The Thin Executioner

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The base of the siq was gloomy, drowning in shadows, the colors of the walls obscured. The ground was dusty underfoot, a very thin path the only testament to thousands of years of human occupancy. As the sun set, the shadows deepened, and it was night in the siq long before it was dark in the hills above.

Tel Hesani would have stopped when night fell, but Hubaira’s pace didn’t falter. Since this was her territory, he followed without question.

Within an hour, Jebel had fallen behind. His eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness. As he paused to drink some water, he noticed a small, sparkling light far overhead. He thought it was a star, but then he realized it was too low. Glancing around, he saw more lights flickering into life, as if a ghost was lighting candles and they were spreading.

“Tel Hesani! Hubaira!” he shouted.

Tel Hesani stared uncertainly at the lights, but the girl only laughed. “You don’t know about fireflits?” When the man and boy shook their heads, she squatted down. “Then we’ll rest here a moment.”

Jebel hurried over to where Hubaira was crouching. As they watched, the lights increased and crept towards them. It was an eerie sensation, seeing lights drift across the walls as if blown by a soft wind. As the lights drew closer, Jebel heard a faint buzzing noise. It wasn’t unlike the buzzing sound made by the insects of the swamp they had passed through not so long ago.

Hubaira whispered, “Don’t move. Keep watching. Look for the flowers.”

It took Jebel several seconds to see them. Then, in the glow from above, he saw that the walls of the siq were imbedded with dainty grey flowers. Each had a single head and several large petals. Jebel spotted an insect hovering at the head of one flower. It was like a locust, but smaller and brightly colored. Its wings beat rapidly, blurring with speed. When they touched together overhead, they produced tiny sparks.

As the fireflit extracted pollen, a spark from its wings hit one of the petals, and it caught fire. The flames consumed the other petals, then the head and stem. The fireflit zipped to another flower, leaving the first to burn to its roots.

“They do that all night,” Hubaira said softly. “Fly from one flower to the next, collect pollen, return to their nests near the top of the siq, then come back for more. The ash feeds the soil, and new flowers will grow in their place tomorrow, ready for a return visit within two or three days.”

“I’ve never heard of such creatures,” Tel Hesani said admiringly.

“Perhaps they’re only found in Abu Siq.” Hubaira shrugged. “We don’t take much notice of them. They’re of no use except for their light, and since we rarely travel through the siq, our paths don’t often cross.”

Hubaira moved forward again. The fireflits scattered, but soon they resumed their endeavors, keeping above head level, where they were safe.

For three hours Hubaira maintained her pace, Tel Hesani marching just behind, Jebel farther back. The um Wadi was sweating beneath the thick, long-sleeved tunic that he had pulled on to combat the chill of the siq, and his legs were aching. Only his determination not to appear weak in front of a girl prevented him from calling for a rest.

Finally Hubaira stopped. “We will sleep here,” she said, moving to the side of the siq. Jebel saw a cave, just large enough to hold the three of them. Hubaira crawled into it and lay on the floor without any blankets.

“Does one of us need to stand watch?” Tel Hesani asked. He’d heard tales that the siq was inhabited by wild creatures.

“No,” Hubaira yawned. “I’m trained to wake instantly in case of attack.”

Tel Hesani unpacked their belongings and laid out mats and pillows for himself and Jebel. Jebel would have liked to sweep the mat aside and sleep rough like Hubaira, but he was cold and uncomfortable already and couldn’t face a night on a stone floor without any protection.

“Why don’t your people use the siq?” Jebel asked after he’d eaten a meager meal — Hubaira refused their offer of food — and climbed into the cave beside the girl. He was gazing at the walls outside, where the fireflits were still active.

“The mountains offer more of a challenge,” Hubaira said. “The siq is for emergencies or children like me. Sometimes we bring livestock this way, if it can’t manage the mountainous trek, but we prefer not to. Also, the siq can become a trap. On the mountains there is always space to run if we’re attacked.”

Jebel wanted to ask who or what might attack them, but Hubaira rolled onto her side, and within minutes she was snoring. Jebel tried to fall asleep as Hubaira had, but he was awake for hours, fascinated by the dance of the fireflits and troubled by the threat of the unknown.

Jebel and Tel Hesani ate strips of cured meat in the morning, but Hubaira again refused to share their meal. “I don’t mean to offend you,” she said. “It’s a condition of my test that I only eat wild plants or animals I’ve caught myself.”

“Don’t you get hungry?” Jebel asked.

“Sometimes,” Hubaira said. “But we train ourselves to ignore hunger. I can go four days without eating. An adult can easily last a week without food.”

They set off about an hour after sunrise. Jebel saw that they’d moved beyond the hills during the night and were now hemmed in by the rocky sentries of the al-Attieg. The range wasn’t at its wildest here, but it was still an incredible sight, mountains rising on either side of them, split evenly down the middle.

The true beauty of the siq only became apparent as the day wore on. The colors and shapes were startling, all the work of nature, unembellished by the hand of man. The siq was narrow — in some places you could touch both walls at the same time — and twisting. It was silent save for the occasional cry of a bird of prey far above.

Hubaira spoke more freely than she had the day before. She was excited at the thought of returning home, having moved one step closer to adulthood. She told Jebel and Tel Hesani of her life, how every member of her race was a warrior. When a child was born, a small spear was pressed into its hands. If it held the weapon, it was raised in the ways of the Um Siq. If it dropped the spear, it was taken up into the mountains and left to perish. Even Jebel thought that was a tad harsh.

Um Siq had to prove themselves at every stage of their life, test after test, trial after trial. They slept in pens with other children once they’d been weaned. They had to scrap for food and clothes. Many died as infants. Only the strongest survived. There was no room for weakness. Every member of the tribe could fight if required to do so. That was how they had maintained their independence, standing firm in the face of powerful enemies, defending their city-state over the course of many centuries, sometimes abandoning it for long periods to hide in the mountains but always returning to drive out invaders and seek revenge.

Jebel wasn’t sure what to think of Hubaira. She was by no means pretty, but he found her confidence and strength oddly attractive. He was certain she could beat him, and just about any other Um Aineh boy, in a fight, but he was no longer troubled by that. He had decided that Um Siq women were different. There would be no shame in losing to one of them.

Jebel found himself thinking that it would be an asset to marry a woman like Hubaira. No man in Wadi could boast of a warrior wife. Perhaps if he completed his quest and returned to claim the hand of Debbat Alg, he might venture north again one day, to court Hubaira or another like her.

Trying not to appear too obvious, he asked Hubaira about her people’s marital customs.

“At the moment there are more men than women,” she said, “so each woman has a number of husbands. If that changes in the future, men will be able to take more than one wife. That has always been our way.”

“What about marriages with people of other nations?” Jebel asked.

“We don’t breed with outsiders.” Hubaira snorted at the idea and so put a swift end to Jebel’s thoughts of seeking a wife among the Um Siq.

The temperature didn’t rise much, even at noon. They paused for a rest after a few hours, and a short sleep in the afternoon, then pushed on again. Hubaira said they should be in the city of Abu Siq by the next evening if they marched late into the night and started early the following morning.

At one point Tel Hesani noticed part of a man-made drain running along a wall. It seemed out of place, so he asked about it. Hubaira snarled and started kicking the structure, soon reducing it to dust. Jebel and Tel Hesani watched, bemused. When Hubaira calmed down, she explained her behavior.

“Long ago a powerful race occupied Abu Siq. They were here longer than most invaders and almost wiped us out — only nineteen of us survived. The invaders tried to make life more comfortable for themselves. They built dams and drains to divert the course of a stream that flowed through the siq then, and erected huge new buildings, some of the most intricate ever constructed on Makhras.

“The nineteen survivors bred and grew strong, rearing their children to be even harder than themselves. They waited patiently, increasing over many generations, then returned and slaughtered every single occupier. They tore down the new buildings and destroyed the dams and drains. But the siq is long, and sections of the drains remain, hidden by sand and stones for centuries, only revealed when the earth shifts. We destroy the old bits of drain whenever we find them.”

Hubaira’s story struck a chord with Tel Hesani. As he’d told Jebel, his people had at one time controlled most of Makhras. There was a legend that at the height of their power they’d built an incredible city in the wilderness to serve as an earthly home for the gods. (They still worshipped multiple gods then.) According to the legend, the gods disapproved of the city — it was more impressive than any of their own — and laid it low.

Was Abu Siq that city of myth, and had Tel Hesani’s forebears fallen not at the feet of otherworldly gods but at the hands of vengeful Um Siq? The slave felt that he had just unlocked a major mystery of his people’s past. He sighed heavily when he realized that he would never be able to share his discovery and that it would most likely die with him in a cave of destiny far to the desolate north.

Night fell on the siq. Jebel pulled on an extra tunic and wrapped a long strip of cloth around his head, as many Um Aineh did when traveling in colder climes. Hubaira thought he was soft for covering up, but she didn’t say anything. The ways of foreigners were none of her business, so long as they didn’t interfere with her.

The fireflits appeared not long after dusk and resumed their never-ending hunt for pollen. Jebel found the scent of burning ash soothing. It reminded him of the smell of fresh blood, and he found himself thinking about home and the many fine executions he’d witnessed. But that led him to think of the messy slaughter in Hassah, and he scowled as he silently mocked the Um Nekhele’s legal system. “Jails” indeed! You couldn’t beat a good, clean blow of an axe for real justice.

Jebel was thinking about jails and executions, idly studying the dancing flames generated by the fireflits, when he noticed the fires blowing out above him. He had grown used to the spreading, flickering patterns, but this was different. Instead of each flower burning out separately, a large number were being quenched at the same time, along a straight line that was moving swiftly towards the travelers.

“Hubaira,” he said nervously, “is that a gust of wind?”

Hubaira glanced back at him, then followed where his finger was pointing. When she saw the growing line of darkness, she cursed, whipped out her dagger, and swung her staff over her shoulder. Holding the dagger in her left hand and the staff in her right, she moved ahead of Jebel and Tel Hesani. “Keep back,” she spat. “Prepare your weapons. If I fall, fight like demons. Don’t run. It will probably kill you in battle, but it will definitely hunt and slaughter you if you run.”

Before Jebel could ask what it was, a huge, shadowy form leapt from the wall of the siq. It shrieked as it jumped. The shriek was so piercing that Jebel and Tel Hesani covered their ears with their hands. But Hubaira raised her dagger and took a half-step closer to the creature.

The beast lunged at Hubaira, shrieking again, but when she didn’t move, it pulled up short and struck at her with a long claw. Hubaira ducked, whacked the claw with her staff, then slid within the creature’s reach and stabbed at it with her dagger. The creature howled, leapt back, then struck at her again.

As the creature and the Um Siq girl battled, Jebel caught flashes of the beast. It was unlike any animal he’d ever seen. Its body was similar to a bear’s, but its legs were much longer, and it had a narrow head, with a double row of teeth, one set overlapping the other.

Hubaira’s dagger sank into the creature’s stomach. The beast screeched with pain as she yanked it out, but instead of retreating, it threw itself at her. She almost wriggled out of its way, but it caught her leg and dragged her down. She lashed out with her staff, but the creature knocked it from her hands and was quickly on her, snapping at her chest and neck.

Tel Hesani had stood back while the creature attacked, but when he saw it pin Hubaira, he swept in to help her. He got close enough to strike but then saw that the beast’s back was shielded by a bonelike shell. He paused to pick his spot. Beneath the animal, Hubaira was stabbing with her dagger, opening up numerous small cuts in its unprotected stomach, but she didn’t have enough room to drive her dagger in deep.

The beast’s shell was layered, spreading down its back in ridges. Between the ridges, when the beast stretched, there were gaps. Tel Hesani positioned his sword over one of the sections where a pair of ridges met. The beast had been biting at Hubaira’s head, but after a few seconds it reared back, then went for her neck. The gap between the ridges widened, and Tel Hesani drove his sword down and in.

The creature’s breath caught in its throat, and its head arced backwards. Jebel had been edging forward to join the battle, but he paused, thinking it might be over. Tel Hesani’s sword had stuck about halfway in. He tried ramming it deeper into the beast, failed, then began to pull it out.

That was when the beast went mad. It whipped around with astonishing speed and lashed at Tel Hesani with its head. It struck him hard across his stomach, and he fell away, losing his grip on the sword, which remained sticking out of the beast’s ridged back. Clambering off Hubaira, the creature gathered itself, then leapt at Tel Hesani, landing on him as it had pounced on the Um Siq girl moments before.

When Jebel saw the danger Tel Hesani was in, he swung his sword. The blade bounced harmlessly off the creature’s shell, but he had distracted it. The beast fixed its dark green eyes on the boy, gauged the threat he posed, then dismissed him and snapped at Tel Hesani again.

Jebel struck a second time, then a third, but the animal took no notice. He stepped back, panting, not sure what to do, then was knocked aside by Hubaira, who was on her feet, bleeding in many places but determined to finish the job she had started. Leaping onto the beast, she picked her spot, then jabbed her dagger into its neck.

The creature snorted, then bucked. Hubaira went flying and crashed into a wall. As she staggered upright, the beast’s claw connected with her face. She spun around sharply, hit the wall again, and sank to the floor. The beast turned to where Tel Hesani was struggling to sit up, scrabbling in the sand for anything to defend himself with. It seemed to grin, then advanced slowly, sure of victory.

Jebel weighed his chances. If the beast killed Tel Hesani and began to feast on him, maybe the boy could slip away unseen. Two bodies would surely provide more than enough meat, even for a creature this size. He should seize his chance and run. There was no way he could defeat the beast. It would be crazy to waste his life. But…

Tel Hesani had leapt to the girl’s rescue. He’d seen that Hubaira was in trouble and had dived in to help, regardless of the risk to his life. The Um Kheshabah was still alive, and as far as Jebel knew, Hubaira was too. If he ran, he would be displaying less courage than a slave and a girl. That was unacceptable. He had to fight or forever live in shame.

As Jebel stepped forward, preparing to go to work with his sword, he saw something on the ground — Hubaira’s catapult. It must have been dislodged during the struggle. Jebel stopped. He’d never been warrior material — too thin, too bony, too weak — but he had a good eye and a steady hand. He had always held his own in target games, be the weapons blowpipes, bows, or slings.

Jebel stooped, picked up the catapult, then found a few decent-sized stones. He loaded one into the sling, pulled it back halfway, and took aim. The beast was snapping at Tel Hesani’s toes, playing with him before it killed him. There was no point firing at its back — if his sword hadn’t been able to penetrate its armor, a pebble certainly wouldn’t — so Jebel pursed his lips and whistled. When the creature ignored him, he shouted, “Hey! Ugly!”

The beast’s head swiveled around just a fraction, but that was all Jebel needed. He pulled the sling back the rest of the way, then released it. The stone flew fast and true, and the beast’s right eye exploded in a gooey shower.

The creature howled — an ear-shattering blast — but Jebel didn’t flinch. Loading another stone, he fired again. He meant to take out the beast’s other eye, but it twisted aside, so the stone only struck the middle of its forehead. Before he could fire a third time, the animal threw itself at him. If it had connected, it would have pulverized the boy. But its sight was distorted and it flew wide of Jebel, smashing into the wall. As it turned, shaking its head, Jebel stepped sideways and fired. This time he hit the second eye, and although he didn’t destroy it, the lid swelled up and blocked the creature’s sight, all but blinding it.

As the beast flailed around, writhing in the dust and sand, snapping at the air, Tel Hesani advanced, having retrieved his sword. He took aim and drove the tip of the blade deep into the middle of the creature’s head.

The beast screamed one last time, then rolled onto its side, twitched, and fell still. Tel Hesani stabbed it again, to be safe, then stumbled away. He would have fallen, but Jebel caught and steadied him. Tel Hesani glanced at Jebel blankly, then smiled weakly. “Thank you.”

Jebel grunted and released the slave. “Is it definitely dead?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Tel Hesani, wiping blood from his face. “You fought well.”

Jebel grinned shyly. “Somebody had to save you,” he chuckled. “J’Al always said that no slave could fight worth spit.”

Tel Hesani’s face stiffened. “A noble victory, my lord,” he said icily. “Now, if you will excuse me, I will check on our fallen companion.”

Jebel frowned as Tel Hesani limped to where Hubaira lay sprawled and unmoving. The slave was too thin-skinned. He took every little joke as an insult. Tel Hesani owed Jebel his life. A show of genuine gratitude wouldn’t have killed the pale wretch.

But when he saw Tel Hesani turn the girl over and lower his ear to her mouth, Jebel forgot his anger. Hubaira had fought for both their lives. She could have used them as fodder, to distract the beast, but she hadn’t. It was wrong of him to pick fault with Tel Hesani at a time when his thoughts should be for the girl who’d helped save them.

Jebel hurried forward and stood nervously by Tel Hesani’s side. Hubaira’s face was a mess, torn to bloody shreds. Her neck and upper chest had also been clawed to pieces, and a bone stuck out of her stomach. She was breathing, but heavily, and blood frothed on her lips.

“Will she live?” Jebel asked, dreading the answer.

Tel Hesani studied the girl’s neck, then her stomach. He gently pried her lips apart, sucked blood from her mouth, and spat it out. He gazed down her throat, watched fresh blood well up, then sighed. “No.”

Jebel went cold. “There must be something we can do,” he insisted.

“Pray for her spirit,” said Tel Hesani.

“But—”

Hubaira coughed, and her eyelids fluttered open. For a moment she looked like she’d awakened from a dream, but then she blinked and came alert. “The… mamlah?” she croaked.

“Dead,” Tel Hesani said.

Hubaira smiled thinly. “They don’t… attack often. But they… normally kill when they… do. We did well… to defeat it.” She coughed again, and blood burst from her mouth and over her chin. She looked at Tel Hesani. “I am… injured.”

“Yes.”

“It is… serious?” He nodded slowly. “Will I… die?”

Tel Hesani hesitated, then nodded again. “Your lungs have been punctured. There is nothing we can do.”

Hubaira snarled, then laughed. Blood spattered from her lips, and she had to rest before she could speak again. “At least I… died in battle. There is no… shame in losing… to a mamlah. How long… before…?”

“Minutes,” Tel Hesani said, tenderly wiping blood from her face.

Hubaira started to say something else, but a wave of pain washed over her and she shook fiercely. Jebel thought she was going to die then, but she was still alive when the spasms passed. With a great effort, she focused on Tel Hesani. “Put my… dagger… in my… hand.” Tel Hesani did as she asked. “Tell my people… we fought… together. That should… work in… your favor.”

“We will carry your body to your parents,” Tel Hesani promised. “We’ll see that you are buried with—”

“No,” she interrupted. “Leave me… here. Just… cut off… my head. That is… all my family… needs.”

Tel Hesani frowned. “Are you certain?”

Hubaira nodded weakly. “My body… is nothing. But don’t… leave my… head.”

She shook again, and though she still hadn’t surrendered to death by the time she stopped shaking, she couldn’t speak anymore. She lay staring at the walls of the siq, the fireflits, the sky. She tried raising a finger to point at something, but her hand fell by her side before the gesture was complete. Jebel and Tel Hesani looked to see what she was trying to draw their attention to but could see nothing. When they turned back to Hubaira, she was dead.