As soon as Oni had joined her, Kartek set off for the outdoor spring, the one where she had talked with Ahmos the day before. The walk along the outside wall wasn’t far, but it was just a long enough distance from the tents for Kartek to think.
“What exactly,” Oni panted as she half ran to keep up with Kartek’s determined pace, “are we looking for at the outer springs?”
“I need to know about something called the Warrior Song.”
“I have never heard of such a thing.”
Kartek shook her head. “I hadn’t either until Gahiji’s death. Which is why we’re going to find out about it.” She glanced over at her handmaiden. “I know that look. What is it?”
Oni’s face reddened. “It is nothing.”
But Kartek stopped beneath the shade of a palm tree. “We have known one another too long to keep such secrets.”
Oni’s blush deepened and a small smile played on her lips. “It is only . . . I was wondering what it is like to be married,” she said in a rush, staring at the ground. “I saw your supper being prepared last night, and I thought . . .”
“Ah,” Kartek said in a softer voice. “You are thinking of Waqi.”
Oni blushed, and Kartek gave a dry chuckle.
“Unfortunately, I cannot answer it well for I wouldn’t know.” She heard her friend’s gasp, but kept her eyes on the outer pools as they approached them. “You don’t approve?”
“No. I mean, I am only . . .”
“Only what?”
Oni paused. “Surprised.”
“It is surprising to you that I am not close to the man I’ve known for only two days?”
“No,” Oni said slowly. “That is not surprising. I am only surprised because he seems such a kind soul, and you are such a kind soul . . . if I am not too bold. After meeting him I only assumed that you would . . .” She snuck a glance up at Kartek. “I believed you might be happy.”
Kartek frowned and drew her scarf over her face as the glaring sun continued to grow hotter. “So you are thoroughly convinced of his character then? After only a few days?”
“I cannot see into his heart as the Maker can,” Oni said, pulling two honey cakes from her little bag and handing one to Kartek. “But I can see what he does.”
“And what has he done to earn such approval?” When she got no answer, Kartek glanced back at Oni. “Truly,” she softened her voice. “You have ever only been a faithful friend to me. I value your opinion more than you know.”
“Well,” Oni chewed her own honey cake thoughtfully, “both mornings he rose before I was able to bring your breakfast from the kitchens, no matter how fast I walked. And when I reached your room to leave the food, he simply wrapped his up in a cloth and left. My brother says he saw him bring it down to the children to share it with them. And every day when he is finished playing with the children, he walks among the tribes and talks to the families there.” She frowned a little. “He also has an uncanny ability to calm the tribesmen when they get angry.”
“I noticed that. Do you know how he does that or what he speaks of?” Kartek stopped at the side of the oasis spring and found a place to wedge them in at its edge. The spring was surrounded by women and children, the mothers gathering water to wash with while the children ran about and splashed one another. Kartek dipped her hands in, bringing the water up to her face. At first she had been in a hurry to find someone to speak with, but this conversation with Oni was becoming far more telling than she had expected.
Oni shook her head. “I only know that whenever he speaks to them, they listen.”
“That’s what I thought.” Kartek looked at the goings-on around them. Was he singing the Warrior’s Song? Could Dakarai be the new Rayis that the tribal leaders had spoken of? No one had seemed to recognize him, at least in the healing tents, and the tribe he’d claimed as his own had never heard of him. So for him have the blood of all ten tribes seemed unlikely. And yet . . . what else could he be?
“Were you frightened?”
“What?” Kartek looked up.
Oni shyly tucked a piece of dark hair behind her ear. “The prospect of wedding your first betrothed. Did it ever frighten you?”
Kartek blinked, still puzzling over Dakarai’s strange behavior. “I . . . I don’t know.” She stood and began to scan the women for a friendly face, someone who might answer questions. “My parents chose him for me so long ago that I never questioned it.”
But as they moved around the circle gathered at the water’s edge, Kartek found herself unraveled by Oni’s questions. She did her best to push them to the corner of her mind as she approached a woman who looked like she belonged to one of the northernmost tribes.
“Good morning,” Kartek said to the woman, who had seated herself on the other side of the pool and was trying to get a small child to drink from a cup.
The woman looked at her. After a moment of staring, her eyes grew wide. “You are Hedjet’s jahira, are you not?”
“I am.” Kartek seated herself beside the woman, but Oni continued to stand. “I am looking for someone from the Ibhari tribe.”
“I am of the Ibhari tribe. What of it?” The woman dipped a headscarf in the large clay pot she had just filled and began to wash it.
Kartek pitched her voice low. “I have a question about one of your traditions.”
“Really?” The woman eyed Kartek’s fine linen shirt and skirts. “And if I help you, how will I benefit?”
Kartek frowned, but Oni spoke first. “Do you know who owns the water that you and your children are washing with just now?”
The woman glanced at the water then scowled. “I cannot say I will answer, but go ahead and ask.”
“I want to know how the Rayis is chosen.”
The woman shrugged. “It passes from father to son in the Ibhari tribe.”
“But has it always?”
The woman looked startled. After glancing around, she leaned forward and hissed, “Of course it has! And if it wasn’t, do you think I would know?”
Kartek was surprised by the woman’s reaction, but she raised her hand to keep Ebo from intervening. She could feel him hovering in the shadows of the trees behind her. “I think your whole tribe is hiding something. And not just from me. I think you’ve hidden it from the rest of the tribes as well.”
“I will speak of this no longer!” The woman frantically began gathering her jar and clothes and gesturing wildly at the two children running about her feet. “You may ask Jibril.”
“Then who—”
A scream ripped through the air behind them. The woman grabbed her children and began to run. The rest of the women were scattering in a panic, shouting for their children. Kartek jumped up from her seat at the edge of the pool, but before she could see what had caused the ruckus, Ebo was blocking her view, his weapon drawn. As he dragged her to the shadow of a palm tree, however, she managed to catch a glimpse of the creature.
“It’s a serpent!” Oni breathed.
Indeed, its long scaled body was much like that of a serpent. But unlike any serpents Kartek had ever seen, this creature was nearly as long as a grown man and just as thick, a diamond-shaped head crowning its coiled body. Metallic green and black scales glinted in the sun as it wound itself tightly.
Ebo pressed down on Kartek until she was nearly flat upon the ground.
“What is it?” Oni whimpered.
Kartek tried to loosen Ebo’s hand enough to see, but doing so was difficult. “Its head . . .” She squinted through the dust the running crowd was stirring up. She couldn’t see well, but the shape of its wide mouth looked oddly familiar. “I think it might be one of the enchantress’s creatures!”
As if to confirm her suspicion, the creature lunged forward and back in the blink of an eye. Beneath it lay a young woman, writhing as she clutched her arm where a set of all-too-familiar teeth marks had begun to bleed.
“I need to get to her.” Kartek grasped her jewel. It warmed and tingled in her hand even as
she spoke.
But Ebo shook his head, pressing her down even harder than she had been before.
“You’re going to break my arm.” She glared up at him, but he ignored her, so she tried again. “We need to do something!”
As she spoke, the creature’s head snapped to the right. Its spindly reptilian hind legs that Kartek hadn’t noticed before pushed it right toward the healing tents.
11
A Taste
“No!” Kartek shrieked, but it was too late. The creature was half slithering, half rolling faster than she could run. She looked up at Ebo. “You need to let me go!”
But Ebo just shook his head.
“That is an order!” she screamed.
Still, he hesitated. Only when another shriek rang out, this time from one of the tents, did he slowly let go of her arm. She could see in his eyes that obeying this order was the gravest sin imaginable, but she didn’t care. People were going to die.
Kartek took off for the young woman lying on the ground. “Hold her down!” she instructed Ebo and Oni. When they had forced the woman to stay still, Kartek closed her eyes and laid one hand across the bite marks, the other grasping her jewel. Focus was hard, however, with all of the screaming and chaos erupting around her. Clenching her teeth, she tried again. Finally, slowly, the warm honey-like sensation moved from her heart beneath the jewel down to her fingers.
As soon as the wounds were closed, Kartek was off again, following the screams, pausing only long enough to shout for Oni to find somewhere to hide. In the back of her mind, she couldn’t help wondering why she was running. It would be wiser to wait to heal each victim until the monster had moved on and her warriors could stop it. And yet, she couldn’t hide and simply wait for its victims to pile up, suffering in agony all alone wherever the monster had left them.
She could hear Ebo running beside her. Ebo was the best fighter in her army, which was precisely why he had been made her bodyguard. He would know what to do when they caught it. She could stand to the side to make sure she was able to heal anyone it injured as soon as Ebo had destroyed the creature.
But just as it reached the healing tents, it altered course again, disappearing into the rows and rows of tents of the nearest tribe. Kartek slowed. Ebo stepped in front of her, and the look on his face promised he wouldn’t be letting her loose again, order or no order.
Green and black flashed in the corner of her eye just before something slammed against her body with sickening force. She flew through the air and landed hard on her side. Her head hit the ground, narrowly missing a pile of sharp stones.
“Under its leg!”
Kartek tried to raise her head at the sound of the familiar voice, but she could barely roll to her side. Why was Dakarai shouting orders?
“I can’t reach its leg!” Ahmos’s voice yelled back.
And who was singing?
Hands grabbed Kartek by the arms and gently lifted her up. Her vision was still spinning by the time two of her warriors had her upright, but when they tried to take her away, she motioned for them to wait. They shared hesitant looks but waited as she squinted at the brawl before her, trying to clear her head.
Dakarai held a sword, as did Ahmos and Ebo. The three of them had surrounded the creature, and other warriors were joining them. The creature whipped its head from side to side, striking with its wide set of teeth at anyone that came too near, including Dakarai, who stood close to the creature’s tail.
“Try to strike beneath the limbs!” Dakarai called again. “Its scales are softer there!”
Now she knew she was having visions. Soft-spoken, gentle Dakarai, who hardly looked strong enough to hold the sword, let alone wield it, was shouting out the orders. The focus in his face was practiced, and his arms and legs held as ready a stance as any warrior Kartek had ever seen. His pale face was taut as he issued commands again and again. And to her even greater surprise, the others listened, following his instructions as though he had been emeeri for years rather than days.
Kartek was frozen in place as Dakarai slashed at the creature’s back scales, and though she couldn’t understand why, horror filled her. Don’t let him die, she prayed without realizing she’d even asked.
Dakarai tucked and rolled out of the way as the serpent turned again to snap at him with its needle-like teeth. But the bite that had been meant for Dakarai was instead delivered to Ahmos. Kartek screamed as the monster sank its teeth into Ahmos’s chest and stomach. The men helping her stand tried to hold her back, but they weren’t able to contain her. She ran toward Ahmos’s limp body as the others turned their efforts toward drawing the beast away from the camp.
But it was too late. By the time she reached Ahmos’s side, his breathing was all but gone, and his eyes were closing.
“No.” She fell to her knees, grasping his hand in hers. When she reached up for her jewel, however, her hands felt only her bare skin. Frantically, she felt around for the chain, only to realize it was gone.
“My jewel!” she cried out. She wasn’t sure who she was even speaking to, as everyone around her was either fleeing or fighting. But she called out just the same. “Help me find my jewel!” Looking back down at Ahmos, she squeezed his hands in hers, closed her eyes, and began to pray. “Please, Maker, let me heal—”
“Keep your power. You will need it for others.”
Opening her eyes, she shook her head. “No, Ahmos. I won’t let you die.”
“Jahira, you have no control over such things.” With a shaking hand, he reached up and brushed the tears from her face. “Besides, jahiras do not cry in public.”
“I don’t care.” She placed her hand on the largest of the tooth holes that were now pooling blood all over his stomach. She would heal him. Her mother had said healing without a jewel was possible. So she closed her eyes and waited.
But nothing came. There was no smooth tingling sensation flowing out from her heart. No wispy pink light glowed above the wound. And as each second ticked by without her power, doubt began to creep in as well. After all, how could she hope to heal him without her jewel? With all the distractions, she’d hardly been able to heal the woman a few minutes before, and that had been with her jewel firmly within her grasp.
“Kartek.” He cradled her face in the palm of his trembling hand. “I promised your father I would strive to keep you safe and happy until you were a woman. And I am proud to have done that.” He removed her hand from his stomach and squeezed it. “I am going now. I can feel it in my bones. There is nothing you can do.”
“But I must—”
He coughed violently. As he did, Kartek could vaguely hear the continued sounds of the fight surrounding her, but she no longer cared. Instead, she continued to try and revive him, but any power that might have come felt as though it was swirling uselessly inside her hand rather than moving into his body as it should have. She hadn’t struggled like this since . . . well, since her powers had first appeared.
“I do not have the time to tell you how,” he wheezed, “but after speaking with the tribal families here, I can assure you that Dakarai is not—”
An ear-piercing screech rang out. Kartek looked up to see the diamond-shaped head hovering above her.
Once again, her body was slammed to the side. But this time, it was Dakarai who had knocked her to the ground.
“I need to help him!” Kartek tried to push him off. “Let me go! He needs me!” As she scrambled to get back to Ahmos, though, Dakarai wrapped his long arms around her and yanked her backward. She kicked and fought him as he continued to drag her toward the palace, but he ignored it all. Just before she rounded the corner, she caught one last glimpse of the creature as it hovered over Ahmos’s still body.
“Let go of me!” Kartek continued to fight against Dakarai, but pushing against him was like pushing against a wall. “I need to save him!”
“You need to stay far away from that!”
A soldier fumbled to unlock a small door in the city wall. Dakarai pull
ed her through and slammed it shut behind them.
“No! I need to save Ahmos! I need my jewel!”
“We’ll find it later.”
“No!” Her voice rose to hysterics. “You don’t understand! I can’t heal without the jewel!”
But he didn’t stop or even slow. He proceeded to drag her toward the palace, where he pulled them through another side door. As soon as they were in her room, she ducked out of his grasp, but he had grabbed her arm again before she could make it back out the door. Taking her by the shoulders, he shoved her up against the wall, pinning her there. “You can’t save him!”
“Who are you,” she glared at him through wet eyes, “to tell me what I can or cannot do? You know nothing of me or my powers! You know nothing of my people! You just came slinking in as though you could slip into being emeeri—”
“You can’t save him because he’s already dead!”
“You’re just saying that because—”
“Because you have to live!” He gripped her shoulders more tightly, leaning in so that their faces were nearly touching. “I swore to protect you when we took those vows. So that’s what I’m doing! And yes, I know you wanted to marry Gahiji. I know he was everything I am not! Stronger, faster, more commanding . . . everything an emeeri should be!” His eyes unexpectedly welled with tears and his voice cracked as he whispered his next words. “But he’s gone, Kartek! He’s gone, and so is Ahmos!”
Kartek stopped struggling as Dakarai let out a single broken sob.
“What are you talking about?” she whispered. Her fingers clutched his sleeves, no longer fighting but rather clinging, suddenly unable to stand on her own. “Who was Gahiji to you?”
But he just shook his head and continued to weep.
Before she knew what she was doing, Kartek had wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his neck. She had always been told that jahiras should never cry in the presence of others. But hot tears flowed down her cheeks as well, and for once, she didn’t mind. There was something comforting in allowing herself to be broken . . . and to no longer be alone.
The Green-Eyed Prince: A Retelling of The Frog Prince (The Classical Kingdoms Collection Novellas Book 1) Page 9
