Rashid Yezuddin cursed the brilliant light.
Not only did the morning sun hate him, every clock, watch and timepiece in this Creator-forsaken, freeze-a-woolly-mammoth city hated him as well. His temples throbbed from a hangover the size of a continent, his fingers were numb, his cheeks so cold they felt like they’d been flayed. Even his ears were burning, though not from the chill air or last night’s drink. They stung from an ass-chewing he wasn’t likely to forget.
He’d been late for the pre-dawn briefing.
Again.
He kicked at a stone, pulled his knitted cap over his ears and ignored the nausea roiling in his gut. This morning, Major Khorsandi promised him this mission would be his last.
Right in front of the entire squad.
Rashid massaged his temples and swore at the sun again, even though it wouldn’t change a thing. He needed a miracle, and if not a miracle, then at least an idea. Something that would save the mission, his career, and most of all, his reputation.
But first, he needed to get rid of the damned headache.
Thrusting his hands into the pockets of his greatcoat, he squeezed past a group of old women arguing over the price of flour and elbowed his way further into the early morning market. A dog’s yapping bark added to the glare of brightly coloured stalls, the flutter of prayer flags, the shouts of buyers and sellers. He winced.
Everything was too loud, too stark or moving too fast. The jagged, snow capped peaks surrounding the city of Rhangdesong singled him out and glared down with the force of small suns, whilst its bowl-shaped valley, filled with tens of thousands of blindingly whitewashed houses, made his head throb even more. After gagging at the sickly sweet incense the mountain people—Yargans—burned for their morning prayers—prayers not to any gods but to themselves!—and clutching his stomach at the sight of a newly butchered goat, he made a mental note never to drink millet beer again.
Two strides later, the promise was forgotten. The day he gave up drinking would be the day he took his last breath.
A small, mop-haired child stood at a stall as he passed, hawking a collection of bladed weapons. A gaudy ceremonial sword caught his eye, the pommel and guard embossed with swirling patterns and fanciful beasts. He slowed to take a second look and instantly regretted it.
“Sir! Sir!” the child’s sing-song voice shrilled. She scampered after him, cradling the blade. It was almost as tall her. “I give you good morning price, sir! Good luck price for good luck sword! Sir! Sir…”
He warded the child off with a wave of the hand. The only good thing about this morning was the small, self-abasing pity party taking place inside his head. He vowed not to make eye contact with anyone again, and hurried towards the market's final stalls, wracking his brain for a plan.
Grand plans and little plans and dreams of blood redemption…
His head hurt too much to recall where he’d heard the saying, but there was no denying the wisdom. What he needed was the grandmother of all grand plans—and a good dose of the Empress’s own luck—to dig himself out of the latest hole he’d put himself in. Hell, he’d trade his own life to salvage his reputation, if that was what it took.
Grand plans and a miracle…
The miracle he needed—and preferably within the hour—was a clue, a rumour, some trace of the large caravan they'd been chasing for weeks; a caravan that had entered Rhangdesong just two days before and then seemingly vanished into the high, thin air of the Yargan mountains. Before the caravan reached the border and passed beyond the reach of the Jhiriyan Empire, it needed to be found. That he could somehow find it was his one and only chance at redemption.
At the end of the market, a laneway led to a broad, paved caravanserai peppered with animal manure and shingle-topped, rammed earth stalls. Rashid wrinkled his nose at the smell, but it was better than the market's head-splitting noise. The caravanserai was the third he’d visited since his reluctant pre-dawn awakening at the hands of a furious Major Zefira Khorsandi two hours before.
A swift glance over his shoulder and his gut sank. Four, tall willowy blondes in drab grey trailed him through the market, stark and foreign amongst the raven curls, light honey skin and garishly coloured tunics of the native Yargan populace. His fellow operatives. Every so often one of them paused to ask a stall holder the same question they’d asked hundreds of times, always with the same answer. Elsewhere in the city, Khorsandi’s other operatives would be doing the same. Just how a caravan of three hundred shaggy, long horned yak, fifty ponies and thirty-something people managed to disappear time and time again was something no one could quite explain.
He turned away, tried to calm his innards with a series of long breaths, and focused on what lay ahead.
The caravanserai’s long rectangle was flanked by a line of inns and teahouses on one side, and a sprawling, grassy flat where animals were hobbled and fed on the other. This morning, several enterprising farmers were scouring the flagstones, tossing precious manure into baskets before tipping the loads into carts driven by sturdy, long-haired ponies. The Yarga was a hard, unforgiving place, inhabited by the most feared people in the world, and nothing was wasted. The manure would either be dried or used in hearth fires and stoves, or, most likely, spread upon fields for spring crops still half a year away.
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Rashid caught sight of woman wearing a black uniform emblazoned with the city’s hawk sigil lounging in a doorway and heaved a sigh of relief. A city clerk. Perhaps the Creator was listening, after all.
Or perhaps it was the mop-haired child’s good-luck-morning-price sword.
He hurried past a line of two storey, bone-white buildings towards the woman. He passed three inns that stank of millet beer, wincing at their garishly painted doors all bearing a symbol representing the three Flames of Deenjah, the unnatural power that Yargans and most of the Continent’s peoples could wield.
With a gulp of chilled air, he stopped before the uniformed woman and cleared his throat. He hoped to the Four Winds she spoke trader’s Massayalam, the Continent’s common speech. Even without a hangover, his Yargan was atrocious.
“I’m looking for a large caravan carrying barrels of gunpowder and boxes of arms,” he began. The clerk cocked an eyebrow over the top of the news sheet she was reading, but said nothing. He continued: “There might have been a red-haired slave girl wearing a leather gag and a Thanassi youth travelling with them.”
“Ask Cho-Phering.” The woman nodded at a man in an identical uniform sitting on a step ten strides away, warming his legs in a shaft of sun. “He holds the register, and he’s been here since last night. I’ve only just started for the day.”
“Thank you,” Rashid said, before pressing two fingers between his brow to offer up the Yargan gesture of respect. The woman waved him away and went back to reading the news.
The Yargan clerk, Cho-Phering, looked up from his register with the narrowing expression of someone both annoyed and suspicious. After three weeks chasing Evannachet Ilterillo and his caravan across the breadth of the Thamdol Plateau, Rashid was used to half-resentful stares and ill-disguised hostility. And, though Yargans were less than welcoming of Jhiriyan Homelanders after a humiliating military defeat a century before, they were at least polite, organised and, unlike most of the Continent’s other peoples, literate. That the city of Rhangdesong kept registers of passing foreign caravans at all was something else to thank the Creator for—preferably over a mug of warm, spiced Yargan ale.
“I’m looking for a large caravan run by a Chandroli merchant,” Rashid began. He forced a smile. “It might have been here yesterday.”
“And who might you be?” Cho-Phering stood up, snapping the register shut. “I’ll see your permit to enter the Yarga and identification papers before I show you anything.”
The clerk waited, tapping his fingers on a long knife tucked in his woven Clan belt. A sabre on his hip added to his air of menace. No doubt he knew how to use the weapons. All Yargans did.
Rashid reefed his papers from an inside pocket and handed them over, squinting as the sun topped the peaks and set his head throbbing anew. Cho-Phering took the papers, read the print, and handed them back.
“You’re Ha’filu? Ho! What’s the Empire’s secret service want with a Chandroli merchant? No, I’m guessing you can’t answer that.” The clerk opened his register, brows cinching as he studied the entries. “There’s dozens of caravans through the city at this time of year, with wood and feed for winter coming up from the lower valleys. Yesterday we had three in, all Chandroli, and all with more than two hundred beasts. You’ll have to give me a little more information than a large Chandroli caravan if you want my help.”
Damn. Rashid stuffed his papers back in his pocket, grimacing. This was going to be another waste of time, and there were still two more smaller caravanserai to check on the list he’d been given; places he and his staff were supposed to have checked last night. By now, Evannachet Ilterillo had probably dissipated into the mountain mists with his three hundred animals, thirty attendants and the artefact the Empire so desperately wanted.
“The caravan I’m looking for has three hundred yak, fifty ponies, twenty five Chandroli handlers, eight Yargan guards, a Thanassi youth and a red-headed slave girl wearing a distinctive leather mask.”
“Ahh. You’re in luck.” Cho-Phering nodded. “Here.” He pointed at an entry in the register written in elegant Yargan script. “A man calling himself Selerno Divinuti came in two days ago and left this morning, hour before down. Gave his destination as Agarakhan, but whispers round the caravanserai say Divinuti is headed down the Dhoshe-ri Road to Thanassos instead.”
Four bloody Winds! It had to be him! Had to be! Rashid didn’t know whether to lift the Yargan clerk off the ground and kiss him or sag to the flagstones in relief. Despite the pounding hangover, the day was suddenly much, much better. “Did he have a slave with him?”
“Ghaa! Poor thing.” The clerk gave a disgusted click of his tongue behind his teeth. “I’ve seen a lot of slaves come through from Naarvik and Hadrovar in my time, but not one bound like this. Foreign looking girl. Strange hair, gold and red, red and gold. Light skin, round eyes. Couldn’t help but notice her with a leather mask covering half her face.”
Rashid glanced over his shoulder and sucked in his cheeks. His companions were still in the market. This was just the chance he needed. He pulled a pair of hundred tsangka notes from his purse. The cold, hard stare of the Yargan monarch glared up at him before he pressed the money into Cho-Phering’s palm. “If anyone else asks, you’ve not seen the caravan and you know nothing about where it’s rumoured to be heading. Understood?”
The Yargan shifted, shuffling his boots on the gritty pavement. Behind them, someone sneezed. “I’m a city clerk. I’m not supposed to take bribes.”
“It’s not a bribe,” Rashid said quickly. “It’s shut up money. You read my orders. They were issued by the Empress herself and countersigned by your Monarch. The merchant who owns the caravan can’t know he’s being followed.”
It was a lie, of course. Evannachet Ilterillo, the slimy, thieving bastard, knew he was being followed. He’d not only fled into the Yarga—notoriously difficult to get a permit for at short notice—he’d zig-zagged his way across the Thamdol Plateau as well, trying to elude pursuit by hiding his passage amidst other large caravans. And, whilst the Empress had indeed issued orders bearing the words recovery by any means, Rashid suspected Her Imperial Highness would not look favourably upon the kind of bribe he’d just made. Yet, what choice did he have? Grand plans, Rashid, grand plans. If he was going to save his own arse, this was probably the one and only chance he’d get.
“Suit yourself.” The Yargan shoved the money into a pocket and smoothed his tunic. “But if anyone asks to see the register, I’ll be showing them, and I won’t be crossing the entry out.”
Offering his thanks, Rashid hurried back his colleagues, Nasif Al’Beshir and Vidyan Fezmejil, who’d just left the market’s bustle and stepped into the caravanserai. The smell of fresh, spiced roti and cinnamon-scented chai stirred his stomach, reminding him he hadn’t yet eaten.
Not that he had time for food.
He had perhaps an hour to convince Major Khorsandi to let him take his operatives out of the city without raising her suspicions, and he just might—might—catch Ilterillo before he reached the border and recover what had been stolen: a tiny, ancient dagger, smaller than his own palm. Whatever the hell it was.
“No luck here, Captain.” Nasif Al’Beshir exhaled a steaming breath, her new recruits’s smile as bright as the strands of golden hair poking out beneath her woollen cap. “None of the stall holders remember anyone matching Ilterillo’s description.”
“Nothing,” Vidyan Fezmejil said. Taciturn and more dour than usual, middle-aged Fezmejil picked at dirt on his coat sleeves. Fezmejil had been drinking last night as well—drink was the only thing that loosened the man’s damned tongue—and the scowl on the operative’s face suggested he was nursing a hangover at least as bad as Rashid’s.
His remaining pair of operatives, ever-loyal Ayeshaa El’Khomid and tall, aristocratic Ishmail Mehudeen were talking with a nearby stall holder, both eating freshly cooked roti. Ayeshaa glanced up and gave him the kind of smile a married man with any sense should have run from. His heart skipped a beat. They’d shared a bed last night, once again. And, once again, he’d been too drunk to remember the sex, but it had probably been good.
“Did you have any luck, Captain?” Al’Beshir asked.
“Nothing,” Rashid said, toneless. Al’Beshir sighed. Fezmejil massaged a temple and scowled at the dirt. Mehudeen and Ayeshaa devoured their food. No one suspected a thing. “No sign of them at all. Let’s head over to the next caravanserai on the list.”
On the way back through the market, he bought the gaudy blade. A good luck blade, the child promised as he haggled with her. A victorious blade. Made to slaughter sky demons.
He was superstitious enough to believe it—and pay at least fifty tsangka more than the garish sword was worth.
Good luck indeed.