That was when Brama saw Meryam climbing the stairs to the quarterdeck. King Kiral stood beside her, with a bright two-handed shamshir in his grasp. The necklace hung from Meryam’s throat, the facets of the sapphire glinting in the sun.
In that moment, Emre managed to cut down one of the Silver Spears between them, and Brama saw his chance. He rushed toward Meryam, shouldering aside the last Silver Spear between them, but he’d not taken two strides before a figure in black came rushing in from his right. He turn in time to see the Blade Maiden, her ebon blade blurring toward him.
He felt something burn along his shoulder and continue down his side, through his ribs. He fell to his knees, a sensation more painful than he’d ever experienced with Rümayesh boiling the whole of his right side. He felt a boot on his back, which shoved him forward as something tugged at his insides. He collapsed to the deck. Above, yards of canvas glowed the color of lemon pith. Beyond them, the sky burst in a brilliance of blue. The dark, scratched wood of the bulwark stood like a curtain reaching down toward the deck boards. As footsteps thudded loudly in his ears, a warm sensation traveled along his left side. A stream of red crept across the deck boards. Thin at first, it widened. A stream became a river became a lake.
You’ve come, as I knew you would.
He wanted to smile, but found it impossible. Something gurgled in his chest as he whispered, “I’ve arrived a dying man.”
Dying? Rümayesh said. Your eyes are lit with life!
I yearn for life, yes. But I’m failing.
No, Brama, she said in honeyed tones, not with the gifts I’ve bestowed. It would take more than this to carry you to the farther shores.
He blinked. Heard muffled words. He had trouble understanding what she was saying at first. Yes, she’d given him the ability to heal but there were secrets hidden in her words.
Suddenly his feelings about her made sense. How he yearned for her, how he ached, how he felt as though he could not be complete without her. Part of you, he began. A shard of your soul lies within me.
It does.
More began to come clear. You were trying to free yourself.
Since the moment I was trapped within the sapphire, Brama. It merely took me a while to find the way out.
Through me.
Through you.
He wanted to laugh. He wanted to cry. For so long he’d thought he was the master. But for years Rümayesh had been working him like clay, forming him into an image that pleased her. Had she not been stolen away by Ramahd for Meryam’s purposes, he wondered how long it would have been before she had him.
Not long, she replied.
Not long . . . He’d been under her spell for months, a time that seemed impossibly distant, impossibly long. And he’d nearly given himself to her again.
It won’t be the same, she promised. I came to know you, Brama. And you came to know me. We were not one, but had begun walking that path with one another. Can you say it wasn’t so?
There was no denying it. With the sort of perspective that years granted, it was clear as the rising moons.
Footsteps approached. A dress dyed in rust passed before him. As did a man wearing fine leather boots and a rich kaftan.
Come, do you not believe me now? How much we might do together? We can, Brama. If you but stand. If you but free me.
In the end, there was no refusing her. He could no more deny her than he could will his heart to stop beating. The pain it brought on was excruciating, but he rolled to one side and reached for the pouch where he’d secreted away the obsidian stone, the one he’d use to give Rümayesh her new name.
You won’t need it, Rümayesh said. I’ve changed.
Good, Brama thought. His fingers were shaking too terribly for such delicate movements in any case. He turned his head and saw Ramahd being held by two Silver Spears, Meryam standing before him. He had a deep gash along his forehead. And poor Emre grunted and twisted on the deck like a wild badger. He quieted when one of the Maidens crouched and crashed the hilt of her ebon blade against the side of his head.
Someone spoke. It sounded like burbling water. Immediately after, they wrestled Emre to his feet. Ramahd stared straight at Meryam, the woman in the red dress. Emre was forced to do so, the Maiden grabbing a hunk of his long black hair and lifting his head until he was staring drowsy-eyed at the queen.
Brama tried pushing himself up, but his right hand slipped on the blood. He tried again. Managed to make it to his knees. So many were gathered. Surely they would spot him.
Their eyes are on the queen, Rümayesh whispered. Only the queen.
He pushed himself up. How his legs shook. He felt like a pile of leaves stacked high, ready to tip the moment the next breeze struck. But he managed it at last and saw that Rümayesh had spoken the truth. Every single person standing on the deck, two dozen souls, couldn’t seem to take their eyes from the queen. It was Rümayesh’s doing . . .
“In truth,” Meryam was saying to Ramahd, “I wish you’d fled. I wish you’d returned home. I might have let you live if you’d been willing to remain in Viaroza and tend to your estate. But no. You were always so stubborn.”
Brama managed a step forward. He felt something shift inside him. Heard a crunching sound and tried not to think what it meant.
A bloody, gruesome smile broke across Ramahd’s face. “Not so long ago you appreciated my stubborn streak.”
Brama took another step, concentrating on reaching Meryam. He could see the chain around her neck, only two steps away now. But gods how it pained him to move. A furnace burned along his right side, turning him to ash.
“I did, once,” Meryam replied. “But all things come to an end.”
He took one more quavering step and slipped his knife free from its sheath.
As Meryam raised her hand, one of the Maidens shouted, “Queen Meryam!”
The Maiden had somehow broken the spell, but he was so focused on Meryam he hardly spared her a glance. The Maiden was looking straight at him, breaking away from Emre’s side.
Brama lunged, grabbed the chain, and fell.
The chain snapped. Something heavy thudded to the deck. The amulet. Dear gods, the amulet, only an arm’s reach away.
Meryam’s rusty red dress slid aside. The Maiden loomed, lifting her ebon blade high.
Crying out in pain, Brama crawled forward, brought the knife up and drove it down with all his might. The point struck the center of the amulet. Brama felt it give.
Tiny shards bit into his hands and face as the gem shattered. He was blown back, caught in a gale stronger than the desert’s fierce autumn sandstorms. He rolled away, trying to shield himself from the pain, and was blown farther still. The air all about was a roar unlike anything he’d ever heard, a storm of such intensity that it felt like the first gods had returned to sunder the desert they’d left behind.
The wind swept him down the stairs to the main deck. He landed hard and slid along until he came to a stop facing the quarterdeck. Behind him, near the mainmast, a tight swirl of dust and sand was forming. The soldiers and Maidens had all backed away, Emre and Ramahd with them. Meryam and King Kiral had both fallen. They stared aghast at the dark form within the maelstrom.
The wind ebbed, blowing outward in a sudden gust, and Rümayesh stepped forward. Kiral was a tall man, but the ehrekh towered over him. Her three tails swished hypnotically behind her. A crown of thorns adorned her head, from which two ram’s horns swept up and curled behind her head. Ebony skin shimmered in the morning sunlight, which grew brighter as the dust and sand drifted on the day’s considerable wind. It was her eyes, however, that drew one’s attention. They were filled with little save malice and wrath and vengeance. When combined with the amused smile on her lips, it sent a chill deep inside Brama. He’d known what Rümayesh’s return would mean for Meryam and her accomplices, but that didn’t mean he wanted to see it
played out.
As Rümayesh took her first step onto the quarterdeck, Meryam leapt over the side of the ship. Kiral came right after. They arced down toward the sand, and where they struck, massive explosions followed. Sand flew outward from the twin points of impact, thoom, thoom. When the sand settled, there was no sign of them in either of the large, cone-shaped craters.
For several breaths Rümayesh merely stared, her black-crowned head swiveling as the ship sailed on. Everyone else, all across the decks, in the rigging, the soldiers, the crew, the pilot, the Maidens—even Emre and Ramahd—were silent and unmoving. They stared with wide eyes at the towering ehrekh before them. None moved to stand against her. None dared take a step for fear of drawing her attention.
Rümayesh turned to face Brama. As she stalked forward, footsteps booming over the deck, Brama managed to sit on the foredeck stairs.
The smile on Rümayesh’s face was something he could hardly bear to look at. He’d worked long and hard to forget the memories it dredged up, but he’d been fooling himself all along. They’d not been forgotten. They were merely hidden, lurking, waiting to step into the light once more.
His heart beat madly. His breath came so strongly his throat burned from it. It felt as though his chest was ready to burst. But then Rümayesh waved one taloned hand.
“No more,” she declared, and just like that, the nightmares receded, faded, until they were more like daydreams, half remembered and impotent. “Not while we are one.”
Brama’s mind was too muddled to discern if that was a threat of some sort, but the pain within him was easing at last. Only then did he realize that they’d sailed beyond the battle line. The bulk of the fighting was taking place behind the ship. While ahead, off the starboard bow, a second battle raged. His purpose here slowly returned to him.
“Guhldrathen is coming,” Brama said.
“Guhldrathen, my brethren, has already arrived,” Rümayesh corrected.
Brama lifted his arm and pointed toward the second line of battle. “Save them. Save Çeda and the others.”
Rümayesh smiled a wicked smile. “You need not worry over them”—she waved her hand to Ramahd and Emre—“nor these. We may do whatever you desire. Return to Sharakhai and live the life of a King. Sail the desert. Feast among the tribes. Or go to Malasan and dine in the halls of their mad king. We might dance on the night of a thousand lanterns in Tsitsian or visit the grasslands of Kundhun, where the smell of the wind, just before a storm strikes the hills, renews the spirit. All that we can do,” she said, “and leave your pain behind.”
“Leave them behind, you mean,” Brama said, nodding toward Ramahd and Emre.
“What care have you for them?”
“The Great Shangazi is worth fighting for.”
“The Great Shangazi will be here whether you fight for it or not.”
“Save them,” Brama repeated. “Save Çeda from Guhldrathen, and you’ll save the rest.”
Rümayesh paused. Her tails whipped behind her in rhythms of three. When she spoke again, a distinct wryness tinted the low timbre of her voice. “Very well, my master.”
Before Brama knew what was happening, Rümayesh’s form burst into a thousand black beetles. They buzzed around him. They bore him into the air. He heard shouts of surprise through the deafening, chittering sound, but could spare no thought for others. He shut his eyes, as he felt something shift. It felt as if the world itself were altering in some unknowable way.
When the clatter of the beetle’s wings receded and he dared open his eyes, he found himself in the skiff once more. It still trailed behind the galleon on the rope he’d launched over the gunwales earlier. Ramahd and Emre were there as well. All three of them were plagued by the black beetles, but in a moment the swarm was lifting up and away and speeding toward the battle in the distance.
“Cut the line,” Brama said, “quickly.”
Emre already had his knife out. He used it to cut them free. As the galleon drifted away, those standing at the gunwales watched them with open mouths and widened eyes. Not a single one still holding a bow made to nock an arrow.
Soon their skiff had come to a sighing halt. The galleon’s looming profile and the swarming cloud of beetles both dwindled along two divergent paths. Without another word, the three of them set about the task of setting the mast and lifting the sail.
Chapter 64
OVER THE SAND, Guhldrathen stalked Çeda.
Onur watched, gleeful as a boy on Beht Revahl. A scattering of his warriors, who’d been separated when he’d fled the ship, were approaching from behind. Çeda knew she had only moments to act before Guhldrathen was on her, and she refused to flee. It was vital to take Onur down before Guhldrathen could reach her.
She sprinted left, whistling for Melis and Sümeya to flank her as she went. She wanted to warn them not to attack Onur—not yet—but the chance that he would decipher her instructions was too great.
Guhldrathen moved faster now, a black laugher charging its prey. As she’d hoped, it adjusted course as she ran, its path bringing it closer and closer to Onur.
Onur, too late, realized what she was doing and tried to move out of the way, but he was weakened, from battle but surely from having tasted of human flesh as well. As he trudged through the sand, he looked as though millstones had been bound to his ankles. Guhldrathen, focused squarely on Çeda, clubbed Onur with one of his great fists, and Onur, despite his bulk, went flying to fall unmoving against the amber sand. For a moment, Çeda could only stare. She’d meant for it to happen—the joy of seeing Onur fall set her fingers to tingling—but the ease with which Guhldrathen had done it, as if the felling of a King was but an afterthought, made her heart go cold.
Çeda, Melis, and Sümeya stood at the ready as the ehrekh neared. Surprisingly, it slowed and approached with care. Its taurine eyes stared warily at the ebon swords, as if it had faced such a threat before. It began moving its hands in strange ways. Outlining symbols in the air.
Çeda felt herself slowing. Her body became leaden, and she knew the beast would have all of them in moments if she didn’t act. She charged, hoping to distract the beast, to foil its spell, but she’d not gone two steps before Guhldrathen raised a hand to her. She came to an immediate stop. Something pressed on her from all directions while a high-pitched tone sounded loud in her ears.
“My wish is not to see thee dead,” it said in a voice so low it made her skin itch. “Not yet. I would bring thee to the desert. Study thee before I decide how and when to deliver thy soul to the farther fields. I would follow thy path, oh White Wolf. I would reach across the divide to touch the land of my maker’s maker once more.”
It stretched one arm out, reaching for her neck, but just then a spear streaked through the air from Çeda’s right and pierced Guhldrathen’s skin. Another struck its neck. A third sunk deep into one thigh. Çeda could not move, but she saw a line of desert-garbed warriors hurtling forward. Ishaq led them. The ghostly white forms of the Forsaken followed, wailing as they streaked toward the ehrekh. Leading the way was Salsanna, her body now occupied by the soul of an asir; behind her came Fahrel and Stavehn and a half-dozen more. They bore spears and swords and shields. The Forsaken engaged Guhldrathen, moving with blinding speed and ferocity while others encircled the beast.
As they fought, Çeda felt her limbs slowly loosening. It was the presence of the Forsaken—she could feel the brightness of their souls pushing away the darkness of the ehrekh’s magic—but it didn’t all happen at once. She felt as if she were trapped in honey, so she fought to hasten the process; the more she worked her muscles, she soon found, the looser they became.
The need for haste was paramount. Guhldrathen was already winning his battle. One of the Forsaken had taken a blow to the head. Fahrel was lost when one of Guhldrathen’s tails skewered her chest. Blood so dark it was nearly black burst from the wound, and then she was gone as Guh
ldrathen whipped his tail and sent her flying through the air.
A third was crushed beneath one of Guhldrathen’s cloven hooves. Another was gored and flung away with a vicious lift of his terrible curving horns. Ishaq, releasing a long battle cry and wielding a spear, distracted the ehrekh as Salsanna swept in and pierced Guhldrathen’s right eye with the tip of her own spear.
In that moment, Çeda was released. She fell to the ground, but was up again in a blink and rushing toward the ehrekh. Stavehn was lost when Guhldrathen’s great jaws clamped over his right shoulder and tore half his chest away. Another soul dimmed when Guhldrathen picked him up and tore his body in two.
As it flung the halves of that poor soul’s body aside, Ishaq rushed in, yelling as he stabbed the spear up beneath Guhldrathen’s chin. The spearhead was partially lost as it sunk deep into Guhldrathen’s flesh.
Guhldrathen staggered back, eyes blinking in confusion at the sky. But the next moment, it grabbed the spear and snapped it in two. And then Ishaq was driven against the sand by a mighty downward blow.
“No!” Çeda cried.
She reached the ehrekh’s side and swung River’s Daughter once, twice, backing away quickly when the ehrekh rounded on her. Each swing of her blade cut deep, some artifact of the ebon’s steel allowing it to bite deeper than mundane weapons seemed to.
Melis and Sümeya fought by her side now. Together they attacked, in constant flow, one retreating while the other two blooded the beast. Black blood flowed from the wounds, slicking the ehrekh’s skin, making it glisten yellow in the mid-morning light.
Salsanna had lost her knives, but she leapt, trying to claw her way up the ehrekh’s back, only to be thrown off. Another white asir took her place, stabbing a knife deep into the ehrekh’s shoulder.
Guhldrathen reached over its shoulder, grabbed the white-clothed asir, and flung him against a ship’s bowsprit. As he fell lifeless to the sand, Guhldrathen reared up and bellowed so loudly it brought pain to Çeda’s ears. Then it brought both fists down.
A Veil of Spears Page 62