And we were almost at the end.
Chapter 32
We struck camp halfway up the mountain, at the last village before the fortress of Iliaz. Bilal had to know we were coming, but our path hadn’t met with any resistance. The people of Iliaz knew Rahim from his days in service to Lord Bilal’s father, and as we made our way up to the fortress, they came out to stare. When we stopped for the night, the locals welcomed him like a long-lost son. The whole village came out, carrying platters of food and pitchers of the wine that had made Iliaz rich. There had been no news from the fortress in weeks, the people said. Some said Bilal was already dead.
‘He’s not dead,’ I said, glancing up at the fortress above us. I could see stone towers through the crags in the mountains, casting their shadows over the green vines that dominated the hillside. We would be there before midday tomorrow. Bilal was still alive. I had the choice to keep him that way. We wouldn’t need to turn his army against him.
I hadn’t told anyone about Zaahir’s gift. Not even Shazad. I wasn’t sure why. But I really ought to say something now, as Rahim set out the plan for tomorrow on how to approach the fortress. He was calculating how many of his soldiers he thought he could count on to lay down weapons right away when a young girl’s voice came from outside. ‘No!’ she was screaming. ‘I need to talk to him!’
We were all outside in the space of a few heartbeats. The little girl stood in the doorway of the house we’d taken rooms in. She was about eight years old, her dark hair in a tightly coiled braid around her head, and she was thrashing and screaming as our guards hung on to her. ‘I need to speak to the commander! Please!’
‘Mara.’ Rahim pressed out into the small town square, where he could see the little girl properly. Her head twisted at the sound of her name.
‘Commander Rahim!’ She wrenched forwards to meet him, though one of our rebels still held her. ‘Let me go!’ She turned, and with all the force in her tiny body, she slammed her heel down on his instep, forcing him to let her go with a violent string of curses far from fit for a little girl’s ears. Not that she was listening anyway. She was already bolting towards us.
‘I like her,’ Shazad said. ‘Here’s hoping she’s on our side.’
‘I taught her that,’ Rahim said, with a hint of pride in his voice. I could imagine he had. Separated from his little sister, whom he would’ve given anything for, he’d found another young girl to replace Leyla. He dropped to his knees to meet Mara at eye level as she barrelled straight for him.
‘You have to help!’ She was breathing hard, her tiny face flushed. ‘I ran all the way here. He’s going to kill them! He’s going to kill them all!’
Rahim looked at her, brow furrowed. ‘Who is?’
‘Lord Bilal.’ She swallowed, trying desperately to spill out all the words fast enough. ‘He knows you’re coming. He knows he doesn’t stand a chance. And there’s this girl, a princess, they say, who’s been whispering terrible things into his ear for weeks.’ Leyla. Damn her. We’d taken her out of Izman to keep her from causing trouble, but somehow she’d managed anyway. ‘He’s going to poison the whole garrison so you can’t turn them against him.’
We all stared at the little girl as the words sank in, the horror of what she was telling us. And then we started to move as one.
We pieced it together as we went.
Mara worked in Lord Bilal’s kitchens. She was the little sister of a young soldier in the Iliaz command. Lord Bilal had seen us coming. Using a ship as a battering ram wasn’t exactly inconspicuous. He’d announced to the garrison that there’d be a feast that evening in our honour.
Mara had been hard at work in the kitchens with another servant. The other girl was new. She didn’t know she wasn’t supposed to sample the wine. Or she didn’t care. Mara had watched the girl drop dead right in front of her.
It seemed Bilal had decided that if we weren’t about to give him a Demdji to save his life, he wasn’t going to let us take his army. He was ready to kill hundreds out of spite.
We wouldn’t be able to make it on foot. Jin, Sam, Shazad and I scattered, looking for Izz and Maz, as Ahmed started to leave instructions for what to do while we were gone. Rahim stayed with Mara. We found the twins quickly enough, and it took a handful of words for them to burst out of their human shapes into those of giant Rocs. By the time we returned, Shazad had grabbed the weapons we needed. I caught the gun she tossed me almost without looking as Jin pulled me on to Maz’s back.
Rahim also climbed up, settling Mara with us. The little girl let out a scream as we launched into the sky.
It was a matter of moments before we were soaring over the walls of the fortress, the last of the sun touching the horizon as we did.
The courtyard was eerily empty when we landed, and the walls we’d flown over were unmanned. But it wasn’t deserted. Ahead of us, doors that led into the main hall were flung wide open. Light and noise and celebration spilled out invitingly into the gloom as we slid off the twins’ backs.
‘Is it me,’ Sam voiced what we were all thinking, ‘or does this seem like a trap?’
‘It’s not you,’ Shazad said.