by Aidan Harte
‘He overreacted,’ Zayid growled.
‘You were never a shepherd, were you? The Cat understood what others did not. The stolen camel was a test. A weak response would have led to more predation. From then on, his flock was inviolate.’
He paused, and then added softly, ‘And since then I have often wondered if a violent act that brings peace can truly be considered wicked, or if servility that invites war can be considered moral.’
Sofia asked, ‘If the Cat conquered the Empty Quarter so easily, what’s to stop him conquering the Sands? He’s not scared of the Sicarii.’
Bakhbukh snorted at the thought. ‘He did not come to conquer. The drought has simply pushed him north along with all the other wild things.’
‘Perhaps the offer is genuine,’ said Zayid, ‘and he’ll come alone to the parley.’
‘He would need no help to best a boy like Yūsuf.’
‘Yet Yūsuf will go,’ Sofia said.
‘One cannot keep a fool from his foolishness,’ said Omar, one of the older Sicarii.
‘So maybe it is for the best,’ said another, Abdo. ‘We’ve suffered under his foolishness for too long. Time enough he suffered.’
Sofia leaped to her feet. ‘Where are your heads? If Yūsuf’s taken, how long will these caves remain secure?’
‘He would never betray us,’ Bakhbukh thundered. ‘If you hadn’t embarrassed him, you mischievous foreigner, he wouldn’t be trying to prove his courage so foolishly.’
Sofia could see saw how much he cared for Yūsuf. ‘If you’re right, Bakhbukh, then the Sicarii name will be for ever disgraced for letting your nasi be captured.’
The anger left him and he said, ‘That’s true. I should stop him.’
‘You’ll do no such thing,’ she said sternly. ‘We need tasty bait to catch the Cat.’
CHAPTER 14
The kerak erupted from the hilltop, silhouetted against a cold-red evening sky interrupted only by an anaemic streak of cloud.
Usually the tribesmen avoided such forts, but the old nasi rode purposefully towards it, leading his own camel, and another besides, through an arid gorge carpeted with black slates that overlapped like scales. The prisoner sitting bound on the beast trailing behind his was already irritable, but when he saw their destination, he became positively agitated. ‘If you don’t release me, I swear—’
Mik la Nan flicked his stick against the camel’s flank. ‘You’re in no position to make threats or promises. Kindly shut up.’
‘The Sands will know you for a traitor if you give Yūsuf ben Uriah to the franj—’
‘Give you? Perish that thought,’ said the nasi. ‘I will sell you, and for a good deal of silver. And do not lecture me on treachery: it’s your foolish alliance with the Byzantine lord that has stirred up the blood of that witch in Akka.’
‘Prince Andronikos might have succeeded.’
‘Aye, and had he won Akka’s throne, his first act would have been to send for reinforcements from the Purple City and blot the Sicarii out for good. What became of him after he fled Akka?’
‘He sought to bring his bad luck to me.’
The sound of the camels’ movement echoed oddly in the gorge and Mik la Nan glanced behind, then up at the cliff-face. ‘You denied him sanctuary?’
‘He never reached our caves,’ said Yūsuf guardedly.
The nasi fixed his prisoner with his one good eye. ‘You cut his throat before he could – or more likely, had one of your men cut it. What a fool you are, Yūsuf ben Uriah. You sought to mollify the queen with a corpse. A cat is much happier – and you must take my word on this – with something it can torture a while. Now be still, before I use my stick on you!’
Yūsuf fell silent – perhaps cowed, perhaps considering Mik la Nan’s analysis, perhaps merely sulking.
Mik la Nan was on edge; he pressed the camels to a brisker pace, only to come to a sudden stop as a row of riders appeared as if from nowhere, blocking his way.
‘Are these not your men?’ Yūsuf whispered. He might have hoped to save his skin by betraying the Sicarii to the queen, but the thought of being captured by another nasi was truly worrying.
‘Have you no eyes?’ said Mik la Nan. ‘They’re yours.’
‘My men!’ cried Yūsuf. ‘Why – so they are! Alas for you,’ he said mockingly. ‘I wonder what the Gad would pay for the mangy pelt of an old cat?’
‘You’ll never know!’ the nasi said, thrusting a palm into Yūsuf’s chest; the touch sent Yūsuf flying out of the saddle as Mik la Nan stuck his stick into his belt, pulled out a massive curved sword and twirled it aloft to the rhythm of a shrill wailing call – ‘Illa – illa – illa!’ – that urged the camels into a gallop.
‘God’s beard,’ exclaimed Bakhbukh. ‘He means for us to kill him!’
‘I could take him down with a stone,’ said Sofia. She was dressed like a Sicarii, with her face and hair covered by a black scarf.
‘You wouldn’t get close. His Air Style is sublime. No, this is blade-work. Sicarii, ready! He’ll kill some of us, but numbers will prevail.’
There was a terrible lingering note as a dozen swords were drawn.
‘Stand down!’ she ordered. ‘Make a gap.’
‘Contessa, honour demands—’
‘Make a gap!’ she commanded, and the line duly parted for both camels. She dropped from her saddle and caught hold of the harness of Mik la Nan’s riderless camel as it passed her, then swung herself up into the saddle and yanked the reins free. The nasi looked around in surprise, then swung for her, but she ducked and pulled ahead as he swerved to avoid the great mound of quarried rocks, probably left over from the kerak’s construction, at the gorge’s exit. Sofia knew she could never outrace such an experienced rider, so she took that out of the equation.
The beasts collided with a terrific whumpp and tumbled to the sand, their legs turning in the air like the spines of a broken fan. Dust rendered them invisible, but their disappointed groans echoed around the gorge. When it cleared, their riders were standing facing each other.
‘Finally!’ he laughed, ‘a Sicarii with balls.’
Sofia said nothing but took her dagger from her belt, held it up – and threw it down.
He casually followed suit. ‘Don’t think you’ve just gained an advantage, boy.’
He padded around her, his feet tensing and untensing in the abstracted manner of a tomcat stalking a mouse.
She backed towards the rock pile as the Sicarii looked on uneasily. Mik la Nan was a renowned warrior. The Contessa was a franj – and worse, a woman. Brave as she was, she could not survive the contest. Yet she bore their flag, and so, against all hope, they hoped.
Mik la Nan lost himself in his warm-up ritual, waving his arms in circles and rolling his head till his neck cracked – then, without warning he slid forward, his feet dragging dust, his palms flat, wrists together.
But she was ready for it. She knocked the blow aside with a gentle swipe, gathering up all its thrust as she did, then releasing it against the old man’s chest, sending him sprawling backwards. But he kept his balance and grinned at the masked stranger as he pulled up his sleeves. ‘Water Style?’ he remarked. ‘You’re no Ebionite.’
Suddenly he was beside her, punching out, his arms straight, like pistons, again and again. He used his long sleeves to disguise his intentions, just as the Reverend Mother had, and Sofia surrendered ground, climbing backwards up the mound, diverting some blows and avoiding some, but many – too many – she had to block directly. The hammer-blows shook her. He was the most adept Ebionite she’d yet fought – a natural, like Doc – and she recognised that this was Air Style at its full protean potency. And it was lethal.
But Mik la Nan was accustomed to winning, and his offensive, powerful as it was, allowed no room for defence. She kept backing away until she had learned his rhythm, then she darted in and let him run into her knee. A deft undercut pushed through the tangle of his braided beard and she felt his teeth rattle.
He went with the blow, turning in the air and landing on his feet, still fit to fight, but much warier now. ‘Who are you?’
Sofia kept up her guard, praying that he would tire and knowing he wouldn’t. He was harnessing the wind so adeptly that his attack was costing him hardly any energy. In this arid land it was hard to counter wind with water. She would have to slow him down some other way.
By this time Yūsuf – bitter and chagrined that no one had thought to unbind him – had joined his Sicarii. Now he saw who was fighting for their honour.
Mik la Nan kept pace as she leaped backwards, gradually ascending the little ziggurat of rocks, but there was no reprieve for her here. She paused to knock a pair of small boulders at him and as he dodged one, his fist exploded the other. She reached the top and a moment later, he was beside her.
Before he got his balance, she attacked.
The nasi responded to the onslaught coolly, weaving and blocking, never giving ground, waiting for an opening, and when her volley ended, his sleeves whipped by her face like a scythe. She pulled her head back, but he caught her scarf.
She flicked her hair out of her eyes and glared at him.
The old nasi looked dumbly at her, then the scarf in his hand.
She wouldn’t get another chance. Her foot exploded into his midriff and the onlooking Sicarii gasped as Mik la Nan tumbled down the other side of the rock mound. Before he hit the ground, she was in mid-air, her knee squarely aimed for his head. He braced his feet and at the last moment jumped aside – but there had been no time to look before leaping and he rammed into the base of the rockpile with such force that it began to collapse.
Before he could be crushed, Sofia pulled him aside, and when the dust cleared, they lay panting on their backs, turned towards one another, staring.
‘The Etrurian princess,’ he croaked. ‘So you learned what Catrina’s protection was worth. I’m glad you took my advice to flee Akka.’
‘Yes, indeed. It was a miracle that I managed it without a husband.’
‘I didn’t know you could take care of yourself. Forgive me.’
Sofia imagined that was the best thanks she would get from the proud old man, but she was wrong.
‘I have news of your friend,’ he said softly.
‘Arik?’
‘The queen blamed him for your escape – not without cause, I suppose. He was beheaded. Be glad he died before she discovered you had turned her son against her too. She would have tortured him most cruelly.’
Sofia looked at him in silence.
He saw reproach in her eyes. ‘What should I have done? Protested, and shared his fate? I have my own children to look after and I will do whatever it takes to make sure the Napthtali are welcome in this land.’
‘Even be a slave for that witch.’
‘Even that,’ he said coldly. ‘I let you speak to me so because your grief is fresh. I too grieve to see the sons of Uriah brought low, but they both made poor choices.’
‘Arik had no choice!’
‘Perhaps not. Perhaps others are equally constrained. You might remember that before you call me a slave again.’ He looked back at the Sicarii. ‘Now what?’
She shook herself to attention. ‘We will not detain you. The alliance you offered Yūsuf—’
‘—a ruse to lure a fool.’
‘Obviously. What if it wasn’t? Together we could be a real threat to the Oltremarines,’ she said. ‘While Catrina sits on her throne there can be no peace.’
‘Peace is a flower, and few grow in the desert. I have no interest in childish dreams, or in helping you get revenge. Still, I am pleased the Sicarii have found a better leader.’
‘I’m not their leader,’ she said, handing him back his blade.
He took it with a bow. ‘If you say so. I shall await word of your exploits, Princess.’
‘I shall endeavour to make them newsworthy.’
As he rode away, she walked back slowly to the bemused Sicarii. They were preparing to leave – all but Yūsuf.
‘You let him get away?’ he squawked. ‘The ransom we might have had!’
‘Sicarii don’t prey on Ebionites any more.’
‘Who are you to say what the Sicarii do and do not?’
Sofia ignored him and addressed the rest. ‘Does the darkness terrify you? Where are you scurrying, Sicarii?’
‘Home,’ said Bakhbukh. ‘The hour is late.’
‘So it is. We must act accordingly. You saw how Mik la Nan trussed up your nasi like a calf. Even as you hung back and let a woman fight for your honour, you must have heard his laughter. We won’t be taken seriously until we show we are serious. I mean to take that kerak.’
‘Impossible,’ said Yūsuf.
‘I come from a city of towers, the smallest of which would dwarf that pile. I can scale those walls.’
‘A keen strategist you are,’ he mocked. ‘You’d risk these men to capture a pile of rocks on a hill. And if you succeed, what would it profit us?’
‘Its cistern is deep,’ Bakhbukh remarked. ‘There’s that.’
‘It’s an Akkan boot on Ebionite necks,’ Sofia said hotly.
Bakhbukh sighed deeply. ‘Contessa, Yūsuf is right. You’re asking us to be party to self-slaughter. Even if you climb like a lizard, you will surely be noticed.’
‘Then your slings must pick them off faster.’
‘And when you reach the top, how will you hold off an entire Lazar battalion?’
‘I need only take out the night watch and let down a rope. Enough talk. Come if you’re coming.’ With that, she turned her back and stalked off.
The Sicarii looked at one another doubtfully. ‘At last,’ said Yūsuf, glowing with vindication, ‘you can all see the manner of lunatic she is.’
*
The Guiscard flag hung limply from the battlements, weakly illuminated by a brazier, around which the night watch were gathered. Sofia prayed they were sharing a bottle too.
The tower seemed to grow organically from the rocks, but this was an illusion created by the glacis, a man-made slope created to ensure no besieging force could make use of any blind spots. For a Rasenneisi, it provided a handy platform to sprint up. It was more recent than the tower itself, and its clean masonry afforded little purchase, but she reached the curving walls before gravity reasserted itself.
She’d persuaded the Sicarii with her confidence, but the truth was she had not climbed in an age. Still, there is nothing as inspiring as mortal danger, and she was soon close enough to the parapet to hear the soldiers’ lethargic muttering. They had little reason to be on high alert; siege-craft held little appeal for the tribes, whose idea of war was a sandstorm: sudden, unstoppable, and soon over.
This was no time to begin doubting herself, but still she wondered, if she was spotted now, could the Sicarii slings protect her? It was dark, and they might as easily strike armour.
Someone approached the edge, humming a ditty, and she swung herself underneath a section of battlement projecting further than the rest and held her breath. The soldier vomited casually over the side, then returned to the fire and teasing voices. Sofia found herself looking up into the top storey of the tower through a machicolation on the underside of the battlement. She hauled herself up for a better look, then dropped back down. There were two knights absorbed in dice; the older one’s hoarse laughter suggested that he was winning. The machicolation was narrow, designed for dropping stones or burning oil on attackers, but Sofia was slender enough to squeeze through.
She started to count to three – but on two, one of the bricks she was hanging from came loose—
Sofia gripped her surviving handhold fiercely and felt around with her toes until she found a putlog hole. With relief she secured herself, then looked up, searching for her next handhold – and found a Lazar helmet staring down at her through the hole in the battlement. She threw the brick at it, then leaped up and wrapped both arms around his neck before he could recover, before scrabblin
g over his body and pulling him down into the hole even as she rose.
The other Lazar knight was still hunkered over his dice, looking on incredulously, shocked into stillness. Suddenly the one she had climbed over gripped her foot in his desperate efforts not to fall. Sofia turned and snatched the axe from the motionless Lazar’s belt and raised it as though she were going to sever the fingers grasping her ankle. The man released his grip – and screamed all the way down to the ground. Before the rock silenced him, Sofia had turned and hurled the axe at the second knight. She didn’t have time to aim; she prayed he hadn’t moved yet.
He hadn’t.
She pulled the heavy table on which they’d been dicing over the trapdoor to stop anyone coming up from below before pulling the axe out of the older Lazar’s skull. Then, without daring to pause lest her nerve fail, she climbed the ladder to the battlements.
As she flung open the upper trapdoor, an axe struck it. She leaped back, hurled her own axe and hit nothing, but managed to survey her opponents: there were four of them, and they were backing away, obviously assuming she had company. A moment passed before they realised she was alone, but those seconds were all Sofia needed. Before they could rush her, she leaped for the brazier and knocked it into them. Sparks and cinders went everywhere. One of the knights caught the full impact and fell, already burning, over the side. While the one in the middle danced about, trying to bat out his flaming cloak, the other two hurled their light axes at Sofia. She avoided the first by ducking, and the second passed her by and slammed into the base of the flagpole.
She leaped up, in between the crenellations, and reached for the flagpole. Bracing the base of it with her foot, she pulled it sharply towards her – and it snapped, the sudden release making her lose balance and fall. She rolled over and got to her feet, already testing the weapon in her hand. The spilled fire divided the circle between them. Just as the middle knight succeeded in putting out his burning cloak, a stone struck the exposed flesh at the back of his neck and he dropped with a dismal groan. The other two leaped back in alarm.