There was a small lull to the ferocious winds under the wagon bed, as I saw the kicking legs of the animals on three sides, stirring up the dust as they jostled. If the storm didn’t kill them—then there was every likelihood that they would seriously injure each other in their attempted stampede.
How many steeds did we have? One for every guard—so there had to be almost twenty, plus the beasts of burden—another eight or so mules. There was no way that I would be able to lead almost thirty panicked animals through this storm to the nearest tent. Not that I had any idea in which direction that was going to be...
No, only one way to save them, I knew, steeling myself for what had to come next. I wormed my way to the edge of the wagon not surrounded by frenzied horses, took a breath and pulled my tunic as high as it could go to cover the lower half of my face—while at the same time still protecting my body. I reached up to the sides of the wagon bed and pulled myself up.
Argh! I bit my lips against the scream of pain as it felt like I had just plunged my hands into boiling water as the sand struck at my flesh. I would have let go—but I knew that the poor beasts would be feeling just as much pain if not more, and they did not even have the heavy cotton slaves’ clothes that I wore to protect them.
I continued to pull my weight up until I was over the low frame and thumping onto the bed of the wagon, which was already half-filled with sand.
Breathing into my tunic, I crabbed towards the railings, finding them just by my hand movements alone, and then moving my hands along them as I kept my eyes screwed shut until I found the master strap, which collected and secured all the other lines of the horses into one large knot of leather and buckles. With hands that were flinching and stinging with the storm, I started to feel my way around the knot, pulling and picking at it as hard as I could.
I had to let the horses and mules run. It was the only way that any of them might survive now—and even then, there was every likelihood that a panicked horse would run straight into the side of a tent or into a wagon.
But I knew that standing and kicking here, they would be sure to die—at least I could give them a chance…
The storm grew stronger as my hand slipped, and I was pushed back from the railing. “Agh!” I gasped inside my makeshift mask—but still didn’t open my eyes. Instead, I worked harder at the knot, finding the buckle that held it, and pushing the loop of heavy leather through it, for the whole thing to unwind in my hands like the crack of a whip—
I fell backwards, and, even though I couldn’t see, I could imagine the many different ropes that were joined by this one suddenly uncoiling as the horses sprang away.
There were more sounds of terrified equine screams and the thundering of hooves, and then silence from the beasts. I hoped that I had done the right thing.
“What did you do-!” A shout as someone heavy landed on the wagon bed behind me, before the man’s hoarse voice suddenly broke into a wracking cough.
It was Homsgud—and he should have known better than to open his mouth in a sandstorm—
But, cruelly, there was a lull in the storm around us for that moment, and the air blew itself clear to allow me to see the enraged Homsgud, his face blotched and speckled with red as it had been ‘burned’ by the sand blasts. His eyes were bloodshot and rimmed with red, too—but in his hand he still clung onto his cudgel.
“I saved them!” I gasped, taking advantage of our moment of calm, as I was already scrabbling backwards to the railing—
“This was your plan all alo—” he started to say, his face murderous, but then he blurred brown as another wave of sand and grit hit us. I ducked, huddling into my arms, and I heard a grunt and thump from the guard in front of me.
But then that gust had gone, and I turned to look where my would-be attacker had gone.
He was on the bed of the wagon, groaning and writhing in agony.
There was a crossbow bolt sticking out of his thigh.
Chapter 3
Soot-Laden Sands
Homsgud? I looked at the body in shock. He was still alive—but I wasn’t really about to rush to his aid. But who had shot him?
My answer came quickly in the form of a leaping shape that jumped past the wagon, dressed in what I though was dark clothing, and with a mask over their face.
What?
And then, in between the eddies of the sandstorm, I realized that shape wasn’t the only one. There were other shapes out there, charging our camp—and suddenly one of the tents blossomed into a dull, hazy red as our attackers must have set it alight.
We were under attack!
It was in that moment that I realized: That if the direction I was facing was back towards the camp, then that burning tent was very near Abioye’s tent, if it wasn’t in fact it. Both Abioye and the map were in danger.
I wasted no time in springing forward myself. “Excuse me,” I hissed at the moaning form of Homsgud as I snatched up his cudgel, before I leapt over the edge of the wagon towards the fire.
It was Abioye’s tent that was ablaze. Flames were sheeting up one side of it, and the storm winds weren’t dampening the blaze—but only feeding its hunger. I watched as a flurry of sparks spiraled into the air above the tent and were quickly whirled apart.
They could hit the other tents! We’d lose everything—maybe even the lives of the people who were sheltering in them.
I was about to shout for someone—anyone—to get water, but the storm hit me, making me stagger and my eyes sting with pain. When I had managed to blink away the grit, I saw that there was no one near to me to call to for help.
They were all dead.
The bodies of Inyene’s guards lay scattered around Abioye’s tent, rent and ruined, and it wasn’t by the storm. There were others there too, however—rough-looking men and women in hard leathers and with the same linen facemasks that I had seen on the attacker who had passed by me before.
“Abioye!” I shouted, hefting Homsgud’s cudgel as I ran into the tent, shoving past a drift of dirt and sand that was already starting to push its way inside…
But the tent was surprisingly empty of Abioye. Instead, there was a body of one of our masked and rough-looking attackers, looking as though he had managed to crawl inside before his wounds overtook him.
“Abioye?” I called, dreading for a moment that I would find him in his bed-tent or in the servant’s quarters, similarly stilled and lifeless. But no, there was no one else here, just the lordling’s fineries. And the map, my eyes alighted on it, still in prominent center space in the middle of the room. I swept all of the smaller items from it quickly, before folding it back into its fan of vellum, and was just about to tuck it under my belt when I was interrupted.
“Give me the damn map, girl!” spat a voice from the tent’s entrance.
The speaker was a man, and in his hands was a thin-bladed sword that curved ever-so-slightly towards the end. A sabre, a part of my mind recognized. He had silver-streaked black hair, worn short, and hard gray eyes. His square chin was decorated with the silver sheen of stubble, and an impressive mass of scarring that started just under his chin and formed a thick white knot on the right-hand side of his face.