“In the name of Scale Jayyed, we surrender and submit to Scale Osa! We surrender and submit. Stand down! Stand down!” Jayyed, holding the gray-on-gray flag of the Ihashe, was running onto the battleground.
“No! I do not surrender!” Tau swung at the Indlovu around him. “I do not surrender!”
Running with Jayyed were two skirmish officiants. The Ihashe umqondisi with Jayyed was hurrying, but the one from the citadel lagged behind. No doubt he would have preferred to wait and see how things played out.
“It is not that Lesser’s choice,” Jayyed told the Indlovu around Tau. “I am the scale’s umqondisi and I surrender the skirmish. If anyone else is harmed it will be outside the protections of the Queen’s Melee.”
“Yes, yes,” the citadel umqondisi muttered. “Back away, it’s done. Scale Osa wins and progresses to the finals. Scale Jayyed is eliminated.”
Swords held ready, the Indlovu backed away. Tau eyed them, still turning, expecting one of them to attack at any moment. The last man he turned toward was Jabari, who continued to avoid his eyes.
Kellan spoke from a distance. “Well fought, Tau.”
“To ash with you!” Tau spat.
“You may not believe me, but I am sorry for this. I am sorry for your father. I wished no part in either event.” Kellan sheathed his sword and joined his men, who were already walking off the battleground.
“Don’t you speak of him!” Tau yelled to Kellan’s back. “I’ll kill you, Okar. I could have killed you today! Guardian dagger? Future Ingonyama? Go to your funeral pyre knowing I’m your better!”
“Be silent, Tau,” Jayyed said next to his ear. “Be silent.”
A ragged cheer was raised by the men of Scale Osa. They’d won. The crowd, though, come to see violence, were as voiceless as the sun setting overhead.
The Nobles in the stands did not speak. Worry gripped them. The Lessers in the stands did not speak. Rage had them. Scale Jayyed was eliminated and the tournament day had ended, but the bloodshed was just beginning.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
SECRETS
Tau was injured, and instead of taking him to the Lesser infirmary, Jayyed and Anan took Tau to one of the small tents that served as private quarters for umqondisi in the Crags. Once there, they sent for a Sah priest to tend to Tau and bandage his wounds. Jayyed explained it was best to keep Tau out of sight until tempers in the Crags cooled. Already, several fights had broken out between Lessers and Nobles. Two Lessers, one from the Governor caste, had been hung.
Tau thought to ask why. He didn’t. He was weary beyond belief, the cut on his leg ached, his ear burned, and his back was a giant welt.
The Sah priest, a short but curvy Governor caste woman, bound his cuts, rubbed foul-smelling ointment on his back, checked his head for injuries, and waved her hand over his eyes. She told Jayyed he’d be fine and that he should rest. Jayyed thanked her, and when he turned to speak with Anan, the doctor leaned close to Tau.
“You’ve shown us the truth,” she said. “We’re more than our caste. The Goddess blesses us equally.” She patted him on the shoulder, like his mother used to do, and walked out of the tent.
Jayyed waited until she left. “What did she say?”
Tau was sitting on a cot, staring at the ground. “She said the Goddess blesses us equally. That we’re more than our caste.”
“Demons in the mist!” swore Jayyed, making Tau flinch. “Now the priests?”
“Why not, Jayyed?” said Anan in a hushed voice. “They’ve watched the same melee we have.”
“Now is not the time.”
“Because we’re at war?” Anan asked.
Jayyed looked away.
“We’re always at war.”
“Come, Anan. Tau needs rest.” Jayyed held the tent’s flap open and they walked out.
Tau lay back and closed his eyes, but the pain was too much and he had to roll to his side. He reached for the oblivion of sleep. It would not come, chased away by thoughts that haunted him. Tau had hesitated. He had held back when he could have killed Kellan.
The tent rustled. Tau shot up, snatching the closer of his two swords as he did. It was Hadith.
“Put it down,” Hadith said, as if they were still on the battleground, as if he could still deliver orders that Tau had to obey.
Compromising, Tau lowered his blade but did not put it down. “How’s Uduak?”
Hadith grimaced. “He’ll live and recover. He’s already up and walking, Goddess be praised. But that’s not why I’m here.”
“Why, then?” Tau asked, the sword twitching in his hand.
“Put it away. Everyone knows you can fight.” Hadith stepped up, standing a handspan from Tau’s face. “I want to know if you can think.”
Tau pushed him away. “Leave me be.”
“You self-righteous cek, we could have changed everything. We had it in our grasp and you threw it away. You threw all of us away, to take your petty revenge.”
“Petty? Mka!”
“Nceku! Your father died? Does that make you special? How many fathers have died in this war? How many more will die because the Nobles use Lessers like a break wall against the hedeni hordes? How many more, before Lessers have a say in the way our lives are spent?”
“A say? A say? We’re Lessers. And you, that priest, and everyone else thinks I do this, for what? To upend the castes?”
“Priest?”
“Never mind,” said Tau.
“Why do you do it?”
“To make them feel some of the pain I feel! To force them to see that my life, my father’s life, is worth more than their whims.”
“We’re fighting for the same thing. Why do you keep trying to do it alone?”
Tau felt caught and didn’t like it. “I’m not looking to change the Chosen,” he said.
“Even so, the changes come.”
“Then, they come too late.”
Hadith narrowed his eyes. “What does that mean?”
“You were born too late to make a difference. We all were.”
Hadith got right in Tau’s face. “What does that mean?”
The tent’s flap rustled and in came Zuri. “Tau! I came as… You have company—”
“Lady Gifted.” Hadith backed away from Tau, bowing to Zuri.
“I’ll come back,” she said.
“Please, Lady. I was leaving.” Hadith marched out.
Zuri seemed to forget him as soon as he was out of sight. “Goddess, Tau! Are you okay?”
“Hello, Zuri.”
She ran into his arms and hugged him, making him wince when her hands pressed against the welt on his back.
She let go. “You’re hurt?”
“I’m well. How are you?… You were watching?”
“Most of the Gifted Citadel was watching. It was horrible.”
“I didn’t kill him.”
“Thank the Goddess.”
Tau gave her a sharp look.
“Tau… I have something to tell you. I don’t want there to be secrets between us.”
Tau said nothing, aware that the day was about to get worse and unsure how it could manage it. Whatever came, he would face it with Zuri, without secrets, with nothing held back.