Reyhim shifted his gaze to the shield and raised his totem, but his half of the blue sphere sputtered and sparked.
“A rather large detail to leave out of your reports to our Master,” Reyhim said. “If it’s true.”
“We don’t know that it is,” S’ami said. He glared at Mami. She glared back. S’ami restarted his spells.
“Mami, please, tell them to listen to me.”
“You heard these holy men, daughter,” she said. “They’re not surrendering you. Neither am I.”
Behind us, the commander called for archers, more archers. He pointed to the silhouettes of Gek along the rooftops. “My cross-eyed great-granny could knock those scaly bastards off that roof. Positions!”
Screams and shouts came from north of us, along Callers Wharf. A voice called out, “They’ve seized the wharf, they’ve cut us off.”
Another voice, “They’re at the bridge.”
The commander shouted them down. “Retake that wharf.”
The Gek must have crept deep within our city before beginning their attack, and the fire had drawn men out of their homes unarmed and defenseless. My stomach churned just thinking about my unwitting role in all this. If I were a Gek leader and had to pick a target to burn, maybe I’d ask the shaman-daughter to point out which building the star-demon human had gone into. It all led back to me. I’d gotten my sisters and father in danger, and so many other people besides.
“Azwan, please,” I begged. “I can’t go to the Ward now, not with the bridge under attack. Let me go with the Gek and maybe they’ll retreat.”
S’ami’s mouth tightened into a firm line. “By the blood of my own daughter, no.”
So I was part of S’ami’s plan to topple Nihil, whatever that was and whenever he swung it into action. He wasn’t giving another race an advantage over him, even if it should’ve been obvious to him that he and the Gek hated Nihil alike. He’d made a vow on his dead daughter’s memory. I listened to his chanting, my own resolve dissolving into a sense of futility.
The city would be just as ruined if I didn’t move soon. And Babba was out there, maybe still alive, and I had to get past this magical shield to stop the Gek from harming him. It all made sense, didn’t it? It all pointed to me joining up with the Gek, seeing what they wanted, helping them however they needed. And maybe they had answers about what was inside me. What did the Gek know of the star? I would get no answers from the Azwans, of course. The only answers lay beyond their shield.
I glanced around, frantic for a way to run past the Azwans and their rigid circle of guards. Reyhim shifted closer again. “Get that damned commander over here. What in Nihil’s name is going on? We can’t conjure this shield forever.”
My heart nearly skipped a beat. Would it come down on its own?
The commander trotted over. “Archers are in position, Azwan. Guards from the Ward are defending the bridge but they can’t hold it long.”
Reyhim’s hoarse voice roared in anger. “These vermin are tossing nothing but sticks and rocks. What do you mean you can’t hold the bridge?”
The commander stiffened. “We’ll hold the bridge, Azwan. With your help.”
S’ami cut him off. “Where is the Lord Portreeve?”
Mami leaned in to hear the commander’s reply, as did I.
“Last seen near the merchant ships with what was left of the bucket brigades, Azwan. They were tearing off warehouse doors for barricades. Clever, but I’m not sure how long they’ll last.”
“Can we split the men, get some of them to head toward the merchant vessels?”
The commander peered down at S’ami with a skeptical squint to his eyes. “The bridge to the Ward is the more strategic position.”
S’ami didn’t even glance at Mami and myself as he spoke. “Then fall back to the bridge.”
They were just going to leave Babba and the bucket brigades to die.
I plunged forward, diving under arms before anyone could stop me. It didn’t occur to me to expect arrows from my side of the shield until I’d reached it. They called for me to halt—the commander, S’ami, Mami—but I was there. The shield rose from my feet over my head in a long, continuous arc, blue light dancing in waves, static pouring off toward me, fizzing harmlessly around me. My hair began to stick out straight from the nape of my neck, beneath my wrap.
I raised my hand and watched the static leap from the wall of light to my outstretched fingers. I was in dangerous territory—I could tell from the tense, alert pose every man had taken and from how all those eyes peering from all those helmets burned through my back. They’d fallen silent, watching. So had the Gek. Thousands of eyes, human, Feroxi, and lizard, peered at me—anxious, expectant, poised.
Around me lay the ashes of scores of javelins and arrows that had disintegrated on contact. If this came down on anyone’s head instead of dissolving, that person was dead. I’d seen what it did to the Gek in their swamp. If I touched it, would it reduce me to a pile of ashes, as well? There was only one way to find out. Babba would be worth this sacrifice in any case. Same with the merchants beyond. That’s what a healer agrees to, anyway—to save lives, possibly at the expense of her own. I slapped at the shield, a harsh, back-handed sweep of my arm that sent an arc of sparks. A shock coursed through me, and I collapsed to my knees. I whipped my head up and around to stare straight into the bright, morning sky. Either the shield was gone, or it was less visible in the bright sun.
No, it was gone. I leaped to my feet, ready to run. Behind me, I didn’t doubt for a second that guards waited for a signal to open fire on the Gek. It would come whether I was in the way or not. The commander likely didn’t care either way.
Ahead of me, the Gek charged. A horn blasted from behind me. I stood directly between the two armies with no way out. I froze, unsure of where, exactly, to head. I aimed for one side, hoping it was the fastest way around. I took three, maybe four, hasty steps when my legs pulled out from under me. My ankles jerked up together, airborne, and my body slammed hard into the cobblestones. My right hand had shot out to break my fall. Pain tore up my crunched wrist. I cried out and writhed around to see my ankles bound with rope, a rock at either end. This was some weapon of the Gek’s that they’d tossed like I was a mainland woolass being rounded up for shearing.
Shouting and roaring and the clatter of weapons came next. I curled in a fetal position, as though it could block the arrows and javelins crossing in midair above my head. They made an incessant whine, like the air itself protested. The dull crunch of steel arrowheads hitting walls sent an involuntary contraction through every muscle in my body. Without the magical shield in place, the battle had begun in earnest.
I had to get myself out of there. I could crawl a short ways, pulling knees to chest and extending my forearms along the cobblestones, caterpillar-like. Knees to chest again, arms extend. If I put no weight on my right wrist, I could manage the shocks of pain. I pushed and pulled myself closer, closer, to the Customs House doors. Booted legs thumped my way. I might make it after all.
Then from behind came a massive attack of sticky, clammy fingers. Scores of Gek hands hoisted me up, settled me on numerous narrow shoulders, and hauled me off like ants carrying a juicy bug. “Hold still,” they chirped. “You’re safe with lizards.”
My wrist and ankles throbbed from being toppled when the battle first began. I didn’t feel very safe. I couldn’t use my injured hand to signal them to put me down, at least not until the pain dissipated. A dozen pairs of boots thundered into place around us and blood splashed onto me. It wasn’t mine—Gek were falling all around me. I lurched as Gek stumbled and died until others slithered in and took their place. My stomach roiled, but I didn’t have the time or the space for getting sick.
Finally, I landed on several Gek, who didn’t move. And neither did I.
“Get your scrawny butt out of here.” The voice was Valeo’s, and he stood over me, one leg on either side of me. I did my best caterpillar crawl underneath the sea of l
egs and found myself pulled back by sticky fingers. The fingers let go—cut down by Valeo or his men—and I crawled again. A moment later, I was pulled to my feet by still more guards and carried like a child behind an uneven wall of shields.
I was deposited by the Azwans and teetered until an elbow steadied me. Valeo again. I leaned on his shoulder as he stooped to cut my ankle bonds. A quick glance around told me we were behind a solid wall of soldiers.
I was right back where I had started.
22
I gathered all the peoples, human, giant, and lizard, and told them they angered me. But we did not make this war, said many in the crowd. You should blame those who spilled blood and not the innocent, too.
No one is innocent, I replied.
—from Verisimilitudes 4, The Book of Unease
Mami pushed my scarf back from where it had fallen over my eyes and tenderly probed my injured wrist, momentarily becoming the same woman who’d fiercely insisted on taking me to the swamps to pick herbs. With instinctive, precise movements, she unwrapped her own head scarf and wrapped it around my wrist, bandaging it as well as any healer might. Her own hair remained tightly bundled in a knot at the nape of her neck, with no apparent care for the rules of modesty.
“You’re a mess,” she said, shouting over the din of battle as she smoothed and tucked me back together. “What possessed you to do that?”
“I’m going to find Babba. And I’m going to see what the Gek want. It’s the only way they’ll leave us alone.”
Reyhim interrupted. “They’ll not have you. If we need to repeat that a few more times, you’ll hear it in a jail cell.”
I tried to mask my fury. “Most Worthy, I could talk to them. And my father’s trapped back there.”
He pointed across the pavilion. “Not any longer.”
A procession of enormous wooden doors clattered and clunked into view from between the rows of warehouses. Some doors faced up, some forward or back or to the side. It looked like some sort of giant, upside-down ship thudding toward us or maybe the scales of a sea monster. Arrows and javelins rained down from every direction. Dozens of men crouched beneath those sooty, battered chunks of wood that they’d pulled off their tracks at warehouses up and down the wharf. They moved at a slow jog, keeping together, never losing their footing despite the drumbeat of missiles. They must have stripped every last warehouse of its doors for their moving barricade.
The Gek scattered to every side, jabbing at the giant, wooden, scaly beast and falling back again. I was watching the triumph of human ingenuity. A cheer went up among the Feroxi. I released a huge lungful of air, not realizing how long or how deeply I’d been holding my breath. Relief flooded through me like a salve for an aching heart as the front row of doors parted to reveal the grunting, heaving humans beneath. There was Babba, in the lead, staggering and lurching to a stop.
A hero.
Behind him, men carried their wounded on yet more of the doors.
The magical shield was gone, vaporized by my earlier effort, so the men only had to make it as far as the line of soldiers, which they did. The guards returned the Gek fire to either side of the wooden barricades and then fell in around them, until every last civilian was behind our lines, safe.
Reyhim extended his arms toward Babba and rasped, “I’ve never seen a braver thing in my life.”
Mami raced up to Babba and held him close. His clothes were soaked in blood. I made to run toward Babba but a large hand held me by my shoulder. It was Valeo. “The Azwans wish for you to stay.”
I took another deep breath and held it. On the far side of the pavilion, the Gek regrouped in the alleys and the firing stopped for a few moments, long enough to see the shadows cast behind them by a radiant morning sun. Between us and the Gek were scores of bodies of all three races: Gek, Feroxi, and human. I wondered when was the last time that had happened, if it had ever happened before, all three races on one battlefield.
A low, throaty chirp began among the Gek, beating a steady rhythm, calling and calling, beseeching.
Praying.
I covered my ears, tried not to make out the Geks’ words, bit both lips hard and squeezed my eyelids tight. I wouldn’t hear them. This wasn’t what I’d expected at all. I fought the sudden urge to run. Suddenly, joining them seemed like the entirely wrong idea. Not if they were praying like this—to me. To the star.
My heart thudded in my chest and I couldn’t breathe. I closed my eyes and focused on my right wrist, but it was already feeling better, so there wasn’t much pain to drive out the incessant, throaty warbling. I felt sick and lightheaded and I expected my knees would give out. This wasn’t happening. Everything I hated about Nihil, about the Temple—
“What are they saying?” S’ami asked. “Translate.”
S’ami spun me around and grabbed my uninjured wrist. I wouldn’t—couldn’t—tell him. Not even when Reyhim expressed shock that their hisses, clicks, and croaks were words—and that I could understand them. He asked, “This another one of the girl’s strange powers? Is she the demon?”
S’ami turned to me. “Are you?”
I shook and shook my head. “No, I’m not. I’m Hadara of Rimonil. I’m not the undoer, I haven’t done or undone anything.”
S’ami remained cool. “Is that what they’re calling you? The Undoer?”
“I won’t translate. It’s all lies. I won’t.”
“Do you mean that?”
I pinched my lips together and kept my hands, even the not-quite injured one, over my ears. I wanted to hear nothing more, not one syllable, of their prayers and odes to me.
S’ami turned to Valeo. “It is time.”
“As you wish, Azwan.”
The soldier who’d given me my first kiss placed one paw on my right arm and led me away, off toward the Ward and a jail cell and an uncertain fate.
23
Friends are not always the people you choose, but the people who choose you.
—Tengali proverb
I hated them all. Hated. I hated S’ami and Reyhim and their clumsy magic and the suddenly worshipful, blood-thirsty Gek, and even the solid lump of a guard who lugged me along Callers Wharf. I struggled to match Valeo’s long-legged pace. My frustration found a target and I put the meanest snarl in my voice I could muster. “So much for that kiss. You’re the worst form of hypocrite, you know that?”
Valeo’s mouth pressed into a single, thin line, but he kept up his rapid stride, with two other guards falling in behind us, as we made our way along the wharf behind a thin row of soldiers. The Gek were still regrouping and keeping back, sticking to the narrow alleys between warehouses and the now-doorless doorways. Valeo kept his eyes sweeping the way ahead of us and said nothing. I yanked my arm away, hurt at his sudden change. “So, now you’re all business again. I suppose last night was just pretend.”
He whipped around. “Pretend? Look who’s talking. What was our little outing last night but some pretense of yours?”
A few soldiers glanced over their shoulders at us and then whipped their heads back around. I could feel my ears redden. “Never mind. Let’s just go.”
He nodded. “We’re bringing you to the Ward until this is over. Try and cooperate with the Azwans for once?”
“Or what?” Why did it have to always be about the Azwans? Why couldn’t they—and Valeo—cooperate with me? It always came down to me being the bad girl, when I’d done nothing wrong.
Instead of answering, however, Valeo put a hand on my shoulder as though to guide me in the right direction, I yanked away, and he reached for my wrist instead—the bad one. I yelped.
He scowled. “I didn’t hurt you.”
“My wrist. From earlier. When I fell.” I clutched my bad hand in my good one.
Strong arms folded around me and straightened me up, staying there until I steadied myself. I felt better leaning against him, and much of my irritation dissolved. I was being awfully hard on him. He was doing his job. I remembered the two Vale
os and wondered if the warrior and the prince could ever be at peace within him. Why did it have to be like this?
His body was solid and strong, and that had a healing effect of its own. I’d never admit it to him, but it did. Valeo gently turned my wrist around to look at it. He touched a swollen spot and I winced.
“Sprained,” he said. “I don’t feel any break.”
“It’ll be fine. I’m alright, I promise.”
Valeo looked up at the other guards. “To the sick ward first.” The men nodded.
Well, that was totally unnecessary, and I was about to protest until it hit me: the sick ward, not Ward Sapphire. He’d just found an excuse not to arrest me. I bit back a smile, unless I gave his plan away. I took a good look around me, though, wondering at the sudden quiet. The Grand Concourse flowed before me, easing its way out to the bay, as calm and steady as ever. From behind the railing, two clear green eyes blinked at me.
“What is it?” Valeo said, following my gaze. “Damn them.”
The men guarding me had their swords drawn and charged the railing, but the creature had slid into the water and vanished with a few ripples. Once again, I’d hesitated just a moment too long to act.
A voice carried across the water from Pilgrim Bridge. “Behind you!”
Arrows shot to the right and left of me, downing the other two guards, dead. The shafts stuck from their necks. I screamed.
The thin line of soldiers evaporated, men racing toward the pavilion or the bridge—whichever was closest. They’d spread themselves too thin along the narrow wharf, offering no protection from this new assault.
Valeo hustled me along, but I was slower than a Feroxi soldier and twice I stumbled over bodies that fell in my path. We gained some momentum until I slammed into Valeo’s back—he’d halted mid-stride. The Gek formed a wide semi-circle, with the two of us dead center, our backs to the waterway.
Valeo thrust himself in front of me, both swords out, scanning the roofs of the kiosks, some of them smoldering, others with moving brown forms along their edges. Wrists flicked back to launch a score of javelins, bow arms flexed as a hundred arrows notched. If Valeo didn’t know he was committing suicide, then it was up to me to stop him.
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