Before he’d even finished speaking, the strelet fired.
One burst of red near the crown of his head, and the man with the musket was down.
The other pistolman fired, but Atiana’s man had shoved her to one side and was already rolling away. He was back up on his feet in a flash, running forward holding a short, gleaming blade he’d pulled out from a leg sheath beneath his cherkesska. The pistolman raised his arm to defend himself, but the strelet thrust beneath the other man’s guard and ran him through just below the ribcage.
He pulled his weapon free as the other strelet, hampered by his bloody right leg, joined him. They fought fiercely, efficiently. Another of the peasants dropped, and another, until there were only four left to stand against them.
Rehada was about to grab for Atiana when another shot rang out, louder than the others.
Kirill was holding the smoking musket. A strelet fell to his knees, a hole in the center of his cherkesska darkening with blood. The three other men, perhaps emboldened, stormed the lone remaining strelet. Had he not been wounded, he might have won—and as it stood, he delivered a savage cut to one man’s leg, and pierced another man’s gut—but in the end he was taken down from a blow to the head by a fist-sized rock, thrown by the man furthest away. He fell, eyes wide, unresponsive.
The men turned toward Rehada and Atiana.
“Let us be,” Rehada said.
Kirill grinned. “And what kind of fool would I be”—he pointed to Atiana—“if I let a woman of royal blood slip through my hands?”
“I am not royal,” Atiana said, her eyes wild.
“Blonde hair? Fair skin and fairer hands? Promising to make the soldiers rich? Nyet. You’re royal or I’m an old goat.” He kneeled and began searching the coat of the nearest strelet. “Take them.”
Rehada was nearly ready to run when she felt something press against her legs and groin and chest and neck. She felt it against her skin, along her scalp as her hair was tugged, along her whole body as the air around her seemed to shift.
And then an almighty boom shook the city. The low layer of darkening clouds glowed yellow, then orange, then red. The sound—a conflagration of unimaginable dimensions—continued. A cloud, darker and thicker than the clouds above, rose from the north, from the bridge that had been teeming with the peasant mob and barrels of gunpowder. The cloud rose higher, roiling up until it was caught in the wind. It began drifting eastward toward the sea as the sounds of the explosion finally fell away, replaced with the crackle of fire and human cries of pain and shouts for help.
“Go and see,” Kirill said. “I’ll meet you.”
From the corner of her eye, Rehada saw a dark form filling a doorway. Standing there was a burly man with brown hair and a thick beard. Hidden as he was, only Rehada could see him. He raised one hand to his lips, and then leaned forward until he could see Kirill and the other—the youngest who had remained behind. When he saw that they weren’t looking, that they were concerned with little except their men who were just now walking out of sight, he slipped quietly from the doorway, allowing a black bag to snake down from his left hand. The heft of it made it clear that it was weighted—by sand, perhaps, or small stones.
Quick as summer rain, he rushed forward and swung the bag high in the air. It came crashing down on the crown of the young man’s head. He dropped to the ground immediately. Their savior spun, dodging as Kirill swung the butt of the musket at him. He slipped in around Kirill’s guard and snaked the cloth bag around his neck.
Kirill’s face went red. The sound of his gurgling filled air, barely discernible against the backdrop of the misery at the bridge.
Kirill slumped, and the burly man lowered him down, holding tight until there was no longer any movement coming from the old man.
When he was done, he stood and secreted the bag into his waist-length coat as if it had never existed.
“Quickly,” he said, motioning to his doorway, which still stood open.
Rehada and Atiana stood their ground.
“You’ll not want to be out tonight,” he said, motioning toward the pillar of smoke.
Atiana stared into Rehada’s eyes while shaking her head, the gesture barely noticeable.
“Not everyone sides with the mob,” he said. “My wife, ancients rest her soul, was Vostroman. And I served my time in the guard.” He paused as another, smaller explosion fell over the city. “But do as you wish.” He turned and left, walking through his door and taking a flight of stairs upward.
Atiana looked fearful, echoing Rehada’s own feelings. She had never seen a city in such turmoil, on the islands or anywhere else. The man was right, Rehada decided. They risked death by wandering the streets, and her own home was no longer safe.
Together, they took the stairs up to a simple two-room home. The man was sitting on a rocking chair by the window. The shades were drawn, but every so often he would move one aside and peer out into the night. He appeared to be forty. His shoulders were wide, his hands huge, and with his sleeves rolled up past his elbows, showing thick forearms, he looked like he could pick either of them up with only one arm.
A low fire burned in a fireplace along one wall. Rehada relished the warmth, wishing she could bond with a spirit here and now.
“This night of all nights, what are two women like you doing out?”
Atiana sat on a stool near the hearth, warming her shaking hands, while Rehada settled herself into a creaky wooden chair. Neither answered. They couldn’t. Any sort of answer would do him no good, and would probably put him in more danger if anyone were to find out where they had sheltered for the night.
“That’s probably best,” he said, nodding. “Sleep.” He pointed to an open door. “I’ll wake you before the sun’s up.”
“Thank you,” Atiana said.
A nod was his only reply.
In the morning, he knocked on their door, and they rose and left without ever learning his name.
CHAPTER 43
“Land ahead,” Udra said as she stared over the bow.
Nikandr scanned the horizon and saw an island—perhaps twenty leagues long—so green it looked like an emerald jewel against the sapphire glass of the sea.
“It is Ghayavand,” Nikandr said, remembering it from his dreams.
Ashan’s skiff, less than a league ahead, began to descend. The island loomed much larger now, and for a moment the skiff was lost among the darker colors of the island’s forests. Nikandr felt uncomfortable following so closely. Ashan had had his way with them, but that didn’t mean it had to be so now, here at the end.
“Take us around the island,” he said to Jahalan and Udra. “I would have a look before we see what Ashan has in store.”
Jahalan nodded and moved toward the mainmast, but before he could reach it he reeled and doubled over, grabbing his gut as he fell to the deck. The same thing happened to Udra.
Nikandr kneeled and helped Udra onto her back. “What is it?”
Jahalan was shaking his head back and forth violently, and it was then that Nikandr realized: the alabaster gem within the circlet of white gold no longer held any of the luster it had only moments ago. Somehow the bond they held with their hezhan had been cut off from them.
“My heart,” Udra said, “it’s been ripped from my chest.”
“Worse than that,” Jahalan added.
The ship began to drift downward, twisting in the wind. They were completely at the mercy of Ghayavand.
Nikandr shifted along the gunwale, keeping the island in sight.
Udra uttered a keening, a sad and empty sound in the silence of the sky. She dropped to the deck, her hands patting the surface gently. “Neh!” she moaned.
Nikandr didn’t understand, but moments later he felt a tickle, as if insects were crawling beneath his fingers.The railing before him,its surface puckered and grayed. Small cracks ran along its length. The same was happening to the deck, to the masts, to the spars and the hull.
A cracking sound becam
e audible. It was soft at first but soon the entire ship was alive with it. It became deafening.
An almighty snap—as if the bones of Erahm itself had just been broken—resounded through the ship. Nikandr could feel it through his boots and in his chest. Another snap came, this one just wide of his position. The masts were being sundered.
What in the name of the ancients was happening to his ship?
Another crack, louder than the others, was followed by the scream of a crewman. A sliver the size of a spearhead had pierced his chest. He fell, grasping it hopelessly and wailing from the pain. As something deep within the bowels of the ship gave way, sending a shudder through the ship, the man’s eyes rolled up into his head and he fell unconscious.
Like a blooding, the very life of the ship was being drawn from it. It remained afloat, but it would not last. At any moment it would plummet into the waves to become lost forever among the ceaseless currents of the oceans. Even if they could somehow safely reach the shores of the island, the Gorovna would never fly again.
Before Nikandr could even attempt to understand what was happening, the sounds around him fell away. His breath was drawn from him as if it were his last. His heart fluttered, and his eyelids drooped.
Somewhere far ahead, the skiff they’d been chasing for over a week has touched down.
Nasim stands upon a stone perch, an eyrie crafted in the style of the ancients. He paces its length, moving onto the rocky cliff to which it is affixed and then the wide field of grass beyond. He runs his fingers over the tips of the stalks, allowing them to tickle the palms of his hands. He can feel in that moment every part of the island, every blade of grass, every chittering insect, every breath of wind, every turn of soil. It feels as though he is looking through a window that reveals the land as it was before the Grand Duchy, before the first settlers, before even the Aramahn. It feels pristine.
And still, there is imbalance. Ghayavand is one of many islands, isolated on a shelf in the sea but connected by the water, by the roots of the earth, by the ceaseless currents of the wind. It stands out in its perfection. It has withstood the blight, but the pressure is growing. In time, it too will succumb, and he finds himself saddened.
He pulls back into himself, unable to withstand the pain, but as he does, he senses the prince, the one to whom he was bonded on Hathshava, the island the Landed call Uyadensk. This connection had felt foreign then, wrong, but now it feels right, like a warm fire after days in the cold.
There is something else, as well, a feeling that he has been here before. He is of this place, though he knows not how. The memories are at the very edges of his mind, so close but still out of reach.
Above, among the clouds and the winds, a lone havahezhan dives among the drifts and eddies of the wind. And then it is gone, returned from whence it came.
He follows.
And Nikandr woke.
Someone was screaming his name.
His stomach was churning and turning as if he’d tumbled upside down without realizing it.
He was gripping the railing for support, but it crumbled at the slightest touch. He stared at the desiccated fragments still sticking to his hands, unable to comprehend who he was, where he was. His mind was reeling, not from the physical nature of what was happening around him, but the realization of what he’d just seen. It had been Nasim somewhere on Ghayavand. But the havahezhan... Nikandr knew it—or knew of it, at least. It had been the same hezhan that the Maharraht had summoned on the cliff below Radiskoye, the same one that had attacked him on the maiden voyage of this very ship. But how?
“Nikandr!”
How could that be?
“Nikandr, leap!”
Nikandr shook his head violently.
The ship was diving toward the sea, her nose tipped seaward, the white-capped waves high and moving fast. Jahalan was standing on the windward mainmast, ready to leap free.
Nikandr launched himself toward Jahalan. He fell only a few steps out and slid down the deck as the ship continued to rotate. Jahalan reached for him, but Nikandr shot past.
He managed to leap and grab onto the ratlines leading up to the starward mizzenmast. So brittle was the wood that the mizzen snapped, and he found himself sliding once more.
He struck the forward hull and latched onto it as the ship’s starward masts tipped toward the horizon. “Go!” he commanded.
Both of them leapt just as the ship crashed into the sea.
Bitterly cold water enveloped him as he plunged beneath the waves. Hundreds of feet of rigging and yard upon yard of sail fell around him, occluding his vision. Something bit into his ribs, and began pulling him downward. He pulled himself free, feeling something scrape against his skin as he did so.
He fought for the surface. When he finally broke free of the waves, he drew on the air as if it were the liquor of life itself while wave after wave rolled over him. The spray was high, and it was difficult to see anything but the blue-white waves, but among the flotsam, he thought he saw one of the crew. He swam in that direction, using a barrel that had floated free from the ship. He was nearly exhausted by the time he reached him.
It was Viggen. He was face-down in the water, and Nikandr knew as he turned him over that he was dead.
“Jahalan!”
He screamed his name again and again.
A short while later he heard a muffled cry for help behind him. He turned in the water, seeing nothing for a moment, but then he saw a form beneath a swath of canvas that was still attached to the mast. He swam, fighting the waves with every stroke, and felt something strike his leg beneath the water. He dove under, and saw the long white tail of a serpent slither into the dark.
He regained his breath and then sucked in one last intake before heading under. He kicked beneath the rigging and reached Jahalan, who was caught beneath the sail. His movements were frantic. Nikandr could see that he was trapped in a mass of ropes and netting, and the struggling was only making things worse.
He pulled the kindjal from the sheath at his belt and with his free hand began to pull some of the ropes away. He hoped that once Jahalan realized he was here to help he would stop thrashing. He did a moment later, but Nikandr realized it was because he had fallen unconscious.
He sawed at the ropes that would not come free easily, but in his haste, he cut Jahalan’s thigh. His thoughts turned to the white serpent, but the best thing he could do now was to free Jahalan and swim for the island.
Above them, the ship rolled further. The sails were pulled down on top of them, dragging them beneath the surface.
The water was dark, making it difficult to see, so he swam deeper, the only clear way to get out. He kicked away from the ship, hoping he could distance them enough that they could clear the sails.
His lungs burned. His legs and arms and chest screamed from the struggle to gain distance. But he kept going.
His breath finally gave, and he had no choice but to surface. More rigging blocked his path, but here it was sparse, and he managed to drag Jahalan through it.
He broke the surface, but not before taking in a lungful of salty water. He released long, wracking coughs. While supporting Jahalan’s head to his chest, he leaned back into the water and kicked away from the ship.
“Jahalan?”
The only reply was the high wind whipping the tips of the cold white waves against his face.
“Jahalan, can you hear me?”
He wasn’t breathing.
A goodly portion of a mast lay nearby. Nikandr reached it, and although it was cracking and brittle, it held well enough for him to lay Jahalan over it. He squeezed Jahalan’s chest and forced the water from his lungs while trying to prevent him from slipping back beneath the waves.
“Jahalan, wake up!”
When no more water came up, he slapped Jahalan’s back, slapped his cheeks, while continuing to call to him.
Suddenly Jahalan coughed and shook his head violently, then sucked in a rasping lungful of air.
; Nikandr held him tight to the wood lest he take in more water. “Calm down,” Nikandr said, “you’re fine.”
“I am”—he coughed for a long minute—“anything but fine.”
Nikandr could have laughed. It felt good, even among all this madness, to have his friend with him, alive. He guided Jahalan toward shore. The majority of the ship still lay on the surface behind them, but it was breaking apart from the action of the waves and the brittle nature of the wood.
What in the name of the ancients were they going to do now? Were Ashan and Nasim—
Suddenly Jahalan was pulled beneath the water. When he resurfaced, he let out an excited shout, and Nikandr felt something cold slide along his left leg. Nikandr kicked violently, hoping to scare the serpent away, at least for a time.
“My leg!” Jahalan screamed.
“I know.” Nikandr pulled his kindjal again and watched the water closely. “Just keep moving.”
“I can’t.”
“Keep moving or these waters will see the death of us.”
Jahalan moaned and grit his teeth, but he kicked, and with Nikandr’s help, they made progress against the incessant waves.
The head of the serpent glided through the water toward them. He dove below and stabbed, but the serpent broke off and swam away.
When he came up, however, the image in his mind made his breath come doubly fast.
“What?” Jahalan’s eyes were wide and frightened.
“Nothing,” Nikandr lied. In that brief moment, he’d seen three other serpents gliding through the water, waiting for their chance to come for blood.
CHAPTER 44
“Just keep moving,” Nikandr said.
They swam, Nikandr spending more time under the water than above. Jahalan knew what was happening—it was impossible not to—but he did not understand the full extent of it. There were no less than eight of them, Nikandr realized after a short while.
The waters around them were for the time being blessedly free of the serpents. He found out why only a short while later. He heard a panicked shout. Using his legs to kick as he crested a wave, he saw nearly a dozen survivors swimming together. A straggler was yanked downward. He didn’t even have time to scream, but a moment later he resurfaced and his shrieks rent the air. He was tugged downward two more times, and he screamed for help the entire time. Two crewmen swam toward him, but before they could come close the man who’d been singled out by the serpents was dragged under. He was not seen again.
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