WARRIORS

The fighting was a nightmare of bronze and blood. Weapons flashed in and

out of Tau's sight; he fought wildly, yelled himself hoarse, received a

shallow but biting cut to the leg, and was pulled back by Nkiru, his father's

second-in-command. Tau tried to thank him, but the older warrior had

moved on, his sword swinging at anything not Chosen.

Tau spotted his father and Jabari, and, slowed by his weakened leg, he

pushed his way back to the front lines. Tendaji was beside him, until he

wasn't, the bitter fighting splitting them up.

Afraid of being separated from the Ihagu, Tau tried to get closer to his

father and slipped. He went down and was nearly trampled by the press of

women and men trying to kill one another. He pushed himself to a knee, the

head of a spear whizzed past his ear, and, blindly, he punched his sword at

the spear holder, missing his mark but coming close enough to make the

fighter curse and fall back into the clot of hedeni.

He scrambled to his feet and glanced down at what had made him fall. It

was Tendaji, his head crushed. Tau's stomach lurched and he stumbled

away from the body, bumping into one of Aren's men, who sliced him

across the arm with an errant swing.

The cut was not a bad one, but Tau's arm lit up in a line of pain. He

hissed at the sting of it and found he was taking rapid, shallow breaths that

didn't help at all. His sight also seemed to be going, his vision closing in at

the edges with black and red.

Panicked, in pain, and afraid he was going blind, he pushed back and

away from the thickest fighting. He was about to flee, run down the

mountainside with the townspeople, when a hedena attacked the Ihagu

beside him.

The Ihagu was wrestling a hatchet from another raider and didn't see the

spear coming for his spine. He'd die without even knowing what killed him.

Tau tried to call out a warning as he leapt forward, but nothing came out.

His voice was gone.

He crashed into the spear-wielding savage and they went down,

struggling, teeth bared, growling; then a sword flashed over Tau's shoulder

and into the hedena's cheek, tearing the man's face in two. The hedena

gurgled, scrabbled at him, and went limp as Aren took Tau's arm, hauling

him to his feet.

"Back," his father said, his sword point dragging in the dirt. "Their

attack is failing."

Tau, blood and muck coating him, looked for the man he'd tried to save.

He found him nearby, on the ground and dead. Tau stared at the body. It

didn't make sense. He'd been alive a breath ago.

"The Ihashe and Indlovu are here," his father told him. "Goddess be

praised."

Tau looked past the skirmish seething around him, and out there among

the savages, he saw them—the might of the Chosen military.

Battling the hedeni were Ihashe, the elite fighters drafted from the

Lesser castes, and Indlovu, the larger and more powerful Noble caste

warriors. They all fought fiercely, but the main prong of the Chosen

counterattack was led by a giant. He wore bronze-plated leather armor

painted red and black. He had a shield on one arm and a shining bronze

sword in the other hand. He was an Enraged Ingonyama.

The Ingonyama was close to twice Tau's height, his arms bulging with

muscle, and he moved faster than should have been possible for someone

his size. He fought like a god.

"Hold the line," Tau's father ordered the Ihagu. "The military are here!"

In the time it took Aren to speak, the Ingonyama had cut his way

through an entire line of hedeni, whipping his sword around hard enough to

slice through two men in a single blow. Three more savages attacked and he

belted the first away with his shield, kicked the next in the chest, and with

the pommel of his sword, cracked the third's skull like it was a rotten nut.

"Everyone, toward the Gifted! Move!" shouted Tau's father, and the

Ihagu beat a hasty retreat, running to the grouping of women in black robes

near the cliffs.

"Incredible," Jabari said, pointing to the Ingonyama. "He's incredible."

As kids, they would play at being Ingonyama, and Tau hadn't forgotten

Jabari's heartbreak when Lekan, catching them at it, taunted his younger

brother with the truth. Jabari's blood, like that of all Petty Nobles and lower

castes, was too weak to enrage.

"Faster!" said Aren, yanking on Tau's gambeson.

They were near enough to the Gifted that Tau could see them, though

not well. There were eight of them, in their traditional coal-black and

flowing robes, and they were guarded by a ring of warriors. The Gifted had

their hoods up, and the gold necklaces they all wore shimmered with light

from the hamlet's guttering fires.

Having reached a measure of safety, Aren's men let their exhaustion take

hold. Some dropped to their knees, and one scrawny Ihagu sat on the

ground, staring at nothing. The man beside him had his sword up, as if

expecting his companions to turn on him.

Tau sought out the Ingonyama. He was there, in what was left of Daba,

destroying all he faced. Around him, his Indlovu dealt death like it was a

choreographed dance. They, along with the Ingonyama, were the Chosen's

most devastating fighters.

Tau glanced at Jabari, who had found water and was drinking, spilling

much of it. It was hard to believe that nothing more than a test and time

separated the optimistic young Noble from being a full-blooded Indlovu.

Jabari would test soon, and if he passed, he'd become an initiate of their

citadel, train for three cycles, then go to war as one of them.

Tau's father wanted the Lessers' equivalent for him. He wanted Tau to

test for the Ihashe, train at the closer of the two fighting schools reserved

for Lessers, and serve in the military, just like he had. Aren's service was

what made it possible for him, a Low Common, to lead their fief's Ihagu.

Before Tau was born, his father had trained to be an Ihashe and had

fought as one, serving the military's mandatory six cycles. It was in his final

cycle of service that he met and fell in love with Imani Tafari, a beautiful,

strong-willed High Common. He wooed her, and with his service complete,

they ran away to Kerem, to escape her father's wrath at the poor match.

In Kerem, Aren's Ihashe background was valuable and he was made

second-in-command of Umbusi Onai's Ihagu. His wife did even better,

landing a position in the keep.

Tau was born soon after, but in the first few cycles of his life, Imani

grew weary of living like a Common. She left Aren. She left Tau too.

With the woman he loved lost to him, Aren gave himself over to two

things: raising Tau and being the best fighter in the fief. In time, he came to

lead the Ihagu, and when Jabari was old enough, the umbusi asked Aren to

train him.

After Lekan, her firstborn, failed his testing, she couldn't afford to hire

an Indlovu teacher for Jabari. Tau's father, though a large step down from

an Indlovu, was the next best thing. Aren accepted without hesitation.

Teaching Jabari meant he'd have time to train Tau as well.

Tau knew it was the best Aren could do to give him a solid start toward a

good future, but in a burning hamlet, surrounded by the dead and dying, he

was having a difficult time believing there was anything good about the

violent path his father had prepared for him.

Zuri would have sucked her teeth, rolling her eyes at him. Since

becoming a handmaiden, she had little time and less patience for Tau's

bouts of self-pity. Still, a smile would have followed the eye roll, and that

would make everything better. She always made everything better, he

thought, as a horn sounded across the flats, snatching him away from her

memory and returning him to the nightmare of Daba.

At the far edge of the hamlet, a hedena held a horn. He blew it again,

three short blasts followed by a longer one, and Tau prayed it was a call to

retreat. Something felt wrong, though. It was the man beside the horn

blower.

"What is it?" asked Jabari, startling Tau. He hadn't heard him approach.

"The man beside the one blowing the horn," Tau said. "I think that's

their inkokeli."

"What does he look like?"

"He's tall, almost the height of a Petty Noble, and well built. He's

wearing more than they usually do, and he's carrying one of those bone

spears. He's… he's burned, not just cursed. It looks like he's been through a

fire. Half his face is a ruin."

"They aren't leaving."

Jabari was right. They weren't. They were doing the opposite.

The hedeni, hearing the horn's notes, came together but did not rush the

barricade or the military men facing them. As one, they attacked the

Enraged Ingonyama, ignoring the fighters around him.

"Stop them, Amara!" the Gifted nearest to Tau said to another blackrobed woman.

The one named Amara lifted her hands, aiming past Tau at the charging

hedeni. "They're too far. It'll splash," she said.

"Try, damn you!" said the first Gifted, and Amara did.

Energy, like pulsing waves of heat, began to radiate from her fingers,

thickening as it flew out and away. Enervation, Tau thought with wonder,

before the edge of it struck him and the world disappeared