by K V Johansen
Stairs, no. Red Mask down there now, no words to warn them. Smashing wood, shrieking below. Nour kicked the trap shut instead. Holla-Sayan bore down the temple leader, flung him aside, and circled the scattering human herd, temple and militia alike. Hard to make any difference between them. Not his folk; he barely knew the scent of any of them, the ones who’d slept below. All reeked equally of fear. Some still wore the black rag about the arm that was the militia’s only badge, but they weren’t too careful about that in barracks. Two who must be temple made a rush for the parapet and the rope and iron hook by which they’d come up, checked and fell back, one right to his knees, cowering.
Red Mask. It came over the parapet, swinging itself up with an acrobat’s grace, landing crouched and flicking in the same movement a knife. Nour, for all the bright moon sinking in the west, could not have seen more than the dark moving shadow and the flash of metal, but he knocked Hadidu flat, shielding his body with his own, and the knife flew harmless, lost in the night, as Holla took the Red Mask by the throat. Grown great, he snapped her neck and flung it, her, she had been, barely out of girlhood, into the temple guardsmen, who shrieked and fled as if even empty the corpse was death. Some scrambled and jumped the ten feet to the roof below; the emboldened loyalists flung down the hooks or hauled up the ropes, half a dozen of them, yelling triumph, and hadn’t they thought of that when the first wave swarmed up? But maybe there’d been only Hadidu and Nour and the archer, then.
Someone had cut the archer’s throat.
“He was temple,” Nour said, as he and Hadidu picked themselves up, seeing Holla by the dead man. “Turned to shoot Hadi when the first ropes grappled on. When did he have time to send word we were here? He had a confederate, someone who slipped away down below. Must have. We need to get to Sunset, and Ju’s guards.” Lower voiced, a glance around. “I don’t trust any of this lot. I don’t dare.”
A man screamed. The militiamen were killing their few prisoners, throwing the bodies over to the market roof below. Holla didn’t interfere, hackles bristling, watching the trapdoor. Couldn’t find the will to shift, to answer Nour. It was down there, the third Red Mask, the last, hesitating. Did it have the will to hesitate, or was that the Lady’s uncertainty, weighing risk and gain?
Certainty. He would destroy it, and she needed them. They were more to her than soldiers mortal men could not kill, they were . . . he almost had her thought there, her hunger, her need for them. They were the web of her strength, they were . . . too few. Her awareness rode the one below, but now she drew back into herself like a snail to its shell, flinching from the Blackdog’s touch.
The Red Mask turned back, retreating.
Holla-Sayan forced himself into the man’s form, lurched unbalanced a moment, heaved the trap up and went through, sabre drawn. The living crowded away to corners in all too rational fear, no spells needed. The dead, who had tried to stop it reaching their city’s last priest, were a barrier at the foot of the stairs. The Red Mask, staff in one hand, a sword in the other, was already running. He overtook it on the lower stairs, and left it an empty husk.
“Look to your wounded, wait for orders from the ward captain,” Nour told the patrol-firsts of the survivors, following him down, those who had fought on the rooftop following, and Hadidu gave the dead a hasty blessing before they headed into the night, refusing any escort.
“Talfan’s for the rest of the night,” Nour said, short of breath and gasping. “At least no one there will sell Hadi to the temple. We can’t trust the militia. The ward captains are taking anyone who offers to join, without anyone even to vouch for them.”
“Sunset Gate,” countered Holla-Sayan. More defensible.
“No. They heard me say Sunset, in there. Anyway, Talfan’s is closer and Hadidu’s hurt.”
The priest was limping. “Bruised,” he protested. “It’s nothing. Next time you get the urge to fling yourself at me, check to make sure there’s a cushion or two handy first, why don’t you? You all right, Nour?”
“More or less.” But the caravan wizard was slow, feet dragging, breathing heavily. Hadidu without comment put an arm around him, and Nour leaned on his shoulder.
“Blackdog?”
“Fine.”
Someone, Nour, he thought, smelt of fresh blood, some new injury on top of his slow recovery from torment in the temple and a wound turned septic, but Talfan would see to that. And Master Kharduin, when he found Nour had been fighting, would haul him back out to the caravanserai and put him to bed for another week, given half a chance.
“You go on,” Holla said. “I’m heading back to make sure nothing else has come out of the temple. Where will you be in the morning?” It very nearly was morning.
“Meeting with the senate at the Barraya mansion,” Hadidu said.
Talking. The senate of the three gods, they called it, to distinguish it from the remnants of the old senate under arrest in the Family Feizi mansion in Silvergate. But of their talk came resolve, of a sort, and authority, more than what Jugurthos had seized in that first night. There were senators of the suburb now, two of them, Marakander-born caravanserai masters. Out of talk came law, old law, to uphold the Warden of the City, to give shape to the militia, to ensure no one profited unduly by any shortages, to try murders and looting and show the folk that the new order meant justice.
“You don’t need to be there,” Hadidu said, stopping Holla-Sayan with a hand on his arm. “Jugurthos called the senate, but he didn’t say I was coming. Get some rest, once you’re sure that was it for the Red Masks loose in the city tonight. When did you last have any proper sleep?”
Holla-Sayan shook his head.
“I’ll speak to the senate and then go up to Ivah and Mikki after,” said Hadidu. “They won’t come again so soon. That’s always been her way, these last weeks. She attacks and then pulls back to lick her wounds and nothing stirs for a few days, until she recovers her nerve. I’ll be safe enough for tomorrow. All right?”
“Maybe,” Holla said. “See you do go to Mikki, then.” Because the senate, once Hadidu was with them, would want to keep him, talking and talking, arguing this, that, and the other. It was what Marakanders did. And then they would be burying the dead of yesterday’s battle in the Fleshmarket, out along the city wall among the tombs of the Families, and Hadidu would be wanted to pray over them, and Talfan would want him sitting in on whatever she and Jugurthos were planning, the taking of Greenmarket, probably, and always there was the question of how to take the temple itself, and they would want him to tell them yet again he had no way through that fire . . . Hadidu would go yet again to sit in prayer, meditation, dreaming trance, whatever it was, by Ilbialla’s tomb, seeking some sign she knew her folk kept faith, some sign Ivah’s spell might begin to work . . . praying for the possessed girl who was the Lady?
Maybe he only sat in hopeless waiting because he was not a fighting man, and what else was there for a priest whose goddess was lost to him to do?
“I’ll go up to the hill as soon as I can.”
“Do.”
He flowed again into the dog and turned away, heading for the temple wards to hunt, to search by scent and senses he could not name for any trace of further Red Mask excursions. A handful, a company. The Lady was afraid. A handful, he thought, as if he had the knowledge straight from her mind, a hazy dream of what she held secret. A handful to be hoarded, coin too precious to spend except for great gain. She had meant to sacrifice one, in the blockhouse, to give the other two time to kill Hadidu and take Nour, to shatter the fragile faith of the city in its old gods. A nervous gamble that failed. Possibly she would not try again, after that and the Fleshmarket. Not till the ones she had sent Over-Malagru returned, and what then? Jugurthos talked of alliance with Stone Desert chieftains, but the caravan-masters were not so keen on giving those tribes any authority over the road, which they were demanding in return for their aid. And that was still no strength against Red Masks, or to break the barrier of fire about the temple.
What in all the cold hells had become of Moth?
Holla-Sayan spared the porter a nod at the open gates of Master Rasta’s caravanserai between the two dusty incense cedars. Rasta’s was small, brick-built and unplastered, and the roof over the gate was missing tiles. It was at the far end of the suburb, the last caravanserai to the west, nothing but dusty road dropping away between the rocky walls of the pass beyond, until the Western Wall. The well was deep, though, and had never failed yet, and old Rasta got on with Gaguush, which not everyone could claim. Home, when they came to Marakand and unless Rasta had too large another caravan in. The open yard within was mostly empty, except for a girl sweeping dung, watched by a cat perched on the sunny well-coping. The bays under the arcades should have been filled with Gaguush’s camels, but only a dozen or so dozed, hobbled and chewing their cuds in the shade. Red Sihdy regarded him with mild interest, groaned, which might have been a greeting, and closed her long-lashed eyes. Mules strange to him clustered farther along, switching tails and flicking ears against the flies.
“Mistress Gaguush is upstairs,” the sweeper said, before he could ask anything so stupid as, “Uh, where did my gang go?”
Stairs rose right and left from within the gateway, under a patterned brickwork vaulting. Gaguush had the first room along for herself and the most precious goods, Northron amber and sea-ivory work, ambergris and bales of sable-pelts, in the chaos still unsold, despite a Xua merchant’s interest. The bulkier goods were usually in locked bays below, but had those doors stood open? He rather thought they had. Maybe she’d found a buyer for the Westgrass weaving and sumac-tanned leathers.
A dark Salt Desert girl opened Gaguush’s door to his knock, curly hair escaping her braids. She dropped her eyes shyly, didn’t quite bow. Her tattoos were swirls of green that hinted of animal forms, but he didn’t recognize the god they belonged to. The folk of the southern hills of the Salt Desert were few and rumoured to be mad and short-lived, if not outright stunted in mind, from a lifetime breathing the bitter dust. This girl was a runaway from something, too young to have taken the road otherwise, and definitely she had all her wits about her. Tamarisk, that was the name by which Gaguush had introduced her, one of several new hires, a couple of days ago . . . no, it had been last week. A good archer, knew camels, and claimed to be good with babies.
“Tamarisk, gods bless. Is Gaguush . . . ?”
She nodded and slipped by, pattering away down the stairs. In the gang a week, and she already had the “sandstorm coming” attitude down pat.
“Camels?” he asked, perhaps inanely. The chests and bags and bales of goods were largely gone, the bed an untidy heap of bedding with another cat—Rasta was fond of cats—watching slit-eyed from the midst of it.
Gaguush didn’t look up. She sat cross-legged at a counting table, surrounded by baskets of scrolls, sheaves of loose papers, and old, greying tally-sticks, an ink-brush in her hand and a sheet of paper on a writing desk on her lap.
She could write? He hadn’t known. She had a smear of ink on her cheek, almost lost amid her black and red tattoos. She slid two counters deliberately, made a mark, stuck the brush behind her ear, and only then looked up, arms folded.
“There you are.”
“Where is everyone?”
“You know, I haven’t seen you in a week.”
“I didn’t realize it was so long. I—”
“Bashra damn you, you could at least send me word to let me know you’re still alive! Varro came this morning to tell me there was fighting again, yesterday. Why do I have to hear from Varro?”
“It wasn’t much. I wasn’t involved, really. We took Fleshmarket Ward.”
“We,” she muttered. He ignored that.
“They need me.”
She scowled at him. “I’m sure they do. Nobody else can kill the damned corpses.”
“Mikki.”
“Oh, Mikki, fine, yes, I’m sure the demon’s a big help. Varro says he never leaves the god’s hill.”
“Why are you getting all your news from Varro?”
“Because nobody else is telling me a damned thing! I haven’t seen you in a week! Varro’s left, did you know, did he tell you that? He’s left, and yet I see more of him than I do of you.”
He frowned. “Left for where?”
“Left the gang, left me. For good. Going to settle down and be a proper Marakander householder, apparently. The apothecary’s finally twisted his arm, or he’s decided if he doesn’t stay with her he’s going to lose her, I don’t know. Anyway, Varro says they’ve got the demon guarding Ivah day and night, because they think the Red Masks are going to come after the damned Tamghati wizard before she can free their gods. So Mikki’s no help, is he? There’s just you to guard their priest and watch the walls. And how many miles of wall around the area the temple holds?”
“Less, now, than there was. Since we’ve taken Fleshmarket.”
She didn’t smile.
“Two, maybe.” And he had been around it how many times, since the attack on Hadidu? Around, and quartering the temple wards, finding no trace of Red Masks, though temple guard were thick on the streets. Then he had been carrying messages from Jugurthos to the Greenmarket captain, preparing for that ward’s uprising, and Hadidu was still with the senate, still promising to go up to Ivah and Mikki. . . . When he had walked blindly into temple guard in Greenmarket and had to fight his way clear, he’d had enough. Sleep. He’d craved sight and scent of Gaguush like a hunger, just to know she was real, and safe, and there.
“Two miles they could break out over, and only you to stop them? Are you mad? What right do these rebels have to ask that of you?”
They didn’t ask. Nobody asked. He just—there was no one else.
Holla-Sayan wanted out of this city. He wanted the road, and the great vault of the sky and the far horizon, the wind untrammelled and smelling of earth and stone baking in the sun. Space, and the silence that was broken only by creak of harness, tinny clink of bells, the slow padding pulse of the camels’ cushioned feet on the dusty earth, and the long-drawn cry of a distant hawk. He wanted Gaguush and the dry hills and sky. The words piled up unspoken, because she would only shout that he had a strange way of showing it.
She shoved counting-table and lap-desk aside and crossed the room to him, folding her arms again, lips thin.
“How long does this last?” she asked. “When is it going to be over? Six bloody years I had of you never really there, with the monster inside you, and now that Attalissa’s back where she belongs and you’re the one in charge, you claim, someone else has got a collar on you. So. For how long?”
“Until . . . I don’t know,” he said hazily. “They need to free their gods . . .”
“Damn you, anyway, Holla-Sayan.” Gaguush put her arms around him, hauled him close. “Look at you. When did you last sleep?”
“Last night?” he protested. Admitted, “An hour or two.”
“You’ve got shadows under your eyes so badly I’d think someone had blacked them for you, if I didn’t know better.”
He leaned on her, eyes shut. She smelt of roses. And camels, of course. And was trying to kiss him. Her lips were soft, not angry at all.
“Bed,” she said.
“I—”
“Shut up. Bed. Sleep. You’re useless. I might as well be a doorpost, if all you’re going to do is lean on me. I duck, you’ll fall over. I mean, here’s your lawful wedded wife trying her damnedest to seduce you and you’re practically snoring. If a simple kiss is that much effort . . .”
He protested. He’d only come to let her know he was all right; he had to get back, to guard Hadidu. She found his mouth again but then dropped the bar of the door behind him and started shoving him across the room.
“Bed. You’re going to sleep, and if your damned priest himself comes looking for you he can sit outside and whistle.”
Outside on the stairs with Tamarisk. Hadidu might enjoy a few hours with none of his own folk able to find
him, come to that. Which reminded him . . . “Where is everyone?”
“Everyone who?”
“The camels are gone.”
“Oh, you noticed?” Gaguush was hauling his coat off, unbuckling his belt. He tried to protest that, got shoved onto the bed—the cat leapt away and spat at him—while she pulled off his boots. “There’s a war going on. The temple, the senate, I don’t know who may decide next they want camels, or what might come and burn this end of the suburb. I scrounged up a load for a short haul, mostly barley for Serakallash, since their granaries are so empty still, after Tamghat, and it’s been a poor summer there. We’ll get a good price even given what I had to pay to get it. I sent the gang under Django. Kapuzeh and Thekla went with him, and the new hires, what did you think I wanted them for? Not to sit around the caravanserai doing nothing on my charity. Tihmrose has gone to her brother’s mill up over the pass, says he wants her help with all their sister’s kids and he’ll need a fighter to protect what’s his, if things get worse than they are, and Judeh’s got the same idea, more or less; his mother and sister are both widows in Silvergate Ward, so he’s gone home to them.”
“Zavel?”
“Varro says he’s hanging around in the city, picking up a living somehow. He’s run into him a couple of times, bought him a meal once, which is more than I’d have done. I haven’t seen the boy for weeks. Not since the day before the battle in the suburb, when he showed up drunk and begging. I hate to say it of Asmin-Luya’s son, but he’s no great loss. I wasn’t going to take him on again anyhow. He’s had too many second chances.”
Varro hadn’t mentioned that to him, and he’d been half expecting, all this time, that the boy’s body would turn up somewhere, slain in the fighting. Of course, he hadn’t asked, till now. He was too tired to even feel particularly relieved.
“Holla-Sayan, go to sleep.”
That was easy. When Gaguush lay down with him, he pulled her close, arm over her, but really had no urge for more. Sleep, feeling her warmth.
