The Bloodprint

by Ausma Zehanat Khan

  “Your powers will be needed. Yours also,” he said to Sinnia. “And those of your Companions who still reign at Hira. The Talisman conquest was slow and steady. The next phase will be otherwise.”

  Arian considered his words, considered the possibility of an alliance with Hira that would help them fend off the Talisman. Or perhaps the bargain had already been struck. If the Ahdath were not allies of the Buzkashi, a space of hope for her Audacy might have opened up.

  “If you believe that war is coming, why have you continued your trade with the Ahdath?”

  “I think I know,” Daniyar interjected. But he waited for the Aybek’s permission to speak further. Zerafshan gave it with a quick nod.

  “If truly you follow the laws of your ancestors, you prepare for war in their manner. You train your armies for battle while gaining knowledge of your enemies—reconnaissance and preparation. What remains then, are tactics and propaganda.”

  Daniyar’s gaze was drawn to the bonfire lit in the center of the playing field. A fire stoked not by wood and branches on this treeless plateau, but rather by smoldering heaps of dung. The goat carcass had been dismembered. A severed shoulder blade was heating above the dung, presided over by the Yeke Khatun.

  “You continue your trade at the Wall not for material benefit, for yours are a hardy and self-sufficient people, but rather to sow fear about your army’s might.”

  Zerafshan led them to the bonfire, the Buzkashi moving to one side to let him pass.

  “I do not travel with the traders. My Mangudah spread fierce tales of my prowess, my legend grows in my absence. When war comes to the Cloud Door, my people will be at an advantage.”

  It was a wise maneuver, a far-seeing one. But would it be enough if the war were to be fought on two fronts at once?

  “The Ahdath are suicide warriors,” Arian cautioned the Aybek. He shrugged.

  “The Mangudah are a death squad. And now, no more talk of war. We must consult the Yeke Khatun, then I will decide. What does the Great Empress say?”

  Arian reflected on this title. He spoke of an empress of wind, of a kingdom of snow and martagon lilies. Though it was unlike the honors of other lands, it was clearly a title of eminence.

  Tochtor used a pair of iron tongs to scrape the cracked bones of the goat from the flames.

  Storay brought forth a metalwork bowl. The smoke-singed white bones were dropped into the bowl. The Buzkashi fell back with a frightened murmur. Only Storay held her place at her mother’s side.

  “What happens here?” Sinnia muttered to Arian.

  “Scapulimancy,” she answered. “The Yeke Khatun will divine the future from cracks in the heated blade.”

  It was a ritual she had seen in other places, but it was one at odds with the traditions of Hira. This was what the Aybek had called a different finger of the hand.

  Tochtor held up the bowl. She began to recite in a monotone.

  “The world was created by the One. The heavens in forty-five days, water in sixty days, the earth and its people in seventy-five. The sky is made of silver, the stars are cut like glass. There is a star for each one of us. When an inhabitant of the Cloud Door dies, a shooting star is seen. What is the uppermost sky?”

  “The uppermost sky is asmaan,” Storay intoned.

  “The One dwells in the uppermost sky, we dwell upon the earth, the place between worlds, where male and female dwell together.”

  Tochtor peered into the bowl. She reached a hand inside to trace the cracks in the bones with her fingers. She whispered to herself. The Buzkashi watched in silence.

  Wafa had squeezed himself between Arian and Sinnia. He clutched a fistful of Sinnia’s dress in his hand.

  This would have been blasphemy to the Talisman, Arian knew, but her own calculations of the paths to the One were not as unbending, even as she believed the future and the past were known only to the One. Tochtor’s ritual wasn’t the dark magic the One-Eyed Preacher practiced, or the stark execrations of the rites of the Nineteen who ruled the Empty Quarter.

  The Yeke Khatun tipped back her head, showing them the whites of her eyes. They echoed the flash of the yurungkash jade of her headdress.

  “The wind from the east has blown into this valley bringing four heralds with it.”

  Her finger pointed to each member of their company of four.

  “One is missing. One will fall.”

  Her pointing finger traced an intricate gesture in the air. A cold conviction rang through her voice. A spear of worry prodded Arian’s spine.

  “They wake the people of the Cloud Door, the Cloud Door opens.”

  To the east, the clouds began to roil. Silver plumes filled the horizon.

  “The Cloud Door will open to the world.”

  Tochtor’s arm formed an arrow pointing north.

  “The War of the Wall will come. The north wind brings it, one will fall.”

  The urgency left her voice. She lowered the bowl into Storay’s waiting palms. Then she reached for her son’s hand.

  “Blessed be the Lord of the Buzkashi.”

  Her strident voice sounded through the valley.

  It was echoed back to her by her people.

  “Blessed be the Lord of the Buzkashi.”

  She lowered her head, her gaze clear and candid.

  “What do the bones say of the Companion’s request of me?” Zerafshan asked. “Should I aid her when she has nothing to barter in exchange?”

  His mother’s answer was sharp. “We are people of Hira—we submit to the One. We must give the Companion what she seeks.”

  Zerafshan motioned to Daniyar’s pack.

  “Will you yield your lajward in exchange?”

  Standing before his people, it was important that the Buzkashi’s traditions be upheld. But what could Arian say? She had long since learned that her choices would satisfy no one.

  “My lord, had you asked anything else of me, I would yield it. The lajward means nothing to me, except as an end to my quest.”

  “You wouldn’t give me your hand,” he said, a hint of mischief in his eyes. “You claim your heart is forsworn.”

  Arian’s face warmed with color. These were things she hadn’t said to Daniyar, things she couldn’t be sure she would ever have the chance to say. She loved one man, admired another, and still her dreams tasted like smoke.

  Tochtor’s declaration troubled her.

  Four heralds.

  One missing, one to fall.

  Tochtor placed her hand on Wafa’s shoulder.

  “Something must be given in exchange,” she agreed. “You must honor the customs of the Cloud Door.” She nodded at her son. “If you’ve nothing else to give us, we will keep the boy.”

  Four heralds. One missing.

  What if Wafa was the one to fall? Many times on the dangerous journey Arian had thought to leave Wafa behind—his life had been full of hardships, but beyond the Wall was a reckoning unknown. No one she loved should pay such a price.

  She nodded her agreement.

  “No!” the boy cried out. “You mustn’t leave me here!” His throat working, he searched for the right words. “I’m not an object to be sold! I am Wafa, the loyal.” Tears stained his face. “You swore you wouldn’t leave me, now you trade me like the Talisman.”

  “The Wall is too dangerous a place for you,” Arian said. “The Aybek will protect you, and Storay will be here to care for you.”

  Storay held out her hand, a smile on her face.

  Wafa’s tears came faster.

  “I was dead before you found me, and now I’m alive. Don’t take that from me!”

  The words were agonizing to hear.

  Sinnia tried to distract them.

  “Well, I’ve offered myself and been refused.”

  What if Sinnia was the one to fall? Who would Arian risk on the road at her side?

  With an effort, Arian kept her thoughts from the Silver Mage.

  Wafa glowered at Storay.

  “I don’t bel
ong with you. I am for the Companions.”

  He clutched Sinnia’s dress, afraid he would be ripped away.

  “We’re at an impasse, it seems,” Zerafshan said, his voice calm. “What is your will, Companion?”

  Arian pressed a hand to her forehead.

  She didn’t know. Either the way forward or the way back. Too many outcomes rested upon her choices.

  “Let me.” Daniyar stepped in front of Wafa, urging him back into Sinnia’s arms. He unbuckled his pack, reaching into its depths.

  The puzzle box, the ewer, the key.

  The lajward Zerafshan had wanted from the outset.

  No matter the breach of honor, they couldn’t afford to yield it.

  “Daniyar—”

  His glance at her was warm with reassurance, his eyes like weightless silver coins.

  Shaken, she took a slow breath.

  “We would honor your customs,” Daniyar said to Zerafshan. “But the boy isn’t ours to trade. Whatever the bones reveal, he has the right to choose his own course.”

  “Then what do you offer in his place?”

  Daniyar removed a leather parcel from his pack. He raised it to his lips and kissed the two letters embossed on its cover before touching the book to his forehead. He held it high so the Buzkashi could see. Then he placed it in Zerafshan’s hands.

  “Will you take the Candour in place of the boy?”

  He was greeted by a silence thick as snowfall. The sobs dried up in Wafa’s throat. He stood paralyzed by uncertainty in Sinnia’s embrace.

  A tear slid down Arian’s cheek.

  If she’d ever questioned what she meant to Daniyar, she knew it now.

  Just as she knew she wasn’t worthy of his love.

  Now beyond thought or personal calculation, she reached for her tahweez, her right hand working to unlace the circlet on her left arm.

  She would sunder the unbreakable bond before she would permit the surrender of the Candour. To be barred from Hira was no greater a loss than to take from Daniyar his birthright. The Candour was a trust. It was everything to Daniyar.

  Wafa couldn’t understand this but Arian did.

  She was everything now.

  Her fingers slid under the circlet.

  She felt a wrenching inside.

  She was giving up her sisterhood, her safety.

  She would lose her status as Companion of Hira.

  She would no longer be First Oralist of the Claim.

  And she found it didn’t matter.

  Some things were greater, truer, dearer.

  The tahweez came loose.

  She offered it to Zerafshan.

  Tochtor fell to her knees with a groan. She pressed her forehead to the snow-covered ground. Moans sounded from the Buzkashi. The lamentation of women echoed through the Ice Kill.

  Too much was happening here. Too much had happened.

  Zerafshan raised the Candour to his lips and kissed it. Then he placed it back in the hands of the Silver Mage. He went to Arian and freed the tahweez from her grip. His fingers traced its markings. With careful hands, he bound it about her arm.

  “Mllaya moya.” His voice tender with restraint, he spoke in a language none in the Cloud Door knew, a language of the Transcasp. “How will I learn to content myself again, once you have left my valley?”

  Arian stared at his collarbone, unable to meet the emotion in his eyes.

  “I do not understand, lord.”

  He raised her chin with his hand.

  “It was I who did not understand. You told me,” he said, with a half-smile. “But I didn’t listen. Yeke Khatun.”

  He let Arian go, calling for his mother.

  Zelgai and Altan raised Tochtor to her feet. They brought the old woman forward.

  She reached into the bowl Storay carried and snapped the bones with her hands, casting the shattered fragments wide into the snow.

  “Forgive us, Companion, we have treated you like common traders. It was a blasphemy to have done so. My son will grant whatever you ask.”

  Her face was shrunken beneath the weight of her headdress, bereft of its power. Behind her, columns of clouds scudded down the mountains.

  There was a change in the wind.

  Something was coming.

  The wings of a falcon glittered against a backdrop of sky, diving at the frozen lake.

  Ilea’s falcon. Arian remembered Turan.

  “Would you come with me, Wafa? Though I wished to leave you behind?”

  The boy knuckled his eyes. He hung his head as he nodded.

  “The gift was sincere,” Arian said to Zerafshan, whose eyes still held a tenderness that rocked her.

  “You carry a great weight,” he returned. “I would not add to it. As I cannot take this road with you.”

  He relayed a series of instructions to Zelgai and Storay. They hurried away to do his bidding. His voice boomed out to address the Buzkashi.

  “People of the Cloud Door. The Companions of Hira and the Silver Mage of Candour have graced your valley with the blessings of the Claim. For the sake of your traditions, they offered you the Candour, the tahweez. Do you dare demand more?”

  Altan made a token protest.

  “What of the lajward, brother? Why do they withhold it?”

  Zerafshan thumped him with the back of his hand.

  “The Prince of the Hearth has raided little, thus his mind is occupied with treasure. Yet you couldn’t win the carcass of a goat on your own merits.”

  Catcalls and jeers rose from the Buzkashi. Altan flushed in response.

  “Do you think the sahabiya cares for treasure? That she hoards riches to gratify her desires?”

  “You didn’t see the lajward,” Altan said. “But I meant no disrespect, sahabiya.”

  Whatever Arian did, she caused harm. She wouldn’t see Altan shamed on her account.

  “Says the One, were your sins to reach the clouds of the sky, and were you then to ask forgiveness of Me, I would forgive you.”

  Her voice rang through the valley, a reflection of the Claim. Altan shivered at the words, his mouth going slack with relief. He hastened to help Zelgai with the horses.

  Zerafshan shrugged off Arian’s thanks, a smile playing at the corners of his lips as he watched Sinnia detach Wafa’s grip from her dress.

  “Red suits you,” he said to Sinnia.

  Sinnia turned her smile upon him to worthwhile effect.

  “White would suit me better, Lord Zerafshan. Forget what is not for you—consider the woman before your eyes.”

  Though Sinnia didn’t know its meaning, the tender endearment Zerafshan had offered Arian stung her pride. Or was it her heart?

  He gave Sinnia a lazy grin.

  “You will feast with us before you leave our valley. Perhaps your arguments may persuade me.”

  Sinnia tossed her head like a mare of the khamsa.

  “Perhaps if you accompany us, you will have the chance to persuade me of your merits.”

  “Would that I could, Lady Sinnia. But the Army of the Left descends from the Cloud Door within the week. I must be here to receive them.”

  Sinnia would have kept up her raillery, except that Arian stopped her with a look.

  “My lord, your kindnesses have been many already. I fear to ask for anything more.”

  Sinnia forgotten, he turned to Arian.

  “Ask, mllaya moya. Whatever you wish shall be granted.”

  “My lord, I require another horse. Captain Turan must ride to the Wall.”

  Four heralds from the east.

  One missing, and one to fall.

  35

  The sharp black peaks of the Death Run formed a glittering tumult against the vacant sky of the Cloud Door. If they had been able to see past the accumulation of clouds at the mouth of the valley, they would have seen light drift over the Fire Mirrors like a glossy red rain. As it was, the women’s dresses danced like poppies in the wind, the Ice Kill left behind.

  The air was sweet
and cold, the bodies of the kuluk horses warm beneath the weight of wool blankets. Arian’s small company had been fêted in the aftermath of the game of qarajai. The Yeke Khatun had blessed them with handfuls of snow from the field of victory.

  The Aybek had bowed over her hands with a last wicked glance at Daniyar.

  The Lord of the Buzkashi had taken nothing from them. Instead, he’d sent a party of six men to take them as far as the encampment of the Army of the Right. To Arian alone he had confided his stories of the Wall, as a sign of trust.

  Zelgai led their company. He issued orders, gathered men, prepared supplies without drawing notice to himself. In coloring he was nothing like his blood brother, the leader of the Buzkashi. The cast of his features spoke more of the people of the steppes, indicating a long history of the commingling of the races in this last outpost of Khorasan. In temperament, he was mild, his glances self-contained. He issued no directives to the Companions, addressing them with respect.

  Zelgai and four of his guards rode ahead, scouting the path. Again, Arian noticed the precision of their movements, the skill with which they negotiated the terrain, anticipating Zelgai’s commands. They were armed as if for war in leather armor, with small horns at their hips. They had taken leave of their women without levity or regret.

  Strong and fierce, these outriders of the Mangudah.

  A death squad.

  Did they prepare to meet upheaval or deliver it?

  Daniyar rode with Sinnia and the boy. Arian knew he was angered by the Aybek’s gallantries, jealous of her attention. Yet she had discouraged the Aybek at every turn, and done nothing that required her to account for herself. She would focus on Captain Turan, who rode at her side instead, an opening she was glad of, for there was much she needed to ask him.

  “Are you well, Captain? Have you recovered?”

  He slowed the pace of his horse to hers. There was an improvement in his color and in the steadiness of his hands.

  “The injury was not as severe as either of us thought, sahabiya. What of you? I feared the leader of the Buzkashi would insist on taking you to wife. They are known as traders. They do not barter lightly.”

  Arian felt color warm her skin. She strove to change the subject.

  “So you’ve heard of these mountain people.”