Rebel of the Sands

by Alwyn Hamilton

“Cousin.”

  I had my gun pointed at her face before the end of the word left her mouth. “Don’t scream.” I was already looking for an escape.

  “Why would I?” There was mocking in her voice as she clasped her hands behind her back, leaning idly against the wall. “You’re not going to shoot me.”

  “How do you figure?” I shifted my finger on the trigger.

  “It’s a sin to kill your own flesh and blood.” She made a pouting face. “See, I paid attention in prayers.”

  “What are you doing here, Shira?” I checked over my shoulder as quick as I could without taking my eyes off her long enough for her to get up to anything. Somebody might stumble through any moment and see us.

  She rolled her eyes skyward. “Did you honestly think you were the only one who wanted a life outside that useless little town?” Truth be told, I’d never given a moment of thought to what Shira might want. I’d reckoned she was the same as anyone, stupidly content to stay in Dustwalk. “Fazim and I used to talk about a future where we were rich and we had all the things we wanted in the world. Only it seems Fazim didn’t much care about who got him rich in the end.” There was still a mark on my wrist where Fazim had grabbed me. “So I’m making my fortune without him. And that charming young commander who busted up your face was nice enough to take me with him. I knew you’d be here, cousin.”

  “How could you know that?”

  She raised one shoulder coyly. “Well, you don’t sleep three feet from someone and not know a thing or two.” That was true. I knew Shira liked wearing yellow, hated the taste of pickled lemons, and played with her hair when she was lying. And Shira knew I’d head for Izman if I ever got out of Dustwalk. But there was no way in hell or earth she could know I’d be on this train.

  Even if there was only one train a month.

  “So what does that get you?” I asked. “Knowing that?”

  “I’ll show you, cousin.” She smiled like we were both in on some big joke. And then she took a deep lungful of air and screamed.

  Before I could run, the door of the nearest compartment crashed open in answer, spilling Naguib out. It was the same one Shira had just tiptoed out of. Naguib looked younger with his uniform jacket missing, his shirt unbuttoned at the throat. His eyes went wide when he saw me.

  “Help! I found her!” Shira screeched. “The traitor can’t be far. Help!” I wasted a precious second wishing a good lie would come.

  My tongue failed me.

  My legs couldn’t afford to.

  I grabbed Shira and moved at the same moment the train pitched sideways. The force sent Shira careening backward into the young commander with a cry. He caught her clumsily.

  I flung myself through the carriage door, ignoring the shouts behind me. I ran the length of the carriage, shoved past the passengers who’d started to emerge into the corridor, and through the next door, fumbling for a lock behind me. Anything to slow them down.

  Nothing.

  Cursing, I turned and kept running, down and down until I was halfway through second class. I could still hear my pursuers. I was going to run out of train any minute now. I needed to figure out where I was going before I wound up in the sand.

  I’d worry about that when it happened.

  I flung myself against the door at the end of the carriage. It jammed.

  I rattled the handle, looking behind me for uniforms. I rammed my shoulder against the door again and again. Shouts were getting closer, though it was hard to tell over the rattling of the train.

  The door gave. Night air, rails, and sand rushed up to meet me as I pitched forward. I grabbed the door frame, catching myself just in time.

  Where there’d been a walkway between the other carriages, here there was only a yawning gap with a narrow metal coupling linking the two cars. In the light from the carriage behind me I could make out the rails whipping below my feet. The air lashed my clothes around me, invisible fingers trying to snatch me back to the sands where I belonged.

  There was another door across the way. I could make it through that.

  Probably.

  Only one way to find out.

  I leapt and hit the door full force. It gave way with a dull thud that sent me sprawling, battered and breathless, but alive, across the carriage floor.

  I pulled my dangling feet up behind me in a graceless scramble. The door swung shut, narrowly missing my toes. There was a lock this time, and I shoved the bolt into place and hurried to stand up.

  There were no more compartments here, just rows of bunks, stacked one atop another all the way back. Dozens of passengers craned around the metal frames to stare at me. They looked like prisoners pressing desperate faces through iron bars. At least one of them was bound to give me up as soon as the soldiers got through the door.

  I dodged between beds. A game of dice and drink was under way between some men. They were sitting on the floor, using a bunk like a table. Stained cards were spread out across the sheets, between handfuls of coins. I wove my way through the mass, looking for a place to hide. Four women huddled together on a single bunk, combing one another’s hair and eating dates. A little boy with bare feet ran up and tried to grab one. He got a hairbrush to the knuckles and started to wail.

  I realized my sheema was loose around my neck, my hair tumbling free, making me a girl again. A girl in boys’ clothes. I went to wrap it back around my face. Even as I did, an arm latched around my waist, a hand over my mouth. My attacker pulled me free from the crowd and pushed me up against the train wall between two bunks.

  I looked up straight into a pair of familiar foreign eyes.

  “You,” Jin said, pinning me in place, “are really something else.”

  The panic dropped away. Jin might not look all that happy with me, but it was better than being caught by a soldier. I shoved him so his hand fell away from my mouth. “I’m going to go ahead and take that as a compliment. What are you doing here?”

  “Searching this whole damn train for you,” he said, sounding relieved.

  “Well, you didn’t make it to the front,” I said.

  “The front?” He cocked an eyebrow questioningly and then it hit him “You bought a first-class ticket? Why? How?”

  Like hell I was going to admit it was a mistake. “I sold Iksander,” I said instead.

  “Iksander?” Jin’s grip loosened a little.

  “The Buraqi,” I explained, looking over his shoulder. It was just a matter of time until I’d see the flash of gold-and-white uniform.

  “You named him Iksander?” There was something in his face, like he was trying to figure me out.

  “I had to call him something, and it’s as good a name as any other. My uncle had a horse he named Blue. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen a blue horse.” I didn’t know why I was getting defensive.

  “So you named him after a prince who got himself turned into a horse by a Djinni two hundred years ago?”

  “Why does it matter how long ago it was?” I asked in exasperation. “It won’t stick anyhow. I sold him. To this trader who called himself Oman Slick Hands, even though his palms just seemed sweaty to me. Only he wasn’t exactly honest, because an honest trader would’ve turned me in for a girl.”

  “Or a blue-eyed thief.” Jin looked amused. “I ought to turn you in.”

  “Well, you’re going to have your chance soon enough, because the army is on this train, and they’re after me just now. Or probably after you, but I’m in their way.”

  Jin’s head darted up, looking back the way I came.

  “Fine,” Jin said. “Give me the compass and I’ll get us out of here.”

  “The compass?” I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting after he’d tracked me three days across the desert, but it wasn’t this.

  “You’re too smart to play dumb, Bandit.” Jin’s eyes searched me
, like I might be hiding his compass in plain sight.

  “You’re mistaking my playing dumb for my thinking you’re an idiot for wanting a beat-up compass.”

  His hand was clamped firmly over my pulse. “So we both know you took it. Give it back and we’ll call it quits for poisoning me. I won’t even ask you to pay me back half of the money for the Buraqi you stole.”

  “I didn’t poison you. I drugged you. And that Buraqi was mine.” I tried to pull my arm free, but he was stronger than I was. “You stole it first. If you hadn’t set such a bad example, maybe I would’ve never stolen your broken compass.”

  “Broken?” His hand tightened until it hurt.

  “Yeah.” I struggled not to wince. He wasn’t smiling anymore. “I rode all night in the wrong direction following the needle on that compass, until the sun came up and straightened me out.”

  I felt him relax against me. “If it’s no good to you, then you won’t miss it.”

  “Seeing as it’s no good to me, why would I have kept it?”

  “Amani.” He leaned toward me until I could feel the heat of him in the small space. “Where is it?”

  I tightened my jaw. “Soldiers are coming.”

  “Then you’d better tell me fast, Bandit.”

  I didn’t speak right away. Our wills locked against each other. I wanted to lie to him. Tell him it was gone with the Buraqi. Keep making him suffer for refusing to take me with him in Dustwalk, for saying I wasn’t going to get to Izman in Sazi. For trying to keep me where I was when I was fighting so hard to break away.

  “Amani,” he lowered his voice. A real note of desperation in my name. “Please.” My anger came apart with a tug of his words.

  “It’s under my clothes,” I admitted finally. He let go of me.

  I tugged my shirt up, too conscious of his eyes on me as I bared the skin of my hips to reach the cloth wrapped around my waist to pad it out. My hand slipped between cloth and skin and closed around the cool metal and glass. I let my shirt fall back into place as I pulled it out. The compass was a battered brass thing. The glass was scratched and chipped on one edge. The needle swung back and forth over a background of a blue sky the same color as my eyes, dotted with painted yellow stars. I’d figured it might be of value.

  His expression shifted as his hand closed over the compass, locking it between our hands. The tension fled his body and he leaned his forehead into mine, catching me off guard. I could smell the desert on him. “Thank you,” he said.

  His eyes were closed, but mine were wide open. This close I could make out the smallest scar on his upper lip. I was keenly aware of our breathing mixing in the closeness. It would take almost nothing to lean forward and press my mouth to that scar.

  There was a crash and a shout from the other end of the carriage. Jin’s eyes flew open. What I’d been saying about the soldiers seemed to register on his face at last. “Come on.” He started to lead me out from between the bunks. “Let’s—”

  White and gold flashed across the carriage, out of place among the dingy third-class passengers.

  Too late.

  There was no time to run and even less time to think. We needed to hide. Only there was nowhere to hide—except exactly where we were standing. I yanked Jin back toward me. My knuckles skimmed over the edges of the sun tattooed over his heart. That was the last thing I noticed before I kissed him.

  His jaw tensed in surprise for a moment; his hand gripped my arm hard enough to hurt. And then his body was flush against mine, pushing my back against the wall of the train.

  I was a desert girl. I thought I knew heat.

  I was wrong.

  The contact sent a rush through me so sudden, I started to pull away before I caught fire. But Jin trapped my face in his hands. There was nowhere to run to. Nowhere to go.

  Nowhere I wanted to go.

  I hadn’t really thought this through, but now I didn’t have any thoughts left. Only the strength of his fingers against my neck.

  His breath vibrated through me until I couldn’t feel anything anymore except want.

  More than want.

  Need.

  His thumb struck the place where Naguib’s gun had hit me. An involuntary hiss escaped my lips.

  Jin broke away and the moment cracked. Cold air rushed into the gap between our bodies, filling the place his hands had been on my skin a moment before. Now they were planted flat against the wall on either side of me.

  His eyes weren’t on me anymore. They were on the gun at my hip. I saw a flash of a uniform through the space under his arm. His body wasn’t pressed to me. Wasn’t wanting me, I reminded myself, only hiding me.

  I was breathing like someone who’d never had enough air. Somewhere at the bottom of my lungs I found words again. “They’re not out of sight yet.”

  Jin didn’t look at me. “No.” His arms were planted on either side of my head, against the rattling carriage wall. He bent toward me just a little, and my body tugged toward him. “They’re not.”

  Someone slapped him on the back and the world careened back in. “How much is she charging, friend?” One bunk over someone laughed.

  At the other end of the carriage, a head that might’ve belonged to a soldier turned at the sound. Jin grabbed my hand. “Let’s get out of here.”

  The door I’d come through was still open. I was about to tell him it was no good heading back that way, that we didn’t have anywhere to hide. Then his arms were around my waist.

  I didn’t have time to say a thing before he jumped.

  ten

  For a sliver of an instant I was flying.

  Then rails flashed in the edge of my vision, narrowly missing a chance to get better acquainted with my skull. My ribs and the ground weren’t so shy.

  We hit the sand hard. Air burst out of my lungs. We rolled one over the other, Jin’s grip tight around me, the train screaming in my ears, drowning out everything I wanted to shout back. Finally we stopped in a bank of sand.

  I shoved Jin off me, an ache spreading from my shoulder to my hips. He cursed, clutching his side, but I was ready to run as fast as the train until I caught up. I was on my feet just in time for night and black smoke to swallow the last of the gleaming metal carriages.

  For one crazy second I thought about running behind and grabbing hold. Riding for days hooked onto the back of a train.

  But the train was gone. Carrying hundreds of people away to Izman. Without me. And I felt something rupture inside. I wrapped my arms around my ribs to keep it in.

  “You all right?” Jin was watching me, clutching his side. “Amani?”

  The way he said my name on a long exhale set me off like a spark in a powder keg. I swung my fist, straight for his face.

  Jin grabbed my wrist before my knuckles could get flirting distance from his nose. He pulled me into him, knocking me off balance.

  “Here’s a tip for you.” He was close to me now, close as he had been when he kissed me, or when I kissed him. “Don’t try to hit a man in the face when he’s looking straight into your eyes. You’ve got traitor eyes, Bandit.”

  I drove my other fist into his gut hard enough that my knuckles popped. Jin doubled over, coughing. “Thanks for the tip.” I wished victory didn’t feel so much like I’d sprained my hand.

  “Any time.” He clutched his stomach where I’d hit him, but it looked like he was laughing. I had the wild urge to hit him again while he was down. Instead I drew my shirt up, pulling the gun out of where it was tied against my hip.

  “We should start walking,” Jin said. “We’re probably less than a day out of Massil. We’ll have to follow the rails. We could be there before the sun gets too high if we start now.”

  “What makes you think I’m going anywhere with you?” If it weren’t for his having an army on his tail, I’d still be on the way to Izman. Of cou
rse, if it weren’t for him I’d also still be in Dustwalk. But I wasn’t going to get into that just now. I shoved my gun back in my belt; no need to hide it here. Better for folks to know I was armed.

  “You got a better plan?” Jin waved his arm at the empty desert like he was offering me a feast for fools. “Would you rather strike off across the desert and wind up food for buzzards than walk another day with me?”

  He wasn’t wrong. It was open nothingness as far as the eye could see all around us. Except for the rails that ran like an iron scar through the sand. There were only two ways to go if I wanted to stay alive. Forward with him. Back to Juniper City.

  I wasn’t going back.

  “Don’t flatter yourself.” I riffled my fingers through my hair, pulling it loose from where it was trapped under my sheema as I started to walk. “You’re not near worth dying over.”

  • • •

  WE WALKED IN silence as night crept its way across the sky. My anger kept me three steps ahead of Jin as we walked. But even that fire started to dim as the night wore on. I told myself over and over again there’d been another way. We could’ve stayed on the train. Found somewhere to hide. Something.

  After a few hours of turning it over and over in my head, though, I couldn’t think of anything else that we could’ve done except jump.

  It was hard to stay angry at someone who’d saved your life.

  We’d been walking near all night when I noticed the other figure.

  I thought it was a trick of the hazy gray predawn light. The uncertain times between day and night, where neither God nor the Destroyer of Worlds had true dominion, were the most dangerous. But no, down the rails, someone was walking toward us.

  I dropped to the sand on instinct, flattening myself into the landscape. Jin was down next to me in a second without question. “What is it?” He had the sense to keep his voice low as he crawled up next to me on his elbows.

  “Someone is coming.” I nodded ahead. All I could make out was a silhouette on foot, coming in our direction. It could just be a lone desert nomad, leaving Massil as we were going in. Or it could be that someone in the third-class carriage had told the soldiers they’d seen a girl dressed as a boy and a foreigner jump off the train.