‘We can grieve the dead later.’ Shazad shook her head quickly, guessing what I couldn’t say. But her voice still sounded tight. ‘For now, I need a barricade across the palace road and Golder’s Way to stop the soldiers retreating any further than the river. The streets start to climb up there; we’re lost if they gain higher ground. Can you get me that?’
‘Yeah.’ I nodded, glancing quickly up above us. ‘I think I can. But listen, Shazad, you might be able to get reinforcements out on the streets. The people of Izman – we got them to riot once. If you can get them out in the street in Ahmed’s name, then we outnumber the soldiers. I think we can end this.’
‘We don’t exactly have time to go door to door,’ Shazad said as something exploded nearby. None of us flinched.
‘The Zungvox,’ I said. ‘I reckon it’s still in the great prayer house.’ I remembered seeing it, the wiring of Leyla’s invention curled around the inside of the dome like a snake, designed to allow one man to speak to the whole city. For the Sultan to threaten and control us. But we could use it another way. We could get the fallen Abdals to speak for us.
Shazad’s eyes darted quickly in that way they did when she was working out a plan faster than any of us could. ‘All right, here’s what we’re going to do: Amani, you get me some barricades so we can keep fighting. And flag down the twins, get them to move as many of the Abdals away from the walls and into the city as we can.’
‘Yes, General.’ I saluted her. And for the first time, Shazad didn’t correct me on her title.
‘Jin,’ she called on him, ‘how about we get your brother to the great prayer house. It’s about time the city knew he was alive.’
‘We can manage that between the two of us.’ He drew back into the shelter of the alley, reloading his gun. ‘Any sign of the Sultan?’
‘He’s on the battlements.’ She squinted up at the walls. ‘But I haven’t been able to pin him down. The orders are that if anyone gets the shot with the Sultan in their crosshairs … take it.’
Jin and Shazad darted out of the shelter of the small street, back towards the fray, even as I turned to the nearest door. It took one burst of sand to shatter the locks, and then I pushed through. The ground floor of the house was empty, but as I pounded up the stairs I could hear voices and small whimpers and cries from behind doors. But I wasn’t here to hurt anyone; I just needed higher ground.
I burst on to their roof. From up here, I could see the end of Golder’s Way. Shazad had made us all memorise the map of Izman. I could already feel the desert rising below my hands. The sand roared to life, answering my call as it surged in a storm up from the ground and slithered over Izman like some great swarm.
I brought it crashing down at the place where Golder’s Way met the river, building an immense blockade that no soldier would get past, stopping their escape short.
I glanced eastwards. I couldn’t make out the palace road from here, the other point of retreat. I needed to move. I would lose precious time running back into the streets and fighting my way through. But it was too far to jump to the next roof.
A thought struck me, and quickly I gathered a handful of sand towards me. I tightened the grains into a bridge that I arched to the next building. I ran across it without hesitation or fear that it might give out below me. And sure enough, not a grain of sand faltered as I dashed to the next building and then the next after that.
Finally I could see my target, the end of the road where the ground sloped up. And sure enough, men in gold uniforms were moving towards it in something that looked like retreat. I cut them off, a wall of sand halting their escape.
A little way off, Izz soared above the city. My heart leaped as I grabbed at the sand, sending it up in a burst in his path, trying to get his attention. Izz veered violently to avoid it, but he saw me standing on the roof, waving my arms at him.
He soared down towards me, turning into a boy and landing in front of me. ‘You’re alive.’ He grinned gleefully.
‘For now,’ I said. I didn’t have time to celebrate. I told him quickly what we needed, and in another moment he was gone again, launching himself from the roof, a boy plunging down into the streets.
A moment later a huge blue Roc rose back up, talons around one of the dead Abdals, their spark of Djinni fire gone with the release of Fereshteh. But the Zungvox was Gamanix technology, not Mirajin magic. I had to pray it still worked.
I caught sight of one of the Abdals lying on the street below me. I picked it up in a surge of sand, carrying it as far as I could, like a leaf on the wind, before I lost sight of it.
Izz returned, plucking another Adbal off the wall, narrowly avoiding a bullet as he did. We worked as quickly as we could, Maz joining us after he noticed what we were doing, dispersing the Abdals as far and wide as we were able. Scattering the Sultan’s mouthpieces across the city.
All the while, every passing moment that we didn’t hear Ahmed speak, I repeated the same thing under my breath over and over again.
‘Jin is alive. Shazad is alive. Ahmed is alive. Jin is alive …’ So long as I could say it out loud, it was true. So long as I could say it out loud, it meant they were still fighting their way through the crowd to the great prayer house.
And then I heard it on the air. Ahmed’s voice.
‘People of Izman!’
I glanced west towards the prayer house, relief crushing my chest. He had made it to Leyla’s invention.
‘People of Miraji –’ Ahmed’s voice carried through the thousands of fallen Abdals – ‘there is fighting on your streets. But we do not come as invaders. Instead, we come as saviours. My father has ruled you with fear and with foreign steel. He has turned you over to enemies and hung your daughters and your sisters from his walls. He has killed his enemies in cold blood. He has killed his own family, his father and his sons alike. He has taken this country from you and enslaved you. We are here to return it to you. And if you would fight with us, for your freedom and for your country, we would welcome you.’
It was as if the city shifted below me. Not in some cataclysmic moving of the earth, as Zaahir had done in the mountains, but in some way that was purely human. The First Beings might be all-powerful, but they had made us for the one thing that they could not do: to lay down our lives for what we believed in.
It was the shift of an entire city remembering what we were made for and standing up at once.
And we stood up and fought.
I wasn’t conscious of time as the battle for Izman raged on. Once I rejoined the fray, I stopped being one girl and melded with the Rebellion, like they were part of me. Moving obstacles out of the way, cutting a path to our enemy. From time to time I heard Shazad’s voice taking over the Zungvox, giving orders and guidance to a city that would fall to chaos without them.
The fighting carried on for hours.
Soldiers belonging to the Sultan clashed with our people.
Then there came a scream from the sky.
It was a hideous noise. And when I looked up, I saw a horrifying sight.