Warmaidens

by Kelly Coon

  Bile filled up my throat and I fought the urge to vomit. “It’ll have to be today. This very day before he takes her as his wife. It must.”

  Beside me, Dagan stood. “I will speak to him right now.”

  “Be careful!” I whispered as he stumbled toward Gala, the stench of him receding as he walked hunched over, clutching a cask of sikaru to his chest as if his life depended on it.

  He could not let the guardsmen know who he was!

  “I will make you love me,” Gala told Iltani loudly, his hand over his heart. “I swear it.”

  And he likely means it. But a woman given against her will into marriage is not a woman who would willingly offer her love, no matter the intentions of the man who’d selected her.

  Iltani’s eyes glittered dangerously as they led her down the dais to Gala, who stood there, hands on his hips, contemplating his new bride.

  “Shall we?” He swept an arm out in front of him and nearly knocked Dagan backward.

  Dagan tugged on his tunic, but Gala ignored him, his eyes fastened on Iltani.

  Again, Dagan tugged on Gala’s tunic, but Gala swatted him away and pulled Iltani’s ropes on her hands toward what I could only assume was his home. She ground her heels in the sand. “You’ll have to carry me. I’ll never go willingly.”

  Gala’s shoulders fell, his eyebrows knotted in confusion. “I’ve been told by all the women in Alu that I am handsome. Do you not find me so?”

  Dagan turned back to me, a question in his eyes, but other guardsmen surrounded Gala, clapping him on his back, congratulating him on his choice, and one kicked Dagan in his backside, sending him sprawling into the dirt.

  “You stink, beggar!” He yanked him up by the back of his tunic and looked in his face. Really looked. “You look familiar to me. Who are you?” He furrowed his brow in concentration.

  Dear Selu.

  Dagan pretended to retch, acting stupidly drunk, fear in his amber eyes, and disgusted, the guardsman shoved him away. Sweating, Dagan stumbled back to me and plopped down, breathing heavily.

  “That was too close. He nearly caught you.”

  “I know. I’ll have to try again. At his house. Privately. But she can’t leave him, Kammani. Not without a justifiable reason. And being taken to bed by force will not be considered one.”

  “I know, Dagan. I know it well.”

  Guardsmen encircled Iltani like a pack of mangy dogs, but she stood bearing their congratulations, the briefest flicker of grief flitting across her face before it was replaced again by rage. No one else would’ve noticed it but me. She always kept such a brave veneer, laughing away any hurt or insult, mocking anyone’s sensitivity, but that one glimpse gave me a hint at how she really felt inside.

  And it was up to me to save her now, too.

  Save the city. Save my friend. Save little Rish’s arm. All of it was a pressure, building up inside me, a burden I was forced to bear. But bear it I would.

  There was no other option when people’s lives were at stake.

  Clutching my healing satchel under my cloak in defiance, I watched as Gala pulled away from the group to whistles and indecent suggestions. When Iltani stood her ground and refused to follow, he simply picked her up and carried her, then stalked away from the gifting with his prize.

  And though Iltani lay quietly in his arms as they receded from my sight, her face was anything but docile.

  Her eyes were full of murder.

  BEFORE WE WENT to Gala’s home, dodging guardsmen, hiding in shadows and beneath overhangs, scuttling into scrub and behind barrels, we sneaked to the northeast doorway where the disloyal guardsman was supposed to be waiting to let us through.

  But no one was there.

  “Where is he?” I asked Dagan as we ducked around a corner to avoid a pair of young guardsmen walking past. “He was supposed to be here!”

  Dagan wiped a trickle of sweat from his brow. His stench, heightened by the heat of the day, almost knocked me over.

  “I’m not sure. We’ll just try again after we rescue her, Kammani,” Dagan said. “Don’t worry.” He rubbed my arm and smiled, but both of us knew something was wrong.

  By the time we got to Gala’s home in the outskirts of the wealthy neighborhoods bordering the huts and hovels near the wall, they’d beaten us there. They stood inside his little one-story house with a few scraggly bushes in front by the cookfire and a roof that badly needed repair.

  Hidden in the fruit grove behind, we listened to his muffled attempts to talk to her. He flattered her. Asked her about her parents. She responded with cutting wit and scathing insults, and in time, he gave up and came outside to the back porch and plopped down on a barrel, whittling with a dagger.

  “Gala,” Dagan whispered, emerging from the scrub.

  “Who’s there?” Gala dropped his stick and unsheathed his sicklesword in one motion.

  I stayed back, hidden. Our plan was twofold. He’d tell Gala that Iltani was our friend, and try to negotiate with him to release her. I’d give Iltani the means of defending herself if Gala failed to give her up. I’d sat in the scrub and mixed a concoction with what I had in my satchel. It would have to do.

  Dagan walked toward him, hands up, and Gala’s eyes widened in recognition. He clapped his hand with Gala’s, and the gesture nearly made me choke.

  “Remember those three servants who first came with me through the gate? Well—” I heard Dagan say as I tiptoed around the side of the house to the common room in the front, where Iltani was. She was squatting in a corner, her arms around her knees, a look of stark grief and unbridled war on her face.

  My heart leapt. “Iltani!” I whispered through the window.

  She stumbled to her feet, lifted momentarily by the sound of my voice. Casting a long look over her shoulder toward the back of the house, she crept over to me and grasped my hands over the sill, laying her forehead on our interlaced fingers.

  “About time.” Her voice was too loud. Too much. As was Iltani’s way.

  Tears sparked in my eyes. “Iltani, be quieter. Gala is going to hear. I want to get you out of here right now, but you could face the council if you leave and no one would decide in your favor.”

  She shook her head vehemently, eyes red-rimmed. “We can’t risk it. I mean, I’d risk it for me. But they’d kill my abum and ummum if I left him. Gala already warned me on the road here when I ordered him to let me go. He says he would never hurt my family, but his other guardsman friends would if I ever left him. He says some of them are cruel, and with Uruku in power, they’re bolstered even more. The stinking hogs.”

  “Do you really think they would?” I whispered, one ear straining to hear Gala and Dagan’s low, rumbling conversation.

  “Yes!” she whispered harshly. “And now they know who they are, too. My abum came to the bridal gifting and announced who he was like an addled donkey.” She waved her hand around and nearly knocked a vase of wilted flowers off the windowsill. “If I left, the first thing they’d do is find him and demand to know my whereabouts, and he wouldn’t know because he never knows anything.” She lowered her voice. “And then they’d kill him. They might anyway for what he did, standing up and trying to reclaim me. That ignorant man.” Her words were harsh, but I knew that they were driven by a wild, protective love.

  “But you cannot stay here and…and…”

  “What?” Her eyes suddenly brimmed with tears. “Become his wife in word and deed?” As she spoke, her voice rose, and I shushed her, but she didn’t listen. As if I really expected her to. “Well, isn’t that a quandary, because that is what will happen, Kammani. He’s going to try. He can’t be the man he’s so desperately trying to be without giving it a whirl.”

  “Iltani, Dagan is trying to pay Gala off for you this instant. Lower your voice.”

  But she kept speaking, her voice
rising with every word. “And there is nothing I will be able to do about it but try not to murder him.” Her voice caught as her chin quivered. “If I did that, they would find me and kill my parents. So I’ll have to take it or fend him off as best as I can.” She closed her eyes, pressing her lips together until they were white, misery making her writhe.

  I clutched her hands in mine, staring hard down the side of the house, praying to Selu that Dagan was making headway in his conversation. She squeezed me with all the ferocity she had in her, hanging on to this brief connection with me like a drowning woman about to sink under the river.

  My voice broke. “My friend…,” I whispered.

  She laid her forehead on my hands, but she did not cry. She breathed in the scent of my fingers interlaced with hers and, after a moment, laid a loud kiss on top.

  “It’s okay. Get Arwia on the throne. Once she’s restored, she’ll have Gala put to death, and I can choose who gets the supreme privilege of sharing my bed.”

  “I may be able to help you before then, if Dagan does not succeed.”

  I reached down into my healing satchel, buried under thick robes padded to disguise my shape, and pulled out a clay bottle.

  “Add a fingernail of this to his food, but be careful not to eat it yourself. Wash your hands after you touch the powder.”

  Her eyes glittered as she took the little bottle, squinting at the contents. “What is it? Will it kill him? As long as it looks like an accident, I am more than willing—”

  I swallowed nervously. “No! No, but it might make him wish to die, at least for a little while. It’s a mixture of aloe vera juice, senna, and turmeric. It should cause severe stomach cramping and loose bowels.” I shrugged. “A man in pain will have a difficult time performing his husbandly duties.”

  “A fingernail, huh? What about the whole vial?”

  My smile wavered. “Well, he’d likely die, as his blood would thicken and slow in his veins because he’d lose so much water.”

  She took the cask and put it in the waistband of her tunic, her face thoughtful. “Hmmm.”

  “Iltani, please don’t murder him.”

  “We shall see. If he contracts a deadly illness, who am I to question the gods?”

  “You could seriously be compromising your own safety if not your soul—”

  “My soul is probably already going to perish. Look what we’ve concocted for Uruku. Is that not murder?”

  Guilt flooded through my veins. My cheeks reddened. “It will save so many lives if he’s dead. It’s…different.”

  “Is it?” She met my eyes. “I wonder.”

  “You object?”

  “Ha!” Her laugh was mirthless. “I wish I could watch the light fade from his eyes myself. I just wonder about how you will fare if we succeed.”

  My throat tightened as I met her steady gaze. “I’m doing what I must. My soul will be all right.” But was that the truth? I’d been trained to heal, not to harm. Killing Uruku went against everything I’d learned from my father. Show mercy, he’d told me time and again. We are all just people trying our best.

  But Uruku’s death would save the lives of many, so in a way, I was doing everyone a favor, wasn’t I? We had to do what we’d come to do, or we’d live the rest of our lives in fear!

  Do no harm.

  Iltani nodded. “Good. And my soul will rest easy enough if that man out there sits on the chamber pot for days. My thanks for this.” She patted the bottle with nonchalance, but the mask she usually tied so carefully about her face had already slipped. I’d seen past it.

  “Do not thank me,” I whispered. “It’s my fault you are here. I should never have left you and Nanaea alone. I know how reckless you are.” I gave her a mildly reproving look.

  Grief filled up her eyes for a moment, and she shut them against her flood of emotion. “Don’t be daft, Kammani. You’re better than that. It’s my own fault.” She looked down at her hands. “I wanted to see my parents. That was all.” She bit her lip when it trembled. Hard.

  “That’s understandable.”

  “It was stupid,” she spat.

  “Well, so was my idea with the almonds. Now we have to figure out another way to give him the poison. I’ve made some that will actually work.”

  Behind the house, Gala’s and Dagan’s voices rose in anger.

  Oh no.

  Her face fell. “Ahh, well. At least he tried.” Then her eyes grew alarmed. “He better not make Gala too angry. He could tell Uruku!”

  “Good point. Let me go see.”

  “Wait, before you go, give me a task to do. I’m going to be here for a while. Something. Anything. For Gala is stupid.” She looked over her shoulder at the back door, where Gala and Dagan’s voices were punctuated with fire.

  “I think he believes that he will actually win my heart.” She laughed, a dry brittle sound like a twig snapping in two. “So I can use that. Give me something to ask him, and I’ll help you take down Uruku. I’ll work Gala like a puppet and make him dance to whatever song I sing.”

  I gripped her hands fervently. “There you are. That’s my Iltani with the fire inside her.” But what could give her purpose until we could get her out? Give her a reason not to kill him?

  “Keep your ears open when the guardsmen come to visit. Find out where Uruku goes outside the Palace and is exposed. With the support of the ensis behind us, we could seize him when he is at his most vulnerable and force the poison down his throat.”

  A shout and a curse were followed by Dagan’s rigid form stomping around the house toward me, his face a thunderstorm.

  Iltani’s right. He failed.

  He nodded sympathetically at Iltani, then jerked his head toward the road. “We have to go, Kammani. And hurry. Gala said he’d win her to him with his love, but if I didn’t leave his home right now, our deal at the gate was off.”

  “What?”

  He looked at Iltani. “I made him swear as a favor to me that he won’t touch you unless you agree.”

  Iltani barked a laugh. “Let us pray that he values your friendship as much as his reputation as a man. Now go. But you must promise me one thing.”

  “Anything,” I whispered.

  “When Uruku is unseated and Arwia restored to the throne, I will have my day with justice.” She gritted her teeth, her big brown eyes shining with tears she wouldn’t dare shed, not even in front of me. “Promise me!”

  I kissed her hands and reached out to touch her freckled cheek. “You will have it and more, my friend. I promise.”

  * * *

  As we left Iltani, I swore on my life that I would take down Uruku, Gala, all of them. Dagan and I sneaked to the Palace, dark intention heavy on my heart. But when we arrived once more to check the doorway where the guardsman was to have met us, it was flanked by two guardsmen armed to the teeth, and the Libbu was bustling with people muttering something about Warad, Assata’s son.

  Why is his name on their lips?

  “You! Both of you!” One of the guardsmen, with long, matted hair and a mace in his fist, shooed us away from the Palace. “Get out of here! No begging near the doorways! You lot have been told before!”

  “Go! Go!” Dagan murmured to me urgently.

  “But we need to find another way in there!”

  “Kammani, no. It isn’t safe. There’s something in the air.”

  And I felt it, too. A strange tickling at the back of my throat, a whisper of dread across my brow. We melted into the crowds, sliding away from the guardsmen, but as we followed along to try to exit the Libbu, the crowds led us to a dais erected in the center of the Libbu, where once Nanaea had been chosen to die as a Sacred Maiden.

  “It’s Warad!” I clutched Dagan’s arm.

  Dagan sucked in a breath. “And he looks terrible.”

  Warad stood in
the center of the dais on tree-trunk legs, filthy and sallow-cheeked. His hands were shackled in front of him and his shoulders drooped. At his knees was a sandstone block, covered in dried blood. Someone in the crowd screamed his name, and he blinked at her wearily in the blinding light. The surly young guardsman who had pointed his sicklesword at me in the Palace kitchens days ago stood behind him with several others holding maces and spears, sickleswords and daggers.

  People surged around the platform, Warad’s name rolling off their tongues. As we neared, pushing to the edge of the crowd to stand in the shade of a tamarisk tree, a throaty trumpet announced the arrival of Uruku’s caravan.

  He rode in from the dusty roads leading from the Palace in the back of a wooden chariot, garish red paint slashed along the sides. The black mares tugging him toward the dais were healthy and thick, their coats shiny. How well cared for the animals of Alu were compared to the people.

  “I can hardly stand to look at his face. He was supposed to be dead!”

  “You tried, Arammu,” Dagan said, but his words sounded hollow.

  The caravan came to a stop, and Uruku dismounted from the chariot in ragged jerks, his face a sickly shade of amber.

  Hope fluttered into my chest with tiny wings, beating desperately against my breastbone. But he is ill. At least somewhat from the gochala’s side effects. With him in a weakened state, any poison I gave him—even a few drops—would send him to the Netherworld. Delivering it, though, was proving to be a problem since we couldn’t get into the Palace. We needed another way.

  Uruku took the stairs in two stumbling strides, and a few of the guardsmen on the platform took a half step backward. Some stared with open disgust. Not everyone wanted him on the throne. I looked around at the murmuring crowd. Did any of these people besides the wealthiest few approve of his rule?

  Uruku opened his mouth to speak and winced, grasping his head with a trembling hand. I cursed myself for purchasing an ineffective poison.

  And in fact—my guts twisted as a sinking realization raced up into my hairline—I should be cursing myself because of my idiocy. Not only had I bought a useless poison, delivering it had worked against us. My little stunt had actually alerted him that someone wanted him dead.