Aba D is unquestionably Khaya-Siningwe’s fiercest Ajaha, with the queen’s power thrumming strongly in his bones, and yet when he slams into the witch with his enchanted shield, she simply dissipates into a swarm of flies, flows away like air, and reconstitutes in a crouch on a low branch not far away.
She discorporates again as Aba Akuri hurls his spear with the force of a tempest. It explodes into the branch she was perching on with an earsplitting crack, but the witch, again, floats away unharmed, partially reconstituting her upper body so that it looks like she has a vortex of flies where there should be legs.
Salo stares in awe. He takes a closer look at the woman’s shards and counts, to his shock, exactly five complete rings encircling each forearm—which would make her almost as powerful as the Yerezi queen, who has six rings. She laughs as she drifts between the trees like a whirlwind, her glowing eyes and cosmic shards leaving wisps of trailing red light where they pass in the air. From one outstretched hand she summons a maelstrom of space-bending force; it gathers together into an ornate spear as black as pitch before she hurls it at Aba D with a rabid howl.
Void craft, Salo realizes with dismay. This witch wields power over the fabric of space and time.
The Ajaha general quickly lowers himself into a crouch and raises his shield. The patterns on the shield flash red as the protective magic they hold activates, shattering the Void spear like glass when it hits, a million pieces of cold darkness flaking away into nothingness.
But the witch is not done. She slowly raises her hands with a look of intense concentration, twin clouds of dust and leaves swirling upward from the ground on either side of her. Salo takes an involuntary step back when a skeletal creature emerges from each whirlwind, reeking of compost and rotting things.
The Void spear the witch cast, though deadly, was a pure expression of Red magic, whose eternal source is Ama Vaziishe, the Red Moon. But these tikoloshe can be nothing but the workings of Black magic, the most profane of all sorcery, practiced by those who have corrupted their cosmic shards with the underworld’s embrace. If this witch can call upon that kind of power, then she must be in league with Arante herself, who is the devil and queen of the underworld.
Too much. Salo finally grabs Monti’s hand and runs as he was commanded. The last thing he sees of the battle is Aba D gusting toward the witch and her tikoloshe with his shield raised, his spear throbbing with magic.
All over the kraal, warriors in bloodred loincloths can be seen battling devilish wraiths with their warded spears and shields. Clansmen of all ages have joined them with whatever weapons they could find—machetes, pitchforks, axes. As they race past a peanut field on their way to the chief’s compound, Salo sees a middle-aged farmer getting his gut slashed open by a tikoloshe’s bony talon while his son tries to skewer the beast from behind with a pike.
Salo looks away, choking back tears. He tries to focus on what’s important: getting Monti to safety. Still, the vise of fear clamped around his chest squeezes tighter with each cry he hears.
They reach the chief’s compound at last, only to find it silent as death. Aakus and aagos like to come here to smoke their pipes under the musuku tree and complain about today’s youth; farmers come to complain about the neighbors’ oxen grazing in their fields; neighbors come to accuse each other of jealousy, name-calling, and using malicious rituals to bewitch each other. The compound rarely knows a dull day.
Today it lies empty, a desolate island of stillness amid the sudden storm that has befallen the kraal.
Six drystone buildings surround the compound, the largest being the council house, a giant oval hut with a thatched dome for a roof. If anyone’s around, they’re probably holed up in there.
Salo makes for the chief’s hut, which he knows has powerful defensive wards woven into every brick. The hut’s ancient wooden door, engraved with the clan’s spike-maned leopard, opens for him without protest as soon as he touches the doorknob. He prods Monti past the barren parlor and into VaSiningwe’s chamber, where he shuts and locks the door with shaky hands.
“Okay. We should be safe here. I think.” When he notices that the reed curtains aren’t drawn, he rushes to the windows and rectifies that quickly. In the ensuing darkness, the glowvines draping the ceiling rafters go active, bathing the chamber in twilight.
Despite their current circumstances, Monti stares around the chamber with undisguised curiosity. Not many people ever get to see where the chief sleeps at night. In fact, Salo hasn’t been in here since he was a small boy.
VaSiningwe is a man of simple tastes, so there’s not much inside besides a low bed and a wicker chair in the corner, which he sits on during nightly dinners out in the compound. A tapestry on the wall facing the bed shows his genealogy, a proud line of men whose rangers were always the most skillful of the tribe, men whose names Salo could never hope to live up to despite being of their blood.
He moves away from the window and paces the length of the chamber, trying to gather his thoughts. He feels like the fabric of reality is fraying at the seams and tearing away from his grasp.
The witch’s marked face flashes through his mind. By Ama, Black magic and tikoloshe in the kraal. How can this be? Why is she doing this? Could this be a ritual of some kind?
The killing of humans for magical power was banned from the Plains a long time ago, but Salo knows it is still commonplace in much of the Redlands. Umadi warlords in particular are notorious for raiding villages for slaves and sacrificial victims.
Salo has never heard of them using tikoloshe, however, or any of the other terrible aspects of Black magic, for that matter. That kind of sorcery was supposed to have been rooted out from the Redlands centuries ago, and the Umadi aren’t supposed to be sophisticated enough in the arcane to bring it back.
And yet, here is a five-ringed Umadi witch in the heart of the Plains, performing what is likely a ritual of Black magic.
And the speed at which she cast her spells! She summoned those tikoloshe as swiftly as she could breathe. Not to mention her metamorphic abilities, rare even among Void mystics, and how she was completely at ease with the shadowy maelstroms of the craft.
Powerful magic. The kind of thing he’d expect from a Yerezi clan mystic, or even the queen herself.
A chilling cry makes it through the windows, and Monti hugs himself. He sits down with his back against the wall, facing the door. Salo walks over to sit with him.
“What now?” the boy says, his big eyes wide with fear.
Salo tries to put on a brave face for him. “We stay here until it’s over.”
“What if it’s never over?”
“It will be.” That’s what Salo keeps telling himself.
“But what if it’s over in a bad way?” Monti says, a sob breaking into his voice. “What if the witch kills everyone?”
Salo puts an arm around his shoulders and pulls him closer. “She won’t, all right? We have the best rangers in the Plains in this kraal, and they all carry the queen’s blessing. They’ll deal with that witch. You mustn’t worry.”
Tears pool around Monti’s eyes. “She killed them, Bra Salo.”
The images are seared in Salo’s mind: the woman with the ewer torn apart, Jaliso hitting the tree with so much force it probably cracked his spine, the farmer getting gutted right in front of his own son. Salo wipes his eyes. “When this is over, Nimara will take them to the bonehouse and heal them. You’ll see.”