The Fires of Vengeance

JABARI ONAI

Will he die?”

The voice woke him, returning him to torture. He knew he was in a hospital bed in Citadel City’s Guardian Keep and that his body had been blasted by dragon fire, but Jabari Onai did not know why the Goddess would keep him alive in such misery.

He tried to open his eyes, and pain roared across his face in scorching waves. His eyelids had melted and fused together, leaving him to peer out at a world as if from behind a field of long grass.

He made to speak, to beg Tau or the Sah priestesses and priests to release him from his anguish, but he couldn’t make a sound. His throat was too badly burned to manage it.

“I won’t tell you he’s going to die,” Jabari heard a woman’s voice say, “but I can’t say that he’ll live either.”

The speaker moved toward the foot of his bed, and through the jagged gaps between his burned eyelids, he caught a glimpse of her standing next to Tau. She was a priestess of the Sah medicinal order.

“He’s only survived this long because he’s Noble,” she said. “Their bodies can withstand more and they heal faster than us, but the damage that was done to him … it’s a miracle he’s still breathing.”

“He’s a fighter,” Tau said. “He’s always been one, and if you can give him any sort of chance, he’ll take up the fight and do his best to win it.”

“We won’t give up …,” she said.

Jabari heard a chair being pulled across the floor. It creaked when someone sat in it.

“I’m here, Jabari. It’s Tau and I’m here.”

“He can’t hear you,” the priestess said. “The pain … we’re giving him herbs to help him rest. It’s too cruel otherwise.”

“Will it disturb him, if I’m here?” Tau asked.

“No,” she said. “We should all be so lucky to have someone with us at the … at a time like this.”

Jabari heard footsteps. The priestess was leaving, and when the sound of her shoes tapping against the floor faded, Tau leaned over him to take his hand. He did it gently, but it didn’t matter.

Pain exploded from Jabari’s burned fingers, and unable to make a sound or resist, he stared through the holes in his eyelids at his friend’s scarred and worried face, hoping beyond hope that Tau could see enough of his eyes to recognize the light of consciousness in them. Tau didn’t see—he kept hold of Jabari’s hand—and desperate for any relief, Jabari sought refuge in his other senses. He caught the scent of leather, bronze, and earth from Tau and struggled to pull comfort from the familiar, but his agony made room for nothing but itself.

“I want you to know you did it,” Tau said. “You’re the man you always wanted to be. You don’t need the blood of a Greater Noble to be an Ingonyama, not when you have their spirit, their courage.”

He could hear Tau choking up, and that hurt too.

“Jabari, no matter what comes, I’ll make certain the Omehi remember you for that.”

There was silence for a while, and though his mind was slow, sluggish from the herbs, in his head, Jabari was screaming. The burns demanded it.

“It could have been different, neh? If not for the testing?” Tau said, whispering. “Feels like a thousand lifetimes ago. I just wanted to see you succeed, but when has the world ever cared what a Lesser wanted?”

Jabari would never forget that day. Tau had sparred with that spoiled brat, Kagiso, bloodying the fool in front of Guardian Councillor Abasi Odili. He’d been stupid enough to injure the Petty Noble, and Odili, intent on seeing the Lesser repaid for the insult, tasked Kellan Okar to remind Tau of his place.

Refusing to let his son face the already legendary Indlovu initiate, Aren fought Kellan Okar instead, losing his hand in the bout. It was a tragedy, but Jabari, like everyone else, could see that Kellan was trying to spare Aren’s life, and it could have ended there. It should have ended there, but Tau picked up his father’s fallen sword and aimed it at Kellan’s back.

Stupid. There were Lessers and Drudge everywhere, and they all saw what Tau did. He’d threatened a Noble and Abasi Odili couldn’t overlook that. The guardian councillor had Tau’s father killed and then he called off the Indlovu initiate testing, threatening the stability of Kerem as a fief.

In just a few short breaths, a personal tragedy had become a disaster, and it only got worse. On the march home, Tau attacked Lekan, accusing Jabari’s brother of being responsible for Aren’s death, and twice in one day, Tau forced the hand of his betters. It had broken Jabari’s heart to do it, but the only way he could save Tau from himself was to remove him from Lekan’s reach, and so he banished his lifelong friend from Kerem.

Tau’s voice pulled Jabari from the memory. “They killed my father and I was going to make them pay. I was going to join the military so I could challenge each one of them to a blood duel. I wanted to kill them and it was the only way I could do it without the Nobles coming for my family.”

If Jabari didn’t know how the story ended, he’d have sworn he was listening to the ravings of a madman.

“I thought I could become enough of a fighter to challenge and best an Ingonyama like Dejen Olujimi,” Tau said, and as if the man’s image was etched in his mind, Jabari could still see the soldier who’d killed Tau’s father.

Dejen Olujimi had been more muscle than man. Dejen Olujimi had been one of the Omehi’s best fighters…. Had been.

“I was so angry,” Tau said. “I went to see Lekan before leaving the fief.”

That part Jabari had not known, and he felt his breath come faster.

“I went to tell him that when next we met, I’d kill him for his part in my father’s death.”

For the first time since waking, Jabari’s pain pulled back.

“Lekan came at me with a knife. He’s the one who gave me the scar,” Tau said, letting his fingertips brush the mark that ran from his nose to his cheek. “I fought him. I—I defended myself, and … he died.”

He died. That was how Tau put it. He died. The words boomed in Jabari’s head like a war drum.

His mother had cried for days when they found the body at the bottom of the stairs. An accidental fall, they’d been told, a slip after too much drink. His mother had cried and cursed and become withdrawn. She’d lost a son and a piece of her soul that day.

“I fled to Kigambe, tested in the Ihashe trials, and made it into Jayyed Ayim’s scale,” Tau continued. “I was lucky, and just like you said, there’s no better umqondisi than Jayyed.”

Jabari prayed for the strength to strangle the Lesser he’d called a friend and treated as an equal. His brother hadn’t been perfect, but no one was. Lekan had just needed a chance to grow into himself and his responsibilities, but that chance was taken away when Tau stole him from the world and from his family.

“I gave my life to training. I was determined to be enough of a fighter to find justice for my father’s death. It was the only thing that mattered before I saw Zuri in Citadel City.”

Jabari’s pain was back and the medicine in his system called to him, offering him oblivion, if he’d take it. He preferred the pain. He wanted to hear everything Tau had to say.

“She saved me, Jabari. The life I’d made wasn’t worth living. Finding her in this city saved me.” Tau paused.

Tau let go of his hand and Jabari thanked the Goddess. It galled him to lie helpless while his brother’s murderer coddled him.

“It was here that I had my first chance at Kellan Okar. I was goaded into a fight with him in one of the city’s circles. I wanted to tear his insides out and thought I could do it,” Tau said. “I’d already learned to fight with two swords, and I was good, very good.” Tau laughed, bitterly. “Kellan destroyed me,” he said.

He should have killed you, Jabari thought.

“I’d given every waking moment to my training. I’d become the strongest fighter in the Southern Ihashe Isikolo, but I was still no match for him. Zuri had to save me from him, and I had to flee this city like a runaway Drudge.”

Because you’re no better than one, thought Jabari.

“I’d given my life to become the fighter I needed to be, but it wasn’t enough,” Tau said. “I had to give my soul to the cause too. So I did.”

Jabari didn’t understand, and he waited for Tau to explain.

“What I discovered is more curse than gift, and it’s there, waiting for any foolish enough to reach for it. You see, we all have demons,” Tau said. “I just learned to use mine.”

He was speaking in riddles.

“My scale, we made it to the Queen’s Melee, and it was the first time Lessers would compete in it in a generation,” Tau said. “I was part of the improbable and, Jabari, I’d become the impossible. I was finally ready for Kellan Okar, and then I learned that Queen Tsiora had brokered a secret peace treaty with the Xiddeen, threatening everything I’d worked for.”

Tau must have been uncomfortable with where his story was going. He kept shifting in his chair, making its legs scrape the floor.

“Scale Jayyed fought well and we made it into the semifinals,” he said. “We were matched with Kellan’s scale, your scale, and just like that, I had my first real chance. I could kill Kellan in the tournament and it’d be nothing but an unfortunate accident.”

More chair shifting.

“You saw me there. You know I abandoned my sword brothers to get to him,” Tau said. “I gave up the family I’d found at the isikolo for revenge, and when I held Okar’s life in my hands, I hesitated. I didn’t kill him when I had my chance, and then my chance was gone. Kellan Okar lived and we were knocked out of the melee.”

Jabari had been stunned when he saw what Tau had done to Kellan. He’d thought the Greater Noble to be invincible, and the idea of the boy he’d grown up with doing that to Scale Osa’s inkokeli was unthinkable.

“The men in my scale hated me, and Zuri and Jayyed tried to tell me that Kellan wasn’t to blame for my father’s death, but I wouldn’t listen, and there was no time to be convinced. The Xiddeen invaded.”

Jabari remembered it, the sound of the horns that night.

“It made no sense; peace was so close,” Tau said. “It made no sense until I found out that the queen’s Royal Nobles had planned a coup and betrayed her. They refused to submit their civilization to those they saw as savages. So, instead, they attacked the Xiddeen in secret, using a dragon to burn tens of thousands of their people to dust.

“The invasion wasn’t the Xiddeen abandoning the peace treaty. It was them retaliating for the slaughter we visited on their women, men, and children,” Tau said.

Jabari didn’t want to hear about why the hedeni had done what they’d done. It didn’t matter. He’d lost sword brothers that night. Omehi had died that night.

“In the battle in the Fist, Jayyed, Chinedu, and most of my scale went to the Goddess,” Tau said.

It had been the same for Jabari’s scale. They’d been massacred.

“The Xiddeen had us beat and we fled, retreating to Citadel City, hoping to find safety there. What we found were Odili and his traitors trying to kill the queen,” Tau said. “You remember, neh? We fought alongside each other then, in her defense.”

Jabari breathed out as hard as he could. He didn’t want any grace from Tau, and it was a lie to say they’d fought together, as if they were equals in the act. He’d almost gotten himself killed several times over, and Tau had been forced to keep him alive each time.

“And we did it,” Tau said. “We stopped Odili from getting to the queen, and I put an end to Dejen Olujimi.”

Jabari didn’t see their battle. He’d been in the room with the queen at the time, losing another fight to an Indlovu. He did, however, see the battle’s aftermath. Dejen had been enraged when they’d dueled and Tau had blinded him, cut him to shreds, and stabbed him through the heart.

Tau had fought an Enraged Ingonyama alone and he’d butchered him. On its face, it was an impossible act, but then again, Tau had a secret. He had, Jabari thought, picturing his brother’s funeral burning, a few secrets.

“Odili fled and we gave chase. He was trapped, but by then the Xiddeen were at the gates.” Tau was speaking too fast. It was making it hard for Jabari to make sense of the words. “Zuri called a dragon to make the Xiddeen back down, and Odili had his men attack the creature, creating enough confusion to escape. Zuri, she … she couldn’t keep the dragon under control and it went mad. It killed people.”

Jabari wanted Tau to stop.

“It was going to kill my sword brothers.”

Jabari had heard enough.

“But you didn’t let it. It blew fire at good men and another good man shielded them, taking the brunt of the blast. You saved them.”

It felt like Jabari was gasping for air, just like the night when the fires had embraced him, boiling away even his tears.

“The dragon turned on Zuri then,” Tau said, his words coming out in a broken stutter. “It … it attacked her … it … she died that night, and Odili escaped, and the queen leashed the dragon. She leashed it, threatened the Xiddeen with it, and gave the warlord his son in exchange for their retreat. In exchange for a reprieve.”

Jabari didn’t know. He didn’t know Zuri was dead. He’d grown up with her, even fancied her a little when they were too young for him to know she was just a Lesser.

“Before long, the Xiddeen will be back to finish what they started, and our people are split,” Tau said. “The Royals have aligned themselves with Abasi Odili and the self-styled Queen Esi. Many of the other Nobles sided with them too.”

We’re all dead, then, thought Jabari.

“But it can’t end this way. There’s still so much to do…. ” Tau trailed off, and that’s when Jabari heard the footsteps coming closer to them. “Keep fighting, Jabari Onai. I could use the help of a good and selfless man.”

“Champion,” a woman’s voice said, “you’re needed.”

She stepped in and out of view. She was wearing a Gifted’s robes. Zuri, was Jabari’s first thought, but Tau had told him that Zuri was dead and it couldn’t be her.

The chair beside Jabari’s bed creaked and a shadow fell over him.

“Keep fighting,” Tau whispered. “We’ll get the man who hurt us both.”

“Champion, we must hurry,” the Gifted said.

“Abasi Odili won’t escape what he’s done,” Tau told him. “Keep fighting, and I swear that before it consumes us, we’ll burn our pain to ash in the fires of vengeance.”