Sobek rolled in response, spinning and crushing Ali beneath the water. Tiamat was cackling beyond the splashing waves and grappling fighters.
I need my weapons. Ali didn’t think he had much chance against Sobek either way, but he was definitely not going to defeat the millennia-old lord of the river of salt and gold with his bare hands.
Ali kicked out, sending the nearest stone warriors tumbling. A man in a toga, a laurel wreath in his hair and a tortured expression on his face, toppled over Sobek with a thud, pinning his tail. Taking advantage of the moment of distraction, Ali dashed away.
He lunged for the ruined wall, but Sobek caught him. His teeth closed over Ali’s ankle and yanked him back. Ali cried out in pain, but he was already reaching for his zulfiqar.
“Brighten!”
Flames burst down the blade, provoking hisses and whistles and clicks from the crowd of watching marid. Ali swung it at Sobek’s head but kept the poisoned flames from making direct contact with him, still reluctant to kill his ancestor.
“Let me go. Sobek, please, for the love of—” Ali screamed as Sobek’s jaws clamped tighter. The crocodile was pulling him into deeper water, thrashing and shaking him as though to rip his very leg off.
Oh, God, it hurt. It hurt so much, and yet the marid’s viciousness was the reminder Ali needed. He would see no mercy here.
So he would show none in kind. Ali lashed out with his zulfiqar and scorched a blazing line of fire across Sobek’s eyes.
The marid bellowed, letting go enough for Ali to pull his leg free and scramble backward on his elbows as blood blossomed from his savaged ankle, staining the teal water. Sobek was writhing on the sand. Blood poured from him as well, lines of poison snaking out from his ruined eyes in delicate, deadly tendrils.
And then they stopped. Ali watched, frozen with horror, as the zulfiqar’s poison started to reverse, Sobek’s eyes stitching back together …
Ali shot to his feet and fled.
His maimed leg burned in protest, pain shooting through his ankle each time his foot hit the ground. Ali ran anyway. He’d just had a taste of the brutal death Sobek intended to deliver to him, and Ali would run from it for as long as he could, putting as much distance as possible between the two of them.
Think, al Qahtani, think! Ali dashed up a set of stairs, vaulting over a stone wall. Beyond was a maze of smaller buildings, a warren of bare structures that must once have been tightly packed homes and workshops. Half ruined, it was more labyrinth now than anything else.
It would have to work. Still gripping his zulfiqar and knife, though keeping the flames doused for now, Ali fled among the buildings.
Darkness crept over him as he took the turns at random, going deeper into the city. How did one kill a creature like Sobek, an ancient predator who healed as fast as a Nahid—better than a Nahid? Someone more powerful than Ali would ever be?
Someone overly powerful. Someone so used to winning and crowing over lesser mortals that they underestimated them. Ali’s long-ago fight with Darayavahoush came back to him—their first one, the sparring match Ali had very nearly won until he’d stepped back, unwilling to put a khanjar through the throat of his father’s guest, and the Afshin had responded by hurling a wall of weapons at his head.
Ali wouldn’t make that mistake again. He glanced around at the ruins, all soldier now, the warrior who’d been trained to outthink his enemies.
And by the time Sobek came through, silent as the grave, Ali was ready.
He watched from upon a broken roof, high enough that the breeze wouldn’t carry his scent. Stripped down to his waist-wrap, Ali was cold, but he didn’t allow himself to shiver, didn’t allow himself to breathe as he tossed a broken brick into the room where he’d left his blood-soaked dishdasha—the scent he’d let the marid hunt. Sobek lunged into the room with a snarl.
Ali leapt from the roof and landed on his back.
The marid was fast, but Ali was prepared, slamming the crocodile’s head down, looping his weapons belt around Sobek’s snout and binding it shut. The marid bucked and twisted as Ali smashed the hilt of his zulfiqar into the back of his skull, but it was like beating a rock.
Sobek started to transform. Ali’s strikes gained more purchase as Sobek shifted, blood bursting from his softer, more humanoid neck. But in his other form, the marid would have the hands he needed to rip the belt off his face, seize Ali, and strangle him to death. Ali had the advantage, but only for another moment.
Kill him. Kill him, you idealistic fool. Cut off his head, spear his heart. He would kill you. He’s going to kill you!
Sobek fought, slipping around so that Ali was facing him. It was a unwise move. He’d be able to grab Ali once he got his hands free, but right now it exposed the pale underside of his throat.
KILL HIM! It was Tiamat, bloodlust in her voice.
His ancestor struggled to wrench himself free. Ali plunged his knife into one of Sobek’s hands, pinning it to the ground, and the marid bellowed in pain.
Sobek deserved to die. He’d slaughtered innocents for centuries. His marid cousins had tortured Ali in the lake and stolen him away when his people needed him most. He saw again his mother’s despair as she sent him to his doom. He heard Nahri begging him to find a way back.
What was Sobek in comparison? A monster. A murderer. A demon from an age of ignorance and brutality that Ali’s had rightfully stomped out.
Tiamat was laughing. Beyond, the other marid waited, their alien gazes unreadable.
Sobek’s eerie yellow eyes met his. Ali saw himself reflected in the black sliver of pupil—he looked young. Terrified.
The Nile marid stared at him. His arms had been transforming, his claws reaching for Ali’s wrists …
And
