The world swam around her. She scrambled for her ebon blade, only just reaching it when a wall of enemy soldiers marched from the darkness like a fog descending on Sharakhai. Beyond them, the sails of the incoming ships were bright now that fires were being lit inside the harbor.
Çeda rose, sword in hand, as her two asirim howled and barreled into the oncoming warriors. They were vicious and feral, like maned wolves among a pack of dogs. The soldiers of the Host advanced, enveloping them and many others, hacking and slashing with curved shamshirs.
Despite her wounds, despite the chaos all around, Çeda felt those around her, heard the beating of their hearts. She fell into a rhythm, moving with them or against them as the intricate choreography of the fight progressed. The pattern complicated, then simplified, then complicated again. She blocked the swing of one soldier, sidestepped another as he tried to charge her. She dealt precise strokes to legs or arms, wounding but not killing, and made her way through the battle—past the ships, through the choke point at the gates and into the harbor proper.
Çeda fought for minutes on end, whirring, engaging, dropping the enemy before her, even while her asirim tore into them with a savagery that threatened to break Çeda’s mastery of blade and body and bone and blood. All the while, she retreated toward the docks, toward the quay that hemmed three quarters of the great harbor in a sweeping arc. She had hoped that as she retreated the soldiers would leave her be, but they were crazed. They kept fighting well beyond what normal men and women would do. The effects of devil’s trumpet were to blame, she knew, the serum Dardzada had made for Macide. The soldiers had taken it, and now they would not be deterred. They would die before they retreated.
More and more scarabs came, taking the place of those Çeda and her asirim felled. Soon Çeda was completely surrounded, leaving her and the asirim to fight a battle they could not win. Not in the long run.
When she tried to hack a path free of them, a sword nicked her leg, another blow landed along her shoulder, and she was forced to retreat. Those around her were mad with purpose. Çeda could see it in their moonlit eyes: kill one Maiden, and it would all be worth it.
Her asirim grew bolder, reaching into the enemy and grabbing an arm, lifting them and throwing them into the others. Çeda defended herself as well as she could, but the blows against her came more often now. There were too many to dodge, too many to parry.
That was when a gust of wind came so sudden and so fierce that Çeda was forced to shield her eyes. A dust devil, a tight, gyrating column of sand, swirled before her. It took a dozen of the soldiers, whipping them free of the sandy floor of the harbor and sending them flying.
As the scarabs turned, confused, something bowled into them from behind. Sehid-Alaz, Çeda realized. The king of the asirim had come to save her.
He rushed to Çeda’s aid, his sickly sweet smell filling the air. He pushed Çeda toward the quay, then turned and met the remains of the Moonless Host. From that vantage, Çeda could see the battle writ large across the expanse of the harbor. The Kings had joined their soldiers. Sukru wielded his whip, sent it cracking forward, lopping off limbs, splitting shields. By the gods, he cut one man in two, all while cackling like a man every bit as deep in the throes of devil’s trumpet as the soldiers of the Moonless Host.
Burly Zeheb wore a broad breastplate and thick chain-mail coat and helm. In his hands he gripped two madu shields, inlaid bucklers with a spike in the center and steel-tipped gazelle horns that spread like falcon wings from the sides. As he waded through the battle, blocking blows much more fluidly than his bulk would suggest, he punched the spike in the center of the bucklers through his enemies’ armor, or stabbed at their throats with the longer gazelle horns.
Kiral was surrounded by a dozen of the Moonless Host. He held his two-handed shamshir, Sunshearer, in both hands, moving it with blinding speed, slipping among his enemies, dropping them even while more joined in, hoping to fell the King of Kings.
Moving in to protect Kiral’s rear flank was Mesut, who wore bear claws—steel gauntlets with claws at the fingertips, spikes along the knuckles. He moved sinuously between his attackers, driving claws through armor as if it were wet paper.
From the vulture’s nest high atop a nearby ship stood King Beşir, who loosed arrow after arrow into the enemy below. He held a dozen arrows in one hand, which he nocked and released, nocked and released, almost too fast for the eye to follow, replenishing his supply from the massive quivers on his belt. Standing near the prow of the ship, meeting any who thought to knock Beşir from his perch, was Azad, long knives held in either hand. His frame was spare, but he was a devil, blurring and twisting between the enemy as they came for him.
Beşir was a possible target. Assuming the bloody verse her mother had found was true, he was likely standing atop a ship for a reason: to cover his weakness beneath Rhia’s watching eye. But Çeda desperately needed to find Cahil. She searched for him, wondering if he were lost somewhere on the far side of the growing battle.
She found him a moment later. He rode a black horse and bore a war hammer and a shield with his house crest, a hooded cobra on a black field. His armor was a gleaming set of fine chain, a spiked helm with a horsetail atop it that blew in the wind as his horse powered ahead. He swung his hammer to either side, felling scarabs. One he struck through the chest with the hammer’s spiked end, then dragged the man across the sand before yanking it free.
Hide, Sehid-Alaz begged. He will see you!
She couldn’t hide. With the other Kings occupied, she had a chance to kill Cahil. If it was all she managed to do after all her time in the Maidens, it would have been worth it. The line of scarabs near Çeda were pushing forward, but Çeda threw her asirim at them and then broke away. Facing Cahil, she pulled her veil free and waved her sword in the air. “Hai! Hayah!”
A moment later, Cahil spotted her. He stared as if he couldn’t believe his eyes, then spurred his horse into motion. The horse broke through a group of Silver Spears locked in battle with the Host. Near Çeda, a fallen scarab lay dead, an arrow through his chest, a spear lying across his legs. Çeda stomped on the butt end of the spear, flipping it up. Grabbing the haft in midair, she took three long strides and launched it with all her might.
The spear flew through the night, the polished head catching the moonlight as it rotated lazily. It caught Cahil’s horse dead in the chest. The horse screamed, throwing its head back, but in its frenzy it continued to charge. As Çeda was readying to roll out of the horse’s path, it stumbled, then fell, throwing Cahil from his saddle.
He was up in a moment, well before she’d reached him. The two of them met, sword ringing against hammer as Cahil’s rage was released. “Traitor child!” She could see the madness in his eyes as he swiped at her over and over. “What have you done with her? What have you done with Yndris?”
She met each of his blows, refusing to give ground. “Your daughter lies dead and broken in the ravine beneath your palace.” She unleashed a fresh flurry of blows, blocking a kick with a raised shin along the way, sidestepping a hasty riposte, then charging forward and crashing her mailed fist into his jaw.
She brought River’s Daughter down as she followed his movement, but he somehow held on to his hammer, used it to block as he rolled away and regained his feet. “I will make you suffer for what you’ve done.”
“As you did my mother?”
“Who?”
“Ahyanesh, the woman whose forehead you carved with the sign of the thirteenth tribe.”
He paused for only a moment. “You are her daughter?” And then he was on her again, raining blow after blow. “She was not with me long, child, but oh, how I made her suffer.”
Cahil’s words did not enrage her, as he’d hoped. They calmed her. For years Çeda had hoped to learn her mother’s true fate. She’d guessed at what had happened after she’d entered the House of Maidens, but now she knew some sm
all piece of it. And with that came a sense of something greater, as if her mother watched over her still.
Cahil was strong and he was fast, but Çeda could now feel the will of the asirim running through her. Not those here in the harbor—their reins were held too tightly by Mesut—but those in the blooming fields, those who’d refused Mesut’s call or were too weak from their centuries of cruel existence. They buoyed her, gave her what strength they could.
It was enough. It was more than enough. She sliced Cahil’s shoulder. She nicked his thigh. She sent his hammer high with an arcing uppercut swing from her sword. Then she kicked him full in the chest. Recovering quickly, he charged her, nearly maniacal in his rage, which only served to calm her further. She slipped past his downward stroke and sliced her ebon blade cleanly across his ribs. River’s Daughter cut deep. Blood flowed like spilled wine, seeping into his fine surcoat.
She’d only just taken a step toward him, ready to finish him, when she caught something dark blurring in from her right. She rolled before the impact came, blocking one of Mesut’s outstretched gauntlets. The other caught her across her ribs. The gauntlet’s claws raked her and tore through her armored battle dress. Pain burned along her side as the battle roared around her. She kicked and rolled away, feeling deeper pain emanate from the wound.
“To touch a King without his consent,” Mesut said in his hoarse voice as he advanced on her, “is cause for death. But this! You shall die more slowly than any other. Your family. Your friends. They will suffer by your side. You will hear their screams as they mingle with your own!”
Çeda retreated quickly, keeping him at bay with swipes from River’s Daughter. She surveyed the field of battle, hoping to find a path to escape. She spotted it a moment later. A riderless horse. After slashing across Mesut’s defenses once, twice, she turned and sprinted toward it. Mesut did not give chase. Instead he turned to a mounted Maiden and commanded her to attend him.
Çeda reached the copper-coated horse at the same time a Silver Spear was reaching for the reins. He saw her coming but thought her an ally, and so did nothing as she leapt and kicked him full in the chest. He flew backward, arms flailing, and Çeda swung up to the saddle. She was off in a moment, skirting one tight group of combat.
She heard a whistle ordering her to halt. She looked and found Sümeya on the far side of a bloody skirmish. Sümeya whistled again, her eyes confused, but Çeda kept riding as fast as the horse would carry her, out through the fallen gates, past the host of ships, and into the desert beyond. She glanced back, but saw no one following. Dear gods, where could she go? She’d fouled it all up. She hadn’t been careful enough. And now she could never return. The Kings would want to make an example of her after she’d embedded herself so deeply in the weave of royal life. She’d be hunted to the ends of the desert.
And what had she achieved while here? Precious little. She’d gained some trust. She’d learned a few scraps of information. All her work, all those careful steps, what had they come to? She’d only killed one of the Twelve Kings—the sum total of her time in the House of Maidens.
As she drove her horse deeper into the desert, away from Sharakhai, it pulled to the right. She tried to correct course, but it only pulled harder. Then it stopped and reared, releasing a fearful scream. Çeda barely held on. Its hooves swiped at the air for a moment, and then it dropped and galloped to the left.
There was something ahead, she realized. A wisp of light, a gentle wave of luminescence the twin moons couldn’t quite account for. Another coalesced to the right of the first, then another, and another. They were forms roughly the size and shape of a man, a woman, a child. More came, standing, waiting, as Çeda spurred the horse’s flank. The horse charged, a beast trained for war, now resolved to run through the enemies arrayed before it.
The wights, these spectral ghosts, flew toward it. One raked an arm across the horse’s chest. Another clawed the opposite side. The horse screamed and bucked as it ran, nearly losing its footing. A third wight arced across its path and swept its claws across the horse’s throat. A wound appeared, deep and gushing blood. The horse pulled its head sharply to one side, veering, then toppling hard to the sand.
Çeda was ready, but the pains over her body—from Cahil, from Yndris, from Mesut and the battle—all flared to renewed life as she fell. She levered herself to her feet. Pulled River’s Daughter as the wights circled around her. They hemmed her in, but did not attack.
She ran at them, screaming, “Fight!” as she swiped her sword at one, which vanished and appeared twenty feet farther away. “Fight me!”
At the sound of galloping hooves, she turned and saw a silver-white horse cantering toward her. Behind came another. She knew the riders well before the horses slowed and came to a stop. Mesut at the lead, Cahil behind, favoring one side, though not nearly as heavily as she would have hoped. The Kings slid off their horses and strode toward her with the sort of self-assurance given by centuries on their thrones.
“I will admit”—Mesut spread his arms wide, his gauntlets glinting dully in the moonlight—“here in the presence of the gods, that you had me fooled. You had us all fooled.” The circle of ghosts parted for him, some fading to nothing, others sliding away. “Assassins have made their way into the House of Kings before, but none have bored so deep as you.”
Cahil started to advance on Çeda, but Mesut held out a stalling hand and the Confessor King stopped. Mesut began to walk in a circle around her. Çeda held River’s Daughter tightly, tighter than she should, and followed his movement while keeping an eye on Cahil as well.
“It was you, was it not, who killed Külaşan?” Mesut smiled. “I wonder at his words now. You saved me. Isn’t that what he said?”
“He had come to hate his existence,” Çeda said.
“Külaşan always had so many reservations. It’s why he wandered as he did, always leaving Sharakhai. It’s why he built his ridiculous palace in the desert, because he couldn’t bear to be near us and our eternal shame, as he put it to me once. I suspect some of the others hide similar sentiments, but I will tell you, Çedamihn Ahyanesh’ala, I do not and never have. We were granted this desert. It is our right. And though there are some like you who think to take it from us, it will never happen. The Kings rule Sharakhai. The Kings rule the Great Shangazi. And it will always be so.”
He lifted his hand and pointed to Çeda. The wights leaned toward her, floated closer. But as they did, the sand swirled beside Çeda. It lifted and took form, resolved a moment later into the lost king. He stood by Çeda’s side, bent, frail, wheezing through gritted teeth. Çeda had never seen him with a weapon before, but he held a shamshir now, a thing pitted and nicked, bent near the middle. He held it with shaking hands, as if it pained him to merely touch it.
Sehid-Alaz lifted his arms and turned in an arc, palms facing the approaching wights. “Not now, my children. Not here.” The lost king drew a breath, a thing that seemed to take great effort. “Set aside your anger. Remember who you were.” Indeed, one by one the wights halted, held by Sehid-Alaz’s will. “You cannot have her,” Sehid-Alaz said to the Kings. “I deny you your prize.”
Cahil laughed. “You would think to deny us?” He pointed his hammer at the ghostly forms. “A man who failed to protect his people in every way?”
“I would, Cahil Thariis’ala al Salmük.”
Cahil looked to Mesut. “Control your dog, my good King!”
To this, Mesut gave no answer. He was fighting a silent battle with Sehid-Alaz, hoping to regain control over him. Sehid-Alaz held him at bay, but it wouldn’t last. Çeda had to help him, or she’d lose him to Mesut’s will.
She charged Mesut, slashing with River’s Daughter. Mesut blocked easily, but she felt his concentration slip. She dodged when he leaned in with a swipe of his gauntlets, then blocked another blow with a snap kick to his wrist. She engaged again and again, using all Zaïde had taught her, all M
esut had as well.
Sehid-Alaz began to moan. Already he was nearing the end of his limits. It was not merely the weight of Mesut’s mind he was fighting, after all, but the will of the gods as well. Sand lifted around him, spun around his feet like a circling hound, but when Cahil came near, it quelled, as if the mere presence of a King weakened him.
Cahil engaged with Sehid-Alaz, who released a desperate cry that sounded like a building sandstorm. Cahil moving with maniacal energy, Sehid-Alaz backing away, wheezing as he blocked blow after blow. When Sehid-Alaz finally managed to sneak in a strike, Cahil blocked it and replied with a mighty downward swing of his hammer. It struck Sehid-Alaz square on the head.
Sehid-Alaz’s form burst into a column of sand as the hammer drove into it. In an instant, he’d reformed behind Cahil. As the Confessor King turned to meet him, Sehid-Alaz’s shamshir tore through the mail along Cahil’s shoulder. Cahil fell, so forceful was the blow. He grunted in pain and tried to roll away, but Sehid-Alaz stepped on his shield, forcing Cahil to slip his arm out and leave the shield or be run through.
Çeda and Mesut continued to dance over the top of a dune. The sound of her ebon blade against his spiked gauntlets rang through the cold night air. The nervousness she’d felt earlier was gone. She was herself, her sword, and her movement. Nothing else. The power of the petals suffused her, pushed her on, but so did the beating of her heart, the beating of Mesut’s heart, the two discordant rhythms somehow complementing one another.
“You’re good, girl, I’ll grant you that.” Mesut blocked her blade, swiping at her. “But you cannot last forever.”
With Blood Upon the Sand Page 72
