The skirmish was over in minutes, the Malasani ships destroyed, subdued, or fled.
Husamettín ordered them around the barriers, and while it became clear they would reach the wounded ships before the Mirean dunebreakers did, it was going to be a near thing.
As the distance was closed, Husamettín ordered their ships to aim for the very gap they’d just sailed through. They slowed their pace, threw rope ladders over the gunwales, and helped hundreds of survivors to climb to safety. The Miscreant alone took on fifty additional crewmen and soldiers. Other ships rescued as many or more.
But slowing their ships meant that the dunebreakers had had time to narrow the gap between them, and now they’d be on the royal navy in moments.
But here they made another mistake. They’d ordered themselves into a column, planning to follow the royal navy through the gap in the barricades. Husamettín, anticipating it, ordered the three rearmost galleons to come in lengthwise, to drop their rakes and stop themselves in a line, effectively closing off the gap in the barricades.
Those ships had already been reduced to skeleton crews, the rest having swung over to other ships, and the few still aboard dropped the rakes, cut the sails, then abandoned their ships and ran over the sand to the waiting galleons ahead of them.
Husamettín had managed to save well over half the soldiers in their fleet, something which had seemed impossible only a short while ago.
But by then, the second half of the Malasani fleet, the group they’d avoided earlier, had sailed ahead and set up a defensive line. They couldn’t hope to stand against what remained of the Sharakhani fleet, but their goal was to delay, not defeat them outright.
The lead dunebreakers crashed into the abandoned galleons. So massive were the Mirean ships that they pushed the galleons along the sand like sledges. The ships at the lead came to a sliding stop, but maneuvered the galleons wide of the central path while doing so. Ihsan heard the Mirean soldiers cheer as a narrow lane was created for other dunebreakers to sail through.
Husamettín, meanwhile, called for their galleons to punch through the Malasani line. In some cases they succeeded, but much of the fleet became mired in the conflict. Ship after ship was brought to a halt, either by cat’s claws, enemy boardings, or the Malasani dhows throwing themselves into their path.
After a valiant effort, the tide was beginning to turn against them again, and horns called for all ships to stop, to gather in a defensive circle, and to prepare to fight the enemy to the death. Ihsan feared this moment, as the Malasani ships closed in and arrows began to thud against the deck. Nayyan’s eyes met his. She had a bow in hand, an arrow nocked. We can escape on a skiff if need be, she’d said earlier.
Ihsan tipped his head aft, where the skiffs were lashed to the side of the ship. “Take her. Save our daughter.”
Nayyan was already shaking her head. “Even if I escape”—she glanced down at her belly—“I’ll not be able to protect her tomorrow. But you can use your power. You can see her safe.”
The fates preserve him, he nearly commanded her to take Ransaneh and sail away. But it wouldn’t be right. She deserved to choose the manner of her own death. She deserved to know the truth about him as well. He’d hidden it from her long enough. The confession was right there on his lips: I’m dying. The black mould has found me as well.
Before he could utter a word of it, Yndris pointed to an approaching dhow with the bow. “Beware!” she cried. “Look to the catapult.”
On the dhow’s deck, a strange contraption had been set up. It was indeed a catapult, but much larger than those used for cat’s claws and fire pots. In the cradle, ready to be launched, was a wiry looking soldier, curled up in a ball.
“Let fly!” called the Malasani captain, and the catapult’s lever was released.
The arm arced forward, then thudded against the stanchion, but the soldier flew on. His arms windmilled as he soared toward the Miscreant’s stern. Yndris shot an arrow, catching him in the thigh. Nayyan did the same and clipped his left arm.
It didn’t stop him, though, and he held a long, curving fighting knife in one hand. As Yndris drew her shamshir and sprinted toward him, he landed awkwardly on the quarterdeck, just in front of the transom. Ihsan thought he was going for the helmsman, but he wasn’t.
“Halt!” Ihsan cried in Malasani.
He put power into the word. A terrible pain burned his tongue, his jaw, even his teeth. Worse, the command failed. The saboteur kept going.
Ibrahim was suddenly there. He threw himself on the soldier, hoping to stop him, but Ibrahim was old and frail and the soldier tossed him aside like a child. As Ibrahim crumpled to the deck, the soldier slashed at the rope that held the ship’s rake in place. Yndris was on him a moment later. Her blurring shamshir cut deep into his neck, and a fount of blood issued from the wound, but the damage had already been done.
The rake fell against the sand and cut deep furrows, slowing the ship precipitously until it came to a sudden, mast-shuddering halt.
“All hands retreat to the Bastion!” Ihsan called. “Prepare to fight your way through!”
The crew gathered on the sand, preparing to charge for the cluster of Sharakhani galleons. Nayyan and Yndris led the way down the Miscreant’s gangplank. Ihsan followed, with Ransaneh’s wet nurse, who held Ransaneh tightly against her chest, coming last. With their crew leading the way, they ran toward the Bastion.
What followed was sheer madness. The Malasani had ordered many of their ships stopped as well. They came in a screaming wave, scimitars in hand. Nayyan was a demon with a blade. With fire in her eyes, she cut down enemy after enemy. Ihsan fought as well, but he’d never been gifted with a sword and could do little. As three brutes carrying war clubs closed in on them, Yndris flew in and cut one down from behind. Felled another as the enemy turned to meet the new threat. Nayyan took the third, dodging two clumsy blows from his war club, then slicing through his gut with such speed all Ihsan saw was the blur of her dark blade and the crimson burst trailing behind it.
They’d gained themselves a few seconds but, gods, the nearby dunes were thick with the enemy already. More were leaping over the sides of the dhows by the moment, and the dunebreakers weren’t far off. Soon, they would disgorge hundreds of fresh soldiers. It was going to be a massacre.
The Malasani nipped at their heels. Others sprinted ahead, hoping to cut them off. Many slowed, however, when they saw King Husamettín leading a dozen Blade Maidens and a hundred Silver Spears toward them.
“Husamettín!” came the cry from the Malasani.
They seemed eager to be the one to slay the fabled King. But Husamettín cut down all enemies who stood before him. Night’s Kiss buzzed and rattled, eager to drink the blood of its enemies, to cut through sword, shield, and flesh alike. The Blade Maidens fanned out around their King, dealing death, while the Silver Spears joined with those from the Miscreant to form a defensive line against the Malasani.
And by the gods, they held. The Malasani were driven back as they made an ordered retreat toward the Bastion. Soon, Ihsan, Nayyan, Ransaneh, and her wet nurse had gained the deck, a miracle in and of itself.
“Ram!” came a cry from behind Ihsan.
He turned to see a dunebreaker with an iron-capped prow and grinning dragon figurehead coming straight toward them. It crashed into the Bastion moments later. Intermingling with the great boom of the two ships colliding were the sounds of hull boards snapping, wooden beams shattering. As the galleon was shoved sideways along the sand, everyone aboard was thrown to the deck.
The ship hadn’t even come to a halt before blue-uniformed soldiers carrying round shields and tassled dao swords were leaping from the dunebreaker’s bowsprit to the Bastion’s main deck. The Silver Spears engaged, in a fight for their lives, and extracted a heavy toll from the Mirean invaders, but already more of the enemy were leaping down or sliding along ropes.
> The battle quickly spread to the foredeck and quarterdeck. Husamettín fought. Nayyan and Yndris too. Hundreds more were locked in battle beside them, but they had no hope of stemming the tide.
It was as another dunebreaker approached that Ihsan realized an inexplicably fierce wind had kicked up. Dust and sand blew. Began to bite. It felt as if the desert itself had turned against them, as if it wanted to cover them with dust, bury them beneath the amber sea, and forget they ever were.
A hundred ships were now engaged in battle, with more being drawn in by the moment. Mounted Qirin warriors felled all who stood before them. A charge of small Mirean ponies fell upon a regiment of Silver Spears, tearing them to pieces.
And all the while the wind continued to rise. It stung the skin. A haze lifted, turning all to amber, and the sounds of battle decreased as more and more soldiers lowered their weapons and tried to shelter from the biting sand.
A distant horn blew a series of notes—two short low notes, one long high note. The sequence was echoed by a second horn, then more and more. It was coming from the Mirean dunebreakers. It had been a long while since Ihsan had studied their signals, but he remembered this one. It meant enemy sighted.
The battle on the Bastion devolved into chaos. The dead lay across the decks and the sand below. The clash of steel rose high. The cries of soldiers were everywhere, shouts of anguish, the desperate roars of those besieged. Arrows peppered the biting, dust-streaked air.
Nayyan took down a Mirean soldier with a tassled helmet just in front of Ihsan as another horn called, this time from the dunebreaker that loomed above them, the one that had crashed into the Bastion. Soldiers on the dunebreaker’s decks turned away, and Ihsan followed their line of vision, but saw nothing save dust, soldiers, and the hulls of nearby ships.
Then he caught a glimpse of bright sails in the sea of amber, a dark hull growing more and more substantial. Ihsan knew that ship. It was Çeda’s: the Red Bride. The yacht was followed by the larger Amaranth, and more ships besides. As more Mirean horns sounded the alarm, ship after ship resolved from the liquid backdrop of the sandstorm. A score of ships, then two score. Then a hundred or more.
It was the tribes, Ihsan realized. Çeda had rallied them to her cause.
A sound rose above the battle. Desert warriors lining the gunwales beat their swords against their shields in an incessant rhythm. Throom, throom, throom. It grew in volume the closer they came. Soon the vastness of their fleet was revealed. The tribes had brought close to five hundred ships with thousands of warriors, all of them eager to wage war.
At their head, standing at the bowsprit of the Red Bride, was a warrior clad in white armor. She bore a buckler and River’s Daughter, an ebon steel blade. The leather breastplate and battle skirt, the armor she’d once used in the pits, was nicked and worn. The steel helm she wore had a wolf pelt atop it, and a mask of shining bright steel in the guise of Nalamae. It was Çeda, the White Wolf once more.
Like the others, she beat her shamshir against her shield. The sound was already deafening, but as their line of ships approached, the desert warriors added their voices. They roared while quickening the drumbeat of their weapons.
Behind Çeda stood two Blade Maidens: Sümeya and Kameyl. Emre was there as well, a bow in hand, and the hulk they called Frail Lemi, who bore the greatspear, Umber. They all waited as the Bride sailed swiftly toward the Bastion. When it came near, Çeda leapt aboard and tore into a group of Mirean soldiers. Sümeya and Kameyl followed. Frail Lemi thumped onto the foredeck and swung his spear in a mighty sweep, sending three Mireans over the gunwales.
Arrow after arrow streaked in from Emre’s bow. With surgical precision, they lodged into the throats or chests of the Mirean officers. Others from the thirteenth tribe followed, all screaming and wielding bows, shamshirs, or spears, pushing the enemy back. With a cry born of hope and desperation, the Blade Maidens and Silver Spears joined them.
Beyond the Bastion, the desert was awash with the ships and warriors of the desert tribes. Ship after ship hemmed the lead dunebreakers in. Ihsan understood the tactic immediately: overwhelm the lead ships to give the impression of an indomitable enemy. Debilitate enough of the Mirean vanguard, and the rest would flee in hopes of regrouping before all was lost.
In little time, a half-dozen dunebreakers and half the Malasani fleet were overwhelmed. Above the sounds of battle, Ihsan heard a lone word being called in Mirean over and over, the word for demon. It had come from high up, the lookout in their vulture’s nest, he realized. Moments later the ship’s horn sounded again. This time it gave one long note followed by three quick ones—the signal for retreat.
More horns followed, the signal passing along the Mirean line. It spurred the royal navy and the desert tribes, both. An unlikely, unified force, they fell upon the enemy with renewed zeal and turned the battle. The enemy ships were fleeing. The desert tribes, smelling blood, harried their flanks, grounding a dozen more ships and falling upon them with no mercy.
A heavy drumbeat sounded, a signal from the tribes to regroup. By then the battle on the Bastion was slowing. Mirean soldiers had leapt overboard and fled. The same was true of many other ships, both Mirean and Malasani, the soldiers hoping to reach the safety of their fleeing ships.
As the sounds of battle ebbed, Çeda reached Ihsan’s cluster, removed her helm, and approached. Husamettín was there, as were Nayyan and Yndris. Sümeya and Kameyl came to stand behind Çeda, then Emre and Frail Lemi. The wind, so strong earlier, was ebbing now. Sand was falling like rain, pattering against the deck, against their helms, turbans, and armor.
“Well met,” Çeda said.
“Well met,” said Ihsan.
For once, he was all but speechless. So was everyone else, apparently. The desert tribes had just saved the royal navy. They’d saved a pair of Kings they’d once hoped to destroy—and might still.
“Hey, Emre”—Frail Lemi lifted one massive arm and pointed south—“what’s that?”
All eyes turned. The air had cleared enough to see the horizon, which roiled like heat lifting off the desert. But it was no mirage. Ihsan had seen the same sort of vision as the Miscreant approached the Hollow days earlier.
“It’s Meryam,” Ihsan said. “And Ashael.”
Chapter 40
Çeda, wearing the armor of the White Wolf, stood on the deck of the Bastion. Her breath was on her from the pitched battle that had just ended. Sümeya and Kameyl stood beside her, swords still drawn, their chests heaving too. Not far away, Emre, wearing a beaten scale armor breastplate, stood beside Frail Lemi and Shal’alara. Husamettín, Ihsan, Nayyan, and Yndris were gathered near the mainmast. Circling them were dozens of Blade Maidens, hundreds of Silver Spears, and the warriors of the desert tribes. As the dust from the windstorm Çeda had summoned continued to settle, all eyes stared at the dark cloud in the distance.
“Gods,” Sümeya said, “the size of it.”
Çeda flexed her right hand, shaking away the burning pain. The old wound felt hot, even infected. What had started as a sour sensation in her gut when she’d first sensed the horde’s approach now felt painful, like a disease spreading. The acacia’s vision of Ashael floating above the ground while his host poured into the sky had terrified her, but it was nothing compared to what she felt as she watched the horde bearing down on them.
“We have to stay ahead of them,” Çeda said.
There was much Çeda needed to discuss with Husamettín and Ihsan—she needed to share what she’d learned, and she needed to learn all they knew of the horde—but any delay would see their ships overrun.
Husamettín nodded to a Blade Maiden who wore the First Warden’s insignia, a shield with a lone shamshir beneath it, on her right shoulder. She immediately began bellowing orders to make all sandworthy ships ready to sail. As the orders were passed, Blade Maidens, Silver Spears, and ships’ crews moved to obey. Emre, meanwhile, passed
the same orders to the warriors of the desert tribes, and the crowd on the deck quickly thinned.
“The royal navy sails north,” Husamettín said to Çeda, an unspoken request for the desert tribes to join them.
Çeda had known Husamettín as a commander—he was also her father, though she didn’t view him as such. She’d never known him to be a circumspect man, but admitting that the royal navy needed their help was apparently a bridge too far for him.
“Bloody gods,” she said, “can we agree that for the time being we’re united?”
Husamettín stood there, warring with himself, then gave her a sharp nod. “We’ll send orders once we’re under sail.”
“Send us orders?” Frail Lemi barked a laugh at Husamettín. “We saved you!”
Çeda held Husamettín’s gaze, letting the words sink in. “We take no orders from the Kings of Sharakhai. The shaikhs will meet on the Amaranth. I hope you’ll join us.” She waved toward the approaching cloud on the horizon. “We have much to discuss.”
Frail Lemi began walking away. “We saved you!” he repeated, louder this time, as he reached the gangplank and headed down toward the sand.
Color rose in Husamettín’s cheeks as he stared at Lemi’s retreating form and took in the desert tribes’ vast fleet. Without another word, he spun on his heel and strode away into the captain’s cabin and closed the door behind him.
Çeda stood there, furious. She nearly went after him. She’d kick the door in if she had to. But suddenly Ishan was there, his hands held up in a sign of peace.
Çeda waved toward the cabin. “Get him to come, Ihsan. We need him.”
“He’ll come”—Ihsan began backing away—“even if I have to give up my Kingdom to do it.” He winked, then headed for the cabin.
With that, a small amount of tension was released, enough that Çeda realized she needed to leave the ship and begin making her own preparations. She left the Bastion with Emre and the others and headed for the Amaranth.
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