Conqueror's Blood (Gunmetal Gods Book 2)

by Zamil Akhtar

  We stepped toward a door on the far side. A faint melody from above graced my ears: hymning. Somber and low, like the hymns of the stars I touched.

  “Ethosian hymns,” Eshe said. “In Paramic, too.”

  We opened the door and entered a stone corridor. The fireflies whizzed by toward a staircase. I grabbed Eshe’s hand and stayed behind him as we followed the fireflies up the stairs. The hymns loudened with each step.

  And the angel said,

  We are only a trial, so do not disbelieve.

  How terrible the price for which you sold your soul.

  Beneath the light of Aurora — the dead star of morning.

  At the top of the staircase, the hymning stopped. We entered a vast room with rows of ornate wooden benches. They faced a dais, upon which stood a statue of the Archangel; I’d seen Ethosians buying small likenesses in the Grand Bazaar. Strangest of all…the pews lay empty…no choir.

  Except, a man sat in the foremost pew. Father Chisti, wearing a flowery cloak, his thin hair almost covering his ice-dead eyes.

  “You really were brave,” he said as we stood before him, “to follow me here.”

  “Where is here?” Eshe asked.

  He gestured to the Archangel statue. “Never been to Basil’s Cathedral?” He shook his head and clacked his tongue in disappointment. “Eshe, my dear, it’s just down the street from your house. You ought to see new places, try new things — why else be alive?”

  I’d walked by Basil’s Cathedral hundreds of times — a castle with four spires and a dome, at the edge of the Ethosian Quarter, just outside the Glass District.

  “Why did you ask Zedra to do those awful things?” I clenched my fist. “Just what kind of game are you playing?”

  “Game…oh, this is no game. At least, not for us. It’s not a game when you’re the die being thrown, the card being drawn, the pawn being sacrificed.” He sighed, melancholic. “I wish this were a bit of fun. But the truth is, like you, we Twelve are pushed and pulled from above.”

  “Twelve…Angels?” Eshe said. “Then…which of the Twelve are you?”

  The man crossed his legs, then put his hands behind his back. “I gave man a choice, knowing full well his nature. Bloodwriting, starwriting, philosophy, science. Ultimately, it’s all dangerous, it’s all knowledge,” he spread out his hands, cards between his fingers, “and I am the teacher.”

  “Now I see.” Eshe’s eyes lit up as he gaped. “If you’re one of the Twelve, as you say, then you would be Marot!”

  Twelve? Marot? “You still haven’t told me why!” I stomped my foot.

  He threw the cards — they never landed, vanishing into the air. “Servants aren’t told why.” His laugh echoed through the empty hall, like the plucking of broken strings.

  “We’re not your servants!” I said.

  Marot shook his head. “Such folly. I’m not talking about you, I’m talking about myself. They don’t tell me why. Truth is, I’ve never asked. I find it rather invigorating. When you’ve lived long as I have, in a formless void, it’s nice to be put to use — I’m sure you can relate, eh, Cyra?”

  “Was it invigorating, destroying my life?” I wanted to plunge a dagger through his heart…if he had one. “And Zedra? Why her? Why?”

  “’Why why why’,” he imitated me and made a crying motion with his hand. “A better question would be — what.” More laughter. “Just what comes next, hmm? Step outside those doors, and perhaps you’ll learn what a girl-sized portion of angel’s blood can do.”

  None of it made sense. He had to have a better reason.

  “If you’re Marot,” Eshe said, “why are you with the Philosophers?”

  He sighed in disgust and shook his head. “You two need to learn how to listen. The Philosophers seek knowledge, and so I give it. I am the reason you can make fire, carve a wheel, blow glass. I taught you how to forge a sword, and what to do with it. I made you thirst for gold, though it be mere rocks. How to write with blood and on the stars — I tempted you with these gifts, and you succumbed. In the end, knowledge is one, whether of the arcane or the obvious.” He sniggered. “What’s the matter, dear Eshe? Did you think mankind figured all that out on their own? Without our guidance, you’re naught but hairless apes.”

  “Then that would imply purpose,” I said. “That doesn’t sound like something you’d do blindly.”

  His smile made me shudder, as if worms crawled across my shoulders. “On the contrary, chaos is blind. Though, I didn’t have to do much to set you against each other. You were already predisposed to hatred.” He pointed to my eyepatch and laughed. “Do you think it was only Zedra I shepherded?” He clacked his tongue in disappointment again. “Who do you think brought you to the Palace of Bones?”

  He stood. His limbs made a nasty cracking sound and…they stretched. Eshe and I backed away, mouths stuck in horror, as the man’s neck bent and lengthened along with his arms and legs, which now had too many snapping joints to be human.

  “Remember me now?” His voice came from everywhere.

  “You were there,” I said, terror in my throat as I recalled the desert snowstorm that led me to the monstrous man who’d warned us of the Palace of Bones. I couldn’t help but say, “Why?”

  “I told you, that’s the wrong question. What will she do, and what will you do? Hmm?”

  “Who is Nora!?” Eshe shouted as the thing’s limbs mangled like tree branches. “What are those bloodrunes?”

  “Nora-Nora-Nora.” More dark and discordant laughs. “A lovely name, like a stroll for the tongue.”

  The thing kept growing until its eyes dangled from its sockets and its head cracked the ceiling. Limbs stretched like roots across the pews and stone floor.

  Eshe grabbed my hand. We ran by the pews toward the double doors, which had sunshine leaking through.

  Outside, a hot day strained my eyes. The empty thoroughfare, just beside the Glass District, almost seemed peaceful…if it weren’t for the arrows, bullet ball casings, and char littering the ground.

  We crept through the streets, hurrying to put distance between us and the monster in the cathedral, yet wary of gholam, too.

  Pashang had charged the Glass District after we learned Zedra was hiding there. But did he win, or did the gholam hold?

  “My house is five minutes,” Eshe said. “You think we should go? Or try to get back to the Jotrid line?”

  “I want to talk to Zedra,” I said. “How much of a stupid bitch is she? How could she fall for that monster’s trick?”

  “Tricked or not, you’re still on opposing sides, and she’d sooner kill you. Anyway, no-man’s-land is not the place to digest what happened. Let’s see if we can make it to my place.”

  Eshe unsheathed a dagger and showed me the flat of the blade.

  “You need my blood, don’t you?”

  “Might have to freeze a gholam or two, to get us to safety.”

  I sighed, held out my finger, and closed my eyes. With a prick of the blade’s point, my blood dripped. Eshe let it land on the flat of the blade; he drew a bloodrune on it, mumbled some words, and made it glow.

  “I’ve been wondering,” I said, “what is it you say, each time you draw one of those?”

  “It’s an incantation to the Morning Star.”

  “So, then, it’s like…a prayer?”

  He shook his head. “Absolutely not. It’s an incantation. Praying to a star, no matter its power, would be worse than heresy. Aschere had prayed to something other than Lat.”

  If only he knew what I prayed to. “Let’s go.” I reached for his hand.

  We crept, staying low, down the thoroughfare and toward the colorful arches that decorated the entrance to the Glass District.

  We hid in a nearby alleyway and observed: a column of gholam guarded the archway, which ascended upward, and they’d placed sandbags across it. Bullet-ridden Jotrids and horses lay across the inclined street; a breeze brought their nauseating death-stench to us.

  Obvio
usly, the gholam had held. If the Jotrids couldn’t take the Glass District, even with those cannons firing at it from above, what hope did they have to take the Sand Palace?

  “Even with my bloodrunes, we won’t get through that,” Eshe said. “However, there is a back way in.”

  “Won’t they be guarding the back way, too?”

  “Likely. If Kyars is keeping his harem and heir there, the place would be a fortress.” Eshe stroked his beard. “The Jotrids must’ve had a terrible time charging up that hill. This is foolish. We should go back to camp.”

  I rubbed my arms, just wishing to be out of danger. And yet… “Zedra is somewhere there. If we go back, we’ll just be sitting around until this war plays out. Until Pashang or Kyars emerge victorious…or until Zedra,” or I, “does something truly desperate.”

  “What makes you think she’ll understand? If Pashang wins, first thing he’ll do is kill every Seluqal he can get his hands on, her son included. She’ll do whatever she must to save him, like any mother.” Eshe sighed and shook his head. “‘A girl-sized portion of angel’s blood,’ Marot mentioned. One of the rarest flavors. I wonder what he meant by that?”

  A thought struck: how cruelly he’d manipulated us! “Every time I do something desperate with my power, in response, Zedra does something desperate, too. I summoned those locusts, bringing the Jotrids into the city, which made Zedra soulshift into Mansur to try to save her son.” The fog in my understanding began to clear. “And I only summoned them to save you…after he kidnapped you! And now…Lat knows what Zedra is going to do…or has already done…to save herself and her son…after he goaded us into attacking the Glass District!” We needed to stop her. If we turned back… “Eshe, we have to get to her, lest she do something calamitous!”

  Whizzing thuds and popping sounds, in rapid succession, followed by the shh of pouring sand brought our attention back to the gholam and their sandbag wall. Arrows had just landed and now jutted from the sandbags, leaking sand onto the street. The gholam higher up the hill were crouched, golden shields raised.

  “The Jotrids are still attacking?” I said. That meant they were somewhere behind us.

  “Mellow arrow rain. Pashang’s keeping the gholam awake, seeing if they can pick off a stray one here or there. I’m surprised Kyars hasn’t struck with full force.”

  “What are you, a strategist, now?”

  “I’ve read a few books on strategy.” He puffed his cheeks. “I think I’d make a great general. Calm, cool head. Predisposed to brilliance.” He pointed at me. “You, though, would be beyond awful.”

  I didn’t care enough to disagree — though I had a few ideas I’d like to try.

  The ground rumbled. Riders. We crept deeper into the shadowed alleyway as an uncountable amount of horses galloped by, each mounted by a gleaming gholam. They torrented up the inclined street, around the sandbag wall, and into the Glass District. After them came carriages — twenty or more — with lion-patterned housings and thick wheels.

  “Carriages,” I said. “You think he’s sending his harem back to the palace?”

  “With the Tower still standing, I doubt he considers it safe. And do you really need an escort that large, and wheels that big, for the quick journey to the palace?”

  I gasped. “Then the harem is leaving the city! Unless we go now, we’ll lose our chance.”

  “There’s no way we’re getting into the Glass District. We ought to go back to camp.”

  No, I wouldn’t go back. “Eshe…what if you take my hand again, and we—”

  “Are you mad? Didn’t you hear what Marot said? He gave you this power to set you and her against each other. There’s no telling what will happen if you write on the stars. Like you said, every time you do something desperate, she does something, too. You’d be playing his game!”

  He was right. And so, we did the only thing we could: we crept toward the Jotrid line. The whole time, I only hoped I could find a way to reach Zedra, to convince her — and myself — that perhaps there was some way to end this war.

  Now in friendly territory, bow-wielding Jotrids crouched atop the house roofs that lined the thoroughfare. My idea, it seemed, had been useful in keeping our soldiers alive. Perhaps Eshe was wrong; perhaps I would make a good general, after all. Meanwhile, the common folk sat by their windows, dismal-eyed because we’d turned their houses into our shields. Well, winning did have its costs.

  Despite the dangers of being outside, we passed by men and women going about the city, mostly carrying water pitchers and sacks of fire-roasted locusts. People had to survive, war and all. The Jotrids had set up check points to prevent spies from getting behind our lines, and we passed through several on our way to Pashang.

  To our astonishment, it seemed Pashang had taken the Grand Bazaar and was now hauling cannons up the pyramid, too. Eshe and I climbed the inner steps to the top, which was normally an open-air office for the viziers who ran the place.

  Our khagan sat amid silk carpets and piled pillows, along with his brother. A day or two of not trimming made both their brown beards unruly, which suited them. Elnur’s head was in Tekish’s lap; he stroked her hair as she waved at us. Good to see she’d recovered.

  A hookah pipe sat in the center, as if waiting. A breeze blew through from every direction. Qandbajar itself sprawled out before us.

  I went for a pink, powdered jelly delight sitting on a brass plate. “How the hell did you take the pyramid?” I asked while chewing the goopy, pomegranate-flavored treat.

  Pashang’s wide smile and nod reminded me of when he’d once downed an eagle with a slingshot. His teeth were still these big, discolored, blocky things. “When I charged the Glass District, they moved most of their forces from the Grand Bazaar and the riverside to defend it. I distracted them with arrow rain and sacrificed some brave men and women in the assault, so they’d believe we’d committed to the attack. Meanwhile, we attacked where they’d withdrawn from and lined the houses with our soldiers — like you suggested — so they’d be reticent to counter. A simple feint, but well achieved.”

  How self-satisfied he sounded. I supposed he’d earned it. Doubtless, Pashang was a good general.

  “Well done.” I ought to have been happier, but given what we’d learned from Marot, a hollowness ached within. “Didn’t realize you were so clever.”

  “That’s how I prefer it.” Pashang puffed the hookah pipe, bubbling the water at its base. “Low expectations, overwhelming results.”

  Eshe sat next to him and gestured for the pipe. After taking a hit, he flipped open Melody of Nora to the page with the bloodrune of four stars and a sideways eye, careful not to touch it.

  He mumbled his incantation, and the bloodrune shimmered. “Oh Lat…I activated it. How peculiar. Normally, you can’t activate a rune you didn’t write. Unless whoever made this wanted someone else to do so.”

  Tekish peered over. “The hell is it?”

  “I think…the memories of someone named Nora,” Eshe said. He held the book out. “Do we have any volunteers?”

  Tekish shuddered. Elnur winced. I glared at the page with disdain.

  Pashang, though, grinned, “You’re telling me that if I touch that bloodstain, I’ll experience the memories of some girl named Nora?”

  Eshe shook his head, slowly, and let out an uneasy chuckle. “I’m not telling you anything. It could be the memories of a fish that got swallowed by a whale and spent the next four days being digested, along with all its friends from the local reef.” He shuddered as if speaking from experience.

  Eshe had described how Marot tortured him with a bloodrune. And Eshe had himself tortured Ruhi with one. Remembering that chilled my curiosity.

  “Close the book,” I said. “This is a bad idea. Given where we found it, I don’t think we need to know. Marot left it there for a reason, didn’t he? It can’t be a good one.”

  Eshe’s eyes widened as he fingered the parchment around the bloodrune. “You’re right…and yet, when I gaze a
t the blood, it whispers to me…”

  “We have other things to do,” I said, turning to Pashang. “We saw big carriages riding into the Glass District. Since you’ve taken the riverside, they can’t travel by ship, so—”

  I stopped because Pashang wasn’t listening. He was staring at the bloodrune, along with Eshe. He put his hand over Eshe’s and pulled it off the page. “Not you,” he said. “Me. I need this. I’ve been craving…more…since the Red…”

  “No!” I got on my knees, reached over, and grabbed at the book. Eshe whisked it away. “It’s too dangerous. You could lose yourself. Give it to me!” I shouted. “What’s wrong with you two?”

  Pashang and Eshe eyed each other. Both wanted it, but while fear filled Eshe’s eyes, Pashang’s were wide and expectant.

  “I’m doing it!” Pashang stabbed his finger on the rune, then collapsed on the pile of pillows.

  30

  Nora

  I awoke with lava churning in my stomach. I expected queasiness but retched my insides out that morning, and it wasn’t even me getting married.

  Meanwhile, my sisters were awake and practicing. Grandpa made music with his tambourine, clicking tongue, and throaty song. They were by a stream, of course, where the air stayed cool during a strangely hot flowering season.

  Once I’d washed my mouth with water and lye, I joined them. Only to watch. While Disha spun slowly on flat feet as a girl ought to, Diyne jumped on tiptoes, rotating around her, playing the boy.

  Grandpa sat on a stool so small, he might as well have been squatting. I came to his side and clapped my sisters on, finally feeling some joy.

  The music, the morning breeze, the seeping dawn — a perfect, deep, ever-brightening memory.

  “Nora, one day you’ll be a gray, old bag like me,” Grandpa said, “and days like this will be a mug of mare’s milk, fresh from the fire pot.”

  I faked a smile. Said nothing. I liked to hear Grandpa talk, and my smile said continue.

  “Three things are unlike all else.” He held up three coarse fingers. “Hunting on the first day of the thaw. A summer rain. And the joy of watching someone you love find someone to love.”