Naamah's Curse

SEVENTY

The path was so narrow we were forced to ride single file, and its walls were steep and high. I’d never felt so claustrophobic in a natural place before, painfully aware of the fact that we were trapped here, that if I lost my grip on the twilight, Bao and I would be the first targets. With a hundred men behind us, there was no chance of escape.

Bao took the lead, consulting the tattoo on his right arm, matching symbols at every fork of the path.

Every path not taken made my skin tingle, for there could be assassins lurking within them, waiting to fall on our company from the side. It was unlikely, since they could do the most damage obstructing the path before us, but it was possible. And I had to keep my awareness focused on the path ahead. I couldn’t afford to spread myself too thin.

According to Bao, there had been seventeen men in Jagrati’s thrall, and all but two were highly trained killers.

Five had been killed during their escape from the meadow, and Bao had left. The poisoner and the fellow lurking in the Rani’s hidden room were dead.

That left nine men, plus the Falconer himself. When I counted the numbers, it seemed a ridiculous few to inspire such fear… but in the maze, at the forefront of our small army, it didn’t seem foolish at all.

Left, then right, then left, and left again. All the turns made me feel disoriented and dizzy. I shook my head, concentrating. The call of Kamadeva’s diamond grew stronger as we climbed, the rich hues of its dark fire beckoning to Naamah’s gift within me, seeking to beckon me out of the twilight.

Behind us was the clatter of hoofbeats, the jingle and creak of gear and weapons, the sounds of men breathing hard and swearing as they attempted to wrestle a battering ram through the narrow, twisting path.

I wished they would all be quiet.

We had been climbing for over an hour when I sensed the first living presence other than our own on the mountain, at a point where the path ahead of us widened around a sharp bend to the right.

“Bao, hold,” I said softly, and he drew rein, waiting. Glancing behind me, I willed Hasan Dar’s second in command to hear me. “Pradeep, hold and wait.”

He nodded fearfully, and whether it was due to the threat of assassins, or hearing my disembodied voice, I couldn’t say. But he did as we had agreed, signalling silently to the army to wait.

There was no time to hesitate. The killer ahead of us would have heard our company approaching. If Bao and I delayed, he might move to investigate. Firming my grip on the twilight, I joined Bao and we rode around the bend.

The assassin was an archer, and he had chosen his spot well. He had gone to one knee at the far end of a straight, wide stretch of path, and he had an arrow nocked and drawn. There was a tray of sand before him from which the shafts of another score of arrows bristled, points thrust into the sand, ready at hand.

Remembering how quickly the man in the Rani’s chamber had thrown a flurry of knives, I shivered. I didn’t doubt that this fellow was just as quick, just as deadly.

“One of the good ones or bad ones?” I asked Bao.

“Bad,” he murmured. “Do you want me to take him, Moirin?”

I shook my head. “It’s on me, either way.” I nocked an arrow and drew, my hands shaking a little.

I had killed men twice before, but only in the heat of battle. This was murder, plain and simple. Even if the fellow would gladly have done the same to me given the opportunity, it was still murder. He had no idea I was there. His face was calm and silvery in the twilight, utterly focused. It reminded me a bit of the Tatar archer Vachir’s quiet, steady confidence, which made it all the harder.

My diadh-anam was quiet within me, neither warning nor encouraging. The Maghuin Dhonn Herself would give me no guidance in this matter. The choice was mine to make, the risk of losing Her favor mine to take.

This, I thought, was truly an unclean deed that would leave a stain on my soul. But thinking of my lady Amrita raising poor, dead Sameera’s maimed hand to her lips and kissing it, thinking of Ravindra’s grave face as he bade his mother farewell, I knew it was a darkness I was willing to accept.

“Make sure it’s a clean kill,” Bao said quietly, reading the decision on my face. “He’ll start shooting blind if you don’t take him in one.”

I nodded. “Get as close to the wall as you can. He’s likely to loose his bowstring when he’s struck.”

Kneeing our mounts, we plastered ourselves as close to the walls as we could.

Breathing deeply and willing my hands to steadiness, I shot the fellow.

It was quick, so quick! There was the thrumming sound of my bowstring as I loosed it, the thump of the arrow piercing the assassin’s chest indistinguishable from the second twang as his nerveless fingers loosed his own string, the hornet-buzz of an arrow speeding between Bao and me to shatter against the wall of the path.

I lost my grip on the twilight for a heartbeat. The killer’s puzzled eyes met mine; then his gaze went to the feathered haft protruding from his chest. He toppled slowly sideways. And then my diadh-anam pulsed within me and I gasped, reclaiming the twilight.

The archer was dead.

And the Maghuin Dhonn Herself had not forsaken me. It seemed I had guessed rightly, and the stakes were indeed high enough to call for desperate measures.

Bao dismounted and went to confirm that the killer was well and truly dead, then lugged his body as far out of the way as possible. I sat atop my mare Lady, breathing hard and shaking, fighting against a surge of nausea, feeling at once sick at heart and horribly grateful that my diadh-anam yet shone within me.

“It was well done, Moirin,” Bao said when he returned, swinging himself back into the saddle. “A better death than that one deserved.”

I swallowed. “Let’s just keep going.”

We alerted Pradeep and resumed our torturous climb, zigging and zagging our way up the mountain to Kurugiri. Bao consulted his tattoo and scanned the walls for symbols; behind us, Pradeep and the others consulted their maps and did the same, following our invisible progress through the endless labyrinth.

Left, right, right; left. Again and again and again.

I felt the darkness of my deed settle into me, and accepted it. I wondered if the great magician Berlik had felt the same way when he had broken his oath and slain the Cruithne princess and her unborn child to save our people.

The gods use their chosen hard.

It was true.

It was mid-day when I sensed a second living presence in the maze ahead of us, and called softly to Bao, ordering a second halt.

This time, the path was too narrow to admit us both on horseback. Bao and I dismounted, stealing around the corner together on foot. He caught his breath in a hiss at the sight of the man awaiting us.

My throat tightened. “One of the good ones?” I asked unnecessarily. This fellow was young, younger than Bao, with delicate features. His face was filled with transcendent determination, but even I could see that he held the long pike he wielded in a tentative, inexpert grip.

“Uh-huh.” Bao glanced at me. “Sudhakar. I used to try to protect him.”

My diadh-anam flickered. “We can’t just kill him.”

“No.” He sighed. “Let him see us.”

I released the twilight.

The boy yelped with alarm at the sudden sight of us, his eyes stretched wide. I nocked an arrow and trained it on him. He leveled his long pike, swinging the tip back and forth between us in an agony of indecision.

“Sudhakar, it’s me,” Bao said in a soothing tone, his staff tucked under one arm. “You don’t want to fight, do you?”

“Our lady wills it!” His voice trembled.

“Our lady wills a great many things, none of them good,” Bao said calmly. “Think, Sudhakar. She’s not here now. Kamadeva’s diamond is not here.” He tapped his chest. “Look into your heart. You don’t want to do this. Lay down your weapon and surrender, and we will take care of you, good care of you. The Rani of Bhaktipur is a good lady, a very good lady. I promise, you will be safe among us.”

The boy hesitated, and I thought for a moment that Bao had reached him, but I was wrong. Jagrati and Kamadeva’s diamond might not be here, but they were not far enough away, either.

“No!” young Sudhakar cried in a high-pitched voice, shaking his head frantically. “No, no, no! I am loyal to her!”

Pike leveled, he charged at Bao.

Despite the narrow confines, Bao spun out of his way with effortless grace, his staff lashing out to connect with the back of the boy’s head as he passed. Sudhakar fell forward and measured his length on the rocky path, lying motionless.

I winced. “Dead?”

“Unconscious.” Bao rolled the boy over, testing his pulse. “Broken nose, chipped front teeth. He’ll live if we let him.”

“Let him,” I said.

Bao nodded and called for Pradeep, who procured a long length of sturdy rope from somewhere in our supply train. Together, they trussed the boy Sudhakar securely and dragged him into one of the blind alleys. Gods willing, we would retrieve him on our return journey.

“Two down,” I said. “Seven to go, plus the Falconer. Do you suppose there are more in the maze ahead of us?”

“Yes,” Bao said soberly. “At least one. They wouldn’t have left a half-trained lad like Sudhakar as the last line of defense in here.”

He was right.

For two more hours, we climbed uneventfully, the call of Kamadeva’s diamond growing ever stronger. I struggled to ignore it, struggled to maintain my hold on the twilight, trying not to think about the offer Naamah had made to me, trying not to let myself get distracted by the fear that I had chosen unwisely. Nearing yet another hairpin turn, I barely sensed the presence ahead of us in time to order Pradeep to halt.

It was narrow, very narrow. Once again, Bao and I dismounted and went to investigate on foot, me with an arrow nocked.

As strained and mentally weary as I was, I couldn’t make sense of the vision before me. For the space of a few seconds, I thought I was seeing one of Bhodistan’s strange gods with two heads and four arms.

Then it resolved into the image of two men crowded into the narrow space together. One gestured silently to the other, who cupped his hands together. The first man put his foot in the other’s cupped hands, and the other tossed him upward with a powerful heave. The fellow soared into the air, catching the ledge of the steep wall and pulling himself to his feet.

Behind us, shouts of alarm came as the assassin appeared above us; and I lost my grip on the twilight.

The fellow before us gave a hoarse cry of surprise, plucking a pair of short-handled battle-axes from his belt.

Bao shouldered past me. “The Rani, Moirin!” he shouted. “Get the other one! He’s after Amrita!”

I whirled and took aim, but the fellow was already in motion, racing along the top of the deep crevasse, sure-footed and swift. He had a row of silver quoits like razor-edged bangles along one arm, plucking them free with his other hand and hurling them with deadly force as he ran. Cries of agony arose in his wake.

I shot at him and missed; and by the time I had a second arrow nocked, he was around the hairpin turn, the high walls blocking him from me. With fifty men between me and my lady Amrita, there was nothing further I could do to protect her.

Sick with fear, I turned back, only to find Bao faring poorly in his battle.

Like the archer, the axe-man had picked his spot well. The path was too narrow here for Bao to wield his long bamboo staff effectively, forcing him to parry with awkward diagonal moves, essaying cautious jabs and retreating step by step.

And step by step, the assassin advanced, the narrow space suited to his short-handled weapons, which he wielded with fearful ease, describing complex patterns in the air as they crossed and uncrossed, spun and slashed. A death’s-head grin stretched his lips from his teeth, and there was a manic gleam in his eyes.

Although I had an arrow nocked, with Bao between us, I couldn’t shoot the fellow, either.

“Moirin!” Bao yelled. “Call your magic!”

There was too much shouting, too much fear, too much chaos altogether. I tried and found I couldn’t do it, couldn’t summon the concentration.

“I can’t!” I yelled back at him, furious and helpless. In a surge of desperate inspiration, I switched to the Shuntian scholars’ tongue. “Bao, when I count to three, duck!”

He gave a sharp nod.

I counted. “One… two… three!”

Bao dropped like a stone into a deep crouch, ducking his head and raising his staff at a steep angle above it in a last effort to ward off the descending battle-axes. The assassin’s eyes shone.

Aiming high, I loosed my bow.

The arrow caught the fellow in the throat, piercing it clean through. He staggered backward, the battle-axes falling forgotten from his hands, which rose to feel at the feathered shaft. His face softened into that bewildered look that comes when death takes a man unaware, and he sat down hard on the trail, his breath gurgling wetly in his throat.

Once again, I swallowed against a rising tide of bile.

Bao was on his feet, bending over the fellow. I looked away as he ripped the arrow free from his throat.

The sound the man made as he died was dreadful.

Bao met my gaze. “The Rani?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

Word travelled up and down the long, twisting line of our company. One man was dead, and a half dozen more seriously injured. The Rani Amrita was alive and safe. Hasan Dar had protected her with his own body, throwing himself from the saddle. He had suffered a grievous injury in the process, one of the razor-edged quoits lodged between his ribs.

He might live-or not.

The second assassin was dead, brought down at last by our own archers. Four down altogether; five left to go, plus the Falconer.

Kurugiri was still awaiting us.

“Moirin.” Bao touched my arm. “Can you continue?”

I gazed at the corpse of the axe-wielding assassin, remembering a story the trader Dorje had told me. “I think I’ve heard of this one, or at least one like him,” I murmured. “I think he stole a Tufani yak-herder’s daughter and slaughtered her family. Does that tale sound familiar to you?”

“Yes,” he said quietly. “It does.”

“I thought so.” I remembered the weight of the prayer-urns as I turned them outside the temple of Sakyamuni in Rasa, the light touch of the boy-monk’s slender fingers on my tear-stained cheeks as he sought to comfort me, the dense, fragrant scent of incense all around us. His face blurred in my memory with Ravindra’s, with the boy Dash from the caravan; his fingers blurred in memory with the image of my lady Amrita’s graceful hands forming a mudra, with Sameera’s severed fingers discarded on the storeroom floor.

Kamadeva’s diamond sang to me.

I shook my head, willing it clear. I could continue because I had to continue.

“Moirin?” Bao nudged me.

“Aye?”

He flashed his incorrigible grin. “Marry me if we live through this?”

My heart gave an unexpected jolt, but I managed to raise my brows at him. “You already have a wife, my Tatar prince.”

“Nah.” Bao’s grin widened. “The Great Khan dissolved our union. So?”

“Oh, fine!” I took a deep breath, drawing the twilight into my lungs, spinning it softly around us both, finding new reserves of strength. “Yes.”

Bao kissed me. “Good.”