The Parched Sea

Ten

Ruha’s camel had begun to limp, but the widow did not bother to dismount. After four days of travel on At’ar’s Looking Glass, half the Mahwa were riding lame beasts. With the merciless goddess blazing down on the wind-burnished stones, the searing heat blistered even the tough pads of the camels’ feet.

In order to reach his allies as quickly as possible, Sa’ar was pushing his tribe through the worst part of the day. Heat rose off the desert floor in rippling waves that gave the Looking Glass the appearance of a huge lake of molten rock. On the horizon, a line of tiny spires danced in the shimmering air. Though still so distant they looked like billows of violet smoke rather than minarets of desert rock, the obelisks were a welcome sight to Ruha’s aching eyes. The stony towers marked the edge of At’ar’s Looking Glass, and not far beyond lay the Mahwa’s destination.

Upon sighting the spires, Sheikh Sa’ar had declared that the Mahwa would not sleep until they reached the Well of the Chasm. The declaration had delighted Lander, who was eager to reach the next tribe before the Zhentarim enslaved or destroyed it. Despite her weariness, Ruha shared the Harper’s impatience, though for a different reason. The sooner he became convinced that the Bedine were responding to the Zhentarim threat, the sooner he would return to Sembia—taking her with him, of course.

The widow closed her eyes, hoping she could adjust to the new hitch in her camel’s rolling gait. She tried to imagine the green valley of Archendale, where cold water filled the canyon and Mielikki’s forest was so thick that At’ar could not penetrate its canopy. Try as she might, Ruha could not picture such a scene. She would simply have to go and see it with her own eyes.

“Don’t fall asleep,” warned a familiar voice. “It’s a long way down and the landing is hard.”

Ruha opened her eyes and saw that Lander had moved his camel closer to hers. She reacted by nudging her own mount away. “You mustn’t!” she whispered, shaking her head. “If Kadumi sees us speaking, it may be his dagger that cuts you open.”

“Surely he wouldn’t violate the sheikh’s orders,” Lander returned. “You did say that he was an honorable boy.”

“It is because he is an honorable boy that he would violate the sheikh’s word,” Ruha countered. “He would do anything to avenge a wrong against his dead brother.”

The Harper seemed unimpressed. “Kadumi’s blade is not one that I’m afraid of.”

“Then you are a fool!” Ruha countered.

“Perhaps,” Lander replied, shrugging. “But the sheikh’s prohibition is against speaking to you without your brother-in-law present.” He nodded toward the rear. “Kadumi’s less than thirty yards away.”

The widow did not need to look to know Lander spoke the truth. After Sa’ar’s judgment, the jealous youth had even relinquished his scouting duties to watch her. He had barely let her out of his sight since.

Disregarding the Harper’s reassurances, Ruha again steered her mount away. “He’s supposed to hear what we say.”

“What we say to each other is none of his business,” Lander replied, not urging his camel any closer to Ruha’s.

“That is not the Bedine way. What passes between us is very much his business.” The widow’s protests were due more to the desire to avoid trouble between Lander and Kadumi than to any respect for her people’s tradition.

The Harper scoffed. “You aren’t his property.”

“Kadumi must protect his brother’s marriage. It’s a matter of family honor.”

“His brother is dead!” Lander objected. Again, he guided his camel closer to Ruha’s.

“For less than a month!” the widow answered, giving up and not bothering to move away. “I must mourn Ajaman for two years.”

“And then what?” Lander asked, casting a furtive glance over his shoulder.

“It doesn’t matter,” she whispered, daring to give the Harper a wry glance. “In two years, I will be in Sembia, will I not?”

Her response drew an uncertain nod from Lander. “Perhaps, if that is what you want.”

“Of course it’s what I want!” Ruha hissed. “There’s nothing for me with the Bedine.”

“I truly hope you’re right, Ruha, but how do you know there’s anything for you in Sembia?” Lander asked. “You cannot imagine how different it is from Anauroch. For instance, women wear no veils, not even in public.”

The Harper’s revelation caught the widow by surprise. She started to claim she would do the same, then felt herself blushing and could not utter the words. “Their husbands permit this?” she asked, looking away.

Before Lander could respond, Kadumi’s white camel edged between Ruha and the Harper. “You may not speak to this woman, berrani.” He stared at Lander with a belligerent scowl, his hand brushing the hilt of his jambiya.

Lander eyed the gesture with a forbearing sneer, then laughed at the boy’s bravado. “As I recall, Kadumi, Sheikh Sa’ar said that I cannot speak to her except when you are with us. Well, you are with us now, so I speak to her.” The Harper turned to Ruha. “Shall I tell you more about Sembia?”

Though she would have liked to hear more, the widow shook her head. Ruha did not want Kadumi to know of her interest in the distant land, for she suspected his reaction would be violent if he knew she intended to leave him with the Mahwa and go with Lander. “I have heard enough of Sembia,” she lied.

The Harper gave her an amused smirk. “Then I won’t trouble you with more descriptions of it.” He lashed his mount with the tail of his reins and trotted a dozen yards ahead.

“I wish to know what passed between you and the berrani,” Kadumi demanded, looking from Lander’s back to the widow’s eyes.

Ruha felt herself growing increasingly angry at the boy’s protective suspicion and the coldness with which he had treated her since learning that she could use magic. She turned to Kadumi with a condescending glower. “I want you to remember two things,” she hissed. “First, if that berrani, as you call him, did not have the patience of a sheikh, he would have killed you with your own jambiya twice by now. If I were you, I would stop acting the fool and keep my hand away from it, lest he grow tired of hearing hollow threats.”

Kadumi bristled at her rough treatment. “I am a Bedine warrior,” he snapped. “I have killed three men!”

The youth’s comment summoned the memory of the assault on Lander’s back in her vision. She wondered if the attacker was destined to be her own brother-in-law. Immediately she twisted in her saddle to face Kadumi.

“You shall not kill that man!” she snarled.

The intensity of her reaction took Kadumi entirely by surprise. Once again, he seemed more like a confused boy than the hot-headed young man he had been playing lately.

A moment later, Kadumi collected his wits. “Lander is protected by the sheikh’s difa,” he said, neatly dodging the issue. “What is the second thing you want me to remember?”

“When you want something from me, you are to ask, not demand,” she lectured sharply. “Before you have the right to demand anything of me, you must earn my respect.”

Kadumi’s bluster evaporated like a morning mist. His furrowed brow rose into an astonished arch, his set jaw fell slack, and his fiery eyes suddenly seemed very hurt and young. Ruha was about to balance her harsh words with some compassion when Kadumi spoke, his voice rather timid and meek.

“Very well,” he said, “would you please tell me what passed between you and Lander? You and I are supposed to be family, so I have the right to know.”

Beneath her veil, Ruha could not help but smile at the way Kadumi had phrased his request. It seemed to her the boy had actually taken her words to heart, but she did not intend to tell him of her plan to leave the Bedine. Even if he sympathized with her, he might still feel honor-bound to prevent her departure.

Instead, she said, “I only knew Ajaman for three days before the Zhentarim came.”

Kadumi nodded. “Not much time for a marriage.”

Ruha took a deep breath. “Your brother was a wonderful man. If there had been more time for him and I, we might have grown to love each other.”

“And had ten sons to watch your herds,” the youth added, resting his apprehensive brown eyes on her veiled face.

“Perhaps,” Ruha sighed, “but I would have always had to hide my magic, for fear that Ajaman would have reacted as you have. Probably, he would have found me out anyway, and that would have been the end to our marriage.”

Kadumi frowned and looked away, unable to deny what she said. “What does that have to do with you and the berrani?”

“Nothing and everything,” she said, fixing her eyes on Kadumi’s face. “Lander knows of my magic, and it does not offend him. Can you understand how it feels for me to talk to someone who accepts me for what I am?”

For several moments the boy did not look at her. Instead, he stared at the burnished pebbles on the desert floor with a vacant stare, his face marked by his conflicting emotions.

At last he looked up. “I can understand how you feel, but what does it matter? When you chose to become a sorceress, you chose the path of loneliness. When you spoke the marriage vows with Ajaman, you promised to honor him and his family. Nothing has changed.”

After riding a few more steps in silence, Kadumi suddenly looked away and whipped his mount into a gallop, then rode off toward the front of the caravan.

Ruha groaned inwardly at his terse departure, then closed her eyes and tried to think of nothing.

The bells of the sheikh’s camel soon brought an end to Ruha’s glum meditation. “A young woman should not ride alone,” Sa’ar said, drawing up beside her.

Ruha opened her eyes. “This one should.”

Sa’ar nodded. “Ah, yes—the curse of the flesh,” he said. “For your husband’s sake, you must be patient.”

The young widow studied the sheikh with an appraising eye. “What do you mean by that?”

The sheikh looked at the sky and shrugged. “Nothing,” he said. “Only that Lander strikes me as a handsome enough man, and you are a young widow. If you were a weaker woman, it might be natural to have certain feelings …”

Sa’ar let the sentence trail off, and Ruha simply shook her head at his not-so-subtle warning. When the sheikh did not take her hint and leave her to ride alone, she closed her eyes. Before long, the rhythmic jingle of the sheikh’s bells and her limping camel’s rocking gait lulled her into a restful slumber.

The young widow did not really sleep, for she remained awake enough to keep from falling off her camel. She was also aware of a hot breeze blowing against her face and of the periodic cries of warriors when they urged their hounds or birds after a lizard or snake for the evening’s meal. The sun sank lower in the western sky, and At’ar’s merciless rays struck Ruha’s eyelids at increasingly horizontal angles. Kadumi’s protectiveness and the sheikh’s suspicions became distant worries, and the widow was resting as peacefully as she would have on a bed of soft carpets.

Some hours later, Ruha felt her mount shift from its pebble-sore stride to a softer tread more suitable for dust or sand. She opened her eyes and saw that the caravan now traveled in a more tightly knit formation.

Sa’ar still rode next to Ruha, but his attention was focused on a scout urgently whispering at his side. The sun had already touched the horizon, and night would soon fall. The dusk seemed unusually quiet and tense. Aside from the scout’s murmuring voice and Sa’ar’s jingling bells, the only sounds breaking the twilight were the soft footfalls of weary camels.

The caravan had left the burnished pebbles of At’ar’s Looking Glass behind. It now rode over a carpet of dust, indigo colored in the failing light. To all sides, the purplish towers of rock that had seemed so distant earlier rose like minarets into the sky.

The Well of the Chasm lay less than a mile ahead, Ruha knew, through a labyrinth of stony spires that led to a deep canyon. Over a distance of several miles, the canyon descended to a depth of five hundred feet and ended in a boulder-strewn hollow. In the center of this small valley, a deep pit penetrated the bedrock to tap an underground stream of rust-colored water.

While Sa’ar conversed with the scout, a knot of concerned warriors slowly gathered around. They rode in silence, straining to hear what the scout was reporting to the sheikh. Even Lander and Kadumi had returned, riding side-by-side a few yards to the widow’s right. Ruha began to feel swarmed by the silent throng and wished that Sa’ar had selected some other part of the caravan for his conference.

When the scout stopped whispering to him, Sa’ar wasted no time with deliberations or thought. He simply looked up and addressed his warriors. “Ready your bows and your scimitars,” he ordered, signaling the caravan to stop. “Have the women wait here. If we do not return by dawn or if I send word for them to flee, they are to scatter into the desert. Should this happen, tell them not to wait for us, for we will not be joining them.”

When the warriors did not relay his orders quickly enough, Sa’ar barked, “Do it now!”

As the throng dispersed, Lander urged his mount close to Ruha and Sa’ar. “What is happening, Sheikh?”

“The Zhentarim are camped outside the canyon leading to the Well of the Chasm,” Sa’ar replied. “They are just sending their asabis to destroy the Raz’hadi. We assume that our allies will meet the attackers in the narrowest part of the canyon. We are going to try to drive the Zhentarim away from their campsite, then attack the asabis from behind and free the Raz’hadi.”

Lander shook his head. “There are too many Zhentarim. You’ll never drive them away. They’ll just wipe you out while the asabis destroy your allies.”

“Perhaps,” the sheikh replied. “But we must fight. It is a matter of honor for the entire khowwan.”

“Though it means dying in vain?”

“Even so,” Sa’ar acknowledged, nodding. “This is not your fight, berrani. You and Kadumi should wait with the women. Flee if we do not return.”

“I choose to fight,” Kadumi called, drawing his scimitar. “The Zhentarim killed my father and my brothers in combat, and they slaughtered my mother and sisters without cause. It is my right to seek their blood.”

The sheikh regarded the boy with a sad expression. “As you say, it is your right. You may ride with my warriors.”

Lander spoke next. “This is not my fight, Sheikh, but I know more about the Zhentarim than any of your warriors. If you allow me to accompany you, I may be able to offer some advice.”

Sa’ar nodded. “I was hoping you would volunteer to do this, for those who know their enemies will prevail more often. I will keep you safe.”

“Then I’ll stay with Lander,” Ruha said, intruding on the conversation that had been going on all around her.

Both the sheikh and Kadumi scowled at the widow, and Lander studied her with an expression of surprise and puzzlement.

“Out of the question!” Sa’ar roared.

“Why?” Ruha countered. “You have promised to keep Lander safe. Surely it will cause no trouble to extend that protection to me.”

“Lander rides with me because he may prove of use during the battle,” the sheikh said. “Aside from being an unnecessary source of worry, what can you contribute to the warriors’ cause?”

Lander’s good eye flashed with inspiration. He turned from Ruha to the sheikh. “Perhaps Ruha is concerned about what will happen to her if we do not return,” the Harper said. “After all, she is a stranger to the Mahwa and has only Kadumi and me to watch after her.”

Sa’ar looked irritated. “She can’t think she will be safer at the battlefield!”

The widow said, “But I do. With Kadumi riding into the middle of the fight, I would feel much safer in Lander’s company.” Ruha glanced at her brother-in-law meaningfully. “Unless, of course, Kadumi prefers to stay with me and the other women during the battle.”

The youth clenched his teeth, and the widow saw that her threat was not lost on him. After giving Ruha a quick scowl, Kadumi addressed Sa’ar. “If it pleases the sheikh, I would entrust my sister-in-law to Lander’s care. I have seen him fight and believe that even in the thick of battle, she will be safe with him.”

“If that’s what you want, then I approve,” the sheikh said, impatiently turning his attention away from the trio. “Now I must go and prepare my sons for battle.”

The three hundred warriors of the Mahwa said good-bye to their loved ones over the next quarter-hour, then gathered with their camels and weapons. Along with Kadumi and Lander, Ruha waited at the edge of the gathering, wondering what the night would bring. Several times, Lander started to ask a question of her, but Kadumi, who was straying no more than twenty feet from her side, always came over to smother the conversation.

By the time the last radiance of At’ar had vanished from the western sky, the sheikh was satisfied with his tribe’s battle preparations. He drew his scimitar and waved his warriors forward. The small force mounted their camels and formed themselves into a column, then slipped between the hulking rock spires without a sound.

As Sa’ar’s advisor, Lander rode at the sheikh’s side. Ruha and Kadumi were a few yards behind the Harper. Like the rest of the column, they proceeded in tense silence, their thoughts occupied with images of what the night would bring.

Within a half-mile of travel, the sheikh sent Kadumi forward to join the rest of the warriors. When the boy was gone, Lander allowed his camel to fall back, then turned to Ruha and whispered, “What do you have in mind?”

The widow frowned, confused. “I don’t understand.”

“What’s your plan?” he asked. “Why did you ask to join the battle?”

“To watch your back,” she replied honestly.

The Harper’s jaw drooped. “What about your—?” He finished the question by gesturing as if he were casting a spell.

Ruha raised her brow. “That’s not why I came,” she whispered, glancing at Sa’ar’s back to make sure he wasn’t eavesdropping on them. “What do you think I can do that will give three hundred men victory over three thousand?”

“You did okay at the ambush,” Lander countered. “I thought you had an idea.”

“No,” Ruha said. “I just didn’t want to be left alone.”

The Harper rubbed his chin, then looked toward the front of the column. “Just the same, it can’t hurt having you here.”

They rode for another ten minutes before the column rounded a wishbone-shaped spire familiar to the widow. This had been the first oasis that Ruha had visited after Qoha’dar’s death, so she recognized the terrain ahead. Less than two hundred yards away, a flat outcropping of rock rose from the desert floor, its walls draped in darkness. At the small plateau’s southern end there was a narrow gap, barely visible in the pale light of the crescent moon. That gap was the beginning of the narrow, winding canyon that descended to the Well of the Chasm.

The scouts stopped in the shadow of the wishbone spire, awaiting the sheikh’s command. Gathered in front of the canyon was the unsuspecting army of the Zhentarim. Their camels were unladen, and the men were gathered in small clusters, laughing and joking without regard to danger. From the dark gap leading into the chasm came a sporadic stream of shouting, amarat sirens, and guttural yens—the only sign that there was a battle nearby.

As Sa’ar paused to study the scene ahead, Lander turned to Ruha, an unspoken question in his eye.

“What do you think I can do?” she hissed.

The Harper shrugged. “It would be nice if the enemy couldn’t tell how many of us there are,” he answered. Without waiting for a response, he moved forward to take his place next to the sheikh.

Realizing that she might be able to accomplish what the Harper wanted, Ruha stopped behind the sheikh and forced her camel to kneel. She paused to make sure that everyone’s attention was fixed on the Zhentarim camp. When she felt satisfied that she was last thing on anyone’s mind, the widow picked up a handful of dust.

The sheikh raised his scimitar and signaled his warriors to charge.

Ruha whispered her wind incantation, then blew the dust from her hand. As the warriors galloped toward the unsuspecting Zhentarim, a gale rose at their backs, catching the dust raised by their camels and lifting it high into sky. Within moments, the cloud stretched across the entire valley and was billowing a hundred feet into the air.

“What’s happening?” Sa’ar cried.

“Who can say?” Lander replied. Over his shoulder, he cast an approving glance at Ruha, then turned back to the sheikh. “But from the Zhentarim camp, it must look like you’ve sent ten thousand warriors into battle!”