Kentar called, “The Hisma!” His men took up the cry along the caravan.
Kyrin stepped closer to Alaina. Kentar had told Ali he knew a way to get to Kheybar and avoid a part of the road that robbers attacked in the last moon. Now Kentar spoke to his beast gently and led the caravan aside into the mountainous maze.
They went over a small dam. The trickling water behind it diverted into a tunnel, and they descended into a dry wadi, white pebbles gleaming cool welcome under Kyrin’s hot feet. She followed the camels under a spanning rock arch into echoing depths of stone. She looked up, wondering at layers of pearl, red, and earth hues flowing like water across walls that reared far above her head. Sometimes thin cracks choked with rubble and bushes ran back between the walls. Many of the wadis smelled of damp and plants.
Sandals crunching on the pebbles, Tae came up beside her, his voice hushed. “We are coming to an old city the Roman Eagles conquered but did not change. Merchants come here less since the main trade route switched to Aleppo and Makkah. But I have heard of things here that I wish to see.”
“What kinds of things?” A camel ahead switched its tail. All seemed shadowed beyond the noise of their feet: white path, darker wall, endless echoes against stillness.
“Places where journeying spirits fought for their path.” He bowed his head, his mouth sober.
The air echoed with a whisper of falling pebbles, and a lizard scurried across Kyrin’s foot, its four limbs a blur, eyes glittering black and gold. If it would slow, she could lean down and stroke its grey-scaled back. But what creature slowed for a slave?
She slipped after the last camel through a cleft that met overhead and squeezed out the sky. And came into a wide, flat place before an unending wall of carved, peach-tinted rock.
Pillars taller than any stronghold hall loomed around a shallow door, the rock carved thick with robed figures and beautiful shapes. Kyrin stared up at the evening-lit stone, her skin prickling in the cool shadow stretching around her.
Who could make such a place? And for who, or what? No sight or smell of animals, smoke, or voices. No one lived here. She had come from a crack in the mountain. Was it a temple, this thing Tae sought?
Ahead, the wadi widened. Flies buzzed around ranks of towering facades carved in pink or yellow-grey sandstone over dark doorways. Slabs of native rock, set without hands, made a rippling ceiling for a lower row of dwellings and a walkway for the topmost. The usual hum of the caravan drivers’ voices ceased. They craned their necks, staring about.
A voice called and broke the silence, followed by others. Farther along the walkway, women ground meal in stone bowls, sitting before them cross-legged, while their children played on the dusty rocks. Robed and veil-less, more women called to each other from high and low along the walls, pointing at the caravan. The youngsters cried out in excitement or tugged at their mothers’ sleeves.
Tae grunted. He eyed the walls and all between for danger. Kyrin grinned at the children dancing fearless on the rock shelf above her head, and sneezed.
Faisal glanced back and snorted. “Nasrany! Djinn.” He gestured at her and poured out a string of Arabic to the children.
Her ears burned. Djinn—he called her devil. She puffed out a breath and touched the ring in her ear. So the pot called the kettle black!
A boy with a bit of cloth around his middle backed away from her. His toddling sister held his hand, staring, her finger in her mouth. A woman scolded them, her wrinkled visage watchful, and they ran to her skirts. She hovered over them, her dark eyes on Kyrin.
They left the stone-dwellers and turned about a shoulder of rock, the wadi widening, dividing.
Faisal stroked his camel, not seeing Kyrin stick out her tongue at his back. A rock rattled under Waleed, and Faisal jumped. Kyrin restrained her smile. His face red, Faisal swatted at a fly on Waleed’s rump.
Only there was no fly. She could smack Waleed for him, much harder. Waleed would run.
Tae seemed to know her mind. He shook his head in warning and quickened his pace, up a hill toward rings of rock like seats, carved into the hill.
Kyrin scowled. Who said Tae was fair? He did not think Faisal would be at peace with her until the Nur-ed-Dam was satisfied, the desert law, the Light of Blood that cried, “Blood for blood!” Lie down and bleed for an Arab? Not her. Faisal would never be content with a few drops. She stuck out her tongue at him as far as she could, then turned and hurried after Tae, ignoring Faisal’s angry “You!”
They climbed up the wadi side to a circular pavement. Stone benches spread away from them like rising stair-step rings of an onion, with one quarter side of the ring cut away. Kyrin climbed among the seats.
“It used to have three walls above us and one great open side,” Tae said. The flat stone beneath his feet cast his voice upward. He paused. “This is an ancient place of dying and living.” He turned and gazed down the wadi at a wall spanning its width far below. Square house tops behind the wall shimmered mauve under the setting sun. A few lights twinkled.
Kyrin went to his side. “Tae?” She whispered. This place was so empty . . . though it had been made for so many.
“What.” He wiped his eyes.
“What happened here?”
“They killed us, with men and beasts, because they hated our Master. Here we died, and conquered.”
Kyrin’s skin prickled. Her mother had told her the Eagles killed people who followed the mark of the fish, executed them in bestial ways. They died, and conquered. As her mother rose from her shell into that place among the living oaks, her hand healed, all fear consumed. Kyrin’s eyes prickled.
The tail of Ali’s caravan dwindled into the purple evening haze below, wending toward the wall and the town. Kyrin picked her way from the arena after Tae. Mother would have spent days in this city of stone, peeking in crannies, examining every carving, every flower, talking to the nomad women, walking in the early glory of the sunset to the mountain, or listening to the waking birds in the quiet arena.
Faisal asked Tae what they did there when they passed him. Kyrin did not look at him. She would hit him. Her throat felt thick. You are alive, jackal. Take your freedom and go.
Near the looming wall across the wadi, carvings clung to the arches of the scattered ruins, intricate leaves and graceful shapes on dusky stone. Kyrin stared at a building of delicate pink columns until it was out of sight. How could these beauties be, so many colors of stone in one place?
Kentar got them past the wall’s guarded gate. Kyrin heard the sound of gurgling. Water.
The camels broke into a trot. Tall houses drew close over the thin street and court walls blocked them in. Following the camels, Kyrin came to a long, wide square before buildings soaring many times her height.
Across the stone flags on her left ran a raised water trough long enough for a multitude of camels, wide and deep enough for her to bathe in. The water rushed beneath a statue of a woman. Wind tugged her marble tunic and curly hair. She mused over the trough at her feet as if she sped with the sparkling water over the yellow stone.
A camel dropped its head and sucked water noisily up its throat, and the men let more animals shove in and drink. The Bedouin drivers dunked their heads and came up spluttering. Kyrin dipped her arms in the crystal clear coolness and smiled.
At home this place of stone would be almost holy. It was good Esther did not see this. She would pester her father to make her such a watering place. But Kyrin doubted such a stone or stone-worker existed in her land. Or even here. It was old, by the cracks in the woman’s stone sandals.
Kyrin gripped the edge of the trough and cupped her hand. The water did not taste like leather water-skins but of light, pleasant minerals. At the end of the trough it rushed through a pipe and disappeared into the stone. There was no stream or pool in sight to feed the water-way, only more buildings, larger and higher than any hall she had seen.
The Eagles knew how to build.
The great paved square held a few other caravans seeking to escape high taxes or robbers. Camels and handlers lounged on the near side of the square or disappeared through a doorway in the opposite brick wall. A few merchants sat on the ground before their wares, while locals enjoyed the insurge of customers in scattered shops inside the ancient metropolis buildings. The men and women gossiped of bygone days. Lamps glowed in some windows. Another flickered into being as Kyrin watched, sending the evening shifting away. Cooling sandstone and camel dung scented the air.
“Couch the camels!” Kentar ordered.
Ali found nothing he deemed of worth among the merchant’s wares. When night fell he slept in the smallest building for a coin, the Nubian guarding his door, and Umar inside. Kyrin brought the Nubian his bowl, on Ali’s tray. She indicated it, a large leg of rabbit perched on a mound of rice. He tipped his huge black head, eyed her, took it and dug in hungrily. Kyrin bowed her head to hide her smile, and slipped inside the door with Umar and Ali’s bowls. She wondered if the Nubian slept in his saddle.
That night she and the others made do with a warm camel for a back-rest.
Kentar muttered with his Bedouin drivers about heathens, magic, and the evil Haroun, and set the guard, while Kyrin listened to the mournful wind in the dark street.
12
Wager
. . . The Lord my God illumines my darkness. ~Psalm 18:28
A rooster crowed, joining its voice to the bustle of the rousing caravanserai. The city had not lost its jewel-tone mystery in the early light. Kyrin sniffed deep of the dry, sandy chill. She would like to stay and search the branching wadis. It would be an easy place to lose oneself in. But Ali ordered them on into the Hisma, and the Nubian did not let her out of his sight.
Over the aqueduct, the woman of the Eagles dreamed on. Kyrin took a last drink of the clear water beside a camel, which raised its dripping nose. She would remember the rock city.
§
Her feet sore, she walked after Kentar as the dalil settled the camels for night camp, driving them before him. Rimth saltbushes and flowering herbs that Faisal called rabia softened the stony land. It had rained here maybe hours ago.
Small yellow, blue, and pink flowers bloomed about her ankles, and on shrub and herb. Drops of water hung on the tip of leaf and petal, the water drops painted rose and orange by receding clouds and the blue sky. The air was nectar.
A rabbit burst away from the lead camel’s thumping pads when he lurched to kneel on the ground. Kentar called out, laughing, to one of his men, and the man brought him a strung bow and a quiver.
With a small weary grin, Kyrin rubbed her face. Her father taught her how to draw such a string. How she had thrilled to her first arrow speeding after Lord Dain’s long black shaft, striking through a shock of harvest grain. He had looked at her arrow sunk to its green-dyed fletching, and then hugged her to his side in delight, his warm brown eyes lighting up with his smile.
Two more rabbits broke cover, setting flowers swaying, earth flying from their paws. One doubled back and froze.
“There!” Kyrin pointed, and Kentar raised his bow. He aimed and loosed, and the arrow sped over the rabbit’s back and skipped merrily over the stones. Kyrin looked at the ground, lips twitching. The rabbit was twenty paces off.
Kentar growled and sighted on the second rabbit, a good eighty paces if it was one. He took a long moment to aim while the camels grumbled behind him. He missed. The rabbit stretched tall on its back legs, turned seeking ears toward him, and settled to wash its face. Kyrin smothered her laugh in the crook of her arm.
Kentar glared. “You shoot.”
“No, no, the rabbit—” He did not understand.
Faisal stood on one side, his dark face unsmiling. Kentar motioned him over. “You speak her words to me.”
Faisal did so in a delighted rush, glancing at her and raising his chin in scorn, his jaw tight, eyes narrow.
Kentar broke in, turning to her, “You disrespect a dalil? You shoot. You miss, you walk the caravan tail one hand of days.”
With dust in her teeth, besides her aching feet. She did not mean to make him angry; he must understand. “My lord, the rabbit was so funny, washing—”
Faisal said something, with a sideways look at her. Kentar’s face hardened. The other Bedouin drivers gathered, a listening crowd, the breeze playing with their kaffiyehs. The Nubian raised his head where he pounded in Ali’s tent stakes, and his long strides carried him to Kyrin’s side.
She stared past Faisal’s shoulder. The Nubian said something to Kentar in his own tongue, and the dalil answered.
In stern common, the Nubian said to Kyrin, “You shoot.”
She straightened. “And if I hit it?” They looked at her.
“Yes, you hit. You askar, yes?” Kentar chuckled then roared, his thin frame shaking.
Askar? She scowled at Faisal.
“He means soldier, fighter.” Faisal stared at her, his head cocked, measuring something, something he was sure to find wanting.
Far off, the rabbit nibbled a plant, head bobbing.
“Yes, askar,” she whispered, “like my father.” She crossed her arms. “If I hit it, you give me a camel.” Her ribs would handle riding, she would make them.
Silence. Then the Nubian broke in. “Yes, Ali will give you a camel. Old one.”
It was all they would give. She stretched out her hand. Kentar laid the bow in it and held out an arrow.
She took it, smoothed the feathers, praying. She drew the string back three times, tested the draw. The hunting bow was heavier than her own, which slept in its corner beside her bed at home. But she could draw it. Smooth, cool horn bound the back of its wood limbs.
Kyrin placed her front foot carefully between her and the rabbit, raised the bow, and took a deep breath, let part out. No wind; aim a little higher, near that rock. Steady the arm—let the little bird go—the arrow leapt away and the string whipped her arm. The rabbit jumped like a gazelle and tumbled.
The Nubian whooped and walked to pick it up. Kentar’s jaw knotted. Kyrin heard indrawn grunts from the watching Bedouins. She rubbed her stinging, bruised arm and said in a rush, “It was a blessed shot, you know. I could not do it again. I laughed at the rabbit, washing in the face of death. Forgive me. I would not offend my dalil.”
Kentar stared at her. “A Nasrany with skill, and yet generous; I will tell this to my daughters.” He walked away, shaking his head, a faint smile on his face.
The Nubian picked a camel from seven bedded down at the end of the caravan and laid the lead in Kyrin’s hand without a word. It was not the oldest. Kyrin bowed her head in thanks. Umar would have hurt her for her skill.
Behind her Faisal said, “You will need a saddle. I will bring one.”
“My thanks.” She could not refuse his stiff offer. Might he forget?
She should have found reason to refuse. In the morning her camel roared in protest when the saddle touched its hump. Kyrin tightened the girth with difficulty, then swung onto the sidling beast. It reached around and bit her foot. When she drew her toes out of reach, it pitched like a ship to unseat her, its tail straight out.
Kentar told her to get off, his eyes streaming with tears of laughter. He found two wicked burrs nestled in the camel’s scruffy hair under the saddle pad. One thing consoled Kyrin.
Faisal had not seen her humiliation. Kentar had sent him at first light to pasture the camels. She calmed her new mount with a handful of dates. The camel lipped her shoulder hopefully, anger forgotten.
“Lilith. Your name is Lilith.” Lilith sniffed at her kaffiyeh. Kyrin giggled at her tickling touch.
Alaina stroked Lilith’s neck. “Her teeth prove she is not as old as her staring hide hints. It must be worms.”
Kyrin nodded. Lilith’s hide had not fooled the Nubian. At d
inner, she fed Lilith garlic from her sash, from her portion of the cloves that Tae handed out. He agreed with the Eagle surgeons’ writings that garlic helped cure sickness in any creature. It was his task to keep Ali’s living wealth healthy.
That evening a footsore half-grown Saluki pup limped out of the blossoming desert to skirt the fire where Alaina steeped Tae’s herbs into tea. Kentar thought him lost, and Alaina took him under her protection.
Kyrin rubbed the pup’s soft grey ears. “Good dog.” He licked her hand. He had long legs, a lean body, and a high flank that made her think of her godfather’s sight hounds.
Faisal snapped, “Bedu may not keep any cursed dog! Salukis are not dogs; he is a beast of high favor!”
Kyrin looked into the pup’s eyes of ginger-tea and tannin, molten with devotion. Let Faisal think what he wishes. She ignored his hard stare and fed the pup scraps from her dinner. The pup licked her fingers carefully and sighed, leaned his head against her knee. He likes me, and he’s lost.
Cicero, as Alaina dubbed him, soon followed Kyrin everywhere. She was surprised to find he ate dates as eagerly as meat.
The moon waxed over the passing nights. Cicero grew fast, Lilith’s coat regained its luster, and Kyrin’s ribs hardly pinched. The caravan passed Aila and moved toward Kheybar.
Kyrin tried to draw the majesty of the days and the quiet nights into her soul with the wandering winds; to leave no room in her dreams for the tiger, but the falcon’s ankle ring shackled her often. Her wings, weak with fear, would not lift her heavy body from his back. She would wake, falling; yanked to earth by the chain, plummeting into his mouth, the tiger’s heavy jaws around her body, his teeth prickling.
The tale of her long shot and the fallen rabbit became common fire talk. Tae got her a bow and five arrows for game. He traded a fever-cure to a merchant who said he got the weapon from a nomad from the land-of-short-grass, the Steppes. The merchant gave the bow for a good price since it was smaller than most. Many layers of thin wood made the polished limbs strong for the bow’s weight. The ends were tipped with black horn.
Falcon Heart: Chronicle I an epic young adult fantasy series set in medieval times Page 12