The bells rang every morning since the emperor arrived. Palace guards, now without their usual capes of resplendent black and gold, hammered away at every gate. They assured her the noise wouldn’t carry into the city, that the emperor and his allies would suffer the worst of it, but she was grinding her teeth during this current volley.
Perhaps it was the lack of sleep. She spent all her waking hours on the wall. When she wasn’t patrolling, discussing plans with the Tamers and palace guards, or checking in on Kumkani Lihle on the tiger district wall, she relayed news to Gawahir and Inkosi Musa back at the noble ring. His idle chatter about meeting his end at the end of a Tiger’s blade made her beg for him to stay back, thankfully he didn’t resist at all.
The shrill ringing ended, and Nadiyya sighed her relief. Archers on the walls were relieved of their duties and replaced by fresh eyes. All muttered their greetings when they passed her. She found it odd they still kept their courtesies. Battles forwent the need for courtesies. Then again, this was her first siege.
They passed steaming porridge up and down the walls. Her eyes remained fixed on the encamped enemy beyond. She didn’t know their numbers, but the ocean of lamellar was shallow compared to the Jaguars and Panthers flanking them. Did Jun trust his allies that much? How was it they came to muster more forces than their would-be overlord?
Another soldier retrieved their bowls, while her eyes never left the chaotic rear of the besieger’s camp. They felled the small groves once dotting the northern horizon in the first few days, and the foundations of their creations were taking shape. Towers, or catapults, trebuchets in the Jaguar camp towards the west, or so she assumed. As for the chieftain’s camp towards the east, and his darkly armoured Panthers, stakes sharpened their eastern flank, and more sprouted up than the foundations of any siege engines.
A slow siege, at least against old accounts she read. The emperor burned Sinh’Chattaan without thought. Now patience held him. She saw enough to attack each district simultaneously, at least with the current numbers they had defending them, but they didn’t know that. Sadly, the emperor was sane enough to focus his attacks with greater numbers, the lynx, jaguar and tiger districts would burn.
Nadiyya kicked her idle legs into action, stomping along the wall, eyeing the besiegers below, while she approached the gatehouse. It was a sunny morning, brisk and made worse by the high altitude, but somewhat warm. The sheltering walls of the gatehouse were a comfort against the weather. She nodded at the captain and on duty guards who greeted. Though it was the higher vantage above it she sought.
The wood on the ladder was rough on her gloves as she scaled the steep climb to the top. She shivered when a gust of wind seeped through her ornate scale armour. Braziers flickered, but soon stilled, much to the appreciation of the guards huddled around them.
One blazing fire for each corner, all of them occupied by hunched figures. The air was very fresh. Far from the stink, which faded since the evacuations of the lower districts. A sharp freshness that pricked your nostrils just as it did your exposed flesh.
The huddled guards in their fur lined armour mumbled at her as she made her way to the front. Her enhanced eyes saw more from the higher vantage, but nothing new. There were stakes lining the rear, nowhere near enough to prevent a vigorous attack. Not a possibility that worried the emperor.
Nadiyya’s attention fixed itself on the northern horizon when her heart lurched for Mazin. She hoped the Tamers were watching over him. Then a sudden dread came over her. She hoped he wouldn’t rush back home once word reached him.
Wait it out, go beyond the Parvat should the news turn ill, Nadiyya wished.
There was Zaki who rode to be their saviour. With no wish to keep him away from the fight in her heart, only a yearning for his swift return. Was she favouring him again?
No, think not such things.
Nadiyya shoved the gloom away before it took hold. Zaki would have two armies around him. Knowing the boy, however, he would be at the head of them.
“Girl!”
“What?” Nadiyya snapped back, jumping at Pride’s invading words.
“Why are you not wearing your helm?”
“The battle has not started.”
Pride’s bond anger surprised her, beyond the concerns of a parent, which was an attitude he enjoyed taking.
“I take it because I must, because you are as reckless as a child!”
“I will wear it when the battle begins, thank you.”
“The emperor will be polite enough to declare it?”
“What do you want? It cannot only be to pester me?”
“The Leopard wants you. Come down.”
“The Leopard?”
“Who else would I speak of?” Pride grumbled. “Who else is overfamiliar with you?”
The kumkani waited beside a grumbling Pride in glorious ivory armour, with bronze beads lining the edge of each protective plate. His hardened leather filled the gaps between each script strengthened ivory piece matching the hue of the bronze beads. Which also decorated his ivory helm hugging his face. Bronze beads crowned his head, lining the gaps and openings.
“You must tell me your secret Lihle, I cannot stand being away from my Tamed, yet he makes me wish I could.”
Nadiyya laughed while massaging Pride’s jaw, much to his chagrin.
“I wouldn’t consider it something worth learning. If I could, my own Tamed would cling to me like a tail, but alas, we all make different choices.”
She held back her surprise at his mournful scent. He shook it off and widened his smile.
“I wish I called for you under happier circumstances,”
“There’s trouble?”
“With the volunteers,” Lihle sneered.
“Tell me how you really feel about them,” Nadiyya jested, but the bitterness of what came tainted her tongue. Lihle nodded for her to follow.
The lynx gate courtyard was a graveyard, their boots echoed amongst the abandoned grey stone buildings. Morning sunlight glittered the snowlike crystals decorating the square buildings. It was strange to walk through an empty district. No judgemental eyes, no veiled whispers. Now there were only makeshift fortifications, stakes, and barricades between structures, barring alleyways.
“How are you finding your duties on the tiger district wall?” Nadiyya asked, drowning out the silence.
“My, I do not recall your small talk being this awful.”
“The duty annoys you that much, does it?”
“Your teasing hasn’t faltered one bit,” Lihle laughed as they arrived at the centre of the lynx district. Where district guards nodded their acknowledgement at the passing monarchs.
Aromas of oats and freshly baked bread frequented her nostrils, along with fire and sizzling meat. Carpenters worked in the distance, with distant clangs of shaping steel.
They turned district squares into mustering grounds, with tents and fortifications guarding every entrance. Bolstered patrols frequented dark alleyways while the others rested.
The noise of the noble ring reached them before they arrived at the end of the lynx district. Bodies packed together between and amongst the high rising homes of the wealthiest in the city. A few generous hosts opened their gardens for the denizens of the lower districts. Others left the rest to pitch tents in the wide streets and alleys.
With the addition of palace guards, cape-less like those who aided in her watch over the besiegers. Nadiyya was certain that their presence stifled many complaints. The stink, beyond the failure of the sewers in the noble ring, was furious. She feared how the masses would act on it once the palace guards were all forced to defend the walls.
It was slow going through the narrow paths the palace guards made between dense crowds. Nadiyya reminded herself not to reach for her khopesh despite the many warnings her nose sniffed. Tensions were already high. An explosion of violence would follow if they saw the pharaoh clutching her weapon in fear. Whatever Gawahir concocted with his volunteers, she hoped it wouldn’t add to her already overflowing plate.
She took the hundred steps two at a time beside the kumkani. Rightwards of the palace towards the fighting rings. Where a second commotion brewed.
“We cannot wait out this storm!”
“Aye!”
“We want to help!”
A mob gathered in the grandest of the fighting rings, hounding a sturdy figure before them. His hands wrapped behind his back, and a scarred, slender Sinha lounged at his ankles.
“Why do you deny us after promising to give us a chance?”
“That was an ill-made promise. We all have our duties, trust in the arms of those tasked with protecting you.” Doo’Sara Jahid Geb said.
Gawahir’s shameful scent was ever-present.
There weren’t many convinced by the Doo’Sara’s words. She caught many of their eyes dropping to his jagged sickles hanging on his waist. Most took notice of her arrival with the kumkani, and their dissent fizzled.
“This forced indolence upon us will spell trouble,” Nadiyya assumed the speaker was the ringleader, for those words were bold. They were not threatening words, but her scent suggested otherwise.
The Doo’Sara sensed the same and his hands lowered to his sickles.
“Doo’Sara!”
Nadiyya panicked and called out to him, watching the crowd tighten against him. He turned around and bowed at her.
“A word, if you do not mind.”
“Not at all Pharaoh, in private?”
“Over here, all of us,” Nadiyya motioned Gawahir and Lihle to follow, while glancing at the crowd slowly dispersing, despite a lingering few eyeing their departure.
“Is there a problem Pharaoh?”
“First, how is the Nau’Van?”
“I believe he is well and below in the archives Pharaoh.”
“Lovely,” Nadiyya was stalling, fearing what she intended to say to them. “Perhaps their concerns are worth heeding.”
“Pharaoh?”
“Nadiyya?”
All three of them remarked at her. Gawahir and Lihle using her name, while the Doo’Sara remained respectful.
“The noble ring is ready to explode. We cannot allow their idle hands to threaten towards criminality, or worse.”
“What would you do, Nadiyya?” Gawahir asked after a pregnant pause.
She shifted on her feet, eyes studying the three men surrounding her, the last of the angry mob and the noisy crowd in the noble ring.
“Turn the barracks and the fighting rings into a campsite to ease the tension in the noble ring. It might not take all, so I would suggest choosing at random.”
“Separate the Panthers and Jaguars from the Lions,” Lihle muttered, massaging his chin. “They seem to be the most likely sources of trouble.”
“Will they fight?” Gawahir asked.
“They will be busy moving. When we meet again, I hope we all have ideas. Doo’Sara, I hope to see you on the walls, leaving the humanitarian efforts to your more peaceful council members.”
“I plan on it, Pharaoh,” Doo’Sara Jahid smiled and bowed.
“Let me join you,” Kumkani Lihle tapped the Lion on his back. He nodded at the pharaohs and departed, leaving Nadiyya to face her healthier looking husband.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
She embraced him, much to his surprise, but his arms wrapped around her after the initial delay.
“It feels an age since I last saw you,” Nadiyya sighed.
“It has barely been two weeks, my love.”
“I know, I know, forgive me Gawahir, I must dramatize, for this siege has driven me to my wits’ end.”
“You need not patrol the walls without rest. You are a pharaoh after all.”
My value lies on the strength of my arm, my love.
Nadiyya would not voice that thought. Thankfully, an odd scent saved her. The pleasurable aroma of the city, devoid of the inevitable stink of a large population.
Her eyes floated around Gawahir, spotting a burly soldier creeping out of the palace. Again, her confusion towards his familiarity was an endless torture of pinpricks on her mind. Aman was his name. The face was still a mystery.
Gawahir’s frown dragged her eyes away, after she grinned at Aman’s wide-eyed fleeing.
“What is it?”
“Aman appears to be looking for you.”
“Who?” Gawahir asked.
“You don’t know his name? He seemed eager to share it with me when he departed the war room.”
“Ah Aman, just some trouble to report I am sure,” his laugh failed to hide the scent of deceit.
“Well, don’t let me keep you from your lover.”
“Nadiyya,”
“Only teasing. I should return to my duty.”
Nadiyya rose to her toes and pecked his prickly cheek before striding away with Pride in tow.
The hours flew by in the day, with nothing changing beyond Bil’Faridh. Nadiyya drifted as midday approached. She wandered on the walls until Pride forced her into the gatehouse to rest her eyes. Sleeping in her armour was uncomfortable, but far better than riding back to the palace just for a bed.
Nadiyya thanked the lynx gate guards for their oral paste. She splashed her face, washing away the last of her fatigue, and stepped out onto the bright walls. It was warm despite the brisk winter wind, thanks to the blazing braziers along Bil’Faridh’s walls.
Dark Tamers of the palace guard were shadows between the bright fires, watching the enemy below. She greeted each one when they acknowledged her and took the space one offered. The dark scale armoured Lion stepped away and bowed, clutching both pommels of her khopesh swords.
Jun’s siege engines remained hidden at the rear of the camp, below enormous sheets shielding them from the coming rain. She tasted the moisture in the air, and the starry night sky darkened.
To the west, fewer torches flickered around fewer tents, with no stakes to guard their camp. King Raban didn’t seem a fool during their brief meeting decades ago, nor did arrogance suit him. Strange to see his camp so disorganised, when all she knew of Jaguars was the opposite.
The east was darker than she expected. The Panthers under Chief Mandla were mostly dark Tamers, the entire clan favoured darkness. Their defences were more of what she expected. Whether it was through the sheer presence of darkness or the lack of torches. She struggled to see anything other than their tents. No signs of siege engines, not even their foundations. Their numbers swarmed before the entire tiger district walls, stretching to the walls of the lion even. Would Jun put the tiger district to the torch? There was no doubt the chief would, if given free rein.
The fine hairs on her neck stood erect, and she spun to face a tear in reality a few steps away. She caressed her khopesh hilt, but none of the dark Tamers nearby reacted. Pride’s own surge of urgency didn’t help, though after the initial panic, the reasons for his concern became siege related.
A dark Tamer in black leathers reinforced by iron plate, blotched with red at random, emerged from the cloud of blackness and bowed. There was a Cituva carved into the centre of his chest, and he whipped off his black feathered helm.
“Pharaoh, Kumkani Lihle asks you to meet him in the cheetah district. Something has arisen.”
“Something?”
“I was told not to discuss it. An urgent matter, though, if you wouldn’t mind joining me through my shadows?”
“No!” She cleared her throat. Thankfully, the brown eyed Leopard didn’t react. “No thank you, I would rather ride.”
“As you wish Pharaoh,” he bowed again and vanished within the blackness behind him. She blinked, and the blackness was gone. Nadiyya shook herself and donned her helm, rushing for the nearest stairs to descend. She was halfway down when Pride caught up. She leapt off the last steps directly onto Pride’s back and he darted away.
Pride slowed after they departed the noble ring leading into the cheetah district. She didn’t search long. The kumkani waited before an inn in the first market square of the district. The Striped Eye. Filled with the bustling activity of a makeshift barracks.
“What is it?” Nadiyya asked as she slid off Pride’s back.
“May I?” Lihle slipped off a glove and offered his hand towards her.
That serious then?
She took it and shuddered when the tingling sensation crept up her arm like a swarm of ants. Until her lips and ears tingled with numbness.
“The Cheetahs have arrived, near fifteen thousand strong, but I thought it wise to delay their approach so they may enter unseen.”
“Fifteen thousand moving unseen. Are we sure the chief hasn’t noted their arrival already?”
“I have been told otherwise.”
“How do we keep that while ushering them through the cheetah district gate?” As she asked, an idea crept into her mind.
“It would require a lot of dark Tamers, possibly leaving us open on the walls for an attack, but I would use them to mask the reinforcements’ entry.”
“I might have a better option. Bring the inkosi and Gawahir to the lynx gate. We will draw the emperor’s eyes and fix him on us.”
“A meeting?”
“Who knows what we may discover?”
Lihle stood motionless before her, his eyes fixed on her, but looking far beyond. He sucked his teeth and shifted, releasing his grip on her bare hand, draining the numbness from her lips and ears.
“Be ready. I trust you know how to persuade the emperor to meet us.”
“Indeed, I will be waiting.”
Pharaoh Nadiyya paced before the grand greyed lynx gate with Pride. Her fingers restless behind her back while warmth flowed through her working legs. The Tamer should have returned by now with an answer, any sort of answer.
Jun wouldn’t take her head, would he? She doubted whether his madness would drive him towards such cruelty, either.
No, no, he is delaying it.
She didn’t turn when Kumkani Lihle arrived as promised, with an armoured Inkosi Musa, in irons and leather. The rings of ochre paint revealed his title. He always favoured simplicity over wealthy flash in all aspects of his life.
Gawahir beside him was the complete opposite. In scaled armour of sunny Atum Ra gold and pharaoh blue. His haloed roaring Sinha helm displayed strength upon the head of a still gaunt looking man. He fiddled and adjusted with each piece as they approached. The noise he made inspired little confidence, despite the air of regality between the armour and his sheathed scimitar gave him.
“Is it done?” Lihle asked.
“We are still waiting for an answer.”
“Is this wise Nadiyya?” Gawahir whispered at her left. His fearful scent was not unexpected. She was sure she exuded it herself. “What’s stopping the man from taking advantage of this and cutting us down where we stand?”
“What about what we could gain with this, and I’m not so sure this madness of Jun’s carries much truth if he has mustered allies and an army for a siege?”
“You almost sound glad?” Gawahir frowned at her, his fearful scent worsening. “Is it true what they said, that the rein…”
“Don’t speak it Gawahir!” she hissed.
They all went silent. Somehow, the walls and the siege camp beyond hardly made the sounds she was used to. Every moment dragged along excruciatingly, Inkosi Musa yawned for an age beside the kumkani, who busied with his pipe weed.
Her fingers returned to their restlessness behind her back, and her legs begged for the pacing she denied herself. Inkosi Musa’s calmness annoyed her. She never knew the boy to react to anything. The prospect of meeting the enemy was no different.
Nadiyya exclaimed when a commotion brewed high above them atop the walls. She glanced at the kumkani, who also craned his neck up towards it. Soldiers rushed to their stations and prepared their bows while they shouted about approaching riders.
The pharaoh readied herself and donned her helm, which alerted her husband and the inkosi. Pride rose from his lazy lounging and approached her.
“Open the gates!”
Gawahir tensed beside her. Thankfully, he curbed his scent.
The grey gates of the lynx district groaned, and the gears hidden in the gate house churned as the grand doors parted. Gawahir led their small party towards the growing sliver of an opening. Nadiyya lingered behind, with the inkosi and kumkani still relaxed.
The noise of opening the gate ended much earlier, yet they could still walk out of Bil’Faridh without narrowing their formation. Fresh night air washed over her as they crossed over the serene waters of the Beast’s Tear. Her boots crunched the ancient stonework of one of the seven bridges, and while the water flowed beneath them, the last of the serene peace came before they stepped onto the lynx road.
Emperor Jun Da stood ahead, in a party of six, one being the palace guard she sent as messenger. The woman strode towards them, head held high, maintaining the stoicism of her order. Nadiyya met her dark eyes, and the Tamer nodded, before returning to Bil’Faridh.
Gawahir paused a few strides away from the emperor, who was the only one dressed in lavish silks. As tall and as ravishing as she last remembered, if a little hollow. His slender figure belied the immense strength she knew he possessed. She watched his enticing grey eyes linger on Gawahir, cruelly, before shifting onto Lihle, then Musa, until falling on her, with the hatred returning.
“Now that the Tiger bares its claws before you all, the Lion has forgotten its hatred for darkness,” Jun said, then fell into a deep cackle.
There was a surprising amount of grey inching up his sideburns. The rest of his hair was sleek black, in a topknot within a plain black sangtugwan.
“I expected nothing less from pharaohs. But you two, you would stand against your cousin for these treacherous Lions?”
The inkosi and kumkani didn’t take the bait. Amongst the fragrant aromas emanating from Jun, there was something else, something wrong. An ineffable taint that her nose twitched at.
“Have you come to offer your surrender?”
Chief Mandla snorted to the emperor’s left, the only one without a guard. His spears poked out from behind each shoulder, with long leather sheathes hiding the slender blades. Their spiked ends poked out behind his thighs, glistening and jagged.
“The rumours are true, to see what has become of a once great man,” Gawahir said, and what words he chose. Jun’s lips twitched. “What happened to you?”
“You dare mock me?” The emperor stepped forward, the black steel guandao on his back caught her eye. “You dare ask that with your bloodied hands?”
“You are truly mad then, if you still cling to that delusion.”
You push too far Gawahir.
Jun’s anger was a searing flash of a scent, but it faded, and Nadiyya didn’t like that. The emperor’s lips twitched again, this time edging towards a smile.
“Not now!” He snapped, shuddering then clearing his throat. “An’Shar is soon to be a rubble. All your forts erected after you invaded my lands are mine. Countless Lions are dead because you refuse to admit to your crime!”
“The only criminal here is you, attacking Sinh’Chattaan without provocation, dragging clans into a…”
“You murdered Lijuan! Do not speak of… I said not now, damn you!”
Jun’s tight fist rose to his temple during his outburst, but he caught himself from pounding his head. Chief Mandla glanced at the emperor, as did the silent King Raban, to the emperor’s right. Decked in plate armour with gold inlaid into every piece. His surcoat depicted the Farkry symbol, a vinewood hand snatching at a crown, in great detail. Yet for all his outward resplendence, the man was still a shadow amongst his party. Even the diminutive knight behind him somehow overshadowed him with her presence.
“It is not too late,” Gawahir restarted, though his fear returned. “Disband your armies, relinquish whatever hold you have over your allies and perhaps we may negotiate a path to peace.”
“Just as my cousins joined you of their own volition, Atum Ra, I joined the emperor by my will.”
Nadiyya glanced at King Raban when he shifted on his feet. There was no scent from him, but she needed nothing more than the pain in his blue eyes.
“I look forward to meeting you all within the streets, see if either of you are worthy of being dual wielders.”
Chief Mandla never moved his wild onyx eyed gaze from Lihle, but those words hit her just as strongly. The man’s face beneath his magnificent ironvine helm was heavily scarred, and many of them seemed fresh. His armour alone, which was all blacksteel ironvine, appeared the most extraordinary all. No doubt the most wealthy and strongest. Only a fool would meet him without a small army of Tamers at their backs.
The sky rumbled above when another silence followed, and soon a faint drizzle drummed on their armour.
“The first have entered the city without trouble,” Pride sent, and Nadiyya tried to remain indifferent to it.
“I am still open to your surrender Lion, confess to Lijuan’s murder, relinquish your hold on Bil’Faridh and call your brats home to keep the peace.”
Jun’s snarl fell upon her now, and her chest tightened.
“Next, you will blame me for the child!”
Enough Gawahir!
Even the inkosi remarked upon her husband’s words, having remained as silent as the king across from them.
“A child for Lijuan then, but you will see his head when I have him. You think me a fool. The Witch betrays you and favours me.”
“You know nothing of what you speak!”
“I know you believe this a diversion, bolster your numbers in the cheetah district. I care not. You will need all the numbers you can muster.” Jun cackled again, but Gawahir spun away and stomped back towards the lynx gate. “Spread your legs, Pharaoh, for you’ll be without children once again. A brat in the southwest, and another in the north. Soon both will lie beneath my guandao, the cost of their parents’ insolence. Abandon your Lion friends Kumkani and Ci’Ped may avoid my wrath!”
Pharaoh Nadiyya followed Lihle and Musa while Jun continued his taunts. There was no deceit in his scent, but as he spoke, something stifled his perfumed aroma. A mask of some sort. He was lying; he had to be. Yet that discomforting taint remained on him, whatever it was. It was a rotting claw encircling her heart, draining the warmth from her chest.
The lynx gate shut behind them all and her knees withered. Pride rushed to her side and kept her upright. Gawahir was long gone, scurrying back to the palace.
What Witch? Why was there a betrayal?
Nadiyya whipped off her helm and pinched the bridge of her nose. The drizzle drenched her short curls as Inkosi Musa approached her.
“I must see to the Cheetahs. We cannot trust the emperor’s courtesy.”
Nadiyya nodded at him, his words hardly lingering in her Gawahir focused mind. Lihle’s attention bore through her armour nearby. The man remained at a distance. She wouldn’t heed anything more. She just wanted to draw her khopesh and finally use it.