Hung Out to Die

by Anthony Litton

  Chapter 1

  ARABIA 1904-1905

  The rider sat motionless as the deep black of night turned opalescent, heralding the dawn. It arrived swiftly and the rider's sharp black silhouette became outlined in palest rose as the first rays of the rising sun broke out, pouring down onto the vast reaches of sand where nothing yet stirred. Not even the horseman. Not even the Bedouin encampment he was watching; his black, hooded eyes assessing and weighing every possible avenue of escape. For there would be none. His men were not to let one person escape. Should they do so their blood would mingle with that of his enemies in a river which would irrigate the deserts. So he had sworn. And so he would do.

  Moving at last, he turned and beckoned to his followers massed below him, hidden from the camp by the rolling dunes. Oblivious to the danger to himself if he was seen from the sleeping tents below, he waited whilst his riders gathered around him. The muster complete, he rose in his stirrups and giving throat to his battle cry “For Allah and Fouad!” he plunged down the slope, his horse nimbly making light work of the heavy, shifting sand.

  The surprise was complete as Fouad’s horsemen hit the black tents with the deadly ferocity of striking cobras. The camp struggled to panicked life as its stunned occupants awoke in belated panic, and warriors reached for their weapons. With only the one drowsing watchman, they were caught completely unprepared. Those that awoke before dying realised, much too late, how grievously flawed had been their belief that, deep within their own tribal lands, they were secure.

  Armed with ancient rifles pillaged from foreign traders, the mounted attackers fired into the tents. Screams from within gave satisfying evidence that their bullets were hitting flesh. Some died sleeping; some woke briefly and had the horror of a living nightmare to face before they too were killed. Others, more awake, rushed outside to briefly attempt the impossible, before they too fell. Flames from the raging fires set by the riders engulfed many who avoided the bullets. The killing was great; this was blood feud.

  Fouad’s scimitar flashed, rising and falling with bewildering speed and deadly precision. Only in the first moments of his entry to the camp was its silver steel visible. After that it poured crimson; so covered in blood it was like liquid red. His horse, as black as his robes, pushed through the carnage, his master set on reaching the tent of Ibrahim ibn Fawwaz, Sheikh of the tribe and sworn enemy to Fouad of the Shawaq. Within seconds of launching the attack, he was at the entrance to the chief’s tent. Reining in, he steadied his mount as it slipped in the bloody entrails of a child and he flung himself down from his horse. With two followers, he forced his way past the ill-prepared guards and he found himself face-to-face with his rival on the very threshold of his home.

  Caught sleeping, like his people, and separated from his gun and sword in the confusion, Ibrahim ibn Fawwaz was prepared for his death, if it came. He vowed, however, to take at least one of Fouad’s people with him, preferably Fouad himself. Armed with only a dagger, he faced his attacker without fear.

  “Jackal of the desert! Slinking through the desert’s night to despoil helpless women and children! I spit on you!” he hissed, slashing at Fouad’s unprotected cheek and cutting it to the bone.

  He had the momentary satisfaction of seeing the wound, before Fouad, roaring with anger and pain, cut his enemy’s head from his shoulders with one sweep of his whirling blade. Ignoring the body even as it fell, Fouad swept through into the richly furnished interior of what was once Ibrahim’s home and was now his mortuary.

  His henchmen shepherded out the survivors huddled inside, roughly shoving them to join the group of other prisoners, penned in by Fouad’s men on the one hand and the roaring flames devouring their previous lives on the other. Oblivious to either them, or the looted goods his men were loading onto camels brought up for the purpose, Fouad remounted his horse and led his force away without a backward glance at the still blazing ruins of his blood enemy’s camp.

  Men called him Fouad the Hawk. Anyone brave enough to look into his face thought they saw why. His black eyes, as hooded and merciless as the desert hawk, set deep in a face of high cheekbones and a hooked nose indeed made him look such; yet he hadn’t got his name just from his looks. By the age of fifteen, some twelve years before, his actions had earned him the name. As patient as the bird soaring high above, he waited for the moment to strike. When that moment came, he launched his attack. Deadly and unstoppable; never misjudging; never missing his prey. Silent and implacable; never showing mercy. His reputation was soon feared outside the small desert kingdom his family ruled as hereditary sheikhs. Carrying the Arab sport of raiding to new heights, he extended his family’s sway over neighbouring tribes. Like today. Avenging centuries-old feuds in the process.

  It took the war-party three days to get back to the camp deep in the desert from which their attack had been launched. It would have taken them longer had Fouad considered the weakened state of many of the prisoners and stopped to aid them when they fell. He didn’t. Only on the night they reached their camp, and, feasted and seated outside his own large tent, war banner furled beside him, did he seem to recall the prisoners and had them paraded in front of him. They shuffled in, heads bowed, many with burns still raw on their bodies. He looked them over coldly, as he glanced up from gently stroking the damaged wing of a falcon on his wrist. Mainly young, and, once their wounds had healed, fit and strong for work. Very few old or very young. The desert journey made sure of that. It always did. Fouad looked them over briefly, then dismissed them indifferently; the older women and men to be allocated work with the herds immediately, the younger women and boys to be kept separately whilst choices were made, decisions fought over.

  “Wait!” he suddenly commanded. His ears had picked up the mewling of a tiny infant. “Who has the child?” His eyes began to burn as no reply came. His men started to shoulder their way through the prisoners, searching each one.

  “I have, Lord,” a voice responded, and a slight figure stepped forward. A frightened hush descended as all waited to see what the savage ruler would do.

  “Raise your head,” he commanded, as the figure was halted by his guards a few paces away. Obediently the prisoner pushed back the robe covering its head and shoulders, exposing both the face of a young girl and the tiny infant clutching her neck. Fouad, no great lover of the female, gazed at her with little interest. He was interested, however, in the infant. “How did it pass through the desert and live?” he asked, and suddenly found himself impaled on the blaze of her glance.

  With little thanks to you, murderer and desert scum, its glitter clearly said, as she replied, “It was the will of Allah, Lord.” She would never tell this pig’s breath the struggle it had taken to protect her child from the harsh sun and the raging thirst and hunger they all had endured through their captor’s callous indifference to their fate. Of how she had fed her child from the few scraps of food, had it drink from the little water jar, all that she’d managed to scoop up when she realised what was happening that terrible morning. No, she would never tell him, but she would never forget.

  “Where is your husband?” he asked, despite knowing the near certainty of her answer. His men rarely left able-bodied men alive.

  “He died at the camp, Lord,” she replied.

  “It is the will of Allah,” he responded gravely.

  She shrugged her shoulders. “He was a tyrant, Lord.” Her glance touched his for a moment and Fouad clearly saw the word “also” hovering, unspoken but crystal clear, on the air between them. Intrigued by her evident courage, unbroken despite her ordeal, he looked at her calmly for a moment or two, which to the onlookers seemed an age. Her face was unveiled, as the blue face mask, traditional to her tribe, had been ripped away in the fighting. Olive-skinned, with black eyes, her hair, deep ebony and glossy, fell down her back. No more than fifteen or so, he judged, yet with the strength and maturity of an older woman.

  “Put her in there,” he gestured abruptly to the rear of his tent where the
women’s quarters traditionally were. On the verge of ordering the infant to be separated from her, he stopped and signalled them both through. He knew already, his sharp-honed instinct telling him, that she would die first, and she intrigued him sufficiently for him not to want that, yet. Once out of his sight, however, he promptly forgot her.

  The women of the tent were initially hostile, sneering and giggling at her dishevelled state, until stopped by an older woman of immense authority. “Fetch water and bathe her,” she ordered, to the girl’s stupefaction. Like most desert dwellers water was too precious a commodity for them often to think of washing their hands in it let alone their whole body. Calmed out of her instinctive pulling away, she allowed the woman’s attendants to remove the sand and blood-encrusted clothes of herself and her child and they both were immersed in warm, scented water in what she discovered later was a portable canvas bath.

  “What is your name, child?” the older woman asked gently, as the girl stepped out of the bath feeling more revived than she had ever thought she would again.

  “Zahirah, Lady,” she replied, instinctively giving her questioner the courtesy of rank. She was right. Her benefactress was of high status. She was Fouad’s mother, the Sheikha Firyal.

  “You have courage, child. You now must learn when to use it and when to bend with the desert wind.” Zahirah, startled, glanced quickly at her, realising she had observed the hidden parts of her exchange with her son. “Come. You’re tired. You must sleep now and gain strength for whatever tomorrow will bring,” she said, escorting her to a sleeping place near her own on the carpeted floor of the cordoned-off area.

  The morning brought her nothing except rest. Nor did the day after that produce any major alarms or events, although, as she was now deemed recovered from her ordeal, she was expected to help with the duties of the campsite. Fouad was rarely in the tent, so busy was he with further planning. Pleased to have the respite, she performed her duties well and quickly, merging into the shadows of the large tent whenever he appeared. She was well content to do so. She didn’t want to attract his attention. Not yet. Not until she was stronger. Then she would. When the time was right. When her son was safe, either smuggled back to the remnants of his people, or a grown man; then she would kill Fouad the Hawk.

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