by Troy Denning
The scouts stopped in the shadow of the wishbone spire, awaiting the sheikh’s command. Gathered in front of the canyon was the unsuspecting army of the Zhentarim. Their camels were unladen, and the men were gathered in small clusters, laughing and joking without regard to danger. From the dark gap leading into the chasm came a sporadic stream of shouting, amarat sirens, and guttural yens—the only sign that there was a battle nearby.
As Sa’ar paused to study the scene ahead, Lander turned to Ruha, an unspoken question in his eye.
“What do you think I can do?” she hissed.
The Harper shrugged. “It would be nice if the enemy couldn’t tell how many of us there are,” he answered. Without waiting for a response, he moved forward to take his place next to the sheikh.
Realizing that she might be able to accomplish what the Harper wanted, Ruha stopped behind the sheikh and forced her camel to kneel. She paused to make sure that everyone’s attention was fixed on the Zhentarim camp. When she felt satisfied that she was last thing on anyone’s mind, the widow picked up a handful of dust.
The sheikh raised his scimitar and signaled his warriors to charge.
Ruha whispered her wind incantation, then blew the dust from her hand. As the warriors galloped toward the unsuspecting Zhentarim, a gale rose at their backs, catching the dust raised by their camels and lifting it high into sky. Within moments, the cloud stretched across the entire valley and was billowing a hundred feet into the air.
“What’s happening?” Sa’ar cried.
“Who can say?” Lander replied. Over his shoulder, he cast an approving glance at Ruha, then turned back to the sheikh. “But from the Zhentarim camp, it must look like you’ve sent ten thousand warriors into battle!”
Eleven
As the dust cloud descended on the Zhentarim, Lander’s sword hand went to his weapon’s hilt and fitfully rested there. He was still sitting at Sa’ar’s side, below the wishbone-shaped minaret, and he found himself wishing he were riding into battle instead.
Two hundred yards ahead, the wall of dust was sweeping toward the canyon that led down to the Well of the Chasm. Inside that dark curtain were the sheikh’s three hundred charging warriors. Lander hoped their surprise assault, combined with the dust cloud Ruha had arranged, would convince the Zhentarim that they were under attack by a much larger force. With a little luck, the Black Robes would panic and flee their camp, leaving a clear route into and—more importantly—out of the Well of the Chasm.
After that, rescuing Sa’ar’s allies would be a simple matter of defeating the asabis, then collecting the other tribe and fleeing before the enemy regrouped and counterattacked. Even if the warriors drove away the Zhentarim camped outside the canyon, Lander had no idea how the Mahwa would accomplish the second half of the plan, but he saw little sense in worrying about it until the first part was achieved.
When muffled screams and roars began rolling out of the dust cloud, Lander knew the Mahwa had reached the enemy’s camp. A warrior’s blade sang out as it clanged against a defender’s saber, then there was another chime, and another. It was not a sound the Harper was happy to hear. Ringing steel meant the Zhentarim were fighting, and the Mahwa could not win a battle outnumbered as badly as they were.
Wondering if there was anything else that Ruha could do, Lander glanced over his shoulder. She stood next to her kneeling camel, her eyes still fixed on the dust cloud, her robes flapping in the wind. The Harper realized she was still concentrating on her first spell and could do nothing else unless he wanted her to let the dust curtain die away.
When Lander turned back around, he saw Sa’ar scowl and reach into a djebira. When the sheikh pulled his hand from the saddlebag, it contained a huge amarat. “In case I need to call a retreat,” Sa’ar explained, resting the horn in his lap.
The sheikh had no need to sound his amarat During the next minute, another dozen blades clanged, then, save for the wail of the wind, the dust cloud fell ominously silent. A moment later, there were a few shouts and the murmur of Bedine voices, both muffled by Ruha’s wind magic, but the voices quickly fell silent again. The sheikh scowled, concerned.
“Is this Zhentarim magic?” he asked Lander.
The Harper shook his head. “Their sorcerers prefer more spectacular displays.”
A single warrior came galloping out of the dust cloud. Sa’ar leaned forward in his saddle, looking for more men behind the rider. When the Mahwai reached the pair, Lander saw that his aba was spattered with dark stains, and the Harper could smell the coppery odor of blood. The warrior’s camel was so charged that the young man could barely keep his mount under control.
As the rider reined his camel to a halt, the sheikh asked, “What happened?”
The warrior smiled. “With Kozah’s wind, we drove the Zhentarim before us like gazelles before the lion,” he said. “They have fled into the desert.”
Sa’ar shouted for joy. “I shall ride the Zhentarim into the sands of death.”
After sending the warrior galloping back with orders to assemble the elders, Sa’ar slowly started forward. Lander followed, but Ruha remained standing next to her camel.
The sheikh twisted about in his saddle and called, “You wanted to see the battle. Aren’t you coming?”
When Ruha showed no sign of responding, Lander quickly covered for her. “There may still be Zhentarim hiding in the dust storm. It would be safer for her to wait here.”
Sa’ar shrugged, then turned back toward the invaders’ camp. As Lander and the sheikh approached it, Ruha thoughtfully allowed the dust cloud to drift to the other side of the battlefield, and the gale quieted to a gentle wind.
It was wrong to think of the site as a battlefield. Several hundred campfires, flaring and flickering in the breeze, were strewn over two acres of barren, dusty ground. Near each fire lay two or three corpses wrapped in black robes. Sa’ar’s warriors were bustling from fire to fire, slitting the throats of those who moved or groaned.
The casualness with which the Bedine dispatched the wounded shocked Lander, who was not accustomed to murdering captives in cold blood. Nevertheless, the Harper realized that taking prisoners was a practical impossibility for the Bedine, and he certainly had no wish to let the evil men go free. Instead, he motioned in the direction of a Zhentarim who was about to be dispatched, then said, “Perhaps you should save one for interrogation. It would also be wise to have someone count the enemy dead.”
Sa’ar nodded. “I see you are a practical man. That is good.”
The sheikh called a warrior over, then relayed Lander’s request. The man returned a few moments later, dragging along a Zhentarim with a bloody leg. The warrior dumped the prisoner at a nearby campfire without ceremony, then trudged off to tally the dead.
Sa’ar went to meet with his elder warriors, and Lander dismounted to interrogate the prisoner. The Zhentarim was chubby and slovenly, with a thick double chin and a face that had not been shaved in a week. His eyes were glazed with terror, and the Harper had little trouble seeing that the prisoner hoped to make a bargain that would save his life.
“You look more like a merchant than a mercenary,” Lander began, speaking in Common and taking a seat next to the corpulent man.
“A bit of both,” the wounded man grunted. “Yhekal promised me a caravan concession.”
“And you believed him?” Lander asked incredulously.
The prisoner shrugged. “Somebody will have to run the caravans. I thought it might as well be me.”
A Bedine warrior stopped near their campfire to cut the throats of two unconscious Zhentarim. The prisoner watched the death of his comrades, and a cold sweat broke out on his forehead. He looked to Lander with an unspoken question.
“I’m not going to lie to you,” the Harper replied. “The Bedine don’t take prisoners. If they don’t kill you tonight, you’ll die a worse death tomorrow. Perhaps if you help us …”
The fat man’s eyes grew angry. “Why should I tell you anything?”
“Asabis?” the prisoner asked, grimacing at a wave of pain from his injured leg.
Lander pointed toward the canyon mouth. “The reptile mercenaries clearing the canyon.”
The merchant nodded. “They call themselves ‘laertis.’ ”
“Gruesome creatures,” Lander commented. “I thought they only lived in the middle of the desert.”
The Zhentarim moaned, then held his leg with his hands. “The laertis have tunnels everywhere. We picked those up a hundred miles outside Addas Babar. They crawled out of a deep well.”
Lander nodded, noting the similarity between the prisoner’s report and what Sa’ar had told him.
The prisoner licked his lips. “Do you have any water?”
“Of course,” Lander answered. He went to his camel and returned with a waterskin, then offered it to the portly man. “I don’t blame you for not wanting to die thirsty.”
The prisoner nodded his thanks, then opened the waterskin and began pouring the contents down his throat. The fat man drank so greedily that water spilled out of his mouth and ran down his grimy cheeks in waves.
Lander grimaced at the thought of wasting so much precious liquid on a dead man, then felt ashamed for being so hard-hearted.
When the man lowered the waterskin from his lips, he wiped his mouth with his sleeve and said, “I shall die a happy man. What do you want to know?”
Twenty minutes later, the Harper knew everything that the prisoner did about Yhekal’s plan. Lander had correctly guessed the Zhentarim’s intent to enslave the Bedine and even the size of their army. He also confirmed that the invaders were traveling at night because of their mercenaries.
The Harper learned two new things, as well. First, the asabis had to spend the day burrowed underground, either a few feet beneath the sand, in a cave, or sometimes huddled in a rock crevice. Second, when the Mahwa attacked, Yhekal had been in the camp and presumably fled with the rest of the Zhentarim. Unfortunately, he had sent a wizard, along with fifty human officers, into the canyon to lead the reptiles in the attack on the Raz’hadi.
After the prisoner had drunk the last of Lander’s water, his wounded leg sent a violent shudder of pain through his body and he cried out. The fat man waited for the wave to pass, then turned to Lander. “I’ve told you all I know of the Zhentarim,” he said, handing the empty skin back to the Harper. “If you are going to kill me, do it now. This leg is beginning to throb.”
Lander accepted the skin, saying, “I suppose that’s fair.”
The Harper took the waterskin back to his mount and hung it on the saddle, then drew his dagger and crept up behind the prisoner. Lander tried to move as quietly as possible, but he saw the Zhentarim flinch. The doomed man had sensed his presence. Nevertheless, the fat man continued to stare into the desert night.
Lander killed the Zhentarim merchant as quickly and painlessly as he could, plunging the straight blade of his dagger into the man’s heart from behind. Afterward he kneeled beside the body until the desert night began to chill him.
At last, the Harper cleaned his dagger on the dead prisoner’s robe, scoured the blood off his aba with a handful of sandy earth, then took his jellaba off his camel and put it on. When he felt ready to join Sa’ar, Lander urged his camel to its feet and led it to the campfire where the sheikh and his elder warriors had gathered.
As the Harper approached, Sa’ar turned with a broad smile. Lander saw that Kadumi stood in the middle of the sheikh’s entourage.
“Kadumi killed three men!” the sheikh announced.
“Good for him,” Lander replied, forcing a smile. “Let us hope he lives to kill many more.”
“My warriors counted just over five hundred dead,” Sa’ar reported proudly. “We lost only fifteen.”
“That means nearly a thousand Zhentarim escaped,” Lander said, turning his thoughts to the task at hand. “We’ll have to be careful that they don’t rally and return unexpectedly.”
Sa’ar frowned. “Do all your people look only at the bad side, Lander?”
“Five hundred dead is five hundred dead,” he said without emotion. “We’ll have to kill many more before we chase the Zhentarim from the desert. Now, how are we going to get your allies out of the canyon? There are fifteen hundred asabis and a powerful wizard in that canyon.” He pointed at a narrow crack leading to the Well of the Chasm.
Sa’ar turned his attention to the canyon. “If we could wait until morning, our task would be simple.”
“That, we cannot do,” said a gray-haired warrior with rotten teeth. “I sent my sons to scout along the rim of the canyon. From what they report, our allies are meeting the asabis in the canyon as we expected. My sons think the Raz’hadi will not last more than a few hours.”
“And in the morning light, the surviving Zhentarim will see our true number,” added another warrior. “If they returned, we would not survive long.”
Everyone nodded and muttered their agreement.
“Then we must attack tonight,” Sa’ar responded. “Gather your sons.”
“Wait,” Lander interrupted. “The canyon is too narrow for everyone to fight in at once, is it not?”
The old man with rotten teeth nodded. “That is so, berrani.”
“Then we lose nothing by leaving half of our warriors behind to defend our rear in case the Zhentarim return,” the Harper said. “It will do the Raz’hadi no good if we allow ourselves to be trapped in the canyon with them.”
The old man nodded. “This is a good plan.”
“Perhaps we can send some of them up to the canyon rim to fire arrows down at the asabis,” suggested another warrior.
Sa’ar paused and considered this plan, but it was Lander who said, “The canyon is very deep, and it will be very dark. How will your warriors tell their friends from the Zhentarim?”
“Amarats,” responded Kadumi, smiling. “When we blow our horns, the Raz’hadi will certainly respond. The warriors on the rim can fire between the horns.”
“And my horn will be the signal to stop,” Sa’ar said, grinning at the boy. “It is a good thing you are so young, my friend. When you are old enough, my warriors will want to make you sheikh.”
There was no mockery to the laughter that followed.
Sa’ar issued the necessary orders to his elder warriors, and they scattered to make their preparations. Realizing that Ruha’s magic might prove as useful in the battle to come as it already had tonight, Lander mounted his camel and returned to where he had left her. The widow was still staring at the dust cloud.
“How long can you keep that dust cloud going?” he asked. When Ruha did not respond, the Harper waved his hand at her face. “The battle’s over. You can let it down.”
Ruha looked away from the dark curtain, and the breeze died immediately. “To answer your question, the dust wall lasts as long as I can concentrate on it,” she said, rubbing her temples. “Which would not have been much longer.”
“You’re not feeling weak, are you?” Lander asked.
The widow shook her head. “My head aches, that’s all.”
“Thanks to Mielikki,” the Harper sighed. “Mount up and come with me.”
Ruha obeyed, asking, “Where are we going?”
“Into the canyon,” Lander replied. “We may have need of more magic.”
The widow was so shocked that she nearly fell from her camel’s back as it returned to its feet. “What if somebody sees me?”
“We’ll try to avoid that,” the Harper replied, urging his camel back to the camp. “But there’s too much at stake to let that worry us.”
“That’s easy for you to say. I’m the one they’ll banish!”
Lander stopped his camel and twisted in his saddle to
face the widow. “There are fifteen hundred asabis in that canyon. A wizard, as well. Sa’ar is about to attack with a tenth that number and not even the faintest idea of what magic can do to him. Whether they know it or not, you’re probably all that stands between the Mahwa and annihilation. Ruha, there is only one thing you can do.”
Without waiting to see if the widow would follow, Lander started riding. When he reached the fire, he found a hundred and fifty of the Mahwa’s best warriors mounted and awaiting their sheikh.
As Lander and Ruha approached, Sa’ar turned to them. “This time, I have no need of your advice, berrani. I know asabis better than you.”
“True,” Lander said. “There is also a wizard or two in the canyon, and I know magic better than you.”
“I cannot argue,” the sheikh replied. He looked beyond Lander. “Will you take Ruha into the canyon?”
The Harper looked over his shoulder and saw the widow stopping her camel just behind him. She spoke before Lander could respond to Sa’ar’s question. “My thoughts have not changed, Sheikh. I will be safest in Lander’s company.”
“No!” Kadumi cried. He was mounted on one of his white camels and sat in the company of the sheikh’s warriors. “It is too dangerous!”
Ruha turned her gaze on the youth. “This will not be the first time my jambiya has tasted the invaders’ blood,” she said, her voice stern and steady. “Or have you forgotten who was the rescuer when the Zhentarim ambushed us outside of Rahalat?”
The boy quickly looked away. Lander could not tell whether he was embarrassed at recalling the mistake that had almost gotten him killed or upset at the memory of Ruha’s magic. In either case, the widow’s tactic worked well. Without turning his gaze back to Ruha’s face, Kadumi nodded to Sa’ar. “If it pleases you, Sheikh, allow my brother’s wife to ride with the berrani. As she claims, she will not cause us any trouble.”