When Jackals Storm the Walls Read online

He finished tying her dress. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

  As his footsteps faded, Meryam retrieved the beaded red necklace from her bed, slipped it on, and left. She wound her way through the Sun Palace, down through the tunnels, and to the cavern with the crystal. There she climbed the scaffold stairs and reached the top of the crystal, hoping, praying. Despite her prayers, the crystal’s surface was dry. She looked up at the tendril snaking its way down from the cavern’s high ceiling, willing it to give her what she needed, but it too was dry.

  She did her best to bury her disappointment. “You said yourself it would take time.” The cavern all but swallowed her words, making her feel alone and forgotten. She stayed a long while, hoping for a change, but eventually she gave up. She was just walking back over the roots when she heard a sound, a soft tap.

  She spun and stared up, then ran back up the stairs, using the support beams to pull herself faster along the steps. When she reached the top, she saw it, a drop of glistening liquid at the very tip of the tendril. As she watched, it fell like a shooting star and tapped against the crystal’s glowing surface. It had worked! The scarabs fed to the trees had given their blood to the adichara, and the adichara in turn had delivered their essence here. This tool, this grand engine made by the gods themselves, was working again.

  Meryam touched one finger to the crystal’s damp surface and held it to her tongue. A rush of power like she’d never experienced ran through her. It felt like she’d drunk moonlight, an elixir crafted by Tulathan herself.

  This, Meryam said to herself, this is what I need. “I know you’ve been waiting a long time, Yasmine”—she gave her necklace a gentle squeeze—“but the wait is almost over.”

  Chapter 10

  THE NIGHT FOLLOWING the ultimatum to Shaikh Neylana, Hamid lay awake in the captain’s cabin with Darius. He couldn’t sleep. His mind was afire, replaying the skirmish with Tribe Halarijan over and over again. It had been no fault of his that blood had been shed. The crossbowman had sparked everything. Huuri and Imwe had merely been reacting to the threat. Even still, commanding such power had been a rush unlike anything Hamid had ever felt. The time would soon come when he could unleash even more on the thirteenth tribe’s enemies. He could hardly wait.

  Tread carefully, though. Move too quickly and Macide will grow nervous over the optics. He’ll demote you, force you into the role of lackey once more to appease Shaikh Neylana. But bide your time and you’ll prove what might be done with the power of the asirim standing behind you, and then no one—not Macide, Leorah, Shal’alara, nor any of the other elders—will try to stop you from using it. You might even rise to become shaikh if you play this right.

  Eventually he grew tired, but by then the wailing and mewling and growling of the asirim kept him from sleep. Darius couldn’t sleep either. He lay with his head on Hamid’s chest, absently rubbing the hair along his stomach. Hamid felt Darius cringe as a warbling howl broke the temporary silence.

  “How it gnaws at my soul,” Darius said.

  Hamid didn’t mind the asirim’s wailing so much. It served as a reminder of what would happen to Neylana and her entire tribe if she refused him. “I wish they would obey me and not the Shieldwives.”

  Darius chuckled.

  “What?”

  “Always looking to control.”

  “Not always.” Hamid shrugged. “Well, all right, almost always, but why not? I’ve paid my dues. At long last I’m rising up in the tribe. I’m entitled to a bit of control.”

  A vision came to Hamid. Of him and Darius throwing shovelfuls of sand over Emre. Tied and helpless, he lay in the grave they’d dug for him. From the moment Emre had joined the Host—a thing Hamid had arranged for—Macide had looked on him like a favored son. Assignments that would once have gone to Hamid were instead given to Emre. When Macide went to treat with the eastern tribes to fight the rising threat of King Onur, Emre had been chosen to stand by his side. And when a delegation had been sent to treat with the Malasani, Macide had chosen Emre to lead it. He’d even had the gall to order Hamid join Emre and report to him, as if Emre were the one who’d dedicated his life to the cause. What had Emre ever been but a man looking to steal glory and hoard it for himself? As kids, Emre had always been the show-off, outshining even Tariq in this respect, which the gods knew was no mean feat.

  Hamid blinked. He focused on the wooden planks of the cabin’s ceiling, on how Darius felt in his arms, and his anger slowly subsided. These spells of jealousy were happening more and more of late, and it was getting worse, but he was sure that if he returned to the tribe victorious, all would be well.

  “The other elders are giving me my due as well,” Hamid went on, “but Macide doesn’t trust me fully. Not yet. I have to show him I can bend Neylana to my will.”

  “You have to prove that you can lead.”

  “Exactly, which is why I need the asirim to follow my orders.” Part of Hamid wished they were beholden to the thirteenth tribe as they’d been to the Kings. He wished he could simply command them, but he couldn’t. Sadly, that power had vanished the moment the King of the asirim, Sehid-Alaz, had broken their curse.

  Darius had fallen silent.

  “What?” Hamid asked.

  When Darius looked up, he had trouble meeting Hamid’s eyes, a thing he often did when he was circling a subject he knew Hamid wasn’t going to like.

  “I hate it when you do this,” Hamid said. “Just say it.”

  “I know you want to be strong,” Darius said carefully. “Being a leader sometimes means giving orders and having others follow them, but sometimes it means leading by example, showing them the way.”

  “Well, of course”—Hamid motioned to the hull, beyond which lay the frigates and the asirim—“but how do you show them the way?”

  “I don’t know, but you can hardly blame them for disobedience.” As if they’d heard Darius’s words, a low growl rose up from the asirim, followed by a yap, then a scuffle. After several heavy thuds, the asirim fell silent. “They’re newly freed. They’re their own people now.”

  Darius had a point. If Hamid had been cursed to obey the Kings for four hundred years, the last thing on his mind would be following someone else’s orders.

  There was at least a silver lining. While some of the asirim, tired of dealing death, had refused to fight any longer, others had grown protective of their descendants and saw themselves as soldiers of the thirteenth tribe, willing to do whatever their undying King, Sehid-Alaz, and their shaikh, Macide, asked of them. And then there were those like Huuri and Imwe, who missed the bloodshed, who yearned for its return, and relished any chance to relive their darker days.

  Even so, what if they’d been dealing with a true ally to the thirteenth tribe and Huuri and Imwe had attacked? What if they’d been facing an enemy too powerful to cow? He couldn’t allow their disobedience to continue. He had to find a way to get them under control. He was just wondering if they’d respond to the whip when a knock came at the cabin door.

  “Hamid?” called a deep voice.

  Hamid rolled his eyes. It was Frail Lemi. “Go back to sleep, Lemi.”

  As the asirim wails grew louder, there was silence beyond the cabin door.

  “Lemi, I said go back to sleep.”

  “Oh, stop it,” Darius broke in. “You know how he gets. Are you afraid, Lemi?” he said, louder.

  Frail Lemi’s fear of the asirim was famous. Strangely, it had grown even worse after he’d killed one that had bounded toward Emir, the Malasani king. Most nights they anchored the Amaranth far enough away that he could find sleep, but this close it was likely impossible for him.

  “Lemi,” Darius tried again, “you can sleep in here if you want.”

  A pause. The latch clicked and the cabin door creaked slowly open. There stood Lemi, occupying the threshold like a fully grown man stuffed into a child’s coffin. He wore his ni
ght clothes and carried the balled-up nest of cotton rags he used as a pillow. He looked profoundly embarrassed.

  “Just get in here, will you?” Hamid said, which earned him a slap on the chest from Darius.

  “Lie down,” Darius said. “I’ll sing you a song.”

  And Darius did. Soon he heard Frail Lemi’s thunderous snoring, which managed to put Hamid to sleep as well.

  The following day, when the sun reached its zenith, Hamid headed toward the Halarijan camp with five of the Shieldwives. “I’ll have your shaikh’s answer,” he called to the men who stood aboard the ships staring down at him.

  “You gave our shaikh one day,” one of them said back. “We were all there to hear it.”

  Hamid was about to bark back that he would see Neylana now when he noticed dust lifting in a long, low cloud beyond the circle of ships, a telltale sign of ships on the move. He stepped back until he could see the horizon clearly, and saw three ships were sailing toward their camp.

  The buzzing in Hamid’s head had returned. “What’s going on?” he bellowed.

  The warrior merely backed away until he was lost from sight.

  With a growing urge to punch a knife into someone’s gut, Hamid stalked beyond the line of ships, ready to head to the pavilion, but the pavilion was gone, as were the cook fires. He had no idea which ship Neylana was on, and he didn’t wish to look foolish by calling for her, which she would no doubt ignore, so he stalked back toward the Amaranth.

  “Find her!” he shouted over his shoulder.

  But they didn’t. And the ships kept coming. Through his spyglass he saw that one flew the white tree pennant of Halarijan, another the flowing red horse of Narazid. The third flew the black wings of Okan. They sailed close and anchored, and a small delegation spilled forth from each. All were led to a large clipper in the Halarijan circle.

  “You will have your answer,” their potbellied herald told Hamid nearly an hour later.

  Hamid went with Frail Lemi, Darius, and all the Shieldwives. He ordered the asirim kept in the frigates’ holds, but the crew was prepared for his signal. Should anything strange occur—anything at all—Hamid would order them to storm from the ships and attack.

  Neylana came, looking old and frail. Her people arrayed behind her in dresses and thawbs and simple cloth vests. There were more from Tribes Narazid and Okan, their origins recognizable from the style of tattoos on their faces and hands. Two were dressed in rich khalats with jewelry on their turbans. These, no doubt, were their shaikhs. They were younger than Neylana, and more plump, but to Hamid they looked just as weak.

  “You came to ask us to join your alliance,” Shaikh Neylana said, without introducing Hamid. She spoke loudly, her gaze taking in those nearby and those who stood on the ships. “You came with false offers of riches and shared glory while holding a hammer behind your back, ready to strike should our answer displease you. Your actions have made me wary of the thirteenth tribe, and wary of Macide.”

  In the silence that followed, Hamid curled his lip. “I should warn you, long speeches bore me.” He had half a mind to call the asirim now, but this was strange. Neylana’s mood had changed since yesterday. What had caused it?

  “I’m impatient as well, Hamid Malahin’ava, so let us get to the point. I could have lied to you yesterday. I could have hidden the fact that Queen Meryam sent us an offer, but I didn’t. I wanted to see what the messenger of the thirteenth tribe was about so that I might better know the man who chose him.”

  Hamid’s face was turning red. He refused to look at anyone—not Sirendra, not Darius, no one—for fear of what he’d see in their eyes.

  “I was promised an answer.”

  “And you will have it, though perhaps not in the way you envisioned. Though your actions shame you, there is one who has convinced me that all are not the same in Tribe Khiyanat. One who thinks you might be acting of your own accord, not Macide’s, and that, if you were removed, we might find a place of more equal footing with our fellow tribes.”

  Hamid laughed. It sounded pitiful in the emptiness of this space. It made him want to hurt something. “And who might that be?”

  Neylana smiled and stepped aside. Those behind her did likewise, dividing the crowd neatly in two and creating an aisle that traveled from Hamid to the sandworn hull of the galleon. There, standing alone, was a man wearing sirwal trousers and a simple linen shirt. Leather bracers adorned his forearms. A braided beard waggled from the end of his sharp chin. His dark hair was braided, too, pulled into a style of overlapping plaits that started just above his temples.

  Hamid knew this man. He’d grown up with him. They’d run the streets of Sharakhai together, two gutter wrens flying in and out of various flocks until Hamid had grown tired of it all and joined the Moonless Host. It took long moments for him to understand, to put a name to the ghost who stood before him, and even then Hamid stood dumbly, unable to find words.

  It was Frail Lemi who broke the silence. “By the gods who breathe,” he cried, both hands raised in joy, “it’s Emre!”

  Chapter 11

  ÇEDA SNAPPED THE REINS of the wagon and turned it onto the stone quay that hugged King’s Harbor’s impressive inner edge. Tauriyat loomed above. Eventide could be seen clearly, as could Cahil’s palace. The others were hidden beyond the shoulders of the mountain.

  The harbor itself was abuzz. Dozens of Silver Spears patrolled the walls and the watch towers. Work gangs scoured the hulls of partially repaired ships, readying them for their return to battle. Along the far side of the harbor lay the ship yard, where some fifty ships lay in three ordered rows. There were galleons, clippers, and a smattering of barques, all of them in various states of construction. Çeda was already watching the shipwrights as they moved over the ships’ skeletons calling orders, inspecting the lay of the keel, and supervising the work gangs as they swung the ships’ hulking ribs, suspended by ropes on tall wooden cranes, into place.

  Çeda wore the threadbare garb of a field worker: trousers, shirt, sandals, and a conical reed hat like one would find in the distant rice paddies of Mirea. Sümeya and Jenise sat at the back of the wagon, their legs swinging as the wagon rattled along. They were dressed similarly to Çeda, whereas Kameyl, sitting on the driver’s bench beside Çeda, wore a simple khalat and turban. With her tall frame and bold features, they’d all agreed that casting her as the leader of their work gang would be best.

  The traffic shifted as they arced around the harbor. They were nearing the barracks, where hundreds of Silver Spears moved to and fro. Cavalry units conducted mock battles in a paddock. Infantry trained in a dusty yard, some moving in ordered ranks with spears set for the enemy while others drilled with sword and shield. The metallic clash of their drills mixed with the sound of industry as many loaded ships, effected repairs, or worked on the sand, applying wax to the skis on ships that had been lifted using special hoists.

  Çeda did her best to cast a bored look over it all as she guided the plow horse toward the stables, which were conveniently situated beside the shipyard. The shipyard itself was the most likely destination for Nalamae, who according to the vision in Yusam’s mere had been reborn as a shipwright. She might be anywhere, though. She could be working in one of the completed ships. She could have been called away to deal with repairs on one of the older ships. Sand and stone, she might have been summoned to the palaces to speak with the son of King Beşir, who after the death of his father was overseeing the rebuilding of Sharakhai’s navy.

  “Stop it,” Kameyl said under her breath, keeping her eyes on the road ahead.

  “What?” Çeda asked.

  “Looking about like that. You’re like a bloody sand tit fresh from its den.”

  Çeda took a deep breath and calmed herself. Kameyl was right. It was just that there were people everywhere, and they had no idea where they might find Nalamae. And there was the gnawing feeling that Goezhen
lay in wait just beyond the harbor walls, ready to break through the moment Çeda did find her. The vision from the mere had shown him attacking the goddess on a clipper taking its maiden voyage, but Çeda’s actions since might already have altered the flow of time, forcing Goezhen to find some other path to Nalamae. Or worse, Çeda’s very presence in the harbor might put him on Nalamae’s scent.

  All too soon they’d reached the stables. As Çeda pulled the wagon to a stop, Kameyl hopped off and barked at a boy standing inside the stable’s open doors. “Where’s your master?”

  He pointed nervously to the stable’s far end, where the silhouette of a diminutive man could be seen speaking with two older boys.

  Kameyl strutted toward him with a look that was not merely self-assured, but bordering on displeased, as if she had many important things to do and this was the least of them. In short order she reached the stable master and began bellowing orders. They were here for manure, and she would only have it from purebred akhalas. The stable master would of course laugh in her face, at which point Kameyl would reveal the fertilizer was bound for the vineyards that supplied Bhylek House, a distillery that made the araq favored by many of the Kings. The argument would unroll deliberately, Kameyl adding more and more demands, slowly revealing tiny nuggets of information about the Kings’ direct interest in this agrarian oddity.

  “It’s too much,” Jenise had argued the night before, “too complex. It’s a bunch of shit about a bunch of shit.”

  “Exactly,” Kameyl replied confidently. “The more details we give, the more he’ll see the trail leading from that manure all the way to the halls of the Kings. He won’t dare deny us.” Kameyl had shrugged and laughed that bellowing laugh of hers. “Who would lie about a pile of horse shit?”

  It was all designed to take time, to let Çeda and Sümeya search for Nalamae. And indeed, it was playing out just as Kameyl had predicted. As the conversation between her and the stable master grew heated, Çeda left the stables for the shipyard. Sümeya, meanwhile, wandered the nearby piers, where many of the most damaged ships were being repaired. Jenise remained by the wagon so their search wouldn’t look too suspicious.