She relaxed her grip. The wound was still bleeding, but a trickle now instead of a flood. Her hand was numb from pressing into the poultice, her lips tingled, and she guessed that it had eased much of the pain. In addition, it would cleanse the wound and aid the healing process.
“Thank you for letting me help,” Daria said. “May your flight be swift and sure, and may the sun shine upon your aerie.”
She slid into the freezing river and let it wash the griffin’s blood away before she continued toward shore. The griffin keened softly behind her.
When she arrived, Palina hugged her tightly. “I was so scared. You were on the other side and I couldn’t see what he was doing. I thought he’d attacked you.”
“He was frightened and hurt, but he knew I’d come to help.”
Daria let her mother dress her. Her nerves still vibrated, and she felt as alive as she’d ever been. The golden griffin was so big, so powerful. And not even fully grown yet. He would be formidable indeed when he reached his full size and power. He lay on the boulder, still watching her.
Daria finished lacing her boots, and tied on her cloak.
“It was worth the risk. He’s very intelligent, Mother.”
“Let’s hope he’ll tell his friends so they don’t try to kill us. Are you ready to fly?”
Daria hesitated. An idea began to form. “Not yet.”
“It’s not like you can watch him recover. He won’t be flying again for a day or two.”
“Exactly. He’ll be hungry.”
“He won’t starve in two days. In fact, maybe it will get him in the air quicker if he’s got a good appetite.” Palina tugged at her daughter’s arm, but the younger woman resisted moving from the riverbank.
“Did you see them in battle? Magnificent. Imagine if we’d had a few of them at the Battle of Arvada. Father would still be alive.”
“You can’t change that now.”
“And what about that dragon we saw yesterday? Imagine if we could count on golden griffins at our side.”
“You’re not going to convince a flock of wild griffins to attack at your command. I don’t care how intelligent they are.”
Daria smiled. “I wasn’t thinking about a flock of griffins. I was thinking of one griffin in particular.”
Palina took a step back.“That’s impossible. You couldn’t possibly—”
“Oh, yes I could, Mother. I’m going to tame that beast and ride him into battle.”
Chapter Ten
Kallia wasn’t asleep when Whelan woke beside her. She’d been awake at least an hour, unsettled by a nightmare whose details faded quickly, but whose sensations lingered. A cool breeze fluttered at the curtains. It brought in the scent of lemon trees from the garden below.
Whelan didn’t speak, but slipped from bed and dressed himself. She guessed it was a full three hours until dawn. He was on his way to the barracks, to make sure the men were up and ready to march at dawn with all their equipment and gear. It would take some time to get so many men through the city and out the Great Gates toward the Tothian Way.
He took soft steps across the stone floor to the door and unlatched it. When he didn’t open the door, Kallia cracked her eyes to look.
Whelan stood, his back to her, his head bowed. He sighed so long and deep that she almost broke her resolve and spoke to him. But he didn’t need the distraction. She’d meet him at the gates to say her goodbyes.
At last he opened the door and slipped into the hall. Kallia caught murmured instructions to the guards posted outside, then the door shut and left her in silence.
A second bed sat on the other side of the room. A small figure lay beneath the blankets, sleeping quietly. Whelan’s daughter, Sofiana. She’d gone to bed fully expecting to ride out with the men that morning. If she’d even suspected that Whelan intended for her to stay behind in Balsalom while he rode to war, she’d have been up and dressed and waiting.
There was no getting back to sleep now. Kallia rose and made her way to the balcony. The gardens stretched below: flowers, fountains, statues of strange beasts. Much of the palace grounds had been repaired since the uprising against the dark wizard’s pasha, but her old apartments remained in ruins.
There were guards in the gardens, hidden, watching at all times, although she could also see the normal patrol making its way along the footpaths. Then, along an arcade passageway below and to the right, Kallia spotted Whelan’s familiar stride. Long and purposeful. Two of his men flanked him, one with a torch, the other a drawn sword. Each was tall and muscular. Moments later, the three men had disappeared into one of the lower buildings.
Below Kallia’s palace lay the manors and lesser palaces of the guildmasters and viziers. After that was a warren of alleys that led into progressively poorer parts of the city, until finally emerging in the bazaars and souks. The guild towers kept silent vigil in that part of the city.
Even now, when most of the city slept, Kallia could still feel it pulsing, like a heartbeat slowed but never silenced. When the breeze shifted, she heard the men who went through the streets marking the hours with bells, roosters, even a woman shouting at her husband, a handful of words swept up to her like leaves on the wind, before the conversation vanished. Balsalom was unlike any other city, born of war and peopled by refugees, slave and free. It was both of the desert and yet close enough to the mountains to feel their influence. She loved it.
The bed creaked at her back. Footfalls on stone.
“Go back to bed, Ninny,” she said over her shoulder. “It’s still the middle of the night.”
The girl didn’t answer.
“Whelan said not to wake you,” Kallia said. “We’ll meet him at the gates.”
Still nothing.
Maybe she’d misheard the footsteps. She turned as a dark figure slipped catlike through the curtains. His face was wrapped, with only the eyes visible, glittering dark and deadly at her. He held a long, slender dagger in his right hand.
An assassin.
Kallia shouted her alarm and reached for her own dagger. But of course she wore her loose-fitting paijams and had set aside her weapon before going to bed.
He sprang for her with dagger flashing in the moonlight. Kallia fell back against the stone railing. She got her arm up and deflected the blow past her shoulder. It grazed her with its tip and left a searing pain in its wake.
“Help!” she cried as she struggled with her attacker. “Assassin!”
Her cries alerted the guards in the garden, who shouted to each other as they raced down the paths to enter her building from below. But the door to her room had not opened; either the guards in the hall had not heard through the thick doors or the assassin had dispensed of them before entering.
And what about Sofiana? By the Brothers, don’t let her be hurt.
She grabbed at the assassin’s wrist as he brought the blade around for a second thrust. He was no taller than her, but stronger, and wrenched free. He pulled back to thrust it toward her belly. This time he had her pinned against the rail. There was no way to get free in time.
And so I die.
Her unborn baby would die, too. As would many of the guards on duty tonight. The captain of the guard would tear them apart in his rage. No doubt he would send the survivors to the slave market. Then he would kill himself.
All these thoughts raced through her mind in a flicker while she braced for the dagger to plunge into her belly.
Then the assassin stiffened. He fell face down at her feet. A crossbow bolt lay buried in his back, and he reached around to grab at it with clenching fingers. Sofiana stood behind him with a crossbow in hand. She saw the man still struggling and without hesitation tore loose his knife and cut his throat. When it was over, the girl let the knife fall. She gave Kallia a curt nod.
Kallia stared. Sofiana was two months short of her thirteenth birthday. Yet she’d hacked down this assassin without hesitation and now stood, seemingly undisturbed, with only the faintest frown betraying any emotion.
Men burst into the room with torches and drawn swords. They found Kallia and Sofiana on the balcony, and the khalifa only just stopped them from attacking the girl before she could explain what had happened. The guards in the hall lay dead, throats cut.
Kallia turned away from the bloody spectacle and gave the captain a hard look. “There are fifty men in the palace guards. So why is it that a child had to protect my life?”
The captain threw himself at Kallia’s feet. “Kill me quickly, I beg of you.”
One of the other men handed his sword to the khalifa. The others looked equally stricken, as if terrified that her wrath wouldn’t stop with the captain. Kallia Saffa was known for her mercy, but surely that wouldn’t extend here. Never before had assassins penetrated so far into her quarters, and they would be fortunate if she rendered a bloody judgment now, before the grand vizier turned them over to the torturers guild.
“Stand up,” she said. “Take this body and scour the palace grounds. I want every pantry searched, every wardrobe turned inside out. If there is another assassin, you had better find him. But,” she added with a sigh, “none of you will lose your heads.”
“Thank you,” the captain said with a gasp. He rose to his feet, face drained of blood.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” she added. “I’m sure there will be lashes. My viziers will demand that much, at least.”
#
Kallia and Sofiana watched from the patio as dozens of men with torches and swords crisscrossed the garden. Even if the terrifying assassination attempt hadn’t rendered sleep impossible, the shouting and lights would have done the same.
The khalifa’s arm throbbed where the dagger had struck her. It was only a scratch, but if it was poisoned, if the dagger had even a drop of the golden bloom that had taken her father, she would suffer horribly. Her flesh would rot on her body and her eyes would dim. At last she would die, coughing up blood.
“I am very sorry,” the girl said in an earnest tone.
“You saved my life.”
“Barely. I almost slept right through it. Another moment, and it would have been too late. What kind of protector am I?”
“No kind of protector at all. That’s what the palace guard is for. You did more than was asked, believe me.”
“Not true. My father told me to keep you safe.”
“Ah. So that’s why you were in my room. I thought maybe you were afraid of the dark.”
It was meant as a jest, but the girl’s eyes flashed. “Of course not! I can’t believe you’d think that.”
Now Kallia had to stifle a laugh. “I know, I know. This is a strange place and you wanted to be close to your father.”
“Maybe that’s a little bit of it,” Sofiana said, grudgingly. “Where is he, anyway?”
“He went to the barracks.”
“Please don’t tell him what happened. Not before we leave.”
“But you saved my life,” Kallia repeated. “He’ll be proud, I promise.”
“It’s not that. I’m worried if he finds out, he’ll . . . ” Her voice trailed off.
“He won’t want to leave?”
“Yes, exactly. It’s hard enough for a man to march into war with the memory of a woman’s warm embrace waiting back home. But if he finds out people are trying to kill you, what then?”
“Oh, please. Now you’re being ridiculous. And what kind of child speaks like that? I’m doing my best to convince people you’re not a barbarian—a wild child. A woman’s warm embrace? Can you imagine if Princess Marialla heard that? She’d assign you an etiquette tutor and that would be the end of you.”
Sofiana grinned. “My apologies, oh Jewel of the West, oh khalifa. May you live forever. I shall guard my tongue forthwith. About my father . . . don’t tell him.”
“You’re probably right. Very well. I won’t. But there’s something I need to tell you, and I need you to be mature about it.”
The girl’s smile curdled into a frown. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“Your father isn’t taking you with him to Veyre. Not this time.”
“But the battle is about to start! No more skirmishing, it’s going to be a real war this time.”
“That’s kind of the point.”
“No way. I’m going to meet him at the gates, and I’m going to follow no matter what. I don’t care if I have to go on foot.”
“You can’t do that,” Kallia said.
“Try to stop me.”
“Your father was adamant. If you appear one night in his camp, he’ll only truss you up and send you back to Balsalom. Only it will be through hostile territory, so he’ll have to send you back under guard. Imagine if twenty men have to return from the front because one person didn’t follow orders.”
Sofiana’s face fell. “Wonderful. So I have to stay here going soft while the war goes on without me? Boring. If only there could be more assassins. Do you think there might be?”
“Oh, sure. One can only hope.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. But you understand. This isn’t fair.” Sofiana stomped her foot.
The wheels began turning in Kallia’s mind. “There is one other possibility. If you want some adventure, something exotic, this might be just the thing.”
The girl brightened. “Yes?”
“What do you know about the Sultan of Marrabat?”
Chapter Eleven
Kallia inspected the city walls on the northern edge of the city while she waited for Whelan’s army to march. Men scrambled like spiders along the scaffolding latticed against the wall, carrying buckets of mud. Ten men stood in the breach, straining against a rope set in a windlass. They slowly winched a heavy stone toward the gap. Others stomped straw and mud in vats on the ground.
If they didn’t get the wall completed before the Harvest Festival, they would never finish before the frost, and then it would be too cold for the cementing to set properly, and the damage left by Mol Khah’s troops would stand until spring.
The Kratian raiding season began in the winter. And the Sultan of Marrabat’s 30,000 men also lurked on the other side of the southern desert.
Pasha Boroah had warned her of the flaws in the workmanship. “A good sneeze will blow it down,” he’d said.
Indeed, she could see gaps even from her litter. One part of the wall buckled outward. She was no engineer, but she knew that even the slightest flaw could be magnified by a few years of freezing and thawing, especially given the generous gaps they’d left in the stone. No, this would never do.
She bid the slaves to set down the litter. They obeyed, relieved to be free of the burden. It was several miles from the palace to the western walls and the journey left them shaking with exhaustion and drenched with sweat. The crisp morning air would cool them quickly enough, she suspected. Boroah had sent six guardsmen to escort her safely through the city, and their horses high-stepped impatiently when she stopped.
Sofiana stepped from the litter first. She glared at the staring workers until they looked away. Then she turned back to Kallia. “It isn’t very good, is it?”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Maybe Balsalomian stone cutters aren’t as good as Eriscobans. I saw masons rebuilding the wall outside the Citadel, and they did a much better job than this.”
“I’m sure they did. But you might keep that to yourself.”
The master stonemason spotted Kallia and hurried to her side, wringing his hands. He was a Selphan and wore a blue turban. He bowed low, then eyed the guardsmen fearfully as if afraid they would suddenly jump from their horses with drawn scimitars.
“Oh Khalifa, may you live forever, I beg your forgiveness. I just came from the palace this morning. I had no idea. No idea.”
“Master Thibert, this is unacceptable. The wall buckles. The lower masonry already flakes away. And there are holes between the stones.”
“Yes, there are a few small cracks,” Thibert allowed.
“Small cracks? A troop
of Veyrian cavalry could ride through your holes, five abreast and dragging a full-grown mammoth between them.”
He bowed again. “Jewel of the West, you are absolutely right. I should be whipped for pretending I could do the work. No, whipping is too kind. Summon the corrections guild. They can place my head on a spike as a warning for any other shifty, lazy fools.” He snapped his finger. “Jothran! Come here.”
A young man trotted up. Mud streaked his face and his bare legs all the way up to his knees. His eyes widened when he saw the khalifa. He bowed to her, then turned to Master Thibert. “You called me, master?”
“What is the meaning of this?” Thibert demanded, as if he had yet to speak to the man. “You claimed you were my best journeyman. My best! I leave you for two weeks and come back to find this. By the Brothers, boy, why?”
Jothran bowed his head, shame on his face. “There are no masters to oversee our work and not enough journeymen. Only apprentices. The enemy captured our best masons and marched them to Veyre.” He lifted his hands. “What can I do?”
Thibert spat at the ground. “Pah! You dare come before your khalifa with such lies? Fool, you are less than camel dung. Get out of my sight before I have you whipped.”
“Yes, master.” The boy fled.
The master stonemason gave Kallia an apologetic shrug. “You see what I have to work with? How can I build a wall when all I have are these rejects from the stall-muckers guild?”
There was no such thing as the stall-muckers guild, but Kallia took his point. “I’m not a tyrant, Master Thibert. You could have explained your problem without the theatrics.”
“Of course I would never make excuses, but it is true that the masons guild is a shadow of what it was before the enemy came.”
“Nevertheless, this wall must be repaired. Tell me how you will fix this problem. What about the other cities of the Western Khalifates? Can we hire men from there?”
“Darnod, Ter, and Havorn all suffered a similar fate. There isn’t a mason to hire within two hundred miles who isn’t already working on this wall.”
The Golden Griffin (Book 3) Page 10
