Chapter 34
The nearest Azadnian monasteries are raided to find any bodies left behind in the hasty retreat; we find monastic libraries stacked with copied manuscripts and tablets of the dark arts, waterlogged and ruined.
The Sepāhbad finally appears in our small encampment, ordering the remaining captains: ‘If we wait to bury the bodies, we risk inviting the curses of jinn-folk across the local villages.’ His cheeks are flushed as if in fever.
As he descends past me, he appears paler, his typical grace sluggish as if the Gates of Heaven had leeched his soul completely.
But upon a second look, he appears like a warrior who has shaken hands one too many times with war and has come to detest it.
I do not join in sorting the mass graves of Mitra bodies; my squadron is assigned to find any Azadnian soldiers to capture alive.
I walk along the fortification lines through the alpine forest, with the sun waning at eventide.
In the trails, at the fantastical hour of sunset, the shadows are thick, the sparrows’ tunes imbued with melancholy as if grieving the deaths of today.
The sounds of my squadron fade as I trek deeper through bramble, fir carcasses scoring my vision.
Yun. I feel the echo of his presence behind my breastbone. Does my brother approve of Mitra? I suddenly ache for the purpose I possessed in Za’skar, when my anger was pure, and vengeance was a simple game.
My thoughts are cluttered as I sit on a spongy tree that stinks sharply of decay, not unlike the corpses scattering the valley. I think of the Mitra creatures – how can I subdue them? I turn to No-Name, who is silent as ever.
‘How can I ever kill Warlord Akashun when he has such power?’
‘You cannot,’ she says simply.
Unless I can use the Gates of Heaven against him. A raw power that flooded this valley in a matter of minutes. My fingers twitch with flickers of nūr.
A low-pitched cry fractures the melodies of the woodland. I glance at No-Name and she looks baffled too. It sounds like a child. We walk deeper into the conifer trails, my blade clenched between my fingers. As I peek around the trees . . .
It is a boy. Curled up, sobs wrack his spine, and I tuck my knife into my belt, rushing forward.
‘Child,’ I breathe. ‘You are here? Alone?’
His arm is bent out of shape as he clutches it to his bare chest, back against a stump. He looks up, eyes raking over my pale tunic.
I falter at that. ‘I will not hurt you. I can help.’
‘Child?’ He glances at himself. ‘I suppose I am.’ His lips curl down. And then he lunges at me, sending me sprawling. ‘You killed my brother, you shai’tan!’
Stunned, I freeze as his knife arcs toward my chest and I shut my eyes. It happens fast. My khanjar jerks into his heart, ripping out the other side. He chokes, his features – as young as my students – pinching into agony before he slumps, dead.
‘By the Divine,’ I recite softly. He is an Azadnian soldier.
I shove him away, refusing to dwell on this as I scan the foliage for more soldiers. He must have run from battle, then become too exhausted to move—
If he was alive, there must be more who had fled the battlefield, wounded. Ahead of me a branch snaps. Bracing my blade, I creep into the clearing until I make out two Azadnians, hidden behind the shrubs, army sashes discarded, bloodied.
My mouth opens to call for my squadron, but they whirl at my presence, raising their hands.
‘Please!’ one girl begs. ‘We were leaving, we defected!’
I ignore the plea, turning to—
Her eyes drop to my quartered sleeves and I realise too late she can see the gold-threading. She drops to her knees. ‘I said we defected!’
‘I don’t care.’
Her body trembles as a feverish cry spills from her lips. ‘Have you no mercy? Are we not the same?’ She clutches her wounded shoulder.
‘The same?’
‘The lands of the Camel Road! We were forced into these uniforms and yet, your superiors delight in torturing us,’ she hisses. ‘Look at the colours you wear.’
My anger rises. ‘You defend Mitra—’
‘We had no choice!’
‘You did have a choice,’ I reply scathingly.
‘My people do not. My brothers were conscripted from the Dawjad pastures, and more are—’
‘Dawjad.’ I pause, my blade quivering in my fingers.
‘– snatched from our tribes if we refuse!’
My head shakes. These soldiers defended an outpost filled with the sacrifices of our own people. She is lying. She is an enemy. No-Name’s voice resounds in my mind. See them as a bug, a thing to squash.
I stride forward, but her words tumble out now, no longer so desperate, but instead enraged.
‘I assumed you would understand.’ She scrambles back as blood gushes out of her wound, likely infected.
She will not last. ‘I kneel before you begging and you think nothing of it!’ Her eyes shine wildly while her injured comrade crawls toward her.
My head pounds and a disoriented feeling washes over me, like I am far above, gazing below.
I recall Older Brother and me in the bazaar, watching poets recite odes about the Faceless Dawjad warriors. The reminder of it is cruel.
I cannot. I cannot betray these two to an empire that I do not believe in.
To their surprise, I step back.
‘I will not take you,’ I start in a low voice, ‘but you cannot escape. My squadron has the perimeter secured; they will capture you for torture. Make your choice on how to leave.’
A determination burns in the girl’s eyes. She stands, and the other staggers up, graceless in blood, unsheathing their blades. I understand with horrifying clarity what they are to do. And I watch on, helpless, but not opposed to it.
Her eyes study my arms, then my raven mask. ‘I have a prayer for those death-worshippers. May we die as free men rather than slaves to humanity. If you live past this, let us meet you in a state of martyrdom.’
It is a curse. A red shame bleeds through me.
‘You sound like my uma.’
She smiles, embittered. ‘And mine too.’ She raises her blade to her neck. ‘All hail the Faceless Dawjad clans.’
I know moral disobedience has no place in the Za’skar battalion. But when I meet that girl’s eyes, I see – fundamentally – my nomadic brethren.
I let them puncture their own necks with those blades, slitting wide like a red smile, up into their jaw. But in that split second before, I think I see the look of a person who has finally won.
My knees sink to the ground; I finally understand the reasoning behind my uma taking her own life. My thoughts shiver and waver, the disturbed surface of a firelotus pond.
If this is true freedom, then freedom must be death.
If this is revolution, then revolution, too, is death.
Or possibly they were throwing away their one true chance at peace, choosing to spill blood – for that is all they know of freedom.
Is this my fate? To die like the rest of them, as nothing, a dead warrior’s clan upon my tongue, who also did nothing?
A voice breaks the eerie quiet.
‘Suicides, how romantic,’ the Sepāhbad begins, and I turn in horror. He examines the corpses in quiet fascination. ‘Is that all? What is one’s defiance but a quiet protest against an army of thousands. It does nothing.’
And within his grip . . . a man in Azadnian garb, squirming.
The raven is sat on the Sepāhbad’s shoulder as he drags forward the captured soldier, treading on the corpses, seemingly uncaring that he is stepping on the dead.
Vomit flecks the Azadnian’s clothes. He stares in disgust, as if sighting an angel before realising it is a demon, but that is the Sepāhbad’s allure: a beautiful vision to mask the ugliness.
‘The Great Father will avenge us!’ the man hisses.
The Sepāhbad’s shoulders shake in an empty laugh, but his raven does not move.
‘There are worst things than death. I stare it in the face each day; therefore it cannot scare me.’ He grips the man’s chin between his fingers.
‘Let us see how much you fear it.’ The Sepāhbad raises a finger my way. ‘Hold him by the legs.’
I shakily grab the man’s feet. How much had the Sepāhbad heard, and will I be punished next? A sweltering heat radiates from his body. A deep fever. It must be a consequence of the Gates technique. I quickly notice now how his cheeks are red in flush, and his words sound strained.
‘Act almighty, but we’ve all heard the stories of your cruelty,’ the Azadnian spits.
The Sepāhbad looks unworried. ‘I can be worse.’
Without warning, the Sepāhbad slices off three of the Azadnian’s fingers in a smooth arc. It takes everything in me not to wince. The man wails; possibilities must be flitting through his mind – if the Sajamistani cut off his fingers, why not cut apart his limbs?
I hastily suggest, ‘We should take him to the encampment.’
‘No, underling, we do this now before he succeeds in taking his life. Or will you let him do that too?’ Then, facing the Azadnian, he nods at the warm corpses. ‘Would you like to follow?’
‘Go to—’
‘Again, how unnecessary,’ the Sepāhbad says calmly.
‘I am a pragmatic man. I torture silence, but I am amiable to cooperation. Tell me one thing, and then you may be free in the name of your Great Father. To which outpost was your militia headed with Mitra? You may be a pathetic footman told no intelligence, but it’s also the low who do the dirty work.
Today, the apprentices transported thousands of Mitra to a different outpost.’
‘I know nothing,’ he breathes.