The Parched sea

better come up with another plan.'

'What do you mean?' asked Yatagan, a toothless man with a wizened face. In contrast to the abas of the other Bedine, he wore billowing, brightly colored trousers and a loose shirt covered by a green vest.

'The Zhentarim's leader is trying to be sure that we attack, otherwise he wouldn't have sent his mercenaries to commit this atrocity,' the Harper explained. 'To me, that suggests that he's picked his ground carefully and prepared a few surprises. I think we'd be wiser to change our plans.' He peered into a tent and made a disgusted face, then withdrew his head and looked toward the sheikhs. 'That's only a suggestion, of course.'

Utaiba nodded, then said, 'There is truth to the Harper's words. Let us discuss them in my camp.'

'After we send someone to wash and bury the dead,' Yatagan added.

Sa'ar and several others grumbled at the delay, but they were outnumbered and had no choice but to agree to the council. They descended the hill without inviting either Lander or Ruha to join them. It was, the widow realized, a diplomatic omission. With the warriors anxious for battle, it would be better if it appeared that neither she nor Lander were responsible for delaying the fight.

Once the sheikhs were gone, Lander began moving from tent to tent, repeating the peculiar warning that Ruha heard him speak to any dead he encountered. 'Dead ones, you will meet N'asr's denizens everywhere. Remember your gods and keep their faith, or you will suffer as surely as the wicked.'

Ruha followed a few steps behind, peering into the khreimas as Lander spoke to the corpses. The scene was always similar. In the back of the tent was a large gash, apparently cut by the attackers. Six sleeping carpets lay in a rough circle in the center of the tent. At the head of each carpet lay the kuerabiche that had been serving as the warrior's pillow when he was decapitated. In some of the tents, the six headless corpses had each been dragged into a corner, as if by a greedy dog, and the soft parts of the body had been devoured.

When she could stand looking at the grisly scenes no longer, Ruha took the Harper's arm and stopped him. 'I have seen enough of Yhekal's work,' she said. 'Why don't you tell me what it is that you're doing?'

'The camp of the dead is filled with N'asr's evil servants. They hunt the spirits of those who lose their faith or those who never had any,' he explained. 'So I'm warning the dead to remember their gods. As long as they don't lose conviction in their gods, they'll be safe.'

'How do you know all this?'

The Harper flushed, but he did not look away. 'My mother worshiped Cyric, who is N'asr to the Bedine,' the Harper explained. 'This is what she learned from her priests.'

'And you really think the dead will remember what you say?' Ruha asked.

Lander shrugged. 'I'm not even sure they can hear me,' he said. 'The warning can't do any harm, though.'

Ruha nodded. 'That's true,' she said. 'Go ahead and finish.'

As the Harper returned to his task, the first of the burial detail arrived. The widow allowed them a few minutes of disgust and outrage, then directed them toward the dead to whom Lander had already spoken.

By the time the Harper had finished his task, At'ar was two spans above the horizon and the day was already beginning to grow warm. Realizing that neither she nor Lander had eaten anything since last night, Ruha suggested they return to her khreima for breakfast.

As they walked toward Sa'ar's camp, Lander's face seemed vacant and weary. Recalling the effect that viewing even a few of the tents had had upon her, the widow decided that the Harper might not want to eat. Her own emotions were torn between elation at the feeling of acceptance she had experienced that morning and revulsion at what the Zhentarim had done to the Ruwald.

'Perhaps you're not hungry,' she suggested. 'Maybe you would prefer to find someplace to graze our camels.'

Lander smiled gratefully, but he said, 'I'm not very hungry, but we should try to eat anyway. If the sheikhs decide to attack after all, it could be a long time before our next meal.'

'You seem to know a lot about fighting battles,' she observed.

Lander shook his head. 'Not any more than any other Harper,' he said. 'I think we have more of them in the rest of the world than here in Anauroch.'

'That wouldn't be hard,' the widow replied. 'This is the first true war the Bedine have had since the Scattering.'

Lander's gaze dropped to the ground. 'I'm afraid it won't be the last. Even if we defeat Yhekal's army, the Zhentarim will send another.'

The pair reached a gnarled frankincense tree at the base of Sa'ar's knoll. Before starting up the hill, Lander paused and looked into Ruha's eyes. 'When the next army comes, the Bedine will need your magic as much as they need it now, perhaps even more. Are you sure you want to go to Sembia?'

The widow's heart sank, and she felt as though the Harper had struck her. 'You don't want me to go to Sembia, do you?' Before he could answer, she turned away and climbed the hill.

Lander scrambled after her. 'Wait!'

Ruha ignored him and rushed past a group of astonished warriors, then went into her tent. The Harper's question had hurt her more than she cared to admit, for she did want to go to Sembia-though now she had a different reason than at first.

Lander rushed into the tent two steps behind her. 'Let me finish-'

'Leave me!' the widow snapped, turning away to hide the tears welling in her eyes.

The Harper kneeled at her side and grabbed her shoulders. The touch of his firm grip sent Ruha's blood racing. She could not stop herself from throwing her arms around his neck and burying her head in his shoulder.

'I didn't mean that I want you to stay,' he whispered, 'only that now there is a place for you with the Bedine. After the war, surely Utaiba or Sa'ar-'

Ruha touched her hand to his lips. 'After the war, my place is with you.'

Lander gently pried her arms from his neck, then held her a few inches from his body and stared directly into her eyes. His touch sent waves of passion through her body. Ruha knew then that she had never wanted anything as much as she wanted to fold herself into his embrace.

'And what of your vision? What if I die?'

As he asked his question, a feeling of horror crept over the widow. The vision flashed through her memory again, and she closed her arms around the Harper. Placing her face next to his ear, Ruha reached up and removed her veil. 'We cannot know what my vision means, so there is nothing to be gained by thinking of it,' the widow whispered. 'I want to share whatever the future brings you.'

The Harper grabbed her shoulders and held them tightly, drinking in the nakedness of her face. His hands were trembling, and he seemed on the brink of yielding to the desire burning in his blue eye.

Lander leaned down to kiss her, then someone shuffled into the entrance of the khreima. 'Pack your things!' commanded a warrior's voice. 'The sheikhs have decided that it is a bad time to fight.'

Sixteen

The young witch sat in her saddle, impatiently squinting at the cracked ground beneath her camel's feet. The sun reflected off the white clay, as blinding and as hot as the merciless goddess herself, and Ruha felt as though she were sitting in a kiln.

Along with rest of the Bedine, she was in the bottom of a tiny mamlahah no more than two miles across. The small, flat-bottomed valley was surrounded by a cluster of low mountains. The canyons running out of the peaks were steep and short, with walls as sheer as ramparts. Within the last century, Kozah had raged mightily in the mountains, and the gorges had poured torrents of water into the mamlahah and created a shallow lake. Over the decades, At'ar had undone her husband's work, drying up the lake, baking the moisture from the clay-rich soil, and leaving in its place a plain of irregular, alabaster pentagons