When Jackals Storm the Walls

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  She was gifted and managed to fend Çeda off for a time, but when she saw she was outmatched, the Maiden kicked her horse into a full gallop and rode hard toward the nearest galleon, where more and more of the queen’s knights were riding up the ship’s rear ramp.

  Çeda was just turning back toward Emre, who lay coughing on the sand, when a rider rode near and then past him, headed straight toward Çeda. It was King Ihsan, and he was staring at the galleon with a confused expression.

  “What’s wrong?” Çeda asked when he came near.

  He reined his horse to a stop. His eyes shifted to regard her, but he seemed to be staring through her, not at her. “You must go with them, Çeda.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He looked confused, conflicted. “The Blue Journals. They showed you speaking with Queen Meryam”—he waved back toward the caravanserai— “after all this.”

  “What? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “If I shared too much it would change, Çeda. You must know this much about prophecy by now.”

  Çeda was utterly confused. She didn’t want to talk about this. She wanted to help Emre. “The vision was wrong,” she said to him. “It must have been.”

  “No.” Ihsan’s eyes flashed, as if he’d just come to some realization. “It wasn’t wrong. Too much that Yusam saw has happened. I’m certain we’re on the right path.” He was no longer staring through Çeda. He was staring at her with a guilty expression, as if he already regretted what he was about to do. “You must speak with her.”

  Suddenly, Ihsan’s intent was perfectly, terrifyingly clear. “Don’t do this, Ihsan. There are many paths to the same goal. You know that as well as I do.”

  “I’m sorry, Çeda. Truly. I don’t want to do this. I have to.”

  She wanted to use the power of the desert to prevent him from compelling her, but the battle had all but sapped her strength. Instead, she kicked her horse toward him, drawing her sword as she went, desperate to reach him before he spoke.

  But she was too late.

  “Go,” he said with an intense expression. “Give yourself to the queen’s men. Do not resist them. Let them take you to Sharakhai.”

  She felt his compulsion on her. Part of her deep down wanted to deny him, but she needed to obey. Her right hand flared with pain, intensifying until it felt as if it were on fire. She grit her teeth and fought to resist. Moments later, the remains of her power guttered like a candle and was extinguished. Sheathing her sword, she reined her horse around and urged it toward the galleon where the Blade Maiden with the whip had gone.

  “Çeda?” Emre called behind her. “Çeda, stop!”

  His confusion and worry were plain, but she didn’t so much as turn to look at him. She was focused solely on the queen’s galleon. When she neared it, she raised her hands to show them she meant no harm.

  “I must speak with the queen!” she called.

  The ship was already on the move and gaining speed. The last few of the queen’s soldiers were galloping up the ramp and into the shadows of the hold. They were ready to pull the ropes to secure the ramp, but Queen Meryam was there and she motioned them to wait.

  “Why do you come?” Meryam shouted over the sound of the hissing skis.

  “We must speak,” was all Çeda said, an echo of Ihsan’s words.

  Queen Meryam’s eyes stared out from her skeletal face. She was confused but clearly curious as well. After a moment’s indecision, she waved toward the ramp. “Come aboard, then, and we’ll talk.”

  With Emre’s cries chasing her, Çeda’s horse galloped onto the ramp and into the hold. The ramp immediately swung upward, landing home with a heavy thud, plunging all into shadow.

  Chapter 47

  IHSAN WATCHED AS THE GALLEON’S RAMP thumped closed. The queen’s ships sailed on, having captured not only Macide, the quarry they’d come to Mazandir to secure, but Çeda as well.

  “What did you do?” Emre, looking skinny, his head stubbly, stood a dozen paces away on the sand. His bow was at the ready. He had a fistful of scavenged arrows.

  After taking careful note of the arrow that was already nocked, Ihsan replied in a calm voice, “I did what had to be done.”

  In a blink, Emre pulled the string of his bow back and let the arrow fly. It had already blurred past Ihsan’s head by the time he felt the burning sensation along his left ear. He touched two fingers to the wound, found them glistening red when he pulled them away. As he rubbed his blood-slicked fingers, he realized the arrow could easily have pierced his heart.

  “I asked you a question.” Emre’s voice was so loud it was practically a roar.

  Ihsan raised his hands. “Let’s remain calm.” He put power into his words, but Emre seemed to shrug it off.

  “Macide wasn’t enough?” Emre’s movements almost too fast to follow, he let a second arrow fly, and another bright line of pain appeared along Ihsan’s opposite ear. “You had to give her Çeda as well?”

  “Lower the bow, Emre.” He poured more power still into his words, but again they seemed to have no effect.

  “Did you make a deal with her?” Emre asked as the other Kings approached. “With Meryam?”

  Ihsan didn’t know what was happening to his power—it had been spotty at best since Cahil had healed him—but he had no time to worry about it just then. He put everything he had into his next words. “Lower. Your. Bow.”

  Emre’s face went purple. He swallowed hard. The expression on his face was one of intense concentration. He had an arrow nocked, but made no move to draw the bowstring. Instead, he stood there, his body quivering as he wrestled with Ihsan’s command. In years past he would have stood no chance, and yet as the seconds passed, Emre managed to lift his arm. He pulled the string halfway back.

  The delay, however, had given Husamettín time to arrive and place Night’s Kiss against Emre’s throat. “Drop it,” said the King of Swords.

  Emre shifted his gaze to Husamettín, a look of pure exasperation on his face.

  “You want Çeda back, I know”—Husamettín scraped the edge of his buzzing sword higher along Emre’s neck—“but I fear you’ll find that difficult with your head missing.”

  Finally Emre threw down the bow and arrow. “You saw it!” he shouted. “He sacrificed her!”

  With the queen’s ships gone, others were gathering: Cahil, Yndris, Sümeya, Kameyl, and more from the thirteenth tribe.

  Husamettín looked at Ihsan. “What of it?”

  “Yes, I sent her to Queen Meryam.”

  “Why?”

  In truth Ihsan was still questioning whether he’d made the right move. “The journal . . . It said a choice would need to be made between two men in her life. I took it to mean Çeda would have to choose between Emre and Macide.” He waved toward Emre. “She clearly chose him, but it was the wrong choice—”

  “That’s why you gave her to Meryam,” Emre broke in, “because of a dead King’s visions?”

  “Yes,” Ihsan said simply. “In the version of events where Macide dies and you live, Yusam noted words being spoken, words of power. I thought they were words of memory, Çeda’s perhaps, but they weren’t. They were my words. The choice was mine all along, not Çeda’s.”

  One moment Emre looked as though he was trying to take it all in, to understand what Ihsan had done. The next he was shoving Husamettín away and sprinting for Ihsan.

  Ihsan backed away. He raised his arms. But Emre still got in a strong right cross that sent him reeling.

  Cahil tackled Emre before he could do more damage. He did little more than subdue Emre and haul him to his feet, though not before he’d offered a smug smile to Ihsan. In the past many weeks, he’d become as frustrated with the Blue Journals’ visions as Emre was now.

  Husamettín, meanwhile, looked like he was about to do something rash, but stopped when Ihsan
raised his hands. “Leave Emre be.” He worked his jaw. “I would have done the same in his place.”

  Sümeya, perhaps recognizing it as unwise to leave Emre so close to the Confessor King, separated him from Cahil. “Right or wrong,” she said to the entire gathering, “the decision’s been made. So what do we do about it?”

  They had little time to discuss. Others were gathering. Some were from the thirteenth tribe, including the towering form of Frail Lemi, who held King Onur’s greatspear easily in one hand. Others were Qaimiri knights, led by Ramahd Amansir and the gaunt form of Hamzakiir. Of the asirim they saw no sign—they’d apparently left with Hamid, who’d betrayed his shaikh and somehow brought Sehid-Alaz to his side.

  “What happened to Anila and Guhldrathen?” Ihsan asked.

  It was Hamzakiir, bloody and exhausted, who answered. “I managed to cast a spell that fooled them, sent them in the opposite direction. With any luck, it will continue to fool them until we can escape.”

  What a strange confluence of events, Ihsan thought. It’s no wonder King Yusam saw so many important threads leading to and from this day.

  “Can you hear Meryam’s thoughts still?” Husamettín asked when Ramahd told them how he, Hamzakiir, and Duke Hektor had arrived in Mazandir.

  Hamzakiir shook his head while smoothing down his long, graying beard. “The power of the blood used to create that link has already faded.”

  “You said Meryam is preparing to use Macide in some ritual?” Ihsan asked.

  Hamzakiir nodded. “I fear all is prepared in Sharakhai. Macide himself was the final necessary component.”

  “We have little time, then,” Ihsan said. “She has the lesser Kings at her beck and call. She has the Enclave as well.”

  “True,” replied Hamzakiir, “but there are those who would stand against Prayna and Nebahat. If we are to make an assault on the cavern, we must do so quickly. I would urge us all to find whatever allies we can before it’s too late.”

  Ihsan took everyone in. “Are we agreed then? We return to Sharakhai to stop Meryam?”

  It took a bit of time, but eventually everyone had agreed except for Emre. “I wouldn’t trust you to sweep the sand from my porch,” he said to Ihsan, then looked to the other Kings. “None of you.”

  With that he walked away, and those from the thirteenth tribe followed, nearly three dozen in all. Frail Lemi was the last to go. He’d started to follow the others, then stopped, stared straight into Ihsan’s eyes, and said, “You shouldn’t have given Çeda to them.”

  The impact of the big man’s words were greater than any threat could have been. As Frail Lemi lumbered away, Ihsan felt shame burning inside him. He’d made Çeda trust him, then betrayed her.

  It was necessary, he told himself. I hope it was necessary.

  Husamettín, Cahil, and Yndris headed into the desert, making for The Wayward Miller, Ramahd, Hamzakiir, and his men toward the ship they’d sailed to Mazandir.

  Ihsan held back. “Go on,” he told the others. “There’s something I need to address.”

  They gave him strange looks, but said nothing as he turned and jogged toward the retreating group from the thirteenth tribe.

  “A word,” Ihsan called, his hands raised high.

  Emre slowed and turned, looking as if it was all he could do not to attack him again. Frail Lemi and the others watched, ready to do whatever Emre wished. Ihsan waved into the distance, where a fleet of nine ships could be seen sailing away, the ships of the thirteenth tribe. Only one ship was headed toward their position, the Autumn Rose, the Tribe Kadri ship.

  “You’ve lost much this day, I know,” Ihsan said, “and I bear much of the responsibility.”

  “Get to your point, Ihsan, or I’ll let Lemi see if he can chop a King in half.”

  Frail Lemi grinned.

  “I told you about the decision Çeda made,” Ihsan said quickly, then amended, “That I made. What I didn’t say was that you saved her.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “One of Yusam’s visions showed you parting from the rest of us in Sharakhai and wandering through the blooming fields. Çeda finds you there after stepping from the mouth of a crystalline dragon.”

  There was a light in Emre’s eyes that wasn’t there a moment ago—a glimmer of hope? “Why didn’t you say so before?”

  “Because I feared that in knowing the vision you may not find the right path. But in this rare instance, I think you need to know.”

  Emre turned his head and stared beyond the Autumn Rose, toward the Khiyanat ships in the distance, then swung his gaze back to Ihsan, looking perfectly miserable. “I’m doing this for Çeda, you know, not you.”

  A wave of relief passed through Ihsan. “I don’t care who you do it for. Just that you do it.”

  “Then let’s get fucking moving.”

  Chapter 48

  NOT FAR FROM MAZANDIR, sand lifted and swirled along the top of a dune just as the sun was rising. It tightened, an eddy of sand and spindrift, before coalescing into a feminine form: Nalamae wearing her armor, bearing Yerinde’s tall, adamantine spear.

  After setting the spear beside her, she scooped up two handfuls of sand and threw them into the air. The sand lifted in a single, golden plume. As it settled, it reached outward, drifting like morning fog toward the wavering image of Mazandir. Oddly, it moved against the prevailing wind, then spread slowly, inexorably, through the whole of the caravanserai.

  Satisfied it had reached the boundaries she required, Nalamae sat and lay her spear across her legs. Mazandir took shape within her mind—the buildings, the streets, the rooms within the many homes where the caravanserai’s residents hid in silence by order of the queen. More and more became known to her. She felt the underground springs that fed the oasis’s many wells and pools. She felt the horses, the goats, the bulls, and the oryx. She felt the scarabs that crawled, the midges that bit, the amberlarks that cooed their mournful morning song. There wasn’t a thing that would escape her notice this day, not even her brothers and sisters, should they dare to come.

  Nalamae sensed Çeda and the thirteenth tribe walking toward the arena, then entering it. She felt Queen Meryam and her Blade Maidens, Silver Spears, and Qaimiri knights all hidden from mundane sight. She felt the dead lying beneath the earth, each of them bound to the one named Anila. She felt the dead ehrekh, Guhldrathen, similarly bound, using his magic to mask himself, Anila, and the dead from detection of any sort. Approaching the arena from the east was the blood mage Hamzakiir, the Qaimiri lord, Ramahd Amansir, and his allies, ready to take revenge against their own queen.

  It was a cavalcade of warring intent, a gnarled knot, a hundred thousand threads all leading to this time, this place. It was no stretch to say the outcome of the day’s events would alter the course of the desert.

  The visions the acacia shared had changed Nalamae irrevocably. She’d been hunted and killed in so many ways. The memories of those fearful days haunted her, not just for her own sake, but for the future of the desert’s people as well. It was not always Goezhen who found her, but in the times he had, she’d been subjected to terrible torture. Goezhen had been trying to learn how she ensured her return, so that he might put a stop to it, but he’d never learned the trick of it. Whatever her former incarnation had done four centuries earlier, whatever ritual that particular Nalamae had performed, it had never failed to grant her new life.

  She stared down at her hands, wondering at it all. Here she was in yet another form, a woman who’d had her own life before it had been stripped from her. It was a life that now felt distant, a dream that faded more with each passing day. Nalamae grieved for Varal’s children and her husband—they still had no idea what had befallen her—but life sometimes brings terrible storms, giving no apologies for the pain and destruction it wreaks.

  In the arena, the thirteenth tribe fought amongst themselves.
Queen Meryam and her soldiers were revealed. Hamzakiir attacked, and Anila unleashed her ghuls and the dead ehrekh soon after, which only added to the chaos.

  Many died in the terrible battle that followed. Many mortal souls passed beyond the veil, their lives in this world snuffed out like so many guttering torches. Nalamae wanted to grieve for them, but she couldn’t. Not now.

  Instead, she wiped away her tears and waited, wary and watchful, at the top of the dune.

  Just as the queen was making her escape toward her ships, Nalamae felt it: someone hunkered low near the caravanserai’s northern edge. It was the very one who’d hunted her so many times: Goezhen, god of chaos and dark urges, one of his horns still missing, broken during their recent battle in Sharakhai’s northern harbor.

  With great patience, she stood and stepped forward, taking care to ensure that no swirls formed in the scintillant cloud of dust around her. She couldn’t afford to have Goezhen sense her early.

  A hot wind blew. The queen’s ships set sails. Nalamae came closer and closer to the verdant pool of water where her quarry lay hidden.

  Now came the most difficult part. Binding Goezhen to this place.

  She began to work her spell while Goezhen was fixated on the events playing out in the harbor—the Silver Spears and Blade Maidens rushing toward the queen’s galleons, the thirteenth tribe and Lord Amansir’s men going after them, Queen Meryam throwing lashes of fire against her pursuers.

  Nalamae’s spell deepened, the spell of binding casting more and more threads around Goezhen. She was subtle as gossamer drifting on a breeze, but eventually, as she knew he would, Goezhen spun, his gaze wary. He’d sensed her spell but had yet to divine its nature, its source.

  She worked faster now. Goezhen scanned the space where she lay hidden a dozen paces away, then waved a clawed hand before him. His eyes widened as Nalamae’s spell of concealment was banished.