WINGS OF YAMMA (a short story from the world of Theonite) (Patreon)

The following story contains no spoilers for any book in the Theonite universe. It can be read as a standalone or as a distant prequel to The Sword of Kaigen.

Kusanagi Peninsula
Shirojima Province
The Kaigenese Empire
Planet Duna
5292 y. s. p.

The airstrip was pandemonium. Soldiers and workmen scrambled in all directions as if no one had drilled for this. The Kaigenese had been kind hosts, but Mirembe couldn’t say she would be sorry to put this airbase in her rear-facing camera.

“Ready, newbie?” Ndali asked.

Mirembe turned from the compound window to face her bunkmate. “As I’ll ever be.” She closed her eyes as Ndali lifted thumbs white with war paint. Alarm drums thundered as Ndali’s thumbs met near the tip of Mirembe’s nose, then smeared up and out across her cheeks.

“Ranganese ships have been spotted approaching Takayubi!” a Kaigenese jaseli belted from the loudspeakers to reverberate through the soldiers’ quarters. “All air support to the main runway!”

Ndali repeated the lines further up Mirembe’s nose, across both her eyelids, completing the double spearpoint paint of a soldier.

Mirembe opened her eyes to find Ndali beaming through her own military paint.

“Perfect,” the older pilot clapped Mirembe on both shoulders. “Let’s go burn some bastards!”

Out on the airstrip, Mirembe was relieved to see that at least the workers readying their planes were their own Yammanka numuwu. Yammanka aircraft were all made of Zilazen glass, a type of obsidian harder and lighter than aluminum. Most Kaigenese numuwu, even the skilled ones, didn’t really know their way around a plane that wasn’t metal.

“Ranganese ships have been spotted approaching Takayubi!” the Kaigenese jaseli was still repeating mechanically, like a recording on loop. “All air support to the main runway!”

‘All air support’ here referred to exactly seven people. Samori, Konakri and the Biraye sisters, Sokola and Siyata, were already in line beside Captain Biida when Mirembe and Ndali jogged to meet them.

On the packed dirt excuse for a runway, Mirembe took her place beside her age peer, Samori, the only man in their flock. While there were plenty of male reconnaissance pilots, most men lacked the firepower to be fighter pilots. But Samori was not most men. Descended from the powerful Wagadu line, he could produce fire as hot as any woman’s. The power of his nyama hadn’t cost him anything in physical strength either. Had he wanted to, he could have easily hoisted a spear and shield alongside the normal men—as Mirembe could have joined an incineration squad alongside the normal women. But all of them standing here now had an abnormal taste for the sky.

“Ranganese ships have been spotted approaching Takayubi! All air support to the main runway!” the jaseli repeated one last time, as if hoping somehow, more pilots might materialize. But tajaka fighter pilots were rare and the entirety of the Yammanka Empire’s air force was already stretched to breaking across Kaigen and the revolting colonies.

“Which one is Takayubi again?” Mirembe whispered to Samori.

“Tip of the sword,” he responded.

The natives apparently called this peninsula the Sword of Kaigen because it was the Kaigenese Empire’s first defense against eastern invaders. If Takayubi was the sword’s tip, that meant… “It’s not far.”

“We’ll be the first support they get,” Samori said, “in the air or on the ground.” He had always been the better navigator of the two of them. Mirembe was the better shot.

“Hear me today!” the voice of a Yammanka jaseli rose over the din, singing a proper war song, a song of praise. “Today, seven heroes of Yamma go forth to face the enemy! As their ancestors marched to aid their allies yesterday, these pilots fly forth today!”

The jaseli went on to sing of Captain Biida’s ancestors, who had dominated the Hundred Kingdoms of Old Yamma, of Samori’s great aunt, Wagadu Winter Slayer, whose fire had conquered northern Hades, of all the great Kiita heroes, Kende generals, and Biraye kings. And, Gods, it was amazing how fast a jaseli’s tongue could move when he had a limited time to get out all his praises.

“I say that Moribala Biida, the Hunter King, is here in Kaigen today!

Here in this leader of fighters, Captain Sansuma Biida!

I say that Nyagasola Wagadu, Small Sun, is here today!

Here in this fearless youth, Samori Wagadu!

Hear me all!

I say that even great Dingana Biraye, Father of the First Empire, is here today!

Here in these distinguished sisters, Sokola and Siyata Biraye!”

By the time the jaseli got to Mirembe’s Kiita ancestors, finawu in black robes had approached the line of pilots to interject incantations. Everything happened at once, one voice atop another. Mirembe just had time to hand one of the priests her own home-woven talisman for blessing.

“Bones of Bemba, protect this girl from the nyama of death, that when she kills, she will not succumb.”

It was the standard blessing for any soldier going into battle, the same given to Yammanka hunters a thousand years ago when they braved the wild against lions, buffalo, and the long-extinct elephants of antiquity. To kill a powerful creature, a fighter needed powerful protections. And fonyakalu were at least as dangerous as the animals a hunter might have met in the ancient bush.

“Body of Nyaare protect this girl, rays of Kiye light her way,” said the fina.

Mirembe couldn’t help but note that clouds were encroaching on Kiye’s sun. At times it didn’t even feel like the same sun Mirembe had grown up under. It was weaker here in Kaigen. And the flock would meet their enemy in the air, far from Nyaare’s soil.

“Madness!” Na had lamented when she learned that Mirembe was entering the air force. “Madness and stupidity! You see, husband, the Gods have cursed me with an idiot for a daughter!”

“Every fighter must be brave in their own way,” Fa had said in his more measured voice. “Why don’t you let the girl be brave in hers?”

“Bah! In my day, a girl knew where to fight.” Na brandished her walking stick like it was a spear. “With her feet on the ground. These days, everything is madness! The colonies revolt, the world goes to war, and stupid girls think they are birds!”

Only after grousing and grumbling for days had Na had woven her daughter a protective talisman to take to war. And when the fina put it back around Mirembe’s neck now, she still clutched it fondly. It was the nature of mothers to worry. And Mirembe’s mother was far from the only person to question her sanity. Soldiers of the infantry had all said similar things to her.

“We’re made to fight on land. Why, why, why would you want to fight in the air?”

Captain Biida was the only person who really understood, who put into words what Mirembe never could.

“The sea belongs to the Kaigenese,” she said as she turned to face her flock. “The air belongs to the Ranganese. Others have told you that to throw yourself into battle between those two is madness. Accept that they are right. Accept that you are mad and fight like madwomen!”

“Tunyale!” the flock screamed in assent.

“Sisters! Madwomen!” the captain bellowed, her fist held toward the clouds. “We fly!”

The Kaigenese workmen had placed a set of portable steps beneath the wing of Mirembe’s plane. Mirembe ignored them, leaping up on the wing and then into the cockpit without assistance.

“Thank you,” she smiled at the numu who had prepped the jet, even though she was secretly willing him to climb down faster and just clear the way for her to fly.

Outside, the jaseli was hurriedly finishing his song as the finawu offered their last incantations.

“The best blood of Yamma takes to the air today!

Biida, Wagadu, Kende, Kiita, Biraye!

All of you are descendants of greatness,

Heroes reborn!

Know that you go forth not only with greatness in your blood,

But greatness to either side of you.”

Samori gave Mirembe a smile as he climbed into his own cockpit.

“If you return,

You should return worthy of those names.

If you do not,

You should go to the Laaxara knowing that your sister is behind you.

You walk ahead knowing your enemies have fallen.

If your comrades fall, at the edge of the next realm,

They should say of you ‘My sister is behind me.

I walk ahead knowing my enemies have fallen.’”

Maybe anxiety should have had something to do with how fast Mirembe fastened the safety restraints across her chest and hips. But she was always painfully eager to taste the sky. The idea of a fight at the other end of the flight only seemed to have amplified the feeling. She had blown her way through every stage of pilot’s training, but she had yet to see combat, yet to really test her skills.

Engines roared to life, wings grasped the air and, as the Kaigenese countryside unfurled beneath her, Mirembe knew why she was alive.

“Ibis formation!” Captain Biida ordered and the flock fell in behind her, like migrating birds.

This part of Shirojima was beautiful in the quaint, provincial way of all farmland. It wasn’t as vibrant as Mirembe’s home in rural Yamma, where taro fields glowed like green jewels in soil that was rich and red. Here in Kaigen, the colors were cooler and slightly muted. Even now, at the height of summer, they spoke of a land that knew winter.

Before long, farmland opened onto sparkling ocean. The sight was relaxing until the coast came into view. Bodies littered the beaches, their blood red on the sand. There were pale soldiers wearing the blue and tan hanbok of the Kaigenese military or the rebel yellow of the Ranganese, dark-skinned bodies in Yammanka bogolan like their own and, heartbreakingly, dead who didn’t wear the uniform of any country. Kaigenese civilians who hadn’t evacuated in time.

Further down the beach lay larger shapes. Gleaming black in the sun.

“Are those…?” Mirembe didn’t dare finish the thought.

“Gods,” Ndali said.

Yammanka fighter jets. At least a dozen of them, crashed on the sand. Mirembe had gotten used to seeing Kaigenese jets down; their allies’ steel and aluminum planes were so shoddy that they often crashed without any help from the Ranganese. But it was chilling to see the nearly indestructible Yammanka planes tossed across the shoreline like a child’s discarded toys. And if so many had fallen onshore, Mirembe could only wonder how many more were at the bottom of the ocean.

Gods, what would Na say if her daughter died in the ocean? In the dark, buffeted by waves, never able to rest in soil and fire?

“Don’t lose focus,” Captain Biida commanded, sensing the flock’s shock through the silence. “You are warriors of Yamma and we have a job to do. Your nyama for your country!” she prompted and the flock responded.

“My nyama for my king!”

“Besides,” the captain continued, “it may not be this bad where we’re headed.”

“I thought the Kaigenese troops were stretched thin on this peninsula,” Ndali said.

“They are, but Takayubi is special. It has its own defenses.”

“But Ishihama’s the one with the impassable cliffs,” Samori said, confused. “Isn’t Takayubi just a mountain?”

“It’s not the mountain that’s famous for stopping invaders,” said Captain Biida. “It’s the people on it.”

“What kind of people—”

“History lesson later, bright boy. Just because we don’t see our enemies below doesn’t mean they’re not there.”

Sansuma Biida had been flying planes since before the war. Her taste for freedom and the sky had taken her all over the world, including many provinces of Kaigen and Ranga—before Ranga had declared its independence from the Kaigenese Empire, starting this whole mess. When Yamma went to war to defend Kaigen, Biida’s flight experience and her knowledge of Kaigenese dialects and geography had become invaluable assets. She had once told Mirembe that the Gods had made her to fly against the Ranganese.

“We’re close,” she said, anticipation palpable in her voice. “Be ready for anything.”

A mountain was growing from the horizon, pale blue through the haze of distance but growing more solid each moment.

“The Kaigenese force stationed up ahead was small. With any luck, we’ll be in time to save them.”

The ‘was’ betrayed what Captain Biida thought of those chances. She assumed so little of the Kaigenese forces, she didn’t even think they could hold a beach against the Ranganese Union’s peasant army. Mirembe thought that was perhaps a bit unfair. But Captain Biida, as always, knew the Kaigenese better than anyone.

When the base of the mountain came into view, Ranganese ships were already there, moored in the shallows, and the beach was crawling with their yellow uniforms. Blue-clad bodies dotted the sand at their feet. Kaigenese soldiers. All dead. A barricade of ice still stood in the surf, half-melted and useless against the Ranganese who now leapt over it by the dozens on wind-aided steps.

The Ranganese soldiers in yellow were little danger from this high in the air. “If they’re out of your range, you’re out of theirs,” Captain Biida always said. The real danger, she had warned, circled in the clouds above.

But there was no time to worry about that.

“Spearpoint formation!” Captain Biida called.

In response, the flock pulled tighter into their triangle, Captain Biida at the head. They followed her downward, low over the water toward the most obvious target: the Ranganese ships.

The vessels were beautiful, wood instead of metal, wing-like golden sails still unfurled to the boom as if inviting fire. Captain Biida said that the Ranganese built their ships from wood instead of metal because it made them easier to maneuver across the sea with the power of wind. Against Yammankalu, it seemed like a steep price to pay for speed.

“Ready!” Captain Biida said as they approached firing range, and Mirembe switched to secondary steering, controlling the jet with her knees. With both hands free, she placed her palms to the firing board. There were twelve holes on the board, six for each hand, each leading to a different firing tube. Mirembe knew them like she knew her own limbs.

“Sparks to second forward!”

Mirembe was already there, her hands covering the pair of holes second from the bottom.

“Fire!”

Mirembe let heat flare down her arms, blasting flames into both holes. Down the formation, her fellows did the same. Blue-white fire shot from their forward-facing tubes and ran together in a solid spearpoint of flames. The ship before them didn’t have time to catch fire and burn. It was incinerated, sails, mast, and deck turning to ash before their power.

Mirembe was too focused, too consumed in the thrill of fire, to notice a shadow blink across the sun.

The flock had just set fire to the next ship when the first attack hit. Mirembe felt the shockwave shake her plane and, when she looked for the source of the disturbance, found Sokola’s jet spinning off the far wing of the formation. It hit the water with a splash that rocked the remaining ships at their moorings and sent white spray ten stories in the air.

“Kites!” Captain Biida shouted. “Maintain formation!”

They had trained for this. While it had yet to be tested in the air, the theory was that a simultaneous forward fire burst from a spearpoint formation would create a shroud of flame around all seven—or in this case six—planes hot enough to keep their attackers at bay.

They didn’t get a chance to find out.

Captain Biida had just taken a breath to give the command when another plane went down. It was Siyata’s, shot out of the heart of the formation.

And this time, Mirembe caught a glimpse of the culprit.

She had never believed—really believed—that a theonite could fell a fighter jet with his bare hands, but there he was. A Ranganese soldier, dressed all in black. The kick or punch he had used to slam air pressure into Siyata’s plane had created enough blowback to throw him high into the air. The flying martial artist hung there, suspended against the clouds for a heartbeat—

Then his ride snapped him up, black fabric wings flashing by faster than any fighter jet on the planet.

The Ranganese air force didn’t fly planes. They didn’t need them. Instead, they took to the sky on kites. Unburdened by armor or guns, the contraptions were the fastest vehicles in the air. A fonyaka called the flyer was strapped into the kite itself and used his arms to control the air currents around it. A second fonyaka, called the striker, rode on top, partially sheltered behind a transparent windshield. The striker would leap from the kite to deliver attacks—sparing the contraption itself the blowback—after which the flyer would catch him. These strikers were the most powerful fonyakalu the Ranganese Union had to offer, capable of pulverizing bone and knocking planes off course with a single blast of air pressure.

Captain Biida had explained, with perhaps too much excitement, that this technique was adapted from the mountains of far western Ranga, where fonyaka eagle hunters flew on makeshift wings in order to hunt beside their avian companions. But these battle kites weren’t made to hunt foxes and hares through the snow. They were made to hunt fighter jets.

Siyata rolled, clearly trying to regain control of her plane. She might have pulled it off but another kite flashed by. And in the next moment, she careened downward to crash into the ship her own formation had just set aflame.

“Break!” Captain Biida cried.

The flock did as they were told, peeling out of formation and speeding off in different directions. They couldn’t shield one another with a broken spearpoint; they would only present an easy target and be picked off one by one. Their best chance now was to scatter the attention of the battle kites in the hopes that some of them would live.

Black darted before Mirembe, and her heart nearly stopped, but instead of trying to track the kite itself, she watched for the smaller shape that dropped from it. The striker. Kaigenese air force protocol, upon a kite sighting, was to immediately retreat. To engage them in the air was madness. But that was why Kaigen had called in Yamma’s madwomen.

There!

The freefalling fonyaka had hauled back his arm, but Mirembe beat him to the draw, both hands on the firing board.

“Burn!” Fire surged through her forward-facing tubes and engulfed the striker, killing him instantly.

“Yamma!” Mirembe bellowed as she sped past, leaving a blackened corpse to plummet to the waves below. The Ranganese might do well in the air and the Kaigenese might do well on sea, but only one empire reigned supreme across all of Duna. “Yamma!”

“Holy Falleke, newbie!” Ndali swore over the info-com system. “Nice shot!”

“And thank the Gods,” Captain Biida’s voice cut in, “the locals are here!”

The locals? Looking to the beach, Mirembe realized that the gold-clad Ranganese soldiers were no longer the only ones there. A new group of people—at least fifty strong—was racing down the mountain to meet them. For a moment, the blue of their clothing brought to mind Kaigenese military uniforms, but the shades of blue were mismatched, interspersed with whites, grays, and browns. These weren’t uniformed military. They were civilians.

“Clear a path for them!” Captain Biida said.

“What?”

“To me!” she ordered. “We clear their path to the water at any cost!”

At any cost? What was that going to accomplish? What were a few locals supposed to do against a force that had just plowed through a battalion of Kaigenese soldiers?

“To me!” the captain repeated. “Spearpoint formation!”

Mirembe kept a nervous eye on her side cameras as she, Samori, Ndali, and Konakri fell into formation behind Captain Biida, but there were no darts of black. It seemed as though the kites had fallen back—perhaps after seeing one of their strikers torched.

Captain Biida led the flock in a loop inland, toward the top of Mount Takayubi. On the ascent, Mirembe glimpsed clusters of rooftops, little houses clinging to the side of the mountain. It was above those houses that Captain Biida brought them around into a descent, back toward the ocean. In Yamma, when pilots flew this low over a populated area, adults would cheer and children would jump up and down, screaming with excitement. These children stared up, open-mouthed, like they had never seen a fighter jet before. Out here in backwater Kaigen, maybe they hadn’t.

In a moment, the little village was behind them. Rooftops gave way to a blur of pine forest as the flock tore downward, hugging the slope of the mountain.

“Ready!” Captain Biida called as they approached the last slope before the beach.

Mirembe switched steering modes and put her hands to the firing board.

“Sparks to first forward!”

Ahead, the Takayubi locals had engaged the Ranganese, ice flashing and blasts of air pressure sending up clouds of sand. Mirembe was astonished that any of the civilians were still alive. From here, it looked like they were only armed with swords, but the simple weapons seemed to be doing the job.

The instant the flock had passed over the heads of the swordsmen, Captain Biida called, “Fire!”

A wall of flame burst from the formation, a white-hot spearpoint driving through the mass of Ranganese. Soldiers scrambled to avoid incineration, tripping over one another, feet stumbling in sand that had too much give, but even the fastest of theonites couldn’t outrun a jet. Everyone in their path burned to death.

As the flock reached the ocean, there was a flicker to Mirembe’s left, followed by a jet of blue flame going the wrong way—skyward. Konakri had seen a kite. But her fire had missed. A blast of air pressure sent her nose-first into the shallows, sending water splattering across Mirembe’s cockpit.

“Konakri!” Ndali cried out in agony. She and Captain Biida both took shots as the flyer picked up its striker, but the kite moved too fast even for their lightning reflexes, dancing easily out of range of both attacks. The formation involuntarily broke apart, Captain Biida and Ndali breaking in one direction, Mirembe and Samori in the other.

When Mirembe came around, she found the Kaigenese swordsmen running for the water’s edge, ice spreading before them to cool the skillet-hot sand. The Ranganese soldiers on the beach, who still outnumbered the brave civilians three to one, were rushing in to stop them like closing jaws. Samori and Mirembe, who had made a bigger circle out over the water, were too far to offer immediate help.

But Captain Biida was there. With Ndali’s cover, she had pulled her plane into a tighter circle back toward the beach. The Ranganese foot soldiers had almost closed on the natives when the captain descended. And Mirembe felt the jaseli’s song reverberate in her chest:

The Hunter King is here in Kaigen today!

Another pilot would have had trouble burning through a crowd of people on her own, but not Captain Biida. Flames pouring from her front firing tubes, she carved a blazing crescent moon around the swordsmen, protecting their final sprint for the ocean. By the time Mirembe had maneuvered her jet into position to follow-up the captain’s devastating swath of flames, the civilian fighters had already reached the shallows.

“Miremebe!” Samori’s voice cut in on her headset. “There’s a kite on your tail!”

“What?” She had been keeping eyes on her side and rear cameras. When had a kite gotten there?

“I’m going to try to take it out.” It was clear from the frustration in Samori’s tone that he didn’t have a clear shot. The “Damn it!” that followed, told Mirembe that he had missed.

Knowing she was moments from death, Mirembe swerved as sharply as her speed would allow, dangerously close to the water, in a last-ditch effort to throw off her pursuer. As her jet was turning, she knew it wasn’t enough. Those kites could turn on a grain of rice. She was about to die. In the water, no less!

I’m sorry, Na!

Bone-chilling cold engulfed Mirembe so suddenly the sea spray on her cockpit crackled and turned to frost.

“Gods and all the Seedborn!” Samori swore.

As Mirembe pulled her jet around, she saw what he did, and her mouth fell open, all words struck from her throat.

A dragon had reared out of the shallows and caught the kite in its jaws.

For a breathless moment, Mirembe couldn’t understand how a creature straight out of Kaigenese myth had materialized before them. Then a shaft of sunlight broke the clouds and shone through the dragon, revealing it for what it was. An ice formation. The biggest Mirembe had ever seen. The creature’s jaws crashed together, breaking the kite to splinters. Fonyaka blood poured from between its teeth, glittering, beautiful and grotesque, in the sunlight.

“Is that jiya?” Mirembe marveled, sweeping a circle around the monster, still unable to believe it was real, let alone that human power could have created it.

“That’s no jiya,” Samori said with reverent conviction. “That’s Nami herself.”

“I don’t care what it is!” Mirembe laughed off her nerves. “I’m glad it’s on our side!”

“That, children,” Captain Biida said with a smile in her voice, “is why I wanted to get the locals to the water.”

The dragon turned, coils undulating with the surf, and took another kite from the air with the speed of a crocodile snapping an antelope from the riverbank.

“They don’t call this place the Sword of Kaigen for nothing.”

Captain Biida and Ndali finished a second pass at the Ranganese soldiers, which left the vast majority of them dead on the sand. At first, Mirembe didn’t understand how they had managed to burn through so many soldiers without being attacked by the kites. Then she saw one of the black cloth contraptions down on the sand. Spears of ice stuck from its wings.

The dragon-makers weren’t the only jijakalu pulling their weight. Steel and ice flashed across the beach, making quick work of the scattered Ranganese who had managed to escape the flames. Captain Biida hadn’t been kidding about the locals. They really were a better defense than the military.

“Reinforcements are close,” Captain Biida said. “The locals can hold this stretch. Our job now is to clean up the beaches south and north of here, make sure none of the bastards make it inland. Ndali, south with me. Mirembe, Samori, take the northern stretch.”

“Yes, ma’am!” chorused the three remaining voices of the flock.

“Cover each other,” Captain Biida said, “and keep an eye on the sky. Whatever happens, kids, you’ve done beautifully. Nyama to us all!”

Mirembe and Samori stayed in firing range of one another as they headed north. Without discussing the matter, Samori fell behind Mirembe, letting her lead. It was hard for any pilot to cover a plane behind her, but of the two of them, Mirembe was far more likely to make a shot backwards.

But those damn kites learned fast.

At the sight of black wings, Mirembe immediately fired forward, only to have the contraption dart out of range. It wasn’t until she had taken a second shot that she remembered Samori and looked at her rear-facing camera. A striker had dropped directly onto the wing of Samori’s jet and was now riding there, hands fastened around his firing tubes.

Swearing, Mirembe hit her rear-facing firing tubes but the drag of a human clinging to Samori’s wing had caused him to drop back out of range. Mirembe’s blue flames turned orange and burned out before reaching him. She was already bringing her jet around for another try but by the time she got back in range, it would be too late.

They both knew it would be too late.

“I’m sorry!” she breathed, choked with frustration.

“Don’t be,” he said. “I’m not done.”

The striker on Samori’s plane had painstakingly lifted a hand to throw a palm-strike down on the wing. The air pressure would simultaneously send the plane spinning and launch her out of harm’s way. Before she got a chance, Samori threw the lever beside his seat. The glass of his cockpit flew open and he ejected skyward.

“Samori!” Mirembe cried in shock but of course, he could no longer hear her.

He blasted fire downward at the striker as he ascended, a blue inferno against dark clouds. Gods, Mirembe never stopped being amazed that any man could produce that much fire. But against the wind, even Samori’s fire had its limits. The striker jumped from the jet’s wing before the flames reached her, turning an infuriatingly graceful flip onto the back of her kite as it swooped by.

Above, Samori grasped for the string to deploy his parachute but two kites flashed over his head and a striker dropped on either side of him. He powered up but the winds of his own descent prevented him from extending his flames to their full range. The fonyakalu struck at the same time. Bone-shattering air currents slammed into Samori from both sides, breaking his body.

At the moment of death, all Samori’s God-gifted firepower exploded from him in a final rage. Had the blowback from their own attacks not flung them so far, the two strikers would have been engulfed in the mass of blue and white fire. As it was, the flames caught one of them, who convulsed in pain.

Samori Wagadu fell like a dying star, trailing sparks. Death nyama like that was supposed to burn through the veil into the next world, but Samori was swallowed by the ocean before his flames had finished burning themselves out. Mirembe’s mind conjured images of his body tossed in the crushing darkness. Without Nyaare’s ground beneath him, would he be able to walk into the next world? Without Kiye’s light, would he find his way? Mirembe had to be sure he did.

Your comrades should say of you, ‘My sister is behind me.

I walk ahead knowing my enemies have fallen.’

“Don’t look back, Samori,” she breathed as the kites swept a circle, picking up their strikers before they hit the water. “Don’t look back.” With adrenaline-fueled fury, she tore open the security restraints across her chest. “Your sister is behind you!”

No longer strapped back into her seat, Mirembe put her whole body to the firing board. From the tips of her fingers to her elbow, she just managed to cover every one of the holes.

“Samori!” she screamed as the kites raced to meet her. “Yamma!”

The sun at the center of her being exploded, sending the power of God through her arms. Blinding blue burst from every firing tube at once, cloaking her jet in fire. Amid the roar of her own flames, Mirembe heard a man scream. A clatter of breaking machinery and the fleshy thud of what sounded like a body shook her plane. In her rear cameras, she watched two kites spiral seaward in flames.

A grin spread over her face, but that was the only celebration she could afford. With the remaining kites closing in on her, she seized primary steering again and hauled her plane upward, toward the gathering clouds. Fonyakalu were supposed to have excellent hearing but they couldn’t see through clouds any better tajakalu. Could they? She supposed she would find out.

White descended on her like a deluge of ghosts and she was flying blind. Even if she couldn’t lose them in the clouds, maybe getting them to chase her upward would at least buy enough time for reinforcements to arrive. Maybe she would survive this battle to tell her mother how she had burned fonyakalu out of their own sky.

She didn’t see the kite that got her.

The impact was so intense that Mirembe’s body jerked against the safety restraints, bruising her hips. Without missing a beat, she put her hands to the firing board and unleashed a fury of flames, still blind, hoping she might catch her attacker. Another burst of wind struck the jet and there was a snap.

The world splintered, red with pain.

Without her upper restraints fastened, she was not properly secured to her seat and her left wrist, braced against the firing board, had broken.

Screaming, Mirembe released another blind burst of flame—more to soothe the pain than anything else—before trying to regain control of the plane. She managed it, straightening out enough that the clouds stopped spinning past her cockpit. But something else had gone wrong. At some point in her own screams, her engine had stopped roaring. The only roar now was the hollow, fireless sound of the wind on all sides as she lost altitude.

Her engine had gone dead.

It was over.

Even if she could see, it wouldn’t matter where she pointed her jet. At the speed she was descending, there was no chance of her surviving a crash on water, sand, or solid ground. The clouds opened not onto the beach but onto the mountainside.

Mirembe was going to hit solid rock at half the speed of sound. Her only chance now was to eject, deploy her parachute, and pray to any god who would listen that the fonyakalu didn’t kill her on her way down. Heart thundering, she gripped the eject lever but stopped short of pulling it when black broke the mist in her periphery.

There was a kite to her left.

And another when she looked to her right.

This one kept pace with her, just outside her firing range. The flyer was intent on his work, eyes focused ahead, both arms extended to control the rush of air above and below the kite’s wings. The striker was a woman, about Mirembe’s own age. She crouched behind an aerodynamic windshield, her head turned to look at Mirembe. At this distance, Mirembe could just make out a smirk on her lips. She was waiting, Mirembe realized when their eyes met. Waiting for the dumb tajaka to eject from the safety of her plane, where she would be easy prey.

The Falleke had blessed Mirembe with lightning reflexes and blazing firepower, but if Samori had been no match for the fonyakalu in the air, neither would she. To eject here, flanked by enemies, was certain death. Her choices were death by air, at the hands of the fonyakalu, or death by impact with the mountainside.

Holding the fonyaka’s gaze, Mirembe took her hand from the lever.

She would die on Nyaare’s ground, like her mother wanted. Like a true Yammanka. As the mountain raced closer the kites peeled off to avoid impact, leaving Mirembe to her fate.

Thanking the Gods that there was no time to cry, Mirembe gripped the talisman beneath her shirt and drew in a breath. She had tasted glory, whether Na understood it or not, whether anyone chose to sing of it or not. Holding that last breath in her chest, she tried to see the sun-warmed soil of the taro fields in the mountainside. The steely gray made it impossible, so she closed her eyes.

At least ‘death by the Sword of Kaigen’ sounded dramatic, if any jaseli ever cared to sing for a stupid girl, who thought she was a bird.