The chariot was going to crush to her to death.
Pressure, against her body. Her feet going out from under her. She had no time to even be afraid, as a soldier shoved her bodily forward, propelling her away from the chariot.
She heard a terrible noise. The crunch of bones. She heard his breath punch out of him with the smallest sound, more surprise than agony. And then he went still.
His body was beneath the chariot. Only his head and one outstretched arm exposed. He was dressed in Parijati white and gold. He was one of her own soldiers. Numbly, even as the sound of screaming and fire filled her ears, she removed his helm. His eyes were open, his mouth parted. The hair bound in a high bun, away from his face, was knotted.
A priest’s hair. A priest’s face.
Another priest, she thought with a kind of hysterical surprise. By the mothers, hadallpriests of the mothers taken up armor and blades? Why had one chosen to try and kill her, and another chosen to die for her?
“Empress.” Raziya barked. Her voice was ragged, frayed in a way Malini had never heard before. “Empress Malini. We must move. Come on now.”
She would. Just not yet. Not yet.
She found herself leaning closer to the priest. Turning his outstretched arm over. It was partially bare, the sleeve of his tunic ripped. She saw marks on his arm—Saketan script, blurred ink in skin—
A hand gripped her by the shoulder, hauling her up. The guardswomen had surrounded her, and two soldiers had joined them, sabers drawn protectively. Their horses were gone. She tried not to think what had become of the poor creatures. Raziya looked down at her, face bloodied and pale, her gaze focused on Malini, so fierce that it forced Malini to focus on her in return.
“Empress, we must go,” said Raziya. “Right now.”
“Return to the camp, Lady Raziya,” Malini heard herself saying. She hardly knew her own voice. It was raw, scraped thin as if she had been screaming. “I must call for our retreat.” Why had Mahesh not called for them to do so already? Why were her men still trying tofight? “A conch. I need a conch.”
“Empress,” one of the soldiers choked out. “If. If you fall…”
“Empress, what can you do here?” a Dwarali woman demanded. “That is—that is themothers’ fire—”
She ignored those voices. With some difficulty, she raised her eyes, looking upon the immediate dangers surrounding her: the dying horses, the dead man beside her, the soldiers and guardswomen watching her wide-eyed. The fire, leaping from body to body, like a thing with mind and hunger and a mortal’s cruelty. She watched, with a kind of glassy numbness, as a man was swallowed whole by flame. As he fell to his knees, and then what remained of him fell further still, the fire leaving him as swiftly as it had arrived.
Raziya was gripping her shoulder. Calling her name, louder and louder.
“If you will not get me a conch,” Malini said deliberately to the people around her, “then I will get one.”
She would have to move between panicked horses and panicked men in armor, but there in the distance she could see a charioteer with a conch at his hip, frozen on his war chariot, staring at fire as it fell. The commander he must have been carrying was likely long gone—lost in the crush.
“Watch for my safety,” she said to Raziya’s guardswomen. She stood, and Raziya’s grip tightened momentarily before releasing. “Empress,” she said. But Malini did not want to be stopped or cajoled. She strode forward, fast, then faster. And then she was running, her hair streaming around her, her saber clanking against her hip, a useless weight.
“You heard the empress.” Raziya’s voice, distant now, but steely. “Defend her.”
She ducked as an arc of flame rippled close enough for her to feel the heat against her cheek; tripped over a wounded man before finding her footing and crossing the ground. One of the High Prince’s men was ahead of her, on horseback. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw an arrow go into his chest. Saw him fall. Saw the shadows of one guardswoman, and another, circle around her. She kept on running.
The chariot was ahead of her. Malini, shaking with anger and determination, grasped its edge and dragged herself inside. “Your conch,” she demanded, holding her hand out to the charioteer. He fumbled for it and placed it into her hands. “Turn back,” she commanded. “Lady Raziya needs our assistance, and then we must return to camp.”
“E-Empress.” His lips were almost bloodless. Hands trembling. “That was—mothers’ fire—”
“Turn. Back,” she said deliberately.
“The horse,” he managed to say. “It may—”
“You have your command.Go.”
With a crack of his whip the chariot lurched forward, then to the side. Back over the ground she’d run over. She saw Lady Raziya with ash upon her cheeks. One of the guardswomen lay dead on the ground in front of her. The chariot juddered, and Malini clutched the conch more tightly. Swallowed her own breath. No more careful position in battle, swaddled by soldiers and cavalry and shields. She was deep in the fray, the wind scouring her face, dust a harsh salt on her lips.
“Stop,” she commanded the charioteer, and he managed to tame his horse long enough to allow Lady Raziya to scramble on.
“Sahar,” Raziya said sharply. “Manvi, both of you, come with us.”
“We’ll follow, my lady,” Manvi said urgently, frantically urging the chariot forward with her hands—as if she could move its bulk to safety by sheer will alone. Sahar said, “Go, my lady.”
