The Flames of Shadam Khoreh (The Lays of Anuskaya)

by Bradley Beaulieu

  He’d not gone twenty paces when a door opened at the far side of the yard, a door set into a long, low house of granite with a green slate roof and a chimney that coughed smoke. Through the doorway stepped a boy carrying a basket filled with steaming buns covered loosely by red-banded cloth.

  The boy stopped dead, hand still on the handle. He stared at them, a look of confusion on his young, round face, but then his eyes fixed on Styophan’s gun.

  “Get back inside,” Styophan said softly, “and don’t come out again.”

  The boy didn’t move.

  “Get back inside, boy.” And then Styophan ran past, his men following.

  They continued beyond the bakery to an empty yard of benches and standing stones and winter bushes thick with clinging snow. Ahead lay the grey tower where Nasim and the others would be. He continued along a well-worn path through a small copse of laurel trees that bent toward one another, forming a tunnel. On the far side, once they rounded the tower, they were faced with a long wall that cordoned off this section of the grounds from the larger, more grand buildings of state.

  The iron gate Nabide had told them about was twenty paces along the wall, but Styophan paused at the edge of the trees, for in the field to their right there were seven men dressed in the hardened leather armor of the Kiliç Şaik. Two of them were practicing, though it was vicious—the clack of their wooden swords cutting through the crisp air while the five others watched. Styophan breathed, counting the seconds, wondering when the boy would raise the alarm. But no sounds came from behind them, and soon, one of the swordsmen struck a point against the other’s thigh.

  The two men parted and bowed to one another, and then the seven of them fell into step and began walking toward their barracks, which were just north of the stables. Styophan had no idea how many Kiliç Şaik might remain here in the kasir, but he prayed to the ancients that they were few.

  When they’d gone far enough, Styophan moved along the wall to the black gate. As he reached for it, a bell—like those near the helm of a windship—sounded from somewhere behind him. It rang over and over as men began to cry out, “To arms! To arms!”

  Styophan rushed through the gate, but as he did he glanced toward the Kiliç Şaik. They’d turned and were already running toward their position.

  Inside the gate was an immaculate lawn with a dusting of snow that led to the building of red stone. Three servants stood there looking toward the sounds of alarm, but as soon as they saw Styophan and the others, they bolted for the kasir’s massive, domed building.

  Styophan turned to Yasha. “Take twenty men. Set up an ambush there.” He pointed to the row of bushes that ran along this side of the wall. “Pistols first, Yasha, then swords. Don’t treat them lightly.”

  Yasha nodded and set himself to the task, choosing men and positioning them.

  Styophan chose one desyatnik—Rodion and Mikhalai and seven more—and led them into the red building. The entrance revealed a hallway that ran the entire length of the building. Along both sides of the hall were niches with marble statues on pedestals, regal statues of the long line of the Kamarisi. Between the niches were doors leading to various rooms, offices perhaps, or rooms where the Empire kept records.

  To his left and right were stairs leading up. No doubt he would find more of the same there, and on the third floor as well.

  Styophan nodded to Rodion who immediately said, “Da,” and took three men down the hall, pistols and swords at the ready. “Nikandr Iaroslov!” he called as he went. “Nikandr Iaroslov! The men of Khalakovo have come!”

  Styophan continued up the stairs to his right. When he reached the top of the landing, he nodded to Mikhalai. Mikhalai took three more men down a hall that was nearly the same as the one below—opulent and ostentatious—calling out Nikandr’s name.

  Styophan headed up the stairwell, but before he’d gone ten steps, two janissaries in ceremonial garb holding tall spears appeared at the top of the stairs. Styophan fired at the nearest of them. The wheel spun, shedding sparks, and the gun bucked, but the shot merely caught the soldier in the shoulder.

  Damn my eye.

  Two of his streltsi discharged their weapons, and the janissaries fell, clattering down the marble stairs to the landing.

  After a nod of thanks Styophan leapt over the janissaries and took to the last of the stairs up to a room with couches and fig trees in marble planters. On the far side of the room were two ornamented doors that Styophan could only assume led to Bahett’s private rooms. He stepped forward and kicked the center of the doors. With a crunch the doors flew wide.

  From the nearby window Styophan heard the sound of gunfire.

  Yasha and the Kiliç.

  “Nikandr Iaroslov!” Styophan called. The grand room before him was a wide-open space with rich carpeting and tall windows and a gold filigreed ceiling. But it was empty. “Nikandr, My Prince! Khalakovo has come!”

  He moved to another door and found it unlocked. The next room was smaller than the previous one, but no less rich. A large bed was set against one wall. A marble fireplace dominated another. Rich paintings lined the walls, including one of Bahett himself—still with two hands—standing tall in silk finery and a wide turban with a bright emerald brooch and a tall plume of vermillion and carmine.

  “Nik—“

  Styophan stopped, for a door opened, and from it strode Prince Nikandr. He held a knife in his hand, his own kindjal. He was staring at Styophan as if he were a ghost.

  But then the sounds of battle came—guns no longer, but the ring of steel on steel—and Nikandr’s eyes hardened. He turned back to the room in which he’d been hiding, a dressing room from the look of it, and waved someone forward. Soroush Wahad al Gatha stepped out, staring at the streltsi gathered before him in much the same way Nikandr had.

  Styophan waved him toward the doors. “My Lord Prince, please, come.”

  Nikandr stared at the door, then looked to the painting of Bahett. “Styopha, what’s happened?”

  “We’ve come to take you east, back to Anuskaya.”

  Nikandr shook his head. “Bahett was to return here after the address.”

  And then Styophan understood. Nikandr had come to murder Bahett. “No longer, My Prince. The Haelish will be moving against the Kamarisi even now.”

  From the windows, the cries of men rose higher.

  “My Lord, please.” Styophan motioned Nikandr toward the door. He looked haggard and confused. Styophan was nearly ready to take him by the arm and drag him from the room when Nikandr’s eyes widened. He stepped back and met Styophan’s gaze. “The Haelish are here?”

  Styophan nodded. “They go to kill the Kamarisi. With any luck, Bahett will be taken as well.”

  Nikandr shook his head. “Styophan, they can’t. We need Selim. We need him to send orders east.”

  And now it was time for Styophan to be confused. “It’s already too late, My Lord.”

  “Nyet. We must go there. They cannot kill the Kamarisi.”

  Styophan couldn’t believe his ears. “There’s nothing we can do about it now.”

  Nikandr’s jaw worked as he looked to the streltsi, then to the nearby window, where the sound of swords still rang.

  “How many men?”

  “My Lord?”

  Nikandr’s face grew angry. “How many men do you have?” he shouted.

  “Forty-six.” He nodded toward the window. “Perhaps fewer.”

  He glanced at Soroush, who nodded in return.

  “Come, Styopha,” Nikandr said. “We go to Alekeşir.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  Nikandr ran with Styophan and Soroush and the streltsi of Khalakovo, down the stairs from Bahett’s apartments. At the landing halfway down to the second level, two janissaries lay sprawled across the white marble. Blood slicked the floor around them. Like a river across a snowy landscape a trail of blood led down the marble stairs. Nikandr stopped to take up a sword from one of them. As they continued down he hefted it several ti
mes, getting the weight of it. The kilij had a strange balance to it, but he had practiced with them in the past to get their feel. On the second floor they found Mikhalai and two more soldiers, and finally they reached the ground floor, where Rodion and his men joined them. It was strange indeed to find these men here, men he and his brother, Ranos, had sent to Hael, but now that they were here it felt good indeed. They felt like his kindjal, familiar and deadly, for these were fighting men.

  As they left the building, he saw on the snow-covered lawn a dozen streltsi locked in battle with the Kiliç Şaik. The snow around them was matted with blood and mud.

  Nikandr flew down the steps, the others coming close behind. As they approached the skirmish, several of his streltsi discharged their wheellocks. The sound of the wheels spinning while sparks flew rose above the clang of swords, and then came the cracks of pistol shots. Five of the Kiliç Şaik took wounds to their shoulders or chests, but only two of them dropped.

  And then they were locked in battle. Nikandr took one who fought with tall Yasha. The Kiliç saw Nikandr and retreated slowly, trading blows until he was next to one of his brother swordsmen. Then the two of them fought together, helping one another to fight off Nikandr and Yasha and Valentin.

  One of them released a flurry of blows against both Yasha and Nikandr, but he was tiring from the effort.

  It was all a ruse, though.

  In a blur he spun away and swung low, taking Valentin’s left leg clean off at the knee. In one fluid motion he was back fighting Nikandr and Yasha as his brother in arms beat off Valentin’s final desperate sword stroke.

  It was now Yasha and Nikandr against these two men. A few of the Kiliç that had caught pistol shots had finally succumbed to their wounds. A few others fell to the swords of his streltsi—who were dressed in the uniforms of the Empire’s western territories—but more of Nikandr’s men fell as well, faster than the Kiliç.

  Something dark flew above the wall to Nikandr’s left. Another came, but the moment Nikandr turned his head to see what it was, the Kiliç ahead of him pressed. He had seemed to be flagging mere seconds ago, but now it was all Nikandr could do to fend him off. His blows rang down hard, beating against Nikandr’s sword arm.

  Nikandr leaned back from a blow instead of blocking, did so again when the Kiliç advanced, and then caught him with his sword too wide. Nikandr swept his sword up, catching his enemy across the wrist. The Kiliç retreated immediately. Blood spilled from the wound. After beating away one last desperate attack, Nikandr stepped in and drove his sword through the Kiliç’s exposed gut.

  Chaos raged around him.

  Styophan and his cousin, Rodion, were fighting with Soroush. Yasha had stepped to Nikandr’s right to intercept one of the enemy, who was trying to flank Rodion.

  Rustam, a young strelet with black hair and a wickedly fast sword arm, fell to the ground to Nikandr’s left, blood pouring from a deep wound in his neck. The Kiliç he’d been fighting, who had just taken a deep wound to his thigh, retreated.

  Rustam, however, had taken a deep stab through his chest. He looked up to Nikandr, his eyelids tightened in pain. As blood flowed freely over his janissary’s uniform, he flipped his shashka around and held it for Nikandr to take. “Use a proper sword, My Lord Prince.” No sooner had Nikandr taken it than Rustam’s head fell back, his green eyes staring sightless toward the sky.

  Another shape flew over the wall, landing at the top before dropping down and into the field of battle. More of the Kiliç. They were launching themselves over the wall to engage. There were a dozen of them now, fighting Nikandr’s fifteen. Even as he crossed swords with one of them, more of his streltsi fell.

  This was a battle they could not win, not if more of the Kiliç came while his own continued to fall.

  “Together, men! Pull together!”

  The men withdrew while sliding in toward one another, and soon they had something resembling a line. But they were only ten now, against the dozen Kiliç.

  Nikandr glanced back. They were only halfway across the lawn. The relative safety of the building might as well have been leagues distant.

  Another strelet fell as a sword cut fiercely down across his shoulder and into his rib cage.

  Nikandr slipped on the slick ground. He fell and scrabbled away.

  The Kiliç he was engaged with advanced quickly, bringing his sword up high.

  Nikandr managed to beat away two strokes and roll away from a third. But the fourth caught him at an odd angle, and he lost grip of his shashka.

  His left hand was already reaching for his kindjal, but he knew it would be too late.

  The roar of a single, desperate soldier made the Kiliç turn.

  Yasha, brave Yasha, swept in and rained blows down on the Kiliç. The enemy was fast, but Yasha was a blur. He forced the Kiliç back, shouting all the while. Then Yasha caught the Kiliç with a deep cut to his arm. He followed it immediately with an advance and a thrust of his sword through the Kiliç’s chest. Yasha’s shashka bit deep, cutting through the hardened leather armor.

  Nikandr had no sooner made it to his feet than another Kiliç came in from behind.

  “Yasha!” Nikandr shouted.

  He tried to intercept the Kiliç, but he was too late. The Kiliç caught Yasha across the back of his calves.

  Yasha fell, grimacing against the pain with clenched teeth. He tried to keep his sword high, to block the next blow, but could not. He dropped his guard and lowered himself to his hands.

  The Kiliç Şaik raised his sword high—

  “Nyet!” Nikandr cried.

  —and brought it down across his neck.

  Yasha’s head rolled away as his body collapsed.

  Nikandr released a guttural cry and fell against the Kiliç. He brought his sword down again and again, a rain of blows that the Kiliç could not fend off. At the last the Kiliç’s sword came up too late and Nikandr caught him against the top of his brow, the sword cleaving his skull. The Kiliç’s body spasmed and fell to the ground, twitching.

  Nikandr surveyed the field, his breath coming in heaving gasps. By the ancients, there were only seven of them left including Soroush, and the Kiliç Şaik had ten. And even as he watched three more passed through the iron gate.

  They had to run. They couldn’t stand against so many.

  Just as he was about to call for retreat, the report of a pistol rang across the bloody lawn.

  One of the Kiliç that had just run through the gate grabbed for his back and fell heavily to the ground.

  Another pistol fired, and another Kiliç dropped.

  At the gate stood two streltsi. They ran forward fanning wide as more streltsi came behind them. These men bore wheellocks as well. Once they’d cleared the wall, they stopped and aimed. The wheellocks spun, sending sparks into the air, and the pistols fired. The last of the newly arrived Kiliç fell to the earth, and then over a dozen men of Anuskaya came charging, pulling swords with one hand, holding pistols in the other, shouting at the top of their lungs. Nikandr took up the call as well, as did the men around him. Even Soroush joined in as he beat away the attacks from two of the Kamarisi’s swordsmen.

  Soon the battlefield became little more than wrathful cries and the ring of steel and spinning wheellocks and the sharp smell of gunpowder.

  None of the enemy retreated. Perhaps they hoped that more of their own would come, or perhaps they hoped to take down as many of the enemy as they could in order to protect their kasir. Whatever the case, they fought to the very last man.

  When the last of the Kiliç had finally fallen to a sharp thrust from Styophan, the men of Anuskaya stood at the ready, waiting, as if they all expected the enemy to stand up, or for more to leap over the wall, but none did, and they moved quickly to help those of their fallen who were still alive.

  It was only then that Nikandr realized Ashan was among those who’d come at the last. Ashan had his circlet and bracelets back. He had his stones as well. He must have found them in the tower before com
ing here.

  While the men cared for the wounded, Nikandr waved Ashan and Soroush and Styophan over. “Three are missing,” Nikandr said to Ashan. “Where are Nasim and Sukharam and Tohrab?”

  Ashan looked back toward the grey tower, the top of which was barely visible over the wall. “I’ve not seen them since we arrived and I was placed in one of the uppermost cells. They were not in the tower when we searched. We looked in every cell.”

  Over Styophan’s shoulder, the bulk of the men were helping the wounded. He did a quick count. There were perhaps twenty still able to fight. Twenty. How in the name of the mothers and fathers was he going to save the Kamarisi with only twenty men? And how was he going to save Nasim and Sukharam at the same time?

  He told Ashan quickly of what Styophan had told him, that the Kamarisi had become an unexpected ally, that the Haelish were even now ready to attack and kill him. “The Haelish,” Nikandr said to Styophan. “Will they listen to you?”

  “If we can find King Brechan, he will hear our plea, but I can’t say what his answer will be.”

  That was their only hope, then—to find Brechan—for they would never be able to fend off the forces the Kamarisi would have amassed there.

  Nikandr turned to Ashan. “Can you find Nasim and Sukharam?”

  Only moments ago, Ashan’s alabaster stone, the one set into the circlet upon his brow, had been dull and lifeless. Now it was glowing—not brightly, but enough to make it clear that Ashan was now bonded with a havahezhan. “I will find them, son of Iaros, if they can be found at all.”

  Nikandr stepped in and hugged him. “Five of my men will go with you. The rest will wait for you in the stables.”

  Ashan tried to smile, but his eyes took in the carnage around him. “Go, Nikandr. Save the Kamarisi if he can be saved.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  Nikandr rode atop a tall black stallion with Styophan beside him on a roan mare. The rest of his men—eighteen in all—rode behind, the thunder of their hooves ringing through the city as the citizens of Alekeşir, those few who remained in the streets, noted their passing with widened eyes. Their destination, the massive dome at the center of the city, was easy enough to see, but the streets of Alekeşir were confusing and difficult to navigate. And strangely enough, there was a cloud of birds high above the city, circling slowly, directly above the dome. Perhaps here in the capital the birds had learned that crowds might leave scraps of food.