by Kelly Coon
“Well, why are there no men in the Manzazu army?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Why are there no women in other armies?”
“That’s a good question.”
“The Koru was started years ago as a small group of women who were part of a larger army of women and men. The sarratum wanted them so they could tend to her safety at all hours. But as the years passed, the men dropped out as more and more women joined, and the Palace realized that an all-female army was an advantage. Other cities often misjudge our strength to their great detriment.” She elbowed me. “It’s something you can use, too.”
“Their underestimation of me?”
She stuffed the remainder of the fish into her mouth and chewed. “You can lure someone right into the palm of your hand. And then?” She squeezed her oily hand into a fist. “You crush them.”
* * *
We rose at dawn to train.
After some lessons in finding places to hide and disguising ourselves in plain sight, Dagan and I left Iltani near Humusi’s dagger targets to meet Ummi for grappling training. But before I could even breathe a word, she flipped me over her shoulder onto my back, and told me that I needed to learn the skill, too.
An hour later, I was regretting my agreement. Wiping sweat from my brow, breathing heavily, I squinted into the sun baking my shoulders. Dagan brushed sand from his legs.
“Once more!” Ummi pointed at me to go.
“Last time—then I must move on to something else. I am exhausted.”
She frowned at me. “He’s not even wearing armor.”
“He is heavy!”
She rolled her eyes in disgust as I laid my right cheek on Dagan’s left shoulder, stabilizing his thick, sandy bicep with my right hand, while wedging his forearm into my left armpit.
“Drop, twist, and throw. Go!”
With a grunt, I did the move I’d been practicing, twisting as I fell to my knees and using the momentum to fling Dagan over my shoulder onto his back.
He landed with a whump, sending up a shower of sand.
“I did it! That’s seven times.” Breathless, I wiped sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand.
Ummi grunted, pulling me to my feet, but Dagan groaned as he stood, dusted with sand. “Seven times too many.”
“Seven times is not nearly enough, but it will have to do. As I told you before, you need to practice this to be sure you can use it when you need it.”
“I will remember it,” I panted. “Thank you for the lesson.”
“You are most welcome. I’ll meet you to do knife skills after I eat.” She jogged away toward the smells of food being cooked over the morning fire.
“What about thanking me? It was my body being abused!” Dagan feigned offense as he pulled me into a hug. I squeezed him back as tightly as I could, my arms around his waist.
“Well, you were a brilliant assistant. I offer you my humblest and deepest apologies,” I teased, pulling away from him and brushing sand off his bare torso, letting my hand linger on his warm chest. His heart beat under there, steady and true, a strong thump, thump, thump against my palm.
He took my hands in his, a grin playing around his mouth. “Perhaps you’d like to kiss me and make me better.”
I gave him a quick peck on the lips. He came back in for another, but I laughed, blushing. “I’m a sweaty, sandy mess and everyone is around.”
He trailed a sandy finger down my cheek. “You’ve never been more beautiful.”
That was a lie. It was he who was beautiful. Some of his hair had shaken loose from its knot, and it reminded me of the first time I’d woken up under the same roof as him. He’d stumbled out of his room at first light, rubbing sleep from his eyes, his hair loose around his shoulders. When he spotted me at the table, he’d shyly run his hand through his hair to try to smooth it, and I’d been filled with such fire, I’d had to stop myself from launching into his arms that very second.
And now? He was standing there, pressing me to him, love—and a bit of hunger—in his amber eyes.
For me.
So why don’t I say yes to his offer of marriage this minute? Take him back to my tent and show him how much I really love him before our futures go up in smoke?
“You’re thinking. That line is between your brows,” he murmured as he brushed sand from my shoulders. Off my arms. “But I have been thinking, too, Arammu.”
“Of what?” Heat rose to my cheeks. Marriage? Had my desire for him been so clear on my face?
His eyes twinkled. “No. Not that.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“I mean yes, definitely that, but that’s not all.”
“Oh no?” I smiled.
“No. I’ve been thinking about that favor of yours. The necklace.”
Ah. “What about it?”
“What if you…” He raised a shoulder. “What if you used the favor to beg Ummi to take the Koru into Alu? You’d be safe. Uruku could be gone, and we could move on with our lives. But this?” He waved to the weapons on our right. At Iltani throwing knives with Humusi on our left. “This will not be enough if you’re facing a group of guardsmen. And I won’t be able to be with you every second in Alu. It worries me.”
“But Ummi said she would not defy the sarratum. I don’t want to beg her to break that vow.”
“Even if it means your life? Or the life of Nanaea, who is so intent on going in with us?”
“I don’t think Ummi would do it, anyway. She is as loyal to the sarratum as Nasu is to Arwia. And she may have less desire to help me later on down the road if I push her to break her vow.”
I trailed my hands down his chest. Let them fall to my sides. “Let us see what sort of conditions we face when we get to Alu. If it is impossible, I will ride back here and beg her to use her skills to help us. They said they were not leaving Wussuru for a few more nights, so we have a little time.”
He nodded, but his eyes said he didn’t agree. “Then while we’re there, I’ll do everything in my power to ensure your safety.”
“Dagan, Nanaea has been working on our disguises and will be done before we leave. Her skills will help ensure our safety, too.”
“You have a lot of faith in a little needle.” He raised an eyebrow at me.
“We all need to have faith in something.”
MOONLIGHT GLIMMERED ON Dagan’s bare shoulders as Iltani, Nanaea, and I crept out from our cover in the scrub near the south gate of Alu and darted to the copse of sycamores where we’d stashed our cart of supplies. The donkey we’d hitched to the front stared at us mournfully, and I fed him some of our foraged watercress and rubbed his bristly nose.
“Soon, my friend. We’ll have you tucked into a nice, cozy barn soon enough.”
Nasu had told us that sticking to the south gate would be our best bet for entry, but that we’d need to be careful getting in because guards were everywhere. We’d counted at least four at the gate and several of them up on the walls, stalking vigilantly, bows in their fists, quivers full of arrows on their backs.
Though they weren’t looking for Iltani as far as we knew, she couldn’t saunter right in with Nanaea, Dagan, and me in tow in case Uruku had instructed the guardsmen to watch out for us. So we’d had to devise a plan. Iltani had suggested setting fire to the sycamores outside the gate to create a diversion because of course she had. But that would create a scene, and the last thing we wanted was to make too much of a fuss. We wanted to slip in easily, unnoticed, like ghosts.
“You’d think one of them would at least have to relieve themselves or something by now,” Nanaea whispered as we crouched along the Libbu wall in the trees. “Make it at least a little easier for Iltani to talk our way in.”
“Exactly. What are they, camels?” Iltani tugged her costume down over her hips. Nanaea had painted lines on her fa
ce and wrapped her hair in scarves, pulling scraggly strands out the front, darkening them with mud so she’d look unkempt. Iltani would be a traveling prophet, and I would be her veiled apprentice. Failing to offer assistance to one of Selu’s prophets could bring about bad luck, so we’d use the Alu tradition to our advantage. Nanaea would lie hidden in the cart under folded blankets, while Dagan was to be wrapped like a corpse and would ride in the back. Dagan had killed a gazelle on the journey from Wussuru, and we’d saved the parts of the carcass we hadn’t smoked to arrange across the top of him to add bulk.
And stink.
“It would be ideal if we could get two of them away from the gate with a small fire.”
“Iltani, we already said no to the fire.”
She winked at me lewdly. “Fine. Maybe I’ll have to start a fire of my own with one or two of them.”
“We’re not going to be bartering with—” I gestured to the length of her body.
She cackled. “I’ll be the one talking, now, won’t I?”
Dagan scowled at her as he slipped the burlap sack up to his waist. “No one has to barter with…anything. I brought coins. You can pay them to look the other way if they don’t buy your story. And I will be waiting with my daggers drawn if things go wrong.”
Iltani opened her eyes in mock indignation. “As if I couldn’t defend myself and my dear addled apprentice over here. How dare—”
“Be quiet.” I wrapped the scarves we’d borrowed from the Koru around my waist.
“None of you are any fun at all.” Iltani elbowed me in the side, her eyes clear and bright. I’d asked her not to drink from her flask so she could be watchful and wary, and more than once, I’d seen her hand straying to her belt where she’d stored it. She’d sworn there was only water in there, but I had my doubts.
“I’ll feel more fun when we’re through the gate and on Dagan’s farm.”
We’d decided that it was the safest place to set up a makeshift camp from which we could come and go, and Dagan’s ummum had plenty of tonics I could use to mix a poison strong enough to fulfill our plan. Plus, it was far enough away from the city center that we would be unnoticed.
“Kammani, here.” Nanaea handed me a dark shawl and studied me as I pulled it over my head.
“Can you see who I am?”
“No. I can tell you’re a woman and that’s it. It should be perfect. And if they ask you to take it off, the paint I put on you should disguise you well enough. I flattened your nose and made your cheeks more angular than they are. You don’t look like yourself.”
“Brilliant.” Iltani knotted a last scarf rakishly over one eye and draped mismatched and poorly strung beads around her neck. Even I was almost convinced she was someone who could commune with the gods. “Let’s get to it. I’m starving, and Dagan’s ummum is a spectacular cook.”
Dagan and Nanaea climbed into the back, and I planted one soft kiss on his lips before Iltani and I laid the stinking gazelle carcass across his body and tied him up in the sack.
“Oh gods, it smells so bad.” His muffled voice warbled from inside.
“Breathe shallowly,” I whispered. “And probably through your mouth. I’d rub some mint under your nose, but we’re out.” We wedged Nanaea tightly against the seat, stacking blankets on top and trunks in front of her, and she virtually disappeared.
My brain was a frenzy of nerves as we emerged from the trees, creaking and rocking on the cart. After a few minutes of our traveling down the path, the guards on top of the wall nocked arrows to their bows and focused them on us.
“They see us,” I hissed.
“I knowww,” Iltani sang softly under her breath. “Now shut up, and let me do the talking.”
“Stop where you are,” one of the guardsmen at the gate gruffly commanded when we were fifty or so handsbreadths away. He and the other men standing nearby also nocked arrows in their bows, and pointed them at our chests.
“Helloooooo, gentlemen,” Iltani called, pitching her voice deep and crackly, adding a round Manzazu accent that was thoroughly believable. My nerves jangled, a sharp contrast to her bravado.
“What business do you have here so late at night?” The guardsman leveled his arrow at us. “Come closer.”
Iltani cracked the reins on the donkey’s back, and with a snort, it ambled slightly faster until we were close enough to see the men’s faces. The one talking had gray in his beard, but the other three were younger.
“I’m here to tell the fortunes of Alu’s citizens.” She added a leer that could have curled a man’s toes. “Do you want to hear yours?”
“Go back home.” The older guardsman jerked his bow toward the road behind us. “We don’t want your kind in the city.”
She laughed, deep and throaty. “But I am a prophet of Selu! Do you wish to bring bad luck upon yourselves and your families?”
The man scowled. “Get out of here.”
Iltani squinted and leaned toward him. “I knew you would say that. The evil Alani whispers all sorts of things in my ear, like what you think about laaaaaate at night when noooooobody else is around.” She waggled a finger at him. “You naughty boy.”
His eyes popped open in shock. “Get out of here, I said. Go!”
Iltani tapped the donkey with the reins, but he balked, recognizing an order when he heard one. She sighed dramatically and smacked the donkey’s behind with her hand. The beast wheezed and hotfooted it forward toward the men. She yanked the reins when we were in spitting distance. All four trained their arrows on our chests, and two circled back behind the cart, eyeballing the contents.
“Fine gentlemen, won’t you let us in and spare yourselves some bad luck? We’re simply two prophets earning coin to eat. We won’t stay longer than a day.”
“Let me see who is under the veil.”
My heart banged behind my rib cage, and I dug my fingers into Iltani’s arm.
“Sadly, this one was kicked in the head by a horse as a wee babe, and now tells fortunes with eyes that are permanently crossed. We only veiled her to spare you from having to gaze upon her hideous face.”
Oh great.
“Remove the veil anyway.”
“Ah, someone who doesn’t mind a little bit of a thrill. Well? As you wish.” She yanked the veil from my head in a flourish. I crossed my eyes and looked in the man’s direction, and Iltani nearly choked. Quickly, she threw the veil back over my head with a cough. “See? A tragedy.”
“Yaryk,” one of the guardsmen called from behind the cart. “They’ve got a body. And it stinks.”
The older guardsman stared hard at us and tightened his grip on his bow. “What reason do you have bringing a corpse into the city?”
At that, Iltani stood, violently shaking the cart. “I warn you, guardsmen. Do not go near the body of my deceased husband. He has been cursed! I have to bathe him thrice in waters from the Alu well, or the entire city will go up in flames.”
The guardsmen backed slowly away from Dagan.
All but one.
He kept his arrow trained on the sack enshrouding his body.
Please don’t move, my love. Please.
“Is that so?” The guardsman stepped closer. A mere twenty handsbreadths away.
“It is, sir, it is!”
But before either one of us could stop him, he fired his arrow into the burlap sack.
No!
“Oh well, now you have done it!” Iltani shrieked, panic on her face. I clutched her hand. “You have awakened the wrath of the gods for violating a dead man. Especially one who is cursed! Now his curse will spill out on you unless I reverse it in the sacred Alu waters!”
My heart pounded ruthlessly as I stared at the sack. A circle of blood bloomed on the burlap.
My love!
Under the veil, I bit my lip so I didn’t scream,
refusing to give in to panic. I could stitch a wound from an arrow if we moved quickly enough. I had everything I needed. We needed to turn around so I could heal him, right now.
“Iltani!”
She shook me off and spoke under her breath. “Wait.”
The older guardsman rubbed a hand down his face. “Why’d you do that? Get away from the cart,” he shouted to the man who’d fired the arrow.
The other guardsman shrugged, his eyes wide. “I was making sure they told it true! It is a dead body. It didn’t flinch!”
“Dead men don’t flinch, you imbecile!”
“Let us through so I may reverse the curse.” Iltani pointed resolutely toward the gate, and the men backed away. “Your very lives are at stake if I do not. You’ve unleashed the Boatman’s wrath!”
The older guardsman took two steps back, his jaw clenching and unclenching. “Get on with you, then. And be sure you do whatever you need to do to get rid of the curse. I have a family.”
“I will pray for their souls.” Iltani slapped the donkey’s rump again, and we creaked through the gate, while the guardsmen all bellowed at the man who’d fired the arrow.
I tried to remain calm as we ambled away from their voices to head down a narrow path into the city. We came to a grove of fruit trees after several minutes of me hissing at Iltani to stop. She pulled inside the cover of the trees, hiding us, and I leapt out of the cart while Iltani freed Nanaea from her hiding space. Together, we frantically yanked at the ropes around Dagan’s shroud.
“Dagan!” I whispered, my fingers working desperately at the knots.
“Get me out of here, Kammani.” His voice was muffled and sounded off, and my heart wanted to burst.
When I finally yanked the sack away from his face, I was greeted by a grimace.
“Get this dead thing off me.”