recover Sebil el Selib. But Farid had had his instructions, and had been satisfied himself that El Murid and Nassef were dead.
Farid’s father was old and fat and none too bright. He loved his comforts and could see nothing beyond tomorrow. He did not want his son wasting money or lives.
There had been a time when Aboud had been a renowned warrior and captain. He had driven the Throyens from the disputed territories along the northern end of the eastern shore. But that had been long ago. Time, that old traitor, slows and weakens all men, and makes them less inclined to seek hazard.
“Thank God for Farid,” Yousif sighed, his rage spent. “No one else could have gotten us the help we needed at Wadi el Kuf. Megelin? What now?”
“We step back a few years and go on.”
“The same thing?”
“The same. And don’t count on them making any more mistakes. They’ve had their one and gotten away with it. El Murid will take the lesson to heart. He’ll listen to Nassef now,”
Nearly eight thousand of Nassef’s men had escaped Wadi el Kuf. They were back in the desert now, stunned, but a foundation for a new guerrilla infrastructure.
“We should have attacked Sebil el Selib while they were still demoralized,” Yousif growled. “We should’ve hit them and kept on hitting till they gave up. None of the leaders were there.”
“Hit them with what?” Fuad asked caustically. “We were lucky they didn’t come after us.”
Yousif’s forces had been battered and exhausted after the battle. Getting themselves home had been the most difficult task they could handle.
Fuad added, “They would have if anybody had been there to tell them what to do.”
Yousif’s anger evaporated. He could not sustain it in the face of the truth.
The years had taken their toll. El Aswad was approaching its limit. Yousif had done all he could, but his best had not been enough. From Wadi el Kuf onward he foresaw nothing but a downhill slide. His last hope had been that El Murid and his generals had perished. But Fuad’s news accounted for the last of the missing leaders. They were all alive. The fury of Wadi el Kuf had consumed none but the expendable.
“Megelin,” Yousif said, “think for the enemy. What will he do now?”
“I don’t know, Wahlig. They say Nassef is vindictive. We’ll probably get a lot of attention. Beyond that guess, you might as well read sheep’s entrails.”
Yousif said nothing for several minutes. Then, “I’m going to concede the initiative again. We’ll keep up the patrols and ambushes, but avoid contact most of the time. We’ll stall. Concentrate on surviving. Try to lure them into a debilitating siege of the Eastern Fortress. Aboud is old. He’s got the gout. He can’t live forever. I talked to Farid. He’s on our side. He’ll be less sedentary. He can see the shape of things. He’d give us what we need if he wore the Crown.”
But neither fate nor Nassef would play the game according to Yousif’s wishes. In the year after Wadi el Kuf Yousif’s men seldom saw their enemies. They could not be found even when hunted. Nassef seemed to have forgotten that el Aswad existed. With the exception of the patrolled zone immediately before the mouth of Sebil el Selib, security and peace reigned in the Wahligate.
The quiet drove Yousif and Fuad to distraction. They worried constantly. What did the silence mean?
Haroun and Radetic went on their first fieldtrip in almost two years. Megelin wanted to look for rare wildflowers. His search took them into a canyon which meandered deep into Jebal al Alf Dhulquarneni.
Haroun worried about offending the Hidden Ones. He tried to mask his nervousness behind uncharacteristic chatter. That generally took the form of trying to get Radetic to illuminate the enemy’s behavior.
Exasperated, Radetic finally growled, “I don’t know, Haroun. The Sword rules the Word these days. And Nassef is a big unknown. I can’t begin to guess his motives, let alone predict his moves. One minute he looks like El Murid’s most devoted follower, the next like a bandit looting the desert, and a second after that he seems to be a man quietly finagling himself an empire. All I can say is wait. He’ll make everything painfully clear someday.”
One painful piece of news had sullied a restful winter. El Murid had appointed Nassef commander of the Invincibles for a period of five years. Spies said that the Scourge of God had launched an immediate purge, that Nassef was redesigning the bodyguard to his own specifications.
The Sword apparently mastered the Word completely now.
Nassef’s campaign plans became less murky once Haroun and Radetic returned to el Aswad. They were given no chance to recuperate from the hardships of the trail. Guards hustled them directly to the Wahlig.
“Well, he’s finally made a move, Megelin,” Yousif declared as they approached. “He’s shown his hand. And it was the last thing anybody expected.”
Radetic dropped gingerly to a cushion. “What did he do?”
“All that strength he’s been gathering? That’s been piling up so fast our spies figured he was going to take a stab at us this summer? He used it to attack to the east.”
“The east? But —”
“Souk el Arba has fallen already. He’s besieging Es Souanna. His riders have reached Ras al Jan. Souk el Arba didn’t resist. They sent a committee to welcome him. Our agents say our cousins on the coast are tripping over each other they’re so eager to join him. He’s promising everybody the loot of Al Rhemish and the Inner Provinces.”
“In other words, the east has decided its future lies with El Murid.”
“They’ve had a lot of time to preach there. And to make deals. Aboud hasn’t done much to hold their loyalties. In fact, I expect Throyes to cut us off completely now.”
The only way Al Rhemish could reach its eastern supporters was by using the same narrow, northern pass
