Twelve Kings in Sharakhai

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  More and more of the horrific night came back to her. Dardzada showing her the adichara bloom. Drugging her. Tattooing her and marking her with something she couldn’t even see.

  She stood and stared up at the sun, then at the stone and sand around her. None of it looked the least bit familiar. She tried to gain her bearings but couldn’t. She had no idea which direction she’d come from before she’d collapsed to the desert floor. She also had no idea which way she’d gone after leaving Sharakhai. South and east would be a good guess, but that was the best she could come up with. Still, it couldn’t be that far, could it?

  She tried looking for footprints, but it was no good. The ground here was either stone or sand that had shifted a thousand times since she’d fallen asleep. She would wait until the sun started going down to regain her bearings, and then head northwest. She sat up and pulled her shirt over her head. The dried blood pulled painfully at the fresh tattoo, but she desperately needed the shade, so she sat, legs crossed, shirt held over her head like some sorry tent in the bazaar.

  She waited for an hour. She would have waited longer, would have waited for the cool hours to arrive before she began walking, but she was already dehydrated, and the risk of desert fever was getting higher by the hour. And, she realized with a shock, tonight was Beht Zha’ir. By Tulathan’s bright eyes, the asirim would be roaming the desert tonight.

  That was enough to get her back on her feet and heading toward what she judged to be west. She must be quite a sight, plodding along like a boneyard shambler, bare-chested with her shirt wrapped sloppily about her head, a fresh, bloody tattoo on her back.

  As she walked, she kept an eye out for Tauriyat, the hill in the center of Sharakhai. It was visible for leagues around the city, but there were places in the desert where tricks of the land—depressions, Dardzada had called them—would hide the city from careless travelers.

  She only needed to get to the edge, to the next rise, however slight it might seem from here, and she would see Sharakhai. She knew she would.

  That was when a cackle sounded behind her. An animal laugh. A chill ran down her frame. It was the bone crushers’ call. Black laughers. Massive hyenas that traveled in packs, taking down horses, gazelle, even unwary travelers and the massive red lizards from the western reaches.

  She reached down to her belt. Her knife Why hadn’t she brought a knife?

  Stop, Çeda. Think. There might be time to hide from them. There was a rocky ridgeline ahead; it was shallow but might hide her if she was quick, or offer some rocks to fight with, if not.

  She set off at a lope, dizzy as she tried to pick up her pace. She’d not gone fifty strides when the sound of the black laughers grew stronger. With a glance back, she saw one of them crest the dune. Massive and broad at the shoulder. Black head and withers and a brown, spotted coat. Round ears and wicked eyes that were locked on her.

  It laughed, its head bobbing up and down, as if exceedingly pleased with its find. Another came up beside it, and another after that, both larger than the first. By Goezhen’s wicked smile, they were the size of small ponies. Her lope became a run, then an all-out sprint.

  The laughers hounded after her, all three of them laughing now that the chase was on. Çeda looked for rocks as she ran for the ridge. She slipped into an uneven wadi that wound up toward it. She slipped, twisting her ankle. The sound of the laughers was closer, and she stood and sprinted on with two fist-sized rocks in her hands. One of the laughers was well ahead of the others. She turned and loosed one of her rocks, catching it against the shoulder. The beast yelped, but kept on running until Çeda caught it square against the skull with another throw.

  She ran again, but she was losing hope. The laughers would take her down with little trouble. They’d nip at her heels, then bite, and drop her to the sandy earth. They’d surround her before darting in and clamping their huge jaws on her ankles or throat.

  Most of the land below the ridge was bright beneath the sun, but there was a narrow line that sat in the lee. The shadows there were heavy, but Çeda could see something. Forms lying in the shade.

  The first of them stood. A wolf with a white pelt. Others stood behind it. One, two, three of them. More.

  Çeda kept running, until something heavy hit her from behind. She fell and rolled, kicking sharply, her foot connecting with the laugher’s black muzzle. Its yelp turned into a deep growl. It watched, legs spread wide, keg-sized head lowered, beady eyes flicking between her and the maned wolves.

  Çeda stood and backed away slowly as the other two laughers joined the first. One was bleeding, red blood matting the rough fur along the top of its head, dripping into its left eye.

  The white wolf approached. Even in the weeks since she’d first seen it, it had grown. Its head was now even with hers. It would not be a match for the bone crushers, not even one of them, but its pack padded up behind it, teeth bared, low growls issuing from their throats. Its brothers and sisters were the same size, including the one with the scars along its head and withers that Çeda noticed when she’d first come across them. The white wolf’s uncles and aunts were rangy things, their heads higher than Çeda’s.

  The wounded laugher was a massive brute. It crept toward Çeda while watching the white wolf, making clear that this lost, lonely girl was its kill. But as it came, the white wolf came too, and when the laugher darted in, the white wolf charged, growling and barking and snapping for the bone crusher’s throat.

  The laugher backed away, and then attacked the maned wolf, using its mass to bowl the smaller beast over. The two of them wrestled in the sand for only a moment before the rest of the wolf pack charged in and snapped at the laugher’s legs and head and haunches. The scarred wolf was the most vicious of them, the least concerned for its own safety. It bit and growled, its movements a blur.

  The bone crushers were violent beasts, but they were not brave and wanted numbers in their favor. The other two laughers darted forward, snapped at the wolves, but only so their fallen brother could rise and sprint away from the pack. Then all three of them galloped away, down the wadi and toward the deeper desert.

  The maned wolves watched them go, staring intently until they were lost from sight, and then the adult wolves padded back to the shade and lay down, pleased to relax in the shade once more. The white wolf, though, turned to Çeda, as did its brothers and sisters. One by one they lost interest and peeled away, leaving only the white, and Çeda standing before it.

  “Thank you,” Çeda said.

  The wolf merely stared, standing tall, its bluish eyes meeting Çeda’s. Then it turned and trotted, not toward the pack, but to a path of sorts that led up to the top of the shallow ridge.

  Çeda followed, with no idea where the wolf might be leading her but curious all the same. When she came to the top, she saw a dark line in the sand.

  The Haddah, she realized. It was the Haddah, and if she followed it back, it would bring her to Sharakhai.

  The wolf nipped at her heels until she was in motion and heading down the slope toward the riverbed, then turned and loped back down the path to its pack.

  The sun was setting when Çeda knocked on the door, her head pounding, her legs shaking from the walk. She’d stopped when she reached Sharakhai, but only once, to drink her fill of water from a well, before she continued on toward Emre’s home, the one he shared with his brother Rafa.

  She knocked again. She needed shelter. That was one reason she came. She’d never return to Dardzada’s. She knew that much. But there was another driving reason she needed to see Emre.

  She was about to knock again when the door opened. Rafa stood there, his curly hair hanging over his face, his eyes bleary, but when he saw her his eyes went wide, and he looked up and down the street, perhaps expecting someone to be following her. But the street was empty, unless you counted the old woman in a billowing yellow jalabiya watering the flowers outside her window
a few doors down.

  “Gods above, come in, Çeda.” He ushered her in, but not before looking along the street one last time. He ran and got her some water, handing it to her with concern in his eyes. His curly hair was a ragged mop around his head. “Now, what happened to you?”

  “Is Emre here?”

  “He’s asleep.”

  “I’m up,” Emre said from the darkened doorway on the far side of the narrow room.

  “How can you be sleeping now, you bloody great oaf?” Çeda was trying to lighten the tone, but it went over miserably.

  “I’m helping Rafa unload a ship tonight,” Emre replied while yawning and rubbing his eyes. “Make a few sylval. We can’t all find room and board from a fat apothecary.” No sooner had he said these words than his eyes widened. “Çeda, what’s wrong?” He stepped forward, looking her over with clear concern in his eyes. She might have cried were she not so utterly exhausted.

  “Can we talk?” Çeda asked Emre, glancing to Rafa.

  Rafa looked between the two of them, nodded and stepped away. “I’ll head in early, Emre. Meet me there when you can.”

  Emre nodded, and soon Rafa was gone, leaving the two of them alone.

  “Now tell me.” He spotted the bloody back of her shirt. “Dardzada did this? I’ll kill him, Çeda.”

  She couldn’t summon up the anger. Not now. It had been burned out of her in the desert. “Tell me what he did,” Çeda said, wanting desperately to know but fearful just the same.

  Without waiting for an answer, she turned around and pulled her shirt up. It tugged her skin painfully in a few spots, but she paid it no mind, and soon it was off, leaving her naked from the waist up.

  “It’s too bloody,” he said. He took the shirt from her, wetted it with water, and cleaned the wound quickly and efficiently, wincing when he saw that it was causing her pain. “I don’t . . .”

  “Just draw it, here.” She shook out her shirt, which made a filthy circle of dust and sand on the floor.

  Emre used it to draw and began moving his finger through the accumulated grit, staring at her back, then marking the dust, looking again, embellishing more and more as he went. It was one of the old symbols, a single image with layer upon layer of meaning.

  Çeda knew what it was long before he finished, but still she waited, hardly believing what Dardzada had inked upon her back.

  “What does it say?” Emre asked, quiet as a mouse.

  She reached out and traced a finger along the symbol Emre had drawn. She’d never felt so alone. “He’s marked me with the tribes’ symbol for a bastard child.”

  It proved what Dardzada thought of her. It was his way of disowning her, of saying she was no daughter of his. Her mind raced through the times Ahya had spoken with Dardzada, how they’d fought, but they’d laughed, too. She thought how Dardzada had wept when Ahya had died. She thought of many things, and through it all, she was lonely. Alone. Dardzada was her last link to her mother, and now he was gone, too. There was no way she could go back to him, no way she could forgive him.

  She didn’t know when it started, but she realized she had pulled herself into a ball, her knees against her naked chest, and she was sobbing into her crossed arms.

  Emre, gods bless him, was holding her gently to his chest, rocking her slowly back and forth, and when she felt his warm tears falling onto her shoulder, she realized she was not alone. She was not without family. Her mother might be gone; perhaps Dardzada was too. But Emre was her blood. And she was his.

  EMRE APPROACHED Matron Zohra’s estate at twilight. He didn’t ring the bell. He simply waited until Enasia opened the door and sprinted across the carriage circle to meet him, her orange dress flowing in her wake.

  She opened the gate and drew him by the wrist onto the grounds, then threw him against the interior of the wall with a force that no longer surprised him. She pressed herself against him, kissing his neck passionately, raking fingers through his hair. She pressed her hips against his, grinding as she nipped his ear, then bit him fiercely, but only for a moment. And when her lips met his, they were warm as the Haddah was cool. There was no doubt that her form was soft and inviting. Her scent was like rose and jasmine and the brightness of the desert in spring. But Emre was repulsed by it all, by every aspect of her. Yet his kisses remained fervent. His breath came fast as hers. His hand roamed up along her hip, along the soft valley of her stomach, over one ripe breast, squeezing as he pressed himself against her.

  Soon she pulled away and led him along the drive to the carriage circle and into the manor house. The moment she closed the door, he spun her around and pressed her against the door, leaning down to place kisses along her neck, as he grabbed a fistful of her hair.

  “Returning favors?” she asked, her breath coming heavily.

  “One good turn deserves another.”

  They kissed for longer this time, his hand now slipping between her thighs, rubbing as she stroked his hardening cock through his trousers. He gripped a clutch of her hair, tilted her head back, and bit her neck. She drew breath sharply and reached to undo his trousers, but stopped when he grabbed her wrists and broke away. “Did you get rid of him?”

  “I did better than that!” She tried to step closer, but he held her at bay, a thing she seemed to enjoy, for she fought harder to reach him. “I had my Lady send him away for a week!”

  “You didn’t!”

  “I did! I told Matron Zohra there might be more of your elixir in Ishmantep. Rengin’s gone to fetch it.”

  The elixirs had not, in fact, done a thing to help the Matron’s condition—at least, not according to Enasia—but hope had taken root that the third one would have some small effect if given enough time. Emre had hinted that his supply was running low, and that perhaps more could be found in Ishmantep. Enasia had done the rest.

  “The Matron won’t discover us?” he asked.

  She grinned at him, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. “I’ve locked her in her room. She won’t bother us.”

  That thought made Emre’s stomach turn, but he tried not to let it show. “You are a wicked, wicked woman.”

  “Isn’t that why you like me?”

  She squealed as he swept her up in his arms and carried her up the stairs. “I cannot deny it!” When they reached the landing, he frowned and set her down. “What am I thinking? How about a glass of wine?” He took one step down to forestall her from going.

  “More than a glass, if you please.” She continued up to the second floor, then looked down at him from the railing. “There are dozens of tankards in the cellar. Take any you wish except for those along the far wall.” And with that she turned and headed for the parlor, her flame-orange dress sweeping the floor like a painter’s brush.

  Emre went to the kitchen and took the stairs down to the cellar. Enasia hadn’t lied. There were several hundred bottles and dozens of small tankards of wine, many of good vintage from all across the Kingdoms: Mirean, Malasani, even some from the far shores of the Austral Sea. He selected one of the tankards at random, then returned to the kitchen and poured the wine into a decanter. He grabbed two delicate glasses and set them next to it, then retrieved a folded paper packet from the pouch at his belt. After unfolding it carefully, he poured the white powder into Enasia’s glass and drowned it in wine. After filling the other glass, he took them both in one hand, the decanter in the other, and headed upstairs to the third floor.

  He found her in the parlor, naked, lying on her stomach in the middle of a tiger-skin rug. Her eyes were lost in the leaping flames of the nearby fireplace, so he moved to the marble table behind the low couch and set the wine and glasses down. For a time, he watched the firelight dance upon her skin. There was no denying it—Enasia was a true beauty. But he hadn’t lied when he’d called her wicked.

  For long hours of the day Matron Zohra would sit in her room and stare at the walls.
Zohra had no family to speak of. They’d been few enough to begin with, and the rest had apparently died, leaving only Enasia and the generosity of the House of Kings to care for her. Sadly, though, Enasia was a woman who cared for the coin that filled her purse, the advantages that living with a favored Lady conferred, and precious little else. She was nakedly ambitious.

  From what Emre could see, whatever love Enasia might have harbored for Zohra had evaporated years ago. Enasia would leave her Lady alone for long stretches at a time, sometimes not bothering to check on her for a day or more, especially if Rengin had been called away from the estate to handle Zohra’s business. Enasia stole as well—anything she thought might go unnoticed. She was head of Zohra’s estate for the time being, but Enasia knew it wouldn’t last. Sooner or later, as she’d told Emre more than once, Zohra would be gone, and what good would all that money do the Kings? They would swoop in and gobble up the estate and any remaining possessions and leave Enasia a beggar on the street. How could that be considered justice for the time she’d served, she’d asked him more than once.

  If they knew what you were doing, Emre had thought, a different sort of justice entirely would greet you.

  As his days with Enasia had worn on, Emre had forced himself to think of her in other ways, to pretend she was some other woman, lest she sense his disgust and set him aside for another. At first he had tried to imagine she was more like Çeda, but thinking of Çeda and Enasia in the same breath made him uncomfortable, so he began to put different faces on her—of any woman he’d taken a liking to.

  The deceptions, to himself and Enasia both, were necessary, for as fate would have it, he was hoping to use Zohra too. His entire purpose here was to find the records which Hamid said would be secreted away somewhere within this house. Searching her home when the woman was already being used gave him pause, but there was little he could do about Zohra’s state of mind. As cruel as it was, he had to find what he needed, and the gods could do with her what they would.