Kushiel's Avatar (Page 77)

“Half right,” I gasped, choking. With all the strength that was in me, I shoved the ivory hairpin home into his resisting flesh. His mouth opened wide, his eyes astonished. “My gods did send me . . . but not as tribute.”

Silent and shocked, the Mahrkagir of Drujan sank to his knees, the ivory haft of Kaneka's hairpin standing out from his chest. It was a small thing, pretty and decorative. It was enough. The point had pierced his heart.

“I'm sorry,” I whispered, miserable. “I'm sorry.”

His eyes rolled and his mouth worked. No words emerged. And like that, he died.

I covered my face with my hands and burst into tears.

That part, I told no one, not even Joscelin. It did not last long. He was a monster, and deserved to die. I knew this to be true. But he had been a boy, once; a boy with a dog, a whore's royal get, brought into the zenana, and it was Akkadian atrocities that made him what he was. That, I could not forget.

And he had loved me.

When my tears had done, I gathered myself, kneeling on the floor beside the Mahrkagir's body, listening for signs of disturbance. There were none. I had not known what would happen when I killed him. I had thought, mayhap, that the Skotophagoti would know at once, sensing a change in the presence of Angra Mainyu's manifestation. But no; they had grown overdependent upon him, the Conqueror of Death, certain he would not die.

Not at the hands of a D'Angeline whore.

Well and so; they would know it, the first time they reached for Angra Mainyu's power and found it gone, the gateway closed by death. And the next step would be no easier than the last. I hunted through the clutter of the Mahrkagir's quarters until I found somewhat that would serve my purposes—a short spear and a leather bull-whip, en crusted with old blood. Like as not it was mine.

How long had passed since we left the hall? A quarter hour, at least; mayhap longer. I flung open the doors to his quarters, panic unfeigned. “My lord Mahrkagir!” I said urgently, pointing at the pros trate figure. “He is having seizures!”

With a muttered curse, Gashtaham shoved me out of the way and hurried into the room, Tahmuras hard on his heels. I slammed the doors closed behind them, shoving the shaft of the spear through the door handles and lashing it in place with the long thong of the bull-whip.

The doors shuddered under the impact of Tahmuras, on the far side, hurling himself against them. The spear buckled, and held. It would not hold him forever. I raced down the Mahrkagir's hidden pas sageway to the zenana, a path I could trace in the dark. That night, I did.

They were waiting, in the zenana. Nariman the Chief Eunuch lay silent on the floor, his plump throat slit like a pig's. Uru-Azag was smiling with grim pleasure.

“Is it done?” asked Kaneka.

I nodded, not trusting my voice.

If anyone had been listening, the cheering that went up at my nod would have brought the wrath of Daršanga down upon the zenana. No one was. A veritable mob bolted for the latticed door, and only the cool head of Erich, cursing and fending them off, kept them momentarily at bay. “The sword-priest is above?” he asked me in Skaldic, jerking his head at the stairs.

“I'll see,” I said. “It was my plan.”

Uru-Azag went with me, taking the stairs two at once, dragging me with him, his dagger in his free hand. Behind us, the women of the zenana overran Erich, pushing hard. If Joscelin had not been there . . . if Joscelin had not been there, I daresay they would have torn the guards limb from limb.

But he was there, waiting, wearing a chain-mail shirt over a leather jerkin.

Hordes of women shoved their way into the empty hallway. Two Akkadian eunuchs knelt and began to efficiently strip the slain Drujani guards of their arms and armor. And I ignored it all, flinging my arms around Joscelin's neck, willing, in that moment, to die if only to feel him hold me one last time, chain-mail or no.

“Phèdre,” he murmured against my hair.

I said something; Elua knows what. Then, lifting my head, I asked, “Where's Imriel?”

“Safe,” he whispered. “Don't worry, I got him out of the hall while the Tatar was distracted. He thinks Imriel is refilling his jug.” His arms were strong around me, and I could have wept with relief, but it couldn't last. There was no time, and the crowd was growing. Joscelin turned me loose. Already, we were exposed and vulnerable.

“Lady.” Uru-Azag addressed me, clad in an ill-fitting corselet, his dagger in his hand. He'd given the guard's sword to Erich. “We should make for the palace gates, and the harbor.”

“Could we make it?” I asked Joscelin.

“No,” he said grimly. “Not with this many of us. There are barracks within the walls, outside the palace proper. The secondary garrison would cut us up piecemeal. Our only hope is to take Daršanga and bar the doors.”

“Joscelin!” It was Imriel's voice, high and piercing, echoing off the walls. He approached at a dead run from the corner of the corridor.

“You had him posted as a sentry?” I hissed to Joscelin. “You call that safe?”

“It was his idea,” he said to me, and to Imriel, “What is it?”

“It's starting.” He drew up, panting and white-faced, delivering his words in a breathless mix of D'Angeline and zenyan. “Jolanta . . . Phèdre! . . . Jolanta killed a man, in the hall, and they're . . . they're . . .

and one followed . . .” He turned and pointed. “Behind me.”

Someone screamed as the Skotophagotis following Imriel appeared at the end of the corridor, near-invisible in the darkness save for his skull-helm and girdle, and his outraged face. He leveled his ebony staff at the assembled crowd, who scattered for the walls.

Joscelin whirled. I never even saw him draw a dagger, only the flash of it as it flew end-over-end, burying itself in the priest's throat. The Skotophagotis crumpled.

And that was when all hell broke loose.

I don't know who began it, only that once begun, it was unstoppable as a tide. Angra Mainyu's thwarted rage, deprived of its avatar, found an outlet in madness that night—and madness it was. I had seen truly. The walls of Daršanga would run red with blood. There are people who say women are the gentler sex. They would not say it if they had been there the night Daršanga fell.

It began with a long, ululating cry, and if it was a single throat that uttered it first, it was a dozen in the next instant, and thrice as many after. I could not see who led the mad dash, for it seemed they all went at once, unarmed Furies in ragged attire, running wild for the festal hall, and most of the eunuchs with them.

Joscelin cursed and caught Uru-Azag by the arm. “You,” he said in Persian. “Bar the doors. Can you manage it alone?”

“Yes.” The Akkadian raised the blade of his curved dagger to his lips and kissed it. “My blade,” he said reverently, “is sworn to Shamash. I have consecrated it in blood tonight.”

“Imriel!” I saw it too late, the fierce glitter of the boy's eyes, his bared teeth. The same feral madness that had taken the others was on him, born of long months of hatred and abuse. Like a flash, he was off, coursing the hallway. “Go,” I said to Joscelin, panic-stricken. “Go!”

He was already on his way.

Cold with fear, I followed.

FIFTY-SIX

A NIGHTMARE was taking place in the festal hall.It was a bloodbath. There is no other way to describe it. And a good deal of the killing had been done by the women of the zenana.

By the time I arrived, the first wave of bloodshed had already oc curred. I heard about it, later, from those who survived. The effects of the opium had become evident by the time I had left with the Mahrkagir, and more pronounced with every moment that passed, men growing heavy-lidded with dreams, smiling, talking nonsense. One or two had passed into unconsciousness.

And the ka-Magi who remained, new initiates for the most part, grew nervous.

It had begun when a Uighur Tatar with a dreamy look on his face put his hand between Jolanta's thighs. It was as Imriel had said. Jolanta had plucked his dagger from his belt and planted it to the hilt beneath the Tatar's ear.

For long moments, no one had reacted. The men gazed stupidly, slow to comprehend. The women stared at one another, unsure what to do. Imriel., lurking outside the door, turned to flee—it was then that one of the ka-Magi, a Skotophagotis, had caught sight of him and followed, beginning to suspect.

What happened to him, I already knew.

After that, the zenana descended in fury.

How many did the women kill, in that initial shock? Scores, at least. It was the sheer unexpectedness of the attack. Seizing blades—daggers, carving knives, swords, even an axe—from bewildered warriors' hands, the women wreaked a terrible vengeance, and the shouts of the Aka- Magi went lost amid their shrieks, empty and harmless as the squawking of crows.

Then the men of Drujan, drugged and dazed, began to fight back.

That was when I arrived.

It was dreadful to behold. Drugged or no, these were trained war riors, many of them clad in partial armor or leather. Such was the etiquette of the Mahrkagir's festal hall. And under their onslaught, the women of the zenana died in droves . . . Ephesians, Hellenes, Jebeans— all nations, blood spattered alike over fair skin and dark, clotted in tresses of blond and brown, the black silk of Ch'in, the woolen curls of Jebe-Barkal.

Here and there, some resisted. I saw Kaneka swinging an axe like a hammer, her teeth gleaming in a warrior's grin, blood splashed to her elbows. A knot of Chowati fought grimly. The Akkadian eunuchs stripped armor from dead men and struggled with the living. Across the hall, Erich the Skaldi held the doorway to the kitchens, Rushad and a handful of servants behind him, fighting with all the ferocity of his nation.

And in the center of the hall. . .

Joscelin.

This much I will swear: 'twas not the madness of Angra Mainyu that drove him. I know. I was with him in the corridor, when it came upon the others. This was different, untainted, a rage born in the back alleys of Amílcar where we found the slavers' children, nurtured by fate, repressed and channeled and honed to an immaculate edge in the Mahrkagir's service.