Monsters in the Sand (3 page)

The eunuch laughed. ‘Insect! Your father hides gold that is owed to me as lawful taxes.’

‘I am ten years old. What do I know of taxes?’

The eunuch gestured angrily and a cart, loaded with red-hot pincers, spikes and chains, rattled towards Hussein. He examined them and smiled. ‘I know nothing about hidden gold.’ He paused to gain his breath. His forehead ran with sweat. ‘Even if I did know, I would die before telling you.’

Performers carrying long silk flags ran to Hussein. They flung the flags high in the air, caught them again and danced around him.

Too late, Austen realised it was a trick. Screened by the flags, two soldiers pulled Hussein to the ground. One of the eunuch’s men, holding the flag of messenger, galloped out of camp and towards the chief. Austen guessed the lie the messenger would
tell. ‘Prince Hussein is safe. As a sign of good faith, he has willingly joined the governor for a meal.’

The chief mustn’t panic and attack. He had to stick to the plan and wait until Austen knew exactly what was happening to Hussein. If the eunuch took Hussein as a hostage, he needed him alive and unharmed, in case he was forced to bargain. One valuable hostage was more reliable than a battle – which could go badly, even if the eunuch won. And if he suffered too many casualties, then all southern Persia might rise against him. The chief had agreed to the plan, but Austen was afraid he’d lead a suicidal attack.

‘Bring him here!’ Voices moved to the back corner of the eunuch’s tent. Austen followed the sound, singing the prayer that was his signal to Hussein.

‘No, don’t tie me.’ Hussein yelled so that Austen would hear.

One of the eunuch’s dervishes, more a skeleton than a man, stopped and stared at Austen. Puzzled, he came closer to him, and Austen quickly turned his back and danced away as if in a trance. The instant he was out of the dervish’s sight, he hurried to the forest behind the camp.

The shape of a guard passed in front of a watch fire and shadows moved in the lamplit tents of the camp.

Austen let go of the reins and touched each pistol in his belt, just to make sure he knew exactly where they were.

‘One blow from my axe will split the eunuch’s skull like a melon,’ the chief growled.

‘Take positions,’ Au Kerim commanded. The horsemen divided into three groups that moved slowly and quietly forward. Harnesses jingled and hooves rattled on stones, but nobody in the camp had heard them yet.

Austen kept his eyes on the peaked roof of the central tent. His anger simmered as he imagined Hussein tied in ropes, but he knew where the prince was and how to get him out.

When they were within a hundred yards of the watch fires, a guard suddenly stopped and peered into the darkness. Au Kerim fired a musket and the guard fell backwards. Spurring their horses, they charged. One or two soldiers fired blindly before the horsemen were among them, shooting and hacking with swords.

Austen, the chief and Au Kerim galloped straight for the eunuch’s tent. To Austen’s left, shots and screams came from the corrals, where the chief’s men fought to set the horses loose. To his right, horsemen slashed guy ropes, guns fired and sparks from watch fires arced through the air.

Galloping past, Austen noticed soldiers with bayonets raised, closing in behind to trap them. Ahead, matchlocks glowed. A cannon. Two cannons, aimed directly at them. Surely they wouldn’t fire! They’d wipe out their own infantry forming behind them.

Matchlocks moved down to touch the gunpowder. At point-blank range, the grapeshot would smash them to a pulp. Austen wrenched his horse to one side and it bucked away from the cannons. Au Kerim and the chief dragged their horses aside just before the cannons fired their lethal blast. Austen glimpsed Au Kerim springing to his feet and the point of his sword stabbing at a gunner’s throat. The chief raised his axe and charged.

Austen drew his sword, thrust it into the wall of the eunuch’s tent and slashed downwards, cutting a long slit. He tore the wall apart, but the room was empty. Ropes hung loosely from the tent pole and soldiers suddenly crowded through the doorway. He fired one pistol, then the second, and two men slumped back against the others.

Austen ran back to the chief, who stood panting among bodies around the cannons. Au Kerim was bent double.

‘Hussein is not here!’ Austen shouted. ‘The eunuch must’ve taken him away.’

The chief roared.

‘It’s no use trying to find him.’ Austen spoke directly into the chief’s face. ‘The eunuch and Hussein are long gone. But
you
must live.’

Au Kerim, clutching one hand to his belly, stumbled towards his horse and held onto the saddle with the other hand.

‘Can you ride?’ Austen supported him and soon his own arms and sleeves were saturated with blood.

‘Just lift me into the saddle.’

Survivors of the chief’s horsemen formed a quick protective circle around them. They fired rapidly at the hole cut into the tent wall, blocking it with bodies.

‘Get the chief to safety!’ Austen reloaded his pistols. ‘I’ll look after Au Kerim.’

The men looked at Au Kerim and he nodded weakly. One of them raised a trumpet to sound the retreat.

‘Quick!’ Austen dragged Au Kerim’s horse through the confusion and slowly out into darkness. But horses were galloping after them and closing in. He led Au Kerim down into a riverbed, where they were invisible against the dark earth and water. Au Kerim groaned with each lurch of his horse. The guns fired again and musket balls splattered into water and sparked against stones. Austen didn’t return fire, because the flash would have made them an easy target. The next volley smacked into Au Kerim’s horse, which fell sideways, then thrashed about in the shallows.

He found Au Kerim, back arched over a boulder. ‘My horse fell on me. Ribs broken. Leg,’ he gasped. ‘Leave me.’ He took Austen’s hand and placed it on his belly and Austen felt the slippery, gaping wound.

Further shots howled over their heads, while hooves and voices advanced on them steadily. Austen crouched over Au Kerim, took out both pistols and faced their attackers.

Au Kerim grasped his wrist and tried to wrestle the pistol away from him. ‘Give me your gun.’

The outline of men and horses appeared against the stars.

‘Go, Lion. There is no dishonour, I am dying.’ Au Kerim held his hand for a moment longer. ‘My hand is my soul. Take my spirit with you.’

Austen pushed his pistol into Au Kerim’s limp hand. ‘Allah the all-powerful is your homecoming, Au Kerim. I’ll bring help for your people.’ He leapt into the saddle and spurred his horse.

A single pistol shot fired. Then four more.

A leopard’s lips curled back from long teeth and the rough tongue rasped Austen’s cheek. Drops of moisture shivered on the long whiskers and each drop glittered like a rainbow in the sun. The desert sun, a hundred miles from Baghdad.

The black nose of the creature was pitted like orange peel and its breath stank. The smell of death drifted out as the town gates opened. The guard’s face was a skull with skin like candle wax and his neck was red. Red lumps had split open like pomegranates around his throat. He shut the gate and slid the long steel bolt across. Dogs fought over a corpse on the street. ‘Nobody leaves here alive.’

Sharp prickles of leopard claws unsheathed. Tiny stabs tested the skin. The gates of Baghdad were open. English ladies and gentlemen rode past – grand
in their finery and gold braid. He called out, but his voice was as dry and cracked as his lips. ‘Doctor Ross, Colonel Taylor.’ They glanced at him and rode on. Next came Felix Jones, of the Royal Navy’s gunship
Euphrates.
He was late, as usual, but his uniform was neat. Call out to him. ‘Felix!
Felix
is Latin for happy!’ That made him look. Servants beat away lepers and beggars to make a path for him.

Jaws closed gently around Austen’s throat and a pulse beat under the point of one tooth.

‘Put it down, Nelson. Down, I say.’ Felix’s voice was loud and clear. ‘It’s not a mangy goat, you idiot. It’s a mangy Layard. You remember Austen! He’s your friend – not your breakfast.’

The leopard’s eyes were manic.

‘Put him down, Nelson, or no sugar.’ A jar rattled and sugar cubes were scattered nearby.

Claws sheathed, jaws opened, and Austen’s head cracked back on the floor.

‘Good boy. There’s a good Nelson.’

The tongue slurped up the sugar and then the leopard slunk away to stand on his hind legs, with his front paws on the window ledge. Nelson gazed down into the street markets along the riverside and his tail curled at the end with a happy tickle of bloodlust.

A familiar creaking came from the river. Water
splashed as the high water wheel tipped its buckets over the roof of Felix’s house. It was like living inside a waterfall that cascaded down the outside. Under the floor, the river gurgled around stilts supporting the house. Cool breezes wafted up through gaps between floorboards and the wood was hard on Austen’s back.

‘Morning, Austen. Awake at last?’ Felix was immaculate in polished black boots, long white trousers and starched shirt. He grinned at Austen.

‘Morning? What day is it?’ Austen snapped back to reality. ‘Hussein. Au Kerim. Khanumi.’ He tried to sit up, every muscle hurt and his feet were swaddled in stained bandages. ‘How long have I been asleep?’

Felix squatted on the floor. His face was cleanshaven, with a mouth that couldn’t help smiling and bright eyes that danced with amusement. ‘Asleep? Oh, about three days – maybe four.’

‘Four days!’

‘Well, you were a bit of a mess. You refused to sleep, kept throwing yourself out of bed and crawling to my guns. You wouldn’t stop raving about rescuing Hussein. Doctor Ross had no choice but to dose you with his diabolical
Mother’s Comfort.
That did the trick, although you kept trying to escape in your sleep. The best thing was to double-dose you and leave you on the floor.

‘I must get help. I promised Au Kerim.’

Felix put his hands on Austen’s shoulders and held him down. ‘You’re not going anywhere. You can hardly even sit up.’

‘Damn it, Felix. Send for Colonel Taylor. I need to talk to him. We must get troops to Castle Tul.’

‘The Colonel looks in on you every morning. In your lucid moments, you’ve said enough for him to know what’s going on.’

A purring-growl rumbled at the street window. Nelson wriggled his back paws for a good grip on the floor and his tail twitched.

‘No, Nelson, stay!’

Claws scrabbled, ears flattened and the leopard flew out the window. Down in the street a goat bleated. The sound was cut to a snoring, snarling and a man screamed curses.

Felix strode out the door. ‘Damned leopard!’ His footsteps thumped on wooden steps down to the riverbank.

Austen tried to stand so he could go to the window and enjoy the fun, but the pain was too much and he slumped back on the floor.

‘Your leopard killed my goat,’ a man shouted.

‘I know you,’ Felix roared back. ‘That’s two sheep and a goat this week. Thief! Scoundrel! You bring
worthless old animals to my window and extort money from me.’

‘You pay.’

‘For that scrawny bag of bones? It’s not worth one piastre.’

‘You pay. I have many witnesses. I call the authorities. She is my goat.’

‘Perhaps I shall set
my
authority onto your lying throat. Look, Nelson, see the bad man. Do you want to bite the bad man? Maybe take a leg or a hand for breakfast?’

Austen heard a growl, followed by a scream.

‘One word from me and he’ll tear your throat out.’ Felix was in full command. ‘Take your filthy money and never let me set eyes on you again.’

Then Austen heard the sound of running and the leopard coughed.

‘Get inside the house, Nelson.’ Felix stomped back up the steps and shoved the door open. ‘Consider yourself confined to the brig.’ With its tail between its legs, the leopard crept inside and lay flat on the floor. ‘Bad boy. You’re costing me a fortune.’

‘Lieutenant Jones!’ Someone was at the door.

Felix straightened his uniform and stood to attention.

‘At ease, Jones.’ Colonel Taylor, a short, wizened old man with the eyes of a suspicious lizard, strode into the room. ‘Layard. No need to stand, my boy.’

Austen propped himself up on one elbow. ‘Is there any news from Castle Tul?’

‘My informers tell me there was no battle there.’ The colonel marched right over to the leopard and scratched him just below the ears. ‘In fact, the eunuch has retreated towards Teheran. I need your maps, so I’ve sent a courier to collect your saddlebags from Tul.’

Austen released a long breath. ‘And what about Hussein?’

‘He’s still a hostage, I’m afraid, but the eunuch is negotiating. There’s nothing you can do to help. I’d say you’ve done more than enough already. Your
night attack seems to have ignited a fuse, because Shah Aga Khan has also risen against the eunuch. Indeed, the entire south of Persia is in revolt.

‘If we send our troops now –’

Colonel Taylor’s face reddened. He turned and stood feet apart, back ramrod straight, as if on parade. ‘What troops? Our army in Afghanistan has been wiped out. To the north, Turks and Kurds are slaughtering each other. In Jerusalem, Roman and Greek Christians are fighting for control of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The Egyptian army had to send in troops with bayonets to keep them from each other’s throats. In the west, Bosnians and Serbs continue to fill town wells with corpses and decorate billiard saloons with one another’s heads. Here in Iraq, Shia fanatics kill Sunnis and Sunni fanatics kill Shias to prove they are the Prophet’s rightful heirs. If Iraq goes up in flames, we lose our trade routes to India and China and the British Empire is in danger of being cut in half.’ The vein in his forehead swelled. ‘And you expect me to send the last of our troops to help a few of your friends who in all likelihood don’t need any assistance?’

This was the first time the colonel had spoken angrily to him. In the past, they’d shared many long nights in the colonel’s library, searching through rare
books and ancient manuscripts for clues to Nineveh and the lost world of Assyria.