Rebel of the Sands

by Alwyn Hamilton

The windowsill scraped across my back, taking skin with it. My elbow cracked against stone a second before my feet hit the ground hard enough to buckle every joint I had.

  I let out a string of profanities in Mirajin and every language Jin had taught me to curse in as I dragged myself to my feet. There were a dozen stalls facing each other on either side of me, wooden doors with iron bolts.

  The air in the stables felt like the desert sky before a sandstorm. I could feel it down to my bones. Dozens of bodies shifted audibly, penned into their stalls, magic chafing against iron. As I stood to my full height, I could see them now, heads peering out over the doors of the stalls curiously.

  Buraqi.

  I’d never seen this many immortal creatures in my whole life, let alone in one place; all but a handful of the two dozen stalls were full. But I supposed since they lived forever, the Sultans of Miraji had had plenty of time to stock the palace stables over the years. I wondered if any of them were the Buraqi from legends. The ones ridden by hero princes into battle or across the desert to save a beloved before night fell.

  The iron bolt on the first stall door slid back with the sort of clang that ought to have woken the dead. Instead it seemed like everything stilled all around me. I took a deep breath, my fingers pressing against the cold iron. I pushed the door open before I could lose my nerve.

  The head that rose to look at me was the color of sun at high noon over a sand dune. I stepped forward carefully. I was raised a horse trader’s niece; I’d learned to take a shoe off a horse almost as young as I learned to shoot a gun. Even in the dark, the familiar work came to my hand easily. The Buraqi shook its head restlessly as the fourth shoe dropped to the ground. Might take a while to peel the taste of iron from its skin and shake off its mortal shape, but I didn’t have time to wait. I was on to the next stall already, to a Buraqi the color of cool dawn light over dusty mountains. The next one was the endless dark of the desert at night.

  All the Buraqi were moving now. Starting to raise their heads beyond the iron doors of their stalls. Starting to shift from flesh to sand and back again, like they were gathering themselves up into a hurricane while I crawled like the heat on a windless day until they were all freed.

  Buraqi might be immortal creatures, but that didn’t mean they liked gunshots any more than a regular horse. I pressed myself against the wall as I raised the barrel of my gun skyward and fired.

  The Buraqi exploded from their stalls, shattering them in their wake. I flinched, squeezing my eyes shut as flesh, sand, and wind churned around me. They were so far from mortal now, more like desert storms in the shape of horses, and nature had torn down more walls than men’s hands ever would. Hoofbeats rang around the stables, making my teeth clatter. And then a noise like an explosion. When I opened my eyes the wall into the barracks had collapsed.

  I raced through debris into the chaos I had created. The Buraqi had torn into the training ground, taking half of it with them—most of one wall had already caved in and what was left looked like it had a mind to follow. Soldiers in every color of uniform, and some out of uniform, were pouring out. The Gallan were drawing guns, but the Mirajin knew better. There was no fighting a sandstorm with pistols. A man with a blue shirt half buttoned raised a pistol, taking aim, only to disappear below the hooves of one of the Buraqi. Soon, human screams joined the Buraqi’s.

  The Buraqi were beasts of the desert, and they’d make their way back into the sand. Sure enough, even as I watched, two of them ripped through another wall, bursting free into the streets. In the chaos I noticed more people pouring into the yard now. Women and children, folks in desert clothes. I recognized Yasmin first; she was frantically pumping water into a huge leather skin hanging from the camel, trying to resupply before the desert.

  Noorsham. I’d near forgotten him in the chaos. I turned toward the prayer house and slammed straight into Jin.

  “What did I say about not causing any trouble?” There was a laughing glint in Jin’s eyes and he was holding me off balance, close enough that he could tug and I’d fall straight into him.

  “It worked, didn’t it?” I fired back.

  “No arguing with that.” He let go of one of my arms. “And now we’ve got to run while we’ve still got a distraction.” He eyed the path of destruction created by the Buraqi. “I’d say now’s the time.”

  “No.” I went to tug him the other way. “There was a soldier. I promised I’d help him.”

  Even as I pulled toward the prayer house, a Buraqi tore across my path, narrowly missing trampling me. Jin yanked me back. “Amani, we don’t have time. We need to go now while we’ve got a shot or we might not get out at all.”

  I hesitated. I couldn’t leave behind another stupid desert kid too weak to survive the desert. Not when I could save this one.

  “Amani,” Jin said again. “You’re damn good at keeping yourself alive. Don’t lose that now.” He was right. Noorsham wasn’t Tamid. I was too late.

  I ran.

  The streets were fast flooding with men and women from the caravan crowding each other for space, camels groaning, folks from Fahali shouting as they ran for safety.

  We plunged in with the rest. One second I was staring into a terrified face, the next I was shoved against a wall. One second Jin was there, then his hand was torn from mine. And then I was alone, running in a crush of strangers. I stripped off my khalat as I went, turning myself back into a boy.

  Gunshots sounded far behind us. I took a corner hard, my hands busy with tying my sheema, and I stumbled and went down. Hands were there, on my shoulders, pulling me to my feet. I looked back to see a man I didn’t know, keeping me from getting trampled.

  I didn’t even have time to thank him before the crowd swallowed him and forced me on down the streets.

  Open gates. The sight made my heart take off faster than the Buraqi had. My legs picked up speed, pumping twice as fast, carrying me forward like I was running on the winds and the sand, too. Forward. Forward. Out of the walls. Out of the trap. A shout of pure relief and joy and life on my lips.

  And then all I could see was the sand and I forgot about everything. About fear. About bombs. About Jin. The desert reached out for us all with huge open arms. The churning mass that was chaos in the streets became order in the sand, welcoming us home.

  fifteen

  We had no choice except to walk through the dark. There were dangers in the desert night, but there were threats behind us in Fahali, too. And we needed to be far away from them by the time dawn came. Not even Commander Naguib would be stupid enough to follow us through the desert in the dark.

  Night in the desert was different when it wasn’t on the edge of the campfire. When there was no laughter and music and storytelling from the caravan to eclipse the sounds that came from the dark. There were things that made noises underneath the sand in the desert night. Things that screamed from the mountains. Now we could hear them all.

  The Camel’s Knees huddled close together. The only noise that came from them was the clink of the tack on the beasts and the sound of mumbled praying. Yasmin’s face looked pale in the light of the lamp swinging from the back of the nearest camel. One of her little cousins had fallen asleep with his head on her shoulder.

  “Three hours until dawn,” Jin said, checking the sky.

  I nodded as he dropped back to hold up the rear of the caravan while I stayed in front. I knew we’d been walking for a long time. Distance had swallowed Fahali behind us. The night seemed much bigger than it ever had. And I felt a lot smaller than I ever had.

  I heard a sound then and stopped walking. There was something out there. I turned slowly, peering into the dim glow offered by the moon and the handful of oil lamps that hung from the camels we’d been able to take with us, casting them in small pools of light.

  I saw it a second before it sprang. The ghoul unfurled from a viscous leathery ball into spindly
limbs and filmy black wings, its huge gaping mouth opened in a screech as it leapt.

  I fired. A few of the caravan folks cried out and ducked instinctively at the noise.

  My bullet caught it square in the chest. Black guts scattered across the sand. The thing screeched again. And this time, from the deep of the night, a hundred identical voices screeched back.

  Yasmin turned the body over with her toe as the caravan silently stared. Frozen in shock.

  “A Nightmare,” Yasmin confirmed.

  I hadn’t seen a Nightmare since I was a kid. One had crawled into the house I grew up in while we slept. My mother had put a kitchen knife through it before it got to anyone. It’d barely put up a fight. But that one was alone and injured and desperate. This one was in its own territory, where they traveled in packs.

  I could see them now as my eyes adjusted to the dark. Scuttling through the sand, their sinewy wings rippling through the blackness. They fed on fear instead of flesh and blood. One venomous bite sent victims into an uneasy sleep, and a second drew out the fear that bled from the first bite. Some said they drained the soul itself. Most folks didn’t wake up from a Nightmare bite.

  I checked the handful of bullets in my pocket.

  “Everybody stay close to the light,” I called down the caravan. Ghouls couldn’t hunt in the day. Firelight wasn’t exactly the same, but it was the closest we had. “This doesn’t change anything. We keep walking, and—”

  “Skinwalker!” The voice belonged to Tall Oman. My gun swung up, ready to face the new monster, tracking Tall Oman’s pointed finger.

  Only it was me he was pointing at.

  My sheema, badly tied after the escape from Fahali, had fallen away when I shot, and now my hair was tumbling down to my shoulders, my face on show.

  Tall Oman came at me in long, angry strides. Jin was in front of me in a blink. His hand caught Tall Oman in the chest three steps before he reached me, a warning gesture that he could easily turn more painful if he wanted. “Rethink your next move, my friend.”

  “He’s a Skinwalker,” Tall Oman spat, though he had the sense not to strain any farther against Jin’s grip. “He changed his shape.”

  “No.” Parviz held up a lamp so he could see me clearer. “She’s a liar.”

  “Well, I didn’t so much lie as trick you.” It was a relief to speak in my own voice, even if it was strained by false lightness. “The difference being you can blame yourselves as well as me.” I wasn’t shaking anymore. I refused to shake, no matter that the whole caravan was looking at me like I was some abomination.

  It was Isra who whispered too loudly to Jin, “So I guess she’s not your brother, then?” She treated me to a once-over. “And here I was thinking you might be worth marrying to young Yasmin. Should’ve been suspicious when you listened to her so close. No man does that.”

  Parviz sized me up the same way he had back in Massil. I didn’t know what he saw. The same kid with the gun, maybe, except with a chest and some hips, and not so much a kid. “And I’m supposed to trust a girl to keep us alive?”

  “Father, she saved us from the gallows in Fahali,” Yasmin snorted, but she was silenced with one raised hand.

  “Saved us to drag us out into the desert at night.” Parviz waved at the Nightmares stalking us in the dark. “And look where we are now. We would be safe in the daylight if it weren’t for you.” That one stung. After almost two months of being trusted, this was all it took.

  “No, you’re here because you decided you valued money over your own lives,” Jin interrupted. “And now Amani is your best chance at staying alive. So I’d listen to the girl with the gun if I were you.”

  “I’m planning on surviving the night.” I slammed the chamber of the gun shut. In this desert I could never seem to escape being seen as powerless, so long as I wasn’t a man. “Everybody stay in the light and grab hold of any iron you’ve got. If something moves, we’ll shoot it.” But I’d lost any authority with my gender.

  The caravan looked to Parviz, whose eyes traveled between me and Jin. “Do as she says,” he ordered finally, spurring the caravan into movement. And then, turning back to me, he added, “Get us to dawn alive and I won’t cut your pay.”

  The Nightmares were wary but hungry. They kept out of the circle of the light, but every time they spotted a shadow they leapt into the air in a spread of wings that blotted out the stars. A gunshot would go off and they would fall thrashing into the sand.

  I was mostly shooting blind. Nightmares were as black as the night around us. They looked like part of the sand until they launched themselves, the torchlight catching them a second before it was too late.

  But I was never too late. And I didn’t miss.

  I fired one shot after another, falling into a hypnotic daze as my mind surrendered to my hands and the trigger. The night was screams, and the smell of gunpowder, and my gun snapping shut with a fresh round in the chamber.

  I fired again, two shots in a row. A pair of Nightmares went down and my gun clicked empty. I was reaching for fresh bullets before the last one was done twitching. My fingers scraped over three bullets. Only three.

  I came back to myself all at once.

  My hands shook a little as I loaded them into the gun. The sky was the color of a healing wound. Somewhere across the horizon, the sun was taking its sweet time. I didn’t know if I could make three bullets last.

  A Nightmare unstitched itself from the shadows two feet away, and I fired before my eyes could focus.

  Two bullets now. One more dead Nightmare. Dozens more crawling in the sand. I knuckled my eyes tiredly.

  “You all right?” Jin’s hand was on my shoulder, but his eyes were still on the desert. The faint glow on the horizon sent light and shadow playing across his jaw.

  “I’m alive,” I said. “You seem to be, too.”

  “You know, there’s a saying at sea: Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning.”

  I glanced at the horizon. “Yeah, well, it’s a little late for a warning. We could’ve used that yesterday.” I cracked my fingers; my hands were sore from clenching the gun so tight. “How many bullets do you have left?”

  Jin just shook his head, spreading empty hands wide. I opened the chamber of my gun. My tired fingers fumbled for the bullet.

  “No.” Jin shook his head. “You’re the better shot.”

  “One bullet each. It’s only fair. You cover the back, I’ll take the front.” Jin hesitated only a second. Then he took it and flicked open the chamber of his gun as I trained my own pistol on the desert, covering long enough for him to reload and drop back. The sun was almost up now.

  Two of them leapt at once. I aimed for the second. And hesitated. The first was racing across the sand, straight for Yasmin. She yelped. Jin shoved her out of the way, firing before I could take aim. And he missed.

  The Nightmare latched onto Jin’s chest. Its teeth sank straight into his heart.

  I fired without thinking what would happen if I missed the beast and hit the boy, or about how it was too late to save him anyway. My last bullet caught the Nightmare in the head and the beast tumbled off Jin in a roll of thrashing wings, dying in the sand as the sun broke the horizon.

  The desert came alive with the noise of screaming and scurrying as the Nightmares burrowed back into the earth.

  I rushed to Jin, my useless gun by my side.

  “Hey, hey.” I tapped his face so that I didn’t have to look at the huge black puncture wound in his chest and the blood and venom mixing just below his tattoo. He must have had a shot of venom straight to his heart. I was sure mine was pumping fast enough for the both of us.

  My hands were shaking so hard, I couldn’t find a pulse. His eyes were closed, his body sprawled, gun still in his hand like he was a fallen soldier. Finally I saw his chest rise and fall ever so slightly, his breathing shallow.
<
br />   A shadow made long by the early morning light fell over us. I squinted up at Parviz.

  “Help me.” I wasn’t much for begging, but I might as well so long as I was already on my knees. I didn’t have any lower to go.

  “He’s as good as dead unless he gets treated properly,” Parviz said, taking in Jin’s worth now that he was injured. His pulse was beating too slowly against my knuckles. “We’re days from civilization.”

  I tried to remember how long it took for Nightmare venom to get through the whole body. A night? A day? Less?

  Parviz scraped his knuckles across his beard. “We’re wasting sunlight.”

  He was right. I moved to put my weight below Jin’s shoulder, to lug him to his feet. “Help me get him to a camel.”

  Parviz frowned, like I might be simple. I supposed he thought I was, since I wasn’t a man any longer. “He’s as good as dead. The dead are just more weight.”

  “Jin’s not dead yet.” I couldn’t help but feel they’d help me if they still thought I was a boy. “And everyone here would be if it weren’t for him.”

  “And we’ll all drink to him in gratitude when we get to safety.” Parviz didn’t waver. “But until then we are mighty low on water, and it’s a waste of it to try to help a boy who isn’t going to live to see another dawn. You can stay with him and die, too, or you can come with us. You’d best decide quick, though.”

  He was right. Jin was as good as dead anyway. And I’d sworn I wasn’t going to die in this desert, not on anyone’s account. I’d told Jin once that he wasn’t worth dying for. Not when I was so close to Izman.

  It would be so easy.

  No. It was Jin. It would be impossible. I’d been dreading Dassama because I didn’t want to take a separate path. I wanted to stay with Jin more than I wanted Izman. I liked what life felt like with him in the desert. Like we were equals. Like we fit together. Too tangled to pull apart so easily.

  I thought of the ruins of Dassama. If Jin died there’d be no one to take news of what the Gallan were doing to his people. The desert didn’t give mercy and it didn’t deserve any. It left the weak for dead if it didn’t outright kill them.