The emperor accepted each parchment and thanked each messenger for his service. He then opened it, read the single line printed or scrawled on it, and laid it in a pile. Finishing, he bowed his head.
“Your Imperial Majesty?” General Xevi ventured. “What is the response?”
He swept the parchments off his desk with a swat of his hand and stood up so fast that he tipped over his chair. It crashed backward, and the gilded edges cracked. He stalked to the back of the tent and stared at the broken diamond statues that Liyana had left behind. Liyana had destroyed nearly all of them, even those without deities inside them. Resourceful woman. And stubborn. Like her clans. He’d kept the broken statues to ensure that he did not forget that. He couldn’t underestimate her or the clans.
He heard the elderly generals bend to scoop the parchments off the floor. Each was stamped or marked with the symbol of a clan: wolf, silk, horse, raven, scorpion, wind, sun, snake, tortoise . . . Each held one sentence: You will not enter the mountains.
“We must proceed with the aim to minimize casualties,” the emperor said. These were Liyana’s people, not his enemies.
General Akkon grunted. “Cavalry. Or fifth squadron.”
Turning to face them, the emperor shook his head. “You misunderstand me. The only way to minimize casualties is to ensure that we win the war, not merely one battle. We must convince them of the impossibility of opposing us now and in future generations. This victory must be swift, decisive, and thorough.”
“Merciful brutality,” General Xevi said. “Your father would have approved.”
He thought again of Liyana and wondered what she would say. “I am not doing this for him,” the emperor said. “Spread the word. We attack at dawn.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Liyana woke before dawn. She burst out of her tent and scanned the horizon. Black shadows, the tents of the emperor’s army, still filled the eastern view. Gray blue, the predecessor of the dawn, tinted the east. She saw a flash of distorted stars overhead—a sky serpent twisting in the sky. Ever since the clans and the army had pitched their tents at the foot of the forbidden mountains, the sky serpents had circled overhead. Liyana hoped that they would convince the emperor to retreat. But still he sent his messengers and made his demands.
Her heart raced, and she didn’t know why. Bayla. There’s something wrong. Something woke us. I don’t know what it is.
Bayla was silent for a moment, and then she said, I do not see the emperor’s guards.
Guards typically paced the perimeter of the emperor’s camp. Liyana had gotten used to seeing them, a distant audience, as the clans went about the business of establishing their base. She had also become used to the sounds of the large camps as they drifted across the desert—their horses, their cooks, their hunting dogs, their endless practice drills. It was never quiet. Until now.
Liyana accepted the magic from Bayla as easily as catching a ball, and she flowed across the desert to the emperor’s encampment. She expected to touch the souls of the sleeping soldiers. . . . But she felt no one. Bayla, they’re gone!
An army that size cannot vanish. Check further out.
Keeping herself tethered to her body, Liyana sped beyond the camp. She swept the distant horizon, and she circled the clans’ tents. And then she found them: fanned out on either side of the clans’ tents. The army had split into two forces. Each soldier was shoulder to shoulder with another. Row after row of them marched toward the clans’ tents as if to squeeze the desert people between them.
Pulling back, Liyana sucked in air to shout, “Attack! Coming from the north and south!” She ran through the camp, sounding the alarm.
Around her, the men, women, and children from her clan poured out of the tents. As per the plan, young children were shuttled by older children to the center tent. Also in the center was the clan’s precious water supply. Circling the children were those too elderly or infirm to be nimble. They armed themselves with spears and stakes, long-reach weapons that would slow anyone who broke through the outer defenses. All the able-bodied men and women rushed to the edge of camp. Liyana knew this was repeated in other clans with minor variations. For example, in Korbyn’s clan, the children laid traps around their tents, and the elders of Maara’s clan dipped every weapon in scorpion poison.
Half the clans clustered to the north of camp, and half to the south. Readying their weapons, they waited for the armies to appear. Liyana pushed through the warriors, looking for Korbyn. His clan had dispersed and was distributing a variety of “surprises,” including throwing knives dipped in snake venom and ropes made of tough-as-wire silk that could trip horses. Everyone had a knife, sword, or bow—though as prepared as they all looked, Liyana knew that most had never used a weapon on a person.
She found Korbyn on the north side. Moving forward, the army stirred a cloud of sand. Each soldier was clad in armor, and each held a weapon with practiced ease. Softly she said to him, “If the soldiers reach us . . .”
Korbyn nodded. “We won’t let them.”
He reached out and took her hand, and together they retreated to Korbyn’s tent. The others deities were already waiting for them—eleven total, including Sendar and Maara. As Liyana and Korbyn entered, they all positioned themselves in a circle on blankets.
“Since Liyana does not need to be in a trance to work magic, she will coordinate our efforts,” Korbyn informed the others.
A few deities whispered to one another.
Sendar scowled. “I will not obey a—”
Do not prove yourself to be a horse’s ass, Sendar, Bayla said. Out of respect for me, you will cooperate. Liyana repeated her words, and Sendar fell quiet. Other objections were similarly quashed, primarily by Bayla.
Korbyn squeezed Liyana’s hand. “Be clever, and be quick.”
Around her, the deities closed their eyes and fell into trances. Liyana felt Bayla disappear for a moment and then return with the familiar flood of magic. Using it, Liyana expanded throughout the tent. Beside her were the souls of the deities. Each flickered like a ball of lightning. She spread further, blanketing the camps of the clans, and then she crossed the desert to touch the frontlines of the two halves of the emperor’s army.
Circling around the deities, Liyana whispered in the ears of four of them, “Water. Summon water to the surface twenty feet in front of the armies. Create sinkholes and quicksand. Oyri, draw your worms to the water.” The chosen deities pulled the water up from the bedrock. It weakened the sand. Patches of quicksand blossomed in the path of the emperor’s soldiers. Liyana flitted from patch to patch, widening them.
She ordered four of the deities to stir the winds, and she directed them toward the frontlines. Sandstorms whipped toward the soldiers. Wolves howled within the storms. Guided by Liyana, the deities blocked the storms from touching the desert people and channeled them through the ranks of the emperor’s army.
Maara called the scorpions from the surrounding desert, and the Snake Clan deity summoned the snakes. Numbering in the thousands, they scurried over the desert floor and swarmed the feet and ankles of the soldiers.
From deep below the ground, massive worms moved through the rocks, churning up the earth beneath the feet of the army. The sand shook and tossed rocks as the worms attacked the water. Some burst through the surface. Liyana heard the desert people cheer, and she heard the soldiers scream.
Leaving the deities, Liyana bolted out of the tent. She looked across the camp to see her people side by side, watching. They had not moved. Across the desert, the army was lost in a writhing mass of sand.