by J. S. Bangs
“And when we reach Patakshar?” Veshta said, a note of desperation creeping into his voice. “Majasravi and Davrakhanda fell. We could not win at the Amsadhu. I don’t think we’ll hold Virnas. Will Patakshar fare any better?”
“Ulaur will deliver us,” Bhudman said softly. He lay a hand on Veshta’s shoulder.
“Caupana and I will search with the sight of the Powers,” Srithi said. “We may find something, given enough time.”
“And Navran-dar,” Bhudman said. “Daladham and I would speak to you soon, as the Heir of Manjur. Something of importance.”
Amabhu looked up with interest. “Something out of our book, finally? What is it?”
Bhudman gave Amabhu a fierce glance of rebuke. “Only for the Heir of Manjur.”
“The book was never ours to read,” Caupana said softly to his partner. “Only ours to carry.”
Amabhu looked crestfallen. He bowed sullenly to Navran but did not look up.
“Just so long as someone can read it,” Bidhra said. “Any help from the Powers or men is to be treasured. Meanwhile, we evacuate and prepare those who can. Use the time wisely.”
“We will,” Navran said. He paced around the circle, looking at each of those he had gathered with a pained expression. It was likely none of them would escape with their lives. But they would not go quietly.
“We know what we must do,” he said. “Let us prepare.”
Vapathi
The people that Vapathi had fallen in with were exceptionally strange. There were a lot of Kaleksha men; she had never seen a Kaleksha man inside the Ushpanditya, but she had heard rumors of them and caught a glimpse once or twice in the streets of Majasravi. And all of them were Uluriya. Vapathi gathered that there was some surprising tale which lay behind this mingling of Uluriya and the Kaleksha, but she didn’t have the energy to find it out. She had her secrets, and they had theirs. She remembered the way the Uluriya priest had resisted Kirshta on the road to Jaitha….
Kirshta.
The pain struck her again, a throbbing in her side. The terrible loneliness of walking in a crowd of strangers. She blinked away the tears which threatened to sting her eyes. She bit her lips.
The girl walking beside her gave her a strange look. “Are you well?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” Vapathi said softly.
The girl laughed. “I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you.”
A dozen different ripostes swirled in Vapathi’s mind, but she rejected them. No need to antagonize the child. “Oh,” she said.
“My name is Aryaji,” the girl said.
Vapathi sighed wearily. If the girl was determined to befriend her, Vapathi would have to play along. “I’m Vapathi.”
“I’m not as much of a girl as you think I am, you know,” Aryaji said.
“How do you know I think of you as a girl?”
Aryaji laughed. “Even if it wasn’t for the amashi, I can see it in your eyes. But don’t worry, I won’t tell them your secret.”
A chill passed through Vapathi. She looked at Aryaji. The girl’s black eyes were deep and still, a tiny smile showing at the corner of her small, full mouth. For a moment her eyes seemed as wide as the sky, sparkling with stars and ice. Vapathi swallowed.
“You don’t know anything about me,” Vapathi said.
“Not much,” Aryaji agreed. “But enough. How did you get down here?”
So the girl didn’t know. Or else she was trying to trick Vapathi into giving herself away. “I’m running away from—”
From Kirshta. From my brother. From the man who killed Apurta and threatened my life. From the only person I’ve ever loved.
“From the Mouth of the Devourer,” she finished.
“We’re all running from the Mouth of the Devourer,” Aryaji said amicably. “But where are you from?”
She paused. “Majasravi.”
“Were you born there? Nakhur says you look like a mountain woman.”
“Who is Nakhur?”
Aryaji gestured over her shoulder to the white-clad priest that followed a few paces behind them. The saghada, as the Uluriya called him. “He’s my uncle.”
“I was born in the mountains,” Vapathi said. “But I left when I was a little girl.”
“You left?”
“I…” Why was she hiding this? She had already told them she was a slave, and they could probably guess the outlines of her life history. “I was taken by slavers when I was nine.”
Aryaji was quiet for a bit. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That sounds terrible.”
Vapathi laughed. “What would you know about it?”
“I worked as a maid for years. For Mandhi, most recently,” she said, nodding toward the little Uluriya woman at the head of the group. Aryaji hopped over a muddy rivulet of water that had joined the marshy trickle of the Amsadhu. It was a cute, girlish move, and it made Vapathi smile.
“I was a maid, too, mostly,” Vapathi said. “Serving khadir and their wives. It’s not so bad.”
“My parents are dead,” Aryaji said. “My uncle Nakhur and aunt Kidri take care of me.”
Was the girl trying to gain Vapathi’s sympathy? “Oh,” she said, with nothing else of any interest to add.
Someone ahead called for a halt. They were very close to the sea, now—she’d heard someone say they should reach the mouths of the Amsadhu that evening—and the Uluriya woman and her fiery-haired Kaleksha husband were setting an urgent pace. A wave of groaning and shouting passed through the crowd walking down the riverbed. The sun burned white, making the dust glitter with reflected silt. A few trees with dry leaves clinging to their branches overhung the south bank, and the people moved off toward them to get a bit of precious shade.
Aryaji went up to the man carrying their food and came back with two leaves of roti the size of her palm. She gave one to Vapathi. It was the same meager ration they had gotten the last few days, but Vapathi was pleased to get anything. In the days before she had caught up with the group, she hadn’t eaten at all.
Aryaji sat down on a twisted root that had once extended into the water from a gnarled banyan on the bank. Now it reached like a dry, bony appendage from the forsaken mud. Vapathi stood.
Aryaji gave her a strange look. “Be careful,” she said.
“Careful of what?”
Aryaji shrugged. She tore little pinches of the roti off with her fingers and popped them into her mouth.
Vapathi ate slowly. She felt an urge to get away from the crowd, to spend a least a few minutes alone. None of these people were truly her friends, and she was as lonely with them as she was by herself. Her only real friends were dead or consumed by She Who Devours.
So she turned from Aryaji without saying goodbye and climbed the bank to the tree overhead. Behind her, she could hear the chattering of their group, muttering in Amuran and cacophonous Kaleksha.
Half of the tree’s leaves had fallen to the ground. Her footsteps past the banyan crunched loudly, resounding in the still, dusty air. She took a deep breath. Alone again.
She wandered a little ways from the bank on a footpath that wound between the dried and dying brush. Branches snapped and leaves crackled as she stepped on them. There must be a village near here. She shouldn’t get too far, but she doubted Aryaji and Mandhi would leave without her. A bit ahead there seemed to be a clearing—
She stepped free of the brush and found four people staring at her.
Three men and one woman, all with skin stretched over bony arms and thin, hungry faces. They looked at her with hunger and interest.
“Sorry,” Vapathi said. The half-eaten roti in her hand suddenly seemed like ostentatious wealth. She stepped back, glancing over her shoulder. If she ran—
But no. The Uluriya had shown kindness to her. Maybe they would take these in as well. She looked at the four of them. They hadn’t moved, but the woman was studying her face with fierce intensity.
“Are you hungry?” Vapathi asked. “You could come with me. I think…
I am with people who could help and feed you. You could join us.”
“You’re her,” one of the women croaked. Her voice was raspy. “I recognize you.”
Devoured. Her heart thundered. These people weren’t hungry for her roti. They were looking for her.
She hesitated a moment. Then she ran for the riverbed.
A heartbeat later she heard their feet pounding the dust of the footpath behind her, crackling and snapping through the dried brush. She shouted. “Aryaji! Aryaji!”
It was too late. Dry fingers closed around her shoulders, and her feet stumbled on the path. The long, skeletal limbs of the Devoured wrapped around her. She felt their hot breath in her ear. She screamed and thrashed. Someone grabbed at her arms. A moment later she was helpless, lying on her stomach with the rangy Devoured men pinning her arms to the ground and the woman crouching with her knees on Vapathi’s ribs.
“Where’s the hunters?” the woman asked.
Hunters? Vapathi kicked. She lifted her face and screamed again “Aryaji!”
A fist clubbed her cheek. “Back on the other side of the village,” the man said. “Move fast.”
The woman rose, and the other three men jerked Vapathi to her feet. They pulled her down a narrow side trail, away from the village and the riverbed. They dragged her along with firm indifference.
“What do you want with me?” she whispered.
The men laughed. “The Empress longs to see the Queen again.”
“Let me go,” Vapathi said. “Aryaji!”
Her demand trailed off as she heard movement behind them, on the path that led to the river. Her chest tightened.
“No, get back!” she shouted. “There’s—”
A pair of sharp shrieks cut her off. She squirmed against the grip of the men and looked back—Aryaji and the little Uluriya woman. Just the two of them, no men, no one who could fight. Why hadn’t they brought help?
She would have to take what she could get. The two girls, fearless and foolish, ran toward the four Devoured. One of the Devoured darted off of her. The ones holding Vapathi’s hands began to run, pulling her with them as fast as they could. She jerked against them, then slid to the ground. They dragged her through the dust. She twisted to see what the women were doing.
The Uluriya woman had a knife. The Devoured leaped back, their grip on Vapathi weakening. Vapathi thrashed and freed herself. On her knees she crawled toward the river. She struggled to her feet, then tumbled forward a half-dozen awkward paces into Aryaji’s arms.
“Vapathi!” the girl shrieked. “Are you—”
“Have to go,” Vapathi gasped. “There’s more. Someone else here.”
Movement in the woods all around them. She pushed herself away from Aryaji’s embrace, grabbed at the hand of the other Uluriya–Mandhi–and started toward the river. In the shadows of the parched forest, dark shapes moved.
“Wait,” Aryaji said. “Mandhi is—”
It was too late. The forest swarmed with bodies. Men emerged—on both sides of the path, now, dozens of them, four times as many as the original Devoured. She scrambled on hands and knees to the side of one of the trees and pressed herself against the trunk. The men that ambushed them—they had rattan armor and spears, swords and helmets of bronze. Real soldiers. No one she had seen before.
Curses and shouting. The sound of bronze weapons striking wood.
Armored men ran by. The Devoured were running from them, and a soldier shouted angry abuse at them. A few pursued the fleeing Devoured, but one, a man dressed in a black quilted armor with a scuffed and threadbare moon stitched onto it, turned back and looked at Vapathi.
“You,” he said. “Who are you and how did you get here?”
“My name is Vapathi. I was with…” She glanced behind her.
Aryaji and Mandhi stood side-by-side in the street, a little blood running from a scratch on Mandhi’s shoulder. All around them were men with spears and armor, perhaps twenty in all.
“With them,” Vapathi finished, pointing at the others.
“Get up,” the man said, prodding Vapathi with his toe. “How did three women get here?”
“Our band is back at the river,” Mandhi said. “Just a hundred yards north of here. They’re probably looking for us. We’re returning from Jaitha.”
The armored man’s expression flickered with interest at Mandhi’s mention of Jaitha. He pointed his sword toward the river. “Are there Kaleksha in your group?”
“Yes,” Mandhi said. “We’ve been running from the Devoured.”
“And we’ve been driving them off,” the armored man said. “Little groups of four or five have been poking around for several days. Small enough we can chase them off.”
“More will be coming.”
The man let out a low growl. “Our scouts saw Kaleksha and Uluriya approaching together on the river bed. That’s your group? What’s your name?”
Mandhi bowed slightly. “I am Mandhi of Virnas.”
The man let out a bark of surprise. He gestured at the other men, and they suddenly pressed close to Mandhi and the others. “Take them all in,” he said.
Mandhi looked around in alarm. “What is—”
“We’ve been waiting for you. You’re coming with us.” He glanced at Vapathi and pushed her toward the others. “And I don’t know who you are, but you come with us as well, and don’t give us any trouble. Stay back from the river, men, if that’s where the others are! We’ll let Jasthi-dar deal with them when they arrive.”
Vapathi glanced at the crowd of armed men. Aryaji grabbed her hand and pulled her into a huddle with Mandhi.
“What is this about?” Mandhi demanded. “We have people looking for us, and if other Devoured are around—”
“You’ll find out when we get back to Jasthi-dar,” the man said. “Now march.”
Captive again, Vapathi thought. But at least they weren’t the Devoured.
Mandhi
The stars upon the shore, the sea, the gulls, and the wind.
They had been even closer to the mouths of the Amsadhu than she’d thought, a half-day’s quick march on winding forest roads to the east, away from the riverbed, surrounded by these unknown hostile men. Vapathi kept sullen silence, while Aryaji watched their captors in silent, curious regard.
At least Jhumitu was with Kest. They would be safe.
They broke through a thicket of thorny brush at the top of a little dike, and the sound of waves washed over her. She could see the boats of the fleet of Davrakhanda moored to their south, sails furled and anchor lines trailing into the water. And covering the delta to the south, stretching down the beach as far as she could see, was the makeshift city. Flamingoes waded through the muddy creeks at the far end of the camp, white froth atop the reefs in the shallows, the caws of gulls overhead, the smell of cooking fires and salt water. Tents in red and blue and cream-colored cotton. Ramshackle huts made from palm leaves and driftwood. Dozens of figures milling about, faces darkened with anxiety, but whole and alive.
No Devoured. These were the refugees of Davrakhanda, the ones who had stayed at the river, plus others that she had never seen. She paused, glanced behind her and saw Aryaji and Vapathi following.
“Does it look to you like there’s more people here than when we left?” Mandhi said.
“Not just from here.” Aryaji pointed to some of the boats anchored off the shore, with a black moon-blazoned flag fluttering weakly on their masts. “New ships. Isn’t that the emblem of Gumadha?”
“Yes,” the black-armored leader of the hunters said with forced amiability. He pointed up the beach. “And the queen is up there.”
“Queen?” Mandhi asked. “When Sadja-daridarya left, he put his captain in charge.”
“The queen is there,” the man repeated firmly. “And that’s where you’re going.”
They found a ring of soldiers in black and silver livery surrounding a makeshift pair of tents. They were no larger or more luxurious than the rest of the camp dwel
lings, but they had a small cordon of space around them, and an additional pair of guards crouched in front. The guards stood when the hunters approached.
“We want to talk to the queen,” Mandhi said. “Or whoever is in charge here. We were with Sadja-daridarya in Jaitha—”
Before Mandhi finished talking a woman emerged from the tent. Her gaze went straight to Mandhi, and she crossed the three paces of space to examine Mandhi and the others closely. The hunters bowed.
“You were with the Emperor?” she asked.
“Yes, and you are—”
“Bring them in,” the woman said. “And don’t let them escape.
Mandhi didn’t attempt to move. Aryaji clutched her hand. Vapathi’s face had turned into a quiet, expressionless mask.
“Who are you and what gives you the right to detain us?” Mandhi demanded.
“Jasthi-dar,” the woman said. “The queen of… well, queen of this beach.”
“And on that basis you have claimed a guard and the power to surround us with armed men?”
The woman smiled at them with a bit of ironic pleasure. Mandhi placed her in her thirties, smooth-skinned with a high, noble nose and a posture of comfortable nobility. Her clothes were silken, dirty and ill-repaired as everything in the camp, but carefully draped with as much dignity as she could manage.
“My men follow me because I was recently queen of Gumadha,” she said. “And I arrest you because you are the biggest threat to our peace and safety. Bring them into my tent, Janda-kha, and see that none of the other rabble-rousers come close.”
One of the men with a spear prodded them into the tent and forced the women to kneel in the dim interior. A handful of carpets were spread on the ground, and a thick layer of palm leaves covered the rest. More comfortable than sleeping on the ground, but not by much. The palm leaves crackled as the three women knelt.
“What is she doing?” Aryaji whispered to Mandhi. “What happened here?”