With Blood Upon the Sand

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  “I must get to that ship,” Çeda said aloud, though no one heard her. I must. But breath of the desert, how to reach it?

  Below, a great yell went up as one corner of the Silver Spears’ line gave way to the surging crowd. A group of shouting men and women surged forward to reach the wall. Those at the head of the crowd pressed themselves against it. Others were helped onto their shoulders, and then a third row of their growing pyramid was added, all in the hope of reaching the lowest of the dead hanging from their ropes.

  Çeda turned to Melis. “Come with me. We must reach that ship!”

  Melis signed back, Why?

  What could she say? What could she say to make Melis lend her strength and skill to the effort? “There’s something aboard it.”

  Another sign. What?

  And Çeda could only shake her head. “I don’t know. But I know if we don’t reach it, we will die.”

  Melis hesitated.

  Çeda pulled her veil away so that Melis could see her, could read her earnestness. “I don’t know how I know,” Çeda said, “but I tell you it is true.”

  Melis’s face was veiled, but Çeda saw her eyebrows pinch. She glanced to Kameyl, who had taken note of the exchange. “Come,” Melis said to her. “Our sister has need.”

  To Çeda’s utter surprise, Kameyl nodded and turned toward Yndris, as if to let her know as well.

  “Leave her,” Çeda said.

  Yndris had taken up a bow and was shooting down indiscriminately, a hungry look in her eyes. Her father’s blood. Çeda had half a mind to rip the bow from her hands, or better yet, kick her off the tower, but there was nothing to do about her now. The faster they acted, the fewer would die on both sides.

  Çeda slipped over the side and down one of the ropes. Melis and Kameyl followed, Melis sliding down the rope to her left, Kameyl on her right. When they came to a stop twenty feet above the crowd, the crowd took note, their calls shifting as they pointed toward the three descending Maidens. Rocks rained in, a few striking painfully.

  “They think we’re coming to aide the Spears,” Çeda said, “so leap as far away as you can manage and then make for the sands. Use no blades. Only scabbards. Once we push beyond them, we’ll circle back to the ship.”

  Melis nodded.

  Kameyl said, “I hope you know what you’re doing, young dove,” and then kicked away from the wall in a twisting, backward leap. Çeda and Melis followed, the three of them landing close to one another near the edge of the crowd, well beyond the safety of the Silver Spears. They pushed for the sand, but many in the crowd followed them, trying to hem them in. A chaos of yelling and hands grabbing and legs kicking followed. Çeda felt their closeness as much as she heard them. She returned punches and kicks, swiping with a sheathed River’s Daughter—anything to gain some small space from those pressing in around her. She fell once, but screamed in rage and fear and was up again in a moment. She caught sight of Kameyl spinning, punching, kicking in all directions. A blur. But she couldn’t find Melis.

  She saw her a moment later, lying on the ground, a dozen around her kicking fiercely.

  “Lai, lai, lai!” Çeda cried, bulling her way toward Melis. She managed to reach her, to try to lift her up, but then she was grabbed from behind. She fought to free herself as another seized her sword arm. The man behind her slipped his arm around her neck. She lowered herself, driving back to gain leverage, then flipped him over her shoulder, but more were already pressing in.

  Beyond the row surrounding her, an ebon blade flashed. The crowd, which had been shouting triumphantly, screamed and backed away. It was Sümeya, Çeda realized. She’d come from the base of the tower and was forging a path with ebon steel. “What by the gods are you doing?” she asked when she reached them.

  “I’ll explain later,” Çeda said. “Just help us reach open sand.”

  Çeda didn’t wait for acknowledgment. She drew River’s Daughter, for the threat it posed more than anything else, and held the wooden scabbard in her off hand. When anyone came too close, she used her scabbard to ward them away. She worked her way to Kameyl, Sümeya and Melis guarding her flanks, and then together the four of them fought their way free to the edge of the quay and down to the harbor’s sandy floor.

  “There!” Çeda said, pointing at the two barquentines and the pier between them.

  Sheathing their swords, they sprinted across the sand. Çeda was the first to reach the pier. She felt sure Nalamae would be long gone, and yet there she was, stepping down into the hold of the ship on her left.

  “Wait!” Çeda sprinted toward the gangplanks that led to the ships. As she reached the deck of the ship, she was struck by a sound she’d thought she’d never hear again. It was nearly drowned out by the roar around the tower, but she could hear it, the sounds of birds chirping. She dropped down through the hatch. “Goddess?” she whispered, praying the Maidens behind her wouldn’t hear.

  But she saw no sign of Nalamae. She found instead a hold brimming with stack upon stack of bamboo cages. Birds flitted within, easily tens of thousands of them, and they were all bright blue. Tufts of blue down and feathers littered the hold. Black and white shit layered the bottom of the cages. The combined sound of their chirping and the fluttering of their wings as they flitted about their cages was deafening.

  Melis, Kameyl, and Sümeya dropped in just behind her. All three stared in wonder.

  “Blazing blues,” Melis said.

  “A sign of peace,” Sümeya offered.

  Çeda nodded, dumbfounded, and drew River’s Daughter once more. “Open the cages. All of them.” Then she began slicing at the leather strips that held the cages shut.

  The cages opened easily, the blazing blues fluttering into the hold and finally out through the hatch. She desperately wanted them all out, but there were so many. So very many.

  The four of them freed more and more, throwing aside cages once the blues had flown out. They worked feverishly. The birds had gone strangely silent, as if they didn’t wish to interrupt, but then chirped as they headed out the hatch and lifted toward freedom. The rice and water that had been set into each cage was scattered over the floor as the Maidens’ ebon blades rose and fell, until finally it was done. The last of the blues flew up and out from the hold.

  “Quickly now”—Çeda pointed to the far side of the hold—“grab a sack of rice and follow me.”

  Çeda hoisted one over her shoulder and took the ladder up to the deck. Above, the cloud of blazing blues were circling, but in no time at all they might leave. She dragged her sack of rice to the front of the ship, sliced it open, and began flinging it over the crowd. Kameyl, Melis, and Sümeya followed suit, cutting open their own sacks and throwing handfuls of rice as far as they could.

  The first of the blues dropped, and then the air around them was a tempest of wings. The air became thick with them, occluding the sight of the tower. The Silver Spears in their white uniforms, the Maidens in their black, the patchwork of the crowd, all of it cast varying shades of blue as the birds dove for the rice.

  It was so very different from the time she’d gone with her mother to the salt flat and seen these birds for the first time, but still, Çeda held a hand up as she had then, over a dozen years ago. The birds came, pecking at the rice lying on her outstretched palm. Dozens swept around her, but she felt only the barest touch of their beaks, the wind from their beating wings. Near the tower, the roar of the crowd grew quiet, then quieter still, until all she could hear were the blazing blues, their cobalt wings winking across their iridescent black breasts, making them look like a field of rapidly blinking eyes.

  How long the feeding went on Çeda couldn’t say. She merely held herself still and prayed the bloodshed would end. She prayed too that her mother might be doing the very same thing in the farther fields, feeding her own flock of birds as Çeda was doing now. After all, it seemed the sort of thing tha
t might draw her mother’s eye, a memory as strong as this one.

  Eventually the storm of wings began to diminish, and then all at once they were gone, the flock flying up into the evening sky like a billowing cloud of smoke. It drifted northeast, over the city, and soon was gone, leaving a stunned silence in its wake.

  At the tower, the Spears and the Maidens held their weapons loosely, staring at the crowd, ready to fight but clearly reluctant to do so. The crowd, on the other hand, looked shocked, as if they’d only then realized what they’d done, the sort of danger all of them were now in.

  They began to break at the edges. Just as the actions of a handful had spurred the entire crowd into action, so did the choice of some few to flee. Soon everyone was running away, melting back into the city, leaving the wounded and the dead behind.

  Then at last, the Maidens and the Spears were alone, with the dead on the ground and the dead they’d strung up.

  Chapter 26

  IHSAN SAT BEHIND HIS DESK AS TOLOVAN led the lithe form of King Azad, followed by the husky frame of King Zeheb, into his chambers. Tolovan had set two additional chairs by Ihsan’s side for the other Kings, and they sat as Tolovan bowed and left the room then returned shortly with the young Maiden, Çedamihn. Instead of her Maiden’s dress, she wore a bright blue jalabiya, her hair braided and wrapped into a bun behind her head, two hair-pins holding it in place. She looked very Mirean.

  “Please,” Ihsan said, motioning to the chair opposite his desk.

  “Of course, my Lord King,” Çeda said. “How may I help?”

  Again Ihsan noted how far she’d come. Months ago she would have stared at them all wide-eyed, a frightened little doe, but here she was, sitting before three Kings, knowing a questioning was to come, and she hardly batted an eye. There were still nerves—Ihsan could see it in the tightness of her frame—but she’d become more and more adept at disguising it.

  “We wish, as you may have guessed, to speak to you of the riot.”

  “I am an open book.”

  Ihsan had to hide a smile at this. Ihsan knew many of her secrets, as did Azad and Zeheb, but Çeda didn’t know that. He took a piece of paper with fine writing on it, an account of Çeda’s recollection of the events on the day of the riot.

  “As you reported it, you and three of your fellow Maidens left the relative safety of the tower and made your way to the open sand of the harbor. That done, you returned to a pier where a ship carrying hundreds of birds bound for Malasan was moored. Upon finding them, you and the others freed the birds in an attempt to quell the crowd.”

  Çeda bowed her head. “All true, Excellence.”

  “What you did not report was why you chose to leave the safety of the tower in the first place.”

  “My Lord Kings, we were headed for a massacre. I wished to avert it.”

  “To avert it.”

  “To shake it. To make the ground rumble, as my mother used to say. I wished to lift the crowd above their blood thirst however I could.”

  “This is ridiculous.” Zeheb shifted in his chair, which groaned beneath his weight. “How did you know the blazing blues were in that ship?”

  “I saw one escaping from the hold, Excellence.”

  Azad stared. “You left the tower because you saw a lone bird flying from the hold of a ship.”

  Çeda nodded. “The blues are prized in Malasan, and the ship was flying Malasan’s colors. It didn’t take much to realize the hold must be full of them.”

  “It seems a desperate act,” Azad said.

  “It was a desperate moment.”

  “But to risk your life, and the life of your fellow Maidens so.”

  Çeda opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it. Her eyes roamed, searching for the right words. “I hope you’ll forgive me the question, my Lord Kings, but do you deal very much with children?”

  A vision came to Ihsan, of a girl placing her small, soft hands in his. His own daughter, her eyes bright, her smile brighter. “Presume, for the moment, that we don’t.”

  “You see, there are times when children become lost in thought. Sometimes in happiness, sometimes in fear, sometimes in anger. They can become so fixated on those things that it feeds on itself. Fear becomes terror. Anger becomes mania. I should know. I was once a very angry child. Sometimes I still am.” At this, Azad chuckled. “Sometimes it is all you can do to convince them otherwise,” Çeda went on. “Fighting fear by telling them there’s nothing to be afraid of only draws their attention to the thing they were afraid of in the first place. And anger, if you’re not careful, can turn to violence.”

  “Get to your point,” Zeheb groused.

  “Crowds like the one at the tower have often devolved. They’re no longer thinking as adults do but as their baser selves. I’ve found that if you can approach that anger from another direction, you can often douse the fire before it grows worse.”

  “Reasonable enough words when spoken from the comfort of a King’s palace,” Ihsan said, “and yet you must admit it seems quite convenient that those birds lay in wait for you.”

  “Not convenient, my Lord Kings. Those birds were a gift from the gods themselves. They meant for the riot to disperse.”

  “What gods?” Ihsan asked.

  Çeda merely shrugged. “Who am I to say?”

  “A report was given by one of the Silver Spears near the barquentine where you found the birds. He said he’d seen a tall woman with blond plaited hair. She walked not with the crowd, but across them, much as you describe cutting across a child’s anger to blunt their emotions.”

  Ihsan let the words hang, leaving the question unasked. Allowing a witness to fill in the question often told him as much about them as their answers. To her credit, Çeda said nothing. She raised her eyebrows as if she were confused. An act, he was sure, but a good one. He was half tempted to compel her to speak of that day, but he didn’t wish to share his power with Çeda just yet. It was blunted when used on those with blood of the thirteenth tribe, and faded the more it was used. Which was part of the reason he preferred playing this game without such things; one never knew who was a descendant of the tribe and who wasn’t.

  “Did you see such a woman?” Ihsan finally asked.

  “Forgive me, Excellence, but I did not.”

  Azad leaned into his chair, fingering the carnelian necklace hanging around his neck. “Why did you leave your fellow Maiden, Yndris Cahil’ava, alone on the roof of the tower?”

  For the first time, Çeda’s mask slipped, but only for a moment. “She was hardly alone, my Lord King. There were a dozen others there with her.”

  “Don’t quibble. She alone from your hand remained while the rest of you dropped to the sand.”

  “There was simply no time. It all happened so quickly.”

  “And yet you had time to inform two other Maidens on the roof of that tower to join you in your quest.”

  “True, your Grace, but they were close to hand. Yndris was otherwise engaged.”

  “With a bow,” Azad supplied.

  “With a bow.” Her face went stonelike. “Shooting into the crowd.”

  “You disapprove of her methods?” Azad pressed.

  “I never said so, your Grace.”

  “And I never said you did. I’m asking you now. Do you disapprove of Yndris’s methods?”

  “They seemed, at the time, overzealous.”

  “And you disapprove of zealotry?”

  “Forgive me, my Kings, but you are asking me to speak plainly, so I will. There are times to use the steel edge of a sword, to keep the peace, to drive away our enemies with the righteousness of the gods leading us, but there are other times when blood only begets more blood. I felt the riot was one of the latter. Yndris did not.”

  For a time, all three Kings were silent. Azad seemed displeased; no surprise given his alter ego’s
connection to the Blade Maidens. Zeheb gave away little, but seemed ready for this audience to be over. For Ihsan’s part, his estimation of Çedamihn Ahyanesh’ala had just risen several notches.

  “Very well,” Ihsan said. “That will be all.”

  To which Çeda bowed and left the room.

  “Do you believe her,” Zeheb asked after she’d left and the door had been closed, “that she did not see Nalamae?”

  “Of course I don’t,” Ihsan said. “I’m convinced the goddess has returned, and have few doubts she guided Çeda to that ship. What I’m more interested in is that fact that Nalamae seems content to let things play as they will.”

  Zeheb frowned. “You call her actions at the tower playing as it will?”

  Ihsan shrugged. “A notable exception, to be sure, but you can’t deny that, thus far, she’s kept her nose out of our business.”

  “That could change at any time,” Zeheb replied.

  “Granted.”

  For a time they were silent, considering. “Should we tell Kiral what we’ve found?” Azad asked.

  Now there was a question. If Nalamae was becoming active again in the city, what might it mean for the House of Kings and their entwined futures? More importantly, what might it mean to Ihsan’s plans? “I think, for now, it would be best if we kept it to ourselves.”

  “Very well.” Azad stood, smoothing down his fine green-and-ivory khalat. “Can we move on to other business? I have much to do.”

  “Ah,” Ihsan said, standing and motioning the two other Kings toward the arched entrance to the halls, “that is exactly why I asked to hold this meeting here. If you would be so good as to accompany me?”

  They left, heading down the grand, vaulting hallway. They followed it to the towering atrium at the center of the palace, and from there wound their way down six levels until they came to a cold hall lit by oil lanterns spaced along its considerable length. Two of Ihsan’s personal guard stood there, bowing as the Kings walked past. When they came to a door, Ihsan unlocked it and entered. Inside was a man wearing a simple thawb. The top of his head was bald. The wild gray hair that grew along the sides and back was unkempt. He had a purple scab on his forehead, scrapes on his nose and left cheek, but otherwise looked unharmed.