Angels at the Gate (19 page)

This is a prudent thought, but one which apparently fled my mind when I left the tents of Lot. I was crazed with despair at my father's death and the loss of Raph and Nami. I drop a hand to Nami's silky head. She looks up at me, her tongue lolling from the side of her mouth. “Faithful Nami,” I say softly. “You will not abandon me, will you?”

She runs her tongue around and lets it fall out the other side of her mouth, panting in the heat. Her tail thumps at my voice, but something catches her interest in the distance. I follow her gaze but see nothing. The camels become agitated. The dominant bull makes his way to stand between the females and whatever attracted Nami's attention, alerting me that perhaps a predator lurks in the dusk.

“Something has disturbed the herd,” I say to Shem who is drawing in the dirt with a stick.

He does not bother to look up. “Yes-yes. Probably they know we are going to move out. They always know.”

But Nami is on her feet now. The wind is at our back, but she is a sight hunter, so she may see something or hear it. I rise to look where she does. At first, nothing, and then a stir of dust. More camels coming in? I do a quick count of the herd. No, they are all here.

I watch a moment until I am sure, then I shout. “Riders!”

The two young boys watching the herd look at me and turn to peer in the direction I point. But the horsemen are on us so quickly the boys' own calls of alerts are lost in the cries of the raiders. Within moments, they have surrounded half of the camels.

Nami presses against my side, not certain what to do. I order her back
and quickly look for Shem. He is not running back to the settlement as I hoped, but toward the
raiders
, yelling furiously. I cannot say I have blame for him. Those camels are the difference between life and death to the clan, and Shem's beloved white camel Niha is among those being stolen.

I run after him. “Shem!”

He pays no attention to me, and I see Nami has not either. I am not the only one who lacks the virtue of obedience.

My longer legs close the distance to Shem, who has somehow managed to grab the leg of a raider. His head is no higher than the man's foot.

The black horse spins as the raider lifts his curved sword to strike Shem, and I am suddenly on the opposite side. I do the only thing I can—grabbing the man's other leg. For a moment, it is a tug between me and Shem. Confused, the horse lowers his head and kicks out with his back legs.

Nami leaps forward, slashing the animal's sensitive nose, and it rears, hooves pawing the air, neighing in panic. Shem is knocked aside, and I realize I have won the tug, as the man, unbalanced by the horse's kick and rear and my weight, totters and falls over on me. I twist as we fall, trying to be free of him, but we hit the ground, locked.

I struggle wildly, sure a blade of some kind will find my flesh, but Yassib is suddenly there, rolling the raider's body from me. Blood is everywhere. Is it mine? I stand on shaky legs, staring stupidly until I notice the wound, blood on the raider's temple, and on a sharp rock nearby.

Yassib seizes Shem and pushes him into his mother's arms. Confusion reigns as angry men and boys run toward us with weapons drawn, shouting their anger. A few arrows fly after the raiders, but fall short. The clan has no horses, only the camels, and no way to chase the raiders and reclaim their property.

Behind me, the horse snorts and I turn, surprised it is still there. The black horse stands on spread legs. Blood flows from his nostrils where Nami's teeth sank into them. His eyes are wide, ringed with white. For a moment I cannot understand why he has not fled, until I realize his reins are caught beneath the man.

That is when I see the strip of carpet the raider used as a pad. It lies on the ground between the raider and the frightened animal.

At that moment, I lose all sense.

The orbit of Venus [the Morning Star] is such that it produces a very strange but interesting effect when viewed from Earth against the backdrop of fixed stars that we know as the Zodiac. The planet appears to move in the form of a five-pointed star with the sun at its centre, taking a 40-year cycle to repeat the process … the five-pointed star was the ancient Egyptian hieroglyph for “knowledge.”

—Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas,
Uriel's Machine

W
ITHOUT COHERENT THOUGHT, I SNATCH
the horse's reins and yank them loose from the beneath the rider. Already terrified, the horse backs, throwing his head up, and rears again. As his front hooves touch the ground, I vault onto his back and dig my heels into his sides.

If I had not grasped his mane with both hands, I would have tumbled off with his explosive response. Within a breath, I am flying after the raiders, the magnificent beast beneath me leveling into a hard gallop as though a demon chases him. I do not even care if that is so; the fire in my belly that drove me to this horse's back keeps my attention ahead, where a cloud of brown dust marks the raiders' path. I guide us in that direction, but Wind—as I have silently named him—needs no encouragement to join his fellows. Their speed is hampered by the gait of the camels, which as individuals can travel quickly, but are less inclined to speed in
one direction as a herd. The bulls are sluggish, and the females are not happy leaving their calves behind. Also, the raiders' herding efforts have disrupted their normal, single-file mode of travel.

I am soon alongside them. At first, I am not noticed. The dust is heavy from their passage, and I am dressed in a similar manner to the raider I downed. The others assume I am he. I make my way to the front camel, Shem's prize white camel, Niha. Pressure on the reins and a shifting of my weight slows Wind to match her pace. The bulls protect their family, but it is a female who leads. The others will follow her and will not go faster than she, and she will not go faster than her calf.

I apply a steady pressure to Wind's right flank with my leg. He balks, snorting. Horses do not care for the scent of camels, but I am insistent, with little nudges of my heel, and he finally obeys, moving away from the pressure and into Niha's side.

“Hiya! Hiya!” I cry, waving my hand in her face, since I do not have a stick. She turns away and I stay at her side. All the riding skill I have is called upon to turn Niha, but she finally acquiesces. Shouts rise up from the other raiders who still think I am one of them and are calling to me, asking me what I am doing.

Now Niha is moving in a wide arc, the other camels, stringing out behind her, following.

“Hiya! Hiya!”

She acquiesces, trotting with long languid strides in a direction at a sharp angle to her previous course. Now, the other raiders, realizing the deception, are racing toward me, swords drawn. I glance over my shoulder to check their progress. Close. Too close. I am still caught in the sweep of emotions that hurtled me onto this wild course. I will not give up my position.

“Hiya!” I wave my hand into Niha's face, threatening her eyes. She jerks her head away, toward the encampment and finally completely turns that way. Some of the raiders are trying to circle the remainder of the herd back, but Niha has decided she has had enough of all this and wants to go home, and that is where she is going. And the other camels are ignoring the shouts and following her.

I turn too, just as the unmistakable whoosh of a sword blade slices the air, close enough to shave the fine hairs from my ear. Had I not turned at that instant—

There is no time to dwell on this. Wielding a sword from horseback is almost as difficult as trying to shoot an arrow from there, but I do not wish to put that to the test. I have only my skill at riding and my lighter weight to keep me alive. My heels drum Wind's side. He tosses his head, flinging a string of bloody mucus from his torn nostril into my face. But he responds to my need, bursting through the ragged line of loping camels. I lean low on his outstretched neck, half closing my eyes against the sting of his mane, squeezing speed from him with the muscles of my calves. I am counting on the raiders' anger to compel them to follow me.

But if they catch me, I am dead … or worse.

It is a race. A glance behind me—too close of a race. My pursuers' mounts had only to match the slower pace of the camels and are better rested than Wind. The swaths of the raiders' headdresses cover their mouths, but their dark eyes brim with rage. Fisted hands brandish raised swords that gleam in the sun's ruthless glare.

I focus between my horse's ears, straining to see our goal, but the wind has added to the stirred dust of our passage, blowing in a sudden burst that blurs the figures running toward us. Perhaps the windstorm that concerned Mana has arrived. My hands grip the strands of Wind's mane. I have no whip, but I free one hand to rest on the side of his foam-streaked neck and lean further forward in a plea for more.

From somewhere, he finds more to give. His stride lengthens, lowering us closer to the ground. The pounding of Wind's hooves are my blood's beat, the rushing earth a dry flood, flashing the colors of brush and stone and loess. For a moment, I lose fear and even the wild thing that drove me to jump on his back. For a moment, I am only horse, running.

I am daughter of the wind.

Then a stumble pitches me forward, catapulting me up in an arc … and then down. The earth that rushed past me a moment ago now rushes toward me. I tuck my arm and head, as the Hurrian horse trainer taught me, to let the blow strike the back of my shoulder, something I had no time to do when I fell from Dune's back so long ago—how could it have been so long ago and yet not long ago at all?

There is that thought and air and then … impact.

Walls of pain pin me from every direction. I cannot move, cannot breathe. If a sword descends to slice my head from my neck, I can do nothing to stop it. I cannot even turn my head to see it. I can only wait
for the pain to stop, for my breath to return, or for this brown dusk to turn to a forever night.

Finally, I can suck a breath into my lungs.

A second one.

Through the pain, I hear the sound of hooves. I am not certain what direction I face. Where is the enemy? I am at his mercy, but there was no mercy in those black eyes. Does he know I killed his kinsman? I want to roll over and face him. I want to meet those eyes and tell him what I did. Tell him it was for my father. I want to see my death come, not lie trussed like a lamb for slaughter, my face in the dirt.

And then I will go meet my father. I feel his presence near. His hand on my shoulder. Through a blur, I see his face, and now I am glad to see it, rather than my slaughterer.
Wait for me, Father
.

My ear is pressed against the ground. The sound of feet, many feet. The clang of blades meeting. Curses. A dog's low growl. Now, all around me, the sounds of battle. My mind struggles with this, as if it cannot comprehend anything different than what it has imagined will be.

I blink, and through the thick dust I see a thin stick planted beside my head—two sticks. They resolve into slender black legs, feathered behind with white, and I realize Nami stands over me. The blanket of dust that covers us is a gift of the wind. While I cannot see my enemy, they cannot see me either. The pain eases enough for me to gather my knees and attempt to stand, but hands grasp me and haul me upright.

There were the giants famous from the beginning that were of so great stature, and so expert in war.…

—The Book of Baruch

T
HE WORLD SPINS, AND I
am only semi-aware of walking, supported on either side by men whose headdresses protect all but their eyes from the swirling dust. Bodies lie strewn across the ground, and we must navigate around them. Nami presses against my calf, and that alone would have sent me sprawling to kiss the ground if hands were not holding me upright. I try to think through the haze in my mind. Are these raiders or Yassib's men?

The wind is strong. My headdress is gone, and bits of grit sting my face, making me wish for the camel's extra milky lid and long lashes. I blink. Through the dust, figures approach and I recognize the shape of a very tall man among them.

Yassib's clan has become a camp again, though only a few tents are back up. We are not moving out today.

Mana and one of her older daughters rush out to relieve me from the men's arms. Yassib's tent is one of those reassembled, and I stumble between the women to my mat, which has been laid out for me. Then I am down. My eyes close, but I drift in and out of sleep.

When they open again, I see Nami curled with her head across my
foot. Alert to my movement, she pricks her ears, thumping her tail twice on the hard ground to tell me she is happy I am back.

“How you feel, Adir?” The voice is Mika's. He sits cross-legged just out of my line of vision, and I have to twist my head to see him.

“Thirsty.”

He moves closer and helps me sit up to drink. I take the bowl of water from him, grateful that my hands are steady. The tent flap is rolled up, which means the dust storm has passed.

He has me move arms and legs and starts to feel my ribs, but I push his hands away. “I am fine.”

He does not insist. “Does it hurt to breathe?”

“No.” I take another long swallow. “What has happened?”

“Good question. I heard shouts and noise, but saw men rushing after cloud of dust. I followed, but most of battle finished and camels returned to camp. Then you brought in, and I waiting for you to waken.”

I tell him about Shem, my wild ride, and the fall.

His face pales. “Why you do such a foolish thing, Adir?”

His question hangs in the air. I take another swallow of water and try to explain. “The weaving that ignorant raider used as a pad. It slipped off when he did.”

“You risked life for of a piece of cloth?”