Sahelia sat on the balcony of the pearly white Rozaic palace, her legs resting on a stool and looked out over the courtyard as her troops did their drills. She'd been in Bremon for three weeks now and still couldn't quite get used to the harsh glare from the sun reflecting off the white surroundings into her eyes.
Squinting, she plucked an apple out from the basket the cook had delivered next to her and examined her unit. Out of all the Sumoso troops, she was especially close to three of them. Rayne was the oldest and most grounded of them all. It was to her that they went when they wanted life advice. Particularly advise on boys. Yes, she was well qualified on that topic. Like Sahelia, she could also control natural elements.
Pathrice, meanwhile, was one year younger than Sahelia and even more lithe. Despite her small size, she was by far the loudest of the three. While she wasn't a healer, her ability to teleport was an equally rare and coveted Sumoso ability. It made her invaluable as a spy and deadly in tactical situations, though she used it sparingly. Having seen what she could do many times over though, Sahelia knew how important it was not to get on Pathrice's bad side.
Then there was Sheryn, whose sumoso abilities allowed her the power of a seer. By touching someone's skin, she could decipher their innermost thoughts. On rare occasions she could even see that person's future. This made her a very uncomfortable person to be around and outside of Rayne, Pathrice and Sahelia, Sheryn had virtually no friends in their unit or the wider imperial army. Her isolation exacerbated her shyness.
"Hey, your majesty!" Pathrice cupped her mouth and bawled up. "Can you save some for us and not scarf down all our lunch, small as it is!"
She took aim and threw the core of the apple. Pathrice easily ducked out of the way, snorting with laughter.
Sahelia sighed. Who was she kidding? She was scoping her friends to see which one of them had what it takes to replace her as commander of the Sumoso unit. She was sick and tired of Bremon, with the heat, their hostile tribes, their insolent elders, their archaic laws.
Just yesterday, Sahelia had been forced as military governor to spare an old man from being whipped for blasphemy. Or at least, that's what the man's son had alleged he did. The entire palace had demanded he be whipped, in keeping with their laws. But Sahelia had known that frail as he was, the beating would have killed him.
She had sent the man away. The Bremonians had not been pleased about that. Then too, she had no wish to be left behind to the mercy of her big sister, who would have the entire power of the empire in her hands and the malice to use it when the emperor was gone.
While Sheryn was an efficient enough fighter and Sahelia had a tender spot for her, Sheryn tended to let her emotions get in the way. Plus, she was not assertive enough to be a leader. That left Pathrice or Rayne in the race. She sighed again. Information from the capital said that Emperor Moutassim would sail in just two days. She'd have to pick her successor quickly.
She heard running behind her and quickly turned, hand on the dagger in her belt. The door was pushed open and a wide-eyed Bremonian boy, no more than eleven, stumbled out. He started when he saw her, but then he closed the door and backed away with a look of fear on his dirt-stained face. She heard footsteps on the other side of the door... run past.
"What have you done, who are you hiding from?" Sahelia demanded.
"Please, your highness," the fear and look of pleading on his face was haunting. "Please don't tell him where I am!"
"I will if you don't answer my questions." She got up, her face stern.
"I stole an apple from the cook. I'm sorry. I haven't eaten in two days and I am an orphan. My father died in the battle of Bremon," he looked down, but then he looked up, his big eyes seemingly begging her for understanding. "If they catch me I'll lose a hand for sure! Please!"
Sahelia sat down back, reached for her basket and moved it to where the boy could get easy access.
"Help yourself," Sahelia said. The boy did not need a second invitation. His face lit up with happiness and as he sat on the floor next to the basket and dug in, Sahelia thought to herself that notwithstanding the dirt, he looked like a child again.
"What is your name?"
"Akhmed," the boy said, through a mouth full of apple.
They settled into a comfortable silence, broken only by chewing.
"So... you are a witch?" Akhmed seemed to have finally plucked up the courage to ask. Sahelia laughed.
"We don't call it that but in a way, yes."
"So... only women can be witches?"
Sahelia smiled.
"We are sumosos, which include both men and women, although there are more female sumoso than male."
Akhmed wrinkled his nose.
"So how come you only command women sumo... sumosos? Aren't men stronger?"
Sahelia shook her head in pity.
"Strength is relative," she said. "In war, especially where magic is concerned, there are ways of... levelling the playing field. Me and my girls have killed many men who were physically stronger than us. Plus, there are enough men in the imperial forces. So yes, I only take on female sumoso."
"Can I be a sumoso? There's nothing for me here." His eyes were bright with hope. Sahelia smiled sadly and ruffled his hair.
"To even have a chance of practising magic, you must be a direct descendant of a Gendarian. All sumoso are from a Genda bloodline, but not all Gendarians are sumoso. Do you have Genda ancestors?"
The boy shook his head. Sahelia shrugged and sat back in her chair.
"Case closed then." She said. "You can be other things though. Like a soldier."
Sahelia heard heavy footsteps behind the door and she and Akhmed sprung up. Akhmed moved closer to her, just before the door was shoved open and the cook emerged. He wore a sweat-stained tunic that was ripped and bulged at the belly which, coupled with the cleaver knife he clutched in a meaty fist, did not make for a pleasant sight.
"There he is," the cook grunted and took a lumbering step forward. He towered over Sahelia and her new friend. Akhmed hastily drew back against the balcony. Sahelia stepped in front of the boy.
"Leave him. The boy is under my protection," she said. The butcher's eyes flashed.
"Little girl, get out of my way!" He sneered down at her, his voice laced with contempt. "Haven't you done enough damage here, you foreign bitch? You come in here, invade our land and you disregard our laws, scorn our customs, upset our traditions! Who do you think you are?"
"I am the military governor," Sahelia struggled to keep her voice steady, as anger and frustration threatened to explode. "I am in charge here, not you or your laws."
"We have laws!" The butcher shouted in her face, the veins in his neck bulging while a nauseating waft of onion and tooth decay washed over her. "This is a sovereign country! This little rat stole from me! I am promised a hand and by God, I will take it!"
"You will take your backside out of my face!" Sahelia shouted back. Down below, the sounds of training had stopped. "I will not tell you again to leave! You don't have to like me, but you'll damn well obey me!"
The cook snorted and turned to leave. Sahelia looked back at Akhmed, who clasped his hands in a silent thank you. She gave him a tight smile. All she saw in her periphery was a sudden blur of movement as the cook swung around and pushed her against the balcony, the marble slamming into the small of her back and knocking the wind out of her. Before she could recover, she saw the flash of the cleaver knife, as it came down on Akhmed's left wrist.
Sahelia and Akhmed watched in stunned disbelief as the heavy knife passed straight through and his hand fell on the floor with a wet thump, blood spurting from the forsaken stump of his wrist. Then Akhmed uttered an hair raising scream and stumbled backwards.
The cook dropped the knife, rage replaced with a stunned expression on his face at what he'd just done. Beside her, Pathrice materialised in a smoky warp and went straight to tend to the hysterical Akhmed. Sahelia rose up, using her rage to focus her powers into a direction she had never gone before.
As she raised her hand and concentrated, the cook's breathing seemed amplified in her ears. It gradually increased in tempo until suddenly it stopped. The cook fell to his knees, his hands grasping at his throat and eyes bulging as he desperately tried to suck in air. But there was nothing. Sahelia had used her powers to suck the air right out of his lungs.
He fell on his side, wheezing. His eyes contained a silent plea, But Sahelia merely looked down at him and concentrated. The cook began convulsing on the ground, knocking over the table in his agony, until he abruptly stopped.
"My princess, I must carry him to get medical attention. Fast!" Pathrice said from her position kneeling next to the boy, who was now fading in and out of consciousness. She had ripped off the end of her blouse and had fastened it into a tourniquet around Akhmed's bloodstained arm.
"Right, right. Of course," Sahelia ran her fingers over her close-cropped hair. As Pathrice rose up struggling under the weight of the boy cradled in her arms, Sahelia put a hand on her shoulder.
"I cannot stay here," Sahelia said. "I've killed a Bremonian civilian, a palace employee. If they find out, my presence will just complicate things for you. I leave now for the Abidjan coast. And the emperor's fleet."
"You're stowing away on board his ship?" Pathrice's eyes widened in understanding. "Because there's no way he would let you travel with him."
Sahelia nodded.
"You know my reasons," Sahelia said. Pathrice acknowledged this by inclining her head. "One more thing. I'm making you commander of the Sumoso unit. Take care of the girls. And take care of this boy, if he survives. Find a place for him in the unit."
Pathrice gave a dutiful nod and with a ripple of black smoke, she and Akhmed vanished.