Rolling the lambskin back up, and replacing it in his saddlebag, the Akkadian said to the thief, "No, partner... We're just getting started. Consider this a welcome."
"A welcome," Arpid said, glancing from one pole of impaled skulls to another. "Well, why not push on? Your friend is a sorceress, and you're a trained assassin, not to mention a hulking barbarian. Who among us could get hurt, in the endeavor?"
Mathayus shrugged. "Who indeed?"
"Oh, I don't know ... the skinny thief, perhaps?"
"You're free to make your own way," the Akkadian reminded him, as he stood alongside the beautiful hostage stride the camel. He reached up and brushed her long hair away from the side of her face, and she looked sharply at him, startled, offended.
"Don't touch me," she said, and caught his wrist.
Firmly—but not roughly—he freed his hand, and he brushed her hair away, again, and slipped the golden hoop earring from her lobe.
Confused, she frowned at him, and grabbed for her belonging, unsuccessfully.
Now the Akkadian moved forward, to the nearest of the fetish poles, and reached up and deftly hooked the hook over the top of the shaft.
"You beast," she snapped. "What in the name of the gods are you doing?"
"Nothing, in the name of the gods." Mathayus gave her the slightest smile. "Just marking the way for your lord and master."
She reared back, almond eyes narrowed, chin crinkled in contempt. "No man is my master."
"Perhaps not," he said, as he slung himself up behind her, onto the generous nomadic saddle, "but your view is unimportant... How Memnon sees you is all I care about."
And the Akkadian jogged his camel into motion, heading down into the desolate valley. Rough as the ride was, it was not as blistering—literally—as the desert they soon found themselves in, where the sand blazed under the sun, and the skeletons of those who had tried to come this way before them had left their remains as grotesque sun-bleached markers.
Cassandra stiffened as she saw a scorpion crawl from the eye socket of one human skull, and Mathayus asked, amused, "Afraid of a little bug?"
She said nothing; and certainly did not reveal that a flash, a shard of a vision, had knifed through her consciousness. The man behind her was somehow tied to that scorpion; but she knew not how. ...
From time to time, Mathayus relented and walked as the thief rode. The little man had come this far; that much the Akkadian had to hand him. That Arpid would face the vast empty desert with them, trudge along at their side, rarely complaining, had made him one of them. Even the woman was no trouble. Only the sun, that burning sun, seemed his enemy.
Thorak and his band of a dozen good men were several hours behind the little party. A forward tracker reached the ridge of fetish poles by sunset, and he snatched the sorceress's golden hoop from the skull atop one pole, and rode back to the line of red-turbaned men to deliver it to his commander.
The scar on Thorak's face stood out whitely in his flushed face, as rage crawled through him like an invader, the warrior well aware the Akkadian was baiting him, taunting him. ...
Normally they would have made camp now, but Thorak pushed his troops onward; they would ride until the sun was a memory.
In the cool night blueness of the desert dunes, under a sky glittering with more jewels than any warlord could secure, the Akkadian, the thief, the woman and the camel slept. Or at least the thief slept, on his side of the fire, his deafening snoring making slumber more difficult for the others.
Still, Mathayus managed to sleep—his scimitar crossed on his chest, ready for any attack—and so did Cassandra, at least until a particularly loud snort from the snoozing thief popped her eyes open.
Wide-awake, suddenly, she glanced over at Mathayus, who—despite the logs Arpid was noisily sawing in his sleep—did not stir. She rose as silent and graceful as a gentle wind, watching the Akkadian all the while, seeing that sleep continued....
At first she walked, looking back at the fire and the camp, the sand brushing her feet lightly; then she began to run. She knew Memnon would send his men looking for her; if she could get as far away as possible from the assassin, before daybreak, perhaps ...
... perhaps fifteen feet from camp, she fell face first into the sand, a silk line tied around her left ankle having pulled taut.
She turned over, breathing hard, and pulled at that line, as if a big fish might be at the other end; and she was right: Mathayus materialized out of the night, standing in front of her, the other end of the silk cord tied around his own left ankle.
"Where are you headed, sorceress?" he asked lightly. "You think you'll find your king out here in the desert, somewhere? Do you miss your beloved?"
Her eyes flared with anger, and she stood and swung a hard tiny fist at him; he caught the fist, but with her other hand she clawed at him, her nails long, sharp, her ferocity intense, almost overwhelming.
Surprised by the force, the frenzy of her attack, he lifted her off the ground, and hurled her up and over his shoulder, like a sack of grain. She landed with a rolling thump.
Trying to straighten out the line that bound them, Mathayus walked to her, where she turned over— painfully—and, wincing with discomfort yet still prideful, she said, "Memnon is not my beloved .. . not my lover. I am a virgin."
He might have laughed at that, had she not been so obviously, indignantly sincere.
"My powers stem from my purity," she said. "Even that monster Memnon would not dare defile me."
Monster Memnon.... ?
"Apologize to me," she demanded. "Now!"
The Akkadian studied the beauty, asprawl on the sand, disheveled but no less fetching in the ivory-washed blue of the night. Her conviction was impressive, no denying.
"I am sorry," he said. "Truly."
She swallowed, her eyes searching his face for sarcasm, for insincerity, finding neither. Her head lowered. Her voice trembled when she spoke.
"I was eleven," she said, "when Memnon heard the stories of the child, the girl, with eyes like the gods. ... He rode into my village and lined up four of his soldiers, before me. He said, "Tell me the names of these men. Each wrong answer means that man's death.' "
"His own men," Mathayus whispered, aghast.
"His own men," she said, with a nod. "I was terrified, but what could I do? I told him the names, all four."
"You saved their lives."
"Yes. And, afterward, those same four soldiers killed my family, as I was taken away."
The Akkadian felt stunned, as though he'd suffered a terrible physical blow; his heart ached for her—she had suffered Memnon's cruelty as much as any man, or woman.
Softly he said, "The 'Great Teacher' has taught his lessons to us all, has he not?"
And he bent to her, and untied the line from her ankle.
Then he walked back to the camp, the fire and his blankets; she returned, slowly, sitting where before she had slept, clutching her knees to herself.
He had turned his back to her. "Run, if you like— you're no longer my prisoner...." He glanced back at her, tellingly. "But keep in mind—there are worse dangers, out there, than me."
Then, his back still to her, he went to sleep, snoring a little, though the snort-snoring of the thief— who had dozed through all the fuss—drowned him out.
And for a long, long time, the sorceress sat and studied her captor, wondering what kind of man this was, after all. Who was he, this man who dared stand up to Lord Memnon?
Yet, for all her visions, for all her prophecies, Cassandra was unaware that she now loved the Akkadian. That her future was bound with his.