by Donald Tyson
“They are both dead,” he said, glaring at the trembling youth. “We will come back for them when our work is done.”
Stifling a sob with his knuckles, the boy nodded and bowed his head on his chest. Hassan gave him back the reins and looked at me.
“We must return to the city.”
“No. I paid you to take us to the river.”
“Are you mad? The bandits will be waiting ahead. It would be certain death for all of us.”
“How do you know they aren’t waiting behind?” I countered.
He brushed the question from the air with his hand.
“We are closer to the city than the river. There is no shelter to the east for six days.”
I considered for several moments. There was nothing for me in Iskanderun. If we went back to the city, we would only need to ride over the same road again, and who could say that the danger would be less?
“I am going forward to the river with my servant. I release you from your duty toward us. You may return to the city if you wish.”
He set his teeth stubbornly and started to speak, then turned to squint at the northern hills. At last he shook his shaggy head.
“No, you hired us to protect you. We will not abandon you to the bandits.”
This sudden display of honor surprised me. I might have expected it from a nobleman, but not from a rough mercenary. I nodded my appreciation.
“If we live, I will double your fee.”
“Keep your money,” he said with contempt. “We have been paid.”
We urged our horses to a canter. It would have been madness to ride with greater haste through the heat of the day. The already weary beasts would collapse within a few miles from thirst and exhaustion. The breeze created by our progress cooled my face, but white flecks of sweat formed on the neck of my gelding.
When I began to hope we had left the bandits behind, a solitary rider emerged from his hiding place behind an outcropping and barred our path. The place was well chosen for ambush. Although the hills on either side were not very high, their steep slopes, treacherous with loose pebbles, pressed close on either side. A horseman might ride down by sliding in the loose stones, but it would be difficult or impossible to reach the crests from the road.
A black cloak covered him completely from his shoulders to below his stirrups, and a sack of black cloth with eye holes cut in its side concealed his face. By the bulk of his shoulders and the way he overhung his mount, I could see he was a mountain of a man, as tall as Hassan but easily twice as broad. He drew a long blade from its scabbard at his hip and held it up to catch the sunlight on its polished side.
“Throw down your swords or you will be killed,” he roared with the voice of a bull.
The clatter of hooves behind us drew my attention over my shoulder. Two riders similarly cloaked with faces concealed in black sacks approached cautiously, swords extended.
“If we disarm ourselves, you will surely kill us,” Hassan responded.
“No. You have my oath. By the Prophet, if you cast down your weapons, you will be released unharmed. If you refuse, you will surely die.”
I urged my gelding beside Hassan.
“They are only three men,” I whispered.
“Are you a fool? There are many more in the hills.”
“Why do they not descend?”
“If they show their faces, they must kill us to avoid our witness against them. Be thankful you have not seen them. You may have a chance at life.”
I gazed up at the hills. If men waited there behind the crests, they could descend on us in moments. I saw the wisdom of his words, but the thought of giving up my Damascus blade made me sick inwardly. Even before my chastisement and expulsion from the palace, I had never trusted a spoken pledge. Words melt on the wind the way water sinks into dry sand. To place my life in the hands of bandits was difficult. Yet there was sense in the mercenary’s counsel. Why would the bandits be hooded if they intended to kill us outright? Why would most of their number remain concealed in the hills?
Their leader approached, brandishing his great sword easily in his hand, as though it weighed no more than a stick of kindling. I slid my blade from its scabbard and prepared to cast it onto the ground, when my eye caught a flash of purple on the bandit’s exposed forearm. I recognized the purple-ringed burn mark I had seen at the stables on the arm of the fat stableman.
“Martala, it’s a trick. They are all against us!”
Hassan’s hand caught the reins of my horse and drew back its head while the hooded stable master rode forward and put the tip of his sword against my throat. I heard Martala struggle and curse behind me.
“I have him,” the bare-chinned brother said with a laugh. “Don’t wriggle so, young scholar, or your master will be killed.”
“You fool,” Hassan hissed at me. “Had you kept silent, you would have been released to walk back to the city.”
“So that is your game. Pretend to guard travelers, then rob them disguised as bandits and let them return to Iskanderun to swell the rumor of the dangers on the caravan road.”
“Naturally,” the fat man said with a laugh.
He pulled the black sack off his head. His gleaming face was flushed, the linen of the hood sodden with sweat. The other two removed their sacks, revealing the bearded faces of the supposedly murdered brothers.
“No traveler hearing the tales of robbers on the road will venture outside the walls without an armed escort.”
“Which you are happy to provide for a price.”
“It has been a good living for my family for years. I regret that we must kill you. It is something we try to avoid.”
“Are there really bandits on this road?”
He smiled in a pleasant manner.
“Perhaps. Who knows? But not so near to the city.”
The time for talk ended. I saw the corners of his eyes tighten, and his fingers flex on the hilt of his sword. I wondered if I could beat his heavy blade aside before it cut my throat, and before the youngest of his kin killed Martala. My own blade hung half-lowered at my right side. Hassan had a hand occupied with the reins of my gelding. It was some help since it forced him to lean in his saddle, putting him off balance.
A soft hiss sounded in the air behind me. For a moment I thought of a knife cutting through silk. The fat man looked past my head, and his blade dropped a hand’s-breadth from my throat. A gurgle made me turn in time to see one of the bearded brothers fall from his saddle, the point of an arrow projecting through the front of his chain mail vest, which became visible through the opening in his cloak as he slid sideways.
The youngest brother held Martala half pulled from her saddle, one arm around her throat and his knife at her belly. He stared in wonder at the dead man, then at me, as though I were responsible.
Beyond his white face, small in the distance, I noticed two horsemen approaching along the road from the west at a brisk trot. The rising heat from the road made their forms shimmer and dance, as though reflected in water, yet still I recognized them. The slightly built figure on the left who sat so straight in the saddle was Farri’s daughter, Zayna. Beside her, more at ease in his posture, rode Altrus.
As I watched in wonderment, Zayna drew an arrow from a quiver at her saddle. Only then did I see that she held a bow. She notched the arrow to its string and rose in her stirrups to draw it.
With a curse, I jerked my reins from Hassan’s slack fingers and spurred my gelding in the ribs with my knee so that it reared skittishly to the side. He remained motionless, as though entranced, watching the approaching riders. The arrow missed my back and buried itself in the stable owner’s fat thigh.
He roared in mingled pain and rage. For the moment both Martala and I were forgotten. Zayna moved without haste to draw another arrow from her quiver.
Martala pushed away from the bewildered youth. He did not bother to try to recapture her, but turned his horse with the others and galloped at the strangers, his dagger waving above his head in his fist. I felt thankful for their enthusiasm. Zayna had aimed at my back, of that I was certain.
The third arrow struck the stableman in the chest but failed to unhorse him. I suppose it was lost in the thick layers of suet that covered his torso and did not find his heart.
“Catch the horse,” I told Martala, who was nearer the frightened beast.
She rode up to the mount that had formerly carried the slain brother and grabbed its bridle as it reared, pulling it forcefully back to earth. I reached her and took the reins. Without another look at the charging brothers or the two who continued forward at an unhurried pace to meet them, I urged my nervous gelding into motion, drawing the riderless horse after me until it began to trot. Martala positioned herself on the other side of the creature and reached to take the slack of its reins. With both of us holding them drawn tight on either side, we were able to gallop eastward away from the battle, the riderless horse between us.
“Why do you want the horse?” Martala asked after the shouts and the clash of steel on steel fell behind us.
“I don’t. We need its water.”
She looked at me with puzzlement.
“If we don’t have to stop at the wells, we can travel more quickly.”
Understanding came into her frost-pale eyes.
“Zayna and Altrus will not stop,” I continued. “They will have all the water on the other horses, after they kill the fat man and his brothers-in-law.”
“Are you so sure they will win the battle?”
I remembered the way Altrus handled his sword, and the joy that came into his hard face when he fought.
“They will win.”
The hills soon concealed the cloud of dust that arose from the fight. We slowed to a canter to rest our gasping mounts. Soon we would have to stop, no matter how much danger it entailed. The horses needed rest and water or they would drop dead between our knees.
A ledge of bare rock scattered with loose pebbles extended south, gently rising through a gap between the hills. It seemed as good a place to leave the road as any. I reined to a halt and sat listening above the snorts of my gelding. The other horses stood silent. No clash of battle reached my ears, only the soft sigh of the wind that blew sand between the stones.
“How did Farri’s daughter come to ride with the Jew’s mercenary?” Martala murmured, as though afraid her voice might carry to them.
“Farri must have spoken with Altrus after we fled the house, and discovered my trick to make them enemies. It’s too bad. I’d hoped they would kill each other.”
As I spoke, I leaned in my saddle to unload the water bags from the riderless horse and slung them over the haunches of my gelding. Taking the reins from Martala, I let them fall and slapped the beast on its flank. It bolted in terror along the road to the east and disappeared around a hillock. For a time we listened to the clatter of its hooves. Turning the head of the gelding, I urged it up the expanse of rock with my knees. Martala followed.
Progress through the hills was more difficult than along the road, but we had come far enough from the sea that their slopes were passable. Eventually, as we traveled east, they would give way to plains. Or so I had gathered from maps I had studied years ago of the river valley of the upper Euphrates. We had only to continue eastward and we would eventually encounter the river. It was possible that Altrus would not see where we turned off the road, and would pass us and lose our track, but I had no faith in such a rosy fortune.
“We might turn and wait for them to reach us,” Martala mused, as though speaking to herself.
“You saw what Zayna did with that bow.”
“If we came upon them from behind, before she could use it?”
“Altrus would kill us both. I am no match for him with a sword.”
She pouted, her cool gray eyes turned away. It was not difficult to guess her thoughts. My words were those of a fearful man who ran and hid, not those of a bold warrior. I nearly laughed. When had I ever made pretense to be a warrior? The best battles were those that did not need to be fought, and next to those the battles that were easy to win. I wanted no test of skill with Altrus.
We continued to work our way through the hills, tending eastward when we could, but often forced to make our way south or even west to circle impassible ridges. The land held no welcome. From time to time lizards of a dusty brown color darted between the legs of our horses and ran into cracks amid the rocks, their needle-like black claws skittering over the hard stones. A lone hawk circled in the cloudless blue sky, no larger than a fly speck.
When we had ridden for an hour or so, I judged it safe to risk a brief stop. The heads of the horses drooped with exhaustion. We gave them water in a shallow leather bag shaped to allow them to drink, then fed them a small amount of grain from the flats of our hands. There was not a blade of grass for forage.
I sipped from my new water skin, seated on a boulder beside the silent girl, and considered the choice I was forced to make. Either I could continue to flee eastward in the hope of staying beyond the reach of Altrus and Zayna until they lost our track and abandoned the chase, or I could attempt to approach them undetected and kill them. Neither course held any appeal.
My pursuers would continue hunting us until they got the scroll of the Old Ones. If they had talked to Ravicar while in Iskanderun, or questioned one of the brothers before killing him, they would know we were bound for the Euphrates, and might easily guess that to be our destination in any case, since the caravan road led to the river. From there it was no difficult work of the brain to assume that we would travel down the Euphrates by boat toward civilization. We might shake them from our heels at the ruins of Babylon, but not before.
“I could carry the scroll of the Old Ones back to them and let them capture me,” Martala said.
“They would kill you.”
“Not at once. I am a woman. Altrus would have a use for me, before he cut my throat, and Zayna would enjoy my screams.”
I considered her plan. If I could come upon Altrus without his sword, occupied in raping the girl, I might be able to slay him by stealth. Reluctantly, I abandoned the notion. Even if the girl swore to him that she had murdered me for the scroll, he would not believe her and would remain cautious of an attack. Zayna might be young enough to fall for such a lie, but Altrus was more likely to kill Martala outright, take the scroll, and then kill Zayna.
“We will find another way,” I told her.
The slender shoulders of the girl fell with relief, though she tried to hide it from her expression.
We continued through the hills into the late afternoon, keeping the road no great distance away on our left side. From time to time we glimpsed it between the ridges of rock. When I judged we had come far enough to make immediate discovery difficult, I found a sheltered hollow for the horses. We removed their saddles, fed and watered them, then tied them so that they would not wander off. Leaving the grain and most of the water with the horses, I went on foot with Martala over bare rocks that left no mark of our passage until I located a deep cleft between large stones. It was spacious enough to lie within protected from the sun.
I squeezed through the slot of the entrance, then leaned out and motioned for the girl to follow. She made a wry face and hesitated. I realized she was fearful of vermin.
“It’s empty,” I told her with impatience.
Compared to some of the scorpion-infested holes where I had slept while in the Empty Space, it was a palace. She shuddered and slid her slender body into the shadow.
“We will sleep here until after dark. I do not
believe that Altrus will find the horses, but even if he does, he will not find us.”
From the front pocket of my wallet I drew forth the knotted red and green silk rag that held the white spiders. Untying it with care upon my palm, I regarded the small pile of dried creatures with a kind of amazement that they had traveled so far with me without mishap. It was fortunate the girl had not discarded the rag after my death, thinking it worthless. I ate three spiders, then counted three more.
“Hold out your hand.”
Martala watched me in revulsion. When I did not speak a second time, she extended her palm with reluctance and accepted the three spiders.
“Eat them.”
Her face might have been comic, were I in a different frame of mind. As it was, I felt only impatience at her display of reluctance. At last she put the spiders into her mouth and ground their dried legs between her teeth, then swallowed them. I uncorked my water skin and let her sip to clear her throat. She coughed once and wiped her lips on the back of her hand.
“Try to sleep. I will wake you when it is time.”
Sleep came to me with ease. Now that I was certain in my mind what I would do, I felt no disquiet. I possess the trick of waking when I wish, if only I tell myself beforehand when I should wake, so I knew I would not sleep beyond midnight. The distant bark of a desert fox reached my ears when once again I became aware. I lay listening in the darkness to the regular breaths of the girl curled up against my left side. The night air felt cool on my cheek after the heat of the day.
She woke with a start when I touched her shoulder. We worked our bodies out through the narrow cleft. I expected a strong response from the girl to her first experience of the second sight, but still she surprised me. She made a soft sound of wonder as she turned a complete circle, staring at the narrow ravine in which the cleft lay hidden.
“Did the spiders do this?” she whispered. “It is so beautiful.”
I followed the direction of her gaze. Tiny sparks of cool light glowed in the rocks. The bodies of desert night creatures shone like stars against this background. Here and there the ghosts of trees and bushes long dead stood transparently above the places of their vanished roots. A snake glided across the ground, as silent as a silver ripple on a moonlit pool.