Chapter 28

When the Miscreant set sail shortly after dawn, Ihsan set them on a westerly course for the Hollow. Nayyan leaned against the mainmast, bouncing Ransaneh in her arms. Ihsan still hadn’t told her about his own affliction. It didn’t feel right.

It likely never will.

He knew it was so, yet still he remained silent.

Perhaps tonight after we anchor and take our evening meal.

Ihsan took the stairs up to the foredeck, where Ibrahim sat with his back to the bulwark. He was absently stroking his long, gray beard while reading a Blue Journal.

Inevra, their stout old buzzard of a captain, was there as well. Eyeing Ihsan, she doffed the leather, sweat-stained monstrosity she referred to as a hat and wiped her brow with the back of one sleeve. “I’ve never sailed this stretch of sand,” she said in her craggy voice. “The navy had orders to avoid the Hollow since well before I became a sandswoman, and I’ve been sailing for fifty years.” She fanned herself with the hat then returned it to her head, situating it just so. “The caravans avoid it too. And not just because of the reefs. It gives off a feel, they say.”

“A feel,” Ihsan repeated.

Inevra nodded while pointing to Ihsan’s belly. “They say it’s like someone’s trying to pull out your insides through the button your mother gave you. We’ll make for the center of that stretch. Unless I’m the beetle-brained fool my father always told me I was, that’s where we’ll find the Hollow.”

She seemed strangely excited by the prospect, as if they were hunting for hidden treasure like Bahri Al’sir. Ihsan didn’t fault her for it. It was just her way. Whatever the task, Inevra threw herself into it, and neither storm nor slipsand nor fallow wind would stop her.

“Can you feel it,” she bellowed to Ihsan near midday, “your gut sinking?” She was peering intently off the starboard bow, toward a broad stretch of rocky reefs. “We’re getting nearer!”

He felt it a bit, but in truth, Ihsan was having trouble concentrating on anything but the future that awaited both him and Nayyan. There were no two ways about it. It was only a matter of time before the black mould saw them dead. He doubted even Azad’s fabled draughts, assuming any still existed, could save them now.

At the mainmast, Nayyan noticed Ihsan’s stare. She looked as if she were ready to say something, then let her gaze drift back to the way ahead.

“We’ll stop Meryam,” she’d said that morning. “We’ll stop her, and we’ll save Sharakhai. We’ll leave our daughter a desert that is whole, not fractured by the gods.”

Nayyan seemed to be clinging to that notion like a rock in a storm-wracked sea. Though she didn’t realize it, Ihsan was clinging to the very same rock. The game that had begun on Beht Ihman four centuries earlier was tilted in the gods’ favor, but there were moves yet to make, and if anything had been proven over the past several years, it was that the gods were not infallible. They’d stumbled more than once. It was up to Ihsan and Nayyan to make sure they stumbled again.

As the Miscreant sidled along the lee of a dune, the uneasy feeling in Ihsan’s gut intensified. It felt like someone had poked a meat hook through his belly and was rooting around, trying to snag his innards.

“My Lord King?”

The summons had come from Yndris, who had a spyglass pressed to one eye. She held the glass out for Ihsan to take, but he could already see what was worrying her. Two points off the starboard bow, a dark cloud billowed along the horizon. When he peered down the spyglass’s length, he saw it wasn’t formed of sand and dust, but individual shapes, winged forms.

“Demons,” he breathed. “Hundreds of them, thousands.” They swirled in a gyre like a colony of bats.

Ibrahim snapped the Blue Journal closed and stood. Using a ratline to steady himself, he squinted into the distance. “Queen Meryam’s found the Hollow then?”

“Meryam is a queen no longer,” Ihsan replied, “but yes, she surely has. We may have arrived in time, though. She may not have used Goezhen’s body to—” His words trailed away, for just then the cloud erupted like a geyser. “By the great beyond . . .”

Nayyan gave Ransaneh over to her wet nurse, then took the spyglass from Ihsan. “Bloody gods,” she breathed a moment later.

As the Miscreant eased over another dune, the entire crew stared, mouths agape. The column lifted higher and higher into the clear blue sky, a murmuration of inconceivable scale complete with an attenuated sound, a screeching, a wailing that pierced the air, intensifying the already ill feeling in Ihsan’s gut.

After long minutes, the column began to settle and the demons were lost from view.

No one moved. No one said a word. It felt as if to do so would rile the demons anew.

“What are the chances,” Ihsan ventured, “that they’ve all gone back into their hole?”

Nayyan looked unamused. “She’s done it, then. She’s found Ashael.”

“It appears so, but finding a lost god and controlling him are two different things.”

“Did the journals say anything about this?” She motioned to where the demons had risen. “A fount of some sort? A column of darkness? Smoke rising from a pit?”

“Nothing that I can recall.”

A silence passed, broken by a question from Ibrahim that echoed Ihsan’s own thoughts. “What will she do now that she’s raised him?”

Ihsan shrugged. “I imagine she’ll march on Sharakhai. But she’s entering a bargain with an elder. It may take days, weeks to get what she wants from him.”

No sooner had he said the words than Yndris called again from the gunwales, “It will take neither weeks nor days, it seems.”

The cloud had picked up again. It was no great column in the sky now, but a simmering shadow along the horizon. Part of the cloud was breaking away, and was heading toward the Miscreant at great speed.

“Draw in the sails!” Inevra called. “Anchor the ship!”

They crew worked smartly, and then filed down the stairs belowdecks. “Batten down the hatches!” Inevra bellowed. “Prepare for battle!”

The hold plummeted into shadow as they secured all hatches, doors, and shutters. They prepared weapons—swords and shields, bows and arrows, which the Maidens and soldiers aboard could use through the arrow slits built into the hull.

They watched the skies through those same slits as the demons approached. Some were small as cats while others were large as mastiffs. Some few were taller than men. These bore crude black iron weapons. Tridents. Spears. Bent swords with dull blades that could nevertheless kill a man if swung with enough force. Their eyes were wild with glee. Their mouths were split wide, revealing rows of needle-like teeth.

The sound of flapping wings rose up, grew louder. Ransaneh began to cry. Then the demons arrived.

They threw themselves against the ship. They crashed against the hull, creating dull, pounding thuds that sounded like a tumult of Kundhuni war drums. The demons with spears and tridents attempted to stave in the arrow slits, to widen them, to give the lesser demons greater purchase. And indeed, as the wooden planks gave way beneath the repeated blows, long black claws reached in. They tore at the hull. Bit by bit the openings widened, and more demons rammed the hatches. Ihsan saw them fly high into the air, then streak down to throw their weight against the doors.

The sound was deafening. The demons’ high-pitched screams blended into a maddening dissonance. Ihsan could hardly think from the sheer intensity of it. And the longer it went on, the more fear spiraled within him.

“Begone!” he yelled at those near the arrow slit he was manning. “Leave this ship unspoiled!”

He poured all the power he could manage into his words. The searing pain along his tongue, throat, and the roof of his mouth was proof that his power was flowing, but the commands had no effect.

The crew loosed arrows. They stabbed through the openings with sword and spear. The demons were not invulnerable. Some fell, their flesh cut deeply, black blood flowing from their wounds. But when one dropped, there were always more to take its place.

From the top of the stairs at the aft end of the battle deck came a hard thud. Light streamed down and soldiers screamed.

“To me!” came Yndris’s rally cry.

A dozen soldiers and crewmen rallied to her position at the base of the stairs, ready as demons gushed in.

Behind Ihsan, across the open deck, one of the openings was now large enough that smaller demons were slipping through. Light flooded the ship’s interior as a spindly demon ripped several hull boards away. The sound of them, their screams, became deafening.

A great roar came from Ihsan’s left. Captain Inevra rushed forward, holding an overturned table. Her burly cuss of a first mate was there with her. Together, they rammed the table against the opening. Other crewmen were close behind with hammers and nails at the ready. They pounded the nails quickly and efficiently, securing the table against the hull. It was a temporary measure at best, but it seemed to have worked—the pounding against the table ceased, and the demons swarmed to the other exposed arrow slits.

The rest of the crew focused on demons that had squirmed their way through the opening. One soldier was lost when a demon tore a great hunk of flesh from his neck. A Maiden fell screaming when another sliced her leg at the back of one ankle. A small demon with two sets of wings writhed in the air around Ihsan. Ignoring the pain in his ribs, Ihsan drew his fighting knife and swung for it. The demon avoided him with sinuous ease, and when he advanced and struck wildly, it slid past him and fell upon Ransaneh’s wet nurse.

“No!” he shouted and dove forward. Heedless of the demon’s claws, he ripped it from the wet nurse’s neck before it had a chance to sink its teeth into her, then he slammed it down on the deck and stabbed its writhing form over and over.

By the time he was done, the flesh along his forearm and wrist was a shambles. Bloody furrows ran deep, some cutting into muscle, but at least the thing was dead. The others had dispatched the remaining demons, at the cost of three more soldiers.

Forward, the sounds of struggle had faded. Yndris seemed to have stemmed the tide for now.

“We can’t go on like this,” Nayyan said.

Ibrahim was nearby. He was staring at the arrow slits, the expression on his face an odd mixture of fear and calculation. “I need silver.”

Ihsan stared at him. “What?”

“There’s no time to explain. Bring me all the silver coins you can find.”

Ihsan didn’t know what he was on about, but he was aware there was a special connection between demonkind and silver. “The coffer,” he said to Captain Inevra. “Bring it.”

As the fighting continued, she rushed with her first mate toward the armory at the fore of the ship. They returned a short while later carrying a heavy chest between them. Inevra unlocked it and threw the lid back to reveal several leather bags. Ihsan pulled one out. It jingled as he set it hard onto the deck. After tugging the mouth open to reveal a not-inconsiderable sum of silver coins, he looked to Ibrahim. “Your silver.”

Ibrahim nodded and scooped up a handful. “Help me. Everyone aboard takes one coin. They wish upon it, then hand it back. Quickly now.”

“Wish for what?” Ihsan asked.

“No one can be guided in this. They’ll wish for what they may, though I rather think many will wish for salvation.”

As the battle waged on, Ihsan and Nayyan did as he asked. The three of them moved from soldier to soldier, crewman to crewman. Ibrahim insisted that the wounded were included. Anyone who was conscious took a coin, closed their eyes, and made a wish. After kissing it, the coins were collected. Nayyan, Ihsan, and Ibrahim were the last to complete the ritual. They had thirty-three in the end.

The distraction of performing the ritual with the coins threw their defense into disarray. The hatch at the top of the stairs, hastily repaired, was sundered completely. More boards near the aft end of the deck gave way. The screams of the demons came louder. It made it nearly impossible to think of anything but fighting to the death or fleeing.

Ibrahim cupped the coins in his hands. “Now help me!” he cried as he rushed aft.

Ihsan didn’t argue. Nor did Nayyan. They, along with the captain, her first mate, Yndris, and the remaining Blade Maidens, slashed their way past the demons.

Ibrahim, gripping the coins tightly, motioned to the large ramp, the one that could be lowered to the sand to lade and unlade cargo. “Open it!” he cried over the sounds of battle.

“That will let all of them in!”

Ibrahim took in the carnage around them. “They’re already in.”

Swallowing hard, Ihsan nodded. He lifted one of the two levers that would lower the ramp while Nayyan worked the other. The ramp dropped with a thud. The sound of flapping, of demons screaming, came louder.

Ibrahim sprinted down the ramp and onto the sands as quickly as his aged frame would allow him, his beard trailing behind him like a scarf.

Demons followed. They streaked past him, slashed at him with their claws. One tugged sharply on the hem of his thawb, sending him tumbling. He got up again immediately and continued on. His flesh took slash after slash from claws and teeth, but still he went on, shouting his fear and pain as he went. One of the larger demons hovered into view. It raised a bent trident and launched it toward Ibrahim with a heave and a piercing cry.

It caught Ibrahim in the back. Down he fell, and the coins spilled everywhere. They glinted through the air, diamonds set ablaze by the sun. They pattered against the sand, kicking up tiny clouds of dust that settled immediately.

And still the battle raged on. They’d failed. Ibrahim had sacrificed himself for nothing.

“Close the ramp!” Captain Inevra called.

“Wait,” Ihsan ordered.

The larger demon, the one that had thrown the trident, was hovering closer to Ibrahim. Ihsan thought perhaps it wanted its weapon back, or wished to feast on the man who writhed slowly, his hands grasping at the sand. But no. The demon flew beyond Ibrahim’s prone form to the coins. It landed, staring at the nearest of them. It crouched, transfixed, and picked one up. It licked the silver with a forked tongue.

It was just reaching for another when a second demon came streaking in and snatched the coin away. When the first fought for it, the other slashed back with its crude iron sword. It created an opening for more demons to grab the fallen coins. A half-dozen came at first, each snatching up a piece of silver to call their own. Others fought for the tiny treasures. The small, cat-sized demons seemed to fare better at first. They would snatch one up and fly away, but others would catch them, tear into them, leaving them broken, dying, their black blood spilling on the amber sand.

Soon hundreds of demons were fighting. Some fled from the suddenly intense battle and flew hard for the main host in the distance. Others chased them, screeching as they went. The few demons still attacking the ship seemed to lose interest. They broke away, one by one, to chase after the retreating host. Soon none were left but those too wounded to fly, and those were quickly dispatched.

Ihsan ran to Ibrahim. Others brought metal-working tools and cut away the tooth of the trident that had pierced his abdomen and carefully removed the weapon from his flesh. They stuffed two lumps of black lotus between his cheek and gums for the pain, then let the ship’s surgeon stitch him as best he could.

“How did you know?” Ihsan asked Ibrahim.

The old storyteller’s eyes were languid. With no small amount of effort, he drew his gaze from the sky and focused on Ihsan. “It was one of the legends of Bahri Al’sir. A sultan had assigned a demon to guard Bahri Al’sir for having stolen a piece of his magical bread. Bahri Al’sir used the silver to escape.”

“You bet your life on a fable?”

Ibrahim smiled. “All stories have a kernel of truth in them, my King.”

Ihsan couldn’t help it. He laughed. “You’re a stupid, bloody fool, you know that?”

Even with his eyes glazing over from the black lotus, Ibrahim looked proud. “Well, we had to do something.”

“Yes, we did.” Ihsan studied the fluttering black cloud in the distance. “We still do.”