The Archer's Heart (59 page)

Chapter 56

J
ANDU SPENT THE MORNING CAPTURING A PAIR OF TERRIFIED
horses who had escaped the battle and now rampaged through their camp, kicking over tents and smashing water jugs. By the time the horses were calmly in Warash’s care, the day’s conflict was well underway.

The wild triumphant blare of Uru horns sent a shiver through him, and he made his way quickly to the banyan tree, looking up to Keshan for some sign of what happened.

Keshan looked nearly green. He leaned over as if he were going to be sick.

“What is it?” Jandu felt his throat tighten. “Is it Yudar? Did they capture him?”

Keshan didn’t say anything. He made his way down from the tree morosely. When he reached the forest floor, he looked Jandu in the eye, his expression grave.

Jandu’s heart beat faster. “Tell me!”

“I’m so sorry, Jandu,” Keshan said. “Baram is dead.”

The words fluttered through Jandu’s consciousness, like moths in darkness.

“It can’t be true.” Jandu felt small tears, black and aching, where the words had fluttered through him. Pain began to build inside him, small at first, blossoming outwards, filling his mind, his ears. He shook his head. “It can’t be true,” he said again, willing the words away.

Jandu scrambled up the banyan tree. Smoke obscured the battlefield, but he could see chariots circling off the left flank, and could hear Urus cheering. The Paran line folded inwards as the Urus pressed their advantage.

Paran soldiers wept as they gathered around a bloody mass on the battlefield. It took a long moment for Jandu to realize it was a body, and even longer to realize it was his brother.

Jandu climbed down the tree. His throat felt as though it would close against the black ache pooling inside him. The men of the forest gathered around him, sympathy radiating off them as word quickly spread. Jandu shut everything, all of them, the blackness inside him, out. He couldn’t think or feel. That would happen later. For now, he had to act.

“Who did this?” he asked Keshan, his voice breaking.

Keshan hesitated. Jandu grabbed Keshan’s harafa and pulled him closer. “Who was it!”

“Tarek,” Keshan whispered.

White hot rage filled Jandu. He pushed past Keshan and marched into his tent. He strapped on his silver armor. He pulled on his finger guards and strung Zandi. He attached his quiver and his sword, and then grabbed his shield and helmet as he darted from the tent.

Keshan stood mutely outside, eyes wide. Men and Yashva all watched Jandu, waiting for some signal.

Jandu pulled on his helmet, then turned to Keshan.

“Get armor.”

There were half a dozen charioteers in the forest, and all of them helped Keshan harness the two horses they had just calmed to King Mendraz’s chariot. Jandu heard the men whistle at the sight of the celestial vehicle, but he couldn’t take pleasure in it. He needed to be doing something right now, or any moment, the reality that Baram was dead would fill him and he would suffocate with grief.

Jandu felt the presence of the Yashva swarm around him like fireflies. Behind him, the men of his camp watched warily, armed and ready to follow him.

“Stay here,” Jandu instructed. “Stay protected.”

He tapped Keshan on the shoulder and they charged out onto the battlefield.

If Jandu thought about Baram, he would be sick. He focused on the unnatural smoothness of Keshan’s celestial chariot, the way it gleamed in the light, and the rhythm of the horses’ gallop. Keshan whispered soothing words to calm them and pull them together.

As soon as they entered the melee, they were surrounded by Uru soldiers. They were like fish swimming upstream, fighting against the current of so many bodies.

Jandu burned with frustration. “We must go faster!” he bellowed.

And then, from behind him, he heard a call.

“Prince Jandu!”

A hundred men charged around the chariot, shouting his name and flinging themselves upon the infantry in his path. The men of the forest attacked Paran and Uru forces without regard.

Jandu’s
men. They were back in the melee for him, cutting a swathe through the two armies. Jandu briefly caught the eye of the new young commander, Anant, and Anant waved to him and then ran, charging into a cluster of soldiers.

Keshan shouted out a string of words and the Yashva took form. The air shimmered around their chariot and bodies of light sprang forth and pulled the infantry apart. The sky rained body parts as invisible hands rended the Urus into corpses. Soldiers around them fled in terror.

As the Yashva and Jandu’s men cleared a path, Keshan urged the horses ahead. They broke into long, graceful movements, as if they, too, were relieved to be free of the congestion. Keshan drove them towards Tarek’s chariot.

Arrows fired at Jandu’s chariot fell from the air as if batted aside by invisible hands. Flashes of light burst over the field, emanating from his chariot, as Jandu’s Yashva guardians protected him from assault. Jandu returned fire on any who opposed his advance. Lord Ishad, Firdaus’ son, appeared alongside them. Jandu took aim and shot him in the eye. Firdaus’ line was extinguished from the earth. The thought did little to warm his cold heart.

“Lord Jandu!”

Keshan swerved the chariot to meet the Paran messenger who rode up alongside their chariot. Jandu lost his balance momentarily, and glared down at Keshan. But then he readied his bow once more, and pointed the arrow at the messenger.

The messenger wore the colors of Jezza’s army. He looked frightened.

“Prince Yudar demands that you leave the battlefield at once!” the messenger cried. He was out of breath, legs squeezing his horse desperately as he tried to keep pace with Keshan’s horses.

“You are not fighting for the Parans,” the messenger continued. “And you will be fired upon as an enemy of the Paran army if you do not leave the battlefield at once!”

Keshan turned the chariot suddenly, causing the messenger to veer off in the wrong direction. When he returned to their side, Jandu stopped shooting at soldiers long enough to shoot an arrow at the ground in front of the messenger, in warning.

“Tell Yudar that I am not here for him,” Jandu growled lowly. “I am here to avenge Baram. Until I kill Tarek Amia, no one, including Yudar, will get me off this battlefield.”

The messenger turned his mount aside, riding back for the Paran line.

Keshan whipped the horses forward. In the distance, Jandu could see Tarek’s chariot. They were close.

Tarek shouted orders at his surrounding troops as Jandu approached. Jandu closed his eyes and began one of the worst curses he knew, the Fazsharta, over his notched arrow. He could feel his skin burn hot, his face darken, the words themselves shivering through him. The words formed letters like bursts of soot.

His grief over Baram churned within his belly like poison, and fed the curse, giving it power. Blood pooled in his mouth.

Keshan stopped within bowshot of Tarek’s chariot. One of the Yashva burst into the human world and tore into Tarek’s

charioteer like he was made of paper. Tarek nocked an arrow.

“Jandu Paran,” he bellowed. “Beware!”

Chapter 57

A
T LONG LAST, THE FULFILLMENT OF A LIFELONG DESIRE WAS
upon
him. Tarek had an arrow nocked and aimed at Jandu Paran’s face.

But he felt nothing. No pride. No victory. His own rage was spent.

Anant had been right. All that mattered was following your heart. Anant had chosen the right side. Tarek, blind with lust, desperate to become a different person, had given up all that had made him who he was.

And now everything had collapsed. Tarek shared more with his enemy than his best friend. Even this war twisted upon itself, devolving into a desecration.

Tarek tried to build rage in his mind. Only heavy, oily, grief remained.

“This is for Baram,” Jandu shouted. His eyes brimmed with tears.

Tarek released his arrow first. Despite the accuracy of his aim, bursts of light interceded and the arrow shattered mid-air.

Jandu’s arrow streaked a black trail as it flew through the air. Tarek barely noticed. The arrow shot through his armor, straight through his chest. An excruciating burn blossomed in his lungs, radiating outwards, and Tarek’s legs crumpled. He tumbled out of the chariot, landing hard against his right arm. All he could feel was the agonizing fire of the celestial weapon, blackness spreading through him, consuming him.

So this is how I die
, Tarek thought. He looked over and saw horse manure.
How unattractive.
Tarek closed his eyes.

Chapter 58

A
CIRCLE OF DECAY OOZED FROM
T
AREK’S CORPSE AS POISONS
from the blackened body rose into the air. The world smelled rank and defiled. It created a gap in the center of the battlefield, and so now armies clashed around Jandu in tight confines.

Blood from a nick above Keshan’s ear trickled down his face, mixing with the dust to form a sickly dark paste. Keshan’s lips were cracked and dried, and his voice had gone rough from shouting at the horses.

Jandu wanted to give him reassurance, but his heart wasn’t in it. His heart had frozen at the sight of Baram’s ruined corpse. He felt locked in the same, endless, moment.

A dozen warriors attacked Jandu at once. He dispatched his enemies silently. He could not have stopped even if he had wanted to. Uru warriors hounded him. Jandu took their lives as if they could buy back Baram’s.

The shadows stretched, and it became harder to determine the color of banners, the identification of armies. Keshan turned the chariot to face every Uru army commander who challenged them. Jandu slaughtered them, one by one, with shartas and arrows. Only once did Keshan turn away from a chariot. Jandu saw Iyestar inside. Keshan’s brother frowned at the them as they rushed past, but he did not pursue them.

Jandu’s muscles trembled as he fired his arrows. His body felt stretched to breaking point. The Fazsharta had hurt him, internally he felt like he was bleeding. But he wasn’t sure how much of his pain was physical, and how much was grief.

Through the dust and twilight shadows, Jandu caught sight of Darvad.

“You bastard!” Darvad’s face was streaked with dirt and tears. He had vomit on his breastplate, he had obviously been uttering magical weapons. “You will pay for Tarek’s death!”

The long notes of conches filled the air, signaling the end of the day’s battle. Jandu glanced behind him, and saw Lord Indarel, looking exhausted. The sun was below the horizon, and only the dim red glow of its aftermath provided the light to see. Jandu’s own men were fewer than fifty now, but they still kept pace with his chariot. Many were bleeding badly, their armor cracked and their weapons caked with gore.

“Anant!” Jandu called to the young commander. “Get our men back to camp!”

“Yes, sir!” Anant replied, signaling the men to retreat.

As he saw them leave the battlefield, Jandu allowed himself a moment to feel relief. His body and his heart ached, and he wanted to stop, to grieve and hold Keshan.

The Uru and Paran armies also turned to return to their respective camps. But instead of blowing his conch, Darvad growled out another sharta.

Jandu dropped to the floor of his chariot and began to recite the counter-curse. Words filled his mind, along with unwanted images of death and destruction. This was one of Mazar’s darkest weapons. What was Darvad doing, uttering this at the close of the day’s battle?

Jandu spat out the end of the counter just as Darvad finished as well. There was a noticeable silence. Every soldier seemed frozen for a moment.

“Continue fighting!” Darvad shouted across the battlefield. His nose bled, his eyes bled, he looked half-dead as he pointed at Jandu in his rage. “This war ends tonight!”

Uru warriors charged forward and Paran troops were forced to turn back and defend themselves.

“This is madness!” Keshan cried out. He whispered to the horses. They were lathered in sweat, but they dutifully took off after Darvad’s chariot.

Through the clashing masses of Uru and Paran warriors, another of Yudar’s messengers appeared on horseback. Jandu hardly glanced at the man. His Uru enemies commanded all his attention as he fired arrows through the waning light. The messenger screeched commands. Keshan answered for both of them by turning the horses around and charging the messenger. The messenger fled.

As darkness fell upon the battlefield, torches were lit. But it was becoming impossible to make out targets. The armies clashed in close confines once more, and Jandu had to slow down his assaults to check the colors of each banner before firing. Urus and Parans mingled in the blackness.

“I don’t know where to shoot!” he yelled.

Keshan said something quick and dark in Yashva. Jandu’s Yashva guards appeared as men once more, glowing and ethereal, and tracked Jandu’s enemies, providing him the light he needed to take aim. Men fled from Jandu in panic. They turned away the moment one of the Yashvas’ ghostly forms came close; Jandu’s arrow would inevitably follow.   

Keshan pulled the horses to a halt as another chariot almost rammed them. They turned once more and got within sight of Darvad. Jandu readied Zandi. But the second he nocked an arrow, Darvad collapsed to the floor of his chariot.

For a moment, Jandu paused, stunned. Was Darvad actually
hiding
? Was he truly that much of a coward?

But then his skin tingled, and a bluish hue radiated from the chariot car.

A burst of green light shone from Darvad’s chariot. Jandu stared at it, desperate to determine which sharta produced such a beautiful, startling effect. As he tried to recall his lessons with Mazar, an icy, sinking fear began to fill him. He clutched Keshan’s bicep tightly, but the panic did not subside.

“Oh God!”

Jandu froze, fear creeping through his bones. He couldn’t speak, he couldn’t move. Icy fingers gripped a hold of his heart. He tried to scream out, but terror crippled his voice, left him motionless. Zandi slipped from his hand.

Fear spread through the soldiers surrounding Darvad’s chariot like a gust of wind. Foot soldiers dropped their weapons. Cavalrymen cried out as their horses bolted. His own team reared, broke free of the harness and galloped into the shadows. Jandu leapt from the chariot as it lurched forward. He crouched on the ground, too terrified to do anything else.

Keshan climbed free of the chariot and knelt beside him. He lifted Jandu’s head.

 “Darvad released a fear sharta!” Keshan shouted. “Fight it!”

“I can’t!” Jandu cried. He collapsed on the battlefield, head in his hands. Around him, hundreds of men fled the field. Only the wreckage of their chariot sheltered Jandu and Keshan from the stampede. Jandu heard Lord Indarel cry out as hundreds of his own men trampled over him. There was a riot now, pure chaos. Fright had turned the Paran army against itself. They ran screaming, senseless, stepping over each other in the darkness.

Keshan grabbed Jandu by his armor and pulled him up. “Jandu! I need your help! You have to protect me while I recite the counter-curse!”

Jandu fought off the heavy, drugged panic in his mind. He drew his sword and stood in front of Keshan as Keshan bowed in supplication on the muddy battlefield.

Keshan chanted under his breath, his body breaking out in a sweat, strain plain across his face.

“Hurry!” Jandu drove aside Paran and Uru soldiers alike. Some sobbed like children. Others shrieked as they fled. The men closest to Darvad’s chariot tore at their eyes and ripped the hair from their heads. Some killed themselves in their fright. The horror radiated outwards, and those out of range of the sharta fled in fear of the terrorized armies that ran screaming towards them in the darkness.

Keshan took an arrow from Jandu’s quiver. He whispered to it and then flung it into the earth, arrowhead first. A soft, green light shot from the shaft and spread over the battlefield like smoke.

Jandu felt the icy fingers that had gripped his heart let go. His mind cleared. Sheer exhaustion was the only sensation that remained. Jandu sheathed his sword and saw Keshan sway on his feet. Jandu lunged out to catch Keshan as he collapsed.

Keshan was limp in Jandu’s arms.

“Keshan!” Jandu shouted.

“I’m fine…” Keshan swallowed painfully, his lips and mouth parched. “…I’m just tired.”

“You broke Darvad’s sharta,” Jandu said. “It’s time for us to go home.”

Keshan sat up weakly. “I’ll drive the chariot.”

Jandu shook his head. “The horses are gone.”

“I’ll get them.”

 “You can barely stand up.”

“We need the chariot to get out of here any time soon. Just let me rest a moment.” Keshan leaned against the toppled chariot.

An eerie silence filled the darkness as the counter-curse made its way across the field. As their panic lifted men stilled. The screaming ceased, but quiet realizations of pain rose in their place.

“My brother,” one man whispered, tears streaming from his eyes as he cradled a limp body in his arms. “I killed my own brother!”

Jandu felt bones break beneath his foot. He looked down and, seeing Lord Indarel, cried out in horror. Nearby, Indarel’s eldest son, his pride and joy, Ramad, lay dead, his neck twisted and broken. Jandu leaned down and closed what was left of Indarel’s eyes. His body was flat in terrible places. Jandu tried to drag his corpse to their chariot, to save it from further desecration, but as he pulled on Indarel’s arm, the limbs separated, so beaten that Jandu was afraid his arm would rip off. Jandu fought back vomit. Abiyar would be devastated.

Jandu stepped away, unsure he could bear any more of this.

Keshan whistled in the dark, and to Jandu’s surprise, their two stallions came towards them. The steeds had calmed, although their coats were white with sweat. Keshan moved like he were half-dead as he reharnessed them, using his harafa as a strap to replace the one that had broken.

Jandu jumped into the car while Keshan again took the reins.

Jandu tried to conjure a light sharta to see by, but his tongue was so swollen and cut from the dozens of shartas he had uttered, he could no longer make it form the sentence he needed. At least the darkness was no longer complete—fires from fallen torches lit the landscape. Keshan called the Yashva back and their luminous bodies cast a blue glow.

Keshan pointed east. “Darvad.”

In the thin light, Jandu recognized Darvad’s banner as well as his brother Yudar’s. Darvad’s chariot approached Yudar with alarming speed. Few soldiers blocked his path.

“The war is about to end,” Keshan said. “Do you care who wins anymore?”

“It can’t be Darvad, not after what he’s done to his own people tonight.”

Keshan nodded. He cooed to the horses and they snorted back at him, moving into an exhausted trot. A few more soothing words helped them collect themselves. They picked up speed. The battlefield was a sea of bodies now, but the horses no longer paid heed. They trampled over soil and flesh alike. Keshan drove them towards Yudar.

Jandu’s weariness made even holding Zandi unbearable. He remembered when he had first changed into a woman, how his bow had grown into a bulky, unwieldy thing, beyond his ability to lift. He felt the same way now.

They sped across the battlefield unchallenged. Of Darvad’s eight commanders, only Iyestar remained, his chariot surrounded by the poor remains of Tiwari’s army.

Up ahead, Darvad’s horses collapsed. Darvad bounded from his chariot, armed with his sword and bow, and raced towards Jandu’s brother.

Yudar sat in his chariot. His guards lay dead around him.

Although the rules of war had been broken over and over again, Yudar stepped from his chariot, so as to fight Darvad on even ground. Even now, the rules of the Triya were killing him.

A thin soldier rushed to Yudar’s side and unsheathed his sword. It took Jandu only a moment to recognize the boy’s armor. Abiyar stood beside Yudar, the last protection of their side of the war.

Jandu felt sick to his stomach. It was all for nothing. They were going to lose. Baram had died, and they were still going to lose. Yudar must have been thinking the same thing, for his expression suddenly faltered. He froze, watching Darvad’s approach. Abiyar rushed ahead of him, charging Darvad, his sword aloft.

“No! Abiyar!” Jandu leapt from the car of chariot and sprinted forward. The Yashva rushed alongside him like an army of ghosts.

But Darvad only had eyes for Yudar. He pushed Abiyar out of the way without a second thought. Abiyar tumbled to the mud and Darvad pressed onward, screaming and charging Yudar with his sword ready.

Yudar made no move to draw his sword or raise his shield. Instead, his eyes closed and mumbled under his breath.

Jandu couldn’t hear what Yudar said from this distance. But suddenly his Yashva guard flashed and then disappeared, one by one. They looked shocked as they turned to Jandu and then vanished. Only one sharta called down so many Yashva at once.

“Yudar! No!” Jandu shouted. He watched his brother’s lips move as if in a trance. The words clashed together in Jandu’s mind, and he could feel his heart break open. His brother was uttering the Pezarisharta. But there was no way Yudar would be able to control it. It was too big for him. It wouldn’t just kill Darvad. It would destroy the entire battlefield, and then spread across the countryside.

“Stop him!” Keshan screamed from behind Jandu. Even Darvad seemed stunned. He stopped running.

Yudar finished speaking, breathless. The sky turned dark red. The ground shook under Jandu’s feet.

And then the weapon set the sky on fire.