Conqueror's Blood (Gunmetal Gods Book 2) by Zamil Akhtar

Author:Zamil Akhtar [Akhtar, Zamil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Eight Point Press
Published: 2021-06-19T16:00:00+00:00

Like the Sylgiz or any respectable Waste tribe, the Jotrids were able to form up fast. Within hours, Khagan Pashang had thousands of riders hurrying to join the battle lines stretched across the landscape. I peeked out the yurt’s flap to see them fletching arrows, packing their steeds, testing matchlocks, and sharpening steel. Weary, I lied down and listened as they barked orders, dictated their last wills and letters to their loved ones, and sang throaty songs that inspired men to kill and die.

I got no rest hearing all that. Sunset came, and I sweat all over my pallet and sheets, so much that I hated my smell. When I sniffed my shoulder, the stench of a damp horse assaulted my nose. And it was everywhere.

Horse girl the concubines would call me when I arrived in the harem eight years ago. Although many hailed from the Waste, their tribes had been pacified, unlike the Sylgiz. So I truly was an odd thing.

While I could cover that up with glossy brocade, a fashionable hairstyle, and Alanyan manners, my accent was harder to shed. “You speak Paramic as if a horse is neighing,” someone once told me. I kept trying to speak like the others, like a proper Alanyan woman, but that only made it worse. A sad attempt is worse than no attempt, and trying so hard, everything out of my mouth sounded so falsely stretched. “Now you speak like a cow is yawning,” they would jest. So, for months, I barely spoke.

Tamaz noticed my silence, though. Once he’d pried the reason out of me, he assigned me a teacher, and for half a year, four hours a day, I practiced speaking a language I already knew with an accent that seemed impossible. The teacher had these special methods; she would make me sing, recite these tongue-tiring poems, and even instruct where I ought to settle my tongue for each word.

And it worked. All I needed was someone to tell me the right things to do, and I could follow. Sometimes all we lack is a little knowledge, some light to illuminate the path. The way I look and sound now, no one would guess that I lived my first fifteen years in the Waste with a tribe of horse warriors. I’m as Alanyan as it gets — for better or worse.

Pashang entered while I was on my side, itching my sweaty scalp.

“It’s time.” The man wore mirror armor inscribed with saintly verses and knotted with metals in six different colors. The Philosopher who tutored me once remarked that the mirrors on such armor were as useless as the inscribed verses — a ward for superstitions, particularly the evil eye. But if words written with blood could have power, and if I could touch stars with my fingers, then why not armor made of mirrors?

As Pashang held out his hand, I saw my sorry self in its reflection.

“I look like a yak took a shit.”

“A little excitement’s all you need.” Pashang chuckled.

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