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.
‘Well, waiting won’t change anything,’ Ahmed said, making the decision. ‘We go in now.’
We fell into a formation naturally: Rahim and Ahmed taking the lead, little Mara still clinging to Rahim’s sleeve, Shazad and me flanking them on either side, Sam and Jin taking up the rear, with the twins slipping in and out between us, now in the shape of cats.
We passed below a huge arch made of the same red stone as the rest of the fortress. Two heavy wooden doors sat propped open, guiding us into an immense stone hall. Inside, it stretched up two levels, painted wooden beams supporting the ceiling high above us. By the light of hanging oil lamps, I could see faces and animals carved into the beams, gazing down on the scene below. Two dozen tables set up in a great horseshoe curved around the hall. They were lined with soldiers and heavy with food and pitchers of wine. I hadn’t seen this hall when we’d been here before, when I’d been invited to Bilal’s private rooms. But now he’d emerged, it would seem, and he sat at the very end of the hall on a dais above the rest of his men, in a chair that was more like a throne, a huge, twisted seat made of wood painted to look like gold and stacked heavy with pillows.
It took a moment for the first of Rahim’s men to see us.
‘Commander Rahim, sir!’ a young soldier at the far end of the table exclaimed, standing up and knocking over his chair. It crashed on to the tiled floor loud enough that several other heads turned our way. Shazad’s hand strayed to her side at the same time as I touched the trigger on my gun for comfort. But the soldier strode forwards, embracing Rahim, as he let out a relieved laugh and then, seeming to remember himself, released him and offered a lopsided salute. ‘We thought you were dead, Commander.’ The hall was quietening down now, and almost every pair of eyes in the place was turned towards us. Including Bilal’s.
His eyes were sunk so deep that all I could see were shadowed pits there. His hollow-looking face made him look crueller than he ever had. Bilal was fading fast. He was so emaciated that he looked like a small boy sitting in a too-big seat his father had left him, trying to hold it against a prince, who held more power than he ever would.
For a moment I felt a stab of pity for him. But as I looked around, I could see that the men’s wine cups were full but untouched. They had been well trained, most of them by Rahim. And Bilal was ready to kill them all.
‘It’s not that easy to get rid of me,’ Rahim said, clapping his soldier on the back. His words were jovial, but his eyes, fixed on Bilal, were anything but. ‘What’s happening here?’
Looking at his crumbling body, I hadn’t been entirely sure Bilal would be able to stand, but he rose to his feet gingerly. ‘A celebration,’ he declared, his voice still carrying across the halls in spite of his illness, ‘in anticipation of your arrival. And your annihilation of the foreign threat.’ He signalled to one of the servants, who rushed forwards with a tray of wine glasses for us.
‘Funny, that.’ Rahim took a full wine glass without hesitation. ‘Because I’d heard rumours about you striking alliances with foreigners. I’m sure your father would have marvelled at that.’
Bilal’s eyes danced to me and Jin and Sam. I felt the memory of the burn of Zaahir’s kiss on my mouth. If I was going to say anything, do anything, now was the time. I could save Bilal; I could end this without bodies. I glanced down at the wine glass that was being offered to me and kept my lips sealed.
‘Yes, well,’ Bilal said, after letting Rahim’s accusation hang a long moment in the air. ‘I am in good company, making alliances our fathers would not be pleased at.’
Rahim started to advance towards the dais, walking slowly, deliberately. ‘A toast, then,’ he said.
We all watched as hundreds of men raised their glasses obediently, Rahim’s army falling in line. ‘A toast,’ Bilal agreed. ‘To our esteemed commander, Rahim, on his victory and return.’
‘To the commander,’ the crowd echoed, bringing the glasses up. I was about to cry out, to stop them, to warn them. But Rahim got there first.
‘Wait.’ He held up his hand. It was an order called out in a room full of soldiers, and it had been issued by their leader. Their true one. Every single one of them stopped in an instant.
And surrounding Lord Bilal stood an entire room of men silently reminding him where their true loyalty lay. That this was Rahim’s army. He held out his cup to Lord Bilal. ‘You don’t have a drink, my lord. You can’t drink to my health without it. Besides, it would be rude of your men to drink before you.’
Rahim stepped on to the dais, pulling himself up to his lord’s level. Except Rahim stood a head taller than Bilal, at least. He didn’t break his gaze as he held out his own glass for his one-time friend.
Finally Lord Bilal reached for the cup. As both their hands closed over it, Rahim leaned in close to Bilal. I saw his lips move, saying something to him in a low voice. A sad smile spread over Bilal’s face, but he didn’t say anything. He just pulled back, prising the glass from Rahim’s fingers.
He raised the glass. ‘To your victory,’ he said again. ‘And long life.’
And then he drank, deep and long. He hadn’t finished draining it before his legs gave out. He was dead before he hit the ground.