“You are going to tell me we are walking into the mouth of the beast,” said Tirdad.
“Now that you’ve said it, I don’t have to.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“I’d avoid suggesting things I’m afraid of if I were you.”
They trekked deep into the valley until they reached the point where the ridges adjoined. There, tucked into a recess, was a portal. The portal itself was rather unimaginative as far as portals are concerned: rectangular, ordinary, and without embellishment.
On the other hand, what was inside the portal piqued Ashtadukht’s interest. A swarm of creatures like forgotten cheese and jellyfish with all the salt and none of the water clogged the entrance.
They were stuck. Ashtadukht reached this conclusion for two reasons: because they weren’t swarming her, and because they were squabbling and tugging at one another with stumpy little half-arms.
“What are they?” asked Tirdad, who had immediately brought his sword between them and the creatures.
“Divs of a sort. Simple things if you haven’t already figured that out. They feed on lies. Mostly harmless, though. I’ve never seen this many in one place. Only ever two or three at most.”
Ashtadukht approached the portal and stopped within arm’s reach. “This is incredible,” she said. “What manner of lie could possibly attract so many?”
She searched her mind for a truth she hadn’t used yet. One she knew they would find terrifying. Ashtadukht leaned in and whispered.
Even with such a diaphanous delivery, the effect was both immediate and potent. The divs squealed, and it sounded like a thousand boots tugged free of a mud puddle. Fear dislodged the swarm, which disappeared in all directions.
Their sudden dispersal released all the wind that’d been pent up over the months, which surged into the cousins and knocked them flat. After its initial outburst, the gust settled into a strong, steady flow.
Tirdad fought the wind to get to Ashtadukht. When he reached her, she was staring at the sky, tunic and plaits flapping around her face.
“I guess we solved that,” she yelled above the din. “I think I’ll stay here a while.”
“I would advise against it,” shouted Tirdad. He slipped his arms under hers and forcibly dragged her to the side of the portal.
“You could’ve let me have my triumphant rest,” complained Ashtadukht while slumped against the stone. She lay there for a moment before it hit her: she’d gotten a glimpse of something just inside the portal before she’d been bowled over.
“There’s someone inside,” she yelled to Tirdad, and signalled to the portal. “I saw feet.”
“Feet? A body, too?”
“Go find out. I’m tired.”
Tirdad gave her a look that was at the same time incredulous and resigned. He probably shouldn’t have joked about the feet. He edged close to the portal and pulled himself around the corner. The wind was worse inside, blasting him so that he could hardly see, but he did spot the figure on the ground. Without giving it any more thought than helping a person in need, he scooped it up and carried his surprisingly light load out of the mouth of the mountain while being carried out by the wind himself. Tirdad rushed over to Ashtadukht and deposited the person beside her.
It wasn’t until then, as Ashtadukht shrieked and scrambled away, that Tirdad realized he’d had a div in his arms. His eyes went wide and he verily tore his blade from its sheath. He brought it up to strike, but Ashtadukht grabbed hold of his wrist.
“No,” she shouted. “It’s done nothing to deserve that.”
Tirdad reluctantly lowered his sword, but kept it firmly in his grasp. “Yet,” he replied.
What had once been the div’s clothing was so threadbare that it was an insult to rags. This made some things readily apparent to Ashtadukht, and fewer so to Tirdad. To him it was female, and probably a warrior judging by its well-toned and scarred frame; his appraisal ended there.
Ashtadukht, however, gleaned that and more. She noted the deep blue, snake-like scales that covered its head where hair would have been, and ran down its nape and over its body until it mingled with the human flesh that reduced it to patches farther down.
“Half-div,” she shouted over the wind. “It’s a half-div. Let’s bring it somewhere quieter.”
“I am not picking that div up twice,” refused Tirdad. “I am not.”
“Fine,” said Ashtadukht. And to her surprise, he watched her, sword ready, as she dragged the half-div out of range of the din of the gale.
“I have my limits,” explained Tirdad. “I still cannot believe I carried that thing. We should have left it back there or, better yet, killed it.”
Ashtadukht extended her hand. “Your sword.”
“What?”
She pointed at it. “That pointy stick you’re so set on using. Give it to me.”
Tirdad hesitated before flipping it over and handing her the hilt. “What do you plan to do?”
“Just watch.” She pointed it at the half-div’s foot and lightly pierced the bottom. The half-div immediately shot up into a sitting position, chest heaving and eyes frantically searching here and there.
“A hero!” it exclaimed. “A hero has come to thief my dreams! I’ll vanquish every—ow, ow, ow! Who swords a foot?”
Ashtadukht cautiously knelt before the half-div and placed the sword on the ground. “We’re not heroes,” she explained.
“Then you’re just rude,” said the half-div, who then contorted to nurse the wound.
Ashtadukht watched her suckle the bottom of her foot for a moment before continuing. “Do you have a name?” she asked.
“Waray.”
“Waray?”
“Waray.”
“Like the bird? That isn’t a name.”
“. . .”
Ashtadukht sighed. “Okay, Waray. Tell me what you’re doing here. What kind of lie are you harbouring to entice so many of your own to come feed on it?”
“Searching,” answered Waray.
“For what?”
“Not that.”
“Not what?”
Waray nodded. “Are you an augur? You can augur me.”
“I’m . . . no.” Ashtadukht decided to start over. She pointed at Tirdad, but kept her attention on the half-div. “This man wants to kill you. I don’t think that’s necessary, and I’d like you to convince us both.”
Waray gave Tirdad a sidelong glance and narrowed her eyes.
“Did you have anything to do with the snakes surrounding Baku?” asked Ashtadukht. And in an effort to satisfy her own curiosity, “Or the nests arranged in the nearby woods?”
“Snakes on a plain? None of that. None of it.”
“And the nests?”
Waray pursed her lips. “Maybe. Don’t nudge them. The fate of the stars is theirs to decide.”
“I do not trust her,” interjected Tirdad. “She is a div, a creature beholden to the Lie.”
“She is half-div,” Ashtadukht corrected. “Are you the star-reckoner here or am I?”
Tirdad spread his arms and turned away, offering no further argument.
“Star-reckoner . . .” murmured Waray, and her pitch was rife with dread. She began to crawl away backwards, kicking up dirt as she did. “I’m searching,” she pleaded. “Only searching! Only that!” She cast about desperately and emitted a bombilating whine.
Ashtadukht shot her cousin a look that left no question as to who she blamed for this and started after the half-div.
“It’s okay,” she said with the most silvery tone she could muster. “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m not like the others. Tell me what you’re searching for. Something in the cave with the wind?”
Waray dragged her fingers over her head and shook it violently. “No, no, no. I only wanted a peek. Why does a cave bellow šo-furiously?”
Ashtadukht closed on her and gently grabbed the now-trembling half-div by the shoulder. “Tell me what you’re searching for.”
�
��Not that. I told you. Not what.”
“Who?”
Waray grew deathly still. Wherever she went to retrieve the answer must have been tumultuous, because it sucked the life from her eyes. “My family.”
“Your family?” asked Ashtadukht. “Have you lost them?”
Waray’s reply was measured, grim, and stuffed with as much meaning as you can get into a single word. So much that it was coming apart at the seams. “Ye—s.”
Ashtadukht gave the shoulder a squeeze then pulled a mauve-purple tunic and trousers from her pack, which she offered to the half-div. “Take these. They’re old, but they’re serviceable. Try to find something to cover your head and hide your eyes, red as they are. If you keep wandering around like that, you’re bound to get unwanted attention.”
She retrieved the sword and frowned at the half-div, who was still clutching the clothes to her chest. “Good luck, Waray.”
• • • • •
Tirdad hadn’t said a word since the encounter, too embroiled in his conflict of conscience. He hadn’t even bothered to ask for his sword. They were returning the way they’d come, using notched trees to take the same path back, when he finally spoke up.
“I do not like how you handled that,” he said. “I do not think I do.”
Despite her condition, which had deteriorated throughout the day, Ashtadukht had been setting the pace. She did not want to give her cousin the opportunity to go back.
“It isn’t your place to decide,” she retorted. “You aren’t here to tell me how to do my job.”
“That div could be off killing someone right now,” Tirdad countered. “It could be coaxing children to serve the Lie.”
“I could say the same of humans. Should I cut down every human I see because of it?”
“Lady has a point.”
The cousins froze. Between their bickering, Tirdad’s preoccupation, and Ashtadukht’s weariness, neither had noticed the bandits lying in wait. They’d just crossed into a large gap between forests, and standing there hands on hips was a man in the garb of the legion of Hrom.
Ashtadukht instinctively looked over her shoulder, only to find eight armed soldiers emerging from the forest. Farther off, a pair of archers had bows ready.
The man in the clearing—the one who’d spoken—stepped forward. “Don’t you be worryin’,” he said. “We ain’t for killin’ you or havin’ your woman. We may be deserters, but we ain’t demons.” There arose a chorus of protests from the men who’d now surrounded them. “Okay,” conceded the leader. “A bit o’ your woman. And all o’ your coin.”
Ashtadukht swallowed.
“Use your star-reckoning,” whispered Tirdad.
“Oh, now you’re all for it.”
“This is not the time to argue.”
“Do you see any stars?”
A squelch, a shout, and a grunt of a giggle came all at once from the direction of the archers. One was already down; the other was reaching for his blade as a flash of mauve leaped on him and brought him down, too. Waray emitted a strange string of high-and-low, almost musical yet unmistakably feral cackles as she used a broken arrow to dig a hole in the archer’s throat.
Meanwhile, the cousins were profiting from the ensuing confusion. Ashtadukht tossed Tirdad his sword, who caught it and in the same movement skewered a distracted soldier. He relieved the dying man of his spatha, handed it to Ashtadukht, and parried an incoming blow.
A twang sounded, prompting several deserters to throw themselves out of the way, and an arrow lodged in one as he fell, which was by no means indicative of the user’s skill. Ashtadukht took advantage of the opportunity to run another through before an arrow whirred past her nose. She instinctively ducked, which earned her a boot to the face.
Tirdad’s first opponent hadn’t so much as flinched when the shot came, but a strong overhand blow that changed direction last instant quickly dispatched the Hrom deserter. Tirdad then pivoted to stab the man standing over his cousin and immediately returned his attention to the four remaining soldiers, one of whom had an arrow in his thigh.
They would have all attacked him at once if Waray hadn’t crashed into them with all the force and presence of a frenzied lion. A purple, hundred-pound lion, but a lion all the same. And she did have a snarl of sorts. She collided with one soldier, dragged him to the grass with her, and left him with an arrow in the eye as she scampered out of the group.
Tirdad closed in the moment she hit, scoring a mortal blow on one and wounding another before he disengaged. The Hrom legionnaires weren’t so set on fighting now.
“Keep it together!” their leader called as he charged, sensing their hesitation. “More loot for the survivors!”
Tirdad circled toward the one who’d been hit by an arrow, which gave him a view of the leader just as Waray intercepted his run. Tirdad set his jaw and engaged the remaining deserters. He came in with an overhand strike that masked a kick aimed for the wounded leg of the one on the right. His boot connected, the soldier howled, and that was cut short by a cleft skull. Tirdad side-stepped under a chop from the other man, and shoved the corpse—along with his sword, as it’d been wedged deep—into his path. The legionnaire stumbled, and Tirdad moved to rush in weaponless when Ashtadukht verily collapsed on the deserter, using her weight to push her spatha through his torso as she fell with him.
She groaned and turned a circle on her hands and knees. Her still-throbbing head didn’t like the idea of engaging in more of anything, much less fighting. Mercifully for her head, it looked like Waray was handling the last of it. Or had handled. She couldn’t really tell. The half-div had stolen a spatha, and was doing some excessive plunging either way.
“Are you hurt?” inquired Tirdad, placing his hand on her back.
“Nothing serious,” Ashtadukht replied. “Only—urgh—only a boot to the head.”
“Take a moment if you need it. They are all dead. I made sure of it.”
Waray started over, fangs bared and grinning in wild excitement, with a blade in her hand and bouncing from heel to heel, when Tirdad halted her with a raised sword. Her face and hands were splashed with blood; her sleeve was ripped where a nasty blow caught her upper arm; her chest rose and fell alongside heavy breaths. She just stared at the tip of his blade, wearing that toothy, adrenaline-fuelled grin.
“Drop your weapon,” Tirdad instructed.
She let it fall.
“Don’t hurt her,” said Ashtadukht. “I swear, if you do—”
“I do not intend to,” interrupted Tirdad. “She saved our lives after all. But I have seen that look before, and I would not trust any man to come at me armed and looking like that.”
Ashtadukht crossed her legs, tapped gently at her swollen head, flinched, and considered the half-div. “You were trailing us,” she surmised.
Waray canted her head and looked sideways at nothing in particular. Her heels were gradually losing their springiness, and along with it, her grin.
“Why were you following us?”
Waray canted the other way, still focused on the same nothing in particular. Her bouncing became a rocking, her grin a barely perceptible curve.
“Okay, Waray. We’re leaving then. Thank you for your—”
“Wait!” The half-div was obviously battling something, not the least of which was her battle rage. “You didn’t nudge my nests. I ate the eggs because . . .” Waray narrowed her eyes. “Don’t know. The shells hurt. But I’m saying you didn’t nudge them.”
“And?”
“And you didn’t kill me.”
“I don’t believe we did. It was a wise decision,” said Ashtadukht.
Tirdad snorted. He knew that last statement was directed at him.
The half-div nodded, or just canted her head further; Ashtadukht couldn’t tell.
She sighed and fought the urge to put her head in her hands. “You’re going to keep trailing us, aren’t you?”
Waray winced and gingerly gripped her arm. “Maybe. If
you don’t want to kill me.”
Ashtadukht took a deep breath and looked at Tirdad. He obviously wasn’t pleased by the idea, but his sense of honour prevented him from speaking up. Half-div or not, she had been instrumental in their getting out of the ambush alive. Ashtadukht knew better than Tirdad to be wary of divs, but she also realized this one could have gone on wandering and faced far less danger than she did just now.
“Come here,” she said, “and I’ll see about dressing that wound.”
IV
Tirdad stood over Waray, who was huddled within her tunic both because she was posing as his wife and because it blocked her sight of the sea. Eventually, she’d just stopped eating, which left her with dry heaving and the regular drawn out groan.
“I’ll slit the throat of every boat,” she hissed more than said. “I’ll—urk.”
“Quiet down,” Tirdad bade her. Then to Ashtadukht: “We could have used a rest before—”
“I’ll—rrn.”
“Before we were rushed off to some court case.”
Ashtadukht eyed the back of the wizened fisherman whose small vessel they’d hitched a ride on. He was probably suspicious of Waray, but there was no helping it. Even so, she figured he had enough to worry about just making ends meet. Their conversations and this irregular trip were probably a welcome break in his otherwise humdrum routine. If not, a little extra coin would help. She shrugged at Tirdad.
“It sometimes happens that we’re busy for months on end. And it sometimes happens that we’ll have nothing to do for the same length of time. Besides, this could possibly be connected with the death of my brother.”
Tirdad nodded and took in the breadth of the sea. He didn’t exactly feel at home on it, but this was an experience he wanted to commit to memory. It reminded him of a vast, trembling carpet.
“I welcome the chance to get my hands on the div responsible,” he replied at length. “I just hope our lack of rest doesn’t interfere.”
The fisherman cleared his throat, which drew the attention of all three. “Won’t be long now. If’n ya got more a that coin, I got a buddy might sail ya near ta Amol.”
A Star-Reckoner's Lot (A Star-Reckoner's Legacy Book 1) Page 4
