Carnifex

29/9/469 AC, Hajar, Yithrab

In a cloth-hung room, cloth-hung the better to simulate the tents of the Bedouin ancestors, a tray of kibsa, lamb over rice with a yogurt based sauce, sat barely touched on the floor between the three brothers. Each man wore traditional robes, their heads covered with keffiyahs held in place by beaded cords. The keffiyahs were traditional white. The robes, however, varied, Bakr in white, Abdullah in blue, and Yeslam in red.

"This is like being in prison," said Yeslam ibn Mohamed ibn Salah, min Sa'ana, "like prison with a sentence of death on our heads!"

Bakr sighed. They'd all heard about the sentences of death, and the manner of death, of Mustafa and his followers. While the mercenaries had not advertised it, word had leaked out from the Pashtian Scouts that had actually carried out the crucifixions and bore the blame, or took the credit, for them. Khadijah, inconsolable, had taken to her rooms, shrieking and weeping at the indignity presumably inflicted on her beloved stepson Mustafa. The truth was much worse than she suspected.

"I am thinking," Bakr said, "that we'd all have been better off if someone had strangled Mustafa in the cradle. Yes, I believed we should support him, early on, but who could have suspected the kind of terror he would bring upon us."

"I suspected it," answered Abdullah. "You have not lived among those people. I have. There is a touch of vindictive madness about them. They keep it hidden, most of the time. But it was always there."

Yeslam shook his head. "Cursed be the day we sent Mustafa off on his grand adventure. Cursed be the money we gave him to start his project."

"I gave him no money," Abdullah insisted. "That was all the doing of you and Bakr. I counseled against it."

Both Bakr and Yeslam shrugged, eloquently. Spilled milk.

"Then counsel us now, brother mine. What do we do now?" Bakr asked. "How do we keep our clan's life blood from spilling now?"

"I would suggest a bribe," Abdullah answered, "except that we do not have enough money—no, not if we turned over everything we own—to buy our way out of this. Our enemy is implacable, inconsolable, and inhuman. He will keep us locked up here—nor would we be safe anywhere else in the world—until the judgment day."

"You mean, he's just like us," Yeslam said. He closed his eyes, hung his head, and said in despair, "Allah help us."