“A little while,” he said. “Perhaps ten uses. Perhaps fifteen. It all depends on the strength of the vessels.” The girls, their bodies too warmed by the stone and the sun to be cooling yet. “When you use it, remember what was sacrificed.”
“I will,” said Shahruz. He made the stone vanish into his sleeve, then bowed three times to al-Sepehr. The obeisance was in honor of Sepehr and the Scholar-God, not the office of al-Sepehr, but al-Sepehr accepted it in their stead.
Shahruz nodded in the direction of the dead girls. “Was that necessary? Saadet—”
“I cannot be with your sister always.” Al-Sepehr let himself smile, feeling the desert wind dry his lips. “My wives would not like it. And I will not send you into the den of a Qersnyk pretender without a means of contacting me directly. All I ask is that you be sparing of it, because we will need it as well as a conduit for magic.”
Shahruz hesitated, the movement of his grimace visible beneath his veil. “Are we dogs, al-Sepehr,” he asked finally, reluctantly, “to hunt at the command of a pagan Qersnyk?”
Al-Sepehr cut the air impatiently. “We are jackals, to turn the wars of others to our own advantage. If Qori Buqa wants to wage war on his cousins, then why should we not benefit? When we are done, not a kingdom, caliphate, or principality from Song to Messaline will be at peace—until we put our peace upon them. Go now. Ride the wind as far as the borderlands, then send it home to me once you have procured horses and men.”
“Master,” Shahruz said, and turned crisply on the ball of his foot before striding away.
When his footsteps had descended the stair, al-Sepehr turned away. He set his half of the stone aside and bathed his hands in sun-hot water, scrubbing under the nails with a brush and laving them with soap to the elbow. When he was done, no trace of blood could be seen and the sky was cooling.
He reached into his own sleeve and drew forth a silk pouch, white except where rust-brown speckled it. From its depths, he shook out another hollow stone. The patina of blood on this one was thin; sparkles of citrine yellow showed through where it had flaked away from crystal faces.
Al-Sepehr cupped his hands around it and regarded it steadily until the air above it shimmered and a long, eastern face with a fierce narrow moustache and drooping eyes regarded him.
“Khan,” al-Sepehr said.
“Al-Sepehr,” the Qersnyk replied.
The stone cooled against al-Sepehr’s palm. “I send you one of my finest killers. You will make use of him to secure your throne. Then all will call you Khagan, Qori Buqa.”
“Thank you.” The son of the Old Khagan smiled, his moustache quivering. “There is a moon I would yet see out of the sky. Re Temur escaped the fall of Qarash.”
“No trouble,” al-Sepehr said, as the beat of mighty wings filled the evening air. “We will see to it. For your glory, Khan.”
2
The whuff of soft breath across Temur’s cheek awakened him. His hand clenched on the knife hilt; he nearly drove the forged blade into his own belly before he realized that what stood over him, filthy in the morning light, was a liver-bay mare whose sparse mane was still braided down between her eyes with red war ribbons.
She whuffed again, not startled by his sudden movement, and resumed lipping the fleece that Temur huddled under. She was sucking up the frost from his breath, which hoared his blankets. When Temur pushed himself out of their warmth, cold water ran down his back—melted by the residual heat seeping from the bulk of the dead horse. Every movement ripped pain through the tight muscles of his neck and along his spine. The edges of his wound were hot and thick, stiff as unstretched leather. He pressed his left hand over the cloth he’d used to cover it and felt the wetness of lymph and blood, but there was no reek of pus. The wound was still seeping.
The mare must have been numb to the smell of blood by then. As Temur rose, she ambled a few steps off and paused, head hanging, cropping winter-dry grasses where she could find a patch untrampled. Her tack was complete, though her reins had been broken and her quilted chest armor swung from a tangle of straps, whacking her brown-and-black-striped forelegs with each step. Temur could see the dings and abrasions on her knees and cannons where the furniture had struck her.
That was why she was still here, among all the dead. She was effectively hobbled.
The knife was in his hand. He dragged a worn whetstone from the slash pocket in his quilted trousers and scoured the blade to hone it. The barding had to come off, and he didn’t think the mare would stand still long enough for him to release the knots and buckles—assuming his hands were strong enough for the work. And assuming she didn’t knock him over.