Chapter 37
Khor, The Camel Road, Sajamistan Empire
For days, we travel along the blue mountainous trails, wary of Azadnian scouts. If we intercept tribes, Alif Adel orders them gently raided only for supplies to replenish ourselves with warm furs and rations. After a week, we cross into the Tezmi’a delta, uneasiness drifting amongst the troops.
The air blisters with foreboding, each inhale stinking of blood.
In our last stop at some obscure township on the western Camel Road, Sajamistani scouts confirm the siege of eastern and western Khor has finally collapsed.
The Black Mountain clans conceded passageway through Khor’s villages.
With no word from our second round of scouts, our tagmata enters the battle with dated intelligence, igniting my nerves.
In the march to the west, we stock up on grain and salted fish.
At each village, soldiers man the citadels, and the local governors’ expressions are bereft of hope – the soldiers brought war to their doorsteps, and though Sajamistan defends them, she has turned liberated cities into a stockpile of resources to supply her armies.
As we draw closer to Khor’s pastures, ahead of me, Yabghu clenches Cemil’s shoulder, murmuring fast. My eyes flit down to Cemil’s hands, which are shaking.
Khor. This is his homeland, I remember. Once ruled by semi-nomadic Khorinites before those same tribes settled permanently and turned sedentary centuries ago, while still trading or warring with other steppe-tribes like my uma’s.
Yabghu catches my eye and gestures Katayoun and me forward.
The other warriors split around us as our overseer simply bows his head, honourable as ever.
‘I found no joy – none at all – being your master,’ he scowls, ‘but I’d be more saddened at your deaths.
’ Then, he makes a simple request. ‘Live to die in another battle.’
He returns ahead to his lieutenant while my fellow trifecta and I exchange long glances. As I open my mouth to speak to Katayoun, Cemil beats me to it: ‘Stay close to my side before you get yourself killed,’ he grunts to her.
‘Obviously,’ she grunts back.
Then to me . . . I expect anger. For me being Azadnian in a war against them gives him every reason to distrust me, but his stare is uncertain and unreadable.
Steeling myself, I lean in. ‘I’ve no mercy in my soul to forget your attack but .
. .’ Quickly, I yank up his sleeve and feel his slight tremble of sorrow not dissimilar to my own, the gold-threading light on his tanned skin.
‘I know these markings. This is what you have left of them,’ I say firmly. ‘It will push you onward.’
I move away, but his next quiet words give me pause.
‘If I die, let me unburden myself. I regret much. But never have I doubted your will. It reminded me of my own. And Katayoun knows. though I did not want you to win, I gambled on your victory in the Duxzam.’ His tone is empty, and I see he is long past this.
‘How much?’ I test him.
‘Thirty idriq.’
‘A-an impressive amount,’ I say, choking, and there is bittersweet amusement in his eyes as he brushes past me.
From our high elevation, I gaze at the villages, sun reflecting off the glossy grey of the mountainsides bracketing it, cliff plunging into the flatlands below.
I think about how the humans are like ants, burrowing and scavenging mechanically in their holes.
The world seems so expansive, and we so finite in our miserable hills.
What do the jinn-folk think when they glance down at us? Do they chuckle at our intellect? Or do they shake their heads at our absurdity, wishing to reach their hands into mankind and toy us around like mortal playthings?
We find an abandoned cluster of cattle and stone hovels – not worthy of being called a village – which becomes our final stop. Adel sends scouts ahead to scope the vicinity of Khor’s central settlement. But soon, there are shouts, and I hurry over.
The smell of decaying cattle hits my noses, and wet, dark dung buzzing with flies fills the ditches.
‘Quickly,’ he shouts and I see them.
Yabghu is knee-deep, pulling out humans from the dung. Two villagers are curled up, shivering and filthy in the pool of manure.
Adel barks orders to distribute water and cloaks. By the time they’re settled, there are six total and their stories are pieced together.
‘It was the creatures,’ they say, shivering.
Mitra. Some fleeing villagers had retreated into the Black Mountains, and others into muck too filthy to be scented by jinn-folk.
They were trapped, forced to hear the invasion.
A look into the wells shows bodies afloat, for those who jumped to their deaths to flee the creatures.
‘A sign of the end times,’ a man moans. ‘We thought they were humans fleeing, but t-they attacked, like shai’tain. And the serpents—’
‘Rest now, elder,’ Adel says quietly. ‘My scout will take you back to our encampment.’
But the woman beside him reaches out her arms and I meet her flat gaze. ‘My arms, they are empty,’ she says listlessly.
‘Of what?’ I crouch in front of her, but she looks past me.
‘They dragged him away during the last raid.’ The implication of it squeezes my chest. Before I can rise, she grips my collar.
‘Do you understand how it feels to go through the pain of labour, to have fought death to hold him in my arms, and then to lose him? They took him – he was pure – and they took him. I’ve seen what happens to the ones taken; they will teach him to forget me. ’
‘I do understand,’ I whisper; I have nothing more to offer her.
‘Return him, then,’ she cries. ‘These are your wars, not mine.’
It’s sickeningly familiar. Is it easier to govern a people by enslaving their minds? It is easy, then, to create an army entrenched in your virtues before setting them free to encroach upon their mothers’ lands.
The love of violence has nothing to do with it. This is an empire creating weapons to punish people resisting them.
Adel orders a squadron to remain back with the survivors in our encampment. We collect animal bones to leave offerings for the amiable jinn, and say a quick prayer for the dead.
I ready myself as Adel instructs the rest of the squadrons to form a wide-flung position, concentrating our smaller numbers for quick manoeuvring.
Khor’s central settlement’s quarters are arranged in a large oval, cramped between gated entrances, with a three-tiered imperial ziggurat to the west. He decides on a two-pronged barrage: Squadron Two will cover the northern gates beside the Tezmi’a tributaries.
Squadrons One and Four will squeeze the Azadnians from the south into the north, where Squadron Two will intercept the enemy from uphill, archers dropping them into the streams below.
Squadrons Three and Five are to recover villagers.
We hike up the alluvial path. Dissonant shouts ride the valley breeze between the rocky arches of the Black Mountains. The city itself is a living, wailing creature.
‘Is that a chant?’ Cemil asks, face hard.
Adel readies a paper kite between his fingers and pauses.
‘A prayer.’ As if he recognises it. ‘You will see soon enough. Your region may not be what you remember. From reports, the Azadnians have besieged every fortress, stripping Khor clean, taking any artisans, siege engineers, healers, farmers, merchants and youth, while using the rest as meat shields in the citadel so we don’t fire arrows. ’
The squadrons begin rubbing ash and attar into bond points.
We hike down the final trail, in view of the city gates. Clay-rammed houses nestle within the emerald land, some burnt and crumbling in the aftermath of the siege. Smoke billows through dirt roads into a bazaar. The pink-rimmed sky is congested, carrying a miasma of blood.
From our height, we get a full view. Some villagers tend to cattle while others carry out rations for the occupying troops, but the youngest are forced to stand in line around the courtyard of a bone-stone monastery with tarnished raven carvings.
Guards stand with long spears, and one by one, each youth pushes up their tunic to their chest or holds out their tongue.
Worse is when some are ordered to shut their eyes for the spear to poke against the eyelid, drawing up blood.
The three spots of the mortal soul. They line up before a wide clay bowl, letting blood drip into it, chanting in flat tones: I beseech my soul to the emperor of the Heavenly Crane.
With it, my bonds quiver weakly.
One Khorinite boy will not cede his blood, hands curled into fists. The spear hilt swings and cracks against his back. Still he stands, so the soldier swings again, aiming at his hands, shattering the bones.
Red sears my vision. ‘They use them for Mitra?’
Adel studies me carefully. ‘Who knows, underling? They could be punished for dissent, violated, recruited into troops or used for Mitra rituals.’ Adel faces the troops, voice eerily calm.
‘Watch carefully what they force upon our brethren. To them, Sajamistani tribes are not human, but things to be sacrificed. If the enemy desires sacrifice, we will make an example of them.’
Squadron Two begins the engagement, attacking Azadnian guards at the main citadel fortress beside the Tezmi’a River, while Squadron Three forms a camp to collect survivors.
My squadron flocks to the dikes on the west, our offensive focused on clearing the quarters around the smaller citadel, to reach Khor’s imperial ziggurat.