The Thin Executioner

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

For two days the Um Biyara craftily learned all that they could about the cave dwellers and their beliefs. Then, on the third day, Qasr Bint called a meeting and pompously listed all of the cliff people’s sins, declaring their need to repent and join with him and his followers. “Let us save you!” he cried. “Heed our warning. See the light. Accept our word as law.”

The bemused um Hamata didn’t see themselves as sinners and saw no need to convert. The Um Biyara kept pressing, but four days later they realized it wasn’t going to happen, and their mood changed. They cut off all lines of communication and discussed the matter privately within their tents.

Tel Hesani tried to eavesdrop, but they made sure he couldn’t get close enough to hear. The worried slave told Khaz Ali to be wary, that the Um Biyara were sly and cruel, but his new friend laughed and waved away the warning.

Jebel spent most of the time with Samerat and the other children, playing in the tunnels and caves. The break had come as a blessing for him. His wounds healed, and after weeks of near-starvation he was able to put some meat on his bones. As his body recovered, his spirits did too, and the grim events of the past few months started to seem like the vague recollections of a bad dream.

On a cold, cloudy morning, Jebel went looking for Samerat and found him in a cave near the top of the cliff with several adults, Khaz Ali among them. “I can come back later,” Jebel said when he saw that they were busy.

“Wait,” Samerat told him, then had a hushed conversation with his father.

Khaz Ali studied Jebel, then smiled and nodded.

“Come with me,” Samerat said, leading Jebel to the surface.

“What’s going on?” Jebel asked.

“It’s feeding time,” said Samerat mysteriously.

The rest of the um Hamata were waiting on the flat land. A woman was standing apart from the others, holding a lamb. Khaz Ali and his companions joined the group, then they marched towards the cliff to the south, where the strange shadows Jebel had noticed before were moving across the rocks.

“Remember I told you never to go near that cliff?” Samerat said. “Now you’re going to find out why.”

“Is it dangerous?” Jebel asked nervously.

“Yes. But don’t worry; you’ll be fine if you stay with us.”

As they drew nearer, Jebel focused on the shadows. There were nine separate forms, drifting in all directions. He looked up to locate the source of the shadows, but the clouds overhead were unbroken. Then, as the um Hamata came closer to the cliff and stopped, Jebel realized the incredible truth — the shadows were not projections onto the cliff but rather the outlines of shapes inside it.

“What are they?” Jebel gasped.

“Rock spirits,” said Samerat. “They live in the cliff.”

“Trapped?” Jebel asked in an awed whisper.

“Possibly.” Samerat shrugged. “Or maybe they chose to live here. Either way, they never leave. They keep the rocks warm. Without them, this land would be frozen and buried in snow.”

The woman with the lamb had advanced and was standing at the foot of the cliff. As Jebel watched, the shadows joined, forming one giant outline. Then this single shadow slid towards the um Hamata.

When the shadow was a few feet above her, the woman set the lamb down and stepped quickly back. The shadow reached the ground. The lamb looked ghostly white against the dark backdrop. It wasn’t aware of anything untoward and chewed calmly at the grass. Then, in a sudden movement that made Jebel’s heart leap, the rock at the foot of the cliff bulged outwards. The lamb realized it was in danger and tried to leap away, but it was too late.

The rock flowed over the lamb as if made of liquid. The lamb vanished, then reappeared briefly, struggling to break free. Before it could, the rock snapped back into place and resumed its natural shape, hardening instantly, trapping the lamb within its folds. For a minute or so the shadow swirled around the spot where the lamb had been caught. Then it split, and the nine separate shadows resumed their circling patterns.

The um Hamata bowed and departed, leaving Jebel, Samerat, and a few of the other children behind.

When Jebel recovered his wits, he said, “What are they?”

Samerat shrugged. “We don’t really know.”

“They must be gods,” Jebel said. “Wicked gods, or those beaten in battle, who were imprisoned here.”

“Perhaps.”

“Do you worship them?”

“No,” said Samerat. “We sacrifice animals regularly because they need food. According to our records, when the first people came, the shadows were more active, reaching out far and wide to grab a bird, a wild cat, anything that wandered too close. They consumed humans too — several of the original group fell prey to the shadows. But now that we feed them, they’re content. They don’t reach out as far as they did before.”

“Would they consume you if you got too close?” Jebel asked.

“Yes,” Samerat said. “They make no distinction between humans and animals. As long as we keep back, we’re fine, but if we wandered up to the cliff by accident…” He made a choking noise.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Jebel murmured, watching the shadows move across and within the rocks. Where the lamb had been caught, he saw the outline of its body, face turned in, hind legs jutting out slightly. It looked as if it was a weirdly shaped formation that had been there forever.

The rock spirits put Jebel in mind of Tubaygat. The thought that they might be the spirits of old gods reminded him of the god he had set out in search of all those months ago, and made him wonder if Sabbah Eid was anything like these shadows, trapped within the rocks of an al-Meata mountain.

“Do you want to go?” Samerat asked after a while. “They won’t do much else.”

“I’d like to stay awhile,” Jebel said. He knew that this was something special, and he’d probably never see its like again.

“As you wish,” Samerat chuckled. “I’ll be in the caves. Come for me when you’re done.”

Samerat and the other children skipped away, leaving Jebel alone with the ever-moving rock spirits, to marvel.

Jebel was bursting to tell Tel Hesani about the spirits when he returned to camp that afternoon. The Um Kheshabah was loitering near a large tent, where the Um Biyara were engaged in secret discussions about their mission.

“Tel Hesani!” Jebel shouted. “I’ve just seen the most amazing—”

“Hush!” Tel Hesani snapped, and cocked an ear. The Um Biyara had gone quiet. He waited a moment in case they’d resume talking, but nothing happened. Sighing, he faced the excited Um Aineh. “Go on, then. Tell me what you’ve seen.”

Tel Hesani rapidly lost interest in the plottings of the Um Biyara when he heard of the wondrous shadows. He asked if he could see them. Jebel said he didn’t think the um Hamata would mind, and the pair hurried off to climb the cliff.

There was silence in the tent behind them. Then Qasr Bint appeared and studied Jebel and Tel Hesani as they climbed. He lifted his gaze, squinted at the top of the cliff, then went back inside the tent, where the debate began again, only now the Um Biyara were even quieter and more secretive than before.

That night Qasr Bint announced their departure. “We’ve spent too long here,” he told Khaz Ali. “Your people clearly won’t convert, so it’s time to move on. We will leave in the morning.”

“We’ll be sad to see you go,” Khaz Ali said. “If you ever wish to return, there will always be a welcome for you in Hamata.”

“Thank you,” Qasr Bint said. “Before we depart, we wondered if we might share one last meal together, to celebrate our friendship.”

“Of course — we’ll have a feast!” Khaz Ali boomed. “We’ll even kill a couple of goats in your honor, so there will be meat to enjoy too.”

Jebel was sad to be leaving and worried about what would happen once they were back on the road, under the thumb of the Um Biyara. He thought about trying to hide in a cave and asking the um Hamata to protect him. But it would be wrong to involve the peaceful cave dwellers in his predicament. His enslavement was his own concern, nobody else’s, and it would be selfish to put his new friends at risk. If he and Tel Hesani escaped later, perhaps they could track back here and seek shelter.

The um Hamata laid on the finest food and drink that they could muster. There were dancing, singing, and storytelling. The cave dwellers couldn’t ferment wine or ale, but they had a barrel of whiskey that they’d fished from the river some weeks back. They cracked it open, and many toasts followed. The Um Biyara responded warmly and seemed to drink as much as their hosts. But they were secretly pouring their whiskey into the earth, keeping clear heads for the work to come.

When most of the um Hamata were swaying on their feet, Qasr Bint proposed a toast of his own. Jebel had been playing with Samerat, leaping over drunken um Hamata, but they stopped to hear what the shaven-headed leader of the Um Biyara had to say.

“My poor, sinful, misguided friends,” Qasr Bint began. The um Hamata cheered, misinterpreting it as a joke. “My children and I came here to reveal great truths to you and to guide you into the arms of the gods. We thought we could win everlasting life for your spirits. We believed we were dealing with honest, decent people, but we now see that we were mistaken. We have learned of your devious rock spirits and the sacrifices that you make. You worship false gods and are thus unworthy of salvation. Your spirits deserve to flicker out once you die, and the sooner you are wiped from the face of Makhras, the better.”

The laughter died away as drunken frowns replaced smiles. Far to Qasr Bint’s right, Tel Hesani sensed trouble, but it was too late to act.

“Brother Bint,” Khaz Ali said, getting to his feet, “you should not say such—”

“You are foul!” Qasr Bint screamed with unexpected venom, pointing a furious finger at Khaz Ali. “You cavort with demons. You turn your back on all that is holy. You are beyond redemption. And so you must… be killed!”

He roared the last words, and they became an order. The Um Biyara leapt to their feet, drew swords and other weapons, and fell upon the unsuspecting um Hamata.

It was plain, bloody slaughter. The um Hamata never had a chance to defend themselves. A dozen were butchered in the first few seconds. As the rest stumbled to their feet, senses and reactions dulled by the whiskey, the Um Biyara mowed them down like stalks of fleshy corn.

Jebel screamed as Khaz Ali was hacked at by Qasr Bint. He watched, head spinning, as Samerat ran to his father’s aid, only to be caught by a pair of women, who stuck knives into the boy and shrieked like harpies.

One of the children near Jebel ran for the safety of the caves. He’d just started to climb when he was picked off the cliff by a laughing Um Biyara, who swung him around and cracked his head open on the rocks.

Jebel snapped. Still screaming, he looked for a weapon, found a knife that somebody had dropped, picked it up, and ran at the Um Biyara, intent on killing or being killed. He got no more than six steps before he was wrestled to the ground. His assailant knocked the knife away and pinned him. Jebel struggled, spat at the man, then stopped when he saw the face of his captor — Tel Hesani.

“Let me up!” Jebel shouted as the bloodshed continued.

“No,” Tel Hesani said. “They’ll kill you if you fight.”

“I don’t care,” Jebel yelled. “They’re monsters. We have to stop them. They’ll murder everybody if we don’t—”

“They’ll kill them anyway,” Tel Hesani cut in. “We can’t prevent it, Jebel.”

“But Khaz Ali! Samerat!”

“Dead.” Tel Hesani sighed. “We can’t save them.”

“Then let’s join them!” Jebel howled. “Let’s die with them!”

“No,” Tel Hesani said. “That would be a waste of life. You’ll realize that later, when you calm down.”

Jebel cursed the Um Kheshabah, calling him a worthless slave, a son of a mongrel, and a whole lot worse. Tel Hesani accepted the insults and watched the savagery unfold around them, sticking to his task with miserable determination.

Barely four minutes after the first blow had been struck, the last um Hamata was dispatched, and their butchers strolled around, sticking swords through the fallen, making sure that nobody was faking death. As Qasr Bint prepared to spear Khaz Ali, the dying cave dweller raised his head and snarled.

“No good will come… of this,” he gasped. “All the luck… of Makhras… will be against you now. You’ll die horribly… like the scum you are… and burn in the fires of… whatever world lies beyond.”

“Shhh,” Qasr Bint snickered. “Dead men shouldn’t make so much noise.” Then he slowly drove his sword into Khaz Ali’s chest, relishing the um Hamata’s death screams.

“What about these two?” one of the zealots shouted, pointing at Jebel and Tel Hesani. “They’ll never convert. I say we kill them now and—”

“No!” Qasr Bint snapped. “We wouldn’t have known of the evil spirits if not for the boy. They’re bound to us by fate. They’ll convert in the end, I’m sure of it.”

The Um Biyara looked disappointed, but he wasn’t fool enough to disobey his leader. Shrugging, he fell in with the others, who were working quickly and efficiently. They placed all of the bodies together and cut up several of them, salting the strips of flesh. There was plenty of other food that they could have taken, but they’d developed a taste for human meat. Flesh was what they craved now, even more than converts.

Later that night, their work complete, the Um Biyara broke camp and moved on. Jebel and Tel Hesani marched in the middle, hemmed in by the others, hands tied behind their backs. They were almost out of sight of the cliff when Jebel remembered the baby.

“We’ve got to go back!” he yelled. “There’s a baby. We have to rescue it.”

“A baby?” Qasr Bint frowned.

“A few months old. It hasn’t done any harm. You can rear it as an Um Biyara.”

Qasr Bint scratched his chin, then sniffed. “We have no time for babies.” He motioned his people forward. Jebel kicked and screamed as hard as he could, but his protests were ignored, and they marched off into the darkness, leaving behind the cooling corpses of the um Hamata and the echoing cries of a young child who was doomed to die alone in the confines of the gloomy, death-riddled caves.