Behind us, shouts of alarm came as the assassin appeared above us; and I lost my grip on the twilight.
The fellow before us gave a hoarse cry of surprise, plucking a pair of short-handled battle-axes from his belt.
Bao shouldered past me. “The Rani, Moirin!” he shouted. “Get the other one! He’s after Amrita!”
I whirled and took aim, but the fellow was already in motion, racing along the top of the deep crevasse, sure-footed and swift. He had a row of silver quoits like razor-edged bangles along one arm, plucking them free with his other hand and hurling them with deadly force as he ran. Cries of agony arose in his wake.
I shot at him and missed; and by the time I had a second arrow nocked, he was around the hairpin turn, the high walls blocking him from me. With fifty men between me and my lady Amrita, there was nothing further I could do to protect her.
Sick with fear, I turned back, only to find Bao faring poorly in his battle.
Like the archer, the axe-man had picked his spot well. The path was too narrow here for Bao to wield his long bamboo staff effectively, forcing him to parry with awkward diagonal moves, essaying cautious jabs and retreating step by step.
And step by step, the assassin advanced, the narrow space suited to his short-handled weapons, which he wielded with fearful ease, describing complex patterns in the air as they crossed and uncrossed, spun and slashed. A death’s-head grin stretched his lips from his teeth, and there was a manic gleam in his eyes.
Although I had an arrow nocked, with Bao between us, I couldn’t shoot the fellow, either.
“Moirin!” Bao yelled. “Call your magic!”
There was too much shouting, too much fear, too much chaos altogether. I tried and found I couldn’t do it, couldn’t summon the concentration.
“I can’t!” I yelled back at him, furious and helpless. In a surge of desperate inspiration, I switched to the Shuntian scholars’ tongue. “Bao, when I count to three, duck!”
He gave a sharp nod.
I counted. “One… two… three!”
Bao dropped like a stone into a deep crouch, ducking his head and raising his staff at a steep angle above it in a last effort to ward off the descending battle-axes. The assassin’s eyes shone.
Aiming high, I loosed my bow.
The arrow caught the fellow in the throat, piercing it clean through. He staggered backward, the battle-axes falling forgotten from his hands, which rose to feel at the feathered shaft. His face softened into that bewildered look that comes when death takes a man unaware, and he sat down hard on the trail, his breath gurgling wetly in his throat.
Once again, I swallowed against a rising tide of bile.
Bao was on his feet, bending over the fellow. I looked away as he ripped the arrow free from his throat.
The sound the man made as he died was dreadful.
Bao met my gaze. “The Rani?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
Word travelled up and down the long, twisting line of our company. One man was dead, and a half dozen more seriously injured. The Rani Amrita was alive and safe. Hasan Dar had protected her with his own body, throwing himself from the saddle. He had suffered a grievous injury in the process, one of the razor-edged quoits lodged between his ribs.
He might live—or not.
The second assassin was dead, brought down at last by our own archers. Four down altogether; five left to go, plus the Falconer.
Kurugiri was still awaiting us.
“Moirin.” Bao touched my arm. “Can you continue?”
I gazed at the corpse of the axe-wielding assassin, remembering a story the trader Dorje had told me. “I think I’ve heard of this one, or at least one like him,” I murmured. “I think he stole a Tufani yak-herder’s daughter and slaughtered her family. Does that tale sound familiar to you?”
“Yes,” he said quietly. “It does.”
“I thought so.” I remembered the weight of the prayer-urns as I turned them outside the temple of Sakyamuni in Rasa, the light touch of the boy-monk’s slender fingers on my tear-stained cheeks as he sought to comfort me, the dense, fragrant scent of incense all around us. His face blurred in my memory with Ravindra’s, with the boy Dash from the caravan; his fingers blurred in memory with the image of my lady Amrita’s graceful hands forming a mudra, with Sameera’s severed fingers discarded on the storeroom floor.
Kamadeva’s diamond sang to me.
I shook my head, willing it clear. I could continue because I had to continue.
“Moirin?” Bao nudged me.
“Aye?”
He flashed his incorrigible grin. “Marry me if we live through this?”
My heart gave an unexpected jolt, but I managed to raise my brows at him. “You already have a wife, my Tatar prince.”
“Nah.” Bao’s grin widened. “The Great Khan dissolved our union. So?”
“Oh, fine!” I took a deep breath, drawing the twilight into my lungs, spinning it softly around us both, finding new reserves of strength. “Yes.”
Bao kissed me. “Good.”
SEVENTY-ONE
Hours later, we gained the summit.
There had been no further assassins awaiting us in the maze, and none awaited us atop the peak of Kurugiri. Only the fortress itself, stark, solid, and forbidding.
One by one by one, members of our company straggled out of the narrow paths—or at least most of us. One dead, another half dozen injured, Hasan Dar among them. We had been forced to leave them behind, swaddled in blankets against the cold.
I dismounted and found my lady Amrita surrounded by anxious guards, and embraced her with relief. “You’re well?”
She shivered. “Well enough, young goddess. Hasan—”
“I know,” I said. “I pray he survives.”
Amrita laid one ice-cold hand against my cheek, shuddering uncontrollably in the thin air. “Let us make an end to this, shall we?”
I nodded. “Yes, my lady.”
“Moirin has agreed to wed me if we survive,” Bao informed her.
Despite everything, it made her smile, made her tired, lustrous eyes sparkle with gladness. “Well, then, we shall have to make sure of it, eh? All this effort and sacrifice must not be made in vain.”
The sun was beginning to sink low in the west, streaking the horizon in tones of gold and saffron. The snow-topped mountain peaks glowed. In the valleys and deep crevasses, the shadows of night were already gathering. Taking the place of his injured commander, Pradeep rallied his troops, assigning them their duties.
The men who had worked so hard to carry the battering ram up the twisting maze gave way gratefully to a fresh crew of guards. The new men wrapped the ropes that bound it around their hands, taking firm stances. On a count of three, they surged forward, swinging the bronze-capped ram.
The sound boomed and echoed over the peaks; but the tall wooden doors held.
“Again!” Pradeep called.
Again and again, they assailed the entrance, until the doors began to bow inward, the bar that held them shut straining. At last, the bar gave way altogether with a creaking, splintery groan, and the doors crashed open. The fellows manning the battering ram backed away hastily, but no one emerged. Although the place seemed almost deserted, the flicker of lamplight within its walls told us otherwise.
Somewhere in the depths of Kurugiri, Kamadeva’s diamond called to me.
Cloaked in the twilight, Bao and I made a careful survey of the entryway and found it empty. “Can you sense them?” he asked me.
I shook my head. “It doesn’t work as well in man-made places. But I know where Kamadeva’s diamond is.” I pointed. “That way.”
“The throne room,” Bao said with satisfaction. “I was right.”
My skin was beginning to feel warm, the call of the diamond like a caress. “Where are all the others? Surely there must be servants.”
“Hiding,” he said briefly. “And like as not praying we succeed.”
We re
turned to report to Pradeep that the way was clear, and our apprehensive company filed through the doors.
The plan was to have had Hasan Dar and two dozen of his best fighters lead the attack on the Falconer and his assassins, while Pradeep led the rest in rescuing the women and children of the harem. In Hasan Dar’s absence, Bao volunteered to lead the attack on the throne room, and Pradeep readily agreed to let him, not even bothering to hide his relief.
With that, our company divided.
Making our way through the empty fortress was a frightening process, all of us jumping at shadows. Even though I held myself and my lady Amrita wrapped in the twilight, I was tense and fearful. Bao was right, Kurugiri was a strange place. The architecture was plain and utilitarian, but everywhere, opulence gleamed. There were gilded braziers and lamps that burned silvery in the twilight, gorgeous woven hangings on every wall, the spoils of generations’ worth of tribute—and later, outright theft.
I didn’t like it, not one bit. Every wilderness-born instinct I possessed was telling me to turn and flee, that this was a bad man-made place made by bad men. And at the same time, Kamadeva’s diamond was setting my blood to beating hard in my veins, setting Naamah’s gift stirring in me. For once, it didn’t feel like a flock of doves taking flight. Ravens, mayhap—ravens with sharp-edged wings and cruel beaks, ready to pick me apart.
“Moirin?” Amrita took my hand in concern.
It helped, and I squeezed hers in reply. “We are close, my lady. Very close.”
Outside another set of tall doors, Bao gestured silently for everyone to halt. “Is she here, Moirin?” he asked in a low tone.
I stared at the doors. I could almost see Kamadeva’s diamond through them, nestled below the hollow of Jagrati’s long throat. “Yes. Oh, yes.”
Bao laid one hand on the latch. “There is no lock on these doors. Are you ready?”
I shook my head, then nodded; then remembered Bao couldn’t see me. Releasing Amrita’s hand, I unslung my bow from my shoulder and nocked an arrow. “Are you ready, my lady Amrita?”
Her face was resolute. “Yes.”
“We are ready,” I informed Bao.
He turned the latch, shoved the door open with the butt-end of his staff, and jumped backward, cat-quick, his staff at the ready. The door swung inward silently, revealing the throne room.
And Kamadeva’s diamond.
Now I could see it glimmering on the far side of the room; and for a moment, it and Jagrati were all I could see. The strikingly gaunt, high-boned face that had haunted my thoughts, her dark skin gleaming in the twilight. The diamond pulsing at her throat, beating in time with her blood, beating in time with my blood. Even in the twilight, the black diamond made from a god’s ashes glowed with dark, shifting, blood-red fire.
I took an involuntary step forward, lowering my bow.
“No, Moirin!” Deftly, Amrita slipped past me, turning her back on the Spider Queen and raising her hands in a mudra to focus the will. “Be strong, dear one!”
No one could hear us in the twilight unless we willed it. I met her gaze and nodded, lifting my bow once more. “Aye, my lady.”
It was strange, so very strange, stealing into the throne room, coming upon that unholy tableau unseen. They were waiting for us, they were all waiting for us, gazing fixedly at the open doorway. There was one throne and Jagrati sat in it, her long fingers curled into armrests carved in the shape of roaring tigers. Four men were arrayed before her with weapons drawn, the Falconer Tarik Khaga among them.
Two others lurked on either side of the doorway, bristling with more weapons. We were close enough that I could hear them breathing.
“Bao?” I called, willing him to hear me. “Assassins waiting to ambush you on both sides of the door.”
He didn’t answer.
I hoped he had heard me.
Small and fearless, my lady Amrita advanced through the twilight, past the lurking killers, all the way to the foot of the throne. I followed her.
It took every ounce of concentration I had to expand the twilight and spin it around Jagrati, but I did it.
Her head jerked up in surprise as the world dimmed around her, her face contorting with fury. “You! What have you done?”
Behind me, there was shouting. Later, I would learn that Bao had indeed heard my warning, had come through the doorway in a low, diving somersault that took him past the lurking killers and came up fighting, the others crowding behind him.
Now, all I knew was that the battle was engaged, Tarik Khaga and his deadly falcons rushing to join it.
I wanted to look, but I couldn’t. I looked past the Spider Queen instead, keeping my arrow trained in her general direction. “No one but the Rani Amrita and I can see you, Jagrati. Give Kamadeva’s diamond to her, or I will kill you.”
She laughed.
A low sound, a sound at once soft and harsh. I felt it in the pit of my belly. Ravens fluttering. “No,” Jagrati said fondly in her silken rasp of a voice. “No, my oh so pretty dakini, I do not think so.” She rose from the throne, moving with that angular grace, Kamadeva’s diamond glowing at her throat. “Come, put down your bow, young Moirin. Do not threaten me. It is not who you are. You were made for pleasure, not killing.”
It was true; so true! With a sigh of relief, I lowered my bow.
Jagrati smiled. “Well done, child! Now release your magic.”
I wanted to obey her.
“Moirin, no!” Amrita’s voice rang out. She positioned herself deftly between us, her hands rising in a warding mudra. “Do not listen to her; do not look at her! Look at me, and hold fast to all you love!”
I raised my bow, blinking hard.
I held the twilight.
Jagrati hissed through her teeth, pacing with ferocious elegance. “Little Rani,” she said in a guttural purr. “Do you know, you are everything I hate in this world?”
“The world has not been kind to you,” my lady Amrita said steadily, her hands unwavering. “And I am sorry for it. I listened to the words you said before, and I will seek to be mindful of them in pursuit of the truth. But that does not excuse your cruelty.”
“Pious mush-mouthed creature!” Jagrati reached for her, then recoiled with another hiss. “Look at you.” Her voice dripped with contempt. “So brave, little daughter of the warrior caste; so proud to be doing her duty, so sanctimonious in her self-righteousness.”
It made me angry.
“My lady Amrita is none of those things save brave, Jagrati,” I said fiercely. “Do not project your own darkness on her.”
Jagrati’s glittering gaze settled on me, bringing the full force of Kamadeva’s diamond to bear. My blood thundered in my ears, throbbed in my veins. I had never been afflicted with a taste for life’s sharper pleasures, but that was before I had committed murder and taken darkness onto my own spirit. Now I sensed the absolution to be found in accepting punishment, in abasement and humiliation.
I was flushed and hot, aching between my thighs, beginning to shudder with the force of it. My yew-wood bow trembled in my hands. Kamadeva’s diamond glowed like dark embers, like a blood-red sun setting, promising razor-edged pleasures. Jagrati’s full lips curved in a smile. I wanted her to kiss me again, wanted her to touch me with those cruel, long-fingered hands, wanted her to hurt me. I wanted her to whisper foul things to me in that rasping, silken voice, compelling me to obey her, forcing me into unclean acts. Anything.
No.
No, I didn’t. Because Amrita stood between us, and I would not let any harm come to my kind and lovely Rani. Because Bao fought behind me, and I could feel the force of his diadh-anam burning bright and clear.
I would not let Jagrati and Kamadeva’s diamond turn Naamah’s gift into a curse. I clung to memories of brightness, memories of love. Mayhap Bao was right, and I did fall in love as easily as other people fall out of a boat; but I loved in earnest. Well, and so? I did but obey Blessed Elua’s precept, love as thou wilt.
Elua.
&n
bsp; I had prayed to Naamah for aid, but the bright lady could not protect me from my own desires, even desire without love.
But mayhap Elua could.
“Blessed Elua,” I whispered in D’Angeline. “In the name of everyone I have ever loved, I beg you to aid me.”
Golden warmth flooded me, dispelling the darkness. The desire didn’t vanish, but it grew bearable. The shudders that racked me began to lessen, and I was able to steady my hands on the bow.
Anger suffused Jagrati’s face as she felt her influence waning. “What are you doing, dakini? What new spell do you speak?” She forced herself to calmness, coaxing again with her slithering rasp of a voice. “Come, Moirin. Do you not wish to please me? All I am asking is a small thing. Release your magic.”
I shook my head. “No.”
Behind me, the clashing, clamoring sounds of battle were beginning to dwindle. There were low sounds of agony, men groaning and whimpering with pain. If we had won, it would come at a price. Jagrati’s gaze slid past me. I wondered what she saw.
“Bao?” I called.
“Uh-huh!” he grunted in reply, and I heard the sound of a blade clattering against his steel-wrapped bamboo staff. “Almost done, Moirin.”
I kept my arrow trained on Jagrati, and although the Spider Queen of Kurugiri was as beautiful and terrible as Kali dancing, and Kamadeva’s diamond shone around her throat and sang to me, there was only rage and hatred in her. I could not love her. Like my lady Amrita, I pitied her; and I saw her hate me for it.
There was a final clash behind me, then a heavy thud and two sharp thumps, followed by Bao’s soft “Heh.”
“It’s over,” I said quietly. “Give the diamond to the Rani Amrita.”
Jagrati’s narrow nostrils flared. “Come and take it, little Rani,” she said to Amrita. “Come, unfasten it with your own hands, daughter of privilege! Or do you fear to be polluted by the touch of my skin?”
“No, Jagrati.” My lady Amrita lowered her hands, her voice grave. She took a step forward. “I do not.”
For the third time in two encounters, Jagrati recoiled violently from the Rani. Her hands went to the nape of her neck, working frantically at a clasp. Loosing the collar of gold filigree that held Kamadeva’s black diamond, she hurled it at Amrita’s feet. “Take it, then, damn you! Take it!”
Kushiel 03 - [Moirin 02] - Naamah's Curse Page 47
