Rise of the Rain Queen

by Fiona Zedde

  Her footsteps were quiet as she walked beneath the honey blossom tree she had played under as a child, the tree that marked the beginnings of her family’s property. Ny smiled into the darkness. Soon Duni would be her family too. Her new wife would live here with her and her brothers and her parents. Ny paused.

  The path between the trees leading to the compound was oddly dark. Oddly silent. By now, the torches that blazed from the front of each house should begin to light the way. But the darkness was complete. No lights outside her parents’ hut, nor her brothers’. Not in the center of the compound where they would have left a light burning for her to find her way. Ny called out softly to her parents.

  “Baba? Iya?”

  All she heard in return was silence. Were they angry at her for missing the evening meal? Had they all left for a party she’d forgotten about? But even as she tried to rationalize the strangeness of it, she knew better.

  She drew in a steadying breath and smelled…metal? A familiar wet scent that she denied the moment she recognized it. Her heart hiccupped in her chest, began racing, pounding hard enough to make her shake. Ny pressed her lips together to stop herself from crying out again into the silence.

  Silently, she ran past the orange tree with white blossoms hot with scent. She gagged, but swallowed thickly, brushed aside the low branches that dipped toward her face. The thorns scratched her arm, but she barely noticed the pain. Ny straightened and stopped running. Walked instead. Still silent but with something like terror ripping through her chest.

  Her night felt torn in half. She felt torn in half. The dirt was wet and warm. Silent. Blood squelched under her feet. She felt it now, sticky and undeniable between her toes. She stopped her near run toward her parents’ hut, breathed through the fear in her throat that had to be nothing. Was nothing.

  Her feet bumped into something and she tripped, fell over in the wet dirt. The breath whooshed from her lungs. It was dark. But she knew what that wet was. No. She didn’t want to know. She struggled to her feet, hands reaching out, trembling, to touch what she had fallen over. She hissed in shock and a cry wrenched itself from her throat. A body, still warm. She squeezed her eyes shut, opened them and looked down.

  “Nitu?”

  Her brother. His face slack. A knife near his hand. Wet. Ny jumped up and ran toward her parents’ hut. Dark. Wet under her feet. The door pulled shut as if they were sleeping. She shoved it open and tumbled inside. She screamed. A forced cry abruptly cut off by a hand over her mouth. She saw them. In the dark. Her parents. Their necks open and raw with cut flesh and blood. Eyes staring up at nothing.

  Baba!

  A numbing cold gripped her. She wanted to crawl to where her parents lay, gutted. But her body wouldn’t let her. Her elbow slashed back and she spun, suddenly released, slamming her elbow up again to crack into a man’s face. She ran for the knife at her father’s waist. Tripped in the wet. Wanted to scream but bit her tongue. More wet. Hands grabbed her legs, dragged her across the floor, and flipped her over. But the knife was already in her hand. She slashed and felt the blade sink into flesh. Heard a gasp. More hands. An explosion of pain in her face. Dizziness. Voices hissing to each other in a language she barely knew. Her hands grasped and twisted behind her back. Tied.

  Her head rocked with dizziness and pain, but she still fought. Her foot lashing out, the crack of her heel meeting flesh, the thud of a body falling. But someone twisted her wrist and wrenched the knife from her hand.

  Scream. She should scream again.

  But she barely opened her mouth before a cloth rammed into her mouth, rancid and smelling of old meat and sweat, the taste like dust. She scuttled backward on the floor, shoving aside the animal skins, skinning her elbows and the backs of her thighs on the stone floor.

  “Hold her!”

  “Get the sleeping sap!”

  A body dropped on top of her, heavy and sweaty. It pinned her to the ground the same instant she bumped into something beside her. She twisted away from the foul breath of the man on top of her, still kicking and fighting to get away. Gasping around the cloth stuffed in her mouth, she yanked her head back, ready to head butt him when she froze.

  “Iya…” She stared into her mother’s unseeing eyes.

  Another weight fell on her ankles, but she barely felt it.

  Iya! She squeezed her eyes shut. No. Please. Let this be a dream.

  But even as she felt her mind shutting down, her body bucked and heaved, animalistic noises growling from her throat. But she couldn’t move. Three men. One sat on her ankles, another pressed his weight onto her chest, then another still appeared at her head holding a drinking gourd. The man from the market.

  She shrank back when she recognized him. But she couldn’t move. He gripped the hinges of her jaw until her mouth fell open then he wrenched the cloth from between her lips. She twisted her head, trying to get away, but he poured something into her mouth, milky and bitter, that dribbled down the sides of her face.

  She gagged and tried to yank her head away, spit out the sap, but they clamped her nose and mouth shut, a musky hand tight over her face. She gasped, fighting for air, and swallowed because she had to. The cloth was stuffed back into her mouth.

  Her vision blurred and she blinked, body growing slack in the men’s grip.

  No! No. No…

  The men lifted her and her world tilted even more. Breath shoved from her when someone dropped her, belly-first, over his shoulder. With her hands tied behind her back, her mouth gagged, Ny twisted her body. But it was a weak version of what she intended. The screams were trapped in her throat as the men—those men who would die—carried her through the compound, past the trees she had climbed as a child, the dead fire pit, past Nitu cut open in the dirt. She blinked wildly as the rest of her started to lose sensation.

  She couldn’t move, she could only see. Ndewele’s door crooked and a leg, bloodied and gray, limp in the doorway. Her brother’s hut.

  Kizo! He’d been there. Because of her.

  All the huts were dark. Everything was silent.

  Her brothers. Her iya. Her baba. The pain scraped through Nyandoro and she screamed and screamed. Jaws working behind the cloth, trying to push it out with her tongue. But she was weak. She was tired. She felt every ache in her body.

  The man’s shoulder dug into her belly with each step he took, taking her family farther and farther away from her. Their bodies. Their love. What she had known her entire life. Through drooping eyelids, she stared into the dark, watching her life fade away as the men took her into the bush, their footsteps quiet, their mouths silent.

  Be strong. This is not how it ends.

  Ny forced her eyes to stay open, tried to yank her body away from the murderer who carried her. But all she could do was move her head and look up.

  Trees swam above her, their branches wide and frightening in the dark. The stars mocked her with their brightness. She blinked when a splatter of wet hit her eyes. Then another and another until she realized it was raining. Rain. After so long of praying for it, expecting it and hoping for it. But all the rain in all the villages couldn’t wash her pain or the blood away. A sob unfurled from the back of her throat. She coughed on the dryness in her mouth. Heaved with the pain of her body.

  Her neck hurt. It was exhausting to keep her eyes open. Giving in would only be a relief. She took a shuddering breath and gasped at the sharper pain, in her ribs, in her chest. Rain splashed on her cheek, dripping down over her mouth but, because of the cloth, she couldn’t taste it. The rain and its relief were as far from her as the stars in the sky. As far as her parents. As far as Duni. She gasped again.

  And everything went dark.

  Part Two

  Chapter Seven

  Pain yanked her out of the darkness.

  A burning in her wrists and ankles woke her from a strange dream that she’d lost everything. Nyandoro opened her eyes that were gritty and swollen, her lashes matted together with…tears? She thought about rolli
ng over on her sleeping mat and looking through the window to check the position of the sun. But she was still so tired. Was it time to go with her father to the council meeting?

  But when she tried to turn, she couldn’t. Her hands were tied. Her wrists were tied. Her legs. And her body was moving through the air. Strung up at the wrists and ankles to a long branch and carried like a carcass, the spoils of a successful hunt. Her body swayed with each step her captors took, the burning pain sharpened. She gasped, the breath scratching her raw throat, as everything came rushing back.

  Blood.

  Death.

  Capture.

  It hadn’t been a dream. A man appeared above her, his features clear despite the darkness. He was tall, his bare chest and stomach ropey with muscle. A scar curved up the corner of his mouth in a permanent and frightening smile.

  “She is awake.”

  “Fix it.”

  The men stopped, and she swung between them, the sky above her dizzying and dark. A hand yanked her jaw and she hissed at the pain, a lingering soreness from where one of them had done that to her before. The drinking gourd appeared above her head, open and pouring.

  “No!” She tried to jerk away but the hand was strong, and she was too weak. The white sap dribbled into her mouth, bitter and thick. She choked and tried to spit, twisting against the hold on her face.

  “Grab her!”

  Hands gripped her everywhere. Someone caught her head in a vice.

  “I will kill you!” She tongued out the sap, but the man just poured more into her mouth, she had to swallow it or drown. She could hear the scuffling of their feet on the forest floor, the harsh breathing of the ones who held her, her own gasping and choking breath. Otherwise, the forest was silent. The rain from her dreams, gone.

  Her body sagged. She could barely feel the pain in her wrists and ankles anymore. The tall man slapped her face, and she felt the impact reverberate through her whole body, but not the sting. Her eyes dropped closed.

  “Let us continue on.”

  Nyandoro woke up too many times still trapped in her nightmare. And each time they poured the sap down her throat, choking her with it until she swallowed enough to lose awareness of everything. The fifth or fifteenth time it was almost a relief. Sunlight came then darkness then sunlight again. Her body roasted in the heat before a rough blanket landed on her, scratching her skin, her face, making her sweat.

  Darkness again.

  The sound of chatter woke her, common rhythms of village life. It was night again. The noises were so soothing, so familiar, she could’ve almost fooled herself into thinking she was home and everything was fine. Almost.

  The sound of the men’s footsteps changed from dirt to grass then harder ground. Their footsteps thumped on what sounded like stone. They were indoors. She felt lowered swiftly to the floor, then blanket abruptly disappeared from her head.

  Nyandoro blinked, trying to focus. Bright torches surrounded her in a large stone hall. A man sat on a chair, a throne, watching her. He was a big man with youthful muscle just turning to fat, a square face, and greedy eyes. The mane and skin of a lion, bushy and thick, hung from his shoulders and a necklace made from the teeth of another big animal gleamed at his neck. The warrior’s skirt under his softening belly seemed just for show.

  He said something in a familiar language. For a moment, it was all sound and the fierce glitter of his eyes, then the words resolved themselves into one of the languages her father had taught her. A language that was spoken nowhere close to her village.

  “Are you sure this is her?” the man in the lion skin asked.

  He stood up and walked close to Nyandoro but not close enough to touch. He wasn’t as tall as the men who’d taken her, but he walked like he thought he was, an arrogant swagger that made his skirt sweep the air like peacock feathers. The knife sheathed at his waist was big, bone-handled, but looked purely decorative.

  “This puny thing is the one they want?”

  “Yes. We asked in the village. She is the only girl from a female worshipper of Yemaya. Five brothers were before her.”

  “Were?”

  “We couldn’t take the chance that they would alert the rest of the village. They did not make it easy.”

  The tears rushed down Nyandoro’s face before she could stop them. All dead? Every single one? She tightened her body, tried to tighten her emotions like she’d seen her brothers do, but the pain was too much for her to keep inside her bruised body. The raw agony shredded her throat, and she screamed it out of her, jerking and flailing against the stick that held her prisoner. What had her brothers or her parents done to deserve this?

  “Shut her up.”

  One of her kidnappers appeared in her sight, fist raised. He punched her, and she stumbled back, blinded by pain, and then she was falling.

  Falling.

  When she awoke again, the stick was gone, but her wrists and ankles were still tied. The stone floor scratched her side, her cheek. The chief, or whatever he was, was once again sitting on the high throne, watching her while her kidnappers stood nearby. She couldn’t see them, but she felt them as surely as she felt the ache in her ribs. Pressing a hand to her side, Nyandoro carefully sat up.

  “You decided to rejoin us,” the chief said. “Good.”

  The light from the torches flickered and dipped from the breeze coming through the windows of the large room. It crawled across the chief’s face and bare chest, his arrogance on display for anyone to see.

  Nyandoro struggled to her feet. Dangling at her sides, her fingers curled around nothing. She longed for a knife to kill this man, to skin this man, and present his carcass for the jackals to choke on. She limped toward the throne, one shuffling step after another. The men behind her must have made a move to come closer because the chief lifted a hand, palm out, a command to stay back. His eyes were dark with power and the knowledge that she had none of her own.

  “Be careful,” one of the men behind her said. “She fights like a man.”

  “Do you?” The chief looked amused. He watched her with the eyes of someone used to looking down on people. “Do you fight like a man?”

  “I fight like a woman,” she said. Her voice was scratchy and rough from disuse, so low she barely heard herself. “But you are worse than a dog.” It hurt to talk and her mouth was dry. But she worked up enough spit to splatter some at the chief’s feet.

  His expression didn’t change, but she saw the disgust in him, the anger. With very purposeful steps, he left the throne and came closer, stepping over the puddle of spit in front of him.

  The chief looked at the men behind her. “She has no respect.” He was apparently finished talking to her. His eyes burned over her face, her body. Although he came closer, he stayed just far enough away, out of the range of a head-butt, a desperate lunge. “But she is beautiful, a worthy addition to my wives. I should teach her to bow before a great man.”

  “Great man?” she snarled at him. “More like a cowardly dog who would kill elders and pregnant women.”

  He slapped her, and her head snapped back. She growled and spit on him, the gob of spittle landing on his chest instead of his face like she’d intended. This time, he punched her in the stomach. Hard. Then her chest and face until she was gasping from the pain, blood in her mouth, a barrage of punches that dropped her back on the stone floor. The ropes cut into her wrists and her ankles with each jerk and flail of her body.

  Wet pain dripped down her face, but the pain in that moment was such a relief from the ache of loss in her chest. With the pain riding the surface of her skin, she couldn’t think about what she’d left behind. She couldn’t think about anything.

  “Dog!” she panted between pained breaths. “You’re nothing more than a coward.” She used the only weapons at her disposal.

  He slammed his fist into her belly. “You dare?”

  Through the pain, she felt hands jerk at her, pulling her away from the chief. His men. They didn’t touch him, only p
ulled her away, her back scraping against the floor, her chanting scream—“Dog! Dog! Dog!”—the only weapon at her disposal. The men pulled her to her feet and slammed her back against the wall, held her there, pinned like an insect. Their sandaled feet stomped on the tops of hers and shoved her heels into the back of the wall. She couldn’t move.

  The chief growled and grabbed his waist knife. “Give her to me!”

  “My lord, stop!” Two men jumped in front of Nyandoro. “If you kill her, they will not pay and we will not get what we want.”

  Although she couldn’t see the chief past the barrier of the two men, Nyandoro felt his stare. His breathing, thick and loud, huffed in the room and he stepped to the side of the men’s thick bodies so she could see him. “This is not finished.” The chief tucked his knife back into his belt. “Put her in the cell and watch her. At first light, pack her up and take her to the woman. Make sure we get what was bargained for.”

  Take her where?

  She’d heard of foreign slavers in the area, the men from across the sea who took women who wandered too far away from their villages or bargained with the basest men to take entire tribes of people away from the continent. She would not be one of them. She would not.

  Nyandoro snarled at the chief. She didn’t care what else he did to her. He’d slaughtered her family, her parents, her brothers. What else did she have for him to take?

  Kizo. She started to shake at the thought of her brother, her friend, who was dead because of her. A sob broke from between her clenched teeth.

  “Now you cry.” He bared his teeth at her. “There’s much worse I can do to you. Remember that.”

  She sagged in the men’s grip. The “much worse” was already done. Life was nothing, nothing more than waiting for death. And if that meant it would come by his hand, then she was ready.