Kellan had been right to include the Petty Noble. Tau was shaken by his presence.
“I’m here, Tau Solarin,” Kellan said, pulling the Common’s attention back to him, “and this time your father won’t save you.”
When Kellan first heard the stories about the superhuman Ihashe warrior, he didn’t connect them to the man he’d fought in Citadel City. That came later, when he learned the Lesser fought with two swords. Even then, Kellan ignored the tales. He had too much to do to spend time thinking about one unusually talented Ihashe.
Then, days before the melee, his newly appointed Gifted, a powerful initiate named Zuri, ordered him to the Gifted Citadel. It was their first official meeting, but he’d recognized her at once. She was the same Gifted who had enervated him when he’d fought the strange Common.
Already nervous about the meeting, he pushed the incident out of mind and walked over to greet her. He didn’t get three steps before she accused him of murder.
She told him she’d have nothing to do with him and that if he did become an Ingonyama, she would reject her duty as his Gifted, jeopardizing his status. She would not enrage and empower a man like him.
Kellan had been lost. He’d murdered no one and she was threatening everything he’d worked for. He tried to calm her, begging her to justify her accusations. When she did, the episode with the crazy Common began to make sense. Kellan had explained himself, soothed the Gifted initiate, and considered the matter closed. However, the Goddess did not seem to see it the same.
The night after the Common dueled and beat Mayumbu, Kellan’s patron, Guardian Councillor Abasi Odili, came to him. The councillor explained that Scale Osa would skirmish Scale Jayyed. He wanted Kellan to take care of the Lesser who fought with two swords.
Odili, Kellan realized, didn’t know that Tau Solarin was the son of the man he’d ordered Dejen to kill earlier that same cycle. This was not personal. The Royal Nobles had simply had enough of Scale Jayyed and their unprecedented run. Odili wanted the scale obliterated and Tau dead.
Kellan wanted to refuse. He didn’t, though. He couldn’t lose the councillor’s patronage. Not yet.
It would have been different if his father hadn’t been branded a traitor and hanged. It would have been different if losing the man she loved hadn’t broken his mother, or if his sister were old enough to run the family’s estates, or, after having seen all the tragedy befalling them, if Kellan’s uncle had come to his kin’s aid. It’d be different if wishes were worldly, but they weren’t, and Kellan could look to no one other than himself to save his family.
He still needed Odili, and the man’s money and influence, because he had to become an Ingonyama. It was the only way he’d ever get out from under Odili’s thumb, his own family’s debts, his uncle’s disdain, and the shame of his father’s cowardice.
Becoming an Ingonyama was everything and the only thing Kellan wanted, before seeing Queen Tsiora at the Guardian Ceremony. He’d seen her before, when they were both young and she was a girl, but she couldn’t be called that anymore. Since receiving his guardian dagger from her, he’d thought about the queen more than any man should think about anything. It seemed destiny that the greatest service he could offer his people would also be his greatest joy.
Kellan’s uncle could never be Queen Tsiora’s true champion, and she would soon have to select another. It meant Kellan had a chance. His name was already spoken in the same breaths as many of the Omehi’s legendary warriors, and he’d heard it was whispered in Palm that he was a possibility. It scared him to think it and yet he could hardly think about anything else. He longed to see Tsiora Omehia in more than just his dreams.
Everything Kellan desired was in reach, but a single stride in the wrong direction could burn his hopes to ash. So he told Odili he’d do it and, for the second time, harm a member of the Solarin family.
Kellan exhaled and even his breath seemed to boil in the heat. He pulled his sword from its scabbard and, ready to commit violence, still had time to wish things could be different. He’d played a part in the death of the Common’s father, and there was no hiding from that or from the cruel work he was about to do.
Yet, he wanted to tell Tau he was sorry and that it wasn’t fair. He couldn’t, though, just like he couldn’t have turned down Odili. There was so much more at stake than one Lesser’s loss.
He called out across the space separating him from the Common of Kerem, taunting Tau with the things he’d learned from the Gifted initiate. “This day was fated,” he said, loud enough for those in the stands bordering the urban battlefield to hear. He’d give Odili his show. “Twice we’ve met. The first time, your father gave his life for yours. The second, a Gifted wanted you spared. Today, it’s the two of us, and I’ve spent my life training to kill men like you.”
The world had gone silent, making it easy to hear the strange thing the Common said before he attacked. “You’re wrong, Okar,” he said. “There are no men like me.”
Their blades met in a crash of bronze, and Kellan, much larger, weighing nearly twice what the Common did, planned to use his size, strength, and speed to overcome the smaller man. He’d make a play of it for the watching Nobles, embarrassing the Lesser. Then, after a time, he’d fake a killing blow that would, with the Goddess’s blessing, do no more than crack the boy’s skull.
It was cruel, but it was the best he could do, since Abasi Odili wanted the Common dead. After, Kellan would tell his patron that he thought he’d struck Tau hard enough to kill. He’d blame his dulled weapon for the error.
He slipped his sword away from the one held in Tau’s right, no doubt the Common’s better sword hand, and thrust his shield to blind him. As he did, he swung his own blade, planning to catch Tau in the arm or side. He didn’t get the chance.
The sword in the Common’s left hand moved faster than Kellan thought possible, hitting him on his helmet, snapping his head sideways and sending him stumbling with half the muscles in his neck wrenched out of place.
Head ringing and neck on fire, Kellan righted himself, only to be hit again. He raised his shield for cover and was struck below it. He whipped his sword at Tau’s last position, slicing through empty air before taking a bone-numbing blow to the leg that ripped through the leather and cut him.
He reeled and limped back, swinging wildly. The Common, out of reach and eyes blazing, stalked him.
Kellan’s heart hammered and his breathing was unsteady. He attacked anyway, but his swing was parried. He swung again and was blocked, repelled. He heaved himself back, desperate to make space, and heard the rumble of running feet.
He looked to the noise’s source and his heart sank. It was the unit of Lessers, the ones he’d not been able to finish. They’d come to finish him.
There were eight, maybe nine of them. Too many for him to take alone. But the Common pointed them to the buildings. Kellan didn’t dare hope they’d obey and almost wept when they did, running inside to help their sword brothers.
It made no sense, he thought. He’d sent twenty-seven Indlovu into those buildings. The Lessers had no chance against them all.
He grinned. This was it, then. All of Scale Jayyed were together, facing his men. The Lessers would be wiped out. That meant there was only one thing left to be handled. It was on him to eliminate the Common of Kerem.