Sandstorm (23 page)

"You really are fond of Morning Mist aren't you?"

"Yes, it's-" Glass and food flew as Isra knocked into the table shoving Sahayl down, snarling in pain as he rose up. His blue eyes blazed as he sought and found Shihab, motioning toward the far end of the hall, and the windows lining the alcove high above. "Go," he snapped, not bothering to pay attention to anything else going on around him. Ripping an arrow from his arm, he followed after Shihab, all but knocking people aside as he ran, both of them scaling the wall rapidly, vanishing through the open windows.

"Beynum, get my wife out of here," Shah's voice rang out, cutting through the chaos scattered across the rest of the room. "Aik, go see to my children. Ikram, see to the guards.

Make sure everyone goes to their rooms and does not leave them. Bahadur, go with Sahayl to his room and guard him." He shook his head as a momentary lull fell while his orders were carried out. "I've never seen men move that fast, not even Witcher." He stroked Witcher's cheek briefly.

Sahayl looked at the arrow Isra had pulled from his own arm, the blood stained tip, the plain shaft and fletching. He smiled ever so faintly, a trace of sadness in it. "You have never seen the sons of the Lady of the Sands, brother. Here, speed is an asset. In the Desert, it is a necessity." He looked at Bahadur. "Come, the longer I stay here the more I risk those around me. Saa, perhaps we can draw them all out and have an end to this."

"You'd think they'd learn, after what we did with the first one."

"If a lesson does not take the first time, find a different way to apply it," Sahayl said. He set down the arrow and stood, striding from the banquet hall, Bahadur at his side. They moved silently, boots making no sound on the tiled floor, Bahadur speaking to him with motions, light touches to his arm and back. He seemed to radiate heat; it was like standing too close to a campfire. "I am sorry you have gotten tangled up in all this," Sahayl said as they finally reached his room. "I do not think this is what you intended when you left Jackal."

Bahadur stared at him a moment, then smiled faintly, amused, and shrugged his massive shoulders. "I expected to be hunted down and killed when I left Jackal. Shihab and I had much hard traveling to do before we believed ourselves well enough away to be safe.

Though I would prefer the assassins cease altogether, I can think of much worse fates than assuming the role of your protector." Bahadur prowled the room, pausing only to make a sound very much like a growl when Sahayl tried to do the same, motioning for him to stay where he was. Several minutes later he finally ceased, pronouncing the room safe. "Life will be easier when we return to the Desert. These idiot assassins will not follow us that far, and I can handle any Tribe." He returned to Sahayl's side. "I hope your true protector is up to the new threats he will be facing."

"Wafai can handle anything," Sahayl said, but his stomach tightened at the thought of Wafai having to do more than fight beside him and keep him company. Wafai was his oldest and dearest friend, the one person who had always stood by him, even when his father was at his worst - and who would have taken the beatings had Sahayl ever permitted such a thing.

But now Wafai was married, and would eventually be a father. Perhaps it was time to consider releasing his friend from his protector duties. Well, it was a matter he could not resolve now. "I hope the other two aren't causing trouble."

Bahadur snorted and drew Sahayl to the low table near the bed. "That, I feel, is too much to hope for. Let us merely hope they're not causing too much trouble."

Seventeen

Isra ran across the roof of the palace, Shihab just ahead of him, leading the way across the roof of the palace, barely visible beneath the gleaming moonlight. Ahead of them the assassin fled, and Isra sneered that he continued to hold to his bow and arrows - it would have been more effective to abandon the weapons.

He snarled as the assassin abruptly cut right and vanished over the side of a roof.

"Rose garden," Shihab said as they followed, jumping down and rolling as they landed before rising smoothly to their feet. From his robes Isra drew a long dagger, and he could see Shihab did the same. "He can't get out," Shihab said, speaking in Lavarre. "Thieves and such like to use the roofs to gain access to secluded portions of the palace like this. The doors are all locked at night to prevent their getting inside. Breaking in will cause too many problems for him, so he'll probably try to go back up. After killing us, of course. Take the right path," he pointed behind Isra. "I'll go left."

"Don't kill him," Isra replied, then turned down the indicated path and began to weave through the garden. The scent of roses filled the cool night air, mixed with the smell of his own sweat and the faint tang of blood. His arm needed attention, but the assassin came first.

At least the arrow hadn't been poisoned. The assassin wasn't a complete coward, only mostly.

Isra barely moved in time, feeling the change in the air - suddenly too quiet, different - a moment before the arrow flew past, barely missing him. He threw himself into the tangle of bushes, not giving the assassin a second chance to get him, ignoring the thorns that raked his skin, and broke through a circle of dark-colored roses to see the man huddled within them. Isra shouted for Shihab even as he attacked the assassin, yanking away the bow and arrow, knocking away the knife that arched toward him, punching the assassin in the jaw.

Then Shihab appeared, grabbing the assassin from behind, yanking him down and pinning him there.

"Assassins in this country lack talent," Isra said, dragging his dagger lightly across the man's throat, drawing up a hairline of blood. "I hope they did not pay too much for you."

Snarling, cursing in a language Isra vaguely recognized, the man bucked and fought and struggled, but with Shihab's wiry strength holding his arms down, Isra straddling his legs and pressing a dagger to his throat, there wasn't much he could do. Isra looked at Shihab.

"He's speaking a dialect of Hadge. Northeastern, a mountain dialect." Shihab laughed.

"Offering quite colorful suggestions on how precisely your mother earns her bread."

Isra grunted. "Probably all true, but no one is allowed to say so except me." He grabbed the man's lower jaw, hard enough to leave bruises, forcing his mouth to remain open, then slid the tip of his dagger inside the man's mouth, feeling as it touched the man's tongue, pressing hard enough to draw up a bit of blood. "The only thing I want to hear from you, my friend, is who was dumb enough to pay you and if they'd paid anyone else." He withdrew the dagger.

"I will not tell," the man said in heavily accented Tavamaran, turning his head to spit out blood.

"Let's try motive, then," Isra suggested, drawing the dagger across the man's stomach, a thin trail of blood welling up, soaking into the ruined robe.

"I was told to kill the new Prince. No reason given."

"Why are you such a bad shot?" Isra asked, tapping the flat of the blade idly against his own cheek, seemingly oblivious to the blood that smeared across it. "Two arrows I've survived tonight. Not very good marksmanship - though I will concede shooting through these roses was quite a feat. So we'll say one bad shot. That's still terrible. Any son of the Desert would have made the first shot, and been gone before the second became necessary." Isra glowered as he remembered when he'd caught sight of metal where metal should not have been. Thankfully it hadn't been a crossbow. His arm ached. He ignored it and sliced a fine cut down the man's chest - just deep enough to sting, prove bothersome. Blood soaked the cut edges of the man's robes, more staining his lips from where he was still spitting it out.

"The counsel should learn to pay for good assassins."

The man was silent, eyes black pools in the moonlight. "I'm one of the best in the city," he said.

"I doubt that," Shihab said. "A crossbow would have been more effective, or attacking directly as the one yesterday tried. City men are soft - even assassins, it would seem. Tell us who hired you or it's off to the cells and you'll be executed as soon as the King feels like giving the order. Though seeing as you tried to kill his brother…execution would be a kindness. More likely he'll have you banished, put on a ship, in which case I'd worry about pirates. They prey on such ships, kill everyone that's a threat, sel off those who will bring a worthy amount of silver. You they'd probably kill, but then again I hear the diamond mines of Pelenna always need hard workers."

Silence was the only reply.

Shihab laughed, cold and derisive. "Stupid assassins. They think silence will purchase their lives. Incapacitate him and let's take him to his new rooms."

"You truly are a son of the Desert, Shihab. Would your father be horrified to learn how bloody you've become?"

"My father was a Cobra," Shihab answered.

"That is true," Isra replied, then reached up and slashed a deep gash down the assassin's right arm, careful not to cut in such a way he'd bleed to death, but ensuring his arm would be useless for a long time.

Then he did the left.

"Give me your sash," he said, ignoring he man's screams of pain. "So willing to kill, you'd think they'd be braver about pain inflicted upon them."

Shihab scoffed and released his hold on the man to take off his own sash, and quickly they set to work binding the fresh wounds. "He'll need a healer."

"Go get one, then," Isra said. "Send a guard to help me carry him."

Nodding, Shihab vanished into the garden.

Isra waited in silence, looking in disgust at the man lying beside him. "Pathetic."

"I kill," the man gasped, and Isra wondered if he was going into shock. "I do not torture."

"Torture?" Isra sneered. "I do not torture. I am merely ensuring you cannot get away. If one more assassin tries to kill my-" he faltered, stopped, shaken by his own words. Sahayl wasn't his anything. "To kill the Prince, that man will learn what the word torture really means. You should not have been foolish enough to interfere in the Desert."

"Savages," the man whispered, then passed out.

Isra made a face. "The Desert protects its own. What is so savage about that?" His fingers strayed to his wound, the blood that had dried all along his arm. It burned, screamed in protest of the treatment it had received. It would ache something fierce for days, and trying to lift his sword would be foolish indeed. Bastard assassin.

Noise in the brush broke his thoughts, and a voice called out, searching. Isra called back, and when the guard appeared they set to work lifting the unconscious prisoner, the guard draping him over his back, motioning for Isra to lead, indicating where he needed to go.

The palace was eerily still, silent. Even the guards seemed more frozen than usual. Not a single servant was about, everyone ordered to remain in their rooms. Isra's footsteps were soundless, for even in the sand could the faintest of sounds be heard by a skilled Tribesman.

Silence was everything. Behind him, the guard seemed not to share that opinion, his boots thudding heavily on the tile floor, breaths growing heavy as he carried the cumbersome, bleeding prisoner.

Isra was grateful for the distraction the journey to the prisons provided, desperate for anything that would keep him from thinking of the ramifications of his actions - both saving Sahayl from the arrow and the fact that he now seemed to be Sahayl's lover.

What was wrong with him? He traced the scar on his cheek, glowering at everything. He'd hated the man. Had fully intended to kill him.

Then there had been that stupid oasis. It had ruined everything.

What was it his honored uncle had gone on about that last lecture? In that single moment, I wanted nothing more than her happiness…

He didn't know about anyone's happiness, but he knew now what it was like for everything to change in a moment.

One stupid little moment, one stupid realization, and now he was taking arrows for an enemy.

A former enemy. A former enemy turned lover.

Which was an entirely separate problem, and one he wasn't ready to face yet. That could probably wait until the fighting ceased, and part of Isra hoped the fighting would take a long, long time. It wasn't a decision he wanted a make. Lady save him, it wasn't a decision he thought he would ever have to make. Tavamaran tradition and law were bleeding into the Desert, changing everything, and he was right in the middle of those changes.

The most frightening part was that he thought he knew what his decision would be, unless something wholly unexpected shifted the sands again.

What was happening to him?

Isra shook off his own thoughts as they deposited the assassin in his cell. He thanked the guard and motioned for the man to leave. Reaching out, he slapped the assassin's cheeks hard, giving up in disgust when the man gave no signs of waking. Movement brought his head around, and he looked up as Shihab entered the cell with a man Isra didn't recognize but was obviously a healer.

The healer frowned at the wounds. "Do you always do this to men you capture?"

"Not always," Isra answered, yawning as exhaustion washed over him now that everything was well and truly over. "Only the ones who are extremely dangerous or could provide a great deal of information. Often, both reasons apply." He made a face. "Surely you don't expect me to treat him kindly."

The healer said nothing, but the pinched look to his mouth told Isra enough. He shot Shihab a disgusted glance and rose to his feet. "I think our job is finished here. We'll let the palace soldiers handle the rest."

"Yes," Shihab replied. "Let's go see how Bahadur and Sahayl are doing."

"I doubt anyone would be foolish enough to assault Sahayl again with that warhorse so close," Isra said, lips twitching as he thought of Bahadur, "especially after last night. I'm amazed Jackal let him get away. The Lady shows her approval by lending his skill to our side."

Shihab nodded in agreement. "Especially as things are only going to get worse from here on out." He slid Isra a thoughtful look. "What are you planning to do?"