by J. S. Bangs
“That’s close enough,” Vapathi said. “I want you to promise you’ll leave my friends alone.”
“They can starve in the countryside, if they want,” Basadi sneered. “There’s nothing for them out there.”
Vapathi glanced toward Kest, still hidden in the shadows. “All right, then.”
Basadi took a step forward. Kest leaped out of hiding.
He crossed the space between them in three monstrous strides and tackled Basadi. He crushed her beneath him, pinning her to the ground with the force of a falling tree. She cried out in alarm, then her voice was smothered beneath Kest’s bulk. For a stunned heartbeat, the Devoured hesitated.
It was long enough.
Vapathi kicked at one of them and swatted at the hand holding the torch. The torch went flying and landed in the dry grass. A moment later the grass was a blaze of fire and sparks. Mandhi launched herself to her feet and charged toward the other Devoured, a woman. Her shoulder connected with the woman’s stomach, and they both tumbled to the ground.
“I got it!” she heard Aryaji shout. The swirling light of a torch spun in the air above her, and the crackle of sparks rose.
Hands pulled at Mandhi’s shoulders, bringing her to her feet. Aryaji and Vapathi. The Devoured woman rose as well, but a swift kick knocked her back to the ground.
“Run!” Kest shouted.
Aryaji sprinted into the darkness before Mandhi, away from the Devoured and the fire. Mandhi followed, gasping for breath. Vapathi’s arms and legs blurred in the darkness next to her. Behind her she heard a roar.
She looked back and saw Kest on his feet, lifting Basadi up bodily like a rag doll. He hurled her at one of the standing Devoured, and they both tumbled into a bed of flames. Twin screams rose from them. Kest turned and followed the women.
But through the flames, Mandhi could see the Devoured approaching. And more would be coming from the city. Their only friend was the darkness.
They ran.
Dried grass swished against their legs. They crossed paths of clay and empty rice paddies. Kest’s heavy breathing sounded behind Mandhi, then his long strides carried him past her. He grabbed Mandhi and Vapathi’s hands. Aryaji continued to sprint ahead of them.
A mile or more they ran, beyond the ridge that separated Virnas from the plains to the east. A village flew by. Finally, Aryaji called out, “Stop!”
As soon as she said the words, she bent over, panting and heaving. Vapathi dropped to the ground. Kest leaned against a tree, and Mandhi collapsed into his sweaty back. The only sound was their labored breathing.
“How far?” Mandhi asked at last.
“I think far enough,” Vapathi said. “I don’t see any sign that they followed us. No fire near here.”
“Tomorrow—” Mandhi began.
“Tomorrow we’d better be far away from here, because every one of these roads will be crawling with Devoured.”
Kest straightened and shook his head. “No. We circle back around and go to the village the Devoured were attacking. Find the ones who rescued us.”
Mandhi laughed. “We rescue the rescuers.”
Kest chuckled between his pants. “We would never have gotten out if it hadn’t been for them. Time to return the favor.”
“Okay,” Vapathi said, wiping the saliva from her mouth on the back of her arm. “But if we find them, we have to get away. Basadi will tear the countryside apart looking for me.”
They all agreed.
Only Kest was sure enough of directions in the dark to tell them which way to go, and only Mandhi had any notion of the roads near Virnas. Together, they led the group on a long, roundabout arc through villages and empty fields to approach the burned village from the other side. When they were still a long ways off, the orange glow of a fire glowered along the horizon.
“Might not be much of a village anymore,” Mandhi murmured.
“We have to look,” Kest said.
The fire was a wall to the west, racing through the weedy borders of fields and eating up the dry sal trees, palms, and banyans at the outskirts of the village. The smoke swallowed up the stars to the west. They crept closer to the village. Crumbling clay houses stood out like little squares against the roiling orange fire. Kest crouched behind a fallen tree two hundred yards from the edge of the village and motioned for the others to join him.
“They would have fled,” Aryaji said, “if they had any sense at all.”
Kest nodded. “But where would they go?”
“I don’t know,” Mandhi said. “Maybe to—-”
Her words were cut off by the sound of splintering wood. Aryaji shrieked and leaped back from the splinters that flew from the fallen trunk. A jagged stone had embedded itself in the tree.
“The Devoured—” Vapathi hissed, but Kest shook her and began to shout.
“No!” he said. “I only know one person who can sling a rock that hard.” And he stood and bellowed. “Glanod!”
For a moment there was no sound other than the approaching crackle of the blaze. Then two fire-lit shapes moved out of the shadows deeper in the woods.
“Kest?” one of them cried out.
“Glanod!” Kest sprinted toward them, and Mandhi and the other women scrambled to follow. When they were ten yards away, suddenly Aryaji shouted and sped past Mandhi and Vapathi.
“Uncle!” she cried.
And a moment later they were all together, Aryaji pressed into Nakhur’s arms, Kest and Glanod embracing, while Mandhi and Vapathi stood together wiping each others’ soot-smudged faces. Glanod grabbed Mandhi’s face and kissed her cheek, and Nakhur bowed to Vapathi.
“You’re alive,” Nakhur said breathlessly. “We had to find out, but we didn’t dare hope.”
“Thanks to Vapathi,” Mandhi said. “But we have to—”
“—get out,” Kest completed her thought. “The fire and the darkness have covered us so far. But by sunup we need to be as far from here as we can possibly get.”
Glanod nodded. “We should follow the river back—”
“But we have to head north if we want to reach the Amsadhu.”
Glanod shook his head. “The fleet has already moved on from there. Jasthi-dar said she’d wait for us on the islands.”
“We have a single dhow in Uskhanda,” Nakhur said. “Hrenge and Jhumitu are there, with most of the os Dramab. We follow the Maudhu straight to the sea, and then we sail away.”
“Sail away where?” Mandhi asked.
“Anywhere,” Glanod said. “Anywhere but Amur.”
Navran
“Here!” the lieutenant shouted, and Navran and the soldiers ran toward him with arms at the ready.
The Devoured were climbing the wall again. They crawled up, hand over hand, fingers gripping the seams between the stones. Navran didn’t know how they had the strength, but they knew no fear. They fell and plummeted into the murky waters of the moat, and emerged a few minutes later to try again.
At least they were slowed. They couldn’t place ladders because of the moat, and climbing the walls was much slower than climbing a ladder. It was the only thing that had saved the inner city.
Bidhra was already in place when the first of the Devoured reached the top. His sword swung at one, slicing through its cheeks and sending it howling into the seawater. A moment later Navran and his men joined him.
More Devoured came. They hacked at limbs as they climbed. The soldier to Navran’s left shouted in victory as he managed to sever a wrist, sending the Devoured man it had belonged to into the moat trailing a spray of black blood. Navran cut off fingers with his blade and shoved the Devoured back with a cudgel.
Slashing. Blows. Screams and splashes. Grunts of their men, howls of the Devoured.
One of them managed to get over the parapet. A moment of panic among the soldiers, one of them pinned to the ground. Bidhra slammed into the Devoured with his shield and sent him sprawling against the crenellation. But he wrapped his hands around one of the other soldier’s neck,
and then with a cackle dragged both of them over the wall.
Others rose. A few more desperate moments of violence. Screams of pain from the soldiers.
Then they stopped coming.
Navran looked to the left and right but saw no more movement on the rampart. One of the men held a broken wrist against his chest and clenched his teeth, fat tears rolling down his cheeks.
Bidhra heaved a sigh and collapsed against one of the crenellations. He peered over the edge.
Navran dropped to a crouch, winded. “How is the one who fell?”
Bidhra was silent for a moment. “Floating in the moat,” he said finally.
“Yes, my lords,” the lieutenant responded sharply. He wiped a smear of black blood from his forehead. “They only sent a few this time.”
“We still lost one,” Bidhra said. His voice was heavy and bitter. He pointed to the man with the broken wrist. “And you, good man. Go have the medic put that in a splint.”
The comrades of the injured man helped him to his feet and carried him down the ladder as he whimpered in pain.
The sea breeze rose and stirred Navran’s hair. Beyond the walls, the wind kicked up clouds of ash from the burned outer city, reduced now to a blacked waste. Brick-walled buildings stuck up among the charcoal like gravestones, and great crowds huddled in the fields of charred timbers, watching the walls of the inner city with eerie, sleepless vigilance.
“I don’t see any more approaching,” Navran said.
“No, my lord,” the lieutenant agreed. His relief was evident.
“How many men fit to fight are left inside the walls?”
A black laugh from the lieutenant. “Depends on what you consider fit. Of trained soldiers, less than a hundred. We are already arming civilians and bringing them atop the walls.”
“How much longer can we hold out?”
The lieutenant fell silent.
“Long enough,” Bidhra said.
Navran offered the lieutenant his sword. “I am going back to the palace. I have someone to talk to.”
Bidhra saluted him, and the other soldiers bowed. Navran acknowledged them with a nod and climbed down the ladders.
The inner city had grown even more crowded since they had fallen back. Tents and makeshift dwellings improvised from scrap wood and sails. The omnipresent stench of unwashed bodies, refuse, and seawater. They had jammed everyone they could into the inner city before closing the walls, but still—
He blinked quickly, banished his thoughts, and quickened his pace to the palace. This was his third day fighting alongside his men on the walls. They wouldn’t last many more.
He rinsed his hands at the door of the room where Daladham and Bhudman were meeting and pulled aside the curtain. Bright sunlight reflected off of the polished floors and lit up the tables where Bhudman sat hunched over a copy of the Law of Ghuptashya. His stylus hovered over the ornate letters and his lips moved slowly. Scraps of palm-leaf paper, slates with pieces of chalk, and styluses lay stacked around them. Daladham, Srithi, and Caupana sat huddled together at the far wall of the room. Navran ignored them.
He went to the table, dropped to his knees, and grabbed Bhudman by the shoulders.
“Seven days,” he said. His gloved hands gripped Bhudman’s shoulder. “We’ve held them off for seven days at heroic cost. Dozens of men lost. Rations barely enough to stave off starvation. We won’t last much longer. Tell me you have something.”
Bhudman had been pliant thus far, aiding the effort in the only way he could. He sanctified vessels of sacred water every morning and blessed the weapons of the soldiers. He prayed. But as he looked at Navran today, Navran saw despair in his eyes.
“You know what we have,” he said.
“The ruin of Amur,” Navran said. “Nothing else?”
“Nothing else.”
Navran stood up straight. He paced. His glance went to Srithi and the others at the far side of the room. “Tell me why I should do it,” he said. He was nearly shouting. “Why should I destroy Amur to save it?”
Caupana gestured to Srithi. She rose, smoothed her sari, and bowed to Navran courteously. “Amur is already ruined,” she said. “Think, Navran-dar: even if we beat back the Mouth of the Devourer, we must then deal with drought and famine. If we survive the famine and the monsoon returns, then the Empire is shattered, the great cities are in ruins, the houses of the khadir are burned, the villages are emptied. Is there anything of Amur left to save?”
“There’s something to save—”
“Yes, and what will be saved is the seed to be scattered. There are lands across the sea where we can flee. To the south, the Ten Thousand Islands. To the north, Kalignas. The lands of the slow people on the far side of the Bounded Sea.”
Navran turned. He walked to the window and looked out at the inner city. The streets were filled with tents, the refugees choking out the walkways. A woman paced back and forth holding a screaming child to her chest. A young man and a young women kissed in a hidden corner. Three men played sacchu between the tents. A young boy leaned into his father’s shoulder. The smell of cooking fish, cumin, seaweed, mint, and dung filled the air. The murmur of a thousand voices.
“And this is my duty?” Navran said. “To put an end to all of this?”
The others in the room were quiet. He turned around and looked into the face of Bhudman, Daladham, Srithi, Caupana. He thought of Utalni.
“It is not a light duty,” Caupana said. “But someone must bear it.”
“You tasked us to find the treasure in the thikratta book,” Daladham said. “This is the treasure we found.”
A chill passed over Navran. His fingers twitched on the table. He looked from Daladham, as solemn as a stone, to Bhudman, his eyes closed and shaking with weeping. None of the others spoke.
“Can we do it?” he asked.
“We are able to,” Daladham said. “There are three things which the rite requires. A ram, of which there are still a few left. A priest of Kushma. And the Heir of Manjur.”
Daladham pointed to Bhudman and Navran. Navran’s eyes met Bhudman’s for a pregnant moment. Bhudman’s chest heaved.
“But should we?” Navran asked. “Tell me you’re sure. I have read the passages of the Law. To call down the lance of heaven is to doom nearly all the earth to gloom and shadow.”
Srithi pushed forward between Daladham and Bhudman and looked Navran straight in the eye. Her voice was firm and angry. “Burn the fields and scatter the seed. I have said it over and over again. What did you think it would mean?”
“I don’t know,” Navran said. “We are fighting to save Amur, not to destroy it. If this is the end of Amur, then what have we fought for? What have we won?”
“This warning was the first and the last. Amur will be burned and lay fallow, given over to weeds and to wild beasts. But the seed which has grown here will find purchase in other soil. Even my son,” she said, her voice cracking for a moment, “received a prophecy. He is the last of ten thousand, never to eat the rice of his father’s land, but to witness its cleansing.”
“And we have resisted the serpent,” Caupana said. “Even if we all perish, that is enough.”
Navran turned back to the balcony. To the south, the sun shone like silver on the surface of the harbor. The hot, muggy breath of the sea breeze moved across the city.
Bhudman’s voice rose in a cautious creak. “It seems to me that either Amur perishes in the wrath of Kushma Ulaur, or it perishes in the jaws of She Who Devours. Navran-dar, do you have any other plan which will save Amur?”
“No,” Navran said quietly. He took a heavy breath. “Prepare the dhows to sail. Do we have enough to carry away everyone in the inner city?”
“I don’t think so,” Daladham said.
“Then we will draw lots. Save as many as we can to sail to the Ten Thousand Islands. Those whose lot it is to remain will fight to save the rest. Let the people know. Let them all know….”
He closed his eyes. They burned wi
th the threat of tears. He heard movement, and he turned to see the others had all risen to their feet.
“Bhudman and I must prepare,” Daladham said. “But you, too, will be present with us, Navran-dar.”
“I know,” he said. “When will we be ready?”
Bhudman looked at Daladham. “The rite prescribes that the ritual be carried out on the morning of the full moon. That is four days from now.”
“Then preparations have to begin immediately. I’ll talk to Bidhra-dar.” He breathed heavily. “If only there were some way to warn the others. Mandhi—”
“She chose to leave with her faction,” Bhudman said. He sounded resigned, if not quite angry. “The stars upon them, but you can’t save them. We don’t even know where they are.”
“There may be a way,” Caupana said. “Through Aryaji.”
“Eh?” Srithi’s eyes grew wide. “Mandhi was my friend. If there’s any way to warn her—”
Caupana nodded slowly. “I assume the little prophetess is still with Mandhi and her party. We have in our number a prophetess, with the same gift of farsight, touched by the same spirit. It is said among the thikratta that sometimes two men gifted in farsight could visit each other in their dreams.”
“I’ve never heard of this,” Navran said.
Caupana shrugged. “And I’ve never done it. But I’ve heard it can be done.”
“I’ll try,” Srithi said. “I have to try. Separated or not, Mandhi is my friend. And my in-laws Josi and Peshdana were with her, and everyone—” She paused, her voice cracking, and she put her hands over her eyes.
Alone, Navran remembered. All of her family had died leaving Virnas, save her and her son.
He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. “Caupana,” he said, “help her. If there is a way to reach them….”
“We’ll need to meditate,” Caupana said. “We will find their names in the inner stillness. At night, when Aryaji is likely to dream.”
Srithi wiped away the tears which had trickled down her face. “I’ll do it. Every night, if I have to. We’ll find them.”
Vapathi