by Fuad Baloch
“Stop,” said the man on her left, placing a hand over the one in the centre. “She knows not what she says.”
“Oh yeah, she does,” replied Ruma.
“Had the Uniter not been behind the hill, I’d have—”
Was that what they called her? Ruma clicked her tongue. “Bubraza is here?”
“Watch your tongue.”
“Is Bubraza, niece of Turbaza here?” Ruma snarled. “Take me to her. Now.”
Her commanding tone seemed to puzzle the three into momentary confusion.
Ruma swore, making another snap decision. Sivan and Yenita would be alright. They’d been on the road forever, hadn’t they? And if they had indeed made it towards Fanima, now empty of the frackers, they might even be able to salvage some of their provisions. Was this the sign, this portend from Alf, that Gulatu talked of? Her chance at finally doing something noble and selfless? Not an idea that filled her with any relief or joy. An idea she wouldn’t have dwelled on before her path crossed with the prophet’s. But try as she might, she couldn’t seem to shake it off now.
“Are you deaf, the three of you?” she barked. Ruma dropped her sword hand, winced, raised a hand to cup her temple. “Get me something to dress up this wound. Something clean. And take me to her!”
The third man hesitated for a second, then nodded finally. “Follow me.”
She did, ensuring she walked beside the men instead of behind them. An act that earned stares from the other two, who glared at her silently. She glared right back, challenging them to try and put her in her place. They didn’t. Something that robbed her of an excuse for a fight.
Ruma gasped when they rounded a set of low hills.
Thousands upon thousands of soldiers, their tunics adorned with white Scythes on patches of red cloth sewn to their arms, dotted the horizon. To the right, a battalion of fifty or so camel riders moved across the sands. To the left, horsemen galloped, one of them holding aloft a red pennant carrying the white Scythe.
A shiver ran down Ruma’s spine. Something about the scene in front of her was familiar, the sense she had seen this before growing stronger by the second. Had one of the painters captured this, its reproduction displayed in some Alfi temple she’d visited at some point?
There was no way of knowing for sure.
Ruma shook her head, rushed to keep in step with the three men. No matter how well these soldiers strutted and what moved their hearts and minds, at the end of the day, all battles looked the same. A gory mess of limbs and blood and crushed ambitions. That wasn’t something the painters ever captured.
More doubts floated up. She should have been working on her comms units, inventing rocket propulsion, and setting up elaborate supply chains, not moving between roving bands of religious zealots.
Ruma shoved the concerns away, recalling the vigour that had crept into her veins when her heart had sought vengeance.
They took her towards a row of tents. A dozen or so warriors stood outside the largest of them, which looked much like Yasmeen’s.
Before Ruma had a chance to ask anything, the tent flap parted and Bubraza emerged. Dressed in a khaki-coloured tunic, her curly hair uncovered, she was shaking her head at a priest that followed her out of the tent.
“No, this is not—” Her eyes fell on Ruma and she broke away. Half a second later, she grinned. “Did you finally see the light?”
Ruma bared her teeth, ignored the throbbing in her temple. She’d not believed in signs. Not like Gulatu, that much was certain. But could she really deny one when she saw it? After all, what better way to do something right with her life than by lending a hand to this woman who seemed best placed to push back against the tyrant that Yasmeen had proved herself to be?
“Let’s keep to the practical details,” said Ruma. “You wanted me. And I find myself, currently, in possession of some free time. How can I help put down the misguided, these so-called Blessed bastards?”
Bubraza’s grin never faded, even as her eyes grew hard. “If not faith, one might wonder what motivates you, foreigner in our lands.”
“They are most welcome to wonder away.”
The wizened priest beside Bubraza coughed, exchanged a glance with one of the men who had accompanied her. Ruma ignored them all, her eyes meeting the shorter girl’s squarely. They called her the Uniter, someone who appealed to followers of both Turbaza and Dadua, the Alfi faith’s one good chance at healing the divide. A medicinal agent in name, even if the actual person was harder than rock.
“What do you seek?” pressed Bubraza again.
Ruma clenched her fingers. “To ensure Yasmeen never comes up victorious against you.”
Bubraza pressed her lips. “Very well.” She stepped forward, leaned in, her voice dropping to a cold whisper. “How do I trust you?”
“Follow your heart,” replied Ruma, the words hot from the conviction solidifying in her heart. She couldn’t let Yasmeen and her brand of intolerance come out on top in her world once she did return. That was what she needed to do. Rushing back, risking that Bubraza would lose, wasn’t the right thing to do. Even as she rationalised it all, she felt her heartbeat pick up. There was every chance she was doing precisely what the Pithrean had wanted of her. Then again, considering how out of character this decision of hers was, she doubted even the fracking Pithrean would have predicted this.
“Kiman,” said Bubraza, pointing at the man who had accompanied her. “Take her to General Thallim. Have him give her… a platoon of twelve soldiers for now.”
The priest saluted with a raised fist.
“Let’s see what you’re capable of, red-haired one,” replied Bubraza, turning away.
Ruma put on a grin, hoping it hid the anxiety and fear roiling within her. It was one thing doing the right thing, and quite another to blind oneself to any harm it caused.
Twenty-Four
Friends
Ruma groaned. Something she had been doing a lot of recently. They might have been riding with minimal rest for the better part of five days, but unlike her, the other riders seemed to show few ill effects of the arduous journey.
Now thankfully seated on the warm sand, her back against the harness, she watched the sun begin its descent after one more uneventful day. A descent that would leave them all to the darkness of the night sky, the galaxies twinkling back at her.
Had she made the right decision, getting involved in the affairs of this world, no matter the cost to her personal mission of getting back to her timeline? Worse, had she chosen the right side? What did she really know about the methods of the Traditionalists to know they were the righteous ones?
Yasmeen can’t be the Lady!
Ruma had no way of knowing for sure, of course, but her heart screamed at her that the woman she’d encountered, the ideals she’d espoused, were not the same words that history had recorded for the Lady who had ended up ending the bloody civil wars between the believers.
No matter how brusque Bubraza might appear, she was the only person who could force everyone together. The adhesive who was related to all the three main stakeholders in the conflict. One who would end up uniting the peninsula, setting off a tradition where groups like the Misguided were reviled instead of cherished.
Prophecy or no prophecy, for the moment, her heart was content with the person she had decided to support.
And that had to be enough.
Grumbling, Ruma stretched out her leg, cast a covetous look at the tents being set up in the distance. No tent for the likes of her, of course. The generals and all those responsible for a thousand men or more got them. She cursed, crossed the left leg underneath the right, refusing to look at the large tent going up for Bubraza.
More ideas flittered through her mind. Never one to successfully keep them in check, she let them have their way. One bubbled up over the rest. The incessant, whiny voice demanding answers. If she was to act all selfless and noble, could she really just stay at the margins, a mere cog, instead of dealing with the sour
ce of all this trouble? After all, if the Uniter was to succeed, it wouldn’t be simply because of the number of men she commanded, but of the prophecy’s competitors and claimants that stood in her path.
Ruma sucked her teeth, shook her head.
A dozen or so warriors were kneeling on the sand twenty yards from her. A priest stood in front, leading a gentle chant, one hand carrying a bell he shook softly every thirty seconds. The men all rose their hands towards the heavens. The priest might be ostensibly leading them in prayer, but the way she looked at it, they all seemed to be talking to Alf directly, each man’s fingers held up in the precise way she’d seen Gulatu’s.
Ruma clicked her tongue, looked away. Men were loitering in small groups. Some gathered around boards, moved stones of different colours and sizes. Some board game that hadn’t survived the test of time. She was the only woman here, and the only person who sat by herself, as the others laughed boisterously, thumping each other’s backs.
Ruma exhaled.
How would life have turned out had she met Gulatu in this world? Would she still have fallen for him? What if she had been the one who’d ended up marrying him?
She laughed at the stupid thought, turned her attention back to the warriors bonding after another day’s hard riding. Supposedly, they were still on Yasmeen’s trail, following scouts who left before the crack of dawn and only returned to the campsite late after dusk, armed with news they were on the right path.
The path Ruma needed to be on.
Beyond the exhaustion, though, she was getting re-acquainted with a feeling she had almost forgotten.
Boredom.
Battles, even in her era, were climactic interludes after dreadfully long periods of drudgery. Here, it was even worse. Months, sometimes even years, judging by what she had picked up, before a soldier might get to lock eyes with an opponent. A variable that was fast changing, though, as the peace forged by Dadua and Turbaza was fast coming undone.
“Not used to long treks across the desert?”
Ruma turned her head sharply to the left. Gareeb, the young, dashing lieutenant that General Thallim had assigned to her, stood grinning. He didn’t wear the orange conical hat most other Traditionalists seemed to prefer, his long black hair tousled, thick strands falling over his eyes.
“Sit down,” she said, unsure of the appropriate military discipline expected of her in this moment.
Gareeb arched an eyebrow, continued grinning. “I’m alright standing. Thank you, Mzi.”
She turned her head back. Gareeb couldn’t have been more than twenty years old, but his eyes almost never left her. Not that surprising, really, considering she was the only one with tits in a ten-mile radius. Well, she and Bubraza, though the latter might as well have been a statue instead of a real woman.
Her eyes fell on General Thallim, the general in charge of her and a hundred other captains. A thin, weak man with a wide chest, wispy hair curling out of the orange hat. He was speaking to a captain who yawned beside him, apparently not that worried by the optics of his actions.
Ruma stretched out her arms, using the saddle—a horse saddle, thank Alf, after all the camels she’d been cursed with—to arch her back, very aware of Gareeb’s eyes boring into her.
To the right, around two dozen or so believers were taking up positions across each other in a large rectangular space they had left in the centre of their makeshift campsite. Two teams of young men, their heads bared, all armour removed, eyes glaring at each other.
“General Thallim has sent word for you, Mzi,” said Gareeb.
“Go on.”
“The Uniter intends to head north. Something about recruiting more believers to the cause. We are to remain following the Blessed’s trail.”
“Ah.”
“General Thallim will be our leader.”
Ruma groaned. She’d only really spoken with the man twice, but each time she had come away unsatisfied. He had been officious enough, giving her provisions and command of the men as ordered by Bubraza, but she’d picked up on how each man around him seemed to ignore his commands, instead choosing to defer to his second, a General Urnam.
Apparently, Thallim was the third son of some important southern clan and as such had made general without really knowing the basics of command.
“Is that all?” she asked.
“Aye, Mzi,” replied Gareeb, making no attempt to walk away.
Ruma’s stomach grumbled. She squeezed her eyes shut for a second. Would it be more blasted onion soup today?
She turned back to the gathering men.
A priest, taller than most men at around six and a half feet, walked into the centre of the snarling men, a ball the size of a large melon clutched in his hands. He held up his hands, waited until the men had fallen silent. Ruma exhaled, her eyes peeled and fixed on the scene. Time for kabbad had arrived, a game that allowed men to both blow off steam and sharpen their physical form.
Another game that had not survived the times.
“In the name of Alf, and by the blessings of the holy prophet, do you agree to honour your opponent and play like true believers?” shouted the priest.
“Aye!” bellowed the men.
Ruma leaned forwards, her fingers interlacing. Another ten or so minutes and the sun would vanish behind the sand dunes, leaving the landscape marred in a riot of fading golden light. A time favoured by the Charlatan, she realised. A time when both the sun and the moons reigned in equal measures. A time when men could behave honourably and risk having that go unseen in the approaching dark, or when they could cheat others, trusting the night to cover their tracks.
“Then, in the name of Alf, fight!” The priest hurled the ball—an intestine pack containing discarded saps of fabric and animal offal—into the air and stepped away.
The air filled with grunts and shouts. None of the men moved, though, their eyes watching the still-rising ball even as their bodies grew tense.
The ball began to descend, catching a brilliant ray of golden light for a second. Two men leapt at the same time, their arms extending towards the ball, the feet throwing up sand behind them.
And so it begins.
The disciplined lines the men had formed up until this point melted away like a block of ice left out over the sands at midday. Kicked up sand hid players’ feet. Like two waves coming at each other from opposing sides, the men crashed into each other, each wave trying to crest over the other.
Ruma could not see who had the ball. Just a storm of shouts and insults and flailing limbs. In between the scrum, each of the players was expected to only use his hands to grapple for the ball. If someone was to kick, to strike below the belt, others—both the audience members and players—would never know.
A game that required subterfuge and cunning to win yet also paradoxically demanded honour.
Ruma smiled. “I’d be good at kabbad.”
Gareeb laughed.
“You doubt my words?” Ruma asked, turning her head towards the younger man.
To his credit, her lieutenant didn’t look abashed. He raised a hand, cradling his strong chin. “With all due respect, I do.”
Ruma bit down retorts that threatened to spill from her. There was nothing to gain by impressing the younger man with tales he’d never believe anyway. Instead, she turned back to the organised mayhem unfolding ahead.
Two of the players lay unmoving in the scrum. Causalities. Another battle concept applied to the bloody sport. Ruma pressed her fists against each other.
Thoughts, dark and furious, moved through her mind. Was the First watching the scenes up ahead as well? Did his people ever engage in a sport like this or did they have no such need to appeal to the baser instincts?
“The Vanico Empire has formally declared war,” said Gareeb. “Just heard from the scouts themselves. Their armies are burning towns and cities alike in their wake.”
“I thought they already had armies invading the peninsula.”
“Aye, but now they have fo
rmally sent through their intent of war.”
“To whom?”
Gareeb hesitated. “Both parties and the governors.”
Ruma nodded. It made sense after all. As far as they were concerned, there was no one established leader of the Andussian peninsula yet. “How bad is it?”
“Bad.”
“How bad?”
Another hesitation. “The scouts reckon their forces number more than a hundred thousand. Twice the size of all of us.”
All of us, Ruma thought. “But don’t you lot fight with the favour of God by your side? Each man being worth ten infidels and all that.”
“Alf is indeed the source of all power.”
Ruma shook her head, once more hearing Gulatu’s words echoing from the lips of this younger man, who probably didn’t even realise these weren’t his thoughts to begin with. Whatever did the First make of all this?
“Tell me, did you ever meet the prophet?”
Gareeb coughed. “I wish I had the great honour. I was too young, of course.”
“And yet you believe in him.”
“Of course,” he replied simply. “Belief does not require seeing.”
Seeing doesn’t really make it any stronger!
Again, she forced her mind away from the conversation she knew could land her in trouble. In the playing space, half a dozen bodies now lay on the ground. Two of the wounded men were crawling away, their cries for help drowned by the mad rush around them.
Not one of the audience members approached to help them.
In a battle, each man stood for himself. Another lesson strengthened through the sport.
Thoughts of her own world crashed into her. It was funny how this world seemed so coherent, so able to stand on its own without having any conception of the world that would take its place in another eight hundred years.
Another thought washed over her. What if someone from a future yet to come could have travelled to Egania? Would they chuckle at the barbaric ways of her people like she did when watching these primitive folks?
“Do your people play the kabbad, Mzi?”
