A Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes #4) - Sabaa Tahir Page 0,106

for any sign of Keris’s army. I consider what Laia said as I travel. No one wants to fight for nothing. My grandfather, Quin Veturius, is a legendary leader of men. His soldiers follow him because they trust his battle acumen. They trust that he cares about them and their families and their lives.

Keris leads through fear. Through threats that are reinforced by a fierce and uncanny understanding of human weakness.

Tribe Saif followed Uncle Akbi because they loved him. The same reason Tribe Nur follows Afya. The Tribal fighters do not entirely trust me. Nor do they fear me. They certainly do not love me. Because I am their Banu al-Mauth, they respect me. I have no right to ask for more.

Windwalking lends me speed, but it does not make it easy to find Keris’s army. I check every canyon, every depression in which they might be lurking, zigzagging over the Tribal lands. But I find nothing.

That night, I take shelter in a ravine. As I build up a fire, I step back into the memories Cain gave me of Blackcliff, of training, of her.

The Commandant taught me that to defeat your enemy, you had to know her better than you knew yourself. Her wants. Her weaknesses. Her allies. Her strengths.

The next day, I do not make for ravines or canyons. Because I know now that I will not find her army there. Instead, I head for the open desert and put my hand to the chill, cracked ground.

Keris has jinn who can magic away the sights and sounds of the army. She cannot, however, erase their passage from the earth itself. Midway through the day, I feel a distant rumble. Thousands of boots marching. Horses. Wagons. War machines.

I make for that thunderous drone until suddenly, I’m among the army. I windwalk amid the neat rows of infantrymen, their heads bent against the sharp desert wind.

A scream cracks the air. “Breach!” an unearthly voice shouts. “Breach! Find the intruder!”

It’s Umber who cries the warning, and she streaks through the skies toward me, kneading the wind to lend her speed. Though I bolt away before the soldiers notice my presence, fiery hands swipe at my back. She’s caught my scent.

“Ah, the humans’ savior!” Umber pursues me in full flame, glaive in hand. She swings it down through my armor and into the flesh of my back. “How does it feel to fail?”

Mauth’s magic surges weakly. But it is not enough to block Umber’s next attack, or to keep me from spinning out of my windwalk like a wounded bird.

The ground rises up at me far too swiftly, and I fall with a bone-numbing crash. Pain rolls through me in relentless waves, and blood pours from the wound in my back, but Umber is not done. As I lurch away from her, frantic to escape, she swings the blade across my stomach, slicing into my side.

“I will find you, little Soul Catcher,” she grinds out. “You cannot run from me.”

But I can bleeding try. I just need to get away long enough that she can’t track me. Her fire does not burn as bright as it did in Aish. She is still recovering. If I’m clever, I can outwit her. Come on, Soul Catcher, I snarl at myself. You’ve dealt with worse.

I force the pain into one corner of my mind and windwalk, spinning sharply around Umber, striking at her with my scims. They dig deep into her hip, and she screams—perhaps from the wound, perhaps from the salt coating I applied to the blade. She tumbles to the earth in an explosion of dust and fire, and I am away.

Though not for long. After only seconds, she is behind me again. My head aches, and my vision doubles. Soul Catcher or not, I’m in danger. My scims feel like anvils in my hands—it is all I can do to hold on to them.

“Where is Mauth now?” Umber follows me turn for turn, hacking at me with her glaive, crowing as it tears through my shoulder. “Where is the magic, little Soul Catcher?”

The sun-blasted earth blurs beneath my feet as I turn and turn and turn again. Anything to shake her loose, slow her down.

Magic surges around me—not mine, but not Umber’s either. She disappears, her vitriol abruptly silenced. I don’t know what happened to her and I don’t care. I keep running, until finally, I can go no farther. Slowing down could mean death; skies know what else is out here.