In the Labyrinth of Drakes (13 page)

Pensyth had mentioned this, after a fashion. I wanted to inquire further, but felt it would be rude. The couple urged us to sit and fed us more coffee and dates, eager to share their hospitality; Umm Azali joined in, despite the mixed company, which meant I had to do the same. (I did not manage sleep until quite late that night; it has not generally been my habit to drink coffee after sunset.)

The conversation was pleasant, if largely inconsequential or else incomprehensible. It is incumbent upon any traveller to share news from the territory he has passed through; Yusuf had spoken to other nomads on our way here, and now he related what he had learned from them, little of which meant anything to me—when I could even understand his words. I mostly looked around the tent, which was made of goat-hair panels and surprisingly sparse in its furnishings. I felt as if I were among the Moulish once more, as in a sense I was: these, too, were a migratory people, for whom material possessions were often more of a burden than a luxury.

As you may imagine, I also watched Suhail, as covertly as I could. He seemed more like himself out here, which pleased me, but also surprised me a little. After all, I knew him largely as a man who loved the sea: I half expected him to pine in such an arid land. But it was clear that he was more comfortable and relaxed in the tent of his desert mother and desert father than he was in the house of his brother. And if he spoke to me but little, nor looked in my direction much—well. I had promised Pensyth I would behave myself; it helped that he did the same.

I was recalled to the conversation when Suhail spoke in my own language. “Tomorrow,” he said to Tom; I had missed the question he was answering. “It's too late tonight. Besides, there was an argument over who would be your host. If I weren't here, you'd stay with the sheikh—but since I am, Abu Azali won the argument.”

He was referring to our sleeping arrangements. Of course it was much too dark out to pitch the tent we had brought; but I had not thought about what that would mean. I was simultaneously relieved and alarmed: relieved that we would not be in the sheikh's tent, and alarmed at the prospect of word reaching anyone that I had slept under the same roof as Suhail.

But it was also the same roof that sheltered Tom, Andrew, Abu Azali, Umm Azali, and Yusuf. The most inappropriate deed either of us could have performed in such crowded quarters was to accidentally tread on someone if we got up in the night. No one seemed to think there was any reason for concern, and so I went along.

The next morning we undertook the task of setting up our own household. Using the phrases Suhail taught him, Tom formally begged leave on behalf of our Scirling trio to become the “protégé” of Abu Azali, which is to say a guest under his protection. This is an extension of hospitality among the nomads, and meant that we would pitch our tent next to Abu Azali's in the line, as if we were members of his family. Furthermore, they dispatched a girl—Shahar, daughter of their son Azali—to see to our domestic needs. This was reckoned good practice for her, as she was fast approaching the age at which she might marry, and thus become mistress of her own tent.

In this she reminded me a great deal of Liluakame, the Keongan girl who had been my “wife” during the time of our shipwreck. Here no such pretense was needed, nor was I providing an excuse for Shahar to delay marriage until her prospective husband would be ready. My household was, however, serving once more as a training ground for a future wife. Shahar was quite determined in her practice, and firmly halted any effort on the part of either Tom or myself to take on some of her duties; whether this was owing to her zeal or the status we had as associates of Husam ibn Ramiz, I do not know.

Indeed, for once we had no responsibilities at all save the pursuit of our work. To this end, Tom and I asked the very next day who might be able to guide us to the dragons.

We had to inquire of Abu Azali, because Suhail was nowhere to be found. Even conveying our point was something of a challenge—Yusuf had to assist—but once he understood, he responded with a flood of words that made Yusuf grimace. “The man you want is one of the Ghalb,” he said. “Al-Jelidah. He is not here, and no one knows when he will be back.”

“Who, or what, is a Ghalb?” Tom asked.

Yusuf spat into the dirt. “Filthy carrion-eaters. But they know the desert.”

This was, of course, not the most useful answer he might have given. Further questioning elicited that the Ghalb were a tribe—“If they even deserve that name,” Yusuf muttered—unlike any other in Akhia.

Indeed, some have questioned whether they are Akhian at all, or whether their ancestors hail from some other land. Certainly their way of life differs from that of the other nomads. They have no fixed territory, but pay a fee to the other tribes for protection and the right to pass through their lands. By law they are forbidden from owning horses, and most do not even own camels, instead making do with some sheep, and a breed of donkey that is esteemed above all others in the region. They survive largely by hunting, and by dispensing their skills in medicine and handiwork to the other tribes; for this reason, and because they are barred from raiding or making war, the nomads despise them as mere craftsmen. (Their reputation as carrion-eaters arises from the fact that they do not slaughter their meat according to either Segulist or Amaneen law.)

But the Ghalb, as even Yusuf admitted, know the desert. Because they do not engage in warfare and are permitted passage throughout Akhia, they are sometimes employed as guides by the more conventional tribes, directing them to good pasturage or hidden sources of water. It seemed the Aritat had been making extensive use of Ghalbi aid in seeking out caches of eggs; and this man al-Jelidah was the one who had been assisting this camp.

Tom, asking around, learned that al-Jelidah had gone to share his wealth with his family—or possibly to bury it, which the Ghalb sometimes do if they have no immediate need of the money. (The Scirling traveller Saul Westcombe wrote a sensational tale fifty years ago about the secret treasures of the “Gelbees,” for which he hunted fruitlessly through the mountains until a rockfall did him in. Likely he would have been sorely disappointed had he found the pittance of coins al-Jelidah had received.) But the men in camp assured Tom that Ghalbi assistance was not needed, not in this season; there were no eggs for us to find right now, only dragons. And for those, all we needed was our eyes.

Among the Moulish we had needed to delay our work, for not participating in the life of the camp would have marked us as inexcusably antisocial. Here, however, we had the imprimatur of the sheikh, and therefore were expected to carry out our duties post-haste. As it happened, we had an opportunity to begin our work the very next day—or rather, the very next night.

Andrew and I had gone in search of Suhail. Having given us into the care of his desert mother and desert father, he seemed to have vanished. I gathered from Umm Azali that he might be found in the tent of the local sheikh. This I approached with trepidation, not knowing if it would be an offense for me to stroll up unannounced—but one of the women there (the sheikh's younger wife, Genna) came out to greet me. From her I understood that Suhail was elsewhere in camp.

We found him eventually between two rows of tents, surrounded by a quartet of sleek, graceful hounds. These were the salukis, a breed almost as renowned as the horses and camels of the desert: sighthounds, deep-chested and narrow-waisted, like cheetahs or the savannah snakes of Bayembe, with feathery tufts of hair down the backs of their legs. They frolicked about him, tongues lolling in canine grins, while he ruffled their ears with a gentle hand. At our approach, they went still and watchful, until Andrew and I both offered our fingers for a sniff. Even then, however, they remained wary, and did not return to their play.

“Umm Yaqub,” Suhail greeted me respectfully, rising from his crouch and dusting his hands off. “Captain Hendemore. I hope you have been settling in well?”

I said, “Yes, very much so. Your—does she count as your niece? Shahar bint Azali. She has made our tent comfortable with laudable speed. We are lucky to have her assistance.”

It was not the most graceful small talk I had ever made. Fortunately we were soon rescued by a sudden commotion. There were shouts at the edge of camp; turning, I saw a boy galloping in on a camel, looking as if he might slide off the hump at any moment. But he kept his seat, steering toward us, and nearly tumbled over the camel's head in his haste to rein it in and dismount. I could not follow his breathless report, but had to wait for Suhail to translate. He listened, then turned to us and said, “A dragon has taken one of the camels.”

“Damnation!” I said, then winced. Andrew had not been a good influence on my manners. Fortunately, Suhail had heard salty language from me before (when I was too much in the company of sailors, who were just as bad as my brother). In a more moderate tone, I asked, “Would it be troublesome if I went out with the herdsmen in future days? If I wait in camp, I will never see a drake hunt.”

I saw a brief flash of Suhail's smile, before it faded once more into reserve. “You've missed only one part of it. If you are brave—if you do not fear the lion and hyena—you may see more.”

He knew very well the measure of my courage, not to mention my foolhardiness. “Do you mean—” I stopped, eyebrows rising. My heart began to patter like that of a young lady at her first public dance. “The stories are true?”

He answered with more levity than I had heard from him since arriving in Akhia. “How am I to know what stories you've heard? But you will see with your own eyes what is true.”

Suhail took us to meet another man, a fellow called Haidar ibn Wajid. His age was difficult to judge; the desert is not kind to human skin, and his weathered face might have belonged to a man anywhere between thirty and sixty. He was a hunter rather than a herdsman, riding out often with a falcon on his glove to bring down bustards, sand grouse, and francolins, rabbits and foxes and more. At Suhail's request, he mounted his camel and rode out. In the afternoon he returned and pointed at black specks in the sky, some distance off. In a careful approximation of city Akhian, he said, “Vultures. That is where we must go … but not
too
close.”

Six of us rode out shortly before dusk: myself, Andrew, and Tom, with Haidar and two of his comrades leading us. Suhail himself stayed behind, much to my regret. Our Akhian companions found a rise overlooking the vultures' target, and when I fixed upon it with the field glasses, I saw the carcass of the camel, already somewhat torn by scavengers, but far from entirely consumed. Of the drake, there was no sign.

We waited for several hours without result. This was my first time sitting out in a desert night, rather than sheltering inside a tent; the experience, apart from the penetrating cold, was both breathtaking and eerie. The stars above were brilliant beyond compare, and the waxing crescent moon gave some light before it set … but all around us the desert was composed of silver and shadow, and sounds carried across it for miles. I heard the coughing roar of a lion and tensed, until Haidar shook his head. “A long way off,” he said. “He will not come here.”

Of greater concern—and greater promise—was the unnerving laughter that came from much closer by. The Akhians held their weapons close when they heard it, while I tried and failed to pinpoint the origin of the noise. “What was that?”

“Hyena.” Haidar's voice was barely more than a whisper. “They will find the camel soon.”

In the darkness I could barely make out the carcass, but I remembered more or less where it had been before the light faded, and after a bit of searching fixed its dim silhouette in my field glasses. Before long I saw dark shapes slinking about it, and heard more of that strange, cackling sound, so disturbingly like a human laugh.

Haidar, who had seen this before, was not looking at the carcass. Instead he watched the sky, waiting for the stars to go out.

“Now,” he murmured, and I lowered the field glasses just in time to see.

The flare was shockingly bright, after hours in the dark. Howls came from the desert floor, and there was a scrabbling of nails against the dirt as the surviving hyenas attempted to flee. But the drake wheeled about—I could barely see it, tracking its movement by the blackness that swept across the sky—and stooped again, blazing once more at its fleeing prey. A frantic search through the glasses showed me hyena corpses strewn about, some of them still burning, especially around what was left of the camel. Then the dragon settled to the ground and began its feast.

Some of the stories told about desert drakes are pure fancy. Among these I count the jinn, the spirits said to be born from the “smokeless fire” of a drake's breath. But seeing those bursts of flame in the night, I can understand how such legends begin. And it is no fable to say that drakes are cunning hunters, clever enough to kill one beast and then use it as bait, luring scavengers who will become the main course.

A drake, hunting in this manner, can often gorge itself on enough meat to sate it for a week or more. Having done so, they are often too heavy to fly; they will lair where they can, or if no immediate location offers itself, walk ponderously back in the direction of their home caves, making short, gliding flights when the terrain permits. Once ensconced in a safe place, they will remain inactive until hunger begins to pluck at them again, rousing only to shift between shade and sun as their comfort requires.