The Unconquered City

by K A Doore

  No, Merrabel had wanted them to know her army was there. But why? Was it a show of her might, an attempt to intimidate Illi into giving up and turning herself in? Or was it a trap? Illi’s stomach turned. Should she warn her cousins? But then the torch caught and flared on the mountainside. It was too late.

  The army grumbled alive. Soldiers shouted to each other and metal clanked and horses snorted and then they were spilling up the path, toward the approaching torch. As soon as the soldiers in front of her had moved from their campfire, Illi jerked on the edge of Canthem’s wrap and they dashed across the empty space and past the cast-aside camp rolls and blankets and cards.

  Then they were in the camp proper, surrounded on all sides by a roiling disorder that cloaked their movements. Some soldiers scurried toward her cousins’ distraction, some yelled orders, some went the opposite way. Only a handful even seemed to notice Illi, and all it took was one look at the pins on Illi’s chest before their gaze and feet continued on.

  A horse snorted. Illi jerked to a stop just as a soldier barred their way with a broad gray beast. They wore a tagel and a uniform much like Yufit’s, but instead of the three pins she had, they only had one. A subordinate.

  “We’ll need that horse, sa,” Illi said with as much authority as she could muster.

  The soldier’s eyes narrowed. Canthem coughed loudly and said, “Come on! Follow the captain’s order, sar, and give over your reins. And your friend there, too.” Canthem gestured behind at another mounted soldier who had paused to watch. “Both of you. I wouldn’t keep the captain waiting—the general herself ordered us to bring this captive back to Hathage.”

  That finally did it. Both soldiers dismounted, putting their reins in Canthem’s waiting hands. The second soldier strode off toward the fight, but the first lingered, watching to see how Illi would treat their mount. Illi eyed the beast, nervously prancing in place like a child commanded to stay still. How could anyone sit on something so flighty?

  No use waiting. Illi sucked in a breath, put her boot in the metal ring as she’d seen Merrabel do, then grabbed the top of the saddle and pulled.

  It wasn’t the most graceful thing she’d ever done, but Illi managed to haul herself up onto the horse’s back. Canthem handed her the reins, then gestured for Heru to mount the other horse. Heru did so clumsily, and Illi wondered how much of that was for show. Then Canthem swung up in front of him.

  Illi kneed her mount and leaned forward, ready for its loping stride. But a horse was not a camel and its sudden, springy gait caught her off guard. She slipped before she grabbed the edge of the saddle, grateful for its bulk. She righted herself and found the horse’s rhythm and together they cut a path through the dark camp.

  But not dark for much longer. Dawn was filling the sky, turning it from black to dark blue. The campfires still flickered but Illi could see beyond them, could make out the hills and the shrubs and the fields. At her back, the Aer Caäs loomed, a solid darkness not unlike the pylons themselves at sunrise.

  They were almost out of the camp when something tugged at Illi. She circled her horse around and peered back the way they’d come. But she didn’t need to see to feel them. She reached, her wrists first prickling, then burning with pain as she sought what had tugged at her. There: a bright spot of warmth, then another, and another, and ten more, a dozen more, no—dozens more, a hundred, more—

  Illi gasped.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” Canthem had pulled up alongside her.

  But Heru answered for her: “Guul.”

  Illi nodded.

  “They’ve been following us for a few days,” continued Heru. “Just … following. I decided it wasn’t worth mentioning until they came closer or attempted to threaten us. I’d assumed Illi knew about them and that, perhaps, she was the reason they were following us.”

  “No,” breathed Illi. “I’d sensed some along the journey, but I sent them all … north…”

  “North,” echoed Heru, somehow infusing that single word with heavy disdain.

  “Dust.” Illi started to reach again, to count, but she decided she didn’t need to know the exact number. It was more than they could handle, than she could handle.

  No. Not more than us.

  Illi started. A new fear prickled in her, one she shoved away for later. Now, she had more pressing concerns. Such as the fate of her cousins.

  “The army,” said Canthem suddenly. They slapped their thigh. “That’s why General Barca sent them, why they were waiting for us. They weren’t waiting for us. She would’ve only needed a dozen guard at most. She knew about the guul.”

  “Merrabel brought the guul here,” said Illi slowly. She didn’t know why, she didn’t know how, but the knowledge settled like truth in her mouth. Merrabel must have learned something from Illi during all that testing. Learned a new way to control the guul. To call them. It eased some of her own guilt at guiding the guul north; she had sent some, certainly, but she was not responsible for the sheer magnitude of guul that had arrived.

  And now all those hundreds of guul were loose in the foothills, where her cousins thought they were only fighting soldiers. They’d been trained to kill and they knew how to fight guul, but not that many. Not like this.

  Illi sucked in a breath and felt the quieted guul in Heru’s pouch. She plucked out one, two, and when she felt a bit less dizzy and a bit more whole, she reached. The guul were like a barely controlled fire burning up the mountainside. Between them she felt the warmth of her cousins and the soldiers. Distantly, Illi heard the clank of bones, the rustle of feathers, the thunder of a thousand feet. If she lingered, she could tease them apart, but already her wrists were throbbing and fresh blood dripped from her fingers.

  She didn’t have time to tease. She could only do one thing.

  Quiet. The command rolled out from her as gentle and unstoppable as a shifting dune. It caught the soldiers and the guul alike. Silence fell like a thunderclap and in the sudden stillness, Illi could hear the rustle of grass, the sigh of the wind, the creak of her saddle, and the whir of insects. Distantly, a bird screeched.

  “What did you do?” whispered Canthem.

  The world tilted. Illi caught the edge of her saddle before she could tilt with it. She dug her fingers into the soft leather and willed her head to stop spinning.

  “She alerted the fine general to our presence, is what she did,” said Heru.

  “I stopped the guul,” said Illi. “Come on—I don’t know how long it will last.”

  Canthem didn’t question her further, for which she was grateful. Illi was still reeling from the ease of the command, the power of it. Fingers dripping blood, she tightened her grip on the reins and kneed her horse into a gallop, putting more distance between her and her cousins. They’d be fine.

  They had to be fine.

  31

  The night whipped by, cold as glass, cold as metal. The force of the horse’s canter thudded up through Illi’s body, making her jaw ache. The silence went on and on and on. Lights twinkled in the distance, a promise of civilization and warmth. Illi’s hands grew numb from the wind and she had to check more than once to make sure she was still holding the reins.

  Now that she knew what to look for, Illi recognized the edge of the city this time. The shacks that turned into houses that became buildings, the way that condensed to a path that widened to a street. The cracked, empty fountains and dust-choked gardens. Sand turned to dirt turned to rocks turned to smooth stone and then they were racing through the city, the clatter of hooves echoing off the walls and back at them.

  Torches lined the road in thicker and more regular clumps until their light burned away most of the lingering shadows. The road curved ahead, toward the center, toward the palace, toward the wall. Now that Illi knew where to look, she could pick out its dark gray metal peeking between the buildings here and there.

  The city seemed almost exactly as she’d left it over three weeks ago. Exactly—save for the emptiness. The roads w
ere empty, the city silent but for the occasional creak of an unlatched window shade and the rustle of the trees in the wind. Illi had first noticed the quiet in the outer part of the city, but even then she’d spied people dashing inside or twitching their curtains closed. She’d spied life. Here, Hathage felt hollow.

  Reflexively, she reached out, feeling for the people she knew had to be there. When she found them, tucked away deep within the buildings, huddled together for fear or for warmth, she let out a sigh of relief. She might not care for Hathage as she did Ghadid, but that didn’t mean she wanted them to be hurt.

  “Curfew,” said Canthem.

  They pointed at a freshly drawn sign hanging over an empty basin, its black ink still glossy. Words stood out in bold letters, but the script was utterly incomprehensible to Illi. She slowed the horse down for a better look, but it was different from what Merrabel had used.

  “It doesn’t say much,” admitted Canthem. “Just that, by order of His Royal Highness, all citizens are to be indoors by sundown and stay until first bell. First bell is right after dawn, which isn’t much further away. We’d better finish this before then.”

  “The guul,” said Illi. “She’s protecting them from the guul. But she’s the one who’s controlling them. Why would she need to protect her own people?”

  Canthem met her gaze. “Maybe she knew you were coming.”

  “I suspect the guard is correct,” said Heru. “Merrabel did not call the guul, but she knew they would come. The sajaami has proven multiple times that it has an affinity for guul and draws them to it. It would be logical for her to conclude that when you did return—and that you would—you might bring guul with you. She’s a general, above all else. She prepared for war.”

  “I wouldn’t—I would never—” Illi started, then stopped. She’d never what? Control an army of guul? North, she’d sent them all north. If that hadn’t been her intent, what had? She rubbed her forehead. She’d promised herself she’d never become what she most hated, and yet here she was, sending monsters to a foreign city. Forcing its people to defend themselves, to hide. To fear.

  “She thinks we’re an invading army,” she said.

  “Correct.”

  Illi’s neck prickled, but not with heat or fear. Someone was watching. Of course they were. In Ghadid, bandits had once been allowed to enter the city, only to become disoriented by the pylons and bridges. That’s when the family would pick them off, one by one.

  One by—

  “Go!” shouted Illi.

  She kicked her horse into motion. It surged ahead faster than she’d expected and she slipped. She grabbed on to the saddle with both hands, heart hammering, and barely heard the sound of something sharp and thin cutting the air behind her. But she felt it across the back of her neck.

  Canthem grunted. Illi didn’t glance back; she was too intent on staying on her mount, and its hooves were greedily eating up the street. Canthem was a better rider than her. They’d keep up.

  The wall loomed and grew and obscured the sky. After what felt like mere seconds, they reached its base. Illi pulled her horse to a stop within feet of a tower. Now that she knew what was on the other side, she thought she could hear the interminable crash of waves and the gurgle of water. She could certainly smell the sea, its ripe, salty scent saturating the air.

  “Girl,” said Heru. Then, “Illi.”

  Illi turned in her saddle. Canthem stared up at the wall, Heru still behind them. For some reason, Heru had wrapped his arms around the guard. Had they been going that fast? What was Canthem staring at? Their eyes were glassy, unfocused. Part of their wrap was darker than before.

  Then Illi saw the arrow.

  The dark green fletching stuck out only inches from their chest. Canthem fumbled with the reins as they slid precariously to one side. Heru gripped tighter, clearly the only reason Canthem was still upright.

  Illi didn’t remember dismounting. She didn’t remember crossing the space between her and Canthem. She only knew the paleness of Canthem’s skin, their sharp, staccato breaths, the smell of blood. She only knew the color of the arrow’s fletching, a green like olive flesh. She only knew Heru’s pale arms shaking with the strain of holding Canthem up.

  The darkness on their wrap was spreading.

  Illi opened her arms and Heru let go with a sigh. Canthem half slid, half fell, grabbing the saddle on their way down. Illi caught them, eased them to the ground, her fingers already finding their neck, their pulse, her eyes assessing the damage. But she knew it was bad without having to draw on water. It wasn’t a matter of if the arrow had hit anything vital, but what. Lungs? Aorta? Heart?

  She ripped open Canthem’s wrap and her fingers ran across their chest as if she might be able to see the damage through the skin, through the muscle. She brushed the fletching but she didn’t grab it; the arrow had to be removed, but it also might be the only thing keeping Canthem from bleeding out faster. Where was Mo? Why was she so far away? Why hadn’t Illi insisted that she come with them?

  “Breathe,” said Canthem and there was a gurgle in their voice that told Illi: pierced lung.

  Illi realized she’d matched Canthem’s short, shallow breaths with her own. She took several deeper, steadying ones, and the tightness at the edge of her vision loosened. Still, she was numb all over. Numb and lost. She couldn’t help Canthem. She couldn’t heal. Not with the bracelets on.

  Not with the bracelets on.

  Oh.

  Oh.

  A cold clarity smothered all her doubt and fear. She looked up, met Heru’s eye. “Twenty minutes, right?”

  Heru’s brow tightened and she felt the weight of both his real eye and his glass one. “Do not remove those bracelets. We still have a wall to climb and a rite to perform. Every second you lose increases the likelihood that your body will deteriorate beyond any chance of repair. Do not—Illi, I said no—”

  Illi found the clasp on the burnt-silver bracelet. It popped open with ease. Then she unclasped the polished bracelet. They hung loose on her wrists for a moment, her choice not yet fully made, still able to change her mind. She met Canthem’s eyes, already clouding with pain.

  She dropped her hands and the bracelets fell off.

  The change was as sudden and irrevocable as oil catching light. One moment, she was numb, the thud of her heart the only reminder that she could still feel things. The next, she burned. She ached. She was alive, she was vast, she was infinite. She could feel the guul miles away, still frozen, still quiet. She could feel the soldiers around them, knew their names. She found her cousins—Thana, Dihya, Mo, Azhar, Menna, Yaluz—and she released them, an act as simple as breathing.

  She felt the lives in the city, thousands of them, sleeping and waiting and watching, living and living and living. She grew dizzy in their numbers.

  And before her she felt Canthem, their jaani still strong but their body growing weak. It took effort to focus on what was right there, in front of her, but as she reined in the sajaami she felt its focus shift.

  Heal, she thought, or maybe the sajaami did.

  She didn’t need to unknot her water skin. The very air was suffused with moisture. It clung to her like dew, first a sheen, then a mist, then droplets that rolled like sweat down her forehead, her arms, her back. Blue pulsed beneath her skin in time with her heart, brighter and thicker than she’d ever seen it before. The blue spread across Canthem like billowing gauze, but where it touched it stuck.

  Illi didn’t need to close her eyes. She could see the wound just as well with them open. Canthem’s forehead eased as she took away their pain. Then she spread her fingers across their chest and traced the edges of the wound. She’d been right; the arrow had pierced a lung. It’d also nicked an artery. Canthem was losing blood with every heartbeat. They didn’t have long.

  Illi didn’t need long. Blue filled the wound and pulsed beneath her hands, accelerating the body’s own ability to heal. First the artery: clot then scar tissue then smooth the arterial wall.
Next the lung, filling the hole and pushing out the arrow. She siphoned blood and other fluids from Canthem’s lung while luring the arrow out bit by bit. Normally, she would have shoved the arrow all the way through Canthem’s chest to avoid causing any further damage, but now she healed the lacerations as the arrow head retreated.

  Finally, the arrow fell out and clattered to the stones. Canthem’s eyes were closed, but they were breathing normally. No hint of the gurgle remained. Illi lifted her hands and the blue began to fade, filtering away like so much water in soil. Despite the power thrumming through her, she felt calm. Peace. Was this what Mo felt when she healed? What every healer felt? This absolute power, this knowledge that she’d thwarted G-d?

  Thwarted G-d …

  The understanding dropped into her like a glass beaker, shattering as it hit. Illi had never been able to heal like this before, not even close. This wasn’t G-d’s power: it was the sajaami’s. Laughter bubbled in her chest like overfermented wine, but it wasn’t her own. Just as the healing wasn’t.

  Essif. The first healer. Every subsequent healer.

  Yes, said Nejm. They stole that from us.

  Canthem sighed, pulling Illi back. She could ask Heru about the implications later. He’d be more than happy to oblige, probably with diagrams and charts. For now, Illi reached out and brushed a strand of dark hair from Canthem’s eyes. They fluttered open, at first glazed and unfocused, and then they found Illi.

  “What—?”

  “Shh.” Illi stayed kneeling next to them, her other hand on their chest. Through her palm, she could feel their heartbeat. Strong. Steady. Reassuring. Her hands felt unbearably light after wearing the bracelets for so long, as if they could just float up and free.