Warmaidens

by Kelly Coon

  Then we headed to Alu.

  “It is impossible to breathe in this beard. Nanaea, you did not account for us having to stay alive while we sneak.”

  “Be quiet!” I glared at Iltani. “You’re the one who insisted on going into the city as a man, too. You could’ve been safe as yourself, and you know it. So please, for Selu’s sake, stop fidgeting.”

  My throat tight, I ducked under Gala’s arm with Nanaea and Iltani as he let us through the west gate. Dagan had introduced us as diminutive tradesmen from Laraak, and we pressed coins into his hands silently as we moved past to make sure he at least pretended to believe us.

  Nanaea had shaded circles under my eyes and darkened my eyebrows, but I couldn’t seem to get my voice low enough to please anyone. So I was to feign muteness. Iltani, her voice pitched deeper than a drum, with a hint of a rasp, would do all of our bartering.

  Dagan had been given a Laraak trader costume as well, sewn furiously by Nanaea to accommodate his height and breadth, and with the Koru’s gray paint in his beard and tiny lines expertly painted into his forehead and around his eyes, he looked twenty years older than he was.

  In the daylight, Alu was even more of a mess than I thought. The impoverished section of the city along the wall wasn’t just half-burned; the residents here looked half-starved as well. My throat tightened as we walked by a little boy, his shoulder blades stuck out from his back, cheeks hollow, holding up a bowl. I dropped a handful of shekels into it as we passed, and Iltani roughly grabbed my arm.

  “The street vermin will give you lice, Azizi.”

  “He is dying.” My chest tightened in sympathy for the boy.

  “And Laraak tradesmen are crude. Anything else will give us away.” She looked around us at the busy streets, teeming with malnourished people going about their business.

  She was right, of course. If anyone was skilled in the art of conniving and trickery, it was her.

  “Are you set?” Dagan whispered out the side of his mouth, around his grizzled beard.

  “Yes, are you?”

  Shep had asked Ensi Puzu to meet him and Dagan at the house of Widow Girru, a sympathizer to our cause. Dagan would tell him of our plan to try to get his support for a majority vote. Then Shep would hand Rish over to Dagan, and they’d go to Assata’s Tavern for sikaru. We’d meet them there so I could sew up Rish’s arm and ask Assata to help us convince the other ensis to support Arwia for the throne.

  He took a deep breath and nodded. “And if I don’t make it to Assata’s for some reason, go through Gala’s gate and I’ll meet you in Laraak.”

  “You’ll be fine. I promise. Just hunch over a bit. You’re too tall.” My words were brave, but my heart was hammering. There was so much risk. So much to lose.

  “Just remember to leave immediately if anything feels off.” He jerked his chin at Iltani. “All of you.”

  “We will. Now go. Get on with it. We’re wasting time.” Iltani waved him away, fully embracing her character.

  Dagan smiled at me softly, then shuffled away, hunching to make himself smaller.

  I resisted the urge to call after him. Tell him I loved him with everything inside me. For if something went wrong, this might be the last time I ever saw him.

  “Are you ready?” Nanaea raised her eyebrows. Her black lashes were thick and full, luminous eyes radiating her health.

  A storm cloud of foreboding hanging over me, I swallowed the lump in my throat. Maybe our disguises weren’t good enough. Maybe someone would recognize her as the Sacred Maiden who’d graced their Palace not so many moons ago. Maybe Dagan would never come back to me, and I would always wonder what it would have been like to be his wife.

  Setting my sights on the Libbu pulsing with merchants in the distance, I blew out a shaky breath, unease working through my neck and shoulders.

  “I don’t know. But there is only one way to find out.”

  THE STENCH OF rotting meat greeted us as we joined the throngs headed into the bustling trading center of the Libbu.

  And as we were jostled in the crowd through the archway, I understood why. Atop the wall, where once grew climbing vines of lavender and gold, men’s heads were impaled on spikes. At least fifteen of them. Their cheeks were bloated, flesh partially decayed. Eye sockets cleaned out by birds. Nearly unrecognizable as men.

  Save for one, however, who wore a big black beard that was unmistakable.

  Irra.

  The three of us gasped.

  “Sister.” Nanaea rapidly blinked away her tears. “That’s Assata’s husband!”

  “I know. I know. Don’t stare. We have to blend in.”

  Why had he been killed? He was a good man! Had he defied Uruku in some way?

  At once, the air around me grew cold, and my questions were replaced with the familiar sound of rushing water. Irra’s head swiveled toward me, his jaw opening and snapping closed, the stench of rot rolling off his bloated tongue. All of the heads pivoted on their stakes, ghastly, empty eye sockets blinking in the sunlight. Their jaws opened wide, unhinging with sickening cracks, as they moaned in one decaying, synchronous chorus.

  Vomit burbled in my belly, and I fought the urge to hurl my stomach’s contents onto the feet of wealthy Alu citizens going to trade. Some cast horrified looks at the heads as they walked by, but most ignored them. Covering my mouth with the back of my hand, I stumbled toward the merchants’ stalls. The tents were shades of melon and dandelion, and the cheery colors were a shocking contrast to the stench. Next to me, Nanaea coughed, eyes watering with nausea.

  “Keep it together,” Iltani warned, casting one worried look at us both. Her false beard was peeling slightly from her cheek, the dark bitumen goo melting in the sweltering sun. “Ears open. Eyes aware. We need tonics and information about how we might get into the Palace. Don’t let it get to you.”

  “I won’t. It’s just the heat.”

  Tearing my gaze from the decaying flesh, I followed Iltani and Nanaea into the heart of the Libbu to find the booths with tinctures. Merchants stood stone-faced in front of their stalls, sickleswords in hand, daggers plunged into their belts to discourage theft. Guardsmen in their heavy maces and clanking armor filled the once-happy marketplace with unspoken threats.

  “Over there.” I pointed to a couple of tents in a far corner with tiny bottles and casks arrayed haphazardly.

  Sweating in our disguises, we walked past booths overflowing with grains likely taken from the farmers’ fields. Thick shanks of roasted goat and baskets of ripe eggplant, fresh onions, plump tomatoes, and mounds of other vegetables.

  “All this food, yet people starve,” I murmured.

  Her face hard, Iltani weaved around a man carrying two spears over one shoulder. “May the gods grant them ugly children and loose bowels.” She shook her head. “The prices are sickening.”

  She was right. Sixty minas for a small basket of pomegranates! An entire talent for a measly cut of meat. Only the richest in the city could buy.

  So we had two bits of information to note. First, the poor people were being starved, likely so they wouldn’t be strong enough to rise up against Uruku. Second, guardsmen were everywhere. It seemed as though Uruku had doubled the number, though some of them were boys called into service, armor too big for their shoulders, greaves hanging from bird legs. But their hands held sickleswords the same as the men. These boys—maybe a year or two older than Kasha—were called into the service of bloodshed.

  This isn’t right.

  Hopefully, with Uruku’s downfall, we could turn it into a city to be proud of.

  Pressing my own beard to my cheeks with the back of my hand, I approached one of the booths arranged with potions and tinctures. My eyes roved hungrily over the pots, my needs almost on my tongue before I could silence them.

  A robust woman with shrewd eyes, in enormou
s jade earrings, wrapped a length of thread around a small carafe, and set it aside.

  “Here for trade, men? I have the best tonics in this Libbu. Do not venture past without securing the curatives you need to keep your young wives bearing you many children.”

  The sun beat down on the tops of our heads mercilessly as I rifled through the tonics at her station. I needed tinctures so I could continue to tend to everyone in Laraak—and something a little more lethal for Uruku. A bottle slipped from my sweaty palm and the tradeswoman flashed me a warning look.

  Dear Selu, don’t let the heat melt off my disguise before I’ve had a chance to buy what I need.

  I glanced worriedly at Iltani’s glistening face under her brownish-gray beard as the woman rattled off incorrect names of herbs and the wrong ingredients for ailments from headaches to incontinence. Sorting through her mixes, I put my senses to work, smelling and dabbing my fingers into them to check for grittiness or solvency, laying some of them on my tongue when I knew they were safe. Here was hemp. There, a smear of aloe in the bottom of a jar. But I couldn’t find a poison, or anything more dangerous than blue cohosh.

  The merchant studied me as I poked and prodded.

  “You’re a real A-zu, aren’t you.”

  She reached across the booth to grab my hand. Roughly, I tugged it away, panic winding through me.

  Iltani laughed politely, smacking me on the back hard enough to jostle my front teeth loose. “This one has many ailments and needs a lot of help from your wide assortment here.”

  Nanaea picked up a small, red glass bottle sitting in the back corner of her booth and held it up to the light. “Can you tell me about this one?” she asked gruffly.

  Iltani nudged me as I picked up some myrrh, poppy, fennel, chamomile, arnica, and cinnamon. The tradeswoman took the little bottle from Nanaea and launched into a description. My ears perked up when she said the word “nerium.”

  Nerium was often mixed with aloe to smooth the skin, but if ingested in large enough quantities, it could put someone to sleep for hours with their eyes wide open, giving them the appearance of being dead. My abum had once told me a horror story of a woman who’d been buried alive because of it.

  My scalp prickled. What if we knocked Uruku out with it somehow and then just entombed him? Or killed him when he was being prepared for burial and wasn’t being guarded? My throat constricted at the thought of what that might entail, but I held my hand out for it.

  With a calculating gaze, the woman set it back on the table. “It’s too expensive for the likes of you.”

  I met her stare. Nudged Iltani.

  “How much?” Iltani crossed her arms over her chest like Dagan did when bartering.

  “A hundred and sixty minas for half,” the woman challenged, raising a bushy eyebrow.

  I blanched inside my makeshift beard.

  It’s way too much! But we need it!

  “You’ll never convince anyone to pay that amount.” Iltani spat on the ground. Her direct approach was the opposite of how she usually bartered with flattery and trickery.

  I tugged Iltani’s sleeve and nodded at the bottle.

  The tradeswoman narrowed her eyes. “Why does your mute want it so desperately?”

  Iltani lifted her chin. “We need to put down a dog that’s got the mange.”

  She chuckled. “Perhaps you need something else that will suit your purposes and costs next to nothing.”

  I gritted my teeth. I wanted the nerium. It was a good option! But I didn’t have nearly enough coins on my person.

  From underneath her booth, she pulled out a small blue vial of serum.

  “What is it?” Iltani squinted at it.

  “Gochala.” The woman’s eyes glittered. “I’ve put down a dog or two with it. Works really well.”

  My heart raced. Yes! A drop or two would cause a person to suffer from insufferable headaches for moons, but that whole bottle would be deadly. My father had once mixed an antidote for one of his friends who had tried taking a little to “make him feel funny.”

  Sweat dripped down my forehead into my eyes, but I fought off the urge to wipe it away and ruin Nanaea’s face paint. I nodded eagerly to Iltani as I reached into my linen bag, feeling for the coins. Counting.

  “How much for that one?” Iltani rasped, her baritone resonating clearly across the booth.

  The woman smiled dangerously. “That depends. How badly do you need to put down your dog?”

  Iltani eyeballed me, a deep frown on her face. Her beard slipped again and she coughed, covering her mouth with her hand, and pressed it back on.

  The woman’s gaze went back and forth between me and Iltani, speculation heavy on her brow. She placed her fists on round hips. “One mina and twenty-five shekels. And then you’ll need to be on your way.”

  I nodded. It was a decent price, and we needed to move. Now. The woman was suspicious of us. I held out the tinctures I wanted, along with some linens and a small spool of stitching thread, and set the payment on her booth. She wrapped everything up but the gochala, and gave me the parcel.

  I jabbed Iltani with my elbow, nodding at the blue bottle.

  “We paid for that one, too.” Iltani nodded gruffly at the tincture.

  The woman smiled, but it did not reach her eyes. “You haven’t paid nearly enough. The tonics cost more than the measly amount you paid, and I need you to get out of my sight. I smell something off.”

  Iltani looked at me, but my pockets were empty. I shook my head, alarmed, and she sighed, digging around in her bag, a coin purse hidden somewhere inside. As she moved, the folds of her linen cloak pressed against her, outlining her curves. The merchant studied her form, and looked down Nanaea’s body, which wasn’t nearly square enough to be a man’s. Nanaea dropped her gaze to her sandals, her thick eyelashes resting on soft cheeks.

  Sweat poured down my forehead, no doubt smearing the face paint, and Iltani couldn’t locate the coins.

  At long last, her hands shaking, she produced the coin purse, removed additional payment, and slapped it onto the table. But as she did, the woman slammed her hand down on Iltani’s and sneered. “You three are women! And up to something. You stink of it!”

  Iltani snatched her hand away, and I grabbed her arm.

  “Let’s go!” I hissed.

  “May Selu reward you for your silence,” Iltani whispered, grabbing the tonic of gochala. Her beard was falling off the side of her face, bits of black bitumen clinging to her cheek, but the woman didn’t care a whit for Selu’s rewards.

  “Guardsmen! Thieves!” she bellowed, her booming voice causing heads to turn from all over the Libbu. Iltani upended the booth in the woman’s face, sending tinctures and casks flying. Startled, people screamed, looking around in alarm. But Iltani dropped to the ground and stuffed her satchel with as many tinctures and potions as she could.

  “Come on!” I yanked Nanaea’s arm, hauled Iltani from the ground, and ran toward the Libbu gate to flee as people pointed at us, at others, alarm on their faces, cries in their throats. But Iltani pulled all of us in the opposite direction.

  “What are you doing!” I screeched as she tugged us around booths toward the Palace.

  “They’re going to be looking for three women dressed as men at the Libbu gate. We can’t go out looking like this.” She yanked me around a Libbu stall where two young women were shooing flies away from baskets of fish stinking in the midday sun.

  “Hide us,” Iltani barked at the women. One of them, drooping in an emerald-green tunic, belly filled with child, looked up with mild curiosity. She shrugged a plump shoulder and looked at her friend.

  “We should hide ’em.”

  Her friend paused, a handful of grapes halfway to her mouth. “You always do this, Bikku. Such a bleeding heart. They’re probably thieves.”

  She
frowned at us, and Iltani growled. “I’ll slit both of your throats if you don’t. Your choice.” She flicked the robe away from her thigh, where she’d strapped a long, gleaming blade.

  The pregnant woman—Bikku—clutched her belly protectively and jerked her head behind her booth. Both went back to eating their fruit as we sneaked around behind the stall.

  “Dear Selu, what is wrong with you?” Nanaea glowered at Iltani as she tugged us to the ground into a pile of fish guts, scaring a dog away that was eating its afternoon meal. All at once, I felt something prickly on my cheek, as if a finger was brushing against me. The image of the Boatman holding out his bony fist with something tucked inside wavered up into my vision, and I gasped, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes.

  “Stop it! Stop!” I whispered.

  “Sister, what is wrong with you?” Nanaea crouched low, peeling the beard from her face.

  “Nothing,” I responded shakily. Everything. Dead men’s heads moaning on a wall and cold fingers of the Boatman on my cheek are not normal. Not normal!

  “Well, figure it out.” Iltani slapped my thigh. “You’re squawking like a chicken, and we need to plan our next steps.”

  “Yes. What are we going to do?” Nanaea looked around the Libbu, the place where she’d stood not long ago, receiving the so-called honor of being a dead man’s bride.

  “I’m not sure.” I bit my lip, swallowed the panic that had settled in my throat, and tried to think about it logically. Rationally. We needed to get to Assata’s to meet Dagan and figure out a way to give Uruku the gochala.

  “Well, I am. We’re going to the kitchens,” Iltani said.

  “What? No, we’re not. We need to get out of here! People are looking for us!”

  “No, stupid. Listen to me.” She grabbed my hands and I ignored the insult. “It’s the easiest way into the Palace. It’s how we left when we were running away after you found the monkshood, remember? There’s that narrow passageway down the back. Since we have that gochala stuff, there is no way we’re leaving here without poisoning that worm Uruku with it. We’ll put the whole bottle in his food and watch him die.”