Beneath the Twisted Trees

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  She meant what she’d said to Mavra in the blooming fields. She would kill Husamettín if given the chance. But she wished to know certain truths before she did: how her mother, Ahya, had come to him, how she’d got into his good graces, what Husamettín had done on the night she died. Now, though, Çeda doubted she’d ever get the chance.

  “So be it,” she said to the blustering wind.

  Soon the Kings’ asirim were so near Çeda had no choice but to send their own. Go! she called to Mavra. Go, and fight for us as we will soon fight for you!

  Mavra and Sedef, Amile and Natise, Mehmet and Gevind and Lela, all broke away from the yachts and bounded to meet the oncoming wave of asirim. The sand swirled ahead of them, driving against those chained to the Kings. This was Mavra’s doing. A moment later, however, Çeda saw another asir in the opposing line who had such gifts. Several did, in fact. In mere moments, an entire swath of desert was caught up in a fog of sand and stone. It swallowed the yachts, drove hard against their sails. The cracked boom groaned under the added strain but, thank the gods, it held.

  The air became so thick the four clippers faded like memories, but it wasn’t long before they became visible once more, resolving from the golden fog. Cat’s claws were released. Twin balls of black iron twisted through a haze-filled air, a writhing chain strung between them. A half-dozen fell short of The Piteous Wagtail, but they were only ranging shots. Then one struck the Wagtail’s stern. It may have fallen harmlessly off the hull and thudded against the sand, the second one as well, but it was only a matter of time before . . .

  The third streaked in like a pair of fighting crows and wrapped around the rear strut of the starboard ski. The ship immediately started to slow as the claws raked the sand.

  “Oh, gods,” Çeda breathed. One of the Kings’s ships, Cahil’s, was turning. Çeda knew what it was going to do, and ran toward the stern, yelling, “Free it! Free it!”

  One of the Shieldwives slipped down to the skimwood runner along a rope. She navigated the ski, balancing with one hand still on the rope, until she’d made it to the strut where the cat’s claws’ chain was wrapped. She knelt and tried to pull the device free, but the iron balls at the ends had a dozen long hooks worked into them. They were designed to dig into the sand and slow a ship down. Freeing one while a ship was at speed was nearly impossible.

  The Shieldwife pulled desperately at the chain, but didn’t have the strength to free it. Another Shieldwife joined her, ready to help. All the while, Cahil’s clipper sailed on, turning easily toward the Wagtail, not slowing in the least.

  Jenise had reached Çeda’s side. Her face was veiled, but Çeda could hear the horror in her words. “They’re going to ram it.”

  Çeda had known it from the moment the clipper had peeled away from the others. The Shieldwives on the ski were straining against the cat’s claw, but it was too late. They’d just managed to pull it free when the clipper came barreling in amidships.

  The Wagtail’s portside struts buckled as the ship was driven by the massive clipper. The hull crashed against the sand and the iron caps along the clipper’s prow crushed the yacht’s hull like kindling. On its momentum bore it, driving both ships forward, splitting the Wagtail neatly in half. Before the interlocked ships had even come to a rest, the Blade Maidens were storming over the forecastle gunwales, leaping down to the deck or hull, both of which were tilted at an angle.

  While the three other clippers sailed on, Çeda struggled with whether to turn back, to try to save the women on the wounded yacht. Sümeya caught her mood. She shook her head and, when Çeda still looked to the fallen ship, reached out and gripped her wrist hard. “Your responsibility is to save the rest.”

  She was right. She was right, but gods, to leave them there . . .

  The rocks, Çeda decided. We have to reach them, and draw as many of the clippers with us as we can.

  It was soon clear, however, that her hopes were in vain. The clippers were close. Cat’s claws were flying in and a fire pot struck aft, orange flames spreading across the deck and over the side just behind the pilot’s wheel.

  Grapnels arced high, launched from the nearest of the ships, Husamettín’s. It landed across the angled forestay, slipped down until it met the deck and was pulled tight. And then Husamettín himself was leaping for the rope. With a gauntleted hand he gripped it and slid toward Wadi’s Gait.

  Çeda was already on the move, rushing across the deck, ready to slice the rope with River’s Daughter, but Husamettín had anticipated her. As the nose of his clipper drifted away, it pulled the rope tight as a bowstring. He used it to launch himself toward the yacht. He fell short of the deck and landed on the starboard ski.

  Çeda leaned over and swiped with River’s Daughter. Ebon steel rang as he blocked with Night’s Kiss, which emitted a buzzing sound as it moved. After another block, he sprinted along the ski, grabbed the gunwales, and swung himself up to deck ahead of the pilot’s wheel. Leorah was there, Nalamae’s staff in her quivering hands, but Husamettín sent her sprawling with a backhanded blow across her head.

  Sümeya met him, her blade a spinning, charcoal blur. Çeda arrived a moment later, swinging River’s Daughter aggressively but holding herself in check. Take chances with Husamettín, and she was as likely to lose her head as score a glancing blow. Across the central deck they fought, Çeda and Sümeya slipping into their old habits, their spacing, their timing, complementing one another.

  Husamettín was lithe and powerful, his blows deadly accurate. Auvrey, who’d been throwing dousing sand onto the fire, rose and charged Husamettín from behind. But the King was ready. He ducked her blow and brought his sword up in a devastating uppercut. Night’s Kiss gave a violent rattle, cutting through armor, skin, and bone like wet paper, opening her from hip to shoulder.

  Auvrey staggered, eyes wide and disbelieving, her innards just beginning to spill as she tripped over the side of the ship. Jenise’s scream came a moment later. Her grieved cry was echoed by Yildi, the asir Auvrey had bonded with, from somewhere inside the battle the asirim were waging. Jenise came storming over the deck, her shamshir in hand.

  Çeda blocked her path. “Jenise, no!”

  But Jenise refused to listen, and Husamettín used her emotions against her. After containing her initial fury of blows, he brought Night’s Kiss down with so much force that it cut clean through her shamshir. Its shattered pieces flew end over end, glinting from the sunlight filtering down through the dust. Blood welled in Jenise’s turban, a wound that would have been much worse had the strike been anything but the follow-through.

  As she crumpled to the deck, dazed, Çeda and Sümeya engaged, one to either side of him. Çeda rarely saw Sümeya overcommit herself, but Husamettín’s fearsome display was forcing her hand. When she went for a more forceful swing, Husamettín launched himself off the hatch into a high, backward leap. He arced over Sümeya’s head, blocking her riposte as he went. When he landed, he spun, ducked beneath yet another overreach by Sümeya, and snapped his leg out to catch her knee. Her leg buckled and she fell, her head striking the deck hard. Her ebon blade slipped from her lax fingers and went sliding across the deck.

  With her eyes glazed, blinking slowly, King Husamettín laid Night’s Kiss across her neck. “Drop your sword, Çedamihn.”

  As the desert wind blew, Çeda gripped River’s Daughter tightly. The deck bucked. The clippers behind her loomed. Despite her words to Sümeya earlier, that she would fight to the death, Çeda realized she couldn’t. Not after all Sümeya had done. Not after she’d become such a beacon of hope. If the First Warden could believe, then who else might?

  Çeda was just about to lay down her sword when a figure rose up behind Husamettín. The King sensed it and turned to find Leorah, standing wobbly, using Nalamae’s staff to hold herself steady on the shifting deck. Her right hand was raised high, her fingers splayed wide. And her amethyst ring . . . By the gods
who breathe, it was bright as the dawn.

  Husamettín tried to evade her touch, but Leorah was too close. Her palm fell across his face, and the King’s entire body went rigid. He groaned like a sick child and his head arched back. And his eyes . . . They were visible through Leorah’s outstretched fingers. They’d gone impossibly wide, as if he were witnessing his own death. Leorah followed him to the deck, keeping her hand on him the entire way down. He went limp as his head thumped against the deck boards.

  Leorah was trembling as she stared at the approaching ships. “He is only one.” Her breath came hard. Sweat gathered on her upper lip and her bloodless cheeks. “There are more to come.”

  Leorah was not easily cowed. She’d told Çeda many times how prepared she and Devorah were to die, that they knew they’d both received well more than their allotted time. When the lord of all things comes for me, I will take his hand gladly and walk with him to the farther fields. But now she was fragile and frightened, a woman about to see her life’s work undone before her very eyes.

  Çeda helped to rouse Sümeya and Jenise, who were woozy but conscious. Jenise returned to the wheel, while Sümeya recovered her sword. They all watched the approaching ships.

  Husamettín’s clipper sailed only a dozen paces off the starboard quarter. Another, King Sukru’s, was a mere twenty off the port. Jenise had managed to cut the boarding lines, but the ships were launching more, several of which fell across the rigging. Another fire pot crashed against the deck and the sealed companionway, spraying fire so high the foot of the mainsail caught fire. A dozen Blade Maidens were lined up along the bow of both ships, preparing to leap. Sukru himself stood at the prow, above the lion figurehead, his whip uncoiled and his small eyes hungry. Off the starboard quarter, Beşir’s clipper hounded the Red Bride, with two grapnels already secured and more flying toward it. Melis was flying over the deck, pointing and ordering the Shieldwives to defend their ship.

  At the wheel, Jenise’s face was a mask of awe and confusion. She lifted one hand and pointed off the port bow.

  Çeda turned.

  Ahead, standing among the rocks she’d spotted earlier, was the figure of a woman. She was tall and regal. Her hair plaited and hanging down her chest. “Nalamae,” Çeda whispered. “Breath of the desert, leave the wheel!” she shouted to Jenise. “Cut the boarding lines! We must reach her!”

  Çeda and Sümeya ran aftward, cutting the grapnel lines thrown from the Kings’ ships. Jenise tied the wheel in place and joined them. But more grapnels were already flying in. One was so high up it caught against the mainmast, and there was no hope of reaching it quickly.

  Sukru, smiling, cracked his whip over the gunwales, catching Jenise across the shoulder in a bright burst of blood. But just then a disturbance arose behind the Reaping King. An asir, Sedef, crashed into the Blade Maidens and tore into the King. In a blink Sukru was lifted and thrown over the side of his own ship. Down he tumbled, cawing like a crow in his surprise. Before he struck the sand, he twisted and lashed a shroud line aboard the clipper with a miraculous flick of his whip.

  As he swung aftward to safety, Sedef, bound onto the gunwales and leapt high through the air toward Wadi’s Gait. He reached the last grapnel line as the Maidens’ arrows harried him. Several struck deep into his back and thighs as he grabbed hold of the line and pulled, his thin muscles going taut.

  The rope snapped like thread, and Sedef fell down toward the deck as Wadi’s Gait sailed on, the boom creaking, the rocks coming ever closer. Leorah’s staff thumped over the deck as she made her way to the starboard bow. Nalamae stood just ahead, her hands high, palms facing the oncoming ships. As the ship bumped over a patch of rocky ground, Leorah reached the gunwales and flung the staff over the side.

  Nalamae caught it in both hands. As the yacht sped past her, she brought the butt down against the stone.

  A sound like the breaking of the earth rent the hot summer air. The yacht lurched, the aft end lifting off the sand, throwing everyone to the deck. Çeda spun about, staring in wonder as the ship sailed on and Nalamae’s tall form dwindled into the distance.

  The rock shelf around Nalamae exploded outward as if Iri himself had brought down his fist. The effect was terrible in its power, and much more pronounced in the direction of the Kings’ ships. The earth lifted in an almighty burst of sand and stone that sent both clippers reeling, heeling, masts tilting, the desert itself driving against their hulls. As a cloud of amber towered in the sky, the port ski of Sukru’s clipper gave way. It capsized, dark-clothed bodies flew from the ship like an overturned fig cart. Husamettín’s ship righted itself, then came crashing down hard and turned sharply starboard, heeling away from the yacht’s line of sail.

  Wadi’s Gait and the Red Bride were hardly touched, but the wave struck Beşir’s clipper hard. Sails were ripped away, split along their seams or snapping the rigging and leaving them flapping in the wind. Buffeted by the wind, the ship slid over the sand, then slowed precipitously, its skis sinking deep like wagon wheels in mud.

  A dozen asirim, including Mavra, Amile, and others from her clan, came bounding out of the cloud, chasing Wadi’s Gait. Arrows rained toward Nalamae from the Blade Maidens aboard Husamettín’s clipper, but Nalamae, holding her staff tight against the ochre stone beneath her, was beginning to crack and splinter, bits of her crumbling and falling away as if she were terra-cotta, not flesh and blood.

  Near Çeda, sand began to swirl over the deck. It tightened into a spinning column, then flaked away in clumps, leaving Nalamae standing there, whole once more. Her eyes were closed, one ear pressed to her staff as if she were listening closely to the mood of the desert. In that moment, Çeda felt something atop the sealed companionway. She knew before she turned who it was—she’d felt him use his power in the blooming fields.

  There, bow drawn, stood Beşir, half-shadowed by the drape of the foresail.

  “No!” Çeda cried, lifting River’s Daughter as the arrow was released.

  She felt her blade nick the arrow, but it wasn’t enough. The shaft sunk deep into the center of Nalamae’s chest. Çeda charged Beşir as she lifted River’s Daughter high. Beşir’s eyes went wide. He started to retreat, but Çeda was already there, bringing her shamshir across his body.

  It sliced deep, and he fell backward. The speed of his withdrawal carried him over the gunwales at the rear. Çeda sprinted aft, ready to leap down and kill him where he fell, but as she stared at the sand along the wake of Wadi’s Gait, he was nowhere to be found.

  Chapter 19

  THE DAY AFTER the failed council with Shaikh Neylana and Shaikh Dayan, Emre went to the circle of Halarijan ships and asked to speak with Dayan alone. He was allowed, and soon found himself with the shaikh in the captain’s cabin of his ship.

  “Please,” Dayan said, motioning to the opulent chair opposite him. Emre sat and arranged himself. Before sitting, Dayan poured two stiff helpings of araq from a bottle with a distinctive oval shape. It was from tribe Tulogal, and was a liquor most would use only for the most special of occasions. Emre took it, raised the citrine liquor in a gesture of good health, and took a healthy swallow. Dayan followed suit, though he savored the liquor much more than Emre had. “Now, tell me how I can help before you go to meet with the King of Malasan.”

  “I won’t waste your time stomping around the rabbit’s den. I’m here because I think you’re making a mistake.”

  “Is that what you told Neylana when you met with her this morning?”

  “Yes,” Emre replied.

  “And what was her response?”

  “Somewhat less favorable than I’m hoping yours will be.”

  Dayan laughed, an honest sound that spread throughout the cabin. “I’m guessing she wasn’t so generous with her liquor either.”

  “She was not.” Emre liked this man, with his bright clothes and brighter smiles, but he did have the annoying habit of rubbing one�
�s nose in his generosity. “I’m not going to meet with the King of Malasan for my own sake, but for my tribe’s. And you must see that I won’t be representing Khiyanat only, but the whole of the desert people.”

  “It’s brazen, don’t you think, to claim to wield so much influence?”

  “It’s the truth,” Emre shot back. “Whatever the king and I discuss will set the tone for his dealings with other tribes.” Emre stared into the liquor, savoring the scents of anise and sweetgrass and slightly burnt naan. “There was a time when I would have died before speaking to a Malasani as an equal.”

  “Your brother, Rafa, yes?”

  Emre shouldn’t have been surprised Dayan knew of his brother. He was a careful man, and would have made inquiries. “Rafa was murdered by a man named Saadet ibn Sim over something I did. A stolen purse, nicked from Saadet’s belt on the night of Beht Revahl. He took my brother’s life over a handful coins, and made me watch as he did it. That night I swore I would see the desert rid of the Malasani’s taint.”

  “A tall order.”

  Emre shrugged. “There were rather more of them than I’d realized.”

  Dayan chuckled, nodding in a way that made it clear he shared in Emre’s pain. “And then there was Haddad.”

  “Yes,” Emre admitted, “crossing paths with Haddad was an unexpected surprise. She’s enchanting, dangerously so, but she isn’t the reason my hatred for the Malasani has cooled.”

  “I’ve a feeling we’ve reached the point of our discussion.”

  Emre sipped his araq while, outside the ship, there came the rhythmic clanking of a windlass being wound, a reminder of how close Dayan’s fleet was to setting sail. “Before I fled the city with Macide, I’d hardly been out of Sharakhai for more than a day at a time. I knew—still know—little of the ways of the desert. But what I saw in the forming of the thirteenth tribe changed me. I sat by fires and traded stories. I stood beneath an open sky, unconfined by city streets. I listened to the rattle of sand as the ceaseless winds drove it.”