Azzad’s mouth was so dry he couldn’t whistle the order to stop. Abb Shagara was laughing like a maniac as Khamsin cleared the fence with daylight to spare and raced off into the desert.
“Acuyib have mercy!” Azzad watched in horror as his horse galloped away at full speed into a wasteland of rocks and ratholes and scorpions and snakes and Chaydann only knew what all else. “Meryem will kill me!”
“Azzad, calm yourself. All will be well. No snake will harm them.” He paused. “Though I’ve never done anything quite like this before.”
Azzad peered into the distance, following the dust raised by Khamsin’s hooves, praying that Abb Shagara would stay in the saddle or at least in one relatively uninjured piece, so it took him a minute to grasp Fadhil’s words. When he did, he swung around and stared. “Quite like what?”
“We had to work fast, but I helped by doing the research—”
“Fadhil, what are you talking about?”
The young man sighed. “Abb Shagara will be protected from all injury—and Khamsin, too. You’re worrying for nothing, Azzad. Now, let me see your hand.” He inspected the reddening welts across the palm, probed with his fingertips for breaks. “Nothing salve and a wrapping won’t cure. But if Abb Shagara hadn’t cut the lead—”
“Fadhil!” The breath he drew in hurt his chest. “Do you mean to tell me that—that you trust some charm to keep him safe?”
“More than one charm, and we call them hazziri,” Fadhil replied. “Yours worked, didn’t it?” And he pointed to the plaque around Azzad’s neck. “You made a point of thanking Abb Shagara for this when you arrived.”
“But—”
“But you didn’t mean it? Not seriously?” Fadhil laughed. “Ayia, don’t tell him that! It would break his heart!”
His mind swimming, he turned the hazzir to look at it. Gold, set with four kinds of cabochon stone: a central lapis, three speckled bloodstones, two turquoises, a garnet at each corner. On the back was a stylized hawk, wings and claws outspread.
“I used turquoises for Abb Shagara today,” Fadhil said. “They bring luck and protect the horse.”
When he had held the silver cup in his hand and been unable to tell Abb Shagara a lie, Azzad had not believed.
“We use one jewel for each property we wish to give the hazzir, inscribed on the back with the appropriate symbol, the talishann.”
When Leyliah had thrown a knife at Fadhil and it glanced harmlessly off his chest, Azzad had not believed.
“The lapis is for truth, acting with the bloodstone that causes belief.”
When the shepherds had been ready to kill him despite his protestations, and their leader had come close enough to see the hazzir, Azzad had not believed.
“The four garnets are for Shagara friendship, its power and its constancy, and to protect against wounds.”
When the girl’s family had come to seize him, and no one in Sihabbah had any reason to trust in his word, and the hazzir had fallen free of his torn shirt, Azzad had perhaps begun to believe.
“Bloodstone also eases wrath, and as a nice addition for one traveling through these lands, protects against attacks by scorpions.”
But not until this moment, with Fadhil serenely explaining his art—Acuyib help him, he had not truly believed until now.
“After hearing your story, I decided the hawk would be best for you. It has the qualities of strength, energy, and inspiration, which you will need if you are to fulfill your oath of vengeance. The hawk,” he added musingly, “does not rest until his objective is achieved.”
Acuyib help him, Azzad believed.
As Khamsin cantered toward them, Abb Shagara still securely in the saddle and even laughing, Fadhil glanced sidelong at Azzad. “Abb Shagara wanted to include wealth and many children, but Meryem said that we must leave you something to do on your own.”
Still stunned, Azzad saw Abb Shagara wave gaily at them, a new hazzir around his right wrist: gold, set with turquoises and a large bloodstone.
“And Leyliah said this morning that with your face, which is not even to speak of your other attributes, you were perfectly capable of getting more children than you’d know what to do with.”
Reminded through his shock of what had transpired with Leyliah, Azzad’s head snapped around. “Fadhil—”
“It’s all right. I don’t mind, not really.” He smiled.
Whatever Azzad might have thought to reply was swept away in the wind of Khamsin’s arrival. Abb Shagara was as happy as a kitten in a yarn basket.
“That was splendid! May I do it again tomorrow? Will the half-breeds be as swift as Khamsin? It was like flying!”
Azzad looked at Fadhil and swallowed hard.“I apologize,” he murmured.
“No need. Enjoy the time you have with her. She is an extraordinary woman.”
“Azzad!” Abb Shagara called. “Again tomorrow? Please?”
“Uh—yes, of course,” he said, hardly knowing to whom he spoke.
Fadhil added softly, “You shouldn’t take Meryem’s sternness too much to heart. She and Leyliah drew lots for you.”
And, with a wink and a grin, he went to congratulate Abb Shagara on his first riding lesson, leaving Azzad standing there with a broken lead in his hand and an expression of absolute amazement on his face.
By day, Azzad gave riding lessons and advice on horses. In the evenings, he had dinner with Abb Shagara, Chal Kabir, Fadhil, and the other men, discussing those things men discussed everywhere. At night, he slept with Leyliah.
One afternoon, as Azzad sat with Abb Shagara in an awning’s shade playing chadarang, a rider on a donkey appeared on the horizon. Instantly the Shagara went within their tents, and the wallad izzahni counted horses and took up guard positions around the thorn fences. Abb Shagara, murmuring an apology to Azzad for abandoning their game, vanished inside his tent. Chal Kabir emerged from the dawa’an sheymma in a fresh robe the color of sand, with Fadhil at his side, to wait for the newcomer.
Azzad, squinting into the distance, thought about joining Abb Shagara, then gave a start as he realized that the man astride the donkey had come from Sihabbah. Bazir al-Gallidh often sent messengers back and forth to his brother in Hazganni; these men dressed in white robes with a thick stripe of black down each sleeve. The visitor wore such a garment. As he neared, Azzad even recognized him: Annif, younger brother of Mazzud who worked with him in the stables.
Striding swiftly to where Chal Kabir and Fadhil stood, Azzad said, “I know this boy. He comes from al-Gallidh, my employer.”
Fadhil shook his head. “It can be no good thing that brings him so far.”
And so it proved.
“Al-Gallidh is ill. He may be dead even now,” Annif reported, gulping water between sentences. “I have had a time of it, probably too long a time, finding you, Azzad—even after Mou’ammi Zellim made a map from what you told him of your route. He sent me to bring you back to Sihabbah.”
Azzad sucked in a breath, worry for Bazir clenching his chest. But before he could ask any questions, Chal Kabir spoke.
“What is the nature of his illness?”
Annif shook his head. “The tabbib doesn’t know. Al-Gallidh was well in the morning, but by afternoon his breathing was bad and there was pain.”
“What kind of pain?”
“In one arm.”
Kabir sighed impatiently. “Which arm? The left? And don’t ask if it matters, because it matters a great deal.”