Sowing Dragon Teeth

by James Alderdice

“Fair enough, but out of curiosity, what did the legends say of Baten al Ghul?”

  “It’s a long sandy valley between some stone mountains. It heads almost due south. It is supposed to be the abode of monstrous things.”

  “Ghul?”

  “Presumably, but between you and me, it is not a frequently traveled route as the Umoja can testify so I don’t know how any monster, no matter how resistant, could live in a place where there is nothing to eat.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I’ve heard legends of these worms.”

  Ole wrinkled his nose at that. “Worms?”

  Aisha nodded. “Big ones.”

  “How big?”

  “As big as a python or perhaps a man. I don’t know. But I’m sure that’s just stories too.”

  Ole grunted and fell in behind Aisha as they rode on.

  Gradually they came down the final slope of the chain of mountains and continued a rolling plain dotted with low slung, rounded hillocks that were never any taller than a tall tree, not that there were any trees there. There was hardly any grass or shrubs. In time, the red earth gave way for yellowed sands and the hills became dunes. By late afternoon, no one could have guessed that they had ever been in red rock mountains, for the landscape had changed so very much.

  They made camp that night beside a lonesome palm that grew beside a mudhole. The Umoja dug into the pit until they found a small bit of brown water. They shouted with glee and widened the pit until it was wide enough for each man to stick his head in.

  “Dirty dogs,” grumbled Catlo. “Leave some for the rest of us!”

  Soon enough the shallow pit filled again, but Aisha and the others waited until the silt settled so they didn’t get mouthfuls of dirt and sand with their refreshment.

  The stars came awake and a sharp crescent of a moon lit the valley floor.

  “Musa, do your magics and tell us of our enemies,” requested Nyo.

  Catlo laughed derisively but the Umoja gathered his things from a fetish pouch and sang softly to himself while he prepared them. He danced in a circle and cast dust over his left shoulder as he circled the palm.

  “Utter nonsense,” said Catlo. “And how about you move your sacred chief and his mule downwind of the rest of us?”

  Musa ignored him, chanting continually, then abruptly froze, and to Aisha’s eyes it seemed that he had changed. He had a faraway look in his eyes like he saw things beyond the dunes.

  “Are they pursuing us?” asked Feroze, looking back over their trail in the sands.

  “The spirits of the wind and sun tell me that they are,” answered Musa. “Most have followed the river as the woman said, but a company of men are following us into Baten al Ghul. They are led by the captain, Xargon and a tracker named Sinhue.”

  How he could possibly know that was a mystery to Aisha, but she had seen many wonderous things in her life and did not doubt that at least some men could speak to the spirits.

  Nyo looked worried. “Should we start traveling again now? To make as many miles between us as possible?”

  “Shouldn’t we push on faster then?” asked Feroze, repeating the sentiment, albeit even more worried than the tribesman. The other Avaran shook his head in agreement.

  “We should hurry,” said Catlo. “And get some sleep.”

  Musa wasn’t arguing but he did plead his case. “We must keep the balance. If we travel too slowly to spare the horses, they will catch us. If we ride too hard, they will collapse from exhaustion.”

  “Shut up! No one would follow us into this cursed valley. You’re dreaming up nonsense. Get some sleep and we continue in the morning.”

  Ole had listened silently but then wrapped his brawny arms around the trunk of the palm and pulled himself up the tree. He scrambled to the top most section and as it leaned gravely under his great weight, he said, “I see the light of a torch or campfire a few miles behind us.”

  “Sons of the pharaohs! What?!” cursed Catlo.

  “They are coming,” said Ole gravely as he leapt down to the sands.

  “Let’s ride now!” ordered Catlo.

  “But I told you that, too,” said Musa.

  Catlo put his hand on the black-skinned Umoja. “You did true, but I think of Ole as my second witness and I needed that to act first. I am a man of substance, not faith. Let’s ride!”

  “Wait,” said Aisha.

  Catlo grumbled, “Why? It was your idea to come this way and it hasn’t helped us yet.”

  Aisha ignore the accusation. “We should fill every waterskin with everything we can,” she said. “It’s going to be a very long, dry ride. There will be no more water for many miles.”

  “Good idea. Do it,” said Catlo. “Then we ride!”

  “And,” she stilled him. “When we are done. We poison this well so that they will get no sustenance from it.”

  “You cruel viper!” spat Diamanda. “I knew you were an evil harpy!”

  Aisha shrugged.

  Catlo waved his finger and smiled. “No, that is the best idea I have heard in a long time. I knew you had some good ideas. Everyone, refill your waterskins, then let us all desecrate the water hole.”

  Musa and Nyo shook their heads. “That is not done. We never defile where we may one day drink again.”

  Catlo shook his head snarling as he refilled his waterskin. “Tell you what. Leave the waterhole be and slit your own throats then. Or take a piss in it now and save your own lives. The choice is yours.”

  Feroze chuckled like a weasel as he filled his skin.

  The two Umoja looked to each other and unhappily agreed. They filled their skins and then emptied their bowels in the pit.

  “That’s good, but do we have anything worse?” asked Catlo.

  Ole thumbed toward the wrapped carcass of Zahur upon his mule.

  “Brilliant!”

  “No!” shouted Musa. “We will not leave him here!”

  “Of course not,” said Catlo. “But how about just a small part of him?”

  Musa and Nyo frowned at each other. “What part?”

  “Never you mind,” assured Catlo.

  Musa took Catlo by the shoulder. “He must keep his heart to find his way on the spirit path when he walks the winds to the afterlife.”

  “I won’t cut out his heart. I was thinking the liver.”

  Musa and Nyo continued to frown but reluctantly nodded to Catlo to continue his terrible work.

  Aisha remembered hearing that among a few things the Kathulians were superstitious about beside pigs were livers.

  Catlo gagged as he went to work on the corpse but soon returned with the black organ and he threw it into the mud pit then washed his hands cursing all the while. “That would keep me from drinking from that well, that’s for damn sure!”

  They rode into the night and Aisha looked back wondering if she might catch a glimpse of the Kathulians’ approaching torches, but she saw nothing.

  Baten al Ghul was not wide, perhaps only a couple miles at the widest point, but it was long, three hundred miles of blistering hell. And they had only just begun.

  “My people’s legends say eons ago, the valley was carved through the stone mountains by a god-like serpent of ice,” said Musa.

  Catlo smirked, “Some people will believe anything. Legends, bah! Everyone lies.”

  “That does not mean the legends aren’t true.”

  “This is the most forbidding desert in the world, why would a god of ice make it?”

  “Look at the valley, how it is curved through the sharp mountains. We are in a giant snake’s trail of long ago.”

  “It does look like it, but I still don’t believe in anything I haven’t seen for myself,” said Catlo.

  “Then that is your own short-sightedness.”

  “You are sure of yourself here, how many times have you been to Baten al Ghul?” asked Catlo.

  “Twice. Once when I was a boy to prove to myself that I was a man and again after I had a son to prove to myse
lf that I was still worthy of being called a man.”

  Aisha watched Catlo. He had a ponderous look upon his cruel face and looked deep in thought like he had never questioned his reason or resolve or purpose in life. As if he had the right to do whatever he pleased and had never considered another possibility a moral center to the universe and his place in it. It was his entitlement, his duty inherited from his fathers, likely bandit chiefs all to take what they wished, and rule based upon divine right of might and sword. But with all he had done in this world, how easily it could be stripped away. Who would remember Catlo after he was dead? Who would mourn him? Who would sing his praises once the gold and achievements were gone? Was he even a true man to himself? No, he was but a worm and blight upon mankind and the world would be a better place once he was gone, and he must surely know it.

  “The desert makes you think on such things,” said Musa, almost as if he knew what both Catlo and Aisha were thinking.

  “No,” said Catlo, “I was just thinking, you have a son? What woman would lay with you—you ugly dog! Hahahaha!”

  So much for deep thoughts.

  Long after midnight, under silent stars they stopped for the night to rest and ease their sore baked bodies. They ate boiled camel meat and broiled dates to sate their hunger.

  Musa proclaimed they were one-fourth of the way to Jokameno Mountain and very far from the Hermonthis river basin.

  The horses clustered together at the edge of the camp and chewed upon the few scrubby grasses. They suddenly raised themselves and spit, neighing nervously.

  Catlo startled. “What is it?”

  Aisha answered with her sword bared and gazed out into the cold black of night. There was little wind and she heard nothing but the horses’ agitation. They stamped the ground.

  The Avaran that Aisha still didn’t know the name of got up to quiet the animals. But just as he reached Catlo’s horse, a crackling sound erupted. Lightning lanced up from the ground and both he and the mustang shook violently, froze and dropped to the ground dead. Steam rose from their bodies.

  The other horses stamped again at the ground but moved away from both the fallen man and animal.

  The party stared, shocked as to what had just happened.

  “They weren’t a myth,” Aisha said to herself. She struggled to remember anything she had ever heard of the death worms.

  Something pulled on the corpse of the Avaran from beneath the ground. Tearing and ripping at the carcass while yet another thing moved beneath the earth, coming towards them. A slight bump of the yellowed sands six inches high preceded it.

  “Is it a Ghul?” asked Feroze.

  “No, Allergorhai-Horhai,” said Musa.

  Aisha wrapped both a sash and belt about her sword hilt so thick she could barely grip it. “Do as I do.”

  Ole’s eyes widened in surprise but he attempted to wrap a scarf over the handles of his axe in similitude of what she had just done.

  Catlo backed away nervously. “What is that?”

  Diamanda screamed and tried to run to her horse.

  “Stop her from moving!” shouted Aisha.

  Ole responded quick and swooped the princess of Irem up in his arms and held her still and silent by clamping a broad hand over half her face.

  “If it rises shield your face.” Aisha pulled yet another scarf over her own face, shielding even her eyes. She picked up a large stone with the other hand.

  Musa and Nyo were following suit and covering their faces with their own turbans and scarves.

  Aisha stamped her foot several times and the thing in the sand halted a moment before changing course and coming toward her. It moved serpentine-like, but with a purpose.

  “What is it?” demanded Catlo.

  “I told you, Allergorhai-Horhai,” said Musa

  The thing came within only a few feet of Aisha. She threw the stone a pace away. It stopped and turned and stopped again.

  “What’s it doing?”

  Aisha signed for Catlo to be quiet.

  The thing in the sand burrowed closer.

  “What is it?”

  The burrower moved toward Catlo at the speed of a man walking. Catlo stepped backwards and the thing increased its approach.

  Aisha leapt and stabbed her sword down into the sands, careful to retain her grip upon the heavily wrapped hilt. The blade went a full foot into the ground and something writhed beneath while blue lightning crackled up the sword’s length and shot her away on a flurry of sparks.

  The fabric wrapped about the sword hilt burst into flame but the thing in the sands went still and the sword sank a little deeper into the ground.

  Catlo ran to Aisha and shook her. “What was that?”

  Blinking and inhaling deep, Aisha said, “Allergorhai-Horhai, a Death Worm. Did they kill the second one?”

  “Second one?”

  The second worm’s advance was nearly upon them, the sand parting upwards from its travel like an invisible ship.

  “Your sword, must I wrap mine now?” Catlo asked.

  Aisha didn’t answer.

  The death worm halted a pace from them.

  “Cover your face!” shouted Aisha.

  The death worm shot from the ground, its maw opening from a dozen slits. The pale body was thick as a stout man’s leg and twice as long.

  The two Umoja leapt into action.

  Musa turned his face and swung his gladius as the worm spewed vile green acid over him. The Umoja aim was true and he severed the worm in half. The two pieces writhed, orange ooze seeped from the halves.

  Musa tore off his turban, cloak and veil. A wretched mist wafted off them as the acid ate the fabric. He then rolled in the sands for the sake of whatever other acid particles still clung to him. “Set the pieces aflame or they may grow again,” he ordered.

  “Do it,” commanded Musa again.

  Nyo kicked the lead piece into the hole next to its hind end and dropped a torch on it. The acid burst into flame, ceasing the creature’s twitches. With a gasp, most of them were covering their mouths and noses. Feroze vomited violently.

  “What if there are more?”

  Aisha answered, “It is said that there are always two mates and a brood.”

  “Brood?” Catlo spun and looked about in the darkness.

  Aisha continued, “The worms have a brood of a hundred or more. But the adults eat most of their young and this is the wrong season. So, take courage you have survived the horrors of the desert one more night.”

  “Horror of the desert? Ha! It is the worms who should be glad they did not face me! I would be a fate worse than death upon them!” shouted Catlo.

  Aisha, Musa, and Nyo looked at each other and exchanged knowing glances.

  Ole let Diamanda go and the princess fell to the ground in tears. “Why won’t you let me go?” She clutched at Catlo’s boot and sobbed.

  “You know why,” said Catlo cruelly.

  Aisha felt pity for the woman, despite her earlier misgivings. She pondered the tenacity of the Kathulians’ pursuit and the very idea that the power that drove them on was that the sultan simply wanted the daughter that he had so foolishly brought on campaign with him back. Wouldn’t it be easier to simply let the princess go and thusly allow them to speed upon their journey to Jokameno Mountain that much quicker while simultaneously slowing their enemy if not even, perhaps, eliminating their resolve to pursue them entirely?

  Aisha wondered, why even bring the girl along at all except to satisfy Catlo’s lust and ego? The princess was an unpleasant companion, and her value as a hostage was suspect. The zealous Kathulians had already given their terms and it in no way could be bent to be a profitable operation to keep the girl.

  Aisha resolved then and there to be rid of Diamanda.

  11. Cities in Dust

  It was darkest before the dawn and Aisha knew that light would creep over the distant mountain within the hour. Feroze was on watch but he was lightly snoring. Aisha had watched him and noted that he would
not wake if she even moved about at half her stealthy nature. But what about Diamanda?

  The princess had fallen asleep upon her camel hair blanket and even now clutched at her shift in such a way that almost demanded attention.

  Aisha crawled across the sand like a stalking cat and, putting her hand over the princess’s mouth, she nudged the girl awake.

  Diamanda awoke and would have screamed save that Aisha’s hand and strength held her still.

  “I’m going to move my hand and you are going to remain silent,” she whispered.

  Diamanda nodded.

  Aisha removed her hand.

  “I knew you wanted me,” said Diamanda. “I can please you too, if you will—”

  Aisha was shocked but held in her surprise. “No. I don’t want you. I’m letting you go.”

  Diamanda widened her eyes in what almost seemed disappointment. “Truly?”

  Aisha nodded. “Your horse is saddled. Walk it to the other side of the dune as silently as you can and only then mount it and ride swiftly back the way we have come. I suspect your men are less than a day behind us. Can you do that?”

  “Of course.”

  Aisha looked back at the others sleeping.

  Diamanda took Aisha’s hand. “Come with me.”

  Aisha pulled away from her grasp. “I—I have other things I must do. I cannot.”

  “You will be in no danger. I’m not angry anymore and I meant what I said about pleasing you. I’m sure you could please me as well. I like strong women.” Diamanda brushed a hand back and forth across her own breast.

  “You’re wasting time. Hurry and go.”

  “Are you not listening to me? There is a place for you in my father’s house. A place with me.” Diamanda tugged on Aisha’s hand. She puckered her full lips and leaned in for a kiss.

  Aisha leaned back. “I’m not interested in you. Get away while you still can, another opportunity like this may not happen.”

  Diamanda sniffed angrily. “You’ll regret that.”

  I already have, Aisha thought.

  Diamanda took her horse’s reins and trotted off behind the dune. It was a good thing Feroze was such a poor night watchman.

  Aisha faintly heard the squeak of the saddle as Diamanda mounted the horse and the hoofbeats on the sand as they raced away. She went to lay upon her blanket and pretend she had also been asleep the whole time, but just as she lay down and made herself comfortable, she noticed Ole staring at her.