Heir of Iron (The Powers of Amur Book 1)

by J. S. Bangs

  “You go. I’ll follow the rest of the guests. Let Mandhi and the children get out safely.”

  Mandhi reached up from the boat, grabbed his wrist, and pulled him down. “You will not try to follow the guests. Don’t you realize you have responsibilities?”

  “I do. That’s why—”

  “Your responsibilities include not dying while fleeing the fire.” She gave him a withering, cruel glare. His face flushed with shame. “Try to understand what you have to do.”

  Paidacha pushed them away from the walkway and into the middle of the flooded street. The prow of their boat immediately smacked into the side of another boat, prompting a snarl from a man piloting his own family to safety. The canal ahead of them was crowded with people seeking refuge on the water, but it was still safer than the chaotic violence on the planks a few yards away. People pushed and screamed and shoved each other into the water or towards the flames.

  “Forward,” Mandhi shouted.

  Paidacha shoved them forward with his pole.

  “Where are we going?” Navran asked.

  “Tashya’s house,” Paidacha shouted. “In the outer city. I told everyone in the guest-house where to go. Ulaur help us, we’ll get there alive.”

  * * *

  Dawn came as a bulge of light in the east, muddling the outlines of the storm clouds, and revealing the greasy stain of smoke rising from the inner city of Jaitha. The refugees from Paidacha’s huddled in a modest courtyard, those who could sleep lying shoulder-to-shoulder on the packed dirt, with their bedrolls and clothing stacked against the walls like refuse thrown up by the flood.

  Navran hadn’t slept. He stood in the doorway of the courtyard and watched the north. Until daylight broke, an orange glow had smoldered in the inner city and covered the stars with smoke. It was Ruyam’s doing.

  No one had said Ruyam’s name, but Navran was sure no one doubted it. Revenge on the city that had not let him cross sooner or a way to burn out the Heir that had escaped him. The smell of smoke burned like fear in his nostrils. They were doomed.

  The day brightened slowly. Mandhi and Paidacha emerged from the house along with the modest merchant who had given his courtyard to the refugees—Tashya, if Navran recalled correctly. They carried baskets full of roti and handed it out, working their way through the crowd towards the door.

  When she reached the doorway of the courtyard she handed a piece of roti to Navran. “Eat,” she said.

  “Where is this from?” Navran asked.

  “Some of what Paidacha brought from the guest-house and some of what Tashya had.”

  He handed it back to her. “Give it to someone else.”

  “You need to eat.”

  “Gocam went days without eating.”

  Mandhi put the roti back and glared at Navran, though perhaps with less bile than usual. “So you’ve taken it into your head to become a thikratta, now? Another first for the Heirs.”

  Navran shrugged and looked back to the north. “Others are hungrier than me.” What he really wanted was a fat bowl of rice beer, but he wouldn’t say that, nor would he give in and try to find one. Grumbling just loud enough for Navran to hear, Mandhi moved on.

  Navran watched her. The next woman who took roti from Mandhi clasped her hand and asked, “Where are we going to go?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We came from Krdnas, after the Red Men purged the place. Paidacha was supposed to help us find refuge. And now?”

  Mandhi shook her head. “I don’t know. I’ll talk about it with Paidacha.”

  “When?” shouted a man sitting a few feet away. “Will the Red Men chase us forever? And if Ruyam did this—”

  “It wasn’t Ruyam,” Mandhi said.

  “It was Ruyam,” Navran said, but Mandhi didn’t hear.

  “Well, whoever, but what are we going to do?”

  And the thought came into Navran head again: this is a chance to do your duty.

  That was madness, of course. What was he supposed to do? The last time he had tried to do his duty, Mandhi had scolded him.

  But your duty is not just to Mandhi.

  The complaints of the forlorn refugees were rising into a hubbub. Before his tiny flicker of courage could die, he raised his voice and said, “You will all come to Virnas.”

  “And what will we do in Virnas?” the woman nearest to Navran asked.

  “You’ll stay in the estate of Veshta the merchant, where the Heir of Manjur will keep you under his care.”

  “The Heir!” the woman said with a snort of derision. “As if you could speak for him. Where is the Heir, anyway? Holed up somewhere in Virnas in secret?”

  A surge of defiance rose up in him, refusing to give in to that dismissal. The words spilled from his mouth with a vehemence that surprised even him as he said:

  “I am the Heir.”

  Silence swallowed up every noise in the courtyard. The woman nearest him held her mouth open, her words drying on her tongue. Mandhi’s eyes were wide, her lips twitching. And he thought, what have I done?

  “Pure light of Ulaur,” whispered someone. “Is he lying? Would someone lie about that?”

  But it was too late to retreat, now. That swell of unbidden courage had pushed him into the flood waters, and now he would have to swim. He raised his hand and showed them the iron ring, then pulled it from his finger. His voice cracked as he spoke. “This ring bears Manjur’s seal. The household of the Heir wears them. Right, Mandhi?”

  Mandhi nodded silently and raised her own hand to show them the matching ring. Her gaze didn’t shift from watching Navran with horror and fear.

  The nearest woman crept forward and examined the ring in Navran’s hand. The pentacle stamped onto the outside, and Manjur’s seal on the inside. She placed the ring back into Navran’s palm, then knelt and kissed it. “My lord and chosen of Ulaur, bless us.”

  His hand was suddenly wet with sweat, and his heart thundered in his chest.

  “Say it,” Mandhi whispered.

  “Say what?”

  “I bow….”

  Of course. He was the Heir; when the woman said “bless us” it was an invitation, not just a mantra. Everyone in the courtyard was watching him with nervousness over his evident uncertainty. The terror that he would forget the words bubbled up into his throat—but no. His upbringing hadn’t been that defective.

  He put his hand on the woman’s head and said, “I bow—I mean, we bow—We bow our heads to Ulaur, the light unborn, the word unspoken, the fire of ages, who overthrew the serpent, who drives off the unclean powers, who keeps Manjur and his children in purity and the good.” And he sketched the pentacle above her head.

  Oh no. They were all coming now, crowding around him and bowing down and asking for more blessings. Mandhi watched him, still motionless, with an expression that seemed to observe his discomfort with You asked for it. But by successfully completing the prayer he seemed to have dispelled the others’ doubts, and now there was nothing to do except say the prayer over and over again and keep sketching the pentacle and wonder what in the world he had gotten himself into.

  * * *

  Tashya had invited him inside, with fervent apologies that he had let the Heir sleep outside the night before, and given him his own bedroom. At least it was solitude. He sighed and leaned out the window, then collapsed against the frame.

  Someone entered the room behind him. He didn’t look up. After a long moment of silence Mandhi asked, “Do you want to tell me what came over you?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I just—it seemed like the right thing to do.”

  “The Heirs keep their identities secret for a reason, Navran. The Emperors have hunted them, and the king of Virnas will be none too happy if the Heir of Manjur is openly walking his streets. And we have other enemies to hide from.”

  He shrugged. “Too late for that. Ruyam knows me.”

  “Ruyam doesn’t know that my father named you the Heir. At least, I hope he doesn’t.” />
  Navran shook his head. “No more hiding. It didn’t work in the first Purge. And Gocam destroyed the bridge.”

  “What does Gocam destroying the bridge have to do with anything?”

  At least she wasn’t still insisting that Ruyam was dead. “The bridge held together North and South Amur. The temple claimed it for Am.”

  “You think that matters? You think that allows you to break the oldest rule of the Heirs?”

  Navran got to his feet, trembling. “I don’t know, Mandhi. I’m not Gocam. I don’t have foresight or a thikratta’s discipline. But Gocam spoke of the bridge as a stitch holding the empire together, and now the stitch is torn. What comes next won’t be what was before. The Heirs won’t go back to hiding. The Emperor won’t remain in Majasravi. And I am trying to do my duty.”

  “Your duty.” She sneered at him. “Well, now every Uluriya in Jaitha is camped outside of Tashya’s, it seems. Word spreads fast, and they all want your blessing, and they all want to go back to Virnas with us. And I don’t know what we’ll do with them when we get there. Veshta can’t possibly take everyone. I’ll have to canvas the saghada of the city—”

  “Thank you.”

  She stopped. “For what?”

  “For thinking of these things. I don’t know how to do half of it.”

  Mandhi snorted. “You’ve got that right.”

  “I don’t know how to be Heir. You have to teach me.”

  “I was never Heir, either, in case you forgot.”

  “But you know your father’s example.” He tried not to sound too desperate.

  She was quiet for a while. “We’ll see.”

  “We have to leave tomorrow.”

  “What? We couldn’t possibly be ready that quickly.”

  “Ruyam will cross the river with the Red Men at the first opportunity. We have to get to Virnas ahead of them.”

  “Did Gocam tell you that, too?”

  “No. But it’s plain sense.”

  “Maybe the day after tomorrow—”

  “No.” He clenched his fist and slammed it against the window sill. “I said tomorrow. I’ll be leaving, and any Uluriya who stays in Jaitha after that will have his blood on his own head.”

  “Are you that stubborn? Don’t be a fool. I won’t carry that message for you.”

  “Then I’ll tell them myself.” He took three swift steps towards the door. Mandhi shrank back and gave him a black glare, her eyes narrowed with a cunning thought that he couldn’t interpret.

  “What will you tell them?” she said.

  “They want to see the Heir, don’t they? Then they’ll see me, and I’ll tell them we’re leaving. Ruyam is crossing the Amsadhu, and we have to fly to Virnas ahead of him. They’ll listen.”

  Mandhi examined him for a moment with a cold, embittered expression, then her eyes widened and her lips loosened into a soft, exhausted smile. “Fine. We’ll go. And we’ll see what happens in Virnas.”

  Mandhi

  The hills of Virnas appeared as a sliver of gray rock on the lip of greening fields of rice. The walls themselves could not yet be discerned, but the sight of the stony shoulders put relief in Mandhi’s chest. The sun glimmered on the crowns of the hills in the east. Behind Mandhi and Navran the trail of fleeing Uluriya stretched like a dog’s tail, caked with dust and drooping into the earth at the end of a day of heat and hard travel.

  Paidacha looked at Navran and asked in a tone of weary hopefulness, “Will we wait here?”

  “Yes,” Mandhi answered. A half day’s march remained before they would reach the gates of the city, and it would be closed by that time. Navran flinched a little that she had presumed to answer for him, but he nodded. With a sigh of relief Paidacha shouted to Tashya and the rest of their band to stop and prepare a camp beside the road. Ten yards behind them, the next group in the chain saw their gesture and did likewise, and the halt rippled back through the line of refugees.

  Mandhi muttered under her breath. Another night sleeping on a cotton blanket on the ground. She’d had enough of that when they were fleeing with Gocam, and she’d hoped to spend some time in guest-houses now. And guest-houses there were, plenty of them between Jaitha and Virnas. But none that could accommodate a flood of Uluriya two thousand strong in a line that stretched to the northern horizon and beyond. She actually didn’t know how far back their followers reached, because at some point they began to bleed into the general exodus from Jaitha. The rumors from the city propagated up the line, and when they reached Mandhi and Navran they confirmed Navran’s fear.

  Ruyam lived. He and the Red Men had crossed the Amsadhu in boats, had crushed the remnants of the King’s militia, and followed them to Virnas.

  They made a hurried camp, making a small fire of dung in the middle of their circle. Paidacha passed out roti and dried figs. Mandhi crouched next to the fire and ate in silence, while Paidacha and Tashya chatted quietly in grim tones. Navran took his food and went off alone, staring to the north with an expression that suggested an inner torment. The evening sank into gloom.

  Voices sounded along the road, coming from the north. A wail of dismay carried through the night from the next group behind them. Navran started down the road to meet two gray figures hurrying along the clay path. Mandhi got up and followed.

  “We bring news for the Heir!” one of the men shouted.

  “That’s me,” Navran said, stepping into the path in front of them. The men were taken aback for a moment, but they bowed to Navran and kissed his hand, which he endured with a stiff expression. He glanced back to see Mandhi following him.

  “I am Kurgitu your servant,” the first man said. “And this is my brother Daushana. We have dire news. The Red Men have been spotted on the road behind us.”

  “What?” Mandhi said. “How far back?”

  The man glanced from Navran to Mandhi in confusion, but Navran raised his hand and said, “She’s my sister.”

  Not your sister, Mandhi thought, but she couldn’t correct him now.

  “A few miles behind the last of us. The word was passed up from behind us. They saw the Red Men on the road, marching quickly and overtaking many that they saw behind us. And they said—” Kurgitu looked around with a suspicious glance and made the sign of the pentacle on himself “–they said that Ruyam had been transformed into a demon.”

  “What?” Mandhi said.

  Navran sighed. “I heard the rumor a few days ago,” he said quietly. “A spirit of fire and smoke.”

  Kurgitu and Daushana nodded their heads gravely. Mandhi snorted. “Do we believe that?”

  Navran gave her a scornful glance. Evidently he believed it, at least. Then he turned to the two men and said, “The refugees the Red Men passed,” Navran said. “Were they harmed?”

  Kurgitu looked back at the other man following him, who shrugged. “We don’t know. We took the word from those who first saw, but they were exhausted by the time they reached us. My brother and I agreed to run forward carrying the news until we found the Heir.”

  “We’ve moved too slowly,” Mandhi muttered. “But we’re within sight of the city. We can reach it tomorrow before the Red Men reach us.”

  “Not all of us,” Navran said. “Not those who lagged.”

  “Can you do anything for them?”

  Navran grimaced. “Probably not.”

  Kurgitu ducked his head and asked, “What should my brother and I do?”

  “Stay with us,” Mandhi said. “You have the Heir’s thanks. We’ll share our food with you. And at dawn we’ll make for the city gates.”

  * * *

  At dawn they marched.

  The camp stirred with the earliest brushes of light on the eastern horizon, and they gathered their goods with grim, silent efficiency. Their feet hit the clay road while the morning mist still hovered over the rice paddies. The city of Virnas ahead of them lay obscured by haze.

  By midmorning the mist had dissipated. At first Mandhi thought she saw a long-lasting patch of fog i
n the valley east of Virnas. But with a longer look she saw there was a large encampment of some sort just outside of Virnas. The road passed over a small ridge, letting her make out the distant flecks of green and gray fabric covering the brown, unplanted fields to the left of the road. She pointed it out to Navran.

  “Do you know what it is?” he asked.

  “I don’t,” she said. “That makes me nervous.”

  He shrugged wearily. “Could it be worse than the Red Men?”

  “How could I know?” She chewed her lip for a moment. “The north road enters the city well to the west of their encampment, so they won’t threaten us. I hope.”

  “Then we go for the city.” He plodded ahead without another glance.

  How did he continue so doggedly? She had learned better than to take his taciturn stubbornness for stupidity, but it made her teeth grind nonetheless. If the strange encampment around Virnas did represent a threat, then they needed a plan. Did he have one? Did he think she would invent one on the spot? She’d get no good answers from him and had no desire to try to wring something from his stony lips.

  The road slid down from the crest of the ridge and dropped between the little mud terraces sectioning the hill into rice paddies. The hill on which the city perched hulked over the landscape, and the gray stone walls showed like teeth.

  As they passed through villages and hamlets, eyes peered at them from windows, as if the inhabitants were frightened by the sight of their march and hoped they would pass on without disturbing them further. Many of these were Uluriya villages, pentacles dangling from the eaves of their houses and nailed above their doors, and they must have recognized those marching. But they maintained silence, and Mandhi respected it. She glanced backwards at the clumped line of Uluriya following them down the ridge, thought of the Red Men trailing them beyond, and prayed for the safety of the village.