Sandstorm (10 page)

Zulfiqar frowned, then yanked back his sleeve to reveals the inked scales covering the entirety of it. "Like this?" he demanded, then yanked free his head and face covers, baring a face that would have been handsome except for the scale pattern which gave him a strange, menacing air. "Exactly like this?"

The Falcon narrowed his eyes, mouth pulled down in a tight frown.

"No," the man beside him said, sounding startled. "Isra…"

"I know," Isra said, shooting him a warning look. He turned back to Zulfiqar and Sahayl.

"They described a pattern slightly different. Smaller scales, and not on the face….they also said some of them were completely inked in."

"That is not possible!" Zulfiqar said. "It cannot be!"

"Viper?" Sahayl asked. "What would Viper be doing in this part of the desert?"

"Viper is dead!" Zulfiqar said. "Cobra killed them all centuries ago."

Sahayl looked at him, eyes over his mouth cover quietly reproving. "With all due respect, honored Sheik of Cobra, have you traveled the entirety of the Desert? Do you know for a fact which Tribes live and which have been taken into the Lady's embrace?"

"How does Ghost know?" Zulfiqar asked, his tone one of barely-contained rage. "Cobra despised Viper as much as Ghost despises Falcon, yet you kept from us that they live?"

"Rumors only," Sahayl said. "Ghost is under no obligation to share with you everything we know. The important thing is that I do not think it was real Viper doing this."

"Bah!" Zulfiqar replied. "Are we back to your theory of a mysterious enemy of the Desert?"

"Saa, it seems you no longer have any faith in my theory," Sahayl said, gold eyes dimming.

"Ghost gains itself another enemy," Isra sneered. "I believe we have seen enough." His eyes blazed as he looked at Sahayl. "Until next time, Ghost Amir. And I promise you will not survive the encounter lest the Lady takes pity on you."

Sahayl was silent until the Falcon departed, then tugged down his mouth cover. His right cheek was heavily bruised, bottom lip split and once more beginning to bleed, strained by all the talking and the recent skirmish. He reached up briefly to touch the scar running the length of his right cheek. "Saa, that could have gone better," he said softly, then looked at Zulfiqar.

"Please do not tell me you intend to make us enemies over this? The rumors on the wind only ever said that a Tribe called Viper lives far to the northwest end of the Desert. Whether they are the same as your old enemy or merely a group that took up the name and marking….saa, who is to say? We did not mention it because it was not important. Until now…most likely, they were only impostors anyway."

"For my daughter's sake, and for the sake of our long alliance, I will not hold this against you, Sandstorm Amir. But I will remember it." Without another word, he turned his horse and raced off, vanishing swiftly from sight.

"Saa," Sahayl said softly. "All I want is to end the violence, Wafai. Why must the Lady always cast me as the villain?"

"Perhaps she is strengthening you, my Sandstorm Amir." Wafai rest a hand firmly on his shoulder. "Ghost will stand by you, no matter what fate the Lady has in store. Do not give up, my Sandstorm Amir. You are nearly the only one who has not."

Sahayl covered the hand on his shoulder with his own, closing his eyes for several minutes.

Then he let his hand slide away, tugged up his mouth cover and nodded. "Saa, then we have much work to do. I will prove there are outside forces at work here if it costs me my life. The Desert minds its own business and we will teach others to do the same." He spurred his horse. "Ketcha!"

Dark had fallen by the time they returned to camp. Wearily Sahayl dismounted, handing his horse off to the first person to approach.

"Sandstorm Amir…" the man, a young soldier, said hesitantly.

"Yes?" Sahayl asked, longing for his bed but resigned to the hours of work still before him.

He would have to discuss all this with his father, then with his men, and there were plans to be made to begin an investigation of what precisely was occurring in the Desert. Waiting for the next sign was no longer sufficient.

"Your father requested that you see him immediately upon your return."

"Of course," Sahayl said, puzzled. He always reported immediately to his father. Since when was being ordered to do so…oh no… "Why?" he asked softly, already knowing the answer.

The soldier looked at him, a wealth of misery in his face. "He wants to know why the other camps are not moving according to the orders he gave. We've tried to calm him…"

Sahayl gripped the man's shoulder comfortingly. "I thank you," he said, "but my father is best left to me. See that Bloodmoon is taken care of. Wafai…"

"I will not leave you, my Sandstorm Amir," Wafai folded his arms across his chest and glared, expression barely visible in the dim light of a nearby torch.

Sahayl waved the words aside, the ruby of his ring glinting in the torchlight. "There is a good chance I will not be able to spread my thoughts and requests to the men by the time he is finished. You must pass on what we discussed."

"I am meant to guard you, my Sandstorm Amir."

"Saa, brother of my soul, you are what keeps me trying. You do far more than guard me. I'll be all right. Carry out my orders, and in the name of the Lady do not let my father find out."

His voice had dropped to a strained whisper as he spoke.

Wafai nodded and then walked away, beckoning to several of the men who had appeared as they noticed the return of their Sandstorm Amir.

Sahayl took a deep breath as he drew close to his father's tent. He nodded at the guards on either side as he passed them, stepping into the cool of his father's brightly lit tent. "Honored father," he said, watching Hashim warily. "You wished to speak with me?"

"Why did you change the pattern orders I gave?" Hashim demanded, setting down the wine dish he'd been holding and rising to his feet.

"There was no way the women and children could have kept up such a demanding pace. It would have killed the youngest and the eldest. We have enemies trying to kill us; we don't need to kill ourselves. I tried to tell you, but you-" The backhand was fast and brutal, hard enough to make him dizzy, sway and stumbled back, and Sahayl had barely recovered before the next blow landed, followed immediately by another and another, until pain and dizziness finally drove him to the floor. Pain flared with every gasp as he struggled to breath, blood dripping from his nose and pouring from his lips. "Honored father…"

Hashim smacked him again, starring pitilessly as Sahayl fell completely over and struggled to sit back up. "You're too much like your mother, Sahayl. Such promise you showed early on.

Then suddenly you turn out just like her, wanting the Desert to be like the pathetic nations surrounding it, scurrying around like mice, talking instead of fighting. I gave you orders. You failed to carry them out. Worse, you coerced my men to disobey me. I am Sheik, not you. If you persist in such behavior, you never will be. Would that I had other choices available to me."

Sahayl finally sat up, arms curling around his aching chest and stomach. "I live for the good of the Tribe, honored father, nothing else. If we had forced two and four to move to Rainfall, the strain would have killed many of the women and children. It is too grueling a pace for them. I set three and five to move at double pace to compensate. I was not seeking to disobey you!"

"How can I trust a son who sees fit to change my orders on his whim?" Hashim kicked him hard in the back, sending Sahayl sprawling, then turned him over with his foot and looked at him in disgust. "By slowing down the pace, you have put them in greater danger of being discovered."

"Send them home, then!" Sahayl gasped out, curling up in pain for a moment before struggling to his feet. His body still ached from the beating two days ago, when he'd ordered his men to set a handful of captives free. Usually the beatings were further apart, giving him a real chance to recover. "No one will ever find the palace. Has not Ghost worked hard to ensure that? I can lead them! They will be safe, and we can---" He bit back a cry of pain as his father punched him hard in the stomach., and fell once more to his knees. "Why?" he asked.

"To prove a point," Hashim said coldly. "Talking accomplishes nothing. You talk and talk, yet here I am still in control. Just like your mother, nothing but empty words. Sandstorm. Bah! My son is nothing more than a half-hearted breeze." He hauled Sahayl roughly to his feet and threw him toward the entrance. "Get out," he said, "and tomorrow you will carry my true orders to all encampments. Should I find myself disobeyed a second time, you will not be the only one to suffer."

Sahayl nodded. "Yes, honored father." He stumbled from the tent, and immediately recognized the arms that caught him outside. "Wafai…"

"Let me kill him," Wafai said softly. "I don't care if that means I must be put to death as well.

He'll kill you, Sahayl."

"No, brother of my soul. Murdering the Sheik would cause more problems than its worth. He won't live forever." Sahayl reluctantly pulled away, standing up on his own. "Have my horse brought. I want to go for a ride. Alone."

"Alone?" Wafai repeated. "My Sandstorm Amir, I cannot permit such a thing."

"It's not for you to permit or forbid," Sahayl said, smiling faintly, the expression painfully sad behind the blood and bruises covering his face. "I need some time alone. I'll be back, I promise."

Wafai grimaced but nodded. "If you are not back within a day, my Sandstorm Amir, I will come and drag you back myself."

"I will return. We have to figure out how to get around my father's orders, and plan what to do about the problem of the impostors - even if no one else believes us. I'll be back shortly. I just…need some peace." He slowly and painfully mounted Bloodmoon, then with a last nod turned and rode out of camp.

Eight

"Isra, Isra, whatever am I going to do with you?" Jabbar shook his head and sighed. "A simple scouting mission and you have quite neatly managed to worsen matters."

Isra glowered at the food he was picking apart. "I ruined nothing. Ghost creates their own problems. I had every right to act as I did."

"No, nephew, you did not." Jabbar sighed again. "Attacking Cobra was unwarranted. When will I finally knock all the sand out of your head? When will you listen to me? From what you have told me, there was a chance for an alliance --- at least a brief one. Yet you tried to kill not only the Cobra Sheik but also the Ghost Amir. If you had succeeded, we would have had both Tribes out for our blood and I think we have enough problems as is!" Jabbar looked at him. "Is that what you want? Would that make you happy, Isra? A massacre?"

"No, honored Uncle," Isra said. "I merely saw a threat and sought to exterminate it."

"The only threat you need concern yourself with is your own head," Jabbar said. "My orders were to scout. If you had stuck to that, instead of seeking a fight, you might have been surprised. Not everyone is out for blood."

"It was the Ghost Amir!" Isra said, slamming his fist down on the table.

"You attacked Cobra first," Jabbar reminded him, unmoved by the show of temper.

"Fox was slaughtered by a group of men bearing what we all thought were Cobra marks,"

Isra said, but quieted down. "I saw that encampment, how brutally those men were wounded.

Did any…?"

Jabbar shook his head, looking grim. "They all died of their wounds. I wish I knew how to send word to Fox." He sighed again. "More importantly, you said they mentioned intruders in the desert?"

"Yes," Isra said reluctantly. "He seemed to share our thoughts that someone is purposely setting the Tribes against each other."

"Interesting," Jabbar murmured, staring into his dish of dark wine. "Ghost has noticed the same thing." He slid a glance at Isra. "A pity we cannot speak of the matter to them."

Isra turned away, glaring across the tent. "Like we can trust anything a Ghost might say."

"Why do you hate them so much?"

"Have we not always hated Ghost? They are the most brutal Tribe in the desert - look at how their Sheik behaved when we attempted to establish peace! Yet you sit here and reprimand me for trying to kill their Amir?" Isra buried his face in his hands, fingers tangling in his hair, pulling at it in frustration.

"When I was a child, my father was killed in a battle against Ghost. My mother did nothing but weep for days and days. I tried to comfort her but what does a boy really know about anything? I told her father had died fighting, that it was noble, but she only cried that much harder. I didn't understand. We were supposed to fight, I thought. Even so young, I was already familiar with the basics of swordsmanship, other arts of war…" Jabbar sighed softly, and held up a hand in warning when Isra tried to speak. "I am one of the best warriors in this village and for years that fact made me happy. I could fight. Defend. Be a brave warrior just like my father, and gain revenge for his death."

Jabbar fell silent a moment, and poured more wine. "Then, when I was not much younger than you are now, I met the woman who was to be my wife. I looked into her eyes and realized something - I did not ever want to see her cry. It distressed me greatly that should I die one day, this woman might be what my mother had become - a mere shadow. In that single moment, I wanted nothing more than her happiness, and I knew quite suddenly that mindless violence would not bring that. I have been trying to reduce the number of Tribes I call enemy ever since." He shook his head slowly back and forth, then stared somberly at Isra. "I keep hoping such a moment might come to you, dear nephew, because I fear what you will become otherwise."

"The Desert is not a land of peace. Those that think so are destined only to die that much more swiftly. Everyone knows this. How can you have peace in a land where you do not even know who your neighbors are and whether they are plotting to attack you? You saw what was done to Fox, we know what Ghost did to Cat."

"Yes," Jabbar murmured. "But we only heard Cat's version of the tale."