Lydia’s quick thinking impressed me. “Erragal does not want another protracted battle. He wonders what he can offer you so that you will return to your home.”
“He fears me.”
“You fear him.”
This may have been the wrong thing to say, for Najya’s nostrils flared, like a bull grown angry. Yet she waited a moment. “What,” she asked tightly, “does he wish?”
“That depends upon what you desire. I am authorized to make several offers, contingent upon your intentions.”
I understood then that Lydia was a most magnificent liar.
“At first,” Usarshra said through Najya’s lips, “I thought only to return home. But you had effectively anchored me to the woman’s body. I have grown accustomed to it. And these people here obey me. So I shall give them what they wish, and I shall take from this place what I desire.”
“But what do you desire most?” Lydia asked. “Erragal can return the final bone to you, if you will but return, and remain, in the frozen realms. This place cannot be comfortable to you. To the other spirit folk. And it shall not always be winter.”
“Ah, but it can be. And you need not worry about my comfort. The woman’s body shields me somewhat from the heat. No, if Erragal had wished me to return, he might have offered me the bones at the beginning. They belong to me. But he waited too long. I shall take back the power he stole from me! I shall use it to widen the gate to the frozen lands. When my folk come through, the greater cold shall come with them.”
Lydia’s eyes took in the Khazars at Najya’s side. “Your human followers will all die.”
“That is what they wish. Now. What can Erragal offer me? The remaining bone? He can give it to me, if he likes, but I shall take it from him regardless. More blood? That, too, shall I take.”
Lydia addressed her with solemn dignity. “If you do not treat with him now, it will be too late. He has grown powerful in the long years since he battled you. He extends his hand now.”
“And I would cut it off.” She barked a swift word to her guards, who seized Lydia by the arms.
I started forward, then stopped myself. “What are you doing?” There was a panicked edge to my question, for I feared that they were taking her away to chop off her hands.
“Putting her with the other prisoners,” Usarshra said. “Where I would place you, and your friend, were you not useful to me.”
Lydia choked back a sob and her head fell, but she was acting, for she slammed her heel into the toes of one distracted guard. When his grip slipped she pulled an arm free of him and spun to jam her knee into the other fellow’s groin. Freed, she darted through the exit.
My pleasure was short-lived, for Usarshra shouted and the other guards raced after Lydia, including the one still limping from her assault. I threw out my leg so that the nearest fell face-first onto the carpet.
Then I felt Najya’s cold, cold hand upon my shoulder and for the second time that day I grew so numb that my knees shook.
“Whose side are you on?” she asked in my ear.
“It is wrong,” I said with my shaking jaw. “You do not … kill … an envoy.”
“I do what I please. And I think that you have deceived me. You shall remain in your tent, with your friend, until I have need of you, one way or the other. After the sorcery this morning my powers will be so great that I need not be troubled by the woman’s thoughts ever again.”
She released her hold on me, and I stood, shivering miserably, though more than the cold numbed me. She pointed at the fellow still bent forward holding his groin. “Take Asim to the tent. See that if he attempts escape, he is chained in place.”
The Khazar nodded with as much dignity as he could manage. Usarshra strode away in the direction Lydia had fled.
My guardian took a comically long time to recover. I thought of running, but there really seemed no point, for I had no wish to be chained, and I needed to tell Dabir all that I had learned. So, almost sick with apprehension, I waited while the fellow’s pain eased, then followed him back to my tent. He still walked with a hunch.
I had hoped to report that Lydia at least was free, but as we rounded the corner I saw her being led by no less than ten angry-looking Khazars. Her hat was missing and her hair wild. One of her guards had three bleeding scratches across his face. Behind them all was Usarshra, who looked at me through those ice-colored eyes and smiled with all the warmth of a winter sunrise.
18
Neither my guardian nor the two sentries bothered looking inside the tent, which was good, because Dabir’s project would surely have aroused suspicion. The carpets were soggy and squished under my boots as I advanced into the darker space.
Koury still lay on his side, but a wedge of ice had been melted, exposing one waxy-looking hand and a good portion of his chest. Dabir sat near the fire pit, and once he saw it was me he did not ask about the success of my mission, or report to me about his own ventures.
“Help me get him back up,” he said.
“Why?”
“So it will not be so obvious. We shall turn him so that the melted side faces away from the door.”
I thought this a fine idea. Any wet bits of the carpet might then be explained away by the simple fact that the ice near a fire could be expected to melt. We might still be in danger if anyone were to look closely, but at least Dabir’s work would not be immediately visible.
It had taken six men to carry that block, but Dabir and I managed to stand it up.
Dabir fussed with its angle a bit, then nodded as if to say that it was acceptable. Only then did he ask me what I had seen.
“We are out of time,” I began, then told him all that I had learned—that a ritual for blood magic was being readied, and that many folk from the Mosul suburbs would likely meet their end when it happened. That Mosul itself would likely fall afterward when spirits were sent into its streets, and then its people would be harvested for further sorcery, and that Usarshra planned to widen the gate so more frost spirits could come through. That Lydia was to be sacrificed with all the others. It was not a report to inspire a great deal of confidence, but Dabir, while tense, did not look nearly as discouraged as I felt.
“Erragal is still free,” he said. “We need only bring him the other bones, and Najya will surely follow. She has even foreseen that. A pity you could not ask for further details.”
“You sound as though you expect this to be easy.”
“Lydia’s capture has complicated things.” He fiddled with the back of his emerald ring. Dabir then stepped back to the dying fire and sank down near a blanket where I now perceived a handful of little wooden figurines. There were three wooden men, a snake, two horses, a dog, and three bulls, and each was no longer than a finger.
Dabir lifted up a piece of paper, then glanced back at the miniatures, as though he were eager to play with them after he finished reading. I stared at them in dull curiosity. Far away came the echo of deep-voiced drums. Also there were horn calls, high, plaintive, somehow sinister.
Dabir and I looked at one another.
“The ceremony must be starting!”
“Aye,” Dabir said, and took a deep breath. He tossed his outer robe back on, closed his eyes, breathed out deeply, then bent to one of the small figures. A tiny bull.
The insistent cadence of the drummers grew in volume. “It sounds like the heartbeat of some giant,” I said.
From far away, hundreds upon hundreds of deep voices rose in a threatening chant.
“Hurry,” I said.
Dabir frowned at me, as if to say he perceived the need for urgency perfectly well, then sketched a curling symbol on the bull’s head with his pointer finger, let out a multisyllabic sound rather like someone coughing, and pressed his thumb to its head.
On the instant I knew the familiar and unsettling sensation of magical workings, for the air was alive with a storm cloud’s energy. My arm hairs stood on end. The bull grew under Dabir’s hand, and my friend stood, still keepin
g flesh pressed to the thing. Up the creature came, dark and ominous, its painted red eyes blank. Its twin horns were capped with metal tips.
It stopped its growth when it achieved the size of a true bull.
I stared at it cautiously.
Dabir pointed to the left, and the thing stepped that way without moving its head. He grinned triumphantly at me, immensely pleased with himself.
“Is that all you have to do? Point?”
“I can feel its will, ready to obey my own, and vaguely sense what lies around it, though I cannot truly see. But it is instinctive to point.” This he did, at the door flap, with a pained, resolute look on his face. Immediately the bull sprang forward, hitting the ground with its great legs so that the earth shook. Its passage tore open the flap. Outside there came a cry of surprise, and a masculine scream of fear. Following upon this came frantic shouting, and agonized scream. I hoped that the drums obscured the sound from those farther off.
I poked my head out of the tent. One of our guards lay groaning. The other moved not at all, and was so badly twisted he was surely dead. The bull stood still just beyond them, as if someone had decided the street was the ideal location to erect a statue. “Let’s go.” I looked over my shoulder only to find a black snake head the size of a melon, at my elbow. I am embarrassed to say I let out a shout.
“Sorry,” Dabir said.
It was another of the wooden beasts, of course, and it stretched on another four good arm lengths beyond the two it was already raised into strike position. It was formed all of closely connected wooden discs. It was not as well polished as the bull man Koury had sent against us, though its mouth was full with the same sharp metal-tipped teeth.
“You should warn a man,” I muttered.
A cruel wind jabbed at us as we emerged, the wooden snake sliding beside Dabir like a loyal dog, the bull trotting at my side. I knew he kept them active with us for protection, but I would much rather have had a sword.
Of the other guards I’d seen posted about there was no sign, and I wondered if they’d been ordered to attend the ceremony. The tent city was strangely quiet around us except for the deep, echoing drums and the sound of voices raised in song.
Only one sentinel waited in the shadows outside Najya’s tent. He ordered me to halt as I ran up, then drew his sword, screeching when he saw the serpent. Dabir sent it at his legs and as he tried to fend it off the bull rushed him and knocked him clean through the canvas. We followed.
The Khazar was knocked senseless, so we left him sprawled on the carpet, the animals looming over him, and set to searching.
This time we did not bother with the treasure room. The other sections of the tent were compartmentalized into additional living space. In the sleeping area, near to the mattress and its fur coverlet, was my sheathed weapon. Dabir’s lay with our knives on a nearby chest, which proved to hold only jeweled goblets. At no other time in my life would I have been annoyed to find riches rather than ancient bones.
Dabir was buckling on his sword. “Interesting, isn’t it, that she set your sword near her bed? As if she wished something of yours near at hand.”
I was not especially heartened by that observation. “Now what are we to do?”
“I’m afraid we will have to improvise. They must have taken the bones to the ceremony.”
We left the unconscious guard in the outer room, hurried to a lane between tents at the edge of the field, and peered out.
Where before the ground had been mostly empty, there was now a great bonfire that roared up to the sky, and it was about this red blaze that hundreds of Khazars gathered. Closest to it were dozens of brawny, shirtless men pounding upon a mismatched assortment of wooden-sided drums, their flesh glistening with sweat. Most of the crowd swayed back and forth, chanting to the rhythm.
At the north end, some fifty prisoners knelt in front of the ditches, arms tied behind. And before them, upon that hill overlooking the Khazars, stood Najya, Enkidu, and Berzbek, the shaman woman, as well as a number of fur-clad warriors and male shamans. Berzbek rested the heavy end of the club upon the ground. In her right hand she grasped an ivory staff that stood taller than she. It was longer, thinner, and browner than the staff borne by Erragal.
“I gather she got them working,” Dabir said with a frown.
“Perhaps she’s smarter than both of us,” I suggested.
He but grunted.
“How are we to find Lydia?”
“Look to the right of the shaman.”
I found her then, still dressed in her Khazar garb, standing with crossed hands between two burly Khazar warriors.
We withdrew, then ran north along the row of tents just east of the crowd, drawing closer to the stage. Dabir’s snake slithered alongside him in the trampled snow. Even though I knew it to be completely under my friend’s control, sight of the thing was still alarming. The bull, at least, followed along behind us, so that while I felt the tramp of its passage I did not have to look at it.
We halted when we reached the end of the lanes of tents and peered round the corner. We had come to the east side of the hill being used as a stage, and could view those upon it in profile. At the bottom of this slope was one of the few places where men stood guard—four in all. I supposed no one wanted to risk having the Daughter of the Frost rushed out of devotion. Surely they weren’t expecting anyone to attack.
We pulled back. “This is a bad plan,” I said to Dabir.
“You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”
“I know it’s going to be bad.”
The drummers suddenly stopped as one. Dabir and I exchanged a look, and peered around the edge of the tent.
The shamaness called out to her people in a great, booming voice. I could not understand a word of it, of course, since she spoke Khazar to them. Whatever she was saying held them rapt.
Dabir dropped to one knee, fumbling with Koury’s satchel. I kept watch. The Khazars roared approval as Najya walked to the edge. Even those warding the slope had their eyes upon her.
Najya motioned for silence, and the shouting fell away. For a moment all that could be heard was the wind and the crackle of the fire. A handful of prisoners moaned.
Najya then called to the crowd. She shouted in Arabic, but most of the words were whipped away by the wind. I could hear the bald shaman beside her perfectly well, but since he translated Usarshra’s words into Khazar, this did me little good. The sound of hate, I learned, was universal. I despaired that the real woman remained within her.
Behind her I glimpsed the shamaness Berzbek working through a form with the staff.
I pulled back. “Dabir, we must hurry!”
Dabir motioned me down beside him and pointed to a wooden figurine that had fallen over in the snow. “You must control the horse. I will be too busy with these others. Do exactly as I say.”
“I am to work magic?” I held up my hand in the sign against the evil eye.
He arched an eyebrow. “So it is fine for me to risk my soul to save the world, but not for you?”
“Ai-a—” I struggled for some kind of rejoinder, finally saying, gruffly, “Just be on with it.”
“Put your finger to the animal’s head. Just so. Now move your finger about the blaze carved into his forehead. To the left. Your left. Yes. Now press your thumb in, and repeat after me.”
He enunciated a series of sounds very slowly, as though I were a simpleton. I repeated after him, and by Allah, the horse grew under my finger. At the same moment, I could also sense things in proximity to the wooden beast, including myself. It was most peculiar, for it felt as though I were in two places at once. I had not been so disoriented even when I had once suffered a head blow, and wondered if this was what being drunk was like. I clambered into the cushioned saddle of the life-sized wooden stallion with emerald eyes and carved mane. “Now what?”
“What you will it to do, it shall!”
The shamaness had handed over the glowing blue staff to Najya, who raise
d it high. The Khazars began to chant three syllables over and again.
Berzbek set to working through the steps to fire the magic of the club. I could only see her part of the time, as the form carried her forward and back, behind various people upon the platform, but well did I know those steps.
“By all that is holy, Dabir, hurry!”
Dabir was raising his wooden creatures to life, one by one. Another horse. One wooden man, a second, this one with a cracked torso and a notch in his back. Probably the same I’d fought in Mosul. A second bull, this one with longer and sharper-looking horns.
The staff was now almost incandescent with light in Usarshra’s grip.
“Dabir!” I shouted.
“A moment! I’ll get Lydia, you get the bones.” He sent the bull galloping toward the slope. “Now!” Dabir cried, raising his arms as will a man shooing a horse.
My horse did nothing until I wished that it should do so, and then it sprang forward, and it is only my fine reflexes that enabled me to latch onto the handles carved into its mane.
The guards at the hillside saw us too late. The wooden bull plowed straight into one of them. Two others dived for safety. Only one was left to grab wide-eyed for his sword as I came galloping up. I slashed down and caught him hard in the shoulder. He dropped in a welter of blood, most of his screech drowned out by the unchanging chant of the crowd.
Then I was galloping up a snowy hill on the padded back of a wooden horse with jeweled eyes. The bull raced before me, and the snake came at my side. The Khazars cheered something I could not see, a thousand voices as one that might have shaken the throne of God, and surely struck fear in the nearer residents of Mosul. The noise covered our advance nicely.
As I mounted the hill I saw Najya cast down the crumbling staff and take the lit club of Herakles from the round shaman woman. Berzbek’s face was wide in astonishment just before the bull slammed headlong into her and sent her tumbling downslope into the prisoners. Lydia’s guards turned for their swords, and the wily Greek slipped away from them, almost tripping over the snake that sped for Enkidu.
I bore on toward Najya. The club glowing in one hand, she thrust her palm toward the bull and a blast of cold sprayed forth so quickly that the wooden creature was encased in ice, midgallop.
The Bones of the Old Ones Page 27
