After a short rest they resumed work. The third wagon was almost completely excavated, and camels were hitched to it with ropes to help free it of the morass. It was at that point that the gods must have been feeling particularly bitter with these representatives of the mortal race. Because suddenly the wagon bed cracked from the weight of the sand, and two of the wheel axles came off.
The damage was repairable. But it would take at least another day, concluded Patriq darkly, as he crawled under the wagon.
Another day of wasted water.
“Then we leave this wagon behind us,” said Nadir. “And we continue on our way right now.”
“What of the load that this wagon carried?” said the guard.
“We leave it behind also.”
“My Lord Nadir . . .” said Patriq, “That load is water. If we reallocated all the water sacks to the other two wagons, they would be too heavy to be pulled over the sands, and would slow down our progress considerably. And if we overload the pack beasts and camels, they will tire faster, and will have to take more frequent stops.”
Nadir listened attentively. “We can relieve the other wagons of superfluous load, and also relieve the animals of things we can do without.”
“True . . . But—”
Patriq lowered his head, as though afraid of what he was about to utter.
“What?”
“My Lord, there really is no superfluous load. We packed very tightly, like misers, in the first place. However, if I may suggest this—if we leave the sedan chairs behind, we could instead load the four relieved camels. The mistress and her women can ride with us, each one sharing a mount with one of the guards. That way we can carry all of the water. If we conserve the remaining water properly, we can manage—”
“Then, yes, we leave the sedans behind.”
It was Egiras. She stood behind them, and had spoken in a soft yet inviolate tone of voice that somehow was her old self, and yet unlike her. Something was different, something. . . . Nadir turned to look at her, looked earnestly, trying to fathom it, then inclined his head before her. “If you are sure that you will manage, my Princess, then it will be done thus.”
“I will ride with you, Nadir.”
“I will be honored,” he replied, casting his gaze to the sand.
* * *
We moved forward once again, toward the East and the rising sun. I carried Egiras before me in the saddle. My horse was strong and great and seemed to feel no additional burden, maybe because the Princess was such an insignificant load.
She lay back against my chest, her veiled head resting lightly against me, and I could barely distinguish her breathing. At times she shifted slightly, and I felt the faint perfume of the precious rose oils that her handmaidens had used to anoint her hair. The scent carried on the wind and surrounded us and came with us on this journey in a living cloud. Roses in the desolation.
There was something new about Egiras. I had sensed it from the first moment she had opened her eyes after the sandstorm. I had no words for what I saw there, but I suspected a strange calm wisdom had come to her together with the regained vision and reason. Even now I was not sure. I was tense in her presence, afraid to properly hold her in the saddle, afraid to touch her—not because I expected the usual sarcastic putdowns and cruelty but rather because I knew they would no longer come.
Thus I knew not what to expect from Egiras. What I received was gentle silence. The rest of the caravan rambled along. The two remaining wagons carried some extra weight, while the rest was redistributed among the pack beasts and the camels that no longer carried the sedans.
I had seen Yaro’s old mother hidden once again in one of the wagons, and the young woman herself walked alongside her under the pretense of assisting the driver. I felt a momentary pang of something—a worry, a restlessness—when I saw Yaro’s wiry, thin form struggling with each step as her feet sank in the sand. But she stubbornly said nothing and did not ask to be relieved of walking like the rest of the serving women. Several of the guards were walking also, taking turns riding the heavily burdened horses and camels. The desert wind pulled at their long robes and entered their squinting eyes despite the protective wrappings over their faces. Their demeanor was grim when I caught their individual eyes.
It was then that I knew with my warrior’s sense that something was not quite right. Something dark was brewing.
We had stopped to rest for the night, and the animals were unburdened and given spare amounts of water. The tent was once again rigged, and inside it the women had arranged bedding for the Princess and themselves. Now, in the welcome indigo coolness of evening, everyone sat near the light of the small fire, eating cheese and old flatbread.
Egiras had refused the preparation of soup they would ordinarily make for her, and shared the simple road fare in silence, sitting cross-legged and somewhat slumped in her tent. I knew by her drooping, bowed shoulders and her motionlessness that she was sore from the unaccustomed riding and that she was exhausted, possibly ill.
Sitting several feet away from the open flap of the tent, I watched her as I ate the food that Yaro had brought me, forgetting for a moment my own weariness and parched throat and the low underlying hunger.
“Eat, my Lord Nadir, and don’t worry for the Mistress, for she will be fine,” said Yaro, wrapping cheese in bread and handing it to me like a child, seeing that I was absent and remote. She poured water for me too, handing me a wooden bowl that I received automatically and drank from without looking.
The meal was quick, for everyone was so tired, and soon they all lay down to sleep. The handmaidens assisted Egiras, and the women now lay in the darkness of the tent except for Yaro who had crept silently to the wagon where I knew her mother lay.
Patriq and I put out the remains of the tiny fire by dousing it with sand, and then the guards and the rest of us stretched out in our blankets.
I was tired and yet could not sleep, instead lying on my back watching the infernal blackness of the moonless night, only a sparse casting of stars illuminating the airy vault overhead.
Eventually my eyes had grown used to the dark, and I stared into the darkness as I always had, alert to every tiny sound, hearing nothing but the occasional gusts of wind and the sleepers’
breaths.
It served me well, that alertness, for I saw the shadows come when they did, obscuring the stars above me.
I moved quickly like a panther, rolling away by instinct as my trained muscles took over. There were lunges behind me, and the dull thud of movement and the scattering of sand as someone fell, narrowly missing me.
I crouched, gasping, whirled around, blinking away the sand, dancing in the darkness while my temples pounded. I recognized the shadows as the forms of three of the guards. Patriq was not one of them. I heard a low groan and saw him a few feet away, still in his sleeping blanket, as a shadow detached itself from right above him. There was the dull glint of starlight upon a blade. Patriq was motionless.
There was no time for regret, not even a single pang. In the terrible dark I moved, having drawn the curved blade that I always kept concealed at my side. I saw shadows and I struck true, feeling my blade violently meet then penetrate something, someone. . . . Once, then again. A grunt, a moan, and a shadow fell only to be replaced by another, which fell in turn from my blade. In the dark my hands felt the warm spray of moisture.
I did not think. I threw myself in the direction of the tent where I had to protect Egiras.
* * *
Egiras opened her eyes with a wild pang, for there was a hand against her throat and another against her lips to stop her screaming. Her body was held as in a vise. She smelled sour breath and camel and darkness. . . .
“Silence, lie still, or you die . . .” came a whisper, and Egiras knew she had heard that voice before. It belonged to one of the caravan guards.
And so she grew still, in a weird timeless suspension, while they both waited. Egiras wondered about the other women who had be
en in the tent with her that night, but she could not turn, could not look.
She heard the sound of a quiet struggle outside, all footfalls muffled by the sand. Superimposed over everything was the hum of the night wind.
The tent flap moved and a slightly lighter patch of darkness appeared for an instant as someone entered from the outside.
The hand over the mouth of Egiras tightened. At the same time she felt the sharp prick of a knife at the nape of her neck, in warning.
But Egiras was beyond comprehension of warnings. Ever since she had awakened after the storm—shaken by its fury out of her eternal hypnotic nightmare of blazing glorious moons in a sky that was nothing but light—all things seemed dull to her, dull and soothing like balm, and her heart maintained one steady calm rhythm of remote indifference. Danger was incomprehensible.
Pain was remote.
Sensation was—Egiras was not sure.
And thus, because it had meant nothing to her on a personal level, that warning of sharpness pressing at her vulnerable neck, Egiras took the moment and did what she needed to do without a moment of hesitation—just as it was natural for a scorpion to lash out and sting. Egiras moved her face just a tiny bit, but enough to part her lips. . . . And then she bit the hand that was pressed against her face.
She bit it as one would bite a birthing bit, in reflex fury, feeling her teeth crush through the resilient softness of meat into bone, tasting salty fresh blood. There was a cry of pain that was more a cry of surprise—
Whoever had entered the tent was now properly alerted, had heard the cry, the muffled movement, heard the very sound of her teeth coming together—or so she thought. And whoever held her did not use the knife at her throat. Instead the hand was dropped and she was grabbed roughly, like a living shield.
Egiras was between the two, neither one of whom she could properly identify, though she at least suspected the identity of her attacker.
And then she was shoved down with an amazing invisible force from the opposite side, so that she was detached from the one who had originally held her, and she was lying on the floor of the tent, feeling its roughness of sand and burlap against her forehead, while over her head she heard the dull clash of metal, a clamor of movement, then a short cry of pain. Then, someone had fallen on top of her, someone whose scent she recognized again, the sour-pungent smell of camels, and recognized the feel of the creases and folds of fabric that had been that one’s clothing. And then that same body, now motionless, was displaced, and another took hold of her, picked her up. . . .
This other was great and all-encompassing, as if the night itself took on human form and carefully embraced her. And this one also was oddly familiar, but in a different way. This one was holding her lightly like a precious parcel, and in reflex she clung back, leaning her head and cheek tightly against the place where she felt a chest and thought she heard a familiar beating heart.
And at the same time, hands came forth from the darkness on both sides of her, hands that wrapped around her gently and stroked her hair with warm, large, slightly trembling fingers.
“Nadir . . .” whispered Egiras, smelling the warm desert. “It is always you. . . .”
Yaro heard the footfalls of shadows as she lay next to her mother in the wagon. She opened her eyes wide and could just see their movements in the darkness as blurs, thanks to her nearsighted vision. She recognized them by their general outlines or maybe by some preternatural sense, never having heard their voices. These were the men that had worked in the caravan, the servants, the guards.
She knew it was a mutiny. They crept along the wagons toward the tent, never knowing she was there—or maybe not caring—and then she saw then heading toward the place where Nadir slept.
Terror rose up in Yaro’s throat. Urgency. Her temples were ringing like city tower bells. She wanted to fly forth, to run toward them, to throw herself mindlessly between them and the quiet man who had taken her in and who would now be dead. . . .
But in that moment his form lunged from the ground, moving preternaturally fast, and with a triumphant relief Yaro knew he would not fall before this night treachery. There was fleeting movement in the darkness—so fast she was not sure what happened. She squinted, needing desperately to see. Several shadows fell, then one detached from the rest and made its way to the tent.
Yaro was not going to leave things to chance. All reason indicated she should stay in place at her mother’s side, hide in petrified silence and hope that the two of them would remain unnoticed. She had always been insolent in her courage. Recklessly she slipped from the wagon, fell to the cool night sand below, and then crept forward silent like a mouse and brave like a scarab beetle.
At one point stepping over bodies, she continued toward the tent.
Yaro paused near and listened. The night whispered unknown horrors in her mind, and she thought she heard the wind that hissed serpentine over the sands speak human words in a dry whisper.
Yaro, child of dust.
She ignored it, ignored the insistent whisper of fear, and instead strained to hear what was within. And then someone reached from behind her—maybe it was the night itself solidified—
and took her firmly by the torso, while a hand was placed around her mouth. Her first instinct was to struggle, but the next instant she heard a real voice, not the wind, saying in her ear,
“Peace, Yaro . . .” and she recognized Nadir.
In that moment from beyond the most distant wagon came the sound of roused camels. And then, in the living dark, she could see three of the creatures, barely corporeal pale ghosts against the night, obviously saddled and ready and indeed mounted.
They who rode the camels were fully equipped. And they pulled behind them two spare pack beasts, also fully loaded, as could be attested by the rounded bulky shapes crowning their backs.
“Gods!” breathed Yaro. “How can we stop them, or find them in this moonless night? The night is only halfway through! And what of the others? How will we survive the remaining hours of the dark?”
“There are no more others,” replied Nadir no longer bothering to hush his voice. “I counted the fallen, both those I killed myself and those who were slain by the traitors. All are accounted for, the living and the dead. As for those three, we let them go.”
“Nadir!” came a frightened soft voice from within the confines of the tent, and for a moment Yaro did not recognize it as that of her former mistress, Egiras.
“I am here,” he replied. “Do not be afraid. It is over. Come, Princess Egiras, it is only Yaro here with me.” And then he added, “Though it may be an uncertain thing we face in the morning.”
Egiras came forth from the tent. In the obscuring darkness she was a mere silhouette of wispy pallor, a shade.
The shade stood at the tent's entrance in odd, stonelike resignation, without strength. Egiras said, “My women. They who served me. I could not see. I stepped on one of them—on her hand. And she just lay there, silent. They all—just lie. . . .”
* * *
I was the first to open my eyes, just as dawn colored the sands. I took in the first waking breath, hand gripping my sword by instinct, and then arose silently without disturbing Egiras or Yaro. Both of them lay sleeping nearby, directly on the cooled sand, and huddled next to Yaro was the old woman, her mother, whom we had brought forth from her hiding place in the wagon. I stood, in that first moment not wanting to be alive, for wakefulness came to me with a pang of heavy truth. It struck me with a seething panic that I could never show, for I did not want to know what had come to pass in the night, did not want to face what was left to us. It had been just as I thought. The camp we had made for the night, what was left of our already small caravan, was in devastation.
The remaining pack beasts and camels lay dead, their throats cut in the night. And in the wagon that held the water sacks there was further horror—all the sacks had been pierced, their water silently pouring out upon the sands in the darkness. Some of it had pooled
in small shallow puddles on the bottom of the wagon, and traces remained in the sacks themselves. But most of it had watered the desert.
I stood there while a cold inevitable knowledge came to me, for I knew now this was the end. The mutineers had managed to kill us with those two acts.
I understood it was not necessarily a malicious thing but a matter of self-preservation, removing all chances of pursuit by us. The men had lost trust for some reason, and wanted to return the way they had come. And they knew there was no other way they could break up the caravan. For it is known to all that, once embarked in the desert, a caravan is inviolate. If only they had known me better. If only they had realized how much I valued lives, even theirs—I would have let them go and given them their share of supplies. But they had not known me. And had not asked.
In the blooming of dawn, I salvaged as much as I could of the remaining water by pouring the dregs from the broken sacks into a larger clay vessel, one of the few containers packed in with the belongings of the Princess. It had been used to hold water for washing. I also swept up what was left in the puddles and thereby managed to add another cup or two of liquid to the jar. When I was done, the vessel was more than two-thirds full, and I capped it tight to prevent further evaporation in the heat of the coming day.
I quietly surveyed the rest of the camp. Most of the dead were servants and guards who had come with us, including Patriq whose body I observed with an inner ache, remembering the moment of darkness when he had been killed.
In the tent lay the handmaidens of the Princess. All had been killed swiftly, professionally, which led me to believe that some of the hired guards had once been more than they appeared, military mercenaries.