Advent of Ruin (The Qaehl Cycle Book 1)

by Allene Lowrey

  “Monsters? Like in the story I told last night?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Are these monsters the reason you were orphaned?”

  She nodded, not trusting her voice. Someone else might have survived, but it was unlikely. The elder nodded, more to himself than in response to Chandi.

  “Be careful, then. I do not know what sort of dangers await you, but nothing like that has been built in all the time the Khakhewar remember.” He stood back up with startling grace for a grandfather and dusted himself off. “Also, if you repeat them back to me when you are done, you may copy down our song and our story. We remember the gift the Aranya Prasuuna Chèin’ii gave the world, even if all others have forgotten.”

  “Thank you, grandfather. I will try to write quickly so I can have them done before we leave.” She watched him nod gravely and walk away before turning back to her breakfast. She would have to work quickly; writing was still painfully slow.

  * * *

  Chandi blinked, still trying to clear the sleep from her head. There were still stars visible, and yet if they didn’t leave now they would lose hours later. She had gotten very little sleep the night before; she hadn’t been able to begin repeating the story back until the bonfire was well underway. But, I finished it! The pages she had painstakingly penned, and laboriously read, were rolled and tied neatly in the satchel she carried with her, along with rations for the day and a pair of headscarves. After the first day she had kept a second one handy; they were decidedly unpleasant to wear when sweaty.

  “Let’s go then.” Ravi turned his attention back to the camel whose reins he held and ordered it to cush.

  Nothing for it. She just hoped she could stay awake in the saddle once the day started to heat up. “Cush, girl.” Rohana knelt so that Chandi could mount, then rose again when she repeated the command. Her legs were still stiff and raw from the days in the saddle before they stopped, and complained loudly now. It was moments like this she truly wished to have a wagon again, although once they left the road it would only hinder them.

  “How much longer on the road, Ravi?”

  “If we continue making good time like this, about a week, maybe less, unless the weather turns on us. After that, the gods only know.” He spurred his mount to a walk, and the rest of the camels followed without hesitation. Chandi looked back over her shoulder at the Khakhewar encampment. When she made it to the conclave she would make sure to share their friendship. The camp drew farther away and faded into the early morning twilight, and she began to hum the song she had learned from them, slowly. It almost sounded like an elegy at that tempo, but the lyrics didn’t quite fit. Still, the juxtaposition brought a smile to her lips as she continued to hum. I will be light.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Shahin’s family had been incredibly kind to them after he escaped from the private compound, although Mistress Varti had nearly fainted when he described the man responsible. Sanjay was the Administrator of the courier service. He had a reputation as wealthy, powerful, and unscrupulous: Shahin had despised him. Master Cydus thought it might be best if they found a way to leave town quickly, and Bahadur agreed.

  Cydus made arrangements for Bahadur to meet with the leader of a merchant caravan he knew. The caravan was headed for Vidyavana, the City of Scholars, and Bahadur could earn passage for the two of them working as a guard. He signed on without hesitation; they needed information, and that was probably the best place to get it. At the last moment, Cydus had also convinced Varti to take their boys and go. The city wasn’t safe for them under the Administration any longer. The way he said it, Bahadur thought the man intended to do something about it.

  Now they were leaving the city, and Gita seemed much more comfortable surrounded by the familiar activities of a caravan. Introducing her to the master cook had been a stroke of genius; he never would have guessed that her parents had been food vendors. With her cooking they were both earning their own passage.

  That was going to be important, because guilt gnawed at Bahadur’s stomach every time he saw Varti. Her sons, of course, acted as though this were a grand adventure. As for Varti herself, Bahadur knew the look of a mother putting on a brave face for her children. My fault, my penance.

  Udhampna sat right on the line where savanna met desert, but here and there along the road grew date palms or khejri trees. Sometimes tufts of beard grass ventured bravely forth into the sands. The sun was barely creeping into the sky, but Bahadur already wore the chafiye he had purchased for himself. The earlier his head was covered the better, so far as he was concerned.

  Less than a half-hour outside the city gates the road forked. One branch headed south, one southeast, and a third southwest, towards Q’uungerab. Shahin would have turned off here, then, when he left. That road is probably still unsafe. Out of the corner of his eye Bahadur saw one of the other guards riding up towards him, a man with the shoulders of a blacksmith who carried one of the large, blunt khanda favored in the southwest.

  “Morning.” The man’s voice was gruff, and Bahadur saw scars crisscrossing his wide face and big hands. Everything about him seemed large.

  “Morning.”

  “You the new guy?”

  “I am. Name’s Bahadur.”

  “Ziya. Boss tells me you were a guardsman before?”

  “In Q’uungerab.”

  The man sounded like he wanted to spit, but even that would be a waste now that they were traveling. “Guarding a caravan’s a whole ‘nother animal. You know how to use that thing?” He gestured at Bahadur’s kopis.

  “Do I look dumb enough to carry it otherwise?”

  “Feh. You can never tell an idiot until he opens his mouth.”

  “I was Satapadis in the southeastern quarter of the city. In a few years, they would have made me Hazapadis over the quarter. I know my job.” Bahadur heard his voice grow hard.

  “Good. So long as you can prove that, we won’t have any problems. You report to me. You got any problems with that, you can take it to the boss.” Ziya rode off toward another guard and began haranguing him instead.

  What was all that about? He’d shown all the proof the caravan boss had wanted before he was hired on. But, if that was who he had to work with to get to Vidyavana, then so be it. And if he struck out in Vidyavana, he would work with whoever he had to for another lead. One way or another he would find out what was going on, and then he would put a stop to it.

  * * *

  The caravan made decent progress that first day. The nearest water on this path was four days to the south, and they should reach it with time to spare. At dinner Bahadur took his plate over to a group of veteran guardsmen near the fire.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  “Have a seat.” This from a skinny man with wiry arms and just as many scars as Ziya. “Captain didn’t give you too much trouble, did’e?”

  “Does he always greet new hires like that?”

  “Only if he didn’t hire ‘em. Not a bad sort, but wants us hand-picked. Just every once in a while the boss’ll spring someone on ‘im.”

  “My bad luck, I guess. Can’t say I’d do differently.”

  The skinny man laughed. “If you’ve got a good enough head on ya to understand that, you’ll fit right in. Name’s Manish. And you’re… Bahadur, was it?”

  “Word gets around.”

  “Always does.” Something caught Manish’s eye behind Bahadur and he glanced up. “Well, who’s this pretty little lady?”

  Turning around, Bahadur saw Gita standing there, bowl in hand. “Well, come on and sit down. They won’t bite.”

  “Ah, this is the girl you’re traveling with, then. A bit young, isn’t she?” Manish winked at one of the guardsmen off to his other side. Gita came up and folded her legs to sit smoothly next to Bahadur anyway.

  “What are you talking about? I had sons her age back home.”

  “Uh-huh, but she’s not one of ‘em.”

  “This man is my sworn guardian,” Gita said
levelly, “And that’s all there is to it.”

  “Ooh, sworn guardian, is it? Sounds like something out of a story.” This from the man Manish had winked at, a plain-faced fellow whose nose was the only thing distracting the eye from his thick, worm-like eyebrows.

  “Nothing nearly so grand,” Bahadur said, clearing his throat.

  “Nonsense. This is exactly the sort of thing the elders would make a story out of, only I would be more graceful and older and you would be bolder and younger, and in the end everything would be right with the world again. People want to hear about heroes who are better than them, so you polish out the blemishes and make the whole thing shine.”

  “Are you… Chèin’ii?” Manish cocked his head and looked at her.

  “I am Gita, daughter of Jayanta by Leela of the Aranya Prasuuna Chèin’ii. If they still exist.”

  Manish looked thoughtful; all the other guardsmen were suddenly rapt.

  “So you’re a performer, then?” The plain-faced man sounded like he only barely had a handle on his enthusiasm.

  She nodded, and Bahadur heard someone wonder in the background what’s she doing with Cook, then?

  “So… if it’s not too much trouble, could you play for us some nights?”

  “Play what? A role? A song? I was to be a dancer, but I’ll never debut now.”

  “Stop harassing the tenderfeet.” The gruff voice came from beyond the firelight.

  “What? We wasn’t doin’ nothin’ wrong!” The protester’s voice was on the high side, and Bahadur wondered how old he was.

  Ziya looked at Bahadur as he joined the group, his quirked eyebrow demanding an answer to the unasked.

  “No trouble at all, sir.”

  “Ziya. No ‘sirs’ here – don’t need ‘em. An’ you, little miss; don’t let them ask you for too much, or anything weird.”

  Gita wore a half-smile. “They only wished to know if I would perform for them, but the caravan seems to have no musician.”

  Bahadur thought it had the ring of an excuse, but he wasn’t going to press her.

  “That it doesn’t, this time through. Sorry boys, if she needs backup, you’re out of luck.”

  Their disappointment was fleeting, and the conversation soon turned to other matters. For the first time since Bahadur had met her Gita seemed to be enjoying herself, and that allowed him to relax for what felt like the first time in months.

  * * *

  It was five days out of Udhampna, and Bahadur had fallen into an easy rapport with the other guards already. The day had been as pleasant as any day on the desert roads can be; the wind was low enough not to blow sand in their faces, and the sky was a clear, bright blue from horizon to horizon except for a puff of dust rising off the top of a dune to the east. Wait… where did that come from? He reined in to wait a moment for the next guard back, pointing to where he had seen the telltale dust. The man nodded and galloped off to where Ziya rode.

  Only moments later the alarm went up. A volley of arrows flew from over the dune, and a wave of horsemen crested the rises to either flank, a plume of dust growing in their wake as they charged down the embankments, so quickly that the arrows were still in flight. The bandits’ weapons were a motley assortment of long knives, swords, and spears, but they were uniformly dressed in long dark robes with turbans covering their heads. Bahadur heeled his horse forward to meet the charge, brandishing his kopis and joining the guards on the eastern flank.

  He had never been part of a cavalry charge before. Some detached part of his brain noted with interest the way the bandits pounded inexorably closer. Another wondered if they screamed a war cry for the same reason he did, to keep from screaming in fear. This was entirely different from fighting off attackers at the walls or taking down a crook in the streets.

  The horseman charging for him had a spear, but he was aiming for Bahadur rather than Amna. With one good slash, Bahadur brought his kopis down on the shaft. It landed with a satisfying crack of wood. He brought the blade around in an arc to slice deep into the man’s shoulder before turning his attention to another. How are there so many of them all together?

  He struck where he could, and never gave a second thought to whether he had disabled or killed a man when he moved on to the next, more dangerous target. He could see past the line of horsemen to the desert sands, now, and the sounds of fighting were quieting around him. A laugh welled up in his belly. Before it escaped his mouth it was cut off by the white heat of a blade between his lower ribs and the warm moistness of a bleeding wound. Bahadur pulled forward off the long knife. He wheeled his horse to face the opponent he’d thought was out of the fight.

  The bandit leered at him, never taking his eyes from Bahadur’s face. Blood dripped off his blade. Bahadur raised his sword arm overhead. He met the bandit’s gaze easily, never flinching, never showing an ounce of emotion before bringing his kopis down in a sweeping arc. The bandit’s head dropped to the sand near his horse’s feet. Bahadur sat still as the other man crumpled and fell to the ground. The man’s blood dyed the sand crimson. A shiver ran down Bahadur’s spine. This was far from the first man who had tried to kill him, nor the first time he had killed in the line of duty, but it never got any easier.

  Gradually he drew back from that narrow vision; first, he noticed that the desert was quiet again save for the sound of horses and his fellow guards. Then he noticed that the caravan still trundled along on the road, trusting in its guardsmen to ward off the attackers and unwilling to lose time. Then he looked across the road and saw that the other guards from both flanks were riding slowly back to the wagon train. Only then did he feel the pain radiating out from beneath his shoulder blade. It had been a poorly placed stab, missing anything vital, but now it had his attention. He wrapped his arm around his ribs and was barely able to press his hand over the wound while he rode back to the caravan. Ziya rode at the rear, inspecting his men as they returned. He only glanced at Bahadur a moment before waving him off to go see the sran.

  “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Go get that sewn up. I won’t have you fainting on duty.”

  “Understood.” He was just as happy he didn’t have to go immediately back to the flank. He couldn’t tell how badly he was bleeding, but it was sure to be “too much” until it was stopped.

  The sran’s wagon had moved near the back of the train, and while Bahadur was not the last to arrive he was also not the first. The only guardsmen he had seen without scars were the youngest and newest arrivals, and some of them were in line ahead of him. As he waited, he heard Gita calling after him.

  “There you are! Are you alright?”

  Bahadur smiled down from the saddle at her. “This? This is nothing. A few stitches and maybe some foul-smelling herbs and I’ll be good as new. What are you doing back here?”

  “Are you sure? That looks like a lot of blood… Someone said you were bleeding, and it looked bad, so Cook let me come check on you.” Gita stood on tiptoe to get a closer look at the blood-soaked cloth at the back of his tunic.

  “I’ve had worse. Don’t worry about me. Look, the srani’s ready for me. Go on, I’ll see you at dinner.”

  He was the third patient inside the sran’s wagon, and the srani who called for him was a very pretty young woman. She doused the wound in barleywine strong enough it could have made the burly Ziya sing, based on the fire it lit in the gash, and wielded her needle and gut with all the delicacy of the man who had stabbed him. A small price to pay for carelessness.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The walls of Vidyavana were visible on the horizon now. The journey had gone easier after the bandit attack; he’d proven to Ziya that he knew one end of his sword from another. That wouldn’t help him for very much longer, though. Soon he and Gita would be parting ways with the caravan and alone in yet another city of strangers.

  Vidyavana did not appear all that impressive, either. The walls resembled nothing so much as Q’uungerab’s Stormbreaker, and left h
im with a sense of deficiency. Udhampna had not been grand in any real sense of the word, but Vidyavana looked downright small.

  As Ziya and the boss spoke with the guards at the gate to pay their entry toll, Gita came and stood near his boot. His job wasn’t over until he got paid.

  “Are you sure this is a city of scholars?” She sounded dubious.

  “Yeah.”

  “Doesn’t it seem a little… well… drab?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re worried too, aren’t you.”

  “If it has what we need I don’t care.”

  “I suppose.” They could see bits of the city inside the walls, and it appeared little more promising than the walls themselves had. The visible buildings were uniformly unadorned dull stone with domed roofs covered in white plaster. Window shutters and doors were unpainted, treated wood and looked to fit their frames tightly. The architecture was wholly functional with not a thought spared for artistry.

  The caravan crossed underneath the thick walls to wind its way through the narrow, dusty streets. Gita walked along beside Bahadur as he rode, and Manish came up to ride along her other side. Eventually they emerged into a broad square that could almost have fit the Bazaar back in Q’uungerab. There were more people in this square than they had seen in the entire city thus far, but even with vendor’s stalls dotting the area it still felt empty. It was just too… quiet.

  “There’s the death of another story,” Gita muttered. “I thought scholars were supposed to be patrons of the arts, and we’d see great marvels of architecture and street magicians around every corner, and this is what I find?”

  “Hush, Gita. Don’t be rude; we’re going to be staying here for a while.”

  “Yes, I know. That’s why I’m complaining now.”

  “I could have told you this place was boring,” Manish put in helpfully. “But if you need ancient history and forgotten lore, I guess it’s the place to be.” His tone said he had no idea why anyone would need those things, and that was fine with Bahadur. He liked the man, but there was no need to bring trouble on more people’s heads. Ziya was already warned, anyway; there was really nothing more he could do for their caravan. Come to think of it, that was something else he was glad hadn’t come up while he was on guard with them. If he ever saw one of those beasts again, it would be too soon.