Throne of Ruins (The Powers of Amur Book 5)

by J. S. Bangs

  Virtues that Kest shared.

  The love between her and Taleg had been torrid, urgent, and insatiable, while Kest’s marriage to her had none of that passion. Yet he had been faithful and kind. He had saved her.

  She pushed him away a few inches. “Let me wash your face,” she whispered.

  She wet the rag and wiped his forehead clean of the refuse of battle. His scratched cheeks, his rough, copper-colored beard. His blood splattered lips. She bent, their faces close.

  A slight movement of his head. His lips touched hers.

  The moment after the kiss was a heavy pause. His breath sounded in her ear. Her hands rested on his shoulders, and she traced her fingers slowly down the flexing curve of his arm. She leaned into him.

  With a sudden burst of movement he picked her up. He threw her onto her back. On top of her, one hand pinning her wrist to the bedroll, the other hand running down her breast, over her waist, to her thighs, searching for the seam in her sari. She let out a little gasp of pleasure and surprise. Her free hand traced down his back, over the scratches which the Devoured had left him. The muscles in his back tensed and moved under her fingers.

  Kisses, hot, hard kisses. His hand under her sari, kneading her thigh. His tongue in her mouth. She bit his lip, put her hand on the back of his head and pulled him closer.

  He pulled back for a second and used both hands to pull apart the drape of her sari. With sudden violence he grabbed her hips in both hands and pulled her toward him. His hand crushed her bruise.

  “Ah!” she cried. “Careful!”

  The passion and fury on his face was replaced in a moment with chagrin. “Sorry,” he said. He let his hands drop.

  “No,” Mandhi said. “I just—oh, dear.”

  The curtain behind them had parted. Aryaji’s voice called out in concern, “Are you… oh.”

  Mandhi couldn’t see the maid’s face, but she could feel the awkward silence.

  “I guess I’ll go,” Aryaji said. She pulled the curtain shut.

  Kest’s face was red. Redder than usual. He stood up, turned toward the ewer of cold water, and splashed it on his face.

  Mandhi rose to her knees. Her pulse hammered in her ears, and her breath came heavy. “I’m still here,” she said. She reached for him.

  Kest looked at her, a heavy, regretful expression on his face. “I should check in with Sadja-daridarya. They might need me to defend the palace.”

  “Kest,” Mandhi said. “Wait—”

  His hands seemed to be trembling, and his face was flushed with sweat. Beads of the water with which he had washed his face glittered in his beard.

  “I’m fine,” he said in a low voice. “You cleaned me up. That’s all you needed to do for me.”

  “That wasn’t—”

  But he was gone through the curtain.

  “—wasn’t just for you,” she finished in a whisper, speaking only to herself.

  * * *

  A stone struck the windowsill of Mandhi’s chamber. She looked up in alarm.

  The crescent moon hung over the emptied city, lighting the streets with a weak, bone-white light. Aside from the looting of the Devoured, no one had moved in the streets all day. She had visited Sadja and Kest in the courtyard. Kest blushed and turned away at the sight of her, and she avoided him out of pity.

  She wanted to invite him back to their chamber and finish what they had started, but he seemed determined to pretend nothing had ever happened.

  She learned their condition from Sadja: the Devoured had overrun the city and besieged them in the palace. So far, the horde had made no attempt to breach the palace walls, concentrating their efforts on wrecking the riches of Davrakhanda. But soon they would come. Or else they would simply lock them all into the palace and wait for them to starve.

  “Tomorrow,” the Devoured shouted at the men on the walls. “Tomorrow the Empress of the Devoured arrives.”

  Mandhi did not wish to meet the Empress.

  Another stone clattered against the wall. Mandhi rose to see who was there. Probably one of the Devoured, amusing himself throwing rocks. She crept up cautiously, hoping not to get an arrow in the face for her trouble.

  She peeked out the window at the street that ran below the palace wall. She saw two men below, and her heart leaped.

  They were not Devoured. It was Sudran and Glanod.

  “Mandhi!” said Glanod with a hoarse shout. “Are you safe?”

  “Yes,” Mandhi shouted back, as loudly as she dared. She glanced cautiously to either side. She saw no Devoured.

  “Kest? Everyone else?”

  “Kest, Aryaji, most of the men serving with Sadja. Sadja-daridarya is here.”

  Glanod nodded eagerly. “We sneaked through the streets to find you. There are Devoured everywhere. Most of the ships in the harbor have fled. But there’s one left, if you can get out.”

  “One?”

  “Enough room for those trapped in the palace, if you can get out.”

  “But how can we get down?” She looked down. There was a drop of about thirty feet to the street, too far to jump.

  “Find something,” Glanod said. He glanced nervously to the side, and he and Sudran ducked into the darkness between the buildings. Mandhi looked to the south and saw a group of Devoured strolling through the crossing of the two streets.

  “I’ll talk to the Emperor,” she said, without waiting for them to reappear. She withdrew from the windowsill.

  Jhumitu was sleeping in a nest of blankets on the floor in her room. She bent and touched his forehead briefly, then kissed him on the cheek.

  “We’re getting out, little Heir,” she said.

  She crossed the corridor and parted the curtain to the room where Aryaji and Hrenge waited. “Sudran and Glanod are here,” she said.

  The women were awake and talking quietly. At Mandhi’s words they both started. Aryaji repeated Mandhi’s words in halting Kaleksha, and Hrenge’s face lit up with joy.

  “We have to get out,” Mandhi continued. “Difficult, but there should be a way. I’m going to Sadja-daridarya. Get ready.”

  “Yes,” Aryaji said pleasantly. She looked around the room and began gathering things together.

  “Only what we can carry,” Mandhi insisted. “We’ll be sneaking out.”

  She found the courtyard much as she remembered it: full of the palace guard in green livery, watchmen on the walls holding torches. The quiet murmuring of the soldiers was matched by the louder rumble of the crowd of Devoured outside the gate. The four Devoured they had captured were a pile of black ash, their charred bones heaped up on top of the still-warm coals. Sadja-daridarya paced near the entrance to the armory, moonlight glittering on his bronze armor. Its silk covering was torn and ragged, but he wore it anyway.

  She approached him and bowed. “My Emperor,” she said, “I have good news.”

  Sadja glanced up. “Good news?”

  “There is a boat ready to take us away, if we can escape the palace.”

  “One boat?” Sadja shook his head. “I ordered Bhargasa to prepare many boats.”

  “Most of the boats in the harbor already sailed to safety, they said—”

  “Who is they?”

  “Sudran, one of the saghada here in Davrakhanda, and Glanod, Kest’s cousin. They said one boat has stayed back, for those of us trapped in the palace.”

  “And now what?”

  “It’s dark, and we can sneak through the city and reach the docks.”

  Sadja paced a little more. He looked up at the torches twinkling like young stars on the ramparts over the courtyard.

  “I’m tired of fleeing,” he said with a growl.

  “My Emperor,” Mandhi said with another bow. “What other option do we have? We cannot possibly drive the Devoured out of the city with just the palace guard.”

  “And the rest of the army is either lost or has already escaped on the ships that have sailed away,” Sadja said with a mournful resignation. “Very well. I’m tired
of fleeing, but I might do it once more. Kest, come here.”

  Kest rose from atop a barrel where he had been sitting in the shadows. Mandhi started a little. She hadn’t seen him before.

  “Gather some men and pile up a barricade before the gate. Likewise for the side doors—I don’t know if the Devoured have found them yet, but they will soon. I’ll send someone for some rope, and we’ll go out the windows by the residence wing. Understood?”

  Kest nodded.

  Mandhi reached to touch him, and he clasped her hand for a moment.

  “Get my mother and our son out first,” he said to her in a low whisper. “And yourself. I’ll follow.”

  “Kest,” she said urgently, her heart a confused jumble of longing, sorrow, and desire. She didn’t think he had ever referred to Jhumitu as our son before. “Don’t risk yourself for the Emperor. Keep yourself safe.”

  He smiled at her. A flutter of heat in her belly. “I have no wish to die. I’ll be right behind you.”

  He let go of her hand and began moving through the courtyard, talking to the Kaleksha and servants in a quiet voice.

  She returned to Aryaji and Hrenge. Aryaji had prepared a little bundle of clothes and necessities, tied neatly together and slung over her shoulder.

  “We’ll be going out the window,” Mandhi said. “The four of us first.”

  Aryaji repeated it for Hrenge, who nodded grimly.

  Mandhi went to her window and waved once. She saw Glanod emerge briefly from the shadow of the house across the way, but she gestured for him to return to hiding. Then, in the moon-lit darkness of her own room, she tied a blanket into a sling and nestled the sleeping Jhumitu into it.

  The boy stirred a little when Mandhi picked him up, but Mandhi hushed him and patted his head. Rocking gently in the sling, he quieted. Mandhi paced the hall.

  Soldiers appeared with a coil of rope.

  “Where do we go down?” one of them asked.

  “My room,” Mandhi said. She led them to the door and pointed across the street. “In the shadows there, Sudran and Glanod are waiting. Hold the rope, and we can shimmy down. They’ll guide us to the boat.”

  The soldiers nodded, and without further instruction they tossed one end of the coiled rope out the window. There was a soft patter as the end of the rope hit the ground. The men stepped back a few paces, wrapped the rope a few times around their forearms, and nodded.

  “Who goes first?” the one asked.

  Aryaji and Hrenge had entered the room, Aryaji’s little pack of goods slung over her shoulder. Mandhi pointed to Hrenge.

  “Does she know how to climb down a rope?” she asked Aryaji.

  “I hope so,” Aryaji said, “because I certainly can’t explain it to her in Kaleksha.”

  But Aryaji pointed to the rope and out the window, and Hrenge seemed to understand. She went to the window, climbed up onto the sill, took the rope in both hands, and gently lowered herself down.

  Mandhi moved to the window to watch. The old woman clutched the rope in her meaty, Kaleksha fists, dropping herself inch by slow inch, her toes wedged into seams in the stone walls. Glanod emerged from the shadow across the street and spread his arms. When Hrenge was a yard above his head she let go, and Glanod caught the matriarch with a barely-audible grunt.

  “You next,” Mandhi whispered to Aryaji.

  Aryaji shook her head. “You take the baby first. I can follow.”

  Mandhi was about to argue, then changed her mind. It didn’t matter. Either they would all make it to the dhow, or they would all perish.

  She tightened the sling around her neck, stepped to the window, and grasped the rope. Slowly, with her toes planted firmly on the rough stone wall, she started to descend. Her hands slipped once, but she clutched the rope to her chest and stayed her fall. Carefully, cautiously, she continued down.

  “Jump, now,” she heard Glanod’s Kaleksha-accented voice. She looked down, then regretted it. If he thought he could catch her from this height—she jumped.

  With a soft grunt she landed in his arms. The jostling woke Jhumitu, who began to squirm and fuss again.

  “Quiet,” Mandhi said. She whispered hurriedly to Glanod, “Only Aryaji is left. The rest of them will be coming.”

  She sprinted across the street to the safety of the shadow with Jhumitu still whining in his sling. Once draped in darkness she put her knuckle in his mouth to quiet him. He gnawed her with his budding teeth for a few moments.

  Aryaji slid down the rope and into Glanod’s arms. Both of them hurried across the street.

  “Safe,” Glanod said as soon as he had gained the shadow. “None of them saw me.”

  “Good,” said Sudran, the saghada. He turned to Mandhi and Aryaji. “All of the Uluriya, Amuran and Kaleksha, escaped together to the harbor. If we stay to the shadows and the alleys, we can join them. Hurry, now.”

  The dark-haired Kaleksha man nodded. He clasped Hrenge’s hand and kissed her cheek. A few words in Kaleksha, and then he pointed forward. “You all follow me.”

  Glanod began to pace ahead of them, sticking to the shadows of the buildings and the narrowest, dimmest alleys.

  Clutching Jhumitu to her chest, Mandhi pressed forward and whispered to Glanod. “The rest of the palace—”

  Glanod quieted her. “I know. Sudran will stay and meet the others as they come.”

  “But the Devoured,” Aryaji said. Her voice was barely audible above the whisper of the night breeze. “Won’t they attack the ship?”

  “It’s moored a little ways off from the shore, right now, but there’s a dinghy tied to the docks. We have two of the Kaleksha there, and they’ll ferry you across. Quiet!”

  A few blocks to the west, a fire burned. The home of a local khadir. The voices of the Devoured sounded around it, rich with mockery and hatred. They slipped by in the dark, lit only for a moment by the yellow flames as they dashed across the open street. A small temple to Jakhur was besieged by looters, carrying out gold and silver implements, tearing apart the silken gown which had adorned the idol within.

  “The bhilami,” Mandhi murmured. “They’ll defile the bhilami when they find it.”

  “Hardly the worst thing they’ll do,” Glanod said. “Not worth worrying about.”

  The descent to the docks took a quarter of an hour. When at last they reached a shaded corner that looked out over the wharf, Mandhi let out a gasp of relief. The harbor was melancholy and abandoned. Jars were broken and sacks spilled over the stone. Every boat was gone save a few forlorn fishing vessels at the edges of the bay. A single large dhow waited in the shallow water twenty yards from the end of the docks.

  “That dock,” Glanod said, pointing. “In the shadow there’s a boat. Run there by yourselves, and the men will ferry you across.”

  “And you?” Mandhi asked.

  “I’ll stay and guide the others,” Glanod said with a shake of his head. “You get out.”

  He paused for a moment, bowed to Hrenge his matriarch, and kissed Jhumitu’s sleeping head. He muttered something to Hrenge, and Hrenge touched his forehead in blessing.

  The women crossed the docks. As promised, a small dinghy was tied beneath the beams at the end of the dock, hidden in the shadows. Two Kaleksha men hid in its belly. As soon as the women approached, they rose and helped them into the boat.

  A few minutes later they were climbing the ladder onto the deck of the dhow.

  “Here, here,” a voice said at the top, and Mandhi was somewhat surprised to see Bhargasa grabbing her hand and pulling her onto the deck.

  “Bhargasa?” Mandhi asked. He helped Hrenge and Aryaji over the rail as well, where they tumbled to the decking. “What are you doing here?”

  “Serving the Emperor,” Bhargasa said humorlessly. “Where is he?”

  “He’ll be coming,” Mandhi said. “With my husband, I hope.”

  Bhargasa nodded. “This dhow is nearly empty, except for a few of your Kaleksha.”

  “A few? Where are the rest?”


  Bhargasa pointed at the entrance of the harbor. “When the gates were lost, I fled here to coordinate those escaping on boats. The city….” He paused and looked across Davrakhanda with chagrin. Orange fires burned within the dark jumble of the city’s slopes, the only light in the nighttime darkness. “As many as made it to the docks we saved.”

  He was quiet for a moment, watching the silent city and the vicious fires spreading within it.

  “We set a rendezvous in Adashu,” he said for a moment. “Half a day’s sailing from here. They’ll wait for us there until tomorrow night.”

  “We wait for those getting out of the palace,” Mandhi insisted.

  “Of course,” Bhargasa said. He added softly, “My Emperor.”

  The palace denizens came in threes and fours, appearing out of the shadows of the alleys that let out onto the wharf, and sprinting across the white docks to where the dinghy waited. The Kaleksha rowers made ten trips back and forth from the dock to the dhow, carrying a few more people each time. Servants and palace guards, one minor khadir who had chosen the wrong night to stay in the palace.

  But not Kest and Sadja.

  A large group of Devoured emerged onto the docks, speaking loudly, cursing and blaspheming. They carried something large and heavy atop a wooden cart. Four men were pulling the cart, laughing and growling, while a crowd of thirty or so caroused around them.

  “Go away,” Mandhi said softly from where she watched the docks. “Kest needs to come.”

  But the men pulled the cart out onto one of the piers jutting into the water. The cotton sheet over the top of the cart was pulled away, and Mandhi caught a glimpse of a tall image that shone with a metallic sheen in the moonlight.

  “Not the Lady,” Bhargasa said with a cry of chagrin. He put his hand over his mouth. And Mandhi realized what it was: a gold-hammered image of Ashti, torn from its place of honor in the Ashtyavarunda.

  The men set the image on its feet at the edge of the pier. Two of them came forward and urinated on it. Another kicked it. Shouting sounded through the mob, and with a sudden surge the crowd lurched forward and pressed against the image. The gold toppled, tipped, and splashed into the water.