When Jackals Storm the Walls Read online

  Her breath came in ragged gasps. Her body was tight as a bow string. Her hands ached from the death grip she had on the mere’s emerald coping. Gods, the look of acceptance on Emre’s face . . . He’d wanted to join Rafa, but there was only one way that could happen.

  Queen Nayyan still sat on the nearby bench. Aloof earlier, she stared at Çeda with an intensity that made it clear how invested she was in this endeavor. “Well?”

  Çeda, still disorientated, crawled away, sat on the grass, and held her head tight until the suffocating feeling passed. “I found Nalamae. She was a woman, fully grown, a shipwright, I think, sailing on a royal clipper.” Hoping Nayyan might have some clue as to where Nalamae might be found or when the attack might take place, she told her the rest, but withheld the visions of Macide and Emre.

  “Who can tell where or when she’ll appear?” Nayyan said when Çeda was done. “It could be today, it could be a year from now.”

  “Could I speak to someone in King’s Harbor? They might know her. They could tell me which ships she’s building and how close they are to completion.”

  Nayyan nodded. “I’ll make enquiries.” And with that it became clear that Nayyan wanted to remain involved. She had believed the effort worth pursuing, worth conspiring to get Çeda into Yusam’s palace, and now she wanted to know more.

  It was then that Çeda realized how vulnerable Nayyan seemed. She understood why a moment later when Nayyan asked, “Did you see me or Ransaneh?”

  “No,” Çeda said while shaking her head.

  “Ihsan? Any of the other Kings?”

  Çeda shook her head again, reckoning that Nayyan didn’t need to know of the other visions until Çeda had had time to consider them. She was sure of one thing, though: as soon as she was able, she would return to the thirteenth tribe. She needed to see Emre and Macide safe.

  “Come,” Nayyan said as she stood and made for the archway into the palace. “It’s time we head back.”

  Çeda pulled herself up, dizzy for a moment. She caught the leopard staring at her. It was lounging on the same bough as before, looking pleased with itself. Ignoring it, Çeda brushed her skirt clean and followed Nayyan into the palace.

  Many knew that the garden of King Yusam’s famous mere hugged the mountainside. It gave a stunning view of a sheer rock face, even a bit of the mountain’s bare, rocky peak. What few knew, however, was that there was a flat shelf of rock that could be reached after a short climb.

  Gerta, a girl of ten, knew. She’d found it years ago when she was sent to pull the weeds and clip the decorative hedges. She’d gone there sometimes to hide from her mother, the palace’s master gardener, or from her brother, who was always bossing her around, or from the Silver Spears who were often sent to fetch her.

  Gerta also had very sharp hearing. It was a secret she’d shared only with her brother, and even then she’d only told him while playing clobber sock, after he’d built up enough points to give her a good thumping unless she told him something really important.

  One day, after she’d splattered warm porridge in his face, he’d thrown her to the jackals: he told everyone she’d been listening in on the King’s conversations, which he should never, ever have done. According to the unspoken rules of clobber sock, no secrets divulged during the game would ever be told, but her brother . . . Well, he’d always been a bit of an ass.

  On the wings of gossip, the secret was carried to the King’s ear—Umay, not Yusam, and for that she was glad. King Yusam had always terrified her. She was sure that if he had been the one to find out, he’d have given Gerta to the Confessor King for questioning. King Umay, however, found another purpose for her. He hid her in his grand audience chamber and asked her to listen to a businessman and his son confer after what was sure to be a heated bargaining session. Gerta had listened to their positions and reported it to Umay. He’d surely used their words to leverage a better deal for himself.

  Again and again Umay asked her to eavesdrop, usually inside his palace, but sometimes without. Once she was delivered to the city and secreted away in the very top of Bakhi’s temple so she could listen to the high priest, who gave up a trove of information about one of his most generous donors, a man who was in trouble for having slain a woman in an attempt at covering up their affair.

  So it was that Gerta had been asked to listen to Queen Nayyan and her pretty servant. Umay hadn’t believed Nayyan’s story, and Gerta could see why. It hadn’t been Nayyan who peered into the mere, but her servant, and it had had nothing to do with Nayyan’s baby, but with the goddess, Nalamae, who some said had been killed near Mount Arasal when the Malasani had invaded Sharakhai with their golems. Gerta wondered vaguely whether it was Nalamae’s death that made the golems go mad during the Battle for the Mount.

  Whatever the case, the vision had apparently shown the goddess reborn as some shipwright on a royal clipper. Who Nayyan’s supposed servant was in truth, Gerta had no idea, but she was nearly certain the woman was no servant at all. Perhaps Gerta would be able to wheedle it out of King Umay. He wasn’t nearly as sly as he thought he was, and she’d grown quite good at getting him to talk about the reasons behind her missions. Either way, Umay would be pleased. She might even get the brass akhala she’d been after.

  Enough time had passed that Gerta felt it safe to climb down from her perch. She rolled over, ready to do just that, but froze when she spotted movement beneath the treetops. One of King Yusam’s bloody leopards was prowling along, heading toward the mere. As it went, however, it began to change. By the Kings who rule, it was growing, lengthening, its fur drawing into its body, revealing black skin. It became taller and taller, rearing onto hind legs shaped more like a goat’s than a mountain cat’s. Horns sprouted from its forehead and curled back. A crown of thorns pressed up and outward from its skull. Bloodshot eyes stared fixedly at the mere, a pleased expression on the beast’s demonic face.

  Gerta felt herself quivering all over. She lay flat on the stone and tried to control her breathing. She truly did. But she was gasping like a fish. She wouldn’t in a thousand years have thought to witness a god, yet here was Goezhen come to eavesdrop on Queen Nayyan, just as Gerta had. Her mind went mad trying to figure out why, but after a moment her thoughts rearranged themselves and she realized she need look no further than the vision of Nayyan’s supposed servant. In it, Goezhen had found Nalamae. But why would a vision like that matter to Goezhen? Surely he knew of it already. The gods knew everything.

  She went still as stone, telling herself not to look anywhere but up at the blue sky. But every moment that passed felt as if Goezhen was preparing to leap up and rend her limb from limb. Shivering badly, she rolled and peered over the edge.

  Goezhen was there, his baleful eyes staring straight at her. She swallowed hard. Something warm trickled between her legs. The smile on the dark god, as though he’d be pleased to take a measure of her flesh, made her heart falter.

  “Climb down, child.” Goezhen spoke in a low rumble.

  She did as he bade her, and soon stood before him. She nearly fell to pieces as one great hand reached out and slipped around her waist. He picked her up and with a blackened claw traced a glowing sigil in the air.

  That done, he set her back down. She stared numbly at the moss-laden trail of water that trickled down the face of the stone. Beside her was a looming shape. A moment later, however, it seemed to vanish. Wind rushed past her and a noxious black smoke filled the air. She thought she should run from it, but it dissipated before she could decide whether to head for the trees or the palace.

  She looked around and found herself in an empty garden. She wondered why she’d come here in the first place. Oh yes. Queen Nayyan and her servant. Realizing her britches felt cool, she stared down and saw the patch of wet cloth between her legs. Gods, she’d pissed herself. She must have fallen asleep on the rock. King Umay wouldn’t be pleased. He wouldn’t be pleased at all.


  Unless she told him a story . . .

  Perhaps they did have a vision about Nayyan’s daughter. That was the key: tell him something useless about Nayyan and her daughter, and all would be well.

  As the pieces of the story began ordering themselves in her mind, she headed into the palace toward her rooms. Her britches needed changing.

  Chapter 5

  HUSAMETTÍN, AFTER FINALLY RESIGNING himself to endure Ihsan’s presence in their alliance for the good of Sharakhai, told Ihsan how some in Zeheb’s family had feared for their King’s life before the Malasani invasion; how during the Battle for the Mount they’d forced their way into Eventide and freed Zeheb the Whisper King from imprisonment; how they’d used the battle itself as a way to steal down to the caves to the southeast of Sharakhai, where many royal families kept yachts that were well maintained and ready to sail on a moment’s notice. They’d secreted Zeheb in one of those ships and sailed west, hoping they might heal their King of his malady and ride out the storm of the Malasani occupation.

  Little had they known that the Malasani horde and their golems would be rebuffed. Even so, it had allowed them to save Zeheb, a man they felt had been unjustly accused, perhaps even set up for a fall by the other Kings. They’d been right, of course. Ihsan had framed him and manipulated the other Kings just enough to prevent any of the blame falling on him.

  To Zeheb’s family, the war had surely seemed like the perfect opportunity to spirit their patriarch away, to heal him if possible, and plan to return after the war and take up what power they could. But the battle’s strange end, with the golems going mad, had soured their plans. The other Kings had won the day, leaving them on the outside, looking in. By then it was Meryam and the lesser Kings who held the reins of power in Sharakhai. And with Temel, one of Zeheb’s many sons, sitting on Zeheb’s throne, there were many in his own family who didn’t wish to see his return.

  Several days later, Ihsan found himself crawling, flat on his stomach, toward the edge of a rocky slope. Hidden by a clutch of wiry bushes, he peered through his spyglass toward the pan of flat sand below where six ketches and a tumbledown dhow were clustered. Sitting in the shade of a distant cliff, they looked like a pack of maned wolves taking their rest. Zeheb was hidden inside one of those ships. Ihsan hadn’t seen the man himself, but he’d spotted several of his family members walking among the ships: a pair of women with the bearings of his two eldest living daughters, and Zeheb’s grandson, a man of forty summers who bore his weight as Zeheb once had: like an overweight dune lizard readying for a long winter sleep.

  “What do your precious journals say about those ships?”

  Ihsan turned to see Cahil’s daughter, Yndris, standing in full view of the ships below. Even when Ihsan waved for her to get down, she remained there, cloaked in her own impudence, forcing Ihsan to shift closer to her and tug hard on her sleeve.

  Rolling her eyes, she dropped down and crawled next to him. Please, Ihsan prayed to the fates, if you grant me anything, grant me this: have my daughter grow up to be nothing like Yndris. Nayyan had surely given birth weeks ago. In his absence she would be raising their child alone, which weighed more on his heart every day.

  Ihsan signed to Yndris, As I’ve told you many times, my precious journals do not detail every step we need to take.

  With a sour expression, she snatched the spyglass from him and trained it on the arc of ships. “Well surely they told you something.”

  He was forced to wait until she looked at him to give his answer. Yusam’s visions are nearly inscrutable. They’re like trying to follow a trail from a description of pebbles along the road.

  “By the gods who breathe, Ihsan”—she waved to where her father and Husamettín were huddled, talking in low tones—“why should we trust them at all when you hardly believe in them yourself?”

  I didn’t say I don’t believe in them. He sent a pointed glance toward the other two Kings. See how far they’ve taken me, and consider how far they may take us all.

  Yndris’s pert face made it clear she was skeptical. “Well, then, what does the next pebble look like?”

  Ihsan glanced toward the Kundhuni ships. It shows us with Zeheb.

  “Zeheb.” Yndris spat onto the dirt. “The King who spouts useless nonsense.”

  No, Ihsan signed vehemently. Yusam’s vision was clear in this much. It’s Zeheb who points us to the next pebble. That’s why we need him.

  Yndris resumed her inspection of the small Kundhuni fleet. Ihsan was disappointed she hadn’t the forethought to ask the next logical question. He would have lied, but part of him still wanted her to ask what designs Ihsan had of his own on Zeheb. Cahil and Husamettín wanted to use him to listen to the whispers in Sharakhai, to gain an edge over Meryam. Yndris was apparently dim enough that she thought Ihsan wanted the same.

  But there was something much bigger in play, which made Ihsan’s fingers tingle just to think about. Four centuries ago, the gods had set a grand game of aban into motion. Everyone, including Ihsan, had been certain they knew the players: the Twelve Kings of Sharakhai pitted against the desert tribes, especially the thirteenth. But it wasn’t so, and never had been—it had always been the gods against mortal man. That was the importance of Yusam’s journals. Their dizzying visions had lifted Ihsan up high enough that he could see the board in full, or enough of it that he could start making real moves of his own. And just in time. The endgame had arrived, the closing moves were being planned, and Ihsan himself was preparing some that would shake the foundations of the desert.

  Beside him, Yndris went stiff. Ihsan waited for her to say something, but she was silent, transfixed. Tugging on her sleeve like a lost gutter wren had no effect either, and suddenly it returned in full force: the sense that he was no player at all, but a powerless imbecile being swept along the river of fate just like everyone else.

  Finally Yndris relinquished the spyglass. “There”—she pointed to the fourth ship in the line—“on the quarterdeck.”

  He trained the spyglass on the ketch she’d indicated. There, at long last, was Zeheb. He was being helped into a chair by one of his daughters while the other adjusted a silk sun shade over him. They’d needed this—the knowledge that Zeheb was still alive, that they weren’t chasing a ghost. They also knew for certain which ship he’d been hiding in.

  Ihsan pulled the spyglass down, then immediately brought it back to his eye. A flock of sparrows took flight inside his chest as he spotted it again: a dark, angular shape on the horizon, a trail of dust lifting behind.

  “What?” Yndris asked.

  Ihsan handed the spyglass to her and pointed. She raised it up and stared for a long while. “That’s a royal galleon.”

  Indeed, Ihsan thought, and there were only two reasons it might have come. The first was that Meryam or the new King of Zeheb’s house, Temel, was sending a peace offering, a way for Zeheb to return to Sharakhai and avoid punishment for having fled. The second and more likely by far was that the ship had been sent to kill him.

  We have to move, Ihsan said. Now.

  Yndris remained where she was, a pensive expression on her face. She jutted her chin toward the Kundhuni ships. “You said Yusam saw many possibilities in his mere.”

  Ihsan nodded, curious where she was headed.

  “That implies you’ve chosen one of them. I wonder, at the end of it all, where did those visions see you?”

  Well, well, so Yndris wasn’t stupid after all. They saw me, he signed, in a Sharakhai that was still intact.

  “I assumed that much. Where were you? Where was my father? Where was Husamettín?”

  The visions were unclear in this respect.

  “Might I read some of them, these visions? Perhaps you’ve overlooked something.”

  I left the journals in a safe place—he waved toward the ships—far from here, as we head into danger.

  Yn
dris put on a look of calm acceptance. “Then I’m sure when the danger has passed you’ll allow me to read them?”

  Ihsan smiled easily. Your wish is my command.

  Yndris snorted, and the two of them crawled back, away from the drop-off.

  That night, when the light of dusk had failed save for a dying ember in the western sky, Ihsan crouched beside Yndris, only a hundred paces from the campfire shedding light on the Kundhuni ships. A handful of lanterns glowed golden on the decks. The rest was naught but shadows and starlight.

  When a cry lifted up from the far side of the camp, several guardsmen broke away from the fire and ran toward the shouting. The clash of steel on steel followed. Battle cries rang out. Several men began barking orders in percussive Kundhunese.

  A pair of guardsmen lingered near Zeheb’s ketch, apparently unwilling to abandon their posts. Ihsan was just thinking he and Yndris might have to deal with the guards themselves when an agonized scream rent the air and the guards rushed toward it.

  As the sounds of battle rang out—smithy-anvil peals, the grunts of soldiers fighting for their lives—Yndris and Ihsan ran low and fast toward the ship’s unguarded stern. Soon they reached the rear hatch, the one that could be lowered to take on cargo directly from the sand. While Yndris drew her sword and watched for signs that they’d been spotted, Ihsan wedged a stout iron bar into the gap. He was no physical specimen like Husamettín, but he still had the inhuman strength the gods had granted all the Kings, so it took little time for the hatch restraints to give.

  As soon as it fell to the sand, Yndris stormed into the hold. Ihsan followed, and together they climbed up to the ship’s middle deck, where the crew’s quarters would be. Earlier, Ihsan had seen one of the rear cabins’ shutters being opened from inside. They rushed toward that cabin. When Yndris crashed the door in with a sharp kick, they found Zeheb sitting up in the lone bunk, staring at them with wide eyes and messy, pepper-gray hair.