couldn’t think about her now. He took the dervish position, arms out, ready to spin, and Now. He spun to the right, the sand sliding under his feet, and the Carrier in blue thrust towards his heart and caught him under the arm instead. By that time Eyul’s elbow was in the man’s throat. He registered the crunch of cartilage as he spun away, keeping his momentum, ignoring the sting of his own wound.
The Carrier behind him thrust, his dagger barely missing Eyul’s neck, his sleeve brushing Eyul’s shoulder. Eyul acted in the time between breaths, lowering his knife-hand, spinning against the sand, calculating the position of the other man’s heart. Now. Mid-turn, Eyul’s left hand blocked the Carrier’s second thrust and half a heartbeat later his right hand pushed the emperor’s blade between the man’s ribs. Four.
Amalya. Eyul pulled his Knife free. As he ran to her, he scanned the dunes for more Carriers, but he saw just the one, kneeling next to Amalya’s prone form, his hands around her neck. Eyul drew his hand through the sand to keep his palm from slipping over the bloody hilt of his Knife. He kept running.
Amalya lived. Blue fire wound about her arms, covering her skin from elbow to fingertip, and sizzled against the Carrier’s chest. The Carrier opened his mouth; steam rose and evaporated in the desert air. His eyes bulged and turned milky. A ghastly smell of cooking rose around him.
By the gods-she was boiling him…
The Carrier’s hands fell away from Amalya’s neck and jerked in the sand before going limp. Eyul stepped forwards in time to catch the body before it collapsed on her. The flames wound away into Amalya’s skin.
She lay there, staring wide-eyed at the sky for a time, but then she sat up, rubbing her arms and shivering.
“Have you ever done that before?” Eyul asked her, though he felt sure of the answer.
“Killed?” Her voice held incredulity. “Not people.”
Eyul wiped his Knife on the Carrier’s tunic, fumbling for words.
She stood and stepped away, staring at the body, relief and guilt mixed together on her face. It wouldn’t do for him to compliment her deadliness, although that felt like the natural thing to say. It was hard, that first kill, he knew it. He remembered the first man Halim sent him after, a pickpocket, how the blood had spurted across the alley and stained the grey stone, and how he had stood trembling over the body until Halim slapped his face.
The Carrier with the crushed throat writhed in the sand, his hands around his own neck as he tried to breathe. Eyul would grant him mercy. He knelt and found the heart with his twisted Knife. He saw no change in the man’s eyes as his struggles ceased; they were already dead.
Eyul cleaned his blade on the man’s dirty clothes, then looked up at Amalya. She stood, arms stiff at her sides, lips drawn in a straight line, as her gaze passed over the four bodies around Eyul. Her eyes held an expression he’d seen too many times before: the look Beyon had when he found his dead brothers in the courtyard. The look said How? but didn’t want an answer.
Eyul might have said something then, about how he’d saved her. He could say he had protected the empire from the plague-touched, or mention the safety of other travellers. But none of those would answer her question. He was a killer. That was obvious from his work.
Amalya turned away from him and went to her camel. She pulled her waterskin from a bag and took a long draught.
Eyul cleared his throat. “Do you think you can make it to the well? It should take us about two hours.” When she nodded wordlessly, he said, “Good,” and feeling the need to keep talking, “Well, no point in lingering here.”
Amalya mounted her camel. Her shoulders remained tense. Eyul picked up his bow and did the same. “This way,” he said. “With any luck…” He let his voice trail off. Nothing he could say would make him more like Amalya, a person unfamiliar with blood or its necessity. He started off down the crescent slope of the dune, turning leftwards. Waves of silent sand lay ahead.
Who had sent the Carriers? Nobody knew they were here except for Tuvaini and whoever had sent Amalya- and who had sent Amalya? Tuvaini would have chosen someone more ruthless, he felt, and Nessaket probably wouldn’t have chosen a woman, believing all of them to be as duplicitous as herself. Only Beyon remained, but Beyon was not one for secrets or clever manoeuvres. If Beyon wished for an answer from the hermit he’d ride out himself, with a hundred warriors.
The question occupied him until the red stones of the well appeared, dark against the morning sands. They set up camp without speaking. Eyul set out the usual pile of dung, and Amalya unpacked her food, but when it came time to light the cooking fire, she sat back on her heels.
Eyul went to his saddle-pack for the flint and tinder, lit a flame and nursed it until the camel dung was smouldering. Amalya reached down and readied her pot, and Eyul walked a short distance away, standing guard.
Mesema leaned out of the carriage window, hoping for some wind, but the outside air only scorched her face and lungs. She retreated into the dark box she shared with Banreh. She was learning that the sun brooked no opposition here. All was bright and clear, and deadly hot. Only at night, when Arigu’s Cerani soldiers sheltered in their tents, did she dare venture out onto the rocky terrain.
Banreh told her that they weren’t really in the desert yet; when they got to the desert, he said, there would be naught but sand. They would sleep during the day and travel at night.
But she knew this had to be the desert. There couldn’t be anywhere hotter than this.
“When you get to the capital,” Banreh said, sitting still as if the heat and his leg did not pain him, “they will give you silks to keep you cool, and there will be tiled baths where you can soothe your feet.”
“I don’t want to get my feet wet,” Mesema said, annoyed he’d used the formal tone.
Banreh smiled.
And she heard it, off in the distance, the bright jingle of little bells. She leaned forwards, listening, as Banreh’s smile froze on his face and his eyes grew sharp and wary. He reminded Mesema of the god-statues up on the Great Plateau: still, but sharp. Hooves sounded on faraway rock, faded, sounded again. They were coming closer. She tried to count the bells. Six, a dozen, riders.
“Red Hooves,” she whispered, putting a hand on the door.
Banreh grabbed her wrist. “They won’t attack the Cerani. That’s why you’re in here.”
Mesema paused. She could feel her pulse against Banreh’s fingers. Those fingers belonged to her father.
“Wait,” he said.
She nodded. The horses drew close now, so close she could hear their neighing and the murmurs of their riders. The coarse accents left no doubt: they were surrounded by Red Hooves, the least worthy of the Felting tribes, hardly of the People at all. She didn’t dare look out of the window; instead she flattened herself against the wood, hoping no one would look in. Banreh’s hand slipped from her wrist and wrapped itself around her shaking fingers.
“Listen,” he said, “you are a Windreader. Windreader spears are coated with the blood of Red Hooves. You have nothing to fear.”
His soft words gave her confidence. How strange that Banreh, who sometimes seemed so alien with his languages and his writing, knew exactly what to say in this moment.
“My brother was avenged a dozen times ten. His sacrifice made us ever victorious.”
“Ever so.” Banreh was not afraid. He looked her straight in the eye.
Mesema listened. She heard no clash of metal on metal, nor the shouts of injured men. The Cerani spoke to the Red Hooves. Their discussion sounded relaxed, almost casual. She could make out only a few words, but the ones she did hear made her shiver again.
“They’re talking about a girl. Someone is going to give up a girl. Banreh, it’s me!”
Banreh shook his head and slipped into the intimate tone.
“No, I don’t think so.”
She clutched his hand. She couldn’t stop thinking about the Red Hoof thralls in her father’s camp, their resentment, their unspoken fury. She’d felt it every time one of them was near. It was they who frightened her. She could easily imagine herself in the same position, abused and hateful, in disgrace.
The talking came to an end and bells tinkled as the Red horses drew away. Somebody shouted, “Don’t bring her back unless she’s proven!” and someone, another man, laughed. A horse neighed, excited, ready to run. And then the Red Hooves departed in a clatter.
Mesema fell to her knees and threw her arms around Banreh’s middle. He was solid, not soft as she’d
