With Blood Upon the Sand

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  “Carefully, I hope,” Hamid said.

  “As a toad betwixt the legs of a crane. I found his escort, those three Spears, standing outside Grivalden’s.” Grivalden’s was one of the more famous auction houses in Sharakhai. It catered not only to the to the richest families in the city, but also to caravan masters, dignitaries, visiting lords and ladies come to steal fruit from the tree of Sharakhai before returning home.

  “So what?” Hamid snapped. “Layth needs to offload his goods somewhere. The man might have the temperament of Goezhen’s children, but that doesn’t mean Grivalden’s wouldn’t be happy to sell Layth’s goods, as long as they’re the highest quality.”

  “All true, but that’s why I followed them. Haluk ordered one of the Spears to return to tell Layth that the crates had been delivered, then Layth and the other two went to a brothel along the Waxen Way. I spoke to the madam and, after a bit of convincing, she let me speak to Layth’s girl.”

  Hamid stared at him. He snapped his fingers. “Just like that?”

  Emre had no idea what had happened at the ship, but he was getting sick and tired of the prodding. “What can I say? She’s a friend.”

  “You expect us to believe that she betrayed a client because the two of you are friends?”

  Emre shrugged. “I may have applied other sorts of pressure.”

  A sly smile came over Macide. “Emre, did you whore yourself to that woman?” When Emre was silent, Macide reared his head back and laughed. “Well, I’d heard the women go weak in the knees when you’re around, but I had no idea they’d abandon their beliefs at the mere thought of sharing a bed with you.” He laughed again, and this time, Emre joined in. Hamid watched them with a look of sufferance, as if he were embarrassed for the both of them.

  “In truth,” Emre said, “she wanted to tell me. Haluk treats the girls roughly, but with Layth’s shadow protecting him, there’s nothing she can do. After a few suggestions that Haluk’s days in the Spears might be numbered were we to get the right sort of information, she agreed.”

  Hamid sneered. “Just tell us what the girl said.”

  At this, Macide gave Hamid a sidelong glance, but then he nodded to Emre to come to the end of his tale.

  “The girl told me that Haluk was bragging about the drop-off. He said he’d return tomorrow after picking up Layth’s share of the sale, a piece of which would go to Haluk.”

  Macide was intent on Emre now. “He may have been referring to Layth’s cut after Grivalden’s takes their share.”

  “That’s what I thought, but according to the girl, Layth kept going on about how much bigger it would be if it wasn’t being split four ways.”

  “Four ways,” Macide echoed.

  Emre counted them off on his fingers. “Layth, Haluk, Grivalden’s”—he held on the last, pinching his finger—“and a fourth.”

  Hamid’s face had finally lost its look of annoyance. It had been replaced by a contemplative look, a calculating look. “Haluk picks up the goods so no one thinks to track them, and Layth sells them at auction and splits the proceeds for Aziz. I have to admit, it’s cunning.”

  Emre nodded. “Now the question is, where are those proceeds going?”

  “We have to get into Grivalden’s,” Hamid said.

  Macide knocked his ring on the table, much as his father, Ishaq, had done in the ricksha. “Leave that to me.” He stood, but before he left he bent over, grabbed the back of Emre’s neck, and kissed him on the forehead. “You’ve done well.” He leaned over to Hamid and did the same to him. “You both have.” And then he was heading for the door. “We’ll speak soon.”

  Left in Macide’s wake was not only bright optimism over what Emre had found but also the sour stench of Hamid’s mood. The two of them stared at one another for a time, the drone of conversation drifting between them.

  “You going to tell me what happened on the ship?”

  “Not a chance in the great, wide desert, Emre.”

  Emre took up the bottle of araq and filled Hamid’s glass. “Then at least share a drink with me. We’re alive. And we’re one step closer.”

  A common refrain in the Host.

  Hamid looked as if he were going to throw the araq in Emre’s face, but then something inside him broke. He laughed quietly and picked up his glass in a toast. Their glasses met with an unimpressive clunk, so Hamid slammed the two together a second time, splashing a bit of the liquor, then downed the whole glass and poured another.

  “Did you really bed her?” he asked, a smile breaking over his face.

  Emre shrugged. “It was all for the cause, Hamid. All for the cause.”

  “Such a committed young man.”

  “Such a terrible sacrifice, but someone had to do it.”

  Hamid laughed, loud and long, like he used to, and like when they were young, it surprised the hell out of Emre. “Let’s hear it, then. What was she like?”

  “What’s there to say?” Emre asked. He began with the shape of her hips.

  Emre walked blindfolded, his hand on Hamid’s shoulder, as Macide led the two of them through the warrens beneath Sharakhai. They’d been walking for nearly an hour along cold, damp tunnels. Macide had insisted on the blindfolds, a thing Emre had immediately agreed to while Hamid balked.

  “It’s for your own protection,” Macide said, implying that the very knowledge might make Hamid a target of the Kings or perhaps of the Maidens.

  And Hamid had agreed.

  For most of the way the only sound was that of their own scuffing footsteps, but occasionally they heard water dripping in the distance. A musty, mineral scent filled the air, but there was something else, a floral scent of some sort. He didn’t mind the blindfold so much. It was the feeling of being so deep beneath the city. It felt like any moment now, they’d fall into some crevice, trapping them until they died of thirst or hunger.

  “It’s safe now,” Macide finally said. “You can take them off.”

  Emre did, and his terror eased. Macide was holding a dim lantern, guiding their way, but to Emre’s surprise he found that he could see the tunnel by the light thrown from the purple moss that grew here and there. He stopped and ran his fingers over one of the patches. It flaked away like ash, the purple glowing brightly for a moment, then dimming like cooling embers. Beneath the moss was what looked to be thin roots. Did moss have roots? He had no idea. But the moss was definitely the source of the floral scent.

  “Come,” Hamid barked.

  Emre hurried to catch up. They soon came to a natural cave. Another lantern was lit inside, lighting the cave’s rounded interior like a star caught in a bottle made of greenish-gray glass. On a mound of rock, sitting just next to the lantern, was Ishaq, Macide’s father.

  “Well met,” Ishaq said, smiling a wan smile. His voice had come in a croak, and he seemed to be favoring his right side, as if he were curling around a wound, protecting it. As they came closer, Macide went to him and kissed him on the crown of his head, much as he’d done with Emre and Hamid in The Jackal’s Tail three nights ago. When Macide went to another mound nearby and set his lantern upon it, Emre saw the abrasions on Ishaq’s face, and the cut beneath his eye. His right hand was wrapped with a blood-stained bandage. The blood looked fresh.

  “My lord, what happened?” Emre asked.

  “A rather blunt reminder that the Kings are not to be trifled with. But this desert lynx seems to have retained his hide one more time.” His eyes were defiant, but his voice was melancholy, as if he knew how narrowly he’d escaped the Confessor King’s rack. “Perhaps for the final time, but that’s nothing to worry about now. There is news to discuss. Plans to make.” He motioned to Macide with his good left hand. “Tell them.”

  “The day after we spoke, I had an agent of ours, a gifted actress, go to Grivalden’s and pose as a buyer. She went the day after as well, and the day after that. A
nd that’s when she saw the crates you described brought out on display for the elite crowd. Inside were shark teeth, perfect specimens, prized in Mirea especially, but also in Malasan and Kundhun. The two crates fetched a very healthy sum. As the bidding was winding down, our agent lost herself in the upper floor of the auction house and emerged late that night to examine the register. There were three entries beneath the sale. One notated the amount owed the auction house itself. One notated the amount owed to the Lord Commander of the Silver Spears. And the third listed the amount owed to a vizir, Xaldis, the most loyal servant to King Alaşan.” Alaşan was King Külaşan’s son, the one who’d been elevated to his father’s throne after Külaşan’s death.

  Emre looked from Macide to Ishaq to Hamid. Hamid looked as confused as Emre felt, but Ishaq watched the two of them, waiting for them to piece together the clues. His first thought was that Layth simply owed Alaşan some debt or allegiance, but if that were so, Macide and Ishaq wouldn’t have mentioned it at all.

  And then the threads, so loose a moment ago, all wrapped together into a nice, tight weave. “Lord Aziz is funneling money to Alaşan, the son of Külaşan. And Hamzakiir is also Külaşan’s son. He and Alaşan are brothers. But why would Alaşan be in league with Hamzakiir? Blood isn’t a strong enough reason to betray the other Kings.”

  “All true, except for the fact that Alaşan isn’t a King,” Hamid said, his eyes distant, flitting in thought. “He’s King in name only.”

  When Emre shrugged, confused, Ishaq broke in. “Alaşan has been shunned by the other Kings. He is looked upon as a poor imitation of his father, hardly better than an actor wearing clothes too big for him. They give him no say in matters of state. They give him a fraction of what had, for four hundred years, been Külaşan’s share from the city’s treasury.”

  “What, then, is a bold young King to do?” Macide continued. “He cannot stand against eleven others. May as well take a knife to his wrists and give himself back to the desert. But what if he were approached by another son of his father? What if he were promised a piece of the city when the other son stood alone atop Tauriyat?”

  “Especially if he were a man like Hamzakiir,” Emre said.

  “Especially so,” Macide replied.

  There was an odd sort of glee building inside Emre. “It’s beginning to happen. They’re eating themselves from within.”

  “That may be true, but Hamzakiir’s deceit cannot stand,” Hamid said. “If he is not a servant of the Al’afwa Khadar, then he is an enemy.”

  “You’ll find no arguments here,” Ishaq replied. “But there are enemies and there are enemies. For the time being, our interests and Hamzakiir’s align. There is much to do in Ishmantep. We cannot abandon our plans after all we’ve set into motion, not unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

  “There will be no repercussions, then?” Emre asked.

  “You take me for a fool. If we do nothing, others will be tempted to do as Lord Aziz is doing, putting money toward a cause they consider likely to survive me. They may already be doing so. An example must be made of Aziz so that others will reconsider their allegiances.”

  “And to give Hamzakiir pause,” Macide added.

  Emre’s mind was afire. “But you don’t want to jeopardize what’s happening in Ishmantep?”

  Ishaq nodded, his face cragged in shadow. “You have thoughts?”

  “I do,” Emre said. “I do.”

  Chapter 35

  IT WAS JUST PAST HIGH SUN WHEN ÇEDA knocked on Dardzada’s door. Soon the floorboards creaked. The heavy clomp of footsteps neared. The door flew wide, and Dardzada, his ample frame filling a voluminous thawb of orange and red, stared at her, his mouth agape. His eyes lingered on the bloody knuckles of her hands, and he frowned, but then he said, “Come,” and laid a meaty hand on her shoulder to usher her inside.

  She shrugged his hand off and stepped within the shaded confines of his shop. As Dardzada closed the door behind her, she passed from the front of the apothecary—a selling space with shelf upon shelf of medicinal wares—to the workroom, where she immediately took up the ladle from the tall clay water urn and drank. She had a headache she hadn’t been able to shake since leaving Yndris in the streets of Roseridge, a thing she was feeling low about. Lower than she’d felt in a long while.

  She deserved it, the asir whispered in her mind. She deserves worse.

  Çeda said nothing in return, closing her mind to the asir as well as she was able, feeling the fool for reaching out to it in the first place. Thankfully, the asir’s mind fell silent. She could feel it, though, waiting like an assassin in a darkened doorway.

  After drinking her fill, she poured more water into an empty bowl. Taking a clean rag from a pile Dardzada always kept underneath his worktable, she dipped it in the water and set to cleaning the dried mixture of her own and Yndris’s blood from the backs of her hands. Gods, how am I going to explain this to Sümeya?

  Occupying the broad wooden table were seven packages, each wrapped in muslin and tied with twine. The packages were innocent enough—Dardzada had such things delivered all over the city—but taken with the clues throughout the room, they told a very interesting story.

  In a wooden pail in the corner were several dozen spent stalks of green charo, the same infernal stalks she’d milked day after day for Dardzada years ago. She could also see brownish-orange peelings from a root, fox’s clote. The root itself would have been minced and boiled and mixed with goat fat to form an ointment that would fight even the worst infections. The air smelled of beef broth and pistachios, both evidence of the restorative Dardzada was famed for. Most interesting, though, was a white ceramic bowl, for within it were the bodies of dozens of bright blue spiders the size of Dardzada’s fat nose. Grimbrides, they were called, for their kiss was deadly, but mixed in the right amounts they made a hallucinogenic tonic that made one feel invincible before eventually causing death. Her suspicions were confirmed when she picked up the scent of truffles from inside a nearby box. As she’d suspected, inside were dozens of blackcaps, an ingredient that prolonged the effects of the spider’s poison so that it would work for hours instead of minutes. All the ingredients for devil’s trumpet.

  It was a recipe few in Sharakhai knew, for it had long been banned by the Twelve Kings, though the tribesmen had been using it for centuries. If imbibed before a battle, the tonic would leave the one who took it nearly insane with rage. It could lead a warrior to fantastic, nearly impossible feats of human endurance, but it meant death for the one who took it. Even if they survived the battle, the toxins would do their work in the hours that followed, slowly but surely leading them to their grave.

  How very sad it’s come to this, Çeda thought.

  It was a desperate concoction made for desperate times. Few in Sharakhai would take it, but many in the Moonless Host were fanatical enough to with but a word from Macide. Çeda had guessed that the tonic had been used in the abduction of the collegia graduates. And now here was more. Why? What would Macide think important enough to again sacrifice his soldiers in such a way?

  As Dardzada stepped into the workroom, Çeda leaned to one side to peer over his shoulder toward the front door. “When are they coming?”

  Dardzada took two lumbering steps into the room, crossed his arms, and rested his belly against the worktable across from her, a sight that brought on a wave of nostalgia so strong Çeda felt the same pangs of regret and sorrow over the loss of her mother as she’d had back then.

  He motioned to her hands. “What’s happened?”

  “A bit of sparring,” Çeda replied. He seemed ill-pleased by the answer, but let it pass without a biting reply. “The collegia,” she continued. “I was there. Dozens dead. Men and women sacrificed by Macide.” She waved to the table. “And here, another massacre to come.”

  At this, the strangest thing happened. Dardzada had never had trouble meeting Çeda’s
gaze, most often with a frown like an angry bull. But now he stared at the table as though it were a rock, a thing to save him from the tempest. “I don’t know why the gods have seen fit to deliver you here today of all days, but there are things I would share with you. Things that may keep you safe.”

  “Go on,” she prompted.

  He paused, gathering words. “I was sent to Sharakhai with my father when I was twelve. I’m still here, living in this city by leave of Ishaq, because I’m valuable where I am, because I keep my mouth shut, because I honor the way things have to be. The Al’afwa Khadar is a living thing. Like a grand tree, there are boughs and branches that strike at the Kings. When they’re cut, new ones grow. Over time, they flourish and split, creating new branches. But there is another part that lies beneath the ground. A vast part. A part that plots. A part that waits. It is the part that nourishes the branches and the leaves. I am one of these. A root. And I’ve long been resolved to that. What I want you to see, the thing you’ve never understood, is that you are too. Or you could be. You have found your way by the grace of the old ones into the House of the Kings. Be content with that. Work with Zaïde. Work with Amalos. Feed your information to us that we may feed the parts of the Host that need it. Do that, and we may strike at the very heart of the Kings.”

  “No matter what you think, I am not one of the Host.”

  Dardzada shrugged. “What does that matter in the end? You could help us. We’ve already helped you, and will continue to do so.”

  The very thought of her help leading toward another slaughter like what she’d seen at the collegia made her stomach turn. She felt a strange sort of hunger from the asir, an urge to tear at those like the Silver Spears and the Blade Maidens who protected the Kings. It made her feel all the worse.

  Dardzada was right, though. As much as she might hate the actions of the Host, there was no denying they supported her, and had been for a long while. Together, Dardzada and Zaïde had saved her life—as much as Dardzada had been unwilling to let it happen at first, he arranged for her entry into the House of Maidens. “I make no promises until I’ve heard what you have to say.”