The Straits of Galahesh loa-2

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  “Sariya,” Nasim says into the silence. His breath, soft and white, is taken upon the wind. “I didn’t think to find you here.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  W hen Nikandr finally reached the entrance to the village and stepped outside, they squinted against the morning light. Even though it was early, and the sun little more than a wash of pale yellow in the east, it was still almost unbearably bright after being underground for so long. Jahalan stepped next to him and stretched, breathing deeply of the chill air.

  There were often guards stationed near the entrance, but today there were none. Nikandr thought this a favorable sign, but before he’d gone ten paces he realized he was wrong. From the shadows of another doorway came four men, all of them wearing dark robes and turbans the color of night. They did not bear muskets, but each of them wore a curved shamshir and a khanjar at their belt, and they wore these weapons easily, as if they were old friends.

  At the lead was Rahid. He stepped into Nikandr’s way, much as he had Bersuq’s the other day, and waited, his hand on the hilt of his sword. “And where does the man from Khalakovo think to go?”

  Nikandr came to a halt. Jahalan, so often a man of calm, stood stiffly, his eyes watching Rahid and the other Hratha closely.

  “We will return, if that is your fear,” Nikandr said.

  The rings in Rahid’s nose glinted as he sniffed in a short, sharp breath. “Do the Landed find it so difficult to answer questions?”

  “Bersuq gave us leave to go as we would.”

  “Bersuq is not the only voice in Ashdi en Ghat.”

  “What does that mean to me?”

  “It should mean much.” Rahid took a step forward. If he drew his sword now, he could easily cut with it. Rahid looked him up and down, as if he was still offended at having to suffer a man such as Nikandr in the village, but Nikandr knew he was just trying to bait him.

  “Speak your troubles to Bersuq.” Nikandr made to walk past him. “We have work to do.”

  Nikandr didn’t wish to provoke, but he could not give a man like Rahid the upper hand. Men like him were ruthless, but they were also simple. Push them hard enough and they would often back down.

  Rahid stepped back and drew his sword. He was fast, Nikandr realized. Very fast.

  Rahid’s men drew their swords as well as Rahid leveled the tip at Nikandr’s chest.

  “Enough, Rahid.”

  Nikandr turned and squinted into the darkness of the tunnel, unable to find the source of the voice. A moment later Soroush stepped out and into the light, limping badly. His left forearm was bandaged. The area above his left eye had an angry red wound still scabbing over, and it was surrounded by a mass of bruises.

  Soroush stepped in front of Nikandr, placing himself between him and Rahid. “Lower your weapon.”

  Slowly, Rahid complied, his gaze alternating between Nikandr and Soroush. “Thabash will not be pleased, Soroush.”

  Thabash was a name he’d only heard in reference to the attacks on the southernmost duchies, most often organized from Behnda al Tib, the Hratha stronghold. Nikandr shouldn’t be surprised to hear his name, but he was. Why had so many of the men from the south come to Rafsuhan? And why now?

  Soroush merely nodded and guided Nikandr and Jahalan away. “Tell me when Thabash is pleased, and that will be a new day.”

  Rahid stepped forward and placed his hand on Jahalan’s chest. “One will remain here.”

  Jahalan began to protest, but Soroush held up his hand. “Don’t worry, son of Mitra”-he stared down at Jahalan’s wooden leg-“I will go with Nikandr.”

  Jahalan looked abashed, even angry. His leg, and the troubles it caused him, was one of the few things that got Jahalan’s blood moving quickly. Nikandr wanted his old friend with him, but he could already tell that the Maharraht would not bend. “Stay,” Nikandr said to him. “Work with the children, and I will share anything we learn when I return.”

  Jahalan finally relented, and Nikandr left with Soroush, who brought with him a musket and a bandolier. They left the confines of the valley and headed down the trail back toward the forest in which they’d hidden before coming to Ashdi en Ghat. Nikandr felt strange, walking in silence this way, a certain trust now implicit between them where only months ago each had considered the other an enemy. It was not merely the war they were waging-albeit in different ways-against the changes in the world. That merely gave them understanding of one another. They were bound instead by Wahad, Soroush’s son, the boy Nikandr had sworn to protect.

  “What interest has Thabash in the north?” Nikandr asked.

  “You can ask him when he arrives.”

  “Thabash will most likely let Rahid do what he will with me, which means I’ll be taken to the nearest cliff and shot in the back.”

  “Then best you hurry.”

  “Are the Maharraht fighting?”

  Soroush was silent as they walked, the only sounds their steps over the narrow trail they were following and the morning calls of the nearby thrushes. “Where do we go, son of Iaros?”

  “Soroush, the lives of my men are at stake.”

  Soroush whirled and stabbed his finger at Nikandr. “The lives of my people are at stake. You’ve seen the sick. You’ve seen the children.”

  “ Yeh, and I’ve seen your son.”

  Soroush bit back his reply. He walked in silence, but his stride seemed to ease, as if he were thinking wistfully over the pleasant memories of his son. The Maharraht were strange this way-with the people of Anuskaya, Nikandr knew how they would react about death, but with the Maharraht, or any of the Aramahn, it was simply impossible.

  “How is he?” Soroush asked.

  “Not well, but I’m hopeful. Jahalan and I are doing what we can.”

  “You see them, then. You see them, and still you would cast them aside so that your men would be safe.”

  By see, he meant seeing them as real people. And he was right. Nikandr was beginning to do just that. “I do not cast them aside, Soroush. But I will do little good if Thabash-or worse, Rahid-runs a length of steel through my chest. We could take them away. We could try this elsewhere.”

  “It would never be allowed.”

  “It might…”

  “ Neh,” Soroush spat back. “Have you not guessed why the bulk of the Hratha left the island?”

  “I assumed to return with those who left the island.”

  “Not to return with them. To kill them. To make an example out of them.”

  Nikandr worked this through. “They would kill their own sons and daughters, their brothers and sisters, because they seek a better life?”

  “In the eyes of the Hratha, they’re spurning their old life. That is what cannot be allowed.”

  Nikandr felt sick to his stomach. “Bersuq would listen to you if you asked.”

  Soroush laughed. “Who do you think gave me these wounds?”

  “What? Why would he do such a thing?”

  “You are Landed, Nikandr.”

  “He took me into the village. He showed me the children himself.”

  “Because I asked that he did.”

  Nikandr paused as these words sunk in. “And what did you grant him in return?”

  “A simple request,” he said as he turned and began walking once more. His limp was still noticeable, but it had either warmed up or he was ignoring the pain. Likely it was both. “I was to take breath on Baisha”-he pointed to their right, to a tall black mountain-“and find my true answer.”

  “The answer to what?”

  “Whether or not you would be allowed to live.”

  Nikandr let him walk in peace. The answer at which he’d arrived was clear, and he saw no need to reopen a wound that was clearly still fresh.

  “Will you explain to me now,” Soroush asked after a time, “why there was such a burning need to leave the village?”

  “I must go to Siafyan.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I saw Muqallad there.” Nikandr
had never shared with Soroush his time on Ghayavand, but he did so now, sparing little. He went into great detail describing the dreams he’d shared with Nasim, particularly the ones involving Muqallad, and he told of their mad dash through the Alayazhar in the hopes of avoiding him. But Muqallad had found and nearly trapped them. If it hadn’t been for Nasim, they would surely all have died.

  Soroush glanced at Nikandr as they turned and headed down the narrow trail that led to the forest and beyond it the defile that would take them to the other village. Dark clouds covered the sky, and the wind was blowing with vigor, tugging at Nikandr’s hair and his clothes. “And now you think he has come here, to Rafsuhan?”

  “I felt him, when I kneeled with… When I was near the lake.”

  “It is only a name, Nikandr Iaroslov. You may say it.”

  “I only thought that you might feel…”

  “Beholden? And so angered? Incensed? I would have been in years past, but time”-Soroush glanced sidelong at him-“time has a way of humbling a man. Wahad is a wonderful son, and I pray to the fates that they allow him to live, even if the way of salvation lies through one of the Landed.”

  “Did Rehada know?” In many ways Nikandr was hesitant to speak of her, but there were so few he could actually speak to of the woman he had loved, about her death and what she’d meant to him in life. Soroush was no friend to confide in, but something inside Nikandr wanted to know where Soroush had stood with her in the years before her death because, strangely, it would tell him something about his own relationship with her.

  They took a steep decline through tall swaying grasses and entered the forest. Only then did Soroush speak once more. “I never told her.”

  “She would have accepted him.”

  “You know her so well”-his voice had risen in volume-“that you can tell me what she would do?”

  “It would have been painful, but she would have loved him.”

  “She might have accepted him, but she would never have forgiven herself. She always blamed herself for Ahya’s death. It ate her from within, as much as the wasting, or more, for it was a wound she would not die from. She would go on living, torturing herself until her end of days. Had she known about Wahad, it would have been worse. I was only protecting her.”

  “She didn’t need protection. She needed caring and love.”

  “You speak to me of love? She came to you at my behest, son of Iaros. She wheedled from you secrets that she fed to me through messengers you never suspected, and I in turn guided our efforts because of it. People died because of what you told her. And she hated herself for it”-Soroush spat on the ground ahead of them-“nearly as much as she hated you. You knew nothing of her needs.”

  Nikandr felt his face flush. His heart galloped within his chest. “ Neh? She may have stolen secrets, son of Gatha, but she loved me, and I was there for her when she needed me. I never abandoned her.”

  “You would have had you known.”

  “Early on, perhaps, but in the end I found out, and still I loved her. Perhaps you’ll do for Wahad what you couldn’t do for Rehada.”

  Soroush’s face went red. He stepped forward, sliding the khanjar from its sheath.

  Nikandr backed up, knowing he had pushed Soroush too far.

  But from the corner of his eye he saw movement. Moving among the trees was a form, small and bright among the dark trunks of the larch and spruce.

  Nikandr held up one hand and with the other pointed over Soroush’s shoulder.

  Soroush, nostrils flaring, took a half step toward him, but then stopped and turned, scanning the forest behind him. The form was nearly out of sight, but he saw it and cocked his head. “Kaleh?”

  “I saw her yesterday among the hills. They said she refused to live in the village.”

  Without speaking another word, they both began to jog over the soft bed of the forest, weaving through the trees to keep Kaleh in sight.

  When she walked down a decline, they lost her for a time, and both of them began to sprint, hoping not to lose her. When they found her again, she was treading downhill toward a thin stream. She moved with speed, but not so quickly that they couldn’t keep pace. She came to a clearing at the base of the hill, and she slowed, taking deliberate steps while studying the ground carefully. Her head was tilted, as if she were listening, though Nikandr could hear nothing above the wind and the high chatter of snowfinch somewhere in the distance.

  Near the stream, she dropped to her hands and knees. She crawled forward, moving her ear closer to the ground each time, until at last something seemed to satisfy her and she lay down flat and placed her ear against the ground.

  She lay like this for long moments, and Nikandr became progressively more aware of the forest-the oppression of the tall trees surrounding them; the curve of the land and the stream that cut through it; the air, which smelled of rain, and the slow, rhythmic ticking of the bark beetles. He debated on whether they should approach. He looked to Soroush, asking him silently, but Soroush shook his head gently.

  For no reason Nikandr could see, Kaleh got back to her feet and padded over to a nearby hillock overgrown with moss and ferns. She kneeled before it and placed her hands on the ground, and then she kneeled forward and placed her forehead on the backs of her hands, as if she were praying to the earth.

  Mere moments later, the moss bulged near the top of the hillock. It rose and split, spreading wide like the petals of a gazania blossoming in spring. The cleft it created was wide and deep, large enough to fall into.

  Kaleh took from a bag at her belt something small and shriveled and black. She held it between her fingers for a time, merely staring at it. As she did, Nikandr swore it was pulsing.

  Then, like a doe that had heard something amiss, her head turned ever so slightly to one side.

  She dropped the blackened thing into the cleft.

  And then sprinted like a cannon shot over the hillock.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  N ikandr and Soroush immediately gave chase. They hurried down the slope, sliding among the tree trunks as Kaleh fled. Kaleh was like a fawn, swift and fairly bounding over the landscape. Still, she was young, and the two of them began to shorten the distance between them.

  She glanced back once, her eyes wide, not with fear, but with exhilaration. As Nikandr ran, he saw a root rise up before him. He leapt over it, and a branch swung in his way, forcing him to run wide.

  Soroush grunted as the bough of a young tree struck him. He slid along the slick slope, but regained his footing.

  “Stop!” Nikandr yelled in Mahndi. “We only wish to speak.”

  She kept moving and began to widen the distance. Nikandr increased his pace, but the moment he did a sapling bent nearly in two and struck him across his face and chest. He fell to the ground, slipping on the damp layer of autumn leaves.

  Soroush fell as a thick, knotty root rose up and caught his ankle. He shouted in pain as his ankle twisted on it and he fell face-first to the ground.

  The sound of Kaleh’s flight faded as Nikandr pulled himself up, his face and chest throbbing, and made his way over to Soroush. Soroush flipped over, holding his ankle for long seconds as Nikandr waited. “It’s unwise to chase after a deer,” he finally said, holding out his hand.

  Nikandr took it and pulled Soroush up to his feet.

  “Shall we track her?” Nikandr said.

  “With this ”-Soroush nodded meaningfully to his injured ankle-“I couldn’t hope to outrun a hedgehog. Let’s return to the cleft and see what she dropped into it.”

  Nikandr nodded and they made their way slowly back. They easily found the place where the cleft had opened. Digging a hole, however, was much more problematic. Nikandr broke a thick branch of deadwood in half and the two of them used the relatively sharp ends to dig into the ground, but the earth seemed whole, compact, which was more than strange since it had lain open only minutes ago.

  Still, they made progress, and as they came to the depth where they thought th
e object might lie, they moved more slowly, took greater care.

  “There,” Nikandr said, seeing movement.

  As he watched, one spot in the dark, loamy earth pulsed like a thing alive. He kneeled down and carefully scraped the dirt away. Slowly, more and more of it was revealed.

  “Ancients preserve us,” Nikandr said as he stared at it. He reached in and took it up. Though the urge to drop it back into the hole was great, he held it up for Soroush to see.

  It was small and misshapen, looking more like a walnut than anything else, but there was no mistaking it. It was a heart. A blackened, beating heart.

  Soroush swallowed once before reaching out and taking it. As he examined it, the thing seemed to beat more heavily. “What under the dark heavens is she trying to do?”

  Nikandr looked around the forest. “I don’t know, but is there any doubt it has something to do with the fire?”

  “That was no fire, son of Iaros.” He was shaking his head, staring at the beating heart with naked revulsion. “That was a sacrifice.”

  The more Nikandr stared at the heart, the sicker he felt. He thought at first it was mere disgust, the same as Soroush, but it soon became clear that it was something else entirely. Much as he could feel Nasim those many years ago, he felt this heart. It was as if a soul were still attached to it. It was a notion that seemed foolish at first, but the more he thought about it, the more sense it made.

  “What do we do with it?” Nikandr asked.

  Soroush stared at it for a moment, considering, then he dropped it onto the ground and kneeled. He took from its sheath at his belt his khanjar. It was a curved blade that had seen its share of use, but it gleamed under the overcast sky as he set the tip against the heart and pressed downward with all his weight.

  Nikandr felt a sharp pain within his chest. His own heart could feel the knife slicing through the dark, inhuman flesh of this shriveled and blackened thing. He bent over, clutching his chest, holding himself up by propping one arm against his knee. And then the pain lessened, and the heart began to beat slower, until at last it had stopped altogether and the pain had gone away.