“Ten thousand pardons, O Weyadan!” said one of the scouts. “Those coming toward us are not laddad, but men.”
Bilath shifted in his saddle. “Soldiers of Sahim-Khan?”
“They bear the banner of a scorpion on a field of yellow, with three notches in the wind’s edge.”
“The standard of the Mikku,” Wapah supplied. He was widely traveled and knew the standard of every tribe and clan. The Mikku were far from their usual range, but they were nomads, too, brothers of the Weya-Lu, the Khur, the Tondoon, and the rest.
Zaralan, chief of the Black Horse Clan, voiced the prevailing opinion when he said, “They’re invading our territory.”
“We’ll stand them off!” vowed Bindas, young and hot-tempered.
“No. We are not here to shed the blood of our own,” said Adala. She addressed the scouts. “How far away are they?”
“Four miles when we first saw them. Less by now, Maita.”
She lifted a mostly empty waterskin and wrung a warm trickle into her mouth. Their time at the Valley of the Blue Sands had left the Weya-Lu short of water, Adala most of all.
“I will meet them,” she said.
The chiefs protested vigorously. If the Mikku had come to fight, the Weyadan could be captured or killed before the rest of her host could defend her. She shrugged off all their arguments.
“Brothers or enemies, the Mikku will not raise a hand I against me.”
Out of respect they did not contradict her. Zaralan suggested she take an escort, for protection. Even a small escort would be better than none.
Adala smiled a little. “I choose Wapah.”
The garrulous philosopher, who even then was explaining in hushed tones the habits of dress and dining of the Mikku tribe to the clan chiefs beside him, heard his name and broke off his monologue.
“Weyadan? You want me?”
“Yes, cousin. Ride with me to meet the Mikku.”
This was not what Zaralan had in mind. He said as much, assuring Wapah he meant no disrespect.
“No need to abase yourself,” said Wapah as he guided his horse through the ranks of clan chiefs and warmasters. “I pledge my life to protect the Weyadan’s.”
He positioned his horse alongside Little Thorn. Adala noted the tears in his hat brim, made by laddad arrows, and frowned. Poor Wapah, unmarried and without mother or sisters, had no one to mend his clothes.
“Remind me to sew those up for you,” she said, flicking a hand at his hat brim.
By her order, the nomad host was to remain hidden on the northern side of a high dune, so their great numbers would not startle the oncoming Mikku. Bowing to the wisdom of her logic, the warmasters rode back to their warriors. The clan chiefs remained.
“I don’t like this,” Bindas said. “The Mikku know the law of the desert. They should not enter our land unbidden.”
“Honored Chief, be of strong heart. Whatever their purpose, the Mikku are just like us. The desert lives in their souls, and Those on High speak to their hearts. Believe in my maita. It leads me to a more distant place than this.”
So saying, Adala tapped Little Thorn’s flank with a cane switch. Ears flapping, the donkey shuffled over the crest of the dune with Wapah riding close behind.
Bindas turned to Bilath, Zaralan, and the other chiefs who had known Adala longer. “Does this woman think she holds fate in her hands?” he said.
“Permit me to say, Chief Bindas, you have it backward. It is not Adala Weyadan who holds fate, but Fate which holds Adala.”
It was eloquence worthy of Wapah, but the words came from Bilath, brother of Adala’s slain husband.
Adala and Wapah soon saw lines of darkly dressed Mikku riding across the sun-baked plain. Unlike the northern nomads, who rode in loose, time-tested formations, the Mikku were deployed cavalry-fashion in four exact lines, each a double horse-length apart. They wore a great deal of metal armor, signs of the favor shown them by the Khan. Wapah watched their slow, steady progress through the shimmering morning haze, early sunlight flashing off their brass and iron equipment. He commented on how heavy and hot their armor must be.
“When we reach the city, you may wish you were so burdened,” Adala answered. She knew the laddad and Sahim-Khan’s soldiers wore even more armor as a matter of course.
Between the lonely pair and the several hundred horsemen was a long, flat expanse swept by hot wind from the south. Adala tightened Little Thorn’s reins, halting him on the lip of the sandy ridge above the plain. Wapah drew up beside her.
“Let’s wait here.”
Folding his hands across the pommel of his saddle, Wapah nodded, his pale eyes flicking skyward briefly.
“It is a good day,” he said.
Even this early, the heat was devastating. Both of them had pulled the loosely woven dust veils over their faces, to protect their eyes from the parched south wind. The strange clouds towered above the land, rising so high their undersides were gray from lack of sunlight, while their tops were tinted orange by the dawn. Yet Wapah wasn’t referring to the weather. He spoke of the feel of the day and his joy in their holy purpose. Adala’s maita was running high. The broader world soon would feel its power.
They had been seen. The Mikku halted, studied the two mounted figures poised above them on the ridge, then came on. Four lines of horsemen became two as the Mikku spread themselves wide. Fifty yards away they halted.
“So many swords to take one man, one horse, one woman, and a donkey,” Adala said. “What are they afraid of?”
The philosopher at her side said, “We all fear something. Those who wield swords are often the most frightened of all”
Nine riders from the center of the Mikku formation continued forward, while the remainder waited. The nine found their imposing display bedeviled by the loose sand on the face of the ridge. Horses sank up to their hocks, drawing their shod feet out with considerable effort. Wapah smiled, the expression hidden by the dust veil covering his face, as the full import of Adala’s logic became clear to him. Stopping here had given them the moral advantage of meeting the Mikku on higher ground, but she had foreseen a tactical purpose, too. The Mikku lost momentum and dignity as they labored up the shifting slope.
Twenty yards away, the nine riders halted. In the center was a nomad with the tallest, brightest helmet the Weya-Lu had ever seen. Golden horns sprouted from the polished steel brow, curving up and back like a desert antelope’s. From their tips fluttered squares of shiny gold silk. The sides and rear of the helmet were protected by heavy curtains of mail.
“I am Shaccan, warmaster of the Mikku,” said the warrior in the horned helmet. “Who are you?”
Before speaking, Wapah glanced at his leader. Adala had shifted her dust veil, exposing her fiery eyes to the Mikku. She nodded slightly at Wapah.
“Greetings, brothers of the desert! Peace to you, and all your kin!” he called, then introduced himself and Adala.
“Are you alone, Weya-Lu?” Shaccan asked.
“Those who believe are never alone,” Adala replied. “Is this not so?”
The warmaster plainly did not like having his question answered with a question. Gruffly, he said, “We were told the Weya-Lu had left their range. Is that so?”
“We went to the Valley of the Blue Sands, but we have returned. Why are you here?”
“With the Weya-Lu gone, we ride for Kortal, to hire as caravan escorts.”
“You cannot.”
Wapah flinched at the impoliteness of Adala’s abrupt command. Shaccan’s thick eyebrows rose.
“By what right do you stop us, woman?”