one who went second had the advantage. If the first missed the mark when striking, it didn’t matter how many attempts the second took — as long as he was careful and hit the mark each time, he couldn’t lose. So when Zarnoug Al Dahbbeh drew the short straw, the cheers were deafening.
Zarnoug dismissed his misfortune with a shrug and stepped forward. Taking hold of the axe, he fixed his gaze on the log, then brought his axe up, around, and down — and struck true. It was a solid strike, deep into the heart of the log. He put his foot on the log before it stopped shaking and yanked his axe out. A pause, a short breath, then he swung again.
In the crowd a young child’s toes were trampled by a large man eager to get a better view, and the injured boy shrieked aloud. The cry startled Zarnoug, and he struck a fraction wide. His axe bit deep into the log — but he had chipped outside the mark.
Zarnoug threw his axe away, disgusted, and glared at the child. The um Wadi muttered among themselves while the judges debated whether or not to eliminate Zarnoug. Before they could conclude their deliberations, Jebel stepped up, grabbed his axe, and swung it into his log, far wide of the central mark.
The crowd bellowed their approval. By fudging his strike, Jebel had negated Zarnoug’s miss, so both had to start again with fresh logs. Zarnoug nodded at Jebel to show his respect, then focused on his breathing and tuned out the sounds of any more screaming infants.
Zarnoug attacked his second log with the fierceness and sharpness of one who had tasted defeat and had no intention of sipping from that bitter well again. His first blow went almost to the middle of the log, his second took him to within a hair’s breadth of severing it completely, and his third finished the job.
The Um Judayda received a standing ovation. It was rare for an apprentice executioner to break a log with just three blows, and even though many in the crowd were against him, they appreciated the skill with which he had struck.
When the applause died away, Jebel stepped forward. Grasping the handle of the axe, he focused on the mark at the center of his log. For a moment he imagined it to be a human neck and shuddered. But then he put that image behind him and pretended it was a link in a chain of injustice. It was slavery, brutality, hatred, ignorance. It was the cry of the bigot who believed all others must think as he did or perish. It was the torment of the suffering, the spirits of the unhappy dead, the snicker of false Masters. It was all that was wrong with Makhras.
With a roar, Jebel brought his axe smashing down, thinking not of victory but only of ridding Makhras of the blight of wicked men. The head of his axe hit the mark in the center, cut down to the heart of the log, then kept on going, all the way through, to bury itself in the earth beneath.
The crowd froze. It should have been impossible to split a log with a single blow. The logs were handpicked by experts to ensure that they would require at least three strikes. This had never happened before. Nobody had ever thought that it could.
As the moment of shock passed, everyone leapt high and punched the air, even Zarnoug Al Dahbbeh. Then they rushed forward to surround, embrace, and revere the unlikely winner of the mukhayret… Jebel Rum… the thin executioner!
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Jebel was a hero. Everybody loved him. Storytellers began composing epic sagas about his adventures north and his triumph in the mukhayret. His teachers boasted that they had always known he was destined for greatness. Every maid in Wadi dreamt of being his wife, although only one had the real, smug anticipation of it.
But Jebel was to be a short-lived hero. Every mukhayret closed with an elaborate ceremony. There were lavish tales of the past, music and dancing, speeches galore. And at the very end, to commemorate the appointment of the new executioner — what else but an execution?
That was where it all went wrong.
Jebel didn’t know what he was going to do until he was standing in the square of execution, an axe in his hands, a hooded mask thrust down over his head by his father, staring at a woman who had been led to the platform and placed before him. Her neck looked very small on the executioner’s block.
He hadn’t thought this far ahead. He had been caught up in the rush of the mukhayret, then in the fluttering eyelashes of Debbat Alg. But now here he was, axe cold in his grip, expected to be a dispenser of justice and a severer of heads. His father and brothers stood beside him, glowing with pride.
The square was jammed with bloodthirsty um Wadi desperate to be able to say in future years that they saw the new executioner make his first kill. Some had even skipped the mukhayret to be here, taking their positions early that morning. All were chanting Jebel’s name and pounding their hands together.
Rashed Rum was trying to explain himself over the noise. He was pointing to the woman’s neck, showing Jebel the angle at which he should strike. Jebel didn’t hear more than one word in five. In the end he grabbed his father’s hands and squeezed. “But what did she
“Do?” Rashed Rum frowned.
“Why is she here?” Jebel shouted. “Why are we executing her?”
“She committed a crime,” his father answered.
“What crime?”
Rashed Rum studied his son’s eyes, wide and round in the slits of the mask, and his frown deepened. “Does it matter?” he grunted. “Thief, adulteress, murderer — they’re all the same. You’re not here to judge, just to carry out the wishes of the law-abiding um Wadi.”
“But…” Jebel hesitated, trying to find the right words. As he was searching, the high lord climbed onto the platform and held up his hands for silence.
“It is time!” Wadi Alg roared. He had prepared a fuller speech, but it had been a long day and he was tired. “Wield your axe, Jebel Rum!”
There was one last roar of approval from the crowd, then an absolute hush. Wadi Alg stepped down off the platform. Rashed Rum, J’Al, and J’An retreated. And Jebel was left alone with the woman whose head he was supposed to chop off.
The woman wasn’t afraid. That was why she had been chosen. There was never a shortage of criminals to be executed in Wadi, but nobody wanted to present a new executioner with a struggler. The whole city yearned for a clean kill. This woman had been singled out, since they knew she would kneel calmly when her time came.
Jebel walked from one side of the block to the other, noting the woman’s slim arms and legs, her shaved head, the gentle arc of her neck. He wanted to look into her eyes, but they were lowered. The crowd watched Jebel, eagerly anticipating the first blow, hoping he’d cut off her head with one expert swipe.
Jebel lifted the axe. He wasn’t in the right position, but that didn’t matter. He meant to swing wide three times, then claim that nerves had got the better of him. The woman would be set free, as any criminal was if they survived three blows, and Jebel would earn a day’s grace in which to consider his options.
But before he’d brought the axe higher than his knee, he knew he couldn’t do it. This wasn’t a time to lie. There was no way he could bring himself to execute a human being, and if he pretended that there was, he would be selling himself false.
“No,” Jebel said, laying the axe aside and removing his hooded mask. “I won’t do it.” And he stood, arms crossed, awaiting the reaction.
The crowd gaped as if they were part of the same body. The silence was total. Jebel could see people struggling to make sense of his words.
Then, from near the back, came the first jeer. It was quickly taken up by others, and soon the square was alive with boos and screams. Those near the platform made claws of their hands and scraped at the air like cats.
Danafah Alg hissed to her husband. “You need to do something!”
“What?” the high lord snapped.
In answer, his wife shoved him forward to the base of the platform. He had to take a quick step up or fall flat on his face. The crowd assumed he was mounting the steps to see justice done, and their cries died away. Some
