The Thin Executioner

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

They camped by the two corpses overnight, too battle-weary to withdraw. Tel Hesani slept soundly, concussed from his beating at the claws of the mamlah. But Jebel was awake for most of the night. His brush with death had left him afraid to face his dreams in case he met the mamlah again in them.

Early in the morning they rose. Tel Hesani studied Hubaira’s body, sword held by his side indecisively. “Do you think she was serious about severing her head?”

Jebel nodded, then sneered at the slave. “Afraid to cut it off?”

“No. But if she spoke in error — if the pain and shock made her say something she didn’t mean — her people might execute us for violating her corpse.”

Jebel nervously scratched his cheek. “If we don’t tell them that we met her…”

“You wish to lie, my lord?” Tel Hesani asked, and now it was his turn to sneer.

Jebel flushed angrily, then scowled and waved at the body. “Just chop the damn thing off. It was what she wanted. If they kill us for honoring her last wish, so be it.”

Tel Hesani bent, placed his sword on the dead girl’s neck, and sliced through as cleanly as he could, gently moving the blade back and forth over the cold flesh. He took an empty bag and carefully placed Hubaira’s head in it.

Tel Hesani asked Jebel if he wanted breakfast, but the um Wadi wasn’t hungry. While the slave gathered their belongings, Jebel examined the mamlah. It looked smaller in the daylight, more like a tiger than a bear, but its claws were still long and sharp. He shivered as he thought about how close the fight had been.

They departed, Tel Hesani carrying the head, leaving Hubaira’s body and the mamlah for the birds of prey and any other passing animals to feed upon and scatter as they might.

They marched in silence. Tel Hesani’s bruises throbbed, and the scratches on his face and neck stung, but he forced the pace, not wanting to spend another night in the siq.

Jebel took no notice now of the beautiful colors and shapes of the rocks. Every time he looked up he was reminded of the battle and Hubaira’s bloody end, so he kept his eyes down, focusing on the ground.

Finally, shortly before sunset, they turned a bend and came upon the city that lay at the heart of Abu Siq. They were taken aback by its sudden appearance, and both stopped short and stared. The city was spread across a valley, surrounded on all sides by snowcapped mountains. Most of the houses were built from multicolored rocks, covered in layers of dust, but some were carved into the mountains.

Jebel and Tel Hesani stood gazing at the houses, studying the layout of the city. There seemed to be no center as such. The houses all looked much the same. Tel Hesani glanced at Jebel. “We either go in and request passage, or wait for night and try to sneak past.”

“We’ll go in,” Jebel said instantly. He would rather be beheaded by the Um Siq than ripped to pieces by a mamlah.

They started down the slope. They could see people moving on the streets, but they didn’t think that the Um Siq were aware of them. It was only when they came upon the first house and a band of warriors stepped out, blocking their path, that they realized they’d been watched all along. Jebel counted nineteen men and women, the standard regiment size in Abu Siq ever since the time of the nineteen survivors of the invasion that Hubaira had told them about.

One of the men stepped forward. His sword wasn’t drawn, but his hand was close by its hilt. “Strangers are not welcome here,” he said.

Tel Hesani returned the man’s cold stare but said nothing.

“Who are you?” the Um Siq snapped. “What do you want?”

In response, Tel Hesani unstrapped the bag containing Hubaira’s head and said, “I wish to speak to the family of Hubaira.”

The man blinked, then glanced at the bag. He considered the stranger’s request, then nodded at a man on the far left of the line. The man peeled away and hurried into the city. Nobody said anything while he was gone.

A short while later, a woman and three men appeared. The woman advanced, the men just behind her, and stopped a couple of strides short of Tel Hesani. “I am Qattar,” she said. “Hubaira’s mother.”

Tel Hesani opened the bag and pulled the sides down, revealing Hubaira’s face. Jebel expected startled gasps, but the dead girl’s mother stared evenly at the head as if it was nothing to get excited about.

Eventually Qattar’s gaze rose and she said, “How?”

“Against a mamlah,” said Tel Hesani. “She asked us to bring you her head.”

“How did you come to be traveling together?” one of the men asked.

“We met her at the mouth of the siq,” Tel Hesani explained. “We told her we were on a quest and had to pass through here. She said that she would present us to her elders, who could decide whether or not to let us advance.”

“Did she kill the mamlah?” Qattar asked.

“No. All three of us worked as a team to bring it down.”

“But of the three of you, only she died,” Qattar said. It was impossible to tell if her words were a challenge or a simple observation.

Tel Hesani shrugged. “Luck was with us and against her.”

There was a long, dangerous pause. Then Qattar took her daughter’s head. “You have my thanks for bringing us this.” Turning, she headed back to her home.

Qattar’s three husbands bowed to Jebel and Tel Hesani. One of them said, “You are welcome here now. Will you break bread with us?”

“It would be an honor,” Tel Hesani said, then he and Jebel followed the men into the city, ignoring the suspicious squints of the soldiers.

The man who had addressed them was Ramman, Hubaira’s father. He and Qattar ate with Jebel and Tel Hesani while the other husbands ate elsewhere. Although Um Siq women had more than one mate, they didn’t share a house with them. Each husband had separate living quarters, and the women divided their time between them.

The house was sparsely decorated. The walls were unpainted — there was no need for paint when you had all the colors of the siq to choose from — and there were no curtains or shutters on the windows. There was one rug and a small table. No chairs. Qattar and Ramman sat cross-legged on the floor, and their guests did likewise.

After a short conversation, in which Tel Hesani told the Um Siq of their quest (not mentioning the fact that he was a slave due to be slaughtered if they made it to Tubaygat), Qattar prepared their meal. She came back with two plates piled high with raw meat. She set the food between the four of them, then picked a slice and bit into it. Ramman chose a piece, then nodded at Jebel and Tel Hesani. The slave took a thick slice and attacked it ravenously. Jebel was less enthusiastic. He chose the thinnest slice he could find and steeled himself to force it down. But when he bit in, he was surprised by the sweet taste. The meat had been seasoned with herbs and spices and was nowhere near as unappealing as it looked.

Qattar had placed the bag with Hubaira’s head close to the door, and there it stayed for the duration of the meal. Neither she nor Ramman seemed saddened by the death of their daughter. Jebel thought that curious, but he said nothing. Maybe she had disgraced them by dying before she’d passed her tests. Or perhaps they hadn’t liked her much in the first place.

It was dark when they finished. Large fires had been lit in the streets, and the light that shone through the windows was enough to see by. In the distance, somebody began to sing, and other voices took up the song, until the entire city thrummed. The song was in the language of the Um Siq, slow, heavy, moody. Qattar and Ramman didn’t sing but hummed softly. When the song stopped and silence fell, Tel Hesani asked if it was a song of prayer.

“No,” Qattar said. “It is the song of union. We sing it every morning and night, to remind ourselves that we are part of a whole.”

“There are no artists or writers in Abu Siq,” Ramman said. “We are not a creative people. The song is our one exception. We have kept it alive for hundreds of years, fine-tuning it, adapting, improving. It records our history, our losses and glories. It binds past to present to future, the dead to the living, the heavens to the earth.”

In a house nearby, the song started again and spread, until the entire city was once more singing in tune.

“It will go on like that for hours,” Qattar said. “It fades and flourishes unpredictably, people joining in and dropping out as the mood takes them.”

Tel Hesani smiled and leaned back, closing his eyes to focus on the somber song.

Jebel thought the song a dreary affair, but he smiled like Tel Hesani, closed his eyes, and pretended to be fascinated. Better to keep on the good side of these strange folk, or his head might end up in a bag, like Hubaira’s!

Jebel and Tel Hesani slept on stone beds. In the morning, after stretching stiffly and eating a breakfast of more raw meat, Ramman took them on a tour. “We don’t get many visitors,” he said. “This is the first time I’ve showed my city to anyone. You must let me know if I’m doing it wrong.”

Except for the amazing diversity of the rock, it was mostly a city of plain buildings. The houses were solidly built, rough around the edges. There were no roads or paths save those cut by the passage of human feet. No signs, paintings, or statues.

“Where do the traders live?” Jebel asked. “And where are the inns, the markets, the courts? All these houses look the same.”

“They are the same,” Ramman said. “All Um Siq are warriors. We’re other things too — tanners, smiths, architects — but warriors first. Abu Siq is one great barracks. There are no inns or markets.”

“And the stables and pens?” Jebel pressed. “Where do you keep your animals?”

“We have none,” Ramman said. “We hunt for food. Always have, always will.”

The houses carved into the mountains were more impressive. They were massive. Some were ten times the height of a normal house. Most were decorated with beautifully carved symbols, although the symbols had been hacked at and defaced long ago. The giant, hollowed-out buildings looked as if they belonged somewhere else. They were completely different from the rest of Abu Siq.

They wandered through a huge circular room, home to three families. The windows were pentangles, with shards of stained glass in the corners. There were faded paintings on the walls — a scene of war in one section, people fishing in another, a game detailed elsewhere.

“Who created these?” Tel Hesani asked.

“Our ancestors.” Ramman snorted. “Many generations ago we drifted away from warfare. We were wealthy. Times were good. We welcomed travelers and learned from them. We wrote, painted, sculpted. Then we set about transforming Abu Siq. We turned it into one of the most beautiful cities in Makhras.

“But that proved our undoing. We grew soft, and our envious enemies moved against us. They killed everyone save for nineteen who fled to the mountains.”

“Hubaira told us about them,” said Tel Hesani. “They had many children, who in turn had more, and they eventually formed an army and took back the city.”

“Yes,” Ramman said. “The invaders had extended the city and added to its beauty. But we had no time for that once we were done killing. We razed all that we could to the ground, but we couldn’t destroy these houses carved into the mountains. We blocked up the entrances, but later we opened them again so that we could walk through the ruined palaces and be reminded of our weakness and our fall. Since that time we’ve just been warriors.”

They explored more of the old palaces. Um Siq inhabited some of them. Wild animals had made dens in others. Jebel asked if they killed and ate these animals. Ramman said yes, but only when their need was great, if they were snowed in by an especially harsh storm and couldn’t hunt.

Something was bothering Tel Hesani. When he spotted an old silver coin half-hidden in the dirt of a small cave, he decided to ask about it. “I do not mean to pry,” he said to Ramman, “but your people are the wealthiest in Makhras. You collect tolls from every ship that sails through the al-Attieg gorge. You take barrel-loads of swagah each day, along with animals, food, wine, ale, cloth, gems, and so on. Where do you store it all?”

Ramman laughed. “I wondered when you’d ask!” He eyed Jebel and Tel Hesani seriously. “I must ask for your oath. I am about to tell you a great secret. If you give me your word, I will trust you to honor it.”

“You have mine,” Tel Hesani said, placing his hand over his heart.

“And mine,” Jebel said, touching his left shoulder where the tattoo of the axe lay hidden beneath the tunic he was wearing.

Ramman grinned. “We get rid of everything that we take from the ships.”

Jebel and Tel Hesani blinked at the same time, and Ramman laughed.

“You’re joking,” Jebel gasped.

“I’m not,” Ramman said. “We keep certain metals to make weapons that are otherwise beyond our means. And we let the animals run wild; if they survive and flourish, we hunt them later. We also stash some swagah and jewelry away in secret hiding places, along with food, in case we’re ever attacked and forced to flee. The rest we dump in lakes or caves around the mountains.”

“Dump?” Jebel cried.

“Your goods mean nothing to us. In fact they’re a nuisance, waste that we have to dispose of.”

“Then why collect taxes in the first place?” Tel Hesani asked.

“Strength,” Ramman said. “Your people equate wealth with strength. They think that we’re sitting on a stock of weapons the likes of which nobody has ever seen, and that we could pay mercenaries to fight for us if we were outnumbered. If they knew the truth, they’d invade.

“That is why I asked for your oath. As things stand, the nations of Makhras consider us one of their own, living by the same rules, coveting as they covet, profiting as they profit. If they knew how we really live, of the riches we scorn, they’d attack, and we would be forced to fight bitterly to preserve what is ours.”

“It makes no sense,” Jebel muttered. “But I vowed not to say anything about it, so I won’t.”

“I’ll respect your secret too,” Tel Hesani said. “And it does make sense to me.”

Jebel snorted. Trust one fool to see no flaws in another! The Um Siq were crazy. The sooner he and Tel Hesani were on their way, the better.

“When are we leaving?” he asked as they stepped out of the cave.

Tel Hesani turned to Ramman. “We wish to move on before it snows. Will that be possible?”

“You can go whenever you like,” Ramman said. “But a regiment leaves for Abu Saga soon. You should wait and travel with them. You’ll be safer that way.”

“That is sound advice,” Tel Hesani said. “We will happily wait and accept your offer of an escort.”

Ramman smiled. “That means you’ll be here for the Khazneh ceremony.”

“What’s that?” Jebel asked.

The Um Siq sighed. “That’s when you’ll find out why Hubaira asked you to cut off her head.”