Elian let out a long breath. “Okay, Zadie.”
I didn’t acknowledge the caution in his tone, just kept flicking through the book, looking for anything about soothsayers. I hadn’t properly looked at the book after I stole it. The text was obscure, large parts of it written in a strange kind of verse that read like children’s stories. I couldn’t make out any kind of order to the way the book was structured. The spirits, omens, and curses it described weren’t listed alphabetically, by region, or by any other method I could decipher.
Then my gaze snagged on one particular word – sandstorms.
I stopped, my hand hovering over the page. Had it been more than just coincidence that the sandstorm had struck just when we’d been attacked by spirits?
A stray breeze whistled through the ransacked city walls, and I watched as the sand danced along the street before me.
I smoothed out the page, hastily skimming over the inked words.
Much like the rest of the book, it was a confusing jumble of metaphors and complex imagery. I didn’t even recognize the words in some places, the neat calligraphy altering letters and words so they resembled something more like pictures.
I gave an exasperated snarl. It might as well be written in riddles.
Taking a deep breath, I made myself re-read the passage slower, concentrating this time. In between the strange, halting narrative, there were snatches I understood. The author was definitely writing about sandstorms, but in places, the word seemed to get mixed up with the word for smoke. And there was another word repeated time and time again – ghuls.
My hands shook as I ran my finger over the passage again. Other, equally unsettling words jumped out at me from the indecipherable text. Death. Decapitation. Fire. And a strange twist on the way one word was written, so it read something like un-death…
I frowned, tilting the book sideways. The way the author had written the letters, they looked like men walking across the page.
“Elian…,” I said slowly, trying to keep the tremor from my voice. “The attack earlier…”
“It won’t happen again, Zadie,” he said swiftly. “We’ll keep to a strict formation on the way back.”
I shook my head. “No. I mean, what happened to the men who were killed?”
There was a pause. “What do you mean?”
I looked at him. “You buried them, didn’t you?”
Elian hesitated. “There wasn’t a lot of time, princess. In the desert, things are a little different than in the palace. We rolled the men in cloth and allowed the sand to claim them.” He must have caught the horrified expression on my face, because he hastily added, “We have the greatest respect for those men, Zadie, and the other men know it. They understand what it means to come on a mission like this. The possibility of the desert taking their bodies back again. Their families know it, too.”
I swallowed, watching the sand fly along the streets. “No, it’s not that–”
“Zadie!” Kassim’s expression was furious as he strode toward us. “I thought you meant you would just be outside the building.” He shot an accusing look at Elian.
“Sorry,” I said, not sounding particularly sorry at all. “I did tell the guards where we would be. And Elian stayed right by my side, just as you asked.”
It didn’t help. “If you don’t start doing as you’re told–”
“Kassim?” Elian interrupted, a slight edge in his voice. “The talisman… What happened?”
“He wouldn’t say another word after Zadie left.” The sultan paused, some of the certainty disappearing from his face. “Hepzibah should tell you. She… She did what had to be done.”
As if he had summoned her, the vizier, flanked by guards, strode around the corner. Even in the shadowed streets, she cut a dark figure in her long, flowing robes. As she came closer, I could see the satisfied expression on her face, the lift at the corner of her mouth.
Impulsively, I snapped my book shut and placed it behind my back.
“Hepzibah?” Elian asked, hope just breaking into his voice.
The vizier reached inside her robes and produced a small leather pouch, roughly the size of a fist. She dropped it from her palm so that it swung back and forth on the end of a long chain. The smile didn’t leave her face.
“He agreed?” I asked, surprised. “He agreed to trade?”
“No,” the vizier replied.
I slowly looked up at her. “You mean you…”
“He won’t be bothering us again.”
My cheeks prickled.
I knew I should feel sorry for him. The soothsayer hadn’t done anything wrong. Yet all I felt was relief.
If the soothsayer had known about the ring, he would no longer be able to tell anyone about it.
“Then we should go,” Elian said, suddenly alert. “We shouldn’t stay here any longer than we have to.”
“No!” I blurted out.
They all turned to look at me.
“What now, Zadie?” Kassim asked impatiently.
A flush came over my face. “I… I think we should wait out the sandstorm.”
A flash of understanding passed over Elian’s face. “She asked about the men we lost,” he said in a very gentle voice. “She’s worried–”
“I’m not,” I snapped, glaring up at him. I pulled the book back onto my lap and stiffly got to my feet, not liking how the three of them stood around me while I sat. “I’ve been doing some reading.” I gestured to the book in my hands. “I think… I think the sandstorm is linked to the spirits that attacked us. They were ghuls, I think.”
“That’s written in there?” the vizier asked sharply. “Let me look.”
“Well…” I looked back down at the book. “It’s not… The book isn’t exactly clear…”
Making an exasperated noise, the vizier snatched the book away from me, her nails scratching the back of my hands as she did so.
“Hey!”
Ignoring my cry of protest, she flicked through the pages, her expression growing increasingly irritated. “These are children’s stories.”
“They’re not,” I snapped. “It just… It just takes some deciphering. I think it might be a riddle…”
Kassim and Elian looked between the two of us.
The vizier made the same frustrated noise again. “Look, sultan.” She thrust the book at him. “Please, if you can read some sort of warning in this, just say the word and I’ll agree we should stay put.”
Kassim’s frown deepened as his eyes ran down the page.
“Need I remind you,” the vizier said crisply, “legend says this city was cursed. And we have seen for ourselves what kind of man was left to look after it. And we just killed him. It would be more dangerous to stay.”
Even though I knew they had done it, the vizier’s words about the soothsayer caused an involuntary shudder to run through my body.
Kassim shut the book with a snap and pressed it gently back into my arms. “Hepzibah’s right. Saddle the horses. We leave now.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
I had wondered how an entire city could be buried. Now I understood.
Even with my headscarf wound carefully around my head and a thin veil shielding my face, the sand still seemed to wheedle its way in so that my eyes watered. Soon, matching lines of grit and tears carved their way down my cheeks.
The storm whipped and whirled against us even worse than it had before, our horses all tethered together in one long line. It was as if we rode through a cloud, a pool, or some giant hourglass. I could no longer tell where the ground ended and the sky began.
Still, Kassim forced us to push on.
I didn’t know how he’d possibly decide when we had gone far enough to stop. We had hardly ridden any distance before Tigrylon disappeared from view, disguised by the flurry of sand that had turned the air opaque. I had no idea how far we’d traveled since then, but every step the poor horses managed to take was a struggle.
Another wave of sand lashed up,
hiding the others from view for a moment. Panic fluttered in my chest as I waited for the sand to subside again.
But it didn’t.
Bandit came to a stop, and I looked down at his neck. The tether that had tied him to the horse in front hung loose, cut by an unseen hand. I twisted in my saddle. The tether to the horse behind had disappeared, too.
I was alone.
The ring on my hand turned hot, painful, as shrieks of laughter rippled through the air, burning lights flickering all around me.
“Kassim!” I shouted. But the sandstorm stole my voice.
I whirled my horse around, twisting my head this way and that to try and locate Kassim, or Elian, or any of the others who might still be nearby. All I could see was the dark blur of sand.
My heart pounded in my chest as the laughter sounded again and a tall pillar of fire burned bright before me, running from the ground into the clouds.
I squinted, the fire blinding. Even my brave horse took a nervous step backward, trying to move me away from the wicked flames.
Amongst the laughter, a low, cruel voice, like the hiss of sand, whispered into my ear. “We know what you wear, princess.”
My blood turned cold. They knew I had the ring…
Bandit took another step back.
But the pillar of flame moved faster, closing in on me, until I felt my skin prickle in the heat, the delicate area around my mouth cracking until blood ran over my lip.
Suddenly, a dark figure cleaved the flame in two, splitting the pillar like a log for the fire. Kassim rode his horse straight through, the scimitar gripped in his hands flashing and flickering yellow as he sliced through the blaze to get to me.
The spirits howled as the pillar dissolved into a constellation of flickering flames, like torches lighting a room at night.
Kassim’s horse almost crashed into mine as he barreled over to me. “Stay close!” he barked. “Don’t let the fire near you.”
My throat too dry to reply, all I could do was nod.
He moved the horse so we faced opposite directions. “If you see so much as a spark in the sands, tell me straight away.”
We surveyed the area around us. Panic gripped my chest again as my vision was limited to the wall of sand whirling around us.
Wait… Something moved in the sand.
It didn’t look like the dancing fire-spirits we had seen already. The movement was too sluggish, the shapes too substantial. Against the bright streaks of fire in the air, the figures were dark, taking unsteady, faltering steps toward us.
“Kassim!” I gasped, my voice rough.
His head snapped around to look in the direction I pointed. “Stay close behind me.”
We slowly rode toward the figures, the horses bucking and whinnying as they came into view.
In spite of their strange, jerking movements, their black, unseeing eyes staring out from faces devoid of expression, there was no escaping the fact these figures were all clad in the white-and-gold robes of the Astarian army. The guards who had been killed in the earlier attack.
Fear skittered down my spine.
Kassim recognized them, too, his sword arm relaxing a little, his horse slowing its pace.
I recalled what I had read in my book. Death. Un-death. The letters that looked like men walking.
Suddenly, I knew how it could be that men we had seen lying dead in the sand could be here in front of us now.
“They’re ghuls!” I yelled.
Kassim turned at the sound of my voice, and the guards – the ghuls – attacked.
They moved with strangely jerky movements, as though untrained, their swords swinging around wildly. On horseback, Kassim should have had the advantage…
My heart rose to my throat as Kassim spun around with a snarl, raising his scimitar again. He kept his horse between me and the guards, his sword quick and deft.
But even I could see the ferocity had gone out of his movements. Faced with men he had trained and fought alongside, it must have pained him to fight against them, even if he knew they were no longer really men.
Perhaps he thought the same thing I did. How can you defeat men who are already dead?
He fought defensively now, swinging his sword to protect me but not trying to land a killing blow.
Then one of the guards sliced the sultan’s leg, drawing blood.
Instinctively, Kassim retaliated, bringing his sword around in a smooth arc and slicing right through the guard’s sword arm. The severed limb fell to the ground, lost in the swirl of sand, and a dark stain spread across the guard’s chest. I exhaled slowly. Perhaps Kassim could disarm these men – or whatever shell was left of them – without feeling he was killing them a second time.
But the guard didn’t stop, reaching for the sultan with his remaining arm.
The words I had managed to make out in my book stirred in my mind again.
Death. Decapitation. Fire.
I swallowed. Decapitation. Maybe that would defeat these possessed guards. But would Kassim have the heart to kill his own men?
Another wave of sand swept up and I flinched back, shielding my eyes.
When I dropped my arm, the sultan was already out of sight. How is that possible? I’d taken my eyes off him only for a moment. I shouldn’t have lost sight of Kassim in such a short amount of time.
What other magic do these spirits possess?
I looked around as the hot, pressing laughter flooded the air around me again, the whispers of a thousand and one voices tickling my ear.
I didn’t know where Kassim was, but I wasn’t about to stay here and wait for him to find me. I kicked Bandit’s side, urging the horse into a gallop. Even if I couldn’t track down the sultan, perhaps I might outrun these spirits.
But we had barely begun to move when Bandit lost his footing, skidding to one side and flinging me from his saddle. I crashed onto the ground, my hands grating along the sand. The searing pain in my back let me know the movement had also opened up my wounds again.
I took a moment to catch my breath, feeling bruises blossoming along my side, the sting of raw flesh on my palms. At least my foot hadn’t gotten caught in the stirrup. Reaching out with sore, trembling hands to push myself up, I stopped as they connected with something warm and soft.
My stomach turned when I looked beside me and realized that I had fallen where the severed arm lay in the bloody sand.
“We see you, princess.”
Fighting my nausea, I reached for the scimitar still clutched in the guard’s hand. In spite of his death, his fingers felt hot to the touch and gripped the hilt of the sword so firmly that I had to pry them off one by one. The weapon was slippery with blood, and I hastily rubbed it over my pants, leaving a ruby-red line across my thigh.
“The sultan has fallen, unwilling to fight his own men.”
I took a deep breath and got to my feet. The spirits were lying, I was certain of it. They had to be.
I gripped the sword tightly, but the point dragged along the ground, the weight of the blade too much for me to keep it aloft. Still, better this than no weapon at all, even if I didn’t know how to use it.
“What will you do now that you’re on your own?”
I didn’t reply, thinking. Then it hit me.
The spirits weren’t quite right. I wasn’t entirely on my own.
I rubbed the ring.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Tarak!” I yelled, rubbing my fingers over the amethyst star until it grew warm. “Tarak, I need you!”
Nothing happened, the laughter still spiraling around me, the flames beginning to flicker again.
I clutched the useless sword tighter, hoping I would somehow find the strength to swing it if one of the ghuls thought to try their luck before Tarak deigned to show himself.
“Tarak!” I screamed again.
A sweet scent swelled in my nostrils. Finally, a wisp of purple smoke curled up from my hand and settled on my shoulder. Feather-light steps shuffled closer to my n
eck.
“You took your time!” I cried.
Tarak gave a low chuckle. “Interesting choice of words, princess.”
“Listen, Tarak–”
“I assume you’ve summoned me again because you’ve finally decided it’s time to uphold your end of the bargain?”
My jaw dropped, and I gestured around with my hand. “Look at where we are.”
There was a pause, the thunder of sand echoing in my ears.
“Do these ghuls know something about why I’m trapped in the ring?”
I flinched. “Tarak, I don’t have time to argue with you right now–”
“Arguing? Who said anything about arguing?”
A line of fire crackled across the sky, alarmingly close. I wanted to swing the sword, but I could still barely lift it. I whirled around, as though I might spot the next attack before it hit. I knew it was useless.
“Have you even asked these spirits if they know anything about what happened to me?”
Frustrated tears welled up in my eyes. “Tarak, I promise, as soon as I’m out of here, I’ll start looking into what happened to you. But I have to be alive to keep my end of the bargain, don’t I?”
“Uh-uh. You can only keep making empty promises for so long. Perhaps my next master might be more helpful...”
“They’re attacking us because of you!” I shouted. “Because they know I have the ring! And if you don’t help me, I’ll toss it into the middle of the desert where it’ll never be found again. There will be no next master. You’ll be trapped forever.”
The line of fire whipped out again. I flung myself backward to avoid being hit, falling to the ground, almost dropping the sword as I did.
“And just how do you expect to see them off if you use a sword like that?”
“I know,” I said through gritted teeth, using the sword to push myself back onto my feet. “I need to know how to use a sword.”
“Is that a wish?”
“Spirits! Yes, I wish to know how to use a sword!”
Throne of Sand (Desert Nights Book 1) Page 20
