by Fuad Baloch
“Indeed,” agreed Jinan. He turned around, boomed, “Men, witness with your own eyes the fate of those who stand against your sultana!” The hundred or so men who had stayed behind with her thundered.
The knots inside her stomach finally beginning to loosen, Nuraya turned to her right. Mona sat silently on her horse, her face pale, the eyes transfixed ahead. Her mother, as usual, sat silently in the saddle, perfect and serene as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. The three depleted, useless magi sat stiffly in their saddles around her.
“T-the walls…” stammered Mona, shaking her head in disbelief, “they… are gone! Just gone!”
“A sign of favor from god,” beamed Nuraya. “Kismet has finally turned my way.”
Mona muttered something but under the rousing and clatter of her men, Nuraya didn't hear her. Not that it mattered. The capital was hers for the taking. The Peacock Throne beckoned.
“My sultana,” shouted Jinan, pointing a hand toward the north. “Kinas approaches.”
She jerked her head toward the distant hills. A fast-moving train of war horses was thundering toward the fallen city walls, flags of the Istani Sultanate fluttering, their weapons glinting in the afternoon sun. A knight, clad in full mail, his face hidden by an ornate gold helm, led them.
Kinas.
“Oh no, you don’t,” Nuraya growled. “Not when I am this close.”
“Don’t worry about your numbers,” said the queen. “We are all with you.”
“What are your orders?” asked Jinan. “Try and cut off your brother, or rush toward the Shahi Qilla?”
She pondered the question for all of two seconds. Every fiber of her being insisted on her cutting off her brother’s entry to the city. But despite what others might think of her, she did have her wits about her. Not only were her men far fewer in numbers, her mercenaries didn’t have half the war experience of Kinas’s soldiers. Besides, her end goal wasn’t to vanquish her brothers, but to prevent them from doing the wrongs they would subject the sultanate to unless she intervened.
“Men of Sultana’s Hands,” she shouted, standing on her stirrups. “Our forces and our magi have given us a chance to take this grand city in the name of Rabb and justice.” A jubilant cry went up. She raised her hand, impatient yet aware moments like these were recorded in history for posterity, and thus worth doing properly. “Now the rest is up to us. We are going to march down to the Shahi Qilla, drain it of cowards, warmongers, and ingrates, and restore our righteous destiny.”
Another cry went up. She fought the temptation to quieten them or to turn around and check Kinas’s progress. She had waited this long, had sacrificed so much. Rabb would not abandon her now. Not when she had come this close. “In the name of Rabb and your sultana, enter the city not as victors, but liberators and her guardians. What we’ve lost… we shall rebuild better than ever before. The walls that guarded the city all this time will be raised anew. Only stronger and taller and more impregnable than ever before.”
Nuraya wiped her brow, her own words hammering inside the chest. Words had power, Abba used to say. She felt the truth of that now.
Again, she grinned, swept up by the moment, confident in the way her fate had been written. She had much to do once she sat upon the Peacock Throne—borders to defend, citizens to protect. And so, she shunned the joy in her own heart. She was the sultana. All she did was for her people.
“Sultana’s Hands,” she roared, facing the grand, perfect city gaping beyond the fallen walls. “Ride!”
She spurred Vengeance hard. The horse bolted forward, the movement so sudden she almost lost her seat. Behind her, men who had joined their lives and purposes with hers bellowed and followed her.
Together, they stormed through the no-man’s-land that had separated their campsite and the killing fields. Then they were through and into the battlefield itself. Their horses trampled over the dead and the dying. A few stragglers that still stood scattered away, those who didn’t got crushed under their hooves.
Nuraya screamed, her lips peeling back, her heart rejoicing, dancing at the long journey that was finally coming to a close. Wind slapped against her face, set her hair streaming behind her. She didn't care. Again, she shouted, kicked Vengeance, urging the beast to become the very wind itself.
She caught sight of her warriors still standing in the killing fields, bravely cutting down Kinas’s men who’d stopped to engage them.
They rode on.
Mere breaths later, they clattered through the mounds of mortar and bricks that had once been the city walls. She turned her chin up, looking past the wide plaza, crawling with fighting soldiers, filled with the shouts and cries of the wounded.
Her eyes traveled up to the southern hill where the Shahi Qilla, citadel of the Istani Sultanate, stood alone and proud. Her abode, her destiny.
“Follow me!” she shouted again, twisting the reins to take the arterial road that ran through the city, connecting the northern gates with the Shahi Qilla.
More shouts came from behind. An arrow whistled past her, making a soft, whooshing hiss. She didn't duck, didn’t care. This was her day, and nothing could go wrong.
“Paranan,” Jinan bellowed over the din to some mercenary she didn’t know. “Get the men into formation. We’re headed to the royal palace.”
A city guard stumbled in her path. One hand grasped a long sword, the other shaking under the weight of a shield obviously too heavy for him to wield. One under Ahasan’s spell.
Jinan cut his head off with a flick of his sword.
Nuraya blinked, for a moment crashing out of her mind, really seeing the mayhem and destruction and death all around her. Not that different from Kark, truth be told. But a hundred times worse. And with greater stakes.
She pulled up the reins and waited until Jinan had caught up with her. “Where is Kinas?”
“The men report he’s headed south,” replied Jinan, pointing at the Shahi Qilla. He grinned. “Looks like we’ve got both of your brothers penned in.”
Nuraya shook her head. “One of them, more like. If I know Ahasan, the coward would have started running the moment he knew of the magi outside the walls.” Even as she said the words, something snagged at her. Which of her brothers had used magi like her?
Someone screamed and the idle thoughts flittered away. A horse whinnied behind her. Nuraya turned her head and spied Mona and the queen behind her.
“Mother, home beckons,” she shouted.
The queen didn’t turn her way, her expressionless face staring at the distant Shahi Qilla.
“We should hurry lest Kinas beats us to it,” said Jinan.
She nodded and opened her jaw.
A trumpet sounded from their right. Jinan cursed, shouting at his men, few as they were, to form up. Her heart sinking, Nuraya turned around. In neat rows of a score each, knights of the Sultan’s Body were marching forward on foot, cutting off the path leading to the Shahi Qilla. They were led by an old soldier on a black horse, his scraggly beard fluttering gently in the wind. Unlike the other knights beside him, he wore no helm, no armor except old, rusty gauntlets.
“Hanim,” she whispered.
The old confidant and shadow of the late sultan raised a hand and the armored knights clattered to a stop. For a long breath, she stared at the wizened figure of the man who had been a constant fixture of her life, a keeper of secrets for Abba.
As if aware of something larger than their petty one-to-one battles, soldiers around them began disengaging, turning to watch the proceedings.
“Do you come to greet me?” Nuraya called out.
Hanim coughed, kicked his horse, and trotted toward her. Jinan growled. She quieted him with the wave of a hand. From the corner of her eye, she saw more figures appear under the arch of an Atishi temple. The tall, lithe figure of Shoki, accompanied by Mara, the half-naked Zyadi magus who had deserted her.
“Princess, this is no way to come back home,” said the old guard conversationally, pulling u
p a dozen paces from her. He waved his hand at the bloodstained cobblestones. “None of that was necessary.” He shook his head, grimacing as he moved the hand toward the fallen walls. “Nor was that.”
“Sometimes, one must tear down to rebuild.”
Again, the old guard shook his head, moved his horse a couple of strides forward. “A false justification.”
The words set her bristling. “Hanim, I don’t have time to waste arguing with you. Kinas is already past you. Either join me or move out of my way.”
“One of the great ironies of getting older,” continued Hanim, “is discovering all this strength to say what must be said, to do what must be done.”
“Move your men or I shall cut through them,” boomed Jinan.
Hanim cocked his head to the side as if considering the mercenary salar. “You would make a sultana by mowing down the very men tasked to guard her?”
“Well… in that case…” sputtered Jinan, “just get out of our way.”
Hanim scratched at his chin, his eyes finding Mona. “Girl, your parents made it out of the city the moment riots broke out. Last I heard, they were headed north-east, far removed from immediate danger.” Mona’s shoulders sagged visibly. She nodded, then dabbed at her eyes.
The salar of the Sultan’s Body coughed, then fixed her eyes at her mother. “I am not surprised to see your hand behind your daughter’s foolish insurrection. If I’m sorry, it’s only because it took me this long to see the real you.”
The queen watched Hanim through her stony mask.
Impatience growing in her, Nuraya grunted. “Hanim, I am here because I made the decision to rid the sultanate of my inept brothers! Now get out my way before—”
“Inept brothers?” cut in Hanim, his deep voice rolling through the plaza. He clucked his tongue. “Were they responsible for the death of your honorable father? Did they stoke both Zakhanan and Reratish to invade our borders?”
Nuraya blinked, not liking the direction this conversation was going. “Hanim—”
“You always knew too much,” came the soft, measured tones of Queen Aleena. Nuraya turned toward her, then gasped. The queen glowered, her face twisted into a sneer so bestial and savage, she looked more a ghoul than a human. “Anahan should have kept his distance from you!”
She raised a hand, squeezed her fingers.
Hanim gagged, a hand rising to his throat as he seemed to struggle for breath. Behind him, the Sultan’s Body stirred. Hanim shook his head, raised a trembling hand. “You… bloody… abom—” He screamed, the veins in his old face standing out like scraggy mountains.
“You always were too idealistic,” growled Queen Aleena, her voice hot, dripping with scorn and hatred that set a cold shiver down Nuraya’s spine. “I should have gotten rid of you a long time ago.”
“Mother!” shouted Nuraya, disbelieving. “What’s the meaning of all this?”
Hanim raised an accusatory finger at her mother. Once more, he screamed, his fingers clawing at his own throat. For a moment, the fingers withdrew, his leathery face damp with sweat. He gasped, then raised his chin toward Queen Aleena. “W-why… d-did… you kill the sultan?”
Nuraya licked her lips. Her mother had given her a reason already, hadn’t she? Still, as Nuraya turned toward a woman who looked like her mother but didn’t resemble her anymore, terror took hold in her heart. For a while, she’d wondered how quickly the sultanate had fallen into dark times. All this time, she’d blamed her brothers, and all the men who had betrayed her.
Had she lost sight of another traitor?
Maharis moved his horse forward, whispered into her mother’s ear and raised a hand toward Nuraya. Queen Aleena shook her head and cackled. “Time for secrets is well past, little magus.”
Nuraya blinked. No one chided a magus like that. Not even the queen married to the Iron Sultan.
And no magus would ever slink away as did Maharis.
Cold, numbing realization finally poured over Nuraya. “You are…” she began, pointing a finger at her mother, not believing the words she was going to utter, “a magus?”
The queen cackled once more, all semblance of the woman Nuraya had known all her life, finally gone.
Chapter 43
Shoki
“What’s going on?” hissed Shoki, unable to tear his eye from the spectacle playing out in the central plaza. He wasn’t the only one. Soldiers, regardless of their original affiliation all stood motionless, watching the confrontation between the Istani Sultana and her mother unfold.
“Not good,” muttered Mara, standing tall, arms crossed over his bare chest. Shoki raised an eyebrow, but the djinn paid him no mind, his lips moving silently.
Shoki licked his lips and turned back to the four groups of armed men arrayed against each other in the plaza. The hundred or so Sultana’s Hands. A hundred knights of the Sultan’s Body. Stragglers left behind from Ahasan’s and Kinas’s armies.
Could he do something? Wringing his hands, Shoki tried reaching out for his jadu.
Nothing.
His heart thudding inside his chest, Shoki turned toward the queen. She was a magus! One who’d kept her ability hidden away for years. And she’d killed the Iron Sultan.
Had Nuraya known all this and done nothing?
Had it not been for the misery of humanity and the sharp tangy texture of blood all around him, he might have convinced himself he was in some fantastical nightmare.
“Mother, stand back,” said Nuraya, her voice loud, strong in the shocked silence. “Jinan, take her way until… I’ve concluded my affairs.”
“Concluded your affairs?” Queen Aleena squawked, thrusting her fingers skyward, shaking her head as if an epileptic shock had set in. “You know nothing, my daughter.”
The old salar of the Sultan’s Body groaned, his face still red, the veins on his neck and forearms bulging. “W-why?”
“Nuraya, you can’t waste time while Kinas makes for the Shahi Qilla,” declared the queen. “March forward. Leave them to me.”
As one, the gleaming knights of the Sultan’s Body thumped their armored chests with gauntleted fists. One of the knights raised his fist. “For the Istani Sultanate, our lives!”
“Our lives!” thundered the hundred knights, stomping their feet on the ground.
The ground shook, the air thrumming with the possibility and potential of the violence that was coming. Shoki licked his lips. He had to do something. Initially, he’d never cared which child of the Iron Sultan sat the Peacock Throne. But now this was his fight as well. He had to help Nuraya.
“Aid her,” whispered a slurred voice in his mind. “Help her succeed and you shall have your rewards.”
Shoki jerked his head left and right, then wheeled about. No one. Yet, there was no mistaking the voice he had heard. The young man who had greeted him at the village. The representative of the pari folk. Were they here? Shoki cast his head about, saw no sign of the perfectly symmetrical faces he had seen at the village. Not that it meant anything. Beings like those, the pari folk, were most probably not bound by the vagaries and limitations of form.
“Hanim,” shouted the sultana, her voice quivering now, “tell your men to step back. And I will ensure the safety of them and yourself.”
“T-too late f-for that…” he croaked.
Queen Aleena growled, her face turning red like a hot forge, the eyes becoming pools of molten ash. “Enough!” Once more, she raised her hands skyward, the fingers pointing back at her. Her body convulsed, continued spasming for a long breath. Shoki stared. Then, the queen brought her arms down with a flourish.
Shoki watched with bated breath, bracing for whatever was to come. Soldiers around him began withdrawing, a collective hush falling on them.
The ground shook.
The queen screeched.
Hanim howled, screamed, then clattered to the ground.
No one moved. Not even knights of the Sultan’s Body. Shoki swallowed. The Queen had just performed magic to devastatin
g effect.
Hanim didn’t stir. The riderless horse snorted, kicked the ground beside his master as if cajoling him to get up.
“What did you do, Mother?” asked the sultana, her hands trembling as she turned her horse around to face her.
“Gave you the opportunity to get on and finish what you started,” replied the queen, her voice suddenly poised, refined, a picture of courtly manners.
“Mother—”
“Advance!” shouted a knight of the Sultan’s Body.
Shoki took an involuntary step forward. A strong hand arrested his advance. “Stay back!” the djinn hissed. Shoki shook his head, but the vise-like grip didn't relax. Howling in frustration, Shoki grabbed the djinn’s hand, trying to twist his way out. The pressure digging into Shoki’s wrist increased fivefold and he screamed in pain.
Tears in his good eye, Shoki jerked his head toward the plaza. The knights were advancing now, still maintaining their neat formation, their boots thudding on the cobbled road.
“Take position!” shouted Jinan. “Archers, Rabb damn you, start firing.”
Mercenaries of the Sultana’s Hands shouted and hurling curses and insults, struggled to form a straight line. Some of the soldiers in the plaza, both Ahasan’s and Kinas’s, took up their arms, coming to stand under Nuraya’s flag.
The djinn finally relaxed his grip and Shoki yelped. Pursing his lips, he closed his eye once more, reached out for the force that both repulsed and exhilarated him in equal measures.
Magic still eluded him.
Frustrated, he opened his eye and looked out at the plaza. The queen, surrounded by the three magi, was riding away to the left, toward a Husalmin Temple with high arches and thick marble pillars. Shoki tried looking for the sultana. In the seas of turbans and raised swords and halberds, he couldn't spot her anymore.
“Nuraya!” he screamed, his voice impossible to be heard over the din that had fallen upon them once more.
Like a loose string being pulled taut without warning, something reached for Shoki’s heart. With a yelp, he looked around. The knights were a mere twenty or so paces away from Nuraya’s men, undeterred by the uncoordinated shower of arrows that buffeted their march.