Cold Steel

The stairs led past an empty first-floor room and up to the top floor, which was a square room with four windows. On a table lay an unrolled map of the landscape over which the two armies struggled, with Red Mount marked by a bold red X. A man with lime-whitened spiky hair bent over the table, tapping a knife’s point on the house in which we stood. The old mansa of Two Gourds House sat calmly in a chair. A middle-aged magister sat cross-legged on the floor, hands on knees, head bowed, panting as he collected himself. His face was reddened, blistered in places. He was not Vai.

“Let me take the next attack,” said the old mansa. “You are weakening.”

“No, no,” gasped the other man. “You are the strongest, Mansa. As long as you remain strong, you can kill any fire they can raise and hammer them all to the ground.”

The old mansa sighed, then beckoned to a pale youth even younger than Luce. “Take the secret way, child. Hurry. Deliver a message to Lord Marius that we must have reinforcements. We will hold, or we will die.”

“I can help you by staying here, Mansa!” With his eager, innocent face, the lad reminded me of Luce before she had gone to war, the way she had been back in Expedition.

“No. This is not your battle. Go!”

I stepped aside to let the youth pass down the stairs because I could not bear to touch him any more than I could have hurt Luce. He looked so innocent. The middle-aged magister brightened as a new aura of fire’s backlash wrapped his body. Fire broke out again across every roof in the compound except for the stone house’s tile roof. Through the north-facing window I looked over a second courtyard, this one ringed by a barn and cowshed and with a brick well at the center. The lad came running out the back of the house, then hesitated and glanced up at the tower where the officer, standing all unaware next to me, looked down at him.

“Curse it! Go!” shouted the officer to the youth.

Two Amazons and an Iberian burst into the courtyard through an arched gateway that linked the two courtyards. The taller Amazon plunged toward the youth, striking with her sword. The lad parried, but the deficiencies of his sword craft reminded me of Vai: He was the pupil who learns fighting by rote and works on perfect imitations of the forms taught by the sword master. That did not make him an effective fighter.

Yet he had no need to be a masterful fighter. Just as I realized the lad was wielding cold steel, the backstroke of his blade caught the glove of the woman and cut just deep enough to draw blood. The tip of the cold steel blade writhed like a viper’s tongue. The soldier swayed as the steel serpent drank her soul; she toppled.

Beside me the officer released a bolt that struck the Iberian in the back, sending him to a knee. The other Amazon dashed back to the clot of soldiers fighting hand to hand under the arch, dragging the Iberian with her.

The young cold mage climbed into the well and vanished.

“He’s in the tunnel,” said the officer.

A hailstorm battered over the estate, pounding so hard I could not hear anything except its drum on the roof. The catch-fire sagged forward as the channel of Drake’s fire was cut off. A soldier caught him as he sagged sideways, too weak even to sit up. The other soldiers around me shot at the felled Iberians and Amazons below, taking their time, making each bolt count.

“An unlawful and dangerous power these fire mages wield,” said the old mansa to the officer. He looked winded and weary, but his outrage was a cloak that shielded him. “Fortunate for us that the young Diarisso mage understood it before the rest of us did.”

“Fortunate for us that the mansa of Four Moons House recognized the young man’s worth, given his low origins,” agreed the officer.

The old mansa smiled grimly. “True enough. More importantly, he knew exactly how to bridle the young man’s rebellious spirit.”

Perhaps the words angered me, just a little.

The old mansa looked right at me. “What shadow beast haunts this chamber? Beware!”

They turned on me, the five soldiers, the officer, the old mansa.

But I was the hunter’s daughter. So I killed them, all of them, even the old man, because Camjiata had to win the battle today. I killed the blistered magister who had so courageously taken in all Drake’s fire and was dying; ending his agony was a mercy.

When the Amazons broke through and poked their heads into the chamber, they found me crouched by the old mansa, wiping blood from my sword with hem of his boubou. Blood pooled around me. Cold steel cuts deep.

Their laughter hurt my ears. “Bellona bless! Our work’s done for us already!

Rising, I wiped blood from my cheek with the back of a hand just as Drake appeared. He went straight to the mansa and nudged the old man’s body with a foot in a most disrespectful manner.