The Black Khan Read online

  “Arsalan!” she shouted.

  The assault continuing all around them, Arsalan didn’t hear. But closer to Darya, Arian did. She followed the direction of the girl’s arm, pointing like an arrow to the Messenger Gate. There was movement along the ramparts. A man in a black cloak was hunched over something he held in his arms. Another man was at the gates, dressed in the clothes of a beggar, a wild mane of hair straggling down his back.

  Arian lowered her spyglass. She swallowed over a constriction in her throat.

  A bell sounded from the Maiden Tower, clanging a terrifying warning. Frozen in place, she saw Arsalan move from his position to stride along the wall. Shouts sounded in the square below, and by a series of signals that passed from the ramparts to the square, units of Cataphracts moved west, weakening their forces to the east.

  Daniyar was to the east.

  And if she’d understood Sinnia’s warning, the Bloodprint was headed west.

  But Arsalan hadn’t rung the bell of the Maiden Tower to defend the Bloodprint. At his orders, cavalry, archers, and infantry rearranged themselves, dividing their forces between east and west, a massive upheaval of men and horses that filled the air with strident clamor.

  The man in the black cloak and the man with the wild hair outpaced them all, distant from the Maiden Tower, distant from Sinnia, distant from Arian and the Black Khan.

  She looked at Darya, horror-struck beside her. Then the Princess was running fleet-footed after Arsalan, bells chiming madly in her wake. Wafa stared up at Arian for a moment. “Don’t come,” he said.

  He took a moment more to decide, then went haring after Darya.

  Arian’s gaze swept the eastern plains, searching for something to break through the smoke, a sign of Daniyar, the light from his ring.

  All was chaos and smoke.

  Halfway to the Tower of the Mirage, Arian caught the Black Khan’s eye. She pointed west. He followed her gaze and halted mid-stride. He could now see what Arian had seen moments before. The vanguard of the Rising Nineteen, a long black line snaking across the west, at a pace to reach the Messenger Gate by dawn.

  From the moment’s indecision in his glittering dark eyes, she could see the Black Khan wasn’t persuaded of his course. She decided it for him. If Ashfall fell to the One-Eyed Preacher, nothing she did for Daniyar would matter. The empire would burn, and all of them with it.

  Rukh had forced her hand. And in a brief moment of empathy, she realized he’d had no choice. Nothing else had served him, not even the arcane magic he’d so ill-advisedly tried. To stand against the Preacher, all that was left was her knowledge of the Claim. She would have to trust Daniyar’s safety to a man who’d now betrayed her three times. And she knew she would.

  As First Oralist of Hira, this was her unswerving course.

  “Hold the eastern gate,” she said firmly. “Sinnia and I will take the west.”

  58

  THE CLAIM WAS AN ANCHOR. THE CLAIM WAS A GUIDE OF GUIDES. THE Claim was a devastation, and Arian and Sinnia wielded it along the western wall. It stopped the escaped prisoner in his tracks, and the Nizam along with him. It built a second wall before the first, an illusion that appeared as strong as a stone buttress to the vanguard that had crossed the Empty Quarter.

  Sinnia was sweating with the demands of the Claim upon her skills. Words thundered through her skull, exacting every last vestige of heart and soul.

  So this was what it meant to be an Oralist of Hira. This what it meant to belong to a sisterhood as powerful as hope.

  A line of Talisman archers had taken them by surprise, sneaking across the south to prepare the way for the Nineteen. They fired with a purposeful discipline, volley after volley, the Teerandaz not yet in place to counter their rapid-fire bursts.

  Arsalan was farther ahead of the Companions along the rampart; they invoked the Claim to shelter his body from the archers. Step by step, he advanced on the Nizam, Darya at his heels like a shadow.

  “Get away, Darya,” he called. “Get to safety. Your presence is a distraction.”

  She didn’t listen, shooting past him to throw herself at her half-brother’s feet. “Darius,” she cried. “Darius, what are you doing?”

  Darius flashed a half-mad smile at the Princess.

  “It’s mine! It’s mine and it will restore me as Dark Mage. It will restore this empire to my hand.” A trace of spittle edged his lips. “So Nizam al-Mulk has promised me.”

  The Nizam winced. From the power of the Claim or the preposterousness of the suggestion, Sinnia couldn’t tell.

  “Yes, my Prince,” he said. “As I promised, so it will be. For I have won you an ally.”

  Arsalan lunged forward, sword in hand. The Nizam al-Mulk moved swiftly, unhampered by the Claim. He grabbed Darya’s hand and jerked her into the circle of his arms, one powerful hand at her neck. “Move another step and I’ll snap her neck like a twig.”

  The Zhayedan commander halted his advance, a cool, assessing look in his eyes. “So you’d betray the Khan of Khorasan.”

  From his tone, Sinnia knew there was no greater crime, not even setting hands on the Princess.

  The Nizam jerked his head at the prisoner who held the Bloodprint. “This is the Khan of Khorasan—he’s always had my loyalty.”

  A chuckle escaped Arsalan’s throat. “This poor devil—driven mad by his addictions and thoroughly under your sway. Under his rule, Ashfall was brought to ruin, a dissolute place unworthy of the name of the jewel of the empire.” He nodded to himself. “But you preferred it that way because then it was you who ruled Khorasan, not Darius or Rukh. Rukh could never see through you, as I could.”

  “What of you?” the Nizam jeered. “I know of your twisted proclivities—I know what transpires between Arsalan and his Khan. Look to your own debauchery.”

  Arsalan’s eyes narrowed. Each word he uttered was sharpened to steel. “Do not insult the Black Khan. Especially after what you’ve just done. You hoped the blood-magic would undo him, but the First Oralist defeated your plan.”

  A canny look came into the Nizam’s eyes. He knew exactly what he stood accused of, just as he now knew that his plan had failed.

  Each man held still and no one else spoke. Darya groaned under the pressure of the Nizam’s grip. She raised her hands to tug away his arm, and Arsalan spotted the red welts along her wrists. He started forward.

  Darya held him back with a word. “Darius,” she moaned. “Won’t you help me? I’m your sister—I love you. You must remember that, just as I remember you before you were lost to yourself.”

  Darius clutched the Bloodprint like a shield to his chest. Confusion appeared in his clouded eyes.

  “This was never you,” she whispered. “This was what the Nizam made you.”

  He seemed to struggle toward an acceptance of this. “Let her go, Nizam,” he said at last.

  “Not just yet, my Prince. Look—he comes.”

  A clap of thunder above their heads broke the impasse.

  Sinnia and the others glanced up at the sky, cowering before the sound. The cracking noise was inside her head, boldly, blindly shattering. The Claim faltered in her throat. She looked back to Arian, now advancing along the parapet. Arian’s head was cast up, her long hair thrown back, her circlets afire on her uncovered arms. Sinnia tipped back her head to follow Arian’s gaze. The roiling clouds of smoke were assembling into a shape—the outline of a skull beneath a smoke-singed hood. The skull was insubstantial—feather-traces of cloud and dust—but its single eye burned like the sun.

  A voice boomed out overhead.

  “Which of the One’s favors will you deny?”

  The Companions screamed at the impact of the words.

  “Which of the One’s favors will you deny?”

  Their hands pressed to their ears, the Companions fell to their knees, the others forgotten.

  The voice was everywhere. It owned them.

  Blood spurted from the Companions’ eyes and ears, resinous and hot, leavin
g ghastly tracks on their skin.

  The voice became amplified. “Which of the One’s favors will you deny?”

  Blood now foamed from their mouths. They wiped it back with sticky hands.

  “Arian—” Sinnia managed. “Arian—say it with me.”

  Sinnia let out a moan, beating her hands against the ground. When she’d gathered herself again, she reached for Arian’s hand. “Arian, help me! Whatever good befalls us is from the One, whatever evil from ourselves. Say it with me.”

  With a strength she didn’t know she possessed, Sinnia arrowed an arm straight up at the sky. She chanted the words at the image of the skull. For a moment she was able to breathe.

  The voice echoed back again. “Which of the One’s favors will you deny?”

  Bolstered by Sinnia’s support, Arian fought her way to her feet. She flung her head up at the sky. “Whatever it is that you are, you do not speak for the One. You are nothing like the One. You are nothing save lies and illusion.”

  A peal of thunder threw her from her feet, so loud that it cracked the wall fifty feet down to the ground. She found herself at Sinnia’s side—the place where she was strongest—and managed to summon the words.

  “Whatever good befalls us is from the One, whatever evil is from ourselves.”

  She grasped Sinnia’s hands, drawing strength from her presence, from the fire that raged in her brilliant dark eyes and that altered the timbre of her voice. In the smoke of twilight, their circlets began to glow a translucent, cleansing gold. The flow of blood from their eyes abated, then eased altogether. They wiped their faces clear, staining their leather gloves.

  Emboldened by their common purpose, they chanted the words again.

  Clouds gathered over their heads, a column of clusters whose midnight mass was edged in hues of violet. The pressure in the atmosphere built and built until it was intolerable, snatching the air from their lungs and the strength from their recitation.

  “Whatever good befalls us is from the One, whatever evil is from ourselves.”

  Ariveting shaft of lightning exploded along the wall directly across from Arsalan. His hair and beard were singed, the tips of his fingers smoking. Then the clouds receded and the skull vanished into mist and into the growing quiet came the sound of Talisman drums, steady and throbbing like a heartbeat, pulsing behind their ribs.

  Arian stumbled to her feet. She made her way to Arsalan, bent double on his knees. Her voice raw, she whispered the same verse directly into his ear. He sat back upon his heels. Together they looked for the Nizam. A cry escaped Arsalan’s lips. Heedless of Arian, he blundered forward to the shapeless mass near the gate. With his boot he kicked the Nizam to one side.

  The Nizam lay lifeless against the stone, his eyes burned from their sockets. Beside him, the would-be Prince of Khorasan lay with his limbs spangled out, his hair and beard seared from his skull, leaving him curiously young.

  Arsalan pushed their bodies aside, searching for the Princess. She had fallen under her brother’s arm—he gave a great gasp of hope as he found her. Then he saw her still white face.

  A white streak arrowed down the masses of her untamed hair. She didn’t speak, she didn’t move. The Princess of Ashfall was dead.

  With a broken cry, he took her in his arms and heard the last sweet chiming of her bells.

  The Black Khan looked across the courtyard to the wall that had cracked from the parapets to the ground. If it crumbled, the Talisman advance wouldn’t matter—they’d be overrun by morning from the west. He searched for evidence of irrecoverable damage. A company of Cataphracts had gathered to brace the wall. He frowned when he saw that Arsalan was not at the head of their group. Maysam was more than capable, but it was Arsalan’s judgment he relied on. He shifted his spyglass up along the wall until he spied the Companions close on Arsalan’s heels. Arsalan was on the ground, bent over a bundle he had gathered in his lap.

  Rukh’s heart thundered in his chest. Terror limned the edges of his vision; a seismic shock rocked his heart. The spyglass went black before his eyes. He let it fall, his chest racked with agony, his throat raw with regret at the sight of his only sister lifeless in Arsalan’s arms.

  What else would he lose this night?

  He shoved one fist into his mouth. Then no longer able to contain himself, he threw back his head and roared his rage at the sky, the cry of a wounded lion. The power of his grief silenced the movement below. Men called up to the gate, but through the pounding in his skull, he was able to fathom only the peaceable murmur of the Claim—the First Oralist was trying to soothe him with the same gifts that had failed to save Darya.

  Blinking, he dragged a hand from the hollows at his temples to the tightly clenched muscles of his jaw. He needed to think of Darya; he needed to hold her in his arms and prove to himself that her life force had dimmed to a state of permanent darkness.

  But he knew there would be other griefs before this night was through.

  He hardened his heart and turned to the gate.

  His sister would have to wait.

  59

  WITH THE FINAL CRACK OF THE ONE-EYED PREACHER’S THUNDEROUS assault, the Bloodprint vanished into smoke. And those who were gathered in the war room knew the end would come soon, though no one dared to speak it aloud.

  The Black Khan sat on his lacquered throne, his hands balled into fists over its arms. He held two despairing thoughts in his mind. His Nizam had never loved him. And his sister, Darya, was dead. Neither was a grief he could take the time to indulge.

  “Report,” he snapped. One after the other, the commanders of the Zhayedan reported their progress against the enemy. There had been a momentary disruption of the Shin War’s lines, a confusion that had been caused by small but powerful explosions in their midst. The vanguard had fallen back until the morning.

  Within the walls, the Zhayedan were prepared, regiments arranged to meet the threat from both flanks, men working through the night to repair the damage to the walls, given cover by the work of the Companions. The violet-hued thunder that had seemed to doom the capital had not recurred, and far to the west, the Nineteen held their lines, not yet seeking to advance.

  He heard their report, and when the war room went quiet, he turned at last to Arsalan, who knelt at the foot of the long table where the bier of the Princess had been placed. The Companions of Hira and Wafa waited to one side, none speaking, listening to the council of war.

  “Arsalan.”

  The Zhayedan commander rose to his feet, his skin gray, his face set in lines of despair, an expression he banished as he met the eyes of his Khan. He realized the Zhayedan were waiting for his orders. He relayed these with a clarity of mind that promised his listeners the capital could still be held.

  “Someone out there is helping us, perhaps the Silver Mage. We must press our advantage while their forces are in retreat. If the Companions hold the western gate, we can attack from the east.”

  “Then I should ride out with my men.”

  “No, Excellency. Stand at the gate with the Shahi scepter, as a symbol to the people of Ashfall. I’ll ride at the head of the Cataphracts, covered by Cassandane’s archers.”

  “It won’t be enough.”

  “Then perhaps the lady Sinnia would lend us her support, if the First Oralist can hold the Messenger Gate alone.”

  Distraught, Arian said, “I cannot access the Bloodprint, but I’ll use whatever I can.”

  She didn’t reprove the Black Khan with his sister lying dead before him, but he heard the reproof all the same. It was a blow neither of them had anticipated, relying entirely on the Bloodprint. She hadn’t come to terms with its loss; she didn’t know if anything she did would make a difference now. He heard the devastation in her voice … witnessed its impact on his men.

  It was his job to hearten his commanders; he had taken enough from her. “Strength to the commanders of the Zhayedan,” he said firmly. “This night we hold.”

  They came to attention, answering
in one voice. “Strength to the empire of the Black Khan. This night we hold.”

  Arsalan dismissed them. He conferred with Cassandane, then returned to his prince, summoning two of the Khorasan Guard. “These will be your personal guard as I ride out to meet the Immolans.”

  A bitter smile twisted Rukh’s lips. “And you trust them? As I trusted my Nizam, who would have seen me overtaken and destroyed?” He shrugged his desolation aside, pretending to himself that the Nizam had never been of significance in his life. “No matter. Your judgment is keener than mine. But how could I have guessed that such an alliance had been made?”

  “This was ever a court of intrigues. While you were imprisoned in Qaysarieh, the Nizam was laying his plots. Darius was easy for him to mold, lost in his voluptuary pleasures.”

  Rukh rose stiffly from his throne, moving at last to the bier, where he came face-to-face with Darya, preserved in her state of innocence and lost to him forever. He took her cold hand in his own and looked at Arian, bereft of his usual arrogance. A curious twist in his voice, he said, “Is there nothing you can do for her, First Oralist, with all your knowledge of the Claim?”

  Arian gave her response with as much compassion as she could. “You would need dark magic to counter dark magic, arts forbidden to the Companions. You know what happened in your chambers. If Darya could be resurrected, you wouldn’t recognize your sister.”

  “Wouldn’t I?” He brushed a hand over the white streak in Darya’s hair, his fingers holding a loose curl. “The only thing she asked for was love.” He flicked a glance at Arsalan, his words unwittingly cruel. “Each of us failed her in that.”

  The blow landed. Arsalan straightened his shoulders and gathered up his shield. “Grieve later,” he told Rukh. “You have an empire to defend.”

  He paused for a moment beside Darya’s body, his hand slipping to her ankles. The chime of Darya’s bells sounded in the quiet of the room. He freed Darya’s anklets and tucked them under his breastplate. Without explaining himself, he bowed and left the room.