The pain was instant and furious. Tau drew his arm back, near to blacking out from agony, and lashed out with his remaining sword, slicing the demon across its chest. It reared, roared, dropped to all fours, and charged him. Tau braced himself, thrust hard for the place he imagined the creature’s heart to be, and was bowled over as the demon crashed into him, sending them both tumbling along the swampy muck of Isihogo.
Tau lost his weapon and his sense of up or down. He tried to kick the demon away but was like a child in its grip. He prayed he’d killed it with his last sword thrust, but its eyes centered on him and it dove for his neck.
Tau raised a blocking arm to stop it. It clamped its jaws around his elbow and bit down, crushing through skin and bone. He screamed as the pain, horrifying in its intensity, hit. Then the agony threatened sanity itself when the beast swung its head back and forth, jerking his whole body about and tearing his destroyed limb to shreds as the light came back to the world.
“Tau! Tau!” Yaw was standing over him.
Tau scrambled away, his back banging into the wall behind him.
“Run! It’s on me.” Tau shouted, looking at his arm and expecting to see a ruin. It was whole. He searched himself for the pain that had tormented him. There was nothing.
“Tau, listen to me, we’re out,” said Yaw. “You… you saved me from it.”
Tau took a steadying breath and, wide-eyed, looked around the path. The Enervator was on her knees, crying. The last Indlovu Tau had fought was scrubbing his hands across his face and gibbering on the ground in front of her. The one Oyibo and Chinedu had faced was lying in a fetal position, his body wracked with tremors.
“What in the Goddess’s name,” Tau said, his voice shaking.
“She held us too long,” said Yaw.
Tau stood on weak legs and took a step toward the Gifted, ready to risk the wrath of the citadel, Nobles, and isikolo. He would give this incompetent wretch a piece of his mind. She heard him coming and looked up from her knees. She was young, more child than woman, and she looked small, lost, scared. She was a… she had been a Low Common, and the curses Tau had been ready to sling slipped away.
“What did you do?” he asked, but she just wept.
Yaw came over. Through her tears, the Gifted saw him and raised an arm as if to ward him off or maybe cast another wave of enervating energy. It was too soon. Her powers wouldn’t be back, but Tau couldn’t help it and backed away in fear.
“None of that, Lady Gifted,” Yaw said as his fingers brushed the top of her shoulder. “I’ve touched you. You’re out of the contest, neh?”
She didn’t speak, but she did nod.
“Brothers,” Yaw said, “let’s get back to the circle. We’ll help the others and tell them the Enervator is down.”
“I can’t,” said Oyibo.
“What?” asked Yaw.
“Oyibo took the Goddess’s mercy before… before the rest happened,” Chinedu explained. “This one”—he indicated the quaking Indlovu—“he was… a thing got him and it…”
Tau had trouble finding his voice. “All right, us three, then, let’s go,” he said, gathering up his fallen swords.
“Lady Gifted,” Yaw asked, “you’ll see to the Indlovu here? You’ll call for the aqondise when we go?”
She didn’t answer and her eyes were shut tight.
“I’ll call out,” Oyibo assured them.
“Let’s go,” Tau said a second time, and the three men trotted down the path, back the way they had come and toward more fighting.
SKIRMISH
When Tau emerged from the path and into the harsh light of the wide-open circle, he counted seven Indlovu fighting just eleven of his sword brothers. The fighting was fierce and not going well for Scale Jayyed. The skirmish had broken down into smaller contests, and six Indlovu fought in pairs. The seventh was backed into a corner, swinging at the three Lessers harrying him. Hadith was on his feet, but the scale’s inkokeli had taken cuts and had an angry welt on his forehead.
“The Enervator is ash!” Tau shouted into the circle, trying to give his scale hope. Turning to the sword brothers with him, he gave orders. “Help where you can. We finish this!” he said, before running to Hadith’s aid.
“For… the Goddess!” Chinedu cried out.
Hadith was with two other Ihashe, and the three of them were fighting two Indlovu.
“I have left,” Tau told the three men as he joined the fight.
The Indlovu on the left was granite thick and had a neck like a barrel. His dark skin shone with sweat and his face was the type that looked like it always smelled of offal.
“He’s their inkokeli,” Hadith warned. “I’ll stay.”
“Go!” Tau told him. “Finish the other. He’s mine.”
Hadith held position.
“Hadith!” Tau urged.
Hadith shook his head at Tau but did as he was bid, moving to engage the other Indlovu with his two sword brothers.
The inkokeli used the reprieve to catch his breath. “You’re a fool, Lesser, to try me alone.” He raised his sword. “I am Zesiro Opio, Greater Noble of the Opio family in Palm, a second-cycle Indlovu of the citadel and inkokeli of Scale Oyana.”
Tau pointed the ends of his dual swords at the man’s broad chest. “I am a Common of Kerem and you will beg me for mercy.”
“Nceku!” Zesiro said, attacking.
Tau did not back down. He gave no ground. He met Zesiro Opio in the circle of the Crag’s fake city and went to war. Their blades flashed and flickered, faster and faster, as the men wielding them lunged, spun, deflected, and parried.
Zesiro, Tau realized, was a brilliant fighter. Zesiro was good enough to beat him, if he had not already fought under the hot sun on a long morning against overwhelming numbers and the well-trained men of Scale Jayyed.
In training, Tau had taken himself to the breaking point every day. Every day he pushed further than the day before, making himself a little stronger, a little harder, a little faster. The sword was his religion and, a devout disciple, he sacrificed to it without end.
So, amid a melody of metal, Tau Solarin and Zesiro Opio burned across the circle grounds like wildfire, each man reaching deeper than he had ever done before. One man fought, ready to die. The other battled, thinking it impossible to lose. But thinking a thing has never been enough to make it so, and Tau could see fear set in when Zesiro Opio realized he wasn’t winning.
The Noble couldn’t keep up and Tau’s blades kept getting through. Desperate and in pain, Zesiro raised his shield, hiding behind it, unable to slow the onslaught as Tau’s blades bashed the bronze disc from every angle. Zesiro yelled for help as Tau, merciless, came up and under the bronze disc, cracking the hand there and breaking noble fingers.
Zesiro howled, his sword flying from his ruined hand, and Tau did not stop. He increased his pace, refusing to let the Goddess’s mercy take this man’s beating from him.
“Zesiro Opio! Greater Noble!” Tau roared, smashing his blade against the cheek plates of the Greater Noble’s helmet, breaking the bones beneath and cracking the Indlovu on his temple. “A name? A caste? That won’t shield you from me!”