The Bird King(74)

“No one offers me peace or safety except to keep me as a possession,” she said aloud. “No one reaches out to me except to take what little I have.”

The pillar of flame gnashed its teeth. Fatima could see the tents of the camp again, and the muddy track that wound between them, and on unsteady feet, she began to walk away.

“Wait,” called Azalel. “Stop—I’m sorry. It’s only my nature. Please stop. If you’re caught, my brother will be cross with me.”

Fatima kept going. The mud sucked at her boots and made her wobble, and for a bare moment, she allowed herself to appreciate the ludicrousness of her position.

“Go away,” she called without turning. The mud released her foot with a squelch.

“You’re going to die,” came Azalel’s voice, rich with amusement.

“I’m going to get Hassan,” said Fatima.

There was a sigh or a snarl and Azalel appeared beside her again. She lifted her arm and sheltered Fatima beneath it, letting her long sleeve fall between Fatima and the white tents, so that when Fatima looked to her left, she saw only the piercing starlight of the Empty Quarter.

“Quickly then,” said Azalel. “Dawn is coming.”

Fatima rushed along the muddy path as fast as her sodden boots would allow. The tents were all identical, anonymous; some had armor piled outside, or disorderly weapon racks, or empty plates of food, but there was no sign of Hassan, nor any way to determine where he might be held.

“Where would they keep him?” whispered Fatima.

“Perhaps he’s over there,” said Azalel, who sounded bored. “In the tent with the guards outside and a scribe’s satchel lying in the mud.”

Fatima stopped where she was and batted Azalel’s sleeve out of her eyes. The starlight cleared: beyond it was another tent, larger than the others and set apart. Two men stood before it wearing half helms and holding pikestaffs, their heads nodding above their breastplates. In the mud at their feet, like the limp remains of a carcass on a butcher’s floor, lay Hassan’s leather carry case.

The sight of it filled Fatima with dread. She stuffed her knuckles into her mouth and bit down to keep from screaming. Not knowing what she did, she broke away from Azalel and began to run. The guard to the left of the tent flap, taller and heavier than the other, snapped awake, his head jerking up, his bloodshot eyes widening in disbelief. He lifted his pike.

There was a blur of black-and-gold and the jingling rebuke of small bells. The guard choked and stumbled, dark blood pouring from his neck, the scent of it so pungent that Fatima gagged. Dizzy, she reeled into the second man, who dropped as though felled by a lightning bolt, his throat open to the spine. Azalel stood over her kills impassively.

“Go,” she said, her mouth full of blood.

Fatima went. She pushed through the tent flap into the gloomy interior, blinking impatiently until her night blindness passed.

“Hassan?” she called softly.

There was motion in the darkness. Hassan, kneeling, looked at her with vacant eyes, his skin a sickly yellow. For a moment, Fatima couldn’t understand why he didn’t get to his feet. Then she saw the cord snaking between his wrists and ankles. She fell to her own knees then. Outside, Azalel growled and paced on all fours.

“You’ll bring the whole camp down on you if you don’t hurry,” she snapped.

Fatima ignored her. She tried to draw her knife to cut Hassan’s bonds, but her hands shook too much to manage it. He looked through her without recognition, his body slack, his lips moving soundlessly.

“Say something,” Fatima whispered. Hassan twitched. A wet feeling spread across Fatima’s knee, drop by drop: she looked down and saw a dark stain on the lap of her robe. Panicked, she searched for the source of the blood, folding back tunic and undershirt and sash, but Hassan’s clothes were clean, his face and arms unmarked. It was only when she looked down at his hands that she understood.

Tiny blades, as light and slim as bird feathers, had been shoved under the thumbnail and fingernails of Hassan’s left hand, the hand with which he wrote and drew his maps. The bed of each nail was a dark crimson, the effect of it oddly beautiful, as though he had decorated himself with henna for a festival, filing his nails to sharp points. The ghosts of his pain slid through her own hands, making them throb in time to her heartbeat. She clenched and unclenched them.

“Hassan,” she begged softly. “Please.”

Hassan blinked and attempted to focus.

“I’m thirsty,” he said. Fatima scrambled backward, searching in the dark; she encountered a small table and heard what might have been a wooden cup fall over and roll away. She grabbed at it, and at the pitcher that stood near it, and poured out a cupful of liquid she couldn’t identify, pressing it to Hassan’s chapped lips.

He drank in hurried swallows, moisture beading on the fringe of his beard.

“That’s mead,” he said in vague appreciation.

Fatima heard noise outside the tent: Azalel growled anxiously.

“My love,” she said, “we have to go. I’m going to—I’m going to—” she looked down at his hands and began to cry.

“Let me,” hissed Azalel, pushing past her. She squatted in front of Hassan and took his left hand between her talons.

“Look at her,” Azalel instructed, jerking her chin at Fatima. Hassan, stricken, did as he was told.