The Burned

  If I look back, I will burn.

  Ride.

  Ride.

  Ride.

  When Gulsezim looked down at the ground, it seemed as though she were gliding across a black sea. Only the dark clouds kicked up by her steed’s hooves reminded her that she was trampling across the steppe. Across a field of ash. Across the ashes of everything and everyone she loved.

  She tasted it in her mouth: the taste of sulfur, cooked flesh, and melted fat. She gagged, feeling the urge to void the contents of her stomach - but she had already done so twenty miles back. And if she stopped to catch her breath, she would burn. She knew that. Those who followed her knew it as well - her paltry band of survivors from the burning Khurvan.

  The light of the awakened mountain’s flames cast them all in a terrible red glow, and their shadows were long against the ashen ground. Behind her, she occasionally heard shouts from the keshik rearguard - sometimes, shouts of command. Other times, they screamed in terror - and then one more shadow would disappear. They’re hunting us. How? How can they keep up with horses? How can they be? Demons, demons everywhere.

  She remembered seeing them crawling out of the firepit, howling and screeching - demons of every kind, from every legend she had ever heard, all of them made manifest. How she had survived, Gulsezim did not know. Neither did she remember how she had managed to flee from the infernal tent, or whether Naizabai had noticed her. But she did remember the great black crystal that jutted out from the mountain slope, like a knife driven into the heart of the holy Khurvan. She remembered the rivers of fire that poured from the cracked stone like blood from a wound, and the swirl of firebrands and glinting swords all around as the demons came pouring down with the flames.

  A monstrosity of many arms seized hold of one of her brother’s keshiks, and it pulled him apart like a curious child would an insect - limb by limb. It came for her next, but five other guards fell upon it with lances, only to be overwhelmed by other monsters whose forms she only saw as silhouettes in the flames.

  She ran long and hard through the camp, and everywhere there was death. Merchants and slaves ran for their lives with all they could carry, while her brother’s warriors fought like wild dogs against both the demons and each other. Eventually one of Nariman’s keshiks found her in the midst of the slaughter and gave her his horse to flee. Then somehow, there were others who rode alongside her - some were warriors, but others were courtiers, servants, slaves, even. They rode like the wind, trampling through the crackling ruins of yurts and over anyone unfortunate enough to stumble onto their path, and then they had broken free from the Valley of Milk, fleeing headlong for the south - or anywhere that was not aflame.

  Now they were being picked off one by one, and she could not bring herself to look back at what was taking them.

  It’s coming for me next, she knew. She felt the heat growing at her back, and saw a red light drawing nearer. There were screams from the riders ahead of her, but none slowed down to save her. It’s coming for me next. Spirits protect me, spirits protect me-

  She felt a hail of arrows sigh past her, and then there was an awful screech. She looked back to see the spider-abomination reeling from a dozen arrows in its bloated torso, and it skittered away before the rolling hoofbeats of the warriors that came down from a low hill. Her meager company halted, and Gulsezim felt her heart soar when she saw the mounted archers carried the standard of the Qarakesek.

  “Lady Gulsezim!” the noyan called when he drew close.

  She must have seemed a ghastly sight - covered in soot, her robe tattered, though she was alive, and untouched by the flames which consumed the others in her father’s tent. “Kamil,” she spoke quickly. “Where did you come from? How many do you have?”

  “We’re from the summer palace, by the Olzhas Bend,” he replied, his eyes never leaving the burning mountain behind her. “I saw the fires from the Khurvan and took some men to look - did Nariman’s plan-”

  “Nariman’s plan failed,” she interrupted. Indeed, how had it gone so wrong? She had guessed her brother’s plans to kill Naizabai at the kurultai long before the Red Khan had appeared. And yet the Red Khan had risen from his poisoning, and her brother was dead. Ashes in the wind, with all the others. The smell of burned flesh lingered still on her clothes - his burnt flesh. “Nariman is dead. Everyone is dead. Take me to the summer palace, now.”

  Her voice was cracked and shaky, but it was enough to put Kamil-noyan in his place. They rode together along the Jigai river, and soon she saw the walls of the summer palace break the flat silhouette of the land. The rammed-earth walls were swarming with onlookers, and in the palace square a few dozen men with lances greeted them with quiet respect. Even fifteen miles away, all of them could see the Khurvan burning - and with it, the Great Horde. The Qarakesek. Everything.

  “Get my lady some water!” Kamil-noyan called hollered once they were dismounted, but Gulsezim waved him off. She slipped clumsily down from the saddle - her lungs were burning, and her legs trembled like mad just from standing. One of Kamil’s men - a hulking brute of a man - helped her through the courtyard and into the palace.

  With the kurultai having drawn away their households, the Great Khan’s summer palace was a dark and dusty place - and Gulsezim walked alone amidst the hollow shell. Her legs carried her by memory to the khan’s throne room, and there she saw only a cushion and a small table remained - the rest of her father’s belongings had been taken to the Khurvan. The rest was in ashes, rising with the wind. She took a seat on the hard floor and buried her face in her hands, trying to shut out the whole crushing world.

  The walls of the palace closed in on her. Outside, only the faint crackle of the braziers and Kamil’s men murmuring among themselves broke the petrifying stillness. Gulsezim remained behind the wall of her hands, hardly breathing, hardly stirring. In the darkness of her closed eyes, she tried to piece it all together - Naizabai rising from the dead, the roar of the Khurvan as it split in two, and Nariman’s scream.

  That scream echoed endlessly in her mind - it took root, and would not let go. The smell of burnt flesh lingered on her clothes - she gripped the edges of the table to steady herself as she felt herself on the verge of fainting. If only the table could bear the weight of the world that was coming down around her. The Great Horde was gone. The Qarakesek were gone. All of it - everything she had ever known - all of it was rising into the sky, carried by the wind.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  No, not all of it. And not all of them.

  Yesugei still hasn’t returned. Her brothers were still out there. Yesugei and Kaveh, wandering aimlessly in search of an envoy who had gone west for tribute and never came back. They still live - hope still lives.

  “Lady Gulsezim,” came Kamil-noyan’s voice from the doorway. He hesitated, his usual confidence replaced with unease. “What are your orders?”

  “Get me some ink, a pen, and parchment. Then gather the men, everyone who is still loyal to the Qarakesek.”

  This will not be the end. We have gone too far to fail now.

  She wrote quickly - first in the Khormchak script, then every other language of their vast empire: Huwaqi, Ormanli, Klyazmite, even Yllahanan. By the time the ink was dry on the letter, Kamil’s men were assembled in formation in the palace square. A paltry fifty were all that remained of the Qarakesek guard - and the fading moonlight betrayed half of them as ill-trained youths, set to guard an empty palace while their betters accompanied the Great Khan. Even behind the high walls of the palace, they wouldn’t last a week under siege by the Quanli - nevermind against whatever abominations were crawling out of the Khurvan.

  She turned to Kamil, speaking softly as the others watched. “Noyan, I need a promise from you.”

  Kamil straightened his broad shoulders. “My lady, I live to serve.”

  Gulsezim held up the letter, sealed hastily with a length of silk torn from her sash. The flimsy scrap of paper weighed heavy as lead as she passed it into the noyan’s hands - but did not let go. “Listen to me. Yesugei and Kaveh - they are still out in the field, somewhere to the west. You must find them, whatever the cost, and deliver this letter into their hands. Do you understand?”

  Kamil bristled - his jaw grew tight. “My lady…I cannot,” he spoke tersely. “I should be here - my oath is to defend the royal blood to the death, not to cut and run!”

  “Enough,” she said sharply, and her voice made the gathered men uneasy. “Listen - you think I do not know your place? Yesugei and Kaveh are the royal blood - and if we are to have any hope of vengeance, they must know what has happened - else Naizabai will track them down and kill them.”

  “Let me take you, rather than a parchment, my lady,” Kamil insisted. “You can tell them yourself.”

  She shook her head. Ten years ago, perhaps. But not anymore - and not as she was. She could hardly stand - and the softness of a princess’ life had dulled her edge to the cruelties of the open steppe. “I cannot make the journey, you know this. I’d rather die here, than from thirst and hunger out there.”

  She pressed the letter harder into Kamil’s hands. “You will not argue further. You are my noyan, Kamil. I charge you to obey.”

  Within, she brought into her soul all the strength she could find, all the power her Sight could muster. All of Aqtai-khan’s children were possessed of the sight - her brother had the rarest gift of Sight into the future, but hers was no less valuable. She gathered her presence into a crushing wave, and forced her way into the noyan’s weak mind, bending, breaking. He shuddered, stiffening like a board as she pierced his soul. For a moment, Kamil looked as though he might resist - for her powers were fickle even at the best of times. But then the noyan’s shoulders relaxed, and his eyes took on a strange, glazed quality. He bowed deeply, and accepted the letter with a stilted, “As you command, my lady.”

  “Take two horses,” Gulsezim said, lacing her words with burning command. Once a mind was broken, it was easy to direct it again - like a broken-in leather glove, softening with time. “Ride fast, find Yesugei and Kaveh, and do not look back.”

  Kamil nodded stiffly, tucking the letter beneath his armor. Without so much as a final glance, he turned and strode toward the stables, barking stilted orders to two grooms. Gulsezim watched until he disappeared into the shadows, the sound of hooves fading into the night.

  Then she turned to the fifty men before her, their faces pale and their weapons trembling in unsteady hands. Their noyan had left - and left them under the command of a woman. Gulsezim squared her shoulders, even as every muscle in her body screamed for rest.

  “Hear me, all of you!” she called over their murmuring. “The Quanli have killed my father, and they have killed your brothers! My brothers' hosts are either slain, or too far to help - and we are too few. I'll give you all this one chance - who will stay? Who among you green boys will stand like men, and give these Quanli bastards one last dance?”

  For a long while, no one spoke.

  Then, one man lifted his sword.

  “I serve the Qarakesek,” he said, voice rough but steady.

  Another stepped forward. Then another.

  “I serve the Qarakesek!”

  The cry spread, rising like a slow-burning fire. One by one, the men raised their weapons—not with the bravado of seasoned warriors, but with something quieter, heavier. They were afraid. But they had chosen.

  The cheer that followed rang thin and hollow against the vastness of the summer palace.

  But it was better than silence.

  ***

  The moon sank low, but by the light of the burning Khurvan the sky was cast in shades of deepest blues and purple. Gulsezim stood atop the walls, watching. Waiting. Then she saw them - a sea of torches cresting over the horizon, a living tide of flame and hatred. The earth trembled beneath the pounding of hooves, rhythmic drumming growing louder with each passing moment.

  “So now you’ve remembered us,” she whispered. Her fingers tightened around the bow, fixing an arrow in place. Heavens, it had been too long since she had held a bow, and even longer still since she’d used one in battle. But she still knew how to kill - and now she relished the opportunity.

  On either side of her, the junior keshiks stirred nervously. “Demons tear me, there must be a thousand of them. They’ll crush us,” one of them muttered.

  “We’ll sell our lives dearly." Gulsezim snapped, drawing her bow "A son of the Qarakesek commands a hefty price for his head. Archers - to your marks! Hold steady, loose only on my command.”

  The Quanli banners whipped in the wind as they came on. Their horses seemed aflame, as were the men riding them, howling like wolves in a pack. Gulsezim’s heart pounded deafeningly in her chest as she prepared to loose the first arrow. Her eyes caught sight of the noyan leading the charge, a brute wreathed in a flaming cloak. Let him be the first to die. Let him see how the daughter of the White Khan shoots.

  She drew back the bowstring, but did not let go. A sound pierced through the drum of hoofbeats. A cry that froze the blood, high-pitched and unearthly. Gulsezim’s head snapped upward, and her breath caught in her throat.

  The moon vanished as a red glow filled the sky, bright as the sun. Burning wings spread wide, casting long shadows over the palace. Talons long as swords glowed bright red by the light of the burning plumage - and then the great vermilion bird fell on them with a bone-shaking cry.

  The men around her scattered in panic. Gulsezim’s scream joined their own. The legends had all come to life, and they would swallow them whole.