Conqueror's Blood (Gunmetal Gods Book 2)

by Zamil Akhtar

  I shook my confused head. “By Lat, why are you so bad at explaining things?”

  “Something is happening, Cyra. I’ve been shown the pattern on the carpet. And that pattern…it’s you. All three of my visions...are about you.”

  “You tease me with talk of visions, and yet you won’t tell me what happens.” I turned away and covered my head with the blanket.

  “Consider it…a mercy,” Pashang said.

  I slept the rest of the ride. I dreamt I was a simurgh, flying through a thousand heavens. Then Pashang nudged me awake. He helped me out of the carriage, and we stood on the thorny scrub beneath the cloud-covered crescent. The torches of his riders throbbed in the windless night, as did those of the gholam standing atop the high walls of Qandbajar. The gold-plated warriors filled both the higher inner and lower outer layer, their chainmail glowing in the firelight.

  We walked a few paces to Tekish, who sat high upon his silver-spotted Kashanese mare.

  Pashang said, “May I?” He gestured at my bandage.

  I let him remove it. I blinked my star-seeing eye — though saw nothing through it. Just a starless black.

  Khagan Pashang closed his eyes and said words under his breath. Was he going to blast through two layers of wall and thousands of gholam with his mumbled prayers?

  After a minute, he looked at me, serenity in his gaze, and held out his hand.

  I stared at it — taking someone’s hand had never felt so fraught. I didn’t know what would happen — if anything would happen — but it was as if Alanya itself sat on my shoulders.

  Why did I agree to this? To helping the man I despised most? What the hell was I doing? Had he bewitched me? Seduced me with talk of visions and fate? This was the farthest thing from the straight path. Why was I here, with thousands of Jotrid riders, standing against the walls of the city I called home?

  I thought of how I watched the soulshifter jab out my eye and then stab Tamaz to death. I thought of the Disciples, who accosted me and refused to help. Of Eshe as the Philosophers beat him, bound him, and pushed him into that black-roofed carriage as I watched from the window. How I begged Khizr Khaz for help, and how even he turned me away.

  Watching — that was all I’d done. Powerless — I was nothing but. I’d been dragged, helpless, from both my homes and now belonged nowhere. Was this a chance to change that?

  Perhaps all I needed was some light on what had been a dismal path. And there was no grander luminance than starlight.

  I reached out and took Pashang’s hand. His was dry and rough. Mine was soaked in sweat, so it wasn’t the most comfortable handhold.

  Seconds passed. Nothing happened.

  “I saw you praying,” he said. “So pray, Cyra.”

  “Pray…for what…to who?”

  “Three visions, I was given. One already passed, one is passing now, and one will pass. You know, as I know, to whom you prayed, that first time, all those years ago.”

  I mouthed a name buried deep in my heart, but no sound emitted, as if I were too ashamed to say it.

  “You were hungry and freezing that day, remember?” Pashang said. “Your father and mother had been on a hunt for weeks and left you and your brothers with nothing. A snowstorm howled against the cloth walls, and you and Cihan huddled for warmth beneath a motheaten blanket, his bony knee jutting into your empty belly. No other yurt for miles had food either, so bereft was that winter. So, with naught else to do, you prayed.”

  I didn’t want to remember — my most shameful secret. The sin I’d hidden, even from myself.

  “You prayed to Lat, as a good girl ought to. But when Lat didn’t answer, in your desperation, you prayed to other things. First, you prayed to the stones on the ground, then to the mud, then the grass, then the sun and moon — but none heard. Then you looked up and saw the very stars burning through the ceiling, and so you called to each. But they, too, did not hear. So you prayed to the space between the stars — the darkness where the dead stars dwell — and it heard. It saved you, saved your family — remember?”

  Of course I remembered. The hour after my prayer, Father and Mother’s hunting party returned with hundreds of horses and bison, and we feasted for months.

  Now I looked up at the space between the stars — the void — and with only my mind, called out for help. Called out, ironically, for light.

  In the periphery of my vision, a star blazed. I touched it; it hymned somberly, then vibrated. I drew a line from it to another star that burned just above my head, and from there to tens of more stars that suddenly shone around me, careful to follow the order of their appearance. The lines now resembled a shape with many sides, and as the stars orbited each other, this shape changed forms. Every second, the stars would rearrange into a new, many-sided shape, but it was getting faster: five new shapes a second, then ten. Faster and faster, until I could no longer count, until it seemed like chaos. And with each new form, the hymns changed too — but they were always somber and sunk deep into my soul.

  The many-sided, constantly shifting shape vanished, and with it the stars. I’d done something, but what?

  Wind blew against my ears toward the city. And sand came with it, nestling in my hair. A sandstorm? I turned around; other riders did as well, and so did Pashang. Not only wind and sand — something else was coming.

  A fat and jittery thing flew by my head. An awful bug we oft saw in the Waste and Alanya. A locust.

  And a locust, of course, doesn’t come alone. More chittered by my head, zooming toward the walls, as if our vanguard. But Qandbajar was not unaccustomed to locust plagues…so what was it for?

  Rumbling. The very air stirred and whirled. An endless buzzing sounded in the distance, and it loudened each second. The locust mass looked as if a wall were surging toward us. And as it neared, it took a shape…or rather, a face…a face with a hateful, open smile. I shut my eyes and ducked; thousands of riders did the same. I pressed my fingers into my ears and curled into a ball, yet still felt the bugs flutter through me like thousands of prickling fingers. The chirps deafened the whinnying of the horses and the shouting of the men.

  The moment it ended, Pashang pulled me up. The locust mass was so encompassing, I could scarcely see the walls of Qandbajar as they swarmed it.

  Pashang escorted me toward my carriage. Once I was inside, he shut the door and shouted, “Now!” I watched from my window as riders charged the wall. Would the locusts really be enough cover for them to break through?

  Given that it was the answer to my prayer, I didn’t doubt.

  18

  Zedra

  Earlier that day…

  Honestly, it shocked me how easily Mirima settled into the Order’s lodgment. Our shared room had three crude, feather-stuffed mattresses with coarse linens and three wooden bowls for the broth they were stirring downstairs. The earthy air of lentils and peas wafted through the window; outside, hooded women went about the garden, tending to herbs jutting from the grainy topsoil.

  Mirima seemed content to sit on her pallet and click-clack her prayer beads, which were so shiny they could be pearls or well-polished teeth. Not a peep out of her about this austere, though tidy room. Perhaps she’d endured a few hard days that I wasn’t aware of.

  Celene, also a princess, wasn’t fussing either. She lay on her side and stared at the wall. In the middle between the two, I sat against the window and listened to the breezy, idle chatter from the garden below.

  Much had to be done; waiting, mostly. The Order and the gholam had to gather, arm themselves, and devise a plan to retake the Sand Palace — one that didn’t need the input of three princesses who’d never fought a battle. Of guns and swords, at least. Our task was to wait, though I, of course, had other plans.

  The entire city seemed to be waiting. Waiting for Kyars. Who was in no rush, apparently. And if the Archers weren’t reporting his whereabouts, it was likely because he didn’t want them to. Ultimately, only he could save us, and so we waited.

  But
I couldn’t wait to hold my son. I had to find somewhere quiet, dark, and cool so I could soulshift and disrupt Mansur’s plans. Though I’d been plotting to pit Kyars and Kato against each other, for now they were my unquestioned allies, and I had to help them bring down Mansur.

  I cleared my throat. “I would go and pray in the shrine. Perhaps Saint Jamshid will grant us his ear.”

  Only the Children could intercede with Lat, but regardless, I had to find an appropriate place to keep my body whilst I soulshifted.

  “Celene, dear, would you accompany me?”

  She turned on her back and gave me a tepid nod. Mirima ignored us and continued clack-clacking her prayer beads as we left the room.

  We didn’t go far — downstairs in a small room by the foyer sat a massive chest laden with rough-spun robes. Celene watched, a wince stuck on her face, as I climbed inside and sank into the pile. Thankfully, they didn’t smell of sweat and other body odors, so they must’ve been fresh.

  I poked my head out. “Celene, dear, don’t let anyone disturb me.”

  “Are you doing…witchcrafty things?”

  I nodded. “Only because I have to. No one is to come near, all right?”

  “Well…” She folded her arms. “What if someone, you know, wants a robe?”

  I threw a few on the floor. “There you go.”

  She picked one up. “How long will you be gone?”

  “A soulshifting cycle is only thirty minutes. I think you can manage to guard me for that long. Much depends on this.”

  She nodded, jittery. “Marot forgive me,” she said in Crucian.

  I pretended I didn’t understand. “Is that a prayer?”

  She twirled a lock of hair. “Oh, it’s just…I’m aiding in sorcery, and the angel Marot is the teacher of all sorcery, though only as a temptation, a test. So I asked him to forgive me...or rather, to beg the Archangel for forgiveness on my behalf. I mean, I’m not the one doing the sorcery, so perhaps it’s not a sin, but just in case…”

  I supposed that made sense. Sin or not, we needed the prayers of those closer to god.

  I sank into the robes. Barely any light poured through the rough wool pile. They were cool and dry on my skin and even muffled the outside noise.

  I closed my eyes, focused on the bloodrune I’d written in the Sand Palace guards’ lodging, and pricked it with an imagined fingernail.

  The man whom I’d possessed was tossing dice in a noisy, incense-filled room. I choked on the seed in his throat; I banged on my chest — once, twice, thrice — to get it out, but looked down to see a distorted reflection in the mirror plate. Futile to bang on that. A fellow guard ran up, held me hunched over, and smacked my nape. The seed flew out.

  “What’d you roll for that luck?” the other guard, who also wore mirror armor, said with a hissing laugh. He spoke a Kashanese tongue that I didn’t know, but like Himyaric and Crucian, could somehow understand. “You rolled the evil eye, didn’t you?” His mustache seemed to be growing out of his nose.

  I had no idea what was on the faces of those dice. I coughed to relieve the squeeze on my throat.

  The real trouble was that I didn’t know who I was, what rank I merited, or much else. The mirror armor meant I was a khazi under Mansur’s employ. I didn’t have time to digest the ebbing memories, emotions, and thoughts that flowed from this man into me like a river leaking into an ocean.

  In the room were pallets, low tables, bowls of sesame seeds, trinkets, and, on the far side, a weapons rack: guns, scimitars, and spears. A dagger hung off my belt, its hilt well-worn steel with a falcon imprint. Falcon…the sigil of the Seluqal House of Kashan, which bordered Merva, the province that Mansur governed. Perhaps the man had picked it up as a spoil, fighting off a Kashanese raid. But the memories dropping on my mind suggested the dagger was a requisition — was this man in the employ of the Seluqal House of Kashan? I probed my mind, only to find stressful memories of a dark place, as constricted as a strangled throat.

  I could at least glean I was battle-hardened, loyal to Mansur — when paid — and had a wife and four children back in Merva. The hard lines on my face suggested some age. And with age, hopefully, came respect. Strange that my eyebrows seemed lacking, with faint, hardened hairs sprouting where a thicker forest ought to be.

  I left the room to a Sand Palace hallway, with its emerald lamps and mosaic-covered walls. On my right, open windows with golden, star-patterned grates let in a breeze, which soared into the ceiling beams, spreading coolness.

  Mansur’s guardsmen stood straight at every door. Some nodded at me, and I nodded back. Ideal that it seemed I wasn’t too highly ranked, nor too low; after the soulshift ended, this vessel wouldn’t remember anything, but he’d obviously be blamed for what I was about to do, and perhaps they’d think him a spy, which would suit my purpose.

  As I passed by the ornate double door that led into the great hall, I spied a rather wide man walking within, wearing gold- and leaf-colored brocade, a similarly dressed woman at his arm. No question: the pink face of spice master Ozar, and his wife, who happened to be Mansur and Mirima’s younger sister.

  So, he was free; what deal had he made with Mansur, I wondered?

  Either way, I hadn’t the time to find out and so continued through the antechamber that led toward the exit.

  Finally, I arrived at the archway that preceded the simurgh statue. I quickened my pace through the palace grounds — the gardens and sandstone-lined walkways — until I’d left the gate. It was a ten-minute walk through empty, palm-lined streets to the old barrack, where Kato, and now Mansur, kept the so-called conspirators of Tamaz’s killing.

  Staring at the pasty, gated compound, I wondered what I ought to do. Kato had stored his enemies here, and Mansur was doing the same. The enemies of your enemies make good allies, but some enemies of your enemies are your enemies, too. So behind that gate were enemies of my enemies, enemies of my allies, but no allies of my enemies, surely, and quite a few allies of my allies. It was getting confusing; I couldn’t waste precious time sorting it out and had to strike like a hammer.

  I unsheathed my dagger, admired the falcon on its hilt, and sliced a line through my palm. Sipped the seeker’s blood, which tasted much like my own. I wrote a bloodrune on the dagger’s blade: two eyes, interlocked, within the sun. I whispered, “O’ Morning Star, take from me and give from yourself.” The rune brightened.

  I approached the two mirror-armored sentries guarding the gate and gave them a nod. “Mansur wants to see the Grand Vizier’s son. I’m to escort him to the palace.”

  They looked at each other with raised eyebrows. One said, “Why’d he send the damned sapper?”

  So…I was a sapper, which is why I barely had eyebrows. No wonder memories of scalding rooms and strangling tunnels floated about my head. My job was to detonate bombs and bring high things to the ground.

  “I asked for…more responsibility,” I said in a shaky voice.

  Judging by their deadpan stares, my tact wasn’t working.

  “By the way, have I ever showed you my dagger?” I unsheathed it, displaying the hilt and bloodrune. “That falcon…such lovely craftsmanship, don’t you think?”

  “You’ve got some…blood on there,” one said as he gazed into the eyes of the rune. “Beautiful…blood…”

  They straightened their backs and stared forward with bulging eyes. I snapped my fingers in their faces: no blinking. Perfectly tranced.

  I patted them down until I found the gate key dangling from a belt buckle — a rusted, hefty piece of metal. Took a bit of fidgeting with the keyhole to get the gate to unlock, but now the creaky thing swung open.

  The old barrack was a wide square with rooms on every side. Sand covered everything, even the dried-up well in the center. The rooms weren’t even locked, only barricaded with a wooden plank and latched. I lifted the plank off the nearest door, then unfastened the latch and pulled the door open. The room stunk of unwashed skin and urine. A flat-nosed man sat on the f
loor, itching his scalp. I’d seen him before, knocking on doors in the Glass District. Wasn’t he a tax collector? I wondered whether he’d offended Kato, Mansur, or both. I left the door open and proceeded to the next room.

  One by one, I removed the barricades on each door, speeding up as I went, not bothering to see whom I was freeing. Slowly, the square filled with viziers, clerks, notable pashas, and all manner of folk who’d been imprisoned, each stinking and dusty. Some joined me in freeing the others, and soon more than a hundred doors in the old barrack stood open.

  Hadrith, his beard now beyond his chest, emerged from an open door, looking as if he smelled something odd. Prison should have done his haughty character some good. The son of the Grand Vizier possessed influence that Khizr Khaz and Kato lacked, and a shrewdness that matched or exceeded mine. Better he be for us than Mansur.

  I studied the rabble overtaking the square, particularly the wives shouting for their husbands. Too noisy — I eyed with worry the overlooking guard tower. Though considering the sultry afternoon sun and the lack of interference, the sentry must’ve been napping.

  I paced around the square. Vera wasn’t here. Just where was Mansur keeping her?

  A clamor arose as the prisoners approached the gate and argued whether it was wise to run. The sentry sitting in the wooden guard tower overlooking the area finally woke up, grabbed his matchlock, and rushed down. That lit the spark: the prisoners stampeded through the gate, screaming “run!” and “go!” and “to freedom!” Soon, the square was empty and still, save for the increasingly distant rumble of people running for their lives.