Mage's Blood

17

Desert Storms

Ingashir

While farmers till the arid soils, other men sit in the hills, watching them. And at the most propitious time, those watching will sweep down, massacre the farmers and make themselves rulers of the farmlands. They then slowly forget whence they came, while in the hills more watchers gather …

QUINTUS GARDIEN, OBSERVATIONS OF ANTIOPIA, 872

Northern Lakh to Kesh and Hebusalim,

on the continent of Antiopia

Shawwal (Octen) 927 to Safar (Febreux) 928

9–5 months until the Moontide

A wagon rumbled into the encampment and within seconds it was surrounded by young men all fighting like jackals for the tiny sacks the soldiers threw down. Someone tried to climb up, took the butt of a spear in the face and toppled backwards into the uncaring press. Kazim fought no less viciously than the others. The last time he’d eaten, two days ago, it’d been a tiny morsel of mashed chickpeas. He clubbed a boy in the back of the head and snatched up his portion, then fought forward to grab another three of the little sacks from the wagon, ducking as a spear-butt whistled over his head. Then he was staggering out, smashing a foot into the belly of one of those who preferred to lurk on the fringes and ambush the dazed victors of the fray as they emerged.

Whatever he had expected of the shihad, it had not been this. They had been part of the march for three weeks now. For four days they had walked north through the dry heat of winter, begging food and places to sleep along the way. At first people were generous, as the Amteh faith was prevalent here in northern Lakh. ‘Blessings of Ahm’ were generously handed out: dry breads and leaf-plates filled with daal and fresh well-water. But when they arrived three days later at their first staging camp, their tiny group was swallowed into the chaos. Haroun went to find the Godspeakers to ask what was going on while Jai and Kazim sought food and water. But the only supplies here were secreted in wagons guarded by a contingent of soldiers. A thin man who’d been there a week told Kazim not to approach them. ‘They don’t care if we starve,’ the man growled.

‘But this is the shihad,’ Kazim exclaimed.

‘Tell that to the soldiers and see where it gets you.’ The other man laughed grimly. ‘All I want to do is kill Rondians, but at this rate we’ll never live long enough to get there.’

Kazim went to talk to the soldiers anyway. They all had chainmail and domed helms with spikes, and curved swords. Their beards were braided and their eyes were little pieces of coal. They were Keshi mercenaries in the service of the mughal – and they were roasting chickens on their fires and swilling fenni.

One, a captain, strolled to meet him. He had a scarred face and a world-weary air. ‘Piss off, you little shithead,’ he snapped, to a chorus of laughter.

‘But we have no food,’ protested Kazim, ‘and you have plenty.’

The captain bit off a haunch of chicken and swallowed. ‘Yes, we do,’ he agreed. ‘And you don’t. Get lost, mata-chod.’

Kazim stood his ground. He was the same height as the soldier and was bigger-built. Still, the soldier had a sword. His eyes flickered to the men behind. They were all armed and would take this man’s side in any fight. This isn’t a good idea. He backed away a little, but tried one last time. ‘Please sir – a chicken – I have rupals.’

The captain snickered. ‘I have rupals,’ he mimicked mockingly. ‘One chicken? Okay, let’s call it one hundred rupals, shall we?’

‘One hundred rupals – I could buy ten chickens for that at home!’

‘Then go home!’ The captain turned away.

‘Okay, one hundred rupals.’

The soldier smiled nastily. ‘Price has gone up. It’s two hundred now.’

Kazim glared angrily, while his stomach wept at the smell of the roasting birds. ‘Okay. Two hundred.’

The captain pulled a spitted chicken out of a fire and held it out. ‘Money first,’ he said, waving the chicken as if teasing a pet dog. Kazim fought to keep his temper in check. He held out the money, all he had, the captain snatched it, then dropped the chicken to the dirt. As Kazim instinctively dived for it, Jai yelled, ‘Kaz—’

The captain’s boot crunched into his jaw and light burst inside his skull. He felt himself fly head-over-heels, backwards into an empty nothingness.

When Kazim came to, his jaw was throbbing, but it didn’t feel like it was broken. He opened his and looked around dazedly. Jai was hunched over him. It can only have been a few seconds, because the captain was still standing over him, laughing. Kazim glared back, memorising his face.

‘Come on,’ hissed Jai. He was holding the dirty chicken. The scuffle had brought onlookers, ragged men who were staring at the chicken.

Kazim spotted a broken stick lying in an open fire and grabbed it, then got unsteadily to his feet. ‘Stay behind me,’ he hissed at Jai, and walked forward determinedly. The first person to try me gets this stick in the face. But no one did; they just parted and let them through, gazing hungrily after them. They split the chicken with Haroun, but Kazim was careful to take the biggest portion. I’m the warrior here, he told himself. I have to stay strong.

For the next six days all they had to eat was a little bread they’d begged from nearby farms. The soldiers drew their swords when approached. Someone created a Dom-al’Ahm from old bricks, only a waist-high thing, with pots for domes, where Haroun and other scholars led prayers. They prayed for victory over the infidel, but it was the prayers for food that became louder and louder.

Then the wagons began to arrive. Initially there were just three wagons a day to feed eight thousand men, and eighty per cent of them failed to get anything to eat that first day, but gradually more supplies arrived and at last they could at least feel they were not weakening further. Desertions racked up as the winter sun baked them, and there was wild talk of storming the soldiers’ camps – but they all knew that was suicide. There was nothing to do but pray and make do, or go home.

Finally, after another week of desperately fighting for food, the captain who’d kicked Kazim rode a horse into the midst of the camp. There were no latrine pits, and with barely enough water to drink no one could wash. Many were ill. The air stank of urine and faeces. The captain wrinkled his nose and announced that they were to march north. ‘Glory awaits!’ he shouted, his face mocking as he ran his eyes over the ragged marchers.

‘These are trials to test us,’ Haroun told them as they staggered to their feet. ‘Paradise was never earned without suffering.’ He had been ill for most of the past three days. His eyes were yellow.

Moving was better than sitting. The soldiers ransacked the farms they passed, forcing the farmers to cook for the passing column, while the younger farm-women were kidnapped and raped. Any men who resisted were spitted on lances and left on the roadside. The fury that Kazim, Jai and Haroun felt mounted with each passing step. This is the shihad, they shouted inside, but words failed whenever the hard-eyed soldiers came near, seeking amusement. A thousand times Kazim thought of turning back, but Ramita was somewhere ahead, and he could not abandon her.

Instead he focused his hatred on the soldiers, and most especially on Jamil, the one who had kicked and humiliated him. Whenever he saw Kazim he smirked and mimed eating a drumstick. The soldiers of his company revered him, but to Kazim he was Shaitan incarnate.

He barely noticed the miles and miles of road and dust on this endless march. Diarrhoea beset them, and they squatted in rows beside the path and shat liquid. The grim humour of the other marchers sustained him, joking about bleeding feet, runny bowels and rank water. But Kazim and his friends stayed aloof from the rapes. ‘We are not animals,’ Haroun said. ‘Others might forget who they are and why we are here, but we will not.’

Haroun talked to those around them as they walked, finding out their stories. A surprising number were converted Omali, men bereft of home and family, seeking companionship or wealth or just food. None had ever seen a Rondian, or had a personal quarrel with them – but the Infidel had stolen the Holy City, they were quick to add, so they must die. They listened dutifully to Haroun’s pious admonitions to duty, but still they stole and raped their way north remorselessly. Only big towns with active garrisons were spared, and even then there was violence.

Everywhere they went, Kazim would ask whether an old ferang with two Lakh women had passed through, and several villages and towns remembered such a caravan, coming through more than a month before – they were probably on the other side of the Kesh desert now, an old man told him as he smoked beside a well. The oldster offered him a puff of ganja as he watched the resting marchers lying about like casualties. ‘You’re losing ground by the day, travelling with this lot,’ the old man remarked.

‘We’re going to fight the Rondians for you, old man,’ Kazim told him harshly

‘Good luck, boy. I doubt they are trembling at the prospect.’

Kazim surveyed the prone marchers, searching for a retort, then gave up. The old bastard is probably right.

Over the following weeks the column crawled forward, barely managing more than a few miles a day. They bypassed the northernmost cities of Kankritipur and Latakwar and instead camped beside the Sabanati River, where they bathed in the muddy water and drank their fill – only for many to come down with dysentery afterwards. Crocodiles took a few more.

Kazim, Jai and Haroun escaped pretty much unscathed, having latched onto the supply-wagon that followed Jamil’s men, the best-fed soldiers they’d seen, and made it to the verge of the great desert in better condition than most. They were listening in as Jamil lectured his men about the desert, telling them their worst enemy would not be the raiders, but the heat, which would make their armour hot enough to boil eggs on. There was no water, so they must carry it.

Haroun calculated that there were only one thousand water-flasks, and there were more than three thousand marchers preparing to cross, so they prepared: Kazim mugged a weak-looking fellow after dark and stole his flask, and Jai did likewise, while a dying man gave his to Haroun in return for prayers. That put them in better stead than most, but there was barely enough food for a third of their number, and the soldiers kept the weapons locked in the wagons – they would be armed in Kesh, they were told. They are wise, Kazim reflected, because if we could get blades, they would all be dead. The marchers were given no tents, uniforms or boots; only the soldiers had these.

We’ll be lucky to ever get to Hebusalim, Kazim thought grimly, staring out over the desert, watching crows and vultures and kites circling high above. They themselves had been reduced to frying lizards and small snakes; they would have to move if they were not going to be forced to eat the rations set aside for the crossing – but still they weren’t moving, and the reason was in plain sight: an Ingashir scout on a camel, watching them from a high rock to the northwest. The soldiers were nervous about setting off while the raiders were watching their every move.

‘I can’t see we have much choice,’ said Kazim. ‘The Ingashir will find us whatever we do. Can’t they at least give us spears?’

‘God’s will be done.’ Haroun intoned flatly. As usual.

His piety was beginning to grate, but it was about all that could be said about their situation. Kazim looked at Jai, who had been very quiet for the past two weeks. Kazim was beginning to suspect why: his friend always managed to get them water … and he was a good-looking boy. There were rumours about certain of the captains – but water was life here … It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

They set out the next evening under cover of darkness, and of course it was a fiasco. Without torches to see what they were doing, half the gear got left behind, and none of the units were where they were supposed to be in the order of march. The trail of animal and human faeces marking their passage meant a blind man could track them, let alone an Ingashir scout.

‘Maybe all this fertiliser will cause the desert to bloom,’ Haroun joked wearily.

By dawn the column was being watched by a dozen Ingashir, who trotted away disdainfully whenever the soldiers tried to whip their horses towards them. Birds of prey swarmed above, calling incessantly. Sand got into every fold of clothing, into mouths, nostrils, ears, hair. Kazim felt like he was shitting grit, his nethers were so raw.

The marchers quickly began to weaken. The first day, those who fainted were given room on the wagons, but by the second day they were just left behind. Kazim hated them for giving up; he hated the watching Ingashir, arrogant and untouchable – but most of all he hated the soldiers, who cared nothing for them. He longed for an Ingashir archer to fell Jamil and all his smirking men, but the nomads kept their distance, and after two weeks they disappeared altogether, which encouraged everyone. As the oppression of being watched lifted, the men sauntered along in a more relaxed fashion, boasting of what they would have done if the nomads had dared come closer.

Haroun pulled Kazim to one side. ‘The Ingashir are still out there, even if we cannot see them. Be on guard, brother.’ He slipped something hard and cold into Kazim’s hand. It was a curved dagger. ‘Given to me by a soldier. I can think of no more worthy recipient than you, my lionheart.’

Kazim embraced Haroun quickly. ‘Thank you brother. Thank you from all of my heart.’ But his eyes sought Jamil, not the Ingashir.

The Ingashir attack came three days later, on the seventeenth of the desert crossing, after another night marching under the waxing moon, at the point where turning back was beyond them and the next oasis far in the distance. They came at dawn, as the marchers were about to make day-camp. The guards were tired and lax; the men were exhausted, thirsty and hungry. The Ingashir came from out of the rising sun so that they were difficult to see, and any defending archers would have the sun in their eyes. It was so perfect it could have come from a military textbook.

For the hour before the attack, Kazim had been trailing the third supply wagon with a crowd of others who’d broken ranks to try and ensure they would not go hungry. The faces around him were dulled with weariness. The dry wind that had risen out of the north sent stinging gusts of sand into their faces, so every man had wrapped a scarf around his head, impairing visibility. As the eastern sky lightened and the moon sank in the west the soldiers began calling the halt, and Kazim shoved his way towards the supply-wagons. Around him men jostled, but no one pushed him, not even those who fought in packs: they were all wary of his speed and ferocity.

A beady-eyed youth from Kankritipur was pointing towards the rising sun. ‘What’s that?’ he asked.

‘What’s what?’ someone replied as a shaft of red light stabbed the gloom and hands rose to shield eyes.

‘I thought I saw something moving over there,’ the boy maintained. ‘See?’

Kazim peered: a flock of birds had taken to the air, a great black cloud of them. He blinked as the birds arched upward and dived towards them. Not birds – arrows!

‘Watch out!’ someone called, but the men were transfixed, their mouths open in curious wonder.

Kazim dived behind the line of men, but no one else moved.

A shaft struck the Kankritipur boy in the chest and exploded from his back, pinning him to the ground as he fell, his feet kicking and arms jerking like a dropped puppet. Then the rest of the flight of arrows decimated the column, taking men in the chest, the belly, the limbs, through eyes and mouths. Three men in front of Kazim went down; one silently, dead immediately from a shaft straight to the heart; the other two screaming and clutching limbs. There was a momentary respite, then a second flight of arrows flew and the desert floor trembled with the rhythm of hooves. The column disintegrated, the marchers running westwards, or seeking shelter. Kazim ran to the nearest wagon, stuffed small bags of lentils into his belt-pouch and snatched a flask from the driver, who was slumped sideways in his seat, an arrow jutting from his chest. Two of the horses were down.

More arrows flew as an ululating cry erupted from the east: the Ingashir were ready to charge.

Kazim estimated the nomads would reach him in about sixty heartbeats. He grabbed some cured meat, then ran back to where he had last seen Jai and Haroun, keeping low to the ground. ‘Jai!’ he called, as the rumbling of hooves from the east grew louder. The soldiers were forming a line, facing east. A cloud of arrows struck them and they wavered. ‘Haroun!’

Someone crouching behind one of the wagons waved: Jai. Kazim ran towards him, shoving aside men racing in the opposite direction. The arrows were sporadic here as the raiders concentrated their fire on the soldiers. The ground was already littered with the dead and wounded, and most of the marchers were now pelting westwards willy-nilly.

Kazim leapt onto the wagon Jai was hiding behind; the driver was gone, but the horses were whole and holding firm. He snatched up the reins, shouting to Jai and Haroun, ‘Get on, brothers!’

The eerie wailing cry of the Ingashir grew louder. Kazim cracked the whip and the wagon jerked into motion as the first of the Ingashir, all in white and riding pale horses, topped the ridge and surged down the slope, waving curved swords and screaming to Ahm. A thin line of soldiers stood between them and Kazim’s wagon. He hoped they were as good at fighting Ingashir as they were at bullying their own. ‘Fill a pack each with rations,’ he yelled over his shoulder. ‘Be prepared to jump if we have to!’ He whipped the horses into a trot and guided them towards the west.

Somewhere behind him a girl screamed, and Kazim glanced back incredulously. Haroun had lifted a blanket and there she was, curled in a ball. There was no time to dwell on it. Kazim flogged the horses while the Ingashir tore towards the waiting soldiers, but the defenders were too few and too thinly spread. The nomads blasted through them like arrows through cloth. The few survivors tried to gather in spiky clusters. Nomad archers fired into them from point-blank range, but most rode on, seeking easier prey. Several saw the wagon moving and spurred towards it.

Kazim expected an arrow at any moment; he hunched over involuntarily. The horses had poor traction in the soft sands and the wheels were slewing wildly. He heard the girl shriek again, and Jai shouting, Haroun praying as they careered into a running man and went over him in a wet crunch. Kazim lashed the horses and they began to catch up with the fleeing marchers – then a chorus of dismay came from ahead and first one man and then others spun and ran back, flinging aside their meagre burdens. ‘We’re trapped!’ someone howled.

‘There are raiders to the west as well,’ Haroun shouted in Kazim’s ear. ‘Go south!’ He clambered up alongside and seized the reins. ‘I will drive, Kazim; you must fight!’

Kazim rolled back into the wagon as a complete stranger tried to leap aboard. He was another marcher, but Kazim smashed him in the face with his boot and he was gone. The girl clung mutely to Jai, her face terrified. Then she seemed to focus on something behind Kazim, who turned as an Ingashir raider galloped in, his raised blade angling towards Haroun. Without pausing to think, Kazim lunged forward and thrust his dagger into the path of the blow. Steel rang and his arm was jarred numb, nearly knocking the small blade from his grip. Narrow eyes focused on him and he felt a small thrill of dread: this was it, the real thing, live or die. An overarm blow lashed down on him, but he jerked aside and let it pass, then lunged as far as he could and plunged his dagger into the rider’s arm, right up to the hilt. There was a gasp of pain, and the scimitar dropped from the raider’s splayed hand onto the wagon seat. He grabbed the man’s sleeve and pulled, and the rider screamed as he came off his horse and went under the wheels of the wagon. Haroun and Jai threw themselves about to prevent it from rolling, righting it only as a second rider galloped up behind them.

Kazim grasped the fallen scimitar. He tossed the dagger to Jai, then leapt to the back of the wagon. He landed on one knee, scimitar raised to parry, as Haroun brought the wagon about to face south. The second rider reared before him and attacked. Kazim blocked two heavy blows, then slashed and missed, almost overbalancing. More blows rang on his blade, then the wagon bounced and knocked him off his feet. For an instant he was helpless. but the girl startled them all by throwing a pack, which struck the nomad, knocking him half out of the saddle. Jai whooped as a mounted soldier came up behind the dazed rider and swung at his back. The nomad yowled and plummeted to the ground.

The soldier galloped alongside the wagon. It was Jamil, and the captain took them all in with one glance and to their shock yelled, ‘Kazim Makani, stay close!’ Then another nomad attacked, forcing Jamil to spin away and parry. The captain fought deftly, blue sparks coruscating weirdly along his blade as the metal belled.

A youth from Lakh running behind them took a flying leap at the running-board. ‘Help, help!’ he called, pulling himself aboard, slowing them further, then a nomad drove a lance into the boy’s back, blood erupted as the boy screamed, and then he was gone, just another dead shape on the desert floor. The nomad ululated savagely and spurred his horse alongside, just out of reach. With an evil smile he drew his bow.

‘Haroun!’ Kazim shrieked, but before the archer could fire, Jai’s arm went back and with a throw that bettered anything he had ever shown on the kalikiti pitch at home, he skewered the man’s shoulder with the dagger. The man howled and pulled away. They burst through a crowd of their own men and found open sand before them. They were at the rear of the column, and behind them was a confused string of unarmed men running hither and thither, panicking – and doomed.

Kazim slapped Haroun on the shoulder. ‘Let’s go! This lot are dead already!’ Haroun cracked his whip and they accelerated again – then a lone horseman galloped out of the press towards them.

‘Go! Haroun, go!’ Kazim shouted as he stared back at the pursuing rider. Haroun lashed the horses up a short rise and into a dell, and the battle dropped out of sight behind them, though the cries of the trapped and wounded rang clear enough. The lone rider topped the rise and plunged after them. It was Jamil. Kazim spat and prepared to fight anyway.

They were a good two hundred yards south of the fighting when the captain caught up. He had a slash down his right arm and his scimitar was limp in his hand. His eyes focused on the girl. ‘The girl’s mine, Chicken Boy,’ he shouted.

‘Come and get her then,’ Kazim snarled back.

The soldier closed in, wincing as he hefted his blade. ‘Don’t be a fool, Kazim Makani,’ he gritted.

‘You’re not having her, you piece of dung.’

Haroun slowed the wagon. ‘Stop it, stop it – we are all brothers here,’ he cried. ‘The enemy is back there!’ He pulled the horse to a standstill. ‘We are brothers here – please, put up your blades!’ For the first time, Kazim realised his friend was weeping for the shihad.

He looked down at the girl, who whimpered as she clung to Jai. She was plump and soft-looking, utterly out of place here. ‘Who is she to you?’ he snarled at Jamil.

‘Mine, is who she is. Release her.’

Kazim stood his ground, his scimitar raised, unwavering. He knew he could take the man, and he was longing to do so. ‘Get lost, Jamil. We don’t want or need you. Go, before the Ingashir come.’

‘If any of you touch her, you’re all dead.’

‘Piss off, you ugly prick,’ Kazim shot back.

He thought the man would attack, but he didn’t. With a fierce scowl, he wheeled his horse and galloped away towards the west. He watched him until he was out of sight. Then he leapt into action himself. He and Jai unharnessed the horses and loaded them with provender: food, precious water, blankets, then mounted the girl on one and led the rest. They chose to go southwest, where the shadows still clung to the dells and the sand was harder. Behind them, distant screams could still be heard as the Ingashir hunted down the remnants of the column. After a few hours they found rocky ground to cover their hoof-prints, and then a low-lying dell where they hid for the rest of the day, wondering how on Urte they had survived.

No one came near in the daylight hours and at dusk they roused themselves. Jai had spent the entire day with his arm about the girl, who had not said a word but was fully able to cry at great volume if not comforted. Haroun had been praying all day, asking Ahm why he had seen fit to have his own warriors destroyed. His constant mutterings were driving Kazim slowly insane, but he restrained his temper. They were all afraid, and who could guide them to safety if not Ahm Himself?

‘Are we not your children, Great One?’ Haroun wailed bitterly. ‘Do not the Ingashir worship you, even as we do?’ But by evening his face had hardened. ‘An example has been made,’ he told Kazim. ‘This has been an object lesson in failure. There must be an accounting.’

Kazim thought this the understatement of a lifetime, but he had more practical concerns: where now? North, into the unknown, or south, though that would be the end of his dreams? How could they avoid the Ingashir? Was there enough food and water? Was it better to travel during the day or the night? The answer to each question was: ‘I don’t know.’

At least there was food, and they ate a cold meal of dried meat and breads, washed down with a small flask of arak and some water, all from the wagon’s spoils. Tanuva Ankesharan’s best cooking could not match so wondrous a feast as this scavenged meal. ‘What shall we do now?’ he asked Haroun afterwards.

The young scriptualist was rocking back and forth on his haunches, hugging his knees. ‘Brother, I know not. My head tells me we should return south and demand retribution for these dreadful losses – more than three thousand men, underfed, under-provisioned and unarmed, thrust across the hostile desert, only to be ravaged by nomads? It is intolerable – where was the protection? Where was the leadership? Why were we not armed and trained in Lakh before setting out? Why did so many of our brothers have to die so needlessly?’ He was distraught and angry, stabbing the ground with his knife, as if pouring his grief and anger into the sand. ‘The Ingashir will be watching the back-trail. We do not have the provender to go back. It is six days northwards to the next oasis, I heard a soldier say last night. Perhaps we can find it? All I know is this: Ahm has spared us three.’ His eyes flicked to the girl. ‘Maybe even us four, alone of all those men. If ever you have doubted, cast that doubt aside. Ahm is with us and He will guide us.’

Kazim looked at Jai, sitting with his arm awkwardly about the soft Lakh girl with big moist eyes, not made for deserts and danger. She clung to Jai as if he were her personal messiah.

‘I want to go home,’ Jai said miserably.

Kazim took a deep breath. ‘So do I, brother. But I came to rescue Ramita from the ferang demon. If Ahm is with me, I shall not fail.’

A dry chuckle echoed about the stony dell and Kazim leapt to his feet, spinning here and there, brandishing his new scimitar.

A shadowy rock on the edge of the dell rose and became Jamil. ‘What “demon” do you speak of, Kazim Makani?’ His blade was sheathed and he was moving freely, no sign of the wounds inflicted that morning.

How did he get there? How long ago? Kazim thrust his scimitar towards him. ‘Stay away from us!’

‘Hush boy – do you want the Ingashir to hear you?’ Jamil stalked closer, his hands open. ‘See, I come in peace. I am here to help you.’

Kazim took a step forward. ‘Liar! You’re just here to take our water and this girl. She can’t even speak now, you piece of dung!’

Jamil halted. ‘You wrong me, boy: I have not harmed the girl. I found her like that on the second day into the desert. Some fools had smuggled her into the march and misused her. I’ve been protecting her ever since. And I’m not here to steal anything. You may not believe me, but I have been looking out for you. Who do you think gave Jai water during the march? Who warned the worst of the marchers to leave you alone? Who ensured you were always fed during camp? I’ve been watching out for you since before we met.’

‘You kicked me in the head!’

Jamil shrugged. ‘My orders were to ensure my watch over you was not obvious. But I don’t really care whether you believe me or not. If you want to survive, you’ll travel with me.’ He looked at Jai. ‘And if your friend abuses the girl, I’ll disembowel him.’

‘Jai wouldn’t hurt a girl,’ Kazim shot back. He made a gesture of dismissal. ‘We don’t need you.’

Jamil gave an arid laugh. ‘Do you not? You’ve no idea where to go, how even to ride your horses. I would say that you desperately need me. Come now, maybe your pious little friend here can give us a sermon about Ahm having sent me to guide you. There is none better He could have sent: I’ve lived among the Ingashir, and I know the desert. I can get you across, and all the way to Hebusalim too.’

‘But why are you looking out for us?’ Kazim asked.

He shrugged. ‘Those are my orders. And because of your father.’

Kazim stared. ‘My father?’

‘Yes, Kazim, son of Razir Makani. My benefactor commanded that I seek you among the march after you left Baranasi.’ He put one hand on his scimitar hilt. ‘I know why you march – I even know the name of the “demon” who stole your woman.’

Kazim felt a frisson of fear and excitement. Who is this Jamil? ‘I must rescue Ramita!’ he cried.

‘Indeed. I can help you – if you let me.’

Kazim looked at Jai. ‘Is it true about the water?’

Jai nodded, looking embarrassed. ‘He told me not to tell you.’

Kazim turned back to Jamil. ‘How can we trust you?’

Jamil shrugged, pulled out his sword and sent it spinning into the sand to Kazim’s right. He followed it with his dagger. ‘Will that do? Keep them until you are ready to trust me.’

‘Don’t expect them back soon.’ Kazim took a deep breath. ‘You say you know the name of the Rondian who stole Ramita?’

‘I do, and I shall tell you when we reach Hebusalim.’

Kazim bristled. ‘Tell me now!’

‘In Hebusalim,’ Jamil repeated inflexibly, ‘and not before. I will not argue this point. That is my last word on the subject.’ He stood waiting, his face expressionless.

Kazim hissed in frustration, glancing at Haroun, who gave a warning shake of the head. ‘Very well,’ he sighed, ‘for now, you can guide us.’

Jamil gave a low, mocking bow. They all stared at him, waiting for direction. Eventually Haroun asked him, ‘Well, Captain, where should we go?’

Jamil half-smiled. ‘Nowhere, yet. You must learn much before you are fit to travel this desert.’

Jamil kept them in the dell for two days, until he deemed them ready and the Ingashir gone. During the daytime he showed them how to halter the horses with ropes and trot them about the dell, always on muffled hooves. He never missed a detail, a badly set blanket on a horse or a poorly muffled hoof. Jai and Haroun were clearly terrified of him, but Kazim felt more unease than fear. The question of the identity of Ramita’s abductor gnawed at him.

The girl mostly slept, flinching when anyone but Jai approached her. Only Jai could coax her to eat or drink, and at night she huddled against him, causing him embarrassed discomfort.

‘How could this have been allowed to happen?’ Haroun asked Jamil on the second night, his face disillusioned. ‘All my life I have been told of the great shihads: huge armies of men drawn together by their love of God, marching as one to purge our lands of the infidel. But what we have seen was dreadful. How the Rondians must laugh at us.’

Jamil had no words of comfort. ‘Blame the Mughal of Lakh, if you want, or Salim, the Sultan of Kesh. Or the zealots, who couldn’t organise a fuck in a whorehouse.’ He spat. ‘Shihad has been declared by the Convocation, but Salim refuses to allow the mughal to move armies into Kesh – of course the mughal’s armies pillaged southern Kesh during the Second Crusade, so you can’t entirely blame him. Kesh and Lakh have fought many more wars against each other than against the whiteskins and the hatreds run deep. I myself have slain more Lakh than Rondians in the two previous Crusades.’ Kazim wondered how old the man was; he had to be at least forty to have fought in two Crusades, yet he looked younger than that.

Jamil went on, ‘The official routes are closed by Salim’s armies and the mughal is sulking, but the Godspeakers of the Lakh Domal’Ahms wanted to feel important, so they issued the call to arms regardless, and it was answered by people like you: untrained, ill-equipped, with no provision made for food or supplies. And because they cannot cross the deserts to the east where Salim is guarding the best roads, some fool decides they must march across the western deserts, right under the noses of the Ingashir! Pure genius! None of the marchers are armed, in case they mutiny. Each column divides into a few thousand so that they can be provisioned, therefore making them small enough that the Ingashir can wipe them out piecemeal. Did you know you’re the third column to march out this winter? To the best of my knowledge none have arrived. The Ingashir are laughing like jackals.’

Haroun looked up from where he was sitting, his head buried between his knees. ‘You make it sound so hopeless.’

‘It is hopeless.’ Jamil shrugged. ‘Until Mughal Tariq stops pouting and comes to an agreement with Salim, nothing can be done. Men arrive, the local area can’t sustain them, so essentially they are thrust out into the desert to fend for themselves. And Mughal Tariq is fourteen, so don’t expect mature decisions from him any time soon.’ He leaned forward. ‘In truth, Vizier Hanook rules Lakh, and that shifty bastard won’t be losing sleep over a bunch of poor Amteh-Lakh perishing in the sands. He’s Omali, you see; he wants Lakh purged of the Amteh.’ He spread his hands. ‘So you see, my young friends, if we’re going to make it, it’s up to us.’ He looked at Haroun. ‘Keep faith, young scriptualist. Ahm protects best those who protect themselves. We’re going to make it, if you do as I tell you.’

Kazim stared at his feet. What he told them was nothing like the world he had imagined, with rulers with high purposes and noble aspirations, but it fitted well with the world he had seen on the march: sordid, squalid and brutal, and meaningless. ‘Who are you, Jamil? How do you know all these things?’

‘I’m just a man of the Amteh, Chicken Boy. I have lived in many places, by my sword and my wits. The mughal’s army was a convenient place to be, not for the first time. Just know that my masters mean you well.’ He looked up at the stars. ‘Get some sleep. We rise before dawn and we ride all day.’

‘We’re travelling in the daytime?’ Kazim was surprised.

‘Indeed. It is in fact the safest time for us to travel, while the Ingashir rest.’

They rose at dawn. The sun lit the eastern sky red and gold, glorious, remote. There was no wind, no clouds, and the air was dry, but it was clean. They kept to the low places, Jamil occasionally scouting ahead, but they saw no sign of the nomads, even at the site of the massacre, where hundreds of jackals and vultures fought over the unburied corpses. As noon approached they walked the horses on muffled hooves. They saw no Ingashir that day, nor the next, and on the afternoon of the third day Jamil removed the muffling from the horses’ hooves and allowed them to trot. The mute girl wrapped her arms about Jai’s chest and pressed herself against his back, but apart from a small squeal the first time they broke into a trot she uttered no sound.

Kazim began to see signs of life he’d not noticed when marching amidst the thousands of the shihad: the marks that snakes left on the sand, little spider-webs woven between boulders. Tiny birds followed them, swooping about them chasing flies. There were lots of flies.

They prayed five times a day. Jamil joined them as Haroun recited texts from memory to guide them. The girl watched silently, her eyes following Jai wherever he went. One day, as they prepared for their midday nap, Jamil spoke quietly in Jai’s ear and the two of them built a small blood-tent for her, complete with red ribbons. She was reluctant to leave Jai’s side, and only settled when Jai laid his blanket across the flap so that she could see him. Jai had been planning to marry one of the bevy of mindless chatterers who frequented Aruna Nagar Market, yet he was caring for this clinging camp-girl like she was a younger sister. I guess your life isn’t working out as planned either, Kazim thought.

He put an arm around Jai’s shoulder at breakfast. ‘How are you, brother?’

‘I’m scared witless,’ Jai admitted, ‘but I have to look after Keita.’

‘That’s her name?’

‘She talks a bit to me. I’ve promised to look after her.’ He set his shoulders. ‘So I guess I have to.’ His voice held a faint tinge of regret, of dreams quietly disposed of, but not quite forgotten.

Kazim hugged him. ‘I’ll look after her too, brother. She will be as a sister to me.’ He looked Jai up and down. He was leaner, his beard and moustache fuller. He looked more adult. He was improving with the scimitar too. They drilled each night before sleep, and Jamil seemed faintly pleased – not that he ever said so. ‘You’re looking like a real Lakh warrior now. Let the Rondians beware.’

Jai’s mouth twitched distantly. ‘I don’t care about the Rondians. I just want to find Mita and Huriya and bring them home. And take care of Keita, of course. She’s from a village near Teshwallabad. We can take her back to her family on the way south.’

‘I hope it’s that simple, brother.’

The only men they met were three Ingashir who appeared before them like ghosts one morning. Jamil went ahead and spoke to them in their own tongue, and the raiders let them pass. Kazim watched their back-trail for the rest of the day, but there was no sign of pursuit. Jamil caught him looking back and praised his caution, but added, ‘You’re better to watch forward, boy. The Ingashir prefer to lie in wait rather than pursue. Come, ride with me and I’ll show you some survival skills.’

So he went ahead with the warrior and learned something of scouting: reading the terrain and using it to approach high places unseen. How to watch where the birds did and didn’t go. Things to look for in the sand and the stones. How to tell how old a campfire was, or when water might be near.

To the west, the hills of Ingash rose stark and brown. On the clearest days, they could see above and beyond them to the remote snow-capped mountains. To the east, the horizon was dead flat, empty. The Prophet had walked this wilderness, speaking with Ahm and Shaitan for one hundred days. Kazim knew the story, the Great Temptation, and it made him tremble to think they might be walking in the Prophet’s very footsteps, but Jamil just grunted when he said as much. He was scanning the northern horizon, where a faint darkness, brownish-purple, was stirring. There was a faint, acrid wind and the skies had become utterly empty.

‘Let’s go back to that last wadi and await the others,’ he said. ‘We’ll go no further today – or tomorrow, if I’m not mistaken. There’s a sandstorm coming.’

They retraced their journey to the dried-up watercourse set between high banks of rock. Moving hastily, they unburdened the horses and tethered them, then Jamil set Kazim to hammering staves diagonally into the ground so they buttressed the bank before lashing the leather tent to them. By the time the others arrived the wind was beginning to keen. Jamil was everywhere, urging the horses down on their knees and covering them, creating lean-tos of blankets and packs against the riverbanks.

‘But it might rain and fill the riverbed,’ shouted Haroun, worriedly.

Jamil laughed bitterly. ‘It won’t rain here for another seven months, Scriptualist. Save your breath and work!’ He lashed together another tent and shoved the girl inside. He thrust some food into Jai’s hands and pushed him inside after her, crying, ‘Seal it off!’

The wind began to scream, frightening the horses as much as them.

‘Won’t the horses run off?’ shouted Kazim.

‘Where to?’ the warrior shouted back. ‘They’ll stay put, don’t worry. Distribute the packs and water. You’re with the scriptualist. Pray hard!’

The sand began to lash them, stinging blasts that made them stagger, but they were almost done now. Haroun was sealing the last few gaps with rags. Kazim crawled in beside him. Jai waved from the mouth of his tent, then pulled it shut and fastened the ties. Jamil stalked towards them. He put something into Kazim’s hands: a shovel. ‘Stay inside and you’ll be fine, Ahm willing,’ he shouted, then he was gone. Kazim tied the flap shut.

The tent quivered in the wind, which let loose a menacing wail. Kazim was pressed up against Haroun. The young scriptualist looked at him and brandished a flask. He took a sip, then held it under Kazim’s nose and the sweet smell of arak filled his nostrils. ‘It won’t be all bad in here, brother,’ Haroun shouted as he leaned back against the wadi wall. ‘One day Ahm will have perfected me so that I do not need such earthly pleasures. But thankfully, that day is not yet at hand.’

Kazim settled in beside him and accepted a sip. The bitter liquid burned its way down his throat. Jamil had said it could last for days. It was almost too loud to talk, so as long as the tents held, there was nothing to do but pray or sleep. Or drink.

‘Haroun, did I do right, back at the ambush?’ he asked much later, when the noise outside dipped momentarily.

Haroun blinked. ‘You saved our lives, Kazim. You were magnificent.’

‘It doesn’t feel that way. I killed a raider – I pulled him under the wagon wheels – but I also rode down one of ours, and I threw another fellow off the wagon so he wouldn’t slow us down. So I killed one enemy and two friends – in fact, I have killed three Amteh so far on this shihad, and if you count the men whose food I stole, I may have killed more. Will Ahm forgive me?’

‘You know better than that, brother,’ Haroun said. ‘A dead man cannot redeem your woman. Ahm loves you, Kazim Makani; that I know. But let us pray, and it will ease your spirit.’

So they prayed, and he gained a kind of peace from it, but as usual, his mind couldn’t dwell on higher things for long. He was alive and others weren’t. You have to go on, he told himself. Don’t dwell on it. He settled down to wait out the storm, wishing he could trade places with Jai and have a soft female to press against. Lucky bastard! Though Keita probably wasn’t interested, so perhaps it was worse for Jai, locked up with a girl who wouldn’t screw, knowing Jamil would gut him if he forced himself on her – not that Jai would ever force a girl. So he was probably just lying there with a rock-hard cock and nothing to do with it. Kazim grinned at the thought.

Outside the noise rose to deafening. The sand slashed at their tents, making them shudder, but so far they were holding. When they had to pee or shit, they used the lee-ward corner, and buried it; Jamil had left a small hole unlaced there, so the smell never became unbearable. Though it was midday, the dirty brown darkness was more like twilight. There was nothing else they could do, so they shared the arak until it was gone, and finally, feeling lightheaded and bored, they were tired enough to sleep.

Some indeterminable time later, Kazim woke to a narrow shaft of sunlight pouring in through the little air-hole. Outside he heard the keening call of a kite, and a horse nickered softly. The air inside was sour, and Haroun was muttering in his sleep. He looked at the spiritualist: his beard was fuller than when they’d first met, and curly, falling to his collarbone. His white robes were frayed and stained under the armpits. It was strange to think they had met just a couple of months ago. It felt like for ever.

Kazim rubbed his own burgeoning beard. He wondered if Ramita would like the look, or if she’d nag him to shave. He tried to picture her face, wondered where she was. Did she still think of him as he did of her, or was she with child already, and caught up in her own cares?

He shook away these depressing thoughts and examined the tent flap. He could feel sand banked halfway up it, so he unlaced the top and crawled out over the mound. His legs were aching from being bent for so long; straightening them was agonising. Outside, he light was dazzling, but the air was still. Sand had piled everywhere; the wadi was full almost to the lip on the other side, but Jamil had sited them in the lee, which had got off far more lightly. Jamil himself was saddling one of the horses. He smiled with genuine warmth and called, ‘Sal’Ahm.’

Kazim looked about. The sun was low to his left, which must be east if this was morning. ‘Is all well?’

‘All is well. Rouse the others; we should eat.’ He indicated a small camp-fire, where a tin pot was steaming, and Kazim’s stomach growled in hunger.

Buoyed by the thought of food, Kazim woke Haroun, and then tramped up to Jai’s still- closed tent. He peered through the air-hole. Jai’s eyes were closed. The girl’s head lay on his chest, her hair loose over her bare shoulder. She was also asleep. He sniffed, and at the smell of sweat and bodily fluids thought, My friend’s a lucky bastard, then shouted, ‘Jai, wake up!’

His friend opened his eyes and peered up at the air-hole. ‘I am awake,’ he whispered, with a smile of puzzled contentment.

‘Then get your arse out here and do some work,’ Kazim told him. ‘Unless you are so weakened from screwing you can’t walk?’

‘I’ll be five minutes,’ Jai said, running his fingers through Keita’s hair. She stirred and murmured something throaty. Jai grinned up at Kazim. ‘Or maybe ten.’

They wound their way north as the moon waned and vacated the night sky. Weeks flew by, each day like the other. Though supplies ran low, Jamil kept strict rationing and they did not go short. The captain was no longer scouting ahead; he said there was no need. The ground was rocky now, and the sand coarser, and small spiny bushes grew in the lee of the rocks. Fat blue-black flies hummed about them ceaselessly, but avoided Jamil. That wasn’t the only unusual thing Kazim had observed: sometimes he saw a faint blue light within his tent, and sometimes he appeared to be talking to himself in one-sided conversations. But he’d been true to his promise to guide them safely, and he treated them all with more respect now; When he called Kazim ‘Chicken Boy’ now, he was teasing.

Kazim felt a kinship with them all unlike any he’d felt before. They had survived the massacre and the sandstorm and crossed the desert. They prayed together and ate together, and if Jai was the only one allowed to screw Keita, no one complained. The girl cooked for them now, and she was losing some of her baby fat, turning into a woman. Of course, her belly would be swelling soon enough if Jai wasn’t careful. Kazim mentioned this as they walked the horses to a tiny muddy pool Jamil had found.

‘She’s a dark moon bleeder,’ Jai replied, ‘so we were careful last week. She’ll need the blood-tent again any day. Jamil says we’re only a couple of days from Gujati, the most southern settlement in Kesh.’ He glanced back the way they had come. ‘I’m going to miss the desert, sort of.’

‘Me too. There’s something about it … but I’ll be glad of a bath.’ He cast his mind forward to Hebusalim, to Ramita, imprisoned somewhere: the caged bird he would free. We’re coming, my love.

Two days later as the setting sun cast long shadows into the darkening east, they topped a rise to find a cluster of thirty-odd mud-brick huts before them, gathered about a well. They were too tired to enjoy this moment of triumph – they had been on the march for three months and the new year was already two months old. But they were finally in Kesh.