by Kelly Coon
“Oh, Kammani.” He frowned as he hiked Rish up farther onto his chest. “It’s not your fault. I asked you to do something for him, so if it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine.”
“No, it isn’t. I knew what should’ve been done. I probably harmed him more than if I’d just left him alone until I had supplies.”
“There was no perfect solution.”
A boy’s voice, one I’d heard a hundred times in my own home in Manzazu, shouted across the encampment. “Kammani! Where are you? These men won’t let us through!”
Kasha.
My heart lurching, I turned back toward Ummi and Assata. Sure enough, there he was.
Dagan eyed me worriedly. “They’ve got him. They better not be using him as a bargaining chip, or I swear to the gods—”
I laid my hand on his arm, fear rising in my chest. “Let’s go see.”
As we approached, Assata was jabbing a finger into Yashub’s face while other tradesmen encircled them, backs stiff.
“Let us see them,” she growled. “These warriors will annihilate your men if you do not.”
At that, traders’ hands went into the folds of their cloaks to draw out daggers and small axes.
Yashub held up his meaty hands. “We don’t need that now.”
“We’re here!” Dagan called. “Everyone calm yourselves.”
Assata looked past Yashub’s shoulder, squinting against the glare. Her face softened into recognition when she met my eyes. Kasha wriggled away from Ummi’s hold and ran to me, almost tackling me in a hug.
“My brother! Are you okay? Has Assata gotten Arwia?” I murmured into his ragged curls as he held me tight.
“No—why would she want Arwia? They want to talk to you.”
“I’m sure they do.” I glared at Assata and the Koru as they strode roughly past the traders. They’d obviously brought Kasha to me to show me what power they held. How easily they could control me.
Yashub scowled at us and wiped his mouth. “These warriors better not be bringing trouble to me and mine.”
“They’re not.” I cast a long look at Assata over Kasha’s head. “We will talk. Civilly.” I buried my fingers in Kasha’s hair and kissed his forehead.
“We can talk over here,” Dagan said to them. He shifted a moaning Rish on his shoulder and headed away.
Unease clawing at me, I followed him back to his tent, and we stood near the little seating area that he’d arranged in the dirt beneath a fledgling thicket of tamarisk trees. Dagan laid Rish on a blanket, and I sat next to him, trying to quell my dismay as I looked at the angry infection around my neat stitches. Took in the unusual paleness of his tan cheeks. I sprinkled some arnica into his mouth for the pain.
“I found Arwia.” Assata crossed her arms over her chest.
“I heard.” I looked up from Rish’s swollen arm.
“Wussuru is an obvious place to hide, and the traders talk. Wussuru is a few hours if you’re riding fast. It’s where I’d be if I were her.”
“Did you turn her in to the Palace?” An ache welled in my chest at the thought of what she might be going through if Assata had. Maybe she was seated by Iltani in a dungeon right now.
“No.” She paused, glancing at Ummi and Higal. “My old friends here told me the sarratum of Manzazu is planning to go to war to unseat him, so there is no need. There were hundreds of warriors from the queen’s army in Wussuru, waiting on her command to attack. Warad will be released as soon as it’s accomplished.”
Fear bloomed in my chest. “More warriors have arrived, Ummi?”
She nodded. “The sarratum finished preparations earlier than expected. We are assembling and forming a plan now, but more will arrive any moment so we can strike.”
“Why?” The question exploded from the very heart of me. “We are here trying to get him off the throne before you can lay waste to the city! We’ve only just begun. I’ve poisoned Uruku, and we’re meeting with some ensis to make sure she’ll have a majority vote. Can we not see if this works before you kill a bunch of innocent people?”
“No. Manzazu needs to strike hard. And swiftly.” Assata spat on the ground. “My son lies wasting in a dungeon. Shiptu is likely being flogged. Or worse. You know what they will do to a woman in captivity!”
“Assata, peace.” Dagan wearily rubbed his brow. “Please. I know what they can do. But you can’t go murdering people in the city to get to them! Have you seen the poor?”
“I’ve seen them, but they are not my priority. My son is.” She looked hard at Dagan. “And your mother should be, too. You’re simply afraid to do what you must!”
My throat felt raw as I spoke. “We are not afraid, Assata. I took him the poison myself! But everyone forgets the poor. Everyone forgets that lives are taken when war is waged. The Manzazu army will go into Alu, and anyone in their way will be slaughtered, bloodied, and maimed. The guardsmen have doubled since we were last there, and even boys barely older than Rish and Kasha are called into service. They stand no chance against this army!”
“Nor should they, if they serve Uruku.” Her eyes were hard, sweat beading across her forehead.
Her rage and sadness were blinding her. This was not the Assata who so lovingly helped people out at her tavern whether they had coin enough to pay or not. Had given food to my abum and had lent an ear when he was drunk and mourning my mother. This wasn’t her. This was a woman bent on revenge.
“Why are you even here? To remind me of your strength? To throw it in our faces that you can do as you please?”
Ummi lifted her chin. “Arwia asked me to bring Kasha to you. He is not safe in Wussuru if we go to war.”
“And I came to tell you that you need not fear me, unless you get in my way to support Manzazu in their strike against Alu. I’m joining them,” Assata said.
Suddenly, Dagan stood, his hand in the air. “Shep! Here!”
Shep, his long hair a mess, rode up in a flurry of dust on horseback. He dismounted swiftly and led the horse to us. His eyes, always so playful, were bleak. His cheeks were smeared with dirt.
“Brother. I have news.”
Dagan met him and clapped him on the back. “What is it? Have you found Iltani? Or is it word of Uruku?”
Shep rested a heavy hand on Dagan’s shoulder. “Uruku is alive, I’m afraid. A friend saw him vomiting on his way to the bathhouse behind the Palace. He must have eaten some of your almonds, but they didn’t work.”
“No,” I whispered. “The merchant must have sold me a watered-down version of gochala. That stupid woman!”
He swallowed. “I also have news about Iltani, and it isn’t good, either.”
My hand stilled on Rish’s head. “What is it?”
Shep swallowed roughly. “She’s in a holding pen with the other girls.”
“A holding pen? What do you mean?” Dagan asked.
But my stomach sank because I already knew what he was going to say. Bikku, the fishmonger with child, had mentioned it yesterday.
I hung my head after Shep met my eyes, pity in them. He cracked his knuckles as he explained. “My friend said Iltani was caught by a group of guardsmen outside the Palace gates, claiming to be a member of the nobility. They asked around about her, but nobody knew who she was. She’s to be given as a bridal gift on the morrow to the first man who wishes to wed her.”
Heat seared through me as I stared at my hands.
My frustrating, beautiful friend had been stolen.
Uruku still lived because the gochala hadn’t worked.
Manzazu was poised to attack.
As tears sparked in my eyes, my guts churned and bubbled. Because we were facing nearly insurmountable problems, and it appeared that everything I did, every single move I made, only made things worse.
* * *
The inside of Dagan’s ten
t was stifling, but it was better than crying in front of Assata and Ummi. Better than the sharp tang of terror on my tongue. Better than thinking of the complete catastrophe we were all in.
I dug through my satchel, tears streaming down my cheeks, while they talked loudly of battle plans outside.
My hands quivered as I tended to Rish’s swollen arm, sniffling. I soaped it and bathed it in sikaru, and stuffed him full of as many tinctures as I had, giving him poppy to sleep before pouring vinegar and melaleuca over his oozing sutures. Eyes wide, Kasha squatted next to me, intent on helping in some way, fumbling around, picking up bottles and laying them back down until I barked at him to go back outside while I worked. Then I cried all over again for being so gruff. I removed Rish’s stitches, drained as much of the infection as I could, and scrubbed the new threads with so much myrrh oil, nothing would ever cause an infection again.
With each stitch, I berated myself. This child could lose his arm. Because I’d done more harm than good. Needle into the skin and pull through. Iltani would lose her freedom. Because I’d allowed us to take a foolish risk by going into the Palace. Needle into the skin and pull through. Warad and Shiptu could lose their lives because I didn’t want to wage war. Needle into the skin and pull through. I knotted the end and poured more melaleuca over his arm for good measure.
I needed to fix all of this, but I didn’t know how. A coldness descended upon my shoulders as I looked at little Rish, his black lashes fluttering on his plump cheeks, whimpering as he slept. Something brushed against my cheek. Startled, I jerked around, but nothing—no one—was there.
And yet—something was. A damp sensation washed over me, bringing with it the scent of rotted rivergrass. A creak of a boat moored at a dock. I blinked and the tent’s walls seemed to pulse like a heartbeat.
No. Not now. I need a level head, not this.
Blinking, gasping for a breath that wasn’t filled with the stench of rot, I stood, but when I did, something dark, something dank, wavered in front of my vision. A man. No! Not a man. A—figure. As I stifled a scream, my feet twisted on Rish’s blanket, and I fell to my knees as my vision went dark.
All at once, I was kneeling in the prow of a rickety wooden boat, looking at the shoreline as I bobbed and weaved in a current of blue water lapping at the sides. The stench of decay filled my nostrils, but my limbs felt light as a cool breeze wafted over me. On the shore, his cloak blowing in a stiff wind, the skeletal Boatman stood, shifting in and out of my vision in a spectral haze. On his hip, he wore a small bag, similar to my healing satchel. He flipped up the flap and pulled something from its depths.
A small cask or bottle.
He raised it into the sky and opened his mouth in a war shriek, as the hood of his cloak slipped off his head. For the briefest moment, the image of a black-haired warrior with sharp cheekbones and a tortured gaze flickered in the Boatman’s stead. He wore a leather chestplate and greaves on his legs. Behind him, hundreds of warriors stood shoulder to shoulder, holding the same little cask over their heads, ferocity ripping from their throats. The Boatman’s eyes bored into mine as he held the bottle toward me, but after a moment, the warriors behind him disappeared, and he was replaced with the shadowy, skeletal figure once more.
My mouth flew open in silent terror, and when my eyes cleared and little Rish appeared once more in front of me, I was shaking so badly I could barely stand.
But I did, pushing myself out of the tent into the bright sunlight, panicked gasps tearing from my throat.
“Sister? What’s wrong?” Kasha asked.
I shivered. Nanaea was now standing with everyone, her face screwed up in concern while Assata and Ummi argued with Dagan. Dagan tore his gaze away from them as I stumbled to the washbasin.
“Are you all right? Is it Rish?” He laid a hand on my back as I knelt down in front of the cool water. “What happened?”
“I—” I closed my mouth to stop my teeth from chattering. “It was hot in there and I felt a little nauseous. Rish is okay. Resting.”
“I’ll stay with him.” Shep ducked into the tent behind me.
But Dagan didn’t know what had happened in there. I’d seen him again. I’d seen the Boatman in full as I’d felt his touch on my cheek behind the fishmonger’s stall. Just as I’d seen him in the tomb with Lugal Marus. Was Mudi right? Was he trying to contact me to help me? Trying to show me something? Or was he trying to get to Rish? Was the boy so far gone?
Of course not!
Rish wasn’t that sick from his arm. Not yet. I knew it and I could trust the facts. My father always said to trust the evidence because it always told the truth. But my mother said there were forces outside of us at work, and we never knew what could happen if we let ourselves trust in them. The Koru trusted in them. They trusted in Linaza more than their own minds.
I dipped into the barrel of water and washed the sweat from my face as Dagan rubbed my back. As I dabbed my skin dry, a thought occurred to me that raised the hair on my head.
The Koru trusted in Linaza.
So much so, in fact, that they’d given me a scorpion necklace and a favor supposedly on her behalf.
If I needed one more chance to poison Uruku and rescue Iltani, then perhaps, I could do both things if I used the favor—now!
Dagan rubbed my shoulders, his handsome face screwed up in concern as Nanaea and Assata bickered. “Are you ill?”
“No.” I shook my hands off to dry them and stood, wiping them on my tunic. My knees were wobbly, but I was more than fine. I walked over to my sister, and whispered in her ear to go fetch my scorpion amulet from my healer’s chest. When she ran off, I approached Assata, who stood next to Ummi and Higal. I laid a hand on Assata’s forearm. On the bracer covering Ummi’s. Higal crossed her arms over her barrel chest.
“I’ve heard from Linaza in the tent, Ummi. An imminent attack is not what she wants.”
Over Assata’s shoulder, Dagan raised his eyebrows in disbelief.
“Just a few seconds ago, she told me to go rescue my friend Iltani so she isn’t given in marriage by Uruku. And she also said to give Uruku a poison made by my own hands.”
Hadn’t the Boatman shown me a bottle? There was bound to be some monkshood or belladonna growing along the riverbanks, and I could just start over. I didn’t need the merchant’s tables. I could find something myself!
“And I can do that. I swear it.” That wasn’t entirely the truth, but…close enough.
Assata frowned in disbelief. “Linaza, the goddess of love and war in Manzazu—spoke to you?”
Breathless, Nanaea walked up to us, holding my gold scorpion amulet. It glinted in the sun as I took it from her.
“Yes. She did.” I wrapped the amulet around Ummi’s throat. “She granted me a favor from these Koru warriors. And now”—I clasped the necklace and stood back—“I’m calling it in.”
Ummi assessed me coolly. “I cannot stop the attack, and I will not defy the sarratum, Kammani. Linaza would never give you a desire or a message that goes against Sarratum Tabni’s desires.” She trailed her fingers over the slick gold of the scorpion. “So what would you have me do?”
“I’m not asking you to defy her. I know Linaza guides the sarratum’s voice. I’m simply asking you to wait to bring war so I have enough time to save my friend and get Uruku out. That’s it! Couldn’t you halt the army’s battle preparations a little bit? Some last-minute things that need tidying up? That will not change anything too much from where you stand, but it could mean everything to me. To Iltani. To everyone in Alu. Could you not speak to the army leaders to delay? As the commander of the Koru, you outrank them, don’t you?”
“Each Koru outranks the regular Manzazu army.” She frowned and shifted her stance. Reached up and felt the scorpion necklace while she studied me, apparently searching my soul for signs of sincerity. “How long of a delay to poiso
n him and rescue your friend?”
“A few days. That’s it. Enough time for us to try once more.”
Higal spoke. “Commander? A word?”
Ummi and Higal stepped away from us and talked to one another heatedly, much too low to be heard. While they discussed, Assata alternated between rolling her eyes and glaring at me. Eventually, Ummi held up one hand to Higal, and walked away from her toward us.
Ummi opened her arms in Linaza’s salute to me. “I will give you this favor, but”—she reached behind her, and unclasped the necklace, and handed it back to me—“keep this as a reminder of what I have done. When you look at it, remember the sacrifice I am making for you, for going against the sarratum is not an easy thing, even if Linaza commands it. Sarratum Tabni will not be pleased to wait.”
“This is not of the gods,” Assata spat, livid. “A delay means more torment for my son!”
“A delay means saving the city from slaughter.” My eyes filled. “You know I’m right, Assata.”
Higal crossed thick arms across her chest. “Ummi does not speak for me.”
Ummi looked sideways at Higal. “I’m the highest-ranking Koru, and have made my decision. We will grant her the delay.”
Higal spat on the ground. “Sarratum Tabni has given the command.”
“And she answers to Linaza, who has granted this favor,” Ummi fired back.
“No.” Higal shook her head. “I will gather the army together under my command. We will fulfill the sarratum’s wishes.”
“And I will stand by your side as your second, Higal.” Assata’s eyes glittered with danger. “So we can rescue my son.”
The woman who used to add cloves to my sikaru and feed me honeycake until I felt like I would burst leaned in close to me, so close I could see the broken blood vessels in her eyes and the bags underneath. Likely from crying herself to sleep every night since her son had been taken and her husband murdered.
“Assata, please—”
“No, Kammani. This is how it is. So if you’re going to rescue your friend and finish the job with Uruku, you’d better do it quickly.