Against everything he had truly believe could happen – and in no small part aided by his slight addition to the plan that the woman, Meela, had suggested – the strategy had worked. He sheltered with his soldiers in the lee of the overhanging rocks watching as warrior after warrior rode out of First Tribe in defence of the sacred sites the woman was plundering and no doubt in defence of their warrior brothers that were under attack by the guerrilla band he’d sent toward the lands belonging to the Ninth Tribe. Farhas grinned openly, for the first time truly feeling he would achieve his goal.
One final warrior thundered out into the cool of the morning air and an expectant hush fell over the Farhaseed. Each of those fanatical warriors looked expectantly in his direction, but he waited. What good would it do him if he sent in his men too soon and the departing warriors merely turned around in defence of their home? No, he had to give them time to be far enough away. He had to leave time for the settlement to relax into its vulnerability.
As he waited he dreamed of Melleha… of the things he would do, the surrender she would give to him when he finally took her home. He deserved a rest after all his recent activity, and he meant to spend it in lavishing attentions on his beautiful promised wife – at the very least taking from her those attentions.
**
The thrill trickled through her blood, almost tickling every nerve as she finally stepped foot, unmolested, on the threshold of the City of the Dead – the great and sacred Hamunaptra.
“Why do you stop?” Loch Nah asked her, keeping his voice quiet to match the reverence of the many souls that accompanied them on their journey.
“Atmosphere, Loch Nah,” she said, turning her head to him with a wry smile, “Do you not feel it?”
“I feel the fear they suffer,” he nodded toward the red clad soldiers she had brought with them. “I smell it – it makes the air rank.”
“They have good reason to be afraid,” she said.
“But not you?” he asked and she could see amusement in his eyes, not quite mocking her, for there was a hint of curiosity mingled with it, but not quite as reverent as she would like either.
“No.”
“Is there nothing that you fear?” he questioned, once more turning to look into the city itself.
“Very little,” she said, and laughing started to walk into the crumbling ruins of the once great city. The latest destruction, she knew, had been caused by the efforts of the Medjai and his American and English friends to contain her former beloved; to prevent his success in bringing them together once more, and achieving power – giving her the immortality she craved… the rest was down to time… and time had been long indeed.
“What are you thinking?” Loch Nah asked her quietly.
“Many things,” she answered. “Once… I knew this place when I was living.”
She saw him frown in confusion. “You live now,” he said.
“Ah, but not as I once did,” she said, “for I am not only the woman you now see… but the reincarnation of the Great Princess Anck-Su-Namun.”
The sands themselves reacted to the mention of her name as a hissing wind stirred them in small, ineffectual eddies around the legs and ankles of the men that were picking their way through the rubble. Some cried out and made warding signs against evil, others backed away, putting as much distance between the sands and themselves as they could. Meela crouched and passed her hand through one small eddy as though in caress of a lover as the shifting grains responded in kind.
Soon… my princess, soon…
“And that is why you would do this?” She looked up at Loch Nah as he spoke and watched as he shivered, but stood his ground.
Straightening once more she turned to face him, pressing the hand that had been one with the sands of Hamunaptra against his strongly beating heart.
“I must resurrect the one they call ‘the creature’” she told him. “I must find him, and bring him back to me.”
“Then you seek the Priest Imhotep,” he said with another shudder as the whispering sands took up a sibilant chanting of his name.
“Yes I seek Imhotep,” she turned her back to him, leaning against him and, moving herself almost catlike against his taught body, watched the shifting sands almost scurry toward her as the one that dared the name of its master. “He, and the means to bring him back… the books of the living, and the dead.”
She felt Loch Nah’s hand close on her arms as he responded to her feline grace against him and smiled suggestively over her shoulder.
“It is a dangerous game you play,” he said.
“My brave warrior,” she said and moved away, to stand facing him in the middle of one of the larger whorls of sand. “It is neither a game, nor do I play anything.”
**
The sun was almost reaching its peak when Sameh noticed the winking of the reflected rays coming from out of the sands. It was so subtle that he almost missed it, and but for one of the slight warm currents that crawled, lizard like across the sands moving the cover from the tan coloured robes, he might well have done so.
Frowning, and as silent as he could be, he pointed out the disturbance to the warriors guarding the ridge at his side, and then turned and headed further into the settlement to gather what strength still remained in defence of the Medjai families left in his charge.
“Husband?” Firyal appeared at his side as he arrived.
“Gather the women and children,” he told her, “take them to the council halls – as quietly as you can.”
“What is it?” she wrapped her arms around herself as though she was cold. Sameh took a moment to hold her gently and press a soft kiss against her forehead.
“Someone comes,” he said, “now go. Do as I command.”
At once she left his arms and began to go among the dwellings, compelling the women to bring their daughters and young sons. He smiled. He could not have hoped for a better wife. Then he turned away himself, to go and prepare the defences.
Whoever it was believed they had surprise on their side. They could not now have been more wrong. Sameh arranged the warriors that remained in the best defensive positions among the dwellings and other buildings that made the outer ring of Al-Dakhla and there, they waited.
**
A surge of triumph enflamed his blood as the shadow of the outlying date palms fell across his position. Quickly he leaped to his feet, showering sand all around and let out a whooping battle cry. His men responded in unison, throwing off their sand covered cloaks and running into the settlement at his side, firing their weapons as they went. It was a risk… for him to lead his men as he did, but he could allow nothing else. He was determined to retrieve his woman.
Little more than half way between the open ground and the first of the dwellings, Medjai warriors came surging out to meet them. He was not surprised that some remained, would have thought less of his enemy if they had not, but he was not prepared for the ferocity with which they fought.
Sensing movement to his right he swung the butt of his rifle up in time to catch the descending scimitar, defending himself.
“No mercy!” he screamed the battle cry into the morning as his men fought their way further in.
**
As frightened as she was, huddled with the women in the council hall, Melleha refused to be cowed. She struggled to her feet and began trying to move among those gathered there, ruffling the heads of children and trying to give encouraging words.
“Melleha,” Cala’s quiet voice sounded behind her and a light touch came at her elbow. “Please rest… sit. The stress of this is not good for you, or for your child.”
“Cala, I’m fine, the baby is fine, please stop fussing. These women need reassurance.”
“And they will find it better if they know that the wife of the First Medjai does not overtax herself when she is as close as you are to delivering this child.” Cala would not be silenced.
Melleha sighed, it was always the same. Always it was ‘the wife of the First Medjai’ never by her name, or a position she held in her own right – and worse still since she had gotten with child. She had been coddled and closeted away, restricted to what she could do, or where she could be… even what she could eat. She understood – of course she did – the need for Ardeth to have a son and heir, but if any stress taxed her more than another it was their insistence at treating her like a china doll, incapable of doing anything other than rest.
She’d had more freedom living with Adham.
The shock of the sudden, unwelcome thought left her reeling and she actually staggered a little. She growled and pushed Cala away when the other woman came closer to her side to help steady her. This was her dream. This man she had married was kind and gentle and everything she could have wished for in a husband… how dare she doubt now? How dare such a thought so disrupt the harmony and the happiness she had found in her life?
No… all was well… they were only concerned for her. After all it was a dangerous time, but she had every confidence that the Medjai under Sameh’s command would easily repel the attack. She would go back to her home and in a few weeks time she would give birth to the wonderful son she carried… then everything would be right.
She smiled at Cala this time when the young healer took her arm again to lead her to a cushioned space where she could sit, and drink the water they offered to her. It was almost a serene smile as she daydreamed on those wonderful times to come…
She stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the main room, her fingers gripping tightly to the wood. Its solidity gave her strength in legs that seems somehow to have turned to water. Quietly she called her husband’s name, and he jumped to his feet, coming to her at once.
“I think it is time to send for Cala,” she told him, feeling his arms go around her and lead her toward the bedroom, pausing with her as she gripped his shoulders when a contraction pulled at her belly.
While they waited for Cala, he gently held her hand, stroking his fingers over the backs of her own, soothing and supportive in his attention.
“Soon we will see our son,” he told her softly, and pressed a gentle kiss to her brow.
More contractions pulled at her belly, with less time between their coming and she knew he was right, it would be soon, and when Cala came to them, he insisted to stay, to sit behind her so that she might lean against him, take strength from his strength.
The healer bid her to push and she obeyed, breathing deeply and calmly to give herself the strength to bring their child into the world, thinking of nothing other than finally holding him in her arms; feeling him at her breast…
**
Sameh struck hard at the trio of men whose attacks came fast and ferocious against his defence of the path to the heart of the settlement. From the corners of his eyes he could see that several of his warrior brothers fought in the same struggles. The Farhaseed were trying to get in and that could only mean one thing – they wanted the women... or as Sameh suspected was closer to the truth, one woman in particular.
“Drive them back,” he ordered, and as though his words gave them greater strength the Medjai fought harder, regaining ground they had lost.
Both sides were beginning to tire and there had been losses and casualties on both sides. On the battlefield, blue clad healers moved among the fallen of Medjai and Farhaseed alike, giving what aid they could as was their sacred duty.
Sameh felt a surge of pride for his people, and disgust at the man that drove these men, who could have been fine and honourable warriors if given another way, to do such things as they now did.
A blade sliced the fabric of his robes and scored the skin beneath. Sameh hissed at the sting and came on against the man who’d marked him. His own blade moved as a blur in front of him, coming first from one side and then from the other as he sought to keep the other warrior off balance; looked for an opening that would afford him an advantage and give him the chance to strike.
“Medjai, Xatar!”
The cry of alarm came from behind him and turning his head slightly he saw that the Farhaseed had concentrated their attack and had broken through the Medjai line. Several of them now sprinted for the large council hall at the centre of the settlement.
“They must not reach the centre,” he called his order in response as he turned back to face his opponent that he was fighting blind, “Finish them!”
He was confident that the warriors would obey his commands and that confidence lent him resolve to be there at their side when they acted in defence of those precious to them. With great ferocity he swung his blade to break the man’s defences and score a hit on the Farhaseed warrior. The man countered, but his blade bit only air as Sameh, on light feet twisted aside, and in the same moment stabbed home with his attack.
Years of experience told him that his sword-strike was one from which a warrior would not recover – no matter how good the Medjai healer that would tend him, for he knew with certainty that Farhas would not recover his injured after the battle – and so refusing cruelty, as he thrust his blade home, he caught the man in his other hand, pulling him closer as he turned the sword upward to find the man’s heart.
“Go in peace, to Allah, my brother,” he said into the warrior’s ear. He felt the cessation of the other man’s struggles, and the sigh that left him before he went slack in his arms. It was always a bittersweet moment to Sameh, as one triumphed in a fight like that it usually meant the other man’s life, and Sameh did not enjoy killing.
With a sigh he turned and sprinted to join the Medjai that were now engaged in a bitter fight to defend the Tribal centre.
**
The sounds of the fighting had grown closer and closer, and now sounded as though they were right outside the council hall itself. Women that had been sitting around the edges of the room moved fearfully to huddle together in the middle of the room, pulling their children against their skirts and holding them tightly as though to let them go would be to lose them.
Melleha could not help trembling as she watched. These were women used to the dangers of living in one of the few life supporting oases scattered through the Great Sahara desert. Surely they would be used to other tribes and nomads battling with them for water. If they were afraid, then so too, should she be.
As if to underscore that thought a sudden roaring explosion shook the side of the hall and amid the noise and rolling heat that threw many of the women to their knees if not lower, the wall at that side of the room disintegrated into swirling, backlit dust and with a warbling cry, many red-clad demons flooded in.
Women’s screams followed in the wake of the dying blast as the invaders began to move among them, grabbing them and dragging them away from each other – attempting to carry them off. The women fought, some snatching up the warriors’ own daggers from their belts and hacking at them, screaming like banshees. The others ran toward the door, seeking escape by leaving what should have been the protection of the hall. They were barely half way across the room when the door burst inward, admitting more of their attackers, but in their wake came the Medjai warriors, flowing like shadows into the room.
**
Farhas snarled. She was within his grasp, just a moment longer and he would have had her safely in his possession and then the Medjai came. They poured in like scarabs after rotting flesh outnumbering his men at least two to one. Still – he would not be defeated.
“The woman!” he commanded one of his men that was already retreating against the onslaught of defending Medjai. He pushed him back toward the middle of the room, toward where the woman stood, floundering in indecision. “Bring her!”
His obedient warrior raised his weapon and once more waded into the fray, recruiting others as he went.
**
Zhadina spun around, hearing the cry and seeing the scar faced man pushing the others back in their direction. She looked around her… tried to work out why the men would commit to such suicidal commands… and then she saw Melleha, standing a little way behind her, turning first one way and then the other as thought she could not see which way was safest to go. The men were heading in her direction and the Medjai warriors were still fighting to be even close. She had to do something.
Snatching up a fallen dagger in hands that were already red with the blood of one who had tried to take a small child from its mother she began to push her small, lithe form through the knot of jostling bodies that stood between her and Melleha. She would not let anything stop her. She could not allow her to be taken.
Breath burst from her lungs as she stumbled from the writhing mass into the space beyond and barely pausing to take another breath she began to sprint across the small distance. She did not even have a chance to make a plan for how she might achieve the liberation for Melleha that she intended, only to strike, and to strike hard. Perhaps that would give the Medjai warriors time to reach them and take up the defence. She cried for them as she went.
“Medjai, to me!”
Two more steps – barely that – and the leading man among the brutish warriors reached out to pluck Melleha from their midst even as others were reaching for women of their own to claim as prizes. The Medjai were advancing, but too slow… too far away yet.
“No,” she cried in denial, and let the momentum of her charge carry her right into Melleha, striking hard and unbalancing the woman who fell beneath the panicked feet of others seeking to escape the reaching hands.
Zhadina tightened all her muscles to bring herself to a halt and to raise the knife she still carried. Without a thought she punched out her hand, knife leading and almost dropped it as hot blood flowed, pulsating over her fingers. The momentary shock gave way to fear of her own as she faced the dying man who even now kept coming. Panic lent strength to her hand as the pig faced man reached for her throat, his fingers clawing at her even as she stabbed and stabbed and stabbed.
Something struck her hard aside the face, dazed her, and left her staggering as the pain of it broke through the fury that possessed her. Something pulled against the back of her neck, driving her forward again to meet another vicious slap against her face, and then the pressure snapped away. The man in front of her fell, all but sliding down her front, destroying what was left of her balance. She felt fingers close around her wrist, the inexorable pull on her arm commanding she follow. Hardness slammed against her belly, stealing the precious air from her lungs, before awareness faded completely.
**
“Retreat!” the cry came even as Sameh pushed through the battle toward the small knot of women trapped against the side pillar of the hall, bringing with him the warriors not already engaged in battle. The Farhaseed answered their leader’s call, forming a defensive line between the Medjai and those of them encumbered with women of the Tribes.
“Stop them!” he called, but knew that even though the Medjai warriors would try to obey, there was in truth little they could do. The Farhaseed would escape. He knew their tactics and knew that there would be at least half as many of their warriors again who had not engaged in the battle that waited for their fellows just outside the territory of the oasis who would cut the pursuing warriors down with gunfire.
“Pursue them only as far as the end of the settlement,” he instructed one of the senior among them before he pushed the man after the retreating battle. “Call a halt if you have not caught them by then.”
Then he took the remaining warriors to the defence of the women who either fought or cowered to the side of the room, as their age or courage dictated.
**
It was an almost eerie stillness that had fallen after the battle. Cautiously, Melleha unwound her arms from around her head, feeling her bruised muscles screaming in protest at the movement. Someone somewhere was calling her name. It sounded such a long way off.
“Here,” she croaked, trying to get to her feet. The best she could manage was to come to a sitting position. Her back ached as though someone were digging blades into it. Hands closed around her arms and helped her to her feet. She gripped the robes of the man that helped her.
“Lean against me,” he told her and she recognised Sameh’s voice. “Are you hurt?”
“Bruised,” she gasped. “Someone toppled me, and I was trodden on.”
“Cala!” Sameh called for the healer that had been a member of her Haad so long ago now it seemed.
“Sameh,” she breathed, still unable to get enough air, “It’s all right… I’ll be all right once I’ve caught my breath, I—”
It was as though an explosion had gone off inside of her and the backdraft had grabbed every one of the muscles in her belly and her back and knotted them right around her centre. Even her breasts hurt from the force of the squeezing cramp that grabbed hold of her then.
Her fingers tightened into claws against Sameh’s chest and she made a guttural moaning sound. In the midst of her pain she felt someone slip their arm across her tortured back and Cala’s soft voice sounded in worry.
“The child is coming,” she told Sameh. “Quickly – help me bring her to the birthing hall.”
“No,” she moaned in the same guttural tone as before, trying to find a breath as the knotting began to ease a little, though the pain did not, and she felt the slow descent of something wet against her thigh. “Too… early…”
“Try to be calm, Melleha,” Cala said, moving to one side as Sameh came to the other. “Everything will be all right.”
But there was blood on Cala’s hand, and looking down she could see the same against her skirt… she moaned again in denial, “Not again…”
**
Outriders came up on him and the patrol he led, riding fast as he and his men approached Al-Dakhla, returning from Ninth tribe. As they drew closer he saw that many of them bore fresh injuries. There had been battle.
“Tell me,” he demanded as the first of the riders reached him.
“Farhaseed,” the man spat into the sand at the side of his mount. “They attacked, killed many and carried off several of the woman.”
His head swam in extreme worry, bile rising in his throat at that thought, no… the knowledge of what that would mean.
“Who?” he asked breathlessly. His warrior shook his head.
“We do not yet know the extent of it. The families were accounting for their members as we left. We were sent to ride and bring you home. The healers say that you are needed.”
Melleha…
Though he now knew she had not been amongst those taken – as he would have expected she would be if the Farhaseed truly were behind the attack – he knew there was something wrong… feared for her; for their child. Without waiting for another word to pass the warriors lips he kicked his mount into a full gallop toward First Tribe.
**
Meela shielded her eyes against the sun as she watched the dust rising on the horizon as it came closer.
“Loch Nah?” she turned and walked quickly back to the man she had chosen as her lieutenant; her bodyguard and perhaps… if ever she grew bored or needful… something more.
He lowered the spyglass and spat, “Medjai,” into the sand.
“What,” she snatched the telescope from his hands and peered through it toward the cloud, “that can’t be. Farhas—”
“Cannot be trusted,” Whisper hissed in her ear, “I did warn you.”
She lowered the spyglass and slapped it against Loch Nah’s chest before she rounded on Whisper.
“When I want your comments,” she snapped, advancing on the man, “I will ask for them.”
“And even when you do,” he responded evenly, a knife in his hand and against the skin of her throat even before she could take another step, “you do not listen. I told you that Farhas would not follow the advice of a woman, no matter how sensible that advice – how beneficial to him. He is a law unto himself and will always follow his own path, no matter what he has said to the contrary.”
Ignoring Loch Nah’s gun that was pressed against his temple, Whisper released her and paced away a few steps, examining his fingernails and cleaning them with the tip of his dagger. She watched him expectantly, knowing there was more of his peculiar kind of wisdom and advice and that she would soon hear it.
“If you truly want to keep those Medjai dogs from gnawing at your bone you must take it upon yourself to be the fleas upon their back and keep them scratching,” he said.
“Easily enough said,” she snapped, but was prevented from saying more by the thundering of hooves as the Medjai patrol arrived and rode through their small camp, tearing down tents and smashing equipment before herding the hired hands to stand with her and the others.
“Which of you is leader here?” An older warrior, his rifle pointed at Loch Nah’s chest demanded.
“I am in charge,” she said defiantly. “How dare you come in here and destroy my equipment, my research… the Egyptian government shall hear about this.”
“I do not care who you tell,” the man on horseback told her almost respectfully, “so long as you leave this place and do not return. It is on pain of death that you do so, make no mistake of that.”
“By whose authority—” she began, playing into the role of irritated archaeologist. He interrupted, of course he did.
“You have until dusk to gather your things and leave this place. Leave… or die.”
Without waiting for her to say more, he wheeled his horse around and galloped out of the City of the Dead with his men behind him.
Loch Nah raised his gun to take a shot at the retreating Medjai, but faster than those flying horsemen Whisper grabbed the barrel and pushed it down, saying to Meela as he did, “Use what you have.”
“Meaning?”
“Hafez has brought the researcher from
“Give them Al-Mahdi…” she whispered with a cruel smile on her face, “after all… he is a known associate of Farhas.”
**
He paced back and forth outside the doorway to the room in which the healers worked with Melleha. The cries she gave, though more frequent sounded to him to be higher and weaker and the worried faces of the healers that came from within to gather more supplies did little to inspire confidence in him. There were still weeks before she should have birthed the child… weeks. It was as before… the last time…
She had made such an effort to see that he was comfortable after so long in the desert, and he smiled softly from where he lounged against the pillows of the couch as she walked across the room to refill his cup with water from the pitcher.
“I could have done that,” he said, almost teasing her.
“I know,” she had a smile in her voice today, and he was glad of that. She always seemed so sad, so unhappy… he refused to let himself think any more on that. “But I wanted to.”
She had turned and was walking back to him when she suddenly gave a cry of pain, and dropped the cup, stumbling to lean against the centre pillar of the house. He was at her side, his arms around her supportively before he could count another heart beat.
“Ardeth…” she gasped his name and pressed her hand to her belly. He did not wait, simply lifted her into his arms and carried her as quickly as he could to the healers.
They took her from his arms and pushed at him until he was outside of the room, the thick curtain of camel hide between them. All he could do was pace, and listen to the cries and the soft murmuring of the women that tended his wife, until one of them – not so long after – came out to him. She had a terrible, sad expression on her face.
“I am sorry, First Medjai,” she said, “there was nothing we could do to stop the labour and the child was barely developed…”
She caught his arm as he staggered, and led him to a stool, kneeling before him and handing him water from a nearby pitcher.
“Melleha?” he breathed, looking up at the aging woman.
“Your wife is young and will recover from this, Ardeth,” she used his name and squeezed his arm in sympathy. “Believe it or not, many families recover from grief such as this and so will you. Melleha will soon be as right as the oasis waters and will bear you children. Do not fear.”
“I shouldn’t have…” he started, never then or after able to explain why he should have opened up to the other woman as he did. He started again, “I do not bear the love for her that she craves… only concern – care. It is the best that I can give to her. I did this to her.”
She smiled and shook her head. “Many a union among the Medjai is such. And you have a duty that you know you cannot shirk. Ardeth Bay, do not grieve for what could have been. Your woman is who she is. You will have a family and then you will find love – for your children if not for your wife. It is enough to care.”
“No.”
“Yes,” she argued, “for she has love enough for both of you.”
**
One of the two women that supported her pressed a cool damp cloth against her head, rubbing her back with the other hand and whispering words against her ear. They were meant to be soothing, Melleha knew, but she could barely hear them for the ringing of the pain that seemed to grip all of her, barely abating now.
“Please…” she squeaked, looking in desperation toward Cala through the frame of her raised knees.
“Your child is coming, Melleha,” Cala said. “Listen to Mariah and push when she says. You must push, do you understand? I know you are tired, but so is your child and it cannot come without your help.”
She cried out as another wrenching pain spread upward from her womb to invade the whole of her body. She took a deep breath and strained weakly to obey Mariah’s command to push.
Hour upon hour it seemed to her she continued in this pain wracked hell that was slowly splitting her in two. She had long since ceased to understand the healers’ urgent whispers among each other, even though she heard them clearly enough.
“Go,” Cala said to one of the junior healers, “bring Elder Sajid and Sameh.”
The young healer hurried to obey as Cala returned full attention to her and to the ache that still grew between her legs.
“Listen to me, Melleha,” Cala said, and fixed her with a stare that broke through the disorienting haze of pain that swaddled her; drowned her. “I must reach in to help your child to birth. There is no more time. When the next pain comes you must breathe and not push, you understand. No matter how much you want to, you must not push.”
Swallowing hard in the terrifying moment of lucidity, she nodded. Something was wrong… terribly wrong, and she had to trust to the skill of the healers to make it right, but to surrender herself to them was almost as frightening as knowing something was not right.
The next of her pains stole her breath and she cried out, a long cry that held her immobile, neither pushing nor breathing as she had been told. She felt each moment of Cala’s reaching, and the tugging amid the pain… the stretching and then… the sudden absence of pain… of anything for just a moment, before renewed pain – a sharp ache was pressing against her belly, and something hot and wet splashed against her legs.
**
Cala swore, and with the child in her hands moved aside so another of the healers could press hot cloths against the bleeding, and take over kneading at Melleha’s belly. As she fought to bring the child’s breath she worried over the one chance for an easy solution – that the bleeding would stop when Melleha expelled what was left inside her of the child’s birth – but in cases like this, it was a slim chance.
Even as she thought it, the healer called for more hot cloths to help stop the bleeding inside of her.
The child – a girl – in her arms gave a little cough, another and then began a shuddering cry. Cala grabbed another cloth and rubbed the fragile girl cleaning her, and stimulating her senses at the same time. She was happy to see that when she touched a hand to the child’s cheek, her head turned as instinct taught her to seek food.
Carefully she laid the little girl against her mother’s breast, calling softly to the mother.
“Melleha, here is your child… your daughter… you must give her suck.”
Even as she spoke the tiny little girl latched on to her mother’s breast and began to suck, drinking down the first, important, life giving milk.
**
“Yes, but she stifles me with it,” he answered the woman in his memory. Then Ardeth stopped pacing as Sameh and his uncle Sajid came into the birthing tent. They came to stand one each side of him, their presence supportive, even if they looked as worried as he felt.
He looked closer at his uncle and saw the redness, almost imperceptible, that ringed his eyes.
“Sajid?” he asked, frowning, distracted from his own worry for a moment.
“Later, my son,” Sajid breathed, “in a while.”
“No, Uncle. Tell me. What is wrong?” he demanded, his frown deepening. Sajid sighed, and bit his lip and Sameh reached out to squeeze the Elder’s forearm. It was he that spoke in the Elder’s place.
“We cannot find Zhadina,” he said.
“We found this, clutched in the hands of one of the dead Farhaseed.” His uncle held out a turquoise pendant.
Ardeth’s blood chilled.
“Tumbleweed,” he whispered almost in disbelief, and then added, “they have surely taken her.”
Sajid nodded, his eyes filling anew with tears that he angrily wiped away. “If they have my daughter, then she is lost to us. Probably already dead.”
Sameh shook his head, “I disagree, Honoured Elder. I think they will likely take the women back to his stronghold.”
“I pray that she is dead,” Sajid said coldly, and Ardeth knew that his uncle feared what would happen to her if she had to live as Farhas’ captive, not that he really wished that she were dead.
“Pray Allah that she is somehow safe,” Ardeth took the middle road.
**
She felt so light headed… almost as though she was floating on the warm waters of the oasis. The voices, and the pain and everything else seemed so far away now. It was almost peaceful.
Something warm was placed on her chest, and a moment after she felt an almost pleasant pulling sensation against her breast. It spread a warmth and comfort from its touch that flowed outward to weigh against her limbs and against her body until she was too heavy to float any more and the world slowly came back into focus.
Words that had been floating among the clouds that had surrounded her reached her and suddenly made sense… child… daughter… suck…
“No…” she moaned softly and again more loudly, “Wrong… it’s not… my child… son. I had a son…”
“No, Melleha,” Cala’s voice was as soft as the hand she stroked through her head. “You have a beautiful daughter – small but beautiful.”
“No,” she moaned, almost growled as the confusion and light-headedness crowded in again. Her belly ached in time with the pulling, sucking feeling against her breast. She pushed at the thing, trying to get herself free of it. “No!”
She couldn’t have failed… wouldn’t… She didn’t go through all of that degradation; surrendering to a man that did not love her, but took his pleasure from her anyway; enduring all of the coddling and imprisonment, however kindly meant and all of the unbearable pain of the day just for this… a girl?
“Melleha, peace…” Cala said softly, reaching for her, “you must not move too much…”
“Get it away,” she demanded, trying to twist away from the creature at her breast, but they held her fast… were still pressing at her belly, and between her legs… and the pain still assaulted her. “Not a girl… please…”
“Oh, Melleha,” Cala breathed, running her fingers through her hair again.
“Get it away!” she screamed at the other woman, and fell to sobbing helplessly.
**
Alarm flooded through him anew as his wife’s frantic cries became wordless screams and he was surer than ever that the child had been stillborn. He felt his uncle grip his arm, and Sameh’s comforting hand on his shoulder.
Before he could say anything to either of them, Cala came from inside, carrying in her arms a small wrapped bundle. He frowned in confused relief as he saw the swaddled child moving in her arms.
“Ardeth,” Cala greeted him solemnly and held out the little nest of cloth that surrounded his child. Carefully he took it into his arms, disturbing the soft fabric enough to be able to see the little face, creamy skin with a shock of dark hair around its head. The child was beautiful. He looked up at the healer again.
“A daughter,” she said to him.
He shook his head, correcting her softly, “A jewel, Jawharah.”
Cala smiled at him, repeating the name he had chosen before she said, “I am pleased for you, First Medjai.”
He looked up from his daughter’s face again to ask of the healer, “Her mother?” and frowned as the smile fell away from the healer’s face. “Cala, tell me.”
“We are doing all that we can, Ardeth,” she said to him quietly and pressed a hand to his chest. “But she was injured, and the birth was hard. She still bleeds inside. We will do everything we can to save her, but…”
She stopped speaking and sighed, looking at the others, and especially at the Elder he supposed she had summoned. Each of the men took a firmer grasp on him, lending him their strength for the bad news he knew was about to follow.
“But?” he prompted, barely able to find his voice.
“But even if she survives, she will never bear another child. Mother Mariah has seen this kind of hurt before. The blood comes from the vessel that brings lifeblood to the womb. When we stop the bleeding to save her life, we stifle the womb. It cannot be any other way.” She reached up to cup his cheek with her hand and he leaned wearily into the healer’s touch. “I am truly sorry, Ardeth, but if you are to give the Tribes an heir, it will not be born of Melleha’s body.”
He staggered, and held his daughter closer to him as his uncle and his second supported him. The implications of what the healer was telling him… and formally too, before an elder of the Tribes… everything he’d done… all the pain he’d caused in taking Melleha to wife…
The words that came from him were a quiet prayer for forgiveness…
“Leave us,” Sajid told Cala adding the formal words of acceptance, “I have witnessed your words, and will counsel the First Medjai.”
**
Her stomach rolled as a storm tossed ship, fear throwing the lead that weighted her legs until they felt alien… someone else’s limbs. The five of them huddled together, clinging to each other as the man swept in on them, fury and hate the only things that were visible in his face.
“Get them down!” he snapped at the men who were surrounding them. “I want their heads.”
The screams of her companions wrapped around her – a shawl of hopelessness and despair as rough hands grabbed her and forced her to her knees, pushing at her head until she bowed it, until she felt the cold of steel against her neck. The screams turned to sobs, a strange sound track to the silent tears that fell from her own eyes as she was unable to voice the fear and sorrow of her own… unable even to force the words of a final prayer to Allah as the cold lifted away from the back of her neck.
“Please, Sayiidi…!” she raised her eyes to watch as one of the Medjai women threw herself forward, to prostrate herself in supplication before the man Zhadina knew must be Farhas.
“Get away from me, bitch!” he kicked at her – kicked her head and sent her sprawling back. “You are not even worth my time… none of you! Not even in standing to watch your blood flow.”
Zhadina looked up further as he signalled the men of his inner circle and saw them lower the blades they held over them all. She wanted to reach out to the woman he had kicked; help her to her knees if not her feet, but she dare not move… knew somehow their fate hung balanced on the gossamer thread of Farhas’ temper.
“Argh!” he growled at last, and she realised that he had spent the last few minutes appraising each of them for their appearance and spirit. “Not a one of them has any worth to me. Have them thrown to the dogs that gathered them like the scraps they are!”
Along with the other women she was hauled carelessly to her feet and pushed ahead of one of the finely clad warriors of the Farhaseed out of the audience chamber toward where she had seen the soldiers go once they had arrived. The lead weight of the fear that had begun to lift from her belly settled again, hard and cold as she realised they were to be given as playthings to his soldiers. She tried to halt her steps, to find a way to escape, but the elite guard that propelled her along gave her another push that almost sent her sprawling to the dusty ground of the courtyard.
**
Ardeth walked quietly as he entered the room to which they had brought Melleha and sat gently at her side. Almost hesitantly he reached out for her hand. She stirred at the movement and opened her eyes. They were glazed with the effects of the medicines they had given her to keep her quiet, and to dull the pain.
“Ardeth,” she whispered, and lifted her hand to meet with his. “I’m sorry…”
“There is nothing you need to apologise for, Melleha,” he told her, gently squeezing her hand. “I should have been here to protect you… to defend against Farhas.”
“You couldn’t have known,” she told him, shaking her head against the pillow.
He too shook his head, refusing to allow her to comfort his spirit when it was she that needed to be comforted.
“I have failed you, kalila. I have failed all of them.”
“You could not have known,” she insisted, then gestured to her body. “And this was an accident.”
He reached out to wipe away the tears that came from her eyes in spite of the sedative they had given her against emotions that he knew must have been so raw. He knew the healers… they would have explained it all to her. She must know.
As if to confirm his thoughts she said softly, “They tell me you named her Jawharah. It is a good name. I suppose she is precious now.”
He reached again for her hand as the tears came faster on the end of her admission. If they had not forbidden him to move her, he would have taken her into his arms and held her. He had done this to her. He brought her this grief. To give her comfort was the least he could do.
“She would always have been precious, no matter what,” he tried to reassure her with words.
“But she should have been a son,” she wept.
He shook his head, “She is our child.”
“But not your heir. She cannot be your heir and now…”
“Melleha,” he leaned down to press a gentle kiss against her forehead, “We need not speak of this now.”
She raised her hand to hold him in place, pressed her cheek against his.
“Oh, Ardeth,” she sobbed. “I wanted so much to give you a son.”
He turned his head to kiss her cheek, fighting back an unexpected wave of annoyance at her persistence in this… this obsession. It was another of the things that stifled him, but it wasn’t fair to simply dismiss her feelings on this, and most certainly not at this time… injured as she was, in spirit as well as in body.
“Think on it no more,” he said as softly as he could as he kissed her cheek again. “Grief will not allow you to recover, my wife. Only rest and grow strong. Our daughter needs her mother.”
Cala took a step closer from where she had been hovering in the shadowed part of the room behind him. She held Jawharah in her arms. Melleha turned her head away from them at the movement and closed her eyes.
Ardeth sighed softly, biting his lip. He felt Cala’s hand on his shoulder and the brief squeeze of her fingers that told him she would be outside and he should come to her. Once again he leaned down and kissed Melleha’s cheek. If she felt the kiss she gave no outward sign of it.
“Rest,” he told her softly, and quietly left the room.
“It will be different when she feels stronger, Ardeth,” Cala told him softly. He only met her eyes and raised his eyebrow. He was not entirely a fool. He knew of mothers that rejected their children as it appeared Melleha had done. Cala looked down for a moment, apologetic in the way she avoided his gaze. Then she looked at him again and said, “I will bring her to Firyal. She has enough milk and Sameh said their son is almost weaned. The arrangement will benefit them both.”
Ardeth nodded. “Aiwa,” he said. “It is good.”
Before she took away his daughter, Ardeth crossed to take Jawharah from Cala’s arms and to kiss her softly on the brow.
“Grow well, my little jewel,” he said gently, “and do not fear… your Baba loves you.”
As he handed her back he could not help but remember the healer’s words as she had told him of the loss of the child they would have had before.
“…You will have a family and then you will find love – for your children if not for your wife. It is enough to care.”
**
Terror was not a strong enough word to describe the feeling that assaulted her, causing the beating of her heart to all but drown her in her own blood as it raced through her veins.
One by one, the women held by the Farhaseed elite were thrown to the common soldiers in the barracks. The men fell on them like packs of hyenas, fours, fives, sixes of them tearing at clothing, pawing at flesh and throwing themselves on them, taking them like animals with no propriety at all. They were animals in rut… and overjoyed to be sharing the vessels on which they emptied their passions.
It was horror incarnate… living evil… and Zhadina trapped by it could not bear to watch, waiting for the time when the man beside her would remember himself… recover from the morbid fascination that now gripped him and push her too into the pit of hell. She tugged on her arm until the fabric slipped through his fingers and she could turn away… find some place to hide… escape later… when the men were all sated and sleeping as she knew they would.
Turning, she almost collided with the Farhaseed soldier standing at her side. He grasped her by the arm and pulled her quickly away from the others even as she struggled. He pulled her closer and the urgent hiss of his voice penetrated her fear.
“If you want to live, follow me.”
She faltered, and then one of her companions cried out. It was a scream such as she had never heard… a mortal scream of fear, pain and the passing of a soul. Nothing else could have urged her to leave with the soldier as she did… but she almost willingly ran to keep up as he took her arm and led her from the barracks; across the courtyard and toward a small dwelling on the other side.
**
Sajid passed him a small glass of hot coffee as he wandered, feeling wretched and lost, into his uncle’s home. The Medjai Elder took him by the arm and led him to sit on the deep, cushion piled couch in front of the small fire that warmed the room.
“Ardeth,” Sameh reached to clap his hand in greeting. “I am sorry that a day that should have been joyous for you has ended in such a way.”
He sighed and shook his head. “We are all of us in Allah’s hands, Sameh. He has some other design that we cannot know. We must accept what has been given us.”
“You truly believe that, my son?” his uncle asked, coming to sit opposite him in a low canvas chair.
Ardeth snorted, “No more than you do, Uncle.”
“Then let us not mince words or waste our time with empty platitudes,” Sajid said, “We are family here, Ardeth… let us speak the truth of our feelings and have done with it.”
“They will insist I take a second wife,” Ardeth nodded at his uncle’s words and started by going for the jugular of the beast that snarled at him this day. He was speaking of the other Elders. “And claim it is my duty to the Twelve Tribes.”
“They will insist you have an heir,” Sajid corrected. “And in that they are right. The Tribes must have the security of knowing who will lead after you are gone. Our family has led the Twelve Tribes of the Medjai for many hundreds of thousands of years.”
“Then my daughter’s son can lead after I am no more,” he snapped, his head aching.
“It is not enough, my brother.” Sameh sorrowfully voiced what he knew in his heart to be true.
“Then marry her to your youngest son, Sajid,” he snapped in frustration.
“No, Ardeth no,” Sajid soothed him softly, “We are too close kin and well you know it. Even my eldest son’s son would carry too high a risk for the Tribes. Would that there were another way, my son, but you have no choice. You must give the Tribes an heir. Take a concubine if you will not take a wife.”
“How can I take any other woman?” he lost his temper momentarily and threw the coffee glass across the room to shatter against the wall. Sajid did not even flinch; he simply reached out and poured him another glass. Ardeth went on imploringly, “How? When Melleha’s heart is broken already at all of this… I have done this to her… I have given her this pain. How can I hurt her any more?”
Sajid sighed. “Nephew, you know and she knows that you do not love her. You have always been honest enough about that with each other… and…” he held up his hand when Ardeth opened his mouth, meaning to interrupt. He closed it again and listened as his uncle continued, “and yes… she may have harboured the hope that love could grow with time… and still it might, you clearly care about her feelings. But you and she also know you have a sworn duty, as leader of the Tribes, to provide for their safety when you are no more. Both of you swore to honour that on the day of your wedding. She as much as you must honour it now. Yes… what has happened today is a tragedy – do not think I try to lessen that – but the truth of it is… she has her life. She is and can still remain your wife… the two of you have a beautiful daughter… and now, you must give the tribes a son and since it cannot be born of her womb you must take another woman – to wife or to your bed…”
Ardeth sighed heavily and stared at his uncle for a long time. It sounded so cold, so clinical… but it was also, every word of it, the truth. He closed his eyes and sighed again… trying to find a point with which to argue… he could not. He covered his face with his hands.
“Even according to the Law of Twelve, Ardeth, that woman can be any of your choosing.” Sameh said softly.
“Do not dare!” he snapped as he snatched his hands away from his face to stare at his second in something approaching horror. He noted his uncle’s confused expression. “Do you think I enjoy causing pain to the ones that matter in my life?”
Angrily he got to his feet and stormed in the direction of the door. He knew Sameh had spoken in well meaning words, and ordinarily would not have reacted so strongly to what was, after all, a thought that was fighting to cross his mind all by itself. But the righteous man he was had pushed it aside and accepted the tearing pain in his heart as he did. After all he had put her through he could not now turn to her and ask that she accept him under such circumstances. It would be wrong… even if she had not promised herself as a healer and told him that it brought her peace. Even if he had not believed the peace to be true for the pain she had showed to him from the depth of her heart, shining in the tears of her eyes… even if…
“Do you not think that, when she hears of what has happened, she will not herself seek you out?” Sameh’s soft voice broke in on his quiet misery as he leaned against Sajid’s doorframe.
He sighed. What could he say?
“And when she comes to your door, Ardeth and tells you, ‘here I am,’ will you turn her away again? What excuse will you give her? Will you tell her you cannot love her? We both know that is a lie. You do, as she does you.”
“I let her go, Sameh,” he croaked, tears beginning to spill from his eyes. “She asked it of me in the name of love, and since I could give her nothing more of myself – I gave her that.”
Sameh shook his head, “She will come to you.”
“No.” Ardeth looked down, studying the sandy ground as he confessed, “That one possibility was the only saving light in this dark day. I could have accepted that… could have found some way to make it possible, but… she will not come.”
Sameh frowned as Ardeth looked up again into his face. “I do not understand.”
“She… has… sworn herself to the Healer’s, Sameh,” he said, his voice full of sorrow. “For the two of us… it is too late. I will love her into eternity, my friend… but I will never hold her in my arms.”
**
Zhadina pressed her back against the wall of the room as the soldier pulled the bolt across the door and then threw himself into a couch to begin taking off his boots.
“Do you have a name, Medjai?” he asked without looking up at her.
“Zhadina,” she said, looking everywhere around the room.
“Well, Zhadi,” he said, “May I call you Zhadi?”
“No,” she snapped, looking at him in horror as he shortened her name. “Only my cousin calls me Zhadi.”
“Zhana then,” he said with a shrug, and then he looked up at her. “If I were you, my Zhana, I would stop looking for a way to escape. Outside of these walls, they will simply fall on you as they have your sisters.”
“I suppose you want my gratitude for saving me,” she spat.
“That is up to you,” he said and got up to pour water into two glasses. One of them he brought to her. Stopping and holding the glass at arms length for her to reach when she flinched back against the stone wall. When she took the glass from him he returned to his place on the couch.
Her hand shook as she first sipped and then gulped at the water. She was so thirty and the water so clean and fresh and cold that she could not stop herself. Moments later he all but leaped to her side and snatched the glass from her hand, and taking her arm pushed her roughly to sit in a low chair.
“Sip,” he told her, “do not gulp. You will make yourself sick.”
“What do you care?” she demanded trying to sound angry and not terrified.
“Perhaps I do not,” he told her as he handed her another glass of water. “The man you killed? He was my brother.”
Her heart and stomach changed places in her body and the tremor in her hands increased so much that water spilled over her fingers. She had to set the glass down on the table that stood beside the chair. It suddenly became clear in her mind that this man only wanted her for himself so that he could punish her for killing his brother.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered in a tremulous voice. To her surprise, which did little to assuage the fear that filled her with nausea, he laughed.
“No you are not,” he said after taking a sip of his own water. It seemed to calm him. “And neither am I.” Then after another pause, and with a very dark look on his face, like fury and contempt all rolled together to one terrible expression, he added, “I hated my brother.”
“Oh,” she whispered, and not knowing what else to do she reached for her glass again, spilling a little more of the water as she brought it to her lips to take a sip. She felt him watching her… felt his eyes moving over her… taking her in. She could not bring herself to look at him, but closed her eyes instead, trying to see him in her mind’s eye as something other than a Farhaseed warrior… her enemy…
She remembered he was tall… and that his face was clean… no beard or moustache marred his features. His hair was long and mostly straight but tied behind his neck. It was dark, almost as dark as the natives of this part of
She opened her own eyes and found herself gazing into the smoky, hazel green of his as he had come to crouch before her, looking up. She swallowed hard, and reached out for a strand of his hair that had escaped its bindings. Her fingers barely brushed against the surprising softness of it before he moved his head away from her hand; took her wrist and pushed her arm down to rest against the arm of the chair.
He crossed the room again then, moving away from her, and her arm burned where he had touched her.
“Are you hungry, Zhana?”
“Yes,” she squeaked, though she shook her head for no.
He laughed again. “Which is it, girl? Yes or no?”
“Yes,” she said softly, almost in tears, “I am very hungry.”
“Then come,” he gestured with his head for her to join him where straight backed chairs surrounded a small table which stood before the fire, “and we shall eat.”
As she crossed the room, hesitantly, she felt alternately as though she would disgrace herself by letting go of her bladder, or pass out from the stress and the tension and the fear.
“Please,” she said at last, “I need…”
He nodded his head toward a door at the far side of the room, close by where she had cowered when he first brought her here. She backed away toward the door, keeping him in sight and watching him as he stirred a small pot that hung over the fire, before he started to serve the food into two dishes. While he was occupied she risked turning her back and all but ran into the privy.
Behind the closed door she wept, sobbed openly, not thinking for a moment that he would hear… not understanding why he had brought her here if not for revenge at the death of his brother. He was Farhaseed… Farhaseed were the enemy, they were evil, and they had no feelings for anyone… what they had done to her fellow captives had proven that…
“The food is growing cold, Zhadina. Come out,” his voice called through the door. It was a tone of command, and after a moment more to sort out what remained to be done, she washed up and slipped back into the main room. She wrapped her arms around her, trembling with a cold she did not truly feel as she came to the table.
“I do not even know your name,” she said, making no effort to sit down.
“I am called Kamal,” he looked up at her and raised and eyebrow, “Now eat.”
Carefully she sat down, not comfortable with being so close to him, and pulled the dish closer to her. When he reached out to the centre of the table she flinched again, but he merely broke a piece of bread from the loaf and offered it to her.
She took it hesitantly and murmured her thanks. He shrugged and set about his food, eating like a man with a healthy appetite, but not at all in the slovenly way she had expected.
She picked up her own spoon and began to eat. The food was good and soon, in spite of her fear, she was fighting not to bolt it down like a starving animal. He was watching her again when she glanced at him and without being able to stop herself, after she swallowed the food she had in her mouth she asked, “What do you want from me?”
He simply raised his eyebrow in answer, instead saying, “There is more if you are still hungry. Otherwise, we can rest. It is late.”
“I’m not tired,” she lied. She was bone weary from the journey, but too afraid to even think about sleep.
“After such a long journey… I doubt that,” he said and went back to eating his food. When he was finished, and she was likewise, he took the dishes to a wooden bowl on the countertop that ran along the side of the wall. He took a steaming pan from the fire and tipped the contents – hot water – into the bowl… taking a knife from his belt he flaked off some grains of soap from the bar next to the bowl.
“Let me do that,” Zhadina said, the words coming from her lips before she could stop herself again.
He shrugged and moved away. “As you wish.”
She stood and crossed the room to scrub the dishes with the brush that floated in the bowl, then she dried them on the dishcloth she found folded nearby. She tried to use the everyday activity to calm herself, to try and stop herself from feeling as ill as she was, more and more, beginning to feel – dizzy and sick. In truth it did little to help.
When she turned from the work it was to find she was alone in the room. She stood very still, and could hear him moving around in the room at the back of the dwelling, beyond the door to the privy. Though she knew it must be the bedroom, she refused to think of it… refused to think of anything that could mean… She shook her head, banishing herself from that path of thought and instead took advantage of the fact that he had left her alone. She quickly searched the counter for something she could use as a weapon and then walked toward the door and began to pull at the bolt.
Well oiled, the heavy metal pinioning the door slid from the housing. Her hand closed on the latch and lifting it as quietly as she could she began to open the door, gripping the knife she had taken in the other hand.
She had it open almost enough to slip her slight frame through when his hand slammed it closed again, tearing the latch from her fingers. Without thinking she turned and lashed out with the knife, but he was ready for that, and caught her wrist and brought it to slam against the doorframe. The pain jarred through her arm and her hand opened. The knife clattered to the floor, and he kicked it away, before pressing closer, pinning her to the door.
“Let me go,” she struggled against him.
“Where would you go, little Medjai?” he asked her. “What would you do if they found you? Or would you try to steal a horse and run? They would catch you. Trust me, Zhadina, outside of these walls – if you are lucky – you are a dead woman.”
She shuddered, remembering the screams of her fellow women at the hands of the Farhaseed soldiers. It was a sound she would never forget as long as she drew breath.
He let go of her then, but did not move away. She pressed herself back against the door, breathing hard, her heart beating faster than a tiny desert mouse as he reached out to lift a strand of hair from her cheek, where it had fallen in their scuffle. The touch was gentle and that drew threads of confusion around her.
“Am I so very terrible to you?” he asked, his voice the softest it had ever been, and on the end of the question he stepped back, away from her, and spread his arms to both sides of him as if inviting her to survey him. He turned slowly around, his posture the same, and then stood facing her with his arms still spread wide.
He had changed his clothes. His red and black uniform had been replaced by a white shirt with ties at the neck and a simple pair of billowing black pants. The fabric of the shirt looked soft, and the ties were open to reveal his tan chest beneath. He had loosed his hair from its binding and it hung, freshly brushed, against his shoulders, curling slightly only at the very ends. It framed his face, an elongated oval shape with a solid, masculine jaw. His lips were full and even when, as now, his expression was serious, his lips had a natural tendency to curve upwards at their edges, and his smoky hazel eyes promised depths and mysteries to the man that stood before her.
She couldn’t help but wonder what he would look like if he smiled.
Slowly he lowered his arms to his sides again and tilted his head a little, raising one eyebrow as if wondering what thoughts were going through her head.
She looked him over again, from the top of his head down to his feet, bare feet that were brushed on the tops by the long length of the pants he wore. She swallowed hard suddenly aware that as he stood before her now, he seemed somehow softer… kinder than the Farhaseed warrior she knew him to be… and that there were parts of her that found an attraction in what she saw… but that thought frightened her even more.
“Why?” she asked him, her voice barely a whisper.
“I thought we had been through that,” he said, but she shook her head, cutting him off.
“Why bring me here at all… from Al-Dhakla I mean.”
She cupped her wrist in her hand where he had slammed it against the doorframe. When he approached she flinched from him again, but he reached out and caught hold of her sleeve, to draw her away from the door and to the couch, where he made her sit and fetched warmed water and a cloth… and a dark glass jar from a shelf by the privy door.
Pulling up a stool he pushed her sleeve back and gently began to examine and then to bathe her wrist. Through all of it he gave no answer to her question. Not until his long fingers began to carefully rub the ointment from the jar into the back of her wrist and along the sides did he speak again.
“Your bravery inspired me,” he told her quietly, “I wanted to talk to you. There was Hazim advancing on the other woman and without a thought you put yourself between the two of them. My two brothers are perhaps the cruellest, most ruthless men I know. And you… a slip of a girl… without a moment’s hesitation stood up to them. I have never seen a woman do that before. It… was perhaps the most attractive thing I’ve ever seen.”
In spite of herself she blushed and told him, “There were other ways you could have talked to me. You could have surrendered and asked for me.”
He shook his head, and when he spoke his voice was sorrowful and almost tired. “They would have killed me without a thought. I am Farhaseed – enemy to the Medjai. There can be no surrender, Zhadina, make no mistake. This conflict between us can end only one of two ways… with the annihilation of the Farhaseed… or the Medjai. There can be no other way.”
“You are wrong,” she told him. “My people are—”
“Merciful? Spare me,” he said, and on those words the wall that had, for a time, deconstructed itself before her sprang once more into place. The softness in his voice retreated and almost angrily he screwed the lid back onto the jar of ointment. “You will likely bruise, but nothing more.”
“Thank you,” she said softly as he returned the jar to its place on the shelf. She felt suddenly at a loss with this distance between them. Her breath caught a little in her chest, then shuddered on the way out. Tears pricked at the back of her eyes… it was all too much and Kamal had her confused… and she was hurt and…
“Go,” he told her, “if that is what you want. I will not stop you. But neither can I save you again. If you leave here, I cannot protect you any more.”
“And if I stay?” She stood up and turned to face him, mustering all her courage to look him in the eyes and hold his steady gaze for as long as she dared.
Without saying anything, though with almost an almost imperceptible shake of his head, he turned and started to pad toward the bedroom.
She was caught between choices that were equally as bleak… she could accept this man’s protection and everything else this meant or she could take her chances and run. Perhaps she would make it from the Farhaseed fortress and into the open desert, but what then? She had no food, no water… she did not even know where she was to be able to find shelter and keep herself safe. And if she did not escape the fortress, what was her fate then? Would she be thrown to the animals that were the Farhaseed soldiers, or be taken to Farhas himself? Either way it seemed to her that she faced the threat of death, humiliation and dishonour at every turn…
Her whole body shook as she crossed the room toward the door. She could barely grasp the bolt in her fingers they trembled so much, but at last she pulled it hard and it rasped into place, securing the door against intruders.
She heard him stop walking, and leaned her head against the cool wood of the door. He sighed softy from behind her, and then said simply, “Come.”
She swallowed hard once more and slowly walked across the room, following him into the bedroom and trying her hardest not to jump outside of her skin when he let the dividing curtain fall behind her, or to back away when he reached for her to draw her into his arms.
She had known he was tall but now, for the first time she truly noticed how tall he was, and how massive he seemed and she felt dwarfed in his arms, a sapling to his oak. She pressed her trembling, cold hands against his chest and he covered them briefly with one of his own before he raised her chin on the side of his index finger and leaned down to take their first kiss from her lips.
She gasped at the silken press of them against her own and shook against him as he deepened the kiss, capturing her lips with his and pressing the caress of his tongue against her own. Slowly at first, the kiss progressed until she began to lose herself in it; in the feelings that were stirring in spite of her fear; in Kamal… until his passion overtook his restraint and he wrapped her more tightly in his arms, deepening the kiss still further.
Panic burst through her from the tingling in her belly and she began to push against him, struggling with him to be free of his arms, of the kiss, needing to breathe and almost suffocating.
He let go of her and she stumbled backward as the kiss broke, snatching breaths from the air that seemed too hot, too full of conflicting emotions. He reached for her, cupped her cheek in his hand and caressed her face gently with a movement of his thumb.
“Please do not fight me, Zhadina,” he said breathlessly.
“Kamal,” she gasped, already turning her head a little to lean into his touch.
He moaned softly as she said his name, and pulled her to him again, into another passionate kiss that left her dizzy, barely able to stand for the trembling, but almost excited fear that flowed through her body.
As she tried, inexpertly, to meet the kiss, his hands began to move over her, taking in every part of her through her clothes. She broke the kiss and leaned her head against his chest as his fingers skimmed over the curves of her breast; found the buttons on her tunic and unfastened them to slide within and take her naked skin against his hand in a sure, but soft caress.
Her nipples rose and pressed against the palm of his hand until he found them with his fingers, to tease and caress them until she thought that the whole of her body was aflame at the touches he gave to her. How could she respond to him in this way if she were so afraid of him… of this…?
She gasped as his fingers left her breasts to skim across her belly, toward the ties that fastened her sirwal. He pulled the knots loose and pushed at the silken fabric until it slid over her hips and buttocks to pool around her ankles. She held tightly to his shirt as she stepped her feet out of them; as he pushed at the shoulders of her tunic until that too slipped from her to join the fall of clothing at her feet. Then he reached up and pulled the shirt off over his head, and stepped out of his own pants to stand before her, as naked as she was.
She blushed fiercely and tried to turn her head aside. She had never seen a naked man before and the sight of him standing erect in front of her returned the thrilling knot of fear to the depth of her belly. He caught her face in the palm of one hand again, and taking her hand in the other, drew her to lie with him on the bed, pulling the comforter over the two of them before he gathered her into his embrace and she tensed, half beneath him as his knee settled between her own.
He kissed her again, the same deeply passionate kiss that seemed somehow more so as they lay thus entwined, then broke the kiss to let his lips wander with his hands over her body, her skin rising in little bumps of sensitivity against his fingers and the brushing touches of his mouth.
When he took her nipple between his lips she could not stop the tiny sound that burst from her and he moaned in response and pressed his hardness against her hip, moving a little. His fingers continued the caress of her nipples as his kisses glided down over her belly and he pushed against her leg with the other hand until she let go of the tension in her legs and admitted his kisses to her inner thighs.
Her fingers trembled light caresses over his shoulders; ran into his hair; anywhere they could still reach as he continued to caress and touch and kiss. The kisses climbed her thighs once more and this time did not skirt the ache that pressed tightly against her centre that felt swollen and heavy and slick.
She arched her back and gave a small gasping cry as first the caress of his fingers and then the hungry pull of his lips glided against the swollen, sensitive nub at her centre. As she cried out, so he moaned, the sound vibrating against her as he sucked at her and swirled his tongue against her.
Just as she thought she would pass out from it the touches were gone, the warmth of his breath deserted her centre and tickled wetly over her belly, pausing at her breasts again and climbing to press hot, hard kisses against the sensitive skin of her neck, his teeth grazing her as he nipped at her softly.
His legs pressed tightly against hers until she surrendered and parted her thighs to let him lie between. Kissing her deeply he wrapped his arms around her and pressed closer. The hard heat that had been trapped against her hip pressed and glided against the aching need his lips had left between her legs, moved to rest against the outside of her.
He moaned again and laid his head against her shoulder, breathing hot, quick breaths against her skin. She ran her trembling fingers into his hair, her nails scratching at his scalp. He raised his head at her shaking caress and captured her eyes with his and for a moment he did not move.
Held her immobile with that gaze, pinioned… his butterfly… displayed in full perfection. She dare not even breathe…
And then he lowered his lips to hers, pulling her lower lip into his mouth, and nipping at her hard with his teeth. She moaned at the stinging sharpness, before the stretching press against her centre, became a fiery pain as he surged into her body, joining them as one.
She tore her lip from his teeth, crying out, a shrill breathlessness in the still of the night. He filled her, there was no separateness any more. She belonged to him and now must give herself in complete surrender to the passionate tension that gripped the tight muscles of his arms and his back as he held her. She drew breath and cried out again as he began to move, another wave of fire spreading from where he pressed inside of her.
“It will pass,” he whispered against her lips as she sobbed into his kiss. She wanted to believe him... but the fire was spreading a hot tension into her limbs, knotting around her belly and making her feel heavier, making it harder to breathe… and with each time he filled her it was growing, spreading until she was trembling and sweating, and moving with him to catch a spiralling tingling cool – like the promise of oasis waters in the mid-day heat of the desert. That cool pleasure took the place of the fiery pain until she was gasping with it, moaning softly against the kisses he pressed to her lips and desperate to reach that tantalisingly elusive breeze that seemed to tingle through her veins.
His movements over her became swifter, flowing with the passion that he embodied. He was the heat of the sun that ravaged the oasis, she the oasis spending her life giving waters into the heated air, until, with a sudden bursting thrust, he flooded her and she broke with him, pressed hard against him, thirsty for agonising pleasure that possessed her.
Breathless, he sank onto her, and she could not help but clutch him tightly against her. Her breathlessness became gasps, and her gasping sobs as everything she had done, all that she had become pressed in on her, as heavy as the weight of his body over her… still inside her.
He raised himself up on trembling elbows, and caught her lips in an almost gentle kiss, and another, and another until his kisses moved over her cheeks to catch the tears that fell from her eyes.
“No more tears, little Medjai,” he whispered between kisses, “no more tears.”
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Forbidden – Chapter 14 (coming soon)