Shifting Sands

by Fuad Baloch

  Shifting Sands

  Divine Space: Book 4

  Fuad Baloch

  Copyright © 2019 by Fuad Baloch

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Illustration © Tom Edwards — TomEdwardsDesign.com

  version: alif

  Note on Styling:

  Divine Space series utilises British English conventions. This means some words might have different spellings (colour vs color), and the vocabulary might be slightly varied (holidays instead of vacations), etc.

  Contents

  1. The Many Roads

  2. The Clenched Fingers

  3. Alignments

  4. Challenges

  5. To Arms

  6. The True Cost

  7. The Path Ahead

  8. Night Vigils

  9. Price of Solitude

  10. The Night of Power

  11. Men of Might

  12. Humble Plans

  13. What Alf Says…

  14. Passage of Time

  15. Fond Memories

  16. Ties that Bind All

  17. Severance

  18. Cold Cuts of Meat

  19. The Student

  20. The Belly

  21. Crossroads

  22. Burning Shame

  23. Justice Denied…

  24. The Times

  25. Regrets

  26. Shade of Swords

  27. The Final Moments

  28. Fates

  29. Flickering Flames

  30. The Dark

  31. The Impossible Dream

  32. Commandments of God

  33. Deaths and Births

  34. Promises

  35. Ties

  Hope you enjoyed the book

  About the Author

  One

  The Many Roads

  Someone was shouting at her over the clang of steel and screams of men dying.

  “—one day—”

  Wiping sweat off her brow with a tattered, bloody sleeve, Ruma turned her head towards Gareeb to her right. “What?”

  “—paint you!” shouted her young lieutenant.

  Before Ruma could ask anything more, Gareeb yelled, pivoting to face the two Vanico soldiers who had broken through their defensive lines. He lurched to the right, missing a spear’s thrust by mere inches. Gritting her teeth, Ruma turned towards the Vanico soldiers, but a heavy hand fell on her left wrist.

  “Stay back!” shouted General Restam.

  “Like hell!” she replied, yanking her arm free. Gareeb wasn’t the fastest of her soldiers, nor the most able swordsman she’d ever laid eyes on, but now he seemed transformed, a thin sliver of lightning darting this way and that. He cursed all the while, a torrent of obscenities that would have won admiration at any pub in Egania.

  Realising the Vanico soldiers had gotten close to her, more than a dozen Lady’s Light warriors rushed in to cut off the enemy, setting up a barricade of flesh between bloody steel. Suddenly cut off from the action, Gareeb blinked, then shrugging, staggered over to her.

  Ruma acknowledged him with a terse nod. All her life she had been a survivor, a largely lonely affair, but now these men had taken on that role for her. Even if that meant laying down their own lives.

  Exhaling, she looked up. The merciless sun peering down on the Andussian peninsula was just as harsh today as it had been the day she’d first opened her eyes in this miserable world. Was there a sign there? Stupid as it was, she cocked her head to the side, her senses straining. No divine songs dripping with religious ecstasy greeted her. Nor could she spy a train of glorious angels descending from the heavens to lend a much needed hand to those who fought in the name of Alf.

  She chuckled bitterly.

  “We must retreat,” said General Restam. Though he didn't touch her arm again, his words jolted her just the same.

  “I will not!” she replied through clenched teeth. “We can win this battle.”

  “We won’t.”

  Ruma bristled, would have argued back, had it not been for her heart thudding against her ribs. The seven thousand faithful who followed her were no match against a force two times their size. An argument she had herself made before the damned priests had made her enter this battle. “Alf looks after His chosen ones,” they had assured her. “Each believer fights with the strength of three infidels,” and, “Victory will be ours, for that’s what Alf promises His believers.”

  Stupid, stupid! Once more, she had given in to them. Just like the half a dozen battles like this she’d faced before, the result of this one wouldn’t be much different. Her gaze bouncing from one snarling face to another, Ruma tried ordering her thoughts. Terrible as the situation was, she still had one decision she could make: when to order the retreat, hopefully saving whatever was left of her forces.

  A shitty choice all told, but one she still had for the moment.

  Grinding her hard leather boots in the sand shifting underneath her, Ruma bit her lower lip, fighting the tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. From the periphery of her vision, she caught sight of Gareeb moving his free arm about in the air, the bloody fingers stretching as if holding up a brush against an imaginary canvas. Ignoring the tightness in her chest, Ruma forced her eyes away from him.

  “Lady?” urged General Restam, fear roiling in his pewter-coloured eyes. Some twenty yards to their left, she saw Nodin, her mercenary general, cut down yet another Vanico soldier. He was a man well-versed in the fighting ways of Andussia, one who had no trouble acting as Alf’s grim reaper, but it seemed even he wasn't enough by himself.

  “Very well,” she snapped. “Do it.”

  Gareeb trudged towards her as General Restam marched off. “Alf challenges those He loves the most,” Gareeb said, his voice strained from all the shouting.

  “I’ve known men,” she replied, unable to keep the bitterness from her words. “And no one would dare put a Lady through all this!”

  “My father always—”

  “Oh, shut up, Gareeb! I trust no priests even if one was your father. Not after all the times they’ve misled me.”

  Gareeb flinched as if her words had scourged him. But he kept quiet. Something that suited her just fine. To her left, General Restam was shouting, horses and camels and men rushing across the battlefield like pieces of some massive board being hastily rearranged. As the word spread, her men routed, not needing much encouragement. They didn't lack for practise either, having retreated six times on the trot before.

  Camels brayed, horses neighed and whinnied; those unfortunate men whose backs the arrows found screamed the loudest. The Vanico soldiers shouted in their harsh, barking tongue, their archers firing volley after volley. Though her men continued to fall, at least, most were getting away from the killing field.

  Her fists clenched, Ruma found it impossible to tear herself away from the terrible scene in front. Many in her age would call these believers foolish for their dedication to their faith, but no one could blame their sense of honour and courage. To the believers, there was nothing more dishonourable than dying with an arrow in one’s back, yet that was what she had demanded of them. Again.

  Just like they’d followed her unflinching into a battle she shouldn't have ever been a part of, now they presented their backs to the enemy soldiers, rushing towards the squat hills a mile away. Those who fell, would walk the lonely path to meet their Creator ashamed, but those who survived would do so because she asked them to abandon honour and flee.

  “Alf!” shouted someone, the individual voice soon drowning under
the weight of cries all around.

  “—the zulzalat and the prophet’s way—” bellowed someone else, his voice turning into a blood-curdling scream halfway through.

  Her breathing growing increasingly laboured, Ruma turned around, not waiting for General Restam to ask her again. To her right, General Nodin was bellowing at their archers to fire off a final volley of arrows before retreating. Ruma began trudging towards the hills, Gareeb keeping pace with her. Jeers and curses went up behind her, followed by the sounds of men thumping their shields and chest armour. Lady’s Light, the divinely inspired army of Alf, had been defeated once more, crumbling despite being led personally by the Lady of the Sands. A sorry tale the victorious Vanico forces would no doubt spread throughout the peninsula.

  Shame prickled her sense of honour, the urge to turn around and rush headlong into the sneering men rising in her like a rush, managing to almost sever her self-control for a second. Ruma ground her teeth. A smuggler was first and foremost a survivor, a breed for whom pride was deadly. These men might call her divinely appointed and all that, but she knew who she was and when she was beaten.

  “They are not pursuing us,” reported Gareeb.

  “They don’t need to,” she said, blinking rapidly.

  Gareeb didn't reply. They both knew why that was. As far as the Vanico empire was concerned, Ruma and her forces were little more than the annoying fly buzzing about the elephant’s ass. A frustration that could be easily taken care of should one so choose, but not at the expense of getting distracted from the raging bull that was the real enemy—Traditionalists commanded by Yasmeen. This victorious Vanico general would much rather take his men, their morale greatly boosted now, and array them against the prophet’s wife than waste a breath on Ruma.

  Jealousy stabbed at Ruma’s heart, her feet growing heavier with each passing moment. She’d been envious of Yasmeen before, but then it had been on account of the man they both claimed. This time, the hatred she felt for the prophet’s wife came through professional resentment. While she was flailing, Yasmeen and her Traditionalists, by most accounts, were proving far and away the better-led force.

  Ruma blinked at how long her shadow was spreading out ahead of her. The sun had been directly overhead when she had last looked, but while she had been in the grip of emotions, time had kept on moving. Beside hers, Gareeb’s shadow twitched and jerked, his sword hand rising and falling as he continued to look over his shoulder.

  “Form up, men!” came General Nodin’s bellow. Ruma looked up to find the mercenary general atop a squat hill. Somehow, he had found a magnificent black warhorse, and astride it, cut an imposing figure. As he surveyed her broken men, his clean-shaven, rugged jaw moving silently, he looked the very picture of majesty and strength. Exhaling, Ruma stopped. Her men, those who had taken to calling themselves the Lady’s Light, were bloody, their faces ashen, their spirits crushed, but under the glare of the mercenary general, they slipped into haphazard lines.

  Ruma looked over her shoulder. Though the enemy war horns still blared accompanied by the rhythmic thudding of drums, they were fading now. She was right. The victorious Vanico army had already begun its march eastwards, their soldiers growing smaller as she watched.

  If only she could stay like that instead of turning around to meet the disappointed faces of her followers. Thoughts raced in her mind. She had to change her ways, for nothing she had tried in the past six months had worked. In a conventional battle, she brought neither tactics nor experience to help her cause. Maybe it was time to reach out to the Vanico commanders and see if she could strike an alliance with them against the Traditionalists. The priests would howl, claiming it ungodly to enter into negotiations with infidels who had taken the holy cities, but did she have a better choice?

  More questions gnawed at her. Yes, they had been numerically weaker in this battle, and it was foolish to enter it just because the priests encouraged it, but hadn’t they been meticulous in their planning? She’d gone through the plans for their ambush a hundred times with her three generals, those who knew this game far better than her. They were to attack the larger force from three directions, draw first blood, then target their general in the chaos they’d assumed would certainly follow.

  How had it all gone so wrong?

  Doubt, terrible and crippling, spread in her gut. One she couldn't ignore any longer. No matter how far-fetched it sounded, no matter how much her heart disagreed, it was possible she had been betrayed. She shook her head. These men adored her, worshipped her, almost. Why would they declare her the Lady of the Sands, the prophesied one per the prophet Pasalman’s prophecy, then stab her in the back?

  Her fingers curling, Ruma continued peering at the Vanico soldiers marching into the horizon. Men were fickle beings, their hearts in a state of constant movement. How could she guarantee what one felt one moment from another?

  The weight of responsibility and duty grew, threatening to crush her. What in Alf’s breath was she doing? This wasn’t her world. No matter how much time she spent here, she’d never be a part of it. Couldn’t her followers see how out of sorts she was here? She trembled. If only she could share her burdens with someone, just admit who she really was, maybe that would allow her to start seeing things clearly.

  A stupid idea, that. If she did so, this world would destroy itself, using her a thousand different ways for a thousand different purposes. She might have lost her way back to her world, but the least she could still do was to leave this peninsula free of both Vanico and Traditionalists. Funny how a patch of land eight hundred years in the past held so much meaning for the multitude of planets in the future.

  Ruma smiled bitterly, realising there was someone who knew her predicament better than any.

  “First…” she whispered, no longer able to resist the urge. “You there?”

  She waited, holding her breath to ensure she could hear him.

  The Pithrean kept quiet.

  Six months had passed since she’d last heard from him. He had been warning then of time running out. Had he died, the Shard collapsing with him? Somehow, she didn't think so, an irrational part of her clinging to foolish hope. She began turning, deciding she needed to—

  “… y-y-you…”

  Ruma blinked. “What? Speak up!”

  Her men were shouting. General Restam was bellowing, his voice booming over the cries. The faint wheezing of the almighty Pithrean drowned in the din.

  Exhaling, Ruma turned around to face the men. Her men.

  Blood pounded in her veins as she stood straight and proud.

  The First was alive. Still alive. That offered hope she’d feared lost. A reason for her existence.

  Two

  The Clenched Fingers

  Her arms tight to the body, Ruma rose, glaring at the four men in her tent. “One of you,” she said, her words slow, deliberate, “is a spy!” She paused, letting realisation sink in. “I’ve got a fracking turncoat in my midst. One who’s been giving our position and plans to the enemy.”

  Brother Hadyan had turned pale, the prayer beads in his left hand no longer moving, a shaft of bright afternoon sunlight settling on his fingers. “Why in Alf’s name—”

  She punched the wooden pole to her left. Pain shot up her knuckles, but in the heat of the moment she barely felt it. “Because of one of you, I’m wasting away, while each day Yasmeen and her cursed Traditionalists grow stronger along with the Vanico forces.” She curled her fingers into fists. “By all that’s right and holy in all the fracking worlds, when I find out who you are, I’m going to”—Ruma narrowed her eyes—“disembowel you and leave you in the middle of the desert to die of thirst and vultures.”

  “Lady,” started General Restam, his nasally voice higher than usual, his nostrils flaring, “surely you don’t think one of us could betray you? We”—he paused, glancing over at General Nodin before continuing—“all of us, fight under your banner and will do so as long as there is breath to be drawn.”

 
Ruma scoffed and turned the full weight of her gaze upon the four men. Restam, the frog-like man prone to heavy sweating. Brother Hadyan, one of the first preachers to stand by her side declaring her the prophesied one, and the only one she could stand. Qaisan, the one-time scout who had once accompanied her as she had snuck into Yasmeen’s camp. Nodin, the mercenary commander who had joined his three thousand men to her cause, thus buying a seat in her council.

  “How else would you explain this defeat?” she demanded. “Six times we’ve attacked the Vanico forces in the last three months. Six! And failed every single time.” Noticing General Restam had opened his jaw, she raised her index finger towards Brother Hadyan. “Priest, need I remind you that your Alf continues to fail his chosen one?”

  A gloomy silence fell upon them, all four men sitting with their gazes downcast. Ruma tapped her left foot, feeling the vein on her forehead begin to throb. Brother Hadyan turned towards Generals Restam and Nodin, gently tapping his nose tip with a fingernail, his brows furrowing.

  “Zulzalat—the blessed prophet’s way—tells us that nothing created by man is ever perfect,” the priest said finally, his voice level. “Might there not be a way we could improve our standing in these battles?”

  “I’m all ears!” she replied sharply. Brother Hadyan’s gaze swept through the other three men, lingering on General Nodin for a long while. Ruma waited. Her councillors didn't see eye to eye on much, but it seemed no one wanted to rock the boat just yet.