we sped out onto the field, legs pumping, every step vibrating its force through my knees. Captain Kofi and his soldiers followed, sprinting southwest with us as fast as we could.
At the edge of the camp, confused soldiers were lighting torches and scrambling into their armour, and like the rushing of the Eastbore, we ploughed through them. There were no faces in the confusion, only bodies into which we thrust our blades and ran on, spirits of death in the darkness. Amun ran with me, keeping pace. Shouts erupted around us. Torchlight flared. I darted away from it as an arrow dug into a man’s back. I had a split second to wonder if the empress had loosed that one before I plunged on, slashing and stabbing my way across the camp. Past tents and horses, dying campfires and running men. And out into the cool air upon the other side, my hands slick with blood.
Amun slowed and stood puffing beside me. Heavy steps heralded the arrival of some of our Kisians. Captain Kofi murmured, checking if we had lost anyone, while Amun counted. Behind us, the noise had grown. Shouts and panic rang loud enough to obscure the ekkafo calls, but it ought not matter now we had begun.
While Amun counted, we caught our breath in the darkness, noise filling the shallow valley around us. Ten seconds out, I checked Captain Kofi and his men were ready, and took a last opportunity to wipe the blood and sweat off my hands before Amun reached zero.
With a shout, he charged and I followed, our boots scraping on stone and the chill wind whipping into our faces. Plunging back in like loosed arrows, we hit the soldiers on the outer edge before they saw us, slamming bodily into them. Hip and shoulder to knock them off balance so they couldn’t fight back, before a blade to the back of the neck or the throat or the side—wherever was easiest to reach. In. Out. Don’t stop to check if they’re dead, just run on and hit the next and the next.
This time, some had been able to struggle into their armour and most had weapons, but with us pelting through them in the darkness, they were fractured and couldn’t rally. One nearby lit a torch, calling out to gather others. Amun dodged away from him, cutting into my path, but though I almost tripped on his feet, I couldn’t blame him. Light meant arrows, and sure enough, the meaty thwack of a point ramming into the Kisian’s chest soon sent others running.
We took out as many stampeding soldiers as we could and ran on.
By the time we burst through the other side, my whole body ached with fatigue and renewed pains. Yitti had told me I needed to rest and heal, and once again here I was ignoring his good advice.
Amun started counting as he sucked breathless gasps, crouched in the darkness at my feet. Captain Kofi was a few seconds behind us, his men a trail behind him, counted as they arrived. The man held up two fingers, but it was too dark to see his expression. Two losses? Two extra soldiers? My mind wasn’t working fast enough to understand.
Every second we waited replenished my breath but drained my adrenaline, and by the time Amun counted down again, I was stiff and sore. But this was the only way, so I forced myself to move, once more leading my group into the chaos of the Kisian camp.
There were lit torches everywhere now. Someone had stoked the camp fires, and soldiers were clumping together for the small amount of protection numbers offered. Our timing must have been out or some groups had lost track, the camp smattered with our people. Some Levanti, most Kisians in their dark clothing hacking at the enemies they had once called friends.
Letting instinct guide me, I ran our third sprint across the camp, the rush of our charge sending soldiers leaping out of the way. Those caught in our path added their blood to my soaked blade. Mindlessly, I would have continued on for as many sprints as we needed, but Amun’s cry shocked me out of my stupor. He stumbled out of sight beside me, and I turned before even thinking that wasn’t how an ekkafo worked.
He was on his feet again, but two soldiers barred his path, closing in.
“On! On!” I shouted to Captain Kofi, gesturing in the direction we had been running. “Take them and keep going!”
A soldier lunged at me as I shouted, but the captain darted in, plunging his knife into the flesh beneath the man’s upraised arm. He screamed as he pulled it out, staggering back, and Kofi stood frozen, a moment of overwhelming horror at fighting fellow Kisians crossing his face before he turned and ran on.
Amun had backed up, drawing one of his swords. Grace Bahain’s soldiers edged closer, ready to strike. I stuck my knife into one’s back and yanked it free in time to face the other, but as he turned, Amun sliced his gut open. Two bodies slumped dying on the ground between us, leaving us to stare at one another amid the chaos.
“You’re not meant to come back for someone in an ekkafo,” Amun said, breathing heavily.
“And you’re not meant to when a kutum is ordered either,” I said. “Some of our rules are shit.”
Amun clapped me on the shoulder with a laugh. “Damn right they are. Now where the fuck were we going?”
All was chaos around us, their Kisians and our Kisians a mess of varied-coloured armour now, nothing organised about the attack. Or their defence. A few soldiers went on grouping together, but many were already dead or wounded, or had fled out into the night rather than stand in the dark and be slashed at from all sides. A dozen had formed up before a commander, his voice raised upon roared orders.
“There he is!” Lashak appeared, her face splattered with blood and her group of Kisians following like stunned sheep. “Grace Bahain.” She pointed at the commander. “To me!”
Few would hear her over the furore of battle, but a dozen soldiers couldn’t long keep him safe.
“To me! To me!” Lashak shouted again as nearby Levanti gathered. “We take him alive! Alive! To me!”
A sense of triumph bloomed inside me, easing my pains. Here he was, all but alone, his army dispersed and in chaos. We were going to get him. Going to win this.
“To me! Take Grace Bahain alive!”
Levanti and dark-clad Kisians charged at the line of soldiers before the duke, cutting them down and drawing them away. Amun ran in, no doubt expecting me to follow, but I hung back, edging around the gathered mass, eyes on this unknown enemy. He stood bravely now but was sure to run the moment all was lost. Sure to escape rather than let himself be captured, and when he pelted off into the darkness, I would be there.
“You should just let him die.”
Derkka stood alone some paces away, bow in hand. No one ought to stop and talk in the middle of a battle, but though fighting raged around us he had eyes only for me.
“Empress Miko wants him alive,” I said. “So we take him alive.”
“That’s a poor reason unless you’re a Kisian work dog now.”
I bristled at the insinuation, but said nothing. Grace Bahain still stood his ground. Soldiers were falling all around him, the whole like a hazy dream.
“Levanti do not take prisoners,” Derkka said, his voice closer now. “Levanti do not trade in lives. He dies or he goes free, those are the only options we have.”
“Like you’ve never done anything dishonourable,” I hissed over my shoulder as Grace Bahain shouted to his surviving knot of soldiers, Levanti closing in all around them. “You can just drug him like you drugged me, that’ll be acceptable to the gods, right?”
“You’re a danger to our people. I ought to have killed you when I had the chance.” A bowstring creaked behind me, drawing taut with threat. “Or when it would be deemed an unfortunate battle casualty.”
Derkka’s feet shuffled behind me. “You wouldn’t,” I said, my back tingling. Did he believe so strongly in Ezma that he would loose an arrow into my back? There was no less honourable way to attack a fellow Levanti. So long as I didn’t turn, the gods would cast him into the shadows if he loosed.
“You don’t think so? What is the future worth?”
He loosed. The arrow ripped by my ear, close enough I could feel the brush of air, of its fletching, and the promise of its pain—a pain not destined for me. Slowed by dawning realisation, I watched as the a
rrow tore between the remaining soldiers, burying itself in Grace Bahain’s throat.
“No!” someone cried, other voices rising to join its frustration, but I couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Could only turn to stare at the apprentice whisperer. He met my gaze in a moment of silent challenge, before shouldering the bow and walking away.
Grace Bahain crumpled to his knees, Levanti gathering around him, trying to save the life of an enemy while our kin lay injured all around us. But it was too late.
Grace Bahain was dead.
18. MIKO
We returned to dawn light gilding the ragged edges of Kiyoshio Castle. My soldiers were quietly triumphant, while the Levanti were just quiet. I didn’t know enough to understand if that meant anything, and walking at my side, Tor offered no explanation.
We had lost Grace Bahain. I was too tired to wrangle with all the ramifications of such a failure, to consider all the ways things could go wrong from here, could only walk with the weight of it seeming to press me into the ground.
It was hard to remind myself in all other ways the ambush had been a success. No army would march to our gates today.
I had sent two riders ahead to inform Minister Manshin and General Moto how we had fared, so was unsurprised to find the pair of them waiting for us in the courtyard. A courtyard alive with bustling servants dashing about packing carts and rigging out horses.
“Minister. General,” I said as they bowed before me. “What’s going on?”
“We cannot hold Syan without Grace Bahain,” General Moto said. “There is no saying what Governor Koali will do when he hears his lord has died in battle, so it’s imperative we leave for Kogahaera at once.”
Both men stood tall and sure, seeking no approval. No permission. “Our soldiers have been out all night,” I said. “Are you proposing we march without letting them rest?”
