I only recall seeing Rami’s still form on the stone as I raced to him. And then the feel of his warm skin as I fell to my knees and reached for his lifeless body.
A terrible groan issued from my throat and I felt anguish pulling me into the abyss. It could not be! It was a mistake. A nightmare borne by ghouls.
And yet it was real. I could see his broken head.
The greater part of me died then, as I lowered my head to his back, pressed my cheek against his still body, and clung to his little hands and feet, weeping.
I begged Isis to take me. I cursed the world for all its injustice. I despised every breath I took, and yet my weeping only grew until great sobs racked my body.
“My son is still a boy,” a low voice said to my left.
I thought it was my father, speaking to me from his spirit.
“And yours only an infant.”
I stilled at those words, confused. Then opened my eyes without lifting my head.
It was the Thamud leader, Saman bin Shariqat. He was mounted on a horse, only just leaving, holding a torch in his left hand to light his way. But his presence was of no consequence to the dead, and I was as dead to him as he to me.
Then the man grunted.
A single dismissive grunt.
The sound loosed a torrent of rage deep inside my chest. Though a part of me had died with my son, another part rose from the dead then, with that grunt.
Filled with the darkest storm, I slowly lifted my head and looked at him, not seven paces from where I knelt over my son’s dead body.
He shifted his gaze forward, as if to leave.
The moment he turned I was on my feet and sprinting toward him without a sound. My father’s dagger was still in his belt, lit by the golden light of the torch.
He clearly had not expected me to move. He had expected even less that I could move so quickly. And even less that I might attack with the ferocity and skill of a trained fighter. He could not know that the father of my son, Johnin, had been among the strongest and bravest of all warrior-slaves in Egypt.
Saman dropped the torch to the ground and was grabbing for his sword when I reached him. But he was far too slow.
I snatched my father’s dagger from his waist and thrust at his neck. He jerked back with a surprised cry, avoiding a wound that would have surely taken his life.
Without hesitation, I dragged the blade through his thigh as I dropped to a crouch, then spun and slashed the horse’s neck through to the jugular. I could not leave Saman with a mount to give chase.
The beast was already falling and Saman roaring as I sprinted for my son’s body. I had to take him with me.
But Kahil, the monster who’d thrown Rami from the window, had entered the street and was running for me. And behind him three others who’d been trailing Saman.
It took me only a single breath to realize that I could not retrieve my son and survive. I would be laden with his body. If I died, Varus’s blade, now in my hand, would be taken.
Most in Egypt believed that the body must be preserved for the soul in the afterlife, thus they buried their dead in stone tombs or pyramids, depending on wealth and stature. The Nabataeans also placed hope in great tombs. But neither the Bedu nor I had adopted such beliefs. I prayed now that I wasn’t wrong.
“Forgive me, my son.” I whispered the words with a last look at his tiny form.
Then I veered to my left, breathing a prayer to Isis for his well-being in the afterlife, and sprinted for the darkness behind the palace Marid.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE DARKNESS was my friend as I fled Dumah on foot, often ducking behind trees and boulders to avoid the pursuit of Saman’s men. Had it been day, they would have found and killed me.
I was a bundle of torment, torn between the desperate impulse to return for my son’s body and the need to live so that I could avenge him. Rage pushed me, guilt ravaged me, sorrow pulled me to my knees even as I stumbled time and again along the path beyond the city.
It was with a black heart that I found the shallow cave.
The moon cast a gentle light over the sand and the rock, enough for me to see my father’s dark-skinned warrior and two equipped camels that gnawed on tufts of desert grass nearby.
Saba was dressed for the desert in long pants beneath a loose cloak that parted at his breastbone, revealing a powerful chest and a necklace of bones and stones that came from his homeland. His head was bald. A bow hung from his back and a dagger from each of his hips, fastened by a sash.
Saba had seen me and waited without coming to my aid. Even when I stopped before him, he only glanced at the dagger in my hand, then studied me with wide eyes.
I could not imagine how he’d survived the battle and retrieved the supplies and camels. Unless the camels had been prepared beforehand, in the event the Thamud attacked and Dumah was overrun.