He squealed and scrambled back, about to shout for the guards, though what they could do against a demon he did not know, when the shadowed creature moved into the light. Lekan relaxed, then went tense again. It wasn’t a demon, but seeing Jabari’s pet Common at the foot of his bed wasn’t much better.
“What are you doing here?” Lekan hissed.
“I’m not here to kill you,” the filthy and wet Common told him.
“Kill me?” Lekan said. “You dirty cek!”
“That’s all we are to you, neh? Nceku? Not men, not people. Is that why you threw my father’s life away?”
Lekan didn’t like the boy’s tone and looked him over for weapons.
“I’m not armed, nkosi. I’m not here for your life, yet.”
Lekan risked a glance to the night table beside his bed. His dagger was there, its blade hidden among the avocado skins.
“I’m here to tell you how you’ll die,” Aren’s son said, making Lekan’s arm hairs stand on end. “I’ll join the military as an Ihashe initiate. I’ll pour my soul into the craft of killing, and I will wait for you to rise to fief leadership. Palm will give you military status, and you will know despair.”
“Despair?” Lekan forced a chuckle as he shifted closer to the table.
“Every day, every season, every cycle, you’ll live in fear, unable to enjoy the taste of food, the sun’s warmth, or the night’s breeze, because one day I’ll come. I’ll challenge you to a blood-duel, Petty Noble Lekan Onai, and you will die on the end of my father’s sword.”
The Lesser had gone mad, Lekan realized, and his mother had the right of it. Aren’s son needed to be put down.
“I am your curse,” the Lesser said. “I am your end.”
“Are you?” Lekan asked, snatching the dagger from the table and lunging, slashing the madman across the face and feeling the blade bite into skin and skitter across bone.
The Common squawked and fell back, blood spraying across the floor in a staccato line of red as Lekan threw himself on the small man, bearing him to the ground. He weighed more than sixteen stone and the Lesser couldn’t have been a sand-grit over eleven. With the dagger in both hands, Lekan pressed it toward the fool’s blood-covered face, using his weight to drive it downward.
“Kill me? Kill me!” Lekan said through clenched teeth as the wretch wriggled beneath him. “I’m going to burn your whole family. You have sisters?” he spat. “Yes, Jelani? I’ll have her with this knife!”
Pain erupted in Lekan’s seeds, seared through his crotch and into his gut. He gasped, his strength gone, as he succumbed to the agony the Common’s knee had caused. The Common slapped the dagger from his hand and pushed him away, using the space to scuttle to his feet.
Lekan stood, swinging for the Lesser’s face, but his target ducked and tackled him, driving the air from his lungs and carrying them back to the ground. They knocked over the bedside table, the dregs from the jug of olu spilling on them. They wrestled there, beneath the open window, as the storm raged.
Lekan used his greater strength to beat and batter Tau. He rolled on top, hit the Common, disengaged, and kicked him in the thigh. He’d aimed for the bastard’s ribs but missed.
Tau began to rise and Lekan dashed to retrieve his dagger. He plucked it from the stone floor, put his back to the wall, and turned in time to see the Lesser running for him. He thrust his arm forward, to skewer the scrawny man, but the Common tripped on the fallen jug of olu and stumbled, making Lekan miss and causing his blade to tear through Tau’s dirty tunic instead of his belly.
The two men slammed together, becoming entangled. Lekan sliced at Tau but couldn’t land a killing blow, his knife trapped in torn cloth. Fumbling with the dagger, he tried to work it free, as the Lesser’s fingers scratched their way round his neck. He made to shout, ready to call in the guards, ready to end the farce, but his head was smashed into the wall.
Lekan saw bursts of light flare in his vision, and before he could recover, his head was whipped against the unyielding adobe again. He scrabbled at the bastard’s arms, couldn’t get a grip, and his head was slammed a third time, turning the light bursts into suns.
Remembering the dagger, he tried to stab Tau, but the blade was still trapped in the mess of torn fabric and Lekan couldn’t get a clean thrust. Desperate, he cut away from his assailant’s body, freeing the short blade. He cocked his arm, ready to plunge the knife into the Common’s heart, when his head was blasted into the wall, and something cracked.
Lekan’s legs went limp and he tried to yell at Tau to stop. His mouth wouldn’t work and he couldn’t see anything from his left eye. He patted at Tau’s face, his hand coming away wet and sticky. Lekan didn’t know where he was or what he was doing. He didn’t—
The back of Lekan’s head crashed into the wall again, and he saw his mother’s face. She was young, leaning over him. He was in the bed he’d slept in when he was a child and she was cooing. He reached up to touch her and she shattered into a million pieces as time stopped and pain unlike anything Lekan had ever known consumed him.
FALLEN
Tau’s face burned where Lekan had slashed him. The cut was deep and went from the bridge of his nose down to the middle of his right cheek. He was lucky he hadn’t lost an eye. He was lucky Lekan hadn’t killed him.
Tau looked down at the Petty Noble’s body and his stomach heaved. The back of Lekan’s head was collapsed inward. There wasn’t much blood, but the man was dead.
Tau began to panic. He could leave, but the body would be discovered and he’d be suspected. They’d search for him, find him missing, and punish his mother, his sister, his mother’s husband. The only option was for all of them to flee.
They wouldn’t get far. The umbusi would have them hunted. They’d be found and executed. He’d ruined everything. He’d murdered his own family.
The door to Lekan’s chambers flew open, and a keep guard, wild-eyed and sword at the ready, burst into the room.
“Hold!” the guard ordered. “Tau?”
“Ochieng,” Tau said. He’d been caught by the man his father helped place on the guard.
“What are you… Goddess wept!” Ochieng said, seeing Lekan’s body. “What have you—”
“I didn’t come to kill him.” Tau shut his mouth. What could he say that would matter?
“Why me? Why tonight?” Ochieng muttered. “Why, Goddess?”
Tau hung his head, and blood from the wound on his face dripped on the floor. He wouldn’t fight, not against Ochieng.
“Get on, then,” Ochieng said.
“What?”
Ochieng indicated the open window. “Get on. I’ll close it behind you.”
“I… I can’t. They’ll know it was me. My family—”
“They won’t know, Tau. Get, now, before I change my mind.”
Tau didn’t know what to say, could think of nothing to say. He got onto the windowsill, found the handholds he’d used to climb up, and stopped, locking eyes with Ochieng.
“Go on. Quick, now.”
Tau nodded, began to make his way back down the wall, and Ochieng got to work, picking up one of Lekan’s shirts, balling it up, squatting down and wiping at the blood in the room. He swished the scrunched cloth back and forth, diluting and scrubbing the blood into the rain-dampened floor. Then, when he got close, Ochieng paused, crouching over the Noble’s body before hawking up phlegm and spitting on Lekan’s face.