Covenant

24

Ayeem watched as the three guards encircled him with their rifles pointed down at his prostrate form. One of them shouted a command and the old guide got slowly to his feet, his hands behind his head but defiance etched clearly into his features. Nearby, Ayeem’s Bedouin companions stood under the watchful gaze of the other three soldiers.

A tall bearded man walked up to Ayeem.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he rumbled. “Where’s Ethan Warner?”

Ayeem said nothing. The soldier smiled cruelly and then his rifle butt swung around with terrific speed to smash into Ayeem’s temple with a sickening crack that echoed off the cliffs around them. The Bedouin spun away from the piercing pain, crumpling onto the earth and clasping his head. Instantly, the younger Bedouin were shouting, trying to surge forward.

Ayeem felt rough hands grabbing his limbs and half carrying, half dragging his body away from the tents toward the edge of the camp, where they unceremoniously dropped him onto the dust.

The tall, bearded soldier removed his rifle and pulled off his shirt, his body muscular and his pale skin smothered in purple tattoos. Ayeem struggled to his feet and watched as the soldier raised his fists in a classic boxing stance. A faint ripple of laughter from the encircling guards drifted on the hot wind.

“What were you doing in the camp?”

The bearded soldier’s words hissed from behind thick, meaty fists. Ayeem stood before him, ignoring the pain bolting through his skull and the blood dripping from his forehead.

“Walking home.”

“This is a restricted area, and we don’t allow the unclean to pass here, Araboosh.”

The surrounding soldiers chortled and nudged each other. Ayeem glanced briefly up at the ridge, above him and to his left. He could just make out Rachel and Ethan watching him from there. He looked back at the soldier.

“This land belonged to my father. You have stolen it from us.”

“Screw you.”

The soldier jabbed one chunky fist with lightning speed at the Bedouin’s face to a cheer from his companions. The cheer fell flat as Ayeem ducked aside and out of range of the punch and nipped forward into the soldier’s left side. The Bedouin’s hand flicked out in a blur of motion, and with a squelch two bony fingers punctured the soldier’s eyeballs like needles through a water balloon.

The trooper screamed out, clasping his hands to his eyes and doubling over. Ayeem spun on one foot before the troops could react and drove his opposite heel hard into the side of the soldier’s knee. With a dull crack the man’s tendons snapped like dry twigs and the heavy body jerked sideways and slammed into the dust.

Ayeem turned to look at the closest of the soldiers, his voice calm. “What did you do to Ahmed? Where is he?”

The two soldiers glanced at each other, and then as one they plunged into the Bedouin amid a cloud of frenzied blows.

Ethan and Rachel scrambled to the top of the ridge and looked back down into the camp.

“What the hell was he doing down there?” Ethan asked.

“He must have deliberately distracted their attention,” Rachel hissed. “Do something!”

Ethan, his camera in his hand, was filming the exchange beneath them. He watched as Ayeem was picked up by two of the soldiers and held in their grasp. A third soldier drove his fist into Ayeem’s unprotected belly, the Bedouin guide crumpling over the blow and sinking to his knees. A flurry of cries went up from the other Bedouin.

“For God’s sake,” Rachel uttered.

Ethan kept the camera on the scene below. “Go and start the jeep, now!”

“What for? Ayeem needs our—”

“Now!”

Rachel hurried away down the slope. Ethan turned to watch as Ayeem was once more dragged to his feet.

“Let him go.”

Brad’s voice crackled with a rage born of agony. The soldiers holding the guide complied at once, releasing Ayeem and backing away from him.

Ayeem watched as the towering soldier picked up his assault rifle from nearby, cocking the weapon and limping back toward him. Thick blood streamed from beneath his eyes, his features folding in upon themselves with pain.

“Brad, wait.”

One of the other soldiers raised a cautionary hand but the bearded man scowled at him. Ayeem took a last glance at the ridge, and then glared at the bearded soldier.

“Coward,” he uttered, loud enough for all to hear.

The soldier snapped the rifle up to point at Ayeem, and squeezed the trigger.

“Hey, you down there!” All six of the soldiers and their Bedouin prisoners turned to stare up at the ridge behind them. Ayeem saw Ethan wave at them and point to something he held in his hand. Even across the distance, the shape of a camera was clearly distinguishable. “See you on the news!”

With that he turned and fled out of sight.

“Oh shit,” someone uttered.

“Get after them!” Brad hollered.

Five of the soldiers turned and dashed toward the Humvees, leaping aboard them and starting the engines amid belching clouds of diesel smoke as the bearded soldier turned his rifle back to point at Ayeem. As the vehicles turned and accelerated away, Ayeem produced from beneath his robes a cruel blade that glittered in the late-afternoon sunlight.

“For Ahmed,” he whispered.

As the bearded soldier took aim Ayeem bolted forward, reaching out with one gnarled hand and bashing the barrel of the rifle aside. He saw a ripple of panic flitter across the soldier’s eyes as he realized what was about to happen.

Ayeem drove the needle-sharp blade deep into the soldier’s chest, sinking it to its delicately carved hilt. The soldier gasped, his eyes bulging and his cavernous pink mouth opening wide in a silent scream of indescribable agony.

Ayeem watched as the man sank to his knees, dropping his rifle and clasping the blade’s handle in his hands as dark blood poured from the wound through his thick fingers. The Bedouin turned his back on the dying man, and with a deceptively swift gait strode with his younger companions out toward the sanctuary of the endless plains.