A Wasteland of My God's Own Making Page 5

  Yerinde’s Needle, Nadín’s sleek, two-masted ketch, wasn’t much for the eyes, but her skis were true and her sails were full. When she was like this, the wind to their backs and the dunes tight, she was swift as an amberlark. And she wasn’t laden like the Condor’s Wake was. The Wake was a dhow. It was larger. It had more men, and likely enough supplies for weeks of sailing, where the Needle was as light as they could make it.

  They’d returned to the western harbor after leaving Nadín at the medicum. They’d searched for the ship Nadín had described, and found soon enough that it had left shortly before they’d arrived. They’d readied the ship as quickly as they could, the people of the harbor helping to tow the ship back, to get her moving as fast as they could.

  They’d exited the harbor and sailed north, then eastward around the tip of Sharakhai. They spotted the Condor shortly after.

  Steadily the Needle crept closer, the sand a bare whisper beneath the runners. Nightfall neared, and they came close enough that the crew on the other ship began firing arrows. At first it was merely to warn them away, but when it became clear they wouldn’t be deterred, they started targeting Djaga at the wheel and the others about the ship. Osman set up some makeshift shields using the hatch cover and the table from the cabin belowdecks. It worked, and soon Hathahn’s crew abandoned the tactic and from their hold brought up clay pots the size of oranges with black wicks sticking out from one end. They lit them afire and began launching them at the Needle.

  The first struck the ship’s port-side hull. The hull burst into flames, though thankfully most of it splashed downward onto the sand. The second hit the foredeck. Osman ran forward with dousing sand, one of the dirt dogs shielding him with the table to protect him from the renewed onslaught of arrows.

  The Needle was running alongside the Condor now. Djaga called to the other pit fighter, Kaliban, “Take the wheel. Be ready to brake her.”

  “What are you going to do?” he asked as he stepped over.

  Djaga eyed the other ship, where the bulky form of Hathahn had finally come up from the hold. “I’m going to take that rotting ship down.”

  As the crew of the dhow lit another flame pot, Djaga stepped over to the starboard gunwale. She took her long fighting knife from its sheath along her leg and bit down on it with her teeth. Grabbing the mainsail’s halyard tight in her right hand. She crouched, and then, in one swift, furious motion, she pulled the belaying pin.

  She leapt as the lanyard pulled with enough force to lift her from the deck. The wind in the mainsail, and the weight of the sail and its boom, drew her toward the top of the mainmast. She used her legs to run along it, guiding herself so that she’d be launched in the proper direction.

  When she reached the top, the lanyard whipped her up and over the mast. She flew through the air as a fresh fire pot crashed below and spread its fire amidships. As she flew toward the dhow’s triangular mainsail, she retrieved her knife from her teeth, gripped it tightly in both hands. The knife’s tip met the sail’s canvas, puncturing it with a sound like the beat of a drum. Down she went toward the foot of the sail, her knife sizzling as it sliced the thick cloth neatly in two.

  Hathahn charged across the deck to meet her, but when she reached the boom, she leapt backward, flipping high over him to land on the deck near the pilot’s wheel. Her knife she drove deep into the pilot’s neck. After snapping a kick into his chest to knock him aside, she spun the wheel, turning it over and over. It fought her the more the ship turned, but she kept going, muscles straining, until she’d turned it as far as it could go.

  The ship heeled toward the starboard side as it turned sharply to port. The rudder, the central, rear ski, was now almost perfectly at odds with the line the ship had been moving in. It dragged, throwing Djaga forward against the wheel so hard she lost her grip on her knife. It went clattering forward across the deck, tossing sunlight as it went. The crew, who’d been rushing toward her, were thrown as well. They grabbed for the rigging to steady themselves, but several fell hard to the deck. They slid scrabbling toward the fore of the ship. Not Hathahn, though. He’d grabbed tight to the rigging. And now he came pounding forward, sending a powerful jab across Djaga’s jaw, an uppercut that glanced across her skull, then a kick that sent her reeling.

  She flailed for purchase, but so close to the stern there was nothing. The gunwale clipped her thighs as she flew backward over the deck’s edge. She crashed onto the sand, and it knocked the breath from her.

  She slid and rolled. The sand scraped roughly over her skin. Hathahn dropped from the ship moments before the prow of the Needle crashed into it with a sound like thunder. The sails of both ships shuddered as they came to rest at last.

  Hathahn approached Djaga, scimitar in one hand, a fighting knife in the other. “Couldn’t leave it alone, could you?”

  Djaga stood.

  “You could have let us leave. Live out your life in peace as the greatest warrior the pits had ever seen.”

  Djaga ignored him, undoing her leather belt.

  This day, Sjado, I do not ask for your favor. I demand it.

  She wrapped the belt around her knuckles once, then let the rest hang, the iron buckle weighty.

  This day, I do not give. I take what is mine.

  With these words, the soul of Sjado filled her as never before. Not since the day she’d slaughtered her loved ones in Kundhun. She wished she’d never listened to Afua and gone to the barrow. But she had. And she’d paid the price. Now, she didn’t care if she killed another. She didn’t care if Sjado was appeased. She only wanted to feel Hathahn’s hot blood coursing over her skin.

  Hathahn swiped with his sword. Djaga skipped away. He cut for her legs, then drove in with the fighting knife. Djaga dodged, then swung her belt, going for his eyes.

  Hathahn leaned out of range, a smile coming to his lips as he looked her over. “The golem must not have given you much trouble. Or are you truly that good?”

  In a blink, she snapped the belt at him. The buckle caught him across the chin, sending him stumbling backward. Blood collected along a thin line, staining his short brown beard. “Perhaps you are.” He took two quick steps forward, flicking the tip of the sword across her line of retreat, scoring a light cut against her thigh. “I wasn’t lying, girl. I will fight you until my dying breath.”

  Beyond Hathahn, swords clashed: Osman and his dirt dogs engaging Hathahn’s crew. There was a newcomer standing at the Condor’s stern. Afua. She leapt down from the ship but came no closer. She merely watched as Djaga and Hathahn fought.

  Djaga felt the anger inside her become something else. She became resolved to what she must do. The furnace in her heart was no longer directionless fury, but a straight-flowing river of purpose.

  She slipped the end of the belt through the buckle, and held it like a noose. She baited Hathahn several times. He swiped his sword at her with each one, then charged on the third. She was ready. She ducked beneath his first swing, sidestepped the thrust of his knife. She kicked his knee when he came in too close, then pivoted around a downward thrust. She was a dervish, moving inside his defenses, spinning along his body as he tipped ever so slightly off balance from an awkward, overreaching thrust. Each and every move of her body felt like a prayer to the goddess, prayers that Sjado was answering by granting her grace and foresight and supple movement.

  In one simple motion—an act as pure as Djaga had ever felt—she grabbed Hathahn’s elbow, lifted it while treading past him in one willowy stride, and slipped the belt over his head. After a powering her heel into the back of his knee, sending him staggering, she snapped the belt tight and dropped onto her back. Her foot against the back of his head provided all the leverage she needed. She pulled hard on the leather. Her whole form tightened. Her foot turned Hathahn’s head to one side. He swiped at her blindly with his sword. He missed with the first but gave her with a deep gash along her right arm with the second. But then his head jerked, there came a loud crunch like the breaking of kindling,
and his body went utterly still.

  Djaga stared at his unmoving form. She heard only the sound of her own breath, the beating of her heart. Warm blood slicked her left arm as she let the belt slip through her fingers. In slow increments, the rasp of her breath and the thump of her heart were replaced by the rhythmic shush of footsteps. She picked up Hathahn’s sword and turned.

  Ten paces away stood Afua. She held her hands before her, the way a bride might in the moments before her right hand was bound by a grass cord to her groom. Behind her, Osman and Kaliban approached, but they remained a healthy distance away. They were bloodied and bent. Of the other dirt dogs she could see no sign.

  Djaga stepped closer to Afua, sword in hand. The two of them stared at one another, pure opposites, Djaga the essence of battle, of purpose, Afua the embodiment of peace, a woman resolved to her fate.

  “Why did you do it?” Djaga asked in Kundhunese.

  Afua stared at her, stone-faced. “When you killed our people, I felt Sjado within you. I witnessed the slaughter of three of my cousins. I saw you drive a spear through the neck of my own sister. I watched her die, writhing. And I didn’t care, Djaga. I didn’t care at all. Her death was like the fall of a leaf from an acacia. Meaningless. I knew I should be horrified by it, but I wasn’t. The only thing I felt was an itch, a yearning to get back what I had lost. That was why I left, not because I feared what would happen to me, but because I knew that no one there—not you, not my family, not our king—could restore my soul. That could only come from two-faced god.”

  “You did all of this”—with the tip of the scimitar, Djaga pointed at Hathahn’s lifeless form—“to be free?”

  Afua laughed, her dark skin reflecting the deep orange of the sunset. “Djaga! Don’t you see? I did this to free you! All I’ve done since leaving Kundhun has been in the hopes of finding a way to force Sjado to release you. You didn’t deserve this. I did.”

  Djaga stepped forward. “You murdered Nadín.”

  “And I’m sorry for that.” Despite her words, Afua’s stone-face expression told Djaga how little she cared. “But Sjado demands sacrifice. You know this as well as I. You’ve known it from the moment our god took us. You just haven’t been able to admit it. But now you can, yes? You can admit it and be free.”

  Afua’s smile was mad. It was wrong, and it made Djaga sick to her stomach that she could act so after causing so much pain. Djaga gripped Hathahn’s sword. It begged her to use it, as did Nadín’s honor. But in that moment all Djaga could think about was how different Afua’s toothy grimace was from Nadín’s shy smile. How different Djaga’s life had been from Afua’s since their days in Kundhun. Until now, Djaga had thought Afua cursed in the same way she had been. But of course it hadn’t been so. Jonsu, the aspect of peace, had taken Afua as Sjado had taken Djaga.

  What would it be like to be cursed with utter tranquility? What would it be like to live life and feel no pain, no anger? Those were necessary for laughter and joy. Afua had been made a husk of a woman by Jonsu. But she was no longer. Djaga could feel it in herself, and she could feel it in Afua as well.

  Djaga looked over her dirty, bloody hands. She took in the world around her, the desert, Hathahn’s dead form, the ships, crashed against one another like two drunks sleeping off their night at the end of an alley, and suddenly wished she’d never come to the desert. If Nadín were going to die—and certainly that was her sentence; a gut wound like hers could lead only to a slow, painful death—she wished she’d stayed to spend as much time with her as she could. Console her. Usher her into the next world with a kiss, their hearts beating as one.

  Suddenly, it was very important that Djaga return to Sharakhai.

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  Within the medicum, Djaga sat by Nadín’s bedside, holding the lax fingers of her hand. Nadín’s eyes had been fluttering closed for the past several minutes. Her face was pale as fresh milk.

  Djaga had been telling her the tale, but had stopped when she’d come to the last. The realization had struck her like a hammer blow in the desert, and it was no less impactful now. Wind and grass, how she wished she could sit here forever with Nadín. Tell her stories of the rolling hills of Kundhun. Have Nadín tell her the tales of her life growing up in the desert with her people.

  “Go on,” Nadín said, her eyes still closed.

  “What does it matter?” Djaga replied.

  “I would know before I depart for the further fields.”

  Djaga took a deep breath, then exhaled. “Afua wanted release. I could see it in her, all the emotion that she’d been unable to feel since our ritual coming back to her in a rush.”

  There had been regret in Afua’s eyes as the sun had slipped below the horizon, self-loathing as well. More than anything else, though, there had been a bottomless well of sorrow. At the same time, all the rage Djaga had felt over the years was draining from her like water through a crack in a rain barrel. So much had been kept from her, hidden behind an impossibly high wall. How long she’d wished she could truly bask in Nadín’s love. But it had been impossible. Her anger had prevented it.

  And now it’s still impossible, Djaga thought, just for completely different reasons.

  “Do it, Afua begged me, pointing to Hathahn’s sword. Kill me.” She paused, debating on lying to Nadín. But surely she would learn the truth of it in her next life. “Forgive me, my love, but I could find only pity for Afua in my heart. We’d done wrong, but what our god had done to us was worse. Afua hadn’t deserved it.”

  Nadín opened her eyes and turned her head to look at Djaga. When she spoke, her voice was a whisper. “Neither did you.”

  To this Djaga only shrugged. “Perhaps she deserved death. There’s still a part of me that wants to find her and kill her for what she did to you. But I denied her. We set her ship aright and sent her on her way to Malasan. She left alone, to find a new life. To find the one she’d lost in whatever way she could.”

  Nadín squeezed Djaga’s fingers. “I care only about one thing.”

  Djaga knew, but she still asked, “What?”

  “Are you free?”

  Djaga nodded, part of her wishing it wasn’t so if only she could have Nadín back. “I am.”

  Nadín’s eyes fluttered closed. A wan smile lit her face. “Then I go with a light heart, Djaga Akoyo, for I have unchained my one true love.”

  Djaga stood, tears streaming down her cheeks. “You have, my love.” As she leaned over and kissed Nadín’s forehead, a lone tear fell upon her cheek.

  About the Author

  Bradley P. Beaulieu fell in love with fantasy from the moment he started reading The Hobbit in third grade. From that point on, though he tried reading many other things, fantasy became his touchstone. He always came back to it, and when he started to dabble in writing, fantasy—epic fantasy especially—was the type of story he most dearly wished to share.

  Twelve Kings in Sharakhai, the first book in his latest series, The Song of the Shattered Sands, was named to over twenty “Best of the Year” lists when it was released in 2015. His critically acclaimed series, The Lays of Anuskaya, has recently been released in omnibus form.

  Brad, who recently became a full-time writer, lives in Racine, Wisconsin with his wife and two children. Beyond writing, cooking has become an obsession. His favorite dishes are French, Italian, and Mexican/Southwestern, but he is also fascinated by the art of bread baking.

  For more, please visit www.quillings.com, and to sign up for the author’s low-volume newsletter, click here.

  Twelve Kings in Sharakhai is the first book in the new Arabian Nights-inspired epic fantasy series, The Song of the Shattered Sands…

  Sharakhai, the great city of the desert, center of commerce and culture, has been ruled from time immemorial by twelve kings—cruel, ruthless, powerful, and immortal. With their army of Silver Spears, their elite company of Blade Maidens and their holy defenders, the terrifying asirim, the Kings uphold their positions as undisputed, invincible lord
s of the desert. There is no hope of freedom for any under their rule.

  Or so it seems, until Çeda, a brave young woman from the west end slums, defies the Kings' laws by going outside on the holy night of Beht Zha'ir. What she learns that night sets her on a path that winds through both the terrible truths of the Kings' mysterious history and the hidden riddles of her own heritage. Together, these secrets could finally break the iron grip of the Kings' power...if the nigh-omnipotent Kings don't find her first.

  With Blood Upon the Sand is the second book in the Arabian Nights-inspired epic fantasy series, The Song of the Shattered Sands.

  Çeda, now a Blade Maiden in service to the kings of Sharakhai, trains as one of their elite warriors, gleaning secrets even as they send her on covert missions to further their rule. She knows the dark history of the asirim—that hundreds of years ago they were enslaved to the kings against their will—but when she bonds with them as a Maiden, chaining them to her, she feels their pain as if her own. They hunger for release, they demand it, but with the power of the gods compelling them, they find the yokes around their necks unbreakable.

  Çeda could become the champion they’ve been waiting for, but the need to tread carefully has never been greater. After the victory won by the Moonless Host in the Wandering King’s palace, the kings are hungry for blood. They scour the city, ruthless in their quest for revenge. Unrest spreads like a plague, a thing Emre and his new allies in the Moonless Host hope to exploit, but with the kings and their god-given powers, and the Maidens and their deadly ebon blades, there is little hope of doing so.

  When Çeda and Emre are drawn into a plot of the blood mage, Hamzakiir, they sail across the desert to learn the truth, and a devastating secret is revealed, one that may very well shatter the power of the hated kings. They plot quickly to take advantage of it, but it may all be undone if Çeda cannot learn to navigate the shifting tides of power in Sharakhai and control the growing anger of the asirim that threatens to overwhelm her.