Conqueror's Blood (Gunmetal Gods Book 2)

by Zamil Akhtar

  So after dawn, I went to the man I would choose. An empty barrack is rather dull. Finches and sparrows — a rare sight these days — sang in its central garden, which didn’t deserve the name. More like an uneven and stony mess of plants and flowers. Beneath the shade of a bent cypress sat the most powerful man in Alanya: a slave named Kato. Or rather, Pasha Kato.

  Grand title for a slave, but mine was better, and I wasn’t free either. He held an entire branch of dates in his chiseled forearm. Upon my arrival, he stood, said “Sultana,” then sat back against the tree bark in one careless motion. He had the coal-dark skin of the Himyarites and still spoke with their accent, which I always found melodic.

  “Go away,” I told my gholam escorts, not of mind to say more. Of course, Kato was the greatest of the gholam, so leaving me with him wasn’t supposed to be a danger. But the gholam guarding me were loyal to Kyars, not Kato. Still, they gave us space, standing near the arched entrance, out of earshot, though within eyesight.

  Kato looked up with a date-speckled grin. “Would you whip me too with that firm tongue?”

  “Here you sit, sulking.” I shook my head in disgust. “It’s despicable. Pick yourself up. There are enemies at the gates. Maybe it’s a blessing Kyars left you behind.”

  He stared at me, tongue out. “Just the lashing I needed to feel better.”

  I wanted to grab a stone and crack his bald head. But he was the one man my plan couldn’t do without, and so I suffered his obscenity. “You’re pathetic. Tamaz will notice your absence. You’ll lose your command.”

  “Already lost it. My soldiers march west to fight the infidel without me. And I’d just been given the post after the death of my dear friend. You see, Barkam — and his shit son Hadrith, as well as a dozen or so viziers, I can name them all — detest me, all because I refused to do their bidding. Barkam, or perhaps Hadrith — if I’m really as weak as I think I am — will have me killed or sent to some metal mine to die, soon enough.”

  No, he didn’t sound like the most powerful man in Alanya. Because he wasn’t…yet. I’d have to build him up.

  “Oh? Would Kichak have sulked about it like a little girl?”

  Now he pointed a finger at me, as if to stab my chest. “Don’t act like you ever met the man. He was a hero to us all. Saw his end at the hands of some debased sorcerer in Sirm.”

  “And how will you die? Given it a thought? Because if you had, you wouldn’t be wasting today stuffing yourself.”

  He stood and didn’t even wipe the grass off his caftan. “Nor would I be sparring with a little girl who looks a lot like my first,” he closed the distance, breath stinking of a bitter southern brew, “all those years ago, in a cottage overlooking the breathless Yam Sup Sea. How sumptuous were her moans,” he licked his lips, “I’d so like to hear them again before they kill me.”

  I’d slap him, but only a fool slaps a cornered lion. “You do know I am the Crown Prince’s consort and mother of the shah-to-be. How dare you spew such filth?”

  He laughed. “Want me to sultana you every time you break wind — shouldn’t have told them to leave,” he pointed at the gholam waiting near the entrance, “you’ll get only truth from me when no one is listening. Looking for flowers? You’re in the wrong square.”

  Just why I liked him. Kato seemed loyal, but I wagered he’d take anything — everything — if he could get away with it. I counted on that.

  “When you’re done feeling sorry for yourself, here’s what I suggest you do. There’s a man hiding in a sordid little reed-roofed hut in the Alleys of Mud. I’ll tell you precisely where he is. Arrest this man and bring him to the Shah. Do so, and you’ll be a hero once more,” I snapped my fingers, “just like that.”

  Kato spat a date pit. “What man? Who is he? Why would I—”

  “Do it,” I said firmly. “The last time I gave you a hint, the Shah promoted you to Grand Commander of the Alanyan gholam. Forgot already?”

  “Some good it did me, when it was your beloved who fell prey to the whisperings of my enemies and ordered me to stay. Think soldiers follow titles? Soldiers follow those who bleed with them, kill with them, shit in a ditch with them.”

  Another thing I was counting on.

  “I know a thing or two about men and what they’ll follow.”

  “Not men — soldiers.”

  I sighed. Kato was a blood-stained dagger, but I wore armor that shattered most edges. “All men are soldiers when enough is at stake. There’s one thing they’ll follow above even their brothers, their fathers, their kings, their god. Know what it is?”

  “Hah, what are you, nineteen? At that age you think you know everything.”

  I grabbed the date branch from his hand and flung it to the side. “They’ll follow the winner. And that’s what you’ll be, if you take my advice.”

  Kato grinned, revealing date stains on his lovely whites.

  As I walked toward the exit, I kicked at one of the date pits Kato had spat. Then I bent down to brush my shoe and picked it up in one smooth motion. Surely, no one noticed.

  For breakfast, I bit a peach and enjoyed sips of ayran: too salty, and it left me with a yogurt mustache. After bathing and wearing my brownest brocade, I got to work.

  Before all this began, before I was ripped from my world and brought here, I was unfamiliar with the seductive lure of something so simple: privacy. Aloneness. With baby Seluq asleep and my room devoid of handmaidens, eunuchs, and wet nurses, I locked the door and crawled into the closet. The silk of my hanging clothes brushed against my face and hair. Sunlight beamed through the single hole I’d made, which also provided me with air to breathe.

  Darkness, stillness, peace.

  I shut my eyes and strained to hear it: the call of the black drongo.

  Chirp-peep-peep-chirp. The call remained faint, but its flapping wings beat like a storm against my mind. Chirp-peep-peep-chirp.

  I opened my eyes. And ears. At first, it was difficult to tell which was sound and which was sight. Both mapped the world. Both wrestled for that commanding spot among my senses. I saw and heard a sky so bright and endless. A city, tiny and mysterious. A desert, which seemed like a thin layer of sand on the back of a god. The river snaking through the desert and city, though a quarter-mile wide, seemed like a string I could pull and tangle around a god-sized finger. The cultivation at the riverbank blazed green and brown with rich, canal-irrigated soil growing the rice, millet, couscous, wheat, figs, and grapes that fed the city. But now, the warhorses of the Sylgiz trampled it. And those horses sprawled a great distance, roaming the thornbush-ridden grasslands to the south and even the scrub to the west, which was dotted with acacia trees, palms, and gazelle.

  And everything was upside down. Above me, the city surged, a wart amid the sand upon the god’s back. I wanted to fall into the clouds below, but I was frozen in place. Instead, the city fell upon me, raging to smash me to pieces. But as it neared, it was as if I’d entered a bubble, and I now breathed air mixed with trees and sand and dust. An earthy taste.

  The screech of a holy song scathed my ears, as if a wolf howled in my brain. I fluttered in trepidation, then landed on whatever was beneath me. My talons scratched at something solid. I looked down — hardstone. I looked around — Qandbajar’s skyline. Chanting and prayers and holy words rang. To Lat we belong…I beseech those beneath her throne…do what is beautiful…lay not upon us burdens we cannot bear…take us not to task for our error…bestow us your mercy, lest we be lost…

  I flew off the yellow dome of Jamshid’s shrine and soared toward a palace by the river. Air rushed against the bottom of my wings, keeping me in flight. And yet, it always seemed like the world was moving, not me. Like a giant had tossed the city in my precise direction.

  I flapped to slow my descent and landed on the flat roof. Already, voices sounded and bounced off the interior walls, forming a map of the inside. Divans, shelves filled with scrolls and books, hanging carpets, oil lamps flickering in the corner niches — so
much sight from only sound. I dipped down to the windowsill; my left eye watched the men inside: Hadrith, Grand Vizier Barkam’s son, and Ozar, the spice master of Alanya. A man who, the rumors say, sacrificed a baby daughter for the blessing, or perhaps curse, of unending wealth.

  Hadrith poured date wine into a crystal glass and said, “It’s fateful that Kyars is not here. Something of a wonder, perhaps, how the stars could align like this.”

  Ozar nodded, his plump form wrapped in thin, sky-colored silks. “Oh yes. But be honest — it’s your father’s absence that you treasure.”

  They sat together at a glass floor table, maroon cushions softening their asses. Hadrith was so tall, he seemed to tower even when sitting. I never understood why he didn’t trim that unruly beard — was anyone buying the warrior facade? “I’ll tell you this — it’s too advantageous. Why would Kyars suddenly agree to leave Kato behind and bring my father instead? It’s not his style. Kyars didn’t win a thing by himself but rather on the backs of men like Kato. Everyone knows this — Kyars most of all.”

  “You’re saying the idea didn’t come from Kato?”

  “Someone closer is playing the flute and Kyars dancing to the tune.”

  Ozar caressed his chin hairs. “Who?”

  “I don’t know, but before proceeding, we ought to find out.”

  “Oh, you’re just getting sweaty feet. Lat has given us an auspicious gift, something she doesn’t do often. My fleet is just beyond the river bend, ready and waiting. You have your father’s stamp. The Majlis won’t go against you because you are your father’s son. Give the order. Open the way.”

  Hadrith eyed me through the window. He grabbed his glass and flung it at my face. I fluttered upward as the crystal arced and shattered on the grass below.

  “Fucking drongos,” he said as I repositioned to the head of the window, just out of sight, “one pecked my cat to death last week.”

  “A bird…killing a cat? Oh dear, what is the world coming to?”

  “They don’t belong here. Ever heard of a place called Talitos?”

  Ozar drew in a shocked breath. “Of course, the land beyond the sea mists.”

  “I was in court the day an ambassador came, claiming to be from there. The woman wore bizarre clothes that changed color as you stared, the way a waterfall flows. She also brought a cage full of black drongos as a gift. In the sky above, you used to see hawks and eagles and doves. Now you see black.”

  “Foreign plagues seem to be our bane these days.”

  “Precisely. Foreigners. How many have the Crown Prince’s ear? His concubines from the Waste, his gholam from Himyar, none are truly Alanyans. What interests have they? What agendas?”

  Ozar squeaked a sound of approval from high in his throat. “The great Eshkal once said, ‘your heart is with whom you share the battlefield and bed.’”

  Hadrith, it seemed, had stronger suspicions than Ozar. I hoped none led to me.

  “Eshkal — a eunuch who’d never thrust a spear, of any kind. I don’t share your admiration.”

  “Wisdom has two founts — doing and observing.” How true.

  The sun’s gaze heated the window head to a discomforting sizzle, but I clung on with my talons, hoping to learn something I could use.

  “Anyway,” Hadrith said, voice ringing with impatience, “I’ll task my beloved little fawn with scouring the harem for enemies. There’s nothing she won’t do,” a perverse laugh bellowed from his chest, “nothing.”

  “She’s a lovely girl, Hadrith. And more than that, her brother is at our gates, with a horde. Don’t even think of dishonoring her. You’d endanger us all.”

  They’d brought Cyra into their schemes? Why would she work for Hadrith? How curious…and annoying.

  “I don’t shit where I herd sheep, Ozar. Something you never learned.”

  “I became the spice master of Alanya so I could shit wherever I wanted.”

  SULTANAAAAAAAAA—

  A crack formed in my consciousness and shattered it into a billion pieces. Back in the closet, sweating, eyes wide, staring up at the eunuch Sambal, his braids reaching his shoulders.

  “Sultana! Oh, fetch the healer at once!”

  Slobber moistened my left cheek. I blinked what must’ve been a thousand times, sat up, and heaved. Heaved every speck of air I could. It felt as if a barrel crushed my chest and heart, which beat a thousand times a second.

  “I’m all right,” I muttered, unsure if I’d even made a sound.

  Sambal slapped his own cheek. “Oh, she’s awake! Thank Lat!”

  He and another eunuch pulled me up and onto the bed. Numbness and pain alternated through my bones and flesh, as if tossing me on waves. But worse than that, a nauseating rage built up inside. I’d been severed from the drongo, at the worst moment, just when I was about to learn their plan.

  O’ Lat, heap your curses upon the saints.

  3

  Cyra

  Some days, I’d rather not wake. Some days are so laden I’d rather drop off the world. Why the dread? Because last night Hadrith explained his plan.

  “Ozar and I have come to a wonderful accommodation,” he’d said as we shared glasses of tamarind sherbet on the floor of his palace’s solar. “Koa spice lane is his, but it’s a nasty sailing route. The old-timers even claim sea dragons prowl those waters. So Ozar has agreed to use my crews, who haven’t seen much action since the Ethosians took our entire western coastline. No doubt my men are expert at sailing turbulent seas, and a twenty percent cut is quite fair.”

  I sat there sipping the spicy ice in disquiet. Disbelief. “You said he was corrupt. That his monopoly was making the city sick, that the people were poorer for it. And now you’ve gone and joined him?”

  “Oh Cyra, I’ll pay you your share too. Once Ozar accepted that paper with my father’s stamp, there was no walking away. You made it happen, and I’m a fair man.”

  “Aren’t you people rich enough?”

  “No such thing.”

  What would I do with more money? The palace already gave me enough. How would I explain it to Tamaz, to Mirima? Would I hide my ill-gotten gains in my underthings? “I don’t want it.”

  Hadrith smiled pridefully at me. “I’ll put it aside for you anyway. Perhaps once you’ve wizened up to the nature of things, you’ll learn that no gain is too tainted to refuse. You may one day find that the tower you’ve been building all your life is missing a foundation. It comes crashing down, crushing everything you love, and you’ve to pick up the pieces and rebuild with whatever you can — ill-gotten or not.”

  Oddly particular. His smile turned to a scowl, as if he swallowed bitter memories from his frothing ice cup.

  “When will you tell your father about us?” I asked, preferring a topic closer to my needs.

  “The moment he steps through the gate, hopefully with a bag of infidel heads. You have my word.”

  Heads! I felt them rolling around my feet again. What became of the Shah’s deliberations with my brother? I’d have to find out.

  “Think about what I can buy you!” Hadrith exclaimed with a wry smile. “Half the world, perhaps? And the other half!” What? Ozar had said that phrase to me. Was this all some big jest? “Oh, by the way, there’s another little thing I’d love your help with.”

  I slurped the sherbet. To be true, I wanted nothing more than to be useful. Whether it was Tamaz asking me to negotiate with my brother, or Hadrith’s underhanded schemes, at least I wasn’t idle like I’d been for the past eight years. Nothing but an ornament for the Seluqals to show they’d a Sylgiz khagan’s daughter in their keep. But in Qandbajar, if you were clever enough, you could be more than what others saw you as.

  Still, a dark, sickly feeling had begun to make heavy my body. A part of me wanted to run from it, and another to take it in, bear it until I no longer noticed.

  “So, please don’t let this startle you,” Hadrith began, “but I intend to gift His Highness Crown Prince Kyars something fitting once he r
eturns victorious. And, knowing the good man’s proclivities, I feel he would love a rather…how should I say it…exotic fruit? See where I’m going with this?”

  “I’m not an idiot. You want to gift him a woman.” But how the hell could I help him with that?

  “Not just any woman.” Hadrith twirled his beard hairs. “An exceptional one. You see, he has so many concubines that look like…that look like you and Zedra. Sand-colored skin, black hair that curls endlessly, big noses — typical features of Sylgiz and Vograsian girls.”

  “Big noses?” I shouted, poking at mine. It certainly wasn’t small…

  “I love your nose. One day I hope to lick my sherbet off it.” As if that made me feel better. “Don’t take what I say the wrong way, but I’d like Kyars to have…something he’s never tasted.”

  It wasn’t just me who’d been changing; Hadrith was far from what I remembered. He’d lost that boyishness that made him sweet; there was a time when he’d stutter when talking to me. Now he was more calculated and purposeful in his interactions, much like his father, the Grand Vizier. It made me want to peel away that layer, though it hardened by the day.

  I knocked my fist on the table. “You do realize I’ve never bought a slave before. How could I possibly help?”

  Hadrith beamed. “I love seeing you ready and willing. Here’s how…” And on he went.

  So that was why I didn’t want to wake this morning. I would have preferred to be talking with my brother or Shah Tamaz, helping them resolve the impasse that held Qandbajar in its jaw, but I’d promised to help Hadrith and began the day with that intention.

  Into the city I went — on foot, for the sake of my shape — as the sun’s glaze rimmed the morning clouds. Barely any birds chirping about, which was the trend lately, aside from a few red-eyed, black-feathered drongos perched here and there. Along with my gholam escort, I descended near the river’s edge toward the northern wall, which, though clay-colored, had these pleasing deep-blue merlons.