The blood beneath him had grown to an immense black pool.
Karim lowered the priest’s head back to the ground, his heart hammering. Behkai whimpered next to him and nuzzled his master’s hand.
All around them, the desert mourned in silence.
Then, one of the shadows moved.
Karim jumped to his feet, nearly stumbling over the dead man’s legs in his haste. He squinted into the gloom beyond the stone column, desperate to discern the shape of his enemy. From within the darkness, two eyes flashed.
Terror seized him, like fingers around his throat.
With a strangled sound, Karim took one step back, and then another, before turning and running as fast as he could. He tore back the way he came, Behkai galloping at his side, stopping only to grab his readied pack from beside the sleeping mats.
He ran toward the river, the khamasin wind pulling at his robes as he crested the dunes, his chest burning with exhaustion, the primal terror like lightning in his veins.
He only dared to look back once, squinting into the biting wind. What he saw, bathed in moonlight, burned itself onto his memory, its afterimage appearing like a phantom every time he closed his eyes.
It pursued him, as inevitable as death itself.
The river came into view, a dark glittering serpent winding its way to the horizon. Karim nearly tumbled down the dune toward it, the dog nimbly leaping along beside him. He spied Pa’s fishing skiff pulled ashore nearby, constructed of little more than bundles of dried papyrus reeds molded into a boat shape, one end turned up like a scorpion’s tail. Without hesitation, Karim tore its mooring from the ground, tossed his pack aboard, and jumped on.
Hoisting the single wooden oar into his hands, Karim was about to push away from the shore when he saw Behkai standing on the riverbank, panting, eyes brimming with fear.
“Absolutely not,” Karim said with finality, “I don’t have time for a pet.”
The dog whined. His pointed ears flattened along the sides of his head.
A shadow rose over the nearest dune, growing closer.
Karim cursed. “I am going to regret this.” He grabbed the dog by the scruff and hauled him onboard. Behkai licked his face, and cursing again, Karim pushed away the dog’s snout and snatched up the oar. With one mighty shove, he pushed the skiff into the current and began feverishly rowing away from the riverbank.
The creature stood on the edge of the water, watching them drift downriver, north toward Thonis.
Karim didn’t stop rowing until he could no longer see it, until it had melted back into the shadows and vanished into the night.
10
Rae
When the brightest star crossed its zenith, Rae set off.
Her father didn’t stir when she rose from her sleeping mat. It had been an emotional, exhausting day. He’d gotten up first thing in the morning, and prepared to work all day to harvest enough wheat to meet the nomarch’s unreasonable demands. When Rae offered to assist him, they’d argued—only to be interrupted by the arrival of several neighbors and their families, including Omari and Baki. As the healer had predicted, word had spread of Rae’s good deed, and many in the community had shown up to help.
Seeing them out there, working together to harvest a neighbor’s grain despite their own troubles—for the king’s tax spared no one—made Rae feel a fierce pride for her fellow Sakeshis. Like the wheat, her people bent in the wind, but did not break.
When he’d first arrived, the shepherd had grasped her hand. “I don’t know how to repay you, Raetawy. That beating should have been mine.”
Embarrassed by Baki’s gesture, Rae shrugged. “Anyone would have done the same.”
“No,” Baki said, ardently. “They wouldn’t have.”
Ankhu watched the exchange with an expression Rae couldn’t identify. Pride? Anger? Dread? It could have been all three.
Despite everyone talking about the incident with the nomarch, Rae and her father didn’t speak of it. In fact, besides the argument, they hardly spoke at all. At sundown, they’d stopped work, settled the zebu for the night, and eaten supper in silence. And after shoving bits of bread and salted fish into his mouth, herfather had finished his beer, gotten up from the table, and went to lie down on his mat. Within moments, he was asleep.
Rae had cleaned up the meal, washed her face and hands in the basin, and then lain down next to him. She watched over him for hours, just as he must have watched over her the night before.
She remembered how impossibly large he had seemed when she was growing up. To her, he was the strongest man alive. A bulwark against an increasingly wretched world. He’d kept them both clothed and fed until she was old enough to help with the farm, and sheltered her from the ugly reality of life in Sakesh to give her the gift of a happy childhood.
