Shifting Sands

by Fuad Baloch

  “Aye!”

  “Do you fight because your hearts tell you it’s the right thing to do?”

  “Aye!”

  Ruma shook her fist. “Then, are you ready?”

  The ground shook as the men bellowed, the horses snorting, the camels braying. “Lady of the Sands!” they shouted, over and over, all of them, even the two generals, even Qaisan, his mask removed, his eyes narrowed.

  She exhaled, feeling the weight of the moment settle onto her, crushing her, reshaping her. She turned her horse around, facing the dunes beyond which lay her foe. A pregnant silence fell, stretching, the tension unbearable.

  “Attack!” she bellowed, and spurred her horse at the same time.

  Blood-curdling, throaty shouts followed. Wind whipping into her, she and Restam and Nodin and Qaisan and the thousands behind her burst out of the trees into open desert. She broke into a gallop, blood pounding in her veins.

  Her men never ceased their shouting. Ruma bared her teeth, letting the wind claim her veil. There was no need for it now. Another day, another age, she’d have been left aghast by the very idea of charging out at a larger foe in the light of day, but now, that was the only option she had been left with.

  From a copse of trees to the right came startled cries. A dozen riders peeled away from her host and galloped to intercept Yasmeen’s scouts. They wouldn’t stop the scouts in time. That, too, didn’t matter. Before the bitch would have time to absorb the news, Ruma would be there.

  “For Alf!” came a loud, shrill voice beside her. Ruma jerked her head around. She didn’t know the middle-aged man, both his front teeth missing as he shouted, nor did she like the fact he still called out to a deity that seemed to want to do nothing with them, but she didn’t object. No point in that either.

  She could see the flags fluttering over the dunes now, tips of spears jabbing the air as if in some frenzied dance. War horns blared in the distance. She was close enough to hear the clamour, feel the fear floating over to her. “Hello, Yasmeen!”

  She crested the hill and suddenly they were facing the enemy camp. Traditionalist soldiers, most of them still hastily donning their armour, rushed towards them, a disorganised sea of spears and maces and swords. From their left, a cloud of arrows flew towards them.

  “For the Lady!”

  “Lady of the Sands!”

  Her soldiers overtook her, her mare too tired to keep up. She was close enough to see the hatred swirling in the rushing Traditionalists. One of her soldiers slammed his heavy horse into two Traditionalists sprinting towards her. Everyone was shouting. Before Ruma had a chance to process what was happening, her horse smashed into the thin line of Traditionalists directly ahead. The impact jarred her to the bone, the force almost jolting her out of the saddle. She held on barely as her horse whinnied, twisting its neck left and right, bodies thrashing underneath.

  Ruma turned in the saddle, raising her sword. Instincts kicked in. Snarling, spit flying from her mouth, she swung her sword hard. The blade caught onto a leather vest. Grunting, Ruma spurred her horse, drawing blood as she aimed for another Traditionalist’s neck. Blood sprayed, though whether it was from her attack or someone else’s she couldn’t tell. Not that it mattered.

  Everyone was yelling, the world around her shrinking to howling faces, flashes of silver, bits of torn flesh and viscera, geysers of blood, the awful stink of loosened bowels and death. Men cried out to Alf. Some called out to their mothers. Quite a few cursed her, just as her dying men did Yasmeen. One thing was constant, though. The grind of bodies pressing into each other, the soft flesh getting torn by sharp metal, bones crunching under the weight of blunt weapons.

  Someone slashed at her. She ducked. From the corner of her eye, a silver arc leaped at her. She swayed to the right. All the while, her sword arm kept swinging as if it had a life of its own. It pulled back, swung with all her might, pulled back again, swung again with all her might.

  Her horse shrieked. She kicked it hard in the flanks, turning in the saddle to face the enemy soldiers. With a violent shudder, her horse crumpled to the ground. She fell forward, the sword spilling out from her fingers.

  Gritting her teeth against pain, Ruma clambered on all fours towards her sword. Boots stomped over it, kicking it away. Screaming, she lunged sideways, an enemy sword missing her by inches, then dove forward, her fingers finally finding the cool, bloody hilt.

  She rose in one smooth motion, the sword arcing upwards, slicing open a young soldier’s jaw sneaking up on her.

  “For Alf!” shouted someone.

  “For the glory of the prophet!” shouted another.

  She couldn’t tell whose soldiers were calling for Alf or the prophet. Not that it mattered. Her body forgot everything except to duck, weave, swing the sword, repeat the cycle. She, too, was shouting, she realised at one point, the words mere gibberish.

  She was going to die in this cursed world. No fear at that, though. Just a grateful acceptance of the inevitable. Grinning, she blocked an enemy’s swing with her sword, then before he’d had a chance to recover, pirouetted and slashed across his bare abdomen. The soldier’s belly popped open, his guts spilling out, accompanied by a blood-curdling scream.

  Ruma whirled about, her sword raised. She blinked as she caught sight of General Nodin to the left. The mercenary commander was in full flow, a majestic, destructive force of nature, snaking his way through the Traditionalists, lunging like a dancer, his jabs economical, never failing to draw out blood.

  “We’ve taken them by surprise!” shouted someone behind her.

  Ruma spun about. “We need to keep pushing, Restam!”

  The general nodded. He was huffing. Horseless, his balding head bare, his abdomen straining against his ripped leather vest, he looked more like an overweight homeless person on the streets of Egania than the supreme commander leading one of the most momentous battles of all time. How would have Gareeb captured this moment? General Restam waved his sword forward. “They’re retreating!”

  “Are they?” Ruma asked. Standing on her tiptoes, she tried to look over the writhing mess of humanity. Her general was right. Though the ground directly ahead was littered with bloody bodies of men and beasts, her soldiers were already pushing forward. “Where is Yasmeen’s tent?”

  Loud chanting rose from the tents ahead. A dozen priests, their chests emblazoned with the red Scythes of the Traditionalists, blocked their path towards the tents, their arms raised towards the heavens, beseeching the Divine to help their cause.

  “Cut them down!” she barked, jabbing her sword towards them.

  “T-the priests?” asked General Restam.

  “Can’t you see what they’re doing?” Even as she shouted, she could see the chants were having an effect. Morale was a tricky thing, easily lost, but just as easily recoverable too. They’d had the upper hand due to the way in which they had burst through from nowhere, taking Yasmeen’s soldiers by surprise. But they had failed to fully capitalise on the initial breakthrough, to advance and twist the snake’s head off. And now, mere hollow words of the priests were arresting their momentum, moving the hearts of those inclined to routing.

  General Restam was bellowing orders. A group of her soldiers broke off, heading for the priests. They moved slowly, reluctantly. After all they’d seen, their hearts still quailed at the thought of striking these peddlers of faith.

  Too late.

  Even as Ruma shouted at the hesitant soldiers, Restam bellowing at the soldiers to break past the regrouping Traditionalists and head into the camps beyond, their advance stopped.

  Again, the world retreated, her vision limiting to the feet directly ahead. The sea of foaming mouths and hateful eyes returned, more gory weapons aimed at her. She dispatched one soldier, looked over his head towards the north, then swayed as a mace came looking for her head.

  General Restam was shouting again, the words different this time. She blinked. He was calling her to retreat.

  Retreat?

&nbs
p; Shouting, Ruma pirouetted, dodged, lunged, swung, bellowed some more. Men beside her continued to be cut down, though. A blade nicked her right shoulder, followed by a sharp pain. It didn't hurt, merely fuelling her rage. Two men of the Lady’s Light rushed forward, their swords sinking into the man who had attacked her. They won her an inch, but by the time she had taken it, they had both gone down, swallowed by the surging Traditionalist horde.

  “Get through!” she screamed. “Find Yasmeen!” She lunged ahead, finding home in the eye of a soldier who failed to dodge her thrust. “For your fracking Alf and His prophet!”

  Someone grabbed her by the shoulder. Snarling, she turned around, her sword raised.

  “We need to retreat!” shouted General Nodin. His face was a patchwork of cuts, only his eyes gleaming white through the red.

  “What? No!” She turned around. “We need to—” All this while, even as she hadn’t realised, they’d been inching back. For all the bloody bodies she’d sent to the ground, all the soldiers she’d lost, they’d made no real progress.

  “No…” she whispered.

  “We need to retreat.”

  She shook her head, the ramifications crushing her. “I cannot fail. That’s simply not an option.”

  General Nodin grabbed her by the arm, began dragging her back.

  “Release me!” she shouted. Her voice caught, strength draining from her limbs.

  “We can regroup,” came the mercenary general’s response. “But not if we die on the front line.”

  The front line? Ruma jerked her head back even as she allowed Nodin to yank her back. More like the killing fields she had prepared for her men.

  Twenty-Five

  Regrets

  Ruma howled in frustration. Directly ahead, her men were breaking. No, that wasn’t the right term. They stood their ground, brave and reckless, rocks that refused to move under the mighty onslaught of waves, but bit by bit, Yasmeen’s forces were chipping through them. Sooner than later, her loss would be complete.

  “No!” Ruma scanned the horizon to the north again. Nothing but the distant hills and the endless sand dunes. She looked around her. Just the hundred or so soldiers that her generals had pulled back to form her personal guard.

  General Restam rushed over to her, grimacing whenever he put weight on his left leg. “Lady, we might want to consider leaving the battlefield.”

  “I won’t!” she shouted back. “Can’t you see? This all ends here, today. It has to!”

  General Restam grunted, exchanged a worried glance with General Nodin. The mercenary general stretched out his sword arm, rotating it slowly as if readying himself for the next round of fighting. General Restam turned his chin up, his lips moving at a furious pace.

  “You’d better not be praying!” she snapped.

  War horns blared ahead, followed by a trumpet from their right.

  “They’re surrounding us,” reported General Nodin, his voice cold, matter of fact.

  “Won’t be long before our lines collapse,” said General Restam.

  Ruma crossed her arms over her chest. A futile way to slow her thumping heartbeat. “I’m… tired, Restam.” She exhaled, forcing herself to watch her men directly ahead laying down their lives for her cause, her heart crushing with the pain of her loss. “I did… the best I could. Everything under my power… I did. I made plans, I did. They… didn't work.”

  “We ride south,” said General Restam. “Find more allies.”

  “No,” she said. “One way or the other, it has to end.”

  “Does it?” challenged General Nodin. “I believe in our cause and am definitely no turn-cloak like Hadyan, but truth is, the tree that doesn’t bow to the strong winds, snaps.”

  General Restam nodded. “On that, I agree—”

  Twang!

  Even as Ruma backed away instinctively, her general stumbled forward, blood pouring from his mouth and his neck, the tip of an arrow jutting out of his throat. “I… w-w-what…”

  “No!” Ruma cried. She rushed forward, catching Restam by the armpits as his knees buckled. He was heavy but Ruma held on, straining under his weight. Tears of rage and frustration bristled in her eyes. “Alf, I won’t accept defeat. This can’t end like this. It bloody well can’t!” The weight on her shoulders lightened as General Nodin slipped in beside her. Together, they laid the general down on his back, Ruma shaking her head over and over.

  General Nodin shouted at the guards and they formed a circle around them, their shields held out to protect them from more arrows.

  “I…” General Restam tried, blood bubbling up from his throat, his fingers twitching as they grazed the metal deposited in his neck.

  “Don’t talk!” said Ruma. “It’ll be… alright.”

  “A-a-a-lf…” Restam’s eyes lolled back, his lips moving, the words far too faint to hear over the din of the fighting.

  Then, he was quiet.

  “I’ve prepared fast mounts!” came another shout behind her. Qaisan, the masked scout general. “We have to leave.”

  Ruma shook her head, the tears drying on her cheeks. She rose, her fingers clenching so hard the hilt ought to have bent in her grip. She took a step forward, her eyes scanning Yasmeen’s campsite once more. “There!” she said, pointing with her chin towards the dozen large tents pitched a hundred yards ahead. “We find the bitch there and put her to rest.”

  “Her tent will be strongly defended,” said General Nodin.

  Ruma chuckled drily. “And?”

  The mercenary general stared at her for a long moment, his eyes betraying little of any emotional conflict he might be feeling internally. Finally, he nodded. “Every instinct in my bones says otherwise, but if there is an Alf, I might as well do one thing right in my life.”

  “I will join you,” said Qaisan. He unsheathed a short sword, his other hand wielding a dagger.

  “Scout, you’re no warrior,” said General Nodin.

  “I’m a believer,” Qaisan replied. He started towards the killing fields. “What are we waiting for?”

  Ruma smiled.

  Together, she, the hundred soldiers of her guard, and the two remaining councillors joined the melee. An army that intended to vanquish its enemies fought a specific way, using its strength of numbers and tactics to surround the foe, to press inwards, while allowing space for the crushed foe to rout. That had never been her intention, even if that had been the impression she had wanted the Traditionalists to have. Now, though, she had no need for subterfuge. Her mission was simple. She was the fracking divine dagger, her job to slip through the gap in between the armour pieces, a needle piercing through, intent on delivering just the one pinprick.

  That was all she had to do. The only thing she was left to do.

  The world slipped away. The familiar pattern returned. Pull the sword arm back, heave. Over, and over, and over again. She grunted, cried out, pirouetted, lunged. A blade drew blood from her thigh and she cursed out loudly. A shallow cut, she imagined, for she could ignore it easily enough. General Nodin moved so fast he was hard to keep track of. One second he was feinting, then the next moment striking the enemy behind him, before thrusting his sword on the original foe who had been suitably wrong-footed.

  Time lost its meaning. All that stood was the burning urge to reach Yasmeen’s tent. This time, she wouldn’t just enter the tent, but finish the job she was meant to have done. She chuckled, dodging a mighty swing of a mace. This time, she would do what the fracking Pithrean had bid her to do the first time she had ambushed Yasmeen. “First, happy you’re finally getting what you want?”

  The Pithrean didn’t respond. Not that he needed to when the men around her kept shouting at her.

  “Alf curse you—”

  “Camel-shit.”

  “—zulzalat—”

  “—the Divine Mother watches your filth—”

  “Piss on you, you whoring goat!”

  Gritting her teeth against the numbness that was creeping into her right han
d, and the pain in her thigh that was getting harder to ignore, Ruma continued pressing forward. Like stubborn weeds, for every soldier she and her men put down, two more took their place.

  Even as she heaved, grunting her thanks to General Nodin as he lunged forward, taking down the stubborn Traditionalist she was fighting, she felt herself gradually float away. Physically, she was there, bounded by her spatial dimensions and these men, but in some way, her senses had taken on a mind of their own. Her arm moved of its own volition. Her feet dodged effortlessly, her body swaying without her being aware of it. Was this how her body was preparing for the end? She had taken a gamble, and the time had arrived for the collector to come knocking.

  “For Alf!” shouted one of her soldiers, sinking his sword into the rump of an enemy. He began withdrawing his sword when he stuttered back, blood bursting from his mouth. He fell wordlessly, a kite cut off without warning. Ruma turned around, incoherent screams escaping her mouth. She wanted to see the dying man’s face, to soothe his concerns by offering meaningless prattle in his last moments. She never saw him.

  “I am no Lady of the Sands!” she said, tears leaking as she raised her sword to block a swing. The impact sent a shudder down her arm but she only half-acknowledged it. “I am not fit to lead.” She blinked, her world covered by a reddish mist now. “Everything I touch, I ruin.”

  She howled, her mind railing against its own memories. “Yaman. Gulatu. Bubraza. Everything I touch, dies!” Unleashing a mad cry, she leaped forward, taking down two snarling macebearers through a burst of inhuman strength. “Why, Alf? What did I do to deserve all this?”

  “Step away!” someone was shouting.

  No longer able to order her thoughts, Ruma rushed ahead, fighting like a madwoman, her eyes seeing only the tent over the bobbing heads and swords. A hand fell on her shoulder. She snarled, but the grip was unrelenting and strong.

  Qaisan stepped up beside her. “We can’t get through. Turn or we’ll lose our heads.”

  “We’ve all lost our heads.” She laughed out loud, spreading her arms wide, tilting her chin to glare at the merciless sun ahead. “You. Me. Yasmeen. Even the guileless Gulatu.” She jabbed the sky with her sword. “Even you, Lord of the Worlds. Even you!”