The Parched Sea

Seven

“Where are the dead?”

The question was Kadumi’s, but it troubled Lander and Ruha as well. The trio was perched on Rahalat’s shoulder, at the top of a steep face of barren rock that dropped over two thousand feet to the campsite at the base of the mountain. The sun was just rising, and they were getting their first view of the devastated khowwan of the Mtair Dhafir.

From such a distance, the three survivors could make out only a few details of the scene below. Every khreima in the camp had been knocked down. The Zhentarim had tethered the Mtair’s camels in a tight circle and were looting the possessions of the Mtair Dhafir. Hundreds of columns of gray smoke rose from campfires spread around the base of the mountain, and the camel drivers were taking their beasts to drink from the spring in small groups.

Missing from the scene were what Lander had most expected to see: the bodies of the Mtair Dhafir. At such a distance, it was impossible to tell a tribesman from an invader, for men looked like dark specks crawling across the pale sands. What troubled Lander and his companions was that all the dark specks were moving. If the Bedine were lying at the base of the mountain, at least two hundred of the dark specks would have been quite still.

“Perhaps the Mtair escaped,” Kadumi whispered. “It was dark, and we could not see what was truly happening.”

The trio had spent the night watching the battle, but they had not seen much. After the amarats had sounded a second time, the torches on the battleline went out, presumably extinguished by the warriors themselves in order to keep from drawing attention to their positions. A few minutes had passed, then muted cries had begun to drift up the mountainside.

In camp, the women, marked by the flickering lights of their torches, had scurried about, collecting children and supplies with renewed frenzy. As the Mtairi battle cries grew more desperate, the women had assembled on the far side of the camp, then fled the battlefield.

Before the line of yellow flames had traveled fifty yards, a muffled chorus of surprised screams had heralded an invader ambush. The refugees had scattered, but their torches had started to wink out immediately.

Recalling the agonized shriek that had accompanied each dying light, Lander knew that even if some of the women had escaped, there were many more who had not. The sand should have been carpeted with their bodies and with the bodies of the warriors who had died at the battleline.

Lander shook his head. “Everybody couldn’t have escaped, Kadumi.” The Sembian did not bother to speak in a hushed voice. With the Zhentarim nearly a half-mile away, there was no chance of being overheard. “There should be dozens of corpses at the very least. Do you see any?”

“No corpses,” Ruha answered. She pointed at a knot of dark specks gathered at the tent in which the trio had been held last night. “But I don’t like what is happening there.”

As she spoke, the gathering began to break into groups of ten or twelve. As each group left, it moved in a different direction.

“Search parties!” Lander said.

Kadumi’s brow furrowed. “Are they searching for—”

“Me,” Lander said, assuming that his enemies learned of his presence from a captured Mtair. “Perhaps we should separate. If they find me, the Zhentarim might stop looking.”

Ruha regarded him thoughtfully for a moment. Her dark eyes flashed with what Lander took to be irritation, then she said, “Either you have a very low opinion of Kadumi and I, or an exaggerated sense of your own importance, berrani.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Lander protested, feeling himself flush in embarrassment. “But if the Zhentarim know I am here, they won’t stop searching until they find me.”

“Why is that?” asked Kadumi suspiciously.

Lander considered the boy’s question for a moment, then decided that he should reveal his identity to his companions so that they might understand the danger into which they were moving. He opened his robe and displayed the pin that he wore over his heart. “I belong to an organization called the Harpers,” he said. “We work to protect the freedom of people everywhere, and that often places us into opposition against the Zhentarim.”

“As in this case?” Ruha asked.

“Yes,” the Harper answered. “If they catch you with me, it will mean a slow and agonizing death.”

“If they catch us without you, it will mean a slow and agonizing death,” Ruha countered. “The Zhentarim whom Al’Aif killed had a companion. That man knows that Kadumi and I came here to warn my father about the Black Robes, and he may even suspect that we had something to do with the murder. So we lose nothing by staying together, unless you feel you would be safer without a boy and a woman to defend. Of course, I don’t know how long a berrani can expect to survive in Anauroch with no guides …”

The irony in Ruha’s tone did not escape Lander. He raised his hand to quiet her. “Your point is well taken,” he said. “Together, we all stand a better chance of surviving.”

When Ruha nodded, the Sembian started to crawl back down the ridge toward the camels.

The widow caught his arm before he gone two steps. “Where are you going?”

“We’d better leave,” he said. “If the Zhentarim find us up here, we’ll be trapped.”

Ruha shook her head. “Rahalat will not allow the Zhentarim on her slopes.”

“How can you be sure?” Lander asked. The phantom goats had convinced him of Rahalat’s existence, though he suspected she was a ghost and not a goddess. In either case, he saw no reason to believe she would protect them.

Ruha glanced toward the mountain’s summit. “If Rahalat did not favor us, we would be dead. I doubt that she will favor the Zhentarim.”

Lander glanced at Kadumi. “What do you think?”

The youth looked thoughtful for a moment, then nodded. “What my sister-in-law says makes sense,” he said. “Besides, we would only draw attention to ourselves by moving. We should wait.”

“I hope you’re right,” he said, crouching behind the ridge crest. “If I know the Zhentarim, they won’t stop searching until they’ve scoured every inch of the oasis. Let’s take care not to let them see us up here.”

Lander motioned for the other two to conceal themselves in the rocks, and they did as asked. Their hiding places overlooked not only the camp, but the approach up the ridge as well. Even if Rahalat did not keep the Zhentarim off the mountain, the Sembian felt confident that they would see the enemy in plenty of time to flee.

The trio crouched on the ridge for most of the morning, watching the specks below scurry about their business. Soon, the Zhentarim began butchering the Mtair Dhafir’s camels, and the breeze carried the smell of roasting meat up to them. Lander’s mouth began to water, bringing back the memory of the special feasts he and his father had once shared.

As a merchant, Lander’s father often ventured up the Arkhen River to purchase fruits, farm produce, and freshwater crabs. The people of the valley were haughty and arrogant, so Lander had often gone along on these trips to keep his father company. He and his father would sit in country taverns until late at night, eating roasted mutton and discussing the highest price they would pay for the next day’s goods. Even then, Lander had never believed his advice was truly needed, but he had looked forward to the trips eagerly. For the son of a traveling merchant, any opportunity to spend time with his father had been precious.

Unfortunately, the meat making Lander’s mouth water was camel instead of sheep, and Rahalat’s barren shoulder was a poor substitute for the humid valley of ferns and lilies. Now Archendale’s abundant orchards and sweet waters seemed a distant and fantastic mirage, much as Anauroch’s empty wastes and scorched mountains would have seemed a bad dream to him then.

The Sembian opened his waterskin and took a long drink, trying to wash the recollection away before it became distressing. It didn’t help. He was hungry and the smell of roasting meat automatically triggered memories of every feast he had ever eaten, especially memories he had thought long forgotten.

Trying to keep his mind focused on stopping the enemy’s plans in Anauroch, Lander began to count the specks in the camp below. Sooner or later, he knew, the Bedine would fight the Zhentarim. When they did, it would be useful for them to know just what they were up against.

It was not an easy task, for invaders kept moving from fire to fire. Occasionally, one patrol returned to camp and scattered to a dozen different fires to eat, while another group left to take its place. Lander found that he had to keep track of the Zhentarim by scratching a grid in the ground and moving pebbles from one place to another to represent every ten specks that moved.

As Lander was finishing his count, Kadumi crawled to his side and peered over the Sembian’s shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“Counting the Zhentarim,” Lander replied.

“And how many are there?” asked Ruha, turning to face the pair.

Lander looked at the grid, then added the figures in his head. “I would guess about fifteen hundred.”

“Impossible!” Kadumi objected.

“At least we know why they’re so hungry,” Ruha said, studying the cooking fires down in the camp. “The largest khowwan I’ve ever heard of numbers only three hundred. The invaders will never find enough grazing to keep all their camels in milk.”

“Or enough game to fill their stewpots,” Kadumi added.

“They don’t need to,” Lander replied. “The Zhentarim don’t intend to be in the desert long. They’re carrying all the food they need on their camels.”

“You mean they’ll go away in a few months?” Ruha asked, her voice growing hopeful.

Lander shook his head. “No. A few months are all the Zhentarim need to complete their task. They’ll subdue a dozen khowwans, then use hostages, bribery, and violence to enslave the tribesmen. Once their powerbase is secure, they’ll take their army away and use the tribes they control to overpower the others. Before the Bedine realize what’s happened, the entire desert will belong to the Black Robes. The only way to stop them is to drive the Zhentarim from the desert.”

“Then the Bedine are doomed,” Kadumi said, pointing at the specks in the camp. “No tribe can stand against so many.”

Lander frowned and pulled the boy’s arm down. “Of course not. Any tribe that fights the Zhentarim alone will meet the same fate as the Mtair Dhafir and the Qahtan. We’ll need a hundred tribes.”

Ruha and Kadumi looked skeptical. “That’s impossible,” Kadumi said. “No tribe has that many allies.”

Lander shook his head. “Kadumi, this isn’t a matter of traditional alliances. Tribes that have never heard of each other must ride and fight under the same banner. They’re all battling a common enemy.”

“It will never—”

Ruha interrupted Kadumi’s reply with an alarmed gasp. Pointing over Lander’s back, she cried, “Look out!”

Lander reached for the jambiya at his waist with one hand and for his sword with the other. The effort made his wounded shoulder burn with agony. He clenched his teeth, then pulled the blades from their sheathes and spun around on his knees to meet the unseen attacker.

There was no one there. Fearing his enemy to be cloaked by invisibility, Lander jumped to his feet. He sliced through the air in front of him with the scimitar, then crossed the pattern with a slash from his dagger. Neither blade hit a target. Groaning with pain, Lander took one step backward and repeated the pattern first to his right and then to his left. Still nothing.

The Sembian backed away one more step. Kadumi moved next to him, scimitar drawn but held in a confused and tentative low guard.

“Where is it, Ruha?” Lander demanded.

There was no answer.

“Ruha, I can’t see it,” the Harper repeated.

When there was still no response, Lander hazarded a glance over his shoulder.

Ruha was staring at him as if he were ghost. Her eyes were glassy, and she had a confused, distant expression on her brow.

“Is something wrong?” the Harper asked, beginning to suspect that the cause for her alarm had not been an attacker. “Are you sick?”

The widow did not respond to the question. Instead, she looked him over from head to toe, then took the material of his filthy robe between her fingers. “Blessings to Rahalat,” Ruha said. “You’re alive.”

“Of course he is,” Kadumi said, scowling. “So am I. What made you think otherwise?”

Ruha shook her head, then said, “I saw a Black Robe behind Lander—or at least I thought I did. He had a dagger.” She squinted toward the sun, then shook her head. “It must have been At’ar.”

Kadumi sheathed his dagger and took his sister-in-law by the arm. “You’re getting sun-sick again,” he said. “Let’s find some shade and get you a drink of water.”

Ruha started to protest, then seemed to think better of it and allowed Kadumi to lead her off the ridge.

Lander crouched back down and peered over the rocky slope to the camp. To his relief, he saw no sign that the Zhentarim had not noticed their excitement. The flea-sized spots were still milling calmly about camp.

After assuring himself that they remained undetected, the Sembian found a hiding place on the shady side of a boulder. Gently rubbing his wounded shoulder, he drank down one of the healing potions Florin had given him, then followed it with a long swallow from his waterskin.

For the next few hours, Lander remained on watch while Kadumi tended Ruha. Nothing happened, save that a dozen vultures came to hover over the camp. With their red-rimmed eyes, nude heads, and snakelike necks, the birds normally appeared grotesque and repulsive to Lander. Watching them from above, as they circled a few yards below the ridge, was almost enough to change the Sembian’s opinion. Their magnificent wingspan, gleaming black feathers, and keen ebony eyes gave a proud, almost noble streak to their character.

A vulture glanced up and fixed its dark stare on Lander’s hiding place. A chill ran down his spine, for in the bird’s look he saw the sable eyes of his mother. The expression seemed at once rapacious and dangerous, devoid of tenderness and demanding of veneration. The Harper’s stomach knotted with an emotion somewhere between fear and anger. He felt his mother reaching out from Cyric’s palace, imploring him to remember her face, to open his mind to her now as he had refused to open his spirit when she lived.

Lander forced himself to look away. The last thing he wished to do, now or ever, was contact his mother’s spirit. She had chosen her new home, and to yield to her call would be to betray all that he had come to believe.

The Sembian kept his good eye closed, clearing his mind by concentrating on nothing but his breathing. His mother had reached out from her grave once before, after he had joined the Harpers, and he knew from that experience a bitter contest of wills would follow if he allowed her a hold in his thoughts.

At last Lander’s stomach settled and his body relaxed. Sensing that his mother had retreated, the Sembian opened his eye. Once again the vulture was just a vulture, patiently circling the camp with its fellows. The Harper could not even tell which one had looked at him.

Lander kept a close eye on the approach to their ridge for the rest of the afternoon. If his mother had found him through a vulture, then Cyric might also know where he was. If what the Zhentarim were doing in Anauroch was important enough to the evil god, and if Lander posed a big enough threat to his plans, it did not seem unlikely that the Prince of Lies would try to communicate that information to his followers at the base of the mountain.

Twice Lander thought that a patrol was approaching the ridge, but each time the search party turned onto a different path. It appeared that either Cyric was not guiding the Zhentarim, or Rahalat had somehow turned them aside. Whatever the case, Lander was thankful. Fleeing during the heat of the day would have been hard on his wounded shoulder. If Ruha was sun-sick, he did not think it would do her any good either.

Periodically rotating search parties, the Zhentarim continued to feast and rest all day. Several times, Kadumi volunteered to change places, but Lander did not accept the offer. It made no difference to the Harper whether he spent the day watching the Zhentarim or sitting with Ruha, and he suspected that the youth knew more about preventing sun-sickness than he did.

When the sun dropped below the western horizon, both Kadumi and Ruha joined Lander. They all sat in silence for a few minutes, watching the birds of prey that nested on Rahalat’s craggy slopes take wing with eerie silence. As the raptors spiraled down toward the spring, the cautious vultures widened their circle to give their ferocious cousins a wide berth.

“We should sneak away under cover of darkness,” Kadumi said at last. “There is no telling how long the Zhentarim will rest at this oasis.”

“Even in the dark, it is too dangerous to move until the invaders are gone,” Ruha countered. “We would have to travel along the ridge all the way to the bottom of the mountain. Sooner or later, somebody would see our silhouettes.”

Both the widow and her young brother-in-law looked to Lander for his opinion. Before giving it, he glanced at the camp. Already, dusk had cloaked the site in purple shadows and the dark-robed Zhentarim had disappeared. The hundreds of campfires they had kept burning all day twinkled in the night like orange stars.

“We have plenty of water and milk,” Lander said. “Let’s stay one more day. If the Zhentarim know we’re still here, they’ll be expecting us to leave in the dark.”

Ruha nodded. “I’ve been resting all day, so I’ll take the first watch.”

After telling the widow to wake them if she felt weak before her watch ended, Lander and Kadumi agreed, then went down to sleep near the camels.

The Harper did not wake until shortly after dawn. Ruha sat atop the ridge, and Kadumi was still lodged between the two boulders that he had claimed as his bed last night. Lander stretched his sore muscles, then climbed up the hill and sat next to the widow.

“You should have wakened me,” he said, taking a healing potion from his pocket.

Ruha shrugged. “You seemed tired, and I had slept all day.” She regarded the glass vial in his hand. “What’s that?”

“A potion for my shoulder,” Lander explained. He opened the vial and drank the bitter contents in one swallow.

“Magic?” Ruha asked, one eyebrow raised.

Lander made a sour face and nodded. “Nothing else could taste that bad.”

The widow studied him with a shocked expression. “Don’t let Kadumi see you drinking those,” she said. “The Bedine think ill of those who use magic.”

Lander grimaced at his blunder, then slipped the empty vial back into his pocket. “You don’t think magic is wrong, do you?”

Ruha shook her head. “I understand, but no one else.” She studied him with an uncertain expression in her eyes, then nodded her head as if making up her mind about something. “There is something I must tell you, but only if you swear not to tell Kadumi or anyone else.”

“Of course,” Lander replied, wondering what the widow would tell him that she would not tell one of her own people.

“Sometimes I see mirages from the future,” Ruha began. “That is what happened yesterday, when you and Kadumi thought I was sun-sick.”

Lander nodded. “It did seem odd that you were affected and not me. What did you see?”

Ruha looked away. “I’m not sure. Someone is going to try kill you,” she said. “He will attack from behind, with a dagger. You will be wounded.”

Lander raised his eyebrow, unsure of how to take the news. “You’re sure?”

The widow met his gaze evenly. “It is my curse that what I see always happens.”

“Could you see what he looked like?” Lander asked.

Ruha shook her head. “All I saw was a dagger slicing along your ribs. I don’t know who was wielding it or what the outcome will be.”

“Or when it will happen?”

The widow shook her head.

The warning did not frighten Lander, for he had long lived with the idea that the Zhentarim might try to assassinate him. Still, knowing that such a thing would occur—without knowing when or where—made him feel rather helpless. While sobering, the knowledge that such an attack would occur contained no hint as to what should be done about it—if, indeed, anything could.

“Thanks for the warning,” Lander said. “I’ll try to be careful about who I let behind me.”

“It will do no good,” Ruha said. “No matter what, you will be cut.”

“At least you didn’t see the dagger stuck in my heart,” Lander said.

“I just thought you should know,” Ruha replied. “I didn’t say this to upset you.”

“I know,” the Harper replied, looking toward the base of the mountain and hoping to change the subject. In the growing dawn light, he saw a few wisps of smoke rising from a half-dozen dying fires, but otherwise the camp seemed empty and motionless. “Are they gone?”

Ruha nodded. “Their fires died last night, but I thought they had just fallen asleep. I didn’t realize they were gone until nobody stirred with the dawn.”

Lander studied the camp for a few minutes more. When he saw a vulture appear out of the east and drift straight into camp, he realized that there was no sign of the birds that had hovered below the ridge all day yesterday. The Zhentarim had, indeed, slipped away in the night.

“If the vultures are bold enough to land, then they’re gone.” The Harper called, “Kadumi, wake up! It’s time to go.”

As soon as the youth woke, the trio untethered the camels and led them down the mountain. By the time they reached the bottom, the sun had risen into the blue sky and the rosy morning light had faded to its usual white blaze. They paused at the spring to let the camels drink, then moved into the camp. Dozens of vultures took wing and hovered fifty feet overhead, watching the three companions with black, jealous eyes.

As at El Ma’ra, the invaders had razed all the khreimas, and the odor of singed camel-hair still hung thick in the air near the charred tents. There were Zhentarim fire rings everywhere, many of them still smoldering, and every combustible thing in camp had been burned. The entire area was littered with the hides and bones of half-eaten camels, and it appeared that even one or two dogs had been roasted.

The trio studied the ghastly scene in silence for several minutes before Ruha asked the question still troubling all three of them. “What happened to the bodies of the Mtair?”

Lander shook his head without speaking, then walked toward the edge of the camp. After picking up a waterskin to replace the one that had fallen off the mountainside with Kadumi’s gelding, the widow and the youth followed with the camels. The companions soon found the spot where the Mtair warriors had made their stand. Crossbow quarrels, arrows, and broken-bladed weapons lay scattered along a quarter-mile battleline. Along the entire course, the sand was mottled with the brown stains of dried blood. Here and there lay camels or fleet-looking dogs unfortunate enough to have been caught in the crossfire, and Lander even found a golden jackal that had somehow gotten mixed up in the battle.

There were no human corpses. At El Ma’ra, the Zhentarim had taken care not to leave any of their dead behind, so Lander had not expected to discover any Black Robes or their reptilian mercenaries. On the other hand, he had expected to find the Mtair Dhafir’s dead warriors. Instead, all he saw here were shredded abas, blood-stained keffiyehs, and discarded jambiyas.

“Look at this,” Kadumi called, motioning for Lander to join him and Ruha.

The youth had discovered a trail of long, splayed-toed tracks. “Good work,” Lander said, recognizing the footprints as those of the Zhentarim’s mercenaries.

The trio followed the trail around to the north side of the mountain to a wadi they had not been able to see from their perch atop the ridge. As they approached the edge of the dry gulch, the thick odor of blood and entrails assaulted their nostrils, and all three of them nearly wretched. Lander motioned for the others to stand back, then stepped to the edge and peered down into the draw.

The bodies of the Mtair Dhafir lay scattered along the bed of the gulch, dozens of vultures feasting on their remains. If Lander was sickened by the desecrations of the scavenger birds, he was outraged by the mutilations that had been performed upon the bodies before the vultures began their grisly feast. The entire khowwan looked as though it had been attacked by man-eating beasts. The soft parts of their bodies had been ripped open and savaged as he had seen Sembian bears do to deer and other large game.

Kadumi and Ruha stepped to Lander’s side.

“What happened?” asked the widow.

To Lander’s surprise, his companions were not staggered by the sight. Their faces showed anger and outrage, but there was no sign of horror in either of their expressions.

“The men ate the camels,” Lander said, wondering if all Bedine were made of such stern stuff. “The reptilian sell-swords ate the men.”

“There must be over a thousand mercenaries with the Zhentarim,” Kadumi said, studying the gruesome scene with a thoughtful air. “A few hundred could not have eaten so many.”

“True, but this points out the Zhentarim’s weakness,” Ruha said. “The invaders must be running low on their food. Perhaps they will starve, after all.”

“If that is going to happen,” the Harper said. “We must reach the next tribe before the Zhentarim feed it to their mercenaries. Can we do it?”

Ruha nodded. “Colored Waters is a week away. With Kadumi’s extra camels, we should easily overtake the Zhentarim.”

The youth frowned at his sister-in-law. “Do you know who is camped at Colored Waters? Are they allies of the Mtair Dhafir?”

Ruha shook her head.

“Then perhaps it is not our place to go with the berrani,” he said. “Even if they let us into camp, those camped at Colored Waters may not believe us.”

The widow shrugged. “I see no harm in helping Lander,” she said. “Besides, it is our duty to avenge the slaughter of the Qahtan and the Mtair Dhafir, is it not?”

Kadumi regarded the corpse-filled wadi for several moments, then nodded. “It is.”

“Good,” Lander said. He glanced at the bodies uncomfortably. “Is there anything we should do?”

Ruha shook her head. “N’asr’s children took their spirits away last night,” she said. “There is nothing we can do but reach Colored Waters as fast as we can.”

Lander did not understand what she meant, but he felt he should follow his own custom and warn the spirits about the dangers they faced in the Realm of the Dead. He stepped to the edge of the wadi, then called in a clear loud voice, “Dead ones, Cyric—er, N’asr—has denizens everywhere. Remember your gods and keep their faith. If you doubt your gods, you will suffer as surely as the wicked.”

When the Harper turned away from the gulch, Kadumi was openly smirking at him. Even Ruha’s eyes were twinkling as she asked, “What did they answer?”

“It’s sort of a prayer,” Lander explained.

“It sounded like advice to me,” Ruha countered. “Have you visited N’asr’s camp?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then how can you give advice to the dead?” demanded Kadumi, forcing his camel to kneel so he could mount it. “You don’t know what they’ll find.”

Lander started to explain that he had learned about how the Realm of the Dead worked from his Cyric-worshiping mother, then thought better of explaining his family history. Instead, forcing his own camel to kneel, he simply said, “It can’t hurt.”

“That’s right, Kadumi,” Ruha said, also kneeling her camel. “After the vultures carry off the spirits of the dead, Lander can say whatever he likes to the corpses.” She climbed into her camel’s saddle, then added, “Now, if they start talking back, we’d better change our minds about riding with him.”

Lander flushed, uncertain as to whether or not the widow was poking fun at him, and uncomfortable in either event. He mounted his camel and urged it to its feet. “I told you, they never talk back.”

Kadumi laughed, then commanded his camel to rise and pointed the way into the desert.

On the western side of Rahalat, the sand dunes grew smaller and more yellowish in color. Within two miles, they assumed the parallel, ridgelike pattern of transverse dunes. To Lander, the sands resembled nothing so much as a lake of golden waters on a breezy day. In the wide troughs between the dunes, the sand was no more than a few inches deep and the camels found the going quite easy.

The dunes themselves rose no higher than thirty feet, with gentle slopes leading both up to and down from the crest. Where the Zhentarim had crossed them, the passage of so many thousands of feet had often pounded a small pass through the ridge. These passes made travel even easier, for they often reduced the height the Harper’s small company had to climb by as much as ten feet.

As he reached the summit of one of these passes, Lander paused between its ten-foot walls and looked over his shoulder. He saw that the ground had slowly been rising as they rode away from the Shunned Mountain. The great whaleback dunes on the eastern side of Rahalat lay in an immense basin. From this distance, they looked like a stormy ocean of ice. Remembering the effort it had required to struggle over one of those monstrous dunes, the Harper was grateful for the easy travel through these golden sands.

When Kadumi and Ruha reached the summit of the little pass, Lander nodded toward the white sands. “It’s like an ocean.”

Kadumi looked confused. “We call it the Bowl of Loneliness. What do you mean, ‘ocean’?”

Lander started to explain. “It’s a pond of water so large—” A heap of sand sloughed off the northern wall of the pass, and the Harper stopped in midsentence.

“What’s wrong?” Ruha asked.

Before Lander could answer, a black shroud burst out of the sand. At the same time, a swarthy voice called, “Show yourselves!”

The voice was speaking Common, so Lander assumed it belonged to a Zhentarim. Reaching for his sword with one hand and using the reins to whip his mount with the other, the Harper yelled in Bedine, “Ambush! Get out of here!”

Before the camel took two steps, a pair of crossbow quarrels sailed across Lander’s path from the other side of the little pass. The Harper spun around to face the attack and found two men less then ten yards away. They held empty crossbows in their hands. Behind them, four more men were flinging the sand from their black burnooses and rising from their subsurface hiding places, crossbows cocked and ready to fire.

“Move and you die!” warned the figure that had first burst from the sand. “Stay still and perhaps you will live.”

Lander reined his camel to a halt, then slipped his sword back into scabbard and turned to face the speaker. The invader wore the black burnoose the Zhentarim had adopted as their desert uniform. Narrow, steely eyes gazed out from beneath his furrowed brow. Behind him stood another five Zhentarim, sand running from their robes in yellow rivulets. That meant that there were a total of six men on each side of the pass.

The Harper did not answer the leader’s question, for if he showed that he understood their words, the Zhentarim would realize that he was no Bedine. He suspected that the ambushers already knew his identity—or would deduce it from his light skin soon enough—but he saw no reason to make the enemy’s job simpler. Perhaps he might even confuse them long enough to plot an escape.

“Dismount!” the Zhentarim demanded, still speaking Common. While his subordinates kept their weapons trained on the small party, the commander moved toward Lander and motioned for all three of his captives to kneel their camels.

Kadumi started to pull his scimitar from its scabbard, but Lander motioned for the youth to keep his blade sheathed. Ruha was the first to obey the Black Robe’s command, slipping out of her saddle and kneeling at her mount’s side. The widow held the reins drawn tightly to her body, forcing the beast to crane its neck around at an awkward angle. Her mount roared its indignation, but she ignored it.

Puzzled by Ruha’s peculiar action, Lander also couched his own mount, then watched as Kadumi resentfully did likewise.

The Zhentarim walked straight to Lander. “Where are you going? Why are you following us?”

As he spoke, he reached for the Harper’s aba, and Lander knew there was no use in trying to hide his identity. Beneath his aba, Lander still wore the harp and moon pin of the Harpers. After Bhadla had noticed its outline, he had taken care to keep that part of his outer clothing dirty enough to camouflage the pin beneath, but he had not removed the symbol. When Florin had fastened it on his breast, he had sworn to always wear the harp and moon over his heart.

The Zhentarim ripped Lander’s aba open, then looked directly at the symbol. In Common, he called to his men, “This is the Harper. Let’s take them all to Yhekal.”

When the other Zhentarim started to step forward from the sides of the pass, Ruha yelled, “Ride, now!”

Kadumi obeyed immediately, commanding his camel to rise. The widow began chanting in the deep, mystic tones that Lander recognized as a spellcasting.

The Zhentarim commander’s eyes widened in alarm and he pointed at Ruha. “Kill—”

That was all the commander said before Lander struck his shoulder with the edge of an open hand. Without pausing an instant, the Harper went into a well-rehearsed attack. He grabbed the back of the Zhentarim’s neck and smashed the opposite elbow into the commander’s face. When the astonished invader reached to cover his shattered nose, Lander kneed him in the groin, then slapped his open palms against the man’s ears. The Harper finished the attack by slipping an arm around the back of the Zhentarim’s neck, grabbing the chin, and pulling hard. The invader’s neck popped, and the man collapsed into a lifeless heap.

Realizing he was now a target for the crossbowmen, Lander dove forward. The twang of crossbow strings filled the air before he hit the sand, half-a-dozen quarrels whistled past where he had been standing, and his camel roared in pain and terror.

Continuing his dive in one fluid motion, Lander rolled back to his feet, drew his weapon, then turned toward his companions. Most of the Zhentarim were cocking crossbows again. One had drawn his saber and was rushing Ruha, who had picked up two fistfuls of sand and was letting it sift through her fingers. Kadumi drew his scimitar and turned his camel to defend Ruha.

“No, Kadumi!” Lander called, rushing after the youth. “Take the camels and go!”

The youth paused long enough to glance over his shoulder and frown, then urged his mount forward. As he approached the Zhentarim, he screamed his battle cry and raised his sword to strike.

The invader hit the ground and ducked the boy’s wild slash. As the Zhentarim returned to his feet, he lashed out with his saber and cleanly lopped off one of the camel’s rear legs at the knee. The beast fell immediately, spilling Kadumi three feet from the attacker.

The Harper hazarded a glance at the men still fighting with crossbows. They were just securing their bowstrings into place and recocking their weapons. Realizing that he still had a moment or two before they loaded their quarrels, Lander rushed up behind Kadumi’s attacker and brought a vicious slash down on the Zhentarim’s collarbone. Screaming, the man dropped his sword and stumbled forward, falling onto the young warrior. Lander finished the invader with a thrust through the spine and pulled the dead man off of the boy.

Pointing at the string of white camels, Lander yelled, “Take the mounts and go! I’ll protect Ruha!”

Without pausing to see if the wide-eyed youth would obey this time, he stepped past Kadumi. The surviving Zhentarim had reloaded their crossbows and were raising them to fire at Ruha.

Dropping his sword, Lander launched himself at the mage. He struck her full in the body just as the twang of crossbow-strings filled the air. As he hit the ground, the Harper heard more than four quarrels hiss over his head. A heavy groan escaped the throat of Ruha’s mount, then it lay motionless in the sand.

The Harper leapt back to his feet and retrieved his sword. To his relief, he saw that Kadumi had obeyed him and was leading the string of surviving camels down the other side of the ridge. Lander stepped back toward Ruha, expecting to hear a chorus of Zhentarim battle cries. Instead, however, all he heard were screams as the sandy walls of the small pass avalanched down on top of them.

A small hand seized his free arm. “Come!” Ruha urged. “We must hurry!”

Pulling him by the arm, she led the way as they half-stumbled, half-ran after Kadumi and the camels. The pair was thirty yards from the dune’s base before Ruha stopped. Panting and sweating heavily in the terrible heat, Lander turned to look at the ambush site.

All that remained of the small pass was a slight, barely noticeable dip in the ridge of the dune. The sand had rolled forward from both sides, completely burying the ambushers. There was no sign of any of the invaders.

“Do you think any survived?” Lander asked, noticing that the widow still held his hand.

Ruha shook her head. “No. It is one thing to hide in the sand and another to be buried by it. If they are not dead already, they will soon suffocate.”

Kadumi joined them, still leading the camels. Instead of thanking Lander for saving his life, as the Harper had expected, the youth studiously avoided meeting the older man’s gaze. Instead, he turned to Ruha and spat at her feet.

“Witch!”