The City of Brass (The Daevabad Trilogy #1) - S. A. Chakraborty Page 0,186

deck and crept up the rigging for the black sail. The line of archers lay where they’d fallen, pierced with dozens of arrows. One screamed for his mother as he clutched his ruined stomach. Nahri hesitated but knew she had no time to waste. She picked over the bodies, coughing and waving smoke away from her face as she stumbled over a stack of bloody oilcloth.

She heard screams from across the ship and spied Ali racing ahead. The smoke briefly dissipated, and then she saw him.

It was suddenly clear why—over a thousand years later—Dara’s name still provoked terror among the djinn. His bow slung on his back, he had Ali’s zulfiqar in one hand and a stolen khanjar in the other and was using them to make quick work of the soldiers remaining around Muntadhir. He moved less like a man and more like some raging war god of the long-ago era in which he’d been born. Even his body was illuminated, seemingly on fire just below the skin.

Like the ifrit, Nahri recognized in horror, suddenly unsure of just who or what Dara truly was. He shoved the zulfiqar into the throat of the last guard between him and Muntadhir and yanked it out bloody.

Not that the emir noticed. Muntadhir sat on the bloody deck with the arrow-riddled body of a soldier cradled in his arms. “Jamshid!” he screamed. “No! God, no—look at me, please!”

Dara raised the zulfiqar. Nahri drew to a stop, opening her mouth to shout.

Ali threw himself on the Afshin.

She’d barely noticed the prince, awestruck by the horrible sight of Dara doing death’s work. But he was suddenly there, taking advantage of his height to jump on Dara’s back and loop his bound wrists around the Afshin’s neck like a noose. He drew up his legs, and Dara staggered under the sudden weight. Ali kicked the zulfiqar out of his hands.

“Muntadhir!” he screamed, adding something in Geziriyya that she couldn’t understand. The zulfiqar had landed barely a body’s length away from the emir’s feet. Muntadhir didn’t look up; he didn’t even seem to have heard his brother’s cry. Nahri ran, picking over bodies as quickly as she could.

Dara let out an aggravated sound as he tried to shake the prince loose. Ali pulled up his hands, pressing the iron bindings tight against the Afshin’s throat. Dara gasped but managed to elbow the prince in the stomach and slam his back hard into the ship’s mast.

Ali didn’t let go. “Akhi!”

Muntadhir startled and looked up. In a second he had dived for the zulfiqar, at the same time Dara finally succeeded in throwing Ali over his head. He grabbed his bow.

The young prince hit the wet deck hard and slid to the boat’s edge. He scrambled to his feet. “Munta—”

Dara shot him through the throat.

27

Nahri

Nahri screamed and rushed forward as a second arrow went through Ali’s chest. The prince staggered back, and his heel caught against the edge of the boat, throwing him off balance.

“Ali!” Muntadhir lunged for his brother but wasn’t fast enough. Ali toppled into the lake with barely a splash. There was a large gulp, like the sound of a heavy rock landing in a still pool, and then silence.

Nahri ran to the railing, but Ali was gone, the only sign of his presence a ripple in the dark water. Muntadhir dropped to his knees with a wail.

Her eyes welled with tears. She spun on Dara. “Save him!” she cried. “I wish for you to bring him back!”

Dara swooned, staggering at her command, but Ali didn’t reappear. Instead Dara blinked, and the brightness left his eyes. His confused gaze wandered the bloody deck. He dropped the bow, looking unsteady. “Nahri, I—”

Muntadhir jumped to his feet and snatched up the zulfiqar. “I’ll kill you!” Flames swirled up the blade as he charged the Afshin.

Dara parried the other man away with his khanjar as easily as he might have swatted a gnat. He blocked another of Muntadhir’s attempts and then casually ducked the third, elbowing the emir hard in the face. Muntadhir cried out; a spray of black blood spouted from his nose. Nahri didn’t need to be a swordsman to see how clumsily he moved in comparison with the deadly swift Afshin. Their blades clashed again, and Dara shoved him away.

But then Dara stepped back. “Enough, al Qahtani. Your father doesn’t need to lose a second son tonight.”

Muntadhir didn’t look particularly desirous of Dara’s mercy—nor capable of being reasoned with. “Fuck you!” he sobbed, slashing wildly with