The Flames of Shadam Khoreh (The Lays of Anuskaya) (6 page)

Sukharam looked to his right, toward the caravan route that would take them to the plains below. “Those that live here in the desert… They’re secretive.”

“As much as the people of the desert might isolate themselves, the caravanserais are run by the Empire. They are the Kamarisi’s people. We should worry about him, not the locals.”

Atiana flipped the eggplant and sprinkled it with coarse grains of salt and pepper.

“You may not see it,” Sukharam said, “but they have a distrust of us. I saw it at the edge of the desert. I’ve seen it in each of the caravanserais we’ve visited. They may pledge their loyalty to the Kamarisi in the light of day, but in the dark of the night they serve the desert, and the desert does not want us.”

“I’ve been here many times before,” Ashan replied. “They watch travelers they do not know, true, but they watch everyone, even people from other caravanserais, other villages.”

Sukharam was staring at the cookstone—he was a young man, and young men were always hungry—but then he glanced up at Atiana with a sullenness she’d seen on him often.

Atiana pulled up one of the flatbreads, quickly snatching two of the eggplant strips and folding the bread over it. She handed it to Ashan, whose face brightened as he accepted it. Atiana did the same for the next, handing this one to Sukharam. Only when she’d made the third, and set more dough and eggplant onto the stone for Nikandr, did she turn to Sukharam. “You can say it.”

He took a bite of his bread and spoke as he chewed. “You shouldn’t have come. You should have left this to us.”

By
us
he meant himself and Ashan and even Soroush and Ushai. In his eyes, the four of them had more of a right than Atiana and Nikandr to be here in the desert chasing after the Atalayina.

“Nasim needs us.”

“Nasim needs his own people,” Sukharam shot back.

Ashan took a large bite of the flatbread, which steamed where he’d bitten into it. He stared at Atiana and then at Sukharam, his eyebrows pinching in concern. “It’s that kind of attitude that put you in those mines, Sukharam.”

Sukharam’s eyes glowed fiercely. “And perhaps if I’d fought back they’d think twice over doing so again.”

“The way to vashaqiram is through peace. Only through peace.”

“And maybe one day we’ll be free enough to find it. But until then—”

“Don’t allow Ushai’s ways to cloud your mind, Sukharam.”

Indeed, Atiana thought. The two of them had been talking often over the course of the past many months. Soroush may have set aside his violent ways—at least for now—but Ushai had not, and she’d been plying Sukharam with them for some time. At first she’d seen no change in Sukharam, but more and more he’d brought up notions like this. Fighting. Resisting. But at what cost?

Sukharam stared at his flatbread as if it suddenly disgusted him. “Haven’t you ever thought you might be wrong, Ashan? How would you know the way to vashaqiram? You won’t reach it in this lifetime. You won’t reach it in the next. We’re all of us eons away from oneness with our world. Perhaps the way to vashaqiram is to cleanse the world of that which is wrong.”

Ashan had been chewing, but he now stopped. He stared at Sukharam as if he just now realized how dangerously close he was to turning away from the path of peace. He swallowed his mouthful heavily. “You don’t believe that.”

Sukharam stared at Ashan, then to Atiana. His face was angry, but there was also a look of shame, as if he knew Ashan was right, as if he’d voiced half-formed thoughts without thinking. Without saying another word he stood and threw his flatbread into the dry scrub brush beyond their camp site. His footsteps crunched as he headed beyond the horses and behind the small hill where he’d spent most of the day taking breath.

“So much anger in him…” Atiana said.

Ashan took another bite of his flatbread. “We all have anger, daughter of Radia, Sukharam more than most. It’s what we do with it that counts.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of. What Sukharam will do with his.” She paused, letting those words sink in. “I wonder if we shouldn’t send him back.”

“A desire he leveled against you only moments ago.” Ashan shook his head. “Make no mistake. As surely as the sun needs the moon, we need one another. We are bound together, all of us, by Nasim and the events that lay behind us. By the ones that lay before us as well. Now, we have but to carry one another to the end.”

“You speak as if we’re trapped by the fates,” Atiana said, “but that’s where you’re wrong. We aren’t bodies slipping through the firmament with no choice left to us. We are our own.
We
choose our destiny.”

Ashan put the last of his flatbread into his mouth, smacking his lips noisily. When he spoke again, it was with a seriousness that surprised her. “Believe what you wish, daughter of Radia. We may try to escape the paths the fates have set for us, but they will have us in the end.”

Atiana entered the tent, holding a cup of water and the still-warm flatbread for Nikandr. He was sitting cross-legged on their shared blanket, his eyes distant. She shook the flatbread at him, and he looked up, accepting it reluctantly.

“Eat,” she said.

He took a mouthful and chewed as if he knew he needed the sustenance but could barely stomach the taste of it.

“Ashan said we would leave in the morning.”

Nikandr stared at the wall of the tent as if he hoped to peer through it to the caravanserai beyond. “Is your sister near?”

Though she had tried to find Ishkyna that morning, she cast herself outward again, already knowing Ishkyna was too busy to speak with her. War was brewing to the northeast. Leonid had months ago secured Oramka and the nearby coast of Yrstanla, and he was now pushing westward to take as much of the continent as he could in hopes of blunting the Empire’s response when at last it came. Only in the past few weeks had a sizable force been sent from Alekeşir, the capital of the Empire. More were headed south from the northern reaches. The desert tribes had been called upon as well, but they had long been hoping to throw off the yoke of the Kamarisi, and they’d been slow in responding. Still, the armies of Yrstanla were triple what the islands had so far gathered. Were it not for Ishkyna, Atiana would be worried, but with her and the other Matri, they had a good chance of turning the tide against the counter-assault that was sure to begin soon.

Ishkyna had helped lead them through the desert, and she had promised to find them each fortnight, but Ishkyna had been trying to find Kaleh ever since the events on Galahesh, with no success. Since those fleeting feelings she’d felt in the days that had followed the destruction of the Spar, there had been nothing.

“She won’t come,” Atiana said. “Not for several days yet.”

“We need her to come more often.”

“You know she cannot. The war—”

“I know the war’s begun, Atiana, but here we are again, ignoring what needs to be done. It’s the Atalayina that matters, and Ghayavand, not a hurried grab for power while the Empire marches east.”

“I know. And Borund knows.”

Nikandr couldn’t even bring himself to scoff. He merely stared at her with cold, incredulous eyes.

“He
does
.”

“He is a lapdog, as he ever was.”

“Do not speak of my brother so!
Dhalingrad
is the Grand Duke, and he will brook no insult, no test of his authority. He’s already hung dozens of men from his own duchy, and three from Bolgravya for what he saw as insubordination. Borund must be careful, especially since the spire on Kiravashya is still only half-built. The spoils from Yrstanla are being funneled to the duchies, but the lion’s share goes to feed the mouths of Dhalingrad. And don’t forget, Borund spared your life.”

“How very gracious of him after killing seven innocent men and women in cold blood.”

“You left him no choice! The Maharraht should have been brought somewhere else.”

“Where could they have gone, Atiana?”

“Anywhere but under Borund’s wing. Face it, you were thumbing your nose at him.”

“I was saving those that had—“

“Nischka! I’ve heard it all a hundred times before! You could have brought them to Mirkotsk. You could have brought them to one of the smaller islands, to be ferried to Iramanshah later. By the ancients, you could have let them find their own way, wherever they wished to go. You didn’t have to bring them to Khalakovo!”

Nikandr set his flatbread aside as if he were disgusted by it. He picked up a goat skin, realizing only then that it no longer held any vodka. He fumbled around the blankets until he found another, at which point he opened it and took a long pull from the liquor within.

Atiana stared, wishing she knew what to say. He was lost, and yet he was sitting right before her. They’d found a way to be with one another at last, and yet they were more distant than ever.

“Nikandr,” she said softly, “this isn’t about the hangings, and it isn’t about Borund.”

He stared with flat eyes and took another drink.

“If Nasim were dead, you’d know.” She reached out and gripped his hand. He squeezed back, but it was practically lifeless. “We’ll find him.”

“I know,” he lied.

Late that night, long after the sun went down, they lay on their blankets, their backs to one another. She felt him turn over. He was facing her, waiting for her to turn around. It was then, with that one simple gesture, that much of the tightness within her melted away. She turned toward him, hoping to see his smiling face. And he did smile. But she also saw within his eyes that haunted look. He might never be free of it, she realized. He might yearn for the touch of Adhiya for the rest of his life.

He pulled her close, and she laid her head against his chest. He breathed easier after that, and at last they fell asleep.

CHAPTER THREE

Styophan stood at the helm of the galleon
Vayetka
, one of the ships taken from Yrstanla after the Battle of Galahesh nearly two years ago. Theirs was the lead ship. Behind, trailing by an eighth-league, was the
Graaza
, another galleon, as were the three others in his wing that he’d flown all the way from Khalakovo’s great eyrie.

He’d stood upon the decks of all five ships over the course of their three-month journey here, and he’d come to hate their design. They were slow to maneuver and too heavy by far. The shipwrights of the Empire knew little of building windworthy ships, but he had to admit that they were good for flying over land. The obsidian keels were larger than the ones used in the ships of the islands, which made them slow to turn but more capable of picking up the weaker ley lines over land.

“Yvan, take the helm.”

Yvan, a broad-shouldered streltsi from Duzol, turned from the gunwales and snapped his heels. “
Da
, Kapitan.”

Styophan relinquished control and moved to the forecastle, telescope in hand. When he brought the scope to his eye, he brought it to his right by accident. There were still dozens of things like this, things he used to do with his right eye and still
tried
to do even though the right side of his face was now little more than a ruined landscape of scars.

He adjusted and scanned the horizon ahead. They were flying to the western side of a long range of mountains, the Kuvvatli range. The mountains were tall and black with white caps and sheer cliffs, but they would soon dwindle and widen until they gave way to more open land and tall, rolling hills. This was the land of the Haelish and their tribal kings. They had for long centuries been loosely gathered bands, with many kings throughout their territories, and though there had been wars among them, there had also been peace.

Perhaps too much peace.

When Kamarisi Alhamid, Hakan’s great-great-grandfather, reached their lands, he found them ripe for the picking. Yrstanla had ruled over them for a century and a half, but the Haelish did not forget the ruthless way in which they’d been subjugated, nor had they ever taken well to being yoked. They’d learned from the janissaries sent by the Kamarisi to rule their lands, and they’d overthrown them. At least for a time.

The Kamarisi had come again, this time Hakan’s father, Ayeşe. He brought war to Haelish lands once more, this one a long, protracted conflict that he left to his son to finish. It was a war Hakan had twice thought won, but each time the Haelish had retreated into the highlands and had come back years later to overthrow the Kamarisi when they took their troops to other fronts and other wars.

And now Hakan’s son, Selim, had inherited the war. He was too young to sit the throne, and so had been given a regent—Bahett ül Kirdhash, a man who had fought ruthlessly for the title and had eventually been granted it by Selim’s uncles on the promise that Bahett knew the men of Anuskaya best, knew the way they fought and how to weaken them. Whether or not Bahett could deliver on his promises, Styophan didn’t know. He was of half the mind that Bahett had simply said anything he could to gain the title and power he craved, but secretly he worried that Bahett was right. He
did
know the islands well, especially those among the south, and if he were any sort of strategist, he would know how weak Leonid had left them to the south. Grand Duke Leonid had piled so many resources along Oramka and the coastal cities.

Bahett didn’t have Matri to find these things out for him, but he certainly had spies, and he’d have prisoners before too long. It was only a matter of time before he discovered just how soft Anuskaya’s flanks were.

Styophan swung the scope over the landscape carefully, searching, certain that they’d reached Haelish lands but seeing no evidence of it so far. Perhaps the Haelish had been pushed further back than their spies in Alekeşir had reported, or perhaps they were better at hiding themselves than he gave them credit for. But then he saw a thin trail of smoke against the dark green forest. It was near a flat-topped hill on the westward side of the mountains, high enough that they could lose themselves in the mountains if they chose and low enough that they could reach the plains within a day’s ride.

“Anahid, bring her down by half. Yvan, three points windward.”