When Jackals Storm the Walls

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  “Dardzada!” she screamed, and ran from the cabin. “Dardzada!”

  He came storming in moments later and loomed over Emre. “Emre?” His breath smelled of cumin. He had bits of what looked like cooked egg yolk in his beard. “Emre, can you hear me?”

  “I—” His voice was a hinge in desperate need of oil. He swallowed and tried again. “I can hear you.”

  Dardzada poured him a mug of water and helped him sit. “Here,” he said, lifting the mug to Emre’s lips.

  He drank. His throat hurt, but it went down well enough. Dardzada backed away, his look a perfectly forged alloy of befuddlement, surprise, and joy. Beside him, Clara stared in stunned silence.

  “Well?” Dardzada asked. “How do you feel?”

  Emre dared a touch of his fingers to the back of his head. Feeling the bandages, he slipped them off and felt the stubble skin of his scalp and the stitches Dardzada had applied. “I feel . . . magnificent!”

  “Any pain?”

  “Some,” he said, “just here around the wound.”

  “Your headache?”

  For months the pain had been a constant companion—its absence felt almost absurd. “Gone,” he said, “all of it.”

  Dardzada was shaking his head in wonder. “Are you dizzy? Sick to your stomach?”

  Emre shook his head. “I could do with a bit of rice. Or, come to think of it, a whole platter of it.”

  Dardzada smiled and fetched him a bowl of grapes. “The rice will have to wait,” he said.

  There was the sound of industry outside the ship. Emre had spent half his youth in and around the harbors of Sharakhai, especially the poor western harbor. It sounded just like that. Workmen calling. Winches lifting. The rattle of wagons along wooden piers and stone quays. There was even a desert heron singing its lonely call.

  “Where are we?” Emre asked.

  Dardzada was jotting down notes in a journal at the desk. “Mazandir,” he said off-handedly.

  And then it all came back in a rush. The purpose of the caravan. The queen they were set to meet. Hamid hiding himself away in Rasime’s ship and planning to sabotage it all.

  “Dardzada.” Emre swung his legs over the side of the bed, a thing that was much more difficult than he’d given it credit for. “They’re in danger.”

  “Who?”

  “Macide. Çeda. All of them.”

  “What are you talking—hey now! None of that.” He stood and slipped around the desk. “You’re in no condition to walk much less leave the ship and try to save them or whatever other fool thing is running through that half-healed head of yours. Now lay back down.”

  “Dardzada. Hamid is here. He’s been hiding on the Burning Sand with Rasime. He’s planning to overthrow Macide.”

  Dardzada’s eyes thinned, two shadowed slits in his pudgy face. “You’re tired, Emre. You’ve just woken after nearly two weeks of being unconscious.”

  “No, Dardzada. I came across Hamid speaking with Sehid-Alaz.”

  “Next you’re going to tell me that Sehid-Alaz is in on it.”

  “He is. He wants someone leading the thirteenth tribe who will punish the Kings as they deserve.”

  “Emre . . .”

  Emre could see that Dardzada wasn’t going to believe him. Not without proof. He’d want to hear from Macide. He’d want to hear from Sehid-Alaz. He’d want Rasime’s ship searched.

  Emre blinked and sat back down. He gripped the edge of the bed and took deep breaths. “This is important, Dardzada.” He lay back down and put his hand over his stomach as if it were all he could do to keep himself from throwing up. “I’m feeling a little woozy.”

  “Well, of course you are. Didn’t I just say you were in no condition to leave?”

  Emre shut his eyes. Forced them to flutter open again. “Just promise me you’ll speak to Macide.”

  “I will if you promise me you’ll rest.”

  He nodded, then let his body go slack.

  “Watch him, Clara,” he heard Dardzada whisper. “Find me the moment he wakes again.”

  With that he left. Emre knew he didn’t have much time, but he couldn’t rush this. In his time in her care, he’d come to learn how sharp Clara was.

  He opened his eyes again, made them look lazy. “Thank you for teaching Lemi how to play aban.”

  Clara looked at him warily. “You heard that?”

  “Yes, though I got the impression he isn’t the best student.”

  Clara smiled. “He isn’t.”

  “Do you like aban?” He sat up again. “There’s a place in Mazandir that sells ivory boards. I’ll get one for you if you like.”

  Clara glanced at the door, and for a moment Emre thought she was going to alert Dardzada. “Are they really in trouble? Lemi and Çeda?”

  A wave of relief rushed through Emre. “Yes, they are, and I’d very much like to help them.”

  Clara’s bright eyes shifted between the door and Emre several times. Then she opened up the foot locker and began pulling out Emre’s clothes. “Then you’d better hurry.”

  Emre could hardly believe his eyes. “You are a treasure, Clara.” He kissed the crown of her head. “Has anyone ever told you that?”

  “No. And certainly not Dardzada.”

  Emre winked at her. “As likely get a sonnet from a mule.”

  Clara covered her mouth as she laughed, as if Dardzada might see. Emre, meanwhile, donned his clothes and took up his bow and quiver full of arrows from the foot locker. He belted the quiver across his waist. The bow he slung over one shoulder so that it hung across his chest.

  Clara, meanwhile, retrieved a glass vial from a cloth tray set on top of the desk. “Drink this.”

  Emre sniffed it. He didn’t have to ask what it was. It was one of Dardzada’s elixirs, a thing Çeda had forced him to drink many a time after one scuffle or another. It tasted terrible, but he couldn’t deny it gave one a short burst of vitality. He downed the vial in one go.

  “A treasure,” he said as he handed the vial back.

  And then he was off.

  Chapter 45

  THE DAY OF THE PARLEY in Mazandir started on an inauspicious note. Some of the asirim had gone missing in the night, including Sehid-Alaz, and none who remained would say more than, “They will return when they return.”

  “Do we delay?” Çeda asked Macide, a little nervous at this turn of events.

  Macide stared at the overcast sky, his forked beard blowing in the breeze. “No,” he said. “I don’t want to be here any longer than necessary. We meet Meryam as planned.”

  They left shortly after, entering Mazandir from the east. Macide walked at the head of their group, with Shal’alara and Rasime by his side. Çeda, Sümeya, Kameyl, and Jenise followed. Behind them were twenty asirim in a loose group, and bringing up the rear were two dozen warriors and Shieldwives with shamshirs and bucklers hanging from their belts. Many held bows and some had been armed with rare arrows with ebon steel tips, which could pierce magical shields and armor.

  They numbered fifty in all, and were a fine group of men and women, but Queen Meryam would have an equal number, comprised of her finest Blade Maidens, Qaimiri knights, and Silver Spears. No doubt she’d have called on several blood magi from her country as well.

  The streets were empty, making it eerily silent as they marched toward the center of the caravanserai. Queen Meryam had forbidden any from watching the proceedings, and indeed, they saw no one on their way in from the harbor save for a tow-headed boy who peeked at their passage from behind a goat shed.

  Making matters more eerie, the asirim were strangely silent.

  “What is it?” Çeda asked Sedef, the tallest of Mavra’s children.

  He kept walking with that odd shuffle of his, back hunched, gaze fixed on the walls of the sandstone arena in the distance. He’d lost h
is tongue and couldn’t speak to her as the others could, but she heard his words through their shared bond. The day weighs heavily on us, Çedamihn.

  How could it not? He likely hated what Macide was doing—who was Meryam, after all, but another ruler of Sharakhai, little different than the hated Kings themselves? Sehid-Alaz had probably found he couldn’t face it and had gone to the desert until it was over. Whatever their reasons, it was adding to Çeda’s sense of dread.

  The arena rose over the center of Mazandir, rivaled only by the old caravanserai itself, the blocky structure that had once harbored ships but had long since been converted into an open air market and auction house. They reached the broad plaza at the arena’s entrance, then filed through tall archways to enter the arena proper, at which point Macide ordered a dozen warriors and several asirim to head up the nearby stairs to watch from the highest boxes. The rest filed along a sloping passageway and exited into the lower seats.

  The arena’s interior was oval-shaped, and large—almost as big as those in Sharakhai. The rows of stone seats went twenty high and could seat five thousand.

  As their cohort fanned out near the entrance, Çeda and Sümeya followed Macide down the steps toward the arena’s earthen floor, which looked like a herd of akhalas had trampled it. On the arena’s far side, a husky man wearing a thawb and turban exited from the shadows of the stairway. As he took the steps down with a leisurely pace, a low rumble of voices filled the air, and Çeda knew precisely why. The newcomer’s swagger was unmistakable. It was none other than Hamid, with a number of fresh scars gracing his lips and face.

  Macide turned and looked at Çeda. “Did you know about this?”

  “No,” Çeda said, “of course not.”

  He turned to the others behind them. “Did any of you know?”

  No one answered. Everyone seemed confused, even Rasime.

  Ahead, Hamid arrived at the row nearest the arena proper and hopped down to the dry earth. “Afraid to talk now, Macide?”

  “Don’t trust him,” Çeda said in a low voice. “Let me go.”

  But Macide ignored her and headed down the steps until he reached the stone lip dividing the seats from the central pit. There he stopped and stared at the man he’d once trusted above all others. “What are you doing here, Hamid?”

  Hamid spread his arms theatrically and strode forward like a preening nobleman. “This is as good a place as any for your transgressions to be weighed.”

  “My transgressions?”

  “Arenas are many things,” Hamid replied, “but above all they’re a place of judgment, and the gods know the time is long since passed when you should be judged, Macide Ishaq’ava.”

  “Do you expect me to leap down and fight you? You have no standing, Hamid, and much to answer for.”

  “My standing is beside the point.” Hamid stopped at the center of the arena floor. “The real question is who is the larger traitor to the Moonless Host?”

  “I’m no traitor.”

  Hamid laughed. “You took a vow, as did we all. You swore that you would see the Kings fall or die trying.”

  “The Host is no more, Hamid. There are larger things for us to worry about now.”

  Hamid stared at Macide with that emotionless, half-lidded stare of his. “This has been your problem since leaving Sharakhai. The Host is alive and well, Macide. You’ve only decided to ignore it.”

  “We were always going to move on. We’ve found our place in the desert at last. It’s time we protect that, not step back into shadow.”

  “No one speaks of shadows. We want to fight in the daylight! We want to grind the memory of the Kings into the sand until there’s nothing left but dust. And we will use the might of the allied tribes to do it.”

  We, Hamid had said, which made Çeda wonder who he meant. Macide must have been wondering the same thing, but before he could reply, a wail came from a tunnel that led to the lower levels. It was the mournful call of an asir, and was followed by another, this one higher-pitched, like the whine of a jackal pup. It made Çeda’s skin crawl to hear them. She knew those calls like she knew her own heartbeat. They were the very ones the asirim had once used on Beht Zha’ir, the ones they used when bloodshed was near.

  There came the sounds of a struggle, a shout and a grunt of pain. Along the ramp came a tall, dark form. Sehid-Alaz. He had Night’s Kiss drawn, and he was hauling a body into the arena. By the gods, it was Husamettín. He was unconscious, head lolling, arms and legs scraping along the dusty earth as Sehid-Alaz heaved him toward Hamid.

  Behind him came the others, the asirim who’d fled into the desert. Dragged between them were three more Kings: Cahil, Zeheb, and Ihsan. Where Yndris and the Wayward Miller’s crew might be Çeda had no idea. Dead, maybe.

  They threw the Kings onto the ground in a heap. Çeda had thought them all unconscious, but now she saw that Ihsan’s head was lolling from side to side. He, alone among them, was gagged.

  “Here are the Kings of Sharakhai,” Sehid-Alaz said in his haunting voice, “men Macide and Çeda sought to conspire with, men in league with the Qaimiri Queen.”

  In a great lifting of their voices, the asirim bayed and howled. They craned their necks and pawed at the ground. It was a wild thing, ritualistic, and it made Çeda’s skin prickle just to hear it. The people of their tribe, of Çeda’s tribe, looked to one another, their confusion and worry plain to see. There were some, however, who showed no signs of surprise, Rasime and her crew among them.

  They’d orchestrated it together, Çeda realized. They were all in on it. This was a coup.

  “Well?” Hamid called. “What of it, oh shaikh?”

  “He’s guilty,” Rasime called from the seats. “You can see it on his face.”

  “No!” Çeda called. “It was necessary. There’s so much you don’t understand.”

  “Oh, but you understand?” Rasime said with a laugh. “You think us incapable of it. You think yourself the only one who might comprehend this grand conspiracy of gods and men?” She stabbed a finger toward Husamettín and spoke to the tribe. “That is her father down there. She came to us claiming to be fighting for our cause, but I say she never left their service. Breath of the desert, she still has two Blade Maidens by her side!”

  Hamid was the perfect image of smugness. “Step down, Macide. Step down and let those who know how to protect the tribe take the helm.”

  “The Kings mean nothing to me.”

  “No?” Hamid said. “Let’s learn the truth of it, then.”

  He nodded to Sehid-Alaz, who dragged Zeheb away from the others. With one hand Sehid-Alaz grabbed Zeheb’s thawb and lifted him up. He shook the King violently until Zeheb’s head lolled. Zeheb’s eyes opened. He took in his surroundings, then stared into Sehid-Alaz’s face with a pitiful look that was half fear, half resignation.

  “You have much to answer for,” Sehid-Alaz moaned, and threw Zeheb to the dry, broken earth. “Let your makers be the judge.”

  “Leave him!” Çeda called.

  But Sehid-Alaz didn’t listen. Night’s Kiss thrummed as he lifted it high into the air. Zeheb had managed no more than to roll onto his hands and knees before Sehid-Alaz brought the two-handed sword down in a vicious chop. It cut clean through Zeheb’s neck. His head rolled away. Blood pulsed as his body fell and twitched, a freakish marionette, then blessedly went still.

  Hamid pointed to Çeda with a broad grin. “Did you hear her? Leave him, she said! She’s in league with them. She loves them. She’s been working to feed them our plans since the day she joined us.”

  “I haven’t! Everything I’ve done has been to protect the tribe and the asirim”—she waved to the Kings—“including this. Sharakhai is in danger. We are in danger. Please, you must listen.”

  “She spouts only lies,” Hamid countered in a booming voice. “And her uncle, our self-proclaimed shaikh, sympathizes wi
th her.”

  “You want to man the helm, Hamid?” Macide leapt down to the arena floor, drawing both his shamshirs as he went. “You’ll have to take it from me.”

  Hamid drew his sword but made no move to engage Macide. “Now you wish to fight?” Hamid shook his head. “It’s too late for that, Macide.”

  As he spoke, Çeda caught movement behind Macide. A war net with a tether, flung from one of the warriors who’d accompanied them to the arena, was flying through the air. “Watch out!” she cried.

  But the net was already beyond the seats, over the arena floor. It enveloped Macide, and the moment it did, the one holding the tether, one of Rasime’s crewmen, tugged hard on it, cinching the net’s mouth and yanking Macide off his feet.

  Çeda leapt down to the arena floor while whistling free captive to Sümeya, Kameyl, and Jenise. She’d hardly landed before the sounds of swordplay rang out behind her.

  “For Macide!” Shal’alara yelled, and crossed swords with a burly man standing between her and Rasime. Others joined in, and soon the entire assemblage had devolved into madness. Swords clashed. Voices lifted in surprise and rage as the men and women of the thirteenth tribe fought one another. The asirim, meanwhile, backed away, apparently unwilling to interfere one way or another.

  Çeda wanted to help defend those loyal to Macide, but King Ihsan was in danger. Sehid-Alaz had snatched his foot and was dragging him across the ground, away from the other Kings. As much as Çeda hated to admit it, he was too important to abandon. After catching a brief glimpse of Sümeya, Kameyl, and Jenise engaging several warriors who’d leapt down near Macide, she sprinted toward Ihsan.

  Sehid-Alaz had released Ihsan’s foot. He was lifting Night’s Kiss high, preparing to bring it down across Ihsan’s neck, when Çeda cried, “Sehid-Alaz!”

  For just a moment he paused, his jaundiced eyes lifting to regard her as she sprinted toward him. It delayed him just long enough for Çeda to leap and snap a kick into his chest. Sehid-Alaz still managed to swing, but weakly, and Ihsan took only a nasty cut along one shoulder. He didn’t wake, however, which made Çeda wonder if he ever would.