A hot flush rose to Nalini’s head, before sweat dribbled down her back. She didn’t have a clue what to do. And what could she do? Lord Nahmet had been fighting the Al-Yutamites for half a year, resembling a man trying to put out a house-fire only for another to go up in flames. All Nalini knew was that she needed Lord Nahmet’s men, and that Al-Jaraba barely had enough men to fight a war on one front, let alone two.
How can this be happening? How can all that my father built crumble so quickly?
“Well?” Pallab asked, with his smuggest smile plastered on his handsome face. “Any suggestions?”
Nalini glared at him. Pallab’s conceit clawed under her skin. She wanted to make him pay for his smugness, and an idea chimed in her mind. Nalini may not have had any suggestions for his damn brother. But she sure had one for him. “We need every man who can hold a sword to march to war,” she said. “You can be the symbolic force for Carob Castle.”
Pallab tilted his head, to give him a dark façade that made Nalini want to recoil. But then his smirk widened. “You honour me,” he said, in a voice filled with sarcasm. “Any right-thinking man would rather fight fanatics than go on a voyage that would’ve given him fame and fortune to last until the end of time. I cannot thank you enough, honestly.” He looked past Nalini and his smirk turned into a pleasant, amiable smile. “Ah, Your Majesty,” he said. “It appears that I have been volunteered to-”
“Nalini, we cannot go to war,” Wumla interjected; his eyes were bloodshot and darted from side to side. “We are cursed. The people of Date-Palm are more devout than we are, and Abyar is on their side. He would not have brought us fewer soldiers than them if He wanted us to win.”
Nalini internally groaned. She should have guessed that her brother would change his mind. Wumla had never stuck to a plan in his life. Why would leading his forces to save the Kingdom be any different? “If it makes you feel better,” she said. “Sultan Jashan had more men than Father at the start of the revolt, and the clerics all said that Sultan Jashan had Abyar on his side too. And look at how that turned out for-”
“No, you don’t understand. I feel exhausted. I cannot take this heat. And there are rumours that the Blue Sickness is spreading throughout the garrison. We will never win with sick men.”
Nalini’s back stiffened. She inhaled deeply, as much to loosen her muscles as to remind herself to be patient with Wumla. “It is too late to vacillate,” she said. “Mayhap, uncle Talekh may spare you. But aunt Ríma won’t.” Even if she claims you are illegitimate and therefore post no threat to her. “So long as you are alive, you are a threat to her, as will be your child. If you don’t go to war now, all that you love… all that Father built, will be ash, rubble and dust before the summer’s end.”
Wumla looked down at the ground. Then, he hunched forward putting his lips to her ears. “But I don’t know how to lead,” he said, lowly. “I don’t know what to do.”
Nalini clenched her jaw. Of course Wumla didn’t know how to lead. He was the sultan least suited to leading an army in all of Al-Jaraba’s history. He had done little other than lie in bed since he had ascended to the throne, and he had no knowledge of how to inspire or rally people to him.
But Nalini could not voice her thoughts. It would crush her brother, mentally, and would ensure that the campaign ended in disaster, to the detriment of them all. There was only one thing she could do, and more figurative weight burrowed into her shoulders at the thought. “I will come with you,” Nalini said. “I will help you defeat the witch and lift this curse from our family.”
Wumla straightened himself. “But if you ride to war,” he said. “Who will rule in my stead in Flourish?”
Nalini’s blood simmered. The heat raced to her head, pushing out another ugly spot on her forehead. She wanted to scream at Wumla, at the situation, at the Divine! Curse Abyar, she had solved one problem only to open up another. And no doubt neither He, nor Wumla, nor anyone else would have an answer as to who would rule the Kingdom in the Sultan’s absence if not her. And yet everyone would expect Nalini to-
“Go with him,” their mother said. “I will rule in Wumla’s stead and make certain that Payam is tended to.”
Nalini exhaled, releasing the heat that had built up inside her. Dowager Sultana Padma was a melancholic person by nature. But when it came to her family, she found a way to put aside her sadder tendencies, and she did whatever she had to for the family. “Thank you, Mother,” Nalini said. “Your help is much appreciated.” She then turned to Sultan Wumla, Lord Krarim, Lord Anané, Pallab and Emilio. “Now, let’s get our eight thousand men on the march. We have to reach the Azure Lake within the next few days otherwise we’ll run out of water.” And the witch will get there first.
8
-The Blue Sickness-
(Nalini)
The stink of excrement wafted in Nalini’s direction and she wrinkled her nose, as her camel trotted forward. She was at the front of the army and it still stank. Since they had left the capital, an outbreak of the Blue Sickness had spread throughout the ranks, slowing their march to a crawl. Five hundred men had already turned blue in the face as they had vomited and shat bloody water until their deaths, while a thousand more carried on marching with soiled garments. Nalini did not want to think about how foul the stench was in the middle or the back of the army.
How many more men will succumb to the sickness or be rendered in capable of fighting because of it?
Again, she did not want to think about it. Yet, the question went around her head like a coil, tightening its grip around her skull with every rotation.
Droplets of sweat formed on Nalini’s spotty head and she wiped them from her brow. The heat of the Sun-Drenched Desert was as intense as a furnace. The sun’s rays drove down on her, adding to her concerns about the number of men catching the disease, and where aunt Ríma, uncle Talekh and the armies of Date-Palm were. Nalini had heard nothing of them since leaving Flourish.
Nalini yawned. The heat, the Blue Sickness, her promise to her father, Wumla, and her aunt weighed her down, while her eyes drooped at the rhythm of the camel’s trot. Nalini wanted to give in, to close her eyes, sleep and let someone else deal with the problems facing Al-Jaraba.
“Nalini?” Emilio asked. “Are you all right?”
Curse Abyar! What’s the matter with me? Nalini could not fall asleep in the saddle while at the front of the army! She would be laughed at if she were caught. “Yes, Emilio,” she said, through gritted teeth. “And I would appreciate it if you didn’t-”
A cloud of dust and grit assaulted her throat. Nalini coughed, and her throat stung. When she stopped whooping, she grabbed her goatskin of water and uncorked it. She put it to her lips and sucked. But no water flowed into her mouth.
Curse Abyar! They were supposed to have reached the Azure Lake already. There, she and the rest of her brother’s armies could re-supply on fresh, cool water.
“Here,” Emilio said, holding out his skin. “Have some of mine.”
Defiance prickled inside Nalini. She did not want to take her husband’s skin in case it made her look weak and unable to take the heat. But a dry tickle in her throat and another stinging whoop changed her mind. “Thank you,” she said, taking the skin.