A Veil of Spears Read online

  Ishaq looked ready to say more, but the words died on his lips when another of Kerim’s wails filled the cool morning air. It trailed off into a strange, sorrow-filled barking. Gods, he was crying. Çeda didn’t understand why at first, but after a moment, she thought she understood. The asirim were compelled to protect the Kings, and here was Ishaq Kirhan’ava, their sworn enemy. There was a powerful urge in him to attack, just as he had Salsanna. He wanted to do it. Kill Ishaq and Leorah and Salsanna and more.

  And yet, he and those gathered were all of the same blood. Kerim felt the same sort of loyalty toward Ishaq that he did toward his brothers and sisters of the asirim.

  The internal struggle was tearing him in two.

  Go to the desert, Çeda said to him. I’ll find you when we’re preparing to leave.

  To her surprise, she felt not only assent, but relief. Ishaq’s will to see Kerim dead had ebbed; more importantly, his willingness to hurt Çeda in order to do it had weakened as well, giving Kerim the space he needed to obey.

  As Leorah’s words faded, all eyes turned to Ishaq. If he was embarrassed at his own mother’s defense of the asirim, he didn’t show it. He waved to those nearest. “Go. Unload the ships. Prepare the tents. We have much to do before others arrive.” Then he turned and walked away, toward the nearest of the ships beyond Leorah’s yacht. His men followed, leaving Çeda and Salsanna alone with Leorah.

  Leorah followed Ishaq’s retreating form. “Come,” she said over her shoulder, “unless you wish to be left in the dark once again.”

  Chapter 15

  DAVUD STOOD ON the foredeck of a royal yacht, watching the setting sun throw shadows against the dunes. The desert ahead looked like the skin of a slumbering beast, a dragon waiting to rise and consume the world.

  Beht Zha’ir, night of the asirim, had returned to the desert. Tulathan, a bright silver coin against a sky of autumn leaves, had already risen. Golden Rhia would soon follow. Somewhere ahead of the ship, a long, low moan came. It rose above the rainfall sound of the ship’s skis, but then was lost, as if the dunes had swallowed it. Another came a moment later, this one closer, and Davud’s skin prickled. Back near the pilot, Sukru’s man, Zahndr, leaned against the gunwales, arms crossed over his broad chest, his long, dark hair tied back into a tail. He looked not merely bored, but irritated at having been asked to accompany Sukru on this voyage. Amidships, Sukru himself stood crookedly, watching the way ahead with one hand on the mainmast to steady himself.

  Davud didn’t understand how the reaping could commence in Sharakhai with Sukru here aboard the ship. Sukru was the Reaping King, who was supposed to guide the asirim to their tributes in the city, but here he was visiting the blooming fields while the asirim stirred and began their nightlong journey. Perhaps he’d already marked those who would be taken. Or maybe he’d whispered the names of the chosen to the asirim on a previous journey. Davud didn’t know, and he daren’t ask. Sukru made Davud’s gut churn just to look at him. It seemed wrong that a man should live so long as the eldest of the Kings had.

  Davud wondered what he would do were he given four centuries more—or rather, what those four centuries would do to him. Would he turn as sour as Sukru. Would the decades eat at him, rotting his insides until he yearned for the farther fields?

  What a curse, to live so long. And yet, not so long ago, he’d thought how magnificent it must be to be a King of Sharakhai. The foolish thoughts of a boy.

  The sun’s light faded and the moons continued their rise. Ahead, the blooming fields were nearer; pinpoints of light among the greater darkness, pale blue stars reflected in pools of black ink. But they weren’t stars. They were the adichara blooms, opening to take in the full light of the twin moons.

  “Prepare to anchor!” the pilot called.

  “Preparing to anchor!” echoed the crew.

  The ship slowed and eventually came to a rest a short walk from the expanse of stony ground that surrounded the blooming fields. A long gangplank was laid out for Sukru, who took it cautiously down to the sand. “Come, boy!”

  Davud obeyed, and together the two of them approached the nearest cluster of trees. Following them at a respectful distance were Zahndr, wearing his black leather armor, and a Silver Spear in his white hauberk and chainmail. Shortly before Davud and Sukru reached the edge of the trees, a wailing sound rose up, so close it made the hair along the back of Davud’s neck stand up. He halted reflexively, while Sukru took a whip from his belt and sent it cracking over the tops of the nearby trees. It sounded like thunder rolling slowly over the broken landscape. The wailing stopped immediately, replaced by the sound of movement. The adichara branches parted, and out loped an angular figure. Dropping to all fours, it galloped north toward Sharakhai.

  “Come,” Sukru said, and made for a gap between the trees. “They’re often found within the groves.”

  They followed a winding path through the trees. The smell here was fragrant, and so floral it made Davud’s nose itch. At times they passed through archways where the branches reached like grasping hands. When Sukru came nearer, branches shied away like penitent children, clearing the way. Davud watched carefully for any stray branches; his whole body curled inward as they moved deeper into the grove.

  “There.” Sukru stopped and motioned to a particularly gnarled mass of thorny branches.

  At first Davud had no idea why he’d chosen it, for it seemed no different than the others. But he soon saw that its movements were markedly different. The way its branches swayed made the grove look like an overturned insect, legs wriggling as it neared death. The moonlit blooms, which gave off a faint glow of their own, had a different hue, a pale amaranth purple instead of the washed out blue of the trees surrounding it. And the smell . . . The fragrance of the blooms was still present, but so too were the scents of rot and decay.

  Sukru was bent over, staring intently at the base. “I found the first of these years ago. I thought it a simple aberration and had it destroyed. But I found another months later, then more after that. They litter the killing fields.”

  “What happened to them?”

  Sukru glanced back at him. “That is what you’re here to find out.” He faced Davud. Even by the light of the twin moons, Davud could tell he was being measured. “What I tell you now is between us.”

  “Of course, my Lord King.”

  “I believe you are true to the cause of the rightful Kings of the Great Shangazi. If I did not, I would have ended your life by now. There are few with talent like yours in the House of Kings, and I trust none of them, but Kaelira has judged your soul worthy, as has Zahndr, and the masters who taught you at the collegia, and the people of Roseridge and the bazaar, whom we spoke to at length. They’ve convinced me that we can work together to solve this riddle.”

  “My Lord King, you honor me. I would be happy to help in any way—”

  “Lend your ears, not your mouth.” He motioned to the writhing adichara. “For generations, the asirim have protected our city. I won’t insult your intelligence by reminding you that every last one embraces their role as protector. But their burden is heavy, and not every man and woman, even with power bestowed by the gods themselves, can shoulder it. Some bend. Others break. So it is that some few have defied the Kings. They have fought our will. Some have attacked us, even killed Maidens before they were put down.

  “Mesut had been at great pains to learn why. He never did for certain, but now I wonder, might the asirim have been infected in some way? Might the adichara have tainted them? This is, after all, where they lie when not called upon by the Kings. I wonder if the earth itself has been poisoned.” Sukru motioned to the writhing trees. “Most are unaware, but the souls who are taken in tribute each night of Beht Zha’ir are returned here. Their blood sustains the twisted trees, and the trees in turn sustain the asirim. Blood, boy. It’s all to do with blood.”

  Davud thought a moment. “You�
��re suggesting that the blood of those brought here is tainting the adichara?”

  “I’ve pondered the notion. Perhaps that’s why the trees writhe so. Or perhaps the trees themselves have begun to die. Or it might be that some other magic is at work. We must learn more.” As the branches all around them continued to wave softly beneath the moons, Sukru spread his arms, as if to encompass the whole of the blooming field. “And so you will bind yourself to the trees. You will learn what you can and share it with me.”

  “Shall we begin now?” Davud asked.

  “You’ll need blood,” Sukru said.

  Davud paused. “Am . . . Am I to use your blood?”

  Sukru’s laughter was biting. “You think I would give you my blood? You take me for a fool, Davud Mahzun’ava!”

  Davud thought of the blood Sukru had taken from him and Anila, stored in vials somewhere for purposes Davud could only guess at. “I’m happy to use mine, though the effects will be diminished—”

  “You’ll not take my blood or your own.” He waved to the tree. “We are here tonight so you can take the blood of the dying as they are fed to the adichara.”

  “My King?” He knew exactly what Sukru meant, but the thought of being here when it happened . . .

  “The asir will return within an hour. Best you begin your preparations now.”

  “I . . . Of course, my Lord King.”

  Dear gods, he was going to force Davud to watch. He prayed the unfortunate soul who’d been marked by Sukru would be dead by the time he arrived, but something told him he wouldn’t be. Given the eagerness with which Sukru was watching him, and the trouble he’d gone to to prepare for this night, Davud was sure the King would require fresh blood. Alive, as the saying went.

  As Sukru had bade, Davud knelt in the sand. He drew the sigil from memory—not the one the firefinch had drawn with twigs and leaves, but the one Sukru had copied into Davud’s book. He did it for Sukru’s benefit, but it was also calming. He wanted to focus on something, anything, besides the sacrifice that would soon come.

  When he finished, he wiped it away and began anew, but soon slowed his movements. His stomach had begun burning from the moment he realized what lay ahead, but the feeling of the sand beneath his fingertip reminded him of his childhood, when he would draw pictures in the dunes with his older sister, Tehla. Slowly, he was able to push away his fears and stand to face Sukru. “My Lord King, you needn’t take a life,” he said confidently. “I can do this with my own blood.”

  Sukru, stretching one shoulder as if it pained him, sized Davud up as if he had just spat in his food. “If you suppose that your blood will be equal to a tribute whose blood will mix with the very roots of the adichara, then you are a fool. Wait, boy. Be patient. Use the blood I’ve called here for this purpose.”

  There was sense in his words. And whoever was brought here would have died anyway. Coward. You simply don’t wish to bloody your hands.

  He tried to tell himself that being chosen was a high honor, but he found reassurance impossible when the wail of an asir sounded over the desert. It came again soon after, higher than before, more pained, as if it grieved over Sharakhai.

  Davud saw it approaching through the thorny branches. It was heading for a different cluster of adichara, but when Sukru’s whip cracked overhead, the asir changed course and headed straight for them. It trudged along the pathway Sukru had forged earlier, dragging an old man by his ankle. When it came near, Davud stepped back in horror. Sukru, however, merely gestured toward the afflicted adichara. Immediately the asir lifted the man as if he were made of cloth and hay and threw him into the tree. The poor soul woke screaming. The branches of the adichara wrapped around him and squeezed, ever tighter, while the nearby trees moved with the verve and violence of a riot.

  Thankfully the man’s voice was choked off a moment later as a vine wrapped around his throat. Davud clutched his hands to his own throat. He felt a fool for doing so—a little boy who’d lost his memma—but he couldn’t help it. He’d stood before the dead, but he’d never seen someone die before. And to see it like this, a tree tearing a man apart, made his gut feel like a nest of roiling termites.

  A long, gurgling rasp escaped the man’s throat as he was pulled deeper and deeper into the tree, the branches squeezing until his final breath was pressed from him at last.

  The blood slicking his clothes and skin was turned silver and black by the light of the twin moons. Only the barest hint of crimson remained. It looks like poison, Davud thought, poison from the adichara, leaking from his skin, as if he too has been tainted.

  “Find your nerve, boy,” Sukru said. “It’s time.”

  Davud glanced at the King and nodded, yet it took him the span of one deep breath to take a step forward, to kneel, to carefully reach between the quivering branches and touch his finger to the blood that had gathered near the base of the tree. Merciful Bakhi, it’s still hot.

  Of course it was. The man had just died. But it felt as though he were stealing a part of his soul by doing this. It was a thing that would surely displease Bakhi, who would even now be leading the man to the farther fields.

  Earlier Davud had drawn the sigil Sukru had given him. Wasn’t the first rule of creating an illusion to show the audience what you wanted them to see? This time, he drew the firefinch’s sigil. He projected self-assurance, as a cheap confidence man would, and kept his hand tilted away, just enough that Sukru wouldn’t be able to see the sigil clearly but not so much that he’d suspect Davud of trying to hide something. As he worked, he built the sigil in his mind and reached out to the adichara—just as he had with the fig tree.

  Little happened at first, but then, like the coming sun burning brighter along the horizon, a feeling grew within him, a sense that there was more around him than sand and stone and spilling moonlight. Çeda had once told him she could sense the asirim, and although Davud couldn’t feel them, he certainly felt the trees. Collectively they felt like a vast body of water, with him standing at its very edge. He tried to take a step into it, but could not. It was too strange, too unknowable. When he tried harder, he felt the waters retreating before him.

  “No!” he said, heedless of what King Sukru might think. Yet even though he tried harder, the waters still fell until it seemed as though they were being drawn into the desert and would be forever unreachable.

  With a calm born of an instinct to learn, a skill he’d honed in his years studying in the collegia, he said, “No,” once more, and pressed the sigil against the blood-soaked sand.

  The waters came rushing back. They splashed against him and the tree, rising up along his body. They swallowed him whole. And suddenly he felt the trees all around him, and this tree especially. He felt the soul within its arms fading, fading, going to gray. He felt the tree’s slow death as the desert’s dry heat clawed at it. Felt its renewal as more lives were given to it by the asirim on the night of the twin moons.

  Soon he realized that the night of Beht Zha’ir was when these visions—memories, if trees could be said to have such—were brightest. While Rhia and Tulathan stared down, he felt the souls being given, sometimes to this very tree, sometimes to others in the grove, sometimes to others in the vast chain of blooming fields that surrounded the city. On and on it went, one holy night after the next, reaching back through time slowly but surely toward Beht Ihman.

  And then he saw a vision so clear it felt like a blow to the head. He stood, staggered back from it like a man struck by the grandeur of the desert for the first time.

  * * *

  The very land he stands upon lies bare. He sees sand. A shelf of stone. The stars shine as though the sun has been shattered, a diaspora of broken glass. And in the distance, coming nearer, a figure of palest blue. She comes naked, limned in silver light, her gossamer hair trailing in the wind. Her arms are spread to the heavens as though beckoning the stars to attend her. And where she tread
s, green shoots lift from the stone. On she walks, the twisting branches of nascent trees sprouting like a broadening green carpet behind her.

  She is walking toward Davud. Gone is Sukru. Gone are the asirim. Gone are the tortured trees. There is only the bright goddess and Davud. Until now she has walked across the landscape as if she were alone, but as she nears Davud she stops and smiles a leopard’s smile, perhaps over some secret she hides, or from simple surprise at finding Davud here.

  Her nakedness bothers him not at all. It seems only right, for the desert is hers to command. “Why have you done all this?” When she doesn’t answer, he asks, “What’s happened to the adichara?”

  She seems to stare at him as she passes, but says nothing, making him wonder if she truly saw him. She continues to walk toward the horizon, her path slowly curving until she is gone, leaving Davud alone with the wind, the gently blowing sand, and the trees that have already grown as high as his knees.

  * * *

  When the vision faded Davud was unsure how much time had passed. One moment he was watching Tulathan’s wake, the next he was facing the eastern horizon as the morning sun rose above the adichara. The trees themselves were still, their blooms closed. It was so disorienting he staggered back, then realized his sleeve was caught. Immediately he stopped, remembering he was among killing plants, deadly if their thorns were to pierce his skin. Slowly, he pulled the fabric free, making a mental note to burn these clothes on his return to the Sun Palace.