“I’m not,” was all she said, and she refused to say more.
Rhia set, and Tulathan crept ever closer to the western horizon. When the eastern sky began to brighten, Ramahd leaned closer to Meryam. “The sun is set to rise, sister.”
But Meryam wouldn’t respond. She’d stopped rocking. In fact, she’d gone deathly still.
“Meryam?”
Her jaw was set grimly, her eyes now staring intently at the streambed, not directly to the cavern entrance, but beyond. Ramahd suspected she was looking deeper into the earth, into Külasan’s palace.
“What’s wrong?” Dana’il asked him.
“I don’t know, but be ready.”
Tulathan set, darkening the western sky, but the east continued to brighten. The muscles along Meryam’s neck tightened, pulling her lips back in a rictus grin. Her eyes were wide, almost fearful. Or was that anticipation he saw?
Ramahd was just about to call for his men to follow him into the cavern when Meryam’s hand snapped out and grabbed his. She held it so tightly it pained him, especially where her nails dug into his skin.
“What’s happened?” he asked Meryam.
But Dana’il interrupted them. “They’re coming!”
Ramahd pried Meryam’s fingers from his wrist and held her hand tightly, shook it fiercely when she didn’t respond. “Meryam, what’s happened?”
“There is . . .” Meryam’s voice trailed off.
Dana’il waved to the men, made sure they were prepared for anything that came.
Ahead, Ramahd could see dark movement near the stone. They were coming from the cavern, a group of men and women warriors scuttling like crabs and coming to a stand as more followed them.
“Meryam, what? There is what?”
“They’ve found him. They’ve raised him from his tomb.”
He knew she meant Hamzakiir. “He’s dead, Meryam.” Meryam tried rising to her feet, but Ramahd pulled her back down. “You told me he was dead.”
“I never said that, Ramahd.”
“Fucking gods, Meryam, you bloody well never said he was alive, either!”
Before Meryam could reply, a voice called from the stream bed. “Stay where you are! Put not one hand upon your weapons, and you may leave this place unharmed.”
Ramahd’s skin went cold as the desert wind picked up. It was Macide. He was calling to them, even as more of his people crept out of the caverns.
“Well?” Meryam said. She had a baleful look in her eyes. “He’s right there, Ramahd.”
She was goading him. She knew something he didn’t, but just then he didn’t care. “Ready,” he called to his men. They nodded grimly as the wind began to blow more fiercely.
Meryam looked like a jungle cat, nostrils flaring, her face filled with ill intent and untamed exhilaration. If he didn’t know better, he might say she was eager for this to commence, as if battle were some long lost friend she was keen to embrace once more.
“Now!” Ramahd shouted.
His men all stood, Meryam with them. As she spread her arms wide and the wind rose even higher, Ramahd drew the string of his bow back to his ear.
The wind howled. The sand bit. He loosed his arrow, which flew wide of Macide but struck one of the other men deep in the neck. Other arrows flew, but they were buffeted by the wind and careened wide or short or over their mark. As Ramahd drew another arrow, his thoughts went immediately to Emre, Çeda’s love. He might have just killed him, although truly, he had no idea who his arrow had struck. Other than Macide himself—a man he would never fail to recognize—the others were too distant to make out, the morning light too dim.
In the moments it took for him and his men to launch another volley of arrows, the wind had grown stronger. The gale swallowed their arrows, sending them this way or that, into the sand. Whether they struck true he could no longer tell. The air was too thick. He could barely see the dark outlines of Macide and his men, much less an arrow speeding through this sea of swirling sand.
The wind began to play tricks on his eyes. He swore he saw the sand rise up around one of Macide’s men, a thin man. Frail. The sand seemed to devour him, his form crumbling as if he were made of nothing more than desert dust.
“Prepare yourselves,” Meryam called.
Well behind Ramahd, the sand swirled like a demon, and then resolved into the form of that same thin man. He wore ancient red robes with thread-of-gold embroidery. There were blood stains around his lips, and he was frail as a boneyard shambler.
But his eyes . . . They were wild and mad with a fervent inner spirit that chilled Ramahd to his very core. This was Hamzakiir, reborn, resurrected.
Fear driving him, Ramahd nocked an arrow, lifted it toward this newcomer, and loosed it. It sped straight for Hamzakiir, but before it could strike, a swirl of flame lifted with the sand and caught the arrow. The arrow curled over Hamzakiir, catching fire and leaving a trail of flame that was lost in the haze of the wind. Ramahd’s men fired more arrows, and all of them flew wide or well beyond Hamzakiir, trailing intense orange flames as they went.
Then three bolts of fire shot from Hamzakiir’s raised palms. One struck Dana’il, another Quezada—
Something punched Ramahd in the chest.
Flame exploded in a fan shape before him. He felt a searing burn and was suddenly flying backward through the air. He lost all sense of direction until he fell hard against the ground, stone gouging his back and hips as his momentum carried him into the sand. A keen ringing drowned out all other sound, as the smell of burnt hair, or burnt skin—he didn’t want to think about which—filled his nostrils.
He groaned and managed to raise his head, to look dazedly at the scene unfolding before him. Although Hamzakiir was no longer focused on Ramahd’s men, they were in a shambles, several fallen from bolts of flame, others scrambling for cover behind a nearby stand of stones. The blood mage was loosing bolts against Meryam now, but she stood her ground, hands raised, warding off the incoming bolts one by one, up into the sky or down toward the ground where it burst in a fiery explosion of sand and stone.
She took a step toward Hamzakiir. Then another. He was so emaciated Ramahd had no idea how he still stood, but he somehow remained upright as he launched ever more bolts of flame toward Meryam. Any one of them, if they’d struck, would have dropped her, killing or at the very least incapacitating her. But Ramahd had never seen her look so fierce. Her eyes lit with rage and a sickening sort of glee. This was what she’d been hoping for, not to catch Macide, but to face Hamzakiir.
Hamzakiir gathered a massive ball of flame between his hands. It grew and grew as Meryam sprinted toward him, closing the distance.
“Meryam!” Ramahd called. “No!”
But Meryam didn’t listen. She ran straight for her enemy.
Then Hamzakiir loosed his ball of flame, and it streaked toward Meryam.
She spun, hair flaring, the skirt of her dark dress spinning like a wheel. She ducked to one side, her leading arm lifting and warding the fire away, her trailing palm followed, driving it wide of her path with a hammer blow.
As the flame burned an ochre path across his field of vision, Meryam continued her mad dash, her arms held chest-high before her, and as she neared Hamzakiir, a ball of blue flame formed between her palms. It intensified so quickly it tinged the landscape and the sand-laden air a bright azure blue.
She released the flame, and it shot forth, striking Hamzakiir in the chest. He had raised his hands in a warding gesture, perhaps trying to deflect the attack as Meryam had, but if that were so, he was wholly ineffectual. The ball of flame struck, a blue diamond bursting over the desert, sending him flying backward.
Ramahd made his way shakily to his feet, gritting his teeth against the burning pain along his chest and arms. The ringing in his ears was beginning to subside, and he could hear the wind once more, the moaning a
nd clench-jawed grunts of his men. As he staggered toward Meryam, he surveyed the damage, his ears still ringing. Alamante and Corum were dead. Dana’il was unconscious, his left shoulder and arm burned horribly. Others were conscious, but burned and shaken, including Ramahd.
“Drag them behind these stones,” Ramahd said to Quezada and Rafiro. “Tend to them as you can.”
As they moved to obey, Ramahd reached Meryam’s side. Hamzakiir was unconscious. His red robes seemed untouched by flame, but his skin was blackened along his neck, hands, and wrists. Ramahd wondered how bad it might be beneath his clothes, as Meryam knelt and began removing the rings and bracelets from Hamzakiir’s hands. Her own hands were shaking.
“We’ve lost him,” Ramahd said.
“Lost who?” she replied.
“Macide.”
When she finished with the rings and bracelets, she reached for the opaline necklace around his throat, and began rummaging through the pockets of his robes.
“Meryam, we’ve lost Macide.”
She stuffed all that she’d taken into a bag at her belt. Only then did she stand and face Ramahd. “Do you really think Macide has been my only goal these past years?”
“His death has always been our goal. Our only goal.”
“No, it has been your only goal. There are more who must pay. More who were there that day. And others still who helped Macide, who supplied him with ships, water, weapons, and food. Those who call themselves his allies.”
“I don’t care about the entire Host, Meryam.”
“I do.” She stared intently into his eyes. “They will one day pay for what they’ve done, Ramahd Amansir. All of them. This I swear before my gods and countrymen.” With that she spun and began walking toward the skiff they’d anchored in a clutch of small scrub trees in the distance, but Ramahd grabbed her arm and spun her around. “Unhand me!” she shouted, her free hand raised, as if in that moment she considered him little different than Hamzakiir.
But Ramahd stood his ground. “We cannot chase the entire Moonless Host, Meryam.”
“Ah, but we can, Ramahd.” She ripped her arm away and began walking back toward the skiff. “We can, and we will.”
The wind was still strong, driving sand across the landscape. As her form was nearly swallowed by the sandstorm, Ramahd turned back toward his men. Dana’il stood there, cradling his left arm, grimacing as he looked from Meryam’s dwindling form to Ramahd. “Shall we search for him, my Lord?” He meant Macide.
“No,” Ramahd replied. The burn in his chest was coming on stronger now. He was fairly sure the blast had cracked a rib or two. “They’re gone, and we’re in no shape to engage in any case.”
With grimaces and grunts that mirrored one another’s, they each took one of Hamzakiir’s arms and, following in Meryam’s wake, began dragging him toward the skiff. Meryam was little more than a small dark smudge ahead. Dana’il nodded meaningfully toward her. “What will we do now?”
“We’ll let Meryam play her game,” Ramahd said, “and wait for another chance at Macide. She may wish to destroy the entire Host in revenge for Yasmine and Rehann. She may even think she can do it. But she needs us more than she thinks she does. Once we have Macide, we’ll go home, where we belong.”
“And if she leads us into the maw of the beast first?”
Ramahd smiled, little better than a sneer, he was sure. “Then we’ll fight our way out, as we always have.”
Dana’il nodded, but his eyes looked troubled as they walked, dragging the body of Hamzakiir behind them. Ramahd didn’t want to show it, but he was every bit as troubled as Dana’il.
Meryam might not be a problem that needed solving today, but one day soon, she would be.
WHILE SHE STILL HAD LIGHT, Çeda sprinted along the dark passage, chasing Külasan. The petals she’d consumed still drove her, but their effects had started to wane, and soon she would crash.
Even with the vigor of the petals, even debilitated as Külasan was from coughing, he was fast as a desert hare, too fast for her to keep up with, especially once the light from the fire faded behind her. The darkness forced her to move carefully, which in turn forced her to trust her heightened senses to pick up Külasan’s trail whenever she came to intersections or forks in the catacombs. The adichara bloom she held in her left hand glowed ever so softly, but it wasn’t enough to see by and might give her away were the King lying in wait somewhere ahead, so she hid it behind her back as she treaded forward.
She wished she hadn’t had to leave Emre behind—she would have seen them to safety if she could have—but this chance was too rare. She desperately hoped he had escaped the cave-in she’d heard crashing down, but there was nothing she could do about it now. She simply had to trust to Nalamae that he was safe.
Shortly after hearing the distant boom of a door being slammed shut, and the clatter of something she couldn’t identify, she tripped over a set of winding stairs leading up. River’s Daughter held ready in her right hand, the adichara bloom in her left, she took the stairs, moving carefully but with some speed lest she lose the Wandering King completely. Light shone down from above, illuminating the curving stairwell in golden light. She watched carefully for anyone lying in wait, but she heard no one, saw no one, and eventually came to a massive foyer with bright mosaics on the ceiling and inlaid marble on the floors. Priceless statues, jewel-encrusted swords, and golden shields stood on pedestals all around the space.
Çeda had no idea how many guardsmen or Blade Maidens might be stationed here on a normal night, but surely most of them would have been dispatched to the catacombs to deal with the Moonless Host. Others would have been sent to Sharakhai to summon help from the Maidens or the Silver Spears, or perhaps there was another way for Külasan to call for help. Whatever the case, Çeda knew she had little time.
Two wide hallways ran from the foyer, one to her right and one to her left. A set of grand stairs curved up to a pair of doors beneath a grand archway. Another pair of doors were positioned below the stairs, straight ahead.
Where have you gone, my King?
Her hands shook. Her heart pounded, and not simply from the chase. She was as excited and nervous and frightened as she’d ever been. She felt her mother’s gaze upon her as she walked over the carpet, looking for any sign of where Külasan might have gone.
She found nothing, no definitive clue. There were marks—impressions of feet upon the carpeted stairs—but they might have been made an hour ago, or a day, or a week. She began to worry that she’d lost him before the chase had truly begun, and if that were true, the chances that he would expose her was nearly certain. He may not know her identity yet, but when he’d had a chance to think about it, to confer with the other Kings and the Maidens, he would surely piece it together.
But then she heard the distant sound of coughing. It came from the doors above her, the ones engraved with Külasan’s seal: a peacock in full display. She took the stairs quickly and silently. When she made it to the top, she tried the doors and found them barred from the inside. She sheathed her sword, reached into a pouch at her belt, and retrieved a hook and a length of braided metal with teeth along both sides, a ring saw. After slipping the saw around the stout bar on the far side of the doors and hooking the lower ring, she looped her fingers through the rings and began sawing back and forth. After several minutes of feverish sawing, the door finally gave way.
She drew her ebon blade, her heart thundering in her chest. The door opened soundlessly at her touch, and she stepped inside, closing the door behind her and taking in the stairs that led to a cavernous, lantern-lit room above.
She pulled out one of her three remaining adichara blooms and swung it around fiercely. The telltale signs of the glowing pollen swirled about, filling the space and billowing up through the stairwell. She slapped the flower against the gilt door handles, and the door itself, then the wooden bar she’d sawn throu
gh. The bloom now spent of its pollen, she tossed it at the foot of the door and crept up another set of stairs beyond.
She heard coughing somewhere in the distance—not a dry cough, but wet, like a man living his final days. She’d heard such many times in the byways of Roseridge and the Shallows and the Knot, even among the bazaar stalls from time to time. Consumption, the physics called it, but in this case the cause was something entirely different. It wasn’t a wickedness of soul, but pollen floating through the air, a weakness this King had lived with for four hundred years.
As she neared the top of the stairs, she wondered whether it had started mildly and over the centuries become worse, or if it had always been this bad.
Always, if the gods are just.
When she reached the top of the stairs, she took in the vast interior, the grand dome high above her.
“What little dove has come?” came a rough voice that echoed through the cavernous chamber. There were many dark corners in the room, spaces hidden by towering potted palms and desert ferns, spaces hidden by freestanding tapestries and vast silk couches and rosewood display cases holding battle-ready swords, long spears, jade vases, and bronze censers.
She listened carefully, turning slowly to take in the entirety of the room, hoping to spot some telltale sign of the King. She pulled out another of the blooms and shook it back and forth, spraying the pollen in a circle, praying it would be enough to keep the King at bay, praying it would weaken him further.
Again the coughing came, though it seemed to move about, flitting around the room like a hummingbird, never in one place overly long.
“Have you come to help me, little dove, while Kings and Maidens abide in Tauriyat?”
Still the voice moved about. She would need to move among the shadows if she hoped to find him. She pulled another bloom from her dress and stepped around a tall stand of armor—a spiked helm with ringmail hauberk and a rune-laden spear.
“The adichara is no friend to me, ’tis true,” Külasan intoned, “but do you think that these fresh blooms will be worse than those that ring this cursed city?”
Twelve Kings in Sharakhai Page 62