Blood's Pride (Shattered Kingdoms) (6 page)
Read Blood's Pride (Shattered Kingdoms) Online
Authors: Evie Manieri
Shairav walked forward into the circle, taking a large jar of sand from one of the waiting Shadari. Daryan thought he looked ridiculous in his gaudy ceremonial robes with their silver and gold constellations crudely worked over a ground of flamboyant indigo, but his dark, deep-set eyes, straight shoulders and black hair shot through with silver were still impressive. Shairav poured the sand out onto the floor while the rest of the Shadari knelt down on the hard stone and looked away. Everyone – except for Daryan – assiduously averted their eyes while the old priest scratched the prayer into the sand; he was watching Shairav carefully, mouthing the words to himself as they emerged from beneath the asha’s sharp fingers.
‘You don’t look away?’ Mariya whispered to him with a thrill of fear in her voice.
‘No – it’s not a sin for me, because I’m the— you know,’ he whispered back. ‘Not many people know it, but it’s one of the ancient privileges. All the daimons used to read and write. My uncle said my father and my grandfather never bothered with it, but I made him teach me anyway.’
Mariya looked up at him, wide-eyed. ‘What for?’
He answered with a tiny shrug, but when she looked away again he allowed himself a secretive pat to his chest. Underneath
his robe, he could feel the flat, square object hidden inside his pocket.
‘We inscribe these prayers to the gods on behalf of their daughter Inada,’ Shairav was intoning solemnly, ‘that they may see her and take her spirit upwards to join them in their eternal dance.’
‘The gods are merciful,’ murmured the assembly.
Shairav took the tattered hem of his robe in his hand and with a long, careful sweep of the fabric, smoothed away the sacred inscriptions so that none but the gods would ever look upon them. ‘Your daughter Inada’s spirit has been freed from the flesh and returns to the winds and the sands. May the gods watch over us all this night, and all nights.’
The ceremony was over. Obeying a gesture from Shairav, the rest of the Shadari scrambled to douse the fire with the mound of blankets they’d brought for the purpose. Daryan stepped back out of their way and collided gracelessly with someone behind him.
‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured, but his apology was drowned out by a chorus of anxious protestations of concern on his behalf. ‘I’m fine, really,’ he started, but then he caught sight of an older man with a long nose and sharp, intelligent eyes. ‘Tal!’ he called out, walking over and taking him swiftly by the arm. He pulled him back a little from the others. ‘Did you ask him? What did he say?’
Tal began to speak, but then the expression in his eyes suddenly changed. At the same moment Daryan’s nose caught the stink of dereshadi.
‘Ask me what?’ His uncle stood behind him, already changed
out of his asha finery and back into the brown breedmaster’s robe in which he’d seen more than fifty of the stinking creatures into the world. His eyes were bloodshot from the smoke.
‘We thought—’ began Daryan, but Tal interrupted him.
‘It was my idea, Shairav’Asha,’ Tal lied. ‘These ceremonies are so heartening for everyone; we thought that perhaps we could do something for Harotha—’
‘Daryan and I have already discussed this,’ Shairav growled, looking not at Tal but at Daryan. He finished tying his sash with an angry tug. ‘I cannot perform the funeral rites without a body. Have you found her body?’
His jaw tightened. ‘You know we haven’t.’
‘Well then.’
‘But she has to be in one of the tombs. We just haven’t found the right one yet. We’re still looking—’
‘You’ve been looking for five months.’ Shairav shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do.’
Daryan, emboldened by the presence of Tal and the other Shadari surreptitiously watching and listening as they bustled around the room, pleaded, ‘You’re our only asha – the last asha. Can’t you just make something up? Make a new ritual? We’re not asking you to use your powers. Just to say a few prayers for her. After everything she did for us—’
‘Stirred up trouble, that’s what she did,’ Shairav began severely, but Daryan was spared the rest of the lecture as the sound of footsteps echoed down the corridor towards them. The Shadari all turned towards the sound.
‘They’ve found us!’ someone cried out.
‘The White Wolf!’ gasped someone else, but Daryan
recognised the rag-doll’s tangle of reddish hair as a dark figure slipped through the door and hurtled towards them.
‘Oh, Shairav’Asha, it’s the governor’s daughter, please, it’s Lady Isa,’ Rahsa panted, throwing herself at the old man’s feet.
‘What’s wrong?’ Daryan asked quickly.
Rahsa looked up at them, her eyes swimming in tears. ‘I was taking the laundry up, like they told me, and I— I didn’t mean to—’ She stopped to gulp down the sob rising in her throat. ‘I never expected anyone to be there so early. They were outside your room, Daimon—’
‘Rahsa,’ Shairav interrupted severely, ‘you know you must never refer to Daryan as the daimon, even when only we Shadari are present.’
Rahsa dropped her eyes. ‘Yes, Shairav’Asha, I’m sorry.’
‘My room?’ Daryan asked quickly, but she was already hurrying on.
‘I couldn’t see over the bundle I was carrying and I knocked into her, and then I tried to help her up, and I
touched her arm
—Please, I didn’t mean to do it. Please hide me! I don’t want to be—’
‘Rahsa, calm down!’ Daryan bent down and forced the hysterical girl to get to her feet, thinking how unfortunate she was to be pretty enough for temple service; the sensitive ones never fared well. ‘You couldn’t have hurt her badly if you only touched her for a moment. It might have stung a little, but that’s all. It was just a mistake. She’s probably forgotten all about it by now.’
Rahsa looked up at him with a reverential gleam in her eyes. ‘Do you really think so?’ she asked hopefully.
‘I’m going to take Lord Eofar his breakfast right now – I’ll talk to him about it. It will be all right, I promise you. Go on, now. You should be getting back.’
Before he could say anything further another Shadari dressed in stableworkers’ brown, Shairav’s fawning new assistant Majid, came through the door. ‘Shairav’Asha,’ he said in a low voice, ‘you’re needed in the stables. The White Wolf is already awake and the whole garrison is preparing to ride out.’
Most of the other Shadari, having quickly realised that Rahsa’s dramatics did not concern them, had already left the funeral chamber to resume their duties. Just as Daryan turned to slip away with them, his uncle thwarted his escape, calling, ‘Walk with me.’
‘Of course, Uncle,’ he said, suppressing a sigh. He took his place at Shairav’s side and they strode off towards the stables where his uncle’s beloved dereshadi would be having their messy breakfast of rotting goat. The refectory where Eofar’s breakfast was waiting to be fetched lay just beyond the stables. He could think of no good excuse for going a different way from Shairav but he knew what would happen the moment they were alone together.
Shairav did not disappoint. ‘I do not want to hear that woman’s name mentioned, by you or anyone else, ever again,’ he said as soon as they were alone. The old man hated her, of course. Until Shairav had taken over as breedmaster, the dereshadi had been steadily dying out. Harotha had been the only one with the courage to point out that without enough dereshadi at their disposal, the Dead Ones might not have been able to maintain control of the colony.
Daryan found himself compulsively counting the empty brackets between the few torches the Dead Ones – who could see in almost total darkness – allowed the slaves to light.
Two, three, four, five …
‘Daryan. Did you hear what I said?’
‘I’m not the only one who thinks she should be honoured,’ he argued, carefully keeping his tone amiable. ‘Her mother and father were both ashas. Her family has produced at least one asha in every generation as far back as anyone can remember—’
‘And they died, along with the others. So her parents were ashas; she was not – the
presumption
, coming here and demanding to be shown the secret staircase, expecting me to ordain her—’
‘So she could carry on if something happened to you,’ he put in. ‘Otherwise all the knowledge of the ashas will die with you.’
‘She wanted power for herself,’ Shairav said dismissively, ‘and she would have used it to destroy everything you and I have spent our lives preserving. Do you think it has been easy for me to keep my vow not to use my powers? And if I had broken my vow, do you think you and I would still be alive?’
‘I know that,’ said Daryan, looking down at the stone floor. ‘If you hadn’t brought me here I’d be choking on black dust in the mines or sweating blood in the smelting shacks, or laid out on a pyre, just like that girl.’ He had already forgotten her name.
Was it Inara?
‘But what about the other things Harotha did? She and Faroth were organising the resistance in the city,
and she allowed herself to be brought to the temple of her own free will—’
‘Which was foolish. And look where it got her.’
‘Dead,’ he murmured darkly, rubbing at his smoke-stung eyes. ‘Falling down the stairs.’ He shook his head with a grim laugh. ‘Someone like Harotha just hits her head and dies. It’s not right.’
‘It was the will of the gods,’ Shairav intoned. ‘She was not your friend. She was using you.’
‘She wanted the daimon to be more than just a name,’ Daryan mumbled to himself. He could almost hear her, exhorting him to action in that firm but cajoling voice of hers. She had expected more from him; she had wanted him to expect more from himself. And here he was, months after her death, so useless that he couldn’t even give her a proper funeral. ‘She wanted me to do something.’
As they entered the stables the reek of spoiled meat assaulted Daryan’s senses. The vast cavern, shaped like an inverted bowl with the bottom knocked out, was already abuzz with activity. Soldiers in white capes with great swords slung across their backs strode around waiting for their mounts to be saddled. The light was dim and the faint glow of the Dead Ones’ skin stood out clearly. Dereshadi sleepily leapt or glided down to the straw-covered floor from dark berths chiselled high up into the cavern walls, and then lumbered about, rolling their massive heads, and endangering slaves and Dead Ones alike with lazy stretches of their fleshy wings. Slaves hustled about with complicated harnesses or lugged heavy saddles from the storerooms. Feet whispered among the straw, booted and
sandalled and bare, and metal clanked and leather creaked, but no voices were raised except for the occasional sibilant whisper.
‘You give our people hope,’ Shairav was saying, ‘the hope that the Shadari will survive this torment and will someday, with the gods’ help, triumph. You are the preserver of our way of life—’
But Daryan was no longer listening to the lecture.
Isa was there.
Isa whisked aside the red curtain hanging across the doorway to Frea’s chambers.
Isa adjusted her white shirt where it had slipped off her shoulder. It was one of Eofar’s cast-offs, and too big for her. The brown leggings were Eofar’s as well. The black boots had been Frea’s. Importing cloth and leather was expensive, and Isa, as the youngest, was expected to make do. Her father hated waste.
pelts and her silver helmet with its figurehead of a snarling wolf gleamed atop the dark furs. The only other piece of furniture in the room was the carved wooden stand displaying her black-bladed imperial knife, given to her by their father on the day she had assumed responsibility for the mines. It was nothing compared to Eofar’s sword, of course, but he’d still needed special permission from the emperor to make it for her.
Isa hurried out into the hall after her sister.
still got turned around. When her father had first come to the Shadar as governor he had ordered markings placed on the walls, but the Shadari’s abhorrence of writing of any kind was so deep that they’d scrubbed away the signs as fast as the Norlanders could put them up.