street.
Ali grabbed the Sahrayn man’s arm again. “Did you see anything go through there?” he demanded. “Are those things in our city?”
The sailor shook his head. “The ghouls, no … but the riders …” He nodded. “At least half of them. Once they were past the city walls …” His voice turned incredulous. “Prince Alizayd, their horses—they flew …”
“Where?” Ali demanded. “Where did you see them fly?”
The pity in the man’s eyes filled Ali with awful, knowing dread. “The palace, my prince.”
Ali shot to his feet. This was no random attack. He couldn’t imagine who—or what—was capable of something like this, but he recognized a strategy when he saw one. They’d come for the Guard first, annihilating the djinn army before it could muster to protect the next target: the palace.
My family.“We need to get to the beach,” he declared.
The Sahrayn man looked at him as though he’d gone insane. “You won’t be able to get to the beach. Those archers are shooting everything that moves, and the few djinn who make it out are being eaten alive by ghouls the moment they step out of the water!”
Ali shook his head. “We cannot let those things into our city.” He watched as a soldier dispatched another pair of ghouls when they attempted to climb upon the ruined tower, their gaping mouths full of rotted teeth. The man did so fairly easily, a single sweep of his blazing zulfiqar severing both in two.
They are not invincible, Ali noted. Not at all. It was their numbers that gave them an advantage; a single, terrified djinn, exhausted from navigating a gauntlet of arrows, stood no chance against dozens of hungry ghouls.
Across the water, another djinn was attempting to climb onto a floating bit of wreckage. Ali watched helplessly as a torrent of arrows cut him down. A small band of the mysterious archers had set themselves up on a section of broken wall that ran between the water and the ruined Citadel complex. Right now, Ali and his fellow survivors were safe, a shell of the tower curving up to protect them from the archers’ view. But he didn’t imagine their reprieve would last for long.
He examined the stretch of water separating their small sanctuary from Daevabad’s shore. It was a manageable swim if not for the fact that anyone who tried would be visible to the archers the entire time.
A decision settled upon him. “Come here,” he said, raising his voice. “All of you.”
Ali waited for them to do so, taking advantage of the moment to study the survivors. A mix from all five of the djinn tribes, mostly men. He knew nearly all by face, if not by name—they were all Royal Guard except the Sahrayn sailor. A few cadets, a handful of officers, and the rest infantry. They looked terrified and bewildered and Ali couldn’t blame them. They’d trained all their lives as warriors, but their people hadn’t seen true war in centuries. Daevabad was supposed to be a refuge from the rest of the magical world: from ghouls and ifrit, from water-beasts capable of dragging down a tower that had stood for centuries.
He took a deep breath, well aware of the near suicidal nature of the counterattack he was about to propose. “I don’t know what’s happening,” he started. “I don’t think any of us do. But we’re not safe here.” He gestured to the mountains, looming far from the distant shore. “The curse might be gone from the lake, but I don’t think many of us could make that swim. The mountains are too far away. The city, however, is not.”
The Sahrayn sailor shuddered again. “Everyone who’s made it to that beach has been slaughtered.” His voice rose. “We should just take blades to each other’s throats—it’s a better fate than being eaten alive.”
“They’re picking us off,” Ali argued. “We stand a better chance if we fight together …” He eyed the men around him “Would you stay here only to be killed later? Look at what they did to the Citadel. Do you think that wasn’t deliberate? They came after the Royal Guard first, and if you think whatever is attacking us is going to have mercy on a band of stranded survivors, you’re a fool.”
A Geziri captain with a nasty gash across his face spoke up. “We’d be in view of those archers. They’ll see us swimming and have us riddled with arrows before we even get close to the shore.”
“Ah, but they won’t see me