It’s a wild crowd of children sitting on the sandy ground. A crowd of wild children, grounded in the sand. They bounce in place and vibrate. They look ready to flap their arms and fly away. They leak energy in laughter, especially the loud young man with shoulder-length dreads and a gap-tooth smile. Changa laughs into his hand, watching Malkia stand over Hakim.

She jumps to her feet, throws her arms wide and lets out a massive laugh. Her voice is strangely loud. Unnaturally loud. It drowns out the rest of the village noise, reverberating, seeming to walk through doorways, peek into windows and whisper right behind the children’s ears.

Hakim glares from the ground, dusty and covered in sand. He rubs his cheek and spits. As Malkia walks past him, he tries to kick her. The eyes of the village gather, and she feels a familiar feeling. It rises from her feet like the echoes of an earthquake. It whips up her hair like the winds of a tornado.

“Oi!” Changa’s call cuts off her laugh. He holds a tattered disk in hand: her straw hat. With a toss, its shadow crosses the sands, quick as a diving falcon. Malkia jumps to snatch it out of the air.

She settles it on her head. With her fingers on the edge, she tilts it down so no one can see her face. She stares at the hand she used to hit Hakim, then holds it out to them and looks up, meeting dozens on dozens of eyes. They all hold some special emotion, wide-open and unblinking.

“What’s this?” Malkia turns to point at the young man standing behind her, scowling. “Hakim! You’re it!”

The group of children laughs and catcalls. They whistle. Changa stomps his feet and points, like the youngest of them.

“This morning, I stood outside my home, thinking of nothing, when our friend Hakim came up. He stood right beside me and asked how I’d spend my day. I’ll run the grasses, I said. I’m a hunter. He said he’d mend rope. I told him he’s lazy, because he is, and that’s when he poked me.” She touches her cheek. “Right here.”

“Oooooh!” The crowd looks around and whispers. They oooh, and aaaah, and snicker.

“Why’d he do that?” One of the young ones says.

“What next?!”

“He slips away before I realize what game he’s playing. I mean, Hakim’s lazy. Who would expect him to mark me? But he did! He got me, and it was very clever. Of course, that meant I had to get him, but I couldn’t see where he ran to. I didn’t know where he hid. I had no idea where he went. Poof! Hakim tricked me and disappeared.”

Malkia looks around, as if she can’t see Hakim standing beside her.

“So I slid from the chief’s hut, all the way to the ground. I walked outside and waited in the shadows. I gave Changa my hat and told him to make a distraction. Didn’t I?”

“Sure did.” Changa says.

“Then I waited. Hakim dropped down after a while, and I coulda got him right then. Tagged him and took off. I guess he didn’t expect me to be lying in wait, which is strange, because he’s the patient hunter. Yet I caught him off-guard. Huh?”

Malkia rubs her chin and studies the sky with confusion written on her face.

“I let him go off to get breakfast. While I was in the baker’s house, I asked Oka to let me give Hakim his bread. I stood there when he came, begging for food. I handed him his own breakfast! He thought I was Oka, just thanked me and walked away.”

By now the crowd has caught the joke. It started with the older ones chuckling and shaking their heads. It found its way down to the smallest, who laughed too loud and too abruptly. They didn’t understand, but they found the commotion funny.

“While he was finding a place to eat, I snuck behind the dune, and I crept up on him from behind. I sat down right here, close enough to reach around and take back the bread I gave. I waited. I wanted to give him the chance to turn around and apologize, but he just didn’t notice me.”

Malkia pauses, as if to think.

“Though, that can’t be. Aye, Hakim’s the best trapper in the village. One of the best hunters. How could I sit close enough to touch? Hakim! Please tell me… you must have noticed?”

Hakim grits his teeth at the laughter of the village.

“Please! Hakim!”

“Malkia, I will kill you this morning.” Hakim walks towards her, taking slow steps.

“Well, if you’d like to try…” Malkia beckons him.

***

“Oi! Keep still and take your beating!”

“Hahaha!” Malkia feels the rush of wind. She stumbles between children, twisting, spinning. Her arms sway in the air. She smacks away one of Hakim’s fists, slides her hand along his wrist and up his arm while she glides past.

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“Yat! Keep still!” He tries to kick her leg, but she meets his kick with a kick. He punches at her face, but she sways and bobs around every single jab. All she feels is the wind.

She grabs a wrist and pulls him off balance. He tears himself away and puts his guard up, but she’s already stumbling between children again.

“Gah! Malkia!” He chases, and she dances outside his reach. Light as a feather, she hops away from him every chance she gets. He tries to tackle, tries to sweep her legs. She lets him fall to the ground and skips away, leaving him with sand and curses in his mouth.

Hakim doesn’t waste time. He runs her down and meets every smile and hip sway with fast punches, low kicks, and tackles. The children around them jump to their feet. The crowd ebbs and flows as they move, dodging and following the chase.

“Fight back! Stop dancing and do something.”

“Hakim! Watch out!” Someone calls. Hakim’s eyes flick away, just for a second. They land back on Malkia’s grin. She stands close to him now. Her dancing hands sway close to her chest. She smacks his knee down, slaps a punch away, then another with the same hand.

They’re almost chest to chest, then he sees her body twist. Crack! Her elbow snaps his head to the side. That first strike has him crossing his legs, twisting around.

Hakim tries face her again, to bring his guard back, but she’s waiting for him. He just sees the movement before the world flies away.

Boom! Her front kick catches him in the chest and he flies back. Flies. His butt grazes over a young girl with her arms thrown over her head. She squeals and stares, open-mouthed.

“Oof!” His back crashes into the sand. He spends a few seconds spread-eagled, dragging in all the air he can get, then he sits up and shakes his head to clear his thoughts. He glares at Malkia. She’s dancing away from him.

“You gonna run all day?” He asks.

“If that’s how long it takes you to catch me.”

“Okay!” Hakim gestures at the children who watch with fascination, and they lean in. “Give us a ring!”

The entire group surges to its feet. Their bodies press around him. He feels their hands, pulling his arms, pushing his back. Their jeering and their cheers reach a new level that shakes the ground.

The crowd fills with countless people. Their bodies form a wall around Hakim, Malkia and the Web Weaver’s totem. The pale wood towers under the sun and casts a dark shadow. More shadows fill the deep carvings of spiders. It might be a trick of the light, but those spiders seem to darken, to rise out of the gouged wood and move.

The two fighters circle each other, round and round the totem they go. When their eyes lock, Malkia cracks her knuckles.

“You sure about this Hakim?” Changa leans out of the crowd to reach for Hakim’s shoulder. Hakim leaves him behind, but Changa’s voice follows. “She’s getting serious! Best be ready for a fight!”

And Malkia does have an intense stare now. No more dancing. She stalks around the ring like a predator. It doesn’t look like she’s circling. It looks like she’s trying to catch him. Hakim won’t run from her. He turns her way and rushes forward with his arms up.

When they meet, his fingers grab handfuls of her shirt, and hers dig into his shoulders. They grapple, hands wrapped behind necks or reaching for legs, knees and elbows flying.

They spend some time kicking, pushing and pulling each other off balance, until Hakim gets a solid grip with a foot between her legs and he tosses her from the hip. She drags him down with her. They hit the ground rolling, sand scraping skin.

He lands on top and drops a few blows on her head. Her hands strangle his neck. He knocks them away and she headbutts him. It’s a weak strike. The punch to the throat that follows isn’t, and Hakim falls over, clawing at his neck, choking.

“Easy, Malkia!” Aska’s voice rolls over the arena.

“Had enough?” She stands with her arms crossed, watching Hakim crawl away. He gets right up to the edge of the crowd before he stops scrambling, and seems to calm down. He just lays there, wheezing through his mouth. He grits his teeth and rises, hands on his knees. He stands straight soon enough. He’s got his pride.

“Yat! Wither and die.” His voice is scratchy, but he still smirks at her. He looks over in surprise when something bumps into his shoulder. It’s a carved wooden spear, as tall as he is. Thin wooden pole and leaflike blade are filled with tiny engravings. A very long arm holds it out to him. The fingers on the hand barely touch the wood- that’s how gentle the grip is.

Malkia watches Hakim take his staff in hand and run his fingers over it. She taps a finger on her arm, wondering how she’ll deal with the weapon.

“Pssst!” Someone calls to her. A finger pokes her back. When she glances over her shoulder, she sees a blade there, lying on six little hands. The pale wooden blade gleams in the light, as wide as her wrist, holding a heavy curve. From point to pommel, the meter-long shamshir is filled with carvings of spiders.

Malkia reaches for the handle, but before she grabs it, she leans in to look at the crowd. Those little hands hold the blade up reverently. The arms disappear into shadows between the legs of the crowd. She can’t even see a shoulder. Or the elbows. The arms stretch out of nowhere.

“Huh…” Malkia grabs the blade and lifts it up, watching the hands retreat when she does.

“No!” Aksa’s voice raises again. “No weapons!” Malkia ignores him, stepping farther into the ring to give her wooden shamshir practice swings. The blade is heavy, but her arms are strong. It whistles while it cuts the air.

She looks past the totem and meets Hakim’s eyes. He stops twirling the spear over his head and plants the butt in the sand. He leans on it, head cocked to the side. His grin is fierce. Aye… There’s no stopping this.

Malkia moves towards him slowly, hand held out front, as if feeling the way, blade held back, trailing behind. Hakim readies his spear and she dashes for him. Sand flies up with every step. Just before she reaches him, she digs her lead foot deep in the ground and kicks up a spray of sand. Hakim tucks his head down and stabs.

Malkia turns and pushes the thrust aside with the flat of her blade. Then the next one. And the next. She takes tiny steps as she parries. She steps aside and sweeps her blade. Crack! Even though the weapons are wood, they meet with a sound like lightning.

Hakim’s stab goes wide and he loses his balance. Desperately, he sweeps his spearhead at her feet, but she stops the weak swing with her blade, stomps the spear into the sand, and kicks Hakim’s face. Her bare foot breaks his nose.

Hakim falls back on the ground, blood running down his chin. One of his eyes is closed. The other glares at Malkia when he feels the edge of the wooden blade on his neck. He grabs handfuls of sand and tenses. The blade presses harder.

“Well?” Malkia says. Hakim watches her for a moment, ignoring Aska’s yelling, Changa’s cheering and a thousand other voices. His eyes fall to Malkia’s blade. Half of it reflects light back in his eyes. It shines like it was polished. He sees a line of spiders, Carved all the way to the point.

“Aye. Hawk-ptoo!” He spits a blood clot into the sand. “You got me this time.”

“Don’t need you to tell me that. I know it.” She says, then takes Hakim’s hand and pulls him to his feet. He dusts his legs off and frowns at her.

“Oi. You lookin’ for a fight?”

“Aye. A good one. Haha.”