The Daylight War (2 page)

Couzi. Inevera hated the drink. Fermented grain flavoured with cinnamon, it was sold in tiny clay bottles and sipped from even tinier cups. Just sniffing an emptied bottle burned Inevera’s nostrils and left her dizzy. There was no hint of cinnamon in the scent. It was said the taste only became clear after three cups, but after three cups of couzi, whose word could be trusted? It was known to lend itself to exaggeration and delusions of grandeur.

‘Soli!’ Kasaad snapped. ‘Leave the work to the women and come drink with me! We will toast the deaths of the four
alagai
you slew last night!’

‘You would think I did the whole unit’s work myself,’ Soli grumbled. His fingers moved even faster. ‘I do not drink couzi, Father,’ he called. ‘The Evejah forbids it.’

Kasaad snorted, tipping back another cup. ‘Manvah! Prepare your
sharik
son some tea, then!’ He tipped the couzi bottle to his cup again, but this time only a few drops fell. ‘And bring me another couzi.’

‘Everam give me patience,’ Manvah muttered. ‘That was the last bottle, husband,’ she called.

‘Then go and buy more,’ Kasaad snapped.

Inevera could hear her mother’s teeth grind. ‘Half the tents in the bazaar are already closed, husband, and we must finish these baskets before Cashiv arrives.’

Kasaad waved a hand in disgust. ‘Who cares if that worthless
push’ting
has to wait?’

Soli drew a sharp breath, and Inevera saw a smear of blood on his hand, cut from the sharp edge of a palm frond. He gritted his teeth and wove on.

‘Forgive me, honoured husband, but Dama Baden’s factor will not wait,’ Manvah said, continuing her own weave. ‘If Cashiv arrives and the order isn’t ready, he will go down the lane and buy his baskets from Krisha again. Without this order, we won’t have money to pay our war tax, much less buy more couzi.’

‘What?!’ Kasaad shouted. ‘What have you been doing with my money? I bring home a hundred draki a week!’

‘Half of which goes right back to the
dama
in war tax,’ Manvah said, ‘and you always take twenty more for your pockets. The rest goes to keep you in couzi and couscous, and it isn’t enough by far, especially when you bring home half a dozen thirsty
Sharum
every Sabbath. Couzi is expensive, husband. The
dama
cut the thumbs from
khaffit
caught selling it, and they add the risk to the price.’

Kasaad spat. ‘
Khaffit
would sell the sun if they could pull it from the sky. Now run and buy some to help ease my wait for that half-man.’

Soli finished his basket, rising and slamming it down atop his pile. ‘I’ll go, Mother. Chabin will have some, and he never closes before gloaming is sung.’

Manvah’s eyes tightened, but she did not take them from her weaving. She, too, had begun weaving faster, and now her hands were a blur. ‘I don’t like you leaving when we have a month’s work sitting out in the open.’

‘No one will rob us with Father right there,’ Soli said, but as he looked to his father, trying to lick a last drop from the couzi bottle, he sighed. ‘I will be so swift you won’t even know I’ve gone.’

‘Back to work, Inevera,’ Manvah snapped as Soli ran off. Inevera looked down, realizing only then that she had stopped weaving as she watched the events unfold. Quickly she resumed.

Inevera would not dare look right at him, but she could not help watching her father out of the corner of her eye. He was eyeing Manvah as she turned the basket with her nimble feet. Her black robes had risen as she worked, exposing her bare ankles and calves.

Kasaad put one hand to his crotch, rubbing. ‘Come here, wife, I would …’

‘I. Am. Working!’ Manvah took a palm branch from the pile, breaking fronds from it with sharp snaps.

Kasaad seemed genuinely confused at her reaction. ‘Why would you refuse your husband, barely an hour before he goes into the night?’

‘Because I’ve been breaking my back over these baskets for weeks,’ Manvah said. ‘Because it’s late and the lane’s gone quiet. And because we’ve got a full stock out with no one to guard it but a horny drunk!’

Kasaad barked a laugh. ‘Guard it from who?’

‘Who, indeed?’ a voice asked, and all turned to see Krisha stepping around the counter and into the kiosk.

Krisha was a big woman. Not fat – few in the Desert Spear enjoyed that luxury – but a warrior’s daughter, thickly set with a heavy stride and callused hands. Like all
dal’ting
,
she wore the same head-to-toe black cloth as Manvah. She was a weaver as well, one of Manvah’s principal rivals in the Kaji tribe – less skilled, but more ambitious.

She was followed into the tent by four other women in
dal’ting
black. Two were her sister-wives, their faces covered in black. The others were her daughters, unmarried, their faces bare. From the looks of them, this drove away more potential husbands than it invited. None of the women was small, and they spread like jackals stalking a hare.

‘You’re working late,’ Krisha noted. ‘Most of the pavilions have tied their flaps.’

Manvah shrugged, not taking her eyes off her weaving. ‘The call to curfew isn’t for the better of an hour.’

‘Cashiv always comes at the end of the day before Dama Baden’s Waxing Party, does he not?’ Krisha said.

Manvah did not look up. ‘My clients do not concern you, Krisha.’

‘They do when you use your
push’ting
son to steal them from me,’ Krisha said, her voice low and dangerous. Her daughters moved to Inevera, separating her from her mother. Her sister-wives moved deeper into the kiosk towards Kasaad.

Manvah looked up at this. ‘I stole nothing. Cashiv came to me, saying your baskets fell apart when filled. Blame your weavers and not me for the loss of business.’

Krisha nodded, picking up the basket Inevera had just added to the pile. ‘You and your daughter do fine work,’ she noted, tracing a finger along the weave. Then she threw the basket to the ground, stomping down hard on it with her sandalled foot.

‘Woman, you dare?!’ Kasaad shouted in shocked disbelief. He leapt to his feet, or tried to, wobbling unsteadily. He glanced for his spear and shield, but they were back in the tent.

While he was finding his wits, Krisha’s sister-wives moved in unison. Short rattan staves wrapped in black cloth fell into their hands from out of voluminous sleeves. One of the women grabbed Kasaad by the shoulders, turning him into the other’s thrust to his stomach, holding him to make sure he took the full brunt. Kasaad grunted in pain, the wind knocked from him, and the woman followed up the blow with a full swing to the groin. Kasaad’s grunt became a shriek.

Inevera gave a cry and leapt to her feet, but Krisha’s daughters grabbed her roughly. Manvah moved to rise as well, but Krisha’s heavy kick to the face knocked her back to the ground. She gave a great wail, but it was late and there was no answering cry.

Krisha looked down at the basket on the floor. It had resisted her stomp, returning to its original shape. Inevera smiled until the woman leapt on top of it, jumping three times until the basket collapsed.

Across the kiosk, Krisha’s sister-wives continued to beat Kasaad. ‘He shrieks like a woman,’ one laughed, again striking him between the legs.

‘And he fights even worse!’ the other cried. They let go of his shoulders, and Kasaad collapsed to the floor, gasping, his face a mix of pain and humiliation. The women left him and went to work kicking over the stacks and smashing baskets with their rattan staves.

Inevera tried to pull free, but the young women only tightened their grips. ‘Be still, or we will break your fingers so you can weave no more!’ Inevera stopped struggling, but her eyes narrowed and she shifted slightly, readying herself to stomp hard on the instep of the one closest to her. She glanced at Manvah, but her mother shook her head.

Kasaad coughed blood, pushing himself up onto his elbows. ‘Harlots! When the
dama
hear of this …!’

Krisha cut him off with a cackling laugh. ‘The
dama
? Will you go to them, Kasaad son of Kasaad, and tell them you were drunk on couzi and beaten by women? You won’t even tell your
ajin’pal
as he buggers you tonight!’

Kasaad struggled to rise, but one of the women gave him a quick kick to the stomach, and he was knocked onto his back. He did not stir.

‘Pfagh!’ the woman cried. ‘He’s pissed himself like an infant!’ They all laughed.

‘That gives me an idea!’ Krisha cried, going over to a scattered pile of baskets and hiking up her robes. ‘Why get ourselves in a sweat breaking these abysmal baskets when we can just soil them instead?’ She squatted and let her water flow, swinging her hips from side to side so the stream hit as many baskets as possible. The other women laughed, hiking their robes to do likewise.

‘Poor Manvah!’ Krisha mocked. ‘Two males in the family, and not a man among them. Your husband is worse than a
khaffit
,
and your
push’ting
son is too busy sucking cock to even be here.’

‘Not quite.’ Inevera turned in time to see Soli’s thick hand close on the wrist of one of the young women holding her. The woman shrieked in pain as Soli yanked up with a cruel twist, then kicked out, sending her sister sprawling.

‘Shut it,’ he told the screaming woman, shoving her back. ‘Touch my sister again and I’ll sever your wrist instead of just twisting it.’

‘We shall see,
push’ting
,
’ Krisha said. Her sister-wives had straightened their robes and were advancing on Soli, staves at the ready. Krisha flicked her wrist, and her own club fell into her hand.

Inevera gasped, but Soli, unarmed, approached them without fear. The first woman struck at him, but Soli was quicker, slipping to the side of the blow and catching the woman’s arm. There was a snap, and she fell screaming to the ground, her staff now in Soli’s hand. The other woman came at him, and he parried one blow from her staff before striking her hard across the face. His movements were smooth and practised, like a dance. Inevera had watched him practise
sharusahk
when he came home from
Hannu
Pash
on Wanings. The woman hit the ground, and Inevera saw her lower her veil to cough out a great wad of blood.

Soli dropped his staff as Krisha came at him, simply catching her weapon in his bare hand and stopping it cold. He seized her by the collar with the other, turning her around and bending her over a pile of baskets. He slammed her head down for good measure and reached down for the hem of her robes, yanking them up to her waist.

‘Please,’ Krisha wailed. ‘Do as you will to me, but spare my daughters their virginity!’

‘Pfagh!’ Soli spat, his face a mask of disgust. ‘I would as soon fuck a camel as you!’

‘Oh, come,
push’ting
,
’ she sneered, wiggling her hips at him. ‘Pretend I’m a man and have my ass.’

Soli took Krisha’s rattan staff and began whipping her with it. His voice was deep, and carried over the sound of the wood cracking loudly on her bare flesh and her howls of pain. ‘A man need not be
push’ting
to avoid sticking his cock in a dung-heap. And as for your daughters, I would do nothing that might delay them marrying some poor
khaffit
and finally putting veils on their ugly faces.’

He took his hand off her neck, but continued whipping, guiding her and the other women out of their kiosk with sharp blows. Krisha’s daughters helped support her sister-wives as the five women stumbled off down the lane.

Manvah got to her feet and dusted herself off. She ignored Kasaad, going over to Inevera. ‘Are you all right?’ Inevera nodded.

‘Check the stock,’ Manvah said. ‘They didn’t have much time. See if we can salvage …’

‘Too late,’ Soli said, pointing down the lane. Three
Sharum
approached, their black robes sleeveless, with breastplates of black steel hammered to enhance already perfectly muscled chests. Black silk bands were tied around their bulging biceps and they wore studded leather bracers at their wrists. Bright golden shields were strapped to their backs, and they carried their short spears casually, sauntering with the easy grace of stalking wolves.

Manvah grabbed a small pitcher of water and dumped it on Kasaad, who groaned and half rose to his feet.

‘Inside, quickly!’ Manvah snapped, kicking him hard to get him moving. Kasaad grunted, but he managed to crawl into the tent and out of sight.

‘How do I look?’ Soli brushed and tugged at his robes, opening the front further.

It was a ridiculous question. No man she had ever seen was half so beautiful as her brother. ‘Fine,’ Inevera whispered back.

‘Soli, my sweet
ajin’pal
!’ Cashiv called. He was twenty-five, a
kai’Sharum
,
and easily the handsomest of the three, his beard close-cropped with scented oil and his skin a perfect sun-brown. His breastplate was adorned with the sunburst of Dama Baden – no doubt in real gold – and the centre of his turban was adorned with a large turquoise. ‘I’d hoped to find you here when we came to pick up the night’s …’ He drew close enough to see the chaos in their kiosk, ‘order. Oh, dear. Did a herd of camels pass through your tent?’ He sniffed. ‘Pissing as they went?’ He took the white silk night veil resting loose around his neck and lifted it over his nose. His compatriots did likewise.

‘We had some … trouble,’ Soli said. ‘My fault, for stepping away for a few minutes.’

‘That is a terrible shame.’ Cashiv went over to Soli, taking no note of Inevera whatsoever. He reached out a finger, running it over Soli’s muscled chest where a bit of blood had spattered. He rubbed the blood thoughtfully between his thumb and forefinger. ‘It seems as though you returned in time to handle things, though.’

‘That particular herd of camels is unlikely to come back,’ Soli agreed.

‘Their work is done, though,’ Cashiv said sadly. ‘We’ll have to buy our baskets from Krisha again.’

‘Please,’ Soli said, laying a hand on Cashiv’s arm, ‘we need this order. Not all the stock was ruined. Might we sell you half, at least?’