Beneath the Twisted Trees Read online

  “Leave her!” Ramahd called, knowing it was only a matter of time before she fell.

  But Vrago didn’t listen. He managed a vicious swipe across her forearm. Another across her thigh while ducking the swing of her sword.

  “Retreat!” Ramahd shouted.

  But the order came too late. With another kiai, she delivered a crosscut to his ribs, and when Vrago punched her across the jaw and curled toward the wound with a groan, she recovered and brought her ebon blade up and across his throat.

  Vrago stumbled, both hands clasping his neck. It was a wound he couldn’t recover from, though. Ramahd could already hear the stream of blood spattering against the floor.

  The Maiden stumbled backward. Her heel caught on the rough opening, and she tipped through it silently. A moment later, there came the sound of her battle dress’s skirt fluttering in the warm desert air. The sound faded until a meaty thump rose up from the courtyard below.

  Cicio knelt by Vrago’s side. Ramahd joined him. Vrago stared into their eyes, one then the other, then up to Tiron where he stood looming in the darkness. He looked scared and confused, a little boy waiting for death to take him. But then he blinked and steeled himself and looked straight into Ramahd’s eyes. “Go,” he managed to say in a toneless rasp.

  Ramahd, blinking tears away, nodded and stood, then pulled Cicio to a stand as well. The sounds of pursuit—whistles among the other Blade Maidens—were coming closer. After retrieving the sack, Ramahd, Cicio, and Tiron fled, taking the winding path they’d scouted earlier in the day.

  The darkness made it a harrowing escape, but of the Maidens, Mighty Alu be blessed, they saw no further signs.

  Their next safe house was a root cellar that smelled of garlic and turnips and piss. Cicio, wordless after the loss of Vrago, left to scout the area and begin the work of planning their escape routes. The old woman they’d contacted days earlier, and paid a deposit to set the room up if need be, watched them warily, but took the extra coin they laid in her palm and left them in peace.

  Tiron, sitting on the cot across from Ramahd, gave the door a stony look and waited for her footsteps to recede. “That one will cut us up and put us in her soup, we’re not careful,” he said in Qaimiran.

  “We’d make shit soup, you and I.” They’d both lost weight after the ceaseless running.

  Tiron, stony in the best of times, turned dour. He hated it when he thought he wasn’t being taken seriously.

  “We won’t stay long,” Ramahd said.

  It was a constant problem. He didn’t like their temporary landlord any better than Tiron did, but they’d been forced to scramble for contacts they thought safe from Meryam. Nearly all of those Ramahd had cultivated over the years were known to Meryam and her advisor, Basilio, and those who weren’t might be found at any time.

  “We should leave when the city wakes,” Tiron ventured.

  Ramahd nodded. Much as he’d like the day to rest, it would be wiser to find a host less likely to try to make a few sylval by selling their whereabouts to the Silver Spears.

  Tiron’s gaze drifted down to the sack beneath Ramahd’s cot. “We can’t go on like this, my lord.”

  “I know,” Ramahd said. “Mateo will arrive soon.”

  Before Ramahd and the others had sailed back to Sharakhai, they’d stopped in the caravanserai of Mazandir. Their immediate purpose was to trade the Blue Heron for a smaller, cheaper ship. It gave them the money they needed to operate in Sharakhai but also ensured their ship wouldn’t be recognized. Ramahd had also arranged for the desert tribe he’d traded with to intercept the inbound Qaimiri fleet with a message for its admiral, Duke Hektor, King Aldouan’s brother and next in line to the throne. When a woman from the tribe had arrived in Sharakhai a week ago, she’d confirmed that the message had been delivered and that Hektor had agree to send Vice Admiral Mateo Abrantes ahead of the fleet to meet him.

  “My lord, we don’t know what Mateo will say, and even if he arrived today it wouldn’t change the fact that Meryam has your blood, and that sooner or later she will have you. We’ve been here for three weeks searching for the Enclave. You know how they operate. If they wanted us to find them, we would have by now.”

  “I’m not certain of that. War has arrived. They’ll be busy readying themselves.”

  “And if we don’t find them soon, Vrago’s fate will be ours.”

  The Enclave were a group of blood magi who lived in the cracks of society in Sharakhai. Ramahd needed them. It was a gamble, what he was doing. The Enclave might very well side with Meryam in this. But he knew things they didn’t. Meryam had dominated Hamzakiir, a fellow blood mage, a thing strictly forbidden by the Enclave, even among magi who weren’t part of the Enclave. Ramahd was sure if he revealed the truth about Meryam and Hamzakiir, who she’d disguised as King Kiral, they would aid him, keep Meryam off his trail until Ramahd could speak to Duke Hektor face to face.

  But the Enclave were highly secretive, so much so that Ramahd had no idea how to reach them. Very few did. Meryam knew, of course, but there’d be no getting the information out of her.

  Her recent ascension to queen of Sharakhai had left him an opening, however. After Ramahd’s departure, she would have needed a new go-between to the Enclave. He was certain that person was Basilio. Ramahd had paid a goodly sum to a washerwoman to learn that Basilio had been missing from the embassy house since shortly after Meryam left for the Battle of Blackspear. Ramahd then paid the woman even more to try to find him. That very night, not coincidentally, Meryam made her first appearance. She’d nearly caught him at the small perfumery where they were to meet the washerwoman—a dozen Qaimiri soldiers had tried to take them and they made a narrow escape. Meryam was perhaps unprepared for Ramahd to have become so adept at nullifying her spells.

  The washerwoman had been killed, an unfortunate tragedy that also served to cut off one avenue of gaining information. They continued the search for Basilio, offering handsome sums for information that would lead them to either Basilio or the Enclave. But few accepted their offer, worried about retaliation from the House of Kings, and those who did accept offered leads worth less than rubbish.

  “Let’s go,” Tiron pleaded. “Let’s go to the embassy house and find your blood. You said yourself she’d likely not bring it to Eventide.”

  Ramahd had been struggling with this very thing since their arrival. Destroy the vials of his blood Meryam still had and she’d lose her power over him. But there was no guarantee they’d find any in the embassy house, nor that they’d find anything that would point them toward Basilio. It would be a mission conducted at great risk to his men, and he’d already put them through much. Bad enough that security around the embassy house would be fortified. The House of Kings, which sheltered all the major embassy houses within its walls, was closely watched at all hours.

  “A day or two more, Tiron. That’s all I’m asking.”

  Tiron was a hard man, one who didn’t back down easily, but after a moment’s consideration he nodded grimly and fell onto his cot.

  Despite Vrago’s death, or perhaps because of it, relief at escaping the Blade Maidens was finally hitting home. Even as it did, though, he remembered Vrago’s handsome smile and felt terrible. “The saving of one’s country,” Ramahd mused. “They said it would be easier.”

  “They . . .” Tiron smiled a miserable smile. “Those fuckers are always lying.”

  Ramahd laughed. It felt good to laugh. “It’s enough to drive a man to drink.”

  “Or have a dance with the dark mistress,” Tiron replied.

  The dark mistress was slang for black lotus, a drug Tiron had been heavily addicted to for a time. Ramahd had flirted with it as well. As he considered Tiron’s somber words, visions of an old estate along the banks of the Haddah swam before him. Then another, of an ancient woman in a black dress, a bottle of fine Qaimiri brandy on the table between them
as she and Ramahd spoke of Tiron. A jolt ran through Ramahd’s body. He sat bolt upright and swung his legs over the side of the cot.

  “What is it?” Tiron asked.

  “There may be another way,” Ramahd said, “only . . .” Breath of the desert . . . Tiron was ever strong, ever stout, always willing to do what it took, but Ramahd wasn’t sure he could bring himself to ask this of him.

  Tiron’s face had turned hard again. “You need but say it, my lord.”

  “There’s another way we might find Basilio. But it would require just that, Tiron, a dance with the dark mistress.” Tiron knew immediately what he was talking about—Ramahd could see it in his eyes—but he stated it baldly anyway. He needed Tiron to know what he was getting into. “I need you to return to one the Widow’s drug dens, Tiron. I need you to lay a story at the feet of those who work there, a story strong enough that it will be brought back to the Widow herself.”

  Tiron considered, but not for long. “Very well.”

  Ramahd searched his eyes. Fresh winds of the sea, how I wish I could see into the hearts of men. “Tell me you can handle it, Tiron.”

  “I can handle it.”

  “Then why do you seem so bloody eager?”

  He took in the earthen walls of the cellar. “A chance to get away from this, even for a night?” He laughed. “I’ll take it, my lord. I’ll take it gladly.”

  Tiron was filled with bluster. Ramahd didn’t think he was lying, but he’d known Tiron since they were children. There was little that scared him, but just then, as his gaze slid beyond the walls of the dank cellar, he looked a child lost on a storm-wracked sea.

  If they left him there too long, Ramahd was certain the dark mistress would have him, but they needed this. They needed to find Basilio. “It would only be for a night,” Ramahd said. “Two or three at most.”

  “I know,” Tiron said. “I’ll do it.”

  Alu help me, Ramahd thought. But then he said the words. “Very well.”

  Chapter 6

  EMRE STOOD AT THE CREST of a dune with Aríz, the young shaikh of Tribe Kadri. Aríz had inherited the mantle from his father, Mihir, after he’d been killed by King Onur in the desert. He was wise enough for his age in the arts of diplomacy, but he was in sore need of training in the art of war, which was why Emre had an unstrung bow slung across his shoulders. Aríz had a bow as well, but his was strung and ready, an arrow already nocked. Not far away, along the top of another dune, Frail Lemi, Emre’s towering, musclebound friend, was practicing spearcraft in his typically impressive form, slashing, advancing, blocking, riposting. The sound of his movements, his percussive grunts, even the whirring of his greatspear, filled the hot, parched air.

  “Dayan has seen thirty-nine summers,” Aríz was telling Emre, “and by all accounts has ruled Tribe Halarijan with an even hand.”

  “It’s been tumultuous, though, no?” Emre said easily. “I heard one of his cousins tried to take his seat.” Without warning, Emre swept his bow like a staff at Aríz’s shins.

  Aríz leapt over the swing, rolled to a stand, and fired the arrow at the woolen target set into the slope of the opposite dune. The arrow fell short in a burst of amber sand.

  “No!” came Frail Lemi’s bellowing shout.

  Lemi was practicing with Umber, King Onur’s massive black spear they’d retrieved after the great battle between the tribes and the Kings. No one but Lemi could wield the heavy weapon easily, so they’d given it to him.

  One night over a campfire, Hamid—a childhood friend of Çeda and Emre—had asked Frail Lemi, “Why call it Umber?”

  Lemi had shrugged. “That was his sign, wasn’t it? Silver on umber.”

  “Yes, but the spear was the silver part. Why not call it Silver? Or Black? He wasn’t called the Black Spear for nothing, you know.”

  “I know,” Frail Lemi said with a dispassionate air, and would not be dissuaded. Umber it was, and soon everyone else was calling it that too.

  Aríz glanced Frail Lemi’s way, clearly annoyed, and shouted, “Aren’t you bloody tired yet?”

  Lemi only laughed. The sun glistened off his dark skin as he spun and brought Umber across his body in a vicious arc. He’d been at his forms for nearly an hour and seemed as full of energy as he had when he’d begun.

  Aríz grit his jaw as he picked up another arrow. “Yes, Dayan has had challenges to his rule, but he’s skilled at sniffing such things out.” He nocked the arrow and watched for Emre’s next move. “Each time it’s happened he’s cut the head from the snake before it managed to lay eggs.”

  When Emre swung his bow high, Aríz ducked beneath it, drew, and let fly. Though not far off, the arrow struck to the right of the target.

  With no break in his movements, Frail Lemi shouted in a long, barely discernible growl, “Not good enough!”

  Aríz threw his bow to the sand. “It’s too hard! I’ll never be able to fight like this.”

  Frail Lemi stopped his forms and leaned against his spear, laughing. “Aw, baby boy miss his target?”

  Color rose along the dark skin of Aríz’s cheeks as he glanced Lemi’s way, and Lemi laughed even harder. Emre was about to reason with Aríz when a voice called out behind him.

  “I tell you again it’s improper.”

  It was Ali-Budrek, Aríz’s vizir, walking side by side with Hamid. They were coming from the camp: a grouping of Tribe Kadri’s ships that had been arrayed in a circle beside a small oasis. Among them was the Amaranth, the ship assigned by Macide to represent the thirteenth tribe on this diplomatic journey—as was Calamity’s Reign, the ship owned and captained by Haddad, a fiery woman and caravan owner who was acting as an emissary of sorts to the Malasani King.

  Ali-Budrek and Hamid came to a stop nearby. Hamid seemed strangely sanguine. Ali-Budrek, however, was anything but. His scowl was dark as the shadow his rotund figure cast against the sand. “If Shaikh Aríz is going to be trained”—Ali-Budrek crossed his arms over his barrel chest in a pose that defined him more than any other—“Can you at least tell that walking grain tower to stop barking at the shaikh like a bloody jackal?”

  “We’re doing this for a reason,” Emre said.

  “And what reason is that?”

  “To ready him for battle.”

  “No. You’re filling his head with so much nonsense it will confuse him to the point that he’ll fail when battle comes!”

  “He’s doing better than I did at this stage.”

  “He’s not lying!” Frail Lemi shouted from the opposite dune. “Emre was terrible! Couldn’t hit the desert surrounded by fucking sand!”

  “Show him, then,” Hamid cut in. He wore that smug expression of his, the one that revealed how jealous he was, how eager to see Emre knocked down a peg or two.

  Hamid had been annoyed when Emre was assigned to represent the thirteenth tribe at this meeting and not him. Since then, he’d been pushing Emre in small ways, every chance he got.

  “My skills aren’t the ones that need sharpening,” Emre replied.

  “You’re the one teaching him,” Hamid shot back. “Don’t you want to give young Aríz something to aspire to?”

  “He has a point,” Ali-Budrek said.

  Aríz watched all this in silence.

  “Show them, Emre!” Frail Lemi bellowed.

  Emre knew he shouldn’t give in to Hamid, but the smug look on his face was more than he could bear. He strung his bow and told Aríz to give his to Hamid. Hamid caught it with a smile and moved between Emre and the target. Emre, meanwhile, took five arrows, pinched four between the fingers of his right hand, and nocked the fifth.

  Hamid gave him no time to prepare. He came at Emre, swinging the bow like a staff, first high, then low. But Emre was ready. He ducked, then leapt and released his first arrow. It struck the target as Emre rolled back to evade another swing. Two more thumped into th
e target when Hamid overcompensated. The fourth flew just past Hamid’s hip as he charged, angry and red-faced.

  Hamid was hoping to embarrass Emre, but he’d always had more bluster than true skill with sword or spear. When Hamid overcommitted, Emre poked him in the chest and sent him tumbling backward. He looked like an overturned crab, limbs flailing, as Emre let his last arrow fly with a release that approached perfection. It sunk into the center of the target, surrounded by the other four arrows.

  Aríz tried and failed to hide his amusement while Emre, stifling a grin of his own, offered his hand to Hamid. Surprisingly, Hamid showed some composure for once, even as Frail Lemi’s laughter became pure, almost childlike. “Hey, Hamid! You want I should carry you to bed? Ickle Hami need a nap after his spanking?”

  Hamid pretended to ignore them all as he took in the spread of Emre’s arrows. “Not bad.”

  Ali-Budrek frowned. “Even so, allowing the shaikh to train in silence could only help his concentration.” He waved to Frail Lemi, who had dropped to one knee and was laughing uncontrollably. “This is humiliating.”

  “He stays,” Aríz cut in. Emre wasn’t surprised. Aríz had grown closer to Frail Lemi than anyone would have guessed. And for his part, Lemi had come to look upon Aríz like a little brother—though in truth, Aríz was more like the big brother in their relationship. Frail Lemi’s mind had become simple after breaking a fall from a granary tower with his head when he was young, while Aríz was intelligent and sharp, and often seemed much wiser than his fifteen summers would imply. He might be half Lemi’s age, and size, but he had twice the wisdom.

  Aríz, eager to prove himself, took up his bow with the sort of vibrance Emre loved to see. “Let’s go.”

  “It won’t come in a single afternoon,” Emre said.

  Aríz nodded, clearly shrugging off the warning, and waited for Emre to begin. Ali-Budrek, meanwhile, eyed Emre with that stubborn badger stare of his. Thankfully he left a moment later, leaving Hamid their only spectator.

  Aríz picked up from their earlier conversation. “Shaikh Dayan will come to our council with an open mind if not an open heart. He doesn’t trust easily, but he recognizes the truth when he sees it, and his tribe has been as hurt as any other by the Kings.”