by Troy Denning
"Where is the rest of your tribe?" Ruha asked, frowning at the small number warriors with the man.
The warrior shrugged. "The dust was very thick. I heard many men scream as their camels hit the wall instead of running into the breach. I am sure that those who can will follow soon."
"Let's hope so." Ruha pointed at Utaiba, who was still waging his solo battle-and beginning to lose. Several Zhentarim swordsmen had finally surrounded him and his ferocious camel. "Your sheikh could use some help opening that gap."
Ruha had no sooner pointed out Utaiba's position than the alarmed warriors gave a war cry and rode off to aid their leader. The witch looked back toward the charred ruins she had just cleared with her fireball. There was still no sign of any Bedine coming through, so she rode to the breach. When she looked into the narrow crack, she saw a nervous Bedine peering through it from the other side.
The warrior dropped his jaw in shock. "Lander?"
"Come on!" Ruha snapped. "The way will never be more clear."
A look of chagrin crossed the man's face, then he turned and waved to the men behind him, screaming, "Follow me, Binwabi warriors!" A moment later, nearly a hundred Binwabi were pouring through the breach.
The witch heard the clacking of crossbows behind her. A dozen black bolts flashed past her, and Ruha lashed her camel with its reins, urging the beast to move quickly. She expected to feel the sharp pain of a steel shank any moment. Instead, the camel tethered behind hers roared in agony. Its knees buckled and it collapsed, causing the widow's mount to stumble as it tried to obey her command.
The beast fell, and Ruha jumped clear, landing in the charred remains of the Zhentarim who had fallen prey to her fireball. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw several Binwabi warriors also take shelter in the ruins. The one who had led the way through the gap yelled, "Send a runner to fetch our bowmen!"
Keeping her head low, Ruha spun around to face the attack. A few yards away, two dozen Zhentarim armed with crossbows were taking positions behind the fountain in the middle of the square. Behind them, a steady stream of Black Robes armed with sabers were charging out of a cellar to meet the Bedine breakthrough. With this second group came a man wearing a deep purple robe and silver wrist bracers. His hair and skin were as pale as salt, and his eyes were as blue as the sky.
"Yhekal!" Ruha whispered. Instantly she realized that he and the men with him were the reinforcements Sa'ar and Utaiba had predicted would be guarding the tunnel.
The pale-skinned invader stepped over to the crossbow-men and pointed at the camel Ruha had been leading behind her mount. "The witch is under the protection of the gold-haired berrani," he said. "She may even be invisible. Keep the Harper pinned down, and I will flush her out!"
While his men fired blindly in the general direction of the fallen camel Ruha-Lander had been riding, Yhekal stood at the edge of the fountain and began to chant. Several Binwabi warriors, fearful of the enemy's magic, rose from behind their cover and started to run, but their flight was cut short by the enemy's crossbows.
Ruha crouched in the ruins and collected a handful of small stones. A couple of stray quarrels passed over her head, then the Zhentarim leader completed his spell.
The blackness in Ruha's left eye changed to a milky blur, then light began to seep in around the edges of the patch. The widow ran a hand over her face, and when it touched smooth skin instead of Lander's rough-beard stubble, she realized that Yhekal had dispelled her magical disguise. Ripping the patch off her eye with her free hand, Ruha muttered her own incantation and held the stones she had collected up toward the sun. As she completed the spell, they started to glow with a fiery red.
Peering over the top of the ruin, Ruha saw that the Zhentarim crossbowmen were busy reloading their weapons.
Yhekal's blue eyes were fixed on the rubble, and his brow was furrowed in an angry frown. Behind the mage, the last of the Zhentarim reinforcements had finally left the cellar and were rushing to meet a steady flow of Raz'hadi pouring through the breach Ruha had created.
The witch stood, raising her hand to throw the glowing stones. Yhekal's gaze shifted to her face, and the cross-bowmen stared at her with slack jaws.
"You!" snarled the Zhentarim leader. "Where is the Harper?"
Ruha did not give him the satisfaction of an answer. She threw the glowing stones in his direction, then dropped back into the rubble before a crossbowman could bring his weapon to bear on her.
The stones streaked straight at Yhekal, picking up speed and trailing flame. The Zhentarim leader's eyes widened in fear, then he dived for the well at his side.
The mage was far too slow. As he stretched out over the pool, the stones struck him square in side. He screamed in searing pain and splashed into the water head first. There was a loud hiss, then a column of vapor began billowing out of the basin.
When one of the Zhentarim warriors pulled his commander out of the pool and laid him out next to the basin, Ruha smiled. Yhekal did not move or even groan, and she could still see the sun stones glowing in the charred wound. Even if the assault on Orofin failed now, she would count it at least a partial victory. With that single spell, she had avenged the deaths of her husband, her father, her brother-in-law, and her lover.
The Binwabi warrior who had called for the archers leaped into the ruin at Ruha's side. Studying the woman's unveiled visage, he asked, "What magic is this, witch? What did you do with Lander?"
The invaders' crossbows clacked again. Both Ruha and the warrior ducked as bolts streaked over their heads, then the widow instinctively tried to cover her face. When her hand found no veil, Ruha blushed, then she reminded herself that the women in Sembia never covered their faces.
"Where Lander is at the moment is not important," she said, meeting the warrior's gaze directly. "What is important is destroying the Zhentarim. Tell your men to prepare for a charge."
The Binwabi would not be sidetracked so easily. "Have you hidden the berrani from the Black Robes?"
Before Ruha had to answer, an amarat sounded from the other side of the courtyard and a Bedine voice cried, "Death to the invaders!"
Ruha's heart leaped for joy. She peered over the edge of the ruins and saw a mass of warriors charging out of the same cellar from which Yhekal had entered the courtyard. It could only be the two tribes that had been assigned to come through the tunnel. The sheikhs' plan had worked. Soon there would be three hundred Bedine warriors inside Orofin, and the invaders would be caught between the hammer and the anvil.
The Zhentarim who had been pinning Ruha and the Binwabi in the ruins turned to meet the charge. They fired their crossbows once, then threw them aside to draw their sabers. Ruha drew her jambiya and stood. Ignoring the warrior at her side, she looked to the other Bedine lurking in the ruins and pouring through the breach.
"Death to the Black Robes!" she cried, turning toward the fight.
"Death to the invaders!" cried dozens of voices.
Ruha led the Binwabi rush. The courtyard began to ring with the chime of steel-on-steel, and the shrill cries of the wounded and the dying echoed off the ancient bricks. The Zhentarim at the walls joined the desperate battle in the courtyard. When they left their posts, more Bedine tribes broke through the breaches and poured into the fort. Some entered the fight in the courtyard. Others rushed to the gaps that the Black Robes still controlled. Soon, there was not a corner of the ancient fort that did not resound with the clang of clashing swords and not a square yard of ground that was not stained by blood.
For Ruha, the battle became a hazy maelstrom of confused violence. She stabbed anyone wearing a black robe and sliced at any throat swaddled by a black turban. Twice, she was nearly slain. The first time, as she sidestepped a clumsy lunge, the Zhentarim grabbed her throat with his free hand and nearly crushed her larynx. She escaped only by driving her jambiya deep into the man's midsection and slicing his belly open with sharp curve of her blade. The second time, the invader took her by surprise, and his saber flashed to
ward her head almost before she realized he was there. She threw herself to the ground and slashed his legs as she rolled away. Screaming, the man dropped his sword and fell. Ruha finished him by opening a vein in his throat, then returned to her feet.
Everywhere the witch looked, steel blades were ringing against each other, men were lying on the ground clutching their wounds, Bedine and Zhentarim were cursing, slashing, stabbing, even kicking and wrestling. Ruha helped when she could, but most often she was too busy dodging wild swings or parrying blades herself to do much for anyone else.
At last the fighting began to grow less desperate. The angry screams of the Zhentarim changed to cries of panic and appeals for mercy. The maelstrom in the square thinned as the Bedine warriors trapped the Black Robes in the crumbling corners of collapsed buildings or followed them out of the gaps in the wall.
When their were no more Zhentarim to kill, the widow stood in a daze, barely hearing the moans of the wounded and only half-aware of Lander's blood-soaked aba hanging so heavily on her shoulders. The heat of battle slowly drained from her body, leaving her legs numb and weak, her hands trembling with nervous exhaustion. So many corpses littered the square that a camel could not have picked its way from one side to the other without stumbling, and the dusty ground had been turned to mud by all the blood spilled upon it.
"Here you are," said a familiar voice. "I was afraid something had happened to you."
Ruha looked up and saw Sa'ar's burly form approaching from the direction of the fountain. In one hand he held a full waterskin and in the other a scimitar dripping red.
He gestured at Ruha's bloody robe. "I hope none of that is yours."
The widow shook her head. "I am unhurt."
"Good. I fear the gods would not forgive me if I had allowed anything to happen to their gift."
Ruha felt the heat rise to her cheeks. Coming from Sa'ar, the comment almost seemed like flattery. She wondered if he meant it that way, or if the exhilaration of victory was loosening his tongue.
Sa'ar passed the waterskin to the witch, paying no regard to her uncovered face. "Drink."
Ruha accepted the skin. She had not realized how thirsty the battle had left her, and the water tasted as sweet as honey and as cool as a night rain. She swallowed a few long gulps, then said, "That's the best water I've ever tasted."
"You don't realize how precious something is until you fight for it," Sa'ar agreed. He studied the ground for several moments, then lifted his gaze and looked into Ruha's eyes. "If the Black Robes come back to the desert, I'd like to think you'll be with my tribe to show them that this place is not for their kind."
Ruha returned the sheikh's waterskin. "I will," she answered, giving him a melancholy but sincere smile. The dreamlike images of lush, green Sembia that haunted the back of her mind faded like a mirage under At'ar's burning brilliance. "Where else do I have to go?"
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