The Unconquered City

by K A Doore

  “And I’m fairly certain, you were the one on top, unfairly pinning a girl down.”

  “Only because you let me.”

  “I think I like you,” said Illi, before turning and continuing down the street.

  “I’ve heard it’s hard not to.”

  Illi snorted and tightened her grip on Canthem’s wrist. They let her draw them through the crowd. The market fell away almost as soon as Illi stepped onto the westernmost bridge. Then they were surrounded by the normal pulse of everyday life in Ghadid. A dancer performed to the beat of a drum at the center of this platform, his gauzy fabric swirling around him like a dust twister, glass jangling at his wrists, ankles, and ears. When Canthem slowed to watch, Illi tugged them along.

  Another bridge, another platform, another center. This one was quieter. Just a handful of people talking in doorways as they knit and mended and shelled. As Illi passed, they called out greetings, which Canthem heartily returned.

  But after the next bridge, the city fell away completely. This platform was quiet, mostly deserted. Illi knew that at least one of the faded, crumbling buildings was inhabited, but no one called a greeting and Illi picked up her step.

  On the next platform Canthem finally asked, “Why is this area deserted? What happened?”

  Illi slowed, scanning the open doorways for a familiar sign. There: a mark of red paint, faded to pink from the sun. A crack cut through the front wall and all of its windows had long since been stolen or broken, but otherwise this building was stable. Unlike some of the others, it hadn’t yet fallen to a storm or time, and likely wouldn’t for a few more years.

  She also knew no one had claimed this place for themselves. At least, not since she’d last been through here. That mark was her own, a warning to anyone who might have been looking for a place to live. There were enough empty buildings that competition wasn’t a problem. Illi had just wanted to be left alone.

  She’d gotten her wish. She’d been left alone until she’d grown sick of it. The silence hadn’t quieted her memories of the night of the Siege. If anything, the silence had made them louder.

  She led Canthem inside. Scuffs in the accumulated sand and dust on the floor indicated someone else had been here recently, but the pans and bowls she’d scavenged sat untouched next to the empty hearth. Everything potentially valuable she’d taken with her.

  The walls were still clean, at least. She’d scrubbed the scorch marks and repainted with scrounged paint when she’d moved in. The smell of smoke and ash was long gone and now all Illi could smell was dust and the cinnamon that seemed to whirl around Canthem like a cloak.

  “Why—?” Canthem started to ask again.

  “We lost more than half of our population to a plague,” said Illi. It was the truth, in a way. The curse that had forced the dead awake again had spread like a plague, through their pumps and their water. She didn’t have the words to explain the Siege at that moment, not when she was trying so hard to forget the possibility of another. She held up a finger. “Wait here.”

  She took the stairs two at a time, trusting Canthem to stay below. The crack in the wall outside was wider up here and sunlight spilled in through holes in the roof. She moved on quick feet, wary of lingering too long. The second floor was unstable. It was also where she’d hidden her things in case she ever needed to return.

  Stringwork still dangled beside a broken window, the jagged pieces of glass at odds with the delicate designs. A badly thrown clay pot accumulated dust on the floor next to a number of other useless trinkets. Useless to anyone else, that was. These were the few things Illi had scavenged from her home after the Siege. Her mother’s shears, bright orange with rust. Her father’s spice jars, melted and deformed by fire, whatever spices they’d once contained now little more than ash and dust. A simple, silver ring, which had once fit but was now too small. Half a clay figure that was supposed to have looked like her mother. The only things that remained of her family.

  She hadn’t been strong enough to take them with her when she’d left the abandoned platforms. But she also hadn’t been strong enough to destroy them. Now she passed them over without a second glance, knowing that if she looked, she’d linger. If she lingered, she’d stay. If she stayed, she’d become overwhelmed. And then nothing would get done.

  She focused instead on a poorly patched leather sandbag, a target drawn in kohl on one side. She hefted the target over her shoulder and brought it back downstairs, where she dropped it in front of the hearth.

  “That’s our target?” asked Canthem with a pinch of incredulity.

  Illi sighted along a knife. “I can make a smaller one,” she offered.

  She stood on the opposite side of the room. Breathed out. As the last of the air left her lungs, she stepped and turned and threw. Thunk. The center of the target had sprouted a hilt. Canthem clapped.

  “Fine for a show. But I still don’t understand how that can help in a real fight.”

  Illi yanked the knife out. Sand dribbled from the wound she’d made in the target. As she walked across the room, she held the knife up as if to inspect it. But when she was halfway across, she stopped, turned, and threw. Canthem jerked back as the knife just missed their shoulder. They twisted around to see where it had gone.

  When they turned back to Illi, she was already in their face. She threw the series of jabs that Canthem had taught her, pressing them backward even as they easily blocked each one. Then their back hit the wall and their next block was off just enough that Illi could slide underneath. Illi pressed her forearm against their throat, another knife pricking their side.

  “That’s how,” said Illi.

  “All right,” wheezed Canthem. “You can let go now.”

  Illi lingered another moment, then pushed herself back. Annoyed, she said, “Don’t let me win again.”

  “What?” asked Canthem innocently. “You think I went easy on you?”

  “Yes.” Illi let the knife dangle between them.

  “Well, maybe I was hoping for a kiss.”

  Illi pointed the knife at their chest. “If you don’t give this your all, I’ll give you a kiss. Just not the kind you want.”

  Canthem held up their hands. “All right. Business, then.”

  Illi picked up her other knife. “Throwing a knife will probably never win a fight for you,” she said. “But it’s a tool just like the things you taught me. And it can be a useful distraction.”

  Canthem raised an eyebrow and pushed themself away from the wall. “How did you learn all of this?”

  Illi grinned, showing all of her teeth. “I was trained.”

  “But for what purpose?” Canthem straightened their wrap, but their gaze never left Illi’s. “I mean no offense, but fighting guul doesn’t require anything beyond knowing which end of a sword to hold. But you—you fight like you were born to it. You already have training that takes years, the kind that I received when I joined the guard. But this city doesn’t seem like it needs or can even sustain its own army.”

  “Not an army, no.”

  Illi hesitated, not sure how to handle their curiosity. Most of the guards she’d trained with before had seemed content to share just that experience with her and nothing more about themselves—or her. Illi didn’t want, or need, anything beyond that.

  Even though it’d been years since the last contract had been given out and even longer since Drum Chief Amastan had all but forbidden them, speaking the truth of their family and profession wasn’t exactly encouraged. No one needed to know that she and her cousins were trained assassins. Such knowledge could only cause anger and resentment, even panic, in the city, even if those same assassins had saved Ghadid.

  But what did it matter if Canthem knew the truth? They’d be leaving in a few days anyway and she’d never see them again.

  “I was trained to kill.”

  Canthem shrugged. “So was I.”

  Illi stared. That wasn’t the reaction she’d been expecting. Then she realized her error.
“No—I mean, I’m an assassin. Or, well, was. My cousins, all of us—we were trained since we could walk. We keep this city safe. The drum chiefs and watchmen could only ever do so much—we did the rest. At least, we did until the Siege.”

  Canthem waited, expectant. They were good at that. But patience wouldn’t get them anything this time.

  “But we’ve moved on from being assassins,” said Illi brightly. “Now we’re the only thing protecting Ghadid from guul and any other horrors the world might throw at us.”

  “That’s pessimistic,” said Canthem.

  “That’s life.”

  Canthem raised both eyebrows incredulously, then shook their head. “But none of that explains why you’re throwing away perfectly good weapons. Surely you didn’t go around tossing knives at people as an assassin.”

  “No,” admitted Illi. She twirled the knife by its handle. “It was more an exercise in precision and control than it was practical. But that precision has helped me with other aspects of my fighting. It takes a cool heart and steady hand to throw well. That’s also useful when you’re surrounded by guul.”

  Now Canthem leaned forward, eyes bright. “That’s what I’d like to hear about. My company in the guard deals almost exclusively with the guul. Anything you can teach me that will work against them … well, I’d like to know it.”

  Illi stopped twirling her knife and held it out to Canthem, hilt first. “Then let’s stop wasting time.”

  Canthem took the knife, fingers wrapping around its hilt in a fist. Illi clicked her tongue and adjusted their grip.

  “You want your thumb here,” she said. “This gives you the cleanest release. Otherwise you’re going to get wobble and it’s not going to go as far or as fast. Okay.” She stepped back, nodded at the target. “Try it.”

  Canthem breathed, then threw. The knife clattered off the wall. Canthem grunted, but Illi was already pressing another knife into their hand.

  “Here, you gotta be in line with your target. And also you’ve just … got it all wrong.”

  She pulled Canthem over a few inches, then guided their arm through the motion of throwing, pointing out the finer details as she nudged over their foot and leaned into them to shift their weight. This time when Canthem threw, the knife smacked the target before clattering on the ground.

  Illi adjusted a few more things—back a few inches, turn the hand here, quicker release—keenly aware of the knife and the target, but also of Canthem’s sturdy physicality, their muscles as they stood still for her, tense but pliable. They were so strong—stronger, even, than Illi. Yet at the moment, they were like dough beneath her hands. She could get used to that.

  On Canthem’s third throw, the knife found the target, if a bit high. Canthem let out a low whoop, but Illi was already pressing another knife into their hand.

  “How many of these do you have?” asked Canthem, incredulous.

  “Let’s just say I’m never without a weapon.”

  Illi kept adjusting Canthem’s form with each attempt until, finally, the knife bloomed from the target’s center. Then she left them to stretch their shoulder as she retrieved her knives. She set the blades in a line on the ground and pressed the first into Canthem’s other hand. They stared at her.

  All Illi said was, “Again.”

  It was another hour before Illi was satisfied. The target was bleeding sand from the many holes, but Illi already had a length of thread and needle and started mending the tears while Canthem collected her knives. They gathered them on the floor nearby, counted them, and shook their head.

  “You go everywhere with these?”

  Illi shrugged. “Don’t you?”

  Canthem laughed. “Even in the Wastes, I just have my sword and a dagger or two. That’s more than enough against guul. But you don’t expect guul to attack you all the way up here, do you?”

  Illi stabbed the target with her needle, her mouth suddenly dry for a different reason. “They have before.”

  “What? Really?”

  But Illi wasn’t ready for that conversation, so she didn’t answer. She tied off the thread and stood, leaving the target next to the hearth. Canthem turned at the sound of her footsteps, expression inscrutable beneath that sands-cursed tagel.

  It’d been so good to train again, as she once had with her cousins. Back when being a cousin was more complicated than merely separating a guuli’s head from its body. Back when being a cousin required years of practice and refined skills. Back when it could easily take a few months to complete a contract.

  Illi had never had a chance at a contract; she’d still been several years shy of her test when the Siege happened. She could only imagine what it would have been like, surveilling a mark. Learning everything about them, their schedule, their habits, their predilections. Slipping into their home or their life undetected. Stealing what was most important to them: their life.

  Of course, a life wasn’t always the most important thing. Heru seemed to be particularly, dangerously keen on the sajaami.

  Illi stretched her fingers, feeling the soreness in her muscles and watching Canthem watch her. But at the same time, she was also in Heru’s lab, standing beneath the glowing orb. What affixed it to the ceiling? What kept it there?

  And could she take it?

  Illi set her feet as Canthem had taught her and spread her hands to show she was unarmed. “Your turn.”

  Canthem glanced from the knives to Illi. “How do I know you’re not hiding any more blades somewhere?”

  Illi smirked. “Why don’t you find out?”

  When Canthem attacked, Illi let her muscle memory take over so she could split her concentration teasing apart the problem of the sajaami. It was almost too simple. Remove the sajaami, remove the problem. All she had to do was get the orb to Merrabel, and in another day, both would be gone.

  No one would need to know that Heru had been hiding something so dangerous in the city. He could stay and continue his research. He’d be safe. They’d all be safe. And one day, he’d find a way to stop the guul forever.

  Illi was a cousin. She’d never had a contract, but she still knew how to pull one off: observe the mark, wait for an opportunity, and then act. She had the observation down; she’d been working alongside Heru and the orb for almost five years. She—

  Illi’s back hit the wall. She’d let her attention slip and Canthem had trapped her. That was all right. She knew exactly what to do when trapped.

  She came at Canthem hard and fast, heedless of their strikes. Pain blossomed along her arms, but they were afterthoughts. They’d be bruises later, but later didn’t matter. What mattered was now.

  And now she was tired of being backed into a corner. Now she was tired of thinking. Now she wasn’t about to go down without a fight.

  “You know, you can slow down a little,” said Canthem.

  Illi blocked their next attack, slid in, and swept their feet. They hit the ground with a thud and a laugh. They started to get up, but Illi had a knee in their stomach and a need in her chest.

  She leaned down so that her lips brushed across Canthem’s ear and whispered, “Never.”

  7

  The hardest part wasn’t waiting for a time when Heru wouldn’t be in his lab. No, Heru was nothing if not predictable. While he occasionally demanded Illi bring him this or that, he preferred to acquire the bulk of his supplies himself. Allegedly to assure quality, but sometimes Illi suspected even Heru got lonely.

  The hardest part wasn’t sneaking into his lab. No, a weighted curtain might keep out a breeze, but not a cousin. Heru had wards in place to alert him if anyone crossed his threshold, but half of those he’d taught Illi how to put down herself, and the other half Illi had watched him place. It was a simple thing to disconnect a string here and step over a line of salt there.

  The hardest part wasn’t even gathering the courage to act. If Heru caught her, she had a hundred excuses at the ready. She also had a tranquilizer that would put even the fussiest mule to sleep
. But despite all of Thana’s dire warnings over the years, Illi knew Heru wouldn’t hurt her. She was a dependable piece of lab equipment and if anything he’d be too confused that she acted at all to touch her.

  No, the hardest part was getting to the orb.

  The orb hung over twenty feet in the air, far from any walls. The building Heru had built his lab in had once been two stories, but half of the second had collapsed under the stress of the fires spread during the Siege and a number of squatters had picked away at the other half until it was a single, tall room. Heru must’ve secured the orb first before filling the lab with all of his tables and equipment. Illi could see how, in an empty room, one might reach the ceiling, how one might secure that thick chain, how one might fix those wide bolts.

  But now there were long tables in her way, now there were countless perfectly lined and perfectly stacked jars and flasks and bowls and vials. If she’d had a few days, she could move it all and stack a few tables and have the orb between her hands and then put it all back where it belonged. But she only had the drip of minutes while Heru was doing his rounds.

  So she’d found another way up.

  A rope dangled through the hole in the ceiling where one of the orb’s thick bolts had been. Three more kept it firmly in place, but not for much longer. It’d taken her most of the afternoon to first find the bolts on the roof, then pry one loose. They’d been hidden by more than just dust and sand. Someone—Thana, probably—had been smart enough to nestle them beneath a perfectly fitted roof tile. And then they’d tightened each bolt until it would never move again.

  Heru clearly had very little intention of ever removing the sajaami.

  But with enough cursing and sweat and strategically applied oil, the bolt had loosened. Then it’d come free and fallen the twenty or so feet to the cushion she’d “forgotten” on the floor below. She’d closed her eyes as it hit with a soft plop, and held her breath as she waited for Heru—across the room, back turned, head down over his notes—to notice. But he hadn’t looked up, let alone moved.