Everywhere there were disorganized pockets of Malasani soldiers, Silver Spears, and Sharakhani people. Among them were the black uniforms of the Blade Maidens, who caused havoc wherever they went, but they were too few to stand against so many, especially given the golems, which moved steadfastly forward, clubbing any who were near. And though the Silver Spears and Maidens would occasionally bring one down, each small victory cost dozens of lives.
As they rushed down the stairs toward the cluster of waiting horses, Davud said, “The city is lost.”
But then something strange happened. The golems stopped. Stood stock-still. One lifted a hand and pointed south. So did another. The effect spread, until all of them were doing it. Just standing there, pointing an accusatory finger like a father toward an unrepentant son. And then they went simply, utterly mad.
They began pounding over the ground haphazardly, their strange faces blooming into wild expressions of pain or agony or rage or simple, unalloyed surprise. With the verve of a zealot they tore into their own ranks, or the Silver Spears if they happened to be in the way. They seemed to be searching for something.
Other golems, Davud realized.
When they happened upon another golem, it was as if both had seen the one who’d murdered their mother, and they became bent on their destruction. The battles between them were terrible, and all, Malasani and Sharakhani alike, gave them a wide berth.
“Time to go,” Cicio said, who was mounted on a war horse and was holding his hand out for Davud to take.
Davud realized he’d been staring. With Cicio’s help, he swung onto the saddle behind him, then off they rode. The House of Maidens had been breached, its stout gates sundered, but the forces of Malasan now trembled. With their greatest weapon taken from them, the Silver Spears and Maidens pushed the invaders back out through the gates and into the city.
Ramahd’s host followed, broke through the lines, and were soon into the city proper. The sounds of battle faded, and the events of the Sun Palace felt more and more like a fever dream.
Chapter 65
WITHIN THE WALLS of the ancient fortress, Leorah listened to the fading sounds of battle. The terrible memories of standing in the courtyard while the Kings’ soldiers came ever closer to breaking through were still bright within her mind.
She knelt on a folded blanket beside the goddess Nalamae, who lay on a bed of rushes. Nalamae had never fully recovered from Beşir’s arrow—it had struck too near to her heart. With Leorah’s help, Nalamae had managed to stave off death, but it was a battle waged daily, and a losing one at that.
Nalamae’s sightless eyes stared toward the leaden sky. The lyrewing had told them Macide and Çeda were on their way. It had given everyone in the fortress hope, but it hardly seemed to matter once the battle had been joined. Things had seemed grim until a woman along the wall had spotted Çeda’s signal.
“Now,” Leorah had told Nalamae, who had nodded and closed her eyes.
The sky turned gray, and the battle turned. Beşir’s forces were routed and the tribe’s soldiers within the walls had cheered and shouted ululations and were soon sallying forth to help with the rout, pressing the advantage while they could.
As the sounds of battle faded, the lines of combat drifting away from the fortress, Nalamae’s brow furrowed. “Çeda,” she said weakly. “Çeda’s in trouble.”
“What is it?” Leorah asked, scooting closer.
“It hasn’t worked. Beşir still has his power.”
They’d struggled long into the night with the two poems, Beşir’s bloody verses. One seemed to indicate that pewter skies would undo Beşir. Another told of Rhia’s face doing the same. But Çeda had fought Beşir beneath Rhia’s light and he hadn’t been affected then, just as he wasn’t affected now. They’d either misinterpreted them both or they were simply the wrong verses.
“Rhia’s eye,” Leorah murmured. A memory had been tickling in her mind, but gods help her, she hadn’t been able to remember it. “Not ’neath Rhia’s eye.”
She’d read a thousand stories of the gods and the Kings in hope of learning the secrets that would one day undo them. She’d used some to arm Ahya, Çeda’s mother. She’d used others to help the tribe in the days since. There was one story that mentioned Rhia’s eye, but Leorah’s mind wasn’t what it used to be, and it slipped through her fingers like sand.
Nalamae groaned. Her breathing came faster. “No,” she said in alarm.
Before Leorah could ask her what she meant, movement attracted her attention. The front gate was still open from the soldiers pouring forth. Those who remained were the infirm, the wounded, the young. They were clustered around the open gate, bows or spears in hand, and their faces had transformed from a cautious sort of hope to confusion and fear. Some were backing away, hands batting the air in front of them. Leorah had no idea why at first. But then she saw them: blue moths, dozens of them, hundreds, thousands, swarming through the open gate as her people backed farther away.
The moths were bright blue, but as they started to swirl around the men and women, the girls and boys, they turned black. An old man with only one hand fell to his knees, then dropped face-first onto the stones of the courtyard. His wife followed. Then their grandchild, a girl of eight with a bright smile and dimpled cheeks. Each was harried by the midnight moths.
They spread like fog. Whoever they came near stilled their movements and fell to the ground, until the only safe place was the very center of the courtyard where Leorah rested with Nalamae. All others had fallen—asleep or dead, Leorah wasn’t sure.
The moths fluttered around Nalamae but were prevented from coming near. In a column they swarmed, beating madly against Nalamae’s final defense. Leorah stood with the help of Nalamae’s tall staff. After steadying herself, she whipped it back and forth, trying to crush the moths, to scare them away, but they were elusive and persistent. Slowly but steadily, the area around Nalamae shrank.
Leorah shivered at movement near the gate. Through the arched entrance strode a woman, tall and fair, her hair unbound and flowing in the breeze. She wore an ancient battle dress made of ivory leather and cloth and fine chainmail and bore a long spear made of silver and light. Most striking were her violet eyes, which were cast upon Nalamae where she lay unmoving, all but defenseless. Leorah was not wholly surprised to see Yerinde here. Nalamae had feared her return, and seemed to accept it as inevitable.
“Leave her!” came a reedy voice.
Standing at the opposite end of the courtyard was Sehid-Alaz, bearing a long black shamshir that drew the very light from the air. Lifting the sword high with both hands, he ran toward her with a strange gait, black blood pouring from a wound in his calf. The moths swarmed him, yet he ran through them as if they were naught but autumn leaves. Yerinde turned, held one hand toward him, fingers splayed, and Sehid-Alaz slowed. Came to a stop. Stared hopelessly into her violet eyes.
Thy duties have yet to be fulfilled, King of Thirteenth Tribe, Yerinde said. So sleep. Sleep with your children while you may.
With this she leaned forward and kissed his forehead.
Sehid-Alaz crumpled to the ground. Night’s Kiss fell to the stones with a clang, a momentary hum. With his fall, a memory was jarred within Leorah. An ancient tale of Yerinde’s capture of Tulathan, how Rhia searched the desert wide for her, how her anger had come to rival the terrible fuming mountains in the southwest. She became certain that mortals had somehow managed to steal her sister and hide her away. She searched often, but was angriest when the sun was high. It became a fearful time, and some began to call the hours when the sun was brightest Rhia’s eye, for it was when she most often descended on the wandering tribes and tortured them for information about Tulathan.
“The sun!” Leorah breathed to Nalamae. “We need the sun!”
Nalamae blinked. Her blind eyes moved rapidly, as if struggling to solve the same mystery. “Of course,”
she said in a rapturous voice. “Of course. I see it now.”
Above, the clouds began to break and the sun shone through.
Yerinde laughed, a sound that was not loud but for a moment drowned out all else. The solving of a riddle will not save you, sister.
As Yerinde stepped closer to Nalamae, the moths closed in. One touched Leorah’s cheek. Another her arm. And she remembered no more.
Çeda rejoined the world. It filled her senses like water from a well—the fortress wall; the dry, open ground beneath it; a fractured sky revealing more and more of the hot, glaring sun.
She’d left herself open to attack when she grabbed Beşir. He struck her with the pommel of his sword, then crashed his fist into her face, managing to release his arm in the process. It stunned her for a moment. She fell to her knees and barely managed to avoid his kick. It caught River’s Daughter near the hilt, however, and she lost her grip. It went flying down the slope to her right.
She rolled away from a downward chop, blocked another kick, and regained her feet. Knife in hand, she approached Beşir. With the bright sun casting deep shadows across his face, his fear was plain to see. More than this, however, he seemed frail. His breath came in long rasps. His face was haggard and his lower jaw quivered from the effort.
He retreated, taking long, sloppy steps to move deeper into the shade of the ironwood trees. He stopped when he saw dark forms hiding in the shade.
The first to step out from beneath them was Mavra. Next came Sedef. Then Amile and Huuri and Imwe. They spread out, cutting off Beşir’s escape. Apparently resolved to it, he turned resignedly toward Çeda. “You won’t win,” he said. “The gods themselves are on our side.”
“Oh? Where are your gods now?”
With that he rushed her. He swung once, twice, and each time Çeda dodged easily. His face was a terrible grimace, as if the mere swing of a sword caused him pain. It was the sun, Çeda understood. The naked sun was causing him pain.
It was only a matter of time for her to find her opening, which she did after Beşir committed a terrible overreach in trying to slice her neck. She swept in, gripped his sword hand, and drove her kenshar, her mother’s kenshar, deep into his gut.
Beşir’s eyes went wide. His sword clanged to the ground. His whole body quavered as he staggered backward while fumbling at a pouch on his belt. From the pouch he retrieved a glass vial filled with a blue liquid so bright it almost glowed. Before Çeda could stop him, he’d pulled the stopper and lifted it to his lips, but his hands were shaking so badly he got no more than a drop before it slipped from his grasp and fell to the stones with a crystalline chime.
As the elixir was drawn into the thirsty ground, Beşir glanced over one shoulder, then the other, staring at the encroaching asirim. He coughed as the asirim stopped a few paces away, hungry, waiting. They were filled with such need Çeda felt it in her bones, and none was greater than Mavra’s. Yet still they waited, ceding to Çeda the right to kill him.
“No, grandmother,” Çeda said, “he’s yours. Take him.”
Beşir stared into Çeda’s eyes as though he wanted to say something, but just then Mavra took him down from behind. Amile came next. Then Sedef and the twins. His screams filled the valley until his body finally lay bloody and broken and torn, his eyes staring sightlessly at the blinding sun.
When it was done, Çeda spit on his lifeless corpse, then peered down along the slope behind her, searching for River’s Daughter. She’d just spotted it in a bush far below when a scream rang out from the fortress. Nalamae, Çeda knew instantly. The asirim cowered in fear. Çeda felt a presence within their minds that prevented them from approaching the fortress. They couldn’t so much as look at it. They whined and cast their gazes down and crawled away into the trees.
Seeing the postern door still open, Çeda flew toward it, unprepared for the surreal scene that met her. Within the courtyard, men, women, children, the young and the old, along the ramparts, on the ground or within the doorways leading to the keep, all lay unconscious. Fluttering over them, so thick in some places they occluded what lay below, were swarms of black moths with iridescent wings. Nowhere were they thicker than on the far side of the courtyard, close to the main gate. They were so thick Çeda could see little within, only the hint of a feminine shape standing tall over another who lay on the ground.
For a moment it was all Çeda could do to think.
It’s Yerinde. Yerinde has come.
She was speaking to Nalamae, though her words were distorted and garbled by the moths, and Çeda heard little clearly. Certain that Yerinde would send the moths for her as well, Çeda walked silently, making her way catlike over bodies, over fallen weapons, always with an eye on the thick cloud of moths.
Just outside the swarm, unmoving, was Sehid-Alaz. Night’s Kiss lay on the stones beside him, the blade dark in the bright of day. Çeda crouched and picked it up, felt the blade vibrate and hum as she did so. The fluttering of the moths was all around her, strong like a sandstorm. Still, she worried the buzzing of the sword would give her away.
She was still paces away from the center of the cloud, and had no idea how she would make it inside. She might try to run through them but surely if she did the same fate that had befallen everyone else in the courtyard would befall her too. Seeing no other way, she was ready to try it anyway when she noticed a change. The moths were beginning to part, forming a corridor of sorts.
It was Nalamae, Çeda knew. Nalamae was creating a path for her to follow.
The goddess lay on a bed of rushes. The tip of a bright silver spear was stuck through her chest just above the arrow wound delivered by Beşir’s bow, and a woman with long, unbound hair still held the spear. She was every bit as tall as Nalamae, but possessed of finer features and violet eyes that made her seem wicked, malevolent.
“Every touch,” Nalamae was saying, her words now clear, “is another thread that binds you to them. Binds you to this world.”
So I’ve known, Yerinde replied. So we’ve all known. But it won’t matter in the end.
“Will it not?” Nalamae said.
In answer, Yerinde yanked the spear free, drawing a fresh scream from Nalamae.
Çeda, meanwhile, stepped carefully forward. She held Night’s Kiss steady, willing it to silence with each step she took. The sword, its incessant buzz nearly drowned in the leaflike rattle of moth wings, bowed to her will and for once held its peace, perhaps knowing that to draw attention now would give them both away.
But the hunger in it. It had fed upon many lives during the battle. It should have been enough to satisfy its dark cravings, and yet there, before a god of the desert, it felt empty, ravenous, nearly crazed in its desires, so much so that it was difficult for Çeda to control it, to keep her steps steady.
Nalamae spoke, “There’s one thing you’ve failed to consider.”
Oh? And what is that?
“That I’ve had time to reflect on my binding to this world, while you have not. I’ve come to embrace it, while you fear it above all else. You took great care, forcing the Kings to do your bidding, preventing you from being bound to this place, but now you stand before me. I know the inner workings of this world like no other, and when I die, I will return to it. You, however, will simply cease to be. You will be neither here nor in the world beyond. You will become but a memory, fading through time until nothing remains, not even your name.”
Yerinde looked like she’d been struck. She stared at the stones beneath her feet. She spread the fingers of one hand wide, turning it over and over as if she were coming to some staggering realization. It cannot be, Yerinde said as her gaze slipped back to Nalamae. It cannot be!
Nalamae smiled sadly. “Your quest ends here, sister.”
Yerinde’s face screwed up in anger. With a guttural yell she lifted her spear high and brought it down hard into the center of Nalamae’s chest.
“No!” Çeda screamed and ran forward, holding Night’s Kiss high overhead.
The sword became an alloy forged of potent will, of rage and hunger and patience lost. Yerinde turned with widened eyes. She tried to lift the spear, but Nalamae, her bloody teeth bared, had grabbed the haft. A long groan escaped her, and the muscles along her forearms stood out as she used both hands to hold Yerinde’s weapon firmly in place.
Yerinde abandoned the spear and turned to Çeda, raising her hands and casting symbols in the air. But in that moment Çeda pressed on her as she had in the desert with the sickletail. The goddess paused, only for a moment, but it was enough for Çeda to close the distance and bring Night’s Kiss down with all her might. The buzzing rose to impossible heights, drowning out all other sounds save Yerinde’s high scream. The vibration rattled Çeda’s arms, numbed them, and the blade cut down through Yerinde’s shoulder and deep into her chest.
She’d lost her grip on the spear and now held Night’s Kiss along the blade. Her violet eyes stared toward the horizon. One arm hung limp and useless. The other moved instinctively, heedless of the slicing of her fingers. She dropped to her knees. Fell to the flagstones.
Çeda yanked Night’s Kiss free and it gave a long, satisfied purr. Yerinde stared at Nalamae, blinking rapidly, her breath coming in bursts. Blood the wrong shade of red foamed at her mouth.
And then she went still and fell to the stones, and Çeda let Night’s Kiss fall with her, disgusted by the sword’s deep satisfaction. The moths went mad, filling the courtyard’s every inch, then they dissolved, lifting like embers on the wind. No longer obstructed by clouds of black wings, the brightness of the sun shone down, lighting the grim scene inside the courtyard in stark relief.
Beneath the Twisted Trees Page 63