Memories flashed. His ride down Wadi al Hamamah. Her rape. The day he had come for Misr. Her knees weakened. He was a shaghun. He had conquered her easily. She was a fool to challenge him.
Brush crackled ever closer. She saw something white moving among the trees. His horse. That was him. Coming right to her.
There he was. Black rider. Nightmare lover. Misr's father. She pictured Mowfik and Al Jahez. "You!" she breathed. "For what you did to my father."
A twig snapped as she drew her bow. The horse's head snapped up, ears pricking. Her arrow slammed into its throat. It should have struck the shaghun's heart.
The animal kept rising into a screaming rear, hooves pounding air. The rider went over backward. Narriman heard his breath explode when he hit ground.
Up she sprang. She let fly again. Her shaft passed through his
djellaba as he rolled, pinned him for a second. In that second Narriman loosed her last arrow.
It glanced off his hip bone, leaving a bloody gash across his right buttock. He stumbled a step, fell, regained his feet with a groan.
Narriman drew her saber, stalked forward. Her mind boiled with all she wanted to say before she killed him.
He regained control, drew his own blade. A strained smile crossed his lips.
Narriman moved in carefully. I'll attack to his right, she thought. Make him put more strain on his wound. He's battered and bleeding. He'll be slow. I can wear him down.
"Little Fox. Little fool. Why did you come here? Outsiders don't come to the Jebal. Not and leave again."
There'll be a first, then, she thought. But she did not speak. Things she wanted to say rattled through her mind, but not one reached her lips. Her approach was as silent and implacable as his preceding her rapes.
She threw three hard, quick strokes. He turned them, but looked disturbed. She was not supposed to do this, was she? She was supposed to fall under his spell.
"Narriman! Look at me!"
She was caught by the command. She met his eye.
The fire ran through her. She ached for him. And to her surprise, she ignored it. She struck while his guard was loose, opened a gash on his cheek.
He went pale. His eyes grew larger. He could not believe it.
She struck again. He blocked her, thrust back, nearly reached her. He knew she was not dealing with a little girl anymore.
He beat her back, then retreated. A weird keening came from him, though his lips did not move. Leaves stirred. A cold wind rose. The tip of Narriman's saber drooped like a candle in the sun. She shifted it to her left hand, pulled her dagger and threw it. Mowfik had taught her that.
The dagger struck the shaghun in the left shoulder, spun him. The cold wind died. Narriman moved in with her odd-looking saber. Fear filled the shaghun's eyes.
He plucked the dagger from his wound and made those sounds again. His wounds began to close.
Surprise had been Narriman's best weapon. Fate had stolen that. She feared she had more than she could handle now.
She launched a furious attack. He retreated, stumbled, fell. She cut him several times before he rose.
But he had his confidence back. She could not kill him. He
smiled. Arrow, saber, and dagger. She had exhausted her options.
She did have poison. Would he step up and take it? She had a
garrotte given her by one of Al Jahez's men, half a love offering
and half a well-wish. But would he hold still while she used it?
Brush crackled. She whirled. "Misr! I told you... ."
The shaghun smashed into her, knocked her saber away. His
fingers closed around her chin and forced her to turn toward him.
XVI
Lost! she wailed inside. She should have listened to Al Jahez and Mowfik. The fire was in her again, and she could not stop him. He stripped her slowly, taking pleasure in her humiliation.
He pressed her down on the stones and pine needles and stood over her, smiling. He disrobed slowly. And Misr stood there watching, too terrified to move.
Tears streaming, Narriman forced her eyes shut. She had been so close! One broken twig short.
She felt him lower himself, felt him probe, felt him enter. Felt herself respond. Damn, she hated him!
She found enough hatred to shove against his chest. But only for an instant. Then he was down upon her again, forcing her hands back against her breasts. "Karkur," she wept.
The shaghun moaned softly, stopped bucking. His body stiffened. He pulled away. The spell binding Narriman diminished.
"The Great Death!" she breathed.
It had him, but he was fighting it, Amber wriggled over him, flickering. There were few bloody veins in it. His mouth was open as though to scream, but he was gurgling a form of his earlier keening.
Narriman could not watch.
It did not occur to her that a mere shaghun, even a shaghun of the jebal, could overcome Karkur's Great Death. He was but stalling the inevitable. She crawled to her discarded clothing.
Misr said something. She could not look at him. Her shame was too great.
"Mama. Do something."
She finally looked. Misr pointed.
The shaghun's face was twisted. The muscles of his left arm were knotted. The bone was broken. But there was just one patch of amber left, flickering toward extinction.
He had bested the Great Death!
A silent wail of fear filled her. There was no stopping him! Raging at the injustice, she seized a dead limb and clubbed him.
Misr grabbed a stick and started swinging too.
"Misr. Stop that."
"Mama, he hurt you."
"You stop. I can do it but you can't." Did that make sense? How could she explain? He's your father, Misr? I can murder him but you can't? No. Some things could not be explained. "Get away."
She swung again. The shaghun tried to block with his injured arm. He failed. The impact sent him sprawling. The Great Death crept over him. She hit him again.
He looked at her with the eyes of the damned. He did not beg, but he did not want to die. He stared. There was no enchantment in his eyes. They contained nothing but fear, despair, and, maybe, regret. He was no shaghun now. He was just a man dying before his time.
The club slipped from her fingers. She turned back, collected her clothes. "Misr, let's get our things." For no reason she could appreciate, she recalled Al Jahez's words about severed heads.
She collected the shaghun's sword, considered momentarily, then gave him the mercy he had denied her.
"You killed him, Mama. You really killed him." Misr was delighted.
"Shut up!"
She could have closed her eyes to his screams, but his dying face would have haunted her forever. It might anyway.
When all else was stripped away, he had been a man. And once a mother had wept for him while a dark rider had carried him toward the rising sun.