Returned

by Kimberley Griffiths Little

  “How could you ruin it like that?” she moaned. “Imarus wrote this himself, and his handwriting is exquisite. Practically a work of art.”

  “Leila, what is wrong with you? How could you bring this to me?”

  “You’ve been invited as a special guest because Sahmril has been chosen to honor the Goddess. Her sacrifice will bring peace and love to this land. She is the pure vessel. We’re so lucky to have found her.”

  “Lucky?” I echoed. The nonchalant manner in which she spoke was horrifying. “Our sister was hunted down.”

  “Sahmril will help us win the war against the enemy armies. Think of the honor!”

  I rocked back on my heels, trying not to become hysterical. “It’s all a lie, Leila. How can you not see this? Aliyah has deceived you in so many ways . . . she wants to murder our sister and you are a willing accessory. Think of what you’re saying. The child of our mother’s womb! The baby we saved on the desert with camel’s milk.”

  My older sister patted my hand. “It will all be worth it, Jayden. Trust me.”

  I couldn’t continue the upsetting conversation, so I changed the subject. “Leila, I’ve never had the chance to tell you, but Father and I buried Grandmother Seraiah many weeks ago on the empty desert.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” was Leila’s meager attempt at remorse. I tried not to be offended at her lack of emotion at losing our beloved grandmother.

  Speaking in fierce tones, I added, “I refuse to bury Sahmril, too.”

  Ignoring me, Leila held up the chunks of the tablet and squinted at the cracked lines. “You could ask your maids to glue this back together. It’s not too terribly broken. If your girls placed the pieces just so, like this, it would be readable again.”

  “Leila, please.” She was so detached, losing her grasp of reality. “Please stay here with me,” I begged her. “Don’t go back to the temple.”

  She glanced about the suite of rooms, the chandelier, the luxurious bed and plump pillows, as though waking up from a dream. “Oh, no. Soon the palace won’t be safe. Nowhere in Sariba will be safe except for the temple.”

  I went cold. She knew, then, that Horeb’s army had arrived in the dead of night and that they were here to potentially kill us all.

  “Please clean up the broken tablet, Tijah and Jasmine,” I asked the girls, my resolve hardening. “Grind the pieces into dust and have one of the servant boys take them to the cliffs and fling the remains out to sea.”

  “You can’t do that,” Leila protested, stuffing the pieces into her satchel to save them.

  Wrenching the handbag away from her, I handed it to Tijah. She and her sister obeyed my command, but with a silence I’d never seen before. Tijah’s face displayed her bewilderment at the odd conversation.

  Leila rose and gripped my arm. “On the night of the summer solstice, arrange to arrive at the temple early so we can have a few moments alone. The three of us sisters together again, before eternity claims Sahmril.”

  Before I could respond, she pulled open the door and slipped through, the hem of her gown disappearing around the corner with the soft sound of silk.

  Her last words left me stunned, and tears fell from my eyes. Pushing myself forward, I returned to the window and gazed unseeing at the pathways and fountains. I’d been so thrilled at her visit, but now I was left in emotional shambles. “You got it wrong, Leila,” I said to the window. “The three of us sisters again—before Aliyah has Sahmril murdered.”

  Even though I’d lost my appetite, I crammed a few morsels of the bread and cheese into my mouth, then picked up a bowl of sugared berries. Fatigue was overcoming me, and I needed my strength for tonight. Only a few hours remained before the midnight rendezvous with Kadesh and the scouts to appraise Horeb’s camp and ascertain any information that we could use to hinder them before the first battle.

  Feeling cold by the thought of Horeb so close, I crawled onto the bed and wrapped a thick blanket around me. Before long, I was finally warmer. Images of my sisters as prisoners of the temple wavered before my eyes, but exhaustion finally clouded the world, and I fell into a stupor of sleep.

  13

  When I awoke, hours had passed. The sun had long set, and the room was dark. I stumbled off the bed, groggy, my cheeks burning from the heat of the afternoon.

  I splashed cold water on my face and downed a goblet to quench my thirst before running a brush through my hair. After I changed into a dress I hadn’t slept in, I left for dinner in Kadesh’s offices.

  We ate a simple late supper by candlelight while pieces of conversation between General Naham, Kadesh, and Uncle Josiah swept over me. They spoke of Sariba’s number of troops, the daily practice drills, and various strategic formations.

  “We need to keep the battles in the desert beyond the frankincense groves and far from the city,” Uncle Josiah said across the table.

  “It’s a top priority,” Kadesh agreed firmly. “Horeb’s armies must be far from our citizens. Since we’ll be riding out to meet him in battle, we need to time how long it takes us to go from the center of the city to Horeb’s camp.”

  “Exactly, my lord,” General Naham concurred.

  “What we don’t know is the actual size of Horeb’s armies,” Kadesh said.

  “But tonight you’ll learn a great deal,” Josiah said, picking at his food. The lines in his face had deepened after the busy day and the crowning, and I suspected he would not be riding out with us.

  I nodded in agreement, and General Naham gave me a particularly displeased frown. The man did not want me accompanying them to the desert.

  “When I’m dressed in black, you’ll never know I’m female,” I assured the general, setting down my fork. Nerves had stolen my appetite again. “Now if you’ll excuse me.”

  Kadesh rose from the table when I got up. “I’ll see you in a few minutes,” he told me.

  Too soon, Tijah was helping me into a black tunic and breeches, pulling a black leather belt tight around my waist. Jasmine wound my hair about my scalp while Tijah pinned it into place.

  Over my head went a length of black fabric, covering my neck, hair, and the lower half of my face. If I needed to, I could pull it up over my eyes, but the fabric was light enough that I could still discern enough to move about safely.

  “Underneath this, your eyes won’t glitter in the moonlight and give you away to the enemy.”

  “True,” I said. “Especially since the moon is more than three-quarters full. This next lunar week will be more dangerous for our scouts when they’re trying to spy and remain unseen.”

  Before I knew it, Kadesh was at my door. Without speaking, he slipped his hand under my arm and we left the palace together for the stables. “Have you changed your mind?” he asked.

  “Not at all. I’m going, and I want to be with you.”

  His hand gripped mine as we made our way to the stables where Asher was saddling horses. “I came down to make sure you ride Hara,” he told me. “Of all the royal horses she knows you best, and you her. It would be unwise to ride an unfamiliar steed tonight.”

  I counted four horses. One for Kadesh, a highly recommended scout named Jonah, General Naham, and me. My stomach was in my throat when Asher helped me mount, and I wasn’t sure that I might not get sick.

  The last time I’d seen Horeb he’d pulled Kadesh out of Nalla’s house in Mari and ordered his men to attack him. After dragging his body away, Horeb had tossed Kadesh’s brown cloak at me stained with his blood.

  I’d never forget the despair of that night, including the weeks hiding in the hills of Mari mourning Kadesh when I’d thought he was gone forever.

  The memories sent goose bumps up my chilled neck. The stable doors opened and a small white moon sat at the pinnacle of a night shattered with stars.

  General Naham’s eyes were on me when I took the reins, but I ignored him and fixed my gaze on the task at hand. My thighs gripped the horse with new strength and my confidence surged.

  We were
a silent company, moving our horses quickly out of the city and up the hills in an easy gait, but not galloping to keep the noise down.

  “We can’t risk detection,” Kadesh murmured beside me. “Horeb has scouts out here, too. Pray we don’t run into any.”

  After a half hour’s ride to the edge of the frankincense groves, we tied the horses up and moved forward on foot. A man in dark garb appeared out of nowhere, helping with my reins to tether Hara. He was shadowlike, a spirit of the gnarled trees and smelling pungently of the musky scent, silent as a ghost.

  “One of the foremen of the groves,” Kadesh said close to my ear. “He’ll stay with the horses until our return.”

  We wasted no time in moving forward at a fast pace. I hunched my neck into my cloak, General Naham leading out. Keeping to the eastern sand dunes and salt shrubs, we could remain undetected while we skirted the main bowl of the valley.

  When we crested the first rise of a dune, my breath caught. One league straight west from us were the lights of Horeb’s camp nestled close to the Qara foothills.

  Jonah grunted. “Bigger up close, eh?”

  “Too close. Too real,” I whispered, and General Naham glared at me for speaking, while Kadesh squeezed my hand.

  Even though my mouth was dry and I yearned to take a sip from my water pouch, I didn’t dare pause or lag behind.

  I pulled the headscarf up, keeping it over my face as much as possible to muffle the sound of my heavy breathing.

  The night was so still. Not a sound but the soft shushing of sand beneath our feet. The dunes and scrub, including a lone tree, were silhouettes of black.

  We reached the foothills, now less than half a league from Horeb’s camp, and slowed our pace.

  Carefully, we picked our way through the rocks and boulders. Every few paces, Jonah, our tracker, held out a hand to halt our progress while he went ahead to make sure we weren’t running into one of Horeb’s men crouched in a crevice.

  It was slow going, not wanting loose rocks to go sliding under our feet and create noise. The sand dunes had been much easier in that regard.

  All at once, Kadesh stopped in front of me. The shadows were so dense I almost fell into him. I was blind. Holding my breath, I didn’t dare move in the intense quiet.

  I swore I could hear the faint rattle of the teapots from the campfires.

  “Enemy guard post up ahead,” Kadesh said, cupping a hand around my ear. He grasped my forearm and led me, one slow step at a time, into a niche behind a huge boulder. Crouching, I tried to catch my breath, but my heart was pounding so loud in my ears I swore the entire valley could hear it.

  A few voices from the camp carried along the night air. Two men laughed over a joke. The embers of a fire crackled when stirred by a stick. But mostly our enemies were asleep in their tents.

  No sign of Horeb, but obviously he’d be well guarded in a tent in the center of camp.

  Up close, the camp was enormous and intimidating. I had no idea how to estimate the number of soldiers or animals, but the sight loomed ominous.

  I sucked in air when I saw the shadows of several guard patrols walking the far perimeter of Horeb’s camp. One such patrol stopped nearest to us and pointed to the boulders we hid behind. I didn’t dare breath for several excruciating moments, holding my head down between my knees and shrinking into myself.

  Kadesh was a statue next to me. General Naham and Jonah were in some other location, but I had no idea where.

  The night grew even quieter, if that was possible, but now the sounds of the desert began to distinguish themselves. Tiny scurrying of mice or moles. A far-off wolf crying at the moon. Scrub brush branches whispering together.

  And then I heard something I hadn’t expected. The faint sound of water.

  Kadesh relaxed the grip on my hand, and I slowly lifted my head, trying to make his dark figure out.

  He lifted a finger to his lips and then rose to a crouched position, motioning to me that Horeb’s perimeter guards had finally moved on. It was all I could do not to heave a huge sigh of relief.

  We retraced our steps, Kadesh lifting a warning hand to keep the slow pace so we didn’t give ourselves away.

  The trek back to the frankincense groves was longer and more tortuous. I was exhausted now. We’d been walking well over two hours in rock and deep sand, muscles taut, nerves on fire.

  When we reached our horses and the shadowy foreman helped me into my saddle, I flopped over Hara’s neck, dozing until we reached the stables again.

  Nobody had yet spoken a single word. Whether due to fatigue or fear, I didn’t know.

  After the horses had been fed and groomed by the sleepy stable boys, Kadesh motioned to General Naham and Jonah to gather. In the dim glow of a candle, we sat on bales of hay, cold and overwhelmed.

  “How close did we come to being discovered?” Kadesh asked.

  Jonah shrugged. “There was a scout not too much farther in from where we stopped, but he was half-asleep on his sword. More guards up ahead, but they had no idea we were there.”

  Kadesh pursed his lips. “General Naham—your thoughts?”

  The general glanced at me, obviously uncomfortable.

  “Speak freely,” Kadesh ordered. “Jayden understands what we’re up against. Perhaps better than you do. She fought King Horeb personally. She outwitted him in the Mari hills and then rescued me in the Edomite caves.”

  General Naham stroked his beard, candlelight falling along the lines of his face. “Not one army, but three, including demonic Assyrians. There is nothing more to say.”

  I wavered on my seat. We were overwhelmed and outnumbered by brutal warriors.

  “Do they have trained cavalry?” Kadesh asked.

  The general nodded. “And archers.”

  Jonah spoke up. “I was able to climb a little higher into the boulders of the foothills to estimate the number of troops. My closest guess is nearly fifteen hundred.”

  Kadesh was thoughtful for several long moments. One by one, he caught our eyes in turn, as if to emphasize the gravity of the situation. “My first plan, then, is to send an epistle to King Horeb and ask for his surrender.”

  General Naham’s eyebrows shot up. “Your Majesty—” he began, but Kadesh held up a hand to stop his interruption.

  “The letter will be a ploy to put them on defense and make them nervous. I want them to think that they are outnumbered. These foreigners are not defending their homeland. Horeb has promised them riches, but nobody will fight a suicide mission.”

  Jonah’s eyes were wide and staring between us all. “Good point. A wise idea.”

  “Intimidation,” I said. “And it buys us time.”

  “Time to do what? More marching practice? Our army is as ready as they’ll ever be,” General Naham said.

  “They can continue target practice and their sword-fighting. The problem is that the Sariba army rarely has had to go to war. Not exactly in our favor when we’re dealing with professional armies of Maachathite and Assyrians.”

  Another moment of silence passed and then General Naham placed his hands on his knees to rise. “I’ll meet you in the strategy room in the morning, King Kadesh.”

  “Wait,” I said. “I have an idea.”

  “You don’t know war strategy,” the general told me dismissively.

  “I’m not talking about a battle,” I argued back. “When we were sitting in the boulders tonight, I thought I heard water coming from somewhere.”

  “You did,” Kadesh said. “There are springs in the foothills. Those springs are one reason some of our people are escaping to the caves in the mountains. Many people keep their herds up there in the wintertime. Plenty of food and water.”

  “Are there any wells near Horeb’s camp—or are they using those springs, too?”

  Kadesh studied my face in the lamplight. “The last well on the desert route into Sariba is located about three leagues farther east. I highly doubt Horeb’s men are walking two hours each way to haul water b
ack to camp. They’re definitely using our springs.”

  “What if we poison the springs?” I said quietly.

  My suggestion was met with silence.

  “Poison the springs,” I repeated. “Make them sick. Kill them. It will bring down their numbers so we can fight them one on one more easily. Their advantage of outnumbering us will be diluted.”

  “And what about our own citizens?” General Naham asked. “How do we protect them? And how do you propose we poison a spring? Especially when the water will dilute the concoction.”

  “Send out word to our citizens to store as much water as they can tomorrow. Do not allow their use until the king decrees it. The Temple of Sariba is well acquainted with herbal medicine—and poisons. The Egyptian magicians within our borders brought a supply with them. A fact I know. A poisonous plant like hemlock or arsenic, given in small doses, will make a person sick and doesn’t kill them. At least not outright.”

  Kadesh let out a sound of approval. “It’s a brilliant plan. We only need to get the poison and then administer it to the water source.”

  “I know someone who can get into the temple kitchens,” I said, thinking of my handmaids with their quiet demeanors.

  Jonah said, “We’ll go tomorrow night.”

  “Or perhaps early in the morning,” I suggested. “Then the poison has less chance to be diluted before they fill their water barrels for the day.”

  “It would be best if we could go directly to the large barrels of water right inside their camp,” Jonah said. “No dilution in standing water.”

  “But that means going directly into camp,” Kadesh said, shaking his head. “You’d be caught for sure.”

  “Let me figure that out,” Jonah told him. “I’ll wear a disguise to blend in. Act like I belong.”

  “That’s why you make a good scout,” General Naham said, looking more pleased than he had all evening.

  “I have another idea,” I said. “One I’ve been thinking about since the mercenary soldiers attacked last night.”