Shas'o by Andy Chambers

Author:Andy Chambers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2015-09-22T12:56:21+00:00

‘A tau chooses neither its caste nor its true name. We are blood born to the first and borne by blood to the second, named for what we have done and might yet do. And like ourselves, our true names are not carved in stone.’

– The Tau’va

The warrior crouches in darkness, eyes locked on the softly glowing lenses of the helmet in its hands. Remembering. Seeking a name.

When I completed my training and stepped onto the Path of Fire I was summoned before the academy commander alongside my fellow shas’saal cadets for the Naming. Who better to decipher a warrior’s true name than the master who has honed that living weapon? While others were honoured for their endurance, or agility, or precision with arms, I was named for my skill in reading the hearts of my comrades: J’kaara, ‘the mirror’.

‘You have been their shining core,’ he said. ‘You recognise and draw on their strength, reflecting it back threefold.’

He predicted a path of leadership, confirming what I already knew, that I was first amongst equals. Yes, there was pride, but it was hard earned, for though there is no prejudice against females under the Tau’va, few of us burn brightly on the Fire Path. I dreamt I would eclipse Shadowsun herself.

She frowns at the memory – the arrogance of impossible youth past and the price that will never pass. Sighing, she strokes her helmet with calloused fingers. It has been with her since her first, all too sweet, taste of war.

A new-forged shas’la, I embarked on my first campaign alight with a conviction that did not flicker in the cold winds of war. Our enemy was the bhe’ghaal, a race of green-skinned beasts that infested vast tracts of the galaxy and made frequent raids into tau territory. They were a brutal, ugly species that lived for war, yet made a mockery of the craft, fighting in mobs that swept about the battlefield intoxicated by their own fury. We spun circles of death around them, luring them into one trap after another, decimating them from a distance with firepower they couldn’t hope to match, then falling back before they overran us with sheer numbers.

It was a flawless execution of kauyon that confirmed the tau mastery of war… and my own mastery of hearts, for though I did not lead by rank, my comrades followed me regardless, inspired by my example and my words. Indeed, words flowed so freely for me that our shas’ui joked that I must be a waterborn changeling!

I was beyond fear or doubt, certain of my place in the perfect geometry of the Tau’va – untouchable. And when the shas’ui fell, none were surprised that I was chosen to take his place. A veteran in my youth, I believed myself a hero. I was too young to understand that easy victories have no heroes.

She shivers as her fingers find the scar. Abhorrent. Reverent. She traces the shallow fault line from the helmet’s crown to the chin. It is a mere ghost of the rift that was once there, but its truth is undiminished.

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