A Desert Torn Asunder

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  Ihsan shook his head no and held Ransaneh against his chest.

  After another noisy sip, Ibrahim regarded Ihsan. “Now, you were saying?”

  “I was speaking of my dream”—Ihsan rocked slowly back and forth—“my visitation with Rhia.” They’d started the conversation earlier, but Ibrahim had insisted that he couldn’t think straight without his second cup.

  “Yes,” Ibrahim said. “My apologies. Do go on.”

  “Rhia and I spoke of Meryam and how she’s using Ashael. I told her I was prepared to take the helm, to finish what Meryam had started.”

  “And what made you think she would let you?”

  Ihsan shrugged while rubbing his daughter’s back. “That isn’t the point.” Ransaneh released a wet burp. “When I offered, she said, ‘Dost thou think thyself ready to wield the key to dreaming?’ ”

  “The key to dreaming . . .” Ibrahim’s eyes were narrowed, his cup of kahve poised halfway to his mouth. “She was referring to the powder from Goezhen’s horn, yes?”

  Ihsan nodded. “I’ve heard the phrase before, but I can’t put my finger on where.”

  Ibrahim frowned. The moments that followed saw his bushy eyebrows creep toward one another like fellow conspirators. “Keys are for locks,” he finally said.

  “And locks are on doors. The question is: the door to what?” Ihsan paused, frustrated at his inability to solve the riddle. “Rhia gave us something she didn’t mean to. I’m sure of it.”

  Hunched over his cup of kahve, Ibrahim was like a granite statue—all save his eyes, which roamed ceaselessly. Suddenly his eyes lit and he stared intently at Ihsan. “Locks are also for gates.”

  Ihsan paused, trying and failing to understand. “And?”

  “ ‘Ivory is the key to the wakeful mind,’ ” Ibrahim intoned, “ ‘horn the key to dreaming.’ It’s from the Al’Ambra, part of a passage that speaks of the two gates the first gods used to step through to reach this world.”

  “That’s all well and good, but our concern is over the next world.” Ihsan adjusted Ransaneh, who was getting fussy. “Does the Al’Ambra mention their leaving?”

  “Of course,” Ibrahim said.

  “. . . Through similar gates?”

  “There are passages that speak of the elder gods’ feelings that they’d done all they could in this world, that it was time they let their creations stand on their own. There are others that speak of the elders’ visitations with the young gods, who were predictably upset. There are more still that speak of their final gathering before the great exodus.” He shrugged. “None that I recall gives specifics about their passage to the next world. Only that the day was ‘the fairest the world had yet seen.’ ”

  Ihsan scoffed. “Yes, that always seemed a bit much.”

  Ibrahim finished his kahve, dregs and all, and smiled. “Call it poetic license.”

  Ihsan’s thoughts drifted back to his conversation with Rhia. “The goddess and I spoke of dreams and waking. She said Meryam had walked the ways of the slumbering mind, while I’d always been rooted in reality, implying I couldn’t control Ashael as well as Meryam could.”

  “We all have our strengths,” Ibrahim said.

  At those words, Ihsan sat bolt upright, startling Ransaneh. He felt like he’d been struck by lightning. The notion of everyone having their strengths put the two halves of this strange equation—dreams and waking—into stark relief. “Ashael is dreaming—”

  Ibrahim’s eyes narrowed. “We already knew that.”

  “—and ivory is the key to the wakeful mind.”

  Ibrahim was clearly confused, but then his eyes lit up. “Ivory . . .”

  “Rhia fears Ashael’s waking,” Ihsan said. “If we could awaken him—”

  “Dust ahead!” bellowed Yndris from the deck above.

  A cold fear washed over Ihsan. Dust ahead was the telltale signs of a fleet of some sort, the ships not yet over the horizon. They were currently southeast of Sharakhai, far from the traditional shipping lanes. No ships would normally sail there, none but pirates, but even pirates knew that stretch of desert was occupied by the remains of Sharakhai’s fleet, the royal navy. They’d been steering clear of it for months.

  Yndris had spotted the royal navy, Ihsan was sure of it. Except they weren’t meant to be sailing, not unless they had to.

  After calling for Ransaneh’s wet nurse, Ihsan and Ibrahim rushed from the cabin. By the time they reached the foredeck, Nayyan was already there. Yndris stood near the bowsprit, a spyglass to one eye.

  “There’s a battle underway,” Yndris said, confirming Ihsan’s fears.

  Nayyan took the spyglass from Yndris and peered through it at the cloud of dust along the horizon. Within it, Ihsan could barely discern the dark hulls, the lighter shapes of sails.

  The looks of the crew turned flinty. This was something everyone had feared, the day Mirea and Malasan finally managed to pin down the royal navy.

  “Ready ballistae,” Nayyan called, handing the spyglass to Ihsan. “Load catapults with firepots. Have cat’s claws at the ready.”

  “Aye!” called the crew.

  Peering through the spyglass, Ihsan saw dozens of royal galleons spread out in a long line. Behind them were taller ships, Queen Alansal’s dunebreakers. Even from this distance they looked fearsome. They couldn’t match the pace of the galleons, but they didn’t have to. The fleet was being harried by what looked to be hundreds of smaller ships—the junks and dhows that made up the bulk of the Malasani fleet.

  As the Miscreant sailed on, a horrifying pattern took shape. Time and again, one of the royal navy’s ships would be slowed enough—by cat’s claws or by damage inflicted against their rigging or sails—that one of the dunebreakers would catch up to them. Grappling lines would snake out from the dunebreakers to fall against the galleons’ rigging. A few ships escaped when their crews managed to cut the lines. But more often than not the ships would be drawn inexorably toward the dunebreakers.

  The Mirean crews aboard the towering ships outnumbered those on the galleons three-to-one. They would swarm across the decks of the Sharakhani ships, subduing them in little time.

  “Dear gods,” Ibrahim said. “It’s going to be a slaughter.”

  For weeks the royal navy had been hiding in bays sprinkled throughout the nearby hills. Some had been found, but King Husamettín had been defending against such attacks for centuries. He used the galleons’ maneuverability to great effect, sometimes to flee but as often to spring a trap, turning the tables on their foes.

  The enemy had never sailed in such numbers, though. Somehow they’d been able to find the fleet and fall on them unawares.

  As the Sharakhani galleons approached, Ihsan used the spyglass to survey the pennants along their mainmasts. “There!” he said, and pointed along the windward wing of the navy’s long line.

  It was the Bastion, Husamettín’s capital ship. It was an impressive craft, but dozens of Malasani ships were approaching it. Some were already harrying the galleons along its wings. Several of the enemy ships were soon engulfed in flames as the Bastion and other nearby galleons counterattacked, but for the most part the Malasani ships brought the fires under control quickly. Those that didn’t simply drifted from the pack and were replaced by others. It was only a matter of time before the rightmost wing of the navy’s fleet succumbed.

  “We sail for the Bastion,” Ihsan called.

  “Aye!” called the ship’s helmsman.

  Nearby, Ibrahim gripped a shroud for balance. His knuckles were white, his brow furrowed. His throat convulsed over and over as he took in the harrowing spectacle before him. The reaction was one Ihsan had seen a thousand times before: a man of peace being confronted with war for the first time.

  “Why don’t you go belowdecks?” Ihsan said to him.

  Ibrahim blinked. Looked about the s
hip and all the preparations being made. “I would stay,” he said at last, “see it with my own eyes.”

  Ihsan considered ordering him to retire, but then shrugged. “Just don’t get in the way.”

  The distance between the Miscreant and the approaching fleets narrowed. The battle beyond the royal navy’s front line intensified. More and more ships became locked in battle as they succumbed to the steady rain of cat’s claws or the harassment of the Malasani ships. The bulk of Sharakhai’s royal navy was still on the move, but it wouldn’t be long before the entire fleet was embroiled in battle.

  But the navy was far from toothless. The galleons were filled with seasoned Blade Maidens and Silver Spears. When the smaller Malasani ships became locked with theirs, the Sharakhani forces would sweep across the decks, slaying dozens in moments. They’d cut the lines tying the ships to one another, clear their galleon’s skis of cat’s claws, and sail on.

  The tactic cost the Malasani dearly, but the goal wasn’t to overwhelm the royal navy. It was to slow them down enough that the dunebreakers could catch up. As Ihsan watched, three dunebreakers drew even with a pair of hobbled galleons. Mirean soldiers in blue uniforms swarmed over the gunwales and dropped down onto the galleons’ decks. The first to board were felled in moments, but the Mirean soldiers were just so numerous. In the time it took for the Miscreant to sail another half-league, both galleons had fallen to the enemy.

  “What do we do?” Nayyan asked.

  Ihsan had been asking the very same question. What should they do? Adding the Miscreant’s meager strength to the royal navy’s would make little difference in the battle’s outcome. Ihsan would likely have ordered them in anyway, but there were Meryam and Ashael to consider. The gateway on Tauriyat was on the brink of opening wide. Should he and Nayyan risk Sharakhai in the slim hope that the Miscreant might save one or two ships?

  Before he could come to a decision, he noticed something strange. “The Malasani ships,” he said to Nayyan. “They’re breaking.”

  Indeed, to either side of the royal fleet, the smaller Malasani ships were beginning to peel away.

  “But why?” Nayyan asked.

  “They’re preparing for something.”

  No sooner had he said the words than he caught movement along the dunes ahead. The sand was mounding. Soldiers were rising up, throwing aside the amber tarps that had hidden them. Bloody gods, the number of them. More and more stood from their hiding places until there was a line an eighth-league long, then a quarter-league. They were pulling iron beams from the sand and assembling them, leaning them against one another, interlocking them to form a barricade, which would foul the skis of any ship that had the misfortune of running across them. Breath of the desert, the barricades were stout enough that they might shatter the oncoming galleons’ struts.

  “Queen Alansal laid a trap,” Ihsan said breathlessly. “She knew they would come this way.”

  Nayyan swept her gaze across the line. “Dear gods.”

  The urge to flee was becoming overpowering. What could they do against so many? The rear of the fleet was being picked off, one by one. And the barricades had been erected so quickly, the vanguard no longer had room to maneuver around them. The navy had only two choices: ram the barricades or drop their rakes and stop. Either decision would be disastrous.

  Retreat, a voice inside Ihsan said. Live to fight another day.

  But if the navy was destroyed, they stood no chance of stopping Meryam and Ashael at all. He knew he risked much with decision he was slowly coming to, but he refused to leave so many to die.

  “Make for the center of the line!” he called to the helmsman.

  “Ihsan,” Nayyan said with a hand on his wrist.

  He ignored her. “Sail hard,” he said to the crew, “sail smartly, and prepare to turn along the line of barricades!”

  For the briefest of moments, looks were exchanged among the crew. Then a grim look overcame them, and the Miscreant’s heading shifted toward the Bastion.

  “You’re sure you want to do this?” Nayyan asked as she squeezed Ihsan’s hand.

  It was no lack of bravery that spurred her to say it, but rather the instincts of a mother. Their daughter was aboard the ship. Ihsan’s decision risked not only their lives, but hers as well.

  Ihsan squeezed her hand back. “I’m sure.”

  Nayyan nodded, and Ihsan called for Yndris to bring him a bow and quiver. When she complied, Ihsan accepted the bow, but took only one arrow from the quiver. Yndris stared at him quizzically.

  “One will do,” Ihsan said with a wry smile.

  “Do we turn, my Lord King?” the helmsman asked. The Miscreant was coming closer and closer to the barricades.

  “Not yet,” Ihsan called, “but be ready.”

  They neared the line of barricades. They were a quarter-league away, then an eighth. Soon it would be too late to avoid them.

  “My Lord King?” called the helmsman.

  “Hold . . .” He gripped the bow and nocked his lone arrow. “Hold . . .” When he sensed they had no more room to maneuver, he shouted, “Now!”

  The helmsman and the ship’s first mate cranked the wheel. The Miscreant turned sharply starboard, groaning as the skis and hull fought the wind and the ship’s momentum. The crew moved quickly, shifting the lines attached to the booms to better catch the southerly wind.

  Ihsan stood along the port bow. As the Mirean soldiers on the sand began launching arrows, he drew his bow, aimed, and let fly. As the arrow arced through the air, Ihsan summoned the power of his voice. Pain came with it, but he ignored it, gathering every ounce of power he could.

  His arrow struck the sand near the barricades. As the enemy’s arrows streaked in against the Miscreant, Ihsan cupped his hands to his mouth. “Clear the way!” he shouted in Mirean. “Disassemble all barricades around that arrow!”

  A beat passed, then two—the soldiers struggling with a sudden compulsion to obey.

  Then all the soldiers within earshot dropped their weapons and ran toward the nearest barricades. The Miscreant curved, narrowly missing the barricades themselves. The Mirean soldiers, meanwhile, pitched themselves into pulling the barricades apart, dragging them out of the vanguard’s path.

  By then the Miscreant was close enough to hear orders being called on the Bastion. King Husamettín’s voice boomed. Ihsan saw him standing on the foredeck in his black armor, calling orders to the Bastion’s helmsman. Bells rang in sequence, sending orders to other ships, which closed the gaps between them, a few coming so close the hulls butted up against one another. Their booms reached beyond the gunwales of neighboring ships, creating all sorts of hazards. Some ships slipped behind others in hopes of skirting the barricades that had yet to be broken down and dragged away.

  Like a school of fish navigating a channel in a raging river, the vanguard passed though the gap. The ships were too numerous, however, to avoid the hazard entirely. Those at the edges ran afoul of the barricades. Their wooden skis crashed against the stout metal. In some cases, the struts held and the ship sailed on, but the barricades acted like cat’s claws, slowing the ships precipitously, causing the ships trailing them to crash into their sterns.

  The struts of some ships were compromised entirely. One such galleon listed port, then curved sharply as the struts’ shattered remains gouged the sand. Another dipped prow-first into a dune, spraying sand in two great fans.

  The Bastion sailed through and curved so that its path would eventually coincide with the Miscreant’s. Other ships followed. More than a score had made it through, but that was a poor number considering they’d started with over two hundred.

  The other ships were either besieged, had run aground, or were trapped in the net created by the long line of barricades. The Mirean dunebreakers, meanwhile, sailed ever closer. Some were engaging the galleons that had fallen victim to the Malasani ships’ delayi
ng tactics. Others were closing in on the grounded ships.

  Worse, the Miscreant, Bastion, and other ships that had made it through were still not in the clear. Knowing about the trap ahead of time, the Malasani fleet had split in two. Each group steered wide of the barricades to catch any of the Sharakhani ships that managed to slip the noose.

  As the Miscreant came in line with the Bastion, Husamettín stood at the gunwales, a dozen Blade Maidens behind him. “Impeccable timing,” he bellowed, “almost as if you’d planned it.”

  “Believe me,” Ihsan replied, “there are safer ways to paint oneself the hero.”

  Husamettín smiled grimly. He used his two-handed shamshir, Night’s Kiss, to point toward the ships that hadn’t made it through. “We’re going back for them.”

  Ihsan tipped his head. “I thought you might”

  Husamettín seemed surprised. “And I thought you’d argue.”

  “Here, at the end, I see the reality as well as anyone. If we fall, Sharakhai falls.”

  Husamettín didn’t seem convinced of his sincerity, but apparently decided it didn’t matter. “Follow our lead,” he said, and began calling crisp orders to his crew.

  In her planning, Queen Alansal had made a critical error. Her trap required that the Malasani fleet split in two, in order to pass around the barricades. It left the nearest wing of the Malasani fleet vulnerable.

  The Bastion, the Miscreant, and the trailing galleons descended on them with a vengeance. They launched a fusillade of fire pots, sent cat’s claws twisting through the air. Some of the royal galleons were capped with battering rams, which they used to great effect, crashing into the smaller Malasani dhows, shattering their skis and sundering their hulls.

  Other enemy ships were caught with grappling lines. A storm of arrows decimated the enemy as capstans drew the ships closer to one another. When they were near enough to board, Silver Spears and Blade Maidens stormed over the gunwales and slaughtered the enemy’s crews.