Star of Cursrah Page 7

  “I’ve never been to the kitchens in my life,” she confessed. Star shook back her cornrows and brushed her dusky cheeks. The sun grew warm, and chaff stuck to her skin. “The stable master should have fetched a picnic basket.”

  Tafir peered at his friend and asked, “Did you tell anyone you’d be gone past midday?”

  Star rolled her eyes. “Servants are supposed to anticipate our royal needs,” she said, “else why should we allow them to work in the royal compound?”

  Tafir squinted one eye, weighing what to say, if anything. Though he’d known Gheqet his whole life, having grown up as neighbors, Star was a new acquaintance and prone to sudden quirks. They’d known her only since the Harvest Festival. She’d been excluded from palace festivities and banished to Cursrah’s famous library to study. The daring princess had slipped away and met two commoners who didn’t realize the young woman who called herself “Star” was actually Samira Amenstar. In the months since, meeting first in secret then publicly, they’d become friends. While it was exciting to consort with royalty and genie-kin, Tafir and Gheqet sometimes wondered if her friendship was worth the danger it often brought them.

  Plying diplomacy, Tafir offered, “They tell us in the army that commoners are like dogs, smart enough to work but lazy—”

  A thundering roar shook the sky. A whinny pealed, and their horses squealed in response, then tried to bolt. Star’s white mare laid back its ears, eyes round and white-rimmed, and reared for a running start. The samira yelped and snatched for the pommel but felt her feet swing free of the leather loop stirrups. Trained to horses, Tafir leaned, grabbed her reins, and yanked down hard. Caught by the head, kicking dirt and grass, the terrified animal corkscrewed and stumbled. Jostled, Star pitched on her rump into the grass, but Tafir’s firm grip saved her from being trampled. As it was, she crabbed backward to avoid plunging hooves.

  “Mount up,” Tafir shouted as he struggled to hold both animals. “They’re after Gheq’s horse! We must stay mounted.”

  “What’s after Gheq’s horse?” Star asked. She scrambled up, unconsciously brushed her riding clothes, then grabbed for the pommel and swung into the saddle. “That roar! Was it—”

  “Hold tight or shell bolt,” Tafir interrupted. “Let’s go!”

  From saddle height, the two riders could see trouble. Across the heads of shimmering yellow-green lay a cavity where something thrashed in the grass. Ghequet and his mount had disappeared in that direction. Roars, snarls, another horse’s scream, and a rending, tearing shriek resounded. The horses were too terrified to approach, so their riders wrestled the reins, kicked and squeezed their knees, and finally slapped the broad rumps hard.

  Cursing, Tafir shouted, “Go left … I’ll go right. Gheq’s got to be—whoa!”

  Afoot, Gheqet lurched out of the concealing grass. His white work clothes were disheveled and grass-stippled. Blood ran down his neck.

  “Oh, thank Khises,” he gasped. “I got thrown and … there must be rocks.…”

  He felt his head and was shocked by the blood.

  “It’s just a scalp wound,” Tafir said. He didn’t want his friend to faint and have to be carried. “Climb up behind Star, and hurry. We’ll—”

  “The grass,” Amenstar warned, “it’s stopped moving!”

  Amenstar spotted converging trails sizzling toward them like curved flights of arrows. Tafir shouted to Gheqet, but the dazed apprentice didn’t move, only turned to see where Star was pointing. Tawny gold flashed like lightning from the yellow-green grass as the lion pride struck.

  Gheqet clutched his head and dropped to his knees as a scarred old lioness with one ear slammed down her great paws, scrunched her hindquarters, and vaulted higher than the grass tops. Eight wicked claws slashed at Star’s mount, hoping to rip out the mare’s eyes and blind her. Star jerked the horse’s head aside, but one paw snagged the mare’s jaw and raked it clear down the breast. Blood sprayed across Gheqet and the grass. The big cat rolled under the horse’s belly and uncoiled on the far side. Star’s panicked horse stumbled, then reared and bolted—straight into the next lioness.

  This hunter, young and spry, leaped high above the oncoming hooves. Snarling, dagger teeth gaping, the lioness’s splayed claws slapped onto both sides of the mare’s neck. Before she slid under the stampeding hooves, the lioness bit hard and clung to the horse’s pink-white nose.

  Clenched tight in the saddle, Star looked over the horse’s head into red-rimmed black eyes. The lioness’s weight, over seven hundred pounds, immediately dragged down the horse’s head. Star saw what was coming, let go of the reins, kicked free of the floppy stirrups, and catapulted from the saddle. As the horse stumbled and somersaulted, the lioness let go and skittered aside. Star barely had time to throw up her arms. Grass whipped her face, and she slammed into the ground on her shoulder, flipped like her horse, and thumped on her back. As she skidded to a dazed halt, grass pierced her skin like needles.

  From arm’s length, with her head spinning, Star looked up into golden-brown eyes. A huge lion, king of the pride, studied her. Hypnotized, paralyzed with fright, Star watched the lion’s nostrils twitch, ears flicker, and whiskers tick as grass caught behind them. The princess knew that lionesses did most of the hunting so were more feared, but this monster could break her spine with one paw and bite through her neck. Part of her mind calmly urged her to remain motionless and maybe live. The other part shrieked to scramble up and run.

  Staring, Star heard a curious keening whine coming from her own throat. Somewhere Tafir shouted, but the words didn’t penetrate. The lion curled a whiskered lip. The samira saw yellow fangs long as her fingers, smooth as ivory tusks from cutting through living bone.

  A dragonfly zipped by and thudded into the lion’s shoulder. No, not a dragonfly, one of Tafir’s bird arrows. The shafts were longer than Star’s arm, the feathers wide for stability. The head wasn’t a steel point, but four thin prongs for catching birds on the wing. Such a pinprick couldn’t hurt the lion, Star wanted to scream, it would only—

  The lion grunted as the arrow hit, then snapped at the shaft with its blunt black muzzle. It couldn’t reach. Snarling, it whirled and turned smoldering eyes on its attacker. Star saw the lion settle on its back legs, then leap like an eagle taking flight.

  A horse whinnied again. Star twisted about painfully and parted grass fronds to see. Gheqet, with his torn scalp, had fled. Thirty feet away, Tafir fought to control his plunging black horse and hang onto his riding bow. Under the assault of three lionesses, Star’s white horse was painted with blood, its face torn off like a mask to expose red-streaked bone. One of the lionesses ripped open its throat and the horse died quickly, but none of the females fed. As long as meat beckoned they continued to hunt. Leaving their kills, they split and melted into grass to encircle Tafir’s black horse. A pair of yearling males with scanty manes had skulked that way, but they jumped aside when the old scarred matriarch coughed.

  “Star,” Tafir called, “run the other way, and I’ll circle around to pick you up.”

  Tossing the clumsy bow, the cadet yanked the black’s head over and kicked hard. The horse laid back its ears and ran. Star wondered where the huge lion had vanished, but now it pounced on the spot Tafir had just vacated. The long bird arrow had been plucked from the lion’s shoulder, probably by grass stalks, leaving four leaking holes.

  Star then blinked as all three lionesses, with no prey at hand, spun their heads and stared at her. Golden eyes glowed like six unwinking lamps. Gulping fear, Amenstar scuttled up and ran. Grass whipped and stung her face, cut her hands, arms, lips, and tugged at her tangled cornrows. She had no clue where to run, for she saw only grass and sky. Dashing, she almost twisted her ankle in a hidden hole. She recovered and pounded on, breath rasping in her lungs, burning.

  Suddenly Tafir’s black horse, foam-sweaty, loomed ahead, its dark eyes rimmed with white.

  Tafir called, “Keep running! They’re close behind!”

  Gasping,
Star charged faster, then clutched at horse and rider like a drowning woman lunging at a boat. The strong cadet leaned, grasped the back of Star’s baggy trousers, and hauled hard to dump her across his saddle. Trying to encourage his mount, or trying to scare the lions, he bawled and whooped nonsense. Belly down, facing more grass, and unable to breathe, Star felt the horse balk, perhaps stumbling in another hidden hole. Tafir cursed and kicked. Gheqet shouted from far away.

  An electric tingle like lightning burned Star’s calf. For a frozen moment, she wondered what happened. Pain flashed through her leg and spine, and she shrilled out her last breath.

  Tafir hollered as the horse regained its footing, set four powerful hooves, and launched through the grass. The rhythmic banging, thumping, and pounding wouldn’t let Star catch her breath. The world dimmed at the edges, and she blacked out.

  “Star! Wake up!”

  The samira fell, instinctively grabbing for support, but Tafir and Gheqet caught her and laid her onto low, wiry bushes. It felt wonderful to breathe freely, the princess thought, until her left calf brushed a bush and a splinter of agony made her yelp.

  “Easy,” Gheqet crooned. “Here, roll over.”

  “That big lioness tagged you,” Tafir explained.

  Both young men inspected the wound. Splitting her trouser leg, Gheqet picked cotton threads from the wound, but even that gentle motion made Star clench her teeth.

  “Not bad,” the cadet grunted. “Like a pink from a practice sword.”

  “It feels like …” the samira moaned, “… like I’ve been disemboweled and set afire.”

  “This wound will inflame,” Gheqet said. “Cats’ claws are filthy.” He wrapped his dusty apron around her calf and tied it lightly with the strings. “Good thing we’ve got one horse left.”

  Star realized the lions must have cut down Gheqet’s brown mare first. The architect’s apprentice had been lucky to escape with just a scalp wound. Hers throbbed like a kettledrum.

  “Get me home, you two,” she said, “and quickly.”

  The two citizens raised their eyebrows at the command.

  “We just saved your life, Samira Amenstar,” Tafir said icily. “Even wounded, Gheqet distracted the lions by jumping and yelling so I could ride in and grab you. That’s why only one lioness raked you, instead of all three pouncing on both of us.”

  “That’s all very well,” Star snapped, “but it’s your civic duty to protect your sovereign’s life. You, Tafir, as an army officer who took a sacred vow, and Gheqet, as a nobleman and citizen of the realm. All Cursrahns must keep the welfare of the royal family uppermost in their minds.”

  They were embarrassed and angry by her rudeness and ingratitude, but gentle Gheqet shrugged and told Tafir, “She’s upset. She’ll go into shock if we don’t hustle her home.”

  “We’d do that anyway,” Tafir snorted. Together they hoisted Star onto the saddle, made sure she was secure, and rushed off through the scrub.

  “Can’t complain, but it’s not the life I’d choose,” Tafir droned, “rising before dawn to stand on a cold parade ground, having superior officers scream orders in my face then having to scream the same orders at sergeants, who all resent me being so young so they scream at the troops, who barely understand a word because so many are barbarian mercenaries. There’s the same food day in, day out, marching aimlessly across the plains just to keep busy.…”

  The men talked while Star sulked and nursed her pain. Gheqet held the horse’s bridle in one craggy hand.

  “What would you do if your parents hadn’t enrolled you in the army?” he asked Tafir.

  “I’ve no idea,” Tafir groused, “but I wouldn’t be a soldier. I hate it, Gheq. My best hope is for my parents to die young so we inherit, though my brother’s and sisters’ debts will eat up most of that money anyway.”

  Low hills unfurled before their tired feet. A bright blue sky beamed. Most of the scenery was covered by tough grass. Distant herds of zebra and antelope grazed. Lonely, parasol-shaped acacia trees dotted the horizon. In pockets fed by tiny springs thrived myrtle trees and dark green cedars. Occasional outcrops of barren rock and sand were ringed by wiry scrub bushes that only goats could eat.

  Country dwellers carried warnings to the marketplace that the yellow sand was expanding, that springs and pools dried up seasonally. The land had been changing ever since the Era of Skyfire fifty-two years back, but few city dwellers cared about the wilderness beyond Cursrah’s skirts.

  The vast grassland was populated by a few. Shacks and tents belonged to herders and hunters. Travelers lurched and swayed on camels and plodding donkeys, and a patrol of the bakkal’s cavalry rode under a brilliant red pennant.

  The one striking structure in this country was a long channel of stone sunk into the ground like a road that undulated to both horizons. Greenery lined both sides of the stone “road,” living on its damp breath. The three adventurers joined the dusty path alongside it for a while then clopped over a raised stone bridge. They heard water gurgling below.

  “Cursrah’s greatest architectural accomplishment,” Gheqet said, smiling as if he’d built it personally.

  The “road” was actually an underground aqueduct roofed with large, irregular slabs of gray stone. High and wide enough inside for three men to walk upright, the aqueduct rambled for miles across the sun-drenched wilderness, all the way from the distant River Agis to the shallow valley that Cursrah called home. Fine-grained stone had been quarried by dwarves in the Marching Mountains, ferried through the air by genie-slaves, carefully fitted by genie miners, then magically sealed leak proof by marids. Teams of masons patrolled the miles-long aqueduct, inspecting roof stones, clearing weeds, and ensuring no water escaped or was illegally siphoned off. The penalty for stealing “the lifeblood of Cursrah” was to be buried to the neck in sand then left to die in full view of the public. Some citizens argued the inspection teams were a waste of tax money, because Great Calim himself had tasked a magical protector to guard the waterworks. Even the inspectors were unsure how much protection a near-mythical and mysterious marid provided.

  “I know how you feel about the army, Taf,” Gheqet said, resuming their conversation. “I didn’t want to be apprenticed to a mason, either. Granted, my family’s not as high born as yours, but my mother’s grandmother was the Second Sama’s favorite lady-in-waiting. She was made a rafayam so we receive yearly greetings and a stipend from the palace, but that’s all the nobility we can claim. I’ll spend the rest of my life working with my hands; inspecting tunnel shorings, building walls, carving gargoyles.…”

  “You’re both better off than I,” fluted a voice. The two young men turned. Star’s face was taut with pain, but she forced a smile. “You can direct your lives a little or at least count on some surprises. Look what fate awaits me back at the palace and count yourselves lucky.”

  She paused, looking down at nothing, then said, “I apologize for snapping earlier. My leg throbbed like fury, and my temper grew short.”

  Embarrassed, her friends looked at the road.

  “If I’m short-tempered, I’m also stubborn,” the samira continued. “Who knows? I might foist my arranged marriage off on my sister Tunkeb—she does whatever my parents wish anyway—then I could marry anyone I choose. I might marry one of you. Or both!”

  Her teasing made the men blush, so they were glad when riders approached in blue kilts and tunics painted with eight-pointed stars. Yuzas Anhur, captain of Star’s personal bodyguard, spurred the troop to a canter. “Your majesty,” he said, “why do you persist in slipping away …?”

  Star tuned out the familiar lecture as guards fussed over her bandaged leg. Gheqet and Tafir collected black looks for leading her majesty into danger.

  Following the aqueduct, the party eventually passed from grasslands into farm country, a beltland three leagues wide and lush with squash, strawberries, winter melons, caraway seeds, green and broad beans, chickpeas, cabbages, eggplant, asparagus, celery, lentils, rye, and
barley. Farms and granaries dotted rich brown fields well-tended and well-magicked by farmers, well-manured by livestock, and well-watered by irrigation ditches fed by the aqueduct. Eventually the road left behind the heady aroma of spring blossoms and manure and dropped over the lip of Cursrah’s valley.

  More travelers rode camels, jounced in chariots, were toted in pallaquins, and even perched astride the occasional elephant. Some were Cursrahns but more were strangers, aiming for the city like bees to a hive. Visitors were another measure of Cursrah’s wealth, for scholars journeyed from all points of the civilized world to study at the famous library. “The world in ignorance streams to Cursrah’s enlightened door,” citizens liked to say.

  Like newcomers, Gheqet and Tafir paused at the lip of the valley to look. The city below glittered like nested, jeweled bracelets. Sculpted valley walls and precisely laid streets formed concentric rings as regular as ripples in a pool.

  Nodding at the many visitors, Tafir joked, “Our pretty city draws more suitors.”

  “True,” Gheqet said, frowning, “but I hope they brought enough to drink.”

  The two young men still led Star’s horse, and now turned onto the winding cobbled road that switchbacked down the valley rim.

  Tafir asked, “How’s that?”

  “Lately I’ve learned a few things from studying engineering and stonemasonry that bother me, Taf. Our aqueduct and its lakehouse … they’re parts of a very delicate instrument.”

  “Delicate?” laughed Tafir. “What an odd word. They were built by genies and genie-slaves.”

  “That’s just it,” Gheqet admitted. “This city was built by genies but is maintained by men, mostly.”

  “Tell me.”

  As they walked, the architect’s apprentice talked and pointed. Cursrah, everyone knew, was a thrice-blessed city, for it had sprung from the brow of Calim. Greatest of ancient genies, Calim came from the far south to the peninsula now called Calimshan in his celebrated Great Arrival. Plying powers beyond imagination, Calim worked endless wonders. Among them, in one barren, sandswept valley, an army of minor genies and their human and non-human slaves labored for years to fashion a city called by some “Calim’s Cradle” and others “the College,” for Cursrah served a sole purpose: to record the accomplishments of Faerûn’s greatest genie, Calim.