The Straits of Galahesh loa-2

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  As Nikandr pulled himself up from the bed, Viktor pulled a chair out from the nearby table and fell into it. He scratched at his beard and clasped his hands around his ample belly, his jaundiced eyes glaring at Nikandr as if he’d just caught a hound escaped from the kennel. Nikandr refused to sit. Instead, he leaned against the stone wall and stared down at Viktor as if he were a boy.

  Viktor frowned and coughed again before speaking. “Do you know what they say of you in the halls of Radiskoye?”

  Nikandr stared, keeping his expression relaxed.

  “They say you’ve forsworn vodka in favor of araq. They say you keep the stones of a qiram and wear them in your cabin at night.” Viktor paused. “They say you find solace only between the legs of the Aramahn. People talk, Nischka. The truth grows twisted in the telling, but with you I wonder if they’ve not struck truth.”

  “What do you want, Vostroma?”

  Viktor chuckled, pleased with himself. “Three sotni were sent this morning to round up the enemy you brought to these shores.”

  “Iramanshah will not give up their own.”

  “In this case”-Viktor grinned, a ghastly affair filled with yellowed teeth and baggy eyes-“they just might. The real question is whether you’ll admit to helping them.”

  “What difference would that make? You’ve already had your trial.”

  Viktor frowned and glanced back toward the door-clearly wondering who had told him of the proceedings but unwilling to ask-but then he relaxed and a satisfied smile came over him. “It may matter, Khalakovo. If you admit to it, perhaps some will be spared, the children, perhaps the women.”

  A vision of Zanhalah and the others from Ashdi en Ghat came to Nikandr, and his stomach sank. “They won’t give up their own,” he said again, more to convince himself that none would die on account of his actions.

  “Say it, Nischka. Say that you aided them. Surely there are some you wish to save, and if you confess, I’m sure that can be arranged.”

  Nikandr nearly did. He hated that Viktor, this jackal, this carrion crow, had come in place of Borund himself. He hated that he had to sit before an interloper in his own house and debate whether to trade the lives of the Maharraht-a people he had been raised to hate-over his own. But then he began to wonder why the question was being asked at all. Just how much had Nataliya seen while she was in the drowning basin? She had taken over some time during that night, and from what Victania had said, she would have had plenty of time to watch, but perhaps she’d been too late. Perhaps her blood had been up and she’d had trouble slipping into the right state of mind to take the dark.

  Nikandr decided he’d been wrong earlier. Sending Viktor to exact a confession had been the perfect choice. Keep Nikandr off balance and angry so that something might slip.

  Viktor began coughing again, and this time it didn’t stop for a good long while. He leaned forward and coughed heavy and long into his closed fist, his back heaving, his body rocking back and forth. When Viktor raised himself to a sitting position once more, his eyes were red, and the yellow at the corners of his eyes stood out even more.

  By the ancients, why hadn’t he noticed it before? Yellow eyes were common enough, especially among aged men who itched when their vodka glass grew dry, but it was one of the early signs of another condition.

  “How long have you had it?” Nikandr asked.

  Viktor stared at him. “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean.” He placed his ring finger over his lips, the not-so-subtle signal one used in social situations to indicate someone had the wasting.

  He stared at Nikandr’s finger as if he was going to deny it, but they both knew Nikandr had had the wasting for nearly a year, and now that Nikandr was on to him, it was as plain as day.

  Viktor stood and stalked over to the door and rapped on it three times.

  “You were right, Khalakovo. The Aramahn refused to identify the Maharraht you delivered to them, but Borund’s orders were clear. When they refused, ten Aramahn were lined up at random outside the entrance to Iramanshah. Muskets were trained on them, and we would have killed them, and ten more every hour-”

  The muffled sound of keys jingling filtered into the room, and the door swung wide.

  “-but the mahtar volunteered.” With that, Viktor made to leave.

  “Wait! Viktor, what do you mean?”

  Viktor turned back. His face was once again satisfied, but now it was grim as well. “The mahtar. All seven of them. They volunteered themselves to be hung in the place of the Maharraht. And Borund agreed.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  N ikandr slept fitfully, thinking of Hilal. He knew the other six mahtar as well, but he knew Hilal the best. He’d taken Fahroz’s seat after she’d left with Nasim for Mirashadal. He was a gentle man. A learned man. But most of all, he was a caring man. He, much like Ashan, seemed to embody the calmness of center that the Aramahn were ever searching for.

  Had it been Hilal who thought of the idea of offering themselves for the lives of the Maharraht? It had been a day Hilal most likely thought he’d never see: so many Maharraht forsaking their ways and taking up the life of an Aramahn once more. Many of the children would never have been exposed to any other life, and here they were being offered to the people their parents had betrayed in their quest to drive the Landed back to the Motherland.

  And now, in order to protect them, Hilal had given himself. He and the other mahtar. In a way, it made sense-the Aramahn were quick to sacrifice themselves for the greater good-but that made it even more discouraging. This was an unprecedented event. One or two Maharraht had returned to the fold of the Aramahn over the years, but never so many at once. It might even have become a bridge to peace. But not now, not if those six men and women were killed.

  In the end, Nikandr couldn’t sleep. He woke well before the four Vostroman streltsi came for him. When they did, he pulled on his cherkesska and followed them, hoping to speak with Borund away from others where he might at least listen to reason.

  When he came at last to the long hall that led past Radiskoye’s central garden, he could see through the leaded glass windows that a gibbet had been stood in the center of the courtyard. He could see men gathered there, but he didn’t realize that none of them were Khalakovan until he stepped out from the hall and into the chill morning air. The smell of the sea filled the air, and the sound of the surf rose up from the base of the cliffs far below the eyrie of Radiskoye.

  A handful of Vostroman royalty watched him pace forward. Borund and Viktor were among them, and they were flanked by two dozen streltsi wearing the seal of Vostroma. Their faces, to a man, were judgmental, angry, as if Nikandr had somehow called down the fury of Yrstanla on their homeland. He thought surely there would be at least one representative from Khalakovo. Ranos or Victania or Yvanna. But there were none.

  As Nikandr was led forward, a portion of the courtyard previously blocked by a jutting corner of the palotza came into view. Here the gallows stood, and when he saw it against the backdrop of the eyrie and the cold gray sky, he stopped, his fingers going cold. Through the shrubs in the nearby garden, the wind whined before dying down once more.

  Four men and three women stood on a raised wooden platform, Hilal and Amra and Saeeda and the rest. Black woolen sacks covered their heads, and nooses hung loosely around their necks, trailing up to the stout wooden beam above them. A hangman, a stout, hard-looking man whose left arm ended in a stump, stood on the far side, waiting with his hand on the lever that would drop the trap doors beneath the mahtar.

  The courtyard was a study in silence. The sigh of the surf and the distant call of gulls were the only sounds to be heard. Knowing Borund as he did, Nikandr was sure that he’d ordered it so to let the scene sink in.

  At last Nikandr’s escort of streltsi bowed and stepped aside and Borund broke away from the gathered royalty and stepped close to Nikandr, most likely so they could speak for a moment in peace. He held a rolled proclamation in one hand,
but Nikandr could spare no time to wonder how it might read. He was too struck by how much Borund had changed. The Borund of five years ago was large, healthy, vibrant if a bit headstrong. This Borund looked beaten and crooked, even defeated.

  “Don’t do this,” Nikandr said to him, loud enough for only Borund to hear. “These are innocent men and women.”

  “They sheltered our enemy.”

  “So you would hang them?”

  “Some must pay, Nikandr.”

  “ Nyet. They are innocent. They need not die.”

  “They are not innocent.” Borund’s face became splotchy with anger. “How could you bring them here, Nikandr? They were Maharraht.”

  “They have forsaken their ways. Don’t you see?”

  “They were Maharraht, ” he repeated, loud enough for many of those gathered to hear.

  “They weren’t,” Nikandr said, softly but sternly. “Not any longer. They were going to allow themselves to be burned.”

  “What is burning when their minds are still willful and full of hate?”

  “They were not willful!”

  Borund looked at Nikandr with naked disgust. “You have been among them too long, Nischka. Too long by far.”

  “Those Maharraht were ready to lay down arms. More might have followed. It might have been a path to peace, Borund. But none will do so now, and any that had thought to rejoin their brothers will redouble their efforts to harm us, to kill and to slaughter.”

  Nikandr glanced to the gallows, where the Aramahn stood serenely. He turned back to Borund, his mind wild with possible ways to change Borund’s mind, none of them likely to succeed.

  Until he came to one.

  He stared Borund in the eye, willing him to listen. “What if I confess?”

  Borund’s eyes went wide. His hand adjusted its grip on the proclamation. “Nischka, be quiet.”

  “Borund, what if I-”

  Borund’s fist came so fast there was nothing Nikandr could do to stop it. It connected across his jaw, sending him sprawling to the stones.

  Borund’s footsteps crunched over the river stones. Nikandr tried to rise, but Borund leaned down, the bulk of him blocking the light of dawn, and placed one meaty hand against Nikandr’s chest, pinning him in place. “Say nothing, Nikandr, or I’ll be forced to put you on the gallows next to them.”

  Then Borund took the front of Nikandr’s cherkesska with his two massive fists-the rolled proclamation crumpling-and pulled Nikandr to his feet.

  Nikandr turned his head and spit to clear his mouth of the blood that was welling from the cut inside his cheek. He stared into Borund’s eyes. He was shocked-not by what Borund had done, but the reason behind it.

  By the ancients, Borund was protecting him.

  He wondered, then, why Viktor had been sent. Perhaps Borund’s place on the throne of Khalakovo was not so strong as Nikandr had imagined. Or perhaps Viktor had come of his own accord.

  Whatever the reason, it was clear that Borund thought it certain that Nikandr would need to die as well were he to confess to bringing the Maharraht to the shores of Khalakovo.

  Borund turned to the gallows, finality in his eyes.

  “Bora, I would not have brought them if I feared they would harm us. You must know this.”

  Borund licked his lips. He swallowed.

  “I brought them to the very doorstep of Radiskoye. Why would I have done this if I thought they meant us harm?”

  Borund raised his arm.

  “Borund, don’t!”

  And brought it back down.

  The hangman pulled the lever.

  The trapdoors swung, and seven mahtar fell, jerking against the ropes. Their arms flailed. Their legs kicked. And then one by one, they all went still, while the wind sighed through the garden’s short trees and the surf called up from the cliffs.

  Nikandr didn’t know how long after the hanging Borund began to read, but he heard his low voice, reading in somber tones the contents of the proclamation. “Let it be known that as of this day, the sentence of death for Nikandr Iaroslov Khalakovo is to be stayed, pending his duty to the Grand Duchy, which takes precedence. Upon successful execution of those duties, the stay shall be writ permanent.”

  Upon this, the expressions of the Vostroman royalty turned to distaste. Viktor stared hard enough that Nikandr thought he might pull his pistol, shoot Nikandr in the chest, and be done with it once and for all.

  While Nikandr stared at Borund, confused, the royalty and the streltsi began to disperse.

  Borund turned to him. “You are to take command of the Lihvyen.”

  Nikandr stared, the words of Borund’s proclamation still swirling in his mind. “For what purpose?”

  Borund gripped the scroll so tightly it creased in the middle. “They’re attacking the spires, Nikandr. Last night, they destroyed the one on Ildova, and Mother fears they’ve done the same thing to the spire on Tolvodyen.”

  Nikandr was numb. He could hear the creaking of the ropes as the bodies swung in the wind. The notion that Yrstanla was attacking the spires didn’t make sense, and he could only think to ask one simple question. “Why?”

  “We don’t know. It’s sent a wave of storms through the islands of Vostroma and Nodhvyansk… We’ve never seen the like.” Borund stared deeply into Nikandr’s eyes. “If you want to protect the Grand Duchy, as you say you do, then go. Use the gifts the ancients have given you. What few ships we’ve held back in the North are gathering. More ships will be outfitted from the merchants, but you must go now. Take the Lihvyen. Stop them from taking Vostroma.”

  Nikandr looked up to the men and women swinging from the ropes of the gallows. “We are not done with this, Borund.”

  “We’re done for now,” he said as he turned his back on Nikandr and began walking away. “If you’re still of the mind, take it up with me on your return.” The sky was gray and the wind was blustery. A scout ship had been sent out in advance of the wing of ships Nikandr now flew with. He commanded the Lihvyen and seven other ships-all that could be cobbled together from the ships that hadn’t already been sent to defend Vostroma.

  Nikandr stood at the Lihvyen’s helm, working the levers of the rudder while Jahalan and Anahid stood amidships summoning the wind and controlling the Lihvyen’s heft. Near the helm stood a wooden perch. Upon it, tethered with a leather cord, was a black rook. It had been silent for nearly a day. Over the last three days, Victania and Mother and Borund’s wife, Nataliya, had assumed the form of the rook and spoke to him of the latest news-such as it was. None of them had so far been able to penetrate the storm surrounding Vostroma, and when the ships had approached the nearest of Vostroma’s islands the rook had gone silent. No doubt the Matri were trying to penetrate the storm, but had so far been unable to do so.

  Nikandr reached up and pulled his soulstone out. It had been resting against his skin, the way he preferred it, but he had taken it out every few hours to see if he could sense something-anything-from the Matri. While holding himself steady against the helm and gripping the stone in his right hand, he opened his mind to the darkness between worlds. He called to his mother, to Victania. He called to Atiana, hoping in vain that she would hear him, that she would know that he would come to find her when he could. But as it had been every other time since the rook had gone silent, he felt nothing. Nothing at all. It left him feeling cold, colder than the bitter winter wind could account for.

  Elykstava, the first of the islands in the Vostroman archipelago, sat east of their position. They had bypassed it on their way south, reasoning that the forces of Yrstanla would not have come so far north. There was part of him that wanted to continue past Vostroma and on to Galahesh, but he’d heard no word of Atiana or Ishkyna or their father, the Grand Duke. Another part of him wanted to go to Galostina to find his father, but this would be a foolish course of action as well. Yrstanla was attacking here, and if they’d learned anything in the past few days, it was that their spires must be protected at all costs.
/>   Something caught Nikandr’s attention near the horizon. He took his telescope and studied the western sky carefully. He soon found it-a small, six-masted cutter flying well beyond the safety of the ley lines. It was most likely a ship of the Grand Duchy, one that had fled the battle or been sent north to bring news. As he watched it became clear that the ship was adjusting course to meet them.

  They allowed the ship to approach, and indeed, they saw men of Anuskaya standing at the gunwales, waving their arms, cheering. And no wonder, Nikandr thought. Their ship seemed barely held together. Massive holes from cannon shot marked the hull, and the sails had been hastily repaired-no doubt only in the last few days-from innumerable tears and holes. The masts were generally in good shape, though its two starward masts both had lengths of iron buckled along sizable cracks to prevent the upper lengths from snapping entirely.

  “It’s good to see you,” Nikandr called across the distance to the kapitan, a man of Vostroma, as it turned out.

  “Not as good as it is to see you,” he shouted back. He held a canister in one hand, a tube of wood they transferred to the Lihvyen with a length of cord.

  Nikandr opened it and found a note contained within-news from Andreya Antonov. Ranos and Father had squared off against him during the Battle of Uyadensk, but Nikandr was glad to see him still alive, for he was a shrewd tactician. He wrote much the same news as they knew already-that the spires on Ildova and Tolvodyen had indeed been destroyed. He feared that the next to go would be Pradosht, for the forces of Yrstanla had landed and positioned themselves well. No doubt they would soon take the fort there and destroy the tower with gunpowder, either from the stores they’d brought or the stores in the very fort they sought to take.

  He asked that the Duchies of Khalakovo and Mirkotsk and Rhavanki spare no effort to send all the ships available and to connect to the fleet that had formed around Kiravashya. They hoped to stop Yrstanla there before they could get to Palotza Galostina, and so they asked all ships to make haste there to receive orders from Andreya.