UW02. Plains of Sand and Steel

by Alisha Klapheke

  A wooler with a respected name told Seren how he’d been urged to raise his prices. Meekra quickly scrawled down amounts and other information into her report.

  “I don’t think anyone will be able to pay that much. I’m afraid my…contributors,” he said, meaning the noble family who’d invested in his wool trade, “will find a way to show their displeasure.”

  It was Qadira’s clan, Seren just knew it. Meekra traded a look with her that only solidified her thought. “But you haven’t been forced to alter contracts you already established?”

  “No, Pearl of the Desert—ah!—I mean, Kyros Seren.” He winced. The people didn’t know who to call what and she didn’t blame them. The power struggle wasn’t their doing. She was simply grateful Varol hadn’t contradicted her title in the open since the funeral. It was coming though. Like pressure in the air, it pressed against her skin and spoke of high winds and rough skies.

  “Let it be known,” she looked to Meekra to make certain this decree made it to the scribe for official recording, “no prices will be raised during a time of war. We do not profit from problems we experience together. We must remain united.”

  She needed to organize a system. The people had to share necessary goods to survive. She had to take the noble families out of the equation. She could already imagine Qadira’s sneer at her judgment call here.

  “Nidal.” His eyes widened as she said his name. She knew many of their names. She and Meekra used to sit up at night and recall names, something Meric scoffed at and Varol would too, if he knew of it. “I’ll announce a city-wide gathering of basic goods and I myself will pay those who contribute.”

  She removed all the rings from her fingers and tucked the emeralds, pearls, and rubies into Hossam’s large hand.

  “We can collect food stuffs, milk, blankets, bandages, and medicines at the economic advisory tent beside the back gates. That way, if the customers can’t pay, your family will still eat.”

  She motioned for Hossam to hand the rings over to Nidal.

  “I place you in charge of this endeavor and you may employ anyone else willing to help.”

  Hope smoothed Nidal’s wrinkles. “Thank you, Chosen One.”

  Erol arrived wearing the mean-eyed look that meant he had a message. Seren waved him forward as he fussed with his mourning kaftan.

  “I have a message from the engineer. He hasn’t been able to make the weapon work yet, but he is hopeful that a new arrangement on the fuse line will help. And, Kyros Seren? I want you to know, we, all of us, your guard, want you to know that if you challenge Varol openly, we’re with you.”

  A sunny light filled her and she pressed a hand over her heart. She hadn’t asked them, not wanting them to risk their lives for her. It’d been silly really because they’d risk it anyway, had already risked it. It was all too much to bear but she had to bear it. She’d let the Flames burn through her and find courage for this moment, to make it to the next.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Erol nodded, meeting her eyes. Beside him, Hossam and Cansu inclined their heads too.

  AT THE ARCHERY RANGE, clouds interrupted the moonlight and turned it into strands like spider webs. The ends of Seren’s hair lifted lightly in the breeze. The engineer waved as she walked to where he stood alongside the training field, bare except for three archery targets. Leaping from foot to foot like a boy, he gestured to ten contraptions. They were lined up opposite the leather and sand-stuffed targets.

  He rambled until the harried interpreter grabbed his arm. “Slow down!”

  Each of the contraptions included a shiny, silk pocket and a two-sectioned clay pot attached to the silk by way of thin wires. Seren squatted by the closest one to examine the contraption.

  “Lahabshjara Fires.” The engineer pointed to the top section. It looked like a deep bowl.

  “And here is where the powder sits, yes?” She tapped the head-sized ball at the base. One wire, attached to one that ran up to the silk pocket, hung near the ball’s side. “This will take the static—built up by the pocket going through the air—and bring it down through this.” She touched a tiny hole in the ball’s wall, through which the wire would eventually be threaded. “And it will spark the powder blend.”

  He frowned until the interpreter finished his work. After a little backtracking, the engineer nodded, giving her the rest of the conversation through the interpreter.

  “So,” she said, “the wire isn’t quite ready.” She pointed to where it would go. “But you have an idea on how to fix that.”

  Nodding, the engineer grinned and pressed his palms together. “Never seen woman with,” he made a flourishing kind of motion with his hands, “these…type ideas.”

  “It’s the Holy Fire that gives me these ideas. And perhaps if you asked more women about their thoughts, you’d hear more good ideas.”

  He bowed in that awkward way the Invaders had. “Should we get to work now?”

  “Yes.”

  With careful fingers, they inserted the magnesium fuse wires into the small holes in the sides of the clay pots. The containers held rust, saltpeter, and another ingredient with a name as difficult as the engineer’s, which she didn’t bother trying to say. The complicatedly named ingredient provided oxidation to improve the weapon’s performance. She understood that much.

  “What about the wind?” she asked, using the interpreter’s services.

  The engineer glanced at her, then the sky. The interpreter gave me his words. “No wind, Kyros.”

  “There is a little,” she said. “The winds are unpredictable here, engineer. Tell me the weight will be enough to keep the pockets of hot air from drifting too far.”

  “I’m certain. We aim for the targets. Just there. Fuses should spark by then and…”

  She imagined the puffs and sparks she’d seen in her vision. “Inferno.”

  “Yes.”

  “The warriors and stable hands have been warned?” Fig’s stall window was open, but Seren was too far away to see her.

  “Yes,” the interpreter answered for the engineer.

  “All right then. But only try the three first.” She stood, dusting her kaftan and going to stand behind Erol, Hossam, and Cansu.

  Cansu smiled, approving her choice of safe vantage point. But honestly, if the wind blew wrong, it wouldn’t matter how many big men or women she stood behind.

  The wind had died and there weren’t any reports of sandstorms or otherwise. It wasn’t the rainy season, so they had no fronts of cold wet to worry about. Seren’s hands shook anyway.

  Holding the pockets of rubberized silk up, the engineer and two other warriors lit the small exterior fire bowls. One man dropped his flint and had to be replaced with someone less nervous around this new technology.

  Seren leaned around Erol to see better. It was taking an eternity. If they couldn’t get the fire going properly, the silk pockets would never fill and rise. The whole thing could catch fire. She twisted her green wool around her fingers, pulled, and released it, the soft fabric, the memory of them, helping her breathe.

  Please don’t let the flames get too near the fuse strips.

  Slowly, the heat from the small flames filled the silk bladders with hot air. The first lifted into the sky. Then another. She clapped her hands together. The Holy Fire’s idea had come to fruition. Adem may not have witnessed its success, but he’d hear of it. From more than her. He’d present the idea to Varol. It would work out. This weapon, set off next time from the parapet to descend and ignite the Invaders, would end the war.

  Two of the weapons—one refused to light—floated toward the archery targets like silent ships on invisible water.

  She pushed past Cansu and found the engineer’s side. “When will the static be enough to ignite the magnesium strip?”

  He crossed his arms and tapped a lip. “I do not know.”

  “If they don’t explode within the training field walls, the Invaders might see them. They would know…”

>   “Many variable in this experiment.”

  “Yes.” Sweat pooled at the base of her neck, between her collar and skin. Her heart strained to keep beating regularly.

  A flash of white and orange blinded her.

  She rubbed at her eyes and looked again. Two weapons blazed with flame and ate the targets in great washes of light. A cheer went up from the fighters behind them.

  “Somehow, I’ll make you safe here in the city,” she said to the engineer. “Or anywhere you chose to go in the Empire.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. But I will do it. I promise you.”

  “Thank you, Kyros.”

  Another of the flying weapons sizzled, but a sudden rush of air lifted it. Seren’s hair blew against her cheek and pressed her toward the gate to the city.

  “No.” Cansu was at her side then, his mouth open.

  The weapon danced and twirled in the sudden wind like a demon. It reached the top of the wall that divided the training fields from the market, the shops, and everyone’s homes.

  She had to shoot it down. Her bow was in the stables.

  Horses snorted and stamped, smelling the black powder. Seren grabbed her quiver and bow and ran back outside. In the center of the fields, she spied the swollen silk and fire heading over the wall. She loosed an arrow. Her shot pushed the weapon over the wall. It dropped out of sight.

  No.

  Everyone was running now. Calling for water. For people to back away. Shouting for the gate guards to clear the area nearest the wall. The residential area.

  A sudden shift threw another weapon at the stable roof. A flash of light and the hay outside the main entrance went up in flames.

  Seren called out to the men staring. “Don’t just stand there, my warriors! Go to the city and help the people. Stop the fire from spreading! And you, you, and you, come help me put out the one there.” She ran for the stables.

  Hands shaking, Seren tried to slide the bolt on Fig’s stall door open as others worked to smother the spreading fire surrounding the entrance and inching up the wooden walls. Panicked whinnies sounded beyond the thick wood slats of Fig’s stall. Sweat slicked Seren’s palms. The bolt didn’t want to move. Ironically, rust—the same thing as what was currently causing the thatch and mud roof to smoke into angry arms of fire—blocked the latch’s mechanism.

  Screams tore out of the city, beyond the wall, and Seren’s heart lurched, tears pooling in her eyes.

  Lucca ran into the stables, his face marked with ash and his mouth pinched. “Step back.” With one boot, he smashed the stall’s bolt loose.

  Seren leaned past him and slid the bolt free. Fig shot from the stall, not that Seren could see her. Smoke clouded the world and clawed at her lungs.

  “Free the other horses,” she coughed.

  “They’re already—” He pointed to the small herd galloping and stomping around the fields, indistinguishable in the dark and chaos.

  In the city, smoke rose into the night sky. No one was left in the training field except them. And Seren knew she should’ve been the one to rush into the city. A warrior rushed down the hill from the back gates and toward the stable, Lucca shouting at him. This was entirely Seren’s fault. Turning from Lucca and the other man, she threw herself further into the stables, rushing, stumbling in the smoke and dodging frightening snorting horses, to reach one more latched stall.

  “One more!” she called back to Lucca.

  His head turned. His hair whipped against his face. “Seren! No! Get out of there!”

  She ran into a wall of gray. Acrid smoke burned her throat and eyes as the fire ate at the stables. A thud rocked a closed stall door. A hoof hitting the wood.

  “I’m coming!” She worked the bolt. Three tries. Four. Finally, it came free. The stall was full of smoke. But no horse. She clicked her tongue. “Where are you?”

  Eyes watering, she looked down. One white sock showed near a hoof, like Fig’s foreleg, but this wasn’t Fig’s stall. Thank the Holy Fire this wasn’t her stall. It was a horrible, selfish thought, but at that second, she didn’t care.

  Her heart in her burning throat, she tugged at the animal’s leg to try and wake it.

  “Wake!” She clapped her hands, coughing and spitting ash. Heat roared above her head and there was a crack. A beam crashed through the roof and into the stall. Smoke blocked the view of where it landed. “Wake up!”

  She clambered over the animal’s body. To its muzzle. The horse’s lips were still and soft. Every curve and dip of the animal’s mouth was as familiar as her own and her heart stopped beating, hanging in her chest as her mind screamed the truth. It was Fig.

  She sucked a breath, choking, and a shout crawled out of her throat somewhere between a cry and a scream. Lucca split the clouds of smoke and grabbed her arm. He dragged her from the stables as the roof caved in.

  Fig was lost in the monster of smoke and fire and broken beams.

  Not caring about the possible consequences, Seren let him hold her tight against his chest. She couldn’t breathe. Grief and guilt joined the smoke in clogging her lungs and squeezing her heart. Lucca covered her mouth and nose with a wet cloth. Finally, she could take one breath, two.

  The smoke cleared and let the moonlight coat the awful scene. Coughs tore from Seren’s chest, horribly reminding her of the night Meric died.

  “They controlled the fire in the city,” he said. “None are dead.”

  Thank the Fire. Her stomach twisted. Fig. Her poor, poor Fig. “Injuries?”

  “A few,” he whispered into her hair.

  Tears ripped down her face. Her eyes felt like coals and her heart sank and sank. The ground under her feet threatened to break, or maybe it was her legs that didn’t want to hold her anymore.

  “If the wind hadn’t turned, if we’d had more weight…” Her tongue grew too dry. Words failed her.

  Lucca took the wet cloth as she pulled away and started toward the city gate.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “But I can’t hide from this.”

  Four fighters brought out a cart filled with smoking debris. Ruined tent sections. Charred stools, shields, and baskets. She gritted her teeth, and they walked around the cart, to the gate, meeting Erol, Hossam, and Cansu, as well as a group of fighters she didn’t know as well—a grim welcome party.

  Cansu came forward. Gray ringed his normally perky eyes and he stammered as he greeted her formally. His throat moved in a slow swallow and he looked at the ground.

  “Pearl of the Desert, Kyros Varol ordered we take you to him for questioning. Do you…do you want us to…” He threw a look at the fighters behind him.

  She was numb. They had to be Varol and Adem’s men. Not loyal to her. Should she ask her loyal fighters to call her kyros? Was this the time to make a stand? Cansu’s eyes moved like a bird’s. No. She couldn’t order them to their death. Not if she wasn’t certain this meant the end of her and the beginning of Varol. She had to be sure.

  Lucca was asking Hossam and Erol something, but she couldn’t hear what he said. Her feet were somehow already moving past the damage her weapon had done, the smoking shops that lined the wall between the city and the training fields.

  She whirled to see Lucca and her guard on her heels. “Lucca Hand of Ruination, I command you to reinstate order at the training fields and secure temporary lodging for the warriors who lost their tents.”

  “Are you—”

  “Go.” Her demand came out like a plea. Please, go, Lucca. Go and hide among the fighters, find some way to disappear.

  “But I can come with you,” he said quietly.

  “No. Do as I order.” Seren fought her desperate need to get him to safety and burned her words with an authority she didn’t feel.

  His lips parted. He searched her face, then nodded curtly and spun on his heel. Seren memorized his broad, round shoulders, the blood-red belt at his trim waist, and the lilt to his walk. Lucca
. He knew she was trying to protect him, didn’t he? She scratched at her hot skin and pressed fingers against the pounding pulse in her neck.

  She had no sun now to think of the fever of love.

  Her world was crumbling.

  25

  ONA

  The moon began to show through the last of the daylight. Seren was off seeing supplicants right now. Just more proof she couldn’t run this war. She should’ve been here, plotting. Well, nothing was stopping Ona from forcing her way into the planning now that the red tent was up and the black was close on its heels. She’d see Varol and she’d be a part of this strategy if it killed her. Varol’s guards—both could’ve been the dead kyros's twin brothers—stopped her at the door to Varol’s tent on the western side of the Kyros Walls courtyard.

  “Kyros Varol requested my attendance.” She had to get in. She couldn’t live with herself if she ended up having to go along with some stupid plan against the Invaders. But surely Varol’s plan was magnificent. If anything, she just wanted to know about it.

  “You have a message you can show us?” the first asked.

  “No.”

  “Then you may not enter.”

  “I’m Kaptan Onaratta Paints with Blood.”

  “We know, Kaptan Onaratta. And please forgive us. But we’re not permitted to allow anyone entry unless there is a proper reason.”

  Mentioning Seren might work. But what title to use? These were obviously Varol supporters if they were guarding his meeting.

  “Pearl of the Desert sent me with a message.” The guards straightened. “It’s urgent.” They shifted their weight foot to foot and Ona could hear Varol’s distinctive voice calling a meeting to order. “If you don’t let me in, I’ll put one of my favorite chants to work and your best parts will drop right off your worthless bodies.”