Numbly she accepted the weapon, anything so that Ian would release her to go to her husband. When he did, she raced frantically up the slope, keeping down, but only barely.
Ian turned and pointed the rifle across the ravine, letting off a shot just to let the enemy know that the ferengis were still in business. To his surprise, the bullet went exactly where he had intended.
With grim humor he started shooting in earnest. He was pleased to learn that losing an eye didn't seem to have hurt his marksmanship at all.
* * *
His blood singing with triumph, Shahid began moving toward his victim. There was a chance Khilburn was still alive, for Shahid had been shooting from an awkward angle and the fall from the ledge, while dramatic, was not in itself sufficient to kill unless he landed badly. First Shahid would make sure that the ferengi was dead; then he would climb to the higher ledge and use the vantage point to shoot the others at his leisure. Though perhaps, if he was careful, the Targui would survive long enough to suffer further indignities. His rifle ready in his hand, the Uzbek snaked his way across the broken ground.
* * *
When Juliet scrambled onto the ledge where Ross had fallen, she found that it was an unexpected pocket of sand and gravel held together by tough grasses. She prayed that the relative softness had mitigated the effect of the fall.
Ross lay on his side, his face handsome and relaxed, as if he were sleeping, but the blood staining his blond hair told a more frightening story. Her breathing jagged with fear and exertion, Juliet knelt and checked his throat for a pulse.
At first she could not find one and suffocating despair flooded through her. Then, miraculously, she felt a strong beat under her fingertips, a pulse that represented not just his life but her own, for if Ross were dead, the best part of Juliet would die too.
Her heart a jumble of prayers, gratitude, and threats of what she would do if God didn't spare her husband, she laid the pistol on the ground and made a quick examination. Apparently the bullet had grazed his skull, but there seemed to be no other major injuries.
Needing a bandage, Juliet jerked off her tagelmoust. Her hair broke out of its crude braid and spilled over her shoulders, but she brushed it back impatiently, then tore off strips of cloth. She had just finished tying a pad over Ross's wound when she heard the rattling of pebbles as someone approached.
She whipped her head up just in time to see Shahid heave himself onto the ledge, his rifle at the ready. He was less than ten feet away and there was a paralyzed moment of mutual shock as they stared at each other.
"A woman!" the Uzbek gasped, his eyes widening with astonishment as he saw Juliet's face and the thick waves of bright hair that tossed in the wind. "So Khilburn's Targui boy is really a skinny ferengi whore."
The Koran commands mercy toward women and children, but that was a directive Shahid had never obeyed. An expression of evil delight on his face, he raised his rifle to shoot. "Now you will join your lover in death."
He was too slow. During the stunned moment when Shahid was absorbing the fact that she was female, Juliet raised the pistol and cocked it.
Holding the gun with both hands so there would be no mistake, she shot Shahid Mahmud through the heart at point-blank range.
Chapter 26
The ear-piercing crack of Juliet's pistol pulled Ross back to hazy awareness. Though his body refused to move, he managed to open his eyes a slit, just enough to see the impact of the ball spin Shahid around, then knock him from the ledge. As the Uzbek's body crashed noisily down the cliff, Juliet lowered her pistol with shaking hands.
Turning to the ravine, she shouted, a faint tremor in her voice, "Men of Bokhara! Your mission is over, for your officer, Yawer Shahid Mahmud, is dead and the ferengi is mortally wounded. If you withdraw now, we will permit you to take your weapons and depart in peace and honor. But if you continue fighting, you will be hunted down and killed like dogs."
As she paused for breath, Ross felt an obscure satisfaction at hearing that he was mortally wounded, for it explained why he felt so strange, not quite connected to his body. There was no pain, merely numbness, an endless, drifting lassitude, as if he were a piece of flotsam drifting out on the tide of death.
Juliet continued, her words echoing from the stony ravine, "I am Gul-i Sarahi and my fortress, Serevan, is less than a farsakh away. Already my men will be on their way here, drawn by the sound of gunfire. You will have no chance against them."
At first there was no reply. Then a voice bellowed from the other side of the gorge, "What of our dead?"
"Shahid was a brute and a bully, but he had the virtue of courage and he died while doing his duty," Juliet called back. "If you leave peacefully, I swear that he and any other man who has fallen will be buried with honor and in accordance with Sunni custom."