Chapter 32
Karim
“Focus your efforts on driving out the soldiers and the royal guard!” Karim shouted to his men. “Kill only when necessary! Protect the prisoners and secure the fortress!”
Shouting their accord, warriors from both the Anen and the Hudjefa tribes flooded the courtyard, adding fuel to an already raging battle.
Where are you, Sitamun? Karim scanned the area. The courtyard was littered with bodies and ringing with the bellows and screams of those fighting for their lives. A thrill of dread coursed up Karim’s spine as he considered the possibility that something terrible had happened to the princess.
“Now you’re going to tell me that you knew that was going to happen,” said Gamil.
Karim looked down at his younger brother standing by his side, armed with a leather shield and staff. “What, the doors? Of course I did!”
“Liar.”
Karim absolutely did not know that the three gatehouse doors would blow open, allowing him and the small army he’d assembled to storm the fortress.
In fact, when they’d arrived and saw the immense structure before them, Karim’s confidence had faltered.
Dumiya had intercepted them in the desert and relayed how she’d delivered Sita to the temple and seen her taken into her brother’s custody, and how she’d learned about a cursing ritual that would involve human sacrifice, which Sita would likely attend.
Upon their approach of the fortress that day, Karim spied several large empty vessels moored on the riverbank alongside the fortress. From that, he got the sense that they might not be the only ones looking to disrupt the ritual.
Unlike whomever had come by boat, however, Karim hadn’t had a plan to get inside the fortress. It was only when his hair began to twist in the wind and he smelled the notes of magic in the air that he thought: Maybe I don’t need one.
The streams were converging; he could feel it.
The river was about to flood.
Gamil moved to enter the fray, but Karim nudged the horse in front of him.
“Not so fast, sen,” he said. “Mind yourself in there, hey? Omma will have my hide if anything happens to you.”
“Don’t be such a goose,” Gamil replied. “I’ve been training all my life for this!”
Karim snorted. “You’ve been training for about as long as you’ve been growing that mouse pelt you call a beard.” When Gamil scowled, Karim gave him a reluctant smile. “Just be careful. Oh, and Gamil—”
“Yes?”
Karim lay a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Father would have been proud.”
Gamil’s upper lip trembled slightly. “I hope you find her, sen,” he said, and ran inside.
Dumiya rode up next to him, astride a silver mare. The Hudjefa warrior was clad in leather armor similar to Karim’s, though hers covered her whole chest and extended over her hips. Under that she wore a short gray tunic, as gauzy and ephemeral as smoke.
Karim gestured toward the battle before them. “Well, is it everything you’d hoped it would be?”
The older woman’s sunbaked face crinkled as she grinned, her dark eyes flashing. She urged the horse into a gallop and charged ahead.
Karim shook his head, whipped the reins with a “Yah!” and followed.
His stallion charged into the crush of fighters, and Karim directed him around the battle, working toward the citadel.
Is that Sita on a platform ahead? There was a loud grunt beside him, and Karim looked over to find a familiar face.
A face that had recently taken a heavy punch, given the state of her bottom lip.
Karim sidled up to her opponent, a brute who was thicker than he was tall, and brought the butt of his sword down on the top of the man’s skull. The soldier slumped to the ground.
Raetawy swiped a bead of blood from her lip, then squinted up at him. “I could have done that, you know.”
Karim scoffed. “I know. I just thought—”
“You thought you’d ride in on your horse like the big hero?”
“It’s nice to see you again, too, Raetawy.”
Raetawy smiled. “Greetings to you, Jackal. You and your people are most welcome here.” She tilted her chin toward the gatehouse.
“We’re focusing on getting the prisoners out.
They’ll be taken on the boats back to Sakesh.
The rest of us will stay until the battle is won, though I fear the war is only beginning. ”
A vision of Setnakht and his horde of stone men flashed in Karim’s mind. “You’re quite right, sena,” he said.
Just then, a soldier came screaming toward them, his spear aimed directly at Raetawy. An arm’s breadth before the spearhead could reach her, a snarling black beast leaped at the attacker, knocking him sideways. His shouts turned to shrieks of pain as Behkai tore into him before chasing him off.
“Still tolerating that dog, I see,” Raetawy commented.
Karim shrugged. “He’s grown on me.” Then his tone turned serious. “Sena, where is the princess? Is she here?”
Raetawy’s expression darkened. She cast a glance toward the platform near the entrance to the citadel. “The traitor? Oh, she’s here.”
“Traitor?”
“The little priestess and I had a plan to stop this ritual and take down the king. When Sitamun returned to the palace, Neff said she needed to be involved. I didn’t like the idea, but the priestess swore it was in service to some oracle, so I went along.
Then Sitamun turned on us the first chance she got!
She’s up there fighting with Neff right now!
She must be stopped!” Raetawy hoisted some kind of stone hammer over her shoulder and started to run.
Karim prodded the horse to follow. He was thunderstruck. “Why would Sita do such a thing?” he called out. “It makes no sense.”
“How would you know? You don’t know her.”
“Actually… I do.”
Rae swung the hammer into a soldier’s stomach as she passed him and glanced back at Karim with a skeptical expression. “Did you steal her jewelry or something?”
Karim grumbled and drove the horse faster, overtaking Raetawy and reaching the platform first. What he saw confirmed what he’d been told: Sita had an arm slung around the young priestess’s shoulders and was violently wrenching the girl to her feet.
Alarmed, Karim pulled the horse close and dismounted onto the platform. He moved to separate the two women, exclaiming, “Sita! What are you doing?”
“Get back!” the princess shouted, brandishing a dagger. “Don’t come any closer! I’ll kill her! I’ll slit her throat!”
Raetawy vaulted onto the platform beside Karim. “You see?”
It was strange to behold Sita dressed in finery, her lips rouged, her eyes lined in black kohl. She looked so different from the girl he’d met in the market and had grown to love. Combined with her bizarre behavior, she seemed like a stranger.
Exactly the kind of woman I’d once expected a Khetaran princess to be.
“She’s under a spell!” Nefermaat cried out. “The king’s priests cursed her, and I don’t know how to break it!”
“Shut your mouth!” Sita said.
“What are we supposed to do?” Raetawy muttered. “If Neff can’t undo the spell, we don’t have a chance!”
I know only one person powerful enough to break such a curse, Karim thought. He stepped forward, his hands held empty before him to show he meant no harm. “Sitamun. Please, listen to me. I know you’re in there. I need you to fight, sena.”
“She can’t break the heka herself!” Neff exclaimed.
“Yes, she can,” Karim said, and took another step.
“Don’t come any closer!” Sita screamed, her dark eyes fierce.
“Do you remember when we met, sena?” Karim asked, his voice calm and even. “You taught me how to eat a pomegranate. We sat with Behkai on the riverbank, and you were so hungry that you had seconds.”
“Stop talking!”
“Do you remember all those days in Perset? Sharing that little house and playing at being husband and wife?”
Sita’s hand holding the dagger began to tremble.
“Do you remember lying together beside the fire, the night I gave you my heart?”
A ragged, tortured wail escaped Sita’s lips, and Karim saw her grip on the knife falter. Without warning, he darted forward and pulled Nefermaat free of the princess’s grasp.
Sita roared with fury.
Pushing the girl behind him, safe into Raetawy’s arms, Karim turned to catch the princess’s wrist as she slashed at him with the dagger.
“You are nothing to me!” she snarled. “Nothing but a dirty, stinking thief!”
He grappled with her, holding back the blade. He could overpower her, but that would do nothing to break the spell. The curse had weakened, but his words weren’t enough. He needed something drastic to bring Sita back to herself.
The answer broke over him like the dawn.
“If that is so, then do as you wish,” Karim said and released her wrist. His resistance gone, Sita plunged the dagger straight into his chest.
Nefermaat screamed.
Sita stared at the knife in astonishment. Her pupils dilated and constricted, as if a war was waging within her.
“Perhaps I am nothing to you, sena,” Karim said, his voice husky with pain, “But you are everything to me.”
And with those words, he pulled her into a kiss, the press of her body pushing the blade into him to the hilt.