When she wasn’t poring over maps, charts, and missives—generally trying to bring a measure of organization to a force that thrived on chaos—she had to contend with Ahriman whispering in her ear. She suspected he’d had a hand in her getting this far; he’d clearly taken an interest in her. That troubled her because, if the incident with the prince’s rebellion was any indication, he didn’t seem to care whether these insurrections succeeded. The chaos involved would have been enough for him, she’d wagered. More than that, he flaunted his wares like a whore who’d fallen on hard times. The div in her redoubled its fight every time he’d strut by casually stroking his length.
But Ashtadukht was tenacious. She hadn’t seduced those star-reckoners because she wanted sex; on those nights, the whore was a means to an end. After she lost Gushnasp, she hadn’t actively sought a true partner until Tirdad—and that was under the influence of copious draughts of wine.
She was reviewing correspondence from the nomads to the east, who had harried and even received tribute from Iran in the past, when a bare foot thumped the cluttered slab she’d been using as a table.
“Coming along?” Ahriman asked. Ashtadukht didn’t bother looking up. He’d have his manhood in both hands, tugging it as if he meant to milk out every last drop, and she didn’t need the distraction, or the self-loathing it’d inspire. She paid him no heed.
“Hope you aren’t having a hard time of it,” he pressed on, unfazed by being ignored. He leaned in and, chuckling to himself, added, “I sure am.”
“I’m busy.”
“Take a load off,” Ahriman suggested. He leaned closer, and his breath reeked of burnt flesh and wet dog. “Or just take a load.”
Ashtadukht pulled back and glowered at him, pointedly avoiding the business between his thighs. She gestured in its direction. “What kind of person walks around like that? That isn’t enticing. It’s obscene.”
“I’m the Stinking Spirit.”
“Yes?”
“We’re no more than ourselves. I like obscene. It’s classy.”
“It’s repulsive.”
Ahriman screwed up his face in feigned offense.
Ashtadukht let out a tired sigh. “Why’re you sabotaging me? I thought you’d at least offer to help.”
She palmed her forehead and rubbed her temples, where a dogged ache had taken residence, and deliberated the documents amassed before her. Under more favourable circumstances, an onlooker might have mentioned how closely she resembled her late father. With how she’d turned out, she probably would have taken such an observation as an insult to his good name. Here she was, conspiring with divs, with the Stinking Spirit himself rubbing one out in front of her.
“You’re doing well enough without me,” he said. “Only help you need from me is getting off.”
“I can get off on my own just—” Ashtadukht sighed again. She’d walked right into that one.
“Another time then,” Ahriman said, smirking at the small victory. “When you need funding, just ask. My purse is really quite heavy, you know.” He vanished in a plume of smoke.
Ashtadukht plucked several dried apricots from a bowl heaped with them. They didn’t grow here; nothing grew here. Down Below was more barren than the most desolate deserts of the world it towered under. In contrast, Down Below couldn’t stop growing—a barrenness of another kind.
So she’d tasked some of the lesser ranks with bringing supplies from the outside world. As far as logistics went, not having to feed your army was a true boon. Whether she needed it or not, she still craved food, so an exception had been made. Waray had insisted on gathering her own eggs. The half-viper had argued furiously for that freedom, citing something about preserving integrity.
Ashtadukht wouldn’t go as far as saying she’d allowed it. That might conjure the image of fetters that were not there. Waray was free to do as she pleased in the realm of reason, but Ashtadukht worried. You worry for a friend. You try to impart your best counsel.
This came to mind just as the half-viper hurried in, yolk slathered over her chin. She raised a hand in greeting and fought to catch her breath.
“Captain,” the half-whore greeted. “It’s a relief you made it back with your head intact. Don’t tell me you ran all the way from the Neck of Arezura?”
Waray nodded vigorously, gasping for shallow gulps of air. She sealed her upraised hand in a fist.
Ashtadukht returned the salute. ”I hope your eggs made the trip unbroken.”
She said this despite having what she thought was a good guess at what had befallen the eggs. The yolk that glistened on Waray’s chin crowned a slick that begrimed her tunic from collar to midriff. Probably her entire haul. Waray preferred to eat her eggs leisurely and with an appreciation on par with connoisseurs—perhaps judging the clarity of the white, the mouthfeel of the yolk, and the bite of the shell. Something had spooked her.
The half-whore watched patiently, chewing an apricot as she did. Waray had run a great distance; she’d speak when she got her breathing under control.
Ashtadukht eyed her waist. She’d bestowed upon the half-viper a belt adorned with lapis lazuli that accented whimsical crow motifs, a symbol of her status and rank in the half-whore’s retinue. There was more to it than that, though. Not many people got close enough to see the gold that speckled her blue scales; lapis lazuli had a similar composition: blue with golden streaks. In that respect, it symbolized their bond. Waray wore it proudly, or seemed to anyway.
Ashtadukht had given her the rank out of gratitude, but she’d been a surprisingly useful captain considering her wild, often erratic disposition. Provided a small company and schooled in guerilla tactics, she might prove to be an invaluable ally in the war to come.
“Here,” Waray finally heaved, ejecting the word as if she’d been fighting to get it out for hours. “Sisters are here. Šo-dreadful sisters . . .” She grumbled and pawed at her tunic. “My eggshavemet with a terriblefate.”
“A better fate than fodder for your sisters no doubt.” Ashtadukht’s only experience with the Eshm sisters Waray spoke of so ominously was limited to the div whose illusion they’d overcome years back. The half-viper hadn’t ventured much in the way of an explanation at the time, but their relationship came across as a complicated one.
Waray inclined her head, canting it as she did, and wrung her hands. “Maybe. Maybe yes.”
“Good. Now why don’t you tell me about these sisters of yours.”
“Somehow we don’t think her tall tales will cast us in a favourable light.”
Three fully-scaled divs rounded the corner behind Waray, each clad in a knee-length mail shirt, breastplate, guards, greaves, and all of it with a sanguine gloss.
Waray spun on them, bringing her bow to bear, nocking an arrow, and hooking her middle and ring fingers around the string. She’d pilfered this one during a recent run, and while she still made the legendary archer Erash roll in his ossuary, the composite bow was of a quality that even an amateur couldn’t miss. Its finely crafted birch and tur horn chassis was layered with sinew, secured with fish glue, then waterproofed with birch bark. Tur horn laths further reinforced the handle and rigid ears. The bow had been put together with the sort of loving craftsmanship that your hands would detect the moment you picked it up. Rather than drawing, she retreated to Ashtadukht and pressed her back to the wall, hissing as she did. “Stayaway, you šo-scuttling broom sweepers.”
The one in front tapped her head with her index and middle fingers. “’Lo there, little sis. Long time, mhm.”
“Mighty impressive sprinting,” said the one on the right. “However, you should’ve brought a horse.”
The last one flashed a razor-sharp grin. “And how. Managed to shovel all those eggs into your face while running, too.”
Waray bared her fangs. “I’ll commission a relief of you makingšo-sour love totheprow of the—”
“The Dourboat’s dead,” the one in front flatly interrupted.
The half-viper narr
owed her eyes. She looked to be working out whether the reminder pleased her more than her insult being interrupted ticked her off. “I’llnameyou in its obituary,” she eventually murmured.
“You’d better be here for more than antagonizing my captain,” Ashtadukht cut in with a tip of her wide-brimmed hat. “As it is, you’ve made a poor first impression.”
“Down Below isn’t yours to command,” hissed the grinning one.
“No,” Ashtadukht retorted, steepling her fingers to ward off their fidgeting, “but the army encamped here is. And you’re in the middle of that army.”
“If you’ll forgive us,” said the one in front. “Old habits die hard. We aren’t here to squabble.”
“So what’re you here for?” asked Ashtadukht.
“Dying,” Waray hissed. She would’ve gone on, likely had a moderately involved insult primed, but thought better of it in light of the glare Ashtadukht shot her.
The middle Eshm sister stepped forward. “We’re here, five dozen of us, to join the div host. When news of your intentions spread, we figured it was only natural we pitch in. Our blood boils same as—more than—any other div, and an all-out assault hasn’t occurred in ages. We’re damn effective as shock troops, mhm.”
Ashtadukht casually bit into an apricot. She tried to make it appear casual at any rate, because her nerves were taut enough to be hammered like a santur. “Normally, I’d welcome your eagerness, but you’re of Eshm’s stock after all. Further, my captain wants you dead. I trust my captain.”
“Waray? That’s a personal matter,” said the one who’d stepped forward as their leader. She creased her scaled brow. “And trivial.”
“Personal to me,” replied Ashtadukht. “And not trivial to me.”
“You don’t get it, do you? It’s trivial. Look, we were harsh. But she’s ‘Eshm’s stock’, as you put it, same as us. Divs and humans fear us, and those who’re afraid lash out. We must be worse to one another than those beneath us could ever be. Were we harsher than normal? Mhm. She’s half human. We knew it’d be rougher for her.”
“So your sibling love is treating one another like mortal enemies?”
“I’d hardly call it love, but mhm.”
Ashtadukht glanced at the half-viper. She’d deflated markedly, now downcast, but had her bow ready nevertheless. “And the one who was sent after her?”
“The sister you killed?”
The half-whore drew her lips taut. She tried to pick out any enmity in the heft of the question, but could find none—excepting that innate to the div’s bloodline. “That sister,” she answered at length.
“No hard feelings. It happens more often than you might think. We’re—” Ashtadukht caught a hint of a change in her delivery. “We’re disposable. Father bade her to burn the memories hindering Waray. That one wasn’t always so . . .” The div gestured vaguely. “A crude approach, mhm, but in her best interest all the same. Our sister was doing Waray a favour.”
“You consider tossing precious memories into an oven a favour?”
“Mhm.”
Ashtadukht leaned back, finally giving in to the inveterate call of her cuff. She figured a corps of Eshm’s stock would fight with a rabid, unquenchable bloodlust akin to Waray, only more cohesively. There was value in that.
Further, the divs hadn’t once used Waray’s actual name. Surely they knew what’d transpired those centuries back: that only Shkarag had survived. Their restraint was either part of the farce, or they could manage being around her without needless debasement. Regardless, they’d have to be kept apart. Whatever they’d done in grooming Waray, it’d driven an insuperable wedge between them.
“Fine,” she said. “We’ll take you on as shock troops. For the time being. Consider it a probationary period.”
“Huh? No!” Waray protested. “Those šo-bilging sisterscan’t stay.” She drew the bowstring until it grooved her cheek, other elbow out as Tirdad had taught her, and let fly an arrow. It erred harmlessly between the three and into the depravity of Down Below.
Ashtadukht stayed the next draw by standing in front of Waray. She hoped the divs interpreted it as a warning shot, and not the miss it undoubtedly had been. As it was, they were all ready to pounce, claws on swords, and weight shifted to spring forward. “Only for the time being,” she said to the trio. “If I find you’ve caused her trouble or seek to disrupt my plans here, I’ll retaliate, and you’ll wish you hadn’t.”
The leader nodded and extended a fist over her forearm in a salute. “Fair terms. Well, fair enough, mhm. My sisters and I will make camp on the outer bulwark where we can best avoid confrontation. There, we’ll await your orders.” The divs in the rear about-faced and strolled off, while the leader hung around.
“Is there something more you’d like to tell me?” Ashtadukht asked. She seated herself before the impenetrable disorder of charts and correspondences that would not, it appeared, get the poring over they required anytime soon. Waray, who’d lowered her bow with a fretful buzz, took a seat beside the half-whore.
“Mhm,” the leader replied, throwing a glance over her shoulder.
“Well, spit it out.” Ashtadukht indicated the mess. “I’ve more problems to address than I’ve slabs to heap them on.”
The scaled div nodded. “It’s just that . . . we’re, well, we’re all jealous of Waray. For reasons that’re none of your business, mind. I’m telling you this not out of a desire to be chummy, but because I want this warning to be forthright. She is one of us, like it or not. Worse, even. Mhm. Given direction, we’ll stick to it. The rank you’ve given her, your friendship, your play at order are all brittle things. Maybe you know this, maybe you don’t. But be careful what burdens you place on her shoulders. She’s liable to cant one way or the other. Keep her close if you must, but I’d rather not see this undertaking fail because of it.”
“I’ll take it into consideration,” Ashtadukht said with a blank face. “Now, if that’s all, you should leave.”
The leader gave another salute, about-faced, and did just that.
“We need all the help we can get,” Ashtadukht explained to the half-viper once they were alone. She extracted a missive from the mess and gave it a cursory once over. “The Hephthalites aren’t as cooperative as I’d hoped, Waray. Alone, we won’t have the numbers to mount a successful strike at Iran. Countless attempts have already been made by divs, with catastrophic results. I can’t turn away a contingent solely because you’ve bad history with them. You know that, right?” She looked at Waray, genuinely seeking to reconcile the decision with her.
The half-viper canted her head, absently plucking at the bowstring. “Maybe,” she muttered.
“Don’t let what she said get to you,” Ashtadukht reassured her. “We’ve had a row or two, but you’ve stuck with me. I won’t soon be forgetting that.”
Waray gave the bowstring another dejected twang. “Šo-brambled bitch’sright.”
“Huh?”
“Can’tbe trusted.”
“Don’t be silly, Waray. I trust you.”
“Folly. Šo-blindfolly.”
Ashtadukht turned a frown on the half-viper. “What’s gotten into you?”
“Iknow. I always know. It’s alwaysthere, just—” She clenched her hands over her head. “Out of reach. Inthecorners of everything Ithink and see. Waiting. Ican’t—” She sharply tilted her head. “I can’tcatchit, but it’s hovering and always šo-tittering. Sometimes it’s pomegranate-red; sometimes it’s šo-prosperousnothing. Too much nothing. Run away nothing. It itches somethingfierce. Better to not know, I think . . .” Waray trailed off, then added a firm, “Definitely. Youjust—” Her gaze came to smolder on the spot where her sister had stood moments earlier.
“You chatteras if I’m not here. Like handkerchief-headed hags gossipingand going on. ‘ThatWaray, less than a person,’ you chinwag.” A nascent hiss infiltrated her delivery. “I’m right here. I’mright here. The pomegranate-red and thešo-prosperousnothing vie and vieand v
ie. I know. But I’mright here.”
Ashtadukht bored into her lap, where she anxiously worked the cuffs of her sleeves. Had she been unsympathetic? Insensitive?
She recalled the malady that’d afflicted her on the island-turtle, before the Senmurw’s feather had flushed it out. That recollection dredged up feelings of powerlessness, of humiliation, of defeat, and most of all, a sense of losing one’s self. She remembered it belonging to the corners of her mind—eventually, the other way around. An elusive fiend that only a sidelong glance could so much as hint at. And when it came, when it deigned to step down from its hidden throne, it did so with the cruel, absolute authority of a tyrant, to despoil everything in its wake.
Ashtadukht turned a weary smile on Waray and embraced her without restraint. “It’s a wonder you’ve anything left after all this time,” she said diaphanously. “You must’ve been strong; well, you still are.” She kissed the cool, half-keeled scales that ran like sand dunes above the half-viper’s ear. “I’m sorry,” she muttered.
“Sometimes, we become so preoccupied with our own trials that we unwittingly reduce other people to the other. The other we interact with, come to enjoy the company of, perhaps even love, but the other nonetheless. We forget that they’re people, too.”
The half-whore gave the half-viper a squeeze. “I’m afraid I’ve done that with you more times than I’d like to admit. I can’t say it won’t happen again, but you’ve set me straight. And if there’s a next time, don’t hesitate to knock some sense into me.”
“I’llthrottle you,” Waray drowsily replied. “Throttleyou something fierce.” She relinquished her weight entirely to Ashtadukht, leaning into the hug and, having nothing better to do with her hands, limply returning it. “My eggs have met with a terriblefate,” she mumbled into the half-whore’s neck. “Theywant to comeback up.”
“Please don’t,” groaned Ashtadukht. “Not on me.”
“Maybe.”
Ashtadukht released an exhausted chuckle. “And here I was supposed to discuss the rock relief with you.”
“Relief? I’m notparty to any charity.”
A Star-Reckoner's Lot (A Star-Reckoner's Legacy Book 1) Page 29
