Pale Queen's Courtyard, Page 2

  Chapter 2: Hounds

  The journey from Ab-Ewarad had been unpleasant. Kamvar’s thighs chafed from weeks in the saddle, after what had seemed a lifetime at sea. The nights spent outdoors on the flat plain between the rivers, with not even the fronds of a date palm to shield him from a hostile black sky, chafed in a different way. He’d once again chosen the short reed. Three cold nights in a row, and the second and third of them midnight watches.

  He had been shaken out of sleep in the deepest black. When he woke, the Shimurg’s feathers had mostly fallen to the horizon, leaving the night sky unadorned but for the malicious silver gaze of the Serpent’s Eye. That, he guessed, had taken place no more than an hour ago. He did not want to think about how many remained.

  It was enough, Kamvar decided, to drive a man to kill.

  He let out a sigh and drew his woolen cloak tighter about his shoulders, teeth chattering in time with the chirping crickets that were trapped with him in the cold of a grassland night.

  What I wouldn’t give for a fire right now. Yet he knew full well that the comforts of civilization could prove a deadly luxury here. Even if they were only three days from the bustle and stink of Ab-Ewarad, this land was no friend to the Merezadesh. Rebels, wild cats and darker things still prowled when fiery Shimurg passed over the mountains that men called the Serpent’s Bones and died there, dark things that would not dare show their teeth by day when great Ahamash was watching.

  He stroked the spear lying across his lap. Few things, Kamvar decided, were quite as reassuring to a soldier as warm wood and cold bronze. If he had to spend his nights abroad under the hateful Eye instead of the thatched roof of a way house, well, that was the price of serving in one of the Kingpriest’s most notoriously selective orders.

  Even if the realities of serving that order fell somewhat short of the songs.

  We still haven’t been told why we’re here. He looked to the other men, who lay snoring contentedly beneath wool blankets. They were ten, and two Hounds – two full Hunts, which was hardly customary. Hound Majid had said little, and his replies were unusually terse. Hound Barsam… Kamvar preferred not to think about Hound Barsam. He had first met the man when their ship came in to Sarvagadis almost a month ago, but he knew – everybody knew – the stories. How could they not? “One Arm, One Eye,” was a Temple slogan these days, a command to fight against the dark, no matter the sacrifice.

  Of course, the priests who chanted most loudly still had their eyes and arms. Hound Barsam was one of the lucky few that had suffered wounds in combat with Daiva and lived to tell of it.

  Lost limbs were not the whole of Barsam’s tale. There were whispers of a zeal that – although he was wise enough not to admit it openly – made Kamvar uncomfortable. It was said that Hound Barsam had never failed, nor even stalled, in the Hunt. There were even rumours that he’d given his own sister to the Shimurg, that he had staked her out in the desert, nails through her hands and feet. That he had laughed at her curses while he watched her die.

  Kamvar could not have said how much of this was true, but he had learned over the last several weeks that Barsam did not much enjoy levity, discourse, or Ekka in general, and that his men spoke carefully and seldom, glancing always in his direction before they began.

  This trip to Ekka, this Hunt for an undisclosed something or someone, was far less exciting in practice than he had expected it to be when Majid first brought up the subject in Ashavan, two months ago, over a skin of honey wine.

  Kamvar sighed and turned his gaze south. Somewhere beyond the horizon were the Vashedin, the molten peaks at the very edge of the world, which barred mortal men from the holy lands where Ahamash himself held court. In a few hours the Shimurg would be reborn, and the glow of its flames would paint the skies. Then, he would be free of this odious duty.

  Until then, he would have to take solace in the smooth wood of his spear shaft, and do his best to avoid thoughts of one-eyed warrior-priests.

  Just before the Shimurg began its ascent into the heavens that Ahamash had fashioned, Shadmehr came to relieve him. Yazan had drawn the watch, but it often happened this way. Majid’s men loved to throw dice or pull reeds, and Shad’s luck was notoriously poor. Barsam’s men did not gamble with them, but then Barsam’s men seemed to pass the days looking over their shoulders.

  Kamvar wriggled out of his coat of bronze scales. A breeze danced across his bared arms, making the hairs stand on end. He elbowed his way in between Tahmin and Yazan and closed his eyes. Morning would come sooner than he wanted it to, and he was bone-weary. His last thought before sleep took him was of Sahar, left behind in Sarvash, and of little Ashuz, their son.

  Morning dawned hazy, with the promise of another hot day in the saddle. The Huntsmen drew their camp and gathered for prayer, eyes to the sky while Majid thanked Ahamash for the new day.

  Afterwards, Majid’s men ate together in a companionable silence, each absorbed in his own thoughts.

  Kamvar thought of his humble wooden farmhouse, which leaned against Mesav Peak at the very heart of mountainous Sarvash. He had pigs and oxen there, on a small holding just outside the walls of Tagadis. One of his sows was fat with piglets, and he found himself wondering absently if she had already given birth.

  He washed hard bread down with water, then got up to attend to the horse he’d been given at Ab-Ewarad. Lugushu fidgeted and snorted, as unhappy at the prospect of another day spent under a saddle as Kamvar was to sit atop one. A handful of emmer quieted the beast, but the baleful glare with which he fixed his master showed no sign of abating.

  “You spoil him, Kamvar,” he heard Tahmin say. “Ekkadi horses are used to stingy Ekkadi merchants – if this nag follows you back to Sarvagadis, I’ll have to buy you a real horse, or I’ll be ashamed to be seen with you.”

  Tahmin wore a sardonic half-smile that Kamvar knew all too well. The two had grown up together in the fields outside Tagadis. Kamvar had a scar on his right shoulder from a knife-thrust Tahmin had snuck past his defenses when they were boys sneaking into the night with their fathers’ weapons. Tahmin winced when he dismounted; his left knee had never fully recovered from Kamvar’s accidental strike during a mock skirmish. And they had shared other pains, when their fathers – soldiers then as their sons were now – died together in the frontier of the cold north, their unit hacked apart to a man by Dolnayan axes. There were few secrets between them, and Kamvar recognized this morning's smile as a lie.

  Tahmin drew closer and stroked Lugushu’s nose, then made a show of helping Kamvar saddle the bony horse.

  “I just overheard the Hounds talking,” Tahmin whispered, wrapping his arms around Lugushu’s neck to hold the horse steady while Kamvar tightened the cinch. “One-eye said something about catching a girl’s scent.”

  “Maybe he’s lonely,” Kamvar said. “There haven’t been any temple whores in Sarvagadis for years.”

  Tahmin fixed him with a look to match Lugushu’s. His sense of humour rarely lasted through the Temple becoming the butt of ridicule.

  “I’m sorry,” Kamvar offered. “It was a bad joke. A girl?”

  Tahmin nodded. “Two Hunts traveling under the writ of the Prophet himself, one of them led by the most infamous Hound of the last century, just to catch a girl? A girl they won’t tell their Hunts anything about? Kam, my friend, what are we in for?”

  The saddle was now securely strapped. From the corner of his eye, Kamvar saw Hound Barsam looking in their direction, his face an expressionless mask. He thanked Tahmin, and signed to him to go away.

  Kamvar knew full well what it meant for a Hound to catch a scent. Sorcery had been used nearby, and where there was sorcery there were Daiva. He had given enough possessed men to the Shimurg to learn that lesson.

  When the other soldiers had finished breaking their fast, Majid cleared his throat and called for their attention. He and Barsam stood side by side, and although it was Majid who spoke, Kamvar found himself watching the one-eyed man’s face.


  “We have told you little about the task set before us,” his Hound said. “But you must trust us when I tell you that it was with good reason. I am not at liberty to say everything I mean to.” A note of frustration crept into Majid’s voice. Kamvar thought he saw the other Hound’s mouth quirk slightly upward.

  “We are here to hunt a girl of eight or nine summers. It will not be a pleasant task, but it is Ahamash’s work. And lest you think this will be easy –” Majid trailed off, glaring pointedly at a pair of Barsam’s men – one of them was named Behrouz, the other Bosmin, or perhaps Bostin. The two were brothers, but apart from that Kamvar knew little of them. He certainly did not know why Majid had singled them out.

  “Lest you think this will be easy,” the other Hound took over, his voice gravel thrown against a wall. “You should be aware that she has already killed. She is not unaccomplished in that.” As Barsam spoke, his face twisted, jerked into a grimace by the white scar that ran through the hollow of his ruined eye to the corner of his mouth.

  Apparently satisfied with this explanation, One-eye looked back to Majid. Kamvar felt Tahmin’s elbow in his ribs. Of course she had already killed, he thought. They all killed. There was nothing unusual in that. Certainly nothing that required the attention of two Hunts.

  There was something unsettling about the thought of hunting children. He’d never seen one suffer the same fate as the men and women they’d caught, and was not sure he would be able to stomach it. His stomach churned at the thought of his own son – three years old and worshipful of his father – as nothing more than bleached bones sinking over time to the bottom of a sea of sand.

  Empathy is something I can ill afford. Sorcery was a danger in anybody’s hands, but perhaps even more so in those of a child. After all, how many Daiva were discovered when a child lashed out in anger and burned a playmate to cinders, or afflicted strict parents with disease? They had all heard such tales in the seminary. Few soldiers had seen what the Huntsmen had seen, and fewer still had hearts as calloused.

  “We learned that she was last seen in Sinmalik,” said Majid. “But this morning, we caught the scent of strong magic wafting from the south. It seems to be nearby, though it is never a simple thing to know. If these maps are at all accurate…” he pointed to the scroll-case hanging at his belt, “… we are a short distance – a morning’s ride or so – from a village on the banks of Lake Shurop. Finish packing, attend to your animals, pass water if you must. We saddle up immediately.”

  They rode at a canter, through dry grassland that turned gradually more lush. By the time they saw the Shimurg, still low in the sky, reflected in the mirror surface of Lake Shurop, grass and brush had given way to checkered fields bordered by silver ribbons of diverted water.

  They rode along the edge of a gleaming field of barley, and reined their horses in before a labourer. He had been feeding an irrigation canal with a wooden contraption the Ekkadi called a shaduf, indifferent to the Sarvashi as they rode up. Now that they stopped before him, his eyes flitted from Barsam to his armed escort, then back to Barsam. He had the look of a startled gazelle, ready at any moment to bound away.

  Majid broke the silence. “We are looking for a girl,” he said, “Ekkadi, between eight and ten years old, and probably traveling by herself. She is a sorceress and a demon. Have you seen such?”

  “N-no, masters. The only girls here are our own, down in the village…” the man pointed back, over a shoulder rounded by years of labour and baked by Shimurg’s heat. Kamvar followed the line of his arm, squinting into the bright light of late morning. He thought he saw a row of reed huts silhouetted against the lake. “And we’ve none in that age. The closest is Uat’s daughter, and she’s not quite five.”

  “I see. Tell me, then…” Majid again, “has anything strange happened here recently? Anything you cannot quite explain?”

  “Strange? I… I’m not really one for gossip, masters. The women were all gathered up and talking about something earlier, down at the village.” The labourer pointed once again in the direction of the lake, as though they’d forgotten where the cluster of huts he called home could be found. “I didn’t listen. Had work to do.”

  “How lucky the Ekkadi are to have such industrious servants.” Majid reached inside his tunic, and pulled out a silver shekel, a week’s wage or more for a man such as this. He dipped low in his saddle to place it in the field hand’s palm, then straightened and wheeled his horse about. “Ahamash keep you.”

  Majid coaxed his roan to a trot, and the Hunts followed after him, to the accompaniment of a man tripping over his own tongue to sing the praises of his Sarvashi conquerors.

  It was always thus, Kamvar mused. Loyalty to Lugal and country was a trait reserved for the noble classes here in Ekka, and was rare even then. Ordinary men cared only for bread and meat – or cumin and silk, depending on their means. Were it otherwise, the Sarvashi could never have established an empire that spanned the world, their glorious Merezad.

  But then, why should it be otherwise? Ekka thrived under Merezadesh rule. They had come with bronze and flame, yes, but the wars had been short. Fields were not salted, prisoners taken in battle were not put to the sword. There were, of course, those Sarvashi who strayed from Ahamash’s path, the rapists and murderers, the sadists and torturers. But they had been dealt with harshly, and always in the public eye.

  Sarvash had respected Ekkadi laws, had modernized the roads, had fed – still fed - the poor. The Kingpriest himself rode the length and breadth of Ekka every third year to ensure that all was well with the country. All they had asked in return was the deposition of a single cult, the hated night-worshippers of Angramash, whom the Ekkadi gave a female aspect and the name Nin.

  It was a small price to pay, and Ekka paid it happily. The people of Sarvagadis had cheered and thrown flowers when the conquerors rode in to tear Nin’s unholy sanctuary brick from brick.

  As they rode along the banks of the lake and into a village where the women stood waiting, children hiding behind their skirts, Kamvar reflected on how strange it was that great Ekka had so utterly given in to the humble armies of rocky Sarvash. And yet, had not the Artalum found her equally pliant? For all her broad walls and shining cities, Ekka was more often the conquered than the conqueror.

  The Hunts halted in the village, and Majid and Barsam dismounted.

  “We are looking for a girl…” Majid began, and while he gave her description, Barsam dismounted and walked among the peasants, leaning in close to their terrified children. When Majid finished, the other Hound shook his head.

  “She is not here.”

  “Has anything strange happened here? Anything you cannot explain?” Majid asked next.

  One of the women, young but already weather-beaten, stepped forward, her eyes downcast. “I don’t know if it’s what you’re looking for,” she said through a marriage veil of embroidered linen. “But we heard tell that there was a murder in the merchant Amashuk’s house.”

  “A murder?”

  “Yes, masters. They say there was a robbery, and that the guard Warassa was killed.” She pointed south, along the lake’s edge. “You will find the manor if you follow the lake. The lady Ila-uanna is its mistress now.”

  Majid sighed. “I was hoping to hear of something less prosaic. But I suppose we shall look into this.” Kamvar caught Tahmin’s eye. His friend looked bored.

  “Begging your pardon, master, but this is as strange a tale as any we have heard in years. We live quiet lives here.”

  Majid nodded. “Thank you, you have been helpful. Ahamash keep you.” He smiled then, and passed a silver coin to her as he had to the shaduf man. “If you hear anything more that you think may lead us to the capture of this sorceress, please send a messenger to Faroush the Scribe. He has an office on the road of Anki’s Pleasure, in Sinmalik. We would be most grateful.”

  “I will, master,” she said as they rode away.

  The Huntsmen passed a dock wide enough to load or
unload at least a half-dozen barges, although it seemed that most of those had already departed to take advantage of the Hapur’s swift season. He did not envy them the upstream struggle to reach that river by way of the Shurop tributary, but if the maps were accurate, the trip was mercifully short. Only two barges had remained behind, these pulled through the reeds onto the green lakeshore. A small army of dockhands scampered about, sealing hulls with fresh layers of bitumen.

  Majid called out a greeting to one of the workers. Shortly after, Kamvar found himself ushered into the manor’s courtyard by a pair of well-equipped guards. The taller black-bearded one wore a coat of shining lamellar. The unpleasant-looking greybeard was probably a captain, by the look of his surcoat of bronze fish-scale.

  A large dock. Well-armed guards. There was wealth here, even if the manor itself was a far cry from the ostentatious – even gaudy – displays of affluence he’d seen closer to the river-mouth, in Sappa and Lakasib.

  “Seat yourselves,” said the older guard. “Anuatu, go tell the mistress that we have … august visitors.”

  The man named Anuatu looked less than thrilled with the task, and Kamvar got the sense it had been given to him out of spite. It stood to reason. If there’d been a murder here, the guards were unlikely to be in their mistress’s good graces.

  Still, he went, and with a loud “Yes, Captain!” besides.

  Two pretty girls with slave-brands appeared from one of the corridors that led from the courtyard into the building itself, each carrying a jug and a tray of cups. Majid was poured the first draught, but Barsam waved the girls away. He looked nauseous. Kamvar wondered if the Hound abstained from drink, like the Jazdamesh monks whose ascetic lifestyle fell out of favour before even his father had been born, after Behdin Zashin, the ageless Prophet, rose to power.

  I, however, am certainly no ascetic. A cup found its way into his own hands, and he drank from it. It was beer, and it was good. Very good.

  “Well, now,” said Yazan appreciatively, licking beer from his thick brown whiskers. “This is a fine batch. My compliments, captain.”

  The captain grunted noncommittally and nodded his head. He did not seem comfortable with their presence. That was understandable. Armed men traveling under the Prophet’s writ were not typically known for spreading cheer.

  Tahmin nudged him with an elbow, and looked pointedly at Barsam’s men. Kamvar followed his gaze. One-eye’s Hunt, like the priest himself, had to a man refused beer. He nudged Manoush, seated to his left, and pointed out the same thing. The youngster hid a crooked grin behind his hand. Pointing out the way Barsam’s Hunt aped the priest’s conduct had become something of a game among Majid’s men.

  He felt another elbow in his right side, and looked back to Tahmin. This time, his friend was looking intently at the far side of the courtyard, at the woman that approached, accompanied by black-bearded Anuatu. She wore the white cloak of an Ekkadi in mourning, and a white veil to match, but in her eyes Kamvar saw more anger than sorrow. Majid lifted a hand to his brow. He too was watching the woman, but where Tahmin was appreciative, the Hound was visibly unsettled.

  “I am Ila-uanna, wife of the late Amashuk. What brings men like you to my home?”

  “We have heard there was a murder here,” Barsam said in his rumbling voice. “We have come to investigate.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “How kind. However, we have quite solved that little mystery, and your assistance, while generous, is unnecessary.”

  Barsam smiled, which was a terrible thing to see.

  “Oh?”

  “A servant of mine, one in whom I obviously placed too much trust, murdered one of my household guards and stole something from me. I have sent guardsmen to catch his trail, and no doubt they will return with his head within the day.”

  Barsam laughed. “My dear lady, I am not sure if you are deluded or lying.”

  “What?” cried the captain, jumping to his feet. “How dare you?”

  “Peace, Akosh. I will speak. What exactly do you mean by this?”

  “I will explain as clearly as I am able,” Majid said, throwing Barsam a look that was less than friendly. “We, my colleague and I, are Hounds in the employ of the Prophet and the Merezad. We have come hunting a sorceress, because we felt powerful magic in the area. You, my lady, stink of it, and so –”

  “What?” She blanched at that. “I … I can assure you that I am no witch. Please, you must be mistaken.”

  Barsam interjected. “We can see that.” He did not elaborate.

  “What my colleague means,” Majid explained, “is that the pall of sorcery hanging over you is not of your own creation. My lady, magic has been used against you, and –”

  Barsam interrupted again, pointing with his remaining arm to a spot along the colonnade lining the courtyard. “And there,” he said, then pointed to the other end of the compound, at an archway that must have, by the look of the white cooking-smoke escaping from the chimney above, led to the kitchens. “And there as well.”

  Majid nodded. “So I must ask you: are you harbouring an Ekkadi girl, some ten summers old?”

  Ila-uanna looked momentarily dumbstruck, her earlier icy composure having given way to confusion. Kamvar felt sorry for her.

  “A girl?” she finally said, “No, there’s no girl. I am without heirs, and the servants’ children live in the villages… Are you saying Mawalak is a sorcerer?”

  The two Hounds exchanged a glance, then Majid sighed. “It is possible. Without actually meeting him, I am afraid I could not say.”

  The captain, Kamvar noticed, seemed ill at ease. He had a finger in his beard, twisting it to knots. His mouth worked soundlessly, as though he wanted to say something but was afraid to speak.

  “Captain?” Kamvar asked, “Are you quite well?”

  “The performer!” he blurted. “Anki help me, it had to be the Sarvashi.”

  The old man looked utterly miserable at the prospect. From the corner of his eye, Kamvar saw a number of servants huddled in a nearby corridor, trying to remain as unobtrusive as possible while they listened in.

  “The Sarvashi? Would you –” Majid began.

  Kamvar cleared his throat and pointed to the eavesdroppers. “Perhaps we might go someplace a little more private?”

  Ila-uanna followed his hand, then reddened. “Yes, please,” she said. “I would appreciate that. This is… this is a lot to take in.”

  They passed, twelve soldiers, a guard and a widow, through a beaded curtain and into a sitting room dominated by four divans. Ila-uanna sat heavily on one of them, her expression inscrutable.

  “A performer?” Barsam asked the captain.

  “He said he was from Sarvash, took a stage name. Leonine, he called himself. I … I didn’t trust him, but then he sang about Lanapish. Oh, I’m an old fool.”

  “Why do you suspect this performer?”

  Akosh looked up at that. “I didn’t, until now. But Mawalak was … he was just a servant. Now that I think on it, he could have had a knife in Warassa’s gut before he even grew suspicious. Mawalak lived in that wing of the manor. But Warassa’s axe had been drawn, and it was more a fight than a murder, mark me.”

  The captain continued, a thoughtful look on his face. “And all he took was a vase Amashuk had brought back from Akros, before the wars. It’s valuable, I’ll bet, Akrosian craft always is… but where would Mawalak ever have found a fence? He was born here on the lake. He’s never traveled far in my knowledge, and certainly not recently. How would a man like him take a pot and leave behind a chest full of coin. And…” he coloured suddenly, and stopped speaking.

  “And?” Majid asked.

  “And… nothing. It’s not important.”

  Majid’s eyebrow rose, and Barsam fixed the guard captain with a glare that he studiously avoided, having caught sight of something terribly fascinating between his own feet.

  Ila-uanna sighed. “It’s alright, Akosh. Go ahead.”

  “Oh, forgive me, Il
a! The performer... he had access to the mistress.”

  “What do you mean?” Majid asked.

  “He means,” Ila-uanna answered, her voice corpse-cold, “that I took him to bed.”

  She explained, then, in a resigned voice, the events of the last evening, of song and feast, shukasi and sex. She told them he’d called himself Vajih, though that name was no doubt a lie, and described him. He looked like Manoush, slender and clean-shaven, with a thick mane of brown curls in place of the young soldier’s black ringlets.

  When she had finished, there was a momentary silence. Majid broke it.

  “Where is this performer now?” he asked.

  “He left in the –” Akosh began, but Barsam interrupted him.

  “It does not matter. Send men after him if you will, widow, but we are here on other business. This has turned out to be a waste of our time.”

  He stood up, and made as though to leave.

  “Wait, Barsam!” Majid said. “We are two Hunts, and we’ve made precious little progress finding the girl. How could we leave here without sparing at least a few men to hunt down this Leonine, as he calls himself? A Daiva, and a thief and murderer besides – I cannot in good conscience allow him to walk freely.”

  Akosh spoke. “He had a wagon. Wagons leave ruts. I saw him off this morning, and watched as he rode north along the lake, where the earth is soft. He will be easy to track.”

  Kamvar’s blood began to stir. Barsam could not refuse Majid this. It was not the job they had come here to do, but who would not prefer to hunt a murderer over a ten-year old girl? Especially if he’d left a trail even a peasant could follow, secure in the presumption that his ruse had worked.

  Barsam was silent a moment, the expression on his face disapproving. He and Majid would have words later. Kamvar would put money on that.

  “Very well,” he said finally. “As you say, we are two Hunts. I will take my men to Sinmalik as we’d planned, and catch her trail there. Majid, you have my leave to take your men on this hunt. But if you’ve had no luck within a week, you will return and meet me in Sinmalik. We have a duty to fill, and I will not squander our resources chasing after some primped musician, murderous or otherwise.”

  Kamvar felt a familiar elbow in his ribs. He knew Tahmin’s grin must have matched his own.

  Ila-uanna cleared her throat, and Kamvar looked over at her.

  “Akosh will go with you, Majid.”

  Akosh sputtered at that, and looked over to Ila-uanna, incredulous. “But –”

  “But nothing, Akosh. You are skilled with an axe, and know this murderer’s face. I am not happy about being made a fool, and you will avenge this slight.”

  Akosh sighed, and nodded. “I will go fetch my gear. It will only take a moment. Meet me at the stables. We will be able to overtake him by evening if we ride hard.”

  Akosh turned and left the room. For a moment, there was silence. Hound Barsam was the first to break it.

  “One more thing, widow. You have lain with a Daiva, and that makes you unclean. If you take another man to bed, you will damn him; and if a child comes of this union, it is to be given to the Temple of Ahamash. If you think to hide such a thing, I will come back here myself and give you to the Shimurg.”

  He turned and headed to the stables, without another word. The rest of the Hunt stood and followed him.

  Kamvar looked at Ila-uanna. She returned his gaze, her face ashen. He said nothing. He could think of nothing to say.

  The ruts in the road headed north first, along the banks of the lake, as Akosh had said. The Huntsmen followed at an easy canter, loath to push the horses any harder. This was tricky country, with pools of sucking mud that could trip up a horse and possibly break a leg. None of them wanted to walk home.

  There was little reason to rush, in any case. A wagon was not faster than a company of men bred to life in the saddle, even if their Ab-Ewarad steeds were somewhat less impressive than what they were used to. Kamvar had spent some time poring over maps of Ekka in preparation. If memory served, the nearest cities were Numush and Inatum, and each was a good three days’ travel away, Numush to the east and Inatum to the south. This Leonine would have no place nearby to hide away.

  When they reached the Shurop’s northern edge, the wagon tracks turned slightly, in the direction of Numush and its daughter city, Numush-ummi. The Hunt followed them through fertile land between the Shurop and the Shalumes River. The rut was green with waist-high grass crushed and bent under wooden wheels.

  It was Yazan that first noticed the wagon, a speck of red and yellow far off in the flat distance. They broke into an uneven gallop, Yazan and Shadmehr swiftly outpacing the pack, Kamvar falling behind as he tried valiantly to stay in the saddle through Lugushu’s awkward, lurching gait, muttering imprecations against Ekkadi husbandry. It was the first time they had pushed the horses this hard; the first time they’d truly had the opportunity to take their measure and, subsequently, to find them wanting.

  As they drew closer, Kamvar noticed something.

  “The wagon!” he shouted. “It isn’t moving!”

  When they surrounded it, spears in hand, he saw why.

  The horses that had pulled Leonine’s garish carriage were nowhere to be found. Leonine himself was nowhere to be found.

  “It looks like our hunt will take somewhat longer than we expected,” Tahmin said through a wry smile. “This Daiva isn’t quite as careless as we’d thought.”

  “Kamvar, search the wagon,” Majid ordered. “The rest of you, fan out and search for signs of his passing. Horses may not leave ruts, but neither do they pass without trace.”

  The wagon was mostly empty. A few large clay jugs and a coil of rope were stacked against one of the walls. Soft pillows stuffed with down were scattered everywhere. The Daiva enjoyed his comforts.

  Kamvar clambered into the wagon, and rapped his knuckles against the floor. Thieves often built smugglers’ compartments into boats and carriages. He would not be surprised to find one here.

  The floor seemed solid enough at first, but after he knocked in a few more spots, Kamvar became aware of a faint echo. He cleared the pillows away, and searched for a handle or a latch. He found one, and slid open a panel in the floor, only to look directly into the bulging eyes of a terrified man. Kamvar started, hand going reflexively to the knife tucked into his belt, but the man did not – could not – move.

  “I’ve found something!” he called, beckoning the others back to the wagon.

  “Mawalak.” Akosh said, when they’d gathered, making a ward against evil. He sounded tired. “That murdering bastard will pay.”

  They pulled Mawalak’s body from the wagon, and laid him on its roof, so that the Shimurg could see his worthy – or unworthy – deeds and tell his soul the way to Shinvat, the bridge that led to God’s country

  Majid led the prayer, and Kamvar followed. Akosh did not join them; he kneeled before the wagon, uttering his own prayer, to Anki the Chariot, or perhaps to Dagush, whom the Ekkadi called the Weeper.

  After the prayer was finished, they continued the search. This time, it was Majid who found something: grass crushed and trampled in the wake of two horses moving swiftly. It turned south, towards Inatum, and they followed.