Surrounded by the glow of intricate luminash patterns, Zatal’s body caught fire. The luminash burned bright and hot, so hot Nelay had to resist the urge to step back. The priestesses tossed more sweet-smelling herbs to cover the scent of burning hair and melting flesh. The funeral luminash worked fast, consuming Zatal in moments. In reverence to the king, he alone would enter the flames this day, for there were thousands of dead still to be burned.
When the blaze had died to smoldering remains, Nashur placed the phoenix mantle across Nelay’s collarbone. The weight of it seeming to pull her down almost instantly. She turned and the entourage reversed itself, Immortals moving back into position so that she walked through a tunnel of the living on her way back from the dead.
As she reached the palace, the colors flashing from the observation tower painted everyone in a weird glow. Nashur jogged passed her. “I can’t be away any longer, my queen.”
“Go,” she said, but he was already headed for the observation tower. Nelay hesitated. She felt heavy and tired and wasn’t sure she could bear another moment of turmoil.
Jezzel touched her arm. “You don’t have to go.”
Nelay pulled the veil off her hair and handed it to Ziyid. “You were his true wife.”
She left the mantle. It was heavy and awkward, but it was a burden Nelay would never be released from. Not while she lived, anyway.
Free of most of the trappings of death, she rushed to the observation tower and wound her way up the gradually narrowing flight of stairs. At the top, the commanders glanced at her, then turned back to the walls and towers under siege. She ignored them and scanned the walls.
“The northern wall is on fire,” Jezzel said.
Nelay hurried to her friend’s side. “How is it burning? It’s plaster and mud bricks.”
“The wall isn’t burning,” Nashur answered. “It’s some kind of oil—or maybe pitch.”
She snatched a telescope, making a mental note to ask for one of her own, and studied the flames. There were three bucket lines surrounding it, trying to stop the flames from spreading to the city.
“Are they trying to burn down the city?”
“Since we’ve blocked off the gates, they have to find another weak point. The heat will damage the walls. I imagine they’re digging tunnels as well.”
Nelay watched a building catch fire. The walls were stone or mud brick. They wouldn’t burn. But the roof beams lit up, catching everything inside on fire as well. From this distance, it looked no bigger than a tinder flame.
At a shout, men began pointing. Nelay swung the telescope around. She wasn’t sure what she was seeing at first. In the dark, she could make out moving shapes—Idaran soldiers running. There was an odd shine to them, reflected by the torches.
“It’s some kind of oil,” Jezzel cried.
Nelay gasped as fire arrows lit up the night. They flashed orange and brilliant yellow before finding their mark. Immediately, the wall lit up. There were shapes—men who looked as if they were made of fire. But they weren’t, for they fell, succumbing to heat. Nelay insides tightened like a fist.
Nashur was signaling for more horns, more luminash, calling for Immortals to respond, ordering buckets. The Idarans stationed at the wall fought back the flames with cloaks and handfuls of dirt.
As Nelay watched, another building went up before the Idaran soldiers could get there. Motioning for Jezzel to follow her, she turned, her white trousers spinning around her legs like a shower of falling petals.
“Where are you going?” Nashur called after Nelay.
“To find Kidin and Awan.”
“It’s the middle of the night—he won’t be at his shop.”
“Then send one of your messengers. Have them meet me at the Borz Gate.”
Nashur swore and called after her, but she shot him a dangerous look and he ordered one of his messengers off with a flick of his hand before turning back to protecting the city.
Surrounded by her guards, Nelay trotted down the stairs. She reached the ground level and called for someone to ready the horses.
Nelay swung up onto a new horse, her backside aching from the hard riding earlier that day. Jezzel, Hazar, and Ahzem mounted up around her. And then they rode through the shadowed city, which was eerily deserted and silent. Occasionally, residents peeked out of the windows, but no one came to pay homage to their new queen.
Before the northern wall, Nelay rode out to the Borz Wall. There were torches everywhere, revealing some faces and casting others in shadow. She found Awan first, working among his criminals. “Where’s the master glassmaker?” she asked.
He led her through the throngs of Immortals and prisoners. Each of the latter wore the new tattoo that marked him as a prisoner—a curving line across one swollen red cheek.
Nelay moved past them as if she wasn’t afraid, as if their superior numbers didn’t guarantee they could easily overpower her guards, who pressed close to her. She imagined the guards’ hands twitching towards their swords at any sudden movement.
Jezzel scanned the crowd. “You know when we do things and afterward realize we were fools? This is one of those things.”
“We’ll be all right.” Or so Nelay hoped.
Her friend snorted. “We crossed some of these men.”
Nelay spotted Kidin, arguing with a woman who stood beside a catapult as it was cranked down with a loud clack, clack, clack. “Queen’s orders,” he barked.
“I don’t care whose orders you have—you get this sand away from my catapults and these criminals back to the prison where they belong.”
Nelay studied the woman’s helmet. She was the catapult commander. Nelay nodded to Jezzel, who cried out, “Bow before your queen!”
Immortals stopped what they were doing and stared at her. “Bow!” Jezzel shouted again, her voice threatening.
The soldiers dropped their faces, their backs curving. “You may rise,” Jezzel called. “Back to your duties.”
Nelay urged her horse forward a few steps. “What’s your name?” she asked the woman. “Why aren’t you obeying my orders?”
The woman grimaced. “Yavish. We’re under attack. I haven’t time to listen to your foolish schemes.”
The catapult stopped cranking, and soldiers used a pulley to position what looked like a round mud brick packed with sharp shards of rock into the catapult bowl. It released with a thwack that made Nelay jump.
She opened her mouth to berate Yavish, but Jezzel had already dismounted and leveled her weapon at the woman’s chest. “You will obey orders or be run through for sedition!” Jezzel believed swords spoke better than words.
Yavish glared at Jezzel. “Fine. We can’t hold them off much longer anyway.” She turned to her soldiers. “Do as the queen says.”
Wearing lots of cumbersome-looking leather, Kidin opened the door to a portable kiln. Awan directed the criminals to remove an enormous pot filled with piping-hot sand, which he capped off with a soaked cork.
The same pulley was used to maneuver the pot into the catapult bowl. “Careful,” Kidin directed, hovering beside them. “Drop it and we’ll all wish we were dead.”
The soldier manning the pulley shot him a glare.
“What if the tavo changes directions?” Yavish asked.
“It never changes directions.” Nelay’s voice was low, but it carried.
Kidin backed away from the catapult, nodding worriedly. “This should work. The pot shouldn’t break from the force of being thrown. And even if it does, it probably won’t kill anyone.”
“Kidin, that isn’t helpful,” Nelay hissed.
Jezzel started toward the wall. “Come on. Let’s watch.”
Along with the guards, Kidin, Awan, and Yavish accompanied Nelay and Jezzel as they climbed the steps to the top of the wall.
Kidin rubbed his hands together nervously. “Right. Let it go!”
Yavish nodded, and an Immortal released the lever. The pot shot into the air. Cringing as it passed over them, Nel
ay waited for it to shatter from the force. But it did not; instead it twisted end over end before smashing down in the midst of the clanland armies.
A red glow plumed and spread. The Clansmen screamed. Wind caught the sand, shifting it through the soldiers, who were already running, trying to get away from something that was all around them. A fire started and was quickly snuffed out. Then another one. And another. Busy running from the sand and putting out the fires, the Clansmen were no longer attacking the walls.
Yavish stared down her telescope for a minute before snapping it shut. “Right then. Get me more of that sand. Now.”
Kidin gaped at her. “I can’t produce that much. Nor that quickly.”
“You’ll have to.” Yavish was already moving away, calling for the catapult to be shifted.
“I don’t have enough kilns—” Kidin mumbled and hurried after her. Nelay followed to see what happened.
“What about blacksmith forges?” Yavish said. “Clay-pot makers . . . surely there are other kilns in this city.”
Kidin held his hands out in exasperation. “Not portable ones.”
“What if we heated the pots and brought them here?” Nelay piped in.
“If we could find a way to insulate them, keep them hot . . .” Kidin scratched under his eye patch. “If one of the pots breaks, there will be fires. And horrible burns.”
“Clear the streets around you,” Yavish directed as if it would be easy. She gestured to the criminals wearing nondescript brown vests that were supposed to pass as uniforms. “Find more of that protective leather for these reprobates, like what you’re wearing.” She walked toward her catapult. “Release!” she called to her men.
The catapult jerked beside them, making Nelay jump even though she knew it was coming. She rested her hand on Awan’s shoulder and gave him a little push. “You heard what she said.” He started off as well. “And have them ask nicely,” she warned.
Awan shot her a grin, then turned and trotted through the criminals, ordering some of them off. Nelay watched him, surprised the men he’d guarded would listen to him. When he finished he came back to Nelay, clearly expecting more orders. “Why aren’t they slitting your throat?” she asked.
His expression hardened. “The man you sacked was horrible to the prisoners. Said the faster they died, the less he’d have to feed them. I was helping them, and they knew it. Plus, Ozozo said they had to.”
Jezzel looked around nervously. “Where is old Ozozo, anyway?”
Awan shook his head. “Died in the fires earlier.”
Jezzel blew out and nudged Nelay with her elbow. “Well, that’s one comeuppance we won’t have to pay.”
Nelay felt equally relieved, and then somewhat guilty for that relief.
Despite Jezzel’s disapproval, Nelay stayed at the wall, observing as the Immortals coordinated with Kidin and his criminals. It took almost an hour to get one pot of sand, but when they dispatched it, the effects on the enemy were devastating.
Watching the carnage unfold through her telescope, Nelay sighed in frustration. “It’s not enough. We need another player.” There had to be a way to capitalize on the sand—a way to increase its effect. “Yavish, would it be possible to fill jars with oil?”
“We’ve done it before. Unfortunately, you’ll run out of oil fairly quickly.”
Nelay studied the Clansmen as they fought to put out a dozen or so small fires. And suddenly, she was seeing Zatal’s body burn again. Breathless, she bent over. And then an idea came to her. Her head came up and she stared at Awan until he shifted uncomfortably.
“Oh, I don’t like that look,” Jezzel muttered.
Nelay couldn’t answer. She was too horrified with this piece of her plan to put it into words. “Awan, take twenty carts to the temple and requisition as many pots of luminash as you can carry from the storerooms.”
Jezzel stared at her, horror in her eyes. “Nelay, the luminash is sacred. It’s for ceremonies. And it won’t burn if you throw it at them anyway—it’ll be too scattered.”
“Go,” Nelay snapped at Awan.
Jezzel’s fists tightened, and Nelay knew it took everything she had to keep the words she wanted to say behind her lips.
Awan glanced uneasily between them, bowed, and left without a word.
With him gone, Nelay didn’t have anyone else to carry out her orders. Nashur’s messengers were a brilliant idea. She needed to get her own. But for now, she stepped up to the wall and shouted, “Does anyone know where to find the leader of the Potters Guild?” She paused. “I assume there is one?”
Criminals, Idaran soldiers, and Immortals paused, but no one answered.
“There’s a guild for every trade,” Jezzel said helpfully.
Someone cleared his throat behind Nelay. She turned and saw a mid-ranking Immortal. “I know the man,” he declared, “though I’m not sure what the no-good, lousy, cheating—”
“I want every pot from every shop,” Nelay interrupted. “And as many more as the potters can make.”
“They’ve probably been drafted with the rest of the men,” the Immortal said.
“Well, undraft them!”
He backed away from her. “I’ll try to find someone with the authority to have them released from their units, my queen.”
“Take some of my . . .” She couldn’t call them criminals, not if she expected them to continue to follow her. “Take some of my Redeemed with you. They will help transport any pots you find.”
Jezzel shot her an incredulous look. Nelay met it with a glare. “If the king can have his Immortals, I can have my Redeemed.”
“You get mean when you’re tired. Do you know that?”
Jezzel was right, which infuriated Nelay more. “I’m fine.”
“You most certainly are not. It’s going to take hours for everything to be in place. In the meantime, you need to rest.”
Nelay set her jaw stubbornly.
“I haven’t slept either,” Jezzel went on quietly. “And neither have Hazar or Ahzem.”
Nelay looked over her guards, whose exhaustion was plain to see. Just thinking of rest made her body feel heavy. Her head hurt, and her eyes were dry. “All right,” she said, but she made Yavish promise to send for her when everything was finally in place.
When Nelay arrived at her rooms with Jezzel, Tix was sprawled out on a spider web on the balcony, as if waiting for them. “All this work,” she said in her sticky voice. “All these clever tricks, and you’re only moving closer and closer to my web.”
“Then why don’t you force me now,” Nelay hissed.
“Approaching the prey too soon risks breaking the web. We will let you tire yourself out in the struggle before we take you.”
Nelay drew her sword.
Tix pushed herself off, tugging a strand of the web so it vibrated. “Save yourself the trouble and stop fighting.” She flew lazily away.
Jezzel cursed and stormed forward to slice through the web in one swipe. “How do you like your web now, you flaming bug eater?”
A laugh burst from Nelay’s mouth as she remembered Tix on fire. She slapped her hand over her mouth. Jezzel turned blazing eyes to her. Nelay’s laugh bubbled up harder, but her hand prevented it from coming out of her mouth so it sounded more like snorts.
She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry.”
Jezzel’s shoulders slumped. “Do you mind if I stay here like we used to? I don’t want to be alone.”
Nelay sobered. “As long as you want.”
When she returned to the wall that evening, the Redeemed had deposited hundreds of pots and every transportable kiln they could find to the catapults in the northwest and southwest corners of the city. They busily filled the smaller pots with luminash. The bigger pots were reserved for the sand.
By nightfall, Nelay and Jezzel stood with her two guards at one of the wall towers, telescopes in their sweaty grips. The Clansmen roared, calling out a garbled war cry. Her body tingling with anticipation and fear, Nelay wat
ched as soldiers cracked their whips and horses heaved against their harnesses, moving their siege engines into place.
The Clansmen also deployed their breaching towers—rectangular rolling towers filled with men. When a breaching tower came close enough, a plank with cruel hooks would be lowered, allowing the Clansmen to breach the city wall.
“Kidin,” Nelay called down to the glassmaker.
“It’s not hot enough yet,” he growled as he pumped the bellows, sweat pouring from his skin even though the tavo blew hard from the cool mountains.
Resting her hand on the wall, Nelay could have sworn she felt the cracks running just below the surface. Her ribs were like too-tight bands around her racing heart.
When the horn sounded to signal the charge, Nelay watched the Clanmen rush toward their walls, their battering rams inside rolling huts draped with soaked moss so they wouldn’t burn.
Immortals shot fire arrows at the battering rams, while soldiers launched stones from slings. Yavish called down for her men to shift the ballista, like a crossbow three times the size of a large man. When she had it where she wanted it, she ordered the enormous string cranked back. “Fire!”
The bolt shot out, the coiled rope behind it snaking forward with a hiss. The bolt hit true, the barbed ends smashing into a joint in the Clansmen’s breaching tower. Clansmen immediately started hacking at the enormous rope that stretched back over the wall, attached to teams of oxen.
“Take out the slack!” Yavish shouted.
Soldiers standing behind the oxen cried out a command to the oxen. As soon as the slack was gone, Yavish hollered, “Pull!” The drivers cracked their whip, and the oxen heaved against their harness. “Stand clear!” Yavish shouted to a pair of Idarans who’d strayed too close.
The Clansmen’s breaching tower tipped, lurching forward with a groan and dragging forward to crush the men who couldn’t clear out fast enough. Yavish called a halt long before the mangled remains reached the city walls.