Advent of Ruin (The Qaehl Cycle Book 1)

by Allene Lowrey

  “You didn’t bring the girl.”

  “I did not, at the advice of her literacy instructor.”

  “No matter. I’ll meet her soon enough. It will be fascinating to interview one of the Chèin’ii.” Zareen set a brisk pace. Bahadur’s lead-lined legs had trouble keeping up as she crested small rises. Kafe could only do so much, after all.

  “I would think they would be easy to talk to.”

  “You would be wrong. They tend to keep to themselves.”

  “They were very cooperative with us.”

  “You were a guardsman. Everything you did carried the threat of violence.”

  “That’s -”

  “The simple truth, no matter whether or not you intended to abuse that power, or whether or not your superiors would have tolerated it.”

  “…That is truly unfortunate.”

  “You are either the most honest guardsman I’ve ever met, or the most dishonest. In either case, I look forward to interviewing you today.”

  Zareen led him on a circuitous route before finally striking towards the Loremaster’s Guild. The woman was probably the most paranoid person Bahadur had ever met, save for a few addle-brained beggars back home who had spent more time locked up than begging. It was almost enough to make him wonder if there was more to this group than a simple belief in the truth of some old stories.

  Wait, check that; it is enough. There’s no way she told me everything yesterday. Serpents, I wouldn’t have told her everything, had our positions been reversed.

  * * *

  “Come in, have a seat, make yourself comfortable. Easier said than done in here, but trust me when I say it’s better than the public interviewing rooms.”

  Bahadur took a stool.

  “Now then. Why don’t you start by telling me what your life was like before you were warned about the attack?” She decided to start there. Of course she decided to start there.

  “This… is going to take me a bit.”

  “We’ve got all day. Take your time.”

  Where to begin…? “Anahita and I lived in a modest flat not far from the barracks. Baraz, our oldest, was nine, and Dilshad was six. They were smart boys, and Ana and I made sure they had a good tutor. When I was off-shift, I would teach them, too – mostly fighting. Folks of our station had a couple options; they could apprentice themselves to a business, or try to start their own stall, or join the guard. Baraz was a serious boy, and claimed he wanted to be like me. Dilshad… he never had a chance to outgrow ‘adventuring’ as a career choice.” Bahadur forced himself to smile, but he couldn’t unclench his teeth.

  “So you were a family man.” Her voice was flat; it sounded like she was bored already, when he was answering her question.

  “Aye.” His throat tightened on the word.

  “And you were on duty when-”

  “Aye.” He rushed it out so that she couldn’t complete the question.

  “Water?”

  “Please.” What he wanted was a moment to breathe, to force that back out of his mind. There was time enough alone in his room at night to work through the loss. Water would help, though, and he took the rough ceramic cup gratefully. She returned to her stool on the other side of the table and made notes while she waited.

  “Better?”

  He nodded.

  “Good. Let’s skip the personal stuff. What was the first warning you had of the creatures?”

  “A merchant went missing.” Bahadur told what he knew of Ihsan’s ill-fated search into the desert, including how the man had been found unconscious by the Chèin’ii caravan, and continuing into their preparations for the attack based on Shahin’s information.

  “Who is Shahin?”

  “The courier we were questioning… And the man who saved us.”

  “I’m assuming the reason he isn’t here as well is part of the story?”

  “…Yes.”

  “Go on, then.”

  The actual attack was easier to tell; he had rehearsed for this, and there were fewer entanglements. Zareen caught up with her notes and looked at him expectantly. This was going to be a long day.

  * * *

  Over the course of the next week, Bahadur listened over dinner to Sanaz’s descriptions of Gita’s progress. Sometimes it was hard to believe that a month ago she didn’t see the point of reading: now she was devouring whatever Sanaz put before her, each text a little more complicated than the last. He thought Gita was making good on her promise, and Zareen was becoming impatient. Becoming? Ha! Zareen was impatience incarnate, and had been for three days now. Assuming Gita was willing to talk, they could have this first bit over with after today, and then move on to what to do about it. Bahadur smirked; he may have become a little impatient, himself.

  “All right, Gita. Shall we see what we can find out today?”

  “Mm!” The girl had definitely brightened up since they’d been here. Having something to do other than brood must have helped.

  Good. Since her mood had brightened, maybe she would be more independent.

  Dara waved to them as they stepped in the door. “I’ll have your kafe right out!”

  “Thanks! Oh, and Gita’s along today, so something for her, as well, please.”

  Dara had been surprised only that Bahadur made contact with the Loremasters so quickly. Yesterday he’d surmised that they hadn’t tried to recruit him because of his age, and clearly they were holding out for the girl. Bahadur laughed off the suggestion even as he filed it away for safekeeping. He could not discount the possibility. He didn’t think they would try to force her, but watching her read was like watching the ground after it rained: always thirsty for more.

  Zareen was late this morning. Gita had nearly finished her milky kafe, and Bahadur was considering a second, before she hurried in the door.

  “Oh, good, you’re here. Come on; I’m afraid there’s a bit of a rush today.”

  “Why, what happened?” He was on his feet even as the words left his mouth.

  “Guild business. Nothing to concern yourself about.”

  Bahadur nodded at Gita, who was already setting her cup down on the table as she stood. They offered a wave to Dara and had to hurry to keep up with Zareen as she left the shop. Usually she was at least as eager for a midmorning kafe as he was. Guild business, or something more troublesome? Not that she would tell him either way. It was odd, being on the fringes of a group of questionable legality – rather like the first weeks after he had joined the guard, somehow. He hadn’t realized how accustomed he’d become to knowing the why behind the what since he became an officer.

  Zareen led them along a more direct route this time, but still not one Bahadur recognized even though he had been to the Hall five out of the last seven days.

  “Do you ever take the same route twice?”

  “Not in a row.”

  He had been warned the Loremasters were eccentric; this was benign, as far as eccentricities went. At least today’s entrance was one he recognized. He had seen four doors thus far that required a guild key to use, and he suspected there were more.

  Now that Zareen had Gita to interrogate, it seemed she was done with him for the moment; she set him back to the work he had been given the afternoon previous.

  He was finally beginning to learn how to navigate the lower library. All seemed calm in the stacks. Bahadur returned to where he had left off the day before, gathering sources for this “intriguing” new angle his story had given her research. Not that he knew what area of lore she specialized in. Are there specialties among the Loremasters? There must be… right? Scholars were an odd lot sometimes, and just when he thought he had the method figured out they threw some new wrinkle at him.

  If there was some trick to determining what she wanted without having to unfurl the scroll, he had yet to learn it. Thankfully most of them had been transcribed recently enough that he could read them, even if the usage was arcane. Some of the scrolls were still written all or in part in a strange alphabet th
at might once have been a language. Those he cheerfully ignored, moving on to the next in the stack.

  No, don’t think that fits. He just wished he knew why she was looking into Kapi in particular. What does he have to do with anything? Probably some connection only a scholar would see – not that he liked that any better.

  “Bahadur?” The voice was small and low, but startling in the silence of the stacks. He whirled to face it and saw only Gita. “Zareen wants me to bring you in for a minute, and then she’ll see us out.”

  He replaced the scroll he had been looking at in the racks and gathered up the paltry few he had found. Now the only question was, what was she going to want of them tomorrow?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  It was pleasant, settling in to village life with the Bezrashi. Somehow most of the young men and the young women had taken it into their heads to idolize Shahin like a hero – blazing idiot is more like it – and the bit of strife caused when he announced the existence of the monsters had transformed into the quiet and determined laying of plans. Not one of the villagers was eager to be eaten, but predation was a normal problem here. That was something else he had never expected to see – this calm acceptance of casualties, as though it was natural that predators should sometimes take the children of the village.

  The men of the village set to crafting extra spears, and the goatherds were all armed with these and javelins as well as their slings. Once Zena deemed him past his “sun-sickness” he spent most days out on Kamari, patrolling around the village for any sign the creatures had come this way. Those evenings passed in conference with the older men. His first task was to convince them that there was more to be gained by fighting back than just a few days.

  Really, that was the trouble. Zena had said that the village would be destroyed. They took it as a given that she meant to the last man, no matter where they went or what they did. All they have to go on is what one person claims she divines ‘from the stars,’ and still it’s always ‘Hekevidya says.’ He still wasn’t sure he believed that ‘reading the stars’ was different from magic, for that matter. Certainly in the stories he’d heard it was only magicians who could divine.

  The Qaehl this afternoon looked much the same as it always did this near the savanna; open, rolling dunes, with here and there a tuft of beard grass or an adventurous khejri or date palm for a landmark, or perhaps the sun-bleached bones of an unfortunate creature that hadn’t made it to water in time.

  Speaking of which… He steered Kamari a little deeper into the desert. He thought he saw bones on the side of a dune. There was a flat stretch of land first, but it shouldn’t take long to pass. Even heeling Kamari to a trot, though, it took him longer to cross that expanse of sand than it should have. He had never known Kamari to drag her feet; was something wrong?

  When he finally reached the spot he noted the unfortunate creature was a chinkara, based on the skull. They were fairly common. Shahin dismounted to take a closer look at the already bleached bones.

  The creature’s spine was snapped nearly in two, and several ribs near the vertebrae were also broken. Shahin had a sickening feeling he knew what he was going to find when he reached out – only he abruptly realized he didn’t need to handle the bones. The gouges were plainly visible, as were the tiny, parallel grooves that marked the remains outside of Q’uungerab.

  “Well, Kamari, now what do we do?” He could pick out each individual eyelash and hair on her nose, if he tried, but at least she didn’t look twice her size. “You going to spook on me if I try to bring some of these bones back?”

  The horse whickered.

  “Well all right, then.” He worked quickly, trying desperately to refocus his eyes as he did so. As he was piling the chinkara skull on top of the rest of the sample he almost managed, but the effort left him lightheaded.

  “Okay, girl. Time to go home.” He spurred Kamari forward into a light canter, pacing off the distance back to the savanna’s edge by her stride. As if I need more proof that my eyes are playing tricks on me. It was, as he suspected, about twice as far as he had initially thought to cross the flat space. Under ordinary circumstances he wouldn’t have noticed the skeleton at all. There’s some good to it, then. Only, he already felt pressure building up behind his eyes. Kamari knew where to go; he let the horse take them home and tried again to force his sight back to normal. He’d almost had it before; surely it must be possible.

  Kamari crossed into the savanna and his vision swam a little, and then the unnatural details faded away. The first tendrils of pain crept through his head and down the sides of his neck, testing. If concentration could return his vision to normal, though, maybe he could maintain it well enough to get the information back to the village elders.

  * * *

  It was Lila who spotted him galloping into the village and cried an alarm. Shahin was pleased with himself for being able to dismount; despite his best efforts his mind was fogging with a half-remembered haze. Once his feet were on the ground his knees nearly followed, and he leaned against Kamari. Lila shifted his weight from the horse’s side to her own shoulder and guided him to the shade of the nearby weaver’s hut. He sat rubbing his temples with one hand. A rough cup filled with water was thrust into the other.

  “I’ll be okay. Just… just get me to the Elder, and then I’ll go… go see Zena.”

  Scowls from the weavers told him he had just said something stupid.

  “Sorry. Not thinking. Maybe… Hekevidya first, then.” He managed a wan smile. “It’s the… sun-sickness again.”

  “We’ll get you there.” The man who spoke took the cup Shahin held and set it aside before throwing Shahin’s arm over his shoulders. As he lifted, a woman ducked under Shahin’s other arm to help steady him. He thought it was Lila; why was it always her? And why was her hand on his chest? But thinking of such things was making his head worse; he should concentrate. That was helping before, a little.

  Zena was in the process of grinding herbs for one of her medicinal concoctions. Fat was rendering over her cookfire. Shahin was intimately familiar with a number of less pleasant smells than rendering fat, but at the moment it made him want to vomit.

  “Hekevidya! Hekevidya! Your patient needs you.”

  “Bring him inside; lay him down on the cot.” She wasn’t surprised, and that irritated him. Had she even looked up? But the cot sounded wonderful right now, and their every word rang like a smith’s forge hammer in his head. Shahin would have to make sure to get the name of the man carrying him so he could be properly thanked. Lila was still there, too, but she was almost intangible except for her gaze. The man’s shoulder disappeared out from under his arm and was replaced by four hands guiding him down onto the cot.

  “All right, now let me have a look at him.” Suddenly the old woman’s fingers were prying open his eyelid and all he could see was her eye surrounded by leathery skin. He recoiled, but his head was already resting on the bolster.

  “Hold still! You want something for it this time, don’t you?”

  He tried to relax, but relaxing when there was a face not an inch from his own was no small feat.

  “Good. Look up. Mmmhmm. Look down… Left? Good. Now right.” She claimed this helped her find the problem, but medicine had never made much sense to him. Zena examined his other eye as carefully as the first, and then was out of his field of view as quickly as she had appeared. The light could not have been as bright as it felt, but he wanted to squint against it. She was not gone long; he soon felt those same fingers dabbing a warm, sticky paste onto his forehead that smelled of grass and honey. He felt his shoulders begin to relax, and the skin around the paste loosened a little. She wrapped his brow with thin linen. It had to be thin; he could still smell the sweet, grassy odor.

  “Now, you just relax there for a bit while this steeps. It might put you to sleep for a little.”

  “Can’t-” Shahin attempted to lever himself up as he spoke, but firm hands held his shoulders down and he couldn’t
tell who they belonged to.

  “Whatever you found can wait for tonight, and I wager you’ll not be out that long. Now be still and let it work.”

  Shahin attempted to speak, but all he managed was a weak “rrmm.”

  * * *

  Shahin was surprised to wake up in the evening with only vestiges of the headache remaining. The grassy-sweet smell of the compress still filled his nose, and a tightness in the skin of his forehead confirmed it was still there. He lifted a hand to feel at it; the fabric was stretched taut and stiff so that he could feel the individual threads of the weave.

  “How long…?”

  “Only a few hours. You should trust me when I tell you these things.” Zena’s answer came from someplace out of sight in the hut.

  “Humph. Seems to have worked.”

  “That compress usually does the job. Tell me in detail what happened this time.”

  * * *

  When the village fathers withdrew from the fire that night to Karna’s hut with its wide space and long, low table, Shahin slung his saddlebag over his shoulder before following. And now our discussions become a war council, he thought. War. With the Bezrashi as army, versus the combined might of who-knows-how-many demonic bugs that could cut a man in half or skewer him with equal ease and might not even be mortal. That isn’t a war, that’s suicide. Only, what else are we supposed to do? Shahin couldn’t bring himself to believe that the monsters would be contained by the savanna.

  “Hekevidya said your sun-sickness had returned. Are you certain you should not be resting?”

  “I’m fine. Her cure worked like a charm, but if I come back smelling of ut’sharmka she’ll paddle me.”

  The other men laughed. They had all been on the receiving end of Zena’s threats at some point. Some of them, he was sure, had seen her follow through on them.