‘Should we save them?’
‘No,’ I say, deciding after a moment, disappointed. ‘They were scrub for the opponent anyway.’
The Marka has hardly begun, and I am down three precious bodies.
‘Master, if Fayez has an idea of our plan, we have failed.’ Arezu voices my exact doubts. ‘If we could just engage Madj head-on, to take her out before Fayez arrives—’
‘You are going about strategy all wrong. Nine out of ten times, frontal charge is contingent on numerical superiority. We are small,’ I correct her. ‘In a melee, we focus on mobility, to enforce our own natural positioning.’
‘That does not sound like the purpose of the Marka,’ she says reluctantly.
‘It is only a game.’ I return to where I left Yahya. Fayez must have a distinct idea of my strategy using Madj, or else he would not have targeted Squadron Five first. Had he predicted this? Perhaps he isn’t underestimating me at all.
I shut my eyes. It is easier to envision the Marka as a saktab gameboard. My surroundings fade. I imagine six territories, placing us on the outskirts of the sixth. We are outnumbered two to one against the other squadrons. If Arezu controls the plants again, and can tighten a noose of poisonous flora, trapping Fayez’s troops, it will be a bloodbath. Fayez’s squadron will be driven against Madj’s forces with my soldiers on the outskirts, exploiting their openings. A tactic modelled after a fish caught in a stone-weighted net.
From the barrier of cacti, we will cut off their communication lines; they will have no way to inform their other flanks.
After explaining the amended idea, Sohrab, serving as my messenger, darts to tell the students holding our position in the east, and to Katayoun with Yasaman, ordering them nearby in Territory Five with all of our flags, where no one would think to look for them, since Squadron Five is defeated already.
To Arezu, I say, ‘Continue circling vegetation around the perimeter of our territory in dense rows but use a three-breath meditation technique, like what we did on the treetops, to maintain Heavenly Energy. Divide them.’
She nods, scurrying off to her position.
From my satchel, I apply three drops from the attar bottle the monks bestowed, one on my collarbone and two on each wrist. In seven breaths, my soul escapes the confines of the corporeal, travelling to the psychospiritual world. My bonds reach Heaven and I demand the firmament acknowledge my wish. A rush of power greets my soul, filling the seventy-seven bonds with the scent of the attar.
Not a moment too soon. Fayez’s squadron emerges below in supple flanks, intercepting Madj in our territory. Each squadron possesses a flag at the centre of their formations. Before they converge, the ground, moistened by the oases, cracks as roots entangle the warriors’ feet. I smile.
And then it breaks.
‘Destroy all of this,’ Fayez’s voice thunders through the plains. ‘I’ve enough of these petty tricks. Expose their positioning.’
Negar lifts her right foot. I blink and the entire territory shudders. Clay arises in a wave of dirt, crushing Arezu’s fragile plants, burying them beneath a smooth wall of pale, saline sediment, forcing me to scramble back. I pray my soldiers were not buried in the landslide.
‘There she is.’ Fayez turns, spotting me far in the distance on the rocky sediment, with no trees to obscure me. ‘Humble your dog,’ he roughly orders his lieutenant. I flinch as Yabghu breaks away from his flank. He clasps his palms and the air plunges into a scorching warmth. A Smokeless-Fire affinity, the same energy used before mankind’s existence to create jinn.
His shoulders round back before a stifling heat wilts Arezu’s flora.
It’s clever. Captain Fayez prepared Yabghu as a direct rival against my defences; he predicted I’d use Arezu to fortify the perimeter.
‘I am not finished,’ I mutter before raising one finger, using the Second-Stratum of summoning, which condenses Heavenly Energy and combines multiple bonds. Nur teases from my hands and feet, splitting into three dense ropes of cold cosmic light until it solidifies. It slithers down the blue slopes of the salt ridges.
As it reaches Yabghu, the nur erupts, lighting the territory into a flash of white light, temporarily blinding him.
‘Again,’ I bark loudly at Arezu. She weaves her flora into four tall brackets. Before Yabghu could stop her, Madj’s soldiers spill into the clearing, and I sigh with relief.
‘Their sight!’ I order loudly. Arezu’s cacti whistles thorns into Fayez’s isolated flanks.
‘My eyes!’
With the soldiers blinded, pazktab children from the eastern flank choose to charge like proud cowards. They bellow toward the first square in the net formation. It contains seven soldiers against ten of mine, and in its centre, I spot the enemy squadron banner, guarded by two opponents.
I rush down the slope on to the battlefield, switching to First-Stratum summoning.
The fundamental key of the Marka is the rule of no deaths: a necessary provision that ensures any attacks by affinities must be conservative; it’s less about a display of power and more a test of how one can control and wield it.
My foot sweeps low, impelling gales of sand into the eyes of Adam, the first warrior I spot.
A second one thrusts her khanjars out. Gulnaz. The sharp glints a promise of pain. I spin, heel kicking back, bonds blasting a shield of concentrated nur.
