80 The Great Desert

With Desert Harbor in disarray and the sand coracles nothing more than smoldering shells, Imir tried to restore some kind of order. Workers shoveled sand onto the fires, but the silk balloons had been consumed, the reinforced wicker baskets charred, all the trade goods destroyed. Surviving merchants fell to their knees, clutching their heads and wailing.

Two dozen guards, traders, and camp workers were dead and many more injured. The bodies of several hideously ugly bandits, their faces disfigured by ornamental scars and tattoos, were piled off to one side like garbage. Furious, Soldan Xivir muttered, “Apparently, we have more bandits to kill!” He ordered the bandit corpses propped up on crossbars so that desert vultures could come in and feed.

Burilo was not convinced. “I doubt that will be a deterrent, Father. We've wiped out their leaders and their camps many times, yet they come back to prey upon us. The bandits won't fear a handful of rotting corpses.”

Xivir's face contorted with disgust. “No… but I will appreciate it.”

Imir stalked among the permanent structures and tents, calling out for Adreala. He had seen her when the raid first began and hoped that she had found someplace to hide. With a sinking dread, he prodded all the mutilated bodies lined up on the ground. He bellowed her name, but she did not answer, and a thorough search by all the guards revealed no sign of her.

Finally, one of the traders called him over. The smaller man sat hunched and sweating, while the camp surgeon used a needle and tough silk thread to sew up a bleeding gash on his shoulder. The trader winced, but the surgeon paid no attention, sticking the needle in and tugging on the thread. “My Lord, I saw—I saw the girl! After one of the bandits wounded me, I fell and tried to scramble out of the way. I remember seeing a rider snatch up your granddaughter and throw her across his horse. He was the ugly one with red dye in his hair and black paint on his face.”

Xivir's face flushed with fury. “That was Norgo himself.”

“Why would the bandits take her? She's just a girl!” Imir looked around, demanding explanations from all those listening, but he didn't have to press for an answer. He could make his own guesses. “Xivir, mount up everyone who can ride. We are going in pursuit of the bandits now.”

Burilo turned an awkward look at the wreckage of the camp and the number of wounded, but he did not argue. He ran to fetch horses, while Soldan Xivir looked at his notched scimitar and cast it aside. “Bring me a new sword and one for the soldan-shah—and make sure they're sharp! All capable men, arm yourselves. We will ride these bandits into the sand and bury them!”

The knot in Imir's stomach pulled even tighter. He didn't let his despair show, but he knew very well that if they did not rescue Adreala within the first day or so, there might not be anything left to save.

By midmorning, the winds had picked up, stirring the loose sand and dust. The riders raced out of Desert Harbor before breezes erased the trail.

* * *

The bandits rode through the heat of the day and into the deepening dusk. Adreala never ceased struggling, never stopped trying to escape, although if she did manage to roll off the bandit leader's horse, she would surely die out here in the middle of the empty dunes. She didn't care.

Norgo had lashed her hands together in front of her; her wrists were raw and bleeding because she kept trying to break the bonds. Six times, she managed to get an elbow or foot into position where she could deliver a sharp blow to Norgo. Each time, in response, he slapped the side of her head.

Still, Adreala did not give up. Finally in disgust, Norgo struck her again, much harder. “You refuse to learn, girl!”

She wrenched herself around and spat at him, but the saliva flew past his face. “You are not my teacher.”

Norgo looked at where she'd spat. “Not good to waste water out here.” Then he laughed, slapped her again with a hint of playfulness, and rode on.

Though the bandits had spread out, they knew their common destination. After dark, the riders converged on a seemingly unremarkable hollow in the dunes. There was no spring here, no rocks, just sand.

Norgo dumped Adreala off the horse and she fell unceremoniously into the dust. It knocked the wind out of her, but she refused to cry out. She pulled her knees up to her chest and sat in a defensive posture, wary, watching.

The bandits camped under the light of the moon; they built no fire. After the horses were hobbled, Norgo squatted down and spoke with his men. Though they had lost some of their comrades at Desert Harbor, the bandits were satisfied they had inflicted much more pain and damage on the enemy.

The men ate stringy dried meat from their saddlebags, sipped from a waterskin they passed around, offering nothing to Adreala. Finally, Norgo approached her holding the waterskin. “Now, who are you, girl? You must be somebody important. Why were you at that camp?”

She refused to answer.

He jiggled the waterskin, tempting her. “Tell me your name, and I will give you a drink of water.”

Adreala's throat was parched, her stomach rumbled, but she worked hard not to show her desperation. “My name is worth more than a sip of water.”

He sloshed the water enticingly. “The value of a sip of water increases out here in the desert. Before long, you may think the price is not so high.”

“Before long, I'll be rescued—and you will be dead in the sand with vultures pecking out your eyes!”

Norgo sat back and laughed. The other bandits guffawed as well. “Then we'd better make use of you in the meantime. But what can you do for us? You're unskilled, scrawny… probably lazy, too.”

“That's why I told you to leave her behind, Norgo,” one of the men said. “Better off carrying another waterskin.”

“You'll never know what I'm worth,” Adreala said. “I'm not staying with you.”

“You don't have much choice, brat.” Norgo grinned. “I think you'll learn to like it out here in the desert. Ah, the freedom!
We go where we want, take what we want. All this land is ours!”

“It's only sand.” Adreala remained defiant, but her voice cracked because she was so thirsty. “You broke the commandments of Urec's Log. You have slain other Urecari. You stole from Ondun Himself by stealing the blessings He bestowed upon the people in Desert Harbor.”

At this, Norgo and the others laughed louder. The black paint on the leader's face was beginning to peel and streak from his sweat. “My gods are the winds and the sand, girl—not some old ship's captain. I believe in what I can see and do.”

Adreala was shocked. Though she felt no great calling to become a sikara, as her little sister did, she had never heard such outright blasphemy. Even the Aidenists believed in God. “You will die for what you have spoken and done.”

Norgo gave her a dismissive gesture, then drank greedily from the waterskin in front of her, before sealing it and tossing it back to his comrades. “My people were here, eking out an existence in the Great Desert, long before any ancient ships came. We have nothing to do with your Urec or Ondun. To us, they don't exist.”

Norgo's statement astonished her. She expected Ondun Himself to rise up from the sands to swallow these bandits because of the hateful words they spoke. She sat back against the dune and waited for divine intervention.

A capricious night breeze blew grains of stinging sand into her face, but she had expected much more of a response. Adreala was disappointed.