Pride of Empires (The Powers of Amur Book 3)

by J. S. Bangs

“I’m here at Lushatha-kha’s request.”

  “You are, but that doesn’t mean you’re without other motives.” Praudhu rubbed his hands together greedily. “No, I want Basadi-dar close by, and I want ties which will keep the nobles nearest to me in line. Kaugali is a major city, and if Lushatha-kha is tied to the imperial house, then all the khadir of his region are mine as surely as if I bound them with collars of bronze. Your plot has failed.”

  “I have no plot,” Sadja said blandly.

  “No, of course not. You’re an honorable man.” Praudhu began to walk slowly down the path, still rubbing his hands together, studying the gravel underfoot. “Well, you can bring my answer to Lushatha-kha. I’ll enlarge his dowry and provide him a position in the imperial administration. If he wants more than that, he truly is a fool.”

  “Thank you, my Emperor,” Sadja said, and he dropped to his knees and prostrated. “I will take my leave.”

  “Go,” Praudhu said with a wave of his hand. “And tell Lushatha-kha to speak with me for details.”

  Sadja left the orange garden without seeing any sign of Basadi, to his disappointment. He wondered where she hid. He reunited with Bhargasa and the rest of his retinue in the antechamber to the Green Hall.

  As they approached the descent to the Rice Gate, a maid came up running behind them. “Sadja-dar!” she said breathlessly. She bowed deeply. “You dropped this, my lord and king.” She showed Sadja a small purse of pink silk.

  Sadja had never seen the purse before. He paused for a heartbeat, almost ready to dismiss the maid—but he reached the proper conclusion first. He plucked the purse out of her hand.

  “Thank you,” he said. “These things are so easy for me to lose track of.”

  The maid scurried off into the corridors of the palace. Sadja and his retinue descended the stairs to the Rice Gate. As they walked he pulled the laces of the purse open and reached inside. A tiny scrap of palm-leaf paper, with hasty writing in a taut woman’s hand.

  Will you give me the wedding present I want? -B

  Sadja smiled.

  Mandhi

  A broad avenue descended from the market square toward the docks of Davrakhanda, a river of color and noise. Sari, kurta, sheep, and sails trickled past on every side. Vendors’ stalls choked off side-streets and filled the air with the scent of fried fish and ground peppers. The chatter of beggars and sellers muddied the air, and over the whole thing loomed the stone pinnacle of the Ashtyavarunda, the Ashti’s great temple on the shore of Davrakhanda.

  Mandhi, Ashturma, and their escorts carved a channel through the chaos, heralds announcing their approach, and the soldiers at the front of their line splitting the crowds like a prow slicing through waves. Mandhi and Ashturma walked in the center of the retinue. Directly ahead of them two slaves carried a bronze-clad box with Sundasha’s ransom, flanked by two guards on either side. When they passed from the dusty road onto the stone-paved wharf, the group relaxed and drew together into a ring. They set the treasure box down, and half of the soldiers went off toward the Ashtyavarunda.

  “Where are they going?” Mandhi asked. “Aren’t we boarding the ship?”

  “Immediately,” Ashturma said. “The ones who left are the ones who will be boarding. A local custom. They go to make an offering to Ashti before they set foot on any ship.”

  Mandhi glanced down at the treasure box and kicked it gently with her toe. She had watched them load it; a greater number of silver coins than she had seen in her life, ransom for Ashturma’s son and more besides, to pay the soldiers and sailors who would accompany them to Virnas. The soldiers bought shells and flowers from vendors alongside the temple, then bowed beneath the arch and disappeared into the Ashtyavarunda. Several long minutes passed.

  Mandhi’s gaze searched among the stacked baskets and jars on the wharf and the masts of the dhows poking up like reeds. For a moment she thought she saw Nakhur, Aryaji’s uncle, in his saghada’s white at the far end of the harbor. She looked quickly away.

  “Mandhi!” cried out a young woman’s voice. Mandhi looked up the avenue and saw Nagiri approaching.

  The young noblewoman came and threw her arms around Mandhi. “So glad I caught you before you left,” she said, kissing both of Mandhi’s cheeks.

  Mandhi grinned and kissed Nagiri in return. “Glad you could make it! Your father let you come?”

  “Just to the docks,” Nagiri said. “And only for a bit.” She kissed Mandhi again, stepped back, and bowed to Ashturma.

  “Nagiri-kha,” the regent said. He dipped his head to her. “I had not heard you were coming.”

  “I just want to say goodbye to my friend Mandhi, Ashturma-kha,” Nagiri said. “I regret she has to leave under these circumstances.”

  “I’m sorry this is how we part,” Ashturma said. His arms were folded across his chest, and he watched the entrance to the Ashtyavarunda, waiting for the soldiers to emerge. “Sadja-dar would send his regrets, if he were here.”

  “I, too, regret you allowed my son to be kidnapped,” Mandhi said.

  Ashturma clenched his fists. “Have you no pity on me? My son is in danger as well.”

  “As I see it, Navran-dar has done the honorable thing and made every effort to recover Sundasha-kha, even humiliating himself to send to you for money.”

  Ashturma closed his eyes and shook his head. “Take your money to Virnas and trouble us no more.”

  Nagiri leaned close to Mandhi and whispered in her ear, “Don’t worry. Everything is in place.”

  Mandhi squeezed Nagiri’s hand and smiled.

  The escort emerged from the temple and rejoined them on the wharf. A little ways ahead their dhow waited alongside one of the long wooden docks that protruded into the harbor. It was one of the larger dhows, twenty yards from prow to stern, with a pair of lateen sails furled against their yards. A ladder ascended from the dock. The soldiers who had received Ashti’s blessing went up first, then the treasure box was lifted up and stowed. Only Mandhi, Nagiri, and Ashturma remained on the dock with the remnant of Ashturma’s retinue.

  “Give my greetings to my son, when you see him,” Ashturma said bitterly. “And return him to me quickly.”

  “Come and visit us in Davrakhanda some time,” Nagiri added.

  “As quickly as I can,” Mandhi said. She glanced at the palace sitting at the top of the city. “It was nice here, and you and Sadja-dar treated me well. Aside from your failure with Jhumitu.”

  Ashturma scowled. “It was your own foolishness that let it happen.”

  “And it was your reluctance that let them escape.”

  Ashturma sighed and shook his head. Mandhi put her foot on the ladder and climbed up and over the rail, stepping onto the smooth plank decking of the dhow. “Goodbye, Ashturma-kha. Goodbye, Nagiri-kha.”

  Ashturma didn’t respond, but turned and began marching back into the city with his retinue. Nagiri waited a moment on the docks. Mandhi stepped away from the rail and walked toward the raised deck on the prow. The soldiers were finding places to stow their bedrolls alongside the rail, while the sailors—Amurans, not Kaleksha, Mandhi noted—unfurled the sail and cast off from the dock.

  She waved down at Nagiri. Back on the shore, she spotted another glimpse of white moving in the crowd. She smiled.

  * * *

  The harbor of Davrakhanda was several hours behind them. Mandhi’s feet were getting used to the swaying of the deck from the gentle ocean swells. The coast of Amur was barely visible as a black line behind the waves on her right. She sat on a cushion on the foredeck, one hand on the rail, watching the bulging sail and the wide wake trailing behind them.

  So she was the first one to see their pursuit.

  It was a small black speck between the slate blue of the sea and the pale sky, obscured now and then by swells. At first it looked like a fly. But it grew. The speck became a triangle, a dark wide shape at the bottom and the point of the lateen sail growing above it. The spray of the ocean splashed Mandhi. She wiped her eyes, an
d when she looked again, it seemed bigger. She could see the rigging and make out the dark lines of stitches holding together the strips of the sail. The dhow was small and light, riding high in the water, with its prow slicing the waves and sending up spray like a gull’s feather.

  She clambered down from the foredeck and crossed to the aft where the captain waited. He was seated atop a cushion of his own, shouting commands to the sailors and holding a chain of carved navigation stones loosely in his other hand. He glanced at Mandhi with irritation when she sat down next to him.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “Someone is following us,” she said. She pointed to the north.

  The captain looked behind him and swore. He jumped to his feet, grabbed the rail, and shaded his eyes. “Pirates,” he said and spat. He shouted orders to the other sailors, who clambered about and began pulling on the rigging to trim the sail.

  “Can we escape them?”

  “Maybe not,” the captain said. “They’re small and fast. We’ll tack into land to get under the sea breeze at this time of day. We might be able to stay away from them that way.”

  “And if we can’t?”

  The captain looked at her grimly. “Then we fight. Fortunately we have soldiers. Once they see we’re armed, they might leave us alone.”

  The news of the pirates spread among the crew. Sailors and soldiers gave anxious glances to the rear. Mandhi climbed back to the prow and watched the boat advance. Though the breeze stiffened and the sail bulged, her own boat made no progress. The pirates still advanced. They came up the rear until it seemed that their prow nearly touched the square stern of Mandhi’s boat, then they tacked to the right to come alongside. Mandhi could see the crew now: a band of Amurans with grim faces, battered swords, and long knives at each of their sides.

  “Get to the rails,” the captain ordered the guards that Ashturma had sent. “Show them we have spears and will fight.” He scrambled down from his chair, and the soldiers grabbed their spears and moved to the rail on the side where the pirates sailed, matching their speed. The soldiers raised their spears above their heads, then thrust the points out. The pirates shouted, the meaning of the words lost in the wind.

  Grapples sailed through the air from the pirates toward their ship. One clattered off the hull and splashed into the water, one met the rail but fell into the water when the pirates pulled on it, but the third landed on the decking of the midships. Its hooks seized the rail when the marauders tugged.

  “Cut it! Cut the line!” the captain screamed. The soldiers scrambled forward, but it was too late. With a crash the hulls of the ships met. Mandhi pitched to the side. The shuddering knocked the soldiers to their knees. Three pirates leaped onto the deck of Mandhi’s boat.

  “Stop!” shouted a voice like a thunderclap.

  Mandhi pulled herself up with the rail and saw the speaker. He was a tall man, towering above the pirates next to him, with a long braid of black hair and an oiled beard that touched his chest. He stood in the pirate ship but leaned forward and gripped the rail of Mandhi’s boat. A sword hung in a scabbard at his side.

  “Listen, you blind squid. No one needs to bleed today. We don’t want ransom. We want your boat, your cargo, and your passenger.”

  “You what?” the captain sputtered.

  Mandhi climbed down from the foredeck, and in a few steps reached the pirates on the mid-deck. The pirate captain gave her a withering glare. “You’re the wench?”

  The captain of Mandhi’s dhow stepped forward. “I took this woman into my care. You will not harm her without going through me.”

  Mandhi put a hand on the man’s forearm. “No,” she said softly, affecting a look of fear and submission. “No, it’s better this way.”

  The captain looked at her in surprise and anger. “You don’t know what they’ll do to you.”

  “I don’t,” Mandhi agreed, “but look at them. They’re more than us. You’ll die if you resist them, and then I’ll have go with them nonetheless.”

  The captain shook his arm free from her and pushed her away. “This is my ship, and I won’t be giving it over to anyone.”

  “No!” Mandhi cried. “Let them have this ship with me and the treasure, then you can take their ship and go home.”

  The captain scowled at Mandhi, but in that moment one of the pirates swung with the flat of his sword and swatted him in the shoulder. The force of the blow sent the captain sprawling across the deck, and before he could turn over the enormous black-haired pirate had leaped the rail and put the tip of his blade against the captain’s neck.

  “You should listen to the lady,” the pirate said. “Easier for everyone that way.”

  The captain squirmed and tried to crawl away, but the pirate pinned him with a foot.

  “Ashturma-kha will have my head if I sail into Davrakhanda without you,” he croaked.

  “Then don’t go back to Davrakhanda,” the long-bearded pirate said. “Not my problem. Now get on.”

  The captain looked around him. Mandhi had already counted: they had four soldiers armed with spears and an equal number of sailors with short knives at their waist. There were twice as many pirates. Big men with hostile faces holding swords and cudgels.

  “You pissing dogs,” the captain swore. “The Lord Am curse you. The Lady Ashti swallow your boat. Get over, men, they have us.”

  They affixed another grapple to bring the boats neatly alongside, and the exchange took place. The captain, crew, and soldiers which had been sent to guard Mandhi boarded the smaller ship under the hostile eyes of the pirates, while the pirates and mercenaries began to heave over the extra provisions they had brought.

  One pair of pirates did not labor carrying over provisions. A strange white garment showed under a ragged pirate cloak, and the other looked like little more than a boy. Both of them came and sat next to Mandhi while the rest of the crew worked.

  “Mandhi, dear child,” the white-clad pirate said, pressing her hands in his. “Are you well?”

  “I’m wonderful, Nakhur,” she said. A thrill of exaltation passed through her. “Better than I’ve been since Jhumitu was taken. And you? How was it with… them?” She nodded toward the rough, bearded faces of the pirates.

  “They know their pay-masters,” Nakhur shrugged. “Their captain Jauda is an honorable man, and he keeps a firm hand on them.”

  A few more minutes and the loading was complete. The pirates pulled down the rigging and dropped the sail of the smaller boat onto its deck—Nakhur explained it would take the crew hours to rig the sails again at sea, giving them plenty of time to get away. The captain and his crew watched them glumly. Then the last mercenaries leaped onto the larger ship and took up the grapples, pushing their smaller boat away.

  The captain Jauda swaggered to the rear deck and took a seat on the same cushion the other captain had abandoned. “Push off!” he bellowed. “Set a course three palms north of the sunrise! Goodbye, you poor fools! Have fun sailing back to Davrakhanda! We fly to Kalignas!”

  The sail turned and billowed, the rudder creaked, and the prow of the boat moved from the south to the east, and they began to move away. A terrible mix of excitement and fear murmured in Mandhi’s belly. Behind them, the coast of Amur receded. Ahead, the open ocean, and Kalignas beyond.

  Kirshta

  Ash. Ash and mud. That was all Kirshta could find in Ternas.

  It had been nearly a year since Kirshta had stood here with Ruyam and watched the monastery burn. A year had healed the blackness of the scars. The outermost wall of stone still stood, with grass growing along its base and vines beginning to clamber up its face. The soil of the inner courtyard was black with ash. Wildflowers and grasses bloomed in clusters around the stumps of burned columns. The temple in the center of the monastery was a slouching mound of stone, a few green copper tiles hiding among the rubble.

  Kirshta kicked a blackened stone aside. “Hundreds of years of thikratta learning,” he said. “And we burned it down.�
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  Apurta sat on a stone near the remains of the temple, resting his chin in his hands. “I didn’t know,” he protested. “I just followed my orders.”

  “Followed orders,” Kirshta said. “But you knew. You knew what Ternas was—everyone in Amur has heard of Ternas. You burned it anyway.” He sighed deeply. “And so did I.”

  “You boys are both too full of yourselves,” Vapathi said. She stood a few feet away, wandering through the grass and kicking aside stones looking for anything of interest. “Ruyam would have burned this place one way or another. Neither of you deserves blame.”

  “Blame? Maybe not. But I still regret it.” Kirshta hopped off the pile of stones and walked to Vapathi. “And even Ternas was just a remnant, the last outpost of the thikratta. There was so much we lost. I wish I knew….”

  “Have you tried meditating while you’re here?” Apurta said brightly. “Has it told you anything?”

  He had tried, and all he had seen was the bottomless throat of stone and him falling forever. Nothing else: just terror and darkness and being cut by teeth in the mouth of endless hunger. He shook his head. “I don’t understand. Ruyam was interested in this place—not just because it was the last outpost of the thikratta, but because of its founding. And he burned it.”

  “Maybe someone got away,” Vapathi said. “Are you sure you killed all of the monks here?”

  “We were supposed to,” Apurta said.

  “But perhaps you didn’t. We know that Gocam got away with the Heir and his sister. Could others have escaped?”

  Kirshta brightened a little at the thought. “Maybe. How could we find them?”

  Vapathi pointed down the hill toward Ternas village. “We ask.”

  “They won’t tell us,” Apurta said. “Not to one of the Red Men and a thikratta from the Ushpanditya.”

  “You’re a deserter,” Vapathi said, “and Kirshta fled in disgrace. Honestly, I’m the most reputable of any of us, which ought to be a great shame to both of you.”