Warmaidens

by Kelly Coon

  “I understand that. I don’t want any part of that, either, but—”

  “Here we stand.”

  “Here we stand indeed.”

  Dagan smiled at me sympathetically. “One problem he foresees is that the other ensis will claim it isn’t her. They watched Arwia go into the tomb, so they could use that as an excuse to disavow her and then take the throne themselves.”

  “We’ll need to convince them it’s in their best interest to support her, then.” I blew out a breath. “Seems easy.”

  He laughed grimly. “Perhaps Assata can help.”

  “Is she out there with her customers?”

  “Yes. She said to wait in here and she’d come talk to us the second she could be free from her duties. But while you wait, will you take a look at Rish’s arm?”

  “Of course!” In my worry about everything, I’d ignored the boy. Guilt twisted my insides as I put on my healing satchel and knelt in front of him to inspect his wound.

  “You took off the wrap?” I asked Rish.

  Dagan ruffled his hair. “He fell in the mud this morning, so Shep took it off. I washed it at the widow’s house, but it doesn’t look good.”

  “You’re right. It doesn’t.”

  His skin was red all along the gash, and there was oozing pus down by his wrist once more. I should have never left a child with a severe wound overnight without stitches. I was a healer, but it seemed I was hurting people more than I was helping them.

  “It’s okay, sweet boy.” I tickled his knees until I got a grin. “We’ll get you all fixed up.”

  After thoroughly examining his wound, which still had bits of grime inside it, I spent the next thirty minutes working on him. I drained the infection, which had only worsened, and applied some of Assata’s sikaru to try to kill the bad humors. Then I stitched it with boiled threads I’d tucked into my satchel. All the while, I kept craning my neck to look out the small window to see if Iltani would come.

  The interior door to the tavern squeaked open, and Assata slipped in, a ghost of her former self.

  “I only have a few minutes or so.” Her clipped Kemet accent, usually so robust, was as thin as one of Nanaea’s threads. Her once-square shoulders were curved. Her deep brown eyes, which used to sparkle, were dim with gloom.

  “Assata!” Nanaea pulled her into an embrace, her eyes tearing up.

  “Healer’s Daughter,” the older woman murmured.

  “We saw Irra.” Nanaea’s eyes glistened. “On the wall.”

  Assata swallowed roughly. “Alu is not the same city you left, I’m afraid. And Uruku’s punishment affects you and me most of all, young farmer.”

  “Yes, I know. They took my ummum! Why? Is it because I left?”

  Assata sighed. “Yes. And everyone noticed, Dagan. Shortly after you fled Alu, the young women of the wealthy class starting talking.”

  Dagan’s face grew puzzled. “Why would they care about me?”

  “Look at you!” She rubbed her forehead with a shaky hand. “You’re the most eligible husband for these women and you’ve suddenly disappeared? With no word? When you have great wealth and even better prospects? It didn’t make sense. And the Palace watcher heard about you being missing, and told Gudanna that his charge, a little boy named Kasha who’d once belonged to Shalim the healer, was missing, too.”

  My heart jumped and as if sensing it, Nanaea linked her arm through mine.

  “And Gudanna, who is not a stupid woman and knew that Dagan was close to your family, Kammani, told Uruku that something was wrong.” Assata took a deep shuddering breath, her voice beginning to hitch. “So they cracked the seal upon Lugal Marus’s tomb in secret.”

  “Just as we figured.” I pressed my lips together so tightly they hurt.

  Assata’s face went grim. “When they discovered that it was empty, save for Lugal Marus, they sealed the tomb again and quietly went to the two places they could go to find out what happened.”

  “My farm,” Dagan said hoarsely.

  “And to your tavern,” I supplied. It only made sense. Everyone knew to go to Assata’s Tavern if you wanted to hear the real story behind anything going on. She had connections and information. It was why we were there right now.

  She closed her eyes, putting a trembling hand to her lips. “Yes.” Her voice cracked. “In the middle of the night.”

  “What have they done, Assata?” Dagan’s chest began to heave. “What have they done to my ummum?”

  For a moment, Assata didn’t speak, swallowing around the anguish clearly choking her.

  “Uruku took your ummum, Dagan. And he took…my Warad. My son.” Her voice went high before it collapsed. She gasped out the rest around her tears.

  “They killed Irra. Slaughtered him in our chamber. The place Warad was born. They killed him there on the floor when he couldn’t answer their questions about Arwia’s location, because he, of course, knew nothing. He never has known anything! I’m the one who sent you with provisions, not him! So they killed him with their sickleswords right in front of us even though I begged them to stop and told them we didn’t know where you were. And before I could get my own weapons, they took Warad away to the dungeon and I was called in to see Uruku. My son and your ummum are gone, and they will likely be dead before the new moon if we don’t do something.”

  My heart wrenched. Nanaea had gone unusually pale and held hands to her cheeks, her black eyes filled with worry. Dagan’s hand hovered on the hilt of his dagger.

  “And what of Nasu’s family? Or Huna’s? They were here, too. He didn’t take them?”

  “No.” She hugged herself. “They left shortly after you did. In the night before all of this happened. We all should have left. We were stupid to stay.”

  “Well, what did he want?” Dagan’s lips tightened. “If he’s using Warad and my ummum, what did he want you to do?”

  “What else?” Assata spat, roughly wiping away her tears with the backs of her hands. “I must deliver Arwia to him or he will kill my boy. My only son.” Her voice broke apart again. “And he’s likely torturing your mother to find out where you went.”

  Dagan spoke. “But, Assata, their pain is almost over. We cannot bring Irra back, but we are about to save Warad and my ummum.”

  She blinked up at him. “What do you mean?”

  I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “Well, today—” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “I may have killed…Uruku.”

  Her eyes grew round. “What did you do?”

  “I delivered almonds laced with a poison that should, ah…do the job very quickly. If he eats enough—” I bit my lip.

  “How long will it take?”

  I shrugged. “To be honest, I’m not sure. I haven’t done this before.” Red crept up into my face. “I know it can put down a dog. So says the merchant in the Libbu.”

  “You bought it from a merchant? Here in the city?” She looked at me incredulously. “She likely reported you right away. Uruku probably already knows you’re here!”

  “No! We were disguised! There is no way she knew—”

  She stuck her hands on her hips. “If the merchant didn’t warn the Palace, and if a taster didn’t get the poison first, and if he eats enough to actually die, it will still take many days—maybe even a full week—for the ensis to pull together and announce his death. They’ll want to quell panic and have a plan in place before doing so. This isn’t fast enough. My son will be dead before then. I must do his bidding on the very real chance that your plan did not work.”

  “How long ago did he give you the command?” Dagan asked. “How long have they been gone?”

  “Two weeks and three days. Two weeks and three days of torture for Warad and your ummum.”

  “Well, why haven’t you set out to find her yet?” I asked her. “If you’re so dead
set on turning her in?”

  She lifted a thin, brown shoulder. “Don’t speak to me like that, girl. I’m not a child. You know why I haven’t.” She hung her head, her chin resting on her chest, and looked back up and met each of us in the eye.

  “When Arwia is handed over, he will put her to death. That isn’t something to take lightly. But I’ve sat here and wrestled with my conscience, all while he keeps Warad locked in chains. But now?” She shook her head. “There is nothing else for me to do. I am a mother, and Warad comes first to me. And, Dagan, he was your friend when you were children. And Nasu’s!”

  Dagan reddened. “I know that. But—”

  “No! I am going to find her. If you’re here, she can’t be too far away.”

  She wasn’t. She was back in Wussuru under the Koru’s and Nasu’s watchful eyes until we returned. But Assata couldn’t know that!

  “Please, just wait and let us see if the poison will work. If not, we will try again! Listen to us!”

  At once, her face went hard and she gripped me violently by my arms, her fingers digging into the nerves above my elbows. I winced and tried to pull away. “No, you listen to me!” She shook me. “I cannot sit by any longer and debate this. I will rescue my son and if she has to die, then that is what Selu wants. She was supposed to have died in that tomb, anyway.”

  “Assata—”

  “No, Healer’s Daughter. Don’t argue with me. I can make this difficult or I can make it easy. Tell me where she is and I will free Dagan’s ummum and my son from whatever is”—her voice broke—“happening to them.” She shook me again, desperately.

  In a blink, Dagan’s dagger was out of his sheath and aimed at Assata’s heart. He grabbed her upper arm, pinching the skin. “Release her.”

  Assata’s eyes hardened as she stared Dagan down. “I can disarm you and have your throat slit before you blink. You forget who I am.”

  “Please, Assata.” My chin trembled in pain, and after a moment, her face fell. She dropped her hands, and Dagan sheathed his dagger. I rubbed my arms where she’d hurt me, and she stepped back, numbly shaking her head. She was hanging on by a thread at the most.

  “The whole reason we are here is to rid Alu of his terrible reign.” I tried to touch her shoulder, but she flinched away. “If we put Arwia back on the throne, she will release Warad and Shiptu. Will you delay going to find her until we can do it? Help us, even?”

  Assata raised her chin, her eyes wet, but filled with a bit of command she must have had on a battlefield in another lifetime. “You may choose to do anything you’d like, but I have already wrestled with my conscience for weeks, each one a reminder of my child rotting in a dungeon, likely tortured. Starved. I won’t wait another second.”

  “But I’ve given him the poison! Can you simply—”

  “No!” she shouted, then glanced toward the door leading into her tavern. She leaned close to me, every word a lash. “I’m getting her and turning her in, and whatever will be, will be.”

  Her spine went rigid. “Now go. I’ll give you an hour to get out of the city. After that, I’ll track you down and find out where the nin is by any means necessary.”

  “Assata, please listen—”

  But she shook her head, gave us one last, hard look, and shoved the door open into the subdued noise of the tavern.

  The slap of it closing behind her sounded like war.

  “WHERE IS THE pain?” I probed along the woman’s swollen belly and she winced.

  “Low, deep in my womb.”

  “Lie down here for me, please.” Gesturing to a small pallet I’d put together that morning, a multicolored quilt fresh from the drying lines atop, I looked worriedly out the tent flap toward the trader encampment.

  No Assata and still no Iltani. After Assata’s threat, I’d put the beard back on my face and we’d fled to Laraak. We’d bribed our way onto a cart laden with goods leaving Alu for the ports out the north gate, where no one had seen us enter or exit before.

  And though I’d waited up half the night for Iltani, she’d never arrived.

  Dagan had sneaked back into Alu late last night and dispatched Shep to look for her. He’d also met with Ensi Puzu to update him about what I’d done and to see if he had heard whether or not Uruku had sickened. He hadn’t heard and neither had Gala. Gala did mention that Assata had been through the gate and had asked him about us, but he’d remained loyal and had stayed silent.

  Smart man.

  Practicing in my healing tent while waiting for Assata to make good on her threat, Iltani to return, or to discover whether Uruku would die was the only thing keeping me from running into the streets and screaming in terror.

  Was Iltani hiding out somewhere safe, biding her time to return to us? Or had she been captured by the guardsmen while she tried to run away? Did Assata find her? And if so, was she currently torturing her to learn Arwia’s whereabouts?

  But I had to stay focused on this woman before me. It was all I could do right now until Dagan was ready to go back into the city. Ensi Puzu was going to meet us later with more council members so we could plead for their support.

  I’d been leaving my tent to go find Dagan, when a line of ill patients demanded my attention. Yashub had ordered me to tend to those in need if I wanted to keep our safe haven in Laraak, so I’d done so, one after another. One had been a man from the leper colony, and I’d ushered him back to his tents and laid out fresh linens and a tincture of nut oil that my abum had once used to treat the disease.

  This woman had been behind him, and she was the last.

  She moaned.

  “When did you last receive the blood of the moon?” I pressed a warm cloth I’d heated in a cooking pot and steeped with chamomile to her abdomen. Her face immediately calmed when the warmth hit her belly.

  “Yesterday evening.”

  “Ahh, so now I see maybe the issue. Is it always painful like this?” Squatting down, I scrubbed my hands with Aleppo soap in a basin, rinsed them in myrrh water, and felt along her cheeks and her forehead for fever and her throat, armpits, and groin for swollen glands that would tell me she was fighting off an infection.

  “Yes. Always. It’s always been terrible.” Her face was pale, her straggly hair damp along her temples.

  “Although we’ve been cursed with the moon blood, we don’t have to suffer each time it arrives.” Taking a mortar and pestle from my healer’s table, I ground dried fennel, dill, and chamomile into a fine powder. I added ginger for discomfort of the bowels that often came with moon blood, and cinnamon for the nausea.

  Quickly, I steeped a tea from the mixture I’d ground and asked her to sit up and drink while I heated the cloth and placed it on her abdomen once more. The tension between her brows calmed even more, and I felt satisfaction rising into my chest. This, I could do. Healing. It was what I was meant to do.

  Rinsing out the pot, I looked out worriedly into the encampment and spotted Dagan jogging toward Yashub’s tents with Rish trailing behind, wavering on his legs. I’d told Dagan he had to stay with us last night, and Shep could tell the guardsmen he had died if they asked after him. I’d cleansed his wound with more myrrh and given him garlic and vinegar to ward off infection, but I was worried it wasn’t enough. The poor boy had tossed and turned all night at my side, his fever never breaking.

  A shout echoing across the encampment in a few of the traders’ deep voices caused my hair to stand on end.

  Maybe Iltani? Or news of Uruku’s death?

  Throwing my healing satchel over my shoulder, I told the woman to rest and to venture home only when she felt better. Racing along the path behind Dagan, I scanned past the tattered roofs and tunics flapping on lines, and saw a group arguing near Yashub’s tent.

  The copper helmets and the scorpion face tattoo were unmistakable. It was Commander Ummi and Higal! A woman shifted
into view from behind them, and my blood froze.

  Assata was with them.

  Picking up my pace, I caught up with Dagan and Rish and tugged them both behind a tent.

  “What are you doing?” Dagan asked. Rish stood next to him, a sort of glazed expression on his face.

  “Assata is with the Koru,” I told him as I placed my hands on Rish’s cheeks. He was burning with fever again.

  “Ahhhh, no—that’s not good.”

  “No, it isn’t. She found us. Easily. We have to get out of here! And Rish needs tending to again.”

  He set his mouth grimly. Ruffled Rish’s hair. “Of course she found us. We’re right here near Alu! The problem is, no matter where we go, she’ll track us down.” He bit his lip and ventured a look around the corner of the tent. “But why are Ummi and Higal here with her? They wouldn’t let her hurt us.”

  “Who knows if they would? She trained them when they were young. They’re going to be more loyal to her than to us.”

  “Not more than they are to you. You have their favor!”

  “Yes, but would that negate a lifetime of loyalty? Right now, we need to just go back to your tent and think. Gather our stuff in case we need to run away. Find Nanaea.” I glanced back toward the women, then at Rish. He held his injured arm to his chest. Swiftly, I examined his stitches. Pus bulged from the holes. Selu save us. The infection had worsened! Maybe it was deeper than I even knew. Down into the tissues where I couldn’t see. My heart sank. “But we can’t do any of that until I work on Rish. His infection is worse.” I swallowed.

  In one motion, Dagan picked up his little brother with a grunt, and Rish lay on his shoulder like a boy smaller than he was, his eyes tight with pain.

  “It’s worse?” He shifted the bulk of Rish’s weight on his shoulder, casting a furtive look around the tent at Assata and Ummi. “Is it because he got the dirt inside when he fell?”

  “It’s not his fault. I should never have left him without stitching the wound. I knew better than that, but I did it anyway.”