Mage's Blood

10

Soldier of the Shihad

The First Crusade

In 904 I was a young soldier. Our generals had told us that the Dhassans were murdering our people in Hebusalim. A letter from the emperor exhorted us to save our brethren. Yet it took all our courage and discipline to set foot on that Bridge. I remember the incredible tension – would Meiros collapse his creation beneath us, sending tens of thousands to a watery grave?

What would Meiros do? Some prayed, others were fatalistic. All were terrified! But Kore was with us, for we travelled safe to Southpoint. I cannot remember kissing my wife as passionately as I kissed the earth the day we set foot in Dhassa, the crossing behind us and Hebusalim already in flames.

JARIUS BALTO, LEGIONNAIRE, PALACIOS V, MEMOIRS 904

Aruna Nagar, Baranasi, Northern Lakh,

on the continent of Antiopia

Shawwal 1381 (Octen 927 in Yuros)

9 months until the Moontide

Kazim regretted everything he had said, every insult he had hurled at Huriya, who was so obviously delighted to be going north with Ramita, all the things he’d shouted about Ramita’s willingness to marry another.

I was wrong: Ramita has no choice. This is not her fault – and by now Huriya will have told her everything I said and she will think I don’t care. She will think I hate her – I never meant to wish her dead. The fortune-teller promised that she was my destiny, so why is this happening?

He had said those words, though, pouring out his grief and fury at his self-satisfied little sister. He would have struck her if Haroun had not restrained him and taken him back into the Dom-al’Ahm. He’d stayed with him until he calmed.

Now it was mid-afternoon and Ramita would be sitting in the courtyard, attended by her family, awaiting the nuptials that night. Was she missing him? I never meant it when I told Huriya that you should slit your own throat before you let that old man touch you. Please believe that! But he still felt that way, deep inside. The Kalistham was full of tales of women who found the courage to end their own lives rather than be shamed – one of the Scriptualists had come and spoken of them after Haroun explained his plight. But he could not bear to think of Ramita taking such a path.

Ispal’s greed led her to this – and Huriya is worse! She’s going north now. She cares only for her own gain. And she knows who this suitor is and will not tell me, the faithless slattern!

He was determined to interrupt the wedding, though Haroun argued against it. He listened to his new friend out of respect, then as soon as his back was turned, he slipped away. I cannot do nothing, he told himself. His imagination was tormenting him with visions of Ramita’s eyes, wide in agony and terror as the ferang lowered himself onto her and took what should be his. He stole a bamboo rod from a drover and went striding through the streets, snatching up a flask from a drunk lying in a gutter. Cheap, oily liquor flooded his mouth, unpleasant fuel for his anger. He marched through the neighbourhood until he stopped by a great press of people, a full block from the Ankesharan house, jamming the street as everyone strove to catch a glimpse of the strange goings-on.

One of Chandra-bhai’s thugs recognised him and laughed, ‘Some other guy’s marrying your little slut.’

Kazim bellowed like a bull and swung the rod, smacking the man across the face then kicking him in the belly when he went down. ‘Ramita!’ he howled, calling out her name over and over as he fought his way through the crowds, swinging his stick with brutal carelessness. An old auntie got knocked aside, children were thrown against walls as he screamed, ‘Ramita, I’m coming!’

He staggered into a space and found his way blocked by a huge ferang. Kazim swung at him, but the ferang blocked the rod on his metal-clad forearm. His face was an ugly, broken-nosed block of flesh with narrow eyes beneath a helm of steel. A huge fist swung at Kazim’s head.

Kazim arched his back and let the blow pass, hammered a punch into the massive frame before him, right into the belly. His fist met steel and all but broke his knuckles. A blow struck his shoulder and knocked him off-balance. People shouted and clambered aside, clearing a tiny space, too small for dodging. The big Rondian crouched and spread his arms. Kazim grabbed a cooking pan simmering on a brazier, scattering roasted cashews about him and swung, making his foe’s helmet ring. Got you! He hit him again, but the big man refused to go down, smashing a fist into Kazim’s belly. He folded over, air blasting from his mouth as his vision blurred. People cheered and threw him back at the Rondian, stomping their feet. Everyone loved a fight. The big Rondian grinned and opened his arms.

Kazim threw a few punches, but this wasn’t like fighting Sanjay. It was liking hitting stone. Then he was caught and borne to the ground, the Rondian landing on him like a falling building. He tried to buck him off, but the weight was too much. The first punch mashed his ear and sound distorted weirdly, then the second crunched sickeningly into his face. He felt his nose break. A third punch left him all but senseless.

The Rondian got off him as he lay whimpering like a child. The crowd had fallen silent. Kazim burned with pain and humiliation. Those huge hands reached down and pulled him upright. ‘Don’t come back, boy,’ the Rondian said softly in Keshi, ‘or I’ll pulp you. Understood?’

He nodded mutely, nearly passing out at the movement.

‘Good. Now piss off, you little fanny. Don’t come back.’ He shoved him against the wall and buried his fist in Kazim’s belly, leaving him vomiting in the gutter. Heavy footfalls receded into the crowd.

When the Rondian had gone, sympathetic hands and faces surrounded him and gently tended him. One man straightened his nose, which had swollen like a kalikiti ball, and they bathed the cuts the man’s gauntlets had left on his face. He almost wept with shame and thwarted fury, but everyone patted him and told him he had been brave to face the filthy ferang. None of you leapt to my defence, he thought sullenly; in fact you threw me at him! But he said nothing. A couple of youths took him back to the Dom-al’Ahm, half-carrying him through the bustle of the market.

There were worshippers everywhere, gathering for the evening prayers. Somehow it was almost dusk. Even now, Ramita must be—No, don’t even think of it!

Haroun found him after prayers. ‘Kazim, my friend – what has happened? Where were you?’

Kazim’s head swam. ‘I went to a wedding.’

Haroun understood immediately. ‘Ah, my foolish friend. I see they were not hospitable to uninvited guests.’ He shook his head sympathetically. ‘I will bring some water. You look terrible.’

‘I’m going to kill the bastard who did this,’ Kazim swore.

‘Who was he?’

‘A massive Rondian pig, built like a bull, with a face like a puckered arse-hole.’

Haroun laughed grimly. ‘That’s most of them,’ he said. ‘They are a singularly ugly race.’

They both laughed, a hollow and bitter humour they could not sustain against the oncoming silence.

Kazim sat by the grave of his father, watching the sun rise on the morning after Ramita’s wedding. The night had vanished in the flasks of arak he and the young Scriptualist had shared and now Haroun slumbered beside him, childlike in repose. Ramita, where are you? Did he hurt you? Did you fight him? Did he bloody your beautiful body as he ruined it?

After scrounging some food they returned to the Dom-al’Ahm for the midday lesson. Jai appeared and knelt beside Kazim just as the Godspeaker began, speaking of the shihad: ‘All able-bodied men are summoned,’ he said. ‘We must slay the infidel and retake Hebusalim. You are called, my children, all of you, Amteh and Omali alike. Glory awaits, in victory or in death. Ahm has a hundred virgins awaiting each soldier martyred in battle. He is calling each one of you.’

Afterwards, Jai told him that Ispal was house-hunting, and soon they would leave the old house they’d built themselves, the family home of generations, where Jai and Kazim had been born. The world had turned on its head.

‘And Ramita?’

‘Gone,’ Jai replied. ‘Father and Mother went to see her this morning. They’re gone now.’

His heart lurched. What is left for me here?

The Dom-al’Ahm became his home. Behind it were kitchens that fed all-comers, meagre but wholesome fare. He ate there twice a day and slept in a blanket in the lee of the dormitory of the Scriptualists. A new life grew from the ashes of the old.

An old soldier called Ali was teaching swordsmanship in a field outside of town, out of sight of the prince’s guards. Even Jai joined in when he could. ‘It is a good skill to have,’ he would say, one of few Omali among the dozens of Amteh youths present. He wasn’t very good, but Kazim kept the others from bullying him. Haroun, being a Scriptualist, did not join them, of course, but he watched intently.

Kazim had always excelled in athletic pursuits, and as the days went by he found he was beating everyone, Ali included. Veteran warriors were watching him, Haroun told him. Kazim felt a grim surge of pleasure when he said, ‘They are impressed with you, my friend.’

Ramita was his first thought each morning and his last at night; she was in all of his prayers, the vision that pushed him to run harder, to fight harder. In his memory she grew ever more beautiful.

On the last day of the month, Jai didn’t go home. The three of them sat together, swearing blood-brothers, pledging to the shihad. Jai renounced the Omali faith and became Amteh. Haroun sponsored him, Kazim supported him and he didn’t even go home to say farewell. ‘They are spoiled with greed,’ he told them. ‘They are no longer my family. Ahm is my father and you are my brothers.’

The next day, they wrapped what little they had in bundles of cloth and joined the small column marching north through the morning mists to join the shihad.