UW02. Plains of Sand and Steel Page 12

  Seren wished she could hold a weapon at the ready. Wished she could’ve worn the leather, bronze-studded vest Meekra had ordered to be made for her. But she had to appear peaceful and trusting. This was a delicate thing. Her foot bounced. She flexed her hands, her palms damp and sticky. It was nearly impossible to stand there and just watch the people who’d killed Father, Cati, and Beti traipse right into her home.

  One man stopped at Cansu and bent at the waist toward Seren. It was an ugly bow and his upturned face showed little respect. Meric would’ve said something. He would’ve quipped and thrown out a smirk and kicked sand in the man’s eyes. Then, the warriors with the lead Invader would’ve traded trunks for swords, and Meric would’ve ruined it all only for his vanity.

  Seren knew better. One fool shouldn’t ruin peace, Father had always said.

  “Good sun to you, warrior.” Seren took her time with the unfamiliar language.

  Her fighters on the walls tensed. Was it something she’d done or had they noticed something that she missed?

  She scanned the Invaders and the trunks they set at her feet. Red, irritated skin surrounded the Invaders’ eyes. Was the arid climate hampering them? Their country was in full drought, so she’d heard. But drought didn’t mean they’d be accustomed to the dry wind across the flat rises of the hammadas or the acidic breeze through the lahabshjara trees clustered in areas where groundwater hid under the sandy earth.

  The chests they brought were far too small to hold a warrior. So no surprise attacks there. The Invaders’ weapons sat at their belts, untouched by twitching fingers or curling hands. Their gazes didn’t waver from the back of their leader’s dark blond head. They were focused on him, as expected. Seasoned warriors took note of exits and armed soldiers with quick side looks instead of gaping. She’d learned that much from watching Father in new situations when they’d traveled the Empire.

  She turned to Erol and Hossam. “Present our prisoner.”

  They took up the ropes on the silver-gilt Empire cart, the one that held the king in his wooden cage, and brought him forward. The king’s beard hung limply, all of its curl gone. A cut on his cheek still showed red, and one along his neck, but no blood leaked from the wound. He held his shoulders straight and nodded once to his general. A darkness flashed over the Invader general’s eyes and he opened his mouth to say something.

  “He has been our prisoner,” Seren said. “I wouldn’t present him to you in some false way, in a false show of some imagined respect. You’ll receive honesty from me, if not in battle, then when we are face-to-face.”

  Their general gave a curt bow, but didn’t look at her as Adem worked the fist-sized bronze lock on the cage. Adem swung the door open and stood at the back of the cart, offering his shoulder to the king, so the man could step to the ground with some dignity. Disgust poured off Adem, waves of fury she could almost see.

  The king ignored Adem and hopped to the ground. His gaze shifted to Seren. “May I please have my sword? It’s a family heirloom.”

  Seren waved to Cansu, who brought the shining weapon forward and presented it to the king.

  An unsteady, fearful warmth traveled the length of her. This was the peace the Empire needed. The only way to keep it would be to help these terrible people. Without relief from their drought, they’d come back again and again, desperation whipping them on like a vicious master. Akhayma was just lucky they’d only brought a middle-sized force and not their entire army.

  A shudder wrapped cold arms around her.

  Father had told her about the Invaders’ full-scale siege of the formerly rich trade city of Vadi. He’d narrowly escaped. His story painted a clear picture of the Invaders’ colored tents that indicated who would live and who would die if the city surrendered. Each day they put up a new tent, a new color. Each day the threat grew worse and worse. Now, Vadi was nothing more than a wraith of a town, twisting in the sandy wind. A victim to the white tent, then the red, then at last, the black—the worst of them all. The air howled through the empty mouths of tumbled towers and moaned about the horrors seen there.

  Beside Lucca, Ona’s face twisted. She stood still, too still, murder in her eyes.

  Seren was fairly certain Ona mouthed the words Bad idea as she nodded at the king’s sword.

  But Ona wasn't the leader here. Ona didn’t know what it took to keep two peoples, so vastly different, at peace with one another.

  Seren had watched Father and the old kyros sign a contract with a violent group from the North who had magic in their blood. With trade agreements, the Empire had no further trouble from them. If both sides gained what they saw as fair and good for their people, there was no need for bloodshed.

  “I propose one more agreement,” Seren said.

  The king stood beside his general and cocked his head. His hair was nearly as bright as his weapon, despite the dust.

  “What is that, Kyros Seren?” he asked in the trade tongue.

  “We’ll help you dig wells along our border,” she said. “For your use. We know you attack out of desperation.”

  The king’s eyes chilled. “We are to come begging at your wells to keep us alive?”

  Adem stepped to Seren’s side. “It’s a generous offer.”

  “It must seem so to you,” the king said. “You’d much rather separate my head from my body. But for me, one who knows what my armies can do, well, let us say it’s not an offer I take with a smiling face and open heart.” He looked at the single bell hanging from the tie at Seren’s forehead and frowned.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Seren saw Ona move. Lucca put a hand on Ona’s stomach to stop her. His lips moved as he whispered to her.

  “But we’ve made peace here,” Seren said. “I don’t think you understand. This is an offer made out of goodwill. No other silver need exchange hands. No further allowances made.”

  The king’s upper lip lifted. His hands became fists. “My people were in stone castles the size of mountains before yours learned to milk goats. We will not bow to your tented city of puddles and ignorant fire.”

  He drew his sword.

  A dozen Invaders dropped from the underbelly of their cart, rolled free of the wheels, and stood, armed and seething, before anyone else realized what was happening.

  There was a shout. A mass of red and white poured through the gates.

  Shock pulled any word Seren could’ve said right out of her mind. They’d tied themselves to the bottom of the cart. She’d been tricked.

  The world exploded into a storm of steel, wood, and sound.

  Before she could get her mouth to work, Cansu, Hossam, and Erol were in front of her. All she could see was a wall of vest and helmet and muscle.

  She shoved Hossam, but he didn’t move. “I need—”

  Lucca handed her a bow and quiver over the guards. “I’m into the fray!” he shouted before taking off toward the gates.

  Pushing through Cansu and Erol, she climbed onto the Empire cart and crouched near the silver-painted planks of the far side for protection. She nocked an arrow and aimed at an Invader who was picking off Empire archers on the parapet like plums from a tree. She took him down with a shot above his metal plating. Seren fired again and again until she had no more arrows. She froze, lost on how to move on, the world spinning around her, attacking her with metallic smells and screams that clawed at her heart.

  Her Akhayma would be lost—Meekra, Cansu, Erol, Hossam, Adem, Barir, Qadira, Najwa, Izzet, Lucca, Ona. She’d lose this family like she had Mother years ago, then Father and her sisters.

  Ona shouted above the chaos, her sword in the air. She was vengeance come to life. Her words, though intelligible, were sharp as her blade. Every move was an artistic stroke, throwing death like a color onto the canvas of the city.

  Onaratta Paints with Blood.

  The title fit too well. As violent and horrible as she was, a fierce love showed in the way she fought. In each determined move, Ona’s devotion to her aunt’s memory shone.
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br />   Seren had to shake herself out of this daze. She’d only escaped the last few Invaders’ swords because of the thickness of the fight. But her limbs were made of stone, her heart suspended and silent.

  “Kyros! Fight! We fight with you!” Lucca began his own chanting, his arrows hitting fast and true.

  Lucca’s face held none of the gentleness she’d seen before. His dark eyes were cold like he’d turned his heart off. His movements were exact as a mathematician’s work. Measuring distance with a glance, he threw his bow aside and drew his sword. Fighting fit the weave of him, of who he was. This wasn’t personal, or, he didn’t allow it to touch him the way Ona did.

  Either way, they were supporting her, risking all for her people.

  A brightness poured over Seren, waking her up. She grabbed her dagger and dove into the fray, heading for Lucca and Ona.

  Together, the two mercenaries burst through a handful of sword-wielding Invaders like knives of lightning. Their limbs glowed. Their speed numbed the mind.

  Ona leaped over an attacker, and as she did, slit the man’s throat. Chanting in Silvanian, sounding like an ancient warrior goddess, she dropped behind another. One swift strike to the side of the neck, and he was gone.

  Lucca threw foreign words like daggers and spun as an Invader made to run him through. He was faster than wind, vicious as a desert lion, with bared teeth and feral eyes.

  Seren grabbed a fallen quiver. She fired one, two, three more arrows into the roiling mass of men and women. She hit the first two—heavy-bodied Invaders raging toward Erol—but missed the third, who cut down one of her warriors.

  Seren draped a steel plate over her heart. Battle was no place for feelings, she reminded herself as the odor of blood and sweat poured through the rising dust and swirls of sand disturbed by feet and falling bodies.

  A group of Invaders broke through their contingent and ran west. They’d go after her people, the innocents, with the strategy to break the city’s spirit. Seren thought about the little boy who’d offered Meric his incense stick during the Fire Ceremony, about Meekra and her sisters at their loom. An Invader’s broad sword would cut clean through the boy’s neck and his parents would see it all. An Invader’s shield would bash Meekra and her family’s heads, destroying their world in a flash.

  The metal Seren had imagined over her heart shivered, tried to crack. “Stop them!” she shouted. “Cansu! Hossam! Stop those men!”

  Cansu turned. His mop of hair flapped across his bleeding cheek. Hossam grabbed Cansu’s jerkin and pulled him away from the fighting.

  Fire, let them be fast enough.

  Two more of Seren’s men surrounded her as she stood to shoot from the cart. An Invader’s arrow peeled past her ear and knocked into the wooden floor behind her.

  “If you’re going to fight, do it better!” a familiar, grainy voice said. Adem.

  Seren jerked the arrow from the cart and lodged it, and two others from her quiver, between her fingers. With the first shot, she moved the next into place and let loose, and then again and again.

  “Better!” Adem grunted and drew his yatagan up and at an angle to slice an Invader’s thigh. The man fell. “Why did that contingent go west?”

  Seren didn’t know if he was truly asking her or if he was thinking out loud.

  A huge Invader with silver hair and a ruddy face pushed Adem to the side with an oval shield and climbed onto the cart. The wagon lurched forward. She almost fell, grabbing hold of the side. The Invader, weaponless, struck out with his shield. She tried to move to the side, but the heavy wood still banged her jaw.

  A tiny bloom of white marred her vision. A strange tightness broke across her head and neck. But no pain. It’d come later.

  She swiped her dagger at the red-faced fighter. Gasping, heart skipping, she missed. One of her own fighters came at the man from the back. She angled herself and slashed across the bridge of the Invader’s nose. He growled. His hands flew to his bleeding face. Adem aimed for him and swung his yatagan. Seren ducked behind his fallen shield—which had caught on the side of the cart—to catch her breath. The man fell under Adem’s blade.

  With her pulse beating in her tongue and temples, Seren rose and jumped over the side. Her dagger bit into an Invader’s exposed forearm. He finished off an Empire fighter and faced Seren. Blood ran into his smile. He spit out a phrase in his language. Sword poised, he lunged right, then cut left, striking toward her legs.

  Spinning, she dodged behind a panicked horse and shouted, “Onaratta Paints with Blood! Lucca Hand of Ruination! Get the king!”

  She stretched to see their weapons blazing through the crowd, laying enemies low. The glint of the king’s hair shone just past Ona’s glowing reach.

  Seren’s fighters moved like the point of a huge arrow and pushed the Invaders closer and closer to the gates, away from Akhayma’s heart.

  Ona drove her sword against the king’s. His dropped to the ground. Seren rounded the horse and ran. Ona’s arm shot out—too fast to see—and wrapped around the king’s shoulder and neck. Ona’s sword tipped toward the tender spot below the king’s chin and worked her way back to the bulk of the Empire’s warriors.

  Seren shouted something; she didn’t even know what she’d said. They had the king in hand. All was not lost.

  Then, with another swathe of men downed, the Empire had ten or so Invaders surrounded and the rest in retreat.

  Akhayma’s warriors shut the city gates and let up a shout of victory.

  “Take the rest as prisoners.” Seren climbed back onto the cart. “Give up your weapons.” She made a sweeping motion to ensure they knew what she meant. “We won’t harm you.”

  Ona’s head swiveled and she glared directly at Seren. The rage of battle still heated her. Surely, that was the only plausible reason for her to look at Seren like that.

  Hossam ran from behind a clutch of black tenting. Blood spatter dotted his cheeks. “Kyros! They are attacking from the West. A full scale attack!”

  Adem took the king from Ona and threw the man at another Empire warrior. “Go!” he shouted at the Empire fighters.

  Seren waved her dagger. “Ona, Lucca, go!”

  Ona handed the king off to three other fighters, an ugly sneer marring her face. She and Lucca mounted two unmanned horses and galloped away alongside Adem and the rest of the warriors not currently holding prisoners.

  Fire, help them, Seren prayed.

  15

  ONA

  How many times would Ona have to capture the king before Seren ended him? Rage sliced at Ona as she rode beside Lucca, wind slapping her hot cheeks.

  Ladders of rope hung over the walls’ striped stone, lank as corpse hair and crawling with hundreds of Invaders. Ona’s new mount reared. She tightened her legs around the horse’s middle. The sneak attack by the front gates had been a feint. Where had they hidden from the watchers on the parapet? It was those trees. They’d hidden in those thick-trunked trees. Clever pigs.

  Lucca chanted beside her, eyes wild.

  “Wake iron, wake!

  I am the blade and the blade is me.

  I move like wind, invisible, untouchable.

  Death is my storm

  My enemy is grass

  Bent beneath my steel!”

  Shield on his forearm, he struck his flint across his weapon. Red and yellow sparks leaped joyously over the incoming army.

  Ona drew her own sparks, screaming a chant, her skin feeling like it was on fire.

  “Wake iron, wake!

  Deliver those who’ve shed the blood of my kin,

  Throw their bodies at my feet,

  Their heads rolling at my heel,

  Let the blood in me rise to avenge my loves!”

  Sparks burned her hands, but no pain bit her as she swung steel and sliced through an Invader’s throat. Blood painted Ona’s blade, brought it to life as it lit up to match the light under her skin, the fire in her heart.

  Her aunt’s round face flashed through her
mind, stopping her heart. In the memory, her aunt turned away. The image faded.

  Ona sucked a breath of sandy, copper-and-horse-and-sweat scented air and kicked heels into her mount, driving the gelding toward Lucca. He struggled against a group of three huge men. He was keeping them at bay, his horse’s hooves dancing, his blade clanging off one sword, then another, a shield, then another.

  “Wake iron!

  Help me leap like the sparks from your flint!

  I fly like fire in the wind!”

  She drew her feet under her as the horse kept on, then she jumped.

  The world seemed to still as she rolled her left shoulder back and drew an invisible arch with her blade, using her legs to shift her weight, and slashed steel across the neck of one of Lucca’s attackers.

  The man beside him roared, leaving Lucca, and thrust his sword at Ona. He screamed and moaned in that sick combination of sound only Invaders could make, like they hated war but loved it too. Ona dodged his strike and cut his leg, her arm jarring as steel hit bone. The pale man fell, face twisted, and she thought of those addicted to the gray plant. That’s what it was. Invaders were addicted to bloodshed, to killing.

  Ona stepped back, pausing in the chaos.

  Was she being merciful by ending their lives? She wanted nothing to do with mercy.

  Shoving her battle-fevered questions away, shutting out any thought that led to not killing Invaders, she drove into the fight. But there were so many of them. As she took down three more, the wave of attackers pushed forward. More swamped the walls, falling into the battle with fresh arms and steel begging to be wetted with Empire blood.

  She found Lucca and he glanced at her, his sword still working.

  We’re going to fall.

  The Invaders would win. They’d take all. They’d live on to laugh and have families and breathe fresh air. They’d live on while Ona’s aunt stayed dead. They’d live on while Ona died under their boots.