we have no animals next year.'
'And there's the matter of the terror Khasar inspires,' said the chief of light. He was resting his forehead on his templed fingers and just then didn't look much as if he were filled with sunshine. 'Your warriors brought back tales of Khasar in battle, his ferocity, his eerie strength. And other rumors fill the barracks--the midnight killings in Beloved of Ris, how sentries and warriors disappeared from their posts and their bodies were found with their throats and organs eaten away. These stories will spread throughout the city and cause panic when Khasar attacks. Panic can defeat us as surely as lack of food.'
'Worse news,' said Batu. 'The strange killings have already begun here. This morning, two men were found outside the city gates, ravaged as if by a wild beast.'
Did Khasar have some dark alliance with predatory animals? How could he make a wild wolf attack on his command? My thoughts took me back to the tower, and I was hearing in memory the screams that night when a wolf howled. The screams of our guards who never appeared again. It was not a comfortable memory and it made me want to curl up somewhere with a wall at my back.
The chiefs had gone quiet and Khan Tegus was staring at the fire. At length he said, 'Batu, what do you recommend?'
'We must attack. Now, before full winter. There's no choice.'
'Holy one?' Tegus spoke to a shaman crouched before the fire.
The shaman was removing sheep anklebones from the embers and spreading them out on the floor. He hopped around, squinting at the cracks in the bones, humming sometimes and moaning others. We all waited.
'Foretelling is never exact, my khan,' said the shaman. He peered up through his hat tassels. 'But your victory won't come from strength, so I see in the bones.'
'But it's not exact,' said the town chief, 'and if we have no other way --'
'Strength can't be your friend,' said the shaman, 'not since Khasar pledged himself to the goddess Carthen.'
'That's right!' I said. I did shout out those words just like that, with all those people present. The shaman spoke the thoughts I'd been thinking, and now in my mind the jumble of bones was beginning to click together. 'He'll have Carthen on his side, but he betrayed Under, god of tricks. My lord, I think that might be the way to defeat him.'
Some scowled at my outburst, but Tegus asked me, ' What hope do you see, Dashti?'
'With no offense to the holy one or to Dashti,' said Batu, 'this isn't the time to bet our lives, our entire realm, on uncertain foretelling or mucker faith. We can't hesitate with this monster, my lord. His assault is terrible. His warriors attack night and day. All say it's as though he never sleeps. We must hit Khasar from the front with every warrior we have.'
The khan nodded. 'First, Dashti, tell me your thoughts.'
I smiled at him. I couldn't help it. He makes me smile. 'In battle, we'd have no chance. As the holy one said, with Carthen as his ally, no one can defeat him by means of arms. But Under is bound to be angered by the betrayal.
With Under s blessing, I think you can trick Khasar.'
'How do you propose we trick him?'
I didn't know, to be honest. I still don't. I just felt coolness and motion inside, like underground rivers running through me, and a sureness that it could be done. Something to do with Under, some trickery involving animals.
Perhaps the very wolf Lord Khasar uses to kill warriors at night would turn on him. And somehow, we could make that happen. And then I remembered what Saren once said about Khasar, how he ripped out the throat of a goat. I'd thought she was just tower-addled at the time, but I begin to wonder what she may know.
'Well?' said the town chief. 'We're waiting for your cunning plan.'
I looked at the shaman for help, but he shrugged. Apparently the sheep bones didn't tell him anything more.
I cleared my throat. 'Let me think about it. I --' One of the chiefs laughed. The chief of animals, I think it was.
The chief of camel dung and jackasses. I'm sitting in my room under the horsehair blanket, and I feel that laugh still crawling all over me.
Later
After last I wrote, I begged Cook for a moment with Saren. I took her into the sugar closet, where I feel suffocated but she seems to calm. Cook used to keep it locked, the sugar safe from prying fingers, but this one's empty now, what with traders from the south avoiding the Eight Realms since Khasar began his warring. I took Saren's hands.
I met her eyes. She's more relaxed of late, but she set to blinking when she heard me mention Khasar's name.
'My lady, once you told me that Khasar is a beast, that you saw him tear a goat's throat with his teeth. I need to know what you meant. Please tell me.'
Her eyes went so wide I thought she'd never blink again, and she shook her head.
'He's here, my lady. His armies are camped outside the wall. They'll do here what they did to Titor's Garden if we don't --'
That was stupidity on my part. I should've kept that news silent, because then she set to shaking and moaning.
'He's here, he's coming in for me, I knew he would, he won't let me be, I'd rather be dead --'
