“Not tonight. Tonight I need you more than they need me.” He closed the door and kissed her. “You’re a patient woman. A miracle. You’ve changed so much since El Aquila.”
She smiled up at him. “Men change us. Come on. There’s no one but family tonight. I’m even doing the cooking myself so the outside can’t get in.”
He followed her into the next room — and stiffened.
Nassef sat with his son Sidi and the still unnamed girl, telling them some outrageous tale of the desert. El Murid pursed his lips unhappily, but settled to his cushion without a word. Nassef was Meryem’s brother, and the children loved him. Especially the girl. Sometimes she would sneak out and follow her uncle all over the valley. She could not believe that her father’s enemies were capable of attacking him through her.
“It’ll be a while,” Meryem told him. “Why don’t you relax in the pool? You haven’t had a chance all week.”
“Me too!” Sidi yelped.
El Murid laughed. “You’re going to grow scales like a fish if you spend any more time in the water. All right. Come on. Nassef, when we reach the sea we’ll make Sidi our admiral. I can’t keep him away from the water.”
Nassef rose. “I’ll join you. This old skin hasn’t been clean for two months. Sidi, I’ve got a job for you. Show me how to swim. I might need to know if your father is going to take us to the sea.”
“What about me?” the girl demanded. She hated the water, but did not want to let her uncle out of her sight. She was beginning to remind her father of her mother at an earlier age.
“You’re a girl,” Sidi told her. His tone suggested that that was cause enough for her to be thrown into stocks, let alone banned from the bath.
“You might melt, sugar,” her father told her. “Let’s go, men.”
Lying in the cool water, letting it buoy him up, allowed him a relaxation that was missing even in Meryem’s arms.
Her relaxed for half an hour. Sidi and Nassef squealed and splashed and laughed and dunked one another. Then he said, “All right, Nassef. Now.”
His brother-in-law did not pretend to misunderstand. He hoisted Sidi to the edge of the pool. “Time to get out. Dry yourself off, get dressed and go help your mother.”
“How come I have to leave whenever anybody wants to talk?”
“Do as he says, son,” El Murid told him. “And make sure you’re good and dry before you get dressed.”
Sidi was gone in a minute. Nassef said, “I’m beginning to be sorry that I never married. I miss having children.”
“You’re not too old.”
“No. But I’m in the wrong business. Taking a wife would be tempting fate too much, wouldn’t it? Fuad would catch me the first time I took the field.”
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe a soldier shouldn’t marry. Too much strain on the family.”
Nassef said nothing for several seconds. Then, “We’re alone. No ears to hear. No hearts to offend. Can we speak as brothers? As the two who rode out of El Aquila together, and who fought the desert side by side? Simply as Nassef and Micah, men who have too much in common to be at odds?”
“It’s a family occasion. Try to keep it at a family level.”
“I will. You married my sister, who is my only true friend in this world. I am your brother.
“I’m deeply troubled. We’re embarking on a doomed enterprise. My brother, I tell you this out of my love for you, and for no other reason. We can’t take Al Rhemish. Not yet.”
El Murid conquered his anger. Nassef was following the rules. He could do no less. “I don’t understand why not. I look and I listen. I see hosts pass through Sebil el Selib. I hear that we can summon a horde to our banner. I’m told that much of the desert is with us.”
“Perfectly true. Though I can’t say how much of the desert is on our side. More with us than with our enemies, I think. But it’s a big desert. Most people don’t care one way or the other. What they really want is for us and the Royalists both to leave them alone.”
“Why, then, do you urge me to delay? That’s the argument you want to present, isn’t it? And I remind you of your own observation that we’re alone. You can be as frank as you like.”
“All right. Stated simply, twenty thousand warriors don’t make an army just by gathering in the same place. My forces are only now beginning to coalesce. My men aren’t used to operating in large groups. Neither are the Invincibles. And the men from areas that we’ve controlled a long time have lost their battle edge. Moreover, there isn’t a man among us, myself included, who has the experience to manage a large force.”
“Are you claiming we’ll be defeated?”
“No. I’m telling you that we’d be risking it, and that the risk will go down every day that we put off fighting them on their own terms. Which we would be. They would know we were coming. They have their spies. And they have men who do know how armies work.”
El Murid said nothing for a minute. First he tried to assess Nassef’s sincerity. He could not fault it. Nor could he challenge his brother-in-law’s arguments. His frustration at being trapped in Sebil el Selib returned.
He could stand his containment no more. He would tolerate it not one minute longer than it would take to assemble the host.
“My heart tells me to go ahead.”
“That’s your decision? It’s final?”
“It is.”
Nassef sighed. “Then I’ll do everything I can. Maybe we’ll be lucky. I do have one suggestion. When the time comes, take command yourself.”
El Murid scrutinized his brother-in-law narrowly.
“Not because I want to shirk responsibility for any defeat. Because the warriors will fight harder for the Disciple than they will for the Scourge of God. That might be the margin between victory and defeat.”
Again El Murid had the feeling that Nassef was being sincere. “So be it. Let’s go see if Meryem is ready for dinner.”
It was a quiet family meal, with few words spoken. El Murid spent much of it examining his ambivalent feelings toward Nassef. As always, Nassef was hard to pin down.
Nassef had argued no harder than a man of conscience should have. Had El Murid misjudged his brother-in-law? Was the news reaching him becoming distorted by the Invincible minds through which it passed?
His frustration mounted as the days turned into weeks. The army grew, but the process was so damnably slow! His advisers frequently reminded him that his followers had to come long distances, often pursued by Royalists, and as they approached Sebil el Selib they had to contend with Yousif’s patrols.
But the time came at last. The morning when he could kiss Meryem good-bye and tell her that when next they met it would be within the Most Holy Mrazkim Shrines themselves.
More than twenty thousand men responded to Nassef’s call. Their tents were everywhere. Sebil el Selib reminded El Murid of Al Rhemish during Disharhun.
Yousif’s people had been quiet for nine days. They had ceased contesting the passage of the warrior bands. Nassef had been telling anyone who would listen that he did not like it, that it was a sign that the Wahlig had something up his sleeve.
Then the news came. Yousif had mustered every man he could, some five thousand, and had installed himself at the oasis near Wadi el Kuf. His neighbors had loaned him another two thousand men.
“We’ll have to fight him there,” Nassef told El Murid. “There’s no choice. We can’t get to Al Rhemish without watering there. This is what he’s been waiting for all these years. The chance to get us into a conventional battle. It looks like he wants that chance so badly that he doesn’t care about the numbers.”
“Give him what he wants. Let’s rid ourselves of him once and for all.”
Nassef guessed right most of the time. But he had erred in calling in all of El Murid’s supporters. By so doing he stripped the desert of his sources of intelligence. He and El Murid would not learn the truth about Yousif’s stand till it was too late.
Nassef selected twenty
thousand men. El Murid took twenty-five hundred Invincibles. They left a substantial force to defend the pass in their absence.
It was a morning many days after departure. The sun hung low in the east. They moved up on the waterhole by Wadi el Kuf.
The wadi was a shallow, broad valley a mile and a half east of the waterhole. It was filled with bizarre natural formations. It was the wildest badland in all Hammad al Nakir.
Nassef and El Murid raised the Lord’s standard atop a low hill a mile south of the oasis, and an equal distance from the wadi. They studied the enemy, who was waiting on horseback.
“They don’t seem impressed by our numbers,” Nassef observed.
“What do you suggest?”
“It seems straightforward. Hold the Invincibles here, in reserve. Send the rest in one wave and overwhelm them.”
“This is a strange land, Nassef. It’s so silent.”
The stillness did seem supernatural. Thirty thousand men and nearly as many animals faced one another, and even the flies were quiet.
El Murid glanced at the wadi. It was a shadowy forest of grotesque sandstone formations: steeples, pylons, giant dumbbells standing on end. He shuddered as he considered that devil’s playground.
“We’re ready,” Nassef said.
“Go ahead.”
Nassef turned to Karim, el-Kader and the others. “On my signal.”
His captains trotted their horses down to the divisions they commanded.
Nassef gave his signal.
The horde surged forward.
Yousif’s men waited without moving. They had arrows ready on the strings of their saddle bows.
“Something’s wrong,” the Scourge of God muttered. “I can feel it.”
“Nassef?” El Murid queried in a voice gone small and tentative. “Do you hear drums?”
“It’s the hoofbeats....”
El Murid did hear drums. “Nassef!” His right arm stabbed out like a javelin thrust.
The devil’s garden of Wadi el Kuf had begun to disgorge a demon horde.
“Oh, my God!” Nassef moaned. “My God, no.”
King Aboud had harkened to Yousif’s importunities at last. He had sent Prince Farid to Wadi el Kuf with five thousand of the desert’s finest soldiers, many of them equipped after the fashion of western knights. With Farid, in tactical command, was Sir Tury Hawkwind of the Mercenary’s Guild. Hawkwind had brought a thousand of his brethren. They were arrayed in western-style lances of a heavy cavalryman, his esquire, two light and one heavy infantrymen.
Nassef had time to think, to react. Heavy cavalry could not charge at breakneck speed across a mile of desert and up a slight hill. And Hawkwind obviously meant to bring his shock power to bear.
“What do we do?” El Murid asked.
“I think it’s time for the amulet,” Nassef replied. “That’s the only weapon that will help now.”
El Murid raised his arm. Without a word he showed Nassef his naked wrist.
“Where the hell is it?” Nassef demanded.
Softly, “At Sebil el Selib. I left it. I was so excited about coming, I forgot it.” He had not worn the amulet for years, preferring to keep it safe within the shrines.
Nassef sighed, shook his head wearily. “Lord, choose a company of Invincibles and flee. I’ll buy you all the time I can.”
“Flee? Are you mad?”
“This battle is lost, Lord. All that remains is to salvage as much as we can. Don’t stay, and deprive the movement of its reason for existing.”
El Murid shook his head stubbornly. “I see no defeat. Only more trouble than we anticipated originally. We still outnumber them, Nassef. And no matter what, I won’t leave the field while men are dying for me. Not when they have it in their hearts that I am commanding them. What would they think of my courage?”
Nassef shrugged. “We can but die with honor, then. I suggest you form the Invincibles to meet the coming charge.” A moment later, after studying the enemy banners, he murmured thoughtfully, “I wonder what Hawkwind is doing here.”
“Trust in the Lord, Nassef. He will deliver them unto us. We have the numbers, and Him on our side. What more could we ask?”
Nassef stifled an angry response. He helped guide the Invincibles into a new disposition.
At the oasis, at feast, it seemed that El Murid’s confidence was justified. Yousif’s force was surrounded.
“Who’s this Hawkwind?”
“A Guildsman. Perhaps their best general.”
“Guildsman?” El Murid’s ignorance of the world outside Hammad al Nakir was immense.
“A brotherhood of warriors. Not unlike the Invincibles. Called the Mercenary’s Guild. They’re also a little like the Harish, and yet like nothing we know. They own no allegiance except to one another. After Itaskia, they’re probably the greatest military power in the west, yet they have no homeland but a castle called High Crag. When their generals frown, princes cringe. Just their decision to fight for someone sometimes stops a war before it starts.”
“How do you know? When have you ever had time to learn?”
“I pay people to learn things for me. I’ve got spies all over the west.”
“Why?”
“Because you want to go there someday. I’m preparing the way. But it’s all irrelevant if we don’t get out of this alive.”
Hawkwind’s force was close enough to start increasing its pace.
None of the Invincibles had seen knights before. They neither understood nor sufficiently feared what they faced. When their master gave the signal, they charged. They trusted in the Lord and their name. Hawkwind increased his pace again.
The long lances and heavy horses hit the Invincibles like a stone wall. The Royalists passed through and over them, and crushed them, and in ten minutes were turning and forming for a charge into the rear of the horde beleaguering Yousif.
Neither Nassef nor El Murid said a word. It was even worse than Nassef had expected. The Wahlig of el Aswad was in a bad way. But once help arrived the battle became a rebel slaughter.
Hawkwind placed a screen of infantry between himself and the remnants of the Invincibles. He placed another of light horse between himself and the oasis, with extended and slightly C-shaped wings. Then he started hammering with his armored horsemen. Charge. Melee. Withdraw. Reform. Charge.
El Murid was too stubborn to accept reality. Nassef’s troops, down in the witch’s cauldron, were too confused to realize what was happening.
Hawkwind set about systematically exterminating them.
At one point Nassef wept. “My Lord,” he pleaded, “let me go down there. Let me try to break them out.”
“We can’t lose,” El Murid murmured in reply, more to himself than to his war general. “We have the numbers. The Lord is with us.”
Nassef cursed softly.
The sun moved to the west. Hawkwind extended his wings, completing a thin encirclement against which Nassef’s warriors collided randomly, like flies against the walls of a bottle. He put more and more strength into the circle, daring El Murid to try something with his battered Invincibles. The Wahlig’s men filtered out of the cauldron and became part of the circle.
Some of Nassef’s men tried to surrender, but Prince Farid had ordered his to take no prisoners.
“They have taken away our last ounce of choice,” Nassef moaned. “We have to throw these pitiful few hundreds in to give those men down there a chance to escape.”
“Nassef?”
“What?” The voice of the Scourge of God was both sorrowful and angry.
“I’m sorry. I was wrong. The time wasn’t right. I listened to myself instead of to the Voice of God. Take command. Do what you can to save what you can. O Lord Almighty, forgive me for my arrogance. Pardon me for my vanity.”
“No.”
“What? Why?”
“I’ll tell you what to do, but you do the leading. This is no time to show weakness. Salvage some respect from the disaster. Do that and we can
always say that they tricked us, that the Evil One blinded our eyes.”
“Nassef! You’re right, of course. What should we do?”
Fifteen minutes later the survivors of the Invincibles hurled themselves against Hawkwind’s circle. They did not strike toward the center, but cut a shallow chord meant to break the widest possible gap.
Nassef’s warriors began flooding through while the gap was still opening.
El Murid and his brother-in-law rode at the head of the charge.
El Murid flailed about him with his sword. The clash of weapons, the screams of horses and men, were overwhelming, maddening. The dust choked him. It stung his eyes. A horse plunged against his, nearly unseating him. A wild sword stroke, partially turned by Nassef, cut his left arm, leaving a shallow, bloody wound. For an instant he was amazed at the lack of immediate pain.
Nassef struck about himself like some war djinn just released from Hell. The Invincibles did their desperate best to keep their prophet from coming to harm, but...
“Now!” Nassef shrieked at him. “Give the order to fly. To the wadi. We can lose them in the rocks.” Most of Nassef’s men were away. The circle was collapsing toward El Murid and the Scourge of God.
El Murid vacillated.
A random swarm of arrows rained from the cloudless sky. One buried itself in his mount’s eye.
The beast screamed and reared. El Murid flew through the air. The earth came up and hit him like a flying boulder. A horse trampled his right arm.
He heard the snapping of bone over his own shriek. He tried to rise. His gaze met that of a Guild infantryman who was calmly working his way through the chaos, braining wounded Invincibles with a massive war hammer.
“Micah!” Nassef screamed at him. “Get up! Grab hold of my leg!”
He found the will and strength. Nassef started away.
“Hang on tight. Bounce high.”
He did.
Behind him, another hundred Invincibles gave their lives to make sure he got away.
Once into the wadi, Nassef flung himself from his mount, seized El Murid’s left hand. “Come on! We’ve got to disappear before they get organized.”
The sounds of battle died swiftly as they fled deeper into the grotesque wilderness. El Murid did not know if distance or final defeat were responsible, but he feared the worst.