Page 69 of The Merciless Ones

To my surprise, only two guards are patrolling when my friends and I arrive. Keita, Li and the rest were all trained in jatu stealth tactics, so I just stand and watch with the others as they deliver a few targeted pinches to the jatu’s necks. The two men fall unconscious without even a sound and remain slumped as Keita and Li drag them into the bushes. I watch, tension knotting my shoulders – something about this situation bothers me. Why are there only two jatu guards? Why are they only human? I feel not even the slightest tingle from them, the way I would with our true jatu brothers. And why is the entire Warthu Bera so empty, so quiet?

Belcalis’s eyes flicker across the grounds, a frown burrowing itself between them. She senses it too, this eerie stillness. “Something’s not right,” she says.

Britta nods. “Feels like a trap.”

But for whom? The jatu can’t possibly know we’re here. They’re still busy searching the waterways. Nevertheless… I turn to Katya and Nimita. “Keep watch.”

“Yes,” Katya replies, tightening her grasp on Rian.

I nod at them as the rest of the group and I slip quietly through the combat-practice building’s door and down the dark wooden halls, which are also strangely empty. The three jatu guards we encounter are dispatched so quickly, they don’t even bear mentioning.

It takes us less than a minute to reach the entrance to Karmoko Huon’s private library, which is at the very end of the building, just outside her office. This is her domain: brightly painted walls covered in weaponry and multiple bookshelves with row after row of scrolls advising on every possible battle technique known to man, equus and any of the other intelligent species that litter Otera. The one and only time I saw the door open was in my first few weeks at the Warthu Bera, and all I could do was gape. I’d never seen a place so pretty inside the Warthu Bera before, and I never again did.

Once we reach it, I hold up my hand for silence.

A sound is coming from inside: the harsh thud of a closed fist against flesh. “Not so tough any more, are you?” a man’s voice says, sounding pleased. “All those years, masquerading under our noses. Now you’ll do exactly as we ask.”

When there’s no reply, his voice rises to an enraged bellow. “Tell me where they are! I know you know! How many of them are there? Speak!”

Another thud echoes in the air, and I can bear it no longer. I make the signal.

Keita kicks open the door, revealing a scene even worse than I imagined. Two jatu stand before Karmoko Huon, who is on her knees, wrists restrained by iron manacles, her pretty pink robes torn and her long black hair fallen from its flowery hairpins. Dark purple bruises mar her translucent skin. When a red one blooms on her cheek, where she was just struck, rage explodes across my chest.

“Take your hands off her!” I growl.

The jatu who just finished pummelling Karmoko Huon whirls towards us. “How dare y—”

A wet gurgle bursts from his lips. One of Karmoko Huon’s sharp, blade-like hairpins has slid through his chest so easily, it took him seconds to notice. As he turns and staggers towards the karmoko, shocked, she swiftly slips her other hand from its manacle, then wrenches his sword from the sheath at his side.

“What do you think you’re do—”

He never gets to finish. Karmoko Huon brings down the sword, and blood sprays from his neck as his head rolls to the ground.

Once he’s dead, the karmoko smiles down at his corpse, then glances up at us. “First rule when torturing a victim, alaki: always check the restraints.” She dangles her now-opened manacles tauntingly in front of the other jatu, who falls backwards, terrified, then she nods pleasantly at Karmoko Thandiwe.

“Took you long enough, Thandiwe. I was beginning to worry you’d passed on to the Afterlands.”

“Before you?” Karmoko Thandiwe snorts, amused. “Never.”

Karmoko Huon nods absently as she turns to the jatu, who’s pissed himself from terror. There’s a look in her eyes now, a terrifying flatness.

The man holds up his hands, pleading, as she approaches. “No, please don’t—”

But she plunges the sword into his heart and removes it so swiftly, he’s dead before he hits the floor.

Once she’s done, she retrieves her hairpin from the first jatu’s back, then walks over to her desk, where she pulls a cleaning cloth from one of the drawers and soaks it with water from a pitcher. She slowly, calmly wipes the blood off her face and hairpin, then rearranges her robes and hair to her satisfaction. Only then does she turn to us.

“Deka, Britta, Belcalis, Adwapa and Asha, so good to see you. And these are your uruni, I presume?”

“Yes, Karmoko.”

I kneel respectfully before her, joining the others in the traditional greeting we were taught here at the Warthu Bera.

“I’m impressed you remembered your manners, Nuru to the goddesses,” she remarks, pulling out a bottle of palm wine from under her desk and taking a swig. “Wonderful to know I won’t have to beat them into you as I did this one.” She glances pointedly at Adwapa, who looks down, clearly remembering the time the karmoko pinned a chunk of her ear to the wall.

Then she turns to Karmoko Thandiwe. “Timely arrival, Thandiwe. I take it you were informed of the new jatu measures?”

Karmoko Thandiwe shakes their head. “No, I haven’t been able to reach any of our informants, so when I met this lot, we hurried here.”

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