"It's not going to be as easy as you think," Utaiba responded. "An ancient fort guards the well at Orofin. The Zhentarim can hold out inside for weeks. As short as our water supply is, we cannot last nearly that long."
Sa'ar pointed toward the dale. "There is no way to ride around the ambush, but if we ride through it at a gallop, we won't suffer too many casualties. With luck, we'll catch the Zhentarim by tomorrow afternoon-a half-day before they reach Orofin."
"No," Lander said, shaking his head in disappointment. "That's what they want. If we bypass the asabis, we'll be caught between the hammer and the anvil."
"What do you mean?" asked Sa'ar.
Lander held one hand out flat. "Here are the Zhentarim," he said. "Whether we catch them before Orofin or at it, we'll have to stop and fight." He formed a fist with the other hand, then brought it down into his open palm with a loud pop. "When that happens, the asabis will smash us from behind, just as a hammer smashes against the anvil."
Utaiba frowned. "I see what you mean." He turned to the other sheikhs, then said, "I agree with the Harper. If we don't pause now, we'll regret it later."
"What of Orofin?" countered Didaji. "Surely they will poison all water that lies outside the fort. Our tribes will die of thirst."
"The asabis must have water with them," Sa'ar said. "It will be enough to get us to Orofin so that we can attack. After the battle, we'll have all the water we want, or we won't have need of any."
"Before the Zhentarim started poisoning oases, I would never have agreed to such a plan," Utaiba said, addressing the other sheikhs as well as Didaji. "Now that I know how corrupt they are, it is clear that we must drive them from our home, even if it means risking everything."
Didaji reluctantly nodded, then turned to the closest warriors. "Pass the word to dismount and come forward with lance and sword. We must pry these lizards from their dens."
The fourteen tribes spent the rest of the day in the canyon, working carefully and methodically. Starting at the near end of the dale, four or five warriors approached each fissure and tried to draw the asabi's fire by throwing rocks into the crevice. Usually, that did not work, so they drew lots and the loser had to jump past the front of the crevice, at the same time throwing his lance into it. Most of the reptiles fired their crossbows as the decoy flashed past and, more often than not, deftly avoided the lance.
Several other warriors then leaped in front of the crevice. One of them threw a torch into the crack to illuminate the target, and the others pierced the creature with their long spears. Once it died, they pulled the lifeless asabi from the crack, took its waterskin, and moved on to the next fissure.
When the mercenary refused to fire its crossbow even at the decoy, the warriors resorted to smoke. They pulled a withered bush and lit it with their torch, then reached around the edge of the fissure and stuffed the burning brush inside. If the resulting smoke flushed the asabi out, they sliced it to pieces with their scimitars as it rushed out of the crevice. Otherwise, three or four of them leaped in front of the fissure and probed into the smoking crack with their lances until they heard the reptile's death hiss. They tried to avoid this last option whenever possible, however, for one of them usually took a crossbow bolt before the asabi died.
Sometimes, after the decoy threw his lance and drew a crossbow bolt from the crack, the warriors discovered that there were two or three mercenaries in a single fissure. As the Bedine leaped in front of the fissure to attack, several unexpected bolts flashed out and took them square in the chest. A short pause followed while a dozen men fetched their bows, then they positioned themselves twenty yards from the fissure and fired into it until the crossbow bolts stopped coming back at them.
Once in a while, the warriors ran into a problem they could not solve, such as an asabi crouching behind cover or hiding in an unusually deep crevice. On these occasions, Utaiba or Sa'ar would call upon Ruha to flush out the mercenaries. With Lander standing close by to defend her, she would cast a spell and fill the crack with poisonous smoke, send in a sand lion to maul the reptile, or funnel so much of At'ar's heat into the fissure that the asabi literally fried to death. Her spells were so much faster and more effective than the warriors' attacks that Ruha wished she could have used them on every fissure in the canyon. Unfortunately, that was impossible. She had a limited number of spells compared to the hundreds of crevices around the dale.
By the time dusk fell, the Bedine had worked their way to the far end of the dale and the warriors were no longer finding asabis in the fissures. The Bedine were so exhausted by the hot, tedious work that Ruha was the only one who bothered to pitch a tent. Unfortunately for her, as soon as she finished, it became the center of camp. The sheikhs gathered a few yards away to discuss the day's events before retiring to their own sleeping carpets.
"All in all, I would say this was not a bad day. I had a man count the asabi bodies," Sa'ar boasted, his voice carrying through the tent walls as if he were standing inside. "There are almost a thousand."
Ruha lit a candle and took Qoha'dar's spellbook from her djebiras. In order to replenish all the spells she had used during the day, she had several long hours of study ahead of her.
Outside her tent, Utaiba said, "We lost only a hundred and nine warriors ourselves. I think we can call this battle a Bedine victory."
Yawning, the widow turned to the first spell she had used that day, the sunwarp.
"It wasn't much of a battle. It was more like digging mice from their dens," Didaji objected.
Ruha found herself hearing the gaunt man's words instead of concentrating upon the runes in the book. Sighing in frustration, she set the book aside and started toward the door of her tent. That was when Lander's voice said, "If it's a battle you want, Didaji, wait until Orofin."
"You too, Lander?" Ruha muttered under her breath. "I thought you'd have better sense than to disturb a witch's study time."
Oblivious to Ruha's whispered admonishment, the Harper continued, "When we storm that fort, I promise there'll be plenty of fighting."
Ruha shook her head, then slammed her spellbook shut and blew out her candle. "I might as well sleep," she hissed to herself, half-amused and half-angered by her girlish reluctance to speak crossly to Lander. "When I'm upset, I can never concentrate anyway!"
Seventeen
After the Battle of the Fissures, the Bedine army rode straight to Orofin. The warriors did not tarry to let their camels graze upon the heaths of salt brush they passed, and, though they traveled through the finest gazelle country in Anauroch, they wasted no time hunting. Even with the skins they had recovered from the asabis, the fourteen tribes were short of water, and that meant they were short of time. They had to reach Orofin, and then they had to storm it.
It took the army four days of hard travel, stopping only a few hours each night to sleep, before they crested a ridge and Sa'ar pointed into the broad valley below. In the center of the dell, a stand of swarthy foliage stained the tawny ground, its lush color muted by the graying light of dusk.
"Orofin," Sa'ar said. "If we hurry, I know a good place from which to inspect its battlements."
The sheikhs ordered their tribes to encircle the fortress with their camps and eat the best meal they could manage. After the orders had been given, Sa'ar led the sheikhs down into the valley, into several acres of ruins, then finally stopped at a two-story bridge that spanned a canal of stagnant water.
Like Anauroch itself, the bridge was at once stark and beautiful. The square pediments were made of granite blocks, now entirely covered with a lush growth of thick green moss. Above the pediments stood two tiers of roadway, consisting of three arcades each. The arches were shaped like horseshoes and crowned by a shallow point, reminding Lander of Sembia's cottonwood leaves. A colored-stone mosaic of different geometric patterns faced each arcade, save that the central arch on both tiers was decorated with a diamond motif.