When Jackals Storm the Walls Read online

  A small lantern hanging from a ceiling beam lit Zeheb in ghostly relief. His lips moved soundlessly. He was listening to the whispers all around. Suddenly, with a surprisingly lucid look on his face, Zeheb whistled like a Blade Maiden, a command that meant, simply, halt. “See there,” he said softly, “they’re being attacked.” His voice changed to a slightly lower pitch. “Do we still go for the ketch?” Then in the soft voice once more, “Yes, but keep your eyes peeled. They’ll spirit him away if they think the sands are shifting beneath them.”

  Yndris seemed confused, but Ihsan had seen this sort of behavior from Zeheb before. He was repeating the whispers of others, perhaps those who’d been sent from the royal galleon. To ensure their mission’s success, a full hand of Blade Maidens, five deadly swordswomen, would likely have been dispatched, maybe more.

  Before Ihsan could consider the implications further, a clicking sound came from his right. He’d no more turned toward it than the door of the cabin’s armoire burst open and a body flew toward him. It was a woman, a knife gripped in her upraised hands, her curly brown hair trailing behind her like a pennant on the wind.

  Ihsan was caught completely flat-footed. Yndris, however, was already on the move. She swung her ebon blade in a deadly arc, cutting the woman down. The wound was mortal—that much was plain—and yet as the woman crumpled to the dry wooden planks, the only sound she uttered was a single, sharp yelp. She lay on the floor, breathing in short, sharp gasps, while blood spread across the bodice of her simple linen dress.

  Zeheb stared in shock. His eyes turned red and began to water, but his lips, ever bound to listen to the whispers, kept moving.

  The woman was one of his daughters, Ihsan realized. It was in that moment that he felt the first twinge of regret for what he’d done to Zeheb, a man he’d once counted as a friend. It had been necessary, and Zeheb had deserved it after threatening Nayyan and Ihsan’s unborn child. Even so, to be rendered unable to whisper a word of prayer for your own dying daughter . . .

  Yndris snapped her fingers before Ihsan’s eyes. “What, you expected no bloodshed?”

  Ignoring her, Ihsan went to Zeheb’s bedside and helped him to stand. Ihsan thought he might resist, but Zeheb came willingly, docile as a lamb, tears falling as whispers flew.

  They fled through the ship, chased by the sound of footsteps thudding down a set of stairs behind them. “Anann?” Just as Ihsan, Zeheb, and Yndris reached the hold, a surprised shout came from above, followed by a wail of anguish. “They’ve taken him!” a woman’s voice rang out. “They’ve killed Anann and taken my father!”

  They ran down the ramp and onto open sand.

  “Halt!” called a voice in sharp Kundhunese.

  They pressed on, both Yndris and Ihsan staying close to Zeheb, which was likely the only reason arrows weren’t raining down on them.

  “What are you waiting for?” the Kundhunese captain snapped from the deck. “Let fly!”

  Most of the arrows were off target. Yndris blocked several more with her small shield. Darkness cloaked them, but by the light of the ships’ lanterns Ihsan saw a small host of forms sprinting over the sand—a dozen warriors bearing spears and shields and khopeshes with their distinctive, crescent-moon blades.

  As slow as Zeheb was moving, it was impossible to outdistance their attackers. Ihsan was just preparing to turn and fight when a lithe male form slashed into the soldiers. By the light of the campfire, Ihsan saw Cahil using his war hammer and shield to battle the Kundhuni soldiers. He was a dervish, a devil with a blest hammer, and his daughter was nearly as fast. Together the two of them fought off the soldiers, leaving only one for Ihsan to deal with, which he did with a deep thrust to the man’s chest. Zeheb, meanwhile, watched everything while mumbling into the wind.

  Suddenly a woman in dark armor flew in, delivering a terrible strike to Cahil. It rang off his scale armor, which blunted the blow, but the strength behind it sent Cahil staggering. Suddenly he and Yndris were locked in combat with three Blade Maidens.

  As Ihsan turned away, another resolved from the darkness ahead of him. He immediately retreated, knowing his only real hope was to delay—he hadn’t the skill of even the worst of the Blade Maidens, especially if they’d taken a petal, which these women surely had.

  The Maiden wasted no time. She pressed him hard, her shamshir blurring through the night. He wore fine mail armor, but it couldn’t withstand an ebon blade, not when driven by the powerful sword arm of a Blade Maiden. He took a cut to the leg, then a terrible blow to his right shoulder. He managed one feeble slash to her arm, but at the cost of a cut to his ribs that felt like it went all the way to the bone.

  Beyond the Maiden, Cahil stumbled. He fell to one knee, his off-hand grasping at his chest just as he had at the caravanserai. Seeing him falter, Yndris gave a cry of desperation and sent a storm of blows against the Maidens.

  Does it end here? Ihsan wondered. Were Yusam’s visions wrong?

  The Maiden fighting Ihsan sent a stunning blow against his feeble defenses and followed it with a ruinous back kick that knocked the wind from him and sent him flying. As he crashed onto the sand, he saw that Yndris had felled one Maiden to reach her father’s side. She fought like a cornered cat, perhaps hoping that her father would recover enough to help, but Cahil could hardly move. He held perfectly still, eyes blinking fiercely, while the spell passed, leaving Yndris to fight alone against three Blade Maidens.

  While Zeheb watched with a vaguely pleased expression, Ihsan whipped sand into the face of the Maiden coming for him. It sent her momentarily reeling. Yndris, meanwhile, took a blow to the back of one thigh. She stumbled, then ducked beneath a killing stroke from another Maiden.

  The Maidens were surrounding her, hemming her in. She was blocking furiously, expending all her energy on her defense. Just when Ihsan thought surely she would fall, a tall swordsman rushed in from the darkness. It was Husamettín, and he was like a raging river, fluid, powerful, and relentless as he sent a series of blurring strikes against his enemies. He’d lost Night’s Kiss to Çedamihn and now wielded a mundane, two-handed shamshir, but he seemed no less deadly. His turban was gone, leaving his long hair swaying as he moved and revealing the mark of the traitor that had been carved into his forehead. Deadly as he was, eyes wide like a demon in the night, he seemed to wear it like a badge of honor.

  The Maiden attacking Ihsan thought better of it and rushed to help the others in her hand. It did little good, though. Husamettín, with Yndris’s aid, dispatched them all.

  Then they were off, while the calls of the Kundhuni crew and Zeheb’s surviving daughter chased them into the night.

  Chapter 6

  HAMID, NOW SECOND IN COMMAND of the thirteenth tribe, answering only to Shaikh Macide, stood on the foredeck of a fleet galleon named the Amaranth. Astern, sailing in arrowhead formation, were three light frigates, each armed with more than the normal share of ballistae, catapults, and soldiers. The Amaranth’s armaments had been expanded as well. They sailed southwest toward a meeting of tribes, after all, and Hamid was sure things were going to get dicey—having crews ready to draw blood was only prudent.

  Scanning ahead with his spyglass, Hamid spotted a cluster of ships, barely visible in a heat that made the horizon waver.

  “Wind’s favorable,” Sirendra called beside him. “Another hour of sailing and we’ll be there.”

  He glanced over at Sirendra, the leader of the ten Shieldwives who’d accompanied him on the journey. Her ivory turban, with its hanging beads and the medallion set at the center of her brow, accented her turquoise eyes and round face. She was a good woman, dependable, yet Hamid always found himself annoyed with her. He knew why. It was her battle dress. It was cut in the style of the Blade Maidens, yet another reminder of Çeda’s growing influence over the thirteenth tribe. The very fact that there were a group of women who’d trained under Çeda—a woman who’d wielded a blade in se
rvice to the Kings of Sharakhai—showed how bloody incestuous the desert had become, a thing Hamid hated more with each passing day.

  “If you want to fight, fine,” Hamid had told Sirendra at the start of their journey two months ago. “Just wear armor like any other soldier.”

  But Sirendra had been adamant. “You know the Blade Maidens stole the design from the tribes, don’t you? I lay claim to it, as do my sisters, and there’s no King, no Blade Maiden”—she’d looked him up and down with a sneer—“nor captain of a bloody ship who’s going to tell me otherwise.”

  The story was probably horse shit, but Hamid had let it go.

  “You think the tribes will agree to join the Alliance without a fight?” Sirendra was staring at him in that judging way of hers.

  “In truth,” Hamid said, “I don’t much care if they put up a fight or not. Shaikh Neylana is the one counseling the last three tribes not to join, but that changes now. Fight or no fight, she’s going to agree to our demands.”

  Sirendra frowned. “But you’ll do your best to avoid bloodshed as Macide asked, yes?”

  “You’re afraid of a bit of bloodshed now?”

  “I want the tribes united.”

  “As do I, but it isn’t up to me.” He waved to the ships ahead. “It’s up to them.”

  A deep voice called from the deck behind him. “It’s time they learned, right, Hamid?”

  Hamid turned to find Frail Lemi taking the stairs leading up to the foredeck in a single bound. The wind tugged at his scruffy beard, made his sirwal pants flap, but it was his dark leather vest that drew the eye. It might have looked comically small if it weren’t for the sheer amount of muscle it revealed. The gods had seen fit to grant Frail Lemi the rare combination of height, brawn, and the grace of an acrobat. He even had rugged good looks.

  If only they’d let him keep his wits, Hamid mused, he might have become a power in the desert. “Didn’t I tell you to stop talking like that?” Hamid asked him.

  With an incredulous look, Frail Lemi spread his arms wide. “What? We’re among friends.”

  “Yes, but you talk like that around everyone.”

  Lemi stared at the ships in the distance and rubbed his bald head, which he’d recently started shaving. He’d seen another crewman doing it, and had become fixated with sharpening his straight razor every morning and cutting it close. “You’re smart, Hamid, but sometimes you can’t see the dunes for the sand. Tell your enemies how badly you’re going to beat them into a pulp and they start to wonder if it’s true. Their doubt grows. They start making mistakes. What you call bravado, I call fate.”

  The buzzing at the back of Hamid’s head was coming back again. He might have believed those words had they come from another man. He might even have believed them from Frail Lemi if he wasn’t constantly fucking things up. “We went over this,” Hamid said with all the patience he could muster. “There’s a time and a place for intimidation. This isn’t a fight in a shisha den.”

  Frail Lemi cracked his knuckles, sending the muscles along his arms and chest to rippling. “You’re still taking me with you, though, right?”

  “So long as you keep that big trap of yours shut.”

  Frail Lemi sniffed. “You know I will.”

  Hamid knew no such thing. But he reckoned that having the big man there for the intimidation factor alone was worth it. An hour later, after anchoring, Hamid, Frail Lemi, and Sirendra disembarked and headed toward the Halarijan ships, which were set in a defensive circle. A herald came to meet them, a short, potbellied man with a pompous look Hamid wanted to slap from his face the moment he appeared.

  The herald bowed. “If you’ll but follow me.”

  They were led inside the ring of ships, where the wind dropped precipitously. On the way to a striped, orange-and-yellow pavilion they passed a group of men and women standing around a fire, tending to a large soup pot and several racks of spitted goat. The air was thick with the smell of it.

  “Smells good,” Frail Lemi said.

  Hamid glared at him. “Will you concentrate?”

  Frail Lemi shrugged while sending a longing look over his shoulder. “Man’s gotta eat.”

  They were led into the pavilion, where Shaikh Neylana waited with a half-dozen elders with dour looks on their faces. They sat in an arc on a circle of carpets. Neylana, a stone-faced woman of some fifty summers, wore a simple brown dress with white stitching that somehow accentuated her vulturous looks.

  After waving Hamid and the others to the empty carpets across from her, her eyes lingered on Frail Lemi. “This one I remember.”

  Which was her way of saying she didn’t remember Hamid.

  “This looks like a tribunal,” Hamid said as he sat cross-legged.

  To which Neylana replied, “In a way, it is.”

  Which only served to intensify the buzzing at the back of Hamid’s skull.

  Introductions were made—the effeminate son of Tribe Okan’s shaikh had come, the vizir of Tribe Narazid as well—but Hamid paid them little mind. He knew good and well Shaikh Neylana was the lynchpin. Convince her that the Alliance was in her tribe’s best interests and Okan and Narazid would follow like the lemmings they were.

  Araq was poured, but the buzzing in Hamid’s head had become so marked he could hardly taste it. “We’ve come to convince you to join the Alliance,” he said when it had become too much.

  Neylana pursed her lips. “Direct . . .”

  “There’s no point waiting until our bellies are full to start talking. I’ve come at Macide’s behest with our final offer.”

  Neylana plucked an olive from a small bowl. “Final offer,” she repeated in a singsong voice, then popped the olive into her mouth and chewed with a leisurely smile. “One might think you’re trying to threaten us before you’ve even shared Macide’s offer.”

  “Take it however you wish.” Hamid drew a scroll case from his khalat. Inside was the offer Macide and the other shaikhs of the Alliance had drawn up, including a map with new territorial lines—drawn more than generously, in Hamid’s opinion—for all three tribes represented in the pavilion.

  Neylana accepted the scroll case, removed the paper within, and unrolled it. Time passed slowly as she read. The pavilion walls bent inward from the wind. The cook fire crackled. Somewhere in the distance, children played. Neylana made a show of considering the conditions and trade agreements written below the map itself, passed it over to Tribe Narazid’s vizir, then rubbed her fingers as if she’d picked up a bit of grease from the paper.

  “Macide has hardly shifted from his previous offer.”

  “It isn’t Macide alone,” Hamid countered while motioning toward the map. “Nine other tribes have backed us, the thirteenth, in making this offer.”

  Neylana’s infuriating smile deepened, which intensified the buzzing in his skull, nearly to the point of pain. Hamid felt like Frail Lemi, unable to control his emotions or his actions. He was so eager to see the smile wiped from Neylana’s face he nearly drew his knife to ensure it. He managed to keep the urge in check, but even so, he shifted on the carpet, itching for this farce of a negotiation to be over so he could deliver their final incentive.

  He blinked. Calmed himself. Not yet, Hamid. Not yet. Macide had made him swear that he would give Neylana a chance.

  Neylana’s expression turned serious, as if she sensed his black urges. “Don’t mistake us. There is a desire in us all to see the desert united. But we have the welfare of our tribes to consider. The Malasani have been raiding the caravanserais we depend on for trade. They’ve taken or destroyed a dozen of our ships.”

  “Which is precisely why an alliance would benefit you,” Sirendra said.

  Hamid glared at her for speaking out of turn. “Sirendra speaks the truth,” he said. “The threat of reprisals from the thirteen tribes would ensure that Malasan touches nothing of ours, n
or threatens a single caravanserai. And when that’s done, we can get to the real business of the Alliance.”

  Neylana’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “You speak of war.”

  Hamid saw right through her. Her look and her words were all a preamble to her rejection of Macide’s offer. “War is inevitable.”

  Neylana gave a small, tittering laugh. “Men always think war is inevitable”—she motioned to the map, which the son of Tribe Okan’s shaikh was looking over in great detail—“and little wonder when you think terms such as these are acceptable.”

  “Do you think the Malasani are here to bargain with us? Do you think once they’d taken Sharakhai, they would allow us to sail the Great Mother as we please out of the goodness of their hearts?”

  “No, but they are hardly the only powers in the desert one can make arrangements with.”

  It took Hamid a moment to understand, and when he did, the buzz became a rattle that nearly overwhelmed him. “You mean Sharakhai.”

  “You speak it like the gravest insult, which makes me wonder if you’ve heard. There’s a new power sitting atop the mount.”

  “Meryam? Who is she but a King in queen’s raiment?”

  “You fear an enemy that no longer exists. The old Kings are all gone, dead or fled or mad. Queen Meryam, meanwhile, has sent us an offer of peace, an offer backed by the young Kings and Queens of Sharakhai.”

  “Any offer from Queen Meryam is an offer filled with lies. Our offer is real.”

  “Queen Meryam’s is real. She has already sent ships. She sent money to fill our coffers even before we’ve given our answer. What have you ever brought besides demands that we cede to you what we have bought with our own blood, sweat, and tears?”

  “If her offer is so sweet, why haven’t you taken it?”

  “Because to join her, we must give you up. She wants the thirteenth tribe delivered to her.”

  She was thinking about it, Hamid realized. She was considering giving them up. If she hadn’t, she would already have told Meryam no. She’d held off to see how the thirteenth tribe would counter Meryam’s offer.