Gifting Fire

by Alina Boyden

  “Arjun’s actually,” I corrected. “He thinks they’ll help the fire zahhaks survive better in a dogfight.”

  “He’s probably right,” Sikander allowed, “though it’s not enough to make up for the difference in numbers. Even with Parisa and Mohini, we only have sixteen zahhaks to bring to bear against the twenty-four animals Sultan Ahmed can muster. At best it will be a murderous culling of the cream of both our forces, and at worst they’ll gain the upper hand quickly.”

  “Which is why Hina and the other Zindhi fliers are on their way to meet us,” I informed him.

  “Flying river zahhaks?” It was plain that he didn’t think much of that idea, but a moment later I heard a cry. “You put cannons on river zahhaks!”

  “Thirty-six of them,” I agreed. “If they get here in time, and the Zindhis can aim those guns as well as Hina did, then they’ll be enough to overwhelm Ahmed and his allies. Which is why we will land on the cliffs, reorganize, and immediately fly east along the coast toward Kadiro, climbing all the while. The Mahisagaris will likely catch us before we can get back, but we want to give Hina every chance to reach us in time. Once the battle starts, it will be over in minutes. We need to do everything we can to make sure that the Zindhis get the opportunity to make their presence felt before it’s too late.”

  I felt a little ridiculous, making plans like some great general whilst dangling from my zahhak’s jaws, but orders had to be given, regardless of the circumstances. And at any rate, I rather suspected that as much hilarity as this story would elicit in the future, it would elicit an equal amount of awe. If I survived. I blew out a long slow breath to steady my nerves. Karim and his father had assembled a huge and deadly force, and Kadiro was four hundred miles away along the coast from the cliffs where we would be landing. Hina would have already left, I was sure of it, but even flying flat-out it was an eight- or nine-hour journey. There was every chance she wouldn’t reach us in time, and even if she did, her zahhaks would be tired, as ours were. The Mahisagari animals, by contrast, looked fresh. They were already making up ground behind us. I wondered if we’d even make it to shore before battle was unavoidable.

  And with Sikander having reclaimed his mount, and Lakshmi hers, either Arjun or Udai was carrying a cannon that would do him no good. That thought weighed on my mind, because the cannon would slow a fire zahhak down, reducing its ability to maneuver, and making it even more vulnerable to attack without a man to fire it. Viputeshwar could ride with Udai or Arjun, but he couldn’t be in two places at once, and we had no gunners waiting for us onshore. I frowned. In a perfect world, we’d return to Kadiro and fight when we were fresh, but there was no way that Ahmed Shah would be stupid enough to let that happen. If we retreated, if we tried to hide ourselves away in a fortress, we would be slaughtered.

  I stared back at the enemy zahhaks, formed up into two long lines across the sky. The acid zahhaks were closer to us, outrunning the fire zahhaks of Yaruba, which had climbed a little higher. I recognized the formation at once. It was the tactic I had devised for Ahmed Shah to use against the Firangi fleet, the tactic that had given him the victory that had led to all of this. He intended to catch us with his acid zahhaks, force us into a tight, turning fight, and then let his fire zahhaks strike down from above, their superior position enabling them to take easy attack passes at us without exposing them to danger in return.

  I turned my head to look north, and was relieved to see the rocky outline of the shore in the distance, the brown cliffs looking fuzzy and indistinct thanks to a thin layer of white haze that hung low on the horizon. Our enemies were closing in, but I thought we might just make it.

  “Only those who need to land should land,” I shouted, so that I would be heard over the roar of the wind in our ears. “The rest of us will maintain top cover.”

  “I suppose that’s you, me, and Viputeshwar?” Arjun asked.

  I nodded, because that was the absolute bare minimum. “And your father, if he wants to free himself of that cannon’s extra weight before the battle begins.”

  Udai Agnivansha nodded his agreement.

  “Once we’ve landed and corrected our positions, we’ll fly straight for Kadiro, climbing as we go. The rest of you will not descend to our altitude. Keep your height. We can’t risk ceding a major advantage like that to Ahmed Shah.”

  “And what would you like us to do if he catches up to us, your highness?” Sikander asked.

  “We take them head-on,” I replied. “We’ll aim ourselves for the fire zahhaks, forcing the acid zahhaks to climb if they want to meet us, and then we’ll blow right through both of their formations. We’ll keep running once we’re past them, the thunder zahhaks taking the lead and climbing, while the fire zahhaks and ice zahhaks offer them a choice—attack the slower targets and risk getting killed from above, or chase the thunder zahhaks in a climbing fight they can’t hope to match.”

  “The thunder zahhaks will give us the advantage in the head-on pass,” Tamara allowed, nodding her head as she digested the plan. “And because they’ve broken themselves into two lines, they can’t bring the full weight of their numbers to bear.”

  “We’ll actually have them outnumbered at each moment in the fight,” Haider agreed. He was smiling at me. “We may not even need those Zindhis, your highness.”

  “We’ll need them,” I replied, because I knew better than to believe that we could knock out eight of the enemy in two passes without taking any casualties in return. And even if we did that, it would do nothing more than even the odds. The fight would still be a bloody mess. I couldn’t risk weakening Zindh and Registan in the same day. And if the crown prince of Safavia died defending me, the political fallout would be a nightmare.

  But there was nothing I could do about it now. We were approaching the cliffs. I pointed at them, waving my hand to get Sultana’s attention, and I said, “Down!”

  She understood what I wanted immediately, curving her wings back and picking up speed, the slipstream battering the side of my body as we raced down toward the bluffs overlooking the sea. She alighted easily on the rocky desert ground, and set me down with a gentleness that I hadn’t imagined possible from a zahhak.

  I picked myself up, surprised to find that I was none the worse for wear, and was immediately greeted by Sultana’s snout in my face. She sniffed at me, looked me over carefully, like a nervous mother. I stroked her scales, telling her what an amazing zahhak she was, what a perfect angel, how singularly wonderful, and she puffed out her chest and flicked her tail feathers in response, looking well pleased with herself.

  I climbed into the saddle, securing my straps carefully so that I didn’t end up falling off again, noting as I did so that Lakshmi was hugging Mohini’s neck tightly, Viputeshwar was getting used to sighting down the barrel of the cannon in Arjun’s rear saddle, and Udai was busy hurling breechblocks into the dirt. I glanced back at the southern horizon, startled by how close the Mahisagari acid zahhaks were to our own fliers orbiting high above us. There wasn’t much time left.

  “Lakshmi, get in the saddle and get airborne now!” I shouted. I gave Sultana’s reins a shake to get her moving. She hurled herself off the cliff and into the air, strong beats of her wings propelling us higher and higher as we circled. I waited only as long as it took for Lakshmi, Arjun, and Udai to get their zahhaks into the air before pointing Sultana’s nose to the east. We had to flee as fast as possible, and to pray that Hina and the Zindhi river zahhaks would reach us before Ahmed did.

  CHAPTER 30

  A bright line of white froth separated the glittering blue waters of the sea from the golden sands of the desert uplands that stretched east along the coast as far as Kadiro. My eyes were scouring every inch of land, water, and sky for the slightest hint of the indigo, white, and black wing feathers of a Zindhi river zahhak, but there was nothing. Twisting my head to look behind me, I saw that the Mahisagari acid zahhaks were all too clearl
y gaining on the slower fire zahhaks at the rear of our formation.

  “If we’re going to turn and strike, your highness, we should do it soon,” Sikander warned from his place on my left wing. “Your zahhaks have flown all night. They’re exhausted, and the longer we flee the worse it will be.”

  “We need to give Hina every chance to get to us,” I replied, praying that I would see her this time when I looked east, but there was nothing. Just empty sky.

  “I hate to say it, Razia, but we have to consider the possibility that she might not be coming,” Tamara said.

  “She’s coming,” I said, my voice holding far more certainty than I really felt, because I wasn’t naive, I understood what Tamara was implying.

  She made it explicit all the same. “She has Kadiro, she has an army, she has a way to use her zahhaks to defend herself from your father. She doesn’t need you anymore, Razia. She might well sit this fight out, and then negotiate with the survivors from a position of strength.”

  “It’s what your father would do, your highness,” Sikander agreed.

  “Hina is not my father,” I snapped, but saying it didn’t make her zahhaks magically appear on the horizon, and another quick look behind us told me that we had run out of time. If we let Ahmed Shah and his men get any closer, we’d never be able to organize ourselves properly for the head-on pass we needed to make to survive the battle.

  “All right, we fight now,” I declared. “On my call, we’ll make a hook turn and fly straight at the enemy fire zahhaks, gaining as much altitude as we can manage. We’ll do as much damage as we can before diving back east to make another pass on the acid zahhaks. Clear?”

  “Clear, your highness!” they chorused.

  My heart thundered in my ears as I took up my trumpet and brought it to my lips. This was it. Victory or death. I wasn’t going to let myself be captured by Karim. I wasn’t going to surrender to him. Either I would win or I would die. There were no other options to be had. I blasted out a single note on the trumpet, turning right, Sultana banking hard, an invisible force crushing down on me as we sped through the turn. I shoved the trumpet back into its saddlebag and steeled myself for the coming fight.

  A dozen emerald-scaled acid zahhaks were racing toward us, stretched out in a long line across the horizon, but I aimed myself not for them, but for the fire zahhaks farther behind and at a higher altitude. Sultana was beating her wings hard, we were gaining altitude, but I could feel that we were slower than we should have been. After flying all-out to get to Ahura and rescue Lakshmi, and then flying a hundred miles more, she was exhausted. All around me, the other zahhaks who had made the same journey were doing their best, but their mouths were hanging open as they panted for air. Only Mohini and Parisa seemed fresh. By contrast, the Mahisagari animals had their beaks tightly shut, their wings flapping with perfect grace, their eyes fixed on us, gleaming, eager for the kill.

  It wasn’t just me noticing the danger. Sikander was grim faced. Haider and Tamara were looking at each other like it might be the last time, and I knew that Arjun was trying to catch my eye one last time too. Even Sakshi, who had never been in a battle before, seemed to know that this wasn’t the way you wanted to enter one. If Hina had showed up, our morale would have been sky-high, but without any sign of the Zindhi river zahhaks, everyone knew what our odds were of winning this fight, and the zahhaks were sensing our discomfiture. They were looking toward their riders, one eye on the humans they trusted with their lives, and the other on the onrushing enemy.

  I needed to give my fliers some hope, even if I wasn’t feeling it myself. I needed to galvanize them. Because if we hit the merge like this, we were going to be incinerated by acid and flames alike. It occurred to me then that if I had one advantage at all, it was that my fliers were all trained in the same tradition. Just as Nizam, Safavia, and Khevsuria all spoke the same language in our royal courts, we all used the same trumpet calls in battle, and our zahhaks had been trained with them since birth, knew exactly what they meant and how to act when they heard them.

  I reached into my pouch and pulled the trumpet out once more, licking my lips to wet them. This had to sound good, or the effect would be exactly the opposite of what I intended. I took a deep breath, and I snapped the reins, urging Sultana ahead. She listened, beating her wings that much harder, surging ahead of the others in formation, so that every flier and every zahhak could see us clearly. I brought the trumpet to my lips with a trembling hand, but the notes I played were perfectly crisp and clear and as loud as I could make them.

  The call was one I had heard from the time I was old enough to walk. It was a rapid series of ascending arpeggios that culminated in a piercing shriek that was meant to imitate the cry of an enraged zahhak defending its territory in the breeding season. A chill went through me at the sound of that call, because my whole life I had been taught that it meant one thing and one thing only—the time had come to fling myself at my enemies, to set myself upon them and destroy them. I could still remember Sikander’s lectures on the subject. Of all the calls that a zahhak rider heard, that was the one she had to answer with the utmost attention, the one that required from her every last measure of her courage.

  I was stunned to see the effect it had on Sultana. Her mouth had shut. Her wings were surging, her eyes were narrowed. She remembered. She knew what it meant. And so did the other zahhaks in the formation. They came racing up on my left and my right, azure-winged thunder zahhaks, their emerald eyes narrowed to slits as they waited for the order to spit lightning at their enemies. Tamara and her ice zahhaks were with us, their huge beaks clamped shut as they strained at their halters, their bodies pressing themselves into the attack. And while Padmini and the fire zahhaks of Registan were strangers to Nizami trumpet calls, the sudden intensity of the other animals around them galvanized them too. They were ready for this fight.

  I put the trumpet back in its pouch for the second time in as many minutes, but my heart wasn’t nearly as heavy as it had been a moment before. Now, as the acid zahhaks closed the last few hundred yards toward us, I thought we had a fighting chance.

  “We blow a hole for the others!” I cried, though I didn’t know if anyone could hear me. It didn’t matter. They’d hear Sultana. I pointed her snout right at the Mahisagari zahhak directly opposite me. I thought it was Ahmed himself flying it. He was dead in front of me, coming on with everything he had. There were scarcely three hundred yards between us. He wouldn’t have much time to dodge.

  “Thunder!” I shouted.

  Sultana’s jaws yawned wide and every hair on my body stood on end as the static built in the air, the tingle of it on my skin making my heartbeat quicken. The air was torn asunder an instant later by an explosion that made the swivel guns of Zindh seem like children’s toys, and a brilliant bolt of violet light crackled across the sky.

  Ahmed’s zahhak rolled hard right, banking sharply and diving away, narrowly avoiding being struck dead by Sultana’s lightning. She turned and climbed, racing back toward me, but it was too little, too late. She’d never get a shot of her own. She was going to have to chase us again, and by then we’d have hit the fire zahhaks, just like I’d planned.

  All around me, thunder cracked and bolts of lightning streaked across the sky. Indigo feathers and emerald scales exploded off one Mahisagari zahhak, and then a second and a third, as six thunder zahhaks let loose with everything they had. The center of the enemy formation disintegrated as riders banked hard away from the danger, creating a clear lane for us to surge through.

  But the merge wasn’t over yet. We crossed into the range of the acid zahhaks, and the half dozen animals that had held their formation spat globs of green, sticky poison at a speed that beggared belief. But at the same instant, the fire zahhaks of Registan and the ice zahhaks of Khevsuria returned fire with their own breath weapons, and for a moment I forgot that I was in a battle—I was struck by the awful beauty of glitt
ering white trails of ice, hot streaks of fire, and glistening green orbs of acid all crossing over one another in a single patch of sky.

  Though at least two of the acid zahhaks had taken aim at me, both of the shots missed wide, and Sultana carried on in her climb toward the Yaruban fire zahhaks, which were just a few seconds behind their Mahisagari counterparts. I glanced left and right and was startled to find that my formation was still intact. So far so good. We’d survived the first onslaught; now it was time for the second.

  I didn’t know who was riding the fire zahhak in the center of the Yaruban formation, whether it was Karim’s cousin or his uncle or some other man, but I knew that if I struck him down, my fliers would take heart and his would be filled with fear. While adrenaline was carrying us through this battle, that couldn’t last forever. Our zahhaks would tire and they would slow, and we needed an edge when that moment came.

  “Get her, girl,” I whispered to Sultana, making sure she was aimed at a particularly dark-colored fire zahhak, her burgundy scales contrasting sharply with the bright gold of her belly. As beautiful as she was, she needed to die. “Thunder!”

  Sultana barked lightning once more, the bolt hammering the fire zahhak full in the face, blasting her right in the crest of thick scales that protected the back of her neck. I waited for her wings to crumple, for her to fall from the sky, but she just kept coming, and the men of Yaruba raised a war cry that was so loud it rang in my ears even hundreds of yards away. I’d just given them hope and stolen it from the heart of every flier in my formation. I cursed myself for my stupidity. Sikander had trained me better than to try to break through the heaviest scales of a fire zahhak.

  “Shoot for their wings!” I shrieked.

  “Thunder!” Sakshi cried, and Ragini let loose with a bolt of lightning that tore through the left wing of the fire zahhak opposite her, blood and feathers filling the air as the animal spun out of control, crying piteously all the while.