Blackguards Read online

  Djaga noticed, and even allowed a grudging nod once or twice for how focused Çeda’s technique had become. “Good, girl. Good,” she had said. “Now keep your rage bottled up. Release it in the pits, not before. It’s not so hard as you might think.”

  Çeda thought she understood, but as the day for her bout approached, she found herself becoming more and more nervous. It wasn’t because of her opponent—some Mirean swordmaster who’d had some success in Sharakhai’s pits before. It was because she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched, that something was about to happen.

  And it wasn’t from the Kundhunese boy this time. She kept seeing men or women watching her. When she looked, however, they seemed to be doing completely innocent things, apparently oblivious to her presence. The experience so unnerved her that, despite her plans in the desert, she took Djaga’s advice and went to Bakhi’s temple and dropped three golden coins into the alms basket at the foot of Bakhi’s altar. She thought to speak with the priestess, but she looked down at Çeda’s kneeling form so uncharitably that Çeda just stood and left the temple.

  It was all in her mind, she decided. Her mind and her worries were conspiring to play tricks on her. Yet slowly, the strange calmness she’d shown with Djaga began to slip as the day of the bout approached.

  “Enough,” Djaga said two days before the match. “We’ve practiced enough. Too much, in fact. There are times when you can overtrain, and I think I’ve done it with you, girl. Take this time before your match. Stay away from the pits, think of anything but fighting, and you’ll return to the pits a new woman.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Then you’ll be no worse off than you are now. You’re in your mind too much. Go to your Emre. Fuck him like you should have done long ago. Or take another to your bed. But for the love of the gods, let your sword lay untouched.”

  Near dusk that evening, as Çeda wended her way through the tents of the bazaars, waving to those who had stuck throughout the dinner hours hoping to catch a final few patrons, she felt someone watching her: a woman who Çeda could tell was thin and lithe, but little more than this, for her head was hidden in a deep cowl, her hands within the long, flowing sleeves. Çeda had no idea who the woman might be, but she wasn’t about to lead her toward the home she shared with Emre.

  She kept her pace, moving along a narrow street that would head down toward the slums of the Shallows, and when she came to the next corner and turned, she ducked into an elaborate stone archway, the entrance to a boneyard that looked as though it had stood longer than Sharakhai itself.

  She glanced over the yard for the telltale glow of wights or wailers—one didn’t treat boneyards lightly in the desert—then peered out through the arch from behind a stone pillar marking one of the graves. She saw the form soon enough, a shadow in the deeper darkness. The woman slowed, perhaps realizing she’d lost her quarry. She pulled her cowl off her head and turned this way, then that, then continued down the street.

  Çeda hadn’t seen her clearly, but she knew it was Ashwandi, the woman who’d led her to speak with Kadir, who’d led her out of the estate when they were done. What by Tulathan’s bright eyes would she be doing chasing Çeda through the streets? And why was she doing it so clumsily?

  Çeda drew the knife from her belt and followed, padding carefully in time with Ashwandi’s footsteps but with broader strides, until she was right behind her. Ashwandi turned, eyes wide as she raised her hands to fend Çeda off, but she was too late. In a blink Çeda had slipped her arm around Ashwandi’s neck and pressed the tip of her knife into her back—not enough to draw blood, but certainly enough to make Ashwandi intimately familiar with just how sharp Çeda’s blades were kept.

  “You might get away with such things east of the Trough,” Çeda whispered, “but not here.” She pressed the knife deeper, enough to pierce skin, drawing a gasp from Ashwandi. “Here, women like you are as likely to end up on the banks of the Haddah staring sightless into a star-filled sky as they are to make it home again.”

  “I’m not the one you should be worried about,” she rasped.

  “No?” Çeda asked, easing her hold on Ashwandi’s throat. “Who, then? Your mistress, Rümayesh?”

  “I am no servant of Rümayesh! I am her love, and she is mine.” Her Kundhunese accent was noticeable, but more like a fine bottle of citrus wine than the harsh, home-brewed araq of Djaga’s accent.

  “She wants me, doesn’t she? That’s why I’m being followed.”

  “You begin to understand, yes? But I tell you, you have no idea the sort of trouble you’re in.”

  Çeda shoved Ashwandi away. It was then that Çeda realized that a bandage was wrapped tightly around her left hand. With a pace that spoke of self-consciousness, or even embarrassment, she used her good hand to tug her sleeve back over her bandaged hand, then pulled her cowl back into place. Only when her face was hidden within its depths did she speak once more. “Do you know who Rümayesh is? She has seen you, girl. She is intrigued…And nothing will draw her attention away now, not until she tires of you.”

  Çeda felt suddenly exposed and foolish, a fly caught in a very intricate web. “What would she want of me?”

  “You’re a tasty little treat, I’ll give you that. She’s taken by this girl who shades at night but fights in the pits by light of day.” Even in the dying light, Çeda was sure Ashwandi caught her surprised expression. “Yes, she knows of your other pursuits with Osman, and now she’s taken by the pretty thing that came to her estate, by the White Wolf who sank her fangs into the Malasani brute.”

  This implied much…That Rümayesh likely knew of Çeda’s time with Djaga, her training for her coming bout, her time in the pits, perhaps. Çeda didn’t merely feel off-balance; she felt like the world had been tipped upside down, and now the city was crashing down around her. “I came to Kadir to speak of a package. That was all.”

  “You’ve been set up, girl, as have I.”

  Çeda closed the distance between them with one long stride. “Make some bloody sense before I rethink how very nice I’ve been treating you.”

  “Kadir told you of my sister, Kesaea. For years she held the favored position at Rümayesh’s side, longer than any other, if the stories I’ve heard are true. But Rümayesh grew bored of her, as I knew she would, and I stepped into her place.” Ashwandi shrugged. “Kesaea was angry. With Rümayesh, with me. But after a week of her typical petulance, she returned home to Kundhun, and I hoped that would be the end of it.”

  “But it wasn’t, was it? She sent the boy.”

  “Boys. There are two of them. Twins. And she didn’t send them. She summoned them. Our mother has the blood of witches running through her veins, and Kesaea inherited much of it. Their names are Hidi and Makuo. Hidi is the angry one. He has a scar running down his cheek, a remnant of the one and only time he disobeyed his father, the trickster god, Onondu, our god of vengeance in the savannah lands.”

  By the desert’s endless sand, twins…And born of a trickster god. It explained, perhaps, why she’d been unable to do any more than see them from the corner of her eye. They’d been toying with her all along. “But why?” Çeda asked. “What would those boys want with me?”

  Ashwandi looked at her as if she were daft. “Don’t you see? They were sent by my sister to harm me. They’ve been sent to find a way for me to fall from grace, and in you, they’ve found it, for if Rümayesh becomes entranced with you…”

  “She’ll what, forget about you?”

  Ashwandi shrugged. “It is her way. There isn’t room in her life for more than one obsession.”

  “You wish to be that? An obsession?”

  “You don’t know what it’s like…It’s wondrous when she turns her attention to you, if you don’t fight it, that is. To be without it…”

  Çeda’s head was swimming. “Tell Rümayesh what your sister has done! Surely she’ll see that she’s being manipulated.”

  “I have”—Ashwandi turned, as if wo
rried someone was watching—“but it isn’t Rümayesh that’s being manipulated. It’s us. All of us. You, me, Kesaea, even Onondu, which surely pleases her to no end. Don’t you see, girl? Rümayesh enjoys this, seeing us squabble and fight.”

  “She acts like a god herself.”

  Even from within the cowl, Çeda could see Ashwandi’s eyes growing intense, and when she spoke once more, her words were very, very soft. “You aren’t far from the mark, but there’s something you might do.”

  “Out with it, then.”

  “The boys, Hidi and Makuo. I know how to bind them.”

  “And how might you do that?”

  The tall Kundhunese woman reached into her robes. “I’ve already done it.” She held out a small fabric pouch for Çeda to take. “Search for them. And when you are near, use this to send them home.”

  Çeda stared down at the pouch. “What is it?”

  Her only response was to take Çeda’s hand in hers—the bandaged one—and forcibly press it into her palm.

  Staring at the bloody bandages around her left hand, Çeda had a guess as to what was inside. “Why don’t you do it?”

  “Because they’re not here for me. They’re here for Rümayesh, and now you, and they will avoid me when they can, for the blood of my mother runs through my veins as well.” She nodded toward the pouch. “Onondu will listen to this, and so will Hidi and Makuo.”

  Çeda had heard how cruel the gods of the savannah were. They demanded much for their favors. Blood. Fingers. Limbs. Sometimes the lives of loved ones. How desperate Ashwandi must be to do such a thing just to remain by Rümayesh’s side…

  No, Çeda realized. This was no fault of Ashwandi, nor even Kesaea, but rather the one they both longed for. How strong the lure of Rümayesh to make them both do this, for surely Kesaea had gone through a similar ritual on her return to Kundhun.

  Rümayesh had cast a spell that had utterly bewitched them both, these princesses of Kundhun.

  Çeda stuffed the pouch, heavy as a lodestone, into the larger leather bag on her belt. “What do I do?”

  “Wear it in their presence. They will listen to you, and they will grant you one favor.”

  “A favor? What am I to do with that? Can I ask them to simply leave?”

  “Perhaps, but that would be unwise. They must be turned to Rümayesh now, to make her forget about you. I fear that is the only way for you to survive this.”

  “And for you to return to her good graces…”

  Ashwandi shrugged. “We want what we want, and I’ve given up much for that to happen.” She began stepping away, her eyes still on Çeda. “The twins are drawn to water. You’ll find them along the Haddah, often at dusk or dawn.”

  And then she turned and was gone, swallowed by the growing darkness over Sharakhai.

  #

  With the eastern sky a burnished bronze and the stars still shining in the west, Çeda pulled the black veil across her face and crept along the edge of the Haddah, watching carefully for signs of movement along the riverbank. She had arrived hours ago, hoping to catch the godling twins either in the night or as the sun rose. She still hadn’t found them, and soon the city would be waking from its slumber. She didn’t wish to be skulking along the river when it did, but the desire to find them was palpable as a canker, and every bit as maddening.

  The talk with Ashwandi had so shaken Çeda she hadn’t gone home last night, preferring to sleep in a hammock at the rear of Ibrahim the storyteller’s tiny mudbrick home. She’d unwrapped the rolled bandage and found Ashwandi’s severed finger resting there with a leather cord running through it like some depraved version of thread and needle. She’d held it up to the starry sky, looked at it beneath the light of the moons, Rhia and Tulathan, wondering if she would feel the magic bound to it, or through it that of the twin boys. She’d felt nothing, though, and after a time she’d slipped the cord over her neck and worn the finger like a talisman, which was surely what Ashwandi had meant for her to do.

  It rested between her breasts, a thing she was all too conscious of, especially when she walked. It tickled her skin like the unwelcome touch of a man, and she longed to be rid of it, but she couldn’t, she knew. Not until this was all over.

  She parted the reeds and padded further down the Haddah. She passed beneath a stone bridge, looking carefully along its underside, which the boys might use to hide, but when she found nothing she moved on, heading deeper into the city.

  Above her, beyond the banks, a donkey brayed. A woman shouted at it, and the sounds of a millstone came alive, dwindling and then replaced by burble of the river and the rattle of stones as Çeda trekked onward. The sky brightened further. Carts clattered over bridges. Laborers trudged along, lunches bundled in cloth. A boy and a girl, both with wild, kinky hair, headed down to the banks of the Haddah with nets in hand. She even saw one of the rare Qaimiri trading ships rowing toward a pier, her lateen sails up, catching a favorable wind.

  But of the twins she saw no sign.

  She was just about ready to give up when she saw movement near an old acacia. Half the branches were dead, and the thing looked as though it were about to tip over and fall in the water at any moment. But in the branches still choked with leaves she could see two legs hanging down, swinging back and forth. The skin was the same dark color she remembered, and when she looked harder, she saw movement in the branches above—the second twin, surely, sitting higher than the first.

  She took to the damp earth along the edge of the bank to silence her footsteps, then pulled her kenshar from its sheath at her belt, whispering a prayer to fickle Bakhi as she did so. Reaching past her mother’s silver chain and locket, she slipped Ashwandi’s severed finger from around her neck, whipping the leather cord around her hand with one quick snap of her wrist.

  She stood twenty paces away now.

  As she approached the godling boys, she wondered how vengeful the god Onondu might be. She hoped it wouldn’t come to bloodshed, but she’d promised herself that if they wouldn’t listen to her commands, she would do whatever she needed to protect herself, even if it meant killing his children. Her identity was her most closely guarded secret, after all—no different than a chest of golden rahl, a chest these boys had tipped over with their mischief, spilling its treasure over the dirt for Rümayesh and Ashwandi and perhaps all of Sharakhai to see.

  Ten paces away.

  Then five.

  The nearest twin faced away from her, looking downriver to the trading ship, which was just mooring, men and women busying themselves about the deck, a few jumping to the pier. She’d grab him first, drag him down and put her knife to his throat, then she’d grip the finger tightly and speak her wish. The moment she took a step forward, though, something snapped beneath her foot.

  She glanced down. Gods, a dried branch off the acacia. How could she have missed it?

  When she looked up once more, Hidi, the one with the scar, was turned on the branch, looking straight at her with those piercing blue eyes. In a flash he dropped and sprinted up the bank.

  Çeda ran after him and was nearly on him, hand outstretched, ready to grab a fistful of his ivory-colored tunic, when something fell on her from behind. She collapsed and rolled instinctively away, coming to a stand with her kenshar at the ready, but by the time she did both of the boys were bounding away like a brace of desert hare.

  She was up and chasing after them in a flash. “Release me!” she called, gripping Ashwandi’s finger tightly. “Do you hear me? I command you to release me!”

  But they didn’t listen, and soon they were leading a chase into the tight streets of the Knot, a veritable maze of mudbrick that had been built, and then built upon so that walkways and homes stretched out and over the street, making Çeda feel all the more watched as men and women and boys stared from the doorways and windows and balconies of their homes.

  Çeda sprinted through the streets, wending this way, then that, coming ever closer to reaching the boys. She reached for the nearest o
f them—her hands even brushed his shoulder—but just then a rangy cat with eyes the very same color of blue as the boys came running out from behind a pile of overturned crates and tripped her. She fell hard onto the dirt as the boys ahead giggled.

  She got up again, her shoulders aching in pain, and followed them down the alley they’d sprinted into. When she reached the mouth of the alley, however, she found not a pair of twin boys, but a strikingly beautiful woman wearing a jeweled abaya with thread-of-gold embroidery along cuff and collar and hem. She looked every bit as surprised as Çeda—almost as if she too had been following someone through the back-tracked ways of the Knot.

  “Could it be?” the woman asked, her voice biting as the desert wind. “The little wren I’ve been chasing these many weeks?”

  Çeda had never seen this woman before—tall, elegant, the air of the aristocracy floating about her like a halo—but her identity could be no clearer than if she’d stated her name from the start.

  “I’m no one,” she said to Rümayesh.

  “Ah, but you are, sweet one.” From the billowing sleeve of her right arm a sling dropped into her hand. In a flash she had it spinning over her head, the sound of its blurred passage mingling with Rümayesh’s next words. “You certainly are.”

  Then she released the stone.

  Or Çeda thought it was a stone.

  It flew like a spear for Çeda’s chest, and when it struck, a blue powder burst into the cool morning air. She tried not to breathe it, but she’d been startled and took in a lungful of the tainted air. As she spun away its scent and taste invaded her senses—fresh figs mixed with something acrid, like lemons going to rot.

  Çeda turned to run, but she’d not gone five strides before the ground tilted up and struck her like a maul. The world swam in her eyes as she managed with great effort to roll over. Blinking to clear her eyes of their sudden tears, she stared up at the blue sky peeking between the shoulders of the encroaching mudbrick homes. In the windows, old women and a smattering of children watched, but when they recognized the woman approaching Çeda, they ducked their heads back inside and shuttered their windows.