‘He knew enough to hide when night fell,’ William said.
‘He’s afraid of the darkness,’ Thomas answered. ‘Aren’t we all?’
‘Afraid or not, you need to come back to the oasis,’ William told him.
‘Back to that death?’ cried the other, and waved a despairing hand in its direction. He shook his head. ‘I cannot.’
‘The bodies of your men will be buried,’ William assured him, ‘but we can’t protect either you or Hammid out here.’
The Englishman began to chuckle, a deep terrible laugh that was harsh with sorrow. ‘I fear, sir, that you won’t protect us at all!’
‘You are certain to perish if you stay here,’ William assured him. ‘Either by what lurks in the night, or by the sun. Your skin is burnt, and you look famished. We have food and drink.’
‘I have food enough, sir,’ Thomas said, and touched his tender face, wincing where it burned. Brushing off William’s hand, he climbed unaided to the crest of the dune to where Hammid was kneeling and muttering a prayer. The Englishman put a hand softly upon the Arab’s scalp and the prayer stopped abruptly. Hammid looked up at Thomas, who smiled and said something in Arabic that seemed to give the man some hope.
‘Do you think he has a right to know?’ William said aside to Vittore.
The lieutenant watched Thomas and shook his head. ‘No, Captain, I do not. He is alive, and that is all that matters. Better to allow him that ignorance than tell him the truth.’
‘But his suffering may be our fault. He helped us at Babel’s. This could be his punishment for aiding the enemy of the vampyres.’
‘That may be true,’ Vittore admitted, ‘but we must keep him ignorant. Anonymity, remember?’
William relented and led both Thomas and Hammid back down to the oasis where already the brothers were building pyres of tents and wrecked wagons, burning what could not be salvaged. A chain of men was working to carry the dead from the watering hole to a place beyond the dunes. Around the perimeter stood guards, armed with their Baker rifles.
Thomas Richmond did not notice this until they wandered down into the hastily erected camp. He looked to his right and found a man in a grey uniform studying the black horizon, the weapon in his hands.
‘Who are you?’ he demanded of William. ‘I took you for a merchant when we first met. But somehow I doubt you are.’
We are monks, Mr Richmond,’ William told him, ‘on a pilgrimage.’
What kind of monk cradles a gun?’ Thomas retorted, unconvinced.
‘The kind that will protect you tonight, Mr Richmond,’ William replied a little too abruptly, so that his first reaction was then to apologize to the merchant.
Thomas looked outraged. ‘I knew it!’ he began and then started to rant. ‘You have something to do with this!’ he shouted. ‘I heard what happened at Babel’s. Burned to the ground, did it not? That night you were there . . .’
William winced under the hail of abuse and accusation. He raised a hand for calm, but the gesture only prompted further ranting.
‘Get Hammid some food and water. He needs to rest,’ William murmured to Vittore.
‘And him?’ Vittore nodded to Thomas, who was now shouting to the stars.
‘I’ll calm him. See if you can find some wine or something stronger. He will need it tonight.’
VI
They sat upon the sands, mesmerized by the flames that reached higher and higher. A smell of burning fat blighted the air, and the whole place stank like an abattoir.
Thomas turned to William as he sat down next to him, passing the weary merchant a tin cup of gin.
‘It’s not wine, I’m afraid,’ William confessed.
Thomas sniffed it suspiciously, then sipped, before knocking it back, coughing at the end. ‘Gods, not wine indeed! Gin? Monks with guns? Monks with gin?
‘I’m not a monk,’ William replied.
‘You said . . .’
‘I said these men were monks. I am not.’
Thomas shook his head dismally. ‘Too many riddles, sir. Too many riddles in the night. Please, be frank with me.’
‘I am Captain William Saxon,’ he began. ‘These men are monks, and are under my command. I am not a priest, nor a man of the cloth, yet they follow me, for they are not monks in the conventional sense. We are more . . . physical.’
Thomas looked at William in bewilderment. ‘You sound like Inquisitors.’
William laughed out loud. ‘Dear God, no. The Inquisition was a means to one man’s end, a paranoid and skewed belief. Ours is less sinister. Yet unfortunates sometimes become embroiled in our conflict.’
‘Unfortunates? That is a fine word to describe my dead servants,’ Thomas said sadly. ‘What conflict could cause such devastation?’
‘A secret conflict that has lasted thousands of years, Mr Richmond. A war between Heaven and Hell,’ William explained.
The Englishman frowned and made to joke, but the words would not come. ‘You jest with me,’ he said finally.
‘I do not,’ William said plainly, and refilled Thomas’s cup. ‘The shadows that attacked you are vampyres, half-daemons with the strength of many men. They have a murderous disposition.’
‘Why should they attack me?’ Thomas protested. ‘I have done nothing to them! I am simply a merchant. A merchant who sells cloth to the Bedouins, and certainly not a man of great threat.’
William agreed. He waited for Thomas to drain the cup again before refilling it. As the Englishman sipped, William told him his suspicions. ‘You aided us at Babel’s.’
Looking up from the gin, Thomas stared at William. It was a reproachful expression, a mixture of deep regret yet anger as well. ‘And for that, I am marked?’
William nodded. ‘I never thought your services as translator would condemn you. Nor did I know that vampyres were watching. You see, it was the vampyres who destroyed Babel’s, not us. That woman, Malika, was murdered by them. They also murdered Charles Greynell.’
Thomas looked aghast. ‘The Rashid militia believe that you destroyed Babel’s. Did you know that two armies track you? One from Rashid and one from Dumyat?’
Now it was William’s turn to look anxious. ‘How do you know this?’
‘I have been travelling through the villages and townships around the Nile. Since I was a foreigner, they asked about “men in grey”,’ the Englishman replied candidly. ‘I told them nothing of course.’
‘My thanks,’ William murmured, though it worried him intensely that two armies were searching the region for them. Shaking off the first militia had been a feat in itself . . . but two?
‘The militia from Dumyat search the northern coast, while the Rashid army sweeps south,’ Thomas said. ‘It is led by a brutal and ambitious man. The Viceroy Ali has put Rashid’s protection in his hands. Your arrest is crucial to this man’s reputation.’
‘Who is he?’
‘He is called Haidar. He was a regular customer at Babel’s. For him, this will be personal, Captain Saxon,’ Thomas said, dwelling on the title with unease.
William was alarmed. He hadn’t expected to face three enemies on this mission.
‘Shouldn’t we leave now? Whatever brought you to this oasis will certainly bring them, don’t you think?’ Thomas said.
‘The vampyres could still be out there, so we must wait until sunrise. Vampyres dislike daylight. Some are unnaturally sensitive to it. Unfortunately that is their only weakness,’ William told him.
Thomas wrapped his arms about him and hunched his shoulders. ‘You have dangerous enemies, Captain.’
‘Yes,’ William agreed, his thoughts elsewhere.
‘And now so do I,’ Thomas added.
William breathed hard and rested his cup on his knee. ‘Whatever your destination, we will escort you there. It is the least we can do.’
Thomas did not appear comforted by this. ‘For what good it will do me, I accept. But I suspect even monks with guns will not stop these creatures, Captain.’
> CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Ayaida
I
On the fifth day since the slaughter at the oasis, a great storm whirled down from the north and struck in the late afternoon. It was Thomas who saw it first, a great murky wall, as though the clouds had merged with the horizon, and he began gesturing and shouting.
‘A haboob, William – a sandstorm,’ he warned, pulling his horse about. The animal grew restless, as did the rest of the horses. ‘We must take shelter’
William ordered the men to dismount and enclose themselves using the three wagons as a palisade. They rigged the canvas sheets from the wagons to make a canopy in the centre. It was makeshift and patchy and the horses had to be tethered to the wagons firmly and blindfolded in case they should try to stampede into the desert.
It took many minutes to build, and the last sheet was still being lashed to the wagons when the storm fell upon them with a sudden furnace blast. The monks hunkered down and put their hands over their heads as the fine grains rushed over the wagons, under the decks and into the centre, battering them with dust and sand. William put his hands to his eyes and squinted out as the canopy thrashed about. For a moment one sheet was torn free, but a brother leapt up and caught it in time, pulling it back in place and clinging on.
And as suddenly as it began, the sand settled and the storm passed over.
Thomas straightened up and pushed aside the sheets, sighing with relief. ‘We were lucky,’ he said. ‘I’ve heard of storms that have lasted for days. Some have erased entire villages.’
William didn’t take his words lightly. ‘We need to find some refuge and soon,’ he agreed, and addressed his lieutenants. ‘Where are we?’
Vittore studied the map, a little bewildered, and for a moment he seemed lost. Then he gestured to a point that was many miles still from the Sinai. Nearby was an oasis, yet it was more than a day’s ride.
‘We are running out of water,’ Peruzo remarked quietly, as the monks around them began pulling down the sheets and inspecting the frightened horses.
‘And food,’ Vittore added, glancing at the horses again.
William could see what he was suggesting. ‘That is a desperate solution, Lieutenant,’ he warned. ‘We need all the horses to carry us to the Sinai – and to fight when we get there.’
‘Captain . . .’ Vittore said, sounding tired, ‘we might never reach the Sinai. We could die of starvation. Of thirst . . .’
William walked out between the wagons, his lieutenants close behind him. ‘Many things could strike us down between here and our objective,’ he said as he passed by the horses, gentling them while they struggled and shook the sand from their hides. ‘We’re deep in peril. But let us think of practical matters.’ He turned to Peruzo. ‘We have water to last how long?’
‘If we ration to a few sips a day, we could last until we reach the oasis,’ Peruzo replied.
‘And food?’
Vittore appeared grim. ‘Enough for a small bowlful this evening. Just rice.’
‘Then make sure we ration the portions. Save as much rice and water as we can.’ William paused, and then added: ‘I will decline to eat this evening.’
The two men objected, Peruzo the louder.
‘I have faced harsher conditions than this,’ William explained, though he doubted he had.
II
That evening William sat alone as the monks ate their meagre meals. Not one of them complained of going hungry, though Hammid made peevish noises until Thomas silenced him and he backed off into the shadows with his small bowl of rice.
As William watched, his lieutenants came to join him. Both were empty-handed.
‘Have you not eaten?’ he asked them.
We chose to follow your example, Captain,’ Peruzo replied. We need the men to be fit and healthy’
‘That’s right, said Vittore, and gave a wry laugh. ‘For the sake of the mission.’
William noted the sarcasm but could not help but agree. They were moving in one direction, but with no idea whether it was the right one.
He reached into his jacket to take another look at Charles Greynell’s letter to Rome. As he withdrew it, something fell out onto the sand. It was the pendant the woman at Babel’s had given him. He picked it up to study it in the firelight.
‘Any clues?’ Peruzo asked, watching his captain.
William glanced at the lieutenant and shook his head. ‘Only another riddle.’ He sighed as he lamented his own ignorance. He had shown the pendant to the officers several days before and they had passed little comment on it, other than Vittore saying it looked ‘tribal’. William wasn’t sure why he had kept it, whether it was a curse or a talisman. Other than the cryptic letter to the Secretariat, it was the only possession they had of Charles Greynell’s.
‘Thomas Richmond believed it could be Bedouin. In his letter, Greynell mentions “wanderers in the desert”,’ William told them as he slipped the pendant back under his shirt.
‘And you think he meant the nomads in this region?’ Peruzo asked.
‘It’s a hope,’ William replied.
Vittore sighed. ‘Not a high one, Captain.’
William did not answer.
‘You’ve turned things around before, Captain, you will do so again,’ Peruzo said confidently, dismissing Vittore’s cynicism.
Lieutenant Vittore sat back and eyed Peruzo. ‘If I had the companionship of angels, I too would feel confident, Lieutenant Peruzo. but I have not seen them on this mission. And I’m sure my captain would agree that it’s safer to count on things you can believe in.’
‘Just because you haven’t seen them, Vittore, d oesn’t mean they don’t exist,’ Peruzo growled back.
‘And you say I’m naïve?’ Vittore mocked.
‘I never said—’ Peruzo retorted.
‘Enough!’ William said, loud enough to stop them both, quiet enough so the brothers below them could not hear.
Both men looked abashed, unable to meet their captain’s eye.
‘I will not have this bickering in my company, understood?’ William said.
The two lieutenants nodded sheepishly.
‘As for this talk of angels . . .’
‘Do they exist, Captain?’ Vittore asked.
William looked at the lieutenant, measuring his choices. Rumours of angels would surely grow under these desperate conditions. William didn’t want to raise false hopes, but he had to say something.
‘They exist, Lieutenant. But I would not call them angels,’ he finally replied.
Peruzo crossed his arms with a small measure of triumph. Vittore grunted, still unconvinced.
‘I first met them seven years ago, on a voyage to Naples on board the Iberian,’ William explained. ‘This was before my years of service in the Order, before I knew about the war between Heaven and Hell. Kieran Harte and I were taking a Scarimadaen to Rome, under the protection of Engrin Meerwall.
‘Off the coast of Sardinia, we were attacked by a ship crewed by kafalas and a vampyre. M any of our crew we re killed, and the vampyre almost took the Scarimadaen. If he had, everyone would have perished.
‘But in the midst of battle, a creature of light intervened. It fell from the skies and into combat, destroying the vampyre, its ship and the kafalas. A terrible thing it was; inhuman, with power unimagined. And it was utterly merciless.’
Vittore had fallen silent now, listening closely.
William hunched his shoulders against the cold. ‘It scared the hell out of me.’
‘Are they invincible, as the stories say?’ Peruzo asked.
William grunted. ‘You would think so. but I saw one perish in battle at Aosta seven years ago, and another has perished recently, so I understand.’
‘What about Lieutenant Harte, Captain? Are those rumours true as well?’ Vittore asked.
Again, William nodded.
‘So you do keep the company of angels, Captain,’ Vittore remarked.
‘No, Lieutenant, I do not,’ Willia
m objected. ‘That would imply they come at my bidding or at my request, and they do no such thing. I cannot call them when I wish. They are certainly not my friends. And we cannot rely on them for this mission to succeed.’
‘The men believe they will come to their aid. It is a hope they cling to,’ Peruzo said.
‘Then I will tell them no differently,’ William replied.
‘You would lie to them?’ Vittore said, uncomfortably.
‘I will give them no grounds to believe that celestial intervention is guaranteed, Lieutenant,’ William countered. ‘The Dar’uka are aware of our task, and they too have sought the Hoard. It is possible they will be our salvation. So the brothers can continue with their stories and their rumours. I will not fuel that hope, but nor will I take it away from them.’
‘And what of us?’ Vittore said. ‘We’re in the middle of nowhere, hunted by three enemies, with a fourth at the end of this road. The brothers of the Order are the finest fighters in Europe, Captain, but we are hardly an army. And starvation and thirst will soon weaken as. We may not be fit to fight either man or beast.’
‘We will continue in the spirit of this expedition, gentlemen, because too much is at stake to do otherwise.’ William’s sheer determination reached them like a rising tide. ‘With luck we will arrive at the next oasis and will replenish our supplies. And if luck favours us that far, then perhaps it will shine on us further when we reach the Sinai. We will find the Hoard, defeat the Rassis and return to Rome without the militia ever finding us.’
The lieutenants nodded dutifully.
William got to his feet and stretched his arms, feeling the creak of muscle and bone. ‘If you’ll excuse me . . . I must sleep. We ’ll move out in a couple of hours.’
Peruzo rose also and walked with William a few yards. ‘Cap-tain?’ he said gruffly.
William turned.
‘Do you think they’ll come?’ Peruzo asked him. ‘Honestly?’
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