The Rage of Dragons (The Burning Books #1) (35 page)

Tau waited for Okar to rise. The Noble had dropped his sword and was sitting on his rear. He was panting, one hand pressed against the gash Tau had torn in his side.

“Wait!” Kellan said, his free hand up, palm out.

“Greater Noble? That’s what you’re supposed to be?” Tau rasped, a fierce headache pounding in his head and thinning his vision down to slivers. “You’re nothing, less than nothing, an insect to be crushed.”

Tau felt tears coming and dashed them away with the back of his hand. He’d waited a long time for this moment. Here was a demon he could kill.

He heard the thunder of footsteps and looked over his shoulder. Several more demons had come out of the building. Tau snarled and blinked away the vision. It was the men from Scale Osa.

That was it, then. They had beaten Hadith and Yaw’s unit. Scale Jayyed had been defeated and Tau was to blame.

“Strike him and you die, Lesser scum!” shouted the first Noble out the door.

Tau looked to Kellan. The Indlovu was back on his feet, sword in his blood-soaked hand.

“Get him!” Kellan ordered. “Attack, burn you!”

The men of Scale Osa ran for Tau, Tau made for Kellan, and Kellan fled, making enough space so he could circle round and head for the safety of his men. Tau couldn’t get to Kellan in time, and with dulled swords it would have been difficult to kill Okar before Scale Osa could stop him. To have the time he needed with Kellan, Tau had to kill everyone.

He launched himself into the fray, swords whirling, and the closest man took a dulled blade to the face, shattering his eye socket. The second Indlovu was fortunate. He took a foot to the chest as Tau pushed off of him, making room to careen his weak-side sword into the elbow of another. That man’s arm made a sound like a thunderclap and then flapped loose, the bones connecting his upper and lower arm destroyed.

The rest of the men—there were thirteen, including Kellan and the one Tau had kicked—fanned out.

“Beg me!” shouted Kellan, who looked crazed and was still hunched over on the side where Tau had shaved his flesh. “Beg me for mercy!”

Tau attacked, and for a while he was winning, his sword snapping at them like a dragon’s jaws. He cut four fingers away from the hands of one Indlovu, blood spraying into the hot Xiddan air as the Noble fell away. He smashed his fist and hilt into the throat of another, and that one went down without protest. Eleven left. It was too many. Tau attacked.

Their blades sliced at him from every angle. One of them cut away Tau’s left earlobe. Another missed his hamstring but tore a string of flesh from Tau’s calf.

As they harried him, Tau searched the ring of men for Kellan’s face. If he was to die here, he would take that nceku with him, but Kellan had removed himself. He stood back from the circle and watched, his sword down and by his side.

“Okar, fight me!” Tau screamed. “Greater Noble? Standing behind your men, feared of a Lesser, a Common?”

Tau was struck from behind. He rolled with the hit, lessening the blow’s damage, and avoided being impaled on the point of another man’s sword. He snarled at the bastards surrounding him as he regained his feet, blocked one attack, then a second, before taking a sword flat to the gut that bent him double.

Refusing to be put down, he staggered and swung about with his blades, discouraging the rest from following up.

“None of you are worthy to lead us!” he seethed, waving his swords, keeping the Indlovu tentative.

“The Goddess judge you!” shrieked an overzealous Indlovu, diving after Tau. Tau spun off the man’s killing line and brought his sword onto the back of the Noble’s neck, breaking it. The Noble fell in the dirt, unnaturally still, whimpering, as Tau pretended to charge first one way, then the other.

“Hold the circle,” yelled one of the Indlovu. “Hold here and we kill him.”

Tau aimed his blades out to either side of his body, turning counter to the Indlovu’s rotation around him. His teeth were bared and he was ready to break more men, draw more blood, when he saw Jabari.

“Jabari…,” Tau said, not knowing what he thought to find there, and his old friend did not answer. Instead, the Petty Noble tightened his lips and kept his eyes on Tau’s sword, avoiding his face.

This was it, then. Tau readied himself. He’d charge Jabari, see if he could break through. If Jabari and the men beside him held, he’d cut the one to the left and spin to stop those behind him from ending his fight. The rest of the plan would follow from the reactions of his enemies.

It was a simple plan. He liked those best. It was also a pathetic plan. Tau sneered at the Nobles around him and gathered his breath. Eleven stood against him. There would be fewer before he died.

“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.

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.

He decided he would tell her about how he had tracked Odili to the meeting with the Xiddeen. He would tell her about the surrender. She should know. He wanted her to know. “No more secrets,” he said.

She looked nervous. She took his hands in hers, and she told him. “Days ago, before the melee, the Gifted Citadel learned that the queen intends to meet with the Gifted leadership and Guardian Council. She will do it the day after tomorrow, after she has declared the melee’s winner.”

“So soon?” Tau said, surprising her.

“You heard it too?” she asked. “The queen will call her war leaders to the Guardian Keep.” She gripped Tau’s hands. “I think they’re planning a massive attack. I think they’re going to graduate the Ihashe, Indlovu, and Gifted initiates early. I think they’re going to join us with rest of the military, to take the war to the hedeni.”

“You… you what? No.”

“The signs are there. Tau, they’ve called me to active duty. I’ll be an Enrager. I’ll be an Enrager for Kellan Okar.”

There it was. “Enrage? Kellan Okar?” His voice rose with every word, he pulled his fingers free of hers, and balled his hands into fists.

“I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t. Not after what you told me. I confronted him, Tau. I ordered him to me and I confronted him. I accused him of Aren’s murder. I told him it was you in the circle in Citadel City.”

“You did what!”

“It wasn’t Kellan’s fault—”

“You did what!”

“It was Odili. He wanted Kellan to kill you, and when your father stepped in, he wanted Aren to die. Kellan thought the only way he could spare Aren’s life was by taking his hand. He used the maiming as an excuse. He used it to claim that he had taken everything that made Aren a man. Tau, he was ordered by a guardian councillor to kill you and your father. He tried to save you both.”

Tau’s hands were shaking and he could see demons in the tent with them. There were two behind Zuri and he could hear the slavering of another behind him. He slammed his eyes shut, tried to calm down, but the demons were there when he opened them.

“Get out,” he said, his voice trembling with strain.

“Kellan’s father was killed for treason cycles ago. His family disgraced. Odili became his patron when he saw how well Kellan was doing at the citadel. Kellan knows Odili’s reputation, but his patronage keeps Kellan’s mother and sisters from poverty.” Zuri was trying to read his face to see if she was getting through. “He had a hard time telling me that, Tau. I don’t think he’s the man you believe him to be.”

“You betrayed me,” Tau said. “You betrayed me and gave that cur the weapons he needed to defeat me and my brothers.”

“I didn’t. That was not my—”

“Get out!”

“No, I won’t!” Zuri shouted back. “You’re not listening. You’re twisting this.”

“Twisting it? You come to me, tell me you’re consorting with—”

“Consorting?”

“You spin tales of military attacks, hiding behind lies to mask the fact that you’ll be tied to the man who helped murder my father.”

“He was trying to save you! Both of you!”

The two demons were standing right behind her. Leering from over her shoulders. One of them showing teeth as long as Tau’s hands. “Get out!”

“No!”

Tau stood and retrieved his swords. “I can’t stomach it, the filth and lies spewing from your mouth.” He stalked to the tent’s entrance, avoiding the demons, and paused there. “No more secrets?” he said. “I know why the queen is calling the military leadership together. It’s not to wage war. She’s calling them to arrange our surrender.”

“What? No… No, that’s not right…”

If Zuri said anything more, Tau didn’t hear. He left her and her lies in that demon-filled tent. He left to find Jayyed. No more secrets.