If directly threatened he might kill her. If not he would keep her alive as leverage. Stephen needed his mother alive. And he needed a weapon.
He didn’t know how this logic came to him—he was simply aware of it, knowing Kirutu’s animal instinct as well as the air he breathed.
Already at a full sprint, he veered sharply to his left, directly toward two warriors already throwing their spears. Stephen saw the shafts leave their hands and he saw it slowly, the way Shaka had taught him to watch thousands of his own projectiles travel to their intended targets. If properly focused, the mind could more accurately perceive.
See it differently, Stephen. See it in each moment, bending to your will. See it stopped in time.
He saw. The spears were already airborne, five paces distant.
As was he, hurtling forward in a low dive, eyes on the spears’ long shafts, spinning through slow, wobbly rotations as they flew. Their trajectory was fixed.
His was not.
He tucked himself, rolled once on the soft ground, and came around as one of the spears sped past him.
The one he would take for himself.
Using his momentum he came up, hand reaching for the butt of the shaft already. He closed his fingers around the wood, took three bounding strides toward the two empty-handed warriors, planted hard, and spun, swinging the spear in a full circle by the end of its shaft.
The spear was capped with a bone head sharpened to a blade on both sides, slicing through the air eight feet from the end of Stephen’s extended arms. The head completed its arc at three times the speed of his rotation and hardly slowed when it cut through the first warrior’s neck.
The second warrior had time to pull back, but not far enough to avoid the spear’s tip, which tore out his throat.
Four seconds since Stephen had first moved.
Two warriors lifeless.
One spear in hand.
Stephen didn’t pause to consider—his mind wasn’t thinking so much as reacting. And the ease of his first success only fueled his determination to save his mother. To slaughter the whole compound if required.
The speed and precision of his attack gave the Warik pause. The entire compound came to a standstill, all eyes locked in wonder at the feat they had just witnessed. Even Kirutu, who was clearly not accustomed to being questioned, much less bested, was still.
While his attack still had them set back on their heels, Stephen tore forward. Straight for Kirutu, spear cocked already. The man’s head was to his mother’s right now, a hand’s span between them. It would be like striking a coconut on the run.
He’d hit a thousand coconuts on the run. And his arm was already in forward motion when the Warik warriors recovered. Not only a few, but all of them at once, moving as one large body, like a school of fish or a flight of birds.
They roared and launched themselves forward, swarming around Kirutu in one black mass, cutting Stephen off from their ruler.
His attack had made them stronger, not weaker.
He knocked two spears from the air with a swipe of his arm and was at the throats of the leading men with his own shaft turned wide. The long hardwood shank struck three men broadside and shoved them back into the others, momentarily stalling the surging warriors.
“Stephen!” His mother’s voice screamed over the din of crying warriors. “You can’t—”
Kirutu had shoved his mother off to four men, who gagged her as they hauled her up the steps. Stephen’s path to her was cut off by the encroaching warriors.
He skipped backward on bare feet, twirling his spear in both hands, aware of his control over balance, speed, angles of attack, and escape.
But none of these promised a route to his mother.
His heart pounded, not from exertion, but with emotion. Rage. Fear for his mother. He could feel her years of suffering wash through his body as if it had replaced the blood in his veins.
And that blood was as black as midnight, swelling in him still, blinding him to everything but the desperate need to save her.
The warriors were closing in on him now, twenty of them abreast, forming an arc. He could tear through them, he was certain. Would tear into them. Wanted nothing more now than to rip them apart, a notion that roared through his mind like a rabid beast and left him trembling.
Only then did he see the flood of warriors pouring through the gate. Like dark waters they spilled into the compound and spread wide in both directions along the fence with the intention of sealing him in.
There was only one way to reach his mother. Kirutu had to die. Without a leader the Warik would offer no threat, like a headless snake.
Stephen slowed his retreat. The warriors, emboldened by the flanking maneuver of those streaming through the gate, slowed, clearly sure in their numbers.
The body follows the head, Stephen. Control your mind and you will own your body.
The ruler stood near the foot of the steps, at ease, watching without concern, bearing only the single knife. He lifted one hand to his mouth and issued a shrill whistle. Then threw his head back and laughed, a madman relishing his power.
Hatred swallowed Stephen whole. It wouldn’t suffice to kill this man. Kirutu deserved to be crushed by the same brutality that had fed him for so many years.
Stephen grunted through clenched teeth and sprinted directly at the line of warriors closing in on him. Beyond them: Kirutu. He held the spear loosely in one hand, like a javelin. They’d seen what he was capable of, and they second-guessed themselves as he’d known they would, pulling up sharply.
All hesitated but two, who increased their pace. Both were armed with axes, no match for the spear in Stephen’s hand. Did they still not know his reach? No, how could animals such as these learn so quickly? So then, these two would be the first to pay for their ignorance.
Three spears angled for him, thrown from the line to his right. He sidestepped two of them easily, snatched the third from the air with his left hand, took a stutter-step, and sent it forward, screaming full-throated.
The spear struck one of the axmen as he turned to evade, and plunged deep into the man’s bowels.
The other came on without missing a step. The man’s audacity darkened Stephen’s vision, focused his rage. The world was slow before him—he could feel each footfall like hammers on the earth; hear each pump of blood as it rushed through his brain; see the man’s bared teeth and defiant eyes. This single warrior embodied the evil that had tortured his mother.
The valley was shrieking, roaring, rushing with a wind that swept black streaks of vapor overhead—this he saw and heard only as a distant distraction. This and the thunder of the warriors’ feet as they flooded the compound with shrill cries.
His own scream joined theirs as he came under the man’s swinging ax like a battering ram, headfirst.
The impact of his skull against the warrior’s chin offered up a loud, crushing crack that sent a jolt of pain down Stephen’s spine. He didn’t so much collide with the man’s head as hammer through it, leaving the warrior’s skull shattered and his body lifeless before it hit the ground.
Stephen was much heavier and stronger than the warrior, and his momentum carried him through without breaking his stride.
Kirutu would die. If so required, Stephen would tear the house apart board by board to reach his mother. Nothing else mattered now.
But when he lifted his head, he saw that the balance of power had changed. No fewer than fifty of the warriors who’d poured through the gate were closing in on Kirutu’s position directly ahead, forming a circle around him.
The ruler of this realm stood with arms still spread wide, relishing his power, untouched by fear.
Stephen took two more long strides before a single thought penetrated his darkened mind. Kirutu knew that every warrior in his command would die to save him. They feared him more than they feared Stephen.