A Veil of Spears

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  The pot struck in the path of the oncoming horses and broke. Powder burst outward in a cloud. As Dardzada took aim with his bow, Zaïde climbed onto the rear thwart and took the tiller, while Melis and Çeda pushed hard against the transom.

  Dardzada’s burning arrow flew. It streaked through the night, a burning emerald star. When it came near the fallen pot the greenish-yellow flames flew outward as if Thaash himself had come bearing a piece of the sun. Where the powder had been borne by the wind, flames followed, but it went well beyond. The sound of it barreled unevenly along the lee of the dune like the cackle of hyenas. A moment later, a thoom sound filled the air.

  Horses screamed and threw their heads back. Blackmane reared wildly, forehooves raking the air. Husamettín managed to keep his saddle, but when Blackmane dropped back down, he danced away from the flames, heedless of his master’s wishes.

  Meanwhile, the fire snaked backward. Like a bloodhound on a runaway’s scent, it followed the trail of powder that had drifted down from the pot. A roiling, uneven column billowed in its wake. It came on so fast, so hard, that Çeda barely had time to turn away before it was on her.

  Where the powder had touched the sleeves of her dress, it was now aflame. It lit along her wrists as well. She leapt into the skiff, and then Dardzada was on her, patting out the flames with quick, precise slaps of his meaty hands.

  As the flames were snuffed, and the skiff picked up speed, heading deeper into the desert, Çeda looked back. Several of the horses and Maidens were on fire. Those that weren’t were now spooked, even Blackmane. They galloped and bucked, many of them neighing and screaming. When Husamettín finally regained control, Dardzada’s skiff was deep into the desert, too far to follow.

  The fire burned, outlining Husamettín’s silhouette as he watched from the top of a dune. Several Maidens rode to their King’s side, one of them hulking above the others. Kameyl most likely. They all grew smaller and smaller as the skiff sailed on, and the immensity of what Çeda and the others had done began to wash over her. The First Warden and a sister Maiden were willingly fleeing from a King of Sharakhai with a spy, a scarab, and a traitor.

  Behind, the fire shrank in on itself, sputtered and went out, and the King of Swords and his Maidens were swallowed by the night.

  Chapter 48

  RAMAHD RODE WITH Amaryllis in a covered araba through the temple district in one of the worst sandstorms anyone in the city could remember. They were headed toward Thaash’s temple, where a shrine to the grassland god, Onondu, was being consecrated. The temple’s high priest was set to meet with King Kiral, many of Sharakhai’s highborn, and a large delegation from Kundhun.

  Wind buffeted the carriage, its symphonic creaking mixing with the clatter of wheels and the clop of hooves. They were making their way over a narrow, cobbled street. Amaryllis craned her neck to peer through the side window to the way ahead, which was choked with carriages. Passengers at the front were disembarking and running up the temple steps to escape the wind.

  “Mighty Alu,” Ramahd grumbled, “a dead goat could get us there faster.” When they crept forward and came to another creaking halt, he’d had enough. He knocked on the roof and bellowed through the window, “Let us out here!”

  He and Amaryllis left the driver to his own fate and headed up the street, occasionally raising an arm to protect against the biting wind. Tauriyat loomed over the shoulders of the temples, but with the sand so thick, it was a featureless mound, its many palaces lost to the weather.

  As they walked, Ramahd put a hand to his stomach. He yawned, trying to clear away the nausea. His attention, as it had been the whole way here, was drawn beyond the temples, beyond Sharakhai. Since Meryam’s alterations to the sigil stones last night, Guhldrathen’s presence had been growing. Ramahd hadn’t slept at all. The dread inside him had grown too great. And at that time the ehrekh had still been leagues out into the sand. Not anymore. Closer and closer it had come, all throughout the morning hours, each increment twisting Ramahd’s insides further. Then, several hours ago, it had halted near the city’s outskirts, as if wary of entering.

  It was Meryam’s doing.

  Using her newfound power from the trapped Rümayesh, she’d woven in a way to make Guhldrathen aware of the city’s wards. The danger was that Guhldrathen would come anyway, and well before the summoning ritual, but so far the gods had been kind; the beast’s patience was outweighing its thirst for revenge. Soon Meryam would erase all awareness of the sigils and at the same time enflame the beast’s anger. Guhldrathen would come, they were both sure. The only question was: how quickly? Guhldrathen was an ancient beast. And sly. It might wait longer than they wished. Or come too quickly, its thirst for Ramahd’s blood driving it to rash behavior.

  Amaryllis squeezed Ramahd’s arm. “Ahead, my lord. Face the way ahead, as if nothing is the matter.”

  “Of course.” Ramahd wiped the cold sweat from his brow. It was paramount that he not let his fears give him away. He was attending the ceremony precisely because Guhldrathen was chasing him. The thinking was that it would focus on Hamzakiir once it caught his scent.

  Hamzakiir is the key, Ramahd reminded himself. He is the key to all of this.

  Kiral had told Meryam that he and Hamzakiir would meet in the temple after the ritual was complete. They were to discuss plans so sensitive that it could only be done face to face. Hamzakiir had also agreed to return some of the elixirs he’d stolen on the Night of Endless Swords, elixirs Kiral desperately wanted. Such a thing could never be done in the House of Kings. The ways in and out of Tauriyat were watched by too many spies beholden to the other Kings. But a simple ceremony in the temple district? It was the sort of menial task most Kings hated. As long as Kiral did nothing to draw attention to it beforehand, the others would suspect nothing. And for Hamzakiir’s part, the temple was open enough that it could be watched to ensure he wasn’t betrayed.

  And yet, Ramahd still wondered whether this was a fool’s errand, a slow and very painful way to commit suicide. Hamzakiir might smell the trap and decide not to come. Or he might have the foresight to mask himself from detection, from Guhldrathen among others. He wouldn’t know the ehrekh was coming for him—if he did he wouldn’t come at all—but he might have worked a spell to hide his presence from other blood magi, a thing that might hide his presence from Guhldrathen as well.

  “The way ahead, my lord,” Amaryllis said, tugging harder on his arm.

  Ramahd squeezed her hand as they neared the foot of the temple’s steps. “Of course.”

  Steeling himself, he ignored his growing nausea and dedicated himself to studying the sizable crowd on the steps ahead of them. Making up the bulk of the crowd were tall Kundhuni men and women, perhaps three dozen in all. Several children were among them, some holding the hands of their elders, others running up and down the stairs. One dark-skinned boy was kicking a puddle of sand that had gathered along the steps. The sand sprayed when he kicked, creating a momentary cloud that was immediately thrown skyward by the prevailing wind.

  Others were Sharakhani men and women wearing fine clothing. Their turbans and veils were pulled tight while the hems of their thawbs and dresses flapped fiercely. These were lords and ladies of the city, guests of Kiral and the other Kings of Sharakhai.

  When Amaryllis and Ramahd reached the head of the stairs, they were greeted warmly by the high priest, a burly man with a bald head, a thick red beard, and fists that looked like they could break stone. “Good of you to come,” he said to them, his deep voice carrying easily above the wind.

  “Of course,” Ramahd shouted. “It’s too bad the weather isn’t cooperating.”

  “This?” The priest waved around, smiling with pinched eyes and rounded cheeks. “What else should we expect? Thaash and Onondu have met. And it’s glorious!” Even in those few moments, more sand and dust gathered in his beard, a man turning to stone before their very eyes. “Come!” he r
oared to the crowd, waving them all to follow. “Come! It’s time!”

  Most had already moved into the temple, but the stragglers now followed the priest into the most spartan of the city’s temples. They made their way through its heart, the sound of the wind waning momentarily, and to the rear, where a great lawn with several gardens and shrines was situated. Thankfully, the wind was not so strong here.

  The priest led them to the newest of the shrines, a circular arrangement of white travertine pillars topped by a ring of obsidian stone. The shrine had no roof, a nod to how Onondu has been welcomed by Thaash to the desert, as if the two of them might sit there, cross-legged, and talk beneath the stars.

  In the center of the shrine was a stout pedestal of simple sandstone, and upon it, a massive piece of carved ivory—a horn, it was said, from a beast of the Kundhuni grasslands. The carving was the work of an artisan, one of Kiral’s great-great-grandchildren, it was said, and depicted a tribe of grassland warriors who’d gathered with spears and shields to kill the very beast that had given up the ivory. It was made in honor of the territory Kundhun now patrolled for the Kings in the western reaches of the Great Shangazi.

  The one who seemed proudest of the sculpture was also the eldest of the Kundhuni tribesmen, a man with wild hair and great golden rings in his ears and nose. He was a king of the grasslands, the very one who’d agreed to patrol the western desert for pirates. The priest was regaling him with the story of the horn and the artist who’d carved it when a new train of people exited from the rear of the temple. King Kiral was at their head, striding tall, eyes pinched as the wind and sand drove him forward. His left hand rested on the pommel of Sunshearer, his great two-handed shamshir. A hand of Blade Maidens in their dark dresses and veiled turbans followed. Trailing behind were two dozen courtiers, their bright jewelry and thread-of-gold clothing a glinting counterpoint to the amber haze in the air that tended to mute all other colors.

  All bowed as Kiral stepped into the shrine. The King of Kings was introduced to the tribal king, a pleasantry filled with so little humor and warmth one might think them newly reconciled enemies. The high priest seemed to notice, and launched into his prepared speech shortly after.

  It was when he began anointing the ivory horn with rosewood oil that Ramahd felt a change. His awareness of Guhldrathen increased so sharply it sent pain through his heart. A cough escaped him. His left arm went numb and tingly, as if it had fallen asleep. The same feeling started along the fingertips of his right hand and began creeping up his arm. He worked his hands into fists, pumping the blood, hoping to ease the alarming numbness without drawing attention to himself, but even that simple act was difficult.

  All thoughts bent toward survival. Even breathing had become a chore. It felt as if a thousand needles were being driven through his chest. Another cough escaped him, this time earning him stares, including a dour look from King Kiral, but what did Ramahd care? Guhldrathen had broken through the city wall and was hurtling toward them. The fear that had been slowly building was no longer an insubstantial thing. It had seized him. It was as real as the shrine, or the bloody great horn the priest was rubbing with oil, or Kiral’s god-given shamshir, or the storm that was scouring the city raw.

  Without meaning to, Ramahd took a step back. He bumped into a Sharakhani man, who frowned deeply at him. The simple contact sent bright shards of pain running along his left arm. Someone—Amaryllis?—grabbed his hand, but it was so painful he gasped and pulled away.

  Amaryllis whispered something, but her words were lost as Ramahd stared to his left beyond the wall bordering the temple grounds. He saw only tall stone buildings cloaked in amber, but he knew Guhldrathen was coming from that direction, knew that it would reach the wall in moments.

  A crash of stone sounded in the distance. Sounds of alarm broke out. People screamed. Some had been staring at Ramahd, perhaps wondering what was the matter with him, but now, as one, the crowd turned toward the wall. The Blade Maidens drew their swords and two of them flanked their King. The other three advanced beyond the shrine and onto the lawn.

  Several in the crowd gasped as two black horns lifted above the wall. They shouted, backed away, scooping up their children as they went. A great head rose above the wall’s decorative lip. Yellow eyes peered through the dusty wind. When its black hand touched the wall, the stones cracked, then crumbled, flaking away as if made of so much caked sand.

  Guhldrathen took one long stride onto the temple grounds as the wall collapsed completely. The ehrekh’s tails whipped behind it. Corded muscles spread its arms wide. It hunkered low, as if ready to do battle against Thaash himself should he appear to defend his sacred ground.

  “My King,” one of the Blade Maidens shouted, “to the temple!”

  But the King ignored her and drew his sword. He didn’t advance on the ehrekh, but neither did he retreat.

  The beast was speaking, Ramahd realized. Its right hand was moving in strange ways, as if it were drawing arcane symbols in the air. Indeed, as it continued, a strange ochre light trailed behind its hands and tails.

  Something pressed upon Ramahd’s body, slowing him as he instinctively backed away. It felt as if he were moving through slipsand. Soon, he’d come to a complete halt. His body was caught in amber, a slave to the ehrekh’s magic. Only his eyes could move, and even that simple movement was slowed to a crawl. The same had happened to everyone in Ramahd’s field of vision. They stood rooted to the stone beneath them. Even the King.

  The ehrekh approached, its forked tongue tasting the air. Sand gathered in its crown of thorns, just as it had in the priest’s beard. When it shook its head, the sand sprayed outward. Like silt in the eddies of a river, the sand was caught by the same magic. It moved in odd, expressive increments, matching the lift of Guhldrathen’s muscled arm, the turn of its horned head, as if even the air now obeyed Guhldrathen’s will.

  Guhldrathen had been heading straight for Ramahd, but as it neared the edge of the crowd, it slowed. Its nostrils flared while its head tilted to one side. “Hamzakiir . . .” It approached a young Kundhuni woman with braids, huge silver hoop earrings, and a choker made of tiny red beads. “Where dost thou hide?” it said to her, though clearly it was meant for them all.

  Guhldrathen lifted the woman off the ground. The only outward sign of her emotion was her breath, which had devolved into rapid, wheezing inhalations followed by outward huffs like moans of pain.

  Guhldrathen smiled, a host of leonine teeth. “Art thou inside?”

  With sickening leisure, the ehrekh used the claws on its thumbs to prize open the woman’s chest, as if she were little more than a jakfruit. Blood spurted outward, coating the ehrekh’s ebony skin. The woman’s innards spilled like coiled rigging. The ehrekh ran its forked tongue along the ruin of her chest cavity and then, displeased, tossed her aside in one violent motion that sent her skidding over the ground like an ill-favored doll until she crashed hard against the trunk of a distant palm tree.

  Guhldrathen continued forward, gripping a man Ramahd had seen earlier holding hands with the woman who’d just been torn apart. It repeated the ritual on him.

  “That thou hoped to hide from my vengeance,” it said as it took up a third, a young man no older than sixteen summers. “It doth please me.” It tore the poor boy in two, tossing the remnants aside like trash on a midden.

  As it chose its fourth victim, Ramahd remembered his time with Hamzakiir—in Viaroza, in Almadan, in the desert. Time and time again he’d been able to throw off Hamzakiir’s spells. Hamzakiir had even commented on it on the deck of the ship, shortly before they’d been taken to the blasted plain and given to Guhldrathen.

  Ramahd had had few enough occasions to use his gift since, but he found his sense of it growing once again. He pushed as he had in Santrión while trying to prevent Hamzakiir from taking King Aldouan. He pushed as he had in the hold of the ship before walking up on deck, ready to take
Hamzakiir’s life if he could. He pushed, and he found himself able to move his arms. Able to shift one foot.

  His freedom was coming too slowly, however. Guhldrathen was stepping closer to Ramahd. Amaryllis stood directly in its path. Her back was to the ehrekh, but she could hear it coming closer. Her nostrils flared. A tear streamed down one cheek.

  When Guhldrathen used its tail to grab a Sharakhani man around the neck and whip him aside, leaving his path to Amaryllis clear, something inside Ramahd broke. He took one agonizing step forward. Then another. As Guhldrathen reached for Amaryllis, he grabbed her arm and pulled her away. The ehrekh tried again, faster this time, but Ramahd was already dragging her backward. He tripped over someone’s foot, and Amaryllis tumbled with him.

  Guhldrathen towered over him. Its eyes glinted. Its mouth opened in something like a smile. “Thrice have mine eyes laid upon your form. Twice have I given thee leave to go. Not again, child of Qaimir.” It took one long stride toward Ramahd as he tried in vain to scramble away. “Not again.”

  The claws of its reaching hand had just wrapped around Ramahd’s left leg when it roared in pain. Releasing Ramahd’s leg, it twisted around to face the threat. King Kiral was there, his sword, Sunshearer, at the ready. The blade was bloody, and Ramahd could see a deep gash on Guhldrathen’s back.

  One of Guhldrathen’s tails whipped toward Kiral. The King delivered a blinding uppercut. The barbed end of Guhldrathen’s tail flew into the air from the point of contact. Black blood flowed as the severed end toppled through the strangely thick air. But the second tail had flown beneath the King’s guard. It stabbed deeply into the King’s thigh. Blood gushed from the wound as Kiral backed away.

  Guhldrathen powered forward. Kiral dodged, swinging Sunshearer in broad arcs to keep the ehrekh at bay. How he’d managed to throw off the effects of the spell Ramahd wasn’t certain, but the Kings had many gifts from the gods. Could this not be one of them? Whatever the case, he was fast and powerful, and managed to strike several more deep gashes into Guhldrathen’s black flesh.