The Kingdom of Copper (The Daevabad Trilogy #2) - S. A. Chakraborty Page 0,207

coming.” Ali kicked off his sandals. It would be easier to swim without them. “I’ll stay under the water until I get to the wall.”

The captain stared at him. “Prince Alizayd … your courage is admirable, but you can’t swim that length underwater. And even if you could, you’re just one man. I counted at least a dozen of those warriors and probably a hundred ghouls. It’s suicide.”

“He can do it.” It was Lubayd, his voice intense. He met Ali’s gaze, and from the mix of grief and admiration in his friend’s eyes, Ali could tell Lubayd knew what he was preparing to do. “He doesn’t fight like the rest of us.”

Still seeing uncertainty on too many faces, Ali raised his voice. “Daevabad is our home! You all took oaths to defend it, to defend the innocents within who are about to be butchered by the same monsters who just killed so many of our brothers and sisters. You will get back to that beach. Gather all the weapons you can. Help each other swim. Paddle on pieces of wood. I don’t care how you do it, but get across. Fight. Stop those things before they get into the city.”

By his last words, a good number of the men were rising to their feet, grim but determined, but not all.

“We’ll die,” the Sahrayn sailor said hoarsely.

“Then you will die a martyr.” Ali glared at those still sitting. “Stand up!” he roared. “Your fellows lie dead, your women and children are defenseless, and you’re sitting here weeping for yourselves? Have you no shame?” He paused, meeting each of their gazes in turn. “You all have a choice. You can end this night a hero, with your families safe, or you end it with them in Paradise, their entrance bought with your blood.” He drew his zulfiqar, fire blazing down its length. “STAND UP!”

Lubayd raised his sword with a wild—and slightly frightened—cry. “Come, you puffed-up city-born brats!” he goaded. “What happened to all the crowing I’ve been hearing about your bravery? Don’t you want to be sung about in the stories they’ll tell of this night? Let’s go!”

That brought the rest of them to their feet. “Prepare yourselves,” Ali ordered. “Be ready to go as soon as they’re distracted.” His heart racing, he shoved his zulfiqar back into its sheath, ripping a length from his ruined dishdasha to secure his blades.

Lubayd grabbed his wrist, pulling him close. “Don’t you fucking die, Alizayd al Qahtani,” he said, pressing his brow to Ali’s. “I did not drag your starving ass from a crevasse to see you eaten by ghouls.”

Ali fought the tears pricking his eyes; they both knew there was little chance he was making it off the beach alive. “God be with you, my friend.”

He turned away. Before he could show the fear coursing through his blood, before the others could see even a second of hesitation, Ali dove into the lake.

He swam deep, the motion throwing him back into his memory of the marid nightmare. Though the water was dark with silt, he caught sight of the lake bed below. It was muddy and gray, a pale imitation from the lush marine plain of his dream.

Could the marid be behind all this? Ali wondered, remembering their rage. Had they returned to take back their home?

He kept swimming. Ali was fast and it wasn’t long before he caught sight of the wall he was looking for. He took care to press himself close against it as he silently broke the water’s surface.

Voices. Ali listened closer. He wasn’t sure what he expected—the gibberish of some unknown demons, the slithering tongue of the marid—but what he heard froze his blood.

It was Divasti.

They were being attacked by Daevas? Ali glanced up, past a narrow lip of overhanging rock, and caught a glimpse of a young man. He looked as though he could be a Daeva, dressed in a charcoal-colored coat and black leggings, the dark colors blending perfectly with the shadows.

How in God’s name did a band of Daevas come through the lake armed with ghouls and flying horses?

The Daeva man suddenly drew up, his attention narrowing on the lake. He reached for his bow …

Ali was out of the water in the next breath. He pulled himself onto the wall before the shocked eyes of the man, drew his zulfiqar, and plunged the fiery blade into the archer’s chest.

The man didn’t have a chance to scream. Ali shoved him off the end of his zulfiqar