Ruha pointed at the warrior. “Everything behind that man’s dagger is distorted by the spell,” she said. “If he falls, the spell will stop moving until someone else takes his dagger and continues with it.”
“Magic is not without its shortcomings, I see,” Utaiba noted wryly.
“Neither are we,” Sa’ar answered. “But we shall do our best anyway. Now, let us return to our place in line. If we only have an hour, we must hurry.”
“Be careful when you pass through the sunwarp,” Ruha said, urging her camel toward the column. “Don’t tarry inside, or you will have reason to regret it.”
As the widow spoke, she urged her mount into the distortion, ferociously lashing at its neck with her reigns. The camel sprang forward into a wave of blistering heat. The beast roared in surprise and terror, but under Ruha’s prodding it continued forward, and, an instant later, they were on the other side of the sunwarp.
On the downhill side of the distortion, a stiff breeze ran along the ground as the spell sucked the fire from the desert and sent it climbing toward the sky in a great wavering sheet. Sa’ar and Utaiba sat on the other side of the wall, staring in Ruha’s direction with awe and fear.
“What do you see?” asked Sa’ar’s burly warrior, Kabina. “You look as though you are facing an army of djinns.”
“We see nothing but wavering forms, and many times the number we know are there,” Sa’ar answered, still staring at the wall. “It is as if At’ar has blinded us!”
“She has,” Ruha replied. “Now, come back here.”
Setting their jaws as if riding into a wall of flame, the sheikhs urged their mounts forward and galloped through the sunwarp in two swift strides. When they reached the other side, their faces were as chalky as a white camel and they stared at the witch with expressions of awe and respect. Their mounts were so excited that it was all they could do to control them.
Sa’ar pointed at a dozen warriors, then directed them toward the Bedine upon whom Ruha had centered the spell. “You men, ring Dahalzel. If he falls, one of you must take his jambiya and continue forward. If that man falls, someone else must take the dagger.”
“I will need my dagger in N’asr’s camp!” objected the confused warrior.
“Don’t argue,” Utaiba answered, drawing his scimitar. “Your jambiya is the center of the witch’s spell.”
The man’s swarthy complexion paled to a sickly shade of yellow. “My dagger?”
A roar of laughter went up from the twelve men assigned to escort Dahalzel. “We will protect you from the enemy’s arrows, my friend,” said one of them. “But you must look to the gods to save you from the witch’s magic.”
“Enough!” Sa’ar roared, guiding his camel into place at Ruha’s left side. “Let us attack!”
With a queasy look, Dahalzel turned his attention up the canyon. He nocked an arrow, then urged his camel forward and led the way toward the Zhentarim camp.
A few minutes later, the column of nervous warriors emerged from the maze of fissure-laced rock. It stopped at the edge of the sandy hollow where the sheikhs had expected to fight the Zhentarim. As the scouts had claimed, several hundred tents stood in the dale, but there was still no sign of the enemy.
Sa’ar looked immediately to Ruha. “Is your spell hiding the enemy?”
Ruha shook her head. “No.”
“It isn’t the witch,” Utaiba said, motioning six men forward. “I fear we are too late. The Zhentarim are gone.” The wiry sheikh sent the men to track the invaders up the canyon.
“It cannot be!” Sa’ar objected. “What of the asabis? They cannot move during the day.”
“Perhaps they are still in their burrows,” Ruha suggested.
“Perhaps,” Sa’ar nodded. He sent a rider back to report the deserted camp to the tribes waiting in ambush, and five dozen men ventured into the dale to probe the sand with their spears.
The probers spread out across the width of the dale and began searching for sleeping asabis. While one man pushed his spear deep into the sand, a comrade stood by with a drawn scimitar, ready to defend him if the prober got lucky and struck a sleeping reptile. When they found nothing, they moved a yard farther up the canyon and tried again. Occasionally a man fell excitedly to his knees and scooped the sand away, only to uncover a submerged rock or the half-petrified trunk of an acacia tree.
The rest of the column waited in the sun, fighting the urge to open their waterskins and quench the thirst that always seemed worse when doing nothing. Now and then, the camels belched or roared, as irritated by the wait as their riders were. In hushed whispers, a few men suggested to their fellows what Ruha and the sheikhs had already guessed: the Zhentarim had escaped.
Ruha’s spell fell long before the probers reached the other side of the dale, but it did not matter. The spearmen returned with nothing to report. Though their spears had often sunk clear to the bedrock, they had not found so much as a single asabi burrowed into the sand.
A few minutes later, one of the scouts Utaiba had sent to track the Zhentarim returned. He reported that the canyon was full of camel tracks, but there was no sign of the asabis.
“The Zhentarim are running for Orofin!” Utaiba concluded.
“And they must have left the asabis behind,” Sa’ar added, scowling. “But where?”
Utaiba shrugged. “Let’s find out.”
Sa’ar nodded, then ordered the entire column forward. As Ruha and the sheikhs moved into the dale, a muffled clack echoed from a crevice on the north side of the canyon. Ruha heard a hiss, then felt her mount’s withers flinch. The beast roared in astonishment and rolled to its left. As the camel’s legs buckled, the young witch leaped free. She landed a foot behind the Sa’ar’s huge mount, already summoning a spell to mind. She spun around and pointed her hand toward the fissure, raising the other toward At’ar.
A bolt of white fire burst from her fingers and streaked into the fissure, then a tremendous boom echoed from the canyon walls. A limp asabi flew out of the crevice amid a hail of stones and dropped to the canyon floor.
“Ambush!” cried Sa’ar, waving the column back down the canyon.
No sooner had he spoke than dozens of muffled clacks sounded from the canyon walls. A flurry of black streaks crossed in both directions. As the crossbow bolts found their targets, men cried out in pain and camels bellowed in astonishment. The canyon erupted into a cacophony of alarmed shouts and cries of warning.
Sa’ar’s big camel swung around in front of Ruha, and she saw the sheikh’s brawny hand reaching down for her. She jumped up and grabbed at the arm, then felt her feet leave the ground as the burly man pulled her onto his mount’s back. They sprang a few yards down the canyon, then ran into a confused mass of riders that had been at the end of the column when the asabis opened fire.
Realizing that those at the back of the column still did not realize that the front of the column had been ambushed, Ruha tugged at Sa’ar’s amarat and yelled, “Blow the retreat!”
As the sheikh raised his horn, another round of bolts tore out of the crevices. More men screamed and more camels bellowed, then the rumbling tones of Sa’ar’s amarat echoed off the cliffs. The back of the column immediately reversed direction and rode back down the canyon, clearing the way for their trapped fellows. Within moments, the entire line was trotting away from the ambush.
On the other side of the winding narrows, the procession met Lander and the sheikhs galloping up the steep valley. Behind them, in a long line that stretched all the way down to the mamlahah, were the rest of the Bedine warriors.
The warriors of the Raz’hadi and the Mahwa neatly parted ways to allow the Lander and the sheikhs to pass through unhindered. As they approached Sa’ar, the thirteen men stopped whipping their camels. The drained beasts ceased their running immediately.