5: The Holy Road

by Ginn Hale

  “Just before Dayyid,” John said. He had been so angry then, seeing Ravishan with another man. Now, only minutes later, that one kiss hardly seemed to matter. “I thought Dayyid was going to kill you.”

  “I thought he would too.” Ravishan winced as he spoke and then lifted his hand to his bleeding mouth. “I would have deserved it.”

  “No, he had no right to treat you like that,” John told him. “He had no right to treat anyone the way he did.”

  Ravishan watched John with wide, dark eyes. Then John realized that he was still holding his bloody curse blade in his hand. Part of him wanted to throw the knife from himself. Instead he knelt and wiped the blade clean across Dayyid’s coat. Then he sheathed it.

  “What are we going to do?” Ravishan straightened his cassock and then buttoned his coat closed over it.

  The instinct to run, to distance himself from the blood and the body, surged through John. He had felt the same way the night he had witnessed the battle between the Bousim rashan’im and the Fai’daum. But now he was no mere witness. He had committed murder and he couldn’t afford to be stupid. The desire for flight was just a reaction, as devoid of forethought as the reflexes that had allowed him to kill Dayyid.

  “Jahn.” Ravishan touched his shoulder and John realized that he had been just standing there, transfixed by the sight of Dayyid’s body.

  “We can leave,” Ravishan said. “With so many merchants and travelers coming and going we could just slip out the gates. We’ll need other clothes.”

  John shook his head. They needed to stay if they were ever going to reach Nayeshi. They couldn’t flee. They needed to hide Dayyid’s murder. John frowned at the gory wound in Dayyid’s throat, the wide pool of blood and Dayyid’s fallen curse blade. It hardly looked like an accident. No, the entire scene looked like what it had been: a fight, a murder.

  “There are people with Eastern blood in Nurjima,” Ravishan said. “You wouldn’t stand out so much there. We could find work of some kind, I’m sure.”

  “You can’t run away. Your sister Rousma needs you to stay and Behr and Loshai need me here. We have to stay.” Even as he spoke, John’s mind raced for some solution.

  “Not if it means your execution,” Ravishan whispered.

  “Maybe it won’t have to come to that,” John said. He remembered the demoness, Ji. “The Fai’daum are here.”

  “What?” Ravishan gaped at him in horror.

  “I recognized Ji Shir’korud in the blood market. I came to warn you…” John frowned at the blood that covered his hand and the sleeve of his coat. “That didn’t go quite the way I had hoped, but...they’re here. I think they want to release the man who’s going to be executed tonight.”

  “They’re in the blood market now?”

  “They look like they’re waiting for something,” John said. “My guess is that they’re waiting for nightfall, when the pyre is built.”

  “Or for the prisoner to be brought down to the shrine this afternoon.” Ravishan pressed his fingers against the corners of his mouth again to staunch the trickles of blood flowing from his wounds. He looked miserable. John caught his shoulder and gave him a reassuring squeeze. Relief flooded Ravishan’s face. For just a moment he clung to John. Then he drew back.

  “We can’t stay here,” John said. He hadn’t known that the prisoner would be moved in the afternoon. If the Fai’daum were going to attempt a rescue, then it would happen soon.

  “You should go find Hann’yu,” John said. “Keep him away from the blood market.”

  “What do we do about…this?” Ravishan gestured down to Dayyid’s body.

  “Nothing,” John decided. “Don’t say anything about him. If anyone asks, you haven’t seen him since you gave him the slip this morning.”

  “And we just hope that the Fai’daum are blamed?” Ravishan asked quietly.

  John nodded.

  “What about you? What are you going to do?” Ravishan asked.

  “I’ll meet you at the church hostel,” John said.

  Ravishan nodded but remained at John’s side, looking pale and scared.

  “I don’t want to leave you here,” Ravishan said at last.

  “You have to,” John told him. “Go make sure Hann’yu and Ashan’ahma are safe.”

  Ravishan looked as if he might protest.

  “I’ll be fine,” John said firmly. “You have to go now, before anyone sees us here.”

  “Be careful,” Ravishan said. Then, with a whisper of cold air, he disappeared into the Gray Space.

  John gazed down at Dayyid’s body one last time. The blood had stopped seeping from his throat. Flies were beginning to gather around the wound. John shuddered. There was no reason for him to stay any longer. It was far too late to make any kind of peace with Dayyid. John pulled his coat closed and hurried out of the alley.

  Though only a few minutes had passed, the blood market seemed busier than it had been before. Despite the flies, clusters of women roved through the lanes of stalls and pens. John noticed an unusual number of red widows’ veils. Or perhaps, because of what he’d just done, the color caught his attention far more than it normally would. He pushed his bloody hand deep into the pocket of his gray coat.

  Butchering had begun. A few gutted goat carcasses hung from the eves of the stalls. The smell of offal and blood mixed with the earthy scent of straw and feed. John wondered how distinctly the odor of blood clung to him. How conspicuous would the smell be when he left the blood market?

  He knew he had to get out of the market quickly, before the Fai’daum made their move. Still, he stopped at a stall selling freshly butchered and skinned weasels. He bought two. Their bodies were handed to him, wrapped in waxed parchment. They felt disturbingly warm and supple. When he pushed open a corner of the parchment, a trickle of blood dribbled over his hand.

  A wave of revulsion churned through John as he allowed the blood to run along his fingers and seep into the cuff of his coat. A lesser murder to hide a greater one, he thought. Then he pinched the parchment closed again and continued on his way.

  He walked quickly but not with the clarity he had possessed on his way to warn Ravishan. He knew he couldn’t afford to consider what he had just done. But at the same time it was hard to keep from thinking of it. All the noise and color, the widows’ veils, the silver rings, the painted tents, the scent of curing brines, and the sounds of animal cries, seemed somehow muted as if they came to him from a great distance. He concentrated on the distraction they offered.

  He could still feel, with intense clarity, the resistance and crack of his knife splitting through the cartilage of Dayyid’s trachea. The sensation played through his hand again and again like some strange recoil. He couldn’t stop hearing the muted sound of it, like a knuckle popping. The smell of blood seemed to roll off of him. He was aware of his heart beating too fast. Despite the chill breeze, sweat beaded beneath his cassock and heavy coat.

  He turned onto the wider lane that led to the nearest city gate. The high stone wall loomed before him. City guards stood sentinel on the walkways. There seemed to be more of them there than usual. John counted twenty. A hundred yards or so ahead of him a huge, heavy wood wagon, hitched to a pair of dull green tahldi, rolled out from the gate. One city guard sat at the reins while four others crouched in the open wagon bed, surrounding a bound, naked man.

  The guards looked bored. John couldn’t see the bound man’s expression. His head was bowed and his long chestnut hair hung over his face. His pale, freckled skin was mottled with bruises. Long scabbed-over lash marks covered his back and arms. Two more guards walked alongside the tahldi at the front of the wagon. They shouted people out of the way and repelled onlookers who crowded too close to the animals.

  People had come out just to watch this, John realized. That was why the blood market was more crowded than it had been this morning. The lane was packed with people, making it difficult to move without bumping into someone.

  John stepped bac
k as the wagon rolled slowly closer. An older man grumbled as John jostled him but went quiet when he saw John’s gray coat and cassock. The bodies of strangers pressed up against John’s back, chest, and sides, resisting his every movement.

  Just to his left, a skinny barefoot boy pushed his way out from between two men. He held something dull red and glistening in his hand. As the wagon came close, the boy hurled the mass of weasel intestines at the prisoner. The offal splashed against the prisoner’s shoulder, but the man didn’t even lift his head in response. One of the guards riding in the wagon grinned. The tall sides of the wagon were already stained with red and brown spatters where other refuse had been hurled with less accuracy.

  John wanted to turn back, but there was too much of a push behind him.

  Then, suddenly, the loud crack of a rifle shot burst through the air. The guard driving the wagon fell back, blood gushing from his chest. The guards on the ground rushed to grab the bridles of the startled tahldi. A second shot tore through the head of one of the guards riding in the wagon.

  A wave of panic rolled through the gathered crowd. People shouted and screamed. The man beside John shoved a girl down as he tried to distance himself from the wagon. John heard another rifle shot, but he couldn’t tell where it had come from or what damage it might have done. He had to fight just to stay upright as the people behind him surged forward, running for the security of the city gates. Hands and arms smacked and slammed into his back. People kicked his legs, stepped on his feet, and tripped against his body, but he didn’t go down.

  He heard a tahldi scream and then saw the side of the wooden wagon as it swung off the road and came crashing into the crowd. Bodies crumpled, crushed beneath the heavy wagon wheels. The tahldi charged forward, shrieking and trampling the people in their path. An arrow jutted from the neck of one of the animals.

  To John’s surprise, a woman from the crowd raced forward and leaped onto one of the tahldi’s backs. She caught hold of the animal’s bridle and seemed to be trying to rein the tahldi in. An arrow whistled past, then another, and another. The city guards were firing from up on the wall. A child crumpled, an arrow driven through her chest. All around John, people screamed, shoved, and fell beneath each other in a wild directionless flight for some kind of safety.

  A second arrow sank into the shoulder of the already-injured tahldi. The animal reared, screaming, and twisted itself against its harness. The woman and the second tahldi were pulled down with it. The hitch snapped apart as the wagon continued plowing forward.

  People all around John fought to get out of the way. A woman clawed at his arm, desperate to pull herself past him. John braced himself as the wagon swung towards him. It was a stupid, instinctual reaction, but there was nothing else he could do. His hands came up as if the huge wagon wheel were a baseball for him to catch. Even in the moment he thought he must have looked ridiculous.

  The man in front of John screamed as the wagon plowed him under. John clenched his eyes shut. Then he heard the deafening noise of heavy timbers splitting. John opened his eyes to see planks exploding to either side of him as if an invisible saw were rending through them. A moment later, the wagon collapsed into two pieces on either side of John. The naked, bound prisoner slammed into John’s legs.

  Wood shavings and sawdust settled over John like a fine snow.

  An arrow slashed past John and he ducked down behind the wrecked halves of the wagon. The man at his feet groaned. Many of the cuts on his arms and back had torn open. Fat droplets of red blood dribbled down his sides and spattered the dry ground. Seeing it, John vividly recalled the open wound in Dayyid’s throat and the flies twitching at its edges. He suddenly felt like he might be sick.

  He closed his eyes, but he couldn’t block out the roar of people all around him shouting and screaming. The blast of rifles cracked through his mind like thunder. All this, John wondered, just for one man? Was this one prisoner so important that he merited so much destruction? Or perhaps his value was simply that someone loved him enough to sacrifice other lives for his.

  How many men would he kill for Ravishan?

  John felt the bound man bump against his leg and he opened his eyes. Lying face down, with his legs and hands trussed together behind him, the man was still trying to move, to escape. He cursed into the dirt and jerked at his bonds. John quickly unbuttoned his coat and unsheathed his curse blade.

  “Hold still while I cut you loose.” John wanted to whisper, but in the surrounding chaos of noise, he had to shout to make sure the man heard him. The man went still. John sliced through the ropes and helped the man sit upright. His face was filthy and unshaven. Blood from a deep gash across his forehead had left the right side of the man’s face streaked with red. Though his chest was scraped and coated with dirt and wood dust, John could still see where the word ‘traitor’ had been painted across his skin in black Payshmura script.

  “Here.” John stripped off his coat and wrapped it around the man’s shoulders. He didn’t seem to register the action. Instead, he stared at John as if blinking might get him killed. It was understandable. The man was Fai’daum while John, from all outward appearances, was a Payshmura priest.

  John studied the man. He seemed oddly familiar. Then recognition came to John. It had been years, but John remembered the man’s dark brown eyes, particularly staring at him in fear and confusion.

  “I’m not going to hurt you, Saimura,” John said.

  The man blinked. “How do you know my name?”

  “We’ve met before. I had a beard then and you didn’t.”

  Saimura’s mouth dropped slightly open. “It’s you…from the woods.”

  John nodded.

  “Why are you here?” Saimura asked. He seemed dazed.

  “It’s just my lucky day. I’ve been showing up at all the right places at the best times.” John glanced guiltily down at his hands, still coated in blood. “Put on my coat. If you’re dressed, you won’t be so easy for the guards to pick out in the crowd.”

  Saimura got the coat on in quick, jerky motions. John heard a loud knock and crack as an arrow punched into the side of the wrecked wagon. Farther away, the report of a rifle cracked the air.

  “Who are you?” Saimura asked. His voice was rough and hard to hear over the noise surrounding them. Very distantly John thought he could hear the city bells ringing out an alarm.

  “I’m called Jahn.” John peered between the cracked planks. Waves of people crashed up against the city gate. Others huddled in clusters behind broken stalls or carts. The guards up on the wall released a volley of arrows at anyone moving in the open. In the cacophony of threats, pleas, screams, and shouting, John thought he could hear a soft gasp and weeping.

  There was a movement low to the ground, close to the wagon. Someone crawled toward them for cover. It was the woman who had tried to rein the tahldi. She moved slowly, dragging herself across the ground. John was amazed to see that she was still alive. Her black hair was gray with dirt. The thick leather of her clothes was tattered and ripped. An arrow struck the ground a few feet from her.

  “What is it?” Saimura asked.

  “A woman.” John crept to the edge of the wagon. “I think I can get her back here.”

  “Be careful. The Payshmura are gathering on the wall.” Saimura had taken John’s place, spying out through the cracked planks. “They come out of nowhere like fucking flies.”

  John lunged out and grasped the woman. She was small and he easily scooped her up and pulled her quickly back behind the shelter of the wagon. She seemed incredibly delicate, more like a bird than a person. He wasn’t used to holding women.

  A sharp pain burst through John’s forearm as she bit him.

  “I’m trying to help you,” John said.

  “Go to hell, priest,” the woman growled back. She rammed a tiny sharp elbow into John’s stomach. He released her and she dropped to the ground.

  “Sheb’yu.” Saimura hunched down beside the woman. “He’s helping
us.”

  “What?” She eyed John with open disbelief.

  “This is the same man who hid me in the forest,” Saimura explained.

  She frowned at John. “Why are you dressed as a priest?”

  “It’s a long story and I don’t think we have time for it.” John returned to the cracked planks. Saimura had been right. The black silhouettes of the ushiri’im and the ushman’im were appearing all along the city wall. They raised their hands in an eerie unison. John could almost see the air all around them shimmering with energy.

  “They’re opening a God’s Razor,” John said. It was going to be huge. The thin edge of the Gray Space stretched nearly the full length of the city wall.

  “How many priests?” Saimura asked.

  “Forty or fifty,” John replied. He wondered if Ravishan was up there. He thought he recognized Fikiri’s blond braids.

  “Ji can’t handle that many,” Saimura said. He looked to Sheb’yu. “She has to pull back.”

  “She won’t leave without you,” Sheb’yu said.

  “She shouldn’t have come for me in the first place.” Aggravation and frustration played through Saimura’s strained face. “None of you should have.”

  Whatever reply Sheb’yu would have made was lost. A rending scream tore through the air as nearly a quarter mile of the Gray Space ripped open. Both Sheb’yu and Saimura hunched as though the sound were a physical blow. They clasped their hands over their ears and clenched their eyes closed in pain. All around, people and animals responded in the same manner, cowering in pain and fear. John found the noise grating but not unbearable. The open gash that gaped across the sky, however, seemed to wrench through his chest and sent a rush of intense repulsion through his entire being.

  Flames burst up along the edge of the God’s Razor, forming a narrow ribbon of fire that hung in the air just above the city wall. The grounds were suddenly so quiet that John could distinctly hear a single lamb bleating in its pen.

  Then the God’s Razor dropped. The flames extinguished, but John could see the deadly edge descending.