Coin of Kings (The Powers of Amur Book 2)

by J. S. Bangs

  “Then I’m not gonna do anything.”

  “No, listen. I can’t create your fortune, but I can create my fortune, and you’ll be better off with me. Are you that loyal to Chadram?”

  Apurta shrugged. “He’s fine.”

  “And we’re not going to hurt him. Do you think it was an accident that Ruyam picked me? Or that I survived where Ruyam didn’t?”

  Apurta looked at Kirshta with consternation. “What do you mean?”

  “I started out in a lower place than this and reached the highest tower of the Ushpanditya. And I’ll get there again. I make a good ally—my sister will attest to that. But I make a terrible enemy.”

  Apurta said nothing. He kept his eyes straight ahead, his expression a war between fear and exhilaration.

  “I’d like to be your ally,” Kirshta said.

  “Yeah, maybe,” Apurta said. “When we get to Jaitha, we’ll see.”

  “It’ll be worth it, Apurta.” Kirshta said.

  Apurta glanced over at the fire-lit circle where Geshtam and the other Red Men waited. “And those idiots?”

  “No problem of ours.”

  “That’s what you think,” Apurta said. “Did you ask Geshtam about this?”

  Kirshta hesitated. He had reduced the sal leaf in his hand to shreds, which he scattered on the ground. “Yes.”

  “That’ll be trouble.”

  “You think? I’ll just say that Geshtam is lying. Chadram likes me better than him.” Kirshta did not know that this was actually true, but he had to say it anyway.

  Apurta grunted. “I hope you’re right. I don’t like the man any more than you do, but I have to march with him all the way to Majasravi. I don’t want to trip and land on his sword.”

  Kirshta was about to object, but the argument died on his tongue. Could he say that Geshtam would never do that? On the contrary, it seemed like just the kind of brutish accident that Geshtam’s partner might fall to.

  “I’ll try to protect you,” Kirshta said. “From Geshtam and from Chadram.”

  Apurta gave a disdainful glance over Kirshta’s stature. “No offense, Kirshta, but you’re a head shorter than any of the Red Men, and unless you have thikratta powers that I haven’t seen….”

  “And what if I do?”

  Apurta laughed. “Then I guess you have nothing to worry about.”

  “No, nothing to worry about.”

  His smile was utterly false. He had plenty of worries, and Jaitha was four days away. But at least he might have an ally.

  * * *

  From atop the bluffs at the edge of the floodplain, Jaitha looked like a drowned ruin. The scarred and blackened remnants of the Emperor’s Bridge haunted the south side of the city, while the waters of the monsoon flood filled the inner city and turned the suburbs outside the wall into a mire. Were it not for the listless traffic on the road which crawled from the bluffs to the city, he would have thought the city was abandoned. The stench of the rising marsh, muggy air, burned timbers, and human refuse stung Kirshta’s nostrils. In front of him, Chadram stood with his fists on his hips, glowering down at the city like a butcher looking at an animal carcass which had rotted before he could clean it.

  “Kirshta,” he said absently, “do you have any idea what the conditions in Jaitha are?”

  “None beyond the rumors we picked up on the road,” Kirshta said.

  Chadram grunted. “When Gauhala-dar’s emissary arrives, watch him closely and see what you can perceive. And prepare to meditate, if necessary. In case there is anything you can see more clearly.”

  “Yes, sir. But I can’t promise—”

  Chadram waved him to be silent. “I know. Try.”

  At the bottom of the path which dropped from the bluff to the suburbs, there was a small pavilion pitched against the monsoon rains, decorated with the drooping sun-and-tiger banners of Jaitha. A delegation of three guards and a single messenger slowly climbed up from the pavilion toward the place where Chadram and his lieutenants had unfurled the red spearhead emblems of the imperial guard. Behind them, the column of Red Men was encamped alongside the road, stretching back until it was lost in the haze of the muggy, sweltering afternoon.

  The emissary arrived and offered Chadram a perfunctory bow, and he and Chadram exchanged necessary formalities. Then the emissary stated bluntly: “Gauhala-dar of Jaitha wants to know why you are here again, and what your intent is with his city.”

  Chadram smiled a little. “I appreciate directness. It’s a quality too little seen among the vassal-kings of the Emperor. The thikratta Ruyam who led us is dead, and now we desire only to return to Majasravi. If you let us cross over to the north shore of the Amsadhu in your boats, we won’t harm you further.”

  The emissary winced a little. “You understand, dear captain, that we find these assurances somewhat difficult to countenance, given the violence which was visited on our city the last time your company passed through. The king only recently brought the militia back under his command and drove out the looters from the city. The inner city is still a skeleton of charred embers, and as for the Emperor’s Bridge—”

  “We weren’t the ones who destroyed the bridge.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It would require another Aidasa to raise it up again.”

  Chadram tugged at the corner of his mustache with impatience. “Our only goal is to return to Majasravi and await the coronation of the next Emperor. Is Jaitha in revolt against the Emperor?”

  The emissary raised his chin a little. “And who is Emperor, now that Jandurma-daridarya has died and Ruyam who usurped his place is also dead?”

  “None of my concern. Nor should it be yours, unless you plan to revolt. And if you aren’t in revolt, then you have nothing to fear from the Red Men.”

  “Or so we hope,” the emissary said. “I’ll bring your word to the king of Jaitha. Wait here for his response.” He turned and descended the hill.

  As soon as the emissary was out of earshot, Chadram turned to Kirshta. “See whatever you can about the king of Jaitha and his attitude. Clearly he doesn’t want us here, but will he let us pass? And you,” he said turning to one of his lieutenants, “prepare archers to fire if we have to.”

  Kirshta folded up his legs and assumed the Lotus posture for meditation. There was a bustle around him, as Chadram arranged his defenses, but he did his best to block them out. A vision here—any real vision, rather than another lie—would be immensely valuable to Chadram, and therefore to Kirshta.

  Eyes closed. Breathe deeply. Be mindful of the breath.

  He ceased to hear the movement around him. His awareness of his body dissolved into the trance, and his thoughts passed through him like water through a net. Stillness.

  A man lay facedown in a pool of blood on a red carpet. The blood spread across the marble floor.

  He let that vision pass though the net. In the trance there was no fear, but there was still memory, and he remembered that he was afraid of this image when he awoke. It dissolved and went on.

  He entered into a mouth of stone, which devoured him. Behind the teeth was a tunnel into the earth like a throat, and it went down forever. Cold and starvation. Always hungry, always eating, never being filled. Kirshta was eaten up. There was nothing left of Kirshta except the body which the stones ground into dust.

  He remembered fear. He remembered to let this vision go. He would have nightmares later when he was outside of the trance, but here he could observe it and dismiss it. This was not the vision he needed.

  Blood swirled in the water.

  This was different. He tightened the net of his mind around this image and allowed it to expand into his awareness.

  Blood swirled in the water. Arrows fell into the water. Ashes fell into the water.

  He drew a deep breath, mindful of the way his lungs expanded and pressed against his ribs. Noise around him threatened to become bubbles that would stir him from his trance, but he dismissed those and returned to his vision.

  A sp
ear covered with blood stirred the water. A burned stone crumbled into the water. Bodies floated in the water.

  His breath escaped him. It was enough.

  He opened his eyes.

  Coming out of the silence of the trance, he felt as if only a few moments had passed, but looking ahead he saw the emissary talking to one of Chadram’s lieutenants, and Chadram looking at him impatiently. How much time had he meditated? Enough for the emissary to go to the king and return. He was glad it had taken no longer.

  “Are you ready?” Chadram said.

  Kirshta nodded. “I saw blood in the water of the Amsadhu. Men and ashes and blood falling into the water.”

  “A battle?” Chadram’s voice carried equal parts anger and resignation.

  “I would assume. I did not see fighting. I saw from the view of the water, which doesn’t see the fighting of men above it, but feels the blood which trickles into it.”

  “Good enough for me,” Chadram said. He nodded to one of his lieutenants, who trotted down the line without saying another word. Kirshta could barely make out orders being whispered down the column of Red Men. “Now bring the emissary,” Chadram said.

  The emissary came up to Chadram, stepping over Kirshta, who still sat in the Lotus position to Chadram’s right. “Gauhala-dar of Jaitha will allow you to cross,” he said. “He will give you use of his boats. March to the wharves, board the boats, be taken across, and never come back.”

  “Do you give orders to the imperial guard, now?”

  “Again, who is your Emperor? Is he here in power today?”

  “A new Emperor will be crowned, and he’ll hear of your answers.”

  The emissary gestured as if brushing the concern aside. “When a true Emperor comes down from Majasravi, our answers will be different. For now, the king’s militia is forming up along the path that you’ll walk to the wharves. Don’t attempt to deviate from the route.”

  Chadram clenched his jaw. “Very well. We’ll come.”

  The emissary turned on his heel and marched down into the city. “Give the orders,” Chadram said. He pointed to Kirshta. “And you take up a position with one of the first ranks, as before. If you’re right and there is fighting, then maybe one of them will protect you. But if you get in our way—”

  “Yes, sir,” Kirshta said, leaping to his feet. His knees croaked at the sudden movement after being locked in place, and he took a moment to massage feeling back into his calves. Then he trotted down the line to find Apurta.

  Apurta and Geshtam were standing in a slack version of the Cane posture, idly spinning their javelins with their bows slung at their backs. Apurta’s eyes brightened when he saw Kirshta.

  “You again,” Geshtam said before Kirshta had a chance to speak. “You have no one else to bother?”

  “Chadram told me to take a place in these ranks. And for someone to protect me, in case there’s fighting.”

  “Is there going to be fighting?” Apurta asked.

  “You heard the order,” Geshtam said. “We should be ready.”

  “I’m asking Kirshta,” Apurta said. “He has the visions.”

  Kirshta bit his lip. “Chadram gave the order,” he said quietly, “so there will be fighting.”

  “I told you he doesn’t know anything,” Geshtam said triumphantly.

  “Oh, I know,” Kirshta said. It was essential to make an impression now, if the rest of the plan was to happen as he needed it. “It was because of my vision that Chadram issued the order.”

  “You made one up again?” Geshtam scoffed.

  “No. No need to.” He looked past Geshtam, directly at Apurta.

  The column ahead of them lurched forward, breaking up their conversation as they hurried to form into columns. The company’s march resolved into steady, disciplined steps. The points of the Red Men’s spears made a forest of bronze leaves above Kirshta’s head, and his bare feet pounded double-time to match their stride.

  They crested the bluff and began to descend, first passing through the slums which clung like mushrooms to the walls of the valley, then passing into the marshy suburbs along the main thoroughfare. The red stone walls of Jaitha loomed ahead. The king of Jaitha had placed his militia—a poorly-dressed and undisciplined bunch, from what Kirshta could see—alongside their route, presumably to keep them from diverging or attempting to pillage the city again. A poor choice. Kirshta doubted that Gauhala could do anything to prevent the Red Men from pillaging the city if they put their mind to it. Yet it seemed that the king was going to attempt something of that sort.

  Kirshta whispered to Apurta, “Are you ready?”

  Apurta swallowed. “Ready for what?”

  “When we get to the Amsadhu. You know.”

  Apurta glanced from side to side nervously. He swallowed and hardened his face, looking straight ahead. He nodded slowly. “I’ll do it.”

  “You’ll get paid back. I promise you.”

  They passed beneath the shade of Jaitha’s gate and onto the clattering wooden walkways. The path through the inner city was circuitous, there being no straight path to the wharves on the raised walkways. The city looked like a burned skeleton: every building had been reduced to charcoal, blackened fingers of wood rising from the murky, sewage-filled floodwaters of the Amsadhu. The walkways themselves had burned and collapsed in many places. A few buildings had seen hasty repairs, with walls made from scrap wood held together with twine and roofed with green palm leaves. But Kirshta saw hardly another soul in the inner city aside from the Red Men and the king’s pitiful forces.

  They reached the wharves: an expanse of wide wooden piers which extended out into the broad shallows of the Amsadhu. Here, the burning was minimal, as if the fires had given up just before reaching the wharf district. The Red Men had landed here on their first crossing of the Amsadhu, and Kirshta wondered whether Ruyam had somehow forbidden his fire from consuming the piers for that reason. Intact boats were moored along the posts, only a few of them showing scorch marks, and here at last there seemed to be ordinary citizens, holding the ropes which bound their fishing vessels and trade dhows to the piers.

  Chadram and his lieutenants reached the first pier and halted. At the far end of the wharves, a tiger banner advanced. Behind it marched a scowling man in a yellow dhoti and scarf with a bare chest, bronze spears in his eyes aimed at Chadram. Gauhala of Jaitha.

  He started shouting at Chadram before he had advanced halfway across the wharf. “You got through my city without burning it down, this time.”

  Chadram stiffened. “What do you want, Gauhala-dar?”

  He waved at them. “Get on the boats. Me and my men are just here to watch you go. And we don’t want to see you again.”

  A look of frustration passed across Chadram’s face. “You came here yourself to tell us that? We want the same thing. Let us board.”

  Gauhala gestured at three large ferries moored at the ends of the nearest pier, plain wide-bottomed rafts with rough plank decking and no rails to speak of. “Get as many men as you can across in these. My men will be the pilots and the oarsmen.”

  “I cannot get all my men on these boats in one trip,” Chadram said.

  “Then they’ll return and get the others!” Gauhala said. Behind him, Kirshta spotted the militia who had been guarding their route filtering in and filling in the back ranks of the docks. “Get out of my city.”

  Chadram grunted and spoke an unheard order to one of his lieutenants. He headed toward the first of the barges, which filled with soldiers and officers just before Kirshta, Geshtam, and Apurta could reach it. The first barge pushed away, and Kirshta and the others boarded the second barge.

  Kirshta took a precarious spot at the edge of the barge, avoiding being pushed into the water. He wound up with his face near Geshtam’s armpit. Geshtam glowered down at him. Kirshta turned away to see Chadram’s boat ahead of them as it started into the sluggish current of the channel. Their own barge filled and was pushed off.

  Come on, Kirsht
a thought. Surely Gauhala was planning something. He couldn’t have seen amiss this time.

  They reached the end of the piers and moved out into the current. His view of the shore was blocked by the armored mass of Red Men, but he imagined that the last of the barges was pushing off now.

  At first he didn’t realize what was happening. The men on the barge ahead of him pointed and jostled. Then he heard the hiss of arrows, and black-fletched points fell into the water. One of the arrows landed among the bodies crowded on the other barge.

  “Arrows!” he shouted. “They’re firing at us. Go back!”

  But his voice was lost in the uproar, because everyone on the boat had realized their danger at the same time. There was a chaos of shoving and shouting, men saying “Give me arrows!” and “I don’t have room!” Geshtam shifted and nearly knocked Kirshta into the water. But Kirshta regained his balance, and he leaned forward and grabbed Apurta’s wrist.

  “Now,” he hissed. “Now is the time!”

  A glance across the water showed that Chadram’s barged had slowed, and Chadram stood near the edge of his boat, looking toward Jaitha. None of their eyes were on Kirshta and Apurta.

  Apurta nodded and shrugged his bow off of his back. He managed to get an arrow from his quiver and string it to his bow with trembling hands.

  Geshtam said, “I see what you’re doing—”

  But it was too late. The arrow flew toward Chadram’s boat.

  A sudden force lifted Kirshta off of the deck of the ferry. Rough hands spun him around, and he looked into Geshtam’s face.

  “Was that your plan all along? Injure Chadram and betray us to Gauhala-dar?”

  “No—” Apurta said, but Geshtam didn’t seem to hear him.

  “I hope you don’t swim,” Geshtam growled into Kirshta’s face. “Or else I’ll have to go spear fishing.” And he hurled Kirshta off the raft.

  The waters of the Amsadhu tilted below him. A splinter of an image of Apurta on the raft. And he plunged into the waters.

  He couldn’t swim. He flailed. Which way was up? Bubbles, noise, and water. No air. He thrashed. His lungs burned.