Kai wanted a few minutes to speak to Fodjour. He had been forced to do a hard, terrible thing, and Kai wanted to be certain his old friend was dealing with it well.
A group of slaves hovered about, catering to their every culinary whim. Allahbas Berhar occupied Djidade Berhar’s usual chair, representing her ailing husband. Although she attempted to sound merry, Kai noted a certain forced calm straining both voice and carriage. Doubtless that ugly business with her servants. It was enough to put anyone ill at ease.
“Kai,” she ventured, “as both officer and Wakil, what is your opinion of the military levies?”
Kai considered. “New taxes? In most cases I would oppose such a measure, but as you know, I believe that war is coming, and that it is best we maintain our troops in high alertness.”
“Still.” Her voice was carefully modulated. “You actually lent the majority of your own personal force to the territorial guard.”
“It is best to lead by example.” He saw Fodjour on the other side of the room, and wished for an excuse to cut his conversation with Allahbas short.
“But,” Fodjour’s mother continued, “doesn’t that leave you a bit … unprotected?”
Kai bowed. “Allah protects the righteous, my lady.”
The slaves concluded their concert, and the guests applauded. “Well done,” Kai called. “Your reward is waiting for you in the kitchen.”
Nandi stood. “And now we have a special treat,” she said. “Our Dahoman visitors have consented to entertain us with their traditional music.”
Yala and Ganne emerged from the central foyer, followed by twenty of their warriors, streaming into two arcing rows. For a few seconds they paused as if girding themselves, faces composed in concentration.
Then the eldest sister began to strum a miniature lelit samäy, not much larger than a Ugandan lamellaphone, but capable of far more complex melodics. The rhythms were supple and engaging. Then they began to hum, and they blended the sounds together into a single tapestry, until it seemed that they were human instruments. As they wove their harmony they swayed, so that even the most muscular and aggressive of them were graceful and appealing. Kai found it enchanting, and his guests did as well, weaving in time and applauding their efforts roundly.
Allahbas Berhar leaned toward Kai. “They are really quite … feminine. I had heard so many fierce tales that I was uncertain what to expect.”
Maputo Kokossa agreed. “They are gentle indeed. It is a shame that their men do not see after them better, ease them to their proper place in the world.”
Kai repressed a chuckle at this, both contemplating the sort of man who could dominate such women, and noting that Kokossa himself had hardly prepared his only daughter for an entirely womanly existence.
The songs continued through the entire second course, and then with an elaborate flourish, the Dahomy concluded their recital and filed from the room heading west toward the kitchen, where they would be feasted.
Feeling vastly content, Kai leaned back into his chair, and belched loudly. The guests thumped the table in approval. A matching series of eructations ensued, followed by much good-natured laughter. He grinned in satisfaction and leaned toward Kokossa. “Would you care to retire to the patio? We have a fine bit of Turkish in the hookah.”
Kokossa nodded and stretched. “Just the thing after a good meal. A shame you don’t partake, Babatunde.”
“I have enough bad habits of my own without adding yours,” the little Yoruba said.
“Ah … for instance?”
“A fondness for the company of the opinionated.”
They adjourned to a covered room set at the eastern edge of the house. Its roof was of glass, but the northern wall was open so that they could watch the night sky or gaze north or east. A roaring fireplace provided heat and a measure of light. The women sat in a separate section of the patio, so that the tobacco smoke drifted away west of them. Nandi disappeared for a few minutes, doubtless to the kennel, because on reappearance the great IziLomo trotted obediently behind her, and sat placidly at her chair-side. The hound looked up at Kai, made a low whining sound, and then backed away to the safety of his mistress.
Kai repressed a chuckle: dogs, it seemed to him, could be more honest in their relationships than humans.
He unbuckled his sword and placed it at his side, then took a hose from the hookah and inhaled with deep satisfaction.
And there they talked, puffing, and enjoying a leisurely evening.
Kokossa turned to Babatunde. “My friend—” he began. He flinched, and then his expression froze in a puzzled frown. The inventor fell forward and slumped out of his chair.
He began to convulse, shivering and thrashing so that for a moment they were uncertain of what had happened, or what to do. Kai sensed the truth before he saw any actual proof of his suspicions. For a long moment he felt suspended in time, like an insect frozen in amber. Then he screamed, “Down!”
Lamiya and Nandi exchanged a glance, then Kai’s First bolted from the adults’ to the children’s table. Despite starting a second later, Nandi’s long legs and speed served her well: she arrived a step before the Empress’s niece. The two women swept the screaming children to the floor, shielding the helpless youngsters with their own bodies.
IziLomo stood between them and the door, head down, ears back, teeth bared, snarling warning out into the night.
Kai raised his head, and was driven back down by a volley of rifle shots.
“Damn!” said Kebwe. “Snipers.”
“Yes,” Kai snarled. “Covering retreat.” He glanced at the fireplace. He seized a bucket of water and hurled it into the fire. The room clouded with steam and smoke.
Kebwe screamed and leapt. “Haii!”
“Out!” screamed Kai.
Shots pinged among them, but they managed to get the guests back into the house, to safety. Kai strapped on his shamshir, its forty digits of steel a comforting weight in his hand.
“In pursuit, they get to choose the ground,” said Kebwe. “They will be waiting for us. We need men.”
“Well thought,” said Kai. “I know just the thing.”
Ducking whenever he passed a window, Kai raced across Dar Kush’s first floor through the main dining room, through the foyer and to the west wing and the kitchen, where the Dahomy had gone for their meal. The women were crowded in the nook and at the back porch, holding bountifully heaped plates of food. Not one of them touched the steaming victuals: all fixed their gazes on Kai as he exploded through the door.
And at this sight, he was well pleased. They had heard shots and screams, and were ready. Calm. Prepared and alert were the Dahomy, but not one had taken arms without summons. Practiced warriors indeed, they knew that precipitous action often interfered with a calculated defense. Good, thought Kai. He could make use of spirits as cool and firm as these.
His fist crashed against the oak counter rimming the kitchen. “Any woman who would be a warrior in my house this night, mount and follow me!”
“Sisters!” Ganne cried. “We ride!”
“Fodjour!” Kai screamed. “Take the Dahomy, get horses and meet us. Then return to protect my family.”
“Aye!”
Fodjour ran past his mother, who sat on the floor glaring up at him with narrowed eyes. Swiftly, he glanced to either side, determined that no one watched. “Why, Mother?” he whispered. “Kokossa was harmless!”
“Fool!” she whispered, managing to convey both contempt and fear simultaneously. “I knew they would act, but not how or when. Stand fast! Prepare for whatever may be required.”
“Bah!” he said, and headed toward the barn.
The two Hashassin in the rear glanced back over their shoulder, evaluating pursuit.
“He has no men,” said the first gleefully, his red kerchief masking his face. “They are women only, the same breed who guarded the barn!”
“He must be mad.”
Omar had agreed with his cousin Allahbas that murdering K
ai of Dar Kush might be less desirable than simply crippling his ability to lead. Martyrs could be incredibly powerful rallying points. But Kokossa had been afforded no such protection: the death of an inventor would stir outrage, but not wide action.
On the other hand, an agreement not to simply murder the Wakil did not absolutely protect him. If Omar had the opportunity to capture Kai, or even slay him in single combat, such an end would not raise the same ire as a bullet from the shadows. First the test, then the trap. “Engage!” cried their leader. Without question or hesitation, like machines in human form, they wheeled their horses about.
“Hai!”
They charged to confront Kai and the Dahomy.
With a clang that sent sparks spiraling into the night, Kai deflected a sword-blow without riposting, riding onward, trusting in the riders behind him to kill his foe. He heard, but did not see the death stroke, a song of steel on flesh.
Beautiful.
The second man swung at Kai’s head: Kai ducked, and took him in the midsection with his left fist. The colliding forces transformed the blow into a rib-cracker. The Hashassin tumbled from his horse, and struck the ground with a groan, leaving Kai’s sight.
“Take him alive!” he called back, realizing that never before had he placed his safety in a woman’s hands, but also realizing that he felt blessedly secure in doing so.
Two Dahomy warriors leapt down, bracketing the Hashassin.
Temporarily disarmed, the killer pulled two knives from his belt. His arms snaked back and forth, weaving a deadly web. Ganne whipped her scarf from around her neck, snapping it like a whip. The seams had been invisibly weighted with lead, and the Hashassin ducked down only to discover the first snap was a feint. The second caught him squarely on the temple. He dropped to his knees, knife tumbling from his right hand. Within moments he lay on his side, bound and helpless.
Kai had lost sight of the masked Hashassin leader, but knew this road, knew that there was no turn-off until a mile after an old wooden bridge up ahead. Surely that would give him enough time to—
He and his men thundered around the bend, and as they did, were alarmed by a glowing light. The left side of the bridge was ablaze.
Instantly, Kai grasped the Hashassin stratagem: on their way to Dar Kush, the killers had left some men behind, who had slathered the left side of the bridge in oil, and now set it aflame. Fleeing, the murderers spurred their horses through the narrow gap, clearly intending to seal it after the last fled to safety.
The man in the red kerchief was the last. Kai assumed him to be the leader, a man who would take the greatest danger for himself. Grudging admiration merely stoked his resolve.
The gap was narrow enough for Kai’s horse to rear back in fear. No mind. Randa was a fine beast from a noble line, but not yet war-trained. But the Hashassin leader had dismounted, stood in the middle of the bridge with sword in hand even as the flames chewed away the left railings, his posture unmistakably one of challenge. Kai raised his pistol, and then lowered it. A chance to capture the leader, get some answers …
He dismounted, and strode toward the giant in the red kerchief. “Who are you?” Kai asked.
“Your death,” the taller man said, and his sword leapt at Kai’s neck in a downward arc.
The Hashassin’s onslaught commenced at blinding speed and with ferocious skill. If not for countless hours of preparation at the hands of his beloved uncle, Kai would have perished within the first five breaths. Instead, he met stroke for stroke, bending and twisting to present angles that frustrated his taller opponent. The Hashassin strove to drive Kai toward the flames, but Kai stood his ground or managed to slide away as the fire crackled beside him, tongues licking at his pants until the fabric felt hot enough to ignite.
But his opponent flinched not, and Kai steeled himself and fought on. In defense he was like a reed in the wind, but a tiger on the attack. After the first few seconds the pace of engagement slackened, as he knew it must, and he was able to actually think for the first time since steel had touched steel. In that instant Kai saw a flaw, a possibility to deflect, riposte, and take the Hashassin in the ribs. Whether the wound was lethal or not would depend on his opponent’s reactions in the next few seconds. I have you.
And with that thought his blood quickened, his own fever beginning to rise. Malik’s blood within his veins burned with a heat to match that searing his left leg.
But as he deflected, Kai’s sword shivered in his grip, and he felt it crack.
Damn! To his dismay and everlasting disgust, he now remembered that he held his ceremonial shamshir, one lighter and less tempered than the Benin man-killer he had carried to war. He had to retreat, or his adversary would simply shatter his sword and gut him.
Aching with humiliation and the effort needed to fight his own battle lust to a standstill, Kai stepped back. As if in response, the flames blossomed around them both. The Hashassin retreated through the fire seemingly without concern for injury, lifting his sword in ironic salute.
Omar brushed ashes from his clothes, gazing after the horsemen who bristled on the rivers far side as flame swallowed the entire bridge. His clothing had been impregnated with a fire-retardant chemical, and the red scarf around his face prevented inhalation of flames or vapors. He had not been completely heedless of the danger, but hoped the Wakil had been even more unnerved.
“That was Kai of Dar Kush?” one of his men asked, impressed by the smoke rising from his leader’s garments, but too wise in Omar’s ways to let it be known.
“None other,” the chief Hashassin said. “That was Malik’s sword style … but something else, as well, something of which I am uncertain.”
“But … surely he is inferior to you.”
Their leader was thoughtful. “Surely,” he said.
“Why did he retreat? The flames?”
“Perhaps. No,” he said upon reflection. “I believe his sword may have been damaged.”
His acolyte raised a heavy eyebrow. “They captured Ahmed.”
“Then his journey ends tonight,” Omar said. “My cousin will understand what is needed. Fear not. The game is in play.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
The captured killer was chained in a makeshift cell in Dar Kush’s basement. So far he had suffered the expected pain, but remained unwilling to speak even a single word.
“Who sent you, dammit?” Kai demanded. “Speak!”
In reply, Ahmed turned his bruised face away from them, spitting blood onto the floor.
“We know you are Persian,” Kai said. “By your actions, I think you Hashassin. Who hired you?” Their captive said nothing. “Very well,” said Kai in his coldest voice. “Tomorrow you will be turned over to the territorial marshal. And then you will wish you were still in civilized hands. Sleep well.” And with those words, Kai left.
Behind him, Ahmed tested and twisted his chains and only ceased when blood ran down his arms, dappling the wooden floor.
Now, alone in the dark, a sound escaped his battered lips, a thin, high wail of mourning, a fearful keening audible only to the walls of his dark and lonely cell.
Midnight approached and retreated. For solitary hours Ahmed had craned his head, listening to Dar Kush’s silence, praying for a miracle. He would make pilgrimage. He would give half, no, two-thirds of all he earned for the rest of his life to the poor. He would—
Then the cell door opened. Fodjour Berhar stood in the doorway, a plate of fruit cradled in his hands.
No miracles, then, for either the Zulu boy or poor Ahmed.
“You know who I am?” Fodjour said.
Ahmed shook his head, but the gesture was a lie. Instinct told him that this man, standing in the doorway, was his ending.
“Some eagles fly at night,” said Fodjour.
“But with dawn, the hatchlings die,” the captive said in a numbed, beaten voice. No words had ever terrified him so fully, but Ahmed had answered as he had sworn to do.
“You have done well,” Fod
jour said. “You know that your wife and children will be cared for?”
Ahmed nodded, a slight sheen of madness in his eyes.
“Are you ready to fulfill your bargain?”
Another slow nod.
“Good. Good,” said Fodjour. “I have brought you a meal. Just some fruit.”
The chained man lifted his hands. “I cannot feed myself,” he said. He hoped his meaning was clear: The Prophet was explicit. I cannot end my life.
“I understand,” Fodjour said. “Here.” Without another word he placed a chunk of poisoned banana on the man’s outstretched tongue.
“Estafghuar Allah.” God, forgive me. And with that hopeful whisper upon his lips, Ahmed began to chew.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
22 Rabi al-Awwal A.H. 1295
(Tuesday, March 26, 1878)
In the morning, a string of horsemen and one camel arrived at Dar Kush’s gates.
They were greeted by yawning, straw-haired old Festus, who led them past the guard and into the kitchen. “He is in here,” he said, escorting them down to the basement.
The door opened, casting a widening wedge of light which, finally, fell upon the sprawled and silent body of a dead man. The servant’s eyes stretched with shock.
“Wakil! Wakil!” Festus screamed. “He’s dead!”
Within minutes, cries and alarms had roused the entire household. Babatunde knelt by the dead man’s side, examining his eyes and fingernails. “Poisoned,” he said finally.
Lamiya was stunned. “But how could they get in the house? I thought the bridge was burned!”
“Rivers can be forded, given enough time. The more important question is: what did he know that was worth such risk to kill him?”
The Constable was a heavy, densely bearded man named Kareem T’Kuk who had a reputation for stolid, if uninspired efficiency. T’Kuk knotted his hands into fists, trying unsuccessfully to stop his trembling. “The Hashassin, if that they were, are silent as shadows. May as well try to stop the night.”
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