by Alina Boyden
“The ropes?” I gasped, fighting to catch my breath.
“We were only able to make one,” she replied, gesturing to her celas, who were busy lowering it over the side of the balcony, tying it off on one of the columns.
“And the guards?”
“They ran off to deal with the attack,” she replied, “but I would bet anything that Asma will be returning with them as soon as she figures out what is going on.”
“We have to do something to stop them getting in,” I muttered, but I wasn’t sure what, not until I saw the lead boat rushing toward us, and I spotted all the swivel guns mounted along its railings. They were light. They could be hauled up easily. One of them might be enough to hold off a group of guards. It was worth a try anyway.
I rushed to the railing just as the boat reached the rope. One man was already taking hold of it, but I called down, “Tie a cannon to it first!”
“What?” Sanghar shouted back, horrified at the prospect of our taking a cannon and leaving his men in the boat, but there was no time to argue. One or two men with a toradar weren’t going to stop thirty guardsmen, but a swivel gun loaded with grapeshot might.
“Just do it!” I hissed.
That got through to him. He tied off a cannon whose match cord was still burning merrily above the touchhole, and Hina and I hauled it up as fast as we could. It wasn’t much heavier than Lakshmi, so it didn’t take much time, but all the while the shouting was growing louder. And then the men in the guard tower to our left spotted us, and they fired their toradars, the long-barreled guns belching flame and white smoke.
Chips flew off the sandstone columns. Something nearly hit my face. I pulled the makeshift rope of silk dupattas through my hands as fast as I could, driven by a blind panic. There was nothing I could do to take cover, not until I had the cannon. The men on the tower were reloading, and behind me a cela shouted, “Hina, they’re coming!”
The cannon crested the railing and I rushed to untie it, my shaking, stiff fingers fighting with the knot for what seemed an eternity. Once it was free I gathered it up in my arms, told Hina, “Get the men up!” and ran into my bedchamber.
I heard the jingle of the guards’ armor, the pounding of their feet on the polished marble floors. They were right on top of us. I needed to find something to stabilize the cannon, but what?
My eyes landed on my bedpost and I slammed the spike at the base of the swivel mount right into the top of it, digging it in deep, fighting to make sure that it wouldn’t come loose, or it would be more danger to me than to my enemies.
“You’ve crossed us for the last time, you little slut!” Asma herself screeched as she rounded the corner and entered my bedchamber’s doorway, more than a dozen guards packed closely behind her. She froze, her eyes going wide as she took in the muzzle of the swivel gun aimed at her, the red glow of the match cord hovering over the touchhole, my finger on the trigger mechanism, my eye sighting down the barrel.
I grinned at her, savoring this moment, because who knew whether I would survive the night or not? As she reared back in terror, I said, in my most dulcet tones, “Good-bye, mother-in-law.”
CHAPTER 24
I pulled the trigger. The burning match snapped down, burying a red-hot coal in a pile of fine black powder. There was a hiss, a stream of white smoke, and then a boom as loud as Sultana’s thunder. The bedpost cracked from the force of the cannon’s recoil as flames and smoke poured forth from the muzzle, which had been cast from bronze in the form of a fire zahhak’s gaping maw.
A pound of musket balls tore through the hallway and everything in it, the lead shot punching through cloth and armor, flesh and bone, and carrying straight through into the marble wall beyond, gouging out thirty or forty holes, each one dripping with blood and gore.
I had never seen anything like the carnage the cannon had left in its wake. Nothing in that hallway could have possibly survived the wall of death that had been spewed out of the mouth of the bronze zahhak. Asma was barely recognizable as a person, the musket balls having torn the clothing from her body, and the flesh from her bones, sawing her completely in half and obliterating her hateful face. And each and every guard lay still, drenched in blood, their corpses covered with makeshift shrouds of shredded steel.
“Move!” Hina roared, shunting me aside from the rear of the gun. She was carrying a steel mug in her hand, and I didn’t know what it was, not until she grabbed the D-shaped handle at the breech of the cannon and jerked free a matching mug, this one empty and smoldering. She tossed the used-up breechblock aside and slammed in the fresh one, twisting it so that it locked into place. She pulled back the lock, poured loose powder into the touchhole, and then pointed the muzzle at the hallway just as another troop of Mahisagari guardsmen came rushing into view.
They skidded to a stop, their eyes wide with horror as they took in the death and devastation in front of them, and then their eyes landed on Hina and the cannon, and all hope left them.
She let out a screech of malicious glee as she pulled the trigger. I pressed my fingers into my ears an instant before the bronze zahhak roared death for the second time in less than a minute.
A haze of white smoke hung thick in the air of the bedchamber. I pulled my fingers free from my ears, straining to hear the sounds of guards or muskets returning fire, but there was just an eerie silence. More distant shouts were still going up, but there was no sign that anyone had survived the cannon’s second fusillade.
When the sea breeze cleared enough of the smoke to make out shapes amid the fog of war, my eyes widened in horror. There was a Mahisagari guardsman standing amid the bodies of his fallen comrades, his toradar leveled right at us. There was no time to think. I hurled myself into Hina, driving her to the floor just as flames spurted in front of us.
An angry sound hissed across my back, and there was a crack from the impact of lead against stone behind us. But he’d missed. That was the main thing.
I scrambled to my feet, fumbling to draw my katars as the guardsman dropped his toradar, drew his firangi and his buckler, and charged at us, screaming bloody murder. I got my fingers around the grips of the katars, sliding the second one free, gripping it with my right hand just as the guardsman slashed down with a shriek of fury.
I threw my left hand into the cut, letting the momentum propel my right fist forward. The firangi’s sharp edge bit deeply into the good steel of the katar’s blade, but I’d stopped his cut cold. His eyes were wide as my fist raced for his face, an eight-inch dagger projecting from my knuckles.
I had expected some kind of jolt of impact, but there wasn’t one, and for a horrible second, I thought I’d somehow swung wide with my punch, but then my knuckles and the brass guard of my katar hit the man in the nose, and I realized that the blade had pierced through his entire skull with so little resistance that I hadn’t even felt it go in. I kicked him in the chest, jerking my bloodied weapon free, averting my eyes from the narrow, bloody diamond that now connected his eyes through the space where the bridge of his nose had once been.
Hina was on her feet beside me a second later, and then I was startled to see ajrak-clad ladies rushing into the room from the balcony, carrying toradars, bhuj axes thrust through their sashes. They looked just like they had when I’d met them, all of Hina’s celas ready for war at long last. They knelt down, pointing the muzzles of their weapons at the hallway, as men who looked like cutthroat bandits took their places behind them, their rifles projecting over the women’s heads, creating a double line of barrels stacked one atop the other.
But nobody was coming, my ears told me that. The palace was in disarray, but the biggest danger now was to Lakshmi. If the messengers took off and got away, then they’d reach Ahura before I could, and Lakshmi would die. I couldn’t let that happen, not after we’d improbably succeeded at killing Asma and taking the palace.
“With me!” I cried, and I ran past t
he celas, the soles of my slippers slamming into the bodies of dozens of people coating the floor of the hallway, but I was sure-footed, and I burst out into the corridor beyond an instant later, searching for the guards I was sure were still ringing the women’s quarters.
There! In the garden. Two dozen of them had formed up under the orders of a superior officer. They were trying to work out which way to go, but the minute they spotted me standing there in my black shalwar kameez, bloodied katars in my hands, they knew something was wrong.
“Kill her!” I understood enough Mahisagari to understand that. The officer thrust his firangi in my direction, and his men rushed to raise their toradars to send a volley into me that I knew I would never survive.
But the next thing I knew sixteen women were lining the railing beside me, their rifles already raised, and they got their volley off first. The sound of sixteen rifles going off at once was like the tearing of the fabric of reality itself. I was surrounded by smoke and flame, but I could still see the Mahisagari guardsmen below me. Almost two-thirds of their number toppled to the ground, stone-dead. God, Hina’s celas were brilliant markswomen with those curious long-barreled Zindhi rifles!
But it wasn’t enough. The officer was still standing, as were eight of his men. He shouted, “Shoot, damn it!”
They were stunned, staggered by seeing so many of their number killed, and they hesitated too long. The men reached us and poured another volley into the Mahisagaris, and they could hardly have missed, the range was so close and they were standing so plainly in the open. It was a slaughter. Every last man was hit at least once, most more than that. They shuddered from the impact of the musket balls, tumbled to the blood-soaked sandstone, and lay still.
“Hurry, we have to get to the zahhak stables!” I shouted as Hina’s celas finished reloading their muskets, the men still slamming ramrods down the barrels, rushing to get themselves ready.
“Razia!” Sakshi shrieked, and to my shame I had forgotten to make sure she was safe, but she was holding a Zindhi rifle, her sweet face stained with gunpowder. She was pointing over the top of the distant gatehouse, and I saw the reason for her cry an instant later. A pair of acid zahhaks were rising up into the air. We were too late. We’d never catch them.
“If they escape, Lakshmi dies!” I screamed it so that nobody would be under any illusions as to the stakes. And then I flung myself over the railing, heedless of the ten-foot fall to the grass below. I hit with both feet, let myself crumple and roll, and was on my feet running an instant later like nothing had happened, sprinting for the gatehouse.
“With the princess!” Hina shouted, and I craned my head over my shoulder just far enough to see her take the same improbable leap, landing hard but getting to her feet and running after me. And then one by one all of her celas jumped, and Sakshi too, and I gritted my teeth and turned my head forward, my whole will bent on saving Lakshmi. If those women could follow me, then maybe there was some hope after all. If I could just get to the stables, I could climb onto Sultana’s back and chase them down. She was faster than any acid zahhak and I knew where they were going. I would tear them from the skies as I had torn Asma from this world, that was a promise.
I raced toward the gates, my eyes fixed on the acid zahhaks climbing into the darkened sky, barely visible by the glint of the moonlight on their scales. If I didn’t get to Sultana soon, they’d vanish. I had to get to her. Everything depended on it.
“Razia, no!”
I hit the ground just as a bullet whizzed overhead, Sakshi pinning me to the paving stone. It was only then that I saw what had been right in front of me—a mob of Mahisagari soldiers using the low hedges of the garden for cover, blazing away at us with their muskets. If not for Sakshi, I’d have been cut down. As it was, we might both be killed. Chips of paving stones were being kicked in our faces as they tried to shoot us, the smoke preventing them from seeing clearly enough to get a fatal shot.
We both rolled behind the rounded tower of the gatehouse, where Hina and her celas were waiting for us, along with Sanghar Soomro and his men. It was Sanghar who shouted, “You can’t save your sister if you’re dead, girl!”
I swore under my breath. It was over. Lakshmi was gone. I couldn’t believe it. After all we’d been through, this was how it was going to end?
“Razia!” Hina shrieked, trying to break through to me. “We have to capture the palace first!”
She was right. I couldn’t run off like an idiot. They needed me too.
“We take the parapets and we’ll have them trapped in the open, just like before,” I said, and I wasted no time in running up the stairs on the backside of the wall. The parapets were empty. Most of the men had gathered in the outer courtyards, and the ones who had been guarding the inner courtyard had been following Asma, and we’d killed all of them.
Hina’s celas and my Zindhi soldiers followed me, taking up positions behind the tall merlons atop the palace wall, using funnel-shaped firing ports to shoot their muskets at the men hiding behind the hedges in the courtyard below them. It was a massacre, and that was before Sanghar Soomro himself slapped a swivel gun down into one of the spaces between the tall battlements and set it off, mowing down a whole column of men who had been rushing forward to join the fight.
More cannons roared. We had at least four swivel guns with us, and I knew more would be coming. The courtyard was quickly being cleared. There might still be a chance.
I searched the skies for the acid zahhaks, and felt a surge of hope as I spotted them to the west. They were pretty small, pretty hard to make out against the gray of the sky and the black of the water, but they were there. If I could just get to Sultana . . .
I chanced a look back into the courtyard. It seemed clear. It was clear enough, anyway. I ran down the steps and sprinted toward the stables, nearly slipping in puddles of blood as I picked my way over the corpses of Mahisagari soldiers. But before I could get to the stables, I saw something I couldn’t explain—trails of white sparkling clouds in the air near the acid zahhaks, like the tails of comets.
In the distance, beasts screeched in pain and terror. The acid zahhaks’ wings folded up, and the animals tumbled from the sky, a mix of dark shadow and bright white light, like snow on the mountains at night.
Snow. Ice zahhaks. Hope ran through my body like a tangible thing, making my skin tingle and my heart soar. “It’s Tamara! She came!” I was suddenly aware that Sakshi was with me, and I wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. “She came!”
“That’s great, your highness,” Hina told me, “but this fight isn’t over yet.” As if to prove it, she nodded toward the distant gatehouse, where enemy soldiers were rushing through by the dozens. God, there were so many of them, and we were in the open now. If it came to a gun battle, we would surely lose.
“Find cover!” I cried. I looked frantically for a place to hide, but there was nothing between us and the walls we had left except for open ground and mounds of bodies. What had I done? I’d been so desperate to save Lakshmi that I’d condemned us all.
“Too late!” Sanghar shouted, and he was right. The Mahisagari guardsmen were forming up into ranks, readying their muskets, and they had us badly outnumbered. Even with our cannons, we didn’t have a prayer against them.
Just before death rained down on us, I heard a man shout, “For Jama Hina and Zindh!” The only trouble was, it wasn’t any of my men.
CHAPTER 25
Sunil?” Hina gasped, looking around in confusion for the source of the voice.
Out of nowhere, a shadowy monster fell from the skies atop the Mahisagari soldiers. It crushed two men beneath its claws and bit another man clean in half, throwing the still-screaming torso into a fourth man, crushing him beneath the weight of his dying comrade. Atop the river zahhak’s back, a man was shooting arrows one after the other, as fast as you could blink.
Some of the Mahisa
garis screamed in terror, others turned to fight, but within a split second, five more zahhaks had plunged down into their midst, and then ten, and then I lost count. It was pandemonium as the animals bit and clawed their way through the ranks of the enemy soldiers, their riders shooting arrows or hurling javelins with startling rapidity. I immediately accounted every man a fool who had dismissed the idea of river zahhaks as useful in warfare.
But there was no sense standing around. I pointed forward and shouted, “Let’s help them if we can, and secure the zahhak stables!”
A cheer went up from the Zindhis all around me, and we sprinted across the courtyard, vaulting hedges as we went. I ran for the zahhak stables, praying that Sultana was still there, still safe. I would never have forgiven myself if any harm had come to her. I was just on the point of reaching the entrance when a man stepped out of it and lowered his musket to kill me.
A bang went off near my ear that half deafened me, and the Mahisagari guardsman in front of me flinched back from the impact of the bullet and staggered, but was not killed. A bright red lehenga flashed past on my left, and a woman swung her empty rifle by the barrel, cratering the guardsman’s skull with a vicious blow from its stock.
I hurried to catch up to her and was shocked to see that it was Sakshi. She’d shot the man and stove his head in with her musket? “Where did you learn to do that?”
“While you were dealing with Karim and his family, Hina and her celas were teaching me a few things,” she replied. “Now come on, little sister, let’s get our zahhaks just in case they’re needed.”
We ran into the stables together, and it was easy to see which zahhaks were left and which weren’t. All the acid zahhaks were gone, the fire zahhaks too. There were still sixteen river zahhaks, though, and four thunder zahhaks, all made frantic by the shooting. Sultana was slamming herself up against the iron-reinforced wooden gate, trying to beat her way out to get to me.