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“Tiyana! Beware!” Keshu shouted.
The spikes of a tirss swooped toward Tiyana like the talons of some gigantic bird of prey. Shock at the suddenness and savagery of the attack had left her immobile. The arm that swung the tirss was lean and sinewy; the face of the wielder was twisted in a snarl of hatred.
Before the tirss could complete its deadly arc and tear into Tiyana’s flesh, a dark shape interposed itself between her and the weapon. An ugly, rending noise accompanied the bite of the tsotsi’s “teeth” through cloth and flesh. Tiyana fell backward as two people stumbled against her. One of them was already dying; the other was screaming incoherent imprecations.
The gharri rocked wildly as the fear-maddened quagga that was pulling it reared and kicked its hooves indiscriminately at the mass of people swarming around it. A tirss raked across the beast’s belly, spilling its blood and intestines even as it collapsed in its traces.
As she tumbled out of the gharri, Tiyana’s head hit the stones of the street, and small replicas of the Moon Stars whirled in the sudden darkness in front of her eyes. Pain lanced through her skull. The weight of Keshu’s body pressed down on her, and she could feel the movement of the assassin’s struggle to pull his tirss free from the flesh in which it was embedded. She could hear the screams, the curses, the clangor of weapons, the pounding of feet and hooves. And she could feel Keshu’s body sliding away as the tsotsi pulled it away to get to her.
Keshu is dead! she thought as she fought to retain consciousness. Keshu is dead! He died to save me! Keshu is dead!
The tiny Moon Stars faded. The blackness before her eyes broke into small, moving dots. Through them, Tiyana could see the tsotsi looming above her. He had pulled his tirss free from Keshu’s body. Keshu’s blood dripped from the tips of the tines onto Tiyana’s face and arms. The tsotsi raised the weapon to deliver another flesh-rending strike.
Rage ripped through Tiyana like a wet-season storm. A cry of fury and desolation erupted from her throat. The sound of the cry turned into power – a spiral of radiance like that of the night-sun that shone on the Maim after the day-sun went down. Blue light, similar to the healing illumination that had, only days ago, cleansed the Uloans’ bodies and spirits.
What Tiyana unleashed now had nothing of healing in it. The blue spiral wrapped itself around the tsotsi like a python made of light, pinning his arms to his sides. The tirss fell to the ground with a clatter scarcely audible above the tumult that engulfed the interrupted procession.
With hatred on her face that matched the tsotsi’s expression when he attacked, Tiyana concentrated her power. And the serpent of light constricted, slicing through the tsotsi’s flesh as though it were of no greater substance than the air that surrounded it. The tsotsi had time only to utter a truncated shriek of agony before the spiral sectioned his body into pieces.
As Tiyana struggled to her feet, she refused to look down at the spot where Keshu lay. She did not want to see him as a corpse. And she had no time to mourn him ... the awareness in which she had earlier taken such great pride, the awareness that had failed her and all the other Adepts when they needed it most, was now warning her that another tsotsi was approaching her from behind. Without turning around, she sent a whip of magical energy looping around the assailant’s neck. The loop squeezed the sides of his throat together until he could no longer breathe.
Other flashes of blue amid the chaos signalled that Tiyana was not the only Adept to have survived the tsotsis’ attack. With the moment of surprise gone, the tide was turning against the assassins. Instead of fleeing in panic, some of the people in the crowd were now turning on the attackers, in some cases tearing them to pieces as effectively as Tiyana’s sorcery had done.
A deadly calm settled over Tiyana as she sought out the glint of a tirss and sent a blaze of vengeance that tore through the weapon’s bearer. Loathing spilled from her soul as she searched for more tsotsis to slay. The gharri in which she and Keshu had been riding was still upright, but its quagga lay inert in a welter of blood. Using the gharri as cover, Tiyana picked off as many tsotsis as she could see.
With the momentum now against them, the surviving tsotsis fled. Some of the people in the crowd pursued them. Others stood in blank-eyed shock. Still others tended their wounds, and those of their fallen companions.
Tiyana sank to her knees beside the body of Keshu. He stared sightlessly, his face set in a grimace that bespoke courage and determination. The front of his robe was shredded and his spilled blood turned its blue color into a muddy red.
Tiyana took one of his hands in hers, and wished that the power of Almovaar could enable her to will him back to life. She knew that was not possible, and that knowledge brought tears to her eyes ... tears that flowed in twin streams down her cheeks.
“Keshu,” she whispered as the echoes of the crowd’s pursuit of the tsotsis faded. “You saved my life, but part of me has died with you.”
“Tiyana.”
She looked up to see who it was that interrupted the beginning of her grieving. It was a soldier. Blood spattered his armor. His dark face bore a grim expression.
“Please come with me, Tiyana,” the soldier said. “The Emperor ...”
His voice trailed off.
Wordlessly, Tiyana released Keshu’s hand, rose, and followed the soldier through the thin crowd of people who remained behind. They skirted overturned gharris, as well as bodies surrounded by knots of mourners, some of whom acknowledged her as she went by.
Although her tears had stopped falling, the wetness in her eyes blurred her vision. She had a premonition of what the soldier was taking her to see, and she did not want to see it; not now, not ever.
But she knew she must.
The tsotsis had concentrated their attack on the gharris that carried the most powerful people in the Empire. The Emperor and Leba had been the principal targets. So was Tiyana. And many others among the Degen Jassi and the Adepts had fallen victim to the assailants’ killing frenzy.
The gharris of both Gebrem and Kyroun had been overturned. Tiyana saw Kyroun standing, head bowed, blood drying on his blue robe. Others stood in the same posture, and they stepped aside as the soldier led Tiyana through them.
And when she reached the Emperor’s gharri, she saw her father lying on the street. His legs and arms had been straightened, and someone had respectfully closed his eyes. But no one could close the wound a tsotsi’s weapon had torn across his throat, a ragged, gaping gash that had taken his life and left him covered in blood.
“I am sorry, Tiyana,” Kyroun said. “I tried my best to save him. Would that I had died in his place.”
Tiyana paid him no heed as, for the second time that day, she sank to her knees beside the body of a man she loved. Her grief was even greater now; her devastation overwhelming. A deep sadness replaced the rage that had fuelled the ferocity of her retaliation against the tsotsis. And even as a weeping Tiyana wrapped her arms around her father’s bloodstained corpse, all the others around her – even Kyroun – knelt in the presence of their new Empress.