Brigands (Blackguards)

by “Melanie Meadors”

  Çeda felt her consciousness attempt to expand to encompass all of who she was, all she’d experienced. She wondered, even while her mind raged, whether everyone experienced this same thing or if it was to do with the petals she’d also consumed. She could feel it now—the verve the petals granted her, the strength, the awareness.

  Through the irindai she could feel others’ minds as well: those closest, their eagerness to feel more from Çeda; those beyond, who had done this many times before but hungered for more; and Rümayesh, who was someone different altogether.

  Where Rümayesh stood, there were two, not one.

  Two minds, sharing the same body. One, a lady of Sharakhai, highborn, a woman who’d lived in her estate in Goldenhill her entire life.

  And the other…

  A chill rushed down Çeda’s frame even as more of the memories jumbled past.

  The other was something else. Something Çeda had never seen or experienced before. How could she have? This mind was deep, foreign, and by the gods old—not in the way Ibrahim the storyteller was old, nor even in the way the Kings of Sharakhai, who’d seen the passage of centuries four, were old, but in the way the city was old. In the way the desert was old.

  This was no human, but some creature of the desert, some vestige of the desert’s making, or one of the ehrekh that haunted the forgotten corners of the Great Shangazi.

  Çeda knew immediately that few others had ever felt this being’s presence, for it now awoke in a way it hadn’t been moments ago. It grew fearful, if only for the span of a heartbeat, and in the wake of that realization, Rümayesh—or the woman Çeda had thought was Rümayesh—strode forward and placed her hand around Çeda’s neck, gripping it tightly enough to limit Çeda’s breath. She leaned down and stared into Çeda’s eyes, imposing her will, sifting through Çeda’s memories.

  Çeda couldn’t allow this.

  She couldn’t allow Rümayesh to have her way. Çeda would be lost if she did.

  This was the gift of the adichara petals that Hidi and Makuo had granted her—the ability to remain above the effects of the irindai, at least to some small degree.

  But what to do about Rümayesh?

  As more memories were examined, then tossed aside like uncut jewels, Çeda thought desperately for something that might divide these two, something that might give the highborn woman a reason to throw off the chains Rümayesh had placed on her.

  She found it moments later. A memory flashed past—of stepping into the blooming fields to cut one of the adichara flowers. It was discarded immediately by Rümayesh, but the woman huddling beneath that greater consciousness, a highborn woman of Sharakhai, flared in anger and indignation. Rümayesh tried to settle on Çeda’s first fight in the pits, but Çeda drew her mind back to the twisted trees that grew in a vast ring outside the city’s limits. Had Çeda not had the effects of the adichara running through her, she would surely have succumbed to the onslaught Rümayesh was throwing against her defenses, but with the petals she was able to focus on that memory, to share it with all those gathered within the cellar.

  She pads along the sand as the twin moons shine brightly above. The adichara’s thorned branches sway, limned in moonlight. They click and clack and creak, a symphony of movement in the otherwise still air. Çeda looks among the blooms, which glow softly in the moonlight, a river of stars over an endless sea. She chooses not the widest, nor the brightest, but the bloom that seems to be facing the moons unshrinkingly, then cuts it with a swift stroke of her kenshar, tucking it away in a pouch at her belt.

  Çeda had expected anger from the woman Rümayesh controlled. What she hadn’t expected was anger from all the others as well. She should have, though. Nearly everyone gathered here would have the blood of Kings running through their veins; they would know every bit as well as Çeda the sort of crime they were witnessing. A woman stealing into the blooming fields to take of the adichara insulted not only the Kings, but all who revered the twisted trees.

  They began to mumble and murmur, more and more of their number waking from the dream they shared. At first they stepped forward like boneyard shamblers, but with every moment that passed they seemed to come more alive.

  Behind them, the highborn woman Rümayesh controlled railed against her bonds. She was more angry, more aware of herself, than she’d been in years, but she was buoyed by the anger of those around her. Rümayesh’s will was still strong, however. She held against the assault, the two of them at a stalemate. Soon, though, the woman’s anger would ebb. Soon Rümayesh would regain the control she’d had over this woman for so long.

  Çeda had lost track of those around her. She realized with a start that one of the men was holding a kenshar. A woman on Çeda’s opposite side drew a slim knife of her own. A remnant of Çeda’s earlier lethargy still remained, but fear now drove her. She rolled backward, coming to a crouch, waiting for any to approach.

  A moment later the man did, the woman right after, but they both gave clumsy swipes of their blades. Çeda leapt over the man, snaking her arm around his neck as she went. She landed and levered him so that he tipped backward, then controlled him, moving him slowly toward the door.

  He tried to use his knife to strike at her arm, but she was ready. She released his neck at the last moment and snatched the wrist holding the knife with one hand, closed her other hand around his closed fist, the one wrapped around the weapon. Then she drew his own knife toward his neck. He was so surprised he hardly fought her, and by the time he realized what was happening, it was too late. The knife slipped into his throat like a needle through ripe summer fruit.

  For a moment, everyone stared at the blood running hot over Çeda’s hands.

  They were not only witnessing his death; they felt it through their shared bond. As his heart slowed and finally stopped, the irindai burst from the walls and from the ceiling. The air became thick with them, fluttering, touching skin, batting eyes, becoming caught in hair.

  Çeda’s mind burned in the thoughts and the emotions of all those gathered. They were of one mind, now, sharing what they’d known, what they hoped to be, what they feared in the deepest recesses of their minds. It was too much, a flood that consumed them all, one by one.

  Çeda screamed, a single note added to the cacophony of screams filling this small space, then fell beneath the weight of their collected dreams.

  ÇEDA OPENED HER eyes, finding a dark-skinned boy with bright blue eyes staring at her.

  “The sun shining bright, girl,” Makuo said. “Time you return to it, let it see your face before it forget.”

  “What?” Çeda sat up slowly, her mind still lost in the land of dreams. She remembered who she was now—her name, her purpose here—but it seemed like an age and a day since she’d fallen to the weight of the minds around her.

  Across the floor of the cellar, bodies lay everywhere like leaves tossed by the wind. Layer upon layer of dead moths covered their forms. Hidi stood by a sarcophagus, staring into its depths. It was what Çeda had been lying upon, she realized. The lid had been removed and now lay cracked and broken to one side.

  Çeda stood and took one step toward the sarcophagus, but Makuo stopped her. “This isn’t for you,” the boy said.

  Within the sarcophagus, she saw the crown of a head, wiry black hair, two twisted horns sweeping back from the forehead.

  She thought of pressing Makuo. They’d won, she knew. They’d beaten Rümayesh with her help, and until now they’d considered her their ally, but that could change at any moment.

  Steer you well wide of the will of the gods, old Ibrahim had always said after finishing one of his tragic stories. She’d heard dozens of those stories, and none of them ended happily. She’d always thought it a trick of Ibrahim’s storytelling, to end them so, but now she wasn’t so sure.

  “What of Ashwandi?” Çeda asked.

  Hidi looked up from whatever it was that had him transfixed, his scar puckering as he bared his teeth. “She free now. Her sister’s wish was alwa
ys for Ashwandi to leave the ehrekh’s side, to return to the grasslands.”

  An ehrekh, then…

  Rümayesh was an ehrekh, a twisted yet powerful experiment of the god, Goezhen. Few remained in the desert, but those that did were powerful indeed.

  “Is she alive?”

  “Oh, yes,” the boys said in unison, their eyes full of glee.

  “What will you do with her?” Çeda asked, tilting her head toward the sarcophagus.

  At this they frowned. Hidi returned his gaze to Rümayesh’s sleeping form, while Makuo took her by the shoulders and led her away. “The sun shining bright,” he said. “Time you return to it.”

  Çeda let herself be led from the cellar, but her tread was heavy. Rümayesh may have tricked Çeda, may have wanted to steal her memories, but something didn’t feel right about leaving her to these godling boys.

  Makuo led her up a set of winding stairs and at last to a metal door. Çeda paused, her hand resting above the handle.

  Steer you well wide of the will of the gods.

  There was wisdom on those words, she thought as she gripped the door’s warm handle. Surely there was wisdom. Then she opened the door and stepped into the sunlight.

  THE LOYAL DAGGER

  Zin E. Rocklyn

  THE BOY FOLLOWED directions and found her ’round back of the inn as promised, face hidden by the hood of her cloak as she violently threw up all her guts had to offer. It wasn’t much other than mead, by the smell of it. He recoiled from her retching and the overpowering stench of waste, bodily and otherwise. When she appeared to have finished, left gloved hand clasping at the brick wall, breath heaving from her chest, he stepped forward, cautiously avoiding the crawling puddle of bile, and handed over the tea-stained scroll.

  “Don’t want it,” she said, swatting at him.

  “I got three pfennigs for this, and I aim to deliver,” he spat, chest swollen as he wagged the neatly coiled paper in her direction.

  “I’ll give you four if you fuck off,” she said, voice gruff as she bent up at the waist. “Oh good fuckin’ Mary, the world needs to stop spittin’ spinnin’.”

  “Gotta do better than that,” the boy pushed. “This comes from on high.”

  She fell back against the wall, then eased the hood back from her head. The boy gasped and stepped away. She smirked. “Still got a duty to fulfill?”

  He blinked at her, jaw loose, then snapped to attention. “Yeah, I do. I got brothers. Don’t care if you’s a Moor or a fuckin’ gyp, I--”

  The boy had obviously underestimated his receiver, for within the blink of an eye, she was on him, large hands wrapped tightly around his throat, back pinned to the cold brick. “You wanna see them brothers again, you watch your fuckin’ mouth and get from my sight, you hear?”

  The boy’s neck crunched as he tried to nod against her tightening fingers. She let go, dropping him hard onto the cobblestone, her bile warming him.

  “Fuck ‘on high.’ And fuck you, too.” She spat in his direction for good measure, then pulled her hood back up before stumbling out of the alleyway and disappearing into the night.

  YOU KNOW THAT tingling sensation you get when someone’s unclothing you with their eyes? Like a heavy breath laced with fresh cream rolling across the back of an exposed neck. Thick and wrong and hot, cloying, yet it chills you to the quick?

  Yeah, that.

  That’s the sensation that wakes me at an unjustly hour, sand settling in my limbs and mouth. I must’ve slept wrong; my shoulder is killing me and my bed reeks of mead and this new spirit gin. Bless the Dutch, the ruthless fucks. A few of them are donning clogs and stomping their way through the mush of my head when someone clears their throat.

  Two things happen then: Charlotte three doors down perfects the high, final squeal of her performance of the early morn and I sit to attention, arms raised, eyes half-lidded.

  “Exit my quarters, interloper,” I mumble, then grimace at the smell of my own breath.

  “You sent away my messenger. My presence is your punishment,” he says.

  I smirk, then wipe the gunk from the corners of my lips. “Surprised you’d sully your reputation, arriving here.”

  “I have the cover of pre-dawn hiding me, and I arrived on foot.”

  “Brave of you.”

  “Or foolish. Either way, this message is important.”

  I sigh, my shoulders falling heavy, and flop back into the down of my comforter and goose-feather stuffed mattress. Only the best for Madame Flora’s whores and guests. She and her girls and boys and those in between entertain dignitaries, royalty, diplomats, and high-standing officers of Her Majesty’s brigade.

  And then there is me, basking in it all and tasked with protecting the bodies of her wards and the reputations of her clientele. A bed with three meals a day and all the tipple a woman like me could manage was nothing less than a match made in Hades.

  “Aelian!”

  I jolt upward again, mid-snore of a surprise nap, and groan. “What is it you want, Jolyon?”

  “Your services, Aelian, for the Royal Court,” he says, patience thinner than the skin of a piglet.

  Finally, I open my eyes. He’s sitting in the vermillion wingback chair at the end of my bed, a freshly roaring fire warming his crossed legs, fingers steepled in annoyance. His liquescent blue stare cuts icicles through me, blonde hair neatly tied with a velveteen royal-coloured bow, the blue as pale as his eyes. He is infuriatingly good-looking with a strongly chiseled jaw and plush, almost feminine lips. The sight of him in fine silks embroidered with gold thread heats my blood, and I fling the covers away from me.

  He winces at the sight of me naked, and I want to laugh in his face. This is the game we’ve played for years, especially when my circumstances were much different. Now, he has the freedom to ogle me a bit harder.

  I stretch my torso for good measure, my full breasts on display and free from the cloth bindings I stifle them in, then stomp my way to the basin and pitcher full of crisp, clean water. I can feel his gaze still on me, and I know he sees the fullness of my high backside, the corded muscles of my thick thighs and calves, the litany of scars marring my wide shoulders and muscled arms. I am unlike the women he is used to, the fair and willowy. Delicate. I am as black as the night I was born into and just as cold. I confound him and his ilk, the attraction and curiosity driving some to anger and violence.

  I’d learned from youth to defend myself, as no one was coming to my rescue. Ever.

  “You’re telling me nothing, and I remember no messenger.”

  He clears his throat and I hear him shift against the chair. “That’s because you nearly killed the young boy in your drunken rage.”

  I frown in the silver-backed mirror as I wipe my face. Then it hits me. The gin. “Oh. Right. Well, perhaps you shouldn’t send a sectarian little fuck to handle such business. Now what is it?”

  He shifts again, this a different kind of discomfort. “I do not know.”

  I lift an arm to smell the pit and immediately grimace. A full bath is necessary. “Aren’t you the most trusted advisor to the Queen?” I say mockingly. Before he can answer, I open the door to my quarters and yell below, “Annabelle, fetch me a bath!”

  Annabelle hates Blacks, yet Annabelle has no choice but to serve me, and I revel in her muttering anger while stewing in water drawn by her hands and flavoured with her spit. Makes no matter to me. Her spit cleans my cunt so I’d consider us both quite satisfied.

  I slam the door shut and stalk back towards Jolyon, sitting in the matching chair across from him. I spread my legs and dig my elbows in my thighs, my chin resting in the basket of my woven fingers. “I don’t like the sound of this, Jolyon.”

  “Neither do I, but I have no say when it comes to Queen Lady and her desires. Please. Take this from me so I can be on my way. Dawn quickly approaches.”

  “Fine. Tell me.”

  Jolyon sits back into the chair, eyes rolling into the back of his skull, mouth hanging open
, as I stand and reach for the golden urn sitting on the mantle. I peel back the top carefully, wetting the tip of my pinkie with moist lips, then dipping it into the ashes. I quickly replace the lid and carry the ashes to Jolyon’s awaiting tongue. I smear the contents, then shut his jaw, waiting the precious moments for it to hit his blood stream.

  It takes quickly, and Jolyon begins to speak, yet the voice is not his. It is higher with a lilting accent of the North, like silks through mud.

  “Drizana. Before week’s end. Poison. Peaceful.”

  And his head flops forward, the tip of his ponytail dangling in his face. He will need to rest, but he cannot do it here. More than likely, someone has followed him, awaiting the moment he expels the message in order to kill him. A message such as this would stay between three people: the solicitor, the assassin tasked, and the poor soul dispatched from our living plane. I have severed plenty a messenger, blood-print or no. The risk for gossip is too high, as memories before and after the edict are intact.

  “Jolyon!” I say, slapping his pale cheek ruddy. “Jolyon, you must wake!” He groans at me, head lolling. “You must leave here!” I pop his cheek again, but it’s hopeless. A moment later, there is a knock at my door. I hurry to it, opening it a crack to see not Annabelle, but Catherine with my bath water behind her. Catherine is a pleasant surprise, but a complication nonetheless. Her peaches-and-cream complexion roseys once she sees the condition I’m in as I widen the door.

  “Good-lookin’ lad there,” she says, tiptoeing over. She gasps slightly, dark brown eyes widening. “You do ’im in?”

  “No, Catherine, he’s resting,” I say, hauling the water in myself and shutting the door behind me. “His life is in danger and I need you to keep a watchful eye on him. And by eye, I mean the pair in your head not either of those lips, you hear me?”

  Catherine snorts a laugh, then nods. “I hear ye, but look at ’im, will ye? How can a girl like me resist?”