A Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes #4) - Sabaa Tahir Page 0,56
Fakirs. The Nightbringer’s handiwork.
“Are there any Fakirs who know the Signs in their entirety, Aubarit?”
“Fakir An-Zia,” she says. “I do not know if he escaped Sadh.”
“There must be some way—” I stop at the sound of a hurried knock at the wagon door.
“Fakira.” I recognize Mamie’s voice from outside. “Banu al-Mauth, come quickly.”
I pull open the door. “Return later,” I bark, but she blocks the door before I can shut it.
“Fire on the horizon,” she says. “We must flee, or else take shelter in Aish.”
Aubarit clutches the shroud close. “Fire—”
“Jinn, Fakira.” Mamie grabs the girl’s arm and pulls her from the wagon. “The jinn are coming.”
XXII: The Blood Shrike
Thank the skies for Heera’s warning, for when the first fur-clad Karkaun comes roaring toward me, my daggers are unsheathed and sinking into his gut before I can get a good look at his face. The next impales himself on my waiting scim, and if this is all they have, I will fight every Karkaun in this city until Madam Heera’s brothel splits at the seams from their eviscerated corpses.
I kick the bowl with Heera’s blood. Curse those bastards for thinking they could use her so. Skies know how long she had to suffer before delivering her warning.
“Back, you filth!” Faris bellows from outside.
The barbarians have found him and Septimus. As Karkauns spill from the bedrooms and hallways, I make my way back to the stairs. These are not their best warriors. Just the vanguard sent to try to kill us, to overwhelm us with sheer numbers.
“Ik tachk mort fid iniqant fi! Ik tachk mort fid iniqant fi!”
Above, the chanting quickens, and Grímarr’s voice rises above the others.
The back door splinters and bursts open, and a dead barbarian comes flying through. Faris’s giant frame fills the doorway and he stalks in, shoving aside Karkauns until he’s beside me.
“What in the hells is this, Shrike?”
“Grímarr is preparing a rite,” I say above the din. “I’m his guest of honor. Where’s Septimus?”
A tall Karkaun rushes me. “You dare wield steel, Martial whore!” he screams, scim held high. Too high. I run him through and then take off his head.
“Outside picking them off.” Faris kicks the Karkaun’s head to the side, his scims flying at the enemies still pouring into the hallway and down the stairs. “They have us surrounded.”
“We need to get up there,” I say. “He’s just biding his time until he’s done with this skies-forsaken chant.”
We fight our way back toward the stairs. But the barbarians keep coming, slipping on the blood-slicked ground, the deaths of their fellows only feeding their furor.
“Front door, Faris,” I scream at him. “Break a bleeding path!”
He barrels through the Karkauns and I follow in his wake, stabbing and slashing until we spill out into a street littered with bodies—Septimus’s handiwork. Through the open window above, Grímarr’s chanting reaches a fever pitch. “IK TACHK MORT FID INIQANT FI!”
“Tell me you have a grappling hook.”
Faris shakes his head, gasping for breath. I hope to the skies that his clothes are sticking to him because of all the Karkauns he’s killed, and not because he’s about to die on me.
“We’ll have to jump.” Faris nods to a pale stone building behind the brothel, with a balcony a dozen feet from the brothel’s roof.
“Go, Shrike!” Septimus calls from a sniper’s nest somewhere above us. An arrow whizzes past, thudding into the chest of a Karkaun creeping up on me. “I’ll cover you!”
I bolt away from the brothel and double back down an alley. As I do, I get an impression of faces—watching us. Women and children mostly, for the men have been gone for months. The only boys left are those who will grow up to be sacrificed by the Karkauns.
Unless I stop them.
Yells echo behind us, and a band of Karkauns appears. Three of them fall upon Faris, and one leaps at me, knocking me off my feet. My scim clatters to the ground and my attacker pins my body, his weight and stench stealing my breath. His meaty hands close about my throat. I twist and claw at him, but he just laughs, spittle dribbling into his pale beard.
Suddenly, his hands loosen and blood spurts from his mouth. He topples over, and a dark-skinned, curly-haired Martial woman steps forward and yanks her kitchen knife from the Karkaun’s throat.
“Blood Shrike.” She offers me a hand. “I’m Neera. How can I help?”
“Get us to that balcony.” I point, and Neera is off and running.