by Kelly Coon
He frowned. “No?” He looked at Nanaea. “You get married and you love each other. Like Ummum and Abum.”
Nanaea met my eyes over his shoulder. “That’s not always how it works, especially if a woman is forced to take a husband she doesn’t want. Like Iltani has been.”
“Who wouldn’t want a husband?” Kasha blinked at me, and I felt my cheeks coloring as I thought of Dagan and his own question posed not that long ago.
“Some women do.” I glanced at Dagan, but though he was listening, he was studiously avoiding looking as though he was.
“But some do not.”
I looked around the trading post, a sheep’s pen in the distance catching my eye. “Think of it this way,” I explained to him, straightening the vest over my robe. “Go roll around in that pile of dung shoveled from the sheep’s pen.”
He furrowed his brow. “What? No. Gross!”
“What if your loved ones told you that the pile of dung smelled great? That you were stupid for not wanting to lie in it? And what if you didn’t have a choice? What if I made you go sleep in that pile of dung for the rest of your life?”
“That would be terrible. I would hate it.”
Nanaea met my eyes over his head as she tied a belt a little more snugly around Ummi’s waist. “That’s exactly right. And brides who are given in marriage without their consent hate it, too.”
He curled his lip in disgust. “I’m never going to marry.”
“Not all marriage is like sheep dung, Kasha. Some are like feather beds.” I ruffled his hair as Nanaea laughed, her bubbly voice diminishing some of the tension that had settled on my shoulders. From over the tops of the Koru’s heads, Dagan was watching me, holding back a hint of a smile.
I tugged Kasha and Nanaea into a hug, burying my face in their hair, and met Dagan’s eyes over their shoulders. My family.
“Stop! You’re crushing me!” Kasha wriggled away and dumped Nanaea’s linens into her arms, then bolted to my medical tent to see Rish.
“I still believe I should go with all of you. I could make my case before the ensis to reinstate myself on the throne as soon as it is abdicated.” Arwia reached out and tentatively adjusted a warrior’s necklace.
Nanaea stuck her hands on her full hips. “Remember, I have plans for a costume that will make the ensis worship the ground you walk on. It’s necessary! We must make them believe you were strong enough to escape from the tomb. You must look like a warrior maiden who can lead the city in no uncertain terms.” She eyed Arwia’s simple, drab tunic in a dirty beige. “And you cannot do it in that.”
Dagan walked back to me with another trader from Laraak we’d hired to add to the authenticity, securing daggers on their belts.
“Ready to go?”
“We are.” I pulled Nanaea into another hug and murmured into her rose-scented hair. “Look after Rish. Give him the tincture I’ve been telling you and—”
“I know,” Nanaea interrupted, holding me at arm’s length. “Take good care of him. I will. Don’t worry about us. You go and do not be afraid, you hear me?” She kissed my cheek, her eyes suddenly bright with tears. “And come back to me safe and sound, or I’ll be mad at you forever.”
“I promise.” I laid my hand on the top of her head, which was warm from the sun, letting it fall to cup her cheek before pulling away.
As the Koru, Dagan, the trader, and I headed past the edge of the Laraak tents, Nanaea and Arwia linked arms, meandering toward my medical tent. Dagan joined me at my side as we set our sights on the walls of Alu, glimmering pink and gold in the late-morning heat.
“Sheep dung, huh?” he asked.
When I went to swat him, he’d already darted away.
* * *
Gala, his face gray, holding an arm to his midsection, was at the gate when we arrived with the eight Koru, and I resisted the urge to grab Dagan’s dagger and press it to his neck and make him release Iltani or face death. But I would mess everything up for Iltani’s family if I did, and I couldn’t break my promise to stay silent and let her work her magic. Soon, I promised myself as he waved us through, tying the sack of coins that Dagan handed him to the belt at his waist.
Soon.
At least for now, it appeared that the tincture I’d given Iltani was doing its worst. I only prayed to Selu that it had prevented him from taking her to wife.
“Ummi,” I whispered.
“What, A-zu?” Ummi craned her neck around to look at me.
“Trader, you mean?” I laughed, my nervousness making it come out high and strange. “I have faith in you and your fellow Koru. But if something should happen, I want you to know—”
“Hush.” She smiled underneath her heavy, sunset-colored makeup. “You’ve yet to see us in action. Nothing will happen.”
As we traveled to the Palace, the beige, tiered structure shimmered proudly in the center of the city as if calling me to it. The blue temple on the top was a beehive of people swarming in and out of the arched doorways.
What is going on? That many people were not usually up in the temple this time of day.
As a prickle of unease swept through me, I said a quick prayer to Selu for our safety. For what I knew we’d face when we arrived. For what I didn’t know.
The spectacle of our brides created a commotion as we walked. Whistles and lewd comments followed us as we trudged down the dusty lanes toward the Palace. Dagan, dressed as a trader, with thick kohl around his eyes, his beard streaked with gray, rings on his fingers, and a pouch around his waist to make him appear well fed, strode with confidence at the front of the line.
The Koru wore dejected expressions and hung their heads, giving some of the people of Alu the bravery to come up and grab hold of them, planting sloppy kisses on their ears or pressing their bodies against them.
“Stop it!” I yelled ferociously when one man grabbed Ummi’s breast under her cloak, but Ummi nailed him so hard with her forehead, she snapped his nose. Blood gushed over his lips and down his chin while his friends laughed.
I reached forward to comfort Ummi, reminded of Uruku’s rough paws on my own body, but her chin was firm. She glanced over her shoulder at the man who’d grabbed her.
“He’s received his due.”
“Not too much longer,” I whispered as we passed by a man and his sons, who were running away from the Palace so fast, they didn’t spare us a second glance.
And they weren’t alone in their haste.
As we neared the city center and the huge sandstone Libbu wall, more and more people crowded the roads headed away, tugging their children’s hands, expressions twisted in fear. Screams resonated from inside the Libbu, and the unmistakable clang of metal against metal rang out in the morning air.
Ahead of us, Dagan and the other trader stopped, and Dagan held up his big hand, turning toward the sounds.
Abandoning my post near the rear of the line, I trotted up to him. “What is it?” A clash followed by a scream made us all flinch. “What is that?”
“It’s war, Kammani. Listen.” His mouth went grim, and his left hand strayed to the daggers on his belt.
“Dear Selu.” My hand flew to my throat. Because from where I stood, a few streets away from the Palace Libbu, people streaming past us, abandoning their belongings, their baskets for trade and begging, it suddenly dawned on me what I was hearing, too. Clangs of sicklesword against sicklesword. Shouts. Ragged shrieks. Ummi jogged up next to me, bringing Humusi and the other Koru with her, round eyes watchful.
“Ahh, A-zu,” Ummi whispered, a glitter in her eye. “The war you were trying to avoid is upon us already. Higal must have beaten us here.”
BEDLAM WAS WAITING for us in the dusty Libbu. Carts were overturned. Booths ripped to shreds, people screaming and sprinting in all directions. Assata climbed to the top of the Libbu wall, flanked by the hea
ds of her dead husband, dead son, and all the other traitors to Uruku, and raised her fist up high with a cry that pierced the din.
The tradesman we’d hired dropped the Koru’s ropes and fled back toward Laraak.
The warrior women who were on Higal’s side, arrayed in their copper tunics and scorpion helmets, battled like lionesses on the hunt, swinging battle-axes and maces into the skulls of the guardsmen who were brave enough to challenge them. One warrior screamed, streaks of dirt on her face as she sliced through the abdomen of a guardsman. His mouth fell open in surprise as he caught his own guts in his hands.
Near the left, Nasu, his face spattered with blood, his muscles straining as he swung his sicklesword, fought the guardsmen with whom he’d once been brothers.
I screamed, my hands over my ears, tears pricking my eyes. Dagan unsheathed his daggers.
“We must proceed, A-zu!” Ummi cried. “The battle has already begun. There is nothing left to do but help my sisters in war.”
She cut herself out of her bridal tunic, and her armor glimmered as she plunged into the fray. Humusi and the other Koru shed their own disguises like snakeskin and followed closely behind, weapons drawn.
Dagan pushed me toward the entrance to the Libbu. “Get back to Laraak! Now!” he commanded, his whole body radiating with focused intensity.
Dagan’s brothers Shep and Marduk, who must’ve gotten word of the battle, yelled as they parried through the clangs and curses, darting toward the rear of the Palace near the kitchens. Shep, baring his incisors like a dog, carried a sicklesword stolen from some guardsman, but Marduk carried only a mattock from the field on his bullish back.
“Dagan! What are they doing here! Where—”
“Go!” Dagan yelled, terrified, into my face. “I need to get them!”
I flung myself once around his neck, kissed him, and sprinted away, dodging screaming, starving people running for their own lives.
The Boatman was chasing us, his cavernous mouth open and ready to swallow us whole.
But I didn’t run for Laraak. I ran for the corner of the Libbu near the well in a thicket of trees. I wouldn’t abandon Dagan. Even if I had to watch him die. Even if I was forced to my knees and killed myself, I would not leave him behind.
Scrambling into the prickly weeds beneath the sycamores, I dropped onto my belly. My heart thrummed in my chest. My hands, underarms, forehead, and back were slick with sweat. I touched the healing satchel at my waist underneath the thick trader’s cloak and covered my ears against the screams of war. Cursing. Shrieks of agony and rage from the Manzazu warriors and guardsmen who were viciously fighting right in front of me in the Libbu.
Humusi climbed to the top of the Libbu wall with a bow and arrow and fired at the guardsmen in range, knocking them down one by one. Time stood still as the horror rained down upon us. There was nothing more than clanging metal. Billowing smoke from a fire started near the Palace entrance. Crashing bodies and broken bones as both the nobility and poor were caught in the fury.
And where were Dagan and his brothers? They’d run toward the kitchens, our way in when we’d poisoned Uruku before. But though they might be able to get into the Palace, they’d never get Uruku. Not this way. He was likely already in hiding, scared off by the sounds of bloodshed.
Pulling myself up to follow them and warn them away, I gasped and slid back down to hide as a young man in rags thrust a dagger into the chest of a nobleman mere handsbreadths away. He collapsed, writhing amid the mayhem, a hand pressed against the blood. A rich man, covered in gore, snuck up behind the poor killer and swung at his neck with a gleaming sicklesword. The young man dodged the first swing, but the rich man was stronger and faster and ran him down, hacking off the poor man’s head with several furious, bloody strokes.
Dropping my head into my arms, I sobbed among the screams of the dying. People were fighting a war they didn’t even understand. There was no reason to kill that poor man and no reason to fight the nobility, either. They were both caught up in Uruku’s madness. They should be working together to get Uruku off the throne! I wept and watched as a reserve of guardsmen, looking bigger and stronger than those who’d been in the Libbu before, poured from the Palace with a great war cry. They flooded the marketplace and the Manzazu army spread out, some scaling the walls to hurl spears, others fighting hand to hand. But the women were outnumbered by a lot. By quite a lot. Assata joined Humusi and fired arrows at the growing number of guardsmen.
Tightness gripped my chest as they fought relentlessly through their terror with bravery.
Yet, I lay in the scrub, cowering.
No. The word surged through me. I didn’t have to lie here. Though I couldn’t help those who had died, I could do something about those who still lived.
I pushed myself up from my belly with shaking arms to wobbly legs. Men, women, guardsmen, and a few Manzazu warriors lay strewn about like broken dolls beyond the safety of the weeds. Their legs were twisted beneath them. Their bodies seeped blood. With my hand, I stifled another sob rising in my throat. Others writhed in agony, hands pressed to gaping wounds.
The soft groans from some people lying farther down toward a more secluded area of the Libbu—away from the battle zone—compelled me from behind the tree with shaking, faltering steps. I ducked underneath the cracked branches, grasped the rough trunk of the tree to steady myself, and took a few tentative steps out into the open.
No one attacked.
My heart thudding, I ran as fast as I could around the side of the Palace to a man who lay near an overturned cart. He was a young guardsman. His helmet lay nearby, dented. A bright blue tunic woven with gold threads covered him from waist to knees. Beautiful leather sandals wound around his feet, which were splayed to the sides of his body. Somebody cared for him. Cared enough to make him these lovely clothes. His mother? A young wife, perhaps? Crouching down to assess his wounds, I studied his face. He was handsome. No more than sixteen or seventeen—my own years. My belly tightened involuntarily as he reached for me, agony twisting his face, pale with the loss of blood, which was seeping from a long laceration in his left arm.
“Please,” he whispered.
“I’m here, I’m here,” I crooned.
Just then, a woman’s voice called to me, and I saw a pair of Manzazu sandals sticking out from behind an overturned cart. “Help me,” she moaned.
But this boy needed me, too!
“Please, it hurts so bad,” the young guardsman whispered.
“I’m here!” Using the blade I kept in my satchel, I cut off the long strap from his fine sandal and knotted it around his arm to stem the blood flow. He turned, groaning in pain, and I saw the deep gash on his back and the pool of black blood darkening the sand beneath him.
“A-zu,” the Manzazu warrior cried.
“I’m coming!”
My heart ached with pity for her. But this guardsman needed my help. Probably a cauterization, which I could not do at the moment. Carefully, I removed his breastplate and wedged it under his back while he writhed, pressing the metal against his skin to help stem the flow until I could assess the Manzazu warrior. I rifled through my healing satchel and found the poppy and tapped some into his mouth to help him drift off.
That will have to do for now.
My heart lurching, I left him and raced to help the warrior. I needed to at least see how bad she was. If she was fine, I could go back to the guardsman. At least pull him out of the dirt and the grime, build a fire, clean the wound, and cauterize to hold it until I could tend to him properly.
The woman lay sprawled, hair matted to her forehead, her helmet near her feet. I dropped to my knees. Grasped her hand. Her grip was weak. I traced my finger along her arm for the beat of her bloodline. It was also weak. Slowing.
“Where does it hurt?” I whispered.
“Here.” She swatted at her
left side.
I laid her hand gently on her belly and shuffled to the wound. Dark, black blood covered the ground, and the laceration continued to gush.
She groaned and tried to push herself to her elbows.
“Stay still!” I cried. I needed a bandage. A cloth. Anything to stop the bleeding.
To my left, a corpse of a man lay, a war-stained tunic around his waist. No. Something else. I looked quickly to my left and right, hoping for a stray horse blanket or a bit of torn clothing. Anything I could grab that wouldn’t put me in harm’s way. The battle continued to rage from the other side of the Libbu. I looked back to the dead man. To the boy beyond him who desperately needed my help, too. Bile filled my throat when I knew what I must do.
“Hold on!” I smoothed her hair, then scurried over to the corpse, glancing around wildly, my nerves jangling. Hurry! Hurry! I ripped a portion of the tunic from his body, and screamed when his leg flopped against mine.
I raced back to the warrior, who was trying to speak.
“Shhh,” I whispered. “Lie still.”
With shaking hands, I tried to tear the tunic into a strip I could use.
“Please,” she groaned.
“I’m sorry!” My chest tightened as I tugged the material. It was too tough! I put it to my teeth and tried to tear it again to form a bandage to stem the blood flow.
She pointed with trembling fingers beyond my shoulder. “Over there,” she moaned.
I glanced up from my work. The battle drew closer. A band of figures clashed their weapons together with grunts and roars. The Manzazu warriors were fighting bravely, but there were so many guardsmen! There were women fighting two and three men at a time. A guttural cry of Retreat! in Higal’s round Manzazu accent echoed off the walls.
“I must hurry,” I told her frantically. “Why were you fighting under Higal, anyway? I had a plan to prevent this!”
Frustrated with myself for not being strong enough to tear the fabric, I balled the tunic up and pressed it against the gaping wound in her side.