But there was no time to waste. Muqallad had fused the Atalayina and would now set his sights on the Spar. Up to this point the Kamarisi’s forces had given ground steadily, but Ashan said that these were only delaying tactics. They had given up as much ground as they were going to give. Now the real fighting would begin, and it would be fierce, because they were not so spread out as they once were. There were no longer gaps in their lines, and if one was made by force of arms, they would be able to plug it quickly. Plus, with them so tightly packed, the advantages they’d gained from the Matri would be minimized. Soon, the battle would devolve into a chaotic frenzy waged step by bloody step to reach the Spar.
The unseasonably warm night air grew chaotic from the clatter of reloading muskets. The weather continued to be still-unnaturally still. The last of the spires had been destroyed, and it had left not storms, but a world breathless, as though Erahm were raising its sword before unleashing its fury. Nasim could feel it on his skin-it had started as a tickle, but he had long ago begun to itch, and it was growing as the night progressed.
With muskets reloaded, all became silence. Minutes later, the caw of a rook came high above them. “At the well ahead, a dozen lie in wait.” It was Saphia. She had been assigned to them especially, though the Matri had warned them that any of the others might speak through the rooks, in case Saphia was hurt.
For the soldiers, and even Ashan, this meant little-one Matri or another made no difference-but Nasim still was not wholly comfortable having the lone Matra who had tried to assume him so near.
Another flurry of musket fire came, followed by the urgent calls of men as they waged a quick but fierce battle with swords and axes. Soon it was clear the battle was moving further away. The enemy was in retreat.
They would wait, however, until the Matri told them it was safe.
One of the akhoz shuffled closer to Nasim. By the looks of him he had been a young boy when he’d been turned, only eleven or twelve. He would have been promising, indeed, had he been allowed to live.
The boy ducked his head and scrabbled closer. Nasim reached over and touched the taut skin of his head. The moment he did, a memory came unbidden, a memory of this child, scared and frightened, succumbing to the curse of the akhoz hundreds of years before. Nasim did not welcome many memories of Khamal, but this one he embraced; it was painful, but he accepted the pain gladly, if only to honor the sacrifice this boy had made those many years ago.
His name was Cyhir, and he had been one of the first.
His skin burned Nasim’s hand, but Nasim had found that such things were welcome conduits to Adhiya. The way to the world beyond had largely been closed to him since his awakening five years ago. Only through others had he been able to reach it. But now, since Rabiah had saved him on the beach below Alayazhar, he’d found the way to Adhiya still difficult, but more open than ever before.
He opened himself to the pain in his fingers, a heat that would blister the skin of normal men. His instinct as the heat rose was to pull away, but he forced it to remain in place, for through the pain he could feel the suurahezhan in Adhiya that would heed his call if needed. Beyond the suurahezhan he could feel spirits of the wind. He could smell them in the subtle shifts of the dead night air. He could feel the vanahezhan in the earth he stood upon and the jalahezhan trapped beneath the city. Dhoshahezhan were near as well, though they were the most distant, the most difficult for him to reach.
Ashan touched his arm. “It is not yet time, and we don’t want to warn Muqallad if it can be avoided.”
He was right. Nasim lifted his hand from Cyhir reluctantly, savoring the last of the heat as it dissipated.
The rest of the akhoz were far behind him, spread throughout the city. Try as he might, Nasim was unable to keep them from releasing their chilling calls to the night sky. The smell of blood was upon them, and though they obeyed Nasim’s command to remain, they did so unwillingly, so rather than keep them in one place, Nasim had decided to spread them out so as to confuse the Kamarisi’s forces that had set up a perimeter around the Spar’s southern end.
Nasim peered through the darkness. He looked up at the bright sliver moon. The night was already well on its way toward sunrise, the likely time Muqallad would begin the ritual.
“This is taking too long,” Nasim said.
“Patience,” Ashan said. “There is still time to be patient.”
He grit his teeth. They waited, longer and longer. He was nearly ready to stand and begin moving on his own if no one else would follow when at last, calls came from the sotnik for his men to pull back, to allow the enemy to flee so as not to be caught off guard.
He and Ashan moved with the streltsi that had been left to guard them. They treaded down a winding street that led to a large square with a tight cluster of buildings at its center.
The rook fluttered down and landed near the sotnik’s feet. “Wait here. It will begin soon,” it said before flying off once more.
The Matra meant the diversion. They would be making a large push to the center and the right flanks of the Kamarisi’s forces. They hoped that it would draw enough men from the left flank that they could sneak through with little to no resistance.
Deep within Nasim’s chest, he felt his bond to the man he’d been connected to since his awakening. Nikandr. He was somewhere ahead, though exactly where he could not guess. Balancing the pull of Nikandr was the taint of Muqallad’s spell. By the ritual on the stone, he’d been freed from many of its effects, but he was still held back, and he wondered now whether he would ever be free.
He started at the thundering sound of cannon fire coming from the east. The soft crack of muskets that followed sounded like the sizzle of a pinecone thrown into a fire. It sounded distant and somehow innocent, but he knew that however innocent it might sound, men were dying.
Near him, Cyhir stopped and sniffed the air. Like a feral animal he strained his neck. Had Nasim not placed a hand on his shoulder he surely would have begun to bray. As it was, he stretched his head one way, then the other, then back again, like a mongrel dog straining at a leash.
Nasim peered into the darkness of the streets that led out of the square, wondering if the men of Yrstanla were lying in wait. It felt as though a musket were trained on the crown of his head. He scrunched his brow and the feeling faded, but the longer he stayed there, just waiting, the more pronounced it became. He had just succumbed to rubbing his forehead to clear the feeling away when a rook flapped down and landed near his feet. He hadn’t expected one so soon. They had gone no more than three hundred paces from the sight of the short skirmish.
“To your left,” the rook said, “move along the second street you come to.”
There was something about this rook that seemed different. He knew immediately another Matri had assumed it, though which one it might be he had no idea.
“Where is Saphia?” Nasim asked.
“She’s needed elsewhere,” the rook said. “Sariya has reached the Spar.”
Indeed, even as the rook spoke, the sound of cannons rose until Nasim could feel it on the back of his neck. The tops of the towers at the center of the square were lit by the flashes. Even the clouds high above glowed momentarily bright.
As the rook flapped away, Nasim could practically smell the scent of the Matri. They rode the aether, and he had become more and more sensitive to their passage. He knew few enough of these women, but surely the Matri of Vostroma and Nodhvyansk and Bolgravya were present. Yet he couldn’t shake another feeling of strong familiarity.
“Are you well?” Ashan asked.
Nasim wasn’t sure how to answer. It was foolish, these thoughts. One Matra or another, what did it matter?