by Sabaa Tahir
Laia’s voice whispers in my mind. I saw something, Soul Catcher. An ocean filled with—skies, I do not know.
“What else do you know about this sea?”
“It is the repository of human suffering,” Aubarit says. “All the sorrow and pain you take from the spirits and give to Mauth—it goes into the Sea. As you stand guardian between the ghosts and the world of the living, Mauth is the sentinel between the Sea of Suffering and our world.”
Aubarit puts down her tea, more agitated with every word. “But the Mysteries are vast, Banu al-Mauth. We have no magic to aid us in their learning, only words passed down through the centuries. We do not even know their source. Your answer might be in a part of the Mysteries called the Signs—but I never learned them. My grandfather died before he could teach me.”
Him and a dozen other Fakirs. The Nightbringer’s handiwork.
“Are there any Fakirs who know the Signs in their entirety, Aubarit?”
“Fakir An-Zia,” she says. “I do not know if he escaped Sadh.”
“There must be some way—” I stop at the sound of a hurried knock at the wagon door.
“Fakira.” I recognize Mamie’s voice from outside. “Banu al-Mauth, come quickly.”
I pull open the door. “Return later,” I bark, but she blocks the door before I can shut it.
“Fire on the horizon,” she says. “We must flee, or else take shelter in Aish.”
Aubarit clutches the shroud close. “Fire—”
“Jinn, Fakira.” Mamie grabs the girl’s arm and pulls her from the wagon. “The jinn are coming.”
XXII: The Blood Shrike
Thank the skies for Heera’s warning, for when the first fur-clad Karkaun comes roaring toward me, my daggers are unsheathed and sinking into his gut before I can get a good look at his face. The next impales himself on my waiting scim, and if this is all they have, I will fight every Karkaun in this city until Madam Heera’s brothel splits at the seams from their eviscerated corpses.
I kick the bowl with Heera’s blood. Curse those bastards for thinking they could use her so. Skies know how long she had to suffer before delivering her warning.
“Back, you filth!” Faris bellows from outside.
The barbarians have found him and Septimus. As Karkauns spill from the bedrooms and hallways, I make my way back to the stairs. These are not their best warriors. Just the vanguard sent to try to kill us, to overwhelm us with sheer numbers.
“Ik tachk mort fid iniqant fi! Ik tachk mort fid iniqant fi!”
Above, the chanting quickens, and Grímarr’s voice rises above the others.
The back door splinters and bursts open, and a dead barbarian comes flying through. Faris’s giant frame fills the doorway and he stalks in, shoving aside Karkauns until he’s beside me.
“What in the hells is this, Shrike?”
“Grímarr is preparing a rite,” I say above the din. “I’m his guest of honor. Where’s Septimus?”
A tall Karkaun rushes me. “You dare wield steel, Martial whore!” he screams, scim held high. Too high. I run him through and then take off his head.
“Outside picking them off.” Faris kicks the Karkaun’s head to the side, his scims flying at the enemies still pouring into the hallway and down the stairs. “They have us surrounded.”
“We need to get up there,” I say. “He’s just biding his time until he’s done with this skies-forsaken chant.”
We fight our way back toward the stairs. But the barbarians keep coming, slipping on the blood-slicked ground, the deaths of their fellows only feeding their furor.
“Front door, Faris,” I scream at him. “Break a bleeding path!”
He barrels through the Karkauns and I follow in his wake, stabbing and slashing until we spill out into a street littered with bodies—Septimus’s handiwork. Through the open window above, Grímarr’s chanting reaches a fever pitch. “IK TACHK MORT FID INIQANT FI!”
“Tell me you have a grappling hook.”
Faris shakes his head, gasping for breath. I hope to the skies that his clothes are sticking to him because of all the Karkauns he’s killed, and not because he’s about to die on me.
“We’ll have to jump.” Faris nods to a pale stone building behind the brothel, with a balcony a dozen feet from the brothel’s roof.
“Go, Shrike!” Septimus calls from a sniper’s nest somewhere above us. An arrow whizzes past, thudding into the chest of a Karkaun creeping up on me. “I’ll cover you!”
I bolt away from the brothel and double back down an alley. As I do, I get an impression of faces—watching us. Women and children mostly, for the men have been gone for months. The only boys left are those who will grow up to be sacrificed by the Karkauns.
Unless I stop them.
Yells echo behind us, and a band of Karkauns appears. Three of them fall upon Faris, and one leaps at me, knocking me off my feet. My scim clatters to the ground and my attacker pins my body, his weight and stench stealing my breath. His meaty hands close about my throat. I twist and claw at him, but he just laughs, spittle dribbling into his pale beard.
Suddenly, his hands loosen and blood spurts from his mouth. He topples over, and a dark-skinned, curly-haired Martial woman steps forward and yanks her kitchen knife from the Karkaun’s throat.
“Blood Shrike.” She offers me a hand. “I’m Neera. How can I help?”
“Get us to that balcony.” I point, and Neera is off and running.
Faris and I both grab shields from the fallen Karkauns, and in half a minute, we have reached the balcony across from the brothel.
The distance between the buildings seems greater now—looking down makes me ill. Don’t think about it. I back up, run, and leap, landing so heavily on the brothel’s roof that, to my horror, I slip off. But then Faris is there, pulling me up with a grunt. More Karkauns approach, and we skitter across the roof until we are directly above an open window that rattles from the force of Grímarr’s chant.
“Ready?” I ask Faris.
He swings down from the roof through the open window, and bowls over a pair of guards. I follow to find myself in a sprawling room cleared of furniture with a door at one end. Grímarr stands over a larger brazier that emits clouds of choking white smoke. He is stripped to the waist and painted in woad, his eyes rolled into the back of his head.
A line of Grímarr’s guards, all armed with crossbows, stand in front of him, facing the window. All at once, bolt after bolt hits my shield and Faris’s.
“Bleeding hells!” Faris lurches back, his shield cracking. Mine splits down the middle, and he flings me behind him, covering me until the Karkauns run out of bolts.
The crossbows drop—and the guards have no time to reload before we are upon them.
As I take out one Karkaun, and another, and another, bootsteps sound from outside Heera’s quarters.
“The door, Faris!”
He gets there just as it bursts open, and falls beneath a wave of fresh attackers.
“I was wrong about you, Blood Shrike.” Grímarr does not appear at all alarmed that the men protecting him lie dead. He grins, blood in his teeth. “I thought you were but a woman, but you—”
He barely ducks the throwing knife I fling at his throat. I shake my head. Men and their skies-forsaken bleating. They think words matter in a fight when really, they’re just a distraction.
“Fight, then, girl, fight!” He roars and beckons me toward him. “The heat of your fresh-spilled blood will be as ambrosia on my lips.”
Would that I could issue a Karkaun blood challenge. From what Dex told me, they are not complex. One must spill one’s own blood, cast all blades aside, and fight without weaponry to the death. The loser’s body is desecrated, their name, deeds, and history obliterated. It would be a just end for Grímarr.
But right now, I just need to kill the ba
stard. Quickly.
Faris is on his feet, beating back the onslaught of Karkauns at the door, and I cut through the three who stand between me and Grímarr. As they fall, I ram into the warlock, knocking him to his knees. But he bats away the blade I try to shove into his heart, and wraps an arm around me, pulling me into a choking embrace. I cannot breathe, only claw at him as he rips my armor back and bites into my neck like a rabid wolf.
I draw a dagger from my belt and stab him in the thigh. His arm loosens and I punch him, the first blow breaking his nose, the second sending blood and teeth flying. He reels back but rolls to his feet immediately, and I draw my scim. Blood pours down my neck, making my fury burn hotter.
Grímarr is too fast to leave himself exposed to a mortal blow, but I open up his milky skin with a half dozen quick slashes, just deep enough to slow him down.
“Shrike!” Faris is on one knee, still fighting, but fading quickly. Now or never, Shrike.
“You cannot kill me—” Grímarr advances, a shield on one arm. “Ik tachk mort fid iniqant fi. Your blood is the conduit by which—”
“Again with the talking!” I pivot a half step back and feint with the dagger in my right hand. He comes within range of my scim, and I whip it up, intending to take off his head.
But one of his lackeys bull-rushes me. I drive the dagger into the bastard’s guts and slash up with my scim, cutting clean through Grímarr’s arm.
He screams, a brief, high-pitched sound. Then his men are abandoning the fight with Faris, surrounding Grímarr and dragging him away from us, out the door, and down the stairs.
“Come on!” Faris grabs my hand and pulls. “There are too many, Shrike.”
“Wait—” I sweep up the severed arm and take it with me—out the window, down the balcony, and into the street. Here, it is quiet, the Karkauns who had set upon us either dead or fled.
“Septimus!” I call out, but there is no answer from the Mask’s perch, on the fourth story of a building across from the brothel.
“He’s dead, Shrike. A Karkaun arrow took him out.” Neera appears from the doorway of what must be her home, gesturing us in as the thud of boots echoes from close by. Once inside, she hands me a cloak.
“For the, ah—” She nods to Grímarr’s arm, dripping blood all over the floor.
“Sorry for the mess.” I tear a few strips off the cloak for Faris to bind his wounds, and wrap the arm quickly. “We need to get to Taius Square.”
I was supposed to hang Grímarr’s headless body in the square. His arm will have to do.
Neera nods to her back door. “It’s the rooftops or the houses.” She glances at Faris, who is ghastly pale, and then at the seeping bite wound on my neck. “Houses, I think.”
Two children peek out at me from behind her skirt. “You’ve done enough,” I say. “Get out of here. Take your children. If anyone tells the Karkauns you took us in—”
“No Martial would say a word.” Neera’s voice is hoarse with emotion. “Nor the Scholars. There are no traitors here, Shrike.” Her eyes are fierce. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
“Come morning,” I tell her, “there will be a message in Taius Square. Tell as many as you can.”
We hurry into her courtyard, where one of her neighbors waits and ushers us through a door. There, another woman, this one a wizened old Scholar, guides us to the next house. And so we make our way through the city. At each house, we whisper the message.
The Shrike has come. She’s struck at the heart of the Karkauns. When she comes again, it will be time to fight.
Seeing the fervor in the eyes of my people makes me wish I could lead the attack now. But we need time to shore up our supply of weapons and smuggle them into the city. We need time for the message to spread so that when we do attack, the women will be prepared to fight.
Fifth bell has long since tolled when Faris and I emerge from a shuttered clockmaker’s shop into Taius Square. The sight of it—of the pyres and what still smokes upon them—should make me angry. But mostly, I feel sick, numb and bleeding from a dozen wounds, and nauseous from the stink.
“Bleeding hells, girl.” Quin appears out of the shadows. “You’re late.” His armor is splashed with blood, but he doesn’t appear to have any wounds. Musa materializes behind him, limping.
“Good in a fight.” Quin nods to the Scholar approvingly. “Better luck than Ilean anyway. He’s dead.” The old man looks me over. “I don’t see a body, Shrike.”
“Grímarr got away.” Saying it makes me want to scream. “He knew we were coming—flooded the brothel with his fighters. We’ll have to make do. Is the square cleared out?”
“We got most of the guards,” Musa says. “But more are coming. You have a few minutes.”
“Good,” I say. “You two get the hells out of here in case I cannot.”
“Come with us, Shrike,” Musa urges. “The Karkauns got the message—”
“The message isn’t for them. Go.”
When Marcus was Emperor, he hung bodies on a whitewashed wall at the south end of the square. I make for that wall, Faris following. As we reach it, I hand Grímarr’s stinking arm to my friend. He grins and impales it high up with a spear from one of the fallen guards. I take the blood-sodden cloak and, beneath the arm, leave my message. LOYAL TO THE END. It is a call to arms and a reminder that I have not forgotten my people. That we will fight.
“Ikfan Dem!”
The shout comes from yards away. The Karkaun patrol.
Faris hauls me from the wall and I wince, putting a hand to my neck where the bite wound still bleeds. Arrows ping near my head.
“Come on,” he says. “There’s a grate on the other side of the square. Leads right to the tunnels. We can make it if we’re fast.”
We weave swiftly through the pyres. But there are too many barbarians, and there is too little cover.
“Shrike!” Faris calls a warning just as an arrow slices through the air. My back jerks as the shaft cuts through my soft clothing and into my shoulder. Within seconds, my shirt is soaked with blood. Another arrow lances me through the thigh.
“F-Faris.” I drop to my knees, and though he has arrows sticking out of his arm and shoulder, he hauls me up and we stagger, step by torturous step. Twice more, his body jolts as he’s struck. But he keeps going, dragging me with him past the pyres, across an open stretch of cobblestone, and into a narrow street littered with bones and glass and rubbish.
“There.” I see a dull disk of copper embedded into the stones just ahead. “The grate.” I collapse, pawing at it. My head spins. I’ll survive this, if only I can get away. Get somewhere I can heal.
“Can’t—open it—”
Faris grabs the grate and wrenches it up. The howls of the Karkauns close in.
My friend glances toward the square, then at me. If we go down this grate together, they will follow us almost immediately, and they will catch us.
“Shrike,” Faris says. “Listen to me—”
“Don’t say it,” I tell him. “Don’t you bleeding say it, Faris Candelan.”
“We can’t both survive,” he says. His skin is blanched whiter than bone, body shuddering from loss of blood. “They’ll be here in seconds. But if I stay, I can give you the time to get away.”
“I’m hit too. I might not make it.” My head feels fuzzy, and the shouts are louder now. Too loud.
“You’ll make it. Go.”
“Captain Faris Candelan, I order you to get down into that tunnel, now—”
“I’m done,” he says. “I’ve got one good battle left in me. Let me fight it. The Empire needs its Shrike. It doesn’t need me.” His pale eyes bore into me, and I cannot speak.
No. No. I’ve known Faris since we were six, starving in Blackcliff’s culling pen. It’s Faris who could make Elias laugh in his darkest moods, who helped keep me sane when Marcus o
rdered us to hunt him. Faris who took me to Madam Heera’s for the first time and who protected my sister. Not Faris. Please, not Faris.
“I said, I order—” I do not finish. He grabs me by the straps on my armor and shoves me down the grate. I land heavily, knees buckling.
“Faris, you idiot—”
For a moment, his silhouette is all I see, backlit by dawn breaking above.
“It was an honor to serve by your side, Helene Aquilla,” he says. “Give my best to Elias, if you see him. And for skies’ sake, put Harper out of his misery. Poor bastard deserves a roll in the hay after all you’ve put him through.”
I burst into wild laughter, my face wet with salt or blood, I know not which. The Karkauns bay like hounds, and Faris lifts his scim and shoves the grate closed with his boot. Blades clash, and I hear him roar a battle cry as he fights his last.
“Loyal to the end!”
I stumble toward a torch flickering just ahead. Where did it come from? Who bleeding cares. Get to it. Just as I reach it, the sounds of fighting above cease. I listen for long minutes, hoping the grate will move. Hoping my friend will appear.
But he doesn’t.
He’s dead. Bleeding hells. Faris is dead. Dead because of me, like my parents and sister and Cook and Demetrius and Leander and Tristas and Ennis, and I do not deserve to live when they all died.
Perhaps death will find me too, down here in the dark veins of a city that I should have saved.
But no. I cannot die. Too much is at stake. And too much has been lost already. The Karkauns will find their dead countrymen. They will find Faris. They will come after me.
The Empire needs its Shrike. The last thing I want to do is move, but I drag myself to my hands and knees. I hold my bleeding body and crawl, hoping to the skies that my friend did not just give his life for nothing.
XXIII: Laia
On the second day of my captivity, the jinn aims us south, and within hours, the Duskan Sea is lost to view. Soon, we are deep within the Tribal desert. Eerie rock formations rise into the sky, each a hundred wind-blasted shades of the sun. Purple rain clouds lay heavy on the horizon, and the freezing wind carries the sharp, almost medicinal smell of creosote.