use except for their light, and since we rarely travel through the siq, our paths don’t often cross.”
Hubaira moved forward again. The fireflits scattered, but soon they resumed their endeavors, keeping above head level, where they were safe.
For three hours Hubaira maintained her pace, Tel Hesani marching just behind, Jebel farther back. The um Wadi was sweating beneath the thick, long-sleeved tunic that he had pulled on to combat the chill of the siq, and his legs were aching. Only his determination not to appear weak in front of a girl prevented him from calling for a rest.
Finally Hubaira stopped. “We will sleep here,” she said, moving to the side of the siq. Jebel saw a cave, just large enough to hold the three of them. Hubaira crawled into it and lay on the floor without any blankets.
“Does one of us need to stand watch?” Tel Hesani asked. He’d heard tales that the siq was inhabited by wild creatures.
“No,” Hubaira yawned. “I’m trained to wake instantly in case of attack.”
Tel Hesani unpacked their belongings and laid out mats and pillows for himself and Jebel. Jebel would have liked to sweep the mat aside and sleep rough like Hubaira, but he was cold and uncomfortable already and couldn’t face a night on a stone floor without any protection.
“Why don’t your people use the siq?” Jebel asked after he’d eaten a meager meal — Hubaira refused their offer of food — and climbed into the cave beside the girl. He was gazing at the walls outside, where the fireflits were still active.
“The mountains offer more of a challenge,” Hubaira said. “The siq is for emergencies or children like me. Sometimes we bring livestock this way, if it can’t manage the mountainous trek, but we prefer not to. Also, the siq can become a trap. On the mountains there is always space to run if we’re attacked.”
Jebel wanted to ask who or what might attack them, but Hubaira rolled onto her side, and within minutes she was snoring. Jebel tried to fall asleep as Hubaira had, but he was awake for hours, fascinated by the dance of the fireflits and troubled by the threat of the unknown.
Jebel and Tel Hesani ate strips of cured meat in the morning, but Hubaira again refused to share their meal. “I don’t mean to offend you,” she said. “It’s a condition of my test that I only eat wild plants or animals I’ve caught myself.”
“Don’t you get hungry?” Jebel asked.
“Sometimes,” Hubaira said. “But we train ourselves to ignore hunger. I can go four days without eating. An adult can easily last a week without food.”
They set off about an hour after sunrise. Jebel saw that they’d moved beyond the hills during the night and were now hemmed in by the rocky sentries of the al-Attieg. The range wasn’t at its wildest here, but it was still an incredible sight, mountains rising on either side of them, split evenly down the middle.
The true beauty of the siq only became apparent as the day wore on. The colors and shapes were startling, all the work of nature, unembellished by the hand of man. The siq was narrow — in some places you could touch both walls at the same time — and twisting. It was silent save for the occasional cry of a bird of prey far above.
Hubaira spoke more freely than she had the day before. She was excited at the thought of returning home, having moved one step closer to adulthood. She told Jebel and Tel Hesani of her life, how every member of her race was a warrior. When a child was born, a small spear was pressed into its hands. If it held the weapon, it was raised in the ways of the Um Siq. If it dropped the spear, it was taken up into the mountains and left to perish. Even Jebel thought that was a tad harsh.
Um Siq had to prove themselves at every stage of their life, test after test, trial after trial. They slept in pens with other children once they’d been weaned. They had to scrap for food and clothes. Many died as infants. Only the strongest survived. There was no room for weakness. Every member of the tribe could fight if required to do so. That was how they had maintained their independence, standing firm in the face of powerful enemies, defending their city-state over the course of many centuries, sometimes abandoning it for long periods to hide in the mountains but always returning to drive out invaders and seek revenge.
Jebel wasn’t sure what to think of Hubaira. She was by no means pretty, but he found her confidence and strength oddly attractive. He was certain she could beat him, and just about any other Um Aineh boy, in a fight, but he was no longer troubled by that. He had decided that Um Siq women were different. There would be no shame in losing to one of them.
Jebel found himself thinking that it would be an asset to marry a woman like Hubaira. No man in Wadi could boast of a warrior wife. Perhaps if he completed his quest and returned to claim the hand of Debbat Alg, he might venture north again one day, to court Hubaira or another like her.
Trying not to appear too obvious, he asked Hubaira about her people’s marital customs.
“At the moment there are more men than women,” she said, “so each woman has a number of husbands. If that changes in the future, men will be able to take more than one wife. That has always been our way.”
“What about marriages with people of other nations?” Jebel asked.
“We don’t breed with outsiders.” Hubaira snorted at the idea and so put a swift end to Jebel’s thoughts of seeking a wife among the Um Siq.
The temperature didn’t rise much, even at noon. They paused for a rest after a few hours, and a short sleep in the afternoon, then pushed on again. Hubaira said they should be in the city of Abu Siq by the next evening if they marched late into the night and started early the following morning.
At one point Tel Hesani noticed part of a man-made drain running along a wall. It seemed out of place, so he asked about it. Hubaira snarled and started kicking the structure, soon reducing it to dust. Jebel and Tel Hesani watched, bemused. When Hubaira calmed down, she explained her behavior.
“Long ago a powerful race occupied Abu Siq. They were here longer than most invaders and almost wiped us out — only nineteen of us survived. The invaders tried to make life more comfortable for themselves. They built dams and drains to divert the course of a stream that flowed through the siq then, and erected huge new buildings, some of the most intricate ever constructed on Makhras.
“The nineteen survivors bred and grew strong, rearing their children to be even harder than themselves. They waited patiently, increasing over many generations, then returned and slaughtered every single occupier. They tore down the new buildings and destroyed the dams and drains. But the siq is long, and sections of the drains remain, hidden by sand and stones for centuries, only revealed when the earth shifts. We destroy the old bits of drain whenever we find them.”
Hubaira’s story struck a chord with Tel Hesani. As he’d told Jebel, his people had at one time controlled most of Makhras. There was a legend that at the height of their power they’d built an incredible city in the wilderness to serve as an earthly home for the gods. (They still worshipped multiple gods then.) According to the legend, the gods disapproved of the city — it was more impressive than any of their own — and laid it low.
Was Abu Siq that city of myth, and had Tel Hesani’s forebears fallen not at the feet of otherworldly gods but at the hands of vengeful Um Siq? The slave felt that he had just unlocked a major mystery of his people’s past. He sighed heavily when he realized that he would never be able to share his discovery and that it would most likely die with him in a cave of destiny far to the desolate north.
Night fell on the siq. Jebel pulled on an extra tunic and wrapped a long strip of cloth around his head, as many Um Aineh did when traveling in colder climes. Hubaira thought he was soft for covering up, but she didn’t say anything. The ways of foreigners were none of her business, so long as they didn’t interfere with her.
The fireflits appeared not long after dusk and resumed their never-ending hunt for pollen. Jebel found the scent of burning ash soothing. It reminded him of the smell of fresh blood, and he found himself thinking about home and the many fine executions he’d witnessed. But that led him to think of the messy slaughter in Hassah, and he scowled as he silently mocked the Um Nekhele’s legal system. “Jails” indeed! You couldn’t beat a good, clean blow of an axe for real justice.
Jebel was thinking about jails and executions, idly studying the dancing flames generated by the fireflits, when he noticed the fires blowing out above him. He had grown used to the spreading, flickering patterns, but this was different. Instead of each flower burning out separately, a large number were being quenched at the same time, along a straight line that was moving swiftly towards the travelers.
“Hubaira,” he said nervously, “is that a gust of wind?”
Hubaira glanced back at him, then followed where his finger was pointing. When she saw the growing line of darkness, she cursed, whipped out her dagger, and swung her staff over her shoulder. Holding the dagger in her left
