camels of a northern tribe? If they are a Qahtani enemy, I will know them from your description.'
Ruha looked straight into Kadumi's eyes. 'They weren't Bedine,' she said. 'I don't even think they were from Anauroch.'
The youth sneered doubtfully and declared, 'That cannot be.' He studied her for a moment with accusatory eyes, then demanded, 'If everybody else is dead, how did you survive?'
Ruha pushed herself from beneath the camel. 'What do you suggest?' she snapped, standing. 'Do you insult the woman whom you are duty-bound to honor?'
Cowed by her sharp tone, the boy retreated two full steps, shaking his head. At the same time, the camels echoed Ruha's indignation and roared with impatience. They could no doubt smell the oasis and were anxious to quench their thirst in its pool.
Remembering the one-eyed man and his two guides, Ruha quickly turned to calm the camels. Until now, she had not worried about being overheard by the three strangers, for she and Kadumi were far enough away from the oasis that their voices would be muffled by sand dunes. A camel's bellow was a different matter. A roar like the ones the creatures had just voiced could be heard miles away.
'We've got to keep the camels quiet,' she said, urgently grabbing the nose of the nearest one. 'There are three strangers in the oasis.'
Kadumi did not move to help her. 'Just three?' he scoffed, stepping toward his brown riding camel. 'I have my bow and plenty of arrows. They shall pay the blood price.'
Ruha moved to the boy's side and caught his arm. 'No,' she said. 'They weren't with the fork-tongues.' She told him about how the one-eyed stranger had appeared in the caravan's wake last night, then of spending the morning watching the man and his short companions in camp.
'It does not matter whether their hands bear the blood of battle or the blood of desecration,' Kadumi insisted. 'They deserve to die.' He pulled his arm free of her grasp.
From his stubborn tone, Ruha realized that the boy was looking not so much for vengeance as an excuse to vent his anger. Unfortunately, remembering the sharp instincts of the one-eyed man, Ruha knew that allowing Kadumi to attack would mean his death. As the youth reached for his arrow quiver, the widow slipped between him and his camel. 'They are three and you are one.'
Kadumi side-stepped her and snatched his quiver off the saddle.
Wondering if her husband had been as stubborn and foolish in his youth, Ruha grasped the boy by both shoulders. 'It is foolish to attack,' she said. 'Even Ajaman would not have tried such a thing.'
Kadumi ignored her and tried to pull free. When she did not release him, he drew his
His lower lip quivering in anger, Kadumi yelled, 'Ajaman is not here!'
'But you are, and you are dishonoring your brother by threatening his wife,' Ruha countered. 'You must protect your brother's widow for two years. If you get killed, who will take care of me?'
Tears of despair welled in the boy's eyes. After a moment of self-conscious consideration, he rubbed the tears away and sheathed his
The widow shook her head. 'I've made certain promises to Ajaman. We must wait here until we can take his body to the oasis,' she said. 'Then we can warn the Mtair Dhafir.'
Ruha was not anxious to return to her father's tribe, but Kadumi was right to alert them to the danger traveling in their direction. Besides, even though she knew it would be impossible for her to stay with the Mtair Dhafir, there was no reason for them to turn out the young warrior, and the widow suspected that it would be easier to find a new tribe for herself if she left her young brother-in-law with the Mtair.
Accepting Ruha's plan with a respectful nod, Kadumi cast a wary eye toward the southern sky. 'Let us hope the strangers leave soon,' he said. 'If that storm catches us in its path, we will have to wait it out.'
Three
From beneath a fallen tent, Lander heard his guides approaching. Pitched on the southern end of the oasis pond, about a hundred feet from the camp, this tent was the first in which he had found no bodies. It was also a stark contrast to the clutter of the other tents, for there was nothing inside except a ground-loom, three cooking pots, a dozen shoulder bags of woven camel hair, and a few other household items. Apparently the inhabitants of this household had escaped the massacre. Lander wondered how.
'Lord, there are camels out in the sands!' called Bhadla, the elder of his two guides.
'I'm not a lord,' Lander responded wearily, correcting the solicitous servant for the thousandth time. He found a twelve-inch tube made of a dried lizard skin and sniffed the greasy substance inside. It was foul-smelling butter.
'Whatever it is you wish to be called,' Bhadla said, 'I hope you have finished whatever you are doing with those dead people. We must go.'
'Go?' Lander asked, crawling toward the voice. 'What for?'
Like his guides, he had heard the camels roaring outside the oasis, but he had no intention of leaving. He had come to this wretched desert to find the Bedine, not flee from them.
Lander reached the edge of the tent and pushed his head and shoulders out from beneath it. The blazing sunlight reflected off the golden sands and stabbed painfully at his one good eye. 'What's this about going?'
'Someone is coming,' the short guide repeated. 'We shouldn't be here when they arrive.'
'They'll think we did this,' offered Musalim, Bhadla's scrawny assistant.
Like all D'tarig, Bhadla and Musalim stood barely four feet tall. Each kept himself swaddled in a white burnoose and turban from head to foot. Lander wondered what they looked like beneath their cloaks and masks, but knew he would probably never find out. He had met dozens of the diminutive humanoids over the last few months, and he had yet to glimpse anything more than a leathery brow set over a pair of dark eyes and a black, puggish nose.
'I doubt anyone will think the three of us murdered an entire tribe,' Lander said.
'The Bedine might,' Bhadla said. He brushed the back of his fingers against his forehead in a disparaging gesture Lander did not understand. 'They have very bad tempers.'
'When I hired you, you assured me you were very popular with the people of the desert,' Lander said, crawling the rest of the way from beneath the tent.
As he stood, he noticed that a gray haze was spreading northward from the southern horizon. In Sembia, his home, such a cloud signaled the approach of a storm. He hoped it meant the same thing in the desert, for a little rain might break the oppressive heat.
Turning his attention back to his guide, he said, 'Are you telling me you lied, Bhadla?'
Bhadla shrugged and looked away. 'No one can say what the Bedine will do.'
'I can,' Lander countered.
Musalim scoffed. 'How could you? Bhadla cannot even tell which tribe this-'
Bhadla cuffed his assistant for this indiscrete admission. In the language of his people, the D'tarig said, 'Watch your tongue, fool!'
Though he wore a magical amulet that allowed him to comprehend and speak D'tarig, Lander feigned ignorance. Since both of his guides spoke Common, the universal trade language of Toril, he had seen no reason to let them know he could understand their private conversations.
'I do not need to know the name of this tribe to know they will kill those who loot their dead,' Lander said, looking pointedly from one D'tarig to the other.
The hands of both guides unconsciously brushed the pockets hidden deep within their burnooses. 'What do you mean, Lord?' Musalim asked suspiciously.
