The Flames of Shadam Khoreh (The Lays of Anuskaya) (32 page)

Styophan and Edik and Galeb rode until they came abreast of Anahid. Rodion came shortly after, his piebald stallion huffing and shaking its mane and stamping its front hooves until Rodion stroked its neck and whispered into its ear.

Anahid pointed to the horizon ahead, and there, flying far in the distance above the hilly landscape, was a windship. The
Zhostova
. The last of the five ships over which he’d been granted command by Duke Ranos.

Styophan nodded to Anahid. After returning his nod, she slipped from her horse as if she’d been riding all her life. She wore her circlet, and it held an opal, a fresh one given her by Brechan, the King of Kings himself. It twinkled softly in the daylight. One who didn’t know what to look for might not realize she’d bonded with a spirit, but Styophan knew the stones well and Anahid better. She’d lost her composure on the night of the ritual, but she’d regained most of it in the days since. And now she had that same sense of control that showed in her measured movements when she bonded with spirits.

The top of the hill was bald, but nearby there were trees of alder that reached skyward like the clutching hands of the dead. Anahid knelt, heedless of the light covering of snow. She placed her hands on top of the snow and pressed downward. She leaned into it for long moments, melting the snow so that she could touch her skin to the ground directly. She closed her eyes, but for long minutes nothing happened. Near the horizon, the
Zhostova
was moving away. They were searching for him and the others, whatever survivors there might be. They were brave, these men, but perhaps foolish in the bigger picture. Unless they’d received orders through one of the Matri’s rooks, they should have returned to Khalakovo to let them know what had happened. Duke Ranos needed to know that his gambit had failed, that they’d been betrayed by the Haelish.

But the ancients have eyes that see far, he told himself. They must have known what would happen, for even though Styophan would still send them back to Khalakovo, it would be with the knowledge that he would travel with the Haelish on a new mission, one that would hopefully give the islands a respite from the storm. Even if it only delayed Yrstanla by a month, it would be worth it.

Still, Styophan was no fool. He knew the visions of the wodjana were clouded and imperfect. He knew they might be wrong. The Kamarisi Selim ül Hakan lived in a fortress. Only twice had any in the line of Kamarisis been killed within the walls of Irabahce, and both times had been by betrayal. Styophan most likely went to dash his life against the walls of Kasir Irabahce—assuming, of course, they even made it that far—and yet he cared little. The point was not to kill the Kamarisi. With Bahett’s return—less one hand—and a bold attack such as this, young Selim and Bahett would pause. They would worry that Hael was coming for them, and they would be forced to shift their attention westward. It would give the Grand Duchy the time it needed to press, or retreat, or whatever it was Grand Duke Leonid thought proper.

But first, for the leaders of the Grand Duchy to be ready, they needed to know.

The
Zhostova
was further away now.

“Come,” Styophan said to Anahid. “We should ride ahead and build a fire.”

She did not move, however. She remained kneeling in the snow, her head upturned.

His men alternated glances at Anahid, the ship in the distance, and Styophan.

“Anahid, come,” Styophan said more loudly.

It was then that he saw the cracks in the snow around Anahid’s pressed hands. They were small at first, almost indiscernible, but they widened, and dark material was revealed beneath. Leaves, he realized. They were leaves, and they were pushing up from beneath the blanket of snow. Some lifted, twisting, snow falling and leaving pockmarks where it fell. The leaves spun upward, more and more of them, until there were dozens circling in the air above Anahid. Soon there were hundreds, thousands, swirling like bees around a nest.

They flew higher, and they drifted north, toward the
Zhostova
, until they looked like a distant flock of gulls. Not a single leaf fell to the ground, for this was no act of wind. The leaves had been granted life by Anahid, and the kapitan of the
Zhostova
would recognize it as such, or his dhoshaqiram would, and they would come.

“I would know before the men arrive,” Rodion said softly.

Styophan turned to him, the snow crunching beneath his boots. “I know, Rodion.” He nodded to Edik and Galeb, motioning them closer. “You all deserve to know.”

Edik, a man who had served in the staaya for two decades, glanced toward the receding leaves, and then stepped closer. Galeb followed, straightening his cherkesska, pulling himself taller as he did so.

“The ship will come, and some will return home, but I won’t be going with them.”

“You’re not returning?” Rodion asked.

“
Nyet
, I am not.”

“And where will you go?”

“I and as many desyatni as can be spared will go east into Yrstanla.”

Galeb was stone-faced and silent. Behind his eyes, though, Styophan could see an unspeakable fear. Edik’s face, however, turned immediately sour. “Komodor”—Edik stabbed his finger southward—“our brothers died here. Those fucking savages killed them. You saw it yourself. We heard their screams all through the night. And you would send us
home
?”

“I wish for Our Lord Duke to know what happened, and he should hear it firsthand.”

The three soldiers exchanged glances. Galeb seemed confused, but Rodion looked angry, and Edik looked as though he would spit upon Styophan’s black boots.

“You would take others and leave
us
?” Edik said.

These were the reactions Styophan had been expecting. Edik was a devil of a fighter and smart in battle. Rodion was cool. Men followed him easily. But Galeb. Young Galeb. Was not made for this. He’d been brave when they’d arrived. He’d stood tall when they’d been taken to Skolohalla. But something in him had broken three nights ago when the other men had died at the hands of the wodjana.

“I need but one to go home.” All three, even Galeb, seemed ready to object until Styophan raised his hand. “Hold your peace. Those who go to Alekeşir do not go to battle. We go
with
the Haelish, and like a spear thrust at the heart of the Empire, we go to Alekeşir itself, to kill the Kamarisi.”

Rodion laughed. “The Kamarisi?”

“Just so.”

“We’ll be killed, well before we reach Alekeşir.”

“The Haelish know the way to the city.”

Edik stabbed a finger at Styophan’s chest. “You now place
trust
in them?”

Styophan stared down calmly at Edik’s finger, and Edik, though his face didn’t soften, slowly pulled his hand back.

“If you dare challenge me or another officer in such a way again, Edik, I’ll have that finger.”

Finally some of the bile left Edik’s face, but not the pent-up hatred. That he seemed to bottle up inside, and Styophan wondered if he weren’t making a mistake. “
Da
, Komodor.”

Perhaps he should send Edik home instead of Galeb. But one look at Galeb showed him the error in that thinking.

“In this I trust them,” Styophan said. “Their blood is up, but they are no fools. They know ancient ways into Yrstanla. We will not be found until we reach the city. And then we will find our way into Irabahce itself. And then…” Styophan searched for the right words, but there was only one way to say it. “The queens confessed to me what their wodjana found that night.”

Edik’s eyes grew confused, and then his lips curled, as if he could hardly stomach the thought. “With Oleg and Vyagos?”

“Those who go to Alekeşir—all of us—will die.”

“Komodor—”

“Speak no more, Edik. Whether or not the wodjana are right isn’t the point. We have a chance to give Yrstanla pause, and the Haelish are with us in this. If Bahett and the Kamarisi and the Kaymakam who kiss his boots think the Haelish will soon attack in force, they will pull men back from their eastern front. And if we do not join them, it may be that the wodjana will lose confidence in their vision. And if they lose confidence, so will the queens and kings. All of our plans have been turned inside out since we arrived, but this is a chance for us to make a difference, a chance to do what we came to do, a chance—and you’ll know this as well as I if you stop to think about it—granted by the ancients themselves. It’s something we
must
do. But one of you will go home to tell our Duke of it.” He looked over each of them in turn, giving them a proper amount of consideration, enough that Galeb wouldn’t be insulted. He saved Galeb for last. “Come, strelet. Let us speak.”

Galeb looked to Rodion and Edik. When he turned back to Styophan there was an expression of forced indignance, but there was also relief in the way his shoulders relaxed, the way he leaned forward like a man who’d received news that he would live after a long bout with the black cough.

To the north, the flock of leaves were little more than a dark twinkling against the light blue sky. As Styophan and Galeb fell into step with one another and walked down the snow-covered hill, Styophan put his hand on Galeb’s shoulder. “You have a wife, do you not?”

Galeb nodded. “Avita.”

Styophan squeezed his shoulder. “Tell me about her.”

Wearing the uniform of a janissary commander, Styophan ran through a field of tall grass. The clothes were easy enough to adjust to, but the turban still felt strange on his head, and he hated the fact that the bright green plume attached by a brooch to the front of it marked him so conspicuously.

Ahead of Styophan—running two-by-two—were twenty men of Anuskaya, two desyatni, and behind him three desyatni more. Fifty streltsi running with one hundred of the Haelish leading them through Yrstanlan lands. The
Zhostova
had not been manned with so many, but the ancients had been smiling on them the day the Haelish had attacked with their cannons. Two skiffs had managed to escape the damaged ships before they’d fallen. Nearly seventy men had been saved, and Styophan had taken nearly all of them, leaving only enough to head to the coast and around the great northeastern shoulder of Yrstanla before heading south to Trevitze or Galahesh, where many of the Grand Duchy’s ships were now moored.

Like Styophan, his men wore the uniform of janissaries as well. They’d been culled from among the collected effects of the Haelish. Surely they’d kept them for a purpose such as this. The uniforms were all large—large enough to fit the frames of the Haelish men—so they’d needed some adjusting before they’d headed into the lands of the Empire, but they fit well enough, particularly Styophan’s and those of his men he might present for inspection to the soldiers of Yrstanla. Datha said they wouldn’t be needed for days yet, perhaps weeks, but there was no sense in taking a chance. The element of surprise was one of the few advantages they had.

To their right stood the long line of mountains that marked the traditional border between Hael and Yrstanla—the very mountains that had provided his wing of ships with the ley lines they’d needed to fly south from the Great Northern Sea all the way down to Haelish lands. That range had been crossed many times by the forces of Yrstanla. They had taken land. Forts and outposts had been stood. Even villages and one small city had been erected over the decades that Hael had been held at bay, but eventually Hael had returned to the lands they considered their own, pushing Yrstanla back, sometimes butchering those who had come to build a life.

The rhythmic sound of soldiers running in time and the rattle of their gear—muskets and bandoliers and kilijs at their sides—were the only sounds that filled the air. They’d been running for three days. His men were well trained, some of the best Khalakovo had to offer. They could march double-time for weeks, keep a jogging pace for days at a time, but these Haelish warriors were tall—nearly all of them a head taller than his streltsi—and their stride was difficult to keep pace with. Plus they were used to overland travel. The Haelish had horses, but most were saved for the transport of their yurts and for their royalty. So though his men were ready, the dawn-to-dusk days and the grueling pace were taking their toll.

Still, despite the long days, it felt good to be among his men, to be in control—as much as one ever was.

Datha marched at the very head of the Haelish column. He was nearing a rise that marked the southern end of the vale they’d been marching toward all day, the place—if what the Haelish told him was true—where a small Yrstanlan fort stood. It was one of many such fortifications the Empire had built along their long border with Hael. Styophan wondered if they’d received word of what had happened to Bahett at Skolohalla. In all likelihood they had—the Empire was careful about such things, sending messages by pigeon—but this was what King Brechan was counting on. The forts along the border would be on alert, and this attack, along with four others being conducted this very same day, would make Yrstanla think that a full-on assault was underway. In some ways, it wasn’t far from the truth. Brechan had decided it was time for as many of the forts and settlements within a hundred miles of Hael to be burned to the ground. Today brought the first of those attacks, and if Yrstanla thought the larger western cities threatened as well, then so be it.

When Datha reached the top of the rise he held his fist high and in one sharp motion brought it low. Immediately, the warriors behind him slowed and moved forward at a crouch. They split into two groups, kneeling in the snow-topped grass and awaiting further orders. Datha waved Styophan forward. The Haelish warrior was not a man easily rattled, but there was a tightness to his wave, an urgency that made Styophan wonder just what he’d seen in the vale below.

Styophan motioned for Rodion and Edik to join him, and together the three of them approached Datha’s position.

They crawled the last handful of yards until they reached Datha’s side. The vale opened up before them. Below, situated near a dark, stream-fed pool, was a fort with four wooden towers at its corners and a massive stone keep at its center. There was a massive gap in the wall. It had clearly been burned, for much of the remaining wall around the gap was blackened. The gate to the fort’s interior—which faced their position—was still in the raised position. The entrance to the keep could be seen, but instead of a fortified gate of some kind, it was little more than a dark, open maw.