Chapter 23 #3
‘Follow me,’ I order. My subordinates and I circle the oases toward Sohrab and Arezu, who wait near Territory Five. At the boundary of the plains, Arezu stoops below a date palm, splattered head to toe in sand.
‘Was it done?’ I ask her.
From her fretful look, anxiety squeezes my chest. Sohrab brushes stray dirt from her hair as she answers.
‘Squadron Five’s territory has the largest oases, so I summoned the poisonous cacti with my affinity until it caged their warriors.
But Captain Fayez’s squadron arrived and defeated their squadron.
They are charging in a southward direction toward our territory.
I was forced to abandon the other pazktab students . . .’ Her voice trails off.
‘What happened?’ I demand.
‘Look.’ She points to the boulders. I climb up alongside her before pausing at what I see.
Below, three students who were tasked to hide beneath the cacti to snatch Squadron Five’s flag are exposed.
Overseer Negar and two warriors surround them, dumbfounded at the sight of children.
One of them, Dil-e-Jannah, has a khanjar sticking out of her left foot, which almost makes me smile.
But from her annoyed look, it might as well be a pinch than an injury.
Overseer Negar sighs and gathers her hands; the ground below cleaves into a crater, plunging the pazktab students safely into it.
‘Should we save them?’
‘No,’ I say, deciding after a moment, disappointed. ‘They were scrub for the opponent anyway.’
The Marka has hardly begun, and I am down three precious bodies.
‘Master, if Fayez has an idea of our plan, we have failed.’ Arezu voices my exact doubts. ‘If we could just engage Madj head-on, to take her out before Fayez arrives—’
‘You are going about strategy all wrong. Nine out of ten times, frontal charge is contingent on numerical superiority. We are small,’ I correct her. ‘In a melee, we focus on mobility, to enforce our own natural positioning.’
‘That does not sound like the purpose of the Marka,’ she says reluctantly.
‘It is only a game.’ I return to where I left Yahya. Fayez must have a distinct idea of my strategy using Madj, or else he would not have targeted Squadron Five first. Had he predicted this? Perhaps he isn’t underestimating me at all.
I shut my eyes. It is easier to envision the Marka as a saktab gameboard.
My surroundings fade. I imagine six territories, placing us on the outskirts of the sixth.
We are outnumbered two to one against the other squadrons.
If Arezu controls the plants again, and can tighten a noose of poisonous flora, trapping Fayez’s troops, it will be a bloodbath.
Fayez’s squadron will be driven against Madj’s forces with my soldiers on the outskirts, exploiting their openings.
A tactic modelled after a fish caught in a stone-weighted net.
From the barrier of cacti, we will cut off their communication lines; they will have no way to inform their other flanks.
After explaining the amended idea, Sohrab, serving as my messenger, darts to tell the students holding our position in the east, and to Katayoun with Yasaman, ordering them nearby in Territory Five with all of our flags, where no one would think to look for them, since Squadron Five is defeated already.
To Arezu, I say, ‘Continue circling vegetation around the perimeter of our territory in dense rows but use a three-breath meditation technique, like what we did on the treetops, to maintain Heavenly Energy. Divide them.’
She nods, scurrying off to her position.
From my satchel, I apply three drops from the attar bottle the monks bestowed, one on my collarbone and two on each wrist. In seven breaths, my soul escapes the confines of the corporeal, travelling to the psychospiritual world.
My bonds reach Heaven and I demand the firmament acknowledge my wish.
A rush of power greets my soul, filling the seventy-seven bonds with the scent of the attar.
Not a moment too soon. Fayez’s squadron emerges below in supple flanks, intercepting Madj in our territory. Each squadron possesses a flag at the centre of their formations. Before they converge, the ground, moistened by the oases, cracks as roots entangle the warriors’ feet. I smile.
And then it breaks.
‘Destroy all of this,’ Fayez’s voice thunders through the plains. ‘I’ve enough of these petty tricks. Expose their positioning.’
Negar lifts her right foot. I blink and the entire territory shudders. Clay arises in a wave of dirt, crushing Arezu’s fragile plants, burying them beneath a smooth wall of pale, saline sediment, forcing me to scramble back. I pray my soldiers were not buried in the landslide.
‘There she is.’ Fayez turns, spotting me far in the distance on the rocky sediment, with no trees to obscure me.
‘Humble your dog,’ he roughly orders his lieutenant.
I flinch as Yabghu breaks away from his flank.
He clasps his palms and the air plunges into a scorching warmth.
A Smokeless-Fire affinity, the same energy used before mankind’s existence to create jinn.
His shoulders round back before a stifling heat wilts Arezu’s flora.
It’s clever. Captain Fayez prepared Yabghu as a direct rival against my defences; he predicted I’d use Arezu to fortify the perimeter.
‘I am not finished,’ I mutter before raising one finger, using the Second-Stratum of summoning, which condenses Heavenly Energy and combines multiple bonds.
Nūr teases from my hands and feet, splitting into three dense ropes of cold cosmic light until it solidifies.
It slithers down the blue slopes of the salt ridges.
As it reaches Yabghu, the nūr erupts, lighting the territory into a flash of white light, temporarily blinding him.
‘Again,’ I bark loudly at Arezu. She weaves her flora into four tall brackets. Before Yabghu could stop her, Madj’s soldiers spill into the clearing, and I sigh with relief.
‘Their sight!’ I order loudly. Arezu’s cacti whistles thorns into Fayez’s isolated flanks.
‘My eyes!’
With the soldiers blinded, pazktab children from the eastern flank choose to charge like proud cowards. They bellow toward the first square in the net formation. It contains seven soldiers against ten of mine, and in its centre, I spot the enemy squadron banner, guarded by two opponents.
I rush down the slope on to the battlefield, switching to First-Stratum summoning.
The fundamental key of the Marka is the rule of no deaths: a necessary provision that ensures any attacks by affinities must be conservative; it’s less about a display of power and more a test of how one can control and wield it.
My foot sweeps low, impelling gales of sand into the eyes of Adam, the first warrior I spot.
A second one thrusts her khanjars out. Gulnaz. The sharp glints a promise of pain. I spin, heel kicking back, bonds blasting a shield of concentrated nūr.
Gulnaz throws up her arm from the light, but Za’skar martial artists can manoeuvre deftly even blinded. Arching back, her wrists twist, blades shooting forward so fast they almost cleave my stomach, like a butcher to a lamb. It must be an affinity, somehow manipulating the air currents around her.
I twist left, the blade nicking my ear. Too close. If I could just—
I stoop down, dodging another blade that would have slashed my neck. She wants to inflict grave injury. I leap, closing the distance between our attack zones, my fingers pinching the tip of her khanjar before it thrusts forward. Blood beads down my knuckles.
Her head reels back to slam against mine, but my right foot hooks around her ankle as I sidestep with the other, my arms driving through the momentum into third stance.
Our khanjars intercept. My blade twists up against her, whining from her weight. Teeth gritted, she presses harder into my side, the pressure building. I strain, heels sliding back against the dirt.
Our eyes meet briefly. Snarling, I abruptly leap back, following the air current, our locked stances suddenly off balance. Nūr ignites the tip of my khanjar before the blade rolls into my pinkie. I spin inwards, knifed palm slashing into her with a brutal spleen strike. Gulnaz’s stance crumples.
Seizing the opening, her other comrade, Dara, dives into my path, but I am ready. Nūr shoots from my finger bonds into two spikes, lashing out like snakes at his ankles.
Dara’s knees buckle but he only grins, mouth opening – he uses his tongue bonds, I realise.
Above, the Veil ripples like a grey duvet and the sky crackles and booms. I’ve read about this affinity from the seventy-seven, a Heavenly Contract that asks the angels of the Divine to manipulate a storm flood on the Eajīz’s behalf.
‘No,’ I cry. The hair stands erect on the back of my neck before purple light ignites the square plane.
I’m knocked off my feet. My body smacks against a cluster of cacti, puncturing my arms in a shocked sting. Warm blood dribbles down my sleeves.
Dread carves down my back as the next lightning bolt destroys nearby flora. The plants scatter, exposing my squadron’s position to the other flanks. Cursing, I roll as Dara’s khanjar punctures downwards.
My two shoulder bonds expand, dense nūr slithering toward Dara’s back, then erupting before he can finish me. With a cry, more from surprise than pain, Dara stumbles forward, and I crawl, snatching the banner and retreating before he can lunge toward me.
Just then, three soldiers under Captain Madj enter the square plane, and I sprint away, spotting Sohrab on the opposite end, behind our last thin defences of cacti, clutching a bloodied arm against his chest, Yahya strapped to his back.
‘We are going to die, master,’ Sohrab moans when I reach them. ‘Take him, I cannot hold him any longer, my arm is not working.’
‘Retreat with the second banner,’ I order after taking Yahya. ‘Fayez and Madj are occupied in battling each other. For now, find Arezu—’