by The King
Thorak nodded.
"And when you see the Akkadian," Memnon added, "give him this for me."
And the warlord handed his adviser the poison-tipped arrow, which Thorak handled judiciously, shielding the tip in a leather cover.
Within the hour, Thorak and his personal cadre of his toughest, most trusted men—chosen from among the red-turbaned royal guards—galloped from the fortress city, into the night. Into the underworld, if necessary.
And in his imperial chamber, the Teacher of Men stood ponderingly at a heavy stone tablet, displayed in a golden frame near his throne. This inscribed slab was ancient, even in these ancient times, and bore a crude form of hieroglyphics only the most learned scholars could decipher.
The warlord's fingers ran slowly across the symbols, his touch respectful, almost tender, his expression that of a man in a spell. His fingertips lingered on an etching of a man, whose arms were raised in triumph, seemingly mimicked by tongues of fire rising behind him.
Then Memnon's fingers came to rest upon a carved moon emblem, at the very bottom of the inscribed tablet.
A very short time now, he thought, and all would be his .. . starting with the woman, Cassandra, and ending with the world itself.
By the middle of the next day, the trio of travelers had crossed the nomadic plains and would soon enter the desert. The Akkadian had built some grudging respect for the little thief, who had managed to keep pace, as the camel loped along.
Of course Hanna—bearing both Mathayus and, seated in front of him, Cassandra—was slowed by the burden; and from time to time Mathayus had walked, himself, leading the camel bearing the sorceress along.
At the crest of a rugged hilltop, three twelve-foot poles awaited them—warning signs for those who would enter the forbidden land ahead, the Valley of the Dead of legend. Each wooden shaft bore various human skulls intertwined with small animal bones, snakes mostly, and the dried skins of men who had dared pass this way.
The little horse thief did not find this a tempting invitation, saying, "I'm guessing this means we've gone far enough."
From the ridge they could see the unforgiving landscape that awaited them—pockmarked earth scattered with mud hills, stretching to a desolate horizon. Beyond that, a devastating desert awaited, if the map Mathayus held could be trusted.
Rolling the lambskin back up, and replacing it in his saddlebag, the Akkadian said to the thief, "No, partner... We're just getting started. Consider this a welcome."
"A welcome," Arpid said, glancing from one pole of impaled skulls to another. "Well, why not push on? Your friend is a sorceress, and you're a trained assassin, not to mention a hulking barbarian. Who among us could get hurt, in the endeavor?"
Mathayus shrugged. "Who indeed?"
"Oh, I don't know ... the skinny thief, perhaps?"
"You're free to make your own way," the Akkadian reminded him, as he stood alongside the beautiful hostage stride the camel. He reached up and brushed her long hair away from the side of her face, and she looked sharply at him, startled, offended.
"Don't touch me," she said, and caught his wrist.
Firmly—but not roughly—he freed his hand, and he brushed her hair away, again, and slipped the golden hoop earring from her lobe.
Confused, she frowned at him, and grabbed for her belonging, unsuccessfully.
Now the Akkadian moved forward, to the nearest of the fetish poles, and reached up and deftly hooked the hook over the top of the shaft.
"You beast," she snapped. "What in the name of the gods are you doing?"
"Nothing, in the name of the gods." Mathayus gave her the slightest smile. "Just marking the way for your lord and master."
She reared back, almond eyes narrowed, chin crinkled in contempt. "No man is my master."
"Perhaps not," he said, as he slung himself up behind her, onto the generous nomadic saddle, "but your view is unimportant... How Memnon sees you is all I care about."
And the Akkadian jogged his camel into motion, heading down into the desolate valley. Rough as the ride was, it was not as blistering—literally—as the desert they soon found themselves in, where the sand blazed under the sun, and the skeletons of those who had tried to come this way before them had left their remains as grotesque sun-bleached markers.
Cassandra stiffened as she saw a scorpion crawl from the eye socket of one human skull, and Mathayus asked, amused, "Afraid of a little bug?"
She said nothing; and certainly did not reveal that a flash, a shard of a vision, had knifed through her consciousness. The man behind her was somehow tied to that scorpion; but she knew not how. ...
From time to time, Mathayus relented and walked as the thief rode. The little man had come this far; that much the Akkadian had to hand him. That Arpid would face the vast empty desert with them, trudge along at their side, rarely complaining, had made him one of them. Even the woman was no trouble. Only the sun, that burning sun, seemed his enemy.
Thorak and his band of a dozen good men were several hours behind the little party. A forward tracker reached the ridge of fetish poles by sunset, and he snatched the sorceress's golden hoop from the skull atop one pole, and rode back to the line of red-turbaned men to deliver it to his commander.
The scar on Thorak's face stood out whitely in his flushed face, as rage crawled through him like an invader, the warrior well aware the Akkadian was baiting him, taunting him. ...
Normally they would have made camp now, but Thorak pushed his troops onward; they would ride until the sun was a memory.
In the cool night blueness of the desert dunes, under a sky glittering with more jewels than any warlord could secure, the Akkadian, the thief, the woman and the camel slept. Or at least the thief slept, on his side of the fire, his deafening snoring making slumber more difficult for the others.
Still, Mathayus managed to sleep—his scimitar crossed on his chest, ready for any attack—and so did Cassandra, at least until a particularly loud snort from the snoozing thief popped her eyes open.
Wide-awake, suddenly, she glanced over at Mathayus, who—despite the logs Arpid was noisily sawing in his sleep—did not stir. She rose as silent and graceful as a gentle wind, watching the Akkadian all the while, seeing that sleep continued....
At first she walked, looking back at the fire and the camp, the sand brushing her feet lightly; then she began to run. She knew Memnon would send his men looking for her; if she could get as far away as possible from the assassin, before daybreak, perhaps ...
... perhaps fifteen feet from camp, she fell face first into the sand, a silk line tied around her left ankle having pulled taut.
She turned over, breathing hard, and pulled at that line, as if a big fish might be at the other end; and she was right: Mathayus materialized out of the night, standing in front of her, the other end of the silk cord tied around his own left ankle.
"Where are you headed, sorceress?" he asked lightly. "You think you'll find your king out here in the desert, somewhere? Do you miss your beloved?"
Her eyes flared with anger, and she stood and swung a hard tiny fist at him; he caught the fist, but with her other hand she clawed at him, her nails long, sharp, her ferocity intense, almost overwhelming.
Surprised by the force, the frenzy of her attack, he lifted her off the ground, and hurled her up and over his shoulder, like a sack of grain. She landed with a rolling thump.
Trying to straighten out the line that bound them, Mathayus walked to her, where she turned over— painfully—and, wincing with discomfort yet still prideful, she said, "Memnon is not my beloved .. . not my lover. I am a virgin."
He might have laughed at that, had she not been so obviously, indignantly sincere.
"My powers stem from my purity," she said. "Even that monster Memnon would not dare defile me."
Monster Memnon.... ?
"Apologize to me," she demanded. "Now!"
The Akkadian studied the beauty, asprawl on the sand, disheveled
but no less fetching in the ivory-washed blue of the night. Her conviction was impressive, no denying.
"I am sorry," he said. "Truly."
She swallowed, her eyes searching his face for sarcasm, for insincerity, finding neither. Her head lowered. Her voice trembled when she spoke.
"I was eleven," she said, "when Memnon heard the stories of the child, the girl, with eyes like the gods. ... He rode into my village and lined up four of his soldiers, before me. He said, "Tell me the names of these men. Each wrong answer means that man's death.' "
"His own men," Mathayus whispered, aghast.
"His own men," she said, with a nod. "I was terrified, but what could I do? I told him the names, all four."
"You saved their lives."
"Yes. And, afterward, those same four soldiers killed my family, as I was taken away."
The Akkadian felt stunned, as though he'd suffered a terrible physical blow; his heart ached for her—she had suffered Memnon's cruelty as much as any man, or woman.
Softly he said, "The 'Great Teacher' has taught his lessons to us all, has he not?"
And he bent to her, and untied the line from her ankle.
Then he walked back to the camp, the fire and his blankets; she returned, slowly, sitting where before she had slept, clutching her knees to herself.
He had turned his back to her. "Run, if you like— you're no longer my prisoner...." He glanced back at her, tellingly. "But keep in mind—there are worse dangers, out there, than me."
Then, his back still to her, he went to sleep, snoring a little, though the snort-snoring of the thief— who had dozed through all the fuss—drowned him out.
And for a long, long time, the sorceress sat and studied her captor, wondering what kind of man this was, after all. Who was he, this man who dared stand up to Lord Memnon?
Yet, for all her visions, for all her prophecies, Cassandra was unaware that she now loved the Akkadian. That her future was bound with his.
Gathering Storm
B
y midmorning the next day, Thorak and those dozen red-turbaned warriors had all but caught up with their quarry; as they trudged up the slope of a large dune—a wind shifting the sands ominously, sun beating down without mercy—they were not aware of their seeming imminent success. Their prey, however, was aware of them: from a nearby dune, Mathayus—astride Hanna, the sorceress sharing his saddle, riding behind him now, her arms wrapped around his midsection, her standof-fishness a memory—picked up on sounds, carried by wind. His keen senses were more finely honed than those of the thief, trudging along trying to ignore the blistering heat, while the woman seemed lost in her mystical musings. He wheeled the albino beast around and saw a cloud of dust—distant, but not so distant as to pose no threat.
Still, the Akkadian only smiled; in fact, he grinned. "Thorak ..."
The horse thief turned, saw the gathering cloud of dust, and shook his head, with the weary resignation of the put-upon. "What a surprise . .. however could he have found us? ... Oh, yes, you left him that marker. ..."
"Yes, and the fool is walking right into danger."
Arpid looked up at Mathayus as if questioning his fellow traveler's sanity. "Oh, he is, is he?"
"Certainly."
"How many men does he have, would you say?"
The assassin frowned at the distant dust cloud. "Only a dozen, I'd say."
"Ah. Only a dozen of the finest warriors of Memnon's Red Guard. And there are three of us, including one woman and a sniveling coward...."
Mathayus shook his head. "The fool is riding right into a storm."
The sorceress was studying him with childlike curiosity. "A storm?"
"Pardon me for saying," the thief said, "but, formidable as you are, partner... you're no storm. You're just one man. A man among many, I grant you .. . but one man."
The Akkadian grinned down at his scruffy companion, then he lifted his eyes away from the dust cloud Thorak and his men were raising, toward the opposite horizon.
Sighing, shaking his head, the thief muttered, "This is, without a doubt, the worst fix you've gotten me into yet!"
And now Arpid looked up, his attention drawn to the direction in which the Akkadian was gazing, and grinning; what was that fool so happy about, anyway?
The thief's eyes took in that horizon, where he saw a dark brown shimmering fine, like a living thing, moving inexorably toward them.
"Perhaps I spoke to soon," Arpid said, agape. "I believe you have managed to outdo yourself, Akkadian—this is without a doubt the worst fix I've ever been in!"
"The day is young, thief," Mathayus said, reining Hanna.
"Gods save us," Cassandra said, eyes huge as she took in the ominous, gathering darkness, as if an impatient night had decided to rush in, hours early. "It's a sandstorm!"
"And right on time," the assassin said.
The sound was growing, a hollow, eerie roaring, like a hoarse scream.
"Ah, yes!" the thief said, throwing his hands in the air. "Just what we needed! Who wouldn't want this? I was just thinking, if only we could have a sandstorm along about now...."
Mathayus looked pointedly at his partner. "Fend for yourself, thief." He glanced back at the sorceress, sharply. "I must leave you here."
The sorceress seemed struck by that thought. "Leave me . . . ?"
The Akkadian hopped down off Hanna, and helped the woman down, and from a saddlebag withdrew a blanket, which he handed her. His eyes held hers, speaking volumes; but the only words he gave her were: "Cover up."
Then he swung back up into the saddle and spurred Hanna down off the dune.
As he rode, the Akkadian reached down into another saddlebag and plucked out a narrow strip of leather, greased, odd looking—a slitted cut across it, making an eyehole. Though the sand guard's prime function was protection, it also served as a bizarre battle mask, providing the assassin a fearsome visage. He tied it on with one hand as he spurred Hanna, even harder, her hooves pounding the sand, stirring tiny storms of their own.
On a flat stretch of desert, the red-turbaned company of twelve had paused, when their leader held up a hand—he'd heard something ... someone'... fast approaching. Thorak knew it couldn't be the Akkadian—a man alone would not dare attack thirteen; it must be a courier from one of the armies, sent by Memnon.
A red-turbaned warrior pointed. 'There!"
And coming down over a slope was one man— a leather-masked brute on a white camel... the Akkadian! Was he mad, charging them like a one-man army?
"He's attacking ... alone?" one warrior said to another.
"The sun has baked his brain," the other said, the tracker among them. "He's been seized by desert madness...."
And from their midst came Thorak's booming voice: "A thousand duranas to the man who brings me his head!"
Thorak's men were loyal, that was unquestioned; but the smell of money sparked these warriors to seek new heights of valor. Swords whipped from belts and the bare-chested, red-turbaned warriors spurred their horses and galloped toward the lunatic, soldiers bellowing war cries that would have chilled the blood of any normal man.
Mathayus, of course, was no normal man: he was the last of the Akkadians, on a blood mission, galloping at full speed. But he was not, as his foes surmised, a man alone—he rode at the head of an army of his own ... an army of sand.
As he came down over the rise, the sandstorm— the length of the horizon, a brown swirl of destruction—came up behind him, miles wide, as tall as Memnon's palace, a churning, burning wall of flying particles.
A thousand duranas or not, the riders panicked— the sight of the madman—featureless in the ghostly leather mask with the narrow eye slit, hunkered over, waving a scimitar, and racing toward them, with a sandstorm at his back—was a living nightmare, and they reined in their horses.
Then the sandstorm overtook the Akkadian, racing on ahead of him, and even as the brown swirl enveloped camel and rider, the t
wo did not break stride.
Staggered by the man's audacity, realizing at once the assassin's bold plan, Thorak watched in helpless shock as the charging warrior disappeared into the storm, while Thorak's fabled Red Guard broke their own charge, their horses rearing, their ranks scattering as the whirlwind hit full force, swallowing them, the world a harsh vortex of sand, biting the flesh, blinding the eyes, the wind knocking men from saddles, onto the desert floor, and when they tried to stand, knocked them down again.
But Thorak did not succumb—he remained astride his fine steed, a battle-ax in one hand, reins in the other—and he screamed, "Akkadian bastard," and rode into the storm, searching in naught visibility for the object of his rage.
The world was a terrifying, blinding blur of falling bodies, whipping sand, and frightened, rearing horses. The supreme fighting men who were Thorak's red-turbaned warriors had been reduced to whimpering fools, wheeling about in isolation though the screams of others were all around them, only a few still on horseback.
And Mathayus—prepared for this hellish wind, relishing it—popped in and out of the pockets of isolation, looming over his disoriented adversaries like the personification of grim death itself. His blade flashed, splashing the brown world with red. He leaped from his saddle and tackled two of the soldiers, taking them down, scimitar slashing, flashing, the dagger in his other hand doing the same.
Then he disappeared, only to emerge here, and there, blades in both hands flashing, three warriors going down at once under the onslaught of steel, bodies dropping away into a wall of swallowing sand that offered the fresh corpses instant burial. The screams of slaughter were otherworldly as Mathayus and the storm became one, delivering their brutal sentences of death with simultaneous dearth of mercy.
Thorak—for all his courage no less a victim of the stinging sand, all but blinded now—spun his horse in rage, his battle-ax in hand, his frustration unbearable as around him the bloodcurdling cries of his men melded with the shrieking wind. He spurred his steed and rode toward the screams.