by Evie Manieri
A gulp. The clay cup smacked down.
‘More,’ she rasped and tossed another coin on the bar. The taverner leapt forward to pour her another drink from the jug sweating in his hand.
‘I’ve seen Faroth’s men. He should be here soon. I tried to delay them, but they said everything’s prepared for tonight.’ He leaned in closer. ‘The sun will be down soon,’ he informed her quietly. ‘If you want to go, I’ll wait here for Faroth.’
Her only response was to produce a small silver flask – one he had never seen before – and take a short, sharp pull.
‘What is that you’re taking?’ he asked, eyeing the cup on the bar in confusion.
‘Medicine,’ she said as she stowed the flask away again.
‘You have medicine?’ he asked. ‘Why haven’t I seen you take it before? Why didn’t you use it in the desert?’
‘There’s not much left. I’ve been saving it.’
‘Where did you get it?’
She didn’t answer.
‘Why don’t you get out of here and leave her alone, sand-spitter?’ the taverner interposed. ‘She’s fine right where she is.’
Jachad straightened up. ‘Now I know you can’t be talking to me,’ he said smoothly, ‘because my name is Jachad. King Jachad Nisharan, of the Nomas.’ He tapped his fingers on the bar. ‘You understand?’
The taverner snapped the evil-smelling rag from his shoulder and began wiping up an invisible spill. ‘King of bastards,’ Jachad heard him grousing under his breath. ‘One of our girls gets in trouble, we don’t call her brat the son of a god.’
He struggled for self-control. ‘Insult me all you want, Shadari, but go carefully with my father Shof. I won’t stand for any blasphemy.’
‘Your father, the sun!’ jeered the Shadari, thrusting his sharpboned face across the bar. ‘I think you and those other swindlers have been living out in the sun too long. “Shof” has baked your brains dry!’
Jachad rested his hands on the bar and looked across at the taverner. Wisps of smoke rose up from between his fingers and scorch marks etched black lines in the stone around his palms. ‘Careful, Shadari. If you want proof of who my father is, you’ll get it.’
‘Tricks! Tricks and lies – that’s all you people are good for!’
Suddenly the cups and jars on the shelf behind the bar began to rattle. The taverner stepped hastily aside just as a little jug on the far end shimmied its way off and crashed to the floor. Jachad felt the stone of the bar vibrating and snatched his hands back in alarm.
‘Earthquake!’ declared Jachad and the taverner simultaneously. He looked up at the ceiling, holding his breath, but as he listened, poised to bolt for the door, the faint rumbling subsided. He exhaled and wiped his damp forehead with his sleeve.
But the taverner was now staring at Meiran. He pointed at her with one crooked finger and asked, ‘Is she dead?’
Meiran was slumped over the bar, her arms outstretched amidst her overturned cup and puddles of wine. He snatched up her flaccid wrist and tried to find the throb of her pulse: thready at first, then a weak but steady pressure against his fingertips.
She slowly removed her arm from his grasp and reached up under her hood. As she hooked a finger under the eye-patch and dragged it across to the other eye, the hood slipped down to her shoulders, leaving her face fully exposed. The taverner drew in a sharp breath and backed away, colliding with the shelves behind him and knocking some cups to the floor.
‘They’re here,’ Meiran said, as she leaned across the bar and liberated the wine jug dangling from the taverner’s hand.
Four Shadari men and a little boy jostled their way into the tavern. The tallest man had a pronounced limp and he was red-faced, presumably from exertion. The other three were pale – presumably with fear. The leader nodded meaningfully at the taverner, who scooped up the coins from the bar and fled out into the darkening night.
Jachad came forward and smiled down at the boy, a wide-eyed little thing no more than six or seven years old, with long, curling black hair bouncing around his shoulders and over his eyes. ‘So, you must be Faroth,’ he joked.
‘I’m Dramash, son of Faroth, son of Ramesh’Asha, of the Shadari,’ the child corrected him, with all of the pride and solemnity due to such an impressive lineage. ‘This is—’
‘I’m Faroth,’ interposed the man with the limp humourlessly. He barely glanced at Jachad before turning his eyes past him towards the bar. ‘So that’s her?’
‘That’s her.’
‘Good.’ Faroth reached beneath his robe and brought out a small purse, which he tossed at Jachad’s feet. ‘You can go now.’
‘Faroth,’ called out one of the other Shadari – the youngest, scarcely more than a boy himself. He jabbed his finger towards the purse. ‘You’re not going to pay this sand-spitter, are you? We don’t even know if she’s going to help us yet. You know what these Nomas are. Cheaters and liars, every one of them.’
‘You asked me to come here,’ Jachad commented mildly, ‘not the other way around.’
‘Oh, your sort will always turn up if there’s a profit to be made. But where were you when we needed help? Where were you when the Dead Ones were butchering us?’
He sighed: this old song again – over something that happened long before this whelp was even born. ‘We’re traders, not fighters.’
‘What about that fire trick you’re so proud of?’
‘Of all the ignorant—’ he murmured to himself. ‘Only the kings of the Nomas have that power,’ he informed the man patiently, ‘and only one is born in each generation. When the Norlanders attacked you, King Tobias was the only one of us not too old or too young to fight. Or would you expect one man to take on the whole Norland Empire?’
‘I wouldn’t expect anything from a Nomas coward.’
‘Enough, Elthion!’ Faroth snapped. ‘The Nomas were hired to find her and bring her here. She’s here. So that’s the end of it.’
‘You really should tie up your dog, Faroth,’ Jachad answered back jauntily, picking up the purse and weighing it doubtfully in his hand, ‘but there is some sense in his barking. You can’t possibly have enough money to pay her to fight for you. So as a gesture of good will, I’ll give my fee back to you, and she and I will leave. No one will ever know we were here. We’ll forget this ever happened.’
‘You’ve been paid, Nomas,’ another of the Shadari said grimly, stepping forward. All of the fingers but one on his right hand were missing, probably the result of a mining accident. ‘Get out.’
‘Oh, come now,’ pleaded Jachad, throwing out his hands. ‘This is your uprising? The four of you and one little boy?’ The boy squeaked in outrage but Jachad had lost the desire to play. The more he looked into Faroth’s hard, flat eyes, the more he regretted this bargain. He turned to Meiran. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here. I told you from the beginning that this would be pointless.’
‘We don’t want any more noise from you. We know what you do out in the desert, without any women,’ Elthion taunted. His hands were balled into fists and an angry vein stood out on his temple. ‘Go back where you came from, king of goats! Looking at you, I know why your women spend all their time at sea.’
‘You small-minded little—’
‘It’s not just us. There are dozens more of us outside right now,’ broke in the short Shadari hovering at Faroth’s elbow. ‘And hundreds more at the mines and in the city, just waiting for Faroth’s signal.’
‘Shut up, everyone,’ Faroth commanded in a quiet voice that chilled the room. He limped past Jachad and went over to the bar to stand next to Meiran. ‘We have money,’ he told her. ‘Maybe not as much as you usually get, but besides the currency we can give you—’
‘I don’t want your money,’ she said, cutting him off.
His eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘Come again?’
Meiran stood up. She unhooked the cloak from around her neck and let it slip to the floor, revealing her high Norlander boots, ti
ght leggings and a sleeveless leather vest that creaked against the whipcord muscles of her shoulders. A striated pink and red mass of scar tissue crawled up her right arm from the wrist all the way up to the elbow. Dark blood slipped through the veins beneath her pale grey skin like eels in a stream. The Shadari could see what Jachad already knew: she carried no weapons of any kind, not even a knife.
‘If you don’t want our money, then why did you come?’ Faroth demanded. Jachad saw him angrily fingering the handle of the sword stuck through his sash. It had only a rag for a scabbard. ‘We’ve risked our lives just to meet you here. This had better not be some Nomas swindle. Or a trap.’
‘I don’t want your money,’ Meiran repeated, ‘but you do have something I want.’
‘What is that?’ Faroth asked sharply, voicing the question that had been plaguing Jachad for weeks.
‘After the Dead Ones are gone,’ said Meiran, ‘I’ll tell you then.’
‘You can’t possibly expect me to agree to that. Tell me what you want, and if it’s in our power to give it, it’s yours.’
Meiran hesitated. Here was the moment, the reason she had come back.
Warmth tickled in Jachad’s palms and little flickers of nervous white and blue flame fizzed across his knuckles.
‘Not now,’ Meiran said finally. ‘After.’
‘But that’s ridiculous.’ Faroth’s voice had risen; his composure was beginning to crack. ‘You could ask for anything – you could ask for the whole city, or for something we don’t even have. What then? You’ll come back with an army and kill us all?’
‘If you want this enough you’ll risk that possibility.’
At that moment the curtain across the doorway flapped aside and a Shadari with a round, florid face hopped into the tavern. ‘Patrol,’ he panted as everyone’s eyes swung in his direction.
As Elthion blew out the lamp – it was past curfew, and the tavern was supposed to be closed – they all heard the rhythmic crunch of booted feet on the road. Jachad held his breath. The footsteps approached. The moment lengthened. He waited for the sound of the footsteps to grow softer.
Instead, a surprised cry was followed by sandals slapping the ground, then more cries, more running, and the long scrape of swords being drawn.
‘Damn!’ swore Faroth, leaping towards the door. ‘I told them to stay hidden.’ He snatched up the child and swung him behind the bar. ‘Wait here, Dramash.’
‘Don’t be afraid,’ Jachad whispered to the child, when he saw him peeking around from around the corner. When he turned back around he saw Meiran flicker past them all and dash out into the street like a shadow.
‘She’s not even armed!’ Faroth exclaimed impatiently as all four Shadari men tried to get through the doorway at the same time to help their comrades.
‘I don’t think that matters,’ replied Jachad, grinning in spite of himself. He followed them out into the street.
And into chaos. Shadari were running everywhere, and a few were already dead, or dying on the ground. He noticed sadly that the majority of the rebels were very young, very old, too ugly to serve in the temple, or had some kind of injury or deformity that had exempted them from service in the mines. Despite their numbers, they didn’t look like they could take a bone away from a hungry dog, much less take their city back from the Norlanders. On the other hand, two Norlander soldiers had thrown down their capes and were lunging nervously at anyone who came within their reach. The Shadari could have overpowered them easily if they’d had the slightest notion of how to organise themselves.
Meiran wasted no time. She kicked the first guard squarely in the chest with a sideways leap that knocked him down on his back and left him wheezing for breath.
When the second guard came running at her from across the street, she sidestepped him and tripped him as he ran by her. As he fell she grabbed his shoulders and brought her knee up hard against the side of his head, then snatched the sword from his loosened grip.
The first Norlander scrambled up again and rushed at Meiran with his sword aimed at her heart. She swept his thrust aside with a neat flick of her borrowed blade, then matched him blow for blow through a rapid exchange that left Jachad’s ears ringing. His hands itched with warmth, but he didn’t dare intervene. With a serpentine writhe she slid under the Norlander’s shoulder and skipped out behind him. The soldier dropped his weapon and staggered back, blood spurting from his arm and pattering in silvery-blue droplets on the sand: she had drawn the edge of her blade across the back of his arm as she’d passed underneath it. The guard’s feet became entangled in one of the cast-off capes and he crashed to the ground. Meiran wrapped her wiry arm around his throat and held on until his eyes rolled up into his head.
Meanwhile, Faroth had been trying to organise his followers: terse commands were given and men slipped away through the city streets; the wounded were helped up and whisked into the dark houses.
Jachad walked across the street to where Meiran stood looking down on the two unconscious Norlanders. He could see her chest rising and falling with the exertion of the fight. Just as he reached her she tossed the borrowed sword to the ground, brushed past Jachad and the Shadari converging on her and disappeared into the tavern. He followed her inside. By the time he had relit the lamp she was sitting at the bar once again, draining a jug of wine to the dregs.
A few moments later Faroth returned leading a small troop of shocked Shadari. They were dragging the two unconscious Norlanders along with them, carrying the guards’ unsheathed broadswords carefully to keep the sharp edges from slicing their own flesh. The Shadari dumped the Norlanders on the floor.
Faroth checked on Dramash and then limped straight up to Meiran. ‘Are more of them coming?’ he asked, brandishing his unstained sword.
‘They didn’t call out to anyone.’ She paused to take another drink. ‘Maybe no one was nearby. Maybe they wanted to kill me themselves. They wouldn’t be the first to make that mistake.’
Faroth glanced over at the unconscious guards. ‘But you didn’t kill them. Why not?’
‘Why should I?’ She wiped a splash of wine from her mouth with the back of her disfigured forearm. ‘I don’t work for you, remember? You didn’t like my terms.’
Jachad leaned back against the bar.
Faroth turned to the man beside him and exchanged his battered weapon for one of the captured broadswords. Then he hobbled over to the two Norlanders. Without pausing, he plunged the blade into the back of the first guard. Blue blood swelled around the wound. The body twitched for a moment and then lay still. Faroth awkwardly changed his grip on the sword and yanked it out of the dead man’s body, then methodically repeated the procedure on the other man. He turned and handed the dripping sword to his follower, who dropped it as if it were red-hot.
Only then did Jachad notice the boy standing next to the bar, gazing at his father with the grave expression and the round, unblinking eyes of an owl. There was something truly terrible in that look. It had never occurred to Jachad that a child’s innocence could be lost in a single moment, but if it were possible, surely he was seeing it now.
‘You could never understand how much I want this,’ Faroth told Meiran.
Jachad saw her smiling back at Faroth. He shut his eyes.
‘Then we have a deal?’ asked Meiran.
‘We have a deal,’ Faroth replied.
‘Faroth, I think Dramash just ran outside,’ said Elthion, poking around noisily behind the bar.
‘What? Why didn’t you stop him?’ Faroth’s eyes flashed. ‘Sami, go and find him. He can’t have gone far.’ To Meiran, he said, ‘The mines, then. Our people will be there, waiting for your signal. Before sunrise.’ He limped out of the tavern with his retinue, leaving Jachad and Meiran alone with the two corpses.
Jachad took a deep breath and gathered his thoughts. ‘Meiran, if you don’t—’
He had intended to plead with her to call off this arrangement – or at least tell him what it was all about – but he n
ever got the chance. Before he could get in another word, a dim rumbling shook the air and then built to a grinding roar. The lamp went out, drowning the tavern in darkness as the ground beneath him dipped. The shelves behind the bar crashed down, shattering winejars and mugs. He no longer knew where to find the door; all he could think of was the ceiling over his head, which he felt sure was about to crack and tumble down on them.
‘Jachi!’ he heard Meiran cry out, and a moment later he felt her hands on his arms, shoving him. The tepid glow of her skin made him remember himself. He rubbed his fingers together and a little point of flame danced above his hand. They had nearly reached the door when it all stopped.
Meiran let his arm go.
‘Is it over?’ he asked raggedly as a soft cloud of chalky dirt drifted down and settled on his hair and shoulders.
‘I don’t know.’ Her silver-green eye gleamed at him.
‘Come on.’ His voice was unsteady. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
But she walked back towards the bar, found the lamp and the flints and lit the wick again. He checked the ceiling above him nervously, relieved to see that it looked solid enough, then crossed behind the bar and sifted through the wreckage until he found an unbroken jar of wine. He tore off the wax seal with his teeth and spat it into the dirt. ‘We have a deal,’ he repeated her words with a sigh. ‘Then I suppose I’m done here.’
‘Not yet. I need you to deliver a message.’
‘What message?’
‘You need to go after Faroth. He’s not going to be at the mines – he’s going to get his long-lost sister back.’
‘Really?’ he asked wryly. ‘That’s nice for him. And what about you?’
She walked over to the dead Norlanders and picked up the bloody sword lying next to them, then aimed the point at the two corpses. ‘I need their heads.’
Jachad took a long, deep drink, and said, ‘Of course you do.’
Chapter Nine
Harotha shuddered, her spine tingling. Her back ached terribly after the long walk from Saria’s house, and her ankles were so swollen that she could feel them throbbing. Waiting up ahead of them was a derelict building, mottled with dark patches where the whitewash had flaked away from the red clay bricks. The doorway was a black maw, stretching wide to swallow her up. This was the abandoned house where she had lived, alone except for Saria’s infrequent visits, for the last five months: five months shut up in the dark, of no more use to anyone than if she really had been buried in the Dead Ones’ tombs.