Chapter 23 #4
I cannot finish my thought because in the distance, I spot Arezu cornered on the salt crystals at the edge of the territory’s cliffs, Cemil above her.
Sohrab notices, too, eyes widening.
‘Retreat!’ I shout, but my voice does not carry far enough. ‘Do not engage—’
Arezu’s head snaps to the side as Cemil shoves her. My heart stutters. Cursing, I thrust the flag into Sohrab’s arms.
‘Retreat!’
Arezu is fodder, all of these students are supposed fodder – the thought is like glass cracking beneath pressure. If Arezu is injured, any hope of winning the Marka is snuffed. And Cemil – my fingers dig into the meat of my palms – I warned him not to insult my students.
‘Take Yahya,’ I tell Sohrab, but he shakes his head and bolts away.
‘Where are we going, master?’ Yahya asks as I heave him up against my side.
‘To save your foolish comrade. Hold on to my tunic and do not let go.’
‘Cemil will kill us?’ he asks with growing dread, a boy only now coming to realise his dangerous circumstances.
‘Shut up,’ I hiss. ‘My students are not allowed to die.’ Murder may be outlawed in the Marka, but anger has a way of yielding ever so gruesome accidents.
By the time I round on Cemil, his back to me on the craggy salt cliffs, he is gripping Arezu by the wrist. I have only seconds. Angling nūr through my left arm, I attempt a horizontal barrier.
‘You are like a buzzard, Khamilla. I need only a worm as easy bait,’ Cemil tuts before spinning, yanking Arezu forward with the force, his palms out. He disappears from my vision.
Yabghu told me he can only mark three targets at a time.
An arm wraps around my waist, the other twisting my right elbow to my lower back. I grit my teeth to fight a gasp as he pulls me flush to his chest.
‘And I always have you marked,’ Cemil hisses into my ear, his blade digging into my spine. Yahya babbles out a cry and Cemil stiffens against me, only now noticing the child on my left hip.
His hand loosens for a split moment. But the distraction is enough for my shoulder bonds to shoot a dart of nūr into his neck as I lunge to shield Arezu. I cannot wield my full nūr without injuring the students.
Cemil’s hesitation at the sight of Yahya – whose watery eyes and quivering lips would make even a shai’tan reconsider working for the devil – is all I need. Cemil may be inclined to attack Arezu, a sixteen-year-old, but the true test lies in this: would he attack me as I hold a four-year-old?
I think not.
Cemil tugs roughly at his kerchief. ‘This is unjust even by your low standards, Khamilla,’ he says, seething. His fingers ready at his khanjar hilt but he does not instantly use his Messenger affinity.
My mind scrambles through the possibilities. There must be a distance-and time-delay restriction between each use of Cemil’s affinity, depending on what he transports through the Veil, I note. Transporting himself must be the highest threshold for his Heavenly bonds.
‘However, a Marka is a Marka. With a child on your arm, you make this too easy,’ he says, stalling more.
I adjust Yahya and yank Arezu behind me until we are back to back.
With my right hand, I flick my khanjar into a reverse grip and crouch into first stance.
‘Fool, do not underestimate a woman with both a child at her hip and a blade in her hand,’ I say before he darts forward.
As a Third-Slash, he is the superior fighter, but I am no wheedling novice.
‘Arezu,’ I order under my breath just as she stamps her foot bonds. I spring leftward, using Yahya’s added weight to rotate. Below us, the boulders splinter from a lumpy root of some entombed tree shoving through the salt rock.
Cemil rears back as the ledge shakes, but somehow, with pure strength, his knife muscles through the opposite momentum toward my ribs. My left knee juts up into a split kick, knocking away the khanjar, my heel slamming into the tender underpart of his jaw.
‘You don’t listen, you’ve just done it,’ I spit as that same foot’s bonds gush out nūr.
But he is faster, his Messenger affinity sucking the Heavenly light into a Veil. I do not wait to fight this battle. Arezu hops on my back and I dive sideways off the edge of the small cliff with my students clinging on to me.
I misjudge the force of the fall. We roll in a shower of loose sand.
Our limbs jerk and tangle, raw dirt scraping our skin until white flakes crust like thin paper.
My shoulder slams into the ground but I manage to absorb the impact to save them from injury.
Just as I guessed, Cemil does not transport to me – there is a geographical restriction to his affinity.
Cemil curses from above and Yahya bursts into tears. I waste no time in sprinting to safety behind the layers of Arezu’s cacti. Still, the foolish girl huffs as if I have done her a great offence.
‘I didn’t need you,’ she says as I set her and Yahya down against the trees.
I grimace. ‘You did and it was impudence to provoke a high-rank. I had to save your life.’
‘But you said I’m good at anger and I should use it!’
Exhaustion and fury spear into my veins. ‘Yes, but too much of anything will be your downfall. Use the anger productively!’
‘No yelling,’ Yahya says weakly.
‘Squadrons are not democratic; they have a command structure, and soldiers are to follow it obediently. Unless you wish to be abandoned in the throes of battle.’
Arezu’s teeth flash. ‘I would rather be defiant than be what you are: completely, stupidly empty and hell-bent on insane Marka plans.’ She shoulders me roughly before scooping up Yahya.
At times, Arezu irks me. Her face makes my blood boil, her words make my ears ring. No-Name was correct: this girl is everything I despise.
Though older than the others, she is still a child; I hate children. She is impulsive; I hate impulsiveness. She is loud; I hate loudness. If only I could force her wilfulness into submission, shred it to pieces before rebuilding it. But she is a human, not a weapon, my mind reminds me.
‘Arezu, I have faith in you, by the Divine, but you cannot battle Cemil; he’s a Third-Slash with the strength of a Fifth.’ I force myself to check both of them, relieved they have no grave injuries.
Sharra rejoins us with ten pazktab students and Sohrab, still clutching the second banner in his grasp.
‘He did it,’ Sohrab announces.
‘Who did what?’
‘Firat, he pissed and shit on Overseer Negar and her soldiers. Yellow everywhere, I saw!’
I decide I actually like Firat for that. ‘He stalled her advance. Sohrab, this gives you time to hand the banners to Katayoun. Order Yasaman to summon scorpions. And tell Katayoun that three students are within Territory Five, trapped in Negar’s sinkhole. She must free them.’
‘We have another problem,’ Sharra cuts in as my makeshift page.
‘Madj’s and Fayez’s soldiers are no longer clashing.
They engaged with whatever remained of the other squadrons, to finish them.
Fayez had three banners total but we snatched one; Madj still possesses two, one of which is our decoy. This also means—’
‘Madj has allied with Fayez. Against us,’ I finish stiffly, wondering if I should be flattered or if I’m to begin digging my grave now. ‘At least they assume we have only one banner.’
Arezu crosses her arms. ‘How do we fight two entire squadrons?’
My mind slows and I imagine a saktab board again. I find it easier to breathe by simplifying it.
‘Master?’ Arezu says nervously, as the rest of the squadron exchanges uneasy looks. Inspire their loyalty, Katayoun’s voice penetrates my thoughts.
She was right. I cannot do this alone.
‘Heed me carefully,’ I say. ‘In Za’skar, our true school is not of texts and parchments, stooped over our desks in a life of philosophy.
The application of these lessons, the simulations of history, and the living personalities of conquerors and the fallen: that is Za’skar.
’ I am starting to realise as I speak it.
‘How a warrior leads, and how the weak fall. The Marka may appear as a gameboard – and I might have called it as such – but it is not a game. This is an abstraction of war. Za’skar .
. . is the study of man and how to conquer them. ’
I level a grim look at my underlings and then out to the enemies.
‘We are baby tits surrounded by herons, foxes, snakes and vultures. Your monks will not save you. The powerful here win. And to have power,’ I point at each of them, forcing them to hold my gaze, ‘you must steal it. Three squadrons have fallen, yet we remain. But we are not going to fight anyone. We would lose. For now, we steal banners and run as if hordes of magicians are at our backs, leaving destruction in our wake. We can win.’
As Arezu forms more cacti, with Sharra’s counsel, I formulate our plan.
At my orders, she leads the pazktab students to the north while Sohrab sets the last of his metal around the perimeter.
He extends the metal into tall spears, sweat streaming into his eyes.
I reflect nūr into the metal spears until light criss-crosses across the territory in beams, blinding the two and a half squadrons within its vicinity.
I re-enter the square plane containing Madj’s banner. To taint our opponents’ expansion of Heavenly bonds, at my command, Arezu summons sand-shrooms, a stout flower I studied in Azadniabad that emits toxic fumes. The poison will weaken our opponents’ sensory abilities, but not disable them.
I light the sand-shrooms with nūr. The line catches like a blaze ignited on dry twigs.
Madj’s troops split at the sudden light. ‘Retreat to the west flank!’ Madj barks, diverging from Fayez’s lines.