"What are you doing here?"
"High Crag detached us to Altea. To give the locals a little backbone."
An older Royalist asked, "Your men did this?" He indicated the carnage.
"They wouldn't leave us alone," Bragi replied, making a sour joke of it. "We would've cleaned up on them good if your boys hadn't chickened out on us."
Haroun said, "Pardon me?"
Bragi explained that a group of Royalists had left the company to its fate. Haroun's face darkened.
"We met some of them. We thought they were messengers. I'll find their captain. I'll show him this. Then I'll hang him."
Haaken called, "You want I should croak the old guy too, Bragi?"
"No. Give him to these guys. They might get something out of him."
Haaken pulled their captive out of the rocks, where he had concealed himself.
"Wahla!" several horsemen cried.
"Karim!" Haroun shouted. "Ah!" He began laughing. His followers joined in, pummeling one another like joyous children.
"What is it?" Bragi asked.
"You've caught Karim. The great Karim, who is second to the Scourge of God himself. There will be rejoicing when the world hears of this. And many tears will be shed in the councils of the usurper. Oh, how the Scourge of God will rage! My friend, you have given us our first great victory. My spirit soars! I feel the tide turning! The Fates no longer vie against us. But what became of the northern traitors who rode with him?"
"I don't know. I wish I did. I'd like to get my hands on them. They caused this. This Karim didn't want to attack."
"You recognized them?"
"Yes. We thought they were your people at first. Then this Karim killed our Lieutenant."
"They wanted no witnesses to their treachery. They were going to meet with Nassef. To betray the northern host. We've been chasing them more than a week."
"You caught Karim. Take him if you want. Will you excuse me? Many of my brothers are injured."
Haroun grinned at Karim. "Beloul. Do you have anything special in mind?"
"Lord, you know I do. All the torments of all the hundreds who died at Sebil el Selib."
Karim sprang at Haaken, seized his sword. He ran himself through before he could be stopped.
"A brave man for a former bandit," Haroun observed.
Because none of the surviving noncoms seemed inclined, Bragi began putting the company together again. One hundred twelve Guildsmen had survived. Fifty-three, miraculously, had come through unscathed.
"We'll shed tears for these for a long time," Bragi told Haaken. He and the young king stood facing the long rank of graves the Royalists had helped dig. "There were some great men among them."
Haroun nodded. He knew what it meant to lose old comrades.
Chapter Eleven:
VICTORY GIFTS
E l Murid and his party departed the Sahel at Kasr Helal, travelling as salt merchants desperately seeking a supplier. The war threatened to destroy the trade. Salt prices were soaring as the flow into the desert dwindled.
It was at Kasr Helal that, unrecognized by the garrison commander, El Murid learned that, to obtain salt, traders had to deal with a Mustaph el-Kader, an uncle of Nassef's General el-Kader. The elder el-Kader was disposing of stockpiles from the captured Diamiellian works.
El Murid had heard of Mustaph el-Kader. He was infamous as a procurer and as a supplier of religiously proscribed wine. What was a man like that doing controlling the salt supply?
"Don't whine at me!" the garrison commander snapped when the Disciple protested.
"But... To deal with whoremasters and thieves, at usurious prices... "
"You want salt? Good. You buy from who we tell you to. If you don't like it, go home."
El Murid turned to Hali, who was supposed to be his master of accounts. "Mowaffak?"
Hali controlled himself. "We'll do what we have to, and pass the costs along. But nobody's going to love us. I wonder, Captain, what the Disciple would think of your profiteering."
"What he don't know won't hurt him. But complain if you want. He'll tell you to go pound sand. It's his brother-in-law's game. He won't turn on his own kin, will he?"
That was not the desert way. Family was concrete while truth, justice and sometimes even God's law were subjective.
"Who knows the heart of the Disciple?" Hali asked. "Surely not a bandit disguised as an officer in the Host of Illumination."
"A True Believer, eh? Get out of here. You're wasting my time. You guys are a royal pain in the ass, you know that?"
When they had gotten beyond the captain's hearing, El Murid murmured, "Nassef is doing it again, Mowaffak. If it isn't one thing, it's something else. He's driving me to distraction."
"Something has to be done, Lord."
"Of course. How do these things happen? Why hasn't anyone complained?"
"Maybe they have and the complaint hasn't been passed on. Maybe they never had the chance. Our most reliable people follow the heaviest fighting. Nassef bears your writ of command over the Invincibles. He's been exercising it, possibly to keep them away from evidence of evils such as this."
"Mowaffak, hear me. I speak for the Lord. You will chose one hundred men of irreproachable repute. Men immune to blandishment and extortion. Reclaim their white robes and return them to their original professions. They are to travel throughout the Kingdom of Peace, including both Hammad al Nakir and all the new provinces, unmasking evils such as this. They aren't to distinguish between the grievances of the faithful and the infidel, nor those of the desert-born and foreigner, nor of the mighty and the weak. All men will be equal before their judgment. I will arm them with letters giving them absolute authority in anything they care to judge, and will back them completely, even against my own family. Even if I disagree with their judgments. This exploitation must stop."
"And who will watch the watchers?" Hali murmured to himself.
"I will, Mowaffak. And I'll be the most terrible judge of all. And Mowaffak. Collect this barbarous captain when we leave. We'll chastise him, and release him to spread the news that El Murid walks among the Chosen, as one of them, hunting their oppressors."
"How much longer will you tolerate the Scourge of God, Lord?" Hali asked, returning to a subject dear to his heart.
"How long will the fighting last? The day we begin beating swords into plowshares, then I'll have no use for captains of war."
It was at Kasr Helal, too, that Esmat told him another Ipopotam courier had failed to return. That made three who had vanished; two regular couriers and the special messenger sent after the disappearance of the first.
"Your worst fears have been realized, Esmat. Three men lost strains a belief in chance. Select six warriors from my bodyguard. Send them. Then another to see what happens to them. Do it right away, and tell them to ride hard. How long can we last?"
"Perhaps forty days, Lord. If luck rides with us."
He wanted to admonish Esmat for the pagan remark, but could not invoke the Lord now. That would be to claim God's countenance of his secret shame.
From Kasr Helal El Murid travelled northwestward, toward Dunno Scuttari and Nassef's promised spectacle. He and his companions often paused to ogle what they thought were great wonders. El Murid lingered over structures bequeathed to the present by the engineers of the Empire. Then the flame of the Empire of tomorrow burned in his eyes, and Hali would remind him that they were travelling incognito. He had had few opportunities to preach since Disharhun. The words piled up within him.
Even the towns and little cities were splendid, despite Nassef's rapine. But never had he imagined such splendor as burst upon him when first he gazed upon Dunno Scuttari.