Shadow Hand

by Sacchi Green

  Mac’s nod of approval was good to have, but nothing compared to the comfort of knowing that Cleo, who knew her best, had affirmed that Ash was no freak, but “only human.”

  They took to the truck again for the night, instead of sharing a tent with the others, and no one objected. If anyone watched in the night, there was no rocking of the truck to see, but inside, the long, slow, sensual couplings of bodies and minds alternated with periods of deep sleep, both almost too sweet to allow thoughts of the future to distract from them.

  Chapter 19

  “It works?”

  Ash didn’t answer. Mac and Ilham stood beside her on a hillside next to the truck and motorcycle, but Ash’s whole being was focused on the scene playing out three miles away—and virtually right in front of her.

  The two dozen women crammed into the open truck bed, dressed in cloaks and long skirts or baggy trousers, heads wrapped in colorful scarves, clung to each other and the metal sides as distant swirls of dust raced ever closer. Their truck jolted and swayed, trying to outrun their pursuers, or at least appearing to.

  Ash saw Cleo standing unsupported in the middle of the truck bed, legs adjusting automatically, riding the erratic jouncing of the truck. She even saw Cleo’s wild grin, like a Roman chariot driver hurtling into battle. Better wipe that look off your face before the capture, Ash thought—and Cleo turned, looked straight toward the hills, and flipped her the bird. The thought had been intercepted, even though she hadn’t consciously sent it. Good!

  She grinned. It was like the old days when a battle threatened and they braced for it with snarky exchanges, before they’d become so close that fear for each other weighed down their bravado. She wished Cleo could see her now, with the elaborate helmet and visor that made her look like an alien coming to ravish Earth’s women.

  “Don’t let your eyes get too tired. You don’t need to see this part,” Mac said. “Could I…”

  Of course she wanted to look for herself, after all her arrangements, but it wasn’t going to happen now. “Sorry, I’ve finally got this thing calibrated for my own eyes. We’d better not mess with it.” Which Mac knew perfectly well, having read Ash the instructions. The gear had been delivered to their camp, while the technician who would launch and monitor the drone and even control it remotely if necessary had been taken directly to the hilltop fortress nearest the village and would later be moved to a higher spot overlooking the walled city from a distance. If Ash looked upward behind her she could see the drone, a vaguely hawk-shaped speck high against the too-bright sky. Looking harder, she thought the sweep of the wings might even look like a falcon.

  Mac resorted to her field glasses. “They’re getting closer.”

  “Yes.” Ash kept her focus on Cleo, who had leaned forward to signal someone in the truck’s cab. Suddenly, black smoke poured from the tailpipe, and the truck slowed. Obviously some trick Cleo had rigged. The oncoming vehicles, jeeps and several vans, closed the distance fast. Within minutes, warning shots were fired and the farm truck, already scarcely moving, came to a stop.

  “There’s no use watching.” Mac tugged at Ash’s sleeve. Ash jerked her arm away. Men poured out of the jeeps and onto the farm truck, wrestling the convincingly resisting women down and into the vans. Cleo didn’t resist except to huddle on the floor of the truck bed, head bent with her arms trying to cover it. Playing the role of a weak, fearful woman. Please, remember you’re playing a role, Cleo.

  Two men were hauling Cleo to her feet. Ash’s already tense body stiffened even more. “You can’t interfere!” Mac shouted, but Ash barely heard her. Cleo was shaking, maybe sobbing. One man jerked her head back to see her face, then jabbed a hand into her crotch. Making sure she was a woman. A buzz of rage rose in Ash so bitter she could taste it.

  “NO!” Mac’s second shout got through. Ash hesitated.

  Another, more powerful “NO!” blasted into her mind. Cleo screaming at the man? But Cleo managed to twist her head toward the hills, and a brief flash of fury lit her face as the next cry burned into Ash’s mind. “NO! Don’t watch, damn it!”

  Then Cleo was gone, thrown into an open van door with the others. The vans and jeeps roared off, while Ash struggled to hold herself in, to keep from yanking the vans back and clashing the jeeps together. Mac’s arms around her, joined by Ilham’s, helped. Not that they could restrain her mind, but they could distract her from her surging emotions—augmented, she suddenly realized, by the fury of Ishtar.

  Ishtar knew nothing about strategy or tactics, just destruction. No sense of all the complexities, and all that had to be done. Or not done. Already, defenders from Razhan’s troops in trucks and jeeps were racing down from the hills in a pretense of pursuit, shooting into the sky, forcing the enemies to speed away without ravaging the village or the rest of the district.

  Ash stood still, trembling but resigned. Mac lifted the helmet from her head and packed the gear away in a padded case. The falcon-shaped drone high above moved eastward, as they would, getting closer to the hills nearest the walled city.

  It would be many hours before anything more could be done. They would go now to wait with some of Razhan’s troops at a mountainside observation post to the east.

  “C’mon,” Ilham said gruffly. “Ride with me, Shadow Hand—Hotshot—Ash— whatever. Nothing takes your mind off trouble like wind in your face and a rumbling motor between your legs.”

  Mac nodded, and Ash climbed on behind Ilham, who shouted back to her just before revving the engine, “They’d better have a damned good meal ready for us!” Then they were off, with Mac driving the truck behind them.

  The roar and vibration of the motorcycle was certainly distracting, although it made Ash long for a horse between her legs instead. The food was okay, kebabs with far more vegetables than chicken, and a filling lentil side dish. The warm meal was welcome since it was considerably colder at this elevation than down on the plains.

  The setting sun threw long shadows from behind the western mountains as Ash, Mac, and Ilham set up their post on the highest outcropping of rock. Ash refused the chance for a few hours of sleep. Instead, she paced compulsively and strained to see the far distant city through a haze, both visual and mental. She knew more or less where Cleo was, but Cleo had cut her off. No communication, for now. That would come later when it was time for action.

  Ash finally sat on an isolated rock and reassessed the photos and sketches Razhan had given her. One in particular hinted that the lions’ heads were set into the tops of great pillars, and not carved from the same stone. She couldn’t be sure. But as she strained to make out details she felt some presence watching over her shoulder, focusing on the lions just as intently. What felt at first like hot breath on the back of her neck grew until she had to shake it off. Ash swung to face it and said into empty air where no one, of course, could be seen, “Damn it, Ishtar! Don’t distract me. I’ll handle this my way. Ease off!”

  The heat ebbed away. Ash looked around and saw with relief that there were no soldiers in view to observe her display of apparent insanity. She returned to her study of the photos, noticing a faint vibration in her fingertips when she handled them, but she was able to shake that off as well.

  The huge gates shown in the photos were built of heavy wood and crisscrossed with bands of iron. When the locks were opened, the gates would swing inward. The images were so granular that she couldn’t tell how the gates were attached to the pillars, but she would tear them apart in any case, whether or not she could spare the lions.

  She stood, stretched, and went to join the others at the fortified overlook.

  Time dragged on, until suddenly it raced with the roar of trucks and jeeps and the turmoil of soldiers packing up their weapons, supplies, and communication equipment. One after another, three truckloads jolted down the rough road to join with the distant fleet of vehicles preparing to rescue the freed captives. When and if they wer
e truly freed, Ash thought, swept by a chill so keen she would have welcomed the goddess’s hot breath. But Ishtar had, it seemed, “eased off,” except for that faint vibration in Ash’s fingers.

  Mac spoke with the driver of the last jeep just before it departed, leaving behind an almost eerie silence. Then she checked her watch, said, “It’s time,” and strode to the truck, calling for Ilham. Ash was on her feet, the tingling spreading from her fingers across her whole body, energizing and at the same time calming. Deep inside, if she searched, she could still feel Ishtar’s power lying in wait like a crouching lion, ready to leap forth with a deadly roar.

  Chapter 20

  Cleo cowered against a fragment of ancient wall, her ears ringing. A funny word, “cowered,” she thought through a haze. She’d known some pretty feisty cows. Try to slam them down the way she’d been slammed and you’d be lucky to get away without being trampled. Just as well to stay low, anyway. She could take down an enemy from knee level as easily as from anywhere above, if it came to that.

  The ringing in her ears gradually subsided. At least cowering had been a useful tactic, and the loud and frantic panicking before that. When the harsh female jailer had groped between Cleo’s legs to be sure she was a woman, her screams and sobs and thrashing had led to being slammed against the wall, but had also provided enough distraction to let most of her companions, including Ariya, slip through the open chain-link gate in the interior wall and merge swiftly into the shifting mass of captive women and children.

  Some of the would-be rescuers would make their way after dark toward the central buildings and the nearby locked prison where Nisreen must be held, while others would spread the word of the planned escape among the prisoners. Two, blending into the nearby chaos, remained close to guard Cleo, but they were wise enough not to interfere with her deliberate strategy.

  The jailer, who had been trying to keep the new arrivals together near her post, yanked Cleo away from the wall and shouted obscenities in Arabic, punctuated with strikes by the short lash she carried. When a man with a wispy gray beard and a long staff approached them, she gestured toward the knife at his belt and then pantomimed stabbing at Cleo, who straightened slowly from her crouch and looked as timid and stupid as she could. The few men she’d seen since being tossed from the van had carried only knives, not guns, and knives she could easily counter—except she mustn’t reveal her skills.

  He approached, looked her over, then groped her chest with a bony hand. She kept her head lowered to hide the fury in her eyes, and had to close them when he pried open her jaws to inspect her teeth, as though assessing a horse for sale. Then, abruptly, he stabbed a hand into her crotch even harder than the woman had done. Shards of buried memory crueler than pain stabbed through her, a genuine panic that the woman’s brutality had not ignited. Fear fought with fury. Show the fear…hold tight the fury. She opened her eyes, and real tears trickled down her dusty cheeks.

  “On your knees, girl!” A casual swipe of his staff knocked her down. “Let this one live,” he told the woman. “She will bring only a small price, though better than none. The law forbids a man to lust after a boy, but who can say a boyish girl slave is improper?”

  Cleo’s Arabic was good enough to let her understand most of what he was saying. When he looked closely into her face again and murmured, “Ah, green eyes! Perhaps she even has a spirit worth the breaking. A prize after all,” she understood much more.

  So did the jailer, who glowered. “Even you, Effendi—” her snide tone stripped the honorific of any respect, “—are not permitted to sample the merchandise. Especially before virginity is proven.”

  The man shrugged. “In the morning, the Imams will officiate at the inspection of the newcomers, and as physician I will be assisting them. Perhaps I will make an offer then.” He paused for effect. “Or possibly sooner.”

  The newcomers. Who had already mixed in with the rest and would be impossible now for the jailer to identify. She would be punished for that. More obscenities and insults followed the man’s retreating back. “Fraud! Butcher! Poisoner!” When he failed to react, she turned again on Cleo with a kick that sent her to the ground. Another connected with her head and just missed her left eye. Pain from the hip that bore the brunt of her landing shot through her. One of her watching protectors took a half step, but the glare in Cleo’s right eye pushed her back into the anonymity of the crowd.

  The jailor raised her foot again. That foot. So vulnerable… A simple grasp and twist and she’d be down, hard, with Cleo’s thumbs pressing into her jugular. She struggled with the impulse, tensed, then rolled out of the way of the descending foot and scrambled away into the shelter of the shifting groups of women.

  There were loose stones and tumbled half-walls everywhere, and in the shade of one wall she curled for a while into a defensive ball until the memories retreated. The sun sank lower. The shadows lengthened, then merged into twilight. Her protectors drifted by discreetly from time to time.

  Cleo couldn’t rest. The strain of doing nothing kept her tense. Just as in that suffocating cave by the wadi, but now without Ash. Where was Ash now? Better not to think about that.

  By full night, several bright lights showed along the outer wall and a glow rose from the clustered buildings housing the enemy leaders. Only a very few scattered lanterns could be seen anywhere else. When one of her protectors approached again through the darkness, this time alone, Cleo was suddenly alert. The woman stopped beside her and murmured, “There is some delay. My sister has gone to help.”

  Some delay? Bullshit. Cleo searched for the danger and felt it. A gun raised, in the direction of the prison where Nisreen must be held. She took off through the maze of half-walls and clustered women at a limping jog, ignoring the pain of the heavy bruises on her hip and cheek, and clambered over one of many low dips in one of the walls. The other followed close behind.

  The prison for prestigious captives was dark in contrast to the well-lit buildings nearby. Cleo and her companion were stopped silently by one of their own people where the shadows were deepest. “Reviving our commander has taken longer than we thought,” she whispered, “and just as they began to carry her out, minutes ago, these two men came walking this way. Ariya went to distract them, pretending to be lost. She ordered me not to show myself. One wandering girl might not raise suspicion, but two could.”

  Between the nearby building and the prison, three figures were visible in the light from a side window. Two men, one scarcely more than a boy, and Ariya.

  Distraction was putting it mildly. The older man held Ariya tightly from the back with his arm around her waist. The younger stood awkwardly holding a gun. Probably handed over by the other to free both hands. They were laughing, but quietly, likely not wishing to share their prize with others inside the building. Or to be caught “sampling the merchandise.”

  They had torn the keffiyeh from Ariya’s head, and she twisted and writhed silently, trying to keep her cloak from being forced open. Cleo, from the shadows, caught her eye and gave her a miniscule nod. Good girl, not screaming and drawing more attention.

  “I’ll lure them around to the back,” Cleo told the others. “Hurry the commander away and hide her near the gates—but not too near.” She scooped up handfuls of small stones and the few larger ones at hand and knotted most into one end of her keffiyeh. The others she kept in her hands and sleeve as she moved silently around the back of the dark prison.

  The first thrown pebble startled the young man with the gun. He glanced around and shifted nervously. The next two worried him enough that he clumsily raised his weapon. Two more and he charged around the corner, where his head met the swing of the stone-weighted keffiyeh—and in that instant of impact, Cleo felt Ash trying to reach her. No time now to answer. The other man followed—with Ariya letting herself be dragged along—and had only an instant to see his companion fall, stunned, before he was knocked out too. More tha
n knocked out. That one, Cleo judged, would never wake. The younger would be out for several hours. She thought of taking the gun, an old rifle, but a quick examination told her that it was in such bad shape that it was as likely to kill its bearer as any target.

  Ariya was already ripping her recaptured keffiyeh into strips and efficiently binding the younger man’s wrists and ankles, as well as wadding up pieces to tie on as gags. Cleo bound the other, keeping Ariya from getting a good view of his shattered head.

  “We should just kill them.” Ariya gave one a kick.

  “You don’t want to see what a man’s head looks like when it’s been smashed open.”

  “Yes I do!”

  “That one’s younger even than you. Shut up and come on.” But a seething anger rose in Cleo as she led the way around the next corner, an urge to go back and smash in the second head even though she had decided against it. What had Razhan said about their boys being conscripted by the enemy? And one had even leaked information to warn his family’s village of attack.

  The urge intensified into a sharp prodding, nagging at her to turn back, to smash, to kill. Was this the way Ishtar prodded Ash? Tough. Screw you, goddess. You didn’t draft me, I volunteered. My decisions are my own. With an abrupt shake of her head, Cleo shut down the unwelcome connection. A split second later she felt Ash trying to reach her again, this time with a sharp command for her to respond and report. Cleo shot back an equally sharp retort and shut down that connection, too.

  The moon had risen above the clouds, and in the distance they could just detect figures moving slowly away, keeping to the shadows. One turned to signal them, and Cleo and Ariya followed, keeping watch from side to side and frequently behind.