The women would be killed, probably along with the servants of the palace. Then, very likely, the whole complex would be put to the torch, and maybe even the city, so that when Ashar arrived there was nothing but soot and wreckage awaiting him.
She realised she was growling gently. Her hand closed on something and she looked down in surprise. She had grasped one of the cleavers hanging from the rack above the heavy wooden bench. Now why had she done that? If she’d believed in Gods or fate, or indeed anything but her own will, she might have put that down to some hidden influence.
Smiling coldly, she walked quietly along the wall of the kitchens, parallel with the entrance corridor of the Harem; a foot-thick wall all that separated her from the two men. She approached the kitchen door with a little trepidation and paused, listening. This portal led back out into the central courtyard of the harem beside the entrance passage. She heard Ma’ahd and his man stop nearby; heard the satrap clear his throat and begin to address the harem in a clear voice.
“Women of the royal bedchamber! We no longer have any need of you and the time has come for you to escape this prison. You are to be set free.”
Behind the decorative door, Asima snarled. She knew exactly what sort of ‘escape’ and ‘freedom’ the man was talking about. Well, she was not going to curl up and accept her fate quietly.
Outside she could hear girls rushing out of the doorways around the building and into the garden, chattering with excitement. Could they really be so dense and short sighted that they believed the masters of Akkad after leaving them to rot for three years actually intended to free them? Just how stupid were some of these women?
She heard a hoarse chuckle from the officer.
Without a plan; without forethought or even taking a breath in preparation, Asima ripped open the kitchen door and stepped out, directly behind the captain of the satrap’s guard. In that brief moment she took in the entire scene. The women were filing out into the open square from which Ma’ahd addressed them. The guard officer was armed, but the weapon was sheathed; Ma’ahd likewise.
With no grace or elegance, Asima swung the heavy cleaver to her left, her eyes fixed on Ma’ahd and not even breaking her step as she tugged the gleaming blade back out of the man’s neck, hearing the unpleasant sounds as it snapped a tendon and left the spine almost severed.
Behind her, captain Siva of the palace guard, his eyes bulging in shock, collapsed to his knees and then, one hand going to the huge chasm in his neck, toppled gently forward, making gurgling noises.
The whole assault had been so brief that she had already taken her next swing before Ma’ahd, his eyes wide with surprise, had begun turning to see what had happened.
Her blow took off Ma’ahd’s left arm just above the elbow, the razor-sharp, heavy blade continuing on to dig into his ribs. He stared at her, his mouth opening and closing as he registered the gruesome damage she had just inflicted on him.
The whole world, having slowed to a crawl for Asima as she dived into her assault with no thought and delivered her initial blows, suddenly sped up and left her in a minor panic. What in hell’s teeth had driven her to do this? Before her, satrap Ma’ahd was recovering his composure. The wound was crippling but far from fatal. He roared and reached around with his right hand to draw his long, curved sword.
Asima swallowed and sighed. No going back now; she had to finish it.
As the wounded tyrant began to draw his sword, the blade rasping against the metal edge of the scabbard, Asima kicked him in the kneecap with as much force as she could muster. There was a satisfying crunch and, sword still half sheathed, Ma’ahd cried out in pain and fell heavily on to his back.
Now they were fighting on Asima’s terms and not his. Like all of her plans, carefully constructed over many years of harem life, this one had to be played out in the appropriate steps and carefully. First: the element of surprise. Well, she’d accomplished that easily. Second: leave nothing for your victim to use against you.
Taking a deep breath, she drew back the cleaver and let it fall with all the power she had behind it. The satrap, agonised and in shock, floundering on the floor with a missing arm and a shattered knee, could do nothing but watch in horror as his other arm, hacked off above the wrist, scraped across the gravel and came to a halt beneath a decorative rose bush.
“What?” he managed, blood bubbling around his lips as he managed to speak in a wheezy whisper. “Why?”
Asima smiled and the effect made the satrap recoil as far as his position allowed.
“You invaded our town, burned our homes, killed our people, turned on your own country and usurped your King, among many other smaller failings. There are countless reasons, I’m sure, why people want to see you dead, Ma’ahd. But not me. You see, I have changed since the days you sent me away from M’Dahz.”
As she spoke, she stooped and finished the job of drawing his curved sword from the sheath, flinging the cleaver, covered in viscera, into the bushes away from them. She became aware of the horrified silence that filled the garden and the increasing proximity of some of the other women, who were slowly closing in from behind her. They were hardly a worry.
“Quite simply, Ma’ahd, you took a happy young girl and turned her into me. For that I suppose I should really thank you. I am far stronger and more powerful than I could ever have hoped to be as Asima the merchant’s daughter.”
She paused in her speech for a moment to bring the long curved blade down in a precise blow that severed his other leg below the knee. The satrap shrieked. Third step: make sure you have them exactly where you want them and there is no escape.
She turned and the women approaching her stopped in their tracks.
“I’d wait there, ladies. I’m rather enjoying myself and I don’t know whether I’ll be able to stop at two.” She licked her lip hungrily
Without paying any further heed to them, Asima turned back to the maimed and bloody mess below her. He was flailing, but not a single limb remained intact to obey his brain’s desperate commands to flee this mad woman.
“No.” Asima stated flatly. “I’ve long ago got past hating you. I’m sorry if it bruises your ego, your lordship, but there are girls in this building that I consider more of a threat than you. No… I couldn’t have cared less about you.”
She gave three light slashes with the blade, delivering random cuts across the man’s torso, eliciting new cries of agony.
“No. This is quite simply self preservation. I will not go to my death, Ma’ahd. Some of these women may be stupid enough to think you might free them, but the only thing I’m not sure of is whether you would have had us shot full of arrows or simply locked us in a shed and set fire to it.”
And the last step? Make sure the game goes on long enough to enjoy it. She delivered a few more painful cuts. He was bleeding quite profusely now and his face had become gaunt and grey, the hollows of his eyes taking on a purple tint.
“More even than that, you see. Prince Ashar never liked me much. I don’t think I’ll thrive under his reign, but I may be able to begin closing the gap between us when I present him with your neatly severed head on a bed of rose petals.”
Without taking her eyes from the groaning heap below her, Asima gestured over her shoulder with her free hand.
“You girls… get me a few hundred rose petals and a silver serving dish. Satrap Ma’ahd’s reign is over.”
The last thing the mighty satrap Ma’ahd, power behind the throne of Pelasia and conqueror of M’Dahz, ever saw was the happy grin on the face of a blood-spattered beauty as she went to work, sawing through his neck with his own sword and whistling a lullaby as she did.
In which borders are redrawn
Asima stood glowering at the new King of Pelasia. Ashar, calm and collected, leaned back in his seat and placed his feet upon the table in a relaxed fashion.