Steles of the Sky (56 page)

“Go get used to each other,” she called. “Don’t come back until you’ve stopped looking shocked at what he can jump.”

Not just what he could jump; how far, and how fast, he could run.

Samarkar brought him around the lake on a grand loop, reining him back and keeping him off the hills to save his strength. He took her breath away nonetheless: a comet of pale silk, a meteor of flesh and blood and bone, kicking and playing the whole way.

To her relief and disappointment, at no point did his light strides ring on air instead of thudding ground.

When she brought him back to the camp at a high-footed canter, Iskandar on a curly bay fell in beside them. Five strides, ten—just long enough for Samarkar to hope it might prove companionable. And then he heaved a sigh at her and said, “What happens if Re Temur does not return before the battle?”

There was the faintest of hesitations before
before.
Samarkar rode on over it, and let the beat of Afrit’s hooves dismantle Iskandar’s implication of doubt. “I have his plan of battle.”

“And when the tide of battle changes?”

“I have a plan for that as well.” Samarkar let her gaze flick sideways. After the stare and the pause, she said, “In almost any circumstance.”

Iskandar’s lip dented when he bit it. Was that new since he’d been Uthman Caliph? Or was Samarkar only noting it now? A pity if so—it might have been previously useful.

“I can advise you,” he said.

“I could advise
you,
” she answered. For a moment, hope lit his face—
she will tell the troops to follow me
. She had to remind herself not to take too much pleasure in dashing it. “But I will advise myself, and Edene, instead.”

“Samarkar-la—”

“No,” she said. “It is decided, Iskandar. You are better down in the battle, where your strong arm and sense of tactics can be played to our advantage. And your courage. Do not underestimate the power of a wizard—or three—to turn a display of heroism to your advantage, once-caliph.”

He frowned at her, lips oddly red against that beard dyed blue. “Heroism.”

“Do you suppose,” she asked, “that every man in Kara Mehmed’s army actually
prefers
Mehmed Caliph to you? Especially in the teeth of a winter march from Asmaracanda all the way to the outskirts of Song?”

He tapped his fingers on the pommel of his saddle and frowned deeper, as if not quite certain how he might have just been outmaneuvered.

“Some of them might once,” he admitted. “Some of those might have changed their minds by now.”

“And so you fight,” said Samarkar.

“Find red coats for my men,” was all he answered.

*   *   *

Temur was not back by sunset, nor by the sunset after. Now gray birds scattered the skies at such distances that they could not be easily thinned by arrows. Scouts returned with estimates of al-Sepehr’s numbers; perhaps twice what Temur’s patchwork army mustered.

Their preparations were complete, their troops in place. All they had left was the waiting.

And the muttering—that Temur had abandoned them with his unlucky stud, that he had left his women to fight in his place, that he had slipped away and saved himself after his own brother’s death, so why not now?

Samarkar knew that some of the new arrivals among the Qersnyk would use Temur’s presumed desertion to justify their own, if they could. And she and Edene had nothing to fight it with except Tsareg loyalty and Qersnyk pride. What warrior could face himself if he left two women, one of them gravid, to stand against a conquering enemy?

*   *   *

Al-Sepehr’s rage as the Soft-day passed and there was no sign of the djinn should have been terrible to behold. Saadet remembered being frightened of him, but it was like something that had happened to someone else. In the Hard-dawn, as they broke camp, she found reasons to busy herself elsewhere, such as with her horses: her own Khongordzol and her dead husband’s prize mare Syr, the blood-shouldered gray. But it wasn’t out of fear of her father, she realized, too tired to be surprised at herself.

It was out of boredom.

Shahruz, at least, had a use for her again, though half of it seemed to be haranguing her for protecting Ümmühan. The other half was using her to study Mehmed and Pyotr’s battle plans, which at least meant she got them explained to her. Often condescendingly, but Saadet had learned through all the years of her life to swallow her temper and learn anyway.

She’d been teaching Ümmühan to ride. First they would review the troops, and she would speak to them for morale’s sake. She’d hoped al-Sepehr would allow her to remain with the commanders, but he had told her that he would ride the wind throughout the battle, and he did not require the assistance of a woman. So Ümmühan had secured permission from Mehmed to join Saadet on the stony crest above the battlefield to observe their victory despite the spring storm threatening. Paian would accompany them, with Esen and two other warriors as a guard. Saadet caused both mares to be saddled, putting the Padparadscha Seat on Syr. With Tsaagan Buqa in his cradleboard, she was entitled to his grandfather’s saddle—and since this battle was about who would sit in it tomorrow, she would not leave it in a pavilion or a tent.

Inside the pavilion Saadet shared with al-Sepehr, he sat before a table stewing, poring over maps, caressing a yellowed skull of all-but-toothless antiquity, and ignoring her. It was only by fortune that she had ducked back in to stomp into her riding boots, Tsaagan’s cradleboard in her left hand, when a sparkling whorl of azure light shimmered into existence before the undraped door. Al-Sepehr was on his feet then, fast enough to give the lie to his previous apparent absorption.

Saadet jumped back from the door, one foot booted and one just socked, swinging the cradleboard over one shoulder. She put her baby and her back to the pavilion’s woolen wall and forced herself not to grope after the pistol in her sash. Powder and shot would do no good against a djinn.

The djinn, anyway, took no notice of her at all. Instead he pranced up to al-Sepehr, swinging his feet like a cocky boy, and tipped his head to one side fetchingly as he looked up at the tall man. The form the djinn wore was wiry, a grown boy, not tall. His blue skin was smooth with youth, his waist trim where he’d cinched it into billowing white pantaloons. His feet were bare, the toenails gilded.

He hooked a thumb into his sash. “I’ve come to bid you farewell, Mukhtar ai-Idoj. And to have one final look at your face as you realize what a damned fool you’ve been.”

If al-Sepehr had seemed wreathed in thunderclouds previously, now lightning sparked in his visage. Low and dangerous, he said, “Did you not bring me a message from Re Temur’s whore?”

The djinn smiled and sidestepped, so al-Sepehr had to wheel in a circle to follow him. Saadet almost missed what he said next, al-Sepehr’s words were such a punch to her.
Re Temur’s whore.
As Saadet had been Qori Buqa’s?

“Her message is not fit for tender ears,” the djinn said, mockingly. “Nor, it happens is mine.”

“Did you not offer her the name of her child for her obedience?”

“In accordance with your orders, so I did.” The djinn shrugged. “And as I served you, in accordance with the bond established when you tricked me, now I have tricked you back and do not serve.”

Saadet had never seen al-Sepehr at a loss for words before. His mouth worked like a fish’s. His cheeks grew dark with rage.

“I bade you name him,” snarled al-Sepehr. “I bade you name him Sepehr al-Kara ai-Erem ai-Nar. How then have you
tricked
me in return?”

“So you did,” said the djinn, inclining his head while the flames slid in his hair like an unruly crown. “But you did not bid me name him that
only
. And if that were not enough to break your hold, a lady just wished me free—on my name. So that trick won’t work on me either, should you have a mind to try. Good day, Mukhtar! Enjoy your little war.”

He vanished in a silent flash, leaving al-Sepehr and Saadet gaping after. Then, as if Saadet were not there at all, al-Sepehr whirled and strode out of the pavilion, the chains decorating his sword-sheath clattering.

*   *   *

By Hard-dawn, Samarkar had polished Afrit from head to hooves until he seemed to glow not just with captured light but from within. She’d even oiled his cracked old second-hand furniture, comically incongruous though age-worn leather was on such a glorious young beast. Now she stood hugging his head as he lipped in her pockets for mutton-fat and grain sweets.

It kept her from staring off at the louring sky above, where a steppe vulture stitched the clouds, harried by five or six of the juvenile rukhs, but from which no trace of a bay mare or rider descended. It kept her from staring off at the curve of the mountain beyond which al-Sepehr’s army would be beginning to form up, even now.
Twice our numbers.

She hugged the stallion closer and told herself,
We will win because we have no choice but to win.

Her anxious misery was interrupted as Hsiung all but danced out of the pavilion that served as their forward command, a roll of rag paper clutched in his hand. His smile grew broad as their gazes met. He lifted up the scroll and waved it triumphantly.

“Where’s your ghul general?” he said. “I’ve found its way around behind.”

“I’ll open the gates,” she said. “How far?”

“There’s one in the cave of the lanterns. The other will bring them out along the Dragon Road, twenty
li
further on. They can double back and fall on al-Sepehr’s flank once he’s fully engaged with our lines.” He put the paper in her hand.

She held it as tenderly as if he had given her a fragile, thorny flower. His face seemed sunken. Transparent red crusts lurked in the corners of his too-bright eyes. “You should rest.”

“Rest in war?” He smiled. “I have a request, Wizard Samarkar.”

Because she could not bring herself to nod, she waited.

He said, “I would like to join King Tzitzik for the battle. We have discussed it, and we would like to volunteer to take the left flank, the forward position.”

Horror sparked with irritation. “Hsiung, that’s in the teeth of the trap!”

He bowed. “King Tzitzik will make her case to you as well, I am certain. She feels responsible, for was not the barrow of Danupati in her care when it was disturbed? But as for me, who better? You will need someone to act as a lure, and while my sight and strength remain to me, it is I who will do this thing.”

She swallowed her first, angry retort, and thought of something better to say. “I can’t argue you out of this.”

“You could assign me elsewhere.”

“And send someone else in your place. You’re right; we need a lure. This is a gift you give, Hsiung.”

He smiled crookedly. “Tell Hong-la I’ll see him in Hell.”

*   *   *

When Samarkar entered the pavilion, she was unsurprised to see Edene pinning her braid around her head, her armor flickering at every gesture with cold flames. Ganjin was not in evidence. Perhaps one of the ghulim had him somewhere in safekeeping.

Whatever Samarkar meant to say in greeting, it was diverted by Edene’s question—directed at her small bronze mirror, but intended for Samarkar. “Has Temur returned?”

Samarkar shook her head. “What if he doesn’t?”

“Then we fight without him.”

“If the Nameless win this battle, they will be seen as unstoppable throughout every land between the Pillars of Heaven. Who then would deny the return of the Sorcerer-Prince?”

Edene looked at her. “Did you see Hsiung’s map?”

Samarkar held up her armored right hand, with the scroll of paper in it. “He’s determined to kill himself.”

“It is his life to give,” Edene said callously. No, not callously. But with Qersnyk fatalism, here on the brink of war. “Unroll the map and tell me what you read.”

“Did Hsiung not?”

“Hsiung did,” said Edene. “I wish to be shown it again.”

Samarkar slipped the ribbon that bound the scroll. Crisp paper crinkling, she spread it on the table. Her eye scanned—yes, there the door that could take the ghulim to Reason. And there the door that could bring them out behind al-Sepehr. Her eye caught on something else, though, and a blaze of hope sprang up in her as if someone had poked the coals.

“Tsarepheth,” she said. “He thinks this one would lead us to the Cold Fire?”

“Do you mean to bring us more wizards?” Edene said. “I would not complain.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Samarkar said, delighted. “We can only ask!”

“What was
your
plan?”

“The Cold Fire is supposed to have been raised where the Sorcerer-Prince took his final fall. Just let me send for Hong-la, and Tsering. What would happen to faith in his resurrection, do you suppose, if we brought back his bones?”

Edene grinned. She leaned over Samarkar’s shoulder and pointed and said, “Hsiung says there is a path there that will bring us near Ala-Din.”

“And so?” Samarkar asked. “We take his citadel and let him have the steppe, and Rasa, and Asmaracanda, and Asitaneh, and Song? Tempting, but a last resort, I’d say.”

“I was thinking,” Edene said, “that Hrahima, Besha Ghul, and I could go and break loose the male Rukh, actually. Losing the services of his mate would probably put a cramp in al-Sepehr’s plans, don’t you think?”

Samarkar shook her head in delight. “Six Thousand keep you.”

*   *   *

“I will go,” Tsering said. “But Hong-la should remain here. I am better for the errand; he is better for the battle.”

So it was Samarkar on Afrit, Edene and Tsering and Hrahima unmounted, and Besha and Ka-asha and the remaining willing ghulim who returned to Dragon Lake and descended by floating lantern-light into the caverns. Jurchadai came to see them off, and Samarkar pretended not to see his and Tsering’s tearful farewell.

Behind them, the first drops of rain began to fall on the warriors who took up arms and found their places with those who would lead the battle until Samarkar’s return. Under Re Chagatai, the captains of the field would be Master War, Tzitzik, Nilufer, Toragana, Iskandar, Oljei, Hong-la, and Zhan Zhang.