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Lady of the Sands

Page 15

by Fuad Baloch


  The man looked up, his cheek where she had struck him growing red under the torchlight. But he relented. Ruma pushed and pulled, heaved and grunted. Yenita joined her, both of them finally disentangling the old woman.

  “Alf… bless you, my girl,” wheezed the woman when she finally slid through and past the threshold. She panted, dabbed at her forehead, her veil lost in the mayhem.

  Ruma scoffed, dusted her hands, looked around, suddenly unsure of what they were trying to achieve in the first place.

  “There he is!” shouted Yenita, thrusting her hand towards the hall. Ruma followed her direction. Sivan, bedraggled, his clothes crumpled, stumbled towards them through the now clear doors.

  “Oh Alf, what’s going on?” he shouted.

  Ruma glared at him. “We’re being attacked, of course!”

  “By w-whom?”

  Ruma paused to consider the words for half a beat, then shook her head. “Who cares? All evil bastards are the same.”

  “What do we do now?” asked Yenita again, her chest heaving, the large eyes darting over her shoulder to see if monsters would emerge from the dark.

  Ruma scratched her chin. All this adrenaline coursing through her veins had helped dissipate the thick layer clouding her thoughts, but when she pondered the question, no useful answers emerged.

  “First of all…” she tried, then chuckled as she realised how the word First referred to the Pithrean as well. “We—”

  “Change the course of the world!” said the damned Pithrean, almost as if it was waiting on cue.

  “Well, I’m too drunk to… even walk straight for the moment,” she mumbled.

  “Ruma!” shouted Yenita, pointing behind them.

  Ruma turned around. Out in the distance, tongues of fire were rising towards the sky. “Have they set… fire to the town?”

  “Heretics,” wailed Sivan, shuddering. “Fire is only for Alf to mete out.”

  “You’ve no idea of the weapons to come,” croaked Ruma, slurring through the words.

  “Run for your lives!” came a frantic howling as another man ran past them, two massive coin purses clutched in his hands.

  “That’s right,” agreed Ruma, grinning for finally having realised what they needed to do. “We run!”

  “We can’t,” protested Yenita. “Not without our provisions.”

  Ruma blinked. “Are they going to make you run faster?”

  “No, but—”

  “Will they help us fight better if we have to?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then we run!” shrieked Ruma, not getting the reason for any argument. Without waiting for the siblings’ response, she broke out into a sprint towards the town.

  Sivan shouted behind her. Yenita yelled. But she could tell they were running with her. A dozen or so strides and more fires burst over the treetops.

  “Ruma!” shouted Yenita.

  Ruma shook her head, looked around to ensure they wouldn’t get ambushed.

  “We’re running into the bastards!” the young girl screeched.

  That gave Ruma pause. She came to a stuttering stop, then surveyed what lay ahead, breath coming in quick gasps. True enough, she had been running the wrong way. Stupid of her.

  “Do we turn around?” asked Yenita, stepping beside her. She too huffed with the exertion, her brother already doubled over. Her face shone in profile, the sweat glistening a golden glow.

  “Aye,” Ruma agreed, turning back. “Hold on… Is the tavern on fire as well?”

  “Alf curse them!” wailed Sivan. He raised a hand, bent over, began emptying the contents of his stomach onto the loose gravel underneath.

  “Our provisions!” cried Yenita.

  “They’re gone,” said Ruma, grabbing the girl by the arm. “Forget it.”

  “Forget it?” Yenita pirouetted around to face her, the vein on her forehead throbbing. “You have no idea what father would say—”

  “First things first,” cut in Ruma, a massive headache beginning to settle in. “We need—”

  A crashing sound came from behind her, followed by more shouting.

  “Damn it,” she cursed, turning around. Two figures clambered towards them. A young boy, around ten or so, dragging an older man by the arm. Behind them loomed another shadowy figure, a sword clutched in a hand.

  “Help!” the boy shouted at them.

  “They’re here,” shouted Yenita. “Run!”

  Ruma heard her words loud and clear, thought they made perfect sense. This wasn’t her battle, after all. Nothing to be gained by involving herself in a matter that wasn’t her concern.

  Yet why couldn’t she turn away from the boy?

  “Back off!” she shouted at the soldier, standing upright. “Let them go!”

  The boy wailed. Ruma gestured at him and he redoubled his shuffling.

  “Heretics will perish,” replied the shadowy figure, his Anduras thick, gravelly, sounding strange in the night, “both in this world and the one hereafter.”

  “Let them go,” repeated Ruma, “or you shall be the one joining the hereafter.”

  She had no weapons. Even if she did, she didn’t really stand a chance against someone adept with them, and that was all assuming the world didn’t sway as it still did occasionally.

  The killer seemed to consider her words. Coming to a stop, he raised his sword, resting it against his shoulder. Yenita yanked at her arm. The boy squealed, both father and son—or so Ruma assumed—inching closer towards her, towards what they hoped was safety.

  “You’re brave for a woman.”

  Ruma nodded graciously, spread her arms. How was one meant to respond to that, drunk or not? “Who are you bastards, anyway? Yenita, haven’t the Blessed been kicked out of town as well?”

  The shadowy figure laughed. Then, extending the sword out in front of him, he began marching towards them.

  “Oh Alf!” wailed Sivan.

  “Ruma!” shouted Yenita.

  “Wait,” she hissed, motioning the boy to come forwards.

  The soldier, the fanatic, laughed once more, not slowing down. Old memories flashed. Hanoos would have gotten along fine with this man—both fanatics, both believers in the end justifying any and all means. Something she could understand but no longer tolerate.

  The sound of metal scraping on sand made her look down. The boy held out a sword to her. “My father’s!”

  Ruma nodded, then, taking a deep lungful of air filled with smoke and screams, took the cold metal from his hand. The boy’s father raised a weak arm towards her, grunted, said something Ruma couldn’t quite hear.

  “Do you fight for Yasmeen or Bubraza?” shouted Yenita as Ruma tried balancing the sword in both hands in what she hoped looked like an intimidating pose.

  “We fight for Alf as the prophecy declared!”

  Ruma blinked at the answer, pieces of a puzzle sliding into place despite the haze in her mind. Hadn’t she heard rumours of the Blessed discontented with the prophecy? Had they then returned to take the tablet of the prophecy away, replace it with something that supported their cause better? Is that what Bubraza had been hinting at when she said her aunt would do anything to win? “Yasmeen… knows no limits, does she?”

  Snarling, the fanatic approached. Ruma might still have been drunk, but she could tell the man moved with the assurance of a trained warrior. Someone who would not take her lightly. A good trait to have in a warrior, something not terribly great for her.

  “Change the course of the world!”

  Ruma groaned, punched her temple with the pommel of the sword, winced at the pain. Did the damned First want her to die or live to serve his purpose? And couldn’t it just fracking fall silent for a bit?

  “Ruma!” shouted Yenita.

  Ruma exhaled, tightened her grip over the sword. Most of her life, she’d listened to her gut and what it called out at her to do. This time, the message was clear, even if it seemed to be taking a while to get through her addled mind. She blinked, looked
around.

  Fanima was in flames. Yasmeen’s dogs were erasing not just the tablet, but the very town itself. Is that why she couldn’t recall any mention of this event or the prophecy in the future—her present—for they had left no traces?

  More shouts came from behind the soldier. Not the civilians. Delightful whoops of crazed fanatics.

  “Alf!” someone raised a call.

  “Aids our blessed cause,” shouted back a dozen or so of them, their accents thick like the first soldier’s.

  Ruma swallowed. The soldier was mere paces away, seconds from lunging at her. She might be able to counter the first few volleys—if she was lucky. But then what? How much longer would she last? How many more of his friends could she put down?

  Ruma gritted her teeth.

  She hated sitting around, doing nothing, letting evil triumph out of fear for how her actions might or might not turn out hundreds of years later.

  “Ruma!”

  Exhaling, Ruma turned around, then broke into a sprint, heading left, away from the snarling soldiers and the burning oasis town.

  Twenty-One

  Bloody Escapes

  Shouts and screams continued to rise all around them. Blood running hot inside her veins, the heart thrashing against her ribs, Ruma kept pumping her feet, not slowing down, her mind finally cognizant of the danger they were in.

  “Get her!” came a shout directly behind her. One of the soldiers. One of the fanatics in Yasmeen’s pay.

  Yenita yelped. Ruma whipped her head around. The girl was slowing down as she whimpered. Ruma grabbed her by the arm, pulled her forward.

  “W-what about him?” said Yenita, casting her head back.

  Ruma followed her glance. The little boy she’d rescued had fallen behind, one hand clutching his father’s. A soldier was walking over to them, his sword held high.

  Spying her, the boy raised a plaintive hand. If he said something, she didn’t hear over the din.

  Ruma swallowed, blinked, still not slowing down. What could she do? She’d already given the boy a half-decent start. What happened from here on couldn’t be her responsibility.

  A part of her railed at what she was rationalising. She knew what she should do—Gulatu had shown her that much. Then again, she was no prophetess, didn’t have the same noble bones that gave Gulatu his centre that never seemed to shake. Besides, her mind was still mushy from all that cheap wine.

  Exhaling, breath coming in hot rasps, she turned her head away, focussing on the dark path ahead.

  Fanima might not have been very populous, but now it seemed like it went on for miles. Even as they continued sprinting in a straight line, the tree branches swaying, twisting, cast in golden light from all the burning fires, cries continued to rise from either direction.

  As the road took a gentle curve, Ruma gave a cry, motioned them to continue straight ahead through an orchard on the town’s outskirts. Barbs and vines met her, getting tangled against her tunic and the shawl still miraculously over her shoulders.

  “Change this world and return to your own!”

  Ruma balled her fingers, ready to punch her own skull.

  What would be the point of that?

  Rage and hatred burned the last dregs of grogginess. She would find a way to get back at the First. Really tell him what she thought of him and the manner in which he’d wormed his way into her mind.

  But this wasn’t the time.

  Yenita huffed beside her, somehow still keeping up. Ruma turned the other way. Sivan looked no better, one arm cradling the shoulder, his mouth spouting incoherent gibberish. Behind them, Ruma saw nothing except for the tall trees. And just beyond them, the distant fires, the shouts finally growing muffled.

  “Keep running!” she shouted, urging the siblings onwards.

  They had to get far away to ensure the bastards couldn’t catch them. And if that meant running the whole fracking night, then so be it.

  Thoughts and memories bubbled up as she strained ahead. She’d been on the other side before. A collaborator of the Misguided, helping them smuggle weapons and ingredients they had used to carry out their campaigns of terrorism. She’d successfully assuaged her moral qualms by arguing she was a mere supplier, not responsible for the actions of what these men did with her goods.

  Would someone in this age be making the same argument seeing the destruction the Blessed carried out? Some blacksmith who had forged these swords, some merchant who had procured them horses and camels, washing their hands clean, for it wasn’t them directly who did these evil deeds.

  No matter how much Ruma tried to shove these troubling thoughts away, her mind hazy or not, they continued to pester her, continued to hold her accountable for things she should have done and hadn’t.

  Hadn’t the Misguided targeted both Gulatu and Abgutar in one of the Alfi temples? A distressing connection she hadn’t made on her own yet. Had those been her smuggled bombs that had gone off?

  What would have happened had either of the two men been hurt that day? Could she still have held herself unaccountable?

  “I… need… to… stop!” huffed Yenita, holding up a hand, slowing down to a haggard trot.

  Ruma slowed her own pace, surveying her surroundings. Judging by the way the trees had thinned, they must have run past Fanima’s outskirts. Cacti dotted the barren landscape, their edges outlined by the soft moonlight.

  Yet the ground still felt hard underneath her leather sandals.

  Ruma glanced down, then straight ahead. The hills of Mithi loomed ahead, sentinels looking down on the three of them.

  A shiver ran down her spine as she recalled the priest and the prophecy.

  She didn’t have to agree with the prophecy to accept that the priest’s words had carried power that day. Power she had felt thrum inside her chest, power that had forced a group of fanatics to come in the dark of night and try to repress it.

  “Yasmeen…” Ruma muttered, her eyes narrowing. She clenched her fists, slowing down to a fast walk now. Confusing thoughts swirled within her befuddled mind. The wife of the prophet was behind this slaughter. Why? What was it about the words that had so spooked her? It couldn’t just have been the lust for power, not after she’d had so much power all her life?

  There was an easy explanation, of course.

  True power corrupted. A dictum she’d heard during her training as an inductee in the Arkos Navy. A lesson she’d heard many times thereafter as multiple instructors had tried distilling lessons learnt over history to impressionable young minds.

  Something she was only now seeing first-hand. She recalled her meeting with Yasmeen and the impression she’d had of the woman’s iron will. She’d reminded Ruma of a lioness, temporarily restrained. Had those restraints disappeared?

  “Keep up!” Ruma snarled when she realised Yenita had stopped and was leaning against her brother. “You two will be visible for miles, even in the dark.”

  “But—”

  “We do not stop,” said Ruma, waving her hand towards the hills, “until we find refuge in there.”

  Yenita grunted. Sivan shook his head. But both of them began to follow her as she kept walking towards the hills, doubts growing in her stomach about what they’d find in there.

  Fates were cruel bastards, bringing them to the one place the Blessed would have most certainly targeted in the first instance to get their hands on the tablet. Another thought rose in her mind. Had the Blessed spilled into the town because they hadn’t been able to find the tablet?

  She tried mulling the thought over, failed to examine it with the seriousness it deserved in her current state, decided anyway it was a likely outcome.

  However, it was still possible the Blessed might have left behind a party.

  Well, if they had, maybe she could surprise them in turn. Ruma forced her breath steady, held out the sword in front of her. The sword the little boy had passed to her. A well-balanced, light sword. A family heirloom perhaps. One she didn’t even know how to use prope
rly. One that had failed to protect its original masters.

  They kept dragging their feet across the increasingly rocky, unrelenting ground. Every few feet, Ruma turned around to confirm they weren’t being followed.

  Then again, why would they? She was a mere foreigner in this world. A woman at that. She had nothing to offer the looters.

  More half-formed thoughts rose. Maybe the Blessed had left behind a party in the hope the Pasalman priest might turn up. Assuming they had scouts, would they let them be, considering they definitely didn’t have the old man in their company?

  She looked around. The sand dunes stretched to either side, a sea with no end in sight. They, on the other hand, had no provisions, and if there were roving parties the Blessed had left to scour the desert around the city for stragglers, there would be no place for them to hide there.

  “Dammit!”

  “What’s the matter, Ruma?” asked Yenita.

  Ruma exhaled, pointed at the silent hills ahead. “Keep an eye out. I don’t like the quiet.”

  Yenita opened her jaw. Then her eyes grew wide. She met Ruma’s gaze. Ruma nodded and Yenita blinked, covered her mouth with a hand.

  “But… the hills look empty,” ventured Sivan. “Surely, that’d be the safest…” He trailed away, then swallowed. “T-they might have left the hills…”

  “Maybe,” said Yenita slowly.

  They couldn’t know the truth, for it depended on why the Blessed had attacked the town. For all Ruma knew, it might not even have been due to the tablet. Even if it had been, maybe they had found it in the hills, decided to torch the town anyway, intent on hiding all evidence of their actions from the wider world.

  And history.

  Again, she re-evaluated their options. They couldn’t return, of course. Heading out into the desert without provisions was asking for trouble. That left just the hills.

  Not a great many options, truth be told. But at least she did have a few.

 

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