“You know what I’m talking about. The relief you somehow managed to carve into the face of Down Below. The one of you striking a pose.”
“Doesn’tring a bell,” said Waray.
“I’ve seen it. Impressive sculpting—the attention to detail, too. A clothed version might’ve been more tasteful, though.”
“Heroesshouldn’t wear clothes, I think.”
“Why?” asked Ashtadukht.
“Makesyou think they’re ashamed of being heroes. Why sculptarelief if most of you is just an advertisement for the šo-unctuous merchant who swindled some trousersontoyour legs?”
“Never thought of it that way,” Ashtadukht mouthed through a yawn. “Guess there’s some truth to it. Still, that you managed to do it without anyone noticing is quite the feat. Well done.”
She’d never really planned on formally reprimanding Waray to begin with. She would have voiced enough of a complaint that the half-viper knew it’d made an impression. Enough to encourage her to play more pranks. Waray had been on especially good behavior of late: only two divs lost within the month, and not without provocation. The crux of her instigation lay deeper, however. Pranks, Ashtadukht had figured, were something of a canary in a coal mine for Waray, an indicator of morale, which would explain why she’d gone without any since they’d departed the estate. So the half-whore had decided she’d nurture the return to form. She also figured she’d regret it when a prank was next inflicted on her, but the reward justified the risk.
She went on to relate the scene with the divs who’d brought the relief to her attention, both to further provoke Waray, and because she figured it’d be good to have some time together. They haven’t had much of that lately.
“There I was, trying to make heads or tails of what could’ve scarcely passed as a nautical chart, when a party of fuming divs stormed in and demanded your head. Oh, you should’ve seen their faces. And the stomping—like grotesque little urchins throwing a fit. The amusement was worth their complaints, I’ll say. Later, I—oh.”
Waray had fallen asleep.
“Stressful day, huh?” Ashtadukht started to ease the half-viper off and onto the empty end of her divan, but stopped short. “That must’ve been some show,” she muttered to herself, easing Waray onto her lap instead. “You running back to Down Below, stuffing your mouth with eggs as you did. Would’ve liked to bear witness.”
Ashtadukht reached carefully to her makeshift desk, and let caprice close her fingers around the next order of business.
XIV
A golden throne sat on a golden litter, gleaming by starlight and shouldered by four behemoth divs that, in their hideousness, foiled any play at majesty. From that throne, Ashtadukht surveyed her host.
She would have been happy with a run-of-the-mill conveyance. Anything to make the journey easier on a body that complained more and more with each passing day. But she was a leader, and as such, she had to look the part. So a gem-embellished, gilded throne it was.
Her host, fearsome and fiendish, might have been impressive to someone unfamiliar with the forces of Iran. Ashtadukht knew better. Even with the Eshm sisters at the vanguard, their glossy, blood-red armour catching the moonlight and strangling the lustre out of it; even with the terrible, multifarious ranks of divs, which would strike fear into an otherwise courageous man; even with a score of behemoths lumbering behind, siege and supplies strapped to their backs; even with a forty-armed div equipped with enough munitions to pulverize a mountain; even with Waray leading a contingent of dastardly shit-stirrers; even with a planet-reckoner at the helm, it wasn’t enough. When the might of Iran set upon them, they would crumble and disperse like so much wind. What’s more, hostilities with Hrom had calmed in recent years, which meant Iran would not be distracted, though their numbers had undoubtedly suffered.
The paltry nomads who’d pledged their allegiance to her cause would only delay the inevitable. Harried by the Turks on their northern border, the Hephthalite king would not risk a war on two fronts. Well, Ashtadukht wasn’t going to have it. She needed bodies. So she marched east, where the nomads had established an empire of their own—mainly by way of subjugating other empires.
The shadow of night and a carefully plotted course guarded her host from eyes that might relay their advance to those who would squash it before it could gain momentum. This also favoured the divs and herself, who were weakened by the rising of the sun. And any div that gave in to restlessness and broke off to search for some poor soul to bring misfortune was summarily cut down. Ashtadukht didn’t like thinning her forces, but it got the message across. In some things, order must be maintained.
Rather than a rendezvous with the nomads she’d convinced to join—chiefly through promises of glorious battle with all that follows, and carefully weighed jabs at their current king’s unwillingness to participate in said glory—she led her host toward the Amu Darya River, where the great arrow of Erash had once demarcated the border between Iran and Turan.
Despite the indefatigable march of her divs, it took months to arrive, hindered as they were by a course charted for secrecy and a schedule restricted to the nocturnal calls of nightjars and owls. Those months were the most nerve-racking of all. Between the effort of keeping a low profile, the similarity of herding divs to herding cats, and the self-doubt that dogged her, Ashtadukht endured many sleepless days. The half-whore was certainly no stranger to travel, but never had she been the linchpin of such an operation. She credited Waray’s company with keeping her sane. She welcomed it whenever the half-viper decided to climb into her litter for a much-needed refuge away from her contingent, and to relate anything worthy of reporting, which was never really anything worthy of reporting.
Once at the river, they continued east, but a cautious distance away from its southern bank. From there, it led them to the Hephthalite stronghold, which was nestled in a valley shielded on all sides by natural barriers: the Amu Darya river to the west, Hindu Kush Mountains to the south, and Pamir Mountains to the east and north.
Ashtadukht ordered the procession to halt well before they reached the mouth of the valley. She had no desire to isolate her host within. Or to parlay with its nomad overlord besides; she’d already made several negotiations for an alliance, all of which were rebuffed. The time for parlaying had long passed.
One of the Eshm sisters approached her litter and called out. “I’ve come, O Great Wrath and Fury.”
Ashtadukht winced inwardly. All part of the image, she reminded herself. She leaned onto the arm of her throne, enough that the div could see her face. She didn’t look down at the div; rather, she looked down on it. The distinction spoke volumes in her company and position; it would’ve been more insulting to give a hearty greeting. In this company, those who were favoured soon found themselves pariahs, or worse.
“Is everything in order?” she asked.
The Eshm sister saluted. “We’ve readied the conduit and guide. It’s tricky on this scale, but nothing we can’t manage.”
“And the vulnerabilities and flaws?”
“We’ve done our utmost to root them out. It’s impossible to catch them all, and some can’t be addressed or even perceived until the sorcery is well underway. But it should go over well.”
“Should?”
“Will,” the Eshm sister hurriedly revised. “It’ll go over well, O Great Wrath and Fury.”
“Good. Take your detachment and go. Oh, and remember: be furtive. They discover you and you’re dead. If not by their hands, then by mine.”
The div gave a parting salute and left to carry out the mission.
Ashtadukht sighed and retreated into the shadow thrown by the roof of her litter. Keeping up the appearance of a confident general was exhausting; she sure felt anything but confident. Her respect for her father shone all the more brightly now that she’d spent some time in his shoes. He’d told her once that a general should lead without looking distraught or uncertain: that the rank and file judged their chances by the
mood of their general. She’d taken it to heart. Sure, divs weren’t humans, but they responded well enough to his wisdom when adapted to their sensitivities.
The following nights were rowdy with the unrest of divs biting at their shackles—often literally. They weren’t particularly keen on being forbidden from indulging their many fancies while idling and defiling the earth with toenail clippings. Fortunately, the third such night heralded the return of the sorceress detachment, and in high spirits, too. With no incumbent star-reckoners to detect and scatter the illusion, it went off without a hitch.
Soon after, the thunder of hooves approached. The nomad king had been convinced to join—had been cajoled into convincing himself to join—by means of a large scale illusion. In short, he’d been enslaved.
Ashtadukht ordered her ranks into formation. The Eshm sisters took up the vanguard. Cavalry, or what passed as cavalry—generally anything with hooves—formed a line behind with space for the vanguard to cycle out if need be. Farther back, swift-footed archers would provide cover fire, and rush in once the enemy had been put on the defensive. She kept her heavy units out of play for delayed strikes. Waray’s unit was nowhere to be seen, but surely prepared to wreak havoc.
Much to the divs’ dismay, it never came to that. The Hephthalite army came to a halt a respectful distance away, their mounts nervously pawing at the dirt, and a lone rider broke from the bulk to ride mid-way between the two forces. When the rider dismounted and bent to one knee, she knew it was the king, come to declare his subservience.
Ashtadukht allowed herself a smug grin. She hoped that somewhere in his enthralled mind a part of him was conscious of the sorry fact that he’d been bested, and now humiliated himself by prostrating before her. She drew a discerning eye over his followers: almost half her numbers. She wanted more; she could have all of Hrom’s legions on her side and want more. Iran was, after all, Iran. But this would have to do.
She applied a white-knuckled grip to the armrests of her throne, such that the engravings left bright-red imprints on her palm, and went through the agonizing motions of getting to her feet. By the time she stepped into the moonlight, her expression was placid. She saluted her newest ally then gave the command for her host to move out.
From there, she travelled to Murv, which the Hephthalites had occupied since their earlier confrontation with Iran, and established a stronghold. So accustomed to long distance travel were the steppe horses that their advance matched hers without being driven to exhaustion. To prevent news of their arrival from spreading, the city was locked down, and all travel to the west was prohibited. Rather than parading through the city—principally because she was afraid it’d be too tantalizing for her divs—Ashtadukht ordered her host to give it a wide berth. Instead, she sent the Hephthalite king. Owing to the prolonged Hephthalite presence Murv had become a concourse of vagabonds and ne’er-do-wells. When the nomad king returned, it was with a company of mercenaries in tow.
Having secured a base through which her human allies could stockpile and send supplies, she continued westward, toward Iran’s eastern bulwark at Nishabhur.
Along the way, their march brought them through a series of luckless villages. The divs’ ever-growing lust for depravity had to be allayed lest they’d riot, so those villages were reduced to greasy black stains with pitiful, wispy smoke trails. The screams did not carry on to warn nearby settlements; the divs had plied their dark trade for millennia, and devised methods of preventing notice. Sequestered with sword and silenced with sorcery, they contained each village, one by one, until the inhabitants had been picked at and used and made to be utterly broken—worthless to the misery-loving divs. Ashtadukht did not like it, but she allowed it all the same; she likened it to throwing meat to ravenous hounds, an analogy that sometimes seemed all too fitting.
She made sure to watch. She was responsible, and she would not hide from her wrongdoing, whether she considered it necessary or not. Once the divs had finished with a village, which never took long, she’d order it torched. The divs did not kill; that would have been merciful. They brought a person to terrible places then left them there, like a discarded old toy. So she ordered them run through and burned, both to end their suffering and to conceal the humiliation they’d endured.
Ashtadukht left every stinking fire feeling less human. She might have turned back if not for her hatred of star-reckoners and a need to see this through to the bitter end. The malignant pearl she’d sheltered for a lifetime now revealed its core. The layers of bereavement had begun to fall away when Tirdad discovered her ruse.
He’d interrupted her ritual, and in doing so upset the balance. Her capacity to deny reality faded. She’d rise at dusk and, more and more, her grief would be supplanted by an unquenchable desire for vengeance. Heartless, single-minded vengeance. And this was what drove her. There were times when, concealed by the oily, unnatural shadows of her litter, she’d slump in her throne and wonder how far she’d go for justice. Then the very same voice she’d once drowned and skewered and bludgeoned and refused to lend an ear to would speak up. The once-tiny voice of reality would tell her she’d do whatever it took.
She directed her host over the leading edge of a mountain patchy with grass, where sheep grazed idly, unaware of their shepherd’s grim fate. Beyond, shrubs fought trees for real estate, and here and there a dense bole intruded upon the gravelly slopes that plunged below harsh, red-banded crests. She circled around that network of ridges, and into a trough between massifs. There, her host came upon a valley swathed in wild saffron.
Ashtadukht had a feeling it’d be the last time she’d have a chance to sit around and relax, so she ordered her host to make camp far enough off that she wouldn’t be bothered. Her aching bones did not take kindly to descending the litter, but they were bullied into submission. She bade her escort to return to the camp and send for Waray. The div in her suggested she invite some nomads—they were polyandrous and surely knew how to cooperate in properly wrecking her; it added that their horses could come, too. She declined, but not because she found the imagery unappealing. Her pride was too stubborn to allow the whore to overcome her just yet.
She wandered through the field, and the saffron she shuffled through fluttered like moths drawn to the hem of her golden brocade, their crimson proboscises lapping at the pearl-adorned silk. She plopped on a tussock in the middle of the field, gave the grass around her a cursory glance, and fell over backward.
She felt around her neck for one of her four plaits and pulled it around so that she could inspect its braids. Silver strands had begun to infiltrate the black of late, and she’d taken to counting them nightly.
“Another one,” she muttered as she began to unravel the plait. “You’re getting old. It’ll be over before you know it.”
“What’ll be over?” asked Waray.
Ashtadukht looked past her hair to the half-viper, who loomed over her, fist over forearm. “Nothing.” She squinted. “You look like you wrestled an onager.”
“Should see theotherguy,” Waray replied with a crooked grin. She cocked her head, and tapped meaningfully at the gnarly wound that ran from her ear to her brow. “Using his šo-juicy chunks as bait forcarrionbirds.” Demonstrably, she extracted a strip of meat from her pack. “See? Build a miniature dakhmagfrom the gravel andtoss in a chunk. Šo-circling vulturesthink they’re towers from on high. Then one thing leads to anotherandyou’re invited over for dinner. You know wheretheynest, you tell them. Or don’t.” Waray scratched the wound, one eye flinching as she did. “Too late in the yearfor vultureeggs, I think. Next year. Maybe.”
“That’s too bad,” Ashtadukht remarked. She patted the tussock by her side. “Take a load off. I could send for chicken eggs if you’re hungry.”
Waray curled her upper lip. “I’mnot a šo-slobbering pleb.”
The half-whore smiled faintly. “Of course not. You’re my resident oologist, after all; chicken eggs are below you.” Waray seemed to have caught on to her playful s
arcasm, because the sneer she wore now bore fangs. “And don’t make that face, like I’m the toenail-swallowing bastard who walloped your head. I’m only giving you a hard time.”
“Maybe,” the half-viper grumbled as she got comfortable in the grass. She scratched the gash. “Šo-throbbing . . . šo-itchything.”
“My pastes are in the litter. I’ll give you something for it later. Keep it clean, won’t you.”
“It’s been twonights,” Waray muttered, her voice thick with cautious yearning. “Twonights. You said—”
Ashtadukht interrupted with an upraised palm. “I don’t want to talk about that tonight. I know what I said. You don’t have to convince me.” She reached under her brocade for a packet and handed it over. “There.”
The half-viper greedily snatched it up. Then, in what might have been shame, issued a weak, “Thank you.”
“Don’t,” Ashtadukht flatly objected. She looked away as the half-viper threw dignity to the wind and shoved her face into the packet. “Do you remember Lake Chichast, before our row with the forty-armed div?”
Waray issued an affirmative grunt, or what Ashtadukht interpreted as an affirmative grunt anyway, while licking the last of the drug from the packet.
“Well,” the half-whore went on, “it sprung to mind when I spotted all this saffron. There were wildflowers along the shore. You’d lost your arrow in them if my memory serves.” She released a tired chuckle. “You’re an awful archer, but you stick to it. There’s something praiseworthy in that. Yeah. Determination.”
“Šo-rude all-whore,” Waray hazily mumbled.
“That’s not the point,” Ashtadukht said, gazing at the heavens that had shaped the course of her life, and despising them for it. “I just . . . it’s something I didn’t appreciate at the time. Us relaxing, you causing Tirdad trouble, him looking down that nose of his like some disgruntled hawk. We were a good team, the three of us. I was too busy being . . . I couldn’t see it then. Maybe I could’ve—” She waved her hand at nothing. “I don’t know. And now the closest we’ll ever come to having that is a bittersweet memory. I’m glad you’ve stuck around. To be honest, I’d be utterly alone without you.”
A Star-Reckoner's Lot (A Star-Reckoner's Legacy Book 1) Page 30
