A Veil of Spears

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  This was no crossing of blades, as they’d done when she was young. This was a pissing match, plain and simple, but she’d had enough of Salsanna’s smug looks, her questioning stares. When they were young, Salsanna had taught her about anger and not letting it get away from you. It was time for Çeda to return the favor.

  She went on the offensive and the two of them flew over the sand, their breath rising. Salsanna blocked blow after blow, riposting with an eagerness that reminded Çeda of Kameyl—though Salsanna was nowhere near Kameyl’s match. And Kameyl had taught Çeda well. So had Sümeya and Melis and Zaïde.

  Çeda felt Salsanna reaching for her heart as Blade Maidens did. Salsanna had some skill, but after all of Çeda’s training with Zaïde, and the months of practice using the ways of the heart as a servant of the Kings, it was child’s play to sidestep Salsanna’s attempts at gaining an advantage. It angered Salsanna. She pressed with a dangerous fervor. Her lips drew back to reveal clamped teeth. Her eyes widened and her swings turned wild. Çeda blocked everything Salsanna threw at her, planning to simply let her fury expend itself. When it finally had, Çeda would disarm her and this foolishness would come to an end. Only a few breaths later, however, a dark form galloped in from her left.

  “Kerim, no!”

  Çeda tried to intercept him, but it was too late. Kerim was on Salsanna in a blur of dark movement before she could raise her defenses against him. She was thrown sideways, the sand spraying where the two of them fell. Kerim’s arms rose and fell, long nails slashing. Salsanna screamed in pain as she tried but failed to ward off his powerful blows.

  Çeda tried to pull him away, but he was too strong.

  Stop it! Kerim, you’re going to kill her!

  It wasn’t until she felt his heart beating—with a pace like the swells of a ship on a windswept voyage—that his movements began to slow. “Return to me,” she urged, daring to grip his arms once more. The pain in her right hand flared terribly, but she ignored it, slowing her breath, bringing herself in sync with Kerim’s rhythm. “There’s no sense in this. She is blood of our blood.”

  Finally, Kerim obeyed. He stood above Salsanna, chest heaving, eyes filled with rage. But he allowed himself to be pulled away. With a long, warbling howl, he loped into the desert.

  Çeda dropped to Salsanna’s side.

  “Leave me!” Salsanna shouted, but Çeda ignored her, quickly tearing away her sleeves to survey the damage. There were a dozen deep gashes along her arms and shoulders. Lighter ones along her face and chest.

  “Set aside your pride,” Çeda said as Salsanna tried to push her away. “If we don’t get these stitched, you’re going to bleed to death.”

  After several deep swallows, Salsanna allowed herself to be led to the fire. Çeda bound the worst of the wounds with torn strips of cloth from Salsanna’s sleeves, then raided the supplies in the skiff. After giving Salsanna a small ball of fermented black lotus to put between her cheek and gum, she stoked the fire, boiled thread in red wine, and stitched the worst of the wounds. When done, she bound the wounds in fresh bandages. Stoic through it all, Salsanna never cried out, never so much as whimpered. Instead she stared at Çeda with a look of regret that was mixed with a certain arrogance that kept her, perhaps, from voicing what both of them knew: that their duel had been beyond foolishness.

  “Why does he follow you?” Salsanna asked, her eyelids growing heavy from the effects of the lotus.

  Çeda laid out blankets for Salsanna to sleep on. “Because he knows I’m ready to help his people.”

  “Our people,” Salsanna said as Çeda laid her gently down.

  “Yes, but you can hardly compare what you and I have gone through with what they have, he and his brothers and sisters. Beht Ihman is a burden we will never understand.”

  As Çeda sat cross-legged on the sand opposite the fire, Salsanna met her eyes. For a long while Salsanna said nothing but then nodded. “You’re right.” She stared up at the cascade of stars spilling across the indigo sky. “I was born in Tribe Rafik, one of the Biting Shields. I fought the asirim, and the asirim fought us, hounded us, took down several of our ships. For infringements of royal decree, our shaikh was later told. The Maidens killed my father for refusing to bend his knee when one of our ships was stopped, then one of the asirim killed two of my cousins who were enraged by my father’s death.” She fell silent, and Çeda thought she’d fallen asleep, but a while later she went on drowsily. “I learned to hate them well before I knew about the lost tribe. Forgive me.”

  She wasn’t sure whether that last was for her or for Kerim.

  Then Salsanna slept, leaving Çeda to listen to the snap of the fire and the occasional wail from Kerim in the distance.

  Chapter 14

  ÇEDA WOKE to the sounds of shushing. She’d been unable to sleep long into the night, worrying over Salsanna’s wounds, worrying over whether she’d be able to stop Kerim from attacking her again. She’d managed to fall asleep only after the moons had set.

  The shushing sounds came closer, and she realized dully that they were footsteps. Fearful that Onur had found her, she rolled over to find an old man with six young male warriors behind him, each with swords at their sides, bucklers hanging from their belts, and bows across their backs.

  Çeda stood immediately, but left River’s Daughter where it lay, half hidden by her blanket. A few hundred paces beyond the men were a dozen ships with women, men, and children disembarking, unloading tents and crates. In the distance, the razored teeth of the dark Taloran Mountains were framed by a pale honey sky.

  Gods, how could I have slept through all this? To her wakeful ears they were loud and raucous, while only moments ago they’d been a muted part of her dreams.

  The old man’s eyes glittered in the morning sun. “Look at the lost doves we’ve found.”

  Smiling as he was, he looked like a desert lynx who’d stumbled upon a succulent scorpion. He had a long gray beard with twin streaks of black running through it. He wore simple desert garb: a sandy thawb with yellow embroidery, a wide belt made of sea green silk, a kenshar and a shamshir with simple leather sheaths. He looked like many who lived in the Shangazi and traveled ceaselessly along her hidden paths, but Çeda knew this was Ishaq Kirhan’ava, the leader of the Moonless Host. Çeda’s own grandfather. She recognized him from his visit to her mother, Ahya, in Sharakhai. He had the same intense expression, the sharp features, the golden rings in his nose and the blue tattoos around his eyes and cheeks and chin.

  And there was the vicious scar that ran down his neck, lost beneath the collar of his thawb. She’d seen it. She’d asked him about it long ago, and remembered the wicked gleam in his eyes as he’d opened his thawb and showed it to her. “You think you could live after getting cut like this?”

  He’d said it with pride, but it had scared her witless. She’d shaken her head, too terrified to say a word.

  “No, I don’t think so either,” he’d replied, thankfully covering up the scar. “So be careful, little one. Always be careful.”

  Ahya had walked in a moment later, a disgusted look on her face. At the time Çeda thought her mother was simply protecting her. But through the eyes of adulthood Çeda could see it wasn’t true at all. Or at least, wasn’t the whole truth. She’d taken great pains to hide her own past from Çeda; she’d not wanted Çeda to know that the man was her grandfather.

  Had Ishaq wanted to hide the truth as well? She wasn’t sure. But if so, why?

  Ishaq’s gaze moved to Salsanna, who lay on the opposite side of the cold fire pit. Her eyes were barely open. With great effort, she pulled herself up into a sitting position. “You’re early.”

  Arms folded across his chest, he jutted his chin toward Çeda. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised Leorah sent you to fetch her.”

  Salsanna squinted at the rising sun, took in the warriors fanning out behind Ishaq, then met Ishaq’s disapp
ointed eyes. “Is that why you came running to meet her?”

  “Watch your tongue,” Ishaq said with anger. “You have much to answer for.”

  Çeda didn’t understand everything, but she knew enough to know that Leorah had somehow intercepted Beril’s plea for help, and that she’d sent Salsanna there before Ishaq could find out about it. She suddenly felt like a prize that Leorah and Ishaq were fighting to win, and she didn’t like it one bit.

  Salsanna made her way slowly to her feet, grimacing all the while. “You’d rather I left Çeda there?”

  “I’d rather I was told before you left.”

  “Your mother sends her apologies, but time was of the essence.”

  Ishaq made a noncommittal grunt and stared at the rust-stained bandages on her arms. “So you fetched her. Then what? A bloody ehrekh attacked you?”

  Salsanna remained silent. When Ishaq looked to Çeda, though, Salsanna finally spoke. “We sparred. I took my eye from her asir for a moment, and it attacked me.”

  “Your asir?” Ishaq took Çeda in anew, suddenly viewing her as a threat. “It attacked Salsanna?”

  “He,” Çeda corrected. “His name is Kerim, and he attacked Salsanna to protect me.”

  A wail sounded in the distance. Kerim, hidden among the standing stones. Be silent, Çeda urged him, and leave, at least until this is done. Kerim refused to move away but thankfully came no closer.

  Ishaq’s frown deepened, making him look like a wolverine, and the men behind him bristled. Çeda was just about to reach for River’s Daughter when Salsanna said, “It was my fault.”

  Ishaq’s bushy eyebrows rose. “Yours?”

  Salsanna glanced sidelong at Çeda. “We had a minor disagreement. The beast was only trying to protect her.”

  “He is no beast,” Çeda said flatly. “He is blood of our blood.”

  Ishaq seemed to have trouble grasping those words. He glanced at Salsanna’s wounds, then regarded Çeda with the same sort of distaste Salsanna had shown the day before. Surely he knew the truth, though. Surely he knew the asirim’s history, perhaps better than Çeda did. But perhaps he believed the asirim were forever lost on the night of Beht Ihman.

  “Can you bring it to heel?” Ishaq asked her.

  “When needed.”

  “Good.” He drew his shamshir. “Then do so now, and we can be rid of it.”

  Çedas rocked back in surprise. “I told you, he is blood of our blood.”

  “No. Our blood was taken from it long ago. His veins now run with the blood of the Kings.”

  “He is loyal to me.”

  “Today, perhaps. But what about tomorrow? What about the day after?” He waved to Salsanna. “What about when he feels the need to defend you once again. Who will he attack then, our elders, our children?” Before Çeda could speak, he went on. “My heart rejoices that you’re safe in our care, Çeda, but I will not allow such a creature near us. As surely as the sun does rise, it will be sniffed out by the Kings or the Blade Maidens, and through it they will discover us.”

  “We’ve avoided the Kings for weeks. Kerim is mine, I am his, and I will die to protect him.”

  Ishaq considered this, his face long, as if he were saddened by what he was about to do. With a flick of one hand to the men behind him, he said, “Go. Kill it if you can, drive it away if you can’t.”

  Çeda stood, regarding them all. “You’ll face my blade first.”

  The men pulled the bows from around their shoulders and strung them easily. The one closest to Çeda drew his sword, quite rightly wary of her.

  Diving and rolling over her blanket, she came up holding River’s Daughter.

  The lead man charged toward her. She blocked two blows, then performed a reverse spin, bringing her heel neatly across the back of his head. He fell limp to the sand, but the others were abandoning their bows and drawing their swords, fanning out to flank her.

  “Çedamihn Ahyanesh’ala,” Ishaq roared, “stop this madness!”

  But she was no child to be cowed by his presence, nor a callow girl impressed by the power he wielded. She was a Blade Maiden, and that meant much.

  As the men advanced, Çeda retreated to the nearest of the standing stones. They tried to cut her off, but she used their haste against them. She took the nearest with a flying kick to the face while blocking his slow attempt to cut across her midsection. The next she felled with a sweep of her legs. The other three came at her from the opposite side of the stone, swords blurring. They tried to pen her in, pressing her toward the tall red stone. Çeda blocked a series of blows, then ran up the stone, kicking up and away and flying over their heads.

  The nearest followed her movements, hoping to take her as she landed, but he was overeager. He brought his sword down like a headsman. It was a simple matter of dodging that downward swing and hammering the crown of his head with the pommel of her shamshir. He fell backward, eyelids fluttering, while Çeda turned and blocked a tentative slash from the other warrior. She lifted her shin to block his kick, then snapped the toe of her boot into his jaw. Spinning the other way, she sent him flying with a back kick to the chest.

  The men and women of Ishaq’s ragtag tribe were leaving the business of unloading their ships and skiffs, drawing swords, and rushing to aid their fallen brothers.

  Salsanna, closer than the others, limped toward Çeda, sword in hand, but instead of attacking Çeda, she stood beside her, protecting her.

  “Leave her alone!” Salsanna shouted. “Her and the asir!”

  Ishaq had twenty more warriors behind him, ready to do as he wished. “I’m sorry, Salsanna. I will not—”

  A bell rang over the desert. From the east came a ship, a small yacht Çeda recognized from childhood, from the time she’d first met Salsanna. Tulathan’s bright smile, this was Leorah’s ship. As the bell continued to ring, all eyes turned toward it. It sailed in at near full speed, heading straight toward Çeda and Salsanna. As the crew—four women wearing wheat-colored dresses—pulled in the sails, an iron grate with hooks was thrown from the back. The hooks bit into the sand and dirt, throwing up furrows as the yacht slowed sharply.

  As it came to a halt, a gangway was lowered. Along this, an old, heavyset woman holding a warped cane made her way down to the sand. Her simple yellow dress, which flowed easily in the stiff wind, made her look like a flame dancing over the desert. Small grimaces might have accompanied each uneven step, but she held her head high, seeming to will herself forward.

  A host of memories welled up inside Çeda. This was Leorah, the woman Ahya had taken Çeda to see so that they might gain her counsel. She was Ishaq’s mother, and Çeda’s great-grandmother.

  Most in the crowd bowed their heads. Some did not, however—among them was Ishaq, who seemed both unsurprised and displeased by Leorah’s sudden arrival.

  Leorah tugged her scarf down, revealing deep crags along the skin of her face. Tattoos of birds taking wing and crescent moons were faded and misshapen with age, but there was what looked to be a fresh tattoo of an acacia, the top of which was inked across her chin, the trunk and roots lost to the sagging skin of her neck. The most striking thing about her, however, was the bright amethyst ring she wore on her right hand, the one that gripped the cane. It sparkled beneath the sun, drawing the eye like a sundog in the sky.

  “What is this?” she called in a strong if tremulous voice.

  “Your servant returned with your prize,” Ishaq replied. “She’s brought one of the asirim, a creature even you will agree must die before the Kings are alerted to our presence.”

  Leorah’s tongue ran along the inside of her cheek as if she were trying to dislodge something stringy. She stared at Çeda as if she wished to peel away her skin and lay her secrets bare. “Or we might abandon them here. Or drive them both away under threat of death.”

  Ishaq closed his eyes for a moment, as if he recogn
ized the sort of battle that was brewing. “Is that what you wish? To send them away?”

  “It is a possibility.”

  “Clearly that isn’t what you wish, so get to your point, old woman.”

  “Another possibility,” she said as if she hadn’t heard her son’s words, “is to send the asir away to live out its life in the desert or return to the Kings as it wishes. Or, before doing anything else, we might speak to it and learn what it knows.”

  “The asir must die,” Ishaq said loudly.

  “Çeda has been in the desert for some time now. Weeks. One presumes that the asir has been with her the entire time. One also presumes that the Kings very dearly wish to speak to her. Yet she has not been found. So I wonder what rush there is to kill the asir when there might be very much gained by letting it live.”

  “Have you not seen what it has done already? Salsanna was attacked by that creature, and Çeda was right there.” He turned to Salsanna. “Is it not so?”

  But before Salsanna could say a word, Leorah went on, “Are we so scared of a little blood that we would kill the innocent?”

  “It attacked one of our own!”

  “And you ordered your men to attack your own granddaughter to get at a creature who cowers from you. Look beyond this day, my son.” She spread her arms wide and turned in a circle, taking in all who had gathered. She looked triumphant, oblivious to her own infirmity, a goddess in her own right. “I ask you all to look beyond this day. Our daughter has returned to us, and she has brought one of those who was forced to hunt us for centuries. They have been merciless. They’ve killed many of our number. But I ask you, whose fault is that? They’ve been caught in the spell of the gods and given to the Kings to do with as they will. But now! Now one comes to us unshackled. Freed. That you could think of spilling its blood without learning more shames me!” She turned her gaze on Ishaq. “Have I not told you? The Night of Endless Swords was a turning point. This is but more evidence. We will not take the life of one who has come to us in need of shelter, one weakened by centuries of enslavement, ground down by four hundred years of duty forced on them by the gods themselves. Look what Çedamihn Ahyanesh’ala has done! Thank her for the gift she has brought before us, for in the hated asirim there is knowledge. We must only be brave enough to unlock it!”