Читать книгу The Black Khan - Ausma Khan Zehanat - Страница 16

RUKH REFASTENED HIS ARMOR, NODDING TO HIS CAPTAINS TO LEAD THE way. He glanced at the Assassin, who kept pace at his side. The man’s movements were stealthy, dangerous, his footsteps making no sound and leaving no trace behind him.

“Will your men not accompany me to Ashfall?”

“You do not require them at Ashfall, Excellency. What you require is a means to break through Talisman lines.”

The Black Khan and the Assassin climbed to the top of the Eagle’s Nest for a vantage point over the Talisman army. Both men were cloaked in black, camouflaged against the night.

“You give me only a dozen men. I asked for ten times that number.”

“They are assassins,” Hasbah said, as if that were all the explanation needed.

Rukh’s snort of exasperation communicated his dissent.

“They will not be leading a charge through the enemy’s ranks, Excellency.”

“No?” The sky held little light, the campfires of the Talisman flaring up like matchsticks in the distance. The air was cold, its bite cruel, with turbulent clouds massed in smoky clumps overhead. The Black Khan feared for his horses. “What is their task, then?”

“I have dispatched them to their task. Twelve men for the twelve encampments spread across the plains. They will assassinate the commanders. It will throw the Talisman army into disarray. Your road ahead will be clear.” His gloved fingers stroked his bare chin.

Rukh considered his words. “I know your men are skilled, but you set them a fatal task.”

Hasbah bowed. “That is their mission. They will not fail.”

“They will die!” Rukh snapped. “Your best-trained men, used as so much fodder.” He wished he could see the other man’s eyes, to read his mood or his certainty. He wished he could believe that he hadn’t consigned the safety of his city to a devil.

“I have many others,” Hasbah answered him. “Trained with the same skills, loyal to the same end, loyal to me and this fortress.”

Rukh reined in his anger. To expose his emotion was a weakness—better to think and plan with cold, determined purpose. He needed the Assassin, and perhaps there was some viability to his plan. He had never failed the Black Khan, and yet … “The dead have no loyalty, old friend. The dead cherish only themselves.”

“You need not fear,” Hasbah said. “There is a thirteenth man as well.”

Rukh flashed the Assassin a sharp look. “What purpose does he serve?”

“The thirteenth man is an archer. He will bring down their hawks before they call for reinforcements.”

It was a good plan, he thought. It helped that he had witnessed firsthand the fanaticism of Hasbah’s followers. Whatever command he issued—even to the detriment of their own lives—they followed without hesitation. Perhaps Hasbah’s indifference to such recklessness should have troubled him more than it did, but he couldn’t afford to reconsider. The situation in Ashfall was perilous: the sooner he bore the Bloodprint back to the safety of his capital, the sooner he could begin his defense of the west. Hasbah’s hour with the manuscript had elapsed. The Assassin had done nothing more than study it, his gloved hands leafing through its pages, until he came to a verse that held him spellbound.

Another puzzle. What knowledge did Hasbah possess of the Claim? Was he an assassin or a librarian? Or both—the needs of one weighed against the deadly skill of the other.

Rukh thought of the trove of manuscripts in the limestone chamber. He hadn’t asked to see them, and Hasbah hadn’t offered him the choice. He wondered now if his lack of curiosity had been a mistake. Had he missed something that could be turned to his own advantage? His men were gathered at the base of the mountain, provisioned and impatient to be off. He had little time to wait on the answers he needed to find, but he ventured a question. “What did you seek in the Bloodprint?”

The Assassin clasped his gloved hands at his waist. “I sought a key, Shahenshah.”

The Black Khan frowned. Perhaps Hasbah meant to divert him with the title King of Kings. He enjoyed flattery as a commonplace due to a prince, but he kept at the forefront of his mind the favors the flatterer sought. “A key to what, precisely?”

Again that fleeting smile touched the Assassin’s lips. “Your enemies are my enemies, Shahenshah. Thus I sought a key to the Rising Nineteen.”

Rukh subdued a sense of panic. “The Rising Nineteen—why?” He knew well enough that the Nineteen were a force who’d overrun the Empty Quarter: another variant of the Talisman, influenced by the One-Eyed Preacher’s teachings, invested in an arcane numerology.

Above all these are nineteen.

An esoteric riddle of the Claim that the Nineteen worshiped like a cult.

A small sigh escaped the Assassin. Resignation? Or deceit? Rukh could have used the gifts of an Authenticate, but he suspected the Assassin would not be easy to read even had he possessed the ability. And he refused to consider his gifts inferior to those of the Silver Mage, who had made himself over into a guardian of rabble. He thought of his princely city with a fierce, possessive pride. What could compare to its grandeur? Certainly not the ruins of Candour.

Hasbah indicated the army on the plains—the threat he must now contend with. “You think of your eastern border, Shahenshah, and the threat your eyes are able to perceive. My scouts have returned from the west.”

“And?” Now Rukh could not conceal his apprehension. His army of Zhayedan had been ordered to defend the eastern front.

“You will confirm it for yourself upon your return to Ashfall. The Rising Nineteen have launched a force from the west. They will arrive at Ashfall almost on the eve of the Talisman.”

Rukh had left his family undefended in the capital, tarrying too long on the road. The Khorasan Guard would not suffice to protect them. A lack of foresight on his part, swayed by the judgment of the High Companion, who had urged him to seek out the Bloodprint. His jaw tightened with anger: if she had deceived him with Ashfall trapped between two armies, she would pay the price for her betrayal.

His journey suddenly urgent, the Black Khan strode to the carved stone steps that descended from the keep, Hasbah chasing at his heels. “You must send more men to Ashfall, men who follow after, for I cannot delay.” His voice firmed. “And you must come yourself. I cannot do without your assistance now.”

In the limestone chamber at the heart of the Eagle’s Nest, he ordered two of his men to gather up the Bloodprint and the boy. This time Wafa was left untrammeled.

“We are going through Talisman lines,” he warned the boy. “Any sound of betrayal will send you straight into their arms.”

Wide-eyed with fear, Wafa nodded his understanding.

Rukh grasped the Assassin’s arm. “Will you come?” he demanded. “Can I rely upon you?”

Hasbah quoted the Claim. “‘Whoever rallies to a good cause shall have a share in its blessings. Whoever rallies to an evil cause shall be answerable for his part in it.’” He nodded at the Bloodprint, wrapped in its gossamer fibers. “Do not discard the protection I have sealed it in. It will have its uses upon my arrival at Ashfall.”

The tightness in Rukh’s throat eased; the Assassin was a man he could depend on, a man who would not leave him to fight the battle for his city alone. And with so much else to worry over, the Assassin’s support was critical. For though Rukh publicly scorned the Talisman’s brute strength, in truth he was gripped by fear by the unknowable nature of the One-Eyed Preacher, too formidable to defeat on his own. What bolstered him was the aid of men like the Assassin—and the belief it served no purpose to doubt himself. Not when he was armed with the weapons he’d risked so much to secure.

“I will count on every friend I have,” he said. “And when I have sent my enemies to ruin, you may ask me for whatever you wish—it shall be granted at once.”

The Black Khan had played many games with allies and enemies alike, acts that had kept him in power, his promises as elusive as the wind. This time he meant every word.

The Assassin’s head dipped in the direction of the Bloodprint. It was a gesture he checked, but not before Rukh had seen it. He glared at the man behind the hood.

Hasbah hurried into speech. “And what of the other task you assigned me, Shahenshah? You wished me to return to Black Aura, to deliver the First Oralist from ruin.”

Arian, so proud and delicate and sweet … with a spine of steel forged in flame. He had wanted to tame that fire, to taste her willing surrender. But he wanted the Bloodprint more, and there was no woman in all of Khorasan who would stand between him and his empire. She was a prize, not a means. And no prize—regardless how sweet—was worth more than his own ambition.

“Forget her for now,” he said. “Her fate is out of our hands.”