The Straits of Galahesh: Book Two of The Lays of Anuskaya (57 page)

Atiana looked to Ushai. She wore a circlet with a stone of azurite, which glowed dully. It seemed strange for the gem to shine so little. As hungrily as the jalahezhan was taking the lives of the soldiers on the balcony above, it felt as though it should be as bright as the sun, not idly glowing like a bedside candle.

Two of the Kamarisi’s guard drew their kilij swords—blades with a sharp bend halfway down their length—and used them to cut at the twisting jalahezhan. Another drew a pistol and aimed it at Ushai.

Before he could draw the trigger, the snake flicked its head, and a tendril of water splashed across the pistol. When the guardsman squeezed the trigger, the weapon merely clicked, the powder wet.

Three shots came in quick succession against the heavy wooden door. The door was stout, but the wood was brittle. A moment later, it crashed inward, bringing three men with it.

One was felled by a point blank shot from Ishkyna.

Three of the streltsi charged, screaming the names of their fathers and bringing their berdische axes arcing downward. Both of the Kamarisi’s men were felled, but more came in after—five, then six, with more rushing forward now that the door had been breached.

Atiana watched only for a moment. It was going to be a slaughter unless she did something.

She raised her hands, but before she could shout their surrender, she heard the sounds of a renewed firefight. A handful of musket shots fired. Then more, and more, until it seemed that an entire war was being fought outside the doors. She could see outside the windows several dozen men advancing quickly across the estate grounds from the west. The men they were attacking—the Kamarisi’s guard—had been positioned to defend against fire from the estate. They weren’t at all prepared for an attack along their flank.

“Hold!” Atiana called. “Hold, for help has arrived.”

More gunfire rained in near the entrance, and several shots flew in through the nearby window. She could see men in dark garb and ivory-colored turbans.

“Pull back!” the leader of the Kamarisi’s guard called.

His men obeyed, retreating quickly up the stairs. Another of them dropped from gunfire, but the rest reached the second level and retreated down the hallway from which they’d come.

The men in dark garb rushed in through the open doorway, firing at the retreating men. They saw Atiana and the streltsi, and one of them with a thick moustache and black beard waved to her. “Come quickly,” he said in thick Anuskayan.

They were soon out and onto the grounds as the firefight was pushed ever eastward.

“Stay low,” the man with the thick beard said. “The danger is not yet over.”

They crouched as they ran, some shots still coming in from the Kamarisi’s guard, but soon they were beyond the grounds and into the northern buildings of the Shattering. They reached one—a domed building—and were led inside.

At last Atiana saw who her savior had been, for Siha
ş
stood there among several men.

Seeing Atiana, he spoke low to the others and then came to her. “You should have left the city while you had the chance,” he said.

“I would not have. The fight is here.”

He stared at her soberly. “It is, My Lady Princess, but it’s much larger than you could have guessed.”

A
s Nikandr was led around the edge of the clearing, many of the children—the akhoz—on the outermost row of posts craned their necks and followed his movement. They could no longer see, and yet they seemed drawn to him. He had no idea why this should be, but it made his skin crawl.

The men of the Hratha led him to a tree where a spike had been nailed into the trunk. He fought, but the Hratha yanked the chain between his wrists viciously when he did, the shackles biting deeply and drawing blood. When they reached the tree, the Hratha threw the chain up and over the spike, securing Nikandr. Just as the akhoz were.

Bersuq watched all of this with dispassionate eyes. He seemed to acknowledge that he had betrayed Nikandr, that he had allowed the Hratha to do this to him, but then he turned his head back toward the clearing, making it clear that in the end, they were on different sides of a conflict bigger than the one playing out here in the clearing.

The Hratha that had brought Nikandr here to the clearing moved to another group of men. Rahid was there, and when his men arrived, he looked back at Nikandr, tilting his head to listen to the quiet words of his men.

The day grew longer, but nothing happened. Midday passed, which would have been an auspicious time to perform this ritual. There seemed to be some concern among those gathered. Most watched through the trees to the west, waiting expectantly. A group of men were dispatched, presumably to search for Muqallad.

And then at last, as the sun was beginning to set, Muqallad came. He was flanked by many of the Hratha, and a few of the men from Siafyan. Kaleh was with him as well. They reached the edge of the circle, and Muqallad stopped. He turned to Nikandr and walked toward him. Strangely, he had cuts along his forehead and on one side of his nose. His left eye was half red where it should be white, and a host of bruises marked the left side of his neck and jaw.

When he stopped a few paces away, Nikandr realized that Muqallad was staring at Nikandr’s chest, where his soulstone should have been. Nikandr realized in this instant that he could feel Nasim. It was weak, very weak, but he could feel him. It was the first time in years he’d felt anything like it.

Muqallad must have sensed it too, though how this could be he had no idea. “We will speak when this is done,” Muqallad said, and with that he turned and strode into the clearing.

The sun was touching the tops of the trees now, a time that was perhaps more auspicious than high noon, for he could think of nothing more apt than the setting of the sun for what was about to happen to these children.

Muqallad walked over the ashes, over the bones, to the center of the clearing. He held up his hand and in them held two stones, both of them blue and brilliant even under the setting sun. “Who will take them?” he asked.

After only a moment’s hesitation, Bersuq strode forward and bowed his head. Muqallad handed him the stones, and without returning the bow walked from the clearing to stand at its edge.

Bersuq situated himself at the center of the posts. After taking in the faces of the akhoz, he held the stones aloft and began to chant. The rest of the gathered men and women—including Muqallad—soon picked the chant up. The roots of the words were both familiar and foreign, but the cadence drove a spike of fear through Nikandr’s heart. Surely the words were Kalhani, the mothertongue. It was an ancient language, and indeed, this ritual felt as if it were tied to the making of the world, as if the fate of Erahm hinged upon it.

With so many eyes turned toward the clearing, Nikandr was able to look up to his chains. He pulled down upon them, hoping to pull the spike free, but it had been driven too deeply into the wood.

The akhoz began to moan. The sounds came louder at the end of each recitation of the chant. Bersuq held the stones high above his head, pressing the two pieces together. The stones seemed to draw in the breath, draw in the voices and guttural calls of those nearby. There came a tugging within Nikandr’s chest, and his heart skipped a beat as the first of the children burst into flame. It was a girl on the outer ring. As her hair singed and burned and her skin lit like burning scrolls, the pitch of her moaning rose, as if the pain somehow excited her.

Soon the two next to her were aflame, and then the two beyond them. And so it went, more and more of the outer ring lighting like torches, until the circle was completed. The flame then leaped to the middle ring, and at last the innermost ring. The chanting rose higher as the akhoz burned bright like beacons. Nikandr could feel it now, even from this distance.

The smell of it—burning hair and burning skin—filled the clearing. It made him retch. His mouth filled with saliva, and he spit to clear the taste of it.

Bersuq had somehow been spared from the flames. Surely he was protected by the suuraqiram nearby, but it could not last long. His body twisted from the pain, but he continued to hold the pieces of the Atalayina above him.

The chanting rose higher. The calls of the akhoz became little more than inhuman screams rising above the sound of the roaring flames.

Bersuq could not last forever. Soon it became too much. He screamed, still holding tight to the Atalayina. His robes caught fire, and then his hair and his beard. He shivered from the pain as his screams became a piercing cry that rose above all other sounds.

Nikandr followed the black smoke up and into the sky, if only to be free from this horrific vision for a few moments. That was when movement among the clouds caught his eye. Flying low, above the trees to the north, was a ship. He recognized it immediately. It was the
Chaika
.

A moment later, the ground near the outer ring of akhoz blossomed into a high plume of fire and dirt and ashes, a resounding boom coming a split-second later. Three of the posts flew up and outward, the akhoz still attached. They twirled lazily until they struck the ground near the feet of the chanting Maharraht.

Muqallad raised his hands, but as he did another cannon shot shattered the ground in front of him. Two Maharraht nearby were thrown wide of the blast. What happened to Muqallad, Nikandr didn’t see, for the crowd was now in disarray. Some were taking up muskets and firing on the ship while the qiram drew upon their hezhan. Others continued to chant, so lost in the ritual were they. But most took cover in the nearby trees.

Nikandr looked up to his chains. He jumped and tried to fling the chains up and over the spike. But he was weak, and the motion caused the sockets of his shoulders to scream in pain after remaining stretched and immobile for so long. As the
Chaika
slipped over the clearing and began heading over the far side and beyond the trees, he tried one last time, and this time the chain came rattling down.

He lost his balance and collapsed. When he finally managed to come to his feet, he found four men standing before him—Rahid and the three Hratha that had brought him from Siafyan.

Rahid’s men bore muskets, while Rahid, his sword held loosely in his right hand, used his free hand to grab Nikandr’s chains and pull him into the forest. Nikandr resisted, pulling on the chain in a vain attempt to remain in the clearing, until two of Rahid’s men struck him with the butt of their muskets, forcing him onward.

A sudden rise in pitch from the clearing made all of them turn back. The akhoz burned white, their voices adding to one another, driving those closest to put their hands over their ears. A moment later, Nikandr did the same, as did Rahid and the Hratha. Bersuq fell to the flames at last. The Atalayina slipped from his grasp and was lost.

Only then did the sound of the akhoz begin to wane. The moment that it did, Rahid ordered his men to continue. They moved beyond a rise, and into a stand of trees. They could still hear the flames and the akhoz and the occasional snap of musket fire, but they were effectively hidden.

Rahid’s men fanned out behind him. Rahid stepped forward, facing Nikandr, the tip of his sword swinging back and forth, as if he were itching to swing it.

But then Nikandr saw hanging around Rahid’s neck a chain.
His
chain. The one that held his soulstone.

Rahid noticed Nikandr’s lingering gaze. He pulled the stone out and held it up for Nikandr to see, and then he let it fall against his black robes. The chalcedony stone glimmered dully in the waning light. “They say you can feel those who’ve worn your stones. Is it so?”

Strangely, these words served only to calm Nikandr’s coursing blood. What Rahid said was true. Grigory had done this to him years ago, and for the short time he’d worn the stone afterward—before placing it in Nasim’s mouth to draw him away from Adhiya—he’d felt the taint, felt Grigory’s hatred of him. There was no doubt that the same would be true now, but he had come to accept that the ancients worked in strange ways. If this was something they had chosen for him—to have his stone worn by a Maharraht—then he would accept it.

“A pity you won’t be afforded the chance.” He spat at Nikandr’s feet. “It is long past time I put an end to your presence on these shores.”

“Tell yourself what you wish,” Nikandr said, “but
you
were the trespassers here, not me. You came and you raped your sister tribe. You’re worse than anything the Landed ever did, for you did this to your brothers and your sisters. You did this to their children.”

Rahid stalked forward and raised his sword high with both hands. He brought it down and Nikandr, who’d been hoping for such an attack, dodged backward. He was still hobbled by the rope, but he knew its length well and was able to compensate with short, quick steps. Rahid swung again, and again. He came closer, for he was pressing the advantage of his longer strides, but Nikandr was still able to outpace him.