Gifting Fire

by Alina Boyden

  “But you can’t fly and aim at the same time,” Sunil protested. “We’ve tried this!”

  “Sunil is right, your majesty,” Sanghar agreed, though he sounded reluctant to admit it. “You’d never be able to maneuver against the enemy and draw a bead on them, especially not with something as heavy as a cannon.”

  “So we don’t let it move,” I said, drawing confused looks. Of course they were confused, they’d never flown thunder zahhaks or fire zahhaks before, they didn’t understand how it worked.

  Sakshi did. She exclaimed, “Of course! You treat it just like a thunder zahhak!”

  Hina cocked her head, surprised that Sakshi could see what she didn’t, despite her many more years of experience on the back of a zahhak. “I don’t understand . . .”

  “When you dogfight with a zahhak, you don’t aim their neck to shoot at an enemy, you aim the whole zahhak,” I explained. “You fly at the enemy and only when you’re pointed at them do you shoot. If you put the cannon in a fixed position, so that it always shot its pattern straight ahead, say at a distance of a hundred yards in front of your zahhak’s nose, then all you would have to do is point the zahhak at your opponent and pull the trigger.”

  Hina, Sanghar, and Sunil all stared at one another, mulling that over. It was Hina who asked, “Well?”

  Sunil shrugged, but Sanghar said, “It could work, your majesty.”

  “Well, there’s one way to find out,” Hina declared. She walked over to the cannon, picked it up, and brought it to her zahhak. When nobody else moved, she snapped, “Well, don’t just stand there, help me get this thing mounted properly!”

  While dozens of Zindhi men and women converged on Sakina to help attach the cannon to the saddle, Haider said, “That’s clever, Razia, but even if it does work, that doesn’t solve all of our problems. Ahura is a fortress, it’s crawling with Mahisagari soldiers, and the bulk of their fleet is in its harbor. How do you expect to get in and find your sister?”

  “I sent Sikander with her, and I ordered him to hang an ajrak dupatta from the window after nightfall to mark the room she’s in,” I replied. “I’ll fly to the fortress, land on the roof, and climb down to her window.”

  “And how will you get back to the roof?” Tamara wondered, scrunching up her nose.

  “Lakshmi and I will climb the walls. We’ll leave a rope for Sikander. He’s old, but he’s strong; he should be able to manage.”

  “Climb the walls?” Haider’s eyes widened, and he looked from Arjun to Udai to Sakshi, seeming totally surprised that none of them saw fit to comment on the outlandishness of that plan. He shook his head. “Little sister, someday you’re going to have to tell me all that you’ve accomplished since you left Safavia.”

  “Someday soon I will, your highness,” I replied. “But we don’t have that much time tonight.”

  “We don’t,” Sakshi agreed. “I’ll go find your climbing shoes. You’re tired, you’ll need them. I’m sure Lady Asma has them in her quarters.”

  “See if you can find my katars too,” I suggested. “Karim and his father took them from me.”

  “I’ll have a look around,” she promised. She motioned for a squad of Zindhi soldiers to follow her as an escort, and they obeyed so quickly that it brought a smile to my face. We were going to make a princess of her yet.

  “She really grew up on a farm?” Tamara asked in disbelief.

  I nodded. “She’s special.”

  “If all hijras can scale walls like they’re stairs, fly zahhaks, and issue orders like that, then one wonders why you haven’t conquered the world yet,” one of the Registani fliers quipped.

  “We’re working on it,” I shot back, drawing laughs from everyone around. It helped to ease some of the tension in my chest. The less I had to think about Lakshmi being stuck in Ahura, the better.

  I decided to see how Hina was getting on. That would give me something useful to do. But as I approached Sakina, it didn’t look like the Zindhis needed much assistance from me. They’d mounted the cannon on the zahhak’s front saddle pommel, and they were working on giving it two positions: an upright position for when the zahhak was on the ground, since her neck was in the way of the barrel, and one that would be lowered to shoot once the animal was airborne. That was clever, as were the metal hooks they’d devised to hang extra mug-shaped breechblocks from the sides of the saddle for easy reloading. They’d even thought to add wide leather straps to the saddle itself to help absorb the shock of the cannon’s recoil. Even now, old men with years of sailing experience were working hard with awls and strong canvas thread to sew the straps into place, their deft fingers moving so swiftly that it beggared belief.

  “If we’re going to truly test it, we’ll need a target,” Sunil was saying.

  “What about a bedsheet?” I suggested.

  “A bedsheet, your highness?” he asked, with a good deal less scorn in his voice than he’d shown me up till this moment.

  “I’ll take a bedsheet up on Sultana, flying in front of Hina, and I’ll release it into the slipstream behind me as I make a hard turn. Once I’m clear, she shoots it. That’ll test if she can hit something in the air or not, and it will give us a chance to see what the bullet scatter looks like on the cloth.”

  Sanghar shook his head, grinning. “Like holing an enemy’s sail.”

  That got all of the Zindhis nodding together. I didn’t know anything about naval combat, but it seemed to please them, so I said, “I suppose.”

  Hina quirked an eyebrow. “Could it be that there’s something you don’t know everything about?”

  “I’ll leave the matters of sailing in your capable hands, your majesty,” I replied, bowing my head to her.

  She grinned. “Sanghar, have one of your men fetch a white bedsheet. We have to test this quickly if we’re going to save her highness’s sister.”

  “Right away, your majesty,” Sanghar agreed.

  While they went to deal with that, I noticed that my fellow fliers had drifted over to watch Sakina’s saddle be outfitted with a cannon and breechblocks. Arjun was scratching his chin, his brow furrowed. I recognized that expression.

  “You have thoughts, my prince?” I asked him, wrapping my arms around one of his, taking strength from his warmth.

  “Questions,” he corrected, nodding to Sunil Kalani. “If you can carry passengers, then why not just have the passenger shooting a rifle at the enemy while the other person flies the zahhak?”

  “We can’t carry a grown man with a rifle,” Sunil replied. He frowned at the reinforced saddle, with the weight of the cannon and five extra breechblocks. “Even this much weight is pushing our luck, and it’s not as heavy as you are, your highness.”

  “But if you could carry a passenger with a weapon, he can shoot just fine,” Arjun pressed.

  “She can, your highness,” Hina agreed, and I noticed how she’d feminized the sentence. “Sometimes I would go hunting with my brother on the back of his zahhak when I was little. He’d let me shoot gazelles while he handled the flying. They were moving targets, and not easy to hit, but I was a good shot.”

  “We do the same thing in Registan for sport,” Udai agreed.

  “How many of these cannons do you have?” Arjun asked, nodding to the gun in question.

  “With us?” Sanghar shrugged. “Each of my boats carried a dozen. So nearly fifty.”

  “As did mine,” Sunil added. “And my count was closer to two hundred. More than enough to outfit all of our zahhaks.”

  “What are you thinking, my prince?” I asked him, though I thought I saw where his mind was going, and I thought it was brilliant.

  “You haven’t figured it out yet?” he teased.

  “I didn’t want to steal your thunder,” I replied.

  “No, it wouldn’t do to repeat yourself,” he agreed, earning an eye roll from me. “But it occ
urred to me that the great weakness of fire zahhaks is their tremendous strength and size.”

  Sunil arched an eyebrow at that. “Size and strength are to be considered weaknesses?”

  “In the air they can be,” he said. “A fire zahhak can’t turn as tightly as a thunder zahhak, can’t climb as swiftly. In a one-on-one fight, a fire zahhak almost always loses to a thunder zahhak or an acid zahhak if the odds are even. They’re tremendous animals for attacking fortresses, fleets, and armies, but in aerial combat they are second-tier.”

  “It’s true,” Udai agreed. “Much as we love our animals, and take great pride in them, they are always at risk when facing lighter, faster zahhaks in the air.”

  Haider added his voice to the mix. “In Safavia we’re blessed to have both thunder zahhaks and fire zahhaks, but the fire zahhaks are used primarily to attack our enemies on the ground, while the thunder zahhaks protect them in the air. Even against the best fire zahhak flier, Roshanak and I can get around on their tail feathers in two turns at most. Can’t we, girl?” He gave the thunder zahhak in question a very fond pat.

  “So, what if getting on our tail feathers was just as dangerous as flying in front of us?” Arjun asked, gesturing to the cannon. “What if we used double saddles with a gunner facing backward, using the swivel mount to let him take careful aim? A river zahhak can’t carry so much weight, but a fire zahhak could.”

  “I wouldn’t want to line up a shot behind a fire zahhak if I had that thing pointed at my face,” Tamara murmured, glancing to Haider for his thoughts.

  Haider was nodding right along with her. “It wouldn’t have the range of a thunder zahhak’s lightning, but acid zahhaks have to get closer, and so do ice zahhaks. A cannon that could shoot a hundred yards could hit them just as easily as they could hit you . . .”

  “That would give us a huge advantage in the fight to come,” I allowed, “but how long would it take to modify your saddles?”

  “We flew with double saddles in case we needed to get you and your sisters out of the palace,” Arjun said, gesturing to Padmini, who wore the double saddle he and I had ridden together so many times before. “With some sharp knives and some of these Zindhi sailors and their sewing skills, we could get it done in a hurry.”

  I frowned. I would need Padmini to get Lakshmi out of Ahura, and at least one more animal for Sikander. There was no way we could get them into the zahhak stables to claim their mounts, not with guards crawling all over the place. If I waited to outfit these saddles, and the sun came up before I could get to Lakshmi . . .

  “My prince, if this must be done, it must be done right this instant. Lakshmi’s life depends on it.”

  “Then we’ll get to work immediately,” he said, resting his hands on my shoulders and rubbing them gently. “While you’re testing Hina’s cannon, we’ll have all six of our saddles modified. We already know it will work, because every nobleman in Registan has hunted from a double saddle before. We just never had these small ship-mounted cannons, because we don’t have any water.”

  “If this works, Razia, it could change the whole balance of power in the world,” Haider said. “There are so many zahhaks all across the continent without breath. Once word of this gets out, kingdoms will be desperate to arm them.”

  “If it works, then Jama Hina will be one of the world’s great queens,” I agreed, noting the looks of shock I received from the Zindhis gathered around me. But Hina didn’t look surprised.

  “You will always have a home here, your highness,” she assured me.

  “I know,” I said, but this wasn’t the time for that conversation. When Ahmed and Karim were dead, we could talk about Zindh and its freedom, but until then it was premature. I left everyone to their work, instead going to collect Sultana, to make certain that she was ready to fly.

  I found her lying on the surface of one of the lotus ponds, cuddled up against Natia. The bigger ice zahhak had used her breath to freeze the water solid, and now Ragini and some of the river zahhaks were testing the cold, hard surface with their noses, attracted to the soothing cold on a hot desert night, but most of them having never seen ice before.

  “The poor thing gets hot quickly in this climate,” Tamara lamented, and I could have said the same thing about her. Though she’d doffed her fur hat, sweat had plastered her red hair to the top of her head and was pouring in rivers down her face. Her cheeks were bright red, and she had unbuttoned her undergown down to the tops of her breasts in an effort to keep cool, though it didn’t seem to be working.

  “You get used to it,” I assured her.

  Tamara shook her head. “No, I think we belong in the mountains.” She lay down on the ice beside her zahhak, shivering and sighing with relief.

  “It’s a shame Natia isn’t a little bigger; you could throw a cannon on her too,” Haider said, coming up behind us.

  Tamara shrugged in response to that. “Ice zahhaks may not have the size of fire zahhaks, nor the speed of thunder zahhaks, but they do everything well. And they’re fiercest on the ground.” She reached up and petted the end of Natia’s enormous hooked beak for emphasis. It was designed for crunching through frozen prey and tearing giant chunks off of them. I shuddered to think what it would do to soldiers on the ground. River zahhaks had delicate snouts in comparison, and even they were capable of biting grown men clean in half.

  “I’ve missed the two of you terribly,” I told them, now that we had a moment alone together.

  “Once all this is over, you’ll have to visit my summer palace in Tamtra,” Tamara offered. “I always wanted to show you the waterfalls, but they wouldn’t let you leave Safavia. Now you can go where you please.”

  “If I can convince my father not to execute me for this,” I muttered.

  “We won’t let him do that,” Haider declared, placing his firm hand on my shoulder. “We grew up together, Razia, and I’ve always considered you the younger sister I never had. I promise you that I won’t let your father hurt you.”

  “You really think Safavia would go to war for me?” I shook my head to show him how likely I thought that was.

  “I think once this is over, you’ll have a stronger force of zahhaks than any subahdar in Zindh,” he replied. “And your father would be a fool to move against you then.”

  “I hope you’re right,” I whispered, but I wasn’t as sure as he was. My father had seemed to want to protect me from Karim, at least a little, but when push came to shove, he’d let me be married off against my will to my rapist. How could I trust him not to hurt me when he was willing to do something like that?

  “Razia!” Hina called, jarring me from my thoughts.

  I turned and saw her riding toward me on Sakina’s back, the cannon barrel pointed skyward to keep clear of the zahhak’s long, sinuous neck. That neck would be held horizontal in flight, allowing the barrel to come down and face forward. The upper position would also make it easier to quickly reach the breechblock for reloading. At least I hoped it would. Whether a rider could really focus on flying and shooting a cannon at the same time remained to be seen. For that matter, I still wasn’t certain they’d even be able to get off the ground when carrying so much extra weight.

  “Do you think she’ll be able to fly with all that?” I asked.

  “She’ll get in the air,” Hina assured me. She tossed me a balled-up bedsheet, which I caught easily enough. It was big, but still scarcely a quarter of the size of a zahhak’s wing area. That would make it a good test. If she could hit this, she could definitely hit an enemy flier.

  I saw the way Hina’s celas had gathered to watch with their river zahhaks at their sides. Sunil’s men were pressed in close too, as were Sanghar’s fliers. The look of desperate hope on the face of every Zindhi in the courtyard wasn’t lost on me. For centuries, they had been conquered by outsiders because their zahhaks lacked breath. But if this worked, then they might for once be a
ble to choose their own destiny. I didn’t know what that meant for me, for my relationship with my father, for my future, but I knew that it was the right thing to do.

  “Sultana, we have to fly now,” I told my zahhak, who had fallen asleep beside her old friend. She opened one groggy eyelid, her emerald eye finding me at once, and when she saw that I was beckoning her, she perked right up. With a yawn that exposed teeth bigger than my hands, she sank her wing claws into the ice and levered herself up with practiced ease, not slipping despite the slick surface. She stretched, shook out her wings and her tail, and then padded over to me with a prance in her step, ready to get to work.

  “That’s my girl,” I told her, giving her a kiss on the nose before climbing into the saddle and strapping myself in. I petted her neck scales a few times, and then took up the reins and nodded to Hina to let her know that I was ready.

  “After you, your highness,” Hina said, sweeping her hand toward the clearest path across the courtyard, one that was long enough to let a zahhak run up to speed before bounding her way into the air.

  “Let’s go, Sultana,” I said, giving her the forward pressure on my seat to get her moving forward, tapping her neck gently with my heels to let her know it was time to take off.

  She needed no more urging than that. With a surge of her powerful wing muscles, she threw herself into a headlong gallop down the path, taking several long bounds before springing up, beating her wings, and kicking off with her crane-like rear legs. It was a moment of violent action, followed by a stillness that nothing else in the world could rival as we began to fly.

  She beat her wings hard, jarring me in my seat as we climbed to get over the walls of the palace; but soon they were far below us as we made a lazy, spiraling left-hand turn through the night sky. How I had missed this. Being kept away from Sultana had been one of the worst parts of being engaged to Karim. It had been like running away from home all over again. But now we were reunited once more, and after I won this battle, we’d never be separated again, I would make sure of it.