Wulf looked equally blank, shrugging his shoulders.
Thorn rolled his eyes to heaven. “Did they teach you nothing in brotherband training?” he said in disgust.
Stefan thought it best to treat that as a rhetorical question. There was no answer he could give that didn’t open him to further sarcasm.
When Thorn saw that that particular ploy wasn’t going to work, he looked a little disappointed. He drew a long breath, then said, in very precise tones, “It’s called the Constant Sea because it’s unchanging. There are no tides here.”
Stefan raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Really?”
“Really,” Thorn replied.
Stefan tilted his head to one side as he considered that interesting fact. “Why’s that?” he asked.
Thorn hesitated. It was all very well to make scathing comments about the boys’ lack of knowledge. But now Stefan had asked a question to which Thorn had no answer.
“Do you expect me to tell you everything?” he asked now, and a knowing look came over Stefan’s face.
“You don’t know, do you?”
Thorn snorted. “Of course I do. But it’s not my job to further your education, scant as it may be.” He gestured toward the far end of the barricade. “Get that end started,” he said shortly. When he heard Stefan’s knowing snigger, he made a mental note to be dissatisfied with his work on the eastern end, and have him do twice as much there.
Wearily, calling to Jesper to join him, Stefan trudged out of the sea, water dripping from his clothes, and made his way to the prepared pile of thornbush at the far end of the campsite. Ingvar was already lugging rocks down to the water’s edge and piling them there.
It took another hour for the work to be completed to Thorn’s satisfaction. Contrary to his plan, he didn’t insist on an extra effort from Stefan. The boys had worked well, if not willingly. In fact, after a decent interval, he joined in the work of piling the thornbush under the water’s surface and weighing it down with rocks.
Lydia smiled as she saw him join in on the labor. “You’re not as grumpy as you pretend, are you?” she said to herself. Beside her, Kloof rumbled a deep growl in reply. At least, that was what she thought the dog was doing and she tugged idly at the thick hair of her ruff. Then another growl resonated through Kloof’s massive chest and Lydia took more notice. The dog was leaning forward, her attention riveted on the oasis. Following her line of sight, Lydia could see movement as a troop of mounted warriors picked their way through the trees.
“Thorn!” she called. “I think the guests you’ve been expecting have arrived.”
chapter forty-one
Hal had no idea how long they were kept waiting. Without any daylight visible to them, he couldn’t judge the passage of time. For a while, he tried to relax like his two companions, but his impatience got the better of him and he began to pace up and down the chamber. The long wait didn’t seem to bother Stig, who had the experienced sailors’ ability to sleep anytime, anyplace the opportunity presented itself.
As far as Stig was concerned, the Shurmel would send for them eventually and there was no point in fretting about the fact. Better to snatch forty winks while he could.
Or eighty, if that’s what it took.
Gilan seemed equally philosophical about the long wait. He sat with his back against the wall and his head tilted forward. His eyes were closed but Hal doubted that he was sleeping. That was borne out when there was a rattle at the door lock and the Ranger’s eyes were wide-open immediately as his head snapped up.
The cult member who had conducted them to the chamber entered and looked around the dimly lit space, studying the three of them disdainfully. Stig, woken by the rattle of the lock and the squeaking of the door hinges, responded by yawning hugely at the scarlet-robed man.
Gilan rose gracefully from his sitting position against the wall. He did so without any need to set his hands on the floor. He simply unfolded his legs underneath him and came to his feet. Stig also stood, with a little less grace. He ran his hand through his hair and sniffed loudly. Hal, of course, was already on his feet.
“So,” Stig said cheerfully, “I take it the Head Sherang is ready to see us?”
The cultist looked at him, not understanding. Stig decided to elaborate.
“The Big Bazoo,” he said. “The Super Scorpion. The Sherbet.”
The cultist glared at him. “The brothers are assembled,” he said. “The Shurmel will hear your petition now.”
“That’s what I meant,” Stig said, grinning.
The Scorpion member ignored him. He addressed himself to Gilan.
“All requests for a tolfah are heard in front of the full membership,” he said.
Gilan shrugged. “That sounds reasonable,” he replied and gestured for the cult member to lead the way.
They followed him out the door and along the low-ceilinged stone passageway by which they had come. When they reached the point where they had entered the cave complex, Hal managed to glance outside. From the length of the shadows cast by the sun, he deduced that it was early to mid-afternoon. They had been kept waiting for at least three hours. He wondered whether that was really how long it took to assemble the members of the cult or whether it was simply a matter of letting outsiders cool their heels at the Shurmel’s pleasure. Probably the latter, he thought.
Their path veered away from the large opening in the mountainside, back along another passage cut through the rock. Lanterns set every ten meters or so cast a flickering, uncertain light on the corridor. The ground was rough and uneven and Hal stumbled several times. So, apparently, did Stig.
“Bit more light would be useful,” he grumbled. Nobody said anything in reply.
Abruptly, their guide made a sharp turn to the right and they found themselves on a winding, ascending ramp leading up into the heart of the mountain. They passed passageways at two levels before they reached a third and followed their guide out onto yet another of the tunnels cut through the rock.
But now they could hear a noise above the soft patter of their feet on the floor. There was the subdued mutter of a large number of voices. The sound echoed off the rock walls of the narrow, winding corridor, becoming louder the farther they went.
Eventually, they rounded a corner and were confronted by a large, high-ceilinged cave, lit by dozens of torches set in brackets round the walls. The mutter of voices rose suddenly as they entered, then died away, and dozens of pairs of eyes turned toward them. Seated on individual rugs set on the floor were the members of the Scorpion cult. There appeared to be around fifty of them, all of them wearing the same scarlet robes as their guide, all of them clean shaven, all with dark circles of kohl around their eyes, giving them an ominous, deathlike appearance.
“I see they put on their makeup just for the occasion,” Stig muttered.
Hal glanced at him. It wasn’t really a time for levity, he thought. Their lives were balanced on a knife edge here. “Shut up, Stig,” he said quietly.
Stig shrugged agreeably. “Whatever you say. Just trying to lighten the mood.”
“I’ll admit it could use some lightening,” Gilan remarked. “But it might be better to do as Hal says until we learn a little more about what’s in store for us.”
Stig nodded. His hand touched the head of his ax, hanging in its belt loop. The Scorpions had still made no move to disarm them. Perhaps that was the convention for people who came to make a request of the goddess Imrika. Taking their weapons might be seen as a provocation. After all, people seeking a tolfah were hardly disposed to attack the cult. They were here to ask a favor.
The low-level murmur of voices had cut off as they entered the room. Now, as their guide led them to a position at the front of the chamber, the voices began again.
A giant oaken chair stood at the head of the room, on a raised wooden dais. Black drapes hung behind it, sectioni
ng off the part of the chamber that lay behind it. The chair itself was plain, but was surmounted by the ubiquitous scorpion figure, a massive ebony carving nearly a meter high, with red-jeweled eyes. In the flickering torchlight, it appeared to be moving, a malevolent, threatening figure rearing above the back of the chair.
“Stand here,” their guide told them, indicating a point in front of the platform. They complied. Stig and Hal glanced around the room, wondering what was to happen next. Gilan seemed unperturbed.
“Kormella!” the guide intoned in a loud voice and there was a rustle of movement behind them. Glancing back, Hal saw that the members of the cult had risen from their seated positions on the mats to kneel, facing the scorpion chair.
“Imella,” the guide said and, as one, the fifty members of the cult lowered their foreheads to touch the mats in front of them. The guide looked impatiently at the three foreigners, still standing.
“Kneel,” he hissed and, as they all lowered themselves to their knees, he added, “Bow.”
The two Skandians hesitated. It wasn’t in their nature to prostrate themselves before anyone. But Gilan muttered out of the corner of his mouth:
“Do it.”
Taking a lead from him, they inclined their heads, and bowed forward slightly from the waist. But by unspoken agreement, none of them assumed the full, forehead-to-the-floor pose of the fifty cult members behind them. The guide scowled at them, but realized this was as far as they were going to go, unless forced.
And he knew that it wasn’t a good idea to use force on supplicants to the goddess. One never knew how she would view such actions, particularly if a large payment was involved.
The three friends remained with their heads bowed for some time. Behind them, they could hear the congregation of Scorpions beginning a low, ululating chant. As far as they could tell, it seemed to be wordless, merely a constant repetition of the sound aaaaaaahhhhh.
Hal also became aware of a sickly sweet fragrance wafting on the air in the cavern. He turned his head slightly, eliciting a warning hiss from the guide. Several of the cult members he could see had their hands to their mouths and their jaws were moving as they chewed something.
Gilan had apparently noticed the same thing. “It’s some kind of drug,” he said quietly. “Possibly a hallucinogenic or a relaxant to prepare them to confront their leader.”
“Is he that ugly?” Stig asked. A ghost of a smile touched Gilan’s face. He enjoyed Stig’s irreverent approach to solemn occasions.
“Probably,” he replied. Another warning hiss made them fall silent. More time passed, the chanting became more and more intense, and the volume rose. Finally, the guide stepped forward and swept out his arm, indicating the curtain to the left-hand side of the throne.
“Imshavaaah!” he cried, and the gathering echoed the cry, so that it rang around the walls of the vast cave.
Abruptly, the curtain was swept aside and a huge figure sprang through the gap, which instantly closed behind him. Now the cult members resumed their former single-syllable chant, but this time it rose to almost deafening proportions, echoing and reechoing off the stone walls of the vast cave.
The Shurmel was an impressive figure. Well over two meters tall, he was clad in a black cloak, with a silver rendering of the scorpion figure on his left breast. He was totally bald and his shaven skull had been polished and oiled so that it shone, reflecting the flickering torchlight.
In his right hand, he held his staff of office. It was a solid rod of ebony, two meters long. At the base, it was shod with a silver ferrule. On the top, it carried a carving of an angry scorpion—carved in shining black stone with red jewels inset for its eyes.
“I can see why they need to be drugged,” Stig murmured. “That is a seriously ugly person.”
Fortunately, his voice didn’t carry to the leader of the Scorpion cult. But Gilan found his lips twitching as he attempted to control his expression, maintaining an air of suitable solemnity.
The Shurmel stepped forward to the front of the raised dais. He glared down at the trio of foreigners before him. In the dark circles of his eye sockets, the eyes glittered with malice. He addressed himself to Gilan, who was standing in the center.
“Are you the leader?” he asked. He didn’t seem to be raising his voice, but it carried through the cavern to the farthest corner. It was a rich, deep voice. A sinister voice.
Gilan rose to his feet and took a half pace forward. “I am,” he declared.
“And you have come here to the shrine of Imrika the Destroyer to discuss a tolfah?”
Gilan nodded.
“Then look around you at the followers of Imrika. The Assassins of the Scorpion Cult. These are the ones who will pursue your tolfah, until the subject you have named is dead. Look!” he repeated, sweeping his arm out to encompass the kneeling throng behind them. At his urging, Gilan and the others turned and studied the red-robed assassins, now swaying rhythmically in time to their underlying chant, as the Shurmel continued to talk.
“These are my elite. Each one of them is a skilled killer, trained until he is expert in the use of the stiletto, the crossbow, the javelin and the garrote. Each of them has a comprehensive knowledge of deadly poisons: venom from the sand viper that can be used to coat the tip of an arrow or quarrel. Poisons that can be secreted in a victim’s food and will bring certain death, either long and agonizing or immediate.
“These are all implacable killers. Each one trains here for ten years to develop the skill that Imrika demands of her disciples. Only then can a Scorpion recruit expect to be assigned to a target, to carry out a tolfah for the goddess. Once a tolfah is agreed, the Scorpion killer will hunt and pursue his victim until death—either his own or that of the target. Nothing but death can stop them. And when one dies, another will assume his sacred duty until the tolfah is complete.” He paused dramatically, arms thrown wide-open.
Interesting, Hal thought. He made no mention of any combat skills—no training with the sword or the ax or the spear. These men killed by stealth, not confrontation.
He caught Gilan’s eye and made a slight shrugging gesture. The Ranger seemed to think some response to the Shurmel’s declaration was expected.
“Fascinating,” he said evenly.
The Shurmel glared at him, then continued. “So, tell us. Who is the target of your tolfah? Whom do you wish to have killed?”
The three interlopers, facing to the front once more, sensed a stirring in the kneeling crowd behind them. Hal glanced back quickly. The Scorpions were all leaning forward expectantly, their eyes glowing with anticipation. But Gilan was speaking, his voice conciliatory and apologetic.
“I’m afraid there’s been a misunderstanding,” he said. “I don’t want to initiate a tolfah. I want to cancel one.”
chapter forty-two
The commander of the Ishti, mindful of the Shurmel’s orders not to let the strangers escape, had selected fifteen of his best mounted troopers and sent them ahead as an advance party.
“Observe only,” he ordered their leader. “But if the foreigners try to leave, then do whatever you have to do to stop them.”
The fifteen troopers had plunged ahead at a gallop, with the rest of the troop following behind at a trot. Perhaps it was the exhilaration of the speed, or the excitement of the hunt, but when they reached the oasis, their leader forgot, or ignored, his orders.
He carried out a quick reconnaissance, signaling his men to wait back in the concealment of the trees and moving forward on his own.
He could see the foreign ship anchored close to the shore. A makeshift barricade had been constructed on the edge of the water, looking like brushwood piled up in a semicircle. The troop leader laughed scornfully. A few flimsy branches wouldn’t stop them, he thought. He was eager to earn the Shurmel’s approval and he knew the Scorpion leader wanted these interlopers killed. No point in waiting fo
r the rest of the party to arrive, he thought. He counted the people behind the barricade and could see there was only a half dozen of them. He had more than twice their numbers, and their makeshift stockade wouldn’t keep him out.
In his haste, he failed to notice the sharpened bamboo stakes set every couple of meters, pointing outward around head height. That was understandable. They were set at a low angle and they tended to fade into the dark mass of the thornbush behind them. He also failed to appreciate that the brushwood tangle was set in a ditch more than a meter deep.
Truth be told, he wasn’t the brightest of leaders. He saw what appeared to be an easy objective. He rose from behind the cover of the tree that had shielded him from view and scrambled into the saddle. Drawing his curved sword, he turned back to his men in the trees behind him and yelled an order for the charge.
He clapped his spurs into his horse’s side and thundered out of the trees, his blood singing. Behind him, he could hear his men echoing his call, and hear the thud of their horses’ hooves on the coarse sand beneath them.
He saw people behind the barricade running to get their weapons and take up defensive positions and he laughed out loud. There were too few of them, he thought. His horse would leap their puny barrier and he would be among them, striking to left and right, cutting them down.
Then his horse saw the wicked hedge of sharpened stakes directly ahead and swung wildly to the right, plunging and rearing to break his rider’s controlling grip on the reins. The commander swayed in the saddle, nearly falling, and cursed the animal as it refused to confront those stakes.
He realized he could never force his mount into that hedge of sharpened points. He turned in his saddle as the horse pranced, terrified, in a circle.
“Dismount!” he yelled to the men behind him. “Dismount and attack on foot!”
He had begun to swing down from the saddle when Lydia’s first dart arrived. It went into his upper arm, slightly above the small circular shield that he wore there, and penetrated through to his body. He screamed in pain and staggered, one foot still in the stirrup, one on the ground. His horse, thoroughly terrified by now, bolted, and he lost his balance, bumping and bouncing over the rocky ground as he was dragged behind it, one foot still firmly trapped in the stirrup.
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