The Parched sea

make sure you come back alive.'

'I'll make sure of that,' Utaiba said, urging his camel toward the place where the Mahwa and Raz'hadi had gathered.

After Ruha and Utaiba joined the two tribes, Sa'ar gave the order to ride. The war party crossed the dried lake bed quickly, moving toward a point well south of their final destination to prevent anyone watching from the mountains from getting a good look at them. The rest of the tribes would not follow for another two hours, when the Mahwa and the Raz'hadi had had ample time to drive enemy observers away from the edge of the mountains.

Once they reached the base of the mountains, Sa'ar stopped the column and looked to Ruha. 'After you cast your spell, how long will it disguise our true number?'

'An hour or so,' the widow replied. 'Not much longer.'

'We'd better send some scouts ahead to chase away the enemy sentries right away,' Sa'ar said. 'We don't want them to get a good look at us before you create your mirage.'

The sheikh sent two dozen men forward to act as a vanguard, then waited fifteen minutes before allowing the column to continue. The two tribes moved along the base of the mountains for an hour, then turned up a winding, rocky canyon. Craggy brown cliffs immediately flanked the riders and rose more than a hundred feet to either side. They were laced with wide fissures.

Sa'ar sent some men forward to check random crevices for hidden sentries, but the gesture did little to make Ruha feel more secure. The column was moving too fast to check every crevice, and the widow did not put it past the Zhentarim to hide assassins there. Uncomfortably aware of the conspicuousness of her veiled presence among the long line of keffiyehs proceeding up the canyon, Ruha did her best to ride between Utaiba and Sa'ar. From her previous encounters with Yhekal, it seemed likely to her that he had deduced she was a magic-user. In that case, the lone woman among a column of warriors would no doubt be a prime target for enemy arrows.

The sheikhs allowed themselves to fall back to the middle of the column and tried to stay in the center of the canyon, as aware of Ruha's prominence as she was. Unfortunately, it was not an easy task, for the gulch was no more than fifty yards wide in many places, and a good man's arrow was accurate at twice that range.

Thirty minutes of careful riding passed, and no one had fired at Ruha or anybody else. The scouts returned to the main body of the column, reporting that they had approached to within a hundred yards of the enemy camp without encountering a single sentry. It appeared that all the Zhentarim were asleep, for there was no other sign of the invaders in the canyon other than their sealed tents.

Utaiba furrowed his brow, 'I do not like this. The Zhentarim are not fools. They would not leave themselves so exposed.'

'Perhaps not,' Sa'ar agreed, drawing his sword. 'But what choice do we have? Even if they have prepared an ambush for us, we must attack in order to lure them into our own trap.'

Utaiba considered this for a moment, then said, 'You are right. Let us hope that Eldath, not N'asr, is with us today.' He also drew his scimitar, then looked toward Ruha. 'Now is the time for your spell.'

The young witch took a deep breath, then nodded and said, 'We'll need to be at the head of the column.'

The two sheikhs glanced at each other with concern, but Sa'ar nodded. 'Whatever you say.'

They urged their camels closer to hers and moved to the head of the long line of warriors. Ahead of them, the canyon climbed through a stretch of steep boulder-strewn ground, then turned sharply to the left and disappeared into a maze of brown rock laced by deep, man-sized fissures. After that, the scouts had reported, it twisted back to the right and opened into a sandy dale that must have been a pool when there was water in the canyon. It was there that the tents of the Zhentarim were pitched.

Ruha took a small quartz crystal from her pocket. As it caught At'ar's rays, she faced the long column of warriors and manipulated the crystal in her hand until she could see their wavy image in the clear quartz. She selected a brawny warrior at the head of the column and focused on the jambiya in his belt.

When she uttered her spell, Sa'ar gasped. 'Incredible!'

Ruha opened her eyes and saw that the spell had worked. Beyond the brawny warrior whose dagger she had selected as a focus, a sheet of wavering heat filled the canyon from wall to wall, obscuring the Bedine behind it. It was impossible to see anything beyond that single warrior clearly, for the images were all distorted. However, it did appear that there were about eight times as many men in the canyon than were really there.

Ruha pointed at the warrior. 'Everything behind that man's dagger is distorted by the spell,' she said. 'If he falls, the spell will stop moving until someone else takes his dagger and continues with it.'

'Magic is not without its shortcomings, I see,' Utaiba noted wryly.

'Neither are we,' Sa'ar answered. 'But we shall do our best anyway. Now, let us return to our place in line. If we only have an hour, we must hurry.'

'Be careful when you pass through the sunwarp,' Ruha said, urging her camel toward the column. 'Don't tarry inside, or you will have reason to regret it.'

As the widow spoke, she urged her mount into the distortion, ferociously lashing at its neck with her reigns. The camel sprang forward into a wave of blistering heat. The beast roared in surprise and terror, but under Ruha's prodding it continued forward, and, an instant later, they were on the other side of the sunwarp.

On the downhill side of the distortion, a stiff breeze ran along the ground as the spell sucked the fire from the desert and sent it climbing toward the sky in a great wavering sheet. Sa'ar and Utaiba sat on the other side of the wall, staring in Ruha's direction with awe and fear.

'What do you see?' asked Sa'ar's burly warrior, Kabina. 'You look as though you are facing an army of djinns.'

'We see nothing but wavering forms, and many times the number we know are there,' Sa'ar answered, still staring at the wall. 'It is as if At'ar has blinded us!'

'She has,' Ruha replied. 'Now, come back here.'

Setting their jaws as if riding into a wall of flame, the sheikhs urged their mounts forward and galloped through the sunwarp in two swift strides. When they reached the other side, their faces were as chalky as a white camel and they stared at the witch with expressions of awe and respect. Their mounts were so excited that it was all they could do to control them.

Sa'ar pointed at a dozen warriors, then directed them toward the Bedine upon whom Ruha had centered the spell. 'You men, ring Dahalzel. If he falls, one of you must take his jambiya and continue forward. If that man falls, someone else must take the dagger.'

'I will need my dagger in N'asr's camp!' objected the confused warrior.

'Don't argue,' Utaiba answered, drawing his scimitar. 'Your jambiya is the center of the witch's spell.'

The man's swarthy complexion paled to a sickly shade of yellow. 'My dagger?'

A roar of laughter went up from the twelve men assigned to escort Dahalzel. 'We will protect you from the enemy's arrows, my friend,' said one of them. 'But you must look to the gods to save you from the witch's magic.'

'Enough!' Sa'ar roared, guiding his camel into place at Ruha's left side. 'Let us attack!'

With a queasy look, Dahalzel turned his attention up the canyon. He nocked an arrow, then urged his camel forward and led the way toward the Zhentarim camp.

A few minutes later, the column of nervous warriors emerged from the maze of fissure-laced rock. It stopped at the edge of the sandy hollow where the sheikhs had expected to fight the Zhentarim. As the scouts had claimed, several hundred tents stood in the dale, but there was still no sign of the enemy.

Sa'ar looked immediately to Ruha. 'Is your spell hiding the enemy?'

Ruha shook her head. 'No.'

'It isn't the witch,' Utaiba said, motioning six men forward. 'I fear we are too late. The Zhentarim are gone.' The wiry sheikh sent the men to track the invaders up the canyon.

'It cannot be!' Sa'ar objected. 'What of the asabis? They cannot move during the day.'

'Perhaps they are still in their burrows,' Ruha suggested.

'Perhaps,' Sa'ar nodded. He sent a rider back to report the deserted camp to the tribes waiting in ambush,