The Doors at Dusk and Dawn: A Shattered Sands Novella

by Bradley Beaulieu

  She blocked his initial swing, but he tried again and again, changing up the angle and power each time. On the fourth swing, she felt it catch along her right side.

  He immediately guided his akhala away and began pulling at the hook mercilessly.

  The horses were facing in opposite directions. Leorah grabbed her saddle tightly and tried to rein Wadi over to move in the same direction as Kirhan’s horse. But his horse was already plowing forward with gathering speed, and Wadi couldn’t keep up.

  Seeing the end drawing near, Leorah grew desperate. She swung her whip in a low arc, behind his horse’s rump. It swung lazily around the horse’s back hocks, then snapped around its fetlocks. She pulled hard. For a moment she thought the whip hadn’t held, but it was only the slack in the whip being drawn up. A moment later it cinched tight around the horse’s legs. Hopes soaring, she reached forward and pulled again, straining as hard as she could.

  Kirhan’s horses were trained for war, but that mattered little here. Having its legs trapped couldn’t help but spook even a well seasoned warhorse. It neighed and stumbled, eyes rolling. Hobbled as it was, it moved toward Leorah. It also bucked and kicked, once catching Wadi across the shoulder, but Wadi stood strong, fearless.

  One last time Leorah grabbed for the slack and yanked, grunting hard as the whip’s leather creaked. To her surprise, Kirhan tossed his shield aside. With his right hand still gripping the hook, he used his off hand to draw the knife at his belt, preparing to cut the whip.

  That was when his horse suddenly reared.

  The silver akhala’s dark legs clawed skyward. It was a foolish thing to do, wrapped up as it was, but the beast couldn’t possibly understand the situation. It was desperate. It tried to balance itself, hopped backward several times, then began to tip over.

  Kirhan, eyes wide, dropped the knife and grabbed for his saddle, but still held tight to the gods-damned hook. Leorah was going to go down with him, she realized, and then it was anyone’s guess as to who would win. Whoever struck the earth last, she supposed. So she did the only thing she could think of. She released the whip, crouched on her saddle, and leapt toward Kirhan.

  Kirhan tried using the hook to pull her beyond his horse, forcing her loss, but she anticipated it and kept her body low. She landed awkwardly, straddling his horse’s belly as it went down along its right side. Kirhan, however, was trapped. The horse fell hard on his right leg.

  He screamed, finally, blessedly releasing the hook.

  The whip was still tight, but it loosened as his horse kicked. It was trying to right itself. Kirhan was trying to follow it up, using the reins to stay on. Indeed, he may yet win the contest. Leorah was scrabbling to remain on his horse; she was situated so strangely she might be thrown at any moment.

  But Kirhan was in a bad way. He could hardly prevent her from what she did next.

  Pulling her own knife, she balanced on the horse’s belly and back, ready for the horse to roll onto its legs. When the horse lifted, she cut the reins Kirhan was using to steady himself and shoved him hard to one side.

  Over he tipped, while Leorah lunged forward and grabbed two fistfuls of the horse’s dark mane.

  Kirhan fell to the sand with a hard thump, groaning as he gripped his right leg, which had surely been broken.

  Incredibly, she kept hold of the gelding’s mane and somehow managed to land in the saddle. The silver akhala was skittish, running and kicking strangely for a moment, but then at last it settled.

  That was when the cheering of the crowd came to her. All in a rush she heard them, thousands of people cheering the tribeswoman who’d bested the champion of a King of Sharakhai. Their hands were up. Their voices rang to the sky, rang to the heavens.

  From the pavilion, Şelal watched with open-mouthed shock. Sukru, meanwhile, merely stared. He took in the crowd, then Şelal, and finally Leorah, with a withering glare, as if he were thinking of uncoiling his own fabled whip and using it to loose Leorah’s head from her shoulders, let her body fall on the sand beside Kirhan’s writhing form.

  But then a calm seemed to overcome him. He shared with her a knowing smile, then strode from the field like a peacock.

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  Devorah watched with bated breath as Kirhan fell. By the gods, Leorah had won. Leorah had won!

  Relief flooded through her.

  But Leorah seemed anything but relieved. Devorah followed her gaze and saw the look Sukru was giving her: cold as the dawn, deadly as nightshade. When he turned and strode from the pavilion, Devorah’s nervousness increased. The crowd rushed forward to congratulate the two combatants and to tend to Kirhan’s injury.

  A stretcher was brought. Kirhan was rushed away to the King’s physic to be tended to. The festivities, meanwhile, had already begun. Leorah was greeted by many. So many that Devorah hardly dared approach her. This was a time of happiness. She should let Leorah have it. Devorah would only poison Leorah’s joy with her worries.

  It was for this reason, after a time of seeing her dance with the most enthusiastic of the revelers—all of them from Tribe Rafik—that Devorah walked away. Just as she was reaching the edge of camp, she heard someone behind her calling, “Wait!” She turned to find Leorah running toward her. “Wait! Where are you going?”

  What could she say? She motioned half-heartedly toward the tents where everyone was gathering for the feast. “You’ll have much to attend to.”

  “Much to attend to?” She lifted her right hand, where the amethyst glittered brightly. “Devorah, I won memma’s ring back! It’s time to celebrate!”

  “Yes,” Devorah said. “Of course.”

  “Yes,” Leorah said with a pouty expression, “of course. Devorah, this is grand! We’ve won, and you are going to celebrate with me.”

  And they did. They drank. They sang. Even Devorah, despite her misgivings. Leorah was anxious about Kirhan, so much so that when he was carried on a chair to the edge of the fire, she went to him, dropped to her knees, and spoke to him for a long while. Now and again, Kirhan would motion to the bandages and splint that had immobilized his leg from the thigh all the way down to his ankle. Leorah listened to it all, her eyes bright as a newborn foal’s.

  It had been many years since Devorah had seen Leorah smitten. Truly smitten. She was ashamed to admit that there was a twinge of jealousy it wasn’t her sitting by Kirhan’s side, but she was happy for her sister.

  Strangely absent from the proceedings was Şelal. Sukru was missing as well, but that only made sense. The loss surely stung. Near nightfall, after a feast that had lasted the entire day, Şelal returned. She wore a beautiful blue dress, a jalabiya that accented her eyes, her jeweled earrings, and the thread-of-gold turban she wore atop her head. Her expression was one of forced joy. Devorah could see thoughts warring within her, even before she went near the largest of the fires and waved for all to attend her.

  “We come at last to the end!”

  A great roar shook the sands of the desert.

  She motioned to Leorah with a bow of her head. “And we have our champion!”

  Leorah beamed, and the roar grew louder still, especially from the women, who shouted in joy, “Lai, lai, lai, lai!” Devorah, however, was growing ever more nervous. Şelal was building up to something.

  “The traverse ends tomorrow. So we take to the sands once more. We thank Jherrok and Duyal and their tribes for joining us here. We thank the Kings of Sharakhai, who sent one of their own to join in the celebration of this race.” She motioned to Leorah, but refused to look at her. “I am proud of our champion. Proud that she persevered, that she helped Derya Redknife to return to us, that she displayed such skill against a man with so storied a life it matches even the men of old. I will be proud to see her represent Tribe Rafik in Sharakhai.”

  The commotion around the fire rumbled to an awkward silence, then died altogether. Some had not heard clearly. A susurrus of conversation built at the edges of the gathering as some tried to clarify what Şelal had just said.<
br />
  Devorah had heard every word. And her heart was now pounding in her ears.

  The smile on Şelal’s face was half-hearted at best. It was the regret behind her eyes, however, that worried Devorah the most. “I have the pleasure to announce to all that King Sukru, after seeing how masterfully one of our own has conducted herself, has decided to take a bride.”

  The shout in Devorah’s throat was burning, building, even before Şelal had finished. “Noooo! Nooooooo!”

  Şelal went on, louder, as if she hadn’t heard. “On the morrow, Leorah Mikel’ava al Rafik will accompany King Sukru to the Desert’s Amber Jewel, where they will be married before the whole of Sharakhai.”

  Devorah found herself walking, then marching, then sprinting headlong toward Şelal until someone grabbed her arm. She stumbled. Yanked her arm away and kept moving. A half-dozen now stood in her path, barring her, pressing her back. “No! He cannot have her!”

  Şelal stared at Leorah with a forlorn look—a look of regret, Devorah supposed it was meant to seem—while Leorah stared in silence at the bright horizon. Disbelief filled her eyes. Shock. Devorah had never seen her sister look so lost.

  “He may have the ring! Tell him he may have the ring!”

  At last, Şelal regarded her. “This is no longer about the ring.”

  “He cannot have my sister!”

  The look Şelal gave her was one of pity half hidden behind the stony facade of a shaikh. “It is already decided,” she said, then turned and walked away.

  There were those who seemed angry, those who seemed shocked and disappointed, but no one made a move to help her. No one lifted their voice to forestall what amounted to theft—theft of the treasures of the traverse, which would now be given to Sukru as part of his bride price; the theft of a woman who’d done harm to no one, who’d helped Tribe Rafik since the day they had accepted her.

  “Is it because she’s an outsider?”

  At last Leorah turned, her eyes wide. “Devorah, be quiet.”

  But Devorah went on. She would say these words, force Şelal to respond to them. If she didn’t, she would always regret it. “Is it because she’s not one of your own?”

  Leorah was now sprinting toward her. “Be quiet,” she hissed, and pressed Devorah away from the crowd, away from the fire, away from the other tribes and the few of Sukru’s crewmen who’d come to the celebration, who might at any moment relay Devorah’s words back to their King.

  “You’ll get us both killed,” Leorah said when they’d moved deeper into the Rafik camp, out of earshot. “It’s done, Devorah.”

  Two warm trails of tears burned their way down Devorah’s cheeks. “I won’t let him take you.”

  “It’s too late. If I deny him, he’ll kill me. If I run, he’ll kill you.”

  “We can both run, as we did before!”

  Leorah gripped her arms tightly. “He’ll be expecting it, Devorah.”

  “I won’t be parted from you.”

  “He won’t allow you to join me.” Her eyes drifted to the masts of Sukru’s galleon, visible over the nearby tents. “It would give me too much joy.”

  Now it was Devorah’s turn to grip Leorah’s arms. “I won’t be parted from you.”

  Leorah was crying freely now. “I’m so sorry I did this, Devorah. You were right. It was selfish of me.”

  Hearing footsteps approaching, Devorah swallowed her reply. From around the corner of a nearby tent, Şelal appeared and strode toward them. She came to a stop several paces away and motioned to Leorah’s hand. “Sukru has asked that the prizes be brought to him.”

  Leorah blinked. She lifted her hand and stared at the ring. “He can’t have it. It’s mine.”

  “Don’t make this difficult. It is his. You are his.”

  Leorah spit on the sand between them. “He may force our marriage, but I will never be his.”

  “How could you have done this,” Devorah broke in, “sold Leorah away like a common mule?”

  Şelal turned her head with an imperious air, a thing Devorah wanted to slap from her face. “What I did I did for the good of the tribe and the two of you. Leorah was foolish to have entered the traverse. She was foolish to have won it. Better to have let the ring go from the beginning. I don’t know how Sukru learned of it, but once he had, he meant to have it. And now he will.”

  “You offered it to him,” Leorah said.

  Surprise showed on Şelal’s face, but she recovered quickly. “He’d already learned that it had come here. I offered it to protect Tribe Rafik. I couldn’t have him thinking I was trying to hide it from him.”

  “Coward,” Leorah spat.

  “You may think so, but try wearing the turban of a shaikh for a year. Keeping a tribe alive is difficult enough. Worse when the Kings turn their eyes on you, ready to drain you of blood whenever it pleases them. They did it to my father. They did it to my grandfather. I won’t let it happen again. Sukru is one of the pettiest among them. He has killed for less than hiding baubles.” She held out the palm of her hand like a disapproving grandmother. “Now give me the ring, Leorah.”

  “I’m not married to him yet,” Leorah said.

  Şelal was clearly exasperated, tired of fighting, yet her hand remained where it was. “Don’t be a child. You know how this must go.”

  But before Devorah or Leorah could respond, a man’s voice cut in. “It is not yet his. Even Sukru cannot deny it.” It was Armesh. He was ambling toward them, hands clasped behind his back. “Tell him she wishes to hold it for the night. This one night only. And that when they depart for Sharakhai in the morning, he may have it.”

  Şelal hesitated, unsure of herself.

  “Or if you cannot summon the courage to tell him, I will, though I don’t think he’ll take it kindly from me.”

  “He won’t take it kindly from me either,” Şelal shot back. Armesh’s only reply was to shrug, an ultimatum, in effect, to which Şelal rolled her eyes. “You have until morning with your precious ring,” she said, then stalked away.

  Armesh led Leorah and Devorah to their tent, where a guard was posted. They heard Armesh’s footsteps receding as the two of them sat in stunned silence. The sun went down, and for much of that time, Leorah sat cross-legged, silently staring at the ring. “I miss them so,” she finally said. “Mother. Father. Little Emil.”

  “I do, too.”

  Seeming to lose all her energy at once, Leorah lay down. Devorah cradled her as Leorah had done the other night. This time, Leorah was the one holding a ring, though it was not flawed. It was the one that held power, the one that offered hope, if only Devorah could learn its secrets. As Leorah’s breathing fell into a slow, smooth rhythm, Devorah’s mind was running wild. When she was sure Leorah was asleep, she took the ring from where it was clutched in her hands, then left the tent. The two guards stopped her.

  “Am I to be held as well, then?”

  “We were told to watch you both,” said the larger of the two, the one wearing only sirwal pants and rope sandals.

  “She’s feeling ill. I’m going to speak with Bagra.”

  “Tell me what remedies she needs,” the guard said. “I’ll get them for her.”

  Summoning every last dram of Leorah’s fire, Devorah stepped forward and poked him in the center of his bronzed chest. “My sister is leaving in the morning with a King of Sharakhai. I may never see her again. I will get the remedies she needs, not you.”

  She stalked away before either could respond. One grumbled some sort of reply, but to her great relief, neither tried to stop her. She did go to Bagra then, the tribe’s physic.

  “Leorah can’t sleep,” Devorah told her once she’d been roused. “And if I know her, she won’t be able to for many days.”

  Lighting a lamp, Bagra frowned, her deep wrinkles standing out like crags over the landscape of her weathered face. The blue tattoos of sun and stars to either side of her eyes pinched as she squinted at Devorah. “What’s happened, girl?”

  Devorah star
ed at her as if she couldn’t believe her ears. “My sister has been promised to King Sukru!”

  Bagra frowned. “Has she?”

  “Yes! She leaves in the morning. I would send her away with something that will help ease her into her new life.”

  Bagra’s frown deepened as she turned to her standing chest of drawers. She took a small glass vial, opened one of the drawers, and used a tiny spoon to scoop a small amount of grey powder into it. She held it out to Devorah. “Mix it with hot water, then drink it quick.”

  “I need more. Enough for a week at least.”

  “I daresay Sukru has a physic of his own, girl!”

  “Enough for two days, then. They may not have the same remedies as you.”

  Bagra huffed, making her lips flap, a thing that seemed to define her more than anything else. She was the most aggressively taciturn woman Devorah had ever met. Strange for a physic.

  “Two nights,” Devorah repeated. “It will do my heart good to know she has something from you.”

  The glare on Bagra’s face deepened. Without another word, she scooped more of the powder into the vial, stoppered it, then handed it to Devorah. “Go on, now,” she said, then blew out the lamp before Devorah had even exited the tent.

  Outside, Devorah tucked the vial away. She was relieved, but the night’s most difficult task still lay ahead of her. She headed for the largest of the Rafik tents, the very one she’d visited the other night. “Armesh,” she called softly when she arrived at the front flaps. “Armesh, we must speak.”

  It was Şelal who came to her, however. “Have you not plagued me enough?”

  “I must speak with Armesh.”

  “Go to your tent, Devorah. Better to spend time with your sister in your own tent than waste it in front of mine.”

  “You don’t understand. It was Leorah who sent me.”

  “What about?”

  “She wouldn’t say.”

  “Enough of your games,” Şelal said, and made to close the tent, but Devorah stopped her.

  “It’s to do with my mother. A secret, she said, something she should have told Armesh long ago.”