Dragon Soul (45 page)

As the sun began to set, I gathered up the few notes I’d made. There weren’t many, since I’d been so distracted by Rook’s impromptu lesson, but they would have to suffice for the time being. It was rare that a man was given the opportunity to observe a nomad camp in the state it was now; apparently all it had taken to change my attitude was being thrown down to the sand a few times. Or perhaps it was just the possibility of having my revenge on Geoffrey, although either option said rather unsavory things about me. Best not to dwell too closely on such thoughts, I decided at last. After all, Rook hardly ever did, and though he was decidedly
not
the kind of person I wanted to be taking life lessons from, his way of doing things seemed to work enviably well out here.

After I’d packed my notes, I made my way back into the camp proper, taking care not to get in anyone’s way as they went about their business, some towing camels while others sharpened their weapons. I could only hope that my
own
camel would somehow get lost in the shuffle, so that I might be able to trade it in for a slightly more equable model, but that didn’t seem too likely. Kalim’s men were too organized ever to let such an error take place.

I was doomed by the very efficiency I had previously been admiring in my notes. Truly, irony at its best.

Kalim’s men had been holding Geoffrey captive in a tent somewhat nearer to the center of camp—so that they might more easily keep an eye on him, I suspected. None of Kalim’s men spoke Volstovic, aside from the one with the frightening face, Abbas, who seemed to take great pleasure in creeping up behind me and proclaiming “Hello!” as
loudly as possible whenever he had a spare moment. Afterward, he’d clap me on the back and wander off until the next round, which I was never quite able to anticipate.

Nevertheless, it seemed Kalim had fully explained the situation to them, for when they saw me, Geoffrey’s captors all began to move at once. Two of them rose, pulling Geoffrey to his feet while another pushed past me, making his way toward the camel enclosure.

“Thomas?” Geoffrey inquired, his voice thin and parched like he hadn’t been using it—which seemed terribly unlikely, considering the source. “That
is
you. Hurrah! Have you any idea what’s happening? Are we leaving tonight?”

“Kalim has a score to settle with a rival tribe leader,” I explained, hustling to follow as Geoffrey’s guards dragged him out of the tent and secured him on the newly arrived camel. I was deeply grateful that mounting the prisoner on the camel had not been a part of my duties, but then I realized that most of these men had seen my own efforts where camels were concerned, and doubtless had decided to compensate for them.

I neglected to inform Geoffrey that, in reality, we were heading out after a better prize than anything tribal warfare might have to offer. I didn’t trust him—especially after hearing how lightly he held the lives of the natives in his esteem.

“Oh,” said Geoffrey, his eyes following a man with a long, cruel-tipped spear as he passed us by. “I had a feeling it was something like that. You can tell by the way they wear their cowls, did you know that?”

“Indeed,” I told him sternly. “And they refuse to leave you here with the women and children, so you’ve earned the lucky position of accompanying us.”

It was hardly
us
, if I was being entirely truthful, but Geoffrey didn’t have to know that.

Once the sun began to set in the desert, it went down very quickly. Already the sky overhead was growing dark, and I realized that many of the men were already mounted in preparation for the ride. There were women too, gathered into groups for solidarity, or bidding their men a last farewell. As someone who’d very nearly been left behind, I felt nothing but sympathy for their position. It was difficult being the one left behind while someone you cared about rode off to commit great deeds of heroism.

In the distance, I could even see Kalim making his final preparations alongside his strategists, but I didn’t see Rook with them.

“Are you riding with
me
, Thomas?” Geoffrey asked, apparently feeling in much better spirits now that he’d been tied to his camel. “Truly, I appreciate the show of support. I must admit, I’d half expected you to go riding with that beast of a character Rook, but I see now that all my worries were unfounded.”

“And here I’d have thought you had more important things to worry about than little old me. I’m real flattered,” Rook said, appearing out of nowhere in that disconcerting way he had. Somehow, I managed to keep from jumping clean out of my boots. “Here,” he added, slapping a knife handle first into my palm, which I’d held out on instinct. “If, and that’s
if
, mind, you get into some kind of trouble, use this. Might have to use it on him if he pulls anything; you never fucking know with weasels.” Rook nodded toward Geoffrey, who gulped rather showily, and I quickly tucked the knife away.

“I see we’ve graduated from fisticuffs rather speedily,” I said foolishly, because I didn’t know what else to say.

“Can’t intimidate a prisoner with something like that,” Rook explained, with a look toward Geoffrey in case he’d forgotten we were still speaking of him.

“Really now,” said Geoffrey, in a huff. “I hardly think
that’s
necessary. Thomas and I have known each other for years! Why, we’re practically brothers. Of the mind, I mean, but still! It’s a very close bond. It’s one ruffians couldn’t
possibly—
”

“That’s enough,” I said coldly. Geoffrey fell silent at once, which at least meant that he hadn’t taken leave of
all
of his senses. Once Rook was gone—to play with the big boys, as it were, leaving us at our children’s table—he might not find me quite so intimidating, but for the time being he did fall silent.

“Better mount up soon,” Rook said, clapping me on the shoulder for the second time that day. “We’re leaving pretty quick, and I know how long it takes you.”

“Very funny,” I muttered, and he strode off to his place at the front of the lines, up ahead with Kalim himself.

I mounted my own camel with a certain grim determination that served me well—I didn’t fall off the animal, in any case, which would have made Kalim doubt even the small responsibilities he’d granted me,
nor did I shame myself in front of Geoffrey—no longer a friend and certainly no longer a colleague. A shout went up from the ranks ahead, and I saw the few remaining women and children scurrying to either side of the crowd of mounted warriors. I gave Geoffrey a sharp look, just to let him know I was keeping my eye on him, then we were off.

Never before had I been privy to such a sight—men and camels moving together like the waves of a desert ocean, purposeful and momentous. They moved silently, strange as shadows, in a single rush. It lacked the overwhelming majesty of a dragon midflight, but it offered the same immediate danger as dragonflight did—the mechanisms different, the basic principles the same. To suddenly become part of such a group was something I’d never once dared to imagine for myself. For the first time, I had no desire at all to take notes or record what was happening in any way. If I were to take my eyes off anything for even a second, I would miss a vital moment of the action, and that was an unbearable thought.

“You aren’t
really
going to use that knife on me,” Geoffrey said, over the thudding of camel’s hooves.

“So long as you don’t do anything to warrant it,” I told him, knowing perfectly well what sort of comfort he could derive from
that
. I was becoming more and more like Rook with each passing day. It wasn’t what I wanted, but neither did it seem to signal the end of the world, as it might once have done.

Geoffrey fell silent again, and as we rode on I found it rather preferable to fumbling for awkward methods of conversation about topics on which we assuredly did not see eye to eye.

I had no knowledge of how long it would take us to search out our enemy. I’d been privy to the strategy talks, and Bakr had named the place in the desert he thought it most likely for the enemy to be sequestered at this season, but my knowledge of the desert was not extensive enough that I could recognize it—and the scales of measuring distance on their maps were unfathomable to me. In essence, I was riding blind into the wind, and even though I knew I would not be joining the others “in the thick of it,” as it were, I was still a man of their number. Humbling, sobering, and exciting all at once. Somehow, I
did
like it.

Time passed, and the sky overhead changed into true night, a dark inky blue above our heads. The troops—I had no other word for them
save for a Volstovic approximation—had become precisely spread out along the sand, so that no rider was crowding up on another, and I could barely make out the twin dots that were Kalim riding alongside my brother. For all I knew, they were using this opportunity to race again. I felt a little left out, perhaps missing the days when it had simply been the three of us riding toward Sarah Fleet’s ramshackle little house in the middle of nowhere—or even just Rook and me traipsing through the Volstov countryside—but there was nothing to be done about that now. I studied the constellations without knowing their names, and kept a sharp eye on Geoffrey as my duties dictated. I didn’t think there was much he could do with his hands tied to the camel, but he’d always been a mean kind of resourceful in school, avoiding bullies with methods I could never quite divine. At the time, I’d found his willingness to bend the rules in the name of learning rather admirable, but needless to say, my attitude since then had found reason to change considerably.

I settled into the rhythm of riding after a time, accepting the fact that we would reach our destination whenever we came to it, and nothing I could do would speed things along, one way or another, nor ease the aching in my rear end as the saddle jostled against it. In fact, I’d accepted it so completely that it startled me when Geoffrey began to speak, and I privately cursed myself for not paying better attention.

“…coming up on an oasis,” he was in the midst of saying, voice bouncing along with his mount. “Do you see it, just up there? Well, it’s partially obscured by the dune, but it’s tucked all neat into the basin, a little pocket of greenery. Do you think that’s where they’ve made their camp, Thomas? It seems the likeliest place, to me.”

“You’re the expert,” I said, in a tone not at all meant to flatter his ego.

The riders around us quickened their pace. I quickly switched my attention to keeping up with them, and even reached a hand across to speed Geoffrey’s mount along as well. We bounced violently alongside one another, and I prayed to the unnamed gods of the desert that I wouldn’t fall off and shame my name any further than I’d already done. I wound my hand more tightly in the reins, as Rook had taught me, and I allowed the others to draw ahead of us somewhat.

“Guess it doesn’t make sense for us to stick our necks out, now does it?” Geoffrey murmured, a little bit slyly, as he followed suit. “Let them
ride in. They can take the sweat and blood alongside the glory if that makes them happy, then afterward, we come along and take all the rest.”

“A very tidy outlook on life,” I told him, horrified.

“You’ve always been such a prude,” Geoffrey replied.

I didn’t have much time to be offended. The first riders had crested the hill and sound erupted from within the oasis valley.

If we hadn’t found our targets, then we’d found
someone
, and I didn’t much envy their current position.

Kalim’s riders had already encircled the camp, camels cresting the dunes and disappearing just beyond them. There were no smoky blasts, only individual battle cries rising up together on the air in a single uncoordinated chorus. It chilled my bones. I couldn’t see how the men down below would have any hopes of defending against such a swift and unexpected attack; the advantage was strictly on Kalim’s side—
our
side rather—and if he’d managed to catch the other tribe off guard as it seemed he had, then there was no hope for them whatsoever. The best they could wish for, if their honor provided for it, was a swift surrender.

I was so caught up in the sounds and the sights of the battle—my camel now close enough to the dune’s edge to witness the carnage down below—that when I next glanced to my riding companion, perhaps to make some manner of commentary on the scene, Geoffrey and his camel were no longer beside me.

My heart plummeted from my chest to my gut as swiftly as an anchor tossed off a ship.

“Geoffrey,” I said, as though
that
would do any good. The sound of my own voice, small and childishly begging, offended even me.

It had been my job to see to it that the prisoner didn’t escape, and I had fucked it up most royally.

I turned all around to scan the horizon, but Geoffrey had at least not ridden off in any of those directions. I couldn’t have hoped to chase him down if he’d had a head start; he was far more accustomed to riding than I was, and begging my camel to work for me rather than against me had never worked before. Why should it start now? The camels, unlike their riders, had no reason to hate Geoffrey.

But if he had not ridden off, hoping to escape the punishment of
the
rakhman
with his life, then he must have gone straight into the midst of battle.

I peered down into the oasis valley—so much fighting was enough to turn my stomach, and I wished there
had
been call for a surrender to avoid such unnecessary bloodshed.
And all over an item that wasn’t theirs to begin with
, I thought, honestly saddened by the events.

Then I saw him—the only man avoiding the skirmish—no longer on his mount, but sneaking through the trees toward what appeared to be the largest central tent. Somehow he’d slipped free of his bonds.

I was off my camel at once, and I only almost fell. Scuffling desperately through the sand, I stumbled after him. This was incredibly foolish, but looking away from him in the first place had been foolish, and now I had to risk my own life in order to remedy what my own carelessness had done. I had to hope no one saw me creeping after Geoffrey—both of us hopping like shadows from one rock to the next, through the tents, as real men fought all around us, blade against blade.