Encouraged by Asaddan, Saan whistled down at the bandits, taunting them. Great anger showed on his grandfather’s face. “We
must remember the position of their base. When we return, my son can send an army into the desert to wipe out those vermin.”
For three days, stoking the coal in the brazier, they floated along undisturbed through sunlight and darkness. Here in the
air, unlike on a sea voyage, there were no treacherous reefs or uncharted shoals to pose hazards. Because the southerly prevailing
winds set their course, the passengers had nothing to do but talk and wait, amusing or distracting themselves. Asaddan insisted
that the Great Desert would eventually end; Saan could see nothing but dunes upon dunes upon dunes extending to a hazy horizon.
“Now I understand the ordeal you endured when you crossed that expanse on foot,” Saan said to Asaddan.
“You may think you do.” The Nunghal flashed him a hard smile. “I hope you never have to find out for sure.”
To pass the time, Asaddan told them stories as they watched dusty whirlwinds churned up by crosscurrents blowing across the
desert. “Those are sand dervishes, small demons that live in the dunes and disguise themselves as beautiful women to fool
unwary travelers. They hunger for love and for flesh. They sing to men on the fringes of campfires and lure them out to the
dunes. The dervishes are so desperate for love, so alone, that they embrace their victims in a cyclonic wind and bury them
in sand.”
With a shiver, Saan sat up straight, blinking his blue eyes. Sherufa wore a skeptical expression, and Asaddan looked at the
Saedran woman. “We know this because mummified bodies are found out in the sands, all the water and life gone from them.”
“We don’t have to worry about them up here,” Saan said.
Imir pointed behind them. ”We have other things to worry about, though.” From the north, a gray-brown hammer of whipped-up
dust lumbered toward them; sparkles of lightning flashed inside the cloud, which moved faster than the sand coracle.
“Should we land? Find shelter down there somewhere?” Saan scanned the dunes, but could see no place to hide in the sands,
no rock outcroppings, no cliffs.
“We will have to ride it out,” Asaddan said. “Up here.”
Sherufa could not keep the anxiety from her voice. “I suggest that we cover ourselves so we don’t choke on the dust. And hold
on.”
Saan stoked up the brazier’s coals. The looming fist of the storm closed the distance, and they were at the mercy of the wind.
As the first breezes knocked against the basket, the travelers huddled down, covered their noses and mouths with scarves,
and waited as the storm engulfed them. He had wanted an adventure, to see and experience things that few other people had.
In the storm’s embrace, he felt a thrill of fear.
The scouring winds shrieked over them, scraping against the wicker, buffeting the inflated balloon. A few loose items—an empty
water pouch, one of Imir’s dirty tunics, Sen Sherufa’s green scarf—blew away, never to be seen again. As Saan hunkered against
the wooden frame, he felt the uncertainty of the reeds beneath him that were being eaten away by the abrasive sands.
“Keep the fire burning,” Sen Sherufa yelled. “If it goes out, we lose our buoyancy, and the coracle will crash.” Trying to
shield the edges of the brazier from the winds, they added more coal from their mostly diminished supplies.
Caught by gleeful handfuls of wind, loose embers scattered onto the wicker and began to smolder. Asaddan swept some of the
hot coals over the side with his bare hands. Saan shouted and snuffed one out, burning his palm. “We’re also lost if the wicker
burns!”
When the storm finally began to fade the next day, leaving them battered and caked with grit, they were able to shake the
dust from their clothes, from the water sacks, and from the packaged food. Saan laughed at the crusting of dirt on his grandfather’s
brown face that made the man’s bright eyes look startlingly white against the dust. The sky turned maddeningly clear and bright.
Swirling breezes loosened dust that had clogged the wicker. Saan rubbed his stinging eyes and looked ahead to where he discerned
a different color of brown against the undulating tan dunes. “Are those… hills?”
Asaddan raised both hands above his head in celebration. “The golden grasses of the steppes!” In his excitement he poked his
foot against the side of the coracle, and sand-scoured reeds splintered. Saan grabbed his friend’s muscular arm to steady
him.
Imir brushed at the grit on his arms and face. “Tell me, Asaddan, do the Nunghals have baths?”
Limping along and losing altitude from many small leaks in the treated silk, the sand coracle crossed the last dunes and drifted
over the tan hills. They added the last lumps of coal to the brazier, but the fire remained low so that the sand coracle skimmed
not far above the ground now.
Scanning the landscape for familiar features, Asaddan spotted the dark shapes of a herd moving across the grasses. Below,
several brown-clad men astride ponies reacted with excitement to see the strange balloon drifting overhead. The riders chased
them, and Asaddan leaned over the edge of the basket, bellowing in the Nunghal language. The herders circled, shouting back.
Their ponies kept up with the drifting coracle as it dropped gently to the ground.
“I know this clan!” Asaddan called.
The basket scraped the grass, but the still-buoyant balloon bounced and carried them along for another substantial distance.
The Nunghal riders laughed and shouted as they chased along. Asaddan taunted them to catch him.
The wicker coracle hit the ground again, and Saan held on, careful not to be thrown overboard; his teeth clacked together
in the jarring rebound. Imir said with a gasp, “I will be very glad to be on solid land again.”
Finally, the sand coracle came to rest, and the Nunghal herders circled, regarding them curiously. Saan could only imagine
what an odd picture their group posed: coated with dust, their facial features strange. Asaddan swung himself over the side
of the basket, splintering more of the reeds. Trying to gain his balance on solid ground, the big Nunghal stumbled like a
drunken man, which made the herders laugh uproariously.
They came forward to clasp hands with Asaddan, who wore an expansive grin on his face. “Welcome to the land of the Nunghals,
my friends. I know these men and their clan. We are safe now, and at home.”
Prester Hannes had little difficulty escaping from the Gremurr mines. When all was said and done, he simply walked away.
Cowed by overseers’ threats and the imposing snow-capped mountains, few slaves had bothered to try. Hannes, though, made his
own plans, his own decisions. As he performed his daily labors, he paid attention to which guards were lax, which ones were
attentive. Work master Zadar was confident that no slave would be foolish enough to defy the rules… and Hannes considered
him the fool for believing this. It made his escape easier.
A fresh shipload of prisoners arrived at Gremurr, and Hannes watched as the new slaves marched off the boat. Tukar and Zadar
delivered the same speech as before, threatening severe consequences if the slaves did not work, did not obey the restrictions.
The guards focused their attentions on the new arrivals, because fresh prisoners were more likely to take impulsive actions.
As a consequence, they loosened their vigilance on seasoned slaves who had resigned themselves to their fates. Hannes looked
for his opportunity.
The season was late spring, and streams from the high country swelled with the snowmelt. Since he knew he had a long journey
ahead, Hannes did not want to miss the high summer in the mountains. He quietly prepared, telling no one else of his plans.
They were, after all, Urecari. He made a habit of stealing dry lumps of bread from the trays of other prisoners who were too
weary and confused to notice. He hoarded strips of cloth he could use for wrapping his hands and fingers to prevent frostbite.
Finally, one night Ondun gave him a clear sign that it was time to go. A weak old man chained to the bunk beside him died
in his sleep with a low gurgle. As part of his preparations, Hannes had secreted a bent iron nail he’d found in the ground.
Now he used its point to pick the lock on the shackle that bound his ankle to the bed. He stripped the clothes from the old
man’s corpse, stealing the dead man’s blanket as well as his own. Hannes would need them for warmth in the mountainous wilderness.
The barracks door was locked with a crossbar, but the walls were made of stretched canvas. Hannes moved past the snoring,
unconscious slaves and bent to the base of the far wall. He poked the nail through the cloth and made a rip large enough to
fit his fingers through. The canvas tore with an unexpectedly loud sound. He froze. Other prisoners stirred but did not awaken.
He squeezed his head and shoulders through the gap in the canvas and, holding the spare blankets and his stockpile of stolen
bread, sprinted into the moonlight.
All around him, the Gremurr mines stank of smoke and chemicals. Reddish glows came from the banked fires of the smelters.
Bright lamps lit the fine houses of Tukar and Zadar. As he took his last glimpse of this place, Hannes felt a great disappointment
in his heart. Before he escaped, he was tempted to wreak such havoc here! He could set fire to the homes, damage the smelters,
wreck the ore lines. By spilling oil across the decks, he could destroy the weapons barges or the ingot-laden galleys. He
could kill every one of his fellow slaves in the barracks—since they were chained to their beds, he could have gone from bunk
to bunk, strangling them.
But Hannes knew his most important mission was to escape, to return to Tierra. One slave slipping off into the night might
not cause much furor, but if he created the holocaust he imagined, they would never let him get away. No, he had to listen
to Ondun’s greater calling.
He also remembered that while these people paid lip service to Urec’s Log, they had no faith. Because they were not devout
in the Urecari heresy, killing them would be almost like murder. And he could not do that.
So Prester Hannes merely walked off into the night. He left the slave camp behind and found a path into the rugged mountains.
He had his faith as his armor and his weapon, and that was all he needed.
“We should never have abandoned Ishalem, Soldan-Shah,” said Sikara Fyiri. “The place is not shunned by Ondun—it is
ours
.” The two stood on a hill overlooking the Middlesea, watching the constant battle training below. Warm breezes blew in their
faces, bringing the smell of horses and the sea.
Now that Omra had finally set plans in motion, he had expected Fyiri to relent. He was wrong. “We will make up for it, Sikara.
The Aidenists will not expect such an ambitious move from us—not after thirteen years.”
“Your war has wasted too much time without focus,” Fyiri scolded. “Skirmishes here and there, raids of villages, acts of piracy—for
years! We are like children scuffling on the beach. This is a
war,
a holy war against the Aidenists… and you are the leader of Uraba. In the name of Urec, we must crush the enemy, defeat the
followers of Aiden, whom God despises, and reclaim what is rightfully ours.
Ishalem
.”
With Saan and Imir gone off on their adventurous journey, and with his new son and heir waiting in the palace, Omra realized
that he did not want to leave any of them with this war. The conflict was like an aching tooth that could only be cured by
the sharp pain of a complete extraction. Sitting in the bedchamber with Istar and his baby son Criston, he had cobbled together
a sweeping military plan to reconquer Ishalem, writing on long rolled sheets of paper and drawing diagrams, as she looked
over his shoulder, concerned. He had made up his mind. After so many years of preparations, Uraba had all the weapons, ships,
soldiers, and horses they needed for this assault.
In the war room of the palace, Omra explained the war plan to his kels, showing them how he intended to take advantage of
the terrain. He calculated how swiftly he could move the components of his army to converge at Ishalem for a decisive, concerted
strike…
Now, in the broad fields above Abilan’s open beaches, hundreds of infantry archers drew back their bows to loose flights of
arrows toward targets. On the flat beaches at low tide, hundreds of mounted cavalrymen rode hard, the horses’ hooves pounding
the sand as they charged straw-filled dummies that had fishhook symbols painted on their ragged tunic coverings. The cavalry
soldiers hacked with their scimitars as they rushed past. Kel Unwar guided them, shouting commands, criticizing every flaw
in the maneuvers.
Meanwhile, Omra’s new fleet of war galleys was ready in the shipyards of Ouroussa, south of Tenér, sixty armored vessels that
would glide up the Oceansea coast to reach the isthmus. They would be commanded by Kel Zarouk. Groups of foot soldiers were
being ferried across the Middlesea to the port city of Sioara; from there, they would march over the Wahilir pass to crew
the war galleys. Very soon, Omra and Kel Unwar’s cavalry would ride up the coast of Inner Wahilir and arrive on the eastern
side of Ishalem at the same time as the war galleys arrived on the western shore. In an enormous pincer maneuver, they would
close in on the barren holy city and recapture it in the name of Urec.
Watching the military plans finally set in motion, Sikara Fyiri looked more bloodthirsty than ever rather than satisfied.
Omra regarded her out of the corner of his eye. She had dark brown hair, stained red lips, and a face as smooth as ceramic…
so different from the young woman who had blessed his first wife, Istar, and their unborn child so long ago.
Terrible events have shaped us all,
Omra thought,
twisted us like driftwood into something that would have been unrecognizable to us at another time
. As Fyiri observed the training exercises now, her imagination seemed full of grand-scale battles with screaming Aidenists
falling to the sword. She relished it.