“You are Landed, Nikandr.”
“He took me into the village. He showed me the children himself.”
“Because I asked that he did.”
Nikandr paused as these words sunk in. “And what did you grant him in return?”
“A simple request,” he said as he turned and began walking once more. His limp was still noticeable, but it had either warmed up or he was ignoring the pain. Likely it was both. “I was to take breath on Baisha”—he pointed to their right, to a tall black mountain—“and find my true answer.”
“The answer to what?”
“Whether or not you would be allowed to live.”
Nikandr let him walk in peace. The answer at which he’d arrived was clear, and he saw no need to reopen a wound that was clearly still fresh.
“Will you explain to me now,” Soroush asked after a time, “why there was such a burning need to leave the village?”
“I must go to Siafyan.”
“Why?”
“Because I saw Muqallad there.” Nikandr had never shared with Soroush his time on Ghayavand, but he did so now, sparing little. He went into great detail describing the dreams he’d shared with Nasim, particularly the ones involving Muqallad, and he told of their mad dash through the Alayazhar in the hopes of avoiding him. But Muqallad had found and nearly trapped them. If it hadn’t been for Nasim, they would surely all have died.
Soroush glanced at Nikandr as they turned and headed down the narrow trail that led to the forest and beyond it the defile that would take them to the other village. Dark clouds covered the sky, and the wind was blowing with vigor, tugging at Nikandr’s hair and his clothes. “And now you think he has come here, to Rafsuhan?”
“I felt him, when I kneeled with... When I was near the lake.”
“It is only a name, Nikandr Iaroslov. You may say it.”
“I only thought that you might feel...”
“Beholden? And so angered? Incensed? I would have been in years past, but time”—Soroush glanced sidelong at him—“time has a way of humbling a man. Wahad is a wonderful son, and I pray to the fates that they allow him to live, even if the way of salvation lies through one of the Landed.”
“Did Rehada know?” In many ways Nikandr was hesitant to speak of her, but there were so few he could actually speak to of the woman he had loved, about her death and what she’d meant to him in life. Soroush was no friend to confide in, but something inside Nikandr wanted to know where Soroush had stood with her in the years before her death because, strangely, it would tell him something about his own relationship with her.
They took a steep decline through tall swaying grasses and entered the forest. Only then did Soroush speak once more. “I never told her.”
“She would have accepted him.”
“You know her so well”—his voice had risen in volume—“that you can tell me what she would do?”
“It would have been painful, but she would have loved him.”
“She might have accepted him, but she would never have forgiven herself. She always blamed herself for Ahya’s death. It ate her from within, as much as the wasting, or more, for it was a wound she would not die from. She would go on living, torturing herself until her end of days. Had she known about Wahad, it would have been worse. I was only protecting her.”
“She didn’t need protection. She needed caring and love.”
“You speak to me of love? She came to you at my behest, son of Iaros. She wheedled from you secrets that she fed to me through messengers you never suspected, and I in turn guided our efforts because of it. People died because of what you told her. And she hated herself for it”—Soroush spat on the ground ahead of them—“nearly as much as she hated you. You knew nothing of her needs.”
Nikandr felt his face flush. His heart galloped within his chest. “Neh? She may have stolen secrets, son of Gatha, but she loved me, and I was there for her when she needed me. I never abandoned her.”
“You would have had you known.”
“Early on, perhaps, but in the end I found out, and still I loved her. Perhaps you’ll do for Wahad what you couldn’t do for Rehada.”
Soroush’s face went red. He stepped forward, sliding the khanjar from its sheath.
Nikandr backed up, knowing he had pushed Soroush too far.
But from the corner of his eye he saw movement. Moving among the trees was a form, small and bright among the dark trunks of the larch and spruce.
Nikandr held up one hand and with the other pointed over Soroush’s shoulder.
Soroush, nostrils flaring, took a half step toward him, but then stopped and turned, scanning the forest behind him. The form was nearly out of sight, but he saw it and cocked his head. “Kaleh?”
“I saw her yesterday among the hills. They said she refused to live in the village.”
Without speaking another word, they both began to jog over the soft bed of the forest, weaving through the trees to keep Kaleh in sight.
When she walked down a decline, they lost her for a time, and both of them began to sprint, hoping not to lose her. When they found her again, she was treading downhill toward a thin stream. She moved with speed, but not so quickly that they couldn’t keep pace. She came to a clearing at the base of the hill, and she slowed, taking deliberate steps while studying the ground carefully. Her head was tilted, as if she were listening, though Nikandr could hear nothing above the wind and the high chatter of snowfinch somewhere in the distance.
Near the stream, she dropped to her hands and knees. She crawled forward, moving her ear closer to the ground each time, until at last something seemed to satisfy her and she lay down flat and placed her ear against the ground.
She lay like this for long moments, and Nikandr became progressively more aware of the forest—the oppression of the tall trees surrounding them; the curve of the land and the stream that cut through it; the air, which smelled of rain, and the slow, rhythmic ticking of the bark beetles. He debated on whether they should approach. He looked to Soroush, asking him silently, but Soroush shook his head gently.
For no reason Nikandr could see, Kaleh got back to her feet and padded over to a nearby hillock overgrown with moss and ferns. She kneeled before it and placed her hands on the ground, and then she kneeled forward and placed her forehead on the backs of her hands, as if she were praying to the earth.
Mere moments later, the moss bulged near the top of the hillock. It rose and split, spreading wide like the petals of a gazania blossoming in spring. The cleft it created was wide and deep, large enough to fall into.
Kaleh took from a bag at her belt something small and shriveled and black. She held it between her fingers for a time, merely staring at it. As she did, Nikandr swore it was pulsing.
Then, like a doe that had heard something amiss, her head turned ever so slightly to one side.
She dropped the blackened thing into the cleft.
And then sprinted like a cannon shot over the hillock.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Nikandr and Soroush immediately gave chase. They hurried down the slope, sliding among the tree trunks as Kaleh fled. Kaleh was like a fawn, swift and fairly bounding over the landscape. Still, she was young, and the two of them began to shorten the distance between them.
She glanced back once, her eyes wide, not with fear, but with exhilaration. As Nikandr ran, he saw a root rise up before him. He leapt over it, and a branch swung in his way, forcing him to run wide.
Soroush grunted as the bough of a young tree struck him. He slid along the slick slope, but regained his footing.
“Stop!” Nikandr yelled in Mahndi. “We only wish to speak.”
She kept moving and began to widen the distance. Nikandr increased his pace, but the moment he did a sapling bent nearly in two and struck him across his face and chest. He fell to the ground, slipping on the damp layer of autumn leaves.
Soroush fell as a thick, knotty root rose up and caught his ankle. He shouted in pain as his
ankle twisted on it and he fell face-first to the ground.
The sound of Kaleh’s flight faded as Nikandr pulled himself up, his face and chest throbbing, and made his way over to Soroush. Soroush flipped over, holding his ankle for long seconds as Nikandr waited. “It’s unwise to chase after a deer,” he finally said, holding out his hand.
Nikandr took it and pulled Soroush up to his feet.
“Shall we track her?” Nikandr said.
“With this”—Soroush nodded meaningfully to his injured ankle—“I couldn’t hope to outrun a hedgehog. Let’s return to the cleft and see what she dropped into it.”
Nikandr nodded and they made their way slowly back. They easily found the place where the cleft had opened. Digging a hole, however, was much more problematic. Nikandr broke a thick branch of deadwood in half and the two of them used the relatively sharp ends to dig into the ground, but the earth seemed whole, compact, which was more than strange since it had lain open only minutes ago.
Still, they made progress, and as they came to the depth where they thought the object might lie, they moved more slowly, took greater care.
“There,” Nikandr said, seeing movement.
As he watched, one spot in the dark, loamy earth pulsed like a thing alive. He kneeled down and carefully scraped the dirt away. Slowly, more and more of it was revealed.
“Ancients preserve us,” Nikandr said as he stared at it. He reached in and took it up. Though the urge to drop it back into the hole was great, he held it up for Soroush to see.
It was small and misshapen, looking more like a walnut than anything else, but there was no mistaking it. It was a heart. A blackened, beating heart.
Soroush swallowed once before reaching out and taking it. As he examined it, the thing seemed to beat more heavily. “What under the dark heavens is she trying to do?”
Nikandr looked around the forest. “I don’t know, but is there any doubt it has something to do with the fire?”
“That was no fire, son of Iaros.” He was shaking his head, staring at the beating heart with naked revulsion. “That was a sacrifice.”
The more Nikandr stared at the heart, the sicker he felt. He thought at first it was mere disgust, the same as Soroush, but it soon became clear that it was something else entirely. Much as he could feel Nasim those many years ago, he felt this heart. It was as if a soul were still attached to it. It was a notion that seemed foolish at first, but the more he thought about it, the more sense it made.
“What do we do with it?” Nikandr asked.
Soroush stared at it for a moment, considering, then he dropped it onto the ground and kneeled. He took from its sheath at his belt his khanjar. It was a curved blade that had seen its share of use, but it gleamed under the overcast sky as he set the tip against the heart and pressed downward with all his weight.
Nikandr felt a sharp pain within his chest. His own heart could feel the knife slicing through the dark, inhuman flesh of this shriveled and blackened thing. He bent over, clutching his chest, holding himself up by propping one arm against his knee. And then the pain lessened, and the heart began to beat slower, until at last it had stopped altogether and the pain had gone away.
“You felt it,” Soroush said. It was a statement, not a question.
“I did.”
“If there was one, there will be more.”
His meaning was clear. He wished Nikandr to help him. “I will try,” he replied. “We’re less than a league from Siafyan. We should continue in a circle, and perhaps we’ll find more.”
A light rain had begun to fall against the canopy. It was soft, the raindrops striking lightly against the forest around him, and yet it felt ominous.
Soroush wiped his knife against the pine needles that blanketed the ground. As he stood and sheathed it, he looked to Nikandr with a mixture of gratitude and confusion. “Why do you stay, Nikandr Iaroslov? Why do you help your enemy?”
“Are we enemies?”
“We are.”
Soroush spoke the words with conviction, and yet there was a softness in his eyes that spoke of hope—hope for a better future, perhaps, hope for a world that did not contain such complications—and yet both of them knew such a world could never exist, not while the Grand Duchy and the Maharraht fought for the same land.
“Come,” Nikandr said, striking a path northward. “We have a long walk ahead.”
They had been traveling northward for the better part of an hour when the feeling returned. It was faint at first, but he was becoming attuned to it. They continued until the feeling faded, at which point they backtracked and took a path through a section of wood that was marked for the tall white birch that dominated the area. They came to a place that looked nothing like the previous mound to the south. It was simply a piece of ground, indistinguishable from the area around it. After clearing away the layer of yellow and brown leaves, there were no obvious signs of it having been opened. There was even a light covering of moss beneath the leaves that appeared completely undisturbed.
But Nikandr could feel it, that same discomfort. As the two of them began to dig with their makeshift shovels, he began to feel it beat, and shortly after that he realized that it was falling in time with his own heart.
“Faster,” he told Soroush, wanting this to be over and done with.
How many might have been buried like this? And for what purpose? Perhaps Muqallad wished to widen the rift, though why he would do this he had no idea. He had some memories of Muqallad through Khamal’s dreams, but it had always seemed as though Muqallad searched for what all three of them had hoped and for centuries failed to do—to close the rift over Ghayavand. Why then would he come here, to a place thousands of leagues from Ghayavand? What was it about Rafsuhan that made it so valuable to him? It could not merely be the rift.
Perhaps, Nikandr thought, it was the people. The Maharraht. Were they not a resource, something Muqallad could use to his benefit? But in what way? And what would the fire have to do with it?
As they dug deeper, Nikandr could feel the heart more fully now. Even Soroush looked uncomfortable.
“You can feel it as well?”
He nodded. “It is—”
He never finished his thought, for just then the beating of the heart changed. It became stronger, more pronounced. Nikandr coughed. He felt lightheaded for a moment. Soroush seemed even worse, blinking his eyes and staring at Nikandr as if he didn’t know who he was.
“Get away from it,” Nikandr said.
Soroush did not respond.
Nikandr pulled him away. The effect lessened but was still present as he guided Soroush along a wash in the sloping land that led to a creek below. The heartbeat quickened, and Nikandr suddenly felt another presence, far beyond where the heart lay buried.
Soroush must have felt it as well, for he was staring northeast, the same direction as Nikandr. They slid to their right until they were hidden behind a thicket that gave them a good view of the land in that direction. Nothing lay before them, however, save the white trunks of the birch and their golden leaves upon the ground.
From beyond the trees a tall man strode. He was muscular, and his light robes were more suited to summer than they were the chill days of autumn. Even at this distance, and even though it had been five years since he’d seen him, Nikandr knew it was Muqallad.
A girl followed, speaking to him. Kaleh.
And then came the akhoz.
Two, then three more. Another on a tall stone to their right. They snuffled low to the ground like dogs. Several craned their necks at the same time, perhaps sensing something, while the others turned their eyeless faces on Nikandr and Soroush’s position.
The akhoz froze. They strained against some unseen bond—their muscles flexed, the tendons in their necks stretched taut like rigging lines as they craned against some hidden leash—and then, at no more than a flip of Muqallad’s hand, they surged forward, loping across the ground at an alarming rate.
Nikandr and Soroush tu
rned and ran, flying through the trees and down the slope toward the creek. They splashed through the water and used the speed they’d built to hurry up the far side, but making progress on the incline demanded much more effort, and they began to slow. By the time they reached the top, where level land led them deeper into the forest, the akhoz had reached the thicket where they’d been hiding a short time ago.
“Take this,” Soroush said, and he tossed the musket to Nikandr. He followed a moment later with his bandolier, which Nikandr slung over his shoulder.
He swung the frizzen back to check the pan. Seeing what little powder was there was too damp, he blew it clear while grabbing one of the wooden cartridges from the bandolier. He filled it with dry powder, and when he heard the akhoz clear the top of the rise behind him, he stopped and turned. Only two of the akhoz had crested the rise. The light rain fell against their loping bodies and immediately steamed, making them look like infernal machines plowing through the undergrowth. He sighted along the barrel, aiming for the nearest, and pulled the trigger.
The musket bucked, and the first akhoz crashed to the ground, leaves billowing up around it.
It was up again a moment later, a gaping hole leaking dark blood from its chest. Nikandr had hoped to strike the heart, but the ball had struck too low.
Pulling the wooden stopper from another cartridge, he loaded the pan and closed the frizzen. As he put more powder into the barrel and dropped the ball and wadding in, the second akhoz caught up to the first and galloped ahead of it. His hands shook as he used the ramrod to drive the shot home.
He raised the barrel and fired without thinking.
The shot took the closer akhoz full in the chest. Skin and black blood exploded as it released a gout of flame toward Nikandr. It was too far away, however, and the shot seemed to take its breath away. It fell to the earth in a heap. Its hands clutched at the earth, leaving deep furrows. And then it was still.
The second akhoz had reached Soroush. The akhoz was on all fours, wary of the khanjar Soroush held in one hand. Soroush, perhaps sensing its weakness, darted in. The akhoz raised and tried to attack, but Soroush ducked and slashed it behind the knees.
The Straits of Galahesh Page 29