City of Jackals

Book 0: Ghosts of Ethuran

by Aman J. Bedi

Genres: Epic Fantasy

Synopsis

Kavi's people were once warriors who acted as the vanguard to an imperial invasion. Now, they drive steam rickshaws.

But when the most dangerous gang in the city takes control of the Imperial Rickshaw Company, Kavi's people are cast out again, and Kavi is forced to work for the gang as a low-level enforcer. Her only hope lies in the annual Blade and Warlock tournament at the Vagola - the prize money from which will buy back the company and her people's future.

But the shadow of the Kraelish Empire still hangs over the city, and as conspiracies unfold on the Raayan border and dark truths come to the surface, Kavi finds an insidious new desire slither its way into her heart. One that she cannot ignore. One that will leave blood flowing through the gutters of her city.

Vengeance.

Release date: March 13, 2025

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 384

Sample

Boss, they called her now.

Akka, the Raayan word for big sister, if they really wanted something from her, or if they weren’t employees of the Imperial Rickshaw Company. But while Kavi sat behind Massa’s old desk and smoked her beedis and stared at the map of the city and organised steam-rickshaw allocations and haggled with unscrupulous mechanics over the cost of repairs and maintenance and dealt with a whole host of unforeseen, time-consuming setbacks and headaches, she was their boss.

‘Captain?’ Brigadier Thordali said. ‘What do you think?’

To this man, however, ever since he’d recruited Kavi’s people to hold the Kraelish at the chokepoint in the park, she was the captain of the Taemu battalion.

Kavi fought to keep her expression neutral, resisted the urge to whoop and holler, and nodded. ‘And accommodation?’

Thordali, seated in the chair opposite, straightened and rapped his knuckles on the desk. ‘Military barracks, until we find a more permanent solution.’

The hint of a grin slipped through a crack in Kavi’s composure. Three months they’d spent negotiating for this. Three months since the Kraelish assault, when the city of Azraaya had come under attack – for the first time in centuries – by its old Imperial masters; and in the aftermath of which the Taemu had helped with the rebuild: as labourers for construction, as lookouts on the wall, as part of the clean-up crew, and of course, as steam-rickshaw drivers. And now, it was finally happening.

‘How’d you convince them?’ she asked.

‘The military is not the Council, and the generals are not fools,’ Thordali said with a wry smile. ‘There are people in the city besides you and me who want this to happen.’

He was talking about Dharvish, a young politico running for the Azraayan seat on the Council in the upcoming elections, who constantly reminded people that the Taemu had fought for the city. She’d attended one of his rallies when she’d first learned of him and was surprised by his honest, passionate rhetoric: Raaya is not just one people, it is a collection! Call the Gashani down from the hills and mountains. Give Ethuran back to the Taemu, those lost children – those people robbed of their home, dragged across continents, used as meat grinders by the Empire. She was stunned when people around her nodded and applauded.

He spoke about equality. He called out the corruption rampant in the Council. He was fearless. Naively so, and it was only a matter of time before someone in power shut him up. But for now, it worked in her favour.

‘Thank you,’ Kavi said to Thordali now, voice thick with emotion.

‘We should be the ones thanking you.’ Thordali adjusted the collar of his uniform and stood. ‘It will take a couple of days to finalise the papers – we will require each auxiliary to sign, stamp, or thumbprint them.’

And with that, the Taemu would become official auxiliaries in the Azraayan army. They would have their own unit, with her as captain, and each of them would receive stipends and fully-funded accommodation. They would need to attend regular training sessions at the military campus, but could otherwise carry on with their steam-rickshaw work and remain on stand-by.

Kavi’s chair scraped the floor as she stood out of respect. ‘Of course.’

‘I look forward to working with you, Captain,’ Thordali said.

‘Likewise, sir.’ This changed everything. It finally made the Taemu a legitimate part of Raayan society. A small part, barely a cog, but enough to secure them a future in this country.

He nodded, donned his hat, and strode out the door.

Kavi collapsed back into her chair with a loud sigh and a large smile plastered on her face.

Sravan, her erstwhile bodyguard/secretary, poked his head into the office. ‘He’s still waiting.’

She groaned. ‘Send him in.’

‘Boss will see you now,’ Sravan said.

‘Boss? Hah? What boss? Who is boss?’ Subbal Reddy, proprietor of Reddy’s Dead Body Disposals, waddled in, purse tucked under one arm and jowls wobbling as he shook his head in pantomimed disappointment. ‘You can’t control! Every day these fellows are hanging around outside my business – eating, drinking, urinating.’ He counted the offences on his fingers. ‘Kavithri! What are you going to do about my business? My customers can’t even walk to the – aiyo!’ He slapped his head and searched the office for a solution.

Kavi smothered the stub of a half-smoked beedi into an ash tray, exhaled with exaggerated slowness, and reached for her cup of tea.

Almost a year had passed since she’d failed the tests in Bochan. Since she’d met Bithun and trained to fight for a place at the Vagola, the Raayan college for mages and Blades. And now, finally, one more week. She clenched her jaw. The start of the academic year had been delayed by a couple of months – a consequence of the Kraelish assault on the city – but a week from now her training at the Vagola would begin, and Chotu (with Salora’s help) would take over the running of the rickshaw company. Until then … she sipped her lukewarm tea and glanced at Subbal Reddy over the rim of the cup: the man was now talking to the empty divan, glancing at her through the corner of an eye while he beseeched it for guidance: ‘What should I do? Tell me. Who’s going to … if only Massa was here.’

Kavi suppressed a wince. She was not Massa, had none of the man’s charisma or confidence or magnetic energy; but she was doing her best. The problem here was the narrow street the two businesses shared. It wasn’t enough to accommodate the number of steam-rickshaws and drivers she’d put into service. When they weren’t out and about in the city ferrying its citizens, the rickshaws and their drivers loitered in the street outside the office, which, sadly for Subbal Reddy, was also the entrance to his place of business.

From what she’d learned from Massa, and via several uncalled-for and involuntary interactions during the last few weeks, she’d reached the conclusion that Reddy was a man of many faces. He was, at any given moment:

An irredeemable adulterer.

An incorrigible gambler.

And an indulgent and doting father.

‘Reddy-sir, please,’ Kavi said and gestured to the empty chair across the desk.

His gaze softened, and he ceased his discussion with the divan. He liked it when people called him ‘sir’.

‘I have no place to move my people to,’ Kavi said.

He bristled. ‘Now, look—’

‘But I can offer you a kind of recompense.’

‘Recomp?’ He pursed his lips and considered. ‘How much?’

This was what he was after. He didn’t care that the drivers loitered outside his shop front; it was shuttered during the day and pissed on by drunks at night. In fact, she had a feeling that his shop front was exactly that: a fucking front. For what? She couldn’t care less. ‘You’re aware that I will be joining the Vagola as a Blade soon?’

He threw a couple of pathetic-looking jabs at the space in front of him. ‘Fighting-girl ah, you? Yes, yes, I know.’

‘And you know, as a student, that I am allowed to invite two guests to attend the Blade-lock tournament?’

His mouth fell open into the shape of an ‘O’. ‘You mean …’

Kavi nodded. The tournament was an annual tradition at the Vagola, held during the first term alongside its lectures and exams. It was not open to the public, only to the city’s elite, the Vagola faculty, and to guests of the participants. According to Salora, students from the Department of Blades and Warlocks would pair up and fight in an elimination style tournament – any student, first year to third, could enter – where the winners were awarded an obscene amount of cash and would have their names carved into the walls of the Vagola. The Blade-lock tournament was usually accompanied by raucous banquets, miscellaneous revelry, and copious amounts of gambling. ‘I’m sure your son would love to—’

‘All the matches?’ he said.

‘All. Even the ones I don’t fight in.’

He stroked his chin, shrugged, pretended nonchalance, but she had him.

‘You, uh’ – he jerked his head at her – ‘you don’t have friends or family you want to invite?’

‘No.’ She had no desire to allow the only family she had left watch her get beaten bloody; and as for friends, she got along with Salora, but they weren’t really friends, and Bithun was in Bochan, so, no. She had no friends. They were all dead.

‘Deal.’ He flashed her a thumbs-up, adjusted the purse tucked under his arm, and stomped out the door.

She sighed and turned back to the ledger and map spread open on her desk. They needed to find a new steam-rickshaw mechanic for maintenance because the current one – she’d learned after the scoundrel had absconded – had been overcharging her. She needed to find a contact in the municipal office so they could stay up to date with road closures and repairs. And she needed to figure out a more efficient way of scheduling the drivers instead of the free-for-all everyone just tell me when you want to work system that was in place.

Kavi scratched her head, tsked, folded up the map, stuffed it in between the pages of the ledger, and slammed it shut. She reached for Massa’s beedi case and slid the artificed matchstick out the side. She lit up a beedi. Winced as the first drag singed its way into her chest. And sighed as she exhaled and the tamakhu eased the pressure at the base of her skull.

Her brother Chotu, who insisted that she call him Chotu and not the name Appa had given him – Khagan – had banned her from smoking in his presence. I know you can heal, but it’s still a bad habit. Makes you stink, Akka. Makes the place reek. I cannot.

Kavi grunted as she arranged her feet on the desk and the ashtray in her lap. She’d not told him that her contaminated maayin would kill her in another six years. She’d not told any of the Taemu. No point worrying about something now when they’d have to deal with it later anyway. ‘Double-worry’, as Massa would say.

She took another drag and flicked the ash off the tip.

The re-established Imperial Rickshaw Company – which she’d briefly considered renaming until Ratan reminded her that the misleading name (Raaya was, after all, no longer a part of the Empire) had stayed the same for close to three centuries – had breathed new life into the Taemu. Given them purpose. Meaning. They’d gone from living hand-to-mouth, abused and humiliated on a daily basis, eking out a living as rubbish-pickers, drain-cleaners, grave-diggers, servants, beggars, to wearing the khaki shirts of the city’s rickshaw drivers with pride. If Ratan was to be believed, stories of what the Taemu had done during the Kraelish attack had spread, and the other Raayan rickshaw drivers had taken the Taemu under their wing and initiated them into their cultish group. Wearing the khaki shirt, it turned out, was something of a religion. The Taemu even behaved like true-blooded rickshaw drivers: accelerating like maniacs, swerving through traffic, and spitting, swearing, and haggling like they’d been doing this their entire lives. They loved every minute of it.

The only real issue she’d had was the incident with Sravan – the big man who’d fought at her side during the Kraelish attack; who, despite his considerable bulk, was among the gentlest and most thoughtful Taemu she knew (the man was an incorrigible kitten collector). It was why he no longer drove steam-rickshaws and now acted as a pseudo-bodyguard for her. A job he took much too seriously. Sravan had had a disagreement with a customer who’d refused to pay the settled-upon fare, and when Sravan had protested, a passing city guard had arrested the big Taemu for ‘attempted extortion of a citizen’.

They’d dragged him in front of a judge, who’d forced him to kneel while he (the chootia judge) lectured Sravan on civilised behaviour and mocked the Taemu in front of the court:

‘Do you know how to count?’

‘Yes, sahib,’ Sravan had said, eyes on the ground.

‘Oh? So you went to school?’

‘No, sahib.’

‘Did your parents not have the money to send you?’

‘No parents, sahib.’

‘Of course, how foolish of me,’ the judge said. ‘So then, where did you learn?’

‘Hessal – a Taemu elder, taught me.’

‘A Taemu elder!’ The judge turned to his staff. ‘We should get this elder to teach at the university.’

They laughed.

He laughed.

The case had got a lot of attention, and the court, that day, was crowded. Not everyone was happy with the Taemu reinsertion in Azraayan life, despite the support of Dharvish and his followers, and a loud group – most vocal, usually means most idiotic, Massa had once said – had shown up to watch a Taemu get put in his place.

But when the judge had called upon the customer to press charges, the man, previously indignant, had mysteriously changed his mind. He stepped in front of the judge, soaked in sweat, licking his lips, cradling a heavily bandaged forearm, and he scraped and bowed and said it was all a misunderstanding, that he did not wish to proceed. And throughout, he cast furtive and fearful glances at the audience where Kavi stood with Chotu at her side, and she stared back, unblinking, reminding him of the simple threat she’d made at his home the previous night as she twisted and fractured each finger and thumb: if my man is charged, is sent to prison, I will find you, and I will break (crack) your arms (crack) your legs (crack) and I will leave you (crack) alone and friendless (crack) deep within the slums, to fend for yourself.

Was it excessive? Yes.

Had she gone too far? Fuck, no.

She’d made a promise to Hessal: she’d sworn to protect their people. But what she’d decided – alone, in the aftermath of the Kraelish assault on Azraaya, in the vacuum left behind by the friends she’d lost, the truths she’d learned, the family she’d found – was that when she was done, when her maayin had eaten her from the inside out and booted her soul back to Hel, that she would leave her people in a better place. With a better life.

This, then, was to be her purpose.

The sunlight that filtered into the office dimmed, then disappeared as a collection of dark rain clouds blotted out the sun. She took another drag and exhaled.

Chotu didn’t agree with her methods. Said she was behaving like Appa.

Gods, that had stung.

They lived together now; shared the spare room on the second floor of the rickshaw company. She’d been teaching him how to read and write; some history, basic arithmetic – he loved numbers. He’d sit hunched over his little slate with a piece of chalk and scribble and erase and scribble and erase, and then he’d stop, look up at her, and his face would light up. I solved it, Akka. Then, hungry for more, Can I learn something harder? Please? Salora had volunteered to take over his tutoring, Meshira bless her.

He’d told her, not long after he moved in, about what had happened to Appa and their brother Kamith after Appa had sold Kavi to the beggar crew in Dyarabad.

They’d travelled. West first, to see if they could find work in the farms and villages on the Tholar delta. When they were rebuffed, often violently, Appa decided their best option was to stowaway on a ship to the Hamakan Isles. He believed the Hamakans were free of the prejudices that gripped the Raayans on the peninsula. ‘All outsiders are treated the same in Hamaka,’ he’d said.

They could start over. He would find work. The boys would find work. In the meantime, while they made their way to the coast, they still needed to eat, and since no one would give him work, and the local scavengers maintained a vicious monopoly on the rubbish heaps and dens, Appa was forced to steal.

Chotu had been keeping an eye on their belongings the day Appa and Kamith were caught.

Later, he was in the crowd watching when their hands were severed at the wrist. ‘So they will never steal again!’ the village elder had announced to cheers.

They bled to death in the village square. Tied down and powerless. No one would touch them. No one would help or tend to their horrific wounds. When he tried to stop the bleeding, when he squeezed rags into their wrists and pleaded with them to keep their eyes open, the villagers kicked him, offered him the same fate.

Chotu hung his head; said he should have done more, but he was too small, too weak.

‘You are not weak,’ Kavi had said, holding his face in her hands and peering into his eyes while she fought to keep tears from spilling out of her own. ‘You. Are not. Weak.’

A muffled yelp startled her out of her reverie. She blinked. Outside: shouts, scuffed feet, thuds, and the unmistakable sound of glass shattering. Kavi frowned. A disagreement among the drivers? It’d never happened before. She stood. The beedi hissed as she stubbed it out.

A head peeked into the office – with a face Kavi didn’t recognise – and withdrew. ‘Boss, she’s here.’

‘Thank you, Deva,’ another stranger’s voice said. And ducking his head, a man stepped into Kavi’s office.

His beige linen shirt, open at the collar, rode up his large shoulders, and he righted it with a sharp tug on the hem. He checked all four corners of the office before his eyes finally settled on Kavi.

He smiled.

She stared.

His large, bloated forearms were covered with row after row of thin, pale scars that ran from the insides of his elbows to his wrists. More scars, overlapping and blending and merging with each other, ran across the circumference of his thick neck.

‘Can I help you?’ she asked, and to be safe, ‘Sahib?’

Still smiling, he walked up to the desk and placed a thick sheet of paper on it. ‘Read it, please,’ he said, in perfect, unaccented, educated Raayan.

Kavi glanced from the paper, which was some sort of stamped, official document, to the man, who nodded in encouragement, while outside the sounds of the scuffle continued to grow louder.

It was hard to tell the man’s age. He could’ve been in his thirties, or fifties, or sixties, depending on the angle – it was his skin. She swallowed. The skin on his face had not aged evenly. Some patches appeared to have aged faster than the rest.

She picked up the document. Read. And snorted. ‘What is this? Who are you people?’

‘My peers, the few still alive, call me Grishan,’ he said. ‘My business’ – he lingered on the ness – ‘and my men are collectively referred to as the Tivasi.’

Her brows shot up. The Tivasi were the second largest gang in Azraaya. Agoma, human trafficking, brothels, ring-fighting, extortion, and to top it all off they’re in deep with the politicos, Massa had said. These chootia are not like the Dolmondas, they don’t walk around with a sign that says ‘I’m a Tivasi’. The only time you find out you’re dealing with them is when they either want something from you, or you fucked with the wrong – Kavi, just stay away from the Lantern district, and you’ll be fine.

She licked her lips, and read the document again, this time with a creeping sense of dread.

Signed and stamped by a Councilman Nashik Faria, it declared that the Imperial Rickshaw Company owed the city 57,235.75 rayals in overdue fines due to incomplete steam-rickshaw licensing and invalid road permits. It went on to state that if the amount was not paid by (a date three weeks past) the company would be declared insolvent and therefore property of the city, available for purchase by any party willing to pay the aforementioned amount. This party, added at the bottom of the paper in blue ink, was Grishan Ltd.

‘We were not notified—’ The commotion outside flared up again: more shouts, thuds, moans, this time accompanied by laughter.

A gruff voice outside the door said, ‘Fucking dogs think they can fight.’

What the Hel? Kavi skipped around the desk, was about to step around the man but he blocked her path with an arm.

‘I own this place now,’ Grishan said, and pointed to the document in her hands. ‘I would like you to acknowledge the transfer of ownership by signing the document, to prevent any disputes or complications down the line. Also, due to the illegal nature of the business you’ve been running, and your failure to pay the fines, the Council will nullify your agreement with the army. Criminals are not allowed in the Raayan military.’

Her eyes bulged. Everything she’d worked for, everything she’d promised her people … ‘We were never told about these fines.’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Irrelevant. Sign it, and get out.’

‘What – why do you even want it?’ Kavi said, inching away so the man didn’t loom over her. She needed to think. Surely this was illegal – she grimaced, of course this was illegal. The man was a Raeth-damned gangster who, from the looks of it, had the favour of a councilman.

‘I needed a new warehouse,’ Grishan said.

‘A what?’

‘Warehouse.’

And you couldn’t find anywhere else?

He read the question on her face. ‘I find it distasteful.’

She blinked.

‘Taemu scuttering around the city, acting like they’re the same as the rest of us.’ He tugged on the hem of his shirt then adjusted the collar. ‘Your people have forgotten where you belong. I’m here to remind you.’

The audacity, the ease and confidence that made this man believe he could just show up and take. The veins on her neck stood as she forced her lips into a smile.

‘Sahib, I think you’ve come to the wrong place.’ She crushed the document into a ball and tossed it at his feet.

The change in the man’s face was instantaneous. The light went out of his eyes. The skin around his neck and cheeks twitched and tightened. His mouth thinned to a straight line. He snapped his fingers. ‘Deva.’

Two men – two Tivasi gangsters – stepped through the door, dragging a third, much larger man on his knees.

Kavi’s stomach dropped.

The man on his knees, his face swollen and bloody, met Kavi’s eyes. ‘Sorry, Akka,’ he said and averted his gaze.

A prickling engulfed her spine as she took a step in his direction. Sravan. Why was he apologising? You’ve done nothing wrong. She clenched her fists. ‘Leave him alon—’

Grishan swung at her.

An open-handed blow with barely any back-lift that she began to lean away from, confident that she’d dodge, when his entire arm seemed to contract in mid-air and the speed with which it hurtled at her face doubled.

His open palm caught her flush across the face. Spun her head around with a loud smack! and knocked her off her feet. Sent her stumbling to the ground where she scrambled to stand but lost her balance and fell back down to her knees.

She tried to flex her jaw but found she couldn’t move it. Her ears rang. Lights floated in front of her eyes and exploded. For a heartbeat, she lost track of what was up and what was down. Panic set in. Her rage slipped through her fingers. The air caught in her throat.

Breathe, a voice whispered in her head.

BREATHE.

She swallowed the blood in her mouth. And took her sword’s advice. She gulped down air as she searched the office for where it sat, propped up in a corner behind the desk. She hadn’t drawn the sword, hadn’t used Drisana since the Kraelish assault on the city.

Come, Drisana urged. It wanted to fight. It wanted to taste the blood of the men who’d hurt their people. Get up.

She took a shuddering breath. What was she doing? It was just one hit. She’d dealt with worse. So much worse. Get up. Get the fuck up.

‘Deva, keep her on her knees,’ Grishan said.

A pair of rough hands squeezed down on her nape while a knee was shoved between her shoulder blades.

She grunted. Tried to force her way upright. And gasped as the knee dug into her spine and forced her to stop squirming.

They dragged Sravan deeper into the office. Positioned him so he was facing Kavi, with Grishan standing between them.

‘Akka,’ Sravan muttered.

A gangster slapped the back of his head. ‘Shut up.’

Enough.

Heal me, she commanded, and her Jinn responded.

Blue tendrils of Nilasian maayin, invisible to everyone but her, tore their way out of the bruised skin on her face.

Him. Take it from him. It would shock them. Confuse him. And buy her enough time to get this bastard off her back. Now.

The maayin lunged at Grishan, and was rebuffed.

Kavi’s eyes bulged.

A mage. The man was a fucking mage.

‘I could remove you from the premises,’ Grishan was saying. ‘But you’d just keep coming back, wouldn’t you? Like a leech, you’d live with this fantasy of revenge, even find a purpose in it.’ He gestured to one of the gangsters holding Sravan.

The gangster offered Grishan a small knife, like the one the guava vendors used to slice their fruit.

‘Please,’ Grishan said, accepting the knife, ‘save us both the trouble, and don’t bother.’

The skin on his knife-arm contorted, like something crawled beneath it, and when he lashed out at Sravan, his arm was a blur.

He handed the knife back to the gangster, clean, as if it hadn’t even been used.

Kavi frowned at Grishan. What was wrong with his arm? She glanced at Sravan, and the moisture in her mouth, her throat, evaporated.

She tried to speak, but a thin film covered her tongue and smothered the words she tried to form. All she could manage was a low, pleading moan.

From where she was kneeling, it looked like Sravan had grown another mouth under his jaw. And from this new grinning mouth, oozed thick, dark blood.

His throat had been slit from under one earlobe to the other.

Sravan’s wild eyes searched the office. He coughed. Blood dribbled down the sides of his mouth. His nostrils flared as dark, red bubbles expanded and popped with each wheezing breath.

Vomit burned its way up Kavi’s throat, she swallowed it back down. Gagged. And let it spill down the front of her shirt. Her ears rang with a keening that rose in pitch. Someone was weeping, drawing ragged breaths, and sobbing. Time folded in on itself: the present merged with the past and forced her back into the ruins of Ethuran, where she walked through blackened streets filled with flies and rotting food and muck that came up to her knees and haunted corpses that hung by their necks and swung back-and-forth in the wind while more mutilated bodies naked bloated lined the alleyways where broken things plates toys pets crunched underfoot and the smell, oh, the smell of charred flesh of congealed blood and old vomit and st. . .