He danced backward, throwing potted plants, small statues, and even a fire-blackened brazier at the Ingonyama. Then, risking death, Tau dove to Dejen’s blind side, launching himself past the man and toward his fallen swords. He didn’t have time to get them both. He snatched his grandfather’s sword, came up blocking an unavoidable swing from Dejen, and almost lost his blade to the power behind the strike.
He shambled out of reach, placed a foot on his father’s shattered blade, and dragged it back with him. When he’d gained enough space to grab it without dying, he snatched it, grunting at the peals of pain from his smashed ribs.
“Tau! Tau! Tau!” yelled Jabari.
And Tau went at Dejen, stabbing, swinging, and firing his swords at the enormous man as fast as he could, aiming as often as he could for the Greater Noble’s remaining eye. The attacks alarmed Dejen, and for the first time the enraged man fought defensively, terrified of losing his sight.
Tau buried him under an unrelenting barrage of blows that could not cut Dejen deeply, but that was not their aim.
“The Goddess curse you, Dejen! Kill him!” the KaEid howled as Tau continued his assault, delivering attacks that forced the KaEid to pour more and more energy into maintaining Dejen’s enraging.
“Release me!” the KaEid demanded, the alarm in her voice at a fever pitch. “Release me!”
Her shroud, Tau knew, was gone. The demons were coming. Tau increased the pressure, his ribs protesting every movement while his will drove him on.
“You will pay, Dejen!” Tau taunted. “You will die, Dejen! You will burn blind in Isihogo with Ukufa for eternity, Dejen!”
“Release me!” The KaEid stumbled toward them. “Let me go, you fool!”
Dejen would not do it. Tau could see the fear in the man’s eye. Dejen knew that when the enraging left him, so would his life, because Tau would take it.
So Dejen did what he could to turn the tide of battle. He used his strength, his speed, his cunning, his training, to push an injured Tau back. He gave Tau a wicked but glancing cut to the thigh and came close to taking Tau’s wrist, but Tau turned his father’s sword in time to catch the brutal swing on the blade’s hilt. The move saved him from amputation but broke three of his fingers.
Dejen pressed on, Dejen was desperate, and Dejen ran out of time.
The KaEid screamed with enough anguish to cause both men to jump away from each other. She fell to her knees and clawed at her neck, and blood erupted from her ears, mouth, nose, and eyes. She convulsed and seized, the skin on her face blistering, bubbling, rupturing. Those screams became gurgles and the KaEid choked on her body’s fluids, going down to her hands, tossing this way and that, spattering them both with putrescence. With fingers clawed, she tore at her face, peeling stripes of flesh away in rolls. She opened her mouth wide, as if to give birth through it, and vomited a torrent of filth, her arms giving way as she did. She fell to the floor, no longer looking human, and she died.
Tau swung back to Dejen. The Ingonyama was no longer enraged. His black leathers hung loose and he was hunched from the pain of his many wounds.
“You killed my father,” Tau told him.
“You do this because a Lesser is dead?” Dejen spat, the words muddied by his mangled mouth. “He was worth nothing. You. Are. Nothing!”
Dejen charged, his sword leading. Tau slipped the killing thrust and stabbed his father’s broken blade through the Greater Noble’s chest and into his Noble heart.
“Perhaps,” Tau whispered, feeling the man’s lifeblood pulse from the wound, through his fingers, and down his hand, “but you are dead.”
Dejen gasped, trying to breathe. His eye fixed on Tau’s face. Tau put a hand over the Ingonyama’s shoulder and pulled him close, driving the blade deeper. Dejen’s lips twitched, but he said nothing, and never would.
“Tau!” It was Jabari.
Tau ripped his father’s broken sword from Dejen’s body and let the Noble drop to the floor. He stepped beyond the dead man and staggered over to the room where Jabari fought for his life, and where the queen hid to preserve hers. Tau went to murder Abasi Odili.
ESCAPE
Tau burst into the room. He saw Jabari and the Indlovu first. They were facing off and the Indlovu moved like he was drunk. Jabari was bleeding from several cuts and having trouble holding his sword. The queen was there too. Tsiora, in a high-backed gown of purest white, had her back to the wall and was standing next to a lavish bed stacked high with thick pillows and silken blankets. She was not alone. There was a middle-aged woman with her. The woman had a stern but attractive face and, at that moment, she had her hands out to the Indlovu. She dropped them when she saw Tau.
She was Gifted and had enervated the full-blood. She was the reason Jabari was still alive. Tau went for the full-blood, when he heard a noise behind him. He spun, sword leading, and smashed the earthenware jug that Abasi Odili had thrown.
Abasi stood in the opposite corner of the room, as far as he could get from the Gifted and fighting men. Without a breath, the guardian councillor and architect of the Royal Nobles’ coup ran from the room. Tau took off after Odili and heard Jabari cry out in pain.
Tau was at the door. He looked back. The queen had her eyes on him, locked on him, and the Gifted woman looked grim, lips pursed tight. She wouldn’t be able to access energy from Isihogo for a quarter span at least. She was defenseless. Worst was Jabari. He’d taken a deep cut from forehead to chin that had just missed his eye. The floor was slick with blood, and as Tau watched, the Indlovu stabbed him in the biceps of his shield arm.
“Tau!” Jabari screamed, tumbling back and onto the ground.
Tau looked out the door. Abasi was getting away, but Tau could catch him. He took a step to do it, throwing a last look in the room and seeing the queen, who couldn’t be more than a cycle or two apart from him in age.
It was madness to think she could lead them all. It was madness to place their survival in this girl’s ability to renew peace with the Xiddeen. The effort would fail, and Tau could still catch Abasi. He could still…
Tau yelled his frustration and ran toward the fight. The Indlovu, hearing him come, swung to meet the attack, and they crossed blades. Tau feinted high with his broken sword and thrust low with his strong side, his ribs blazing pain the entire time. The Indlovu had no shield. He blocked the high attack and was run through with the other blade.
The man had spirit, though. With his free hand he pulled a dagger from his belt and went for Tau’s chest. Using the sword embedded in the Noble’s belly, Tau dragged the Indlovu in a semicircle, throwing off his attack and turning the attempt at a mortal stab into a glancing gash.
As they spun, the Indlovu tried to maintain his balance, yelling in agony. His lips were pulled back and his mouth was open, blood-tinged saliva sloshing around his teeth. Tau fired his left hand forward, planting his broken sword in the man’s clavicle. The Indlovu sighed, the air going out of him, and then it was over.
Jabari, bleeding everywhere, slid his back up the wall behind him until he was sitting. He wiped at the cut on his face, smearing the blood and making it look like he was wearing a gruesome mask.
“You fight for the queendom?” Queen Tsiora asked, trembling.
Tau didn’t answer. He had to catch Odili. He ran for the door and into three men. He jumped back, swords ready.