“I will climb out and eat your livers!” roared Shu-Xor as he pressed himself against the walls of the pit and began his ascent.
“Eat this!” Aisha called as she pushed stones from the rim of the well atop him. She heard the smashing of bones and the inhuman cry of rage. After she had used all twenty stones that made the ring of the well, she then used a breastplate to shovel the ever-present sand into the pit.
Shu-Xor roared his displeasure, but he was unable to reconstruct himself as the stones and sand separated his broken bones and buried him rapidly.
Ole and Catlo joined her in shoveling sand into the pit. Soon enough they could no longer hear the venomous curses of the lich.
Everyone was bruised and bloodied but still alive, except for cowardly Feroze. He was quite dead, all the life having been sucked out of him. They buried him under a pile of stones, but no words were said mourning his loss.
“You know,” said Ole. “I think you were wrong about that staff.”
“Well, I have never fought a lich before and was making an educated guess.”
“Good guess,” he nodded. “Just wrong. Next time I think I will just try to bash it to pieces on the first strike instead of its staff though.”
“You do that.”
“Enough talk,” said Catlo. “We need to get moving. Especially since it is just the five of us now.”
“Uh uh,” mused Nyo. “Six.”
“Six?” questioned Catlo. “You’re counting the dead chief? He’s deader than that lich.”
“But the six of us are going to Jokameno Mountain,” argued the Umoja.
“Fine, six of us are going. Let’s ride!”
“Catlo,” said Ole.
“What?”
Ole pointed to the north. A pillar of dust rose only a few miles away. It was clear even with the ever-present wind that a column of men rode hard toward them.
“I don’t believe it! They got the woman back. What the hell do they want?” asked Catlo to no one in particular.
“Revenge,” suggested Musa, as if it were the most reasonable answer in the world.
“Shut up,” snapped Catlo.
Aisha didn’t wait for a response but started galloping away to the southeast. The rest of them quickly followed suit.
12. Thirsty Are the Damned
Some few miles later across the billowing sands they halted atop a particularly tall dune. In the far distance they could see the Kathulians who still moved serpentine in a speedy pursuit. There looked to be at least a hundred men on horseback. Far too many for them to face in open battle. No matter how good they each accounted themselves.
“We keep up this pace we will kill the horses and then they will be upon us in no time,” said Ole.
“What about their horses? Why aren’t they tiring?” snarled Catlo.
“Look,” explained Ole. “Each man has a spare mount. That lets their animals rest twice as much as ours. Their only problem is they need more water than we do.”
“I hope they choked on Musa’s piss and corpse’s liver,” said Catlo, laughing to himself.
“I might know of a place where we can defeat them,” Aisha said.
“Defeat them? How?” asked Catlo, suspiciously.
“I don’t care about defeating them. I only want water.” Nyo wiped his beading brow.
“We have to keep moving as fast as we dare. I think it is at least another day’s ride from here,” she said. “There is a tower and oasis at the edge of the vale.”
“I pray to every god but Cybele you are right,” said Catlo.
They mounted their horses and continued their journey through the arid land.
They moved all through the night, sparing only a few moments here and there to rest the horses and themselves. Always, someone was on watch and as soon as sign of their pursuers came, on they moved again and again. A hard day later as they came over a hard-edged rise, Aisha pointed to a circular stone tower. It was short as towers went, being perhaps only three spans high, but after the monotony of the desert, nothing looked taller except the mountains lining the far edge of the valley.
“Will there be water?”
“If there is not, we are dead. It is at least four more days to the river,” said Aisha.
They trotted toward the tower, anticipation and cruel hope hanging upon all their hearts. Musa and Nyo murmured prayers. Even Ole muttered something about hoping that his thunder god Votan heard his plea.
The tower had no door just an open, wide T-shape in the stacked brick. Sand swirled inside several inches deep and it did not look like anyone had been there for years. Kitchen items and broken furniture lay strew about as if someone had left in a hurry before a tidal wave of sand hit. The shade inside the tower was a welcome respite from the intense sweltering heat.
Catlo wiped away the salt and sweat coating his body. “I had forgotten how much I appreciated shade.”
Ole grunted in the affirmative.
“Where is the water?” asked Catlo.
Aisha pointed to a trap door in the rear. “It is below in the well of Khuzail. It was he who built this tower, but I will fetch the water. You go to the roof and watch for the Kathulians.”
Catlo signaled Musa and Nyo to do as Aisha said. He and Ole then watched as Aisha entered the trap door that opened to a pit in the back of the tower. They climbed down after her.
Less than a minute later the two Umoja were racing back down the shuddering steps they jabbered worriedly to Catlo and Ole who stood behind Aisha. They ignored the two Umoja for a moment. So intent were they in Aisha’s handiwork.
She knelt in the rear of the pit, digging in the sandy earth.
“They are coming. Many men only a mile or two away. We must flee,” urged Nyo. “This captain Xargon will surely cut all of our throats if they can capture us.”
“No,” answered Aisha.
“Do you have any water?”
“No,” said Aisha, as she continued digging. Once she had dug down another few inches the faintest spot of mud appeared. Another six inches down and the mud became thick and another six inches down, Aisha carved out the earth around a large stone. Water trickled off the stone like a cruel joke, one tiny drop at a time.
“How much is there?” Ole asked.
“Not much,” she said.
Catlo cursed. “We’re damned then.”
“Collect it as best you can,” ordered Aisha. She then went back up the ladder. “Bring the horses inside.”
Musa and Nyo affirmed and brought the horses inside the tower, barely squeezing the beasts through the archway.
“I think you can leave the sacred king’s body outside. The smell won’t help us inside and he won’t get any deader out there.”
They reluctantly agreed and slung his rigid body on the stones around the side from the entrance.
Then Aisha went up the stairs to scout the progress of the approaching forces.
The Kathulians had closed half the distance and were less than a mile away.
Coming back down the steps, Aisha took whatever she could find within the tower, whatever wreck or ruin of furnishings, and barricaded the archway. She stole half the lumber from the already creaking stairs to help hold the debris pile firm.
Catlo came up the ladder with a water skin and a dirty cup. “I have half a skin of water and this, let us flee.” He then noticed the horses and the barricade she had made of the door.
Ole nodded knowingly.
Catlo, however, snapped. “What are you doing? We are trapped. They have over a hundred men.”
“The desert traps them and I will keep them there. Fate has blessed us,” said Aisha, still piling and bracing planks.
Catlo raged, “I am a fighting man and I know there is no way we can keep that many men out forever. We’re trapped like rats in here!”
“We do not need to keep them out forever.”
“There are too many,” insisted Catlo.
“Listen to her,” urged Ole.
&n
bsp; “The water you have is not enough to carry us through to the river. If we flee, we will be broken. They could wait here for days and gain enough water to catch us. Keeping them out is our only hope,” said Aisha. “Keep collecting the water, I will secure us further.”
“I will help you,” said Ole.
Catlo scowled but took the other skins and canteens below for water, while Aisha, Ole, and the Umoja braced the door. It was flimsy at best and could not hold men out for long.
Musa and Nyo took their quiver and stout bows of horn up to the roof. They placed their final arrows evenly about the parapet, head down in the sand for quick, easy access. They then watched as men and horses cleared the outlying dunes.
The most eager scouts cried out in bloodthirsty triumph as they spied the tower, and rode at full speed across the dunes, their white horses still graceful and deadly as lightning.
Both Musa and Nyo knocked arrows and, gauging the light desert breeze, loosed. A Kathulian cavalier went down with a shaft through his breast. Another was taken through the neck. Four more were struck before they checked their speed and tried to craftily spread out and swarm the tower from all sides.
It did not matter, as soon as any one of them was exposed, the Umoja would pierce the man with their bone tipped arrows. Xargon’s men eventually retreated, having never come within twenty feet of the squat stone tower.
Aisha could see that Captain Xargon, was keeping his men just beyond range. He had no way of knowing how few arrows the defenders had left. She guessed that they would wait for nightfall.
After dusk, Aisha went up to the roof and loosened the stones at the top of the jutting parapet. All were balanced precariously. Then she went back down to rest and wait for what she knew would come.
Catlo paced. “How can you lay there? We will be overrun tonight despite slaying twenty of them.”
“It was seventeen,” corrected Musa. “I only have a dozen arrows left and Nyo has nine.”
“We’re like rats in a trap!”
“You keep saying that,” said Aisha. “It’s getting tiresome. Use your head instead of just letting your words spill out all the time.”
“I have lain waste to whole cities. I have robbed golden kingdoms and expensive spice caravans the vaunted armies of the world could not catch me and yet… now I will die in the tower of the well… forgotten,” spat Catlo. “Was I not of greater renown than this?”
“If you are forgotten that is your burden.”
“How can you lay there? They must be coming.”
“They will wait for the moon to dip behind the mountains, they fear the Umoja bows. And I rest because worry profits me nothing. What the gods have willed for us will be and I accept it,” said Aisha in little more than a whisper.
“I never believed it was my fate to die in the middle of a cursed desert,” Catlo added.
“Perhaps it is not your fate to die here; perhaps you already cheated fate to live this long,” said Musa.
Aisha and Ole chuckled at that, despite Musa not having meant it as a joke.
Catlo frowned and returned to watching the archway’s narrow opening at the top. They had not found enough debris to entirely seal the door, so the last foot was open to the night. A man could climb through but not before he would be cut down. Catlo did not take his eyes from it. No curvaceous harem girl back in Avaris had ever commanded his attention so completely.
Two hours later the horned moon’s weak light disappeared behind the jutting, impassable mountains. Footsteps raced across the sands with the light jangling of armor and the heavy breathing of tortured men. They needed the water inside as badly as they desired the reward of revenge. Even more, what value is gold to a dead man?
was All became still and silent as the tomb.
Approaching the barricaded doorway with his sword drawn, Catlo listened and whispered prayers to his deaf gods.
Nothing.
Ole rubbed the amulet of Votan about his neck and said, “Thy will be done,” to himself.
It was dark within the tower and only the crack of night from outside could be seen against the pitiless starlight.
Then, the stars blinked out.
Arrows, darts, and javelins lanced inside the tower pushed by the screaming of men behind. Barely perceived blades flailed through the opening, begging to slash away the flesh of their foes.
Hugging the thick stone wall, Catlo strained over and chopped at those reaching in the constant battering of steel on steel until the final satisfaction of cleaved flesh thudded against his blade. A man outside screamed from pain instead of thirst.
Aisha and Ole clung to the other side of the opening and slammed their blades against those reaching in like a steel-clad kraken.
Atop the parapet, ropes were thrown over the staggered blocks. The lines grew taut, and then as men sought to hoist themselves up, Mus and Nyo knocked the heavy blocks of stone down upon the cavaliers, crushing skulls and breaking limbs in a land with no mercy. Some of the Kathulian archers hoped to launch stones or arrows at whomever was on the tower, but the wild missiles in the night did more damage to their own men than any near misses to the bandits inside.
Inside the tower, a man dropped a long-sword after losing a hand and Catlo took up both long and short blades to continually slash back at the besiegers. He was cautious and knew the limitations of his reach whereas the invaders could not perceive him and only swung vainly over the buckling barricade.
Ole took a spear from a cavalier, yanked it away then sent its point back out, lancing through the open mouth of a screaming cavalier.
After dropping blocks and cutting ropes so many times, Musa and Nyo waited, with no more attacks coming for a spell, as it seemed the invaders put all their hope into breaking down the barricaded entry. They dropped down and assisted in cutting off limbs that tried to breach the door.
A particularly courageous or foolish cavalier attempted to leap through the gap and was skewered in an instant. Another man launched inside, whipping a tulwar, dark insanity gripping him. Catlo beheaded him. He left the body for a moment to discourage the invaders until they pulled him out of the way.
In a concerted effort, stones were thrown on top of the parapet to strike whoever lay hidden there, though no one did. Ropes were thrown over the tower and men climbed. More burst at the door like a hydra of blades and it was all the bandits could do to beat back the push.
Men were upon the stairs. One reached with a spear and cut Catlo across the shoulder. He cried out but was trapped between the advancing men on the stair and those pushing steel points in wildly at the entrance.
Aisha side-kicked the base of the dry-rotted steps and jumped. The skeletal mass collapsed with three cavaliers aboard who were quickly dispatched. More stood atop the tower blocking the stars but not daring to drop the length into the deadly unknown abyss. They dropped stones into the gloom, but not being able to see their quarry and after the return fire of arrows, they left and dropped back down to the outside.
“You damn fools almost got us killed by abandoning your post,” snarled Catlo at Musa and Nyo.
“You needed help here,” countered the Umoja.
“Not with a spear in my back!”
The brutal attack at the entrance ceased. The bandits paused, wary and waiting for another barrage, but none came.
With over a score more of their men wounded or dead, the invaders ceased for a time. They withdrew back to their horses and campfires as the night grew cold.
Catlo was the only one wounded and he complained bitterly about it. He drank from a putrid wineskin to numb the pain.
Aisha thought to end his misery forever but knew that until Ole’s blood debt was paid, he would not allow it.
The bandits used the time to refortify the barricade using wood from the stairs and even the dead to give weight to the pile. Ole lifted Aisha as high as he could so she could climb back up to the top of the tower to watch.
Ole then propped up one of the dead men and it wa
s greeted with a half dozen arrows. He pulled these out and found four of the seven still usable for the Umoja to use.
Thinking they had slain one of the defenders, the cavaliers launched another attack.
Guided by starlight and a predatory instinct Musa and Nyo climbed back up to the top of the tower and used the last of their arrows to slay another ten Kathulians.
Aisha dropped back down into the tower to assist Ole with the grim work.
The Kathulians lost more limbs this time and they gave up once more only to attack an hour later. Each time losing a dozen more men. They were sixty men against five bandits now.
A red dawn rose broiling hot and thirsty. Xargon and his men gathered the tinder they had left and piled it against the tower door. “Gather all the water we have,” said Aisha, watching the invaders collect their sparse fuel.
Ole brought the skins, bowls, and cups of their full night’s worth of water, minus only the little they had drunk themselves and put into an emergency water-skin earlier.
The Kathulian cavaliers dumped their pile of wood and oil at the entrance and tossed a torch on it, the greedy flames caught the dry wood, licking over and devouring them like a starving man at a feast.
Aisha watched the cavaliers closely. They had swollen lips and tongues, dry cracked faces, and sun-burnt sores across their bodies. She supposed most of their horses were dead and only some few supply camels must remain.
The fire grew, and Aisha had the others ready with spears as she dumped two pitchers of water on the small blaze, extinguishing more than half of it.
The faces of the thirsty Kathulians went insane and they knocked over each other for the dirty ashen water. Men knelt in the dust to drink it from the sand covered flagstones. The Umoja spears caught the first two men and they fell clutching at their dry throats. The blades of the Aisha, Ole and Catlo were ready for the desperate onslaught that came afterward. Again, near a dozen men lost their lives or limbs in the melee.
Xargon cursed and stomped the hardened ground. “Lieutenant Menkares, dispatch the wounded. Everyone else, to me!” He stomped away, his back to the bloodbath, as his lieutenant took to his orders with a maniacal smile across his dried, swollen lips. The enemy was now down to thirty-four.
Sowing Dragon Teeth Page 12
