The scouts stopped in the shadow of the wishbone spire, awaiting the sheikh’s command. Gathered in front of the canyon was the unsuspecting army of the Zhentarim. Their camels were unladen, and the men were gathered in small clusters, laughing and joking without regard to danger. From the dark gap leading into the chasm came a sporadic stream of shouting, amarat sirens, and guttural yens—the only sign that there was a battle nearby.
As Sa’ar paused to study the scene ahead, Lander turned to Ruha, an unspoken question in his eye.
“What do you think I can do?” she hissed.
The Harper shrugged. “It would be nice if the enemy couldn’t tell how many of us there are,” he answered. Without waiting for a response, he moved forward to take his place next to the sheikh.
Realizing that she might be able to accomplish what the Harper wanted, Ruha stopped behind the sheikh and forced her camel to kneel. She paused to make sure that everyone’s attention was fixed on the Zhentarim camp. When she felt satisfied that she was last thing on anyone’s mind, the widow picked up a handful of dust.
The sheikh raised his scimitar and signaled his warriors to charge.
Ruha whispered her wind incantation, then blew the dust from her hand. As the warriors galloped toward the unsuspecting Zhentarim, a gale rose at their backs, catching the dust raised by their camels and lifting it high into sky. Within moments, the cloud stretched across the entire valley and was billowing a hundred feet into the air.
“What’s happening?” Sa’ar cried.
“Who can say?” Lander replied. Over his shoulder, he cast an approving glance at Ruha, then turned back to the sheikh. “But from the Zhentarim camp, it must look like you’ve sent ten thousand warriors into battle!”
Eleven
As the dust cloud descended on the Zhentarim, Lander’s sword hand went to his weapon’s hilt and fitfully rested there. He was still sitting at Sa’ar’s side, below the wishbone-shaped minaret, and he found himself wishing he were riding into battle instead.
Two hundred yards ahead, the wall of dust was sweeping toward the canyon that led down to the Well of the Chasm. Inside that dark curtain were the sheikh’s three hundred charging warriors. Lander hoped their surprise assault, combined with the dust cloud Ruha had arranged, would convince the Zhentarim that they were under attack by a much larger force. With a little luck, the Black Robes would panic and flee their camp, leaving a clear route into and—more importantly—out of the Well of the Chasm.
After that, rescuing Sa’ar’s allies would be a simple matter of defeating the asabis, then collecting the other tribe and fleeing before the enemy regrouped and counterattacked. Even if the warriors drove away the Zhentarim camped outside the canyon, Lander had no idea how the Mahwa would accomplish the second half of the plan, but he saw little sense in worrying about it until the first part was achieved.
When muffled screams and roars began rolling out of the dust cloud, Lander knew the Mahwa had reached the enemy’s camp. A warrior’s blade sang out as it clanged against a defender’s saber, then there was another chime, and another. It was not a sound the Harper was happy to hear. Ringing steel meant the Zhentarim were fighting, and the Mahwa could not win a battle outnumbered as badly as they were.
Wondering if there was anything else that Ruha could do, Lander glanced over his shoulder. She stood next to her kneeling camel, her eyes still fixed on the dust cloud, her robes flapping in the wind. The Harper realized she was still concentrating on her first spell and could do nothing else unless he wanted her to let the dust curtain die away.
When Lander turned back around, he saw Sa’ar scowl and reach into a djebira. When the sheikh pulled his hand from the saddlebag, it contained a huge amarat. “In case I need to call a retreat,” Sa’ar explained, resting the horn in his lap.
The sheikh had no need to sound his amarat During the next minute, another dozen blades clanged, then, save for the wail of the wind, the dust cloud fell ominously silent. A moment later, there were a few shouts and the murmur of Bedine voices, both muffled by Ruha’s wind magic, but the voices quickly fell silent again. The sheikh scowled, concerned.
“Is this Zhentarim magic?” he asked Lander.
The Harper shook his head. “Their sorcerers prefer more spectacular displays.”
A single warrior came galloping out of the dust cloud. Sa’ar leaned forward in his saddle, looking for more men behind the rider. When the Mahwai reached the pair, Lander saw that his aba was spattered with dark stains, and the Harper could smell the coppery odor of blood. The warrior’s camel was so charged that the young man could barely keep his mount under control.
As the rider reined his camel to a halt, the sheikh asked, “What happened?”
The warrior smiled. “With Kozah’s wind, we drove the Zhentarim before us like gazelles before the lion,” he said. “They have fled into the desert.”
Sa’ar shouted for joy. “I shall ride the Zhentarim into the sands of death.”
After sending the warrior galloping back with orders to assemble the elders, Sa’ar slowly started forward. Lander followed, but Ruha remained standing next to her camel.
The sheikh twisted about in his saddle and called, “You wanted to see the battle. Aren’t you coming?”
When Ruha showed no sign of responding, Lander quickly covered for her. “There may still be Zhentarim hiding in the dust storm. It would be safer for her to wait here.”
Sa’ar shrugged, then turned back toward the invaders’ camp. As Lander and the sheikh approached it, Ruha thoughtfully allowed the dust cloud to drift to the other side of the battlefield, and the gale quieted to a gentle wind.
It was wrong to think of the site as a battlefield. Several hundred campfires, flaring and flickering in the breeze, were strewn over two acres of barren, dusty ground. Near each fire lay two or three corpses wrapped in black robes. Sa’ar’s warriors were bustling from fire to fire, slitting the throats of those who moved or groaned.
The casualness with which the Bedine dispatched the wounded shocked Lander, who was not accustomed to murdering captives in cold blood. Nevertheless, the Harper realized that taking prisoners was a practical impossibility for the Bedine, and he certainly had no wish to let the evil men go free. Instead, he motioned in the direction of a Zhentarim who was about to be dispatched, then said, “Perhaps you should save one for interrogation. It would also be wise to have someone count the enemy dead.”
Sa’ar nodded. “I see you are a practical man. That is good.”
The sheikh called a warrior over, then relayed Lander’s request. The man returned a few moments later, dragging along a Zhentarim with a bloody leg. The warrior dumped the prisoner at a nearby campfire without ceremony, then trudged off to tally the dead.
Sa’ar went to meet with his elder warriors, and Lander dismounted to interrogate the prisoner. The Zhentarim was chubby and slovenly, with a thick double chin and a face that had not been shaved in a week. His eyes were glazed with terror, and the Harper had little trouble seeing that the prisoner hoped to make a bargain that would save his life.
“You look more like a merchant than a mercenary,” Lander began, speaking in Common and taking a seat next to the corpulent man.
“A bit of both,” the wounded man grunted. “Yhekal promised me a caravan concession.”
“And you believed him?” Lander asked incredulously.