I could not believe our luck. 4am is a good time to sneak out of camp, I guess. We got to the stables and Christianne, Caroline, Khepri, and Tupu found four brown steeds. I made a beeline for Shêtân, Kym right on my heels.
“Get the saddlebags,” I whispered to her. She nodded and grabbed them off the wall hook. I busied myself settling Shêtân’s saddle on and a couple extra blankets so Kym could ride behind me on the massive stallion’s back.
“Wait! Charlotte, look!” Kym whispered desperately. I whirled around, and she was leading a small horse out, he looked about half the size of Shêtân.
“Sweetie, he’ll be too slow,” I began.
Kym looked pleadingly into my eyes.
“Okay, but you ride with me, then he can run with us and keep up.”
She nodded happily.
We were soon saddled and leading the horses away from the stable. I thought about our next steps.
The only way to get past the guards is to …
Caroline motioned to me. I looked.
I could not believe it. The two guards were snoring next to each other, and several bottles lay next to them in the sand. We passed several more pairs of guards on our way out of the compound, and in each case, they were falling-down drunk or snoring in the sand.
Then I remembered: The raiding party had recently returned, victorious and flush with bounty. The whole camp must have been feasting and dancing and celebrating while everyone in the harem tent had been worrying about Amondine, then mourning her passing. We’d been oblivious of them as much as they’d been oblivious of us.
So, just like that, we slipped past the edges of the sheikh’s compound and quietly disappeared into the night like six ghosts on horseback.
Chapter Nineteen
Another Fire
We traveled straight north from the sheikh’s compound, the first hour at a gallop that slowed to a lope. I wanted to put as many miles between us and the compound as possible. The sun had begun to pink the horizon before we slowed to a trot, and our horses seemed eager to run still.
I was patting Shêtân’s neck and murmuring to him when Khepri rode up beside me and handed me a brass seaman’s sight. I took the heavy scope, pulled it open to its full length, and held it up to my eyes. Scanning the horizon in the direction from which we’d come, I could see no party in pursuit. We had been very lucky to escape unnoticed. Strangely lucky, I thought.
Shrugging, I led us on. We had to make progress to the coast.
We traveled at a trot for another few hours, into midmorning.
“Charlotte,” Kym asked from behind me, “can we stop for a minute? I want to ride my pony.”
“I guess we can,” I said, drawing Shêtân to a halt and sliding to the ground. I took a few steps and stretched, then drank deeply from one of the waterskins we’d brought.
I scanned the horizon. “Tupu,” I called out. I looked about. She was about twenty yards away, bent and examining a rock formation that sprang from the sand. I walked over.
“What do you see?” I asked, bending over with her. Tupu shook her head, pointing to a dark mark on the rock, obviously manmade.
“This is the sign of the Abü caliphate. The western sheikh’s people made this mark,” she said. I looked closer.
“What does it mean?” I asked.
“It means,” she said, standing again and brushing her hand off against her leg, “That we have come far enough northeast to leave the Abdü caliphate, the sheikh’s compound and territory we just escaped from, and we’ve now entered the Abü caliphate, the neighboring territory where the Abü caliph presides.”
Khepri came to us just then and agreed. “Yes, that is the neighboring sheikh’s mark.” She scanned the southern edge of the horizon. “I’d say we’re not being followed, but one can never be sure.
I looked at her, my eyebrow raised. “Do you think they’ve even found Malík’s body yet?”
Khepri just looked at me, her expression inscrutable. A shiver ran down my back. I looked toward the others, maybe fifty feet away, then turned to Tupu. “Let’s get back to the others.”
Tupu, Khepri and I trudged back across the sand. As we came up to the rest of our troupe, I could see dust on the horizon.
“Hurry! We must run!” Khepri mounted her horse and whirled it around.
Pursued!
I grabbed Kym’s pony’s lead and was on Shêtân in a second, following Khepri’s horse. Caroline, Christianne, and Tupu were already in hot pursuit of the healer.
My mind raced. How did they know where to find us? Had they found Malík’s body? Did they follow our tracks? I’d thought the wind strong enough to have erased our footprints in the shifting sands, but maybe I was wrong?
I glanced behind us. They were gaining.
What I would have given to have had a troupe of my royal guards with us. Two hundred of our strongest men, equipped with the finest folded oriental steal in existence; they would have made short work of these caliphate soldiers.
Khepri was racing straight north, toward the markets, but they were two days’ ride away. How are we going to escape these men? I thought, feeling my heartbeat race.
We weren’t, I realized.
Shêtân could have easily outrun them, the massive horse’s Arabian blood mix had made for mad skills in running across sand, and he was huge and muscular and fast, but …
But I cannot leave Kym on her pony.
The pony stumbled and nearly went down, and the little girl shrieked in panic as she almost slid off its back.
I slowed my steed a bit.
Swinging Shêtân around, I bent and scooped up Kym, and we were on our way again, dragging the pony behind. It could run much faster without a rider, but we were still not able to travel fast enough to escape the caliphate men after us.
Within several hundred yards, the riders caught up to us. Caroline and Tupu had halted. I could see Khepri and Christianne ride on, then realize we were caught. They stopped in the distance, unwilling to leave us completely.
There were a good twenty or so men, all outfitted and equipped for a battle, or strong defense, depending on your point of view, I thought. They did not appear to be moving aggressively, although the sight of them alone was enough to intimidate.
The head rider drew his horse up to mine, and he put his hand out to me. A rapid string of words in an unfamiliar Arabic dialect shot out of his mouth. I glanced at the welcoming gesture of his outstretched hand. I wish I knew what he was saying.
Tupu came forward and answered the man in the same language, gesturing toward me.
The man nodded and turned to me again, this time speaking in the northwestern dialect I had learned from my tutors.
“You are the princess Charlotte, are you not? Recently the guest of the sheikh of caliphate Abdü?”
I did a double take. Politeness? Respect?
I nodded slowly, unsure how to take this man’s attitude. I decided I would receive him as the Swerighe princess I was. Despite my tattered clothing and my dust-kissed, ruddy cheeks, I lifted my chin higher and surveyed him and his men.
“Yes, I am the Princess Charlotte, of Swerighe in the Northlands. I was recently, with my parents the Queen and Prince, the guest of Prince Phillippe, who’s caliphate lies to the northwest of here, I believe,” I said regally, gesturing across my left shoulder in what I hoped was the direction of Prince Phillippe’s lands.
The man bowed, then spoke. “I am Kadeem, late of emissary to sheikh of caliphate Abü, and I welcome you to our land. The sheikh would very much like to entertain you and your party as their honored guests.” He bowed again, and his head stayed down, waiting for my answer.
I fell speechless.
Luckily, Khepri and Christianne had, upon seeing that the riders meant no apparent harm, returned.
“Your sheikh’s offer is generous, Kadeem, and we are honoured. I am Khepri, niece of the sheikh of caliphate Abdü, and I have joined the Princess Charlotte’s party as guard and guest healer w
hile she is in our lands. Tell me, does the sheikh give us the choice to either return with you to his compound or to continue on our way?”
Kadeem raised his head and eyed Khepri with bemusement. “Of course the princess has the choice,” he said, bowing again.
I glanced at Khepri and gave a miniscule turn of my head. No.
Khepri opened her mouth to speak, then I had a thought, and raised my gloved hand slightly, and she stopped.
“Tell your sheikh thank you, but we cannot spare the time to meet with him, as we are on an important journey that cannot be altered,” I said.
Kadeem nodded and bowed again. “Then we will be on our way, Princess.”
The riders retreated.
The band of men kept moving away until they were out of sight.
I exhaled a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
“ ‘Guest’?” I said, turning to Khepri.
“Well, very likely they knew you’d been held against your will, Charlotte,” said Khepri. “It’s just polite to refer to another sheikh’s visitors who are actually somewhere in between prisoner and visitor, as ‘guest’.”
I rolled my eyes.
“That doesn’t make me feel any better about his sheikh inviting us to be their ‘honoured guests’.” I said.
“Using the phrase ‘honoured guest’, they would have been obligated to actually treat us as honoured guests, although I do not blame you for being suspicious,” Khepri replied. “In the end, you can never be sure, although I have heard the sheikh of Abü has deep honour.”
Hmmm.
“Well, I did not want to go with them, and risk capture again,” I said.
“Agreed,” said Caroline and Christianne, almost simultaneously.
We decided to ride on for the rest of the day and made another dozen miles before the sunset.
“Khepri, did you bring extra water?” I asked as we rode.
“Three skins only,” she answered.
Oh, dear.
“But there is a well about thirty miles ahead of us, so we should be all right,” she said.
I relaxed.
Kym’s pony was getting more accustomed to carrying a rider and trotting in the sand, and he was keeping up better every hour we rode. I knew if we had to flee again, I’d have to ride with her behind me on Shêtân, but for now, the pony would do.
That night, we made camp in a small valley.
We found a small number of camel pats and were able to make a small fire to keep the chill of the night at bay for a short while, and we huddled and ate our evening meal close together, shoulder to shoulder, keen on keeping safe.
The horses stayed very close to us as well, perhaps feeling small in the huge desert.
The night sky was inky black, and a million stars winked at us, as if we were in a fishbowl and they were looking in at us.
I thought I saw a shooting star arc down across the black expanse, and it made me shiver and pull the blanket on my shoulders tighter as I ate.
“Our small fire should be safe,” said Khepri. “We are out of Abdü’s boundaries, so hopefully …” Her voice trailed off.
“I know,” I made an indelicate sound. “We were out of Abdü when they caught us straight out of Aoudaghost.”
“No, it’s not that.” Khepri pointed. We all turned and looked.
Just over the eastern rise, there was a slight glow in the pitch darkness of the night.
“What’s that?” Christianne asked.
“Another fire,” Khepri answered.
Chapter Twenty
A Bewitched Night
“Well, I’m going to go see what that is,” I said, peering at the dim but noticeable glow on the horizon.
“I’m coming, too,” Christianne said with resolve. I had noticed after we left the Abdü compound that she’d had a perpetually determined look on her face. No one would dare to cross her.
A few minutes later found Tupu, Christianne, and I crawling up the sand to peek over the top of the dune. We had our scabbards on our belts, and I gripped the brass sight as I moved.
As we reached the apex of the small hill, we saw the light was actually coming from behind a second sand dune about 50 yards up ahead.
“I don’t like getting this far away from camp,” I mumbled before shrugging and continuing my crawl. Once we’d dipped into the valley between the two knolls, we stood and ran forward, then dropped again into a crawl and proceeded to inch up the sand again. I was the first to peek over the apex of the second hill and see what the glowing light was.
It was Kadeem. He’d made camp with his men, and they were all gathered around a small fire, quiet as mice. I watched them for a few minutes as the others crept up next to me. Some of the men were eating some kind of food, some were smoking from small pipes, and still others had bedded down for the night.
“Oh, brother,” Tupu whispered under her breath.
We retreated back to our camp.
“Persistent, aren’t they?” Khepri said once we’d returned.
“I didn’t see a guard on duty,” said Tupu. “If they’re following us, should they be watching us? To see when we break camp?”
“Yeah, how do they know when to follow us?” I asked.
Khepri looked worried. “There are ways to track objects.” She thought for a moment. “Did he leave anything with us when he met with us earlier?”
“Not that I know of,” I squinted my eyes in suspicion.
Khepri looked troubled. “I wonder if he hid a warestone somewhere.”
“A what?” I asked.
“A warestone,” Khepri said. “A small stone, about the size of a pebble, but polished white. A very old form of magic. When it is left somewhere, the user will know where it is and can follow it. It acts as a beacon of awareness.” She looked all around and ruffled through her clothing. “If he is using one, it might have been hidden somewhere on us, on our clothes, or in a bag we carry.” She looked distracted.
I thought for a minute. “He shook hands with me,” I said slowly, thinking.
Khepri looked at me with raised eyebrows.
“Help me,” I started removing every stitch of clothing, one by one, shaking them out. Tupu and Khepri helped search.
We finally found it in my boot.
“Well, well, well,” Tupu said, holding up a tiny stone the size of her pinky fingernail. It gleamed white in the moonlight.
“Let me fling it far away, Charlotte,” Kym said.
“Or we could plant it on a lizard or a rabbit and let them follow them into the desert,” Tupu chuckled at the thought.
“Give it to me, I will keep it for now.” I stared at the little stone. “He must have dropped it there when we shook hands.” I was creeped out.
We all looked grim at the possibility of being followed by a band of twenty men. I did not like this, not one bit at all. My eyes narrowed and dark thoughts stewed in my brain as I contemplated what could have happened. And what might still happen. Turning to the others, I finally said, “We must all be ready for whatever comes. Keep your scimitars sharpened, keep your eyes and ears open.”
“I don’t like this at all, Charlotte,” Kym said. “Maybe I should watch them?”
I realized she meant watching them in her Chimera form, and I looked down at her thoughtfully.
No, this is not her oasis, this is the outside world. “Kym, I don’t want you alone out in the desert night, it’s not safe.” I cannot forget, she’s only a child. A deadly child, but a child nonetheless.
“Not safe? But …” she protested.
“Safe or not safe, I don’t think we should split up,” said Caroline. “And we need to sleep or we’ll be exhausted tomorrow.”
In the end, we decided to sleep a few hours and then do some pre-dawn traveling, hopefully before Kadeem’s party awoke.
I was roused by a whispering voice. It was Caroline.
“Miss, Miss wake up,” Caroline touched my blanket covered shoulder.
“Mmmmmfrl,
” I said.
“Miss, Kym is missing.”
Zzzzzzzz.
“CHARLOTTE!”
“Okay, okay, I’m here, what?” My brain felt so foggy I could barely think. Why …
Oh no …
“We’ve been bespelled. Caroline, pack up, we’ve got to get out of here.”
“What about Kym?”
“We’ll get her on our way out.”
“We are in grave danger. Everyone hurry!”
I opened my eyes.
“What’s going on? I asked, blinking. Why was I so groggy?
Khepri crouched over me. “Charlotte, get up. Now.”
I shook my head, trying to clear it from the fog that threatened to pull me back into sleep. My eyes closed again as if on their own.
“It’s no use, she got the worst of it. Pick her up and bring her with us. Hurry.”
I felt like I’d been drugged. Drugged?
I was suddenly, instantly awake. I opened my eyes again and smelled a whiff of pungent smoke. Tupu was there, wafting a smoking bundle under my face. I grabbed her wrist and brought it to my nose and inhaled deeply.
There.
“What the hell happened?” I was on my feet in a second, angry and confused.
“Someone bespelled our campsite. Probably using nimbus grass. It’s a powerful soporific,” Tupu said.
Everyone was rushing about, packing our camp.
“Here, Charlotte, put on your shoes,” Caroline handed them to me.
I looked around, my eyes searching for Kym. “Where’s …” Kym came running into camp.
She stopped in front of us, trying to catch her breath.
“I heard something and woke up, and everyone was asleep and wouldn’t rouse, so I went after the intruder,” she said.
“You went after the intruder? Do you know how dangerous that is?” I asked, grabbing my bedroll.
“Charlotte,” Khepri came over to us, “she may look like a small child, but she’s also a ferocious beast. She can defend herself.”
The Pirates of Moonlit Bay Page 13