Ausma Khan - The Blue Eye

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Third instalment in Ausma Zehanat Khan's powerful epic fantasy quartet: a series that lies somewhere between N. K. Jemisin and George R. R. Martin, in which a powerful band of women must use all the powers at their disposal to defeat a dark and oppressive, patriarchal regime The Companions of Hira have used their cunning and their magic in the battle against the patriarchal Talisman, an organization whose virulently conservative agenda restricts free thought. One of the most accomplished Companions, Arian, continues to lead a disparate group in pursuit of the one artifact that could end the Talisman’s authoritarian rule: The Bloodprint. But after a vicious battle, the arcane tome has slipped once more beyond her reach. Despite being separated and nearly losing their lives, Arian’s band of allies has remained united. Yet now, the group seems to be fracturing. To continue the fight, Arian must make a dangerous journey to a distant city to recruit new allies. But instead of her trusted friends, she is accompanied by associates she may no longer be able to trust. Building on the brilliance of The Bloodprint and The Black Khan, this third volume in the Khorasan Archive series ratchets up the danger, taking the conflict to a darker, deadlier place, and setting the stage for the thrilling conclusion to this acclaimed #ownvoices fantasy.

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“You gave none.” Her soft words stroked over him, and for a moment he had the sense he was being gentled as one would coax a stallion to the touch of a warrior’s hand. Her answer echoed his thoughts. “We must risk it, Khashayar.” She turned back to the opening again, squeezed against Sinnia and Wafa. “They have horses I intend to take.”

Khashayar rubbed his jaw. He widened his stance, planting his feet.

“Horses will not survive the crossing of the Rub Al Khali. The risk is a foolish one, First Oralist.”

His men murmured behind him. The noise of catapults crashing into Ashfall’s courtyard sounded at their backs. The time for ambivalence was over. Either he convinced the Companions to return, or he accepted their direction.

He’d already learned that the First Oralist shared little of her thoughts or her plans. She was used to traveling without a company of soldiers at her back, unwilling to justify her actions, but something about her certainty spoke to Khashayar. Convinced him to heed her counsel.

“We must go,” she said now. “The Claim will cover us all. The risk is worth it.”

With no further argument, he signaled to the men behind him. They moved into position. He squeezed past Wafa, gestured at the Companions.

“I’ll go first with two of my men. Follow us once we are clear.”

The sound of the Claim filled the tunnel, washing the dankness from it, wrapping around their senses, its notes as close and familiar as if the men were voicing it themselves. When Khashayar and his soldiers had eased out of the tunnel, Arian and Sinnia followed with Wafa, the rest of their escort at their back. The Claim rose around them, strong and sweet, yet oddly hollow, a breeze blowing over plains of fertile scrubland. Their party moved across the grass, cocooned inside the Claim, the soft words blowing across the group of soldiers who kept watch at the rear of the Nineteen’s army. Military men, professional and well-trained, alert to sounds and movement around them, their camp orderly and silent.

Khashayar tallied numbers, noted the count and caliber of weaponry, made sharp-eyed assessments of the men waiting to attack Ashfall from the west. The rearguard consisted of two hundred men. In each small group was a runner, positioned to receive messages from the soldiers yet to arrive. The entire vanguard consisted of no more than a thousand men. When spread out in a line against the plains, they had seemed ten times that number. Or perhaps the One-Eyed Preacher had used his sorcery to demoralize the defenders of Ashfall.

He counted the brushfires along their encampment. They lit the faces of small groups, though most of the men had covered the lower half of their faces with their neck scarves, in the custom of their people. He noted the looseness of their robes as a weakness—not what he would have chosen to wear as armor into battle. His own men wore leather armor that closely conformed to their bodies, their weapons at their waists, shields slung over their backs. The Nineteen may have been well-fortified, but Khashayar perceived disadvantages the Zhayedan could exploit.

As they crept ahead with utmost stealth, he considered sending a message by hawk to convey his discoveries to Arsalan, the commander of the Black Khan’s army. But too many of the tribal herders who made up the Rising Nineteen had cast their glances at the sky, waiting for such a signal to give away the enemy’s position. As he scanned the perimeter for a possible ambush, he noticed when two soldiers in each group raised their torches, the signal he had been waiting for.

He held up his hand to silence all movement. The Companions came to a halt, the First Oralist at his side, the Claim a near-silent murmur from her mouth. They were no more than fifty feet from the rearguard of the Nineteen. Two of the soldiers glanced in their direction.

The breeze that brushed the grasslands whipped against their faces, forcing them to turn away.

Khashayar’s smile was grim. He knew his duty was to escort the Companions to Timeback, but his mind was racing with other possibilities. With the First Oralist’s use of the Claim, perhaps they could strike against the rearguard and strike hard—hard enough to gain Ashfall another night’s reprieve.

Before the First Oralist could answer the question in his eyes—or before he could act on his own—a chant began in the Nineteen’s camp. The soldiers beat against the ground with their torches in an accompanying rhythm. The chant was meant to terrorize the citizens of Ashfall, but Khashayar was mystified by the meaning of the words they spoke. They offered it in the High Tongue. As an elite commander, he was literate enough to understand.

“Over this are Nineteen.”

Over what? What did their name signify? He lowered his arm in a signal and began to move again, letting the words sweep over the night. The First Oralist’s continuous murmur of the Claim dimmed any fear he might have felt at the chant.

Over this are Nineteen.

He glanced back at his men to ensure that their course was steady. They moved with precision, a line of warriors determined to protect the Companions and the boy, weapons in hand, eyes focused on the soldiers who should have seen their movements in the open but whose heads remained turned away.

Though the temptation to strike was great, Khashayar bided his time. He would get the Companions to safety, and then he would persuade the First Oralist of the merits of his plan.

They stole across the grass, their movements sleek and their footing sure. None looked away from the Nineteen, waiting for the silence to break, prepared at any moment for discovery.

But under the steady flow of the First Oralist’s words, they made their way to the hillock and dipped down the other side. Now they were positioned on a twenty-foot dune that loomed above the Nineteen. Khashayar made a rapid calculation and was convinced: if the First Oralist used the Claim to shield them, he and his men could eliminate the rearguard.

She would caution him, he knew. Ten against two hundred. But he’d seen the power of the Claim.

Still, he had to consider the step that would come after a surprise attack. News of the First Oralist’s routing of the One-Eyed Preacher at the Messenger Gate had spread rapidly through the ranks of the Zhayedan. She was a weapon they could wield. If she remained on their side. Angering her for a limited victory could mean losing her assistance entirely.

Too, the First Oralist had made calculations of her own. She wanted the horses the soldiers closest to them had grouped at the rear of their camp—horses whose finely shaped heads were the mark of the region’s thoroughbreds. The horses could take them some distance farther west, though they lacked the stamina for the journey through the heart of the Rub Al Khali desert. At some point, the Companions would need to trade the thoroughbreds for camels.

But surely he could use that to his advantage. He would give the First Oralist her horses, if she agreed to his strike. If she helped him destroy the Nineteen’s entire vanguard. He glanced over at her, expecting to find her attention focused on the horses. Instead, her gaze had followed his, and now she watched him closely, as if she could read his thoughts. Could she? He frowned at the thought.

“First Oralist—”

She spoke to him kindly, her cloak thrown back, the breeze taking the long strands of her hair, so that it whipped at his skin, soft as Marakand silk. “I don’t have the power you seek.”

“You defeated the One-Eyed Preacher at the walls.”

“A momentary respite.”

Something in the air shifted. The chanting slowed. Deepened. Soldiers in the camp began to move. Spyglasses scanned the dunes.

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