UW02. Plains of Sand and Steel

by Alisha Klapheke

  But then, Seren’s little sisters were dead. They’d had no chance at anything. She had to make her life worth something.

  She wound Meric’s music box. Tinny minor notes crept from the ornate box delivered as a gift from the powerful Clan Azjorr their wedding day. Meric played the music when he couldn’t sleep, so the guards wouldn’t think anything of the sounds.

  Lucca crossed his arms over his wide chest and tapped a slow rhythm on his shoulder, thinking. “Please don’t think I’m being disrespectful but…”

  “Considering what we’re about to do, I won’t ever label you anything but most loyal associate. Or even dear friend.”

  “We need something for the digging.”

  “How about this?” Ona held up a water bowl and touched the black calligraphy along the lip. “Its edge is pretty sharp.”

  Seren grabbed her recently cleaned chamber pot that sat by the door to the smaller chamber. Her stomach turned and sweat rose along her back and forehead. “This could work too. And let’s use that yatagan to loosen the dirt,” she said, pointing to one of Meric’s many weapons. “Then we can dig out the soil with the two containers and hide the dirt under my bed.”

  Ona and Seren took turns listening for anyone approaching and helping Lucca dig a shallow grave. Sweat poured off Seren’s chin and down her back as they finished. Ona artfully arranged a few pillow seats so nothing was obvious. For one so martially inclined, she had an eye for appearances.

  “My kyros,” Erol said through the door.

  Seren’s pulse drummed. “He is resting. He is unwell still.” Earth and sand blackened her nails and she tried to dig it out, making her nail beds burn. “What is it?”

  “General Adem wishes an audience,” one of the other guards said.

  Lucca’s mouth opened and Seren’s head went light.

  “Is he here now?” she asked.

  “I am,” Adem said. That unmovable attitude of his painted his words. If she demanded he leave, it’d grow into an argument and only draw attention to her lies.

  Seren closed her eyes and thought of the Holy Fire.

  SEREN

  The imagined Flame shook, then Seren saw an image of Ona on the bed, swathed in coverings with the oil lamps doused. Seren opened her eyes.

  It might work.

  “Good,” she shot back through the thick weave of the door. She raised her voice so he could hear her clearly over the music box. “Your visit will surely help Kyros Meric. Give us ten minutes to ready ourselves, please, General Adem.”

  “Of course, Pearl of the Desert. I’ll wait in the main room with my kaptans.”

  Ona came close. “We’re his kaptans now too. Should we say we’re meeting with the kyros? Maybe then he’d go away?”

  “That won’t make him leave. Those kaptans he favors, they’re snakes slithering after power. Too smart, all of them.” A thought hit Seren’s head. “Surely they won’t all demand entrance to my chambers?”

  Lucca hefted Meric’s body onto his shoulder, then maneuvered him into the hole. “What are we going to do?” he whispered, sweat glistening along his brow and sticking his hair to his forehead.

  “Ona. I have an idea.” Seren touched the wool at her sash, mind whirring.

  Ona crossed her arms. “I don’t like the sound of this.”

  “You don’t even know what it is yet,” Lucca said.

  “Still don’t like the sound of it.”

  “Let’s finish this…then I’ll explain.”

  They covered Meric with earth, leaving a good bit still under Seren’s bed, before spreading both of the carpets out over the makeshift grave.

  “I must insist,” Adem said, startling them, “that I see you now, my kyros. I apologize for disturbing you, but I need to know if you approve of the plan Pearl of the Desert wishes to enact.”

  Lucca and Ona gathered around Seren. “Ona, you are going to pose as Meric,” she said.

  Ona tilted her head. “You aren’t serious.”

  “I am. Trust me. Lie on the bed. We’ll wrap you up so Adem can’t see any of you. You’re smaller than Meric, but I certainly can’t play the role and Lucca is too big. Turn onto your side and let Adem speak to you. You don’t need to answer.”

  “And if he finds her out?” Lucca’s lips became a tight line.

  Seren clasped her shaking hands. “She dies. I die. You die.”

  “An average evening,” Lucca said, his tone cutting.

  Ona chewed her lip and put a hand on the hilt of her sword. “I really don’t like it.”

  Lucca’s eyebrow lifted. “If it doesn’t involve her sword, she doesn’t like it.”

  “I don’t either, but there is no other way. He,” Seren jabbed a finger toward the door where Adem waited, “won’t leave. That’s why I didn’t argue with him. Believe me. When he has that tightness to his voice, he’ll dig his heels in. There will be no moving him on the issue.”

  Seren locked eyes with Ona. “I will destroy the Invaders. I will help you gain the revenge I see in your eyes. I will even take their king if I can, and spill his blood and end the suffering he causes with every new attack. Are you with me?”

  Ona’s shoulders moved with a deep breath. She nodded.

  ON THE BED, Ona looked like a cocooned moth. Nothing of her showed.

  With Lucca at Seren’s back, Seren leaned close to Ona. “Remember my promise. You will have your revenge. And I will have mine.”

  Seren turned to Lucca. “You should go. If you’re found here, Adem will wonder why Meric would be trying to hide a meeting with you.”

  “Agreed,” he said in his oddly beautiful accent. “I’ll stay nearby.”

  If she wasn’t so shaken up, his words would’ve been comforting. He seemed so sincere. Fire, please let him be. And Ona too. She sent him out the back where Meekra stood talking quietly with Hossam and Cansu.

  The wooden door opened and General Adem’s hand appeared at the woven flap, the second part of the entrance. “Pearl of the Desert, may I enter?”

  “Yes, but I’ll go to my small chamber and give you both a moment. Know that the kyros is not awake and seems unwilling to talk.”

  Through a crack in the door between Seren’s room and the small chamber she now shared with Meekra, she watched Adem walk slowly to where Ona lay. As she picked dirt from her nails nervously, Ona shifted in the bed.

  Adem stopped. “My kyros. My deepest apologies for disturbing you, but we launch what I can only assume is your plan at Kenar tomorrow night. I wondered if you had any last minute tweaks for our strategy.”

  Ona made a small noise and rolled over.

  Seren stepped closer but didn’t show herself. “General Adem,” she said, “I’ll notify you if the kyros makes any changes to the plan.”

  He scratched his beard and kept looking at Ona’s wrapped form. “How long has he been like this, Pearl of the Desert? How long has he been…unresponsive?”

  She swallowed. “I told you he was very sick.”

  “If he is not alert to give the order to move at sunset—”

  “We’ll move anyway.” She tried to sound confident. She definitely didn’t feel that way. “He ordered it when he was alert. With me.”

  Adem breathed in through his nose and ran a hand over his beard. “With you alone.”

  “Yes.”

  His gaze slid under her skin like a newly sharpened yatagan. She waited for the pain, her mouth working. She needed to say something to get him out of here.

  “This isn’t going to work,” he said quietly.

  Did he mean he knew what was really happening here? Or something else?

  “I…” Sweat rolled down her back.

  “You cannot simply pass orders on to me, Pearl of the Desert. You have no experience. If you were older, wiser…if you had royal blood perhaps, but…” He tugged at his short beard. “I will send two more physicians to see to our kyros in an hour, after he’s had some rest. If they deem him unfit to rule, if his body is determined to
o weak to carry out his duties, we will proceed from there.”

  “What does that mean?” Seren whispered.

  “We will see.” He wasn’t even really talking to her. Deep in thought, he stared at the kyros—at Ona.

  “Barir is his physician,” she said. “I’ll call for him. Meekra!”

  Meekra slipped inside, her gaze going immediately to Ona.

  “Get your father,” Seren said. “The general wants another examination.”

  Adem shook his head. “No. I will send the two that help me and my kaptans. It’s wise to get more than one opinion on something so important. No offense to your father, Meekra, or to you, Pearl of the Desert.”

  Meekra paled and bowed under Adem’s heavy gaze.

  Seren forced her eyes to stay fixed on Adem. She demanded that her body stop shaking.

  Adem turned to Seren. She didn’t even want to blink, to give him any indication that she was at all nervous or that anything was wrong. Her eyes dried and burned. Adem stared, distrust coating every feature, every movement.

  “Any-anything else?” Seren asked, willing her voice not to shake.

  The general tapped his yatagan’s hilt. Once, twice, very slowly. “I think we are finished here, Pearl of the Desert.”

  He swept out of the room.

  Seren could barely hear over her own heartbeat. “I need the Fire,” she whispered to Meekra.

  Seren held her hands over the flickering Light as Lucca’s low voice mixed with Ona and Meekra’s whispering. They were telling him what had happened. She’d made such a mess of everything. Adem’s physicians would of course realize Meric was dead. Adem would know she lied. The best case scenario was that Ona, Lucca, Meekra, and Seren’s guards would escape punishment and only Seren would die a brutal death for the deceit. Her stomach rolled.

  The Fire touched her palms lightly as she whispered her fears. The others came closer, watching a glow blossom inside her flesh, between her fingers, turning her skin the color of the dying sun.

  Ona swore and Meekra sucked a breath.

  The Hovering Flame appeared in front of Seren’s face, blocking everything else from view. The striped weave of the tent walls faded away. The ka’ud smoke dissolved. She closed her eyes and let a vision take her.

  Akhayma’s outer walls stretched toward the afternoon sun where it held court in its blue empire. But a dark substance stuck to the tops of the walls, to the parapet. The substance moved like shadows. Her heart shuddered.

  Invaders.

  There was no dark substance. They were men.

  They crawled over the walls with ropes and slid into the city, steel drawn. The people screamed and fled. Blood ran over the jeweled tips of Seren’s shoes.

  The vision dissipated and Seren’s eyes flew open.

  She faced Ona, Lucca, and Meekra, who was on her knees.

  “They’re already here. The Invaders.”

  Ona unsheathed her sword.

  “You’re blessed, my lady,” Meekra whispered. “Chosen. Father was right.”

  “What?” Lucca looked from Meekra to Seren.

  Seren flew out the back. “Hossam. Cansu. Come with me. We’re going to gather the army. We are being attacked.”

  “We are?” Hossam’s eyes were big as moons.

  The vision flashed through Seren’s head. “They’re climbing the walls. You and you,” she said to the rotating guards, “stay here and do not, for any reason, leave this spot. You are not to enter my chamber. You are not to allow any others—besides myself, Meekra, Barir, or my personal guards—into the room. Do you understand? This is a matter of life and death.”

  The tallest man of the two swallowed loudly. “Of course, Pearl of the Desert.”

  She turned to Cansu. “Tell Erol to keep a watch on that front entrance. To stay there with the other guards. They must keep order here and protect the kyros and keep everyone out of my chamber.”

  Cansu ran into the night.

  Seren twisted the wool at her sash. Just sending the army into that space wouldn’t be enough. The people wouldn’t have time to flee. They needed a way to defend themselves. This was all going to happen too quickly. She remembered a military scroll her father had shown her. Of a war against a larger force. The queen of this foreign country had armed the people.

  “Let’s go to the training field. Gather a force to meet them.”

  The others nodded and they took off. Not caring even a little how non-high-caste she looked, Seren ran with Hossam, Meekra, Ona, and Lucca through the streets until the back gates gave way to the torch-lit training field.

  At the faintly lit training field, Hossam waved to a boy with a trumpeting horn. At the boy's expert blare, all eyes were on Seren, who stood beside him on the hill.

  “Assemble. Now!” Hossam bellowed.

  Lucca and Ona rounded up a few more fighters from the stables, then ran back up to join Seren on the hill.

  Would the warriors listen? Akhayma had no time to waste.

  As Cansu joined Seren, the fighters traded glances, but then the men and women, some armed, some coming from their rest time, lined up.

  Seren didn’t know where Adem was. She was just glad he didn't seem to be around here.

  The units assembled in the near dark. Light blinked off armor and yatagans. Mouths whispered and eyes widened at the unusual command. These fighters needed Seren to be strong and confident.

  She swallowed, then raised her voice, hoping with everything that she hadn’t misunderstood the Fire’s information. “The Invaders are attacking now. Arm yourselves. Take an extra weapon or two. Head to the front gates. Hand out the extra weapons to anyone who will take them. We will need all the hands we can get.”

  The lines of fighters shifted their weight, their faces puzzled. Two actually laughed and elbowed one another. A nearby unit hissed insults at the ones laughing.

  Meekra stepped forward, gaze on Seren, asking for permission. Seren nodded. If Meekra had an idea what to say, Seren would take it.

  “Our Seren, Pearl of the Desert,” Meekra said, “saw a vision. I witnessed the Hovering Flame myself.”

  The fighters began murmuring excitedly. No one was laughing now.

  Lucca shouted, “I too saw the Flame!”

  “And I!” Ona said as she ran toward the stables. “Now get your tails on it, warriors!”

  The two men that had fought Ona during her demonstration held up their hands. The rounder one pounded his shield with his yatagan’s hilt.

  “She is chosen! Blessed!”

  Seren didn’t know what to feel. There was no time to feel. So she just gave her people what they probably needed. An inspiring leader.

  Cansu had Fig and was handing Seren a bow and quiver. Slinging her quiver over her shoulder, she pressed a hand against Fig’s warm body, then let the horse nuzzle her hand with a petal-soft nose. Seren mounted and raised her bow over her head.

  “We won’t let them take our home. We will never stop fighting.”

  Both foot soldiers gathered around Fig’s stomping hooves. Mounted fighters rallied, faces turned to Seren. Her warriors were a river of metal and leather, gaining momentum, and she longed to unleash their power on the enemy.

  Gripping her bow, feeling familiar carvings against her skin, she raised her voice and tried so, so hard to sound confident, to feel the Fire’s faith inside her. “They will regret this day until their last breath!”

  With a great shout, the troops rode with her, galloping into the city, their voices giving the command to all: Fight.

  ONA

  The world was a blur of movement.

  Ona’s horse snorted as they dodged tables of spices and fruit in the market, women and men with scrolls tucked under their arms or children on their hips. The people stopped to stare as the Empire’s army flooded the streets and raged toward the front gates. Dust coated Ona’s tongue, sweat poured down her face, but she smiled. This was the day. She’d waited years for this day.

  Her mount’s hoof sl
id on the dirt and cut into a canal, jarring her. Muscles clenching, she adjusted her weight and kept her seat. Lucca looked over his shoulder to see if she was keeping up. She was.

  At the tall, bronze gates, the crowd was quiet.

  A chill rippled Ona’s flesh.

  Haris handed a blade and a shield to a man in a ragged kaftan and a sash weighed down with loads of shoddy, little bells. The man nodded, then turned to what Ona assumed was his eight or nine-year-old son.

  “Hide in the agriculture district. Stay until all is quiet.”

  “All is quiet now.” Tears pooled under his big eyes and anger like a coal burned in Ona’s chest. The little fellow didn’t deserve this. She hadn’t either.

  Lucca was talking to the barrel-chested Nuh. “Anyone up top spot anything yet?” He jerked his chin toward the archers on the parapet.

  The fighters and the people who probably never thought they’d need to fight lined up to form a wall of shields, steel, and nocked arrows.

  Nuh nodded. “The earth has been moved around the base of the walls but I haven’t heard why they think—”

  A howl tore the quiet. Ona shuddered, nearly losing her sword. Ropes soared over the walls. A flash of metal. The five, blood-red lines down the surcoats.

  Invaders.

  She knew them well. After all, they’d be in every nightmare since the day they killed her aunt.

  They oozed over the walls, jumping from the ropes amid Empire arrows.

  “Stay by me, please, Ona!” Lucca loosed three arrows of his own.

  Ona fumbled for her flint and struck it across her sword. “Wake iron!”

  Lucca threw a spark from an arrow’s head with his own flint, chanting at the top of his lungs as they split the crowd of unhorsed people and came up side-by-side with mounted Empire fighters.

  “Wake, iron! Wake!

  Rise for me in battle!

  Let your unshakable strength