Rebel of the Sands (6 page)

And then I was running for the door.

I
barreled out of the store full tilt and near knocked straight into Tamid.

“I was coming to find you.” He was out of breath and resting heavily on his crutch. “You should go back inside.”

“Is it—” I started.

“A Buraqi.” He nodded. My heart jumped in excitement.

A desert horse. A First Being made in the days before us mortal things, from sand and wind. That could run past the end of the world without tiring. And worth its weight in gold if you could catch one. Like hell I was going back inside.

I squinted past the edge of town. Sure enough, I could see the cloud of dust and men getting closer, herding the thing in with iron bars. It must've sprung one of the old traps.

“It'll be on account of the fire in Deadshot,” Tamid said in his preacher's voice. “First Beings are fond of fire.”

I saw a crooked nail sticking out of the porch and yanked it out. Used to be, folks in this desert made their whole living gathering the metals from the mountains and sending daughters out into the sands with iron gloves to trap and tame the Buraqi. To turn them from sand and wind to flesh and blood so that the men could take them into the cities to sell. Then the Sultan built the factory. The sand filled up with iron dust. Even the water tasted of it. Buraqi got scarcer, tents turned to houses, and horse traders turned into factory workers.

Iron could hold First Beings. Or kill them, same as it could a ghoul. Bind them to mortality. But the only thing that could turn them to flesh and blood long enough to bind them was us.

Tamid had read in some holy text that there were no females among First Beings. They didn't need any sons. They could just live forever, unlike mortal things. They didn't need us.

But if knowledge was power, then the unknown was the greatest weakness of immortal things. We all knew the stories. Djinn who fell in love with worthy princesses and gave them all of their hearts' wishes. Pretty girls who lured Nightmares straight onto men's blades. Brave merchants' daughters who caught Buraqi and rode them to the ends of the earth.

They were drawn to us, but also vulnerable to us. We could turn them into flesh and blood.

Folks were pouring out onto their porches all around now, a nervous glint of excitement shivering through them. A Buraqi meant either a whole lot of gold for whoever caught it or a whole lot of blood. Or both.

The Buraqi surged into view at the edge of town.

Someone screamed. A few doors slammed. But most folks leaned forward, trying to get a better look. I hung off the edge of the shop, craning in with the rest.

It was putting up one hell of a fight.

For a second it looked like a mortal horse. The next it was pure sand. Shifting from bright gold to violent red, fire and sun in a windswept desert. A trill of excitement that belonged to a long desert bloodline went through me. The factory had changed our ways. We weren't desert tribes hunting the Buraqi any longer. But we still filled the desert with iron traps. When one of the traps was sprung, everyone knew what to do.

A rattle of chains made me pay attention. The young widow Saira was hooking one end under the box of za'atar in her window while the other got anchored to the prayer house by the Holy Father. Half the town was throwing iron dust out of their windows, the same dust every household kept handy in case of attack by desert ghouls. It mixed with the sand and air until the whole town was a prison for a First Being.

The Buraqi reared with a cry. The men hemmed it in with iron bars, fighting to keep it from plunging back into the sand. The Buraqi's hooves came down hard. There was
a cry cut off by the crunch of hoof meeting skull. Blood splattered across the sand.

Gold and red like its coat.

Uncle Asid jabbed the Buraqi with the wicked point of his iron bar. The Buraqi reared back, the wound shifting to flesh just long enough to bleed. Long enough for the men to retreat behind the iron chains with everybody else. Their job was done.

The men got the Buraqi into town as one. But from there it was every woman for herself. If you caught the Buraqi and managed to hold it long enough to trap it in its mortal form, then it belonged to you, or rather to your husband or father. Or uncle, in my case. And the money from selling it belonged to him, too.

Not that I was planning on handing it over if I caught it. Hell, I'd needed a new way out of here. Well, here I had one. I'd just have to catch it.

The other women lingered on the edge of the iron chains. The widow Saira's tongue flicked out across her cracked lips. Even Shira had come out of my uncle's house. She seemed to be praying, her fingers laced through the iron chain. My heart was thumping through my whole body at once—stomach, throat, anywhere but where it belonged.

Two steps took me to the edge of the iron chain. This was my shot. My way out. “Amani—” Tamid called me. I turned to answer. A flash of pink khalat caught my eye. Aunt Farrah yelped Shira's name as my cousin dodged under the chain and ran toward the Buraqi.

Damn her. Of all the times for her to decide to do something other than laze around. The Buraqi, which had been tossing itself frantically between sand and skin, turned and charged her.

She wasn't going to win this one.

I dropped to the ground and rolled under the iron chain toward her. I was on my feet and running before Tamid could finish whatever warning he was shouting.

I crashed into Shira and we collided with the ground. A hoof clipped my head, sending a spiderweb of blinding pain across my vision.

I started to get up, but Shira's hand clamped over my ankle, wrenching me down. Her eyes were almost as frantic as the Buraqi's.

“Mama's going to tan your hide for this,” she hissed, her fingernails digging into the soft skin of my wrists.

“She's gonna have to catch me first.” I drove my knee into her stomach before she could get us both killed. I untangled myself from her coughing shape and rushed to my feet.

A half dozen more women had entered the iron ring while we'd been scuffling like this was the school yard. They were keeping their distance. The Buraqi's hooves were starting to sink back down in the sand. Much longer and it'd manage to go back to its immortal form and become part of the desert.

I whistled. It spun.

For a few long heartbeats we faced each other. I took one step. Then another. Two more. It still hadn't moved.

All at once, Shira dove for it, gripping a fistful of iron. The Buraqi darted out of her way. And then it charged me.

I made myself hold my ground. Like I was facing down Jin's bullet again. I wasn't going to die today, not even now with the Buraqi's hooves cutting through the sand and its weight bearing down on me.

I danced out of the way a moment before it reached me. I put out my hand, holding the nail; my skin skimmed its hide, then went flat against its flank. Iron and skin.

The Buraqi's scream was the sound of something being torn, and I felt it deep in my gut. I moved with the immortal beast as it furiously struggled. I moved with it, fighting to keep skin against spirit. I saw the anguish in its face. It didn't want to be trapped. I understood that. Neither did I. The nail dropped from my hand, but it didn't matter.

My hands wrapped around its neck as it turned to muscle. The world seemed to drop away as the Buraqi panted against my chest. Sun and sand became flesh and blood below my fingers. I felt the strength of it below me, old as the world, older than death and darkness and sin. All I'd have to do was climb on its back and let it carry me to the end of the desert.

The Buraqi cried out and my thoughts scattered as the scream made something tear loose inside me.

Someone shoved me back as men swarmed the beast with my uncle at the forefront. My chance to run was gone. The Buraqi whinnied weakly as an iron bit was shoved between its teeth and nails and horseshoes were hammered to its feet. Three iron shoes, enough iron to
anchor it to its physical form permanently, and one bronze, to make it obedient.

Men were shouting to send word that we had a Buraqi. Onlookers were whooping and laughing. Kids were clapping their hands. I was already forgotten. The beast tossed its head, looking at me like I'd betrayed it.

I had blood in my hair and on my clothes. No. I wasn't letting it get taken away that easily. I started pushing through the crowd before I could think better of it.

Someone grabbed my arm and wrenched me sideways between two houses. A hand covered my mouth, keeping in my shout.

“Well, hello there,” a nasty voice slithered into my ear, “Little Miss Bandit.”

“G
oddamnit, Fazim.” I shoved him away. I guess he made it out alive from the pistol pit after all. And he'd called me Bandit. He knew. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Fazim let me go, stuffing his hands into his pockets. He took two steps away from me, to the edge of the shadows between the two houses. He didn't need to guard me all that close. We both knew I didn't have anywhere to run.

“Do you always drag girls behind your house to beat them up for putting a knee in your sweetheart's gut?” I leaned back against the weak wooden frame.

“Marry me.” He said it so suddenly, for a second I just stared at him with my jaw still moving.

Then I burst out laughing.

I couldn't help it. He looked so damn pleased with himself. Like he really expected me to say yes. “Well, paint me purple and call me a Djinni, if that isn't the dumbest thing I've heard all day.” I shoved bloody hair off my face.

He was still grinning. “You've got nice eyes, you know. There was someone else with eyes like yours out in Deadshot last night. Blue-Eyed Bandit, they called him. Got me thinking, not many people in this desert with eyes like that.”

Of all the times for him to grow some brains. “You saying I've got a long-lost brother?”

“You know what I'm saying, Amani.” He stepped toward me, and I fought everything in me telling me to step back. Only a few feet away the commotion over the Buraqi was still making a racket, but just then it felt like the world had narrowed to Fazim and me. “And you're going to marry me so that no one else finds out.”

“And what's the next part?” My eyes darted to the opening between the two houses. I saw a flash of colorful khalat as someone rushed by. I willed the next person to look our way. “You tell me you're in love with me and these months with Shira have been a big ruse while you were waiting for my mother to be dead a year?”

Fazim grinned. Like he'd just been waiting for me to ask. “Well, until you caught that Buraqi, Shira was my best shot in town to get me on the way to rich.”

“And she'll get you even further that way once my uncle sells it.” Was that why Shira had flung herself into the fray? To get this idiot to marry her, for love or money?

“See, I've thought it all out, though.” He tapped his head. He was pretty dumb to be acting like he was the smartest man ever born. “Sure, if I marry Shira I'd get a little bit of that money. But seeing as you caught it, if you were to get married, the Buraqi wouldn't belong to your uncle no more.”

It would belong to my husband.

Damn him. He wasn't clever, but he was right. And worse, he was serious. Here was the moment I'd been trying to outrun, only it wasn't coming at my uncle's hand.

Anger burned my fear straight out of me. “I'd rather shoot myself.”
I'd rather shoot you
.

“You wouldn't have to.” He was still smiling, his teeth looking too big for his handsome face. “The army will probably do it for you once I tell them you were with that foreigner they're after.” His gaze stripped me all the way from my blue eyes to my boots. “Of course, they'll probably torture you first.”

I smiled at him sweetly instead of knocking his teeth in. “Still sounds better than a lifetime married to you.”

Fazim's hand slammed into the wall behind my head, scaring the smirk straight off me. “You know, I don't have to wed you first.” His voice was low, his smile still fixed, like he thought he was charming me. “I can make you worthless. Then you'd have no choice. You could marry me or hang. If you're anything like your mama, you've got a fine neck for hanging.” His free hand traced a line along my throat. I could best just about any man in this desert if I had a gun. But now I was unarmed and helpless.

“Fazim.” Shira's voice saved me. “What are you doing?”

Fazim pulled away, just far enough for me to see Shira standing in the narrow opening between the two houses. Her mouth was pressed together in that way I remembered from when we were little, when she was trying not to cry. I pulled away from him and scrambled back toward the street. My pace slowed just as I passed Shira. I thought she might stop me, stick an arm out and demand to know what I was doing between a wall and her lover. But she stepped aside at the last moment, her eyes firmly fixed on the ground.

I bolted for home.

•   •   •

I HAD TO
leave. Bluffing took more brains than Fazim had. He'd go to the army and tell them I knew about their traitor. I wasn't going to beg Jin. I was going to
make
him take me with him.

I paused in the doorway into my uncle's house, listening for any noise that might mean I wasn't the first one to get back to the house. When I was sure, I stepped inside, letting the floorboards creak below my boots, praying this would be the last time I ever walked over that threshold.

I snatched up everything I could find that I thought might belong to me from the chaos of the bedroom floor, and a few things I knew didn't.

I dashed into the boys' room. It was even worse than ours, with clothes piled halfway up the walls; I grabbed a
shirt that seemed as clean as anything got around there. Across the house the front door banged open. I heard Aunt Farrah call my name.

I slung the shirt around my neck as I eased myself through the window, dropping to the sand below before she could think to check the boys' room.

The main street was busy with folks hanging lanterns, setting out tables of food to sell, and tuning their instruments in the last dredges of daylight. We'd had nothing to celebrate since Shihabian, the longest night of the year, when we remembered the time the Destroyer of Worlds brought darkness and celebrated the returning of the light. That'd been near a year ago now. The Last County was thirsty for celebration. There would be plenty tonight. I just wouldn't be here for it.

Nobody noticed when I slipped into the store, shutting the door on the noise of the street. As soon as I did, I knew it was too quiet. The floorboards creaked under my feet as I took a step into the shop. Dust motes danced between the shelves.

“Jin?” I whispered into the shop. I felt stupid just for saying it.

I was too late.

He'd gone.

I didn't know why I'd figured he would stay.

The shirt hung loose in my fingers. It was stupid of me to think he would help me anyway; he didn't owe me anything. Besides, this was the desert; everybody looked out for himself.

For one wild moment I considered running to the young commander. I could sell Jin out to them before Fazim sold me out. No. I shook the thought off as soon as it came. I'd never be traitor enough to go to the army.

I shoved the shirt in my bag. I'd just have to find another way out of town before they got to me.

The sun had finished setting by the time I made my way back out of the store, and Dustwalk was lit for celebration. Small oil lanterns strung between houses and torches burning in the street lit up the sorry spectacle. What was left of our food was laid on tables to sell, but liquor was flowing freely as folks wove through the music and sang along. I gave it another few drinks before someone got into a fight.

Half of the Last County was here by now, come to see the Buraqi, which was tethered in the center of town, tossing its head angrily. Uncle Asid was trying to soothe it, but the immortal beast was getting more and more worked up with the crush of bodies jostling to touch it. Finally my uncle started to lead it away from where it might kick a person's head in. I kept one eye on it and the other out for Fazim as I pushed through the crowd, dodging dancers and drunks.

Something whacked hard into my ankles, shooting pain up my leg. I kicked back without thinking and turned to see Tamid standing just out of reach in the crush of people, propped on his crutch and looking all innocent, like he hadn't just hit me with it.

“Come on now, you're not going to kick a cripple, are
you?” he joked. I wanted to smile back, but I felt like someone had wrung me out. Tamid's own good mood flickered uncertainly. “Well, um, I've been looking for you.” He stumbled over his words, making my heart swell. I was going to miss him like fire. I'd always known at the back of my mind there'd come a day when I'd leave and he'd stay behind, but I hadn't expected it to rush in on us so quickly. “Here.” He pressed something into my hand. “Seemed like you took a bit of a beating capturing that Buraqi.” It was a small glass bottle with white powder pills bumping in the bottom. Pain pills. The kind his father made his money from, selling them to factory workers who got hurt on the job. Or when they shot each other to settle a fight.

“It's the kind that knocks you out, isn't it?” I knew the medicines better than I'd like. I'd had enough lashings for my smart tongue in the last year. “I can't take it.” I tried to hand the pills back. I took a deep shuddering breath. “I'm going to make a run for it on the Buraqi. Want to come?”

Tamid smiled gamely. “Sure, where are we going?” He figured I was joking. I didn't answer. I just held up my bag for him to see. It registered on his face slowly. “Amani . . .” There was an edge to the way he said my name, like he needed to have enough fear for the pair of us. “You're likely to get yourself hanged.”

“I'm just as likely to die here.” I pulled him aside, out of the crowd, next to the schoolhouse so we were out of the way. Wild recklessness had been building in my bones for hours. Days. Weeks. Years. And it filled up too much of me to let in anything else just now. “And they could do a
lot worse than hang me.” The truth came out in a rush as the celebrations carried on around us. Everything—about my uncle, Jin, and Fazim, and how Jin left without taking me with him, and how Fazim blackmailed me to wind up wed or dead if I stayed. And I sure as hell wasn't going to wed anyone. Not him. Not my uncle.

“And in what part of this brilliantly thought-out plan were you going to tell me you were leaving?” He looked wounded.

“I didn't think . . .” I swallowed hard against the guilt welling up. I hadn't really thought. That was the truth of it. There'd been no time to think. No room to think about anything other than Fazim and getting away. “You weren't ever going to come, Tamid,” I said softly. “You're only going to try to make me stay, and I'm in too much trouble to stay.”

“You wouldn't
be
in trouble if you'd just stayed put instead of running off to the pistol pit in the first place. Why didn't you talk to me? We could've figured something out together, you and I. Why do you always—” Tamid bit off his words in a breathy huff. “You always have to make things so difficult.” A long silence stretched out between us in place of the argument we'd had a hundred times. “I know what to do.” Tamid wasn't looking at me. In the shadow of the house cast by the swinging lamplight, it was hard to read his expression. I cast my eyes around nervously, keeping my eyes out for any sign of Fazim. “You could—you could marry me.”

That pulled my attention back. “What?”

“Fazim can't do anything if you're already wed.” He looked so terribly earnest, it made me want to reach out to him. “I could keep you safe. From him. From the army. From your family. You wouldn't even have to live under Farrah's roof anymore. I'd been figuring I'd ask your uncle anyway.” He couldn't quite meet my eyes, he looked faintly embarrassed. “Once you were a bit older. I didn't want to pounce as soon as your mother had been dead a year. I wanted to give you time. But I'd never let him wed you, Amani, if you'd told me. This would just mean asking him for you a bit sooner.”

He'd been planning on asking to marry me? For how long? The notion had never crossed my mind. I'd figured he'd always understood that I was planning on leaving. Or maybe he'd just thought I'd never make it.

“Tamid.” I lowered my voice, unsure of what to say. I didn't know how to explain what I wanted. Not when our ideas were so at odds.

Fazim appeared through the crowd. He wasn't alone. Gold-and-white army uniforms trailed behind him, parting the crowd.

My stomach leapt into my mouth as I plastered myself into the shadows. Tamid glanced over his shoulder. He saw what I did. When he turned back he must've read my answer all over my face. I couldn't stay. He couldn't keep me safe. “Go.”

“Tamid . . .” I didn't want to leave with him angry at me. But he wasn't angry enough to want me dead.

“Go!”

For once I did as I was told.

The street was thick with the crowds. I dodged around Old Rafaat leaning heavily on his granddaughter's arm and shoved past a stranger who was playing a sitar out of tune before colliding with the side of my uncle's house. I was steps from the stables. If I could get to the Buraqi—

“There you are!” Aunt Farrah yanked me around to face her. For the first time the cold fury in her face didn't reach me. She was going to scream at me for my smart mouth, for knocking over her daughter, for not helping with dinner for all I knew. It might've mattered this morning, but I was long past caring now.