This was a standstill.
‘God, there you are!’ I opened my eyes at the sound of Shazad’s voice to find her, Ahmed, Rahim and Sam running towards me, all of them looking unsettled as the storm raged around us. ‘I tried to find you when I saw the sandstorm, but I couldn’t track you down.’ Shazad’s eyes slid to Jin, standing in the opening of his tent just behind me. We both still looked dishevelled from more than just sleep. The sly look on my friend’s face told me she understood now she’d been looking in the wrong tent. But her mind slid quickly back to the present. ‘Amani, how long can you hold this?’
‘I don’t know.’ Not as long as the Abdals could, that was for sure. I was already starting to feel the strain, the risk of the wild storm slipping its leash and tearing through the camp. And the power controlling it on the other side came from machines. I was only flesh and blood. ‘What do we do?’ I asked, breathless. I needed to go to the palace; that was the plan. I had to deactivate the machine. If I didn’t we would be helpless against the Sultan’s metal soldiers. But if I left, the sand would rush in and drown us. And it would all be over.
‘I’m not sure,’ Shazad said, watching the sand circling us. We all stared at her, even as I could feel my knees threatening to give out.
Sam spoke first. ‘Did she just say she’s not sure, or was I hallucinating?’
‘I’m thinking.’ Shazad’s voice was still level. I could see it going through her mind, the cost-benefit analysis of what was likely to get the fewest people killed. It shouldn’t be her decision to make. And it wasn’t. It was Ahmed’s.
‘Amani needs to go to the palace,’ he said, taking the decision away from her. ‘My father is obviously doing this to keep her here, which means he’s afraid of what will happen if Amani does get to the machine.’
‘People will die.’ One of my knees buckled, and suddenly Jin was behind me, steadying me. My arms were shaking. No matter what we decided, the reality of my failing power might decide for us. But I wasn’t giving up that easy. ‘You can’t fight in a sandstorm.’ I could feel the power of it pressing against me, threatening to swallow the camp whole.
‘And we can’t fight at all so long as the Sultan has this power to wield against us,’ Ahmed said. ‘The plan remains unchanged. Now, if everyone can—’
The sensation hit me so suddenly that I doubled over. It wasn’t the pain I normally felt when using my powers; it was more like a blow. Power slamming into mine, knocking the storm out of my hands.
I lost control. Whatever Ahmed was going to say was lost in the rush of the sandstorm.
I braced myself against Jin, my body radiating pain, as I waited for the sand to swarm in, to consume us.
But that didn’t happen.
Instead, the sand rose, spiralling far up into the air, towards the clouds. For a moment it hung over us like a huge, dark cloud, blotting out the sky, a swirling mass that could easily crash down and crush us all. I started to reach for it again, even though I knew it was hopeless.
And then, suddenly, the sand scattered through the air, falling harmlessly like rain around us.
‘What’s happening?’ I gasped, pulling up my sheema to shield my eyes from the sand. The others were doing the same. All except Sam.
‘I think …’ His eyes were turned westwards. The rest of us followed his gaze. There, on the horizon, stood row upon row of green uniforms. ‘It’s the Albish army.’
Chapter 39
It was far from the whole Albish army – a dozen men out of hundreds. But a dozen men wielding powers were better than nothing.
‘Captain Westcroft.’ We met him at the edge of the camp as he marched, leading what remained of the men we’d seen in Iliaz. The young soldiers behind him looked battered. ‘We figured you’d been annihilated.’
‘Many of us were.’ The captain nodded gravely. ‘But I thought it prudent to keep some of our soldiers separate from the Gallan.’ Their Demdji. They might have forged an alliance with the Gallan, but hundreds of years of prejudice didn’t disappear just because two regents had signed some paper far away. The Gallan thought all magic was the work of the Destroyer of Worlds. The Albish had a different kind of faith. ‘We were luckier than most of my men.’ The captain looked sad, tugging on the ends of his moustache. ‘And now it seems like you could use some cavalry, so to speak.’
Ahmed considered the foreign man. I knew what he was thinking. Allying with foreigners had been the beginning of his father’s rule as well. It had been the start of us handing the country over to the Gallan and their greater force. We could not make that mistake again.
*
‘We will happily accept,’ Ahmed said finally, ‘provided you can follow orders from my general.’ He nodded to Shazad. He wouldn’t make his father’s mistakes. If he could make them pledge themselves to us not as allies but as those who would obey, then we could do this.
I could see her already tensing, ready for the raised eyebrows that came with her being a woman. But Captain Westcroft just nodded. ‘If we can take orders from our queen, then I’m sure we can manage that. After all, she does outrank me if she is indeed your general.’
Shazad’s brain worked fast, unsnarling everything into the smooth fabric of a plan. ‘Okay, here’s what we’re going to do.’
Sam and I were ready all too quickly. We didn’t need much: A few weapons. Izz in the shape of a huge Roc. For the Albish to direct a little bit of cover my way. For me to stay alive to the end.
Suddenly we were standing in a circle, all of us keenly aware that this might be the last time any of us saw one another alive.
‘This is it.’ I checked my gun for the hundredth time.
‘It seems like someone ought to make a speech or something,’ Izz said, wearing only a blanket, ready to shape-shift for us.
‘Something suitably heroic,’ Maz agreed with his brother.
Around us, the noise of the camp getting ready for battle reigned, men and women arming themselves, rushing into position to face the Sultan’s men and machines. Orders were shouted down the lines to the rhythm of guns snapping into place against uniforms. A few prayers were going up.
Our people would fight on the defensive until Sam and I could bring the wall down. And the Albish would provide a sandstorm. They might not be able to control our desert, but they could control the winds enough for it to look like I was still with Ahmed’s army as it closed in on the city.
‘Speeches are best saved for the dead,’ Shazad spoke up. She’d been unusually quiet. ‘That’s what my father used to say, at least.’
I embraced Ahmed, then Rahim, both of them whispering a prayer of good luck in my ear.
I turned to Jin. There was nothing either of us could say now that we hadn’t said last night. He just ran a thumb along the line of my jaw. ‘I’ll see you again, Bandit,’ he promised before kissing me.