The Emperors Knife

CHAPTER Eight

Eyul scanned the horizon. What had looked to be a mere line in the distance now rose high enough to measure against his thumb. The Cliffs of Sight, with their sheer walls and flat tops, looked like clay bricks from the great dune where Eyul sat on his camel. They would reach the hermit in a day, maybe two.

Amalya stopped her camel beside his and waited. She spoke only when necessary, except during their dawn and evening meals, when they would share mundane details about the Tower and the palace, or swap some childhood anecdote. Eyul had grown accustomed to her companionship over the last weeks. At this time of night, with morning drawing near, he became impatient to make camp.

It wasn’t unfamiliar, enjoying a woman’s company, but Amalya was an unfamiliar sort of woman. In Eyul’s world, females belonged either to the palace or the Maze. The women of the palace sashayed around in their silk and pearls, building schemes for revenge or entertainment. In the Maze, hunger drove women to please. But no matter whether noble or streetborn, women were dependent on men for all their needs; they kept to their own sphere. Amalya, on the other hand, moved without censure from city to desert, spoke with boldness and honesty, and walked under the aegis of the royal family. Of all the women Eyul had known, only Beyon’s mother had similar confidence—but even Nessaket could not leave the palace. “Why are you smiling?” asked Amalya.

Feeling a fool, he scratched the whiskers on his chin. “Almost there,” he said.

She looked beyond him to the cliffs. “Distance is hard to measure on the sands.” They were so high up that dunes tall as towers looked like ripples on the ocean.

“I’ve been there before. Two days at the outside.”

“Bad luck. Don’t predict.”

Having no rejoinder, Eyul pointed to the north-east. “If I remember rightly, there is a well not far from where we stand. We can camp there.” He led the way and they reached the top of the dune, their eyes still fixed on the narrow line of the cliffs. His camel shifted, and sand slithered down into the shadows.

Amalya shook her head.

“No? Too far out of the way?” He surprised himself, being so solicitous of her opinion.

“No.” She shook her head again, fiercely, as if shaking something off. Her hand clutched at her throat and she hissed, “Flesh comes— There are… people—”

—five of them, hidden beyond the dune’s crest—

Eyul jumped off his camel, bow in hand, as the first man surged up the remaining yards between them. Blank of eye, his face patterned like a fine rug, he reached the crest of the dune on all fours. Eyul let his arrow fly and it travelled an arm’s length before finding a home in the Carrier’s chest. The man grunted and fell back over the side. Dead or wounded, it didn’t matter; he wouldn’t be climbing up again. That’s one.

Eyul dropped his bow and reached for his Knife. The next Carrier found his footing and stood upright, a rusty sword levelled at Eyul’s chest. Eyul ducked as the man rushed him. Get in close. He drew his blade across the Carrier’s gut. Two. The old sword buried itself in the sand by his foot. Warm blood fell across his back.

A flash of blue to his right; scattering sand to his left. Two more Carriers came on the heels of their dead companions, trying to trap him between them. So fast. They clutched their small knives with confidence.

Another Carrier dragged Amalya from her camel and she screamed into the rising sun. Eyul couldn’t help her, couldn’t think about her now. He took the dervish position, arms out, ready to spin, and—

Now. He spun to the right, the sand sliding under his feet, and the Carrier in blue thrust towards his heart and caught him under the arm instead. By that time Eyul’s elbow was in the man’s throat. He registered the crunch of cartilage as he spun away, keeping his momentum, ignoring the sting of his own wound.

The Carrier behind him thrust, his dagger barely missing Eyul’s neck, his sleeve brushing Eyul’s shoulder. Eyul acted in the time between breaths, lowering his knife-hand, spinning against the sand, calculating the position of the other man’s heart. Now. Mid-turn, Eyul’s left hand blocked the Carrier’s second thrust and half a heartbeat later his right hand pushed the emperor’s blade between the man’s ribs. Four.

Amalya. Eyul pulled his Knife free. As he ran to her, he scanned the dunes for more Carriers, but he saw just the one, kneeling next to Amalya’s prone form, his hands around her neck. Eyul drew his hand through the sand to keep his palm from slipping over the bloody hilt of his Knife. He kept running.

Amalya lived. Blue fire wound about her arms, covering her skin from elbow to fingertip, and sizzled against the Carrier’s chest. The Carrier opened his mouth; steam rose and evaporated in the desert air. His eyes bulged and turned milky. A ghastly smell of cooking rose around him.

By the gods—she was boiling him…

The Carrier’s hands fell away from Amalya’s neck and jerked in the sand before going limp. Eyul stepped forwards in time to catch the body before it collapsed on her. The flames wound away into Amalya’s skin.

She lay there, staring wide-eyed at the sky for a time, but then she sat up, rubbing her arms and shivering.

“Have you ever done that before?” Eyul asked her, though he felt sure of the answer.

“Killed?” Her voice held incredulity. “Not people.”

Eyul wiped his Knife on the Carrier’s tunic, fumbling for words.

She stood and stepped away, staring at the body, relief and guilt mixed together on her face. It wouldn’t do for him to compliment her deadliness, although that felt like the natural thing to say. It was hard, that first kill, he knew it. He remembered the first man Halim sent him after, a pickpocket, how the blood had spurted across the alley and stained the grey stone, and how he had stood trembling over the body until Halim slapped his face.

The Carrier with the crushed throat writhed in the sand, his hands around his own neck as he tried to breathe. Eyul would grant him mercy. He knelt and found the heart with his twisted Knife. He saw no change in the man’s eyes as his struggles ceased; they were already dead.

Eyul cleaned his blade on the man’s dirty clothes, then looked up at Amalya. She stood, arms stiff at her sides, lips drawn in a straight line, as her gaze passed over the four bodies around Eyul. Her eyes held an expression he’d seen too many times before: the look Beyon had when he found his dead brothers in the courtyard. The look said How? but didn’t want an answer.

Eyul might have said something then, about how he’d saved her. He could say he had protected the empire from the plague-touched, or mention the safety of other travellers. But none of those would answer her question. He was a killer. That was obvious from his work.

Amalya turned away from him and went to her camel. She pulled her waterskin from a bag and took a long draught.

Eyul cleared his throat. “Do you think you can make it to the well? It should take us about two hours.” When she nodded wordlessly, he said, “Good,” and feeling the need to keep talking, “Well, no point in lingering here.”

Amalya mounted her camel. Her shoulders remained tense. Eyul picked up his bow and did the same. “This way,” he said. “With any luck…” He let his voice trail off. Nothing he could say would make him more like Amalya, a person unfamiliar with blood or its necessity. He started off down the crescent slope of the dune, turning leftwards. Waves of silent sand lay ahead.

Who had sent the Carriers? Nobody knew they were here except for Tuvaini and whoever had sent Amalya—and who had sent Amalya? Tuvaini would have chosen someone more ruthless, he felt, and Nessaket probably wouldn’t have chosen a woman, believing all of them to be as duplicitous as herself. Only Beyon remained, but Beyon was not one for secrets or clever manoeuvres. If Beyon wished for an answer from the hermit he’d ride out himself, with a hundred warriors.

The question occupied him until the red stones of the well appeared, dark against the morning sands. They set up camp without speaking. Eyul set out the usual pile of dung, and Amalya unpacked her food, but when it came time to light the cooking fire, she sat back on her heels.

Eyul went to his saddle-pack for the flint and tinder, lit a flame and nursed it until the camel dung was smouldering. Amalya reached down and readied her pot, and Eyul walked a short distance away, standing guard.

Mesema leaned out of the carriage window, hoping for some wind, but the outside air only scorched her face and lungs. She retreated into the dark box she shared with Banreh. She was learning that the sun brooked no opposition here. All was bright and clear, and deadly hot. Only at night, when Arigu’s Cerani soldiers sheltered in their tents, did she dare venture out onto the rocky terrain.

Banreh told her that they weren’t really in the desert yet; when they got to the desert, he said, there would be naught but sand. They would sleep during the day and travel at night.

But she knew this had to be the desert. There couldn’t be anywhere hotter than this.

“When you get to the capital,” Banreh said, sitting still as if the heat and his leg did not pain him, “they will give you silks to keep you cool, and there will be tiled baths where you can soothe your feet.”

“I don’t want to get my feet wet,” Mesema said, annoyed he’d used the formal tone.

Banreh smiled.

And she heard it, off in the distance, the bright jingle of little bells. She leaned forwards, listening, as Banreh’s smile froze on his face and his eyes grew sharp and wary. He reminded Mesema of the god-statues up on the Great Plateau: still, but sharp. Hooves sounded on faraway rock, faded, sounded again. They were coming closer. She tried to count the bells. Six, a dozen, riders.

“Red Hooves,” she whispered, putting a hand on the door.

Banreh grabbed her wrist. “They won’t attack the Cerani. That’s why you’re in here.”

Mesema paused. She could feel her pulse against Banreh’s fingers. Those fingers belonged to her father.

“Wait,” he said.

She nodded. The horses drew close now, so close she could hear their neighing and the murmurs of their riders. The coarse accents left no doubt: they were surrounded by Red Hooves, the least worthy of the Felting tribes, hardly of the People at all. She didn’t dare look out of the window; instead she flattened herself against the wood, hoping no one would look in. Banreh’s hand slipped from her wrist and wrapped itself around her shaking fingers.

“Listen,” he said, “you are a Windreader. Windreader spears are coated with the blood of Red Hooves. You have nothing to fear.”

His soft words gave her confidence. How strange that Banreh, who sometimes seemed so alien with his languages and his writing, knew exactly what to say in this moment.

“My brother was avenged a dozen times ten. His sacrifice made us ever victorious.”

“Ever so.” Banreh was not afraid. He looked her straight in the eye.

Mesema listened. She heard no clash of metal on metal, nor the shouts of injured men. The Cerani spoke to the Red Hooves. Their discussion sounded relaxed, almost casual. She could make out only a few words, but the ones she did hear made her shiver again.

“They’re talking about a girl. Someone is going to give up a girl. Banreh, it’s me!”

Banreh shook his head and slipped into the intimate tone.

“No, I don’t think so.”

She clutched his hand. She couldn’t stop thinking about the Red Hoof thralls in her father’s camp, their resentment, their unspoken fury. She’d felt it every time one of them was near. It was they who frightened her. She could easily imagine herself in the same position, abused and hateful, in disgrace.

The talking came to an end and bells tinkled as the Red horses drew away. Somebody shouted, “Don’t bring her back unless she’s proven!” and someone, another man, laughed. A horse neighed, excited, ready to run. And then the Red Hooves departed in a clatter.

Mesema fell to her knees and threw her arms around Banreh’s middle. He was solid, not soft as she’d expected, and he smelled of ink and sweat.

He patted her hair. “When you are married, you will be safe. No one will dare harm you.”

She didn’t say what she was thinking: I am safe now.

At that moment the Cerani named Arigu stuck his head through the carriage window. He sneered at their embrace before turning to Banreh and speaking to him in his guttural language. Mesema recognised two Cerantic words, but she politely waited for Banreh to translate.

As she settled back on the bench, straightening her hair, he told her, “A Red Hoof woman has joined our caravan.”

At sunset, Mesema walked along the stony ground to where two Felting horses stood side by side. One wore brightly coloured wool braided into its mane; the other showed hooves dyed deep red. The Red Hooves said their horses’ feet were stained with the blood of their enemies, but Mesema knew it was only the dye from shelac berries—the Windreaders used the same dye to color their winter felt. She examined the Red horse. It was docile, so not a warhorse like Arigu’s.

She ran a hand over her Tumble’s flank. How he must hate this heat! Perhaps it was a cruelty to bring him to Nooria. She checked to make sure he had plenty of water. There was nothing else to do; the soldiers fed and brushed him, and Arigu wouldn’t let her ride. Banreh said noble Cerani ladies rarely appeared in public, especially on the back of a horse, but he promised her the prince would let her ride within the castle grounds. It was written, he said.

She worried that Banreh put so much stock in his lamb-skins and symbols. Ink had no honour; ink had no history.

Mesema pulled her shawl around her. Ahead lay grey rock, dead land, except for the occasional scrubby bush. Their path stretched ahead, one plateau after another, lower and lower, until the mountains ended. It looked like water there, except for the colour, a band of white stretching out under the moon.

“The desert,” came a woman’s voice beside her. “The place where no thing grows.”

Mesema didn’t need to look; she knew from the accent that this was the Red Hoof woman. “My mother keeps a Red Hoof spear by our fire,” she said. “She pulled it out of my dead brother herself.”

“I pulled a Windreader spear from my sister’s neck. After she died, I threw it out over the plains.”

“That’s not true,” said Mesema. “No Windreader would kill a woman.”

The Red Hoof did not speak for a while. Then she said, “These men are Cerani, but we are both Felt, the children of the grass. Shall we not be friends?”

“What’s your name?” Mesema looked at her now. She was lovely, with creamy skin, light curly hair and roomy hips.

“My name is Eldra.” Eldra wrapped both arms around her waist and shivered. She didn’t have a warm jacket or shawl, but Mesema didn’t care. A Windreader shouldn’t care if a Red Hoof plunged right off the edge of a cliff. And who was Mesema, if not a Windreader?

“Why should I be your friend, Eldra?”

Eldra smiled. “I can tell you about my god.”

The god of the Red Hooves had come over the eastern mountains to oppose the Windreaders even in death. And their god was dead, if the thralls in her father’s care could be believed. He had passed from this world long ago, so he could speak to his believers only through old stories and songs. He was a useless god, blind, deaf, and dumb.

In the lands of the People many gods were acknowledged. Gods of the herd and harvest, water and winter, all were given their due at the appropriate times; but only the Hidden God kept the fate of the People in His heart. Only the Hidden God watched over them.

“We will not be friends, Eldra.” Mesema turned and walked to her tent. At the flap, she looked back and saw Arigu dropping a cloak around the woman’s shoulders. He talked to her a moment, gesturing with hands big as her head, before leading her towards his tent. With a shudder, Mesema crawled under her blankets. She still had time before she had to give herself to a Cerani man. Time to think, time to learn, and time to stay with Banreh.

Before she fell asleep, she made a prayer to the Hidden God, a living god among many. Her god did not fight for dominance, or to prove Himself to mortals. The Hidden God showed Himself only to those who looked for Him. She looked for Him now, in her heart and mind, because that was the only way she could carry Him into Nooria. As she closed her eyes, she felt the hint of a gentle wind on her face. It was enough.