Pharaoh Nadiyya stretched as the winter sun coloured the dark sky. Many nights were quiet and wet. Distant clashes and cries filled the days, infrequent yet sharp. Her wounds were slow to heal. She was tight-lipped about her attackers, and the remaining corpse of darkness remained covered in the abandoned building she left Pride in. It required a daily visit to the physicians.
She didn’t need Pride’s suggestion to sleep elsewhere. There was no chance she would remain secluded. The tent was needless, but everyone insisted, and it made it easier for the physician to deal with her dark edged flesh.
Her limbs were lithe and warm. Pride slumbered in the abandoned building, and she watched the dark street ahead. Beside a garrisoned tower, with her helm in hand, fully armoured and khopesh on her back. The wall was silent. She didn’t like it. Despair filled her.
She received no word from Gawahir in the jaguar district. No answer to burning the bridges. Any word from the noble ring would spell disaster. The complete silence from the kumkani in the tiger district worried her most.
Arno still hadn’t returned, nor sent back so much of a whisper. If duty allowed her, she would go herself, but the market kept her. Sending another Tamer was a waste. If a palace guard failed, who else would succeed?
“The boy is not dead child, do not give in to despair,” Pride yawned through their bond.
Nadiyya grunted aloud, still too tired to reply, unable to fight her despair as well.
She sighed and turned away, giving up as the sunrise warmed the morning. The pharaoh hid her anxious fingers in her helm. A distant sound stilled her, and she spun around with a racing heart.
The runner turned a corner and sprinted towards the market. A blink later, she smiled at the colourful armour.
Thank the Beast.
Nadiyya smirked as tension sparked from the surrounding towers. Their bowstrings became taut.
“Stay your hands,” Nadiyya said. “A messenger from the walls.”
She donned her helm and stepped out to meet the tiring Cheetah. No doubt the hazel eyed beauty ran the entire way. He panted and clutched his knees as he bowed.
“M… Pha… Pharaoh, Captain Inam retook the lynx gate and forced the Tigers back beyond the Beast’s Tear.”
The man struggled up from his knees, drenched in sweat.
“Rise, good soldier,” Nadiyya clasped his hand. “Come with me. We must speak over food and rest.”
The tent was cosy with the little campfire between them. His handsomeness, Dumo, he named himself, sat across from her, sipping on his morning broth with a calmer heart. He smelled of sweet sugar.
Goodness, I need Gawahir’s touch.
Pharaoh Nadiyya drained her iced milk and nibbled on fresh bread.
“You truly honour me Pharaoh, I am unworthy,”
“Nonsense, you have gone beyond your duty and it deserves comfort.”
“Again, I thank you. My family would be proud.”
She smiled, but found herself impatient. Nadiyya stilled her leg and waited for him to finish.
“Tell me again.”
“Captain Inam ordered a retreat into the gatehouse, and we mustered a strong defence. They wavered quickly, Pharaoh.” she frowned at his scent. “Then we reclaimed the gate and made rudimentary repairs to the wood.”
“What of the physicians and the wounded?”
“Untouched, as far as I know.”
Finally, something good!
Pharaoh Nadiyya didn’t fight her smile on this occasion. It seemed so long since her last happiness. Something to restore hope.
“Any clue why the emperor softened his attacks?”
“No, though the besiegers seemed depleted, muddied ground and thin ranks. Perhaps disease has taken hold?”
She nodded at Dumo and lingered for a moment, concocting another plan to seek more hope.
“Does Captain Inam await your return?”
“No Pharaoh, if I have overstayed,”
“No, definitely not, yet whenever you are ready, I would add to your duties, if you would heed a Lion?”
“Of course, Pharaoh, name it.”
“I need a scout in the tiger district. Relay anything notable back to me. Kumkani Lihle has been rather quiet and I do not wish to remain ignorant of that district. Stay hidden and watch. Speak to no one. The gate and the courtyard interest me, but you must return or it will be for nothing.”
“As you say Pharaoh.”
“Stay for a while, rest if you still need it, ask for whatever you may need in my name. When you’re ready, come to me before you depart.”
“I will leave now Pharaoh, I have the strength,” Dumo rushed to his feet, bowed again and Nadiyya nodded.
Her hope remained as the morning dragged on. The sun reached the middle of the sky and Dumo departed. It soared once again. Pharaoh Nadiyya meandered, showing her face amongst the few wounded remaining. She offered more than simple greetings to those with the courage to say more.
Grey clouds blocked the sun as the hours drifted by. Her mood matched the growing gloom above, and when the evening approached, she struggled to fight herself from panicking.
He’s not a Tamer, he’s not a Tamer, she kept telling herself.
Pride was quiet in the house, slumbering beside the covered corpse. Not even an inkling of emotion through their bond.
“Why add to your difficulties?”
“Is your only purpose to annoy me?”
“Never my intention, but it is always the outcome.”
Nadiyya snorted aloud when his humour trickled through their bond. She begged herself not to run into the tiger district. When the torches flickered to life, her limbs refused to stay still. She emerged from her tent and a trio of Tamers, led by an Osiris, knelt before her.
“Pharaoh,” she removed her helm to reveal a hard, scarred face and bald head.
“News?”
“No Pharaoh, I come with a request.”
As she rose, Nadiyya looked up at the Osiris woman.
“You are Nabila’s?”
“I am called Nadia, if it pleases you, Pharaoh.”
“Ah,” Nadiyya laughed. Years ago, Nabila claimed to name her first child after the pharaoh. A lucky coincidence. “Your mother displayed you at my wedding.”
“I wish to live up to your name, Pharaoh.”
“From what I’ve heard, I would not worry about failing. Speak your request.”
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“I would take myself and these two with me to see the lynx gate.”
“If that includes the jaguar, I will sanction it.”
“We will do it, Pharaoh.”
She nodded, and Nadia donned her helm again. The trio of Tamers mounted up and sped away. It was another respite, but the moment they disappeared into the darkness of night, her attention fell onto the silence of the tiger district.
Nadiyya stood between the two makeshift towers again, eyeing the dark road ahead. Her fingers were restless, and there were none of her endless rings to occupy them. She adjusted her armour, twisted her bracers and loosened the straps of her helm.
The night sky was awfully dark, clouds masked the silver-grey glow of the moon. If it wasn’t for her Tamer eyes, she wouldn’t have known there were specks of silver dotting the darkness as well. A disquieting night, so soon after those shadowed things attacked. She didn’t beat herself up about it. Coupled with her current anxiety, it made it for an unfortunate stew.
A cool gust flickered the dim torchlight nearby and her fine hairs stood upright on her neck. The wind almost doused the nearby fire, chilling her to the bone. It was quiet. Her ears suddenly became muffled beneath her helm. Her arm snatched at her khopesh. Pride’s caution sparked like electricity and her khopesh sung from the sheath on her waist.
Figures shifted in the growing darkness. The minuscule fires shrank into glowing embers. They swarmed the ceilings all around them and stepped out of the alleyways. She caught the glow of their steel and the whites of their eyes.
“Up!”
Pharaoh Nadiyya found her voice strangling her khopesh while her wounds tingled.
“Up, up, up! Arm yourselves. We are under attack!”
Arrows whistled around her, followed by cries. Wailing before painful gurgles and last gasps of life. Nadiyya swayed out the way of an axe spawned from a cloud of darkness. The dark iron plated leather hugged the Panther and reeked of dried blood.
A hardened shin kicked the pharaoh off her feet. She rolled away just in time and the enormous axe chipped the stone. An arrow whizzed by her ear and pinged off the floor before she spun around and parried them with her khopesh.
“No!”
A gruff voice boomed from the darkness.
“Alive!”
She barely kept the double-edged axe away when she faced the Panther. Her reach was wide, and Nadiyya rolled forward to close the gap, only to suffer the bottom of the handle on her shoulder.
With gritted teeth, she lashed out with an elbow. A shock of numbness shot through her left arm. Her khopesh almost pierced through the strengthened iron plating. The Panther thudded hard on the ground, and her axe clattered nearby. Nadiyya rushed forward to finish her, but avoided a spear whistling behind her back.
The pharaoh wailed when the back of her thigh tore open. She deflected the second jab, but her leg seared with fire. Another spear screeched against her protected thigh, and she snatched it with her free hand. Only to be yanked into another Panther. They rang her head like a bell and her vision became spotty.
“Alive!”
Her helm pressed against her right temple, daring to pierce flesh. Dazed and strength drained from her, yet she fought on. Another crack shuddered her arm and loosened the khopesh, before another blow broke her hand and disarmed her.
Nadiyya grunted when her calf split open. She cracked her knees on the hard street and suffered another club to the head, welling her eyes with tears.
“Enough!”
“Do not come, hide, stay away!” Nadiyya begged Pride, and was glad to not hear any resistance from him, though his rage warmed her.
Blades boring into flesh, snapping bones and rending skin filled her ears. Beneath the endless screeching.
“Don’t ruin her beauty,” the same bodiless voice who boomed in the darkness spoke again, much closer.
An elegant figure emerged from the endless blackness and knelt before her. Equally bloodied but extraordinarily beautiful in his blacksteel ironvine armour. Redness dripped off his dual spears poking over his shoulders.
“I enjoy looking at you.”
Chief Mandla grinned. The last thing she saw was a joyful wildness in his onyx eyes.
Pharaoh Nadiyya gasped awake on her knees; her entire body doused in anguish. Cotton filled her mouth, both in feeling and literally. The bitter gag tasted sweaty. She awoke with patchy vision, but as it cleared, her heart sank when she recognised the abandoned home’s interior.
Panic strangled her as she scanned the vicinity for Pride and the corpse. She felt foolish when he prodded her bond from a grand distance toward an alleyway near the jaguar district. Nadiyya sighed into the gag and tasted blood.
Her bonds were cold on her wrists and ankles, chiming metal, script strengthened. She bruised her joints, testing them. A chill passed through her, slicing beneath her underclothes. It sickened her to know their hands groped her while she was asleep, removing all her armour without her noticing, even her boots.
She shivered. It was black outside, not one torch alight. Sounds of violence and death ended. There were whispers and the crunch of boots.
An explosion of fear struck her long before the boots approached. She smelled blood on all of them, with a shred of medicinal sharpness on one. Fiery light seeped in when the door opened. Two Panthers accompanied a trembling physician into the room. The chief in his glorious ironvine armour was the last to enter.
“Patch your pharaoh as best you can,” Chief Mandla said, leaning against a wall, as one Panther dropped a torch beside her. “Be quick about it.”
The physician trembled, kneeling beside her in a hurry, straining his eyes on her body. In search of her wounds. She couldn’t speak through her gag, forced to wince at his poking and prodding.
Nadiyya growled when he cleaned her, wiping as gently as he could with a searing cloth. Stinking of something sharp and occasional sweetness, while muttering his apologies with every touch. The physician panicked as he ruffled through his bag.
“What is it?” Mandla grunted.
“Chi… Chief, I haven’t any silk for stitching.”
“She is a Tamer. They will close, wrap the wounds with bandages.”
The physician rushed to obey, wrapping her up with unsteady hands. He finished patching her up, and smelled of relief when allowed to depart with the pair of Panthers. Chief Mandla remained, snatching up the torch and crouching before her.
“I was told your hair grew since last we met all those years ago, though the neck length curls do more for me.”
Mandla’s eyes were all one needed. Savagely handsome, hard faced occasionally, tall and well built. Whether in rich fabrics or in his ironvine, he always looked the part. Even his voice floated like honey to your ears. Yet his eyes confirmed all the horror whispered about him.
What his partners suffered at the slightest sign of disobedience, even his offspring disappearing without a trace whenever declared unworthy. Blood stained him so often that it might have been his perfume. Mandla became a dual wielder through brutality, not skill. Many stories warned of those foolish to challenge him. He hooked many to him. It left a trail of blood behind.
“You really deserve far better armour for your station. Your fool husband does not deserve you.”
Pleasing him would spare her his worst, though he would detect a game if she played one. A fine balance, but she dreaded the moment he removed her gag.
“He wastes you as a warrior. You should inspire all Lions. Whores should envy you; commoners should dream of you when they fuck them. A shame he allows you to be bloodied by his enemies.”
He caressed her breast as he feigned to remove something from her rags. His eyes lingered on her body afterwards.
“I hope we can speak amicably.”
A veiled threat.
“Perhaps things may turn out well for you?”
He yanked off the gag, almost giving her whiplash. Nadiyya licked her lips as her mind raced, unable to decipher why he was here.
“You put up an admirable defence. I was hoping to meet Lihle during my daring attack, but it seems he has proven to be a as much of a coward as Raban. Ah well, losing one district out of seven is hardly anything you need to worry over.”
Her heart sank, but she fought to keep herself passive.
“Do not weep for him, he abandoned you, vanished into a shit hole to hide. Lihle was a man of words. The defenders and the palace guards were worthy adversaries.”
“Why have you stopped here? You could open the lynx and jaguar gates and make it easier for your allies to storm the city? Take the noble ring and palace with a grand force.”
Mandla frowned at her, and for a second, she thought she pushed too far, but eventually a sly grin stretched his lips.
“You do not know? The siege failed. Jun cannot even keep his Tigers from deserting, and Raban only came here to die.”
“How?”
“You have a magnificent womb, that’s how. I cannot believe Gawahir was the other part of it.” his eyes dropped between her legs and she squirmed. “Wasted as a warrior indeed. Imagine our progeny, dear Nadiyya.”
“Am I to be your latest conquest?”
“My time in Ko'Eri is done. The age of the Tamer heads down a similar path. The powers that Jun and Gawahir have tangled themselves in dooms us.”
What madness afflicted this one? Nothing he said made any shred of sense.
“Your brats are admirable with such a pitiful father. Let me plant seeds, we may grow the tallest trees. You and those who remain loyal to me can escape these lands for good.”
Nadiyya wanted to scream. This man was everywhere and nowhere. How easily these words came scared her the most.
“Keep your Tamed in check and there will be no trouble.”
“I am confused, I only wish,”
“Shh sweet beauty, don’t bother struggling, this won’t hurt like those clubs,”
“Wait, wait!”
His hand engulfed her face as she screamed. A dark pull came over her as he snatched her consciousness.