Sandstorm (3 page)

Silence had fallen as Sahayl spoke, and he continued speaking, striving to bury his father's behavior beneath his own. "What sort of brutes would bring such a flower into the world of men?" He leered. "Were you a peace offering, my desert rose?"

With a snarl of rage the man threw himself up and forward, and Sahayl felt the sting as steel whispered along his cheek, could feel the blood beginning to seep. Still laughing, he returned the favor and watched smugly as blood blossomed on the man's right cheek.

"Setcha!" Sheik Jabbar's voice thundered out across the oasis, forceful enough that even Sahayl stopped moving. Jabbar motioned to his men, to the blue-eyed man. "We are going.

Tetcha. Now."

Obediently the blue-eyed man relaxed his fighting stance, watching Sahayl cautiously as he retrieved his head wrap and then stalked to a horse the color of smoke, throwing hostile glances over his shoulder, clearly displeased that the fight had ended. Sahayl watched as Falcon mounted and gathered together, then with a sharp order from their Sheik, rode off into the Desert, vanishing quickly from sight.

Sahayl steeled himself as his father stormed toward him. He dropped his sword, lest he react without thinking and do something he and the rest of Ghost would regret.

"How dare you!" Hashim bellowed, fist flying, crashing into Sahayl's jaw. If he had not learned long ago how to take his father's blows, Sahayl would not be alive. He weathered the hits and let his father rage, biting back cries of pain and stifling the urge to fight back, knowing that to do so would do more harm than good. At last the storm of anger abated, leaving them both panting heavily, Sahayl on his knees in the sand. "Be certain I do not see your face anytime soon," Hashim said, then turned away and mounted his horse, curtly ordering the men to follow.

Laughing bitterly, Sahayl wiped blood from his lip with the back of his fist and allowed Wafai to help him up. "Saa, that could have been much worse."

"Yes," Wafai said quietly, "and one day it will be, if he is not stopped."

"But who would stop him? I think half the Tribes in the Desert must hate us, yet none of them can manage to kill him…and I do not like the options left to us." He laughed again, and for a moment it sounded more like a sob. "I do not know how much more of this I can take, brother of my soul."

Wafai embraced him tightly. "We will find a way, my Sandstorm Amir. Until then…"

"We continue to improvise." Sahayl grimaced as they reached his horse, groaning in pain as he mounted. "It makes me tired, Wafai. Saa, so very tired indeed."

Two

It never failed. When he wanted to find something it was nowhere to be found. The very moment all he wanted was his bed and a warm companion to make everything better, he found that which had cost him six weeks of aggravating work.

Grumbling softly enough the words were absorbed by the cloth over his mouth, he slid from his horse and quietly ordered her to stay. The job would go much faster if he could ride her all the way into the camp, but the very last thing he wanted or needed was for the Viper to realize they had an intruder.

Such discoveries tended to be bad for the intruder's health, and as he was the intruder he was hoping to keep his health intact.

And it would be all too like the Lady to confound his efforts after four hard years of work.

Continuing to grumble he slunk in the direction of the camp, heart beating rapidly in his chest

.As many times as he had done this, it never failed to make him nervous. He loved and hated it. He would not be sorry when his task was at last completed. But Lady only knew how many more Tribes there were to go…

Six weeks it had taken him to figure out where in the camp it was. Six weeks! Usually simply finding the camps was the hard part. After that it was relatively easy. Sneak into enemy territory, take a look at their most valuable possession, then slip right out again. Easy as anything. The Lady laughed at him, he knew it.

He paused alongside a rough rock wall in a twisting, winding canyon that - he could not help it - snaked its way toward the primary camp of the Viper Tribe. He wondered idly, or maybe not so idly, how many people who were not Viper had traveled this way and lived to tell about it.

Probably not many. Viper was one of the most vicious tribes in the Desert. Just like their namesake, they were fond of hiding in wait and springing upon their prey in surprise.

So he had better watch himself. He always did, but still.

His lips twisted in a smile beneath the fabric covering his mouth, and he laughed softly at himself. Too much sand in his head, clearly.

He grew more serious as he finished wending his way through the mazelike canyon.

Crouching in a dark corner, he waited. The patrol should pass by shortly, after which he would have exactly three minutes to reach the tent that was his destination.

Thank the Lady it was not the Sheik's tent this time. He hated when it was. Of course, that also usually meant he did not spend six weeks of frustrated searching. Lady will his job be nearly done. He loved the Sands, sensed his heart belonged to them as much as his father's had not, but he would like to enjoy them, be a part of them, not skulk about in the chilly night looking for the quickest way to be a scavenger's next meal. He snorted. Meal. Che. More like snack. All his weight came off with the clothes.

Stifling an urge to laugh at himself, reassured that even in the middle of the desert he was his own worst enemy, he tensed as the patrol passed by. They moved with near-perfect soundlessness, no doubt the result of years and years of training. No one heard a Viper until too late.

Unless he was good at not being seen.

Grinning behind his face cover, he waited until the patrol vanished around the corner and then bolted. His steps were soundless. One didn't survive four years sneaking around the desert unless he had a talent for it.

He stilled as he reached the second largest tent in the camp, certain everyone could hear his heart as it tried to hammer out of his chest. Steady…steady…near-soundless steps reached his ears, and then two men strode by on patrol in the inner ring. They passed out of his vision a moment later. He didn't move. Two minute later another pair of men passed by. He snorted in disgust as he heard them nearly a minute ahead of time. Sloppy, this pair. He stilled as they passed by, not really worried.

Sneaking into camps had been hard at first. Then he'd realized how arrogant most of them had gotten. So used to being cloaked, to not being found, very few of them took security as seriously as they should. Two men where there should have been four, the way others had kept patrolling close to camp instead of sending out scouts to keep an eye farther out. Some had even taken to staying in their home camps longer than was wise, resting when they should be moving…truly the Tribes were not as sharp as they should be.

Not once in four years had anyone noticed that he'd been methodically sneaking into each and every Tribe in the desert. Into every last primary camp. Into their homes.

Well, each and every Tribe except the ones he hadn't gotten to yet. And Ghost.

He'd long ago determined that his chances of ever finding Ghost were nonexistent. There was a reason the aggravating, frustrating, half-wild, vexing, arrogant, stupid Tribe was nowhere to be found anywhere in the Desert. Exactly as their name implied, they gave the impression of being specters, phantoms that could appear and vanish at will.

Stupid Ghost.

The men on patrol vanished and he bolted, sneaking into one of the tents on the far side of the wide canyon. This was not actually Viper's home; that was deeper into the canyon.

Thankfully he didn't have to trek that far - but it had taken him two weeks to figure that out.

Then another four weeks to determine where amongst the myriad guard camps the object of his desire was hidden.

So protective, the Tribes, of their precious treasures.

Not protective enough.

Soundlessly he glided between tents, weaving his way until he reached the one he sought, farthest from where he had entered. There had been other way to get here, all of them shorter, none of them even remotely worth the risk. Even now he could be caught any second. The Tribes had grown comfortable with the arrangement of the dunes, but that did not mean they had forgotten the winds would change them. Or that a sandstorm could rearrange the entire desert in a single night.

Shaking off the worries that never left him for more than a handful of minutes or a rare night of complete rest, he slid into the tent he sought and stalked to the bed. From a pouch at his waist he drew a small vial and pulled out the stopper, then held it under the nose of the man snoring softly in the bed. Seconds passed, and the snores faded as the man sank into a sleep from which he would not wake unless forcibly roused - hopefully the man didn't have the next patrol shift.

Returning the vial to its pouch, he turned sharply around and stalked to the table in the corner. He knew it was here, now it was just a matter of where. Hopefully not somewhere in the near vicinity of the bed, because he hated moving all-but-dead men out of a bed so he could rifle through it.

There were some things he just did not need to know about strangers.

Shuddering, he set aside several books after examining them carefully for odd pages or strangely thick covers. Next were the long, leather tubes that held rolls of paper - none of them what he sought. An hour passed as he carefully examined the contents of the table and the shelves arranged neatly on top of it. Finally he shifted his attention to the table itself, examining the legs, the underside, the top…still nothing.

Sighing softly, not quite yet frustrated, he spread his search to other sections of the tent. It was on the large side of small, perfect for a man who spent all his time either on duty or snatching what sleep he could before going back on duty. Vipers, it seemed, never relaxed.

Nor, as his presence indicated, did they pay enough attention.

A shelf near the bed gave him nothing, neither did the chest alongside it. Holding back a curse, he finally turned to the bed. If he had ever needed proof that the Lady despised him, here it was. Yet another bed search. Lady willing, this one would not be as disgusting as the last one had been.

The bed was nothing spectacular, little more than a thick mat with more pillows than a soldier was strictly allotted and a blanket sufficient for keeping back the chilly desert night. Why did they always hide it underneath their beds? Certainly he didn't want to resort to a bed search, but that didn't mean he'd just give up.

He leaned in close to get a better look at what he would have to do. There was very little light, only what was provided by the fires set up methodically through the camp. It was just enough for his well-trained eyes to see by without someone else noticing.

This one would be hard to move. He frowned in thought, considering the vial in his pouch.

Another dose of valtyanar would ensure the man would not wake for a very long, if at all.

But that would make it quite clear that someone had been there, and it would not take them long after that to figure out what in this minor soldier's tent had been worth killing for.

Stifling another sigh, he gingerly began to move the soldier, grunting with the effort of moving a man who seemed to weigh at least three times more than he should. Grimacing once the deed was done, he stepped over the unconscious man and knelt on the bed mat, slowly feeling his way along it, examining every last bit of it, then moved to the pillows and did the same.

Finally he rolled his eyes, crawled off the mat, and lifted it up. Sure enough.

He should just start checking here first. This was the fourth time someone had thought himself so very clever in hiding it in the sand beneath his bed. Honestly, if Viper knew they thought exactly as Horse there would be yet another fight in the Desert. Taking the leather-wrapped metal tube to the desk, he opened the tube and drew out a long, stiff sheet of paper. Spreading it out on the table, he secured it with whatever heavy objects were closest to hand. Then he drew up his cape, using it to cover him and as much of the table as he could. Safe within the folds, he struck a match and lit the small lamp on the table.

As light flared, he began to memorize what it revealed. Setting to stone in his mind every line, every curve, every last notation and careless blob of ink. Minutes passed slowly by as he worked to commit every bit of it to memory.

Finally he closed his eyes and summoned the image to his mind. When he opened his eyes a minute later, the image in his mind matched the image before him.

Which meant it was time to go.

Working swiftly but with all the caution he'd used to that point, he doused the light, restored his cape, and set about returning the tube and setting the room to rights. When everything was as it had been before he started, and the sleeping soldier was back in his bed - Lady's mercy it had been a relatively clean one - he took one last look around, then left the tent, sneaking back the way he'd come.

Several tense minutes later, he was successfully away from the camp, out of the canyon, and nearly falling down the dune to where he had left his horse. He pet her nose as she came forward, as eager as he to leave. "Hello, my Angel," he murmured softly. "I'll spoil you rotten when we finally get home…well, home away from home, anyway. You know the way, my Angel. Take us where we'll be safe for the night." He mounted smoothly and spurred her to movement.

In minutes they were well away from the canyons at the far south-east edge of the Desert, Angel taking them across the sands and toward safety, though he would not truly be safe until his mission was finished, and he was finally home.

Home.

If he were honest, which he always tried to be with himself, as he had to lie to everyone else, all that he really missed were his parents. He loved the Desert. A little more each day. The only pang was in not quite belonging. His entire life here was a charade, a pretense behind which he could work. What would it be like to belong? To wear the badges of a Tribe? Have people greet him as if he belonged and not merely as if he were being tolerated?