I was recalled to the conversation when Suhail spoke in my own language. “Tomorrow,” he said to Tom; I had missed the question he was answering. “It’s too late tonight. Besides, there was an argument over who would be your host. If I weren’t here, you’d stay with the sheikh—but since I am, Abu Azali won the argument.”
He was referring to our sleeping arrangements. Of course it was much too dark out to pitch the tent we had brought; but I had not thought about what that would mean. I was simultaneously relieved and alarmed: relieved that we would not be in the sheikh’s tent, and alarmed at the prospect of word reaching anyone that I had slept under the same roof as Suhail.
But it was also the same roof that sheltered Tom, Andrew, Abu Azali, Umm Azali, and Yusuf. The most inappropriate deed either of us could have performed in such crowded quarters was to accidentally tread on someone if we got up in the night. No one seemed to think there was any reason for concern, and so I went along.
The next morning we undertook the task of setting up our own household. Using the phrases Suhail taught him, Tom formally begged leave on behalf of our Scirling trio to become the “protégé” of Abu Azali, which is to say a guest under his protection. This is an extension of hospitality among the nomads, and meant that we would pitch our tent next to Abu Azali’s in the line, as if we were members of his family. Furthermore, they dispatched a girl—Shahar, daughter of their son Azali—to see to our domestic needs. This was reckoned good practice for her, as she was fast approaching the age at which she might marry, and thus become mistress of her own tent.
In this she reminded me a great deal of Liluakame, the Keongan girl who had been my “wife” during the time of our shipwreck. Here no such pretense was needed, nor was I providing an excuse for Shahar to delay marriage until her prospective husband would be ready. My household was, however, serving once more as a training ground for a future wife. Shahar was quite determined in her practice, and firmly halted any effort on the part of either Tom or myself to take on some of her duties; whether this was owing to her zeal or the status we had as associates of Husam ibn Ramiz, I do not know.
Indeed, for once we had no responsibilities at all save the pursuit of our work. To this end, Tom and I asked the very next day who might be able to guide us to the dragons.
We had to inquire of Abu Azali, because Suhail was nowhere to be found. Even conveying our point was something of a challenge—Yusuf had to assist—but once he understood, he responded with a flood of words that made Yusuf grimace. “The man you want is one of the Ghalb,” he said. “Al-Jelidah. He is not here, and no one knows when he will be back.”
“Who, or what, is a Ghalb?” Tom asked.
Yusuf spat into the dirt. “Filthy carrion-eaters. But they know the desert.”
This was, of course, not the most useful answer he might have given. Further questioning elicited that the Ghalb were a tribe—“If they even deserve that name,” Yusuf muttered—unlike any other in Akhia.
Indeed, some have questioned whether they are Akhian at all, or whether their ancestors hail from some other land. Certainly their way of life differs from that of the other nomads. They have no fixed territory, but pay a fee to the other tribes for protection and the right to pass through their lands. By law they are forbidden from owning horses, and most do not even own camels, instead making do with some sheep, and a breed of donkey that is esteemed above all others in the region. They survive largely by hunting, and by dispensing their skills in medicine and handiwork to the other tribes; for this reason, and because they are barred from raiding or making war, the nomads despise them as mere craftsmen. (Their reputation as carrion-eaters arises from the fact that they do not slaughter their meat according to either Segulist or Amaneen law.)
But the Ghalb, as even Yusuf admitted, know the desert. Because they do not engage in warfare and are permitted passage throughout Akhia, they are sometimes employed as guides by the more conventional tribes, directing them to good pasturage or hidden sources of water. It seemed the Aritat had been making extensive use of Ghalbi aid in seeking out caches of eggs; and this man al-Jelidah was the one who had been assisting this camp.
Tom, asking around, learned that al-Jelidah had gone to share his wealth with his family—or possibly to bury it, which the Ghalb sometimes do if they have no immediate need of the money. (The Scirling traveller Saul Westcombe wrote a sensational tale fifty years ago about the secret treasures of the “Gelbees,” for which he hunted fruitlessly through the mountains until a rockfall did him in. Likely he would have been sorely disappointed had he found the pittance of coins al-Jelidah had received.) But the men in camp assured Tom that Ghalbi assistance was not needed, not in this season; there were no eggs for us to find right now, only dragons. And for those, all we needed was our eyes.
Among the Moulish we had needed to delay our work, for not participating in the life of the camp would have marked us as inexcusably antisocial. Here, however, we had the imprimatur of the sheikh, and therefore were expected to carry out our duties post-haste. As it happened, we had an opportunity to begin our work the very next day—or rather, the very next night.
Andrew and I had gone in search of Suhail. Having given us into the care of his desert mother and desert father, he seemed to have vanished. I gathered from Umm Azali that he might be found in the tent of the local sheikh. This I approached with trepidation, not knowing if it would be an offense for me to stroll up unannounced—but one of the women there (the sheikh’s younger wife, Genna) came out to greet me. From her I understood that Suhail was elsewhere in camp.
We found him eventually between two rows of tents, surrounded by a quartet of sleek, graceful hounds. These were the salukis, a breed almost as renowned as the horses and camels of the desert: sighthounds, deep-chested and narrow-waisted, like cheetahs or the savannah snakes of Bayembe, with feathery tufts of hair down the backs of their legs. They frolicked about him, tongues lolling in canine grins, while he ruffled their ears with a gentle hand. At our approach, they went still and watchful, until Andrew and I both offered our fingers for a sniff. Even then, however, they remained wary, and did not return to their play.
“Umm Yaqub,” Suhail greeted me respectfully, rising from his crouch and dusting his hands off. “Captain Hendemore. I hope you have been settling in well?”
I said, “Yes, very much so. Your—does she count as your niece? Shahar bint Azali. She has made our tent comfortable with laudable speed. We are lucky to have her assistance.”
It was not the most graceful small talk I had ever made. Fortunately we were soon rescued by a sudden commotion. There were shouts at the edge of camp; turning, I saw a boy galloping in on a camel, looking as if he might slide off the hump at any moment. But he kept his seat, steering toward us, and nearly tumbled over the camel’s head in his haste to rein it in and dismount. I could not follow his breathless report, but had to wait for Suhail to translate. He listened, then turned to us and said, “A dragon has taken one of the camels.”
“Damnation!” I said, then winced. Andrew had not been a good influence on my manners. Fortunately, Suhail had heard salty language from me before (when I was too much in the company of sailors, who were just as bad as my brother). In a more moderate tone, I asked, “Would it be troublesome if I went out with the herdsmen in future days? If I wait in camp, I will never see a drake hunt.”
I saw a brief flash of Suhail’s smile, before it faded once more into reserve. “You’ve missed only one part of it. If you are brave—if you do not fear the lion and hyena—you may see more.”
He knew very well the measure of my courage, not to mention my foolhardiness. “Do you mean—” I stopped, eyebrows rising. My heart began to patter like that of a young lady at her first public dance. “The stories are true?”
He answered with more levity than I had heard from him since arriving in Akhia. “How am I to know what stories you’ve heard? But you will see with your own eyes what is true.”
Suhail took
us to meet another man, a fellow called Haidar ibn Wajid. His age was difficult to judge; the desert is not kind to human skin, and his weathered face might have belonged to a man anywhere between thirty and sixty. He was a hunter rather than a herdsman, riding out often with a falcon on his glove to bring down bustards, sand grouse, and francolins, rabbits and foxes and more. At Suhail’s request, he mounted his camel and rode out. In the afternoon he returned and pointed at black specks in the sky, some distance off. In a careful approximation of city Akhian, he said, “Vultures. That is where we must go … but not too close.”
Six of us rode out shortly before dusk: myself, Andrew, and Tom, with Haidar and two of his comrades leading us. Suhail himself stayed behind, much to my regret. Our Akhian companions found a rise overlooking the vultures’ target, and when I fixed upon it with the field glasses, I saw the carcass of the camel, already somewhat torn by scavengers, but far from entirely consumed. Of the drake, there was no sign.
We waited for several hours without result. This was my first time sitting out in a desert night, rather than sheltering inside a tent; the experience, apart from the penetrating cold, was both breathtaking and eerie. The stars above were brilliant beyond compare, and the waxing crescent moon gave some light before it set … but all around us the desert was composed of silver and shadow, and sounds carried across it for miles. I heard the coughing roar of a lion and tensed, until Haidar shook his head. “A long way off,” he said. “He will not come here.”
Of greater concern—and greater promise—was the unnerving laughter that came from much closer by. The Akhians held their weapons close when they heard it, while I tried and failed to pinpoint the origin of the noise. “What was that?”
“Hyena.” Haidar’s voice was barely more than a whisper. “They will find the camel soon.”
In the darkness I could barely make out the carcass, but I remembered more or less where it had been before the light faded, and after a bit of searching fixed its dim silhouette in my field glasses. Before long I saw dark shapes slinking about it, and heard more of that strange, cackling sound, so disturbingly like a human laugh.
Haidar, who had seen this before, was not looking at the carcass. Instead he watched the sky, waiting for the stars to go out.
“Now,” he murmured, and I lowered the field glasses just in time to see.
The flare was shockingly bright, after hours in the dark. Howls came from the desert floor, and there was a scrabbling of nails against the dirt as the surviving hyenas attempted to flee. But the drake wheeled about—I could barely see it, tracking its movement by the blackness that swept across the sky—and stooped again, blazing once more at its fleeing prey. A frantic search through the glasses showed me hyena corpses strewn about, some of them still burning, especially around what was left of the camel. Then the dragon settled to the ground and began its feast.
Some of the stories told about desert drakes are pure fancy. Among these I count the jinn, the spirits said to be born from the “smokeless fire” of a drake’s breath. But seeing those bursts of flame in the night, I can understand how such legends begin. And it is no fable to say that drakes are cunning hunters, clever enough to kill one beast and then use it as bait, luring scavengers who will become the main course.
A drake, hunting in this manner, can often gorge itself on enough meat to sate it for a week or more. Having done so, they are often too heavy to fly; they will lair where they can, or if no immediate location offers itself, walk ponderously back in the direction of their home caves, making short, gliding flights when the terrain permits. Once ensconced in a safe place, they will remain inactive until hunger begins to pluck at them again, rousing only to shift between shade and sun as their comfort requires.
NIGHT HUNT
I was shivering uncontrollably by the time we regained the comfort of our own camp, but the experience had been thrilling. During the course of our research I went out several more times to observe what I could of this nocturnal hunt, wishing that I, like a cat, could see in the dark. Even once I learned to watch the stars, I often missed the drake’s initial approach, for it glides down on silent wings, lest it frighten off its prey.
It was a promising start to our work. But, unfortunately, it was all too soon disrupted—by those long-standing enemies of the Aritat, the Banu Safr.
NINE
Stolen camels—Suhail rides out—The trouble we bring—A breeze upon my cheek—Our dreadful journey—The Banu Safr
I missed the attack of the Banu Safr, as I had missed the drake taking its initial prey, because I was not out with the camels in their pasture. But even at a distance I heard them: the shrill yells, the bellowing of the camels, the crack of gunfire.
At the time I was sitting in front of our tent, with one of the scruffy guard dogs (so different from the graceful salukis) sniffing around my feet. I was attempting to sketch the night hunting of the drake, as much from imagination as from the few visual observations I had been able to make. At the sudden outburst of sound I twitched in my seat, nearly dropping my pencil. “What is that?” I asked no one in particular—for everyone who spoke Scirling was elsewhere.
Shahar came outside to stare in the direction of the noise, biting her lip. I repeated my question in Akhian, but did not understand what she said in reply until she mimed shooting a gun, grabbing something, and running away. The Akhian government has made great strides in curtailing the raiding ways of their nomadic tribes, but they have not stamped them out entirely; and the rebellious tribes are the most prone to breaking that edict.
I made an abortive move toward the camel tethered alongside our tent, but Shahar grabbed my sleeve to halt me. From her flood of words I understood that I was being an idiot—and she was right. What good could I do, riding unarmed toward a battle? But Suhail had gone out to view the herds, and Andrew had gone with him, for curiosity’s sake.
Certainly I was not the only one lunging for an animal to ride. Virtually every man in camp was mounting up, with weapons in hand, and they quickly thundered out to join the fray. But a raid is, by its nature, over very quickly: before long men were flooding back into camp, the remaining camels in tow, minus the ones that had been taken.
Suhail and Andrew were among those who returned. My relief, however, was short-lived. “We’re going after them,” Andrew said breathlessly as he dismounted. “If we can get the camels back before the thieves reach their own territory—”
“We?” I repeated, my voice sharp. “Andrew, you are not going with them.”
“Why not?”
My foremost reason was that I did not want to risk him, and did not trust him not to risk himself … but I did not say that. (I do, however, write it here, which I suppose means that now Andrew will know the truth.) “Do you think Colonel Pensyth will thank you for involving yourself in a matter of internal strife between two Akhian tribes?”
“Fine words, coming from you,” Andrew said with a snort.
I gave him a quelling look. “Besides which, you cannot keep up with them. On a horse, yes; but they are saddling camels, which you barely know how to ride. Do you know their tactics? The tricks raiders use to conceal their trail? Will you be anything more than one more gun, when they catch the thieves at last?” Softening, I added, “I know you are a soldier, Andrew. And it chafes, sitting idle while others deal with a problem. But look—they are not taking everyone, not even all of the fighting men.”
Indeed, the group that was collecting supplies and loading them onto their camels was quite small, barely a dozen riders. One of them, I saw, was Suhail.
I did not properly hear Andrew’s first, muttered response. Only when he raised his voice and said, “Very well, Isabella—I won’t go,” did I turn and take his hand in mine. “Thank you,” I said. “I have quite enough to worry about as it is.”
Tom appeared then, a rifle in his hands and two more slung under his arm. “Dear God, not you, too,” I said involuntarily.
He ignored me, going to where
Suhail and the others were preparing. I drew close in time to hear him say, “These may be of use to you.”
Looking about, I saw that most of the pursuit party were armed only with bows and lances. Some had rifles, but less than half; and Suhail was not among them. He looked at the gun Tom was proffering and said, “Your colonel sent those with you for your own use.”
“And today my use is to give it to you,” Tom said. “You’ve bloody well got more need for it than I do at the moment. Just bring them back when you’re done.” He extended the rifle further, almost forcing it into Suhail’s hands, then leaned the other two against the side of Suhail’s camel, which gave him a grumpy look.
“Your ammunition—”
The word was not even out of Suhail’s mouth when Tom dug two cardboard boxes out of his back pockets and handed them over. Suhail grimaced. “I was going to say, you have a limited supply, and should conserve it. We don’t need guns to deal with these Banu Safr dogs.”
“But they’ll help,” Tom said. “Good hunting.”
Suhail did not argue further. I watched, hands knotted tightly about each other, as the retaliatory party mounted up. Of course he had to go: he represented his brother here, and would lose a great deal of face if he hung back from battle. But I worried all the same.
The camp was quiet after they left. Several men had been injured during the raid, but they bore it stoically as their wives cleaned and bandaged their wounds. I tried not to pace as I calculated how rapidly the party might return. There were too many variables I could not account for: it depended on how determined they were, and whether they caught the raiders before they passed into Banu Safr lands. Our group might turn back at that border—or they might not, carrying their counter-raid into enemy territory. It would be brave, but a good deal more dangerous.
Either way, they would not return by nightfall. Andrew offered to help stand watch over the camel herds, lest a second party of raiders strike while the best warriors were gone; this was apparently a tactic employed by the more cunning nomads, though no one thought it likely here. I dressed for bed on my side of the tent we shared with Tom—an arrangement I had thought would be decried as inappropriate, given the absence of any other woman. (Certainly it had attracted censure during our previous expeditions, even when we were not sharing a tent.) But so long as the tent was officially Andrew’s, he had the right to give shelter to any guest he liked, even with his unmarried sister present.
In the Labyrinth of Drakes Page 10