Everyone in tribe Khiyanat had been forewarned and retreated, creating a lane for Kerim. He bounded along it and bowled into the fighters there. He was lost for a moment, but it was easy to track his progress, for wherever he went, soldiers fell. His claws rent chain and leather and flesh. And when the Black Spear soldiers closed in tightly around him, halting his progress, he crouched and released a howl the likes of which Çeda had never heard. She felt the anguish that had been building inside him since Beht Ihman. It released, spread outward, caused all those nearby to fall to their knees and cringe, hands pressed tightly against their ears.
Like a drop falling against the surface of a pond, the effect spread outward. More and more men and women warriors, including those from Tribe Khiyanat, dropped and tried in vain to stop the pain pouring outward from Kerim. The effect weakened the further it went, so that those who were dozens of yards away cringed but did not fall. And when it struck Çeda as she climbed higher along the shroud, she felt it too, a pain that drew her in on herself, like regret over one’s most shameful moment.
Suddenly the wailing stopped.
Onur had not been idle. He was pounding across the deck of the ship nearest to Kerim. When Onur threw his bulk down to the sand and lumbered forward, all before him backed away, leaving a clear path to Kerim.
Kerim charged.
She felt Kerim’s intent—to feast on the hated King’s heart before dying—but she felt Onur’s as well.
“Kerim, no!” Çeda cried.
She’d climbed through the lubber’s hole and sprinted along the mainsail’s boom, which was pitched at an upward angle. When she reached the end, she launched herself toward the next ship.
Kerim had come to a sudden halt before Onur. Çeda could see him standing before the giant of a man as she flew toward the mainsail of the next, smaller ship. She crashed into the billowing canvas and rode it down to the foot of the sail. With a grab of the boom and a swing of her legs, she somersaulted over the soldiers below and down to the sand.
In an instant, she was sprinting toward Kerim, her sword drawn. She could feel the pain inside him as he struggled against the ancient shackles that prevented him from harming the Kings. Çeda had thought he might be able to throw them off, as Sehid-Alaz had done for a time. She’d thought, as tight as his bond was with Salsanna, that he’d be able to wound Onur, perhaps even kill him. But she should have known better. He was helpless, defenseless before the King.
Çeda heard Sümeya and Melis land behind her. Together, they began clearing the way toward Onur.
“Stop the Maidens!” Onur growled, pointing toward them without taking his eyes from Kerim.
Çeda fought harder, shouting as she blocked blows, sliced necks, and cut legs to fell those before her. She was just able to see Kerim clearly when she saw Onur lift his spear. Holding it in both hands, he drove it straight through Kerim’s chest, pushed him backward, and pinned him against the sand.
“No!” Çeda screamed.
She felt the blow. She staggered from it, fell to her knees as her opponent rained blow after blow against her. As much as she felt it, however, Salsanna suffered more. Çeda could sense her on the deck of the Amaranth. She’d fallen as well, and was clutching her heart.
Trying desperately to recover, Çeda blocked the sword of the Black Spear swordsman before her. She took a blow to her shoulder, another to her ribs.
Back, came a Maiden’s sharp whistle.
Çeda immediately rolled backward over one shoulder and regained her feet as Melis blocked several hasty blows from the men who’d been attacking Çeda. She delivered precise strikes to one leg, then an arm, cut deeply through one man’s neck, then blocked, spinning as she did so to bring her sword sharply across the second warrior’s helm, cleaving his head nearly in two.
“Onur,” Çeda shouted. “We must reach Onur.”
Together, she, Melis, and Sümeya resumed their push. They were aided by a rejuvenated line of Khiyanat soldiers, but the Black Spear line was rebuilding as well. Çeda was beginning to worry they’d never reach him in time when a woman broke through the line off to her left.
Zaïde was rushing for Onur, dressed in her Matron’s white. How she’d managed to make it through the line Çeda had no idea, but she now had an unobstructed path to Onur.
“Zaïde!” Onur growled. “My own daughter. A welcome surprise!”
Push hard, Çeda whistled to Melis and Sümeya.
They did, working in silent concert. As they fought to reach Onur, Zaïde moved like the wind. Several warriors moved to intercept her, but Onur waved them back. “Leave her to me!”
He swung his spear across his body, he stabbed with the head, tried to crush her with a cross blow. But nothing worked. Zaïde was too quick. Too lithe. She had an answer for his every move, and soon she was delivering her own. She struck with two fingers into Onur’s armpits, the joints of his elbows, his inner thighs, his neck. They were not strong hits. Onur did not collapse. But they were pinpoint accurate, designed to cause pain from simple movement, to debilitate or even paralyze if she could deliver enough strikes to a certain area.
Indeed, Onur’s replies had been reduced to simply trying to block her blinding combinations. He was beginning to slow from the effects of Zaïde’s precise blows. Zaïde was slowing as well, though. Çeda could feel her heart pounding, worse than when she was in the savaşam, worse than when they’d escaped Kameyl and Yndris in the desert. But Zaïde pushed herself anyway, harder than Çeda had ever seen her. Her face grew red, and she began shouting with each strike, a habit she’d always railed against.
Control, she’d told Çeda over and over again. Always control.
But Zaïde was hardly in control. She had pushed herself well past her limits.
Onur dropped to one knee and snapped the head of his spear toward Zaïde’s face. Zaïde merely slipped below it, a move as easy as a cattail bowing in the wind, and then she drove in and delivered three sharp strikes, two to his neck and one to his eyes. Onur reeled, releasing a bellow of pain as he dropped his spear and grabbed his face.
Zaïde didn’t stop. She struck his kidneys, then the joint above his hips, and then she took up his spear. Onur was defenseless, but Zaïde could go no further than lifting the great weapon. She pressed the butt into the ground at her feet, one hand gripping it with knuckles white as snow as she fought for breath. Her other hand was pressed to her heart.
She willed herself past the pain. Forced her body to listen. After two more deep breaths, she lifted the spear. “For my mother!”
In trying to deliver that fatal blow, however, she missed. Onur shifted on the sand, batted the spearhead aside so that it struck only his armor, not his exposed neck. She tried again, and Onur did the same. Çeda wasn’t sure how he’d recovered so quickly until she saw how dark his skin was becoming. No, not his skin. Black hair was sprouting along his forearms, his neck, his face. His arms and legs were distending, bending strangely at the wrists and elbows and shoulders and hips. His body was elongating.
A roar of pain erupted from his throat as he clawed for Zaïde, and she stepped back, wheezing. She lifted the spear above her head, gripped it with both hands, and ran toward him.
Another roar came from Onur, but this time it sounded nothing like a human, but a great cat. Indeed, the transformation that had been whispered of, his gift from the gods, was occurring before their very eyes. He’d taken the form of a massive panther with black, silken fur that glittered beneath the sun, larger than any cat Çeda had ever seen, even the great Kundhuni lions that were paraded through Sharakhai’s streets from time to time.
The panther tore its way free of Onur’s armor. Teeth bared, it bounded away as Zaïde thrust the spear at its chest. However much Zaïde’s two-fingered strikes had slowed Onur’s movements before, the paralysis had vanished after the change. And Zaïde was much, much slower than before.
&
nbsp; Çeda fought harder, as did Sümeya and Melis. Those who stood before them tried to slow them down, but they had fear in their eyes and gave ground before the whirring ebon blades. Çeda had only just reached open space—the way now clear to Zaïde and the transformed Onur—when the panther reared back from one last, weak thrust of the spear, and lunged for Zaïde’s throat.
Faster than Çeda’s eye could follow, the panther’s jaws clamped down. Çeda came rushing toward it, screaming, hoping the panther would turn to face her. But the panther only jerked its head back and to one side. A tearing sound came with it. Blood spurted high from the red, bloody, gaping hole where Zaïde’s throat had once been. It spattered against her white matron’s dress as the panther dove back in and bit into her shoulder. It tore more of Zaïde’s flesh away, and then at last seemed to recognize the threat Çeda represented.
No. It had been waiting, hoping to catch her off guard, she realized.
It turned and swiped for her, ducking in one sinewy movement as she swung River’s Daughter across her guard. The panther’s paw caught her leg with one reaching swipe and sent her to the ground, but Çeda was ready. She chopped down as she fell, catching the panther just above the claw.
It was on her in a moment, jaws wide in hopes of ripping out her neck as well. Çeda’s only hope was to hold River’s Daughter like a bar of steel. She shoved it hard into the panther’s gaping maw. It cut deep, caught in the panther’s teeth. Even so, the beast used its sheer weight to press down on her and tried to bite her face or neck. She could smell its fetid breath as a foaming mixture of spittle and blood dripped from its bloodstained teeth.
As its massive claws tore into her ribs and stomach, Çeda worked the blade back and forth. It chipped teeth, cut into the panther’s cheeks, but the beast seemed oblivious to it. But then it jerked its great head up and roared while twisting its body to face Sümeya. Sümeya slashed her ebon blade, but the panther was too quick. It reared and leapt, twisting its body in the air as it did so and using its great paw to club Sümeya across the head. She stumbled and fell to the sand, her shamshir flying through the air like a wounded crow.
The panther would have had her had Melis not been there. She cut once, slicing the beast’s shoulder, then again across its face. The panther tried to charge, to use its mass against her. But Melis was not new to the blade. She stumbled back, dodged to one side and rolled backward, to come up with her sword at the ready.
Çeda kicked herself to a stand and rushed to her aid. “Onur!” she screamed, hoping to distract him before he ripped out Melis’s throat. The panther was bleeding from several deep wounds along its ribs, forelegs, and head. None of the wounds seemed mortal, however.
Onur’s great spear was just before her. As Onur rushed Melis, Çeda picked it up and hefted it over her right shoulder. Her right hand burning hot, she stepped forward and launched it just as Melis was felled by a swipe of the panther’s bloody claw. The spear sank deep into the panther’s ribs. It howled in pain as it rolled away. Sand caked the panther’s coat where its fur was matted with blood. Çeda sprinted forward, hoping to end it, but before she’d taken two strides, the panther somehow managed to regain its feet and bound away. In moments it was gone, lost behind a line of Black Spear warriors.
Suddenly the roar of the battle returned.
The fight had reached a fever pitch. Onur’s warriors, who had held back on Onur’s command, now charged in. Çeda wanted to go after Onur, to stop him, but he was heading for a ship that could sail away at his command.
She was swept back into the battle. Horns blew. The Black Spears were sounding the retreat. More of their forces began to pull back and their ships began peeling away.
The Khiyanat and Kadri soldiers had been hard pressed before Onur’s retreat. Some were heartened now, hoping to grind the Black Spear soldiers into the desert. But others, including Macide, were calling for a halt. Hundreds of Kadri warriors were gathered around the ship the wyrm was attacking. They launched arrows at the sinewy beast and threw spears. Some who were brave or unfortunate enough to stand before it tried to pierce its scintillant skin with their swords. All to no avail. It was impervious to all but the strongest blows. Only in a few places was there blood of any kind.
The wyrm had already destroyed three ships and was now leaping onto another as the Khiyanat and Kadri forces began to disengage. Many were focused on fighting the wyrm, but as many or more were helping the old, the young, or the wounded to flee from it.
Amidst all this madness an old woman appeared. It was Leorah, holding a staff in both hands, crosswise against her body. She looked both powerful and fey as she strode forward, like one of the first women. Any who saw her felt it as well. They stepped aside, clearing a path between her and the wyrm.
Perhaps sensing her power, the wyrm halted its attack and swiveled its great head toward her. In a burst of movement it leapt from the deck of the dhow to the golden sand below.
The Black Spear soldiers were retreating. They were turning their ships and sailing away, taking the wounded Onur with them. But Çeda paid them little mind. Her mouth agape, she walked toward Leorah, transfixed by the scene playing out before her.
With only open sand before it, the wyrm slithered forward. It looked like a serpent with thorns upon its head and bright, luminous skin. It took one lithe movement, then another, each bringing it closer to Leorah, who had stopped twenty paces away. The wyrm’s approach seemed more ritual than natural. Leorah seemed calm and expectant, and in complete control, as if she and the wyrm had entered into an arcane rite, the outcome of which had already been decided.
Like a songbird wary of danger, the wyrm approached. It would twist, stop, then slither forward again. It looked as if it were describing ancient sigils. Leorah’s staff was moving in that same strange way. The two of them were linked in that moment. Beast and desert witch.
In that moment, the sun struck the gemstones on the staff’s bulbous head, making them glint like a distant oasis. Breath of the desert, Çeda had seen that staff before, though at the time it had been held by the hand of a goddess. It was Nalamae’s staff, the very one Çeda had used to strike the acacia in her garden.
When the wyrm came within several paces of Leorah, it lowered its great head, dwarfing Leorah’s bent, aged form. Its opaline eyes studied her while the movements of its head mimicked the rhythms of her staff. Then, in a movement that reminded Çeda of a crane preparing to take flight, Leorah spread her arms wide, tipped her head back, and opened herself to the sky. The wyrm erupted into the air. Its long wings flapped, once, twice, thrice, each movement a wave that continued, rope-like, along its entire serpentine length.
In lazy circles it lifted, its passage describing a winding column above the battle as its form slowly diminished. As if its departure were weighing on her soul, Leorah staggered, then collapsed unceremoniously to the sand. In that same moment, the wyrm dipped, then streaked eastward, trailing after the Black Spear ships.
Chapter 56
“THEY’RE BEGINNING TO FAN OUT, my lord!”
Ramahd stirred momentarily from his slumber, but had soon slipped back into the land of dreams. He was naked, his body bruised and beaten. Meryam stood over him in a gown made of blood red silk. The fabric cascaded over her frame to fall across his body. And where it touched, pain followed. He tried to fight it, tried to move, but fighting only seemed to make the pain and his imprisonment worse.
Her eyes brimming with malice, Meryam lowered herself until she straddled his hips. “You think you can stop me?” She smiled and hooked his shirt with one finger. With a single, violent motion, she ripped it down the center, then pressed her thumbnail to his chest like a hunter preparing to split firewood. Her hair fell across his cheeks as she leaned down and whispered into his ear. “After everything we’ve been through, everything you’ve learned of me, you thought I would throw it all away for you?”
She drove her
thumbnail deeper in his chest, piercing skin. Her eyes, meanwhile . . . Her eyes were changing, the pupils elongating, becoming more taurine. The irises brightened to a burnished gold while her skin turned black as night.
“Your father would be ashamed,” he managed to say through his haggard breaths.
“My father was a coward.”
“And what am I?”
Her strange eyes blinked, as if she were surprised he would even ask the question. “A besotted fool.”
“I do love you. . . .”
“You see?” She leaned close and kissed him. Her lips were inhumanly warm. “A greater fool the world has never seen.” She pressed her thumbnail deeper into his flesh, and he was helpless to prevent it. It slipped between his ribs until he could feel her nail with every beat of his heart.
“My lord, the Kings’ ships are spreading out!”
Ramahd lurched awake. He’d been sleeping against the bulwarks of his yacht, the Blue Heron. They were sailing under a stiff breeze far to the east of Sharakhai. “When?” he managed after a moment.
“A few minutes ago,” Cicio called from the top of the mainmast. “Best we slow until we see what they’re about.”
Ramahd sat up and put the heels of his hands to his eyes, hoping to clear the nightmarish images of Meryam from his mind. “Do it.”
“Aye,” Cicio called.
Cicio’s curly hair was caught by the wind as he slipped down along the yacht’s lone mast. He and Vrago set about the business of reefing the sails, while Tiron manned the wheel and guided the ship over the softly rolling dunes.
Sleep weighed on Ramahd like a millstone, but he drew himself up and breathed deeply, absently rubbing the place where dream Meryam had pierced his skin. The horizon wavered ahead, the heat of the desert distorting all, but he could see the hint of masts and sails. It was difficult to see how many there were, but it was clear the fleet was spreading out.
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