When Jackals Storm the Walls Page 11

  By the time she reached the opposite side, the abductor, a stocky fellow in woodman’s clothes, was lumbering toward the old oak forest. She couldn’t see Yasmine’s face, didn’t know if she was unconscious or worse. A skinny man waited at the forest’s edge, holding the reins of two horses. On seeing Meryam, he dropped the reins and ran straight toward her. In an instant, all of Meryam’s naive courage turned to terror. She hadn’t the sense to scream earlier, but she did now.

  Even so, the man was on her in four long strides. With a hand over her mouth, he picked her up and carried her into the trees as easily as he might a sack of neeps.

  Meryam flailed, hoping to free herself, hoping to make a mad sprint for the pavilion, but it did no good. Soon a gag was being forced into her mouth. The foul taste was just registering when Meryam was lifted roughly and thrown over the back of one of the horses. The skinny man’s face leered. “Stop struggling, girl.” He held up a knife for her to see. “It’ll go easier on you.”

  Meryam felt her bones turn to jelly. She was reduced to a shivering, blubbering mess. A blindfold was forced over her eyes just as she was beginning to cry.

  “Quiet!” the skinny one hissed, so close she could smell his foul breath. “I hear a peep from either of you and you’re not going to like what happens next.”

  She couldn’t help it, though. She cried as they rode through the forest and kept crying until the horses slowed and she was tossed into some sort of enclosed wagon—she could tell it was enclosed for how the sound of her own, rapid breathing intensified. Her blindfold and gag were still on, her wrists and ankles still bound. She was terrified they were separating her from Yasmine, but a moment later there came a grunt of pain as Yasmine was thrown in beside her. Meryam shouldn’t have been relieved that Yasmine was trapped alongside her, but she was. She didn’t know what she would do if she’d found herself alone with those men.

  The wagon door clattered shut, and then they were off, trundling down the road at a leisurely pace. Meryam tried to speak, but the gag made her words unintelligible. Yasmine tried to respond, but as soon as she did, there came a knocking from the front of the wagon.

  “What did I say?” yelled the skinny one.

  They remained silent after that.

  That they could do this, steal the king’s daughters and ride away at their ease, felt wrong—even more so than being abducted in the first place. It spoke of their certainty that they wouldn’t get caught, which only intensified Meryam’s fears.

  Where were they going? What would they do when they got there? Were they to be ransomed? Murdered? Raped? A thousand scenarios played through Meryam’s mind as the wagon rattled on, all of them involving that leering face and stinking breath.

  Hours later, they were dragged out of the wagon and laid down in a place that felt dry but smelled dank. A moment later hinges squeaked and a metallic door clanged shut. A clinking followed, as of a lock being closed. Meryam pushed herself up and scooted along the dirty floor until she found Yasmine. Yasmine shoved her hard with her shoulder, and for a moment Meryam was hurt by it. She thought Yasmine was angry with her, but when she felt Yasmine’s fingers fumbling at the rope around her wrists, Meryam realized she was trying to undo the knot. It took a while, but Yasmine did it, at which point Meryam was able to untie the ropes around her ankles, then free Yasmine.

  The moment Yasmine’s gag was off, she rasped at Meryam, “You complete idiot! Why didn’t you run?”

  Meryam stared in shock. “I wanted to save you!”

  “And how would you, a princess, stop men such as these?”

  “Well, I don’t know.” Tears were gathering in her eyes again. “I just—” She broke down, her breath coming in great, uncontrollable gasps. “Oh gods, they’re going to kill us, aren’t they? They’re going to slit our throats and leave us for the crows.”

  “Oh, stop it, Meryam. If they’d wanted to do that, they would have done so already.”

  Meryam blinked tears from her eyes and tried to control the suffocating feeling overtaking her. Only when Yasmine’s words finally began to sink in did the tightness in her chest begin to ease. The men wanted something. Meryam and Yasmine being princesses, it surely meant they wanted something from their father, King Aldouan.

  For the first time, Meryam took in their surroundings. They were inside a circular grain silo. The dirt floor had been cleared, but there was still some old grain piled against the wall. Above was their only light source, a small, misshapen hole in the stone walls.

  “It’s big enough to get through,” Yasmine said.

  Meryam stared up at it. “If you’re a bloody owl, perhaps.”

  Yasmine didn’t have a chance to respond, for just then a clanking sound came from the granary door and it flew open. The big man with the bearded jowls stood in the doorway holding a jug and a cloth sack. Meryam thought he might be angry that they’d untied themselves. He seemed only gruff, though, as if he’d expected it.

  “No one will hear you if you scream,” he said, “but I’ll still come in and slap the one who didn’t scream. Understand?” He dropped the sack and the jug onto the floor. “Now I know what you might be thinking. What if we both scream?”

  Meryam knew the question was a trap, but couldn’t help herself. “What happens then?” she asked in a tiny voice that made her feel all the tinier.

  “Then I bring my knife.”

  Meryam was terrified but his words only seemed to embolden Yasmine. She walked straight up to him, raised one finger, and held it inches from his nose. “Do you know what my father’s going to do when he gets hold of you?”

  He stared down at her finger. “I don’t rightly know,” he said, then walked over to Meryam and backhanded her across the cheek so hard she spun to the ground. “But I can promise you this,” Meryam heard over the ringing in her ears. “The next time you raise your finger to my face, I’ll do more than slap your pretty little sister.”

  Meryam’s world was bright pain. The right side of her face felt as if it were on fire, and the point of her elbow, which had struck the ground hard, hurt so much she was sure it was broken. The man left and slammed the door shut. The metallic clank of a lock was followed by the fade of his footfalls.

  Meryam tasted blood. As the pain slowly began to ebb, she touched the tip of her tongue to the inside of her cheek and cringed from the pain. Moaning, she swallowed the blood and probed more gently, finding several places where her teeth had cut her.

  Yasmine knelt beside her, her lips set in a grim line. She held Meryam’s chin and checked the damage, then turned away and began unwrapping the sack, which contained one small loaf of crusty bread and a pair of oddly shaped sausages. After ripping the loaf into two rough pieces, she handed the smaller to Meryam.

  Yasmine sat facing the door, staring at it as if she could open it through sheer will alone. She bit off a hunk of bread and chewed it like a stablehand. “Mighty Alu’s grace,” she said around the bread, “why didn’t you run and get help?”

  “My queen?” came a voice.

  It was Basilio, calling from the next room. Somehow his voice mingled with Yasmine’s, an echo of her fear tinging Basilio’s resonant tenor.

  “Come,” Meryam said.

  The crisp ring of leather heels over marble tile was interspersed by muffled thumps as he walked over the carpets. He stepped briskly through the high, horseshoe archway into her bed chamber but, upon realizing she was only wearing her sheer night dress, immediately averted his gaze and retreated.

  Meryam rolled her eyes. “I said come.”

  “Would you like me to fetch your night coat?”

  “I’m too hot.” Meryam levered herself up on one elbow, hung her legs over the side of the bed, and wriggled her feet, willing the nagging remnants of her dream to fade. When they didn’t, she removed her necklace—Yasmine’s necklace—and tossed it to the other side of the bed.
Sometimes the weight of it was just too much. “Just get in here and fetch me some water.”

  He complied, pouring a fresh glass from an ewer and bringing it to her, eyes cast down. The morning sun twinkled off the green glass as she lifted it to her chapped lips and downed half of it in one go. “You come with news, I presume?” She finished the glass and held it out for more.

  “I do.” He poured her a fresh glass, then handed it to her, eyes facing the corner.

  “Oh, stop it.” It was only serving to make her more conscious of how skinny she’d become. Not since she’d had feelings for Ramahd had she been so aware of it. “Am I that difficult to look upon?”

  “It isn’t that, my queen.” His bald pate went red as he stared down into the ewer. “It wouldn’t be proper.”

  “Then stare into my eyes if you must. I don’t like talking to a craning stork.”

  He did, and looked like a stunned owl while doing it. “I’ve brought good news from the warfront. The navy has retaken Ishmantep.”

  “Well, that is good news.”

  After finding Queen Alansal and King Emir together on his ship, Meryam had worried they would rush to attack the city. It was the very reason she’d ordered the navy to press harder. Ishmantep, the largest of the caravanserais on the eastern trade route toward Malasan, had been held for months by King Emir, and was an important part of Meryam’s plans to seal the Malasani off from Sharakhai.

  “And Samandar?”

  Samandar was a large caravanserai along the northern passage toward Mirea and a key resource to control if one wanted to supply water to a fleet of invading ships.

  “The effort continues, but the losses there have been harder. Mirea will not give it up easily.”

  “Nor did I expect them to. Lose Samandar and they’ll be forced to retreat to Aldiir.” The two forces would likely become one at some point, but that was easier said than done. After Ishmantep and Samandar, the only other caravanserais of any size were Aldiir and Ashdankaat, and neither was big enough for their combined forces. There were simply too many soldiers to feed and water. Both forces had supply trains, but the Kundhuni fleet had been sent to harry one of them, and her own Qaimiri fleet the other. Caravan after caravan had been caught and burned, preventing tons of food, water, and feed grain from reaching the fleets.

  For the time being it looked like she’d successfully delayed a second invasion of Sharakhai, which should give her the time she needed to deal with her other main concern.

  “What of our efforts on Beht Zha’ir?”

  At this, Basilio’s enthusiasm drained. “The Maidens followed several of the tributes. They witnessed each tribute walk to the blooming fields and give themselves to the trees.”

  Meryam couldn’t help but allow herself a small smile. “Very good.”

  So much was falling into place. The collegia’s chancellor had agreed to join her with hardly a fuss. Years ago, his brother, wife, and their three-year-old child had been murdered by the Moonless Host when they’d refused to give them money from the simple hostelry they’d run in the Red Crescent.

  Nonetheless, in order to ensure his loyalty, Meryam had taken the chancellor’s blood, suspecting she would never have use for it. For his own reasons, he would remain hers. The Enclave was a different story. Take their blood and she invited ruin. So she’d played to their desires instead. The leader of their inner circle, Prayna, pretended to be divorced from politics, but behind that facade lay something deeper, something she herself hardly knew she wanted. Prayna was well aware of the contentious relationship the magi of the city had had with the Sharakhani Kings, but what if the Enclave were given free rein at last?

  “Free rein?” Prayna had asked Meryam when the offer was made. They’d been sitting in Meryam’s anteroom.

  “Within reason,” Meryam clarified.

  One of Prayna’s elegant eyebrows lifted. “The new Kings and Queens have agreed to this?”

  “I’ve not given them that choice, nor will I,” Meryam replied. “They don’t get to decide who’s free and who isn’t.”

  “And in return you’re asking us to send some few to the blooming fields?”

  “Just so.”

  Prayna’s dark eyes probed Meryam’s. “You’re asking us to murder for you.”

  Meryam’s eyebrows rose. “I’m asking you to see us through to a day when the magi of this city no longer need to cower in fear! What are a few lives, of the worst elements in Sharakhai, when weighed against that?”

  “And what happens when this is all done, Meryam shan Aldouan? What happens when the city is yours?”

  Meryam knew in that moment that she’d been right about Prayna. She’d been hiding in the shadows for so long there was a pent-up desire in her, not simply for freedom, but for control, for power. She was a woman after Meryam’s own heart.

  “You can do what you will, but if you stand by my side, as I hope you will, we move on to Malasan. Then Mirea. Even Kundhun. You are witnessing the birth of an empire, Prayna, and much of that empire could be yours.”

  Prayna’s wide, almond eyes had softened. “I note that you fail to mention Qaimir.”

  Meryam took the comment in stride, but she felt her heart racing. She should have known Prayna would dig deeper before coming to see her. She would know that there was trouble in the courts of Almadan. “There are rumblings in my own country, yes, but those threats will be dealt with.”

  Ramahd had escaped with Mateo and Duke Hektor II. Meryam had ordered Hektor’s father, Duke Hektor I, Meryam’s uncle, hung after she’d learned he’d conspired with Ramahd and Mateo to depose her. The elder Hektor was dead, but the younger lived on, and so did their conspiracy. If the last report she’d heard of them was true, the three of them, Hektor II, Mateo, and Ramahd, were hiding in the desert. Or they might have returned to the city since. Meryam had tried to search for them, but Ramahd had become more skilled at preventing her spells of finding. With so much else to attend to, she’d given up. She knew it was only a matter of time before they returned and caused problems, either here or in their homeland, but it was a matter for another day.

  Prayna took a while to consider. “With your own magi occupied in the battles to the east, you’re going to need more help than just me.”

  “You have someone in mind?”

  “Several people, yes. I’m certain I can convince Nebahat to join us. From there, a half dozen more will follow.”

  Meryam smiled. Surely this was Tulathan paving the way for Meryam to get what she wanted. The people Prayna was referring to were other members of the Enclave. Nebahat himself was another of the Enclave’s inner circle. With seven or eight powerful magi at her beck and call, her goals were that much closer.

  Meryam’s thoughts returned to the present. Gods but the day was hot. With Basilio still standing there like a possum playing dead, she dribbled a stream of water from her glass onto her hand, then wiped her face and the back of her neck. “What of the trees themselves?”

  “It was as you said. The trees enveloped the tributes—”

  “Not tributes, Basilio. Scarabs. Scarabs of the Moonless Host.”

  Basilio nodded, if reluctantly. “The scarabs were enveloped and the blooms on the trees went dim. The surrounding trees seemed to dim as well.” He set the ewer back into its cradle. When he turned to face her, all hints of his earlier embarrassment had vanished. His look was now deadly serious. “My queen, let me speak plainly. Your hope is to punish those who killed your sister and niece, and I don’t blame you for that, but don’t you think it might be better if we found those we were certain had been scarabs in the Moonless Host?”

  Meryam took off her slip and threw it onto the bed. Basilio, more intense and focused on his point than she would have guessed, refused to avert his gaze. After pulling on the vermillion silk dress her maid had laid out the night before, she said, “I’m surprised
at you, Basilio. You make it sound as though one must wield a knife to be a scarab, but wars are fought in many ways. There are those who gave money to support their cause. Those who provided shelter, hiding the wicked from the hand of justice. There are those who hid truths that would otherwise expose those who’ve committed evil, preventing us from moving toward peace.”

  “Surely there are some who fit that description—”

  “Did you not have members of your own family caught in the Bloody Passage? Did three of your cousins not feed the Great Mother that day? Three widows made? Seven children who grew up without their father?”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t justify wanton slaughter. There are already people in the city comparing you to Cahil the Confessor. The sentiments built now will—”

  “Enough!” Meryam shouted. “I came to the desert for a reason, Basilio. If you’re not willing to help me then tell me now and I’ll send you home. But if you stay, accept that I will do whatever it takes to bring the Moonless Host to justice.”

  Basilio held her gaze, shocked, then all the energy seemed to drain from him and he lowered his eyes. “I would stay, Meryam. I am loyal to you, as always. It is part of my duty to guide you, to bring up concerns you haven’t thought of. Having done that, I will do as my queen commands.”

  She weighed his words, his sincerity. She actually respected him for what he’d said. As obsequious as he usually was, she knew it had taken a lot for him to say a word against her. “I do want your counsel, Basilio, but in this case we will stay the course and continue as planned.” She exposed her back to him. “Tie me.”

  The bodice tightened around her chest as he tugged on the laces. “You’ll return to the cavern today?”

  “Of course. And every day until I’m sure it’s working.”