When Jackals Storm the Walls

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  With speed, he took his knife to the throats of the Kundhuni warriors, then said, “Return to yourselves,” in a voice that felt utterly clumsy.

  Slowly, Cahil, Husamettín, and Yndris began to move. They stretched their arms. They craned their necks and opened their jaws wide as waking jackals.

  Then Cahil turned toward the fire.

  “Where’s Zeheb?”

  Ihsan turned to look. He’d thought the warriors would kill them all before worrying about Zeheb, but they hadn’t.

  He was gone.

  They rushed to put out the fires on the ship, scooping dousing agent out of wooden buckets, sending fistful after fistful against the flames until they had it under control, but by then the mainsail and two of the three foresails were badly burned.

  Yndris, who’d been sent to track Zeheb, returned a short while later. “I spotted a lone ketch, sailing east,” she said when they’d gathered around the dying campfire.

  Cahil was beside himself with anger. “How in the bloody great desert could they have found us?”

  And then it struck Ihsan. “I freed him,” he said with his leaden tongue.

  “What?” Cahil said.

  “The other day”—Ihsan motioned to the carpet where Zeheb had been sitting—“I freed him. Zeheb himself called the mercenaries here.”

  “They couldn’t have made it all this way in that time,” Yndris said.

  Husamettín’s bearded face darkened. “They were already near, searching for us. Zeheb only had to guide them the rest of the way.”

  “Fucking gods!” Cahil kicked one of the burning logs, which spun into the night, spitting embers in a great, twisting gyre as it went. He looked like he was ready to kick another, but he suddenly stopped himself and placed one hand against his chest. For a moment there was fear on his face, a fear Ihsan had seen time and time again on those facing their own mortality. “Now what?” he asked in a strangely calm tone. “What are we going to do? Did your bloody journals tell you that?”

  “Yes,” Ihsan lied. The journals had told him no such thing, but there was really only one place for Zeheb to go. “There was a passage that saw both of you wandering the streets of Sharakhai in search of Nalamae.”

  Cahil stopped short. He hadn’t expected this answer. His gaze slid to Husamettín. “Well?”

  Husamettín shrugged. “We were going to head there eventually.”

  Cahil stalked off toward the ship. “Then let’s bloody start making repairs to those sails before we rot out here in the desert.”

  Chapter 21

  A BRILLIANT SUNSET laid siege to the western horizon, a clash of golds that faded to rust and cinnabar before giving way entirely to the deepening blue sky. Çeda, Sümeya, Kameyl, and Jenise had driven their wagon of manure north, to an estate owned by Osman, the one-time pit fighter turned businessman. He’d agreed to let them use the estate for a few days and had cleared his house of servants for the duration.

  Çeda and the others had all but claimed the entire second floor, which was filled with large, richly appointed bed chambers. A thick layer of dust covered the floors and furniture. The beds were stripped. It looked like they hadn’t been used in years. Within a freshly cleaned room, the one with the best view of the estate’s gravel drive, Çeda sat in a ridiculously ornate chair next to a lavish bed that somehow clashed with every other piece of furniture and artwork in the room. Snoring softly under the covers was Lady Varal, the shipwright Çeda had abducted in the hope that she was a goddess in disguise. The powerful soporific Sümeya had forced on her had yet to wear off.

  The door opened, and Sümeya stepped inside.

  “Trouble?” Çeda asked.

  Kameyl and Jenise were wandering the grounds, watching for signs that their cart had been followed to the estate, which was situated just north of the Fertile Fields and west of the city’s reservoir.

  “None yet.” Sümeya dropped her weight heavily into a chair across from Çeda. She studied Varal for a time, then regarded Nalamae’s gnarled staff, which was propped in the corner beside the window. Çeda had brought it all the way from the valley of the thirteenth tribe, where the last incarnation of Nalamae had died. “Do you really think she’s the goddess reborn?”

  It was a good question, the only question that mattered, really. After seeing Varal being attacked in the mere, Çeda had been certain she would find and rescue the goddess, but since leaving the harbor her certainty had slowly drained, leaving a gnawing feeling that they’d upended a woman’s life for nothing.

  “I certainly hope so,” Çeda finally said.

  Sümeya shifted in her chair, trying to find a comfortable position. “I understand why you might hedge, but this is no time for gambling, Çeda. We need to know.”

  Çeda shrugged. “She’s certainly the woman from my vision.”

  “That doesn’t mean she’s the goddess reborn.”

  “I’d hoped she would recognize me, that my presence would trigger something inside her, but I saw nothing.”

  “What about you?” Sümeya motioned to the tattoos on Çeda’s right hand. “You said you could feel the goddess as you feel the desert.”

  Çeda squeezed her right hand, deepening her awareness of her arcane senses, hoping she’d feel something of Nalamae in this plain woman. “I feel nothing, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t Nalamae, only that she might not have awoken yet.”

  Sümeya seemed disappointed. She worked her shoulders and stared at her chair with a cross expression. “Did a headsman carve these things or what?” She ended up leaning forward, her elbows propped against her knees. “And Goezhen? What of him? Do you think his attack has been averted?”

  Çeda shrugged, feeling like a piece of flotsam borne on currents she had no ability to see much less control. Now that they had Varal, their plan was to make for the valley below Mount Arasal, where the bulk of the thirteenth tribe were hidden, but Çeda was starting to wonder whether they’d altered the course of time at all. Their actions might only have served to attract Goezhen’s attention. The god of misery might descend on Osman’s estate that very day. Or Çeda and the others might reach the valley only to find Goezhen waiting for them.

  Either way, the result would be the same: Goezhen would attack, and unless Nalamae had awoken by then, she would have no hope of standing against him. She would die, which was bad enough, but it wasn’t even the worst possibility. If Nalamae wasn’t fully aware of her own nature by the time Goezhen found her, Çeda worried she would be slain for good.

  “It’s maddening stuff,” Çeda said, “trying to unravel the threads of fate. It’s no wonder King Yusam always seemed a few arrows short of a full quiver.”

  “Yes, well, whatever the fates have in store for us, let’s not wait for it like a nest of frightened pheasants. We should move on. Tonight.” Sümeya took in the room with distrustful eyes. “I don’t like it here.”

  Çeda snorted. “You sound like me three years ago.”

  Sümeya smiled. “That doesn’t mean I’m not right.”

  “Have a bit more faith. If there was ever a man who had a reason to thumb his nose at the Kings, it’s Osman.”

  “I don’t doubt he has reasons, but I know broken men when I see them. He’s liable to snap the moment the Silver Spears ride down the drive.”

  “No, he’ll protect us.”

  “You’re willing to bet everything on that?”

  Years ago Çeda had trusted Osman implicitly, but the Osman from the pits and the Osman she’d met here at the estate were two different men. “In truth, no, but every other option has its dangers too.”

  Their original plan had been for Osman to supply nothing but a wagon and a horse, and to perhaps house them for an hour or two if need be after their mission to King’s Harbor. They’d hoped to make for the desert immediately and return to the Red Bride, the swift yacht they’d sailed to S
harakhai two months ago. But the sands were crawling with ships. Varal’s absence had been noted and Queen Meryam had clearly sensed something was amiss.

  Kameyl had prepared two other safe houses, rooms and silence secured with a good deal of money paid up front, but when she returned to make sure all was safe, the neighbors said the Silver Spears had been sniffing around.

  “We step foot into either of those houses,” Kameyl had said on her return, “and we’ll be up to our armpits in Silver Spears.”

  When he’d learned of it, Osman insisted they remain while he sent a half-dozen of his men to gather information. Çeda had been touched, seeing the same sort of protective nature he’d shown when she worked for him ferrying illicit packages all across Sharakhai. Yet Sümeya was worried that Osman, freshly freed from a prison camp, couldn’t be trusted.

  “How do we even know he’s sent men to scout for us?” Sümeya asked. “They might have been sent straight to the Silver Spears.”

  “Osman wouldn’t do that,” Çeda replied.

  Before Sümeya could reply, the door swung open and there Osman stood, looking as if he’d heard everything. Sümeya showed no embarrassment whatsoever. Çeda, meanwhile, felt her face burning red. Part of her maintained that Osman didn’t deserve this sort of distrust, but another part, the part that had seen no end of cruelty in Sharakhai, knew that this was too important to leave to chance.

  “Can we speak?” Osman asked Çeda.

  “Of course,” she said.

  Osman led her to his study, an opulent room with ceiling-high shelves made of rich, deeply grained oak, filled with what looked to be very expensive books. The two of them sat in padded silk chairs, while the hulking, marble-topped desk separating them seemed ready to devour the chairs, the books, even the shelves.

  Osman had been a ruggedly handsome man once. It had been that, along with the confidence that had once oozed from him, that had attracted her to him and led to their short but intense affair. He’d been a man full of vigor and verve, a man with an unquenchable thirst to expand the boundaries of his small empire, or to claw back the losses that went hand in hand with a life lived on the edge of lawlessness. Back then he’d carried much of the meaty weight of his fighting days on him.

  That man was long gone.

  He looked terrible. He’d been through a harrowing ordeal. Çeda could see it in his eyes. He was thin, shaking, fragile—words Çeda would never have thought could apply to him. Worse than the fragility of his body, though, was the fragility of his mind. He’d been sharp when she met him, keen, always ready to accept new challenges. Though that was before he’d been taken by the Kings. He’d been put to the question by Cahil himself and given up dozens of contacts, many of whom were part of the Moonless Host. Much of his testimony, Çeda was sure, had led to the near complete collapse of the Moonless Host here in Sharakhai.

  She didn’t blame him for it—a man could only endure so much—but it was clear Osman blamed himself. He’d made mention of it last night while they were preparing to go to the harbor. “I lasted a week with Cahil,” he’d told her, though she hadn’t brought it up. “A week, Çeda. How many men could say the same?”

  It was a strange way to begin a conversation.

  “Few,” she’d told him. “Very few.”

  There in the study, a sudden shiver overcame him, and for a moment he had trouble meeting her eye. When their eyes finally did meet, Çeda had the distinct impression that every moment he was able to hold her gaze was a small victory for him. “I know you’re thinking about leaving. I know Sümeya doesn’t trust me. But I’m begging you to stay. Let me help you, Çeda. It’s too dangerous out there.”

  “The Spears are everywhere,” she said. “They might come here.”

  “They might,” he said. “But I pay them, just like I used to.”

  “The city’s changed.”

  “It hasn’t changed that much.”

  Çeda paused. “Why is this so important to you?”

  Osman swallowed several times, collecting his thoughts. “You’ve brought a woman into my home. A woman you stole from the House of Kings.”

  “Yes.”

  “She’s someone important.”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you care to tell me who she is?”

  Çeda brushed off a bit of dirt from the skirt of her dress. “I think that would do you more harm than good.”

  Osman stared at the veins in the marble desktop. “What you mean to say is you don’t trust me.”

  What could she say? He’d already broken once. She couldn’t risk telling him more and having him confess. “Osman, look, maybe it’s best if we do leave.”

  She made to stand, but paused when Osman lunged across the desk and grabbed her wrist.

  “Don’t go,” he pleaded.

  “Let go of me, Osman.”

  He complied immediately, but there was terror in his eyes. “Just hear me out.”

  When she slowly sat back down, he looked to the shelves around him. “You’ll remember I used to collect tales of war.” He stood and moved to the shelves nearest the window, which gave a view of the horse barn and the expansive lawn. “Nasrallah. Safiyyullah. Zakariya the Bold. I even had one written by Husamettín two hundred years ago. I read them hoping to find the lessons that would teach me how to overcome my adversaries. And in this they worked. I built everything from the winnings I’d set aside from the pits.” From a high shelf, he chose a book. “But I’ve thrown those books out. Now I read poetry, Çeda.”

  He sat back down and flipped through the pages. When he found what he wanted, he lay the book open on the desk and pushed it toward her. She read the page he pointed to.

  Storm winds gather,

  Full of bluster, full of pointless verve.

  Toward the setting sun they blow, convinced of their worth,

  And yet when the winds die, when all is calm once more,

  Few remember their passage.

  What they remember instead,

  Is the forge of the sun they chased so poorly.

  “Osman . . .”

  “I don’t care who she is. Not truly. I only care that it will help.”

  “Help what?”

  “To change things.” He paused. “It will, won’t it?”

  She realized what he was after. He’d risen about as high as anyone from the west end could hope to rise. And it had all been stripped from him. He’d been taken by the Silver Spears and tortured. He’d seen his once-sizable empire reduced to practically nothing. Even the pits, his pride and joy, had been lost. Tariq had refused to give back control when Osman returned, promising only a monthly allowance. Osman, a shadow of his former self, had simply accepted it. He’d had a glimpse of the land beyond, and like many men who’d stared into the face of his own death and lived to tell the tale, he’d reevaluated his life.

  He saw Çeda’s tale as one filled with glory, and he wanted a piece of it. If he could take that to the farther fields, well then he might be able to walk with his head held high, mightn’t he?

  Çeda nearly denied him. Nearly told him that she and the others would be leaving. But when she thought about it, this was perhaps the greatest motivator a man like Osman could have. He’d had money. He’d had the power it commanded. And it had all vanished like a mirage in the desert. But to help save a goddess? That was something the Kings could never take from him, a thing that would endure beyond his days.

  “What we do here, Osman, with that woman. It could change the course of the entire desert.” She couldn’t tell him the truth. Not now. But she could give him this much.

  Osman looked at her as if he was certain she was making it up. But the longer he stared, the more pride filled his watery eyes.

  Before he could say another word, Çeda heard the sound of clopping hooves, faint but growing stronger. Looking
through the curtains of the nearby window, she saw the gravel drive that ran toward the front of the estate. Along it, a dozen Silver Spears rode easily on akhalas. The light of the setting sun flung their shadows far across the dry earth. Among the soldiers were two women, one wearing the black battle dress of a Blade Maiden, the other the raiment of a queen.

  Gods, Çeda had been such a fool. It was Queen Nayyan. She’d come to take Çeda and the others, come to take her prize: Nalamae. Had Çeda been wearing River’s Daughter, she would have drawn the blade immediately. Instead she drew her knife. “Osman, what have you done?”

  Osman backed away, hands raised. “Attack me and they’ll hear, Çeda.”

  He wasn’t lying. The front of the soldiers’ line was already nearing the ornamented roundabout where the gravel drive split into three spurs, one going to the barn, another to the rear of the estate, the last to the front porch.

  “Captain,” Queen Nayyan called loudly, “your Spears will inspect the barn and the servant’s quarters for Lady Varal. You’ll leave the house to me.”

  “At once, my queen,” replied the captain, and began issuing orders.

  The queen, meanwhile, guided her horse toward the front of the house. Çeda recognized the Blade Maiden who accompanied her. She was one of those who’d been guarding Nayyan at the spice market, the one who’d told Sümeya and Çeda to return the following day to receive Nayyan’s instructions.

  Çeda shivered with rage. “You cur.”

  Osman stared at her. “This isn’t how it looks, Çeda.”

  “You yellow-bellied cur.”

  “Çeda—” he started.

  But Çeda refused to say another word to him. She couldn’t look at him. She’d defended him and this was how he repaid her? She ran to the central stairway that led up to the second floor. Sümeya was already at the top of the carpeted stairs, holding Çeda’s sword, River’s Daughter, still in its scabbard. She tossed it to Çeda while rushing down along the steps. As Çeda caught her sword and buckled it around her waist, Jenise and Kameyl swept into the foyer from the rear. Before anyone could say a word, the front door swung open. “Stay here,” Queen Nayyan said to someone outside, and stepped across the threshold, closing the door behind her.