“What are they doing?”
Saud focused across the dunes at the pair silhouetted against the light of three moons over the endless sea of sand, apparently in the motion of sparring with wooden swords. Neither figure looked particularly female, though he knew for a fact that one of them was his cousin Rasha. The other could only be her fiance’, Martin Lilac. He was easy to spot in his tall thin frame, and utterly clumsy use of the sword. Saud found it embarrassing that his cousin, the princess of her tribe, was betrothed to marry a man that even he, at age 13, could thoroughly trounce in a straight fight.
Apparently, she sought to remedy that, with Opal, her Wind-hound, dancing around them excitedly as if she were playing with puppies.
Saud shrugged. “I guess she’s teaching him to fight.”
Haqim snickered. “You mean he doesn’t know how already?” Faisal echoed Haqim’s humor with a chuckle of his own.
Saud sighed, and shook his head, remembering the few times he had actually encountered Martin before. “She must really like hard-luck cases.”
“Where’s he from, anyway?” Faisal gave Saud a nudge. “He’s not of the Wind, he’s not of the Caliphate, so what is he?”
Haqim gestured dismissively. “He’s a nobody. His family’s dead, so he hides out with us sometimes. Hey, Saud,” he put one hand on Saud’s shoulder. “I know how to fix him.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” He pressed a whistle into Saud’s hand.
Saud examined it momentarily; it was the whistle of the test of manhood. The boy would walk a mile into the dessert and call his horse. He got three tries, and if the horse did not come, he had to wait until next year.
Saud had called his horse last year, and Haqim and Faisal were coming up on their tests. Rasha, a true exception to the rule, had been slipped the whistle by her father in her thirteenth year, the only girl in a hundred miles and who knew how many years to do so. Haboob, her horse, came obediently on the first call.
Martin Lilac was 16 now and had never taken such a test. Of course, the rational part of Saud’s mind reminded him that, being not a Wind-Kin, he did not have to. Moreover, he did not even have his own horse. But still…
Rasha was going to marry him.
Saud smiled. “He doesn’t have a horse.”
Haqim waved dismissively. “He can call the one he rode to Kadir.”
Saud tossed the whistle up in the air and caught it, snapping his fingers closed over it dramatically. “Let’s see how the Wind favors him.”

---

“So she’s going to leave with him.” Azim advanced a pawn, creating a perfect slant. Next to them both, where they knelt on their rug, sat a pot of coffee and two silver cups with saucers. On the wicker basket between them, carved from two colors of wood, a chessboard with small, plain pieces.
Bilal studied the board, glancing into the arched eyebrows of Azim as the old man waited for his move. Bilal looked back to the board. “This day was a long time coming. Rasha, like her father, is headstrong, fiery, willful, stubborn, and possessed of deep emotions.” He studied a knight that could be developed onto the board a little more. “Since Kadir, some of those have come to the surface.”
“Oh?”
“She’s clung to him like that hound of hers.” He advanced the knight so that stopped the advance of Bilal’s pawns, but did not threaten anything yet. “She cares deeply for him.”
“I believe it. But now you face a new problem.” Azim moved his queen up behind his pawn slant. “When he is in danger, so is your niece.”
“I know.” Bilal absently slid a bishop out behind the knight. With any luck, Azim noticed it, and the clear path Bilal now had to castle his king.
Azim laughed. “You’re getting predictable, Brother-Wind-Kin.” He slid his own bishop across the board and into position to cover the new castle.
“Am I.” Bilal advanced the king in front of his queen.
Azim studied the move with a look of perplexed surprise on his face. After a few seconds of study, he arched an eyebrow at Bilal again. “Are you sure you want to do that?”
“Yes. Make your move.” He smirked.
Azim sighed. “I can’t let you throw this game to just to make a point to me that you can be unpredictable. That was Junaid’s strength, not yours.”
“And what are my strengths.”
“Sensibility, Bilal. Intelligence. Perception.”
“And faith in my people, including Martin and Rasha. Make your move.”
Azim squinted indignantly. “The servants of the Web-Weaver know this tactic already! He’s lived his life on the run! Do you honestly think they can’t predict it?”
“Make your move.”
“Fine.” Azim picked up his bishop and removed it from covering the castle and into place to cover his queen, putting the king in check. “This is what happens.”
“No. This is what happens.” Bilal slid his queen out capturing Azim’s Bishop.
“And you lost your queen!” Azim captured her with his own queen.
“But Martin didn’t.” Bilal moved his knight in to capture the queen, putting the knight diagonally forward of the king, and threatening the supports of the now very alone and unsupported pawn slant.
He looked at Azim with stern calm. “Care to tell me again what my strengths are?”

---

“I’ll get us some water.” Rasha patted Martin on the shoulder as she went by. Panting, he could only acknowledge her with a nod. He sat down against a basket of cloth outside the kitchen tent and closed his eyes as he took deep breaths, trying to ignore the embarrassment he felt at not being able to master even the most basic techniques.
His right hand stung from a disarming shot. He flexed his fingers, staring at them. More than a few of his muscles ached with what would undoubtedly be bruises tomorrow. At least he could probably convince Rasha to dull his pain a little.
His mind conjured up a picture of her, her kheffiyeh wrapped around her head but pulled down from her face, as she stood on the dunes with her sword ready, sweat glistening on her face, which was rosy even under her dark skin from the cold air.
Rasha told him the training would be harder because she was left-handed, something that threw everyone—even Rashid and her father when they tried to teach her. The problem with facing a left-handed opponent was that what you expected to be one kind of cut became exactly the opposite. The same cues betrayed you to exactly the wrong defense, or at least that was what she had said.
Not that Martin understood most of it.
“Hey, Martin.” Saud sat down next to Martin, with Haqim and Faisal standing nearby.
“Evening, Saud.”
“How goes the training?”
Martin regarded Saud curiously. He was not normally one for small talk.
“I...I'm not very good yet.” he said, an ashamed undertone in his normally soft voice
Faisal chuckled.
“Don’t worry about it.” Saud patted him on the shoulder. “It takes time for everyone. Hey, so what’s the plan after us?”
Martin shrugged and looked back out over the dunes. “We haven’t decided.”
Saud squinted. “We?”
“Yeah. Me and…" he paused a moment, his thought process catching up. "...you did know Rasha was coming with me, right?”
Saud looked genuinely surprised. “But you’re not married yet!”
Martin’s stomach turned. She said she had told her uncle…But then, that didn’t mean everyone knew, did it? He had just assumed. He sank down a bit, closing his eyes.
Saud sat silently for a moment. “Wow.”
“I thought you knew…” he muttered, feeling more embarrassed than ever.
“It’s okay…” Saud patted him again, and slowly stood up.
Haqim finally said, “Oh! By the way Martin, did you find anything in your pocket this evening?”
Martin absently patted his pockets. “No, I-”
But belying that, his hand found a lump in his right pocket.
“What the…”
He pulled out a small whistle, much like a miniature ocarina in design. Made of white ceramic, glazed, it shone in the moonlight.
“Ooooooh.” he turned it carefully, admiring the play of light off its surface.
Saud grinned. “Hey…looks like someone wants to test you for manhood.”
Haqim said, “Maybe Rasha slipped it to you.”
“I mean, you are engaged to be married,” Saud added.
That brought him up short. He blinked. “She…”
He supposed it was possible, though he couldn’t imagine her putting that kind of pressure on him like that.
Especially not after…well, never, really.
But…was it not written in the Wind-scrolls that if you tire yourself racing men on foot, how will you fare against horses? How could Rasha hope to keep company with him if he could not survive?
“Come on, Martin.” He ribbed Martin with his elbow. “Do it for her.”
“Yeah, sahib. Do it for Rasha.”
“But I don’t have a horse!” he protested, half wishing he could fall through the wall of the tent behind him.
“So call the one we loaned you for the trip to Kadir!”
Martin sighed and nodded slowly, giving in. “Alright.”

---

“The Spider does not play by the rules, Bilal!” Azim clanked his cup of coffee down on its saucer.
“Neither do I! Neither have Rasha, or Junaid, or my own son!”
“You’re counting on all to be as it seems, and it never is! That’s what got Junaid killed!”
“I never count on all to be as it seems, and neither did my brother! When none of the maps work, you throw out the rules!”
“You can’t play chess with invisible pieces on an invisible board!”
Bilal thought of a hundred ways to answer him, but in the end, arguing with him as if it were a chess game was not the way to go. No progress would be made bickering over details when he was right—the board was invisible.
“None of us are certain,” Bilal said. “I have to make the best decision I can. Right now the best decision I can make is to let them go. As much as I love my niece…If we’re right, losing her will only be an afterthought if we lose him, and I think she senses that, and so did Junaid.”
Azim shook his head. “So many pieces have been sacrificed to protect him.”
“But we won’t control the board if we castle away. We have to trust her.”
“Sir.” Rashid poked his head in. “Something’s wrong. Hab Al Allah is panicking.”
Junaid’s horse. Bilal squinted. “What?”
The tribe had not yet decided what to do with him. Rasha had her own stallion, and so did the other men. In theory, having another horse around was a good thing, but Hab Al Allah only obeyed Junaid. In fact, the horse seemed to notice that Junaid was gone, and was slowly eating less and less as the month wore on.
Rashid gestured with impotent worry. “Come see.”
Azim groaned. “Always something.”
“Yes…” Bilal stood up. “That’s what worries me.”

---

Rasha returned to the edge of the camp with a skin of water in her hands. She looked for Martin, but saw only Saud and his two friends standing there, looking out across the dunes. In the distance, a lone, tall, thin figure stood silhouetted against the last rising moon.
Rasha glanced at Saud, alarmed to notice that he seemed mischieviously excited about something.
“Saud?”
Saud glanced at her, then a look of having been caught playing a prank crossed his face.
Rasha narrowed her eyes.
“We slipped him a whistle,” Saud said, as if to head her off. “He’s whistled and he’s shouted. He has one more try—”
“For what, Saud?! He doesn’t have a horse!”

---

Nothing.
Martin looked up at the still, night sky. This was his last chance, according to tradition. He closed his eyes, hoping...praying...for a successful end to the night.
“Great Mother of the Sun, please give me something…some…boon here…I have one more try…”
A breeze blew.
Call as Abd’Al Hab did.
Martin laughed shortly in disbelief.
Abd’Al Hab, the prophet of the Wind, was said to have once called his horse simply by willing it to come to him. Some of the tribal Wind-leaders boasted to have done the same. Junaid never did; he said he tried, but that he was never that good.
“Well…I guess I’ll be no worse off.”
Martin closed his eyes, and began to focus.

Bilal quickly untied Hab Al Allah, while Azim threw a blanket over his head. Hab Al Allah surprised them both by throwing the blanket off and continuing to pull against the reins.
Soon, the other horses began to pull against their ties. Bilal noted with some alarm that Haboob began to chew at the rope holding him.
“Stop them!” Rashid called to his men, pointing. “Secure their bindings!”
“No!” Bilal backed out, just as Hab Al Allah began to kick. Haboob left bloody frays on the last of his rope. “Get out! NOW!”

Saud straightened up, his face blushing behind his kheffiyeh. “He’s calling the one we loaned him for the trip to Kadir.”
Rasha sighed angrily. “What are you trying to prove, Saud? That you’re better than him?”
Saud’s face took on a serious hardness. “What are you afraid of? If he fails he’s no weaker than before he was tested, and you’ll still coddle him like a baby.”
Rasha’s face hardened in anger. “I defy you to face what he’s faced, Saud.”
The sound of a horse galloping toward them interrupted their argument. Rasha turned in time to see a wall of her father’s stallion alarmingly close. Hab Al Allah lifted off the ground in a leap, just as something slammed into her from the side and tackled her to the sand. When she looked up, Saud rolled off of her.
Haqim, wide-eyed, pointed back toward the horse corral. “LOOK OUT!” He grabbed Faisal and threw him out of the way, as Rasha seized Saud by the hem of his trousers and yanked him back out of the way. A thunder of horses passed, kicking up dust in their wake.

The first to arrive was a horse Martin knew well: 16 hands, large for a dessert-horse, snorting steam in the cold night air. Martin could almost see Junaid on his back, the wind blowing his kheffiyeh, an enormous Caliphate scimitar glinting in the moonlight as he signaled to Rashid. He stared in wonder.
And then, Haboob galloped up, and stooped to the ground in a move that Rasha had trained him for, so that she could aid wounded or dead onto his back.
And then, every other horse in the tribe.
He watched in silent awe as they circled him, all but Haboob and Hab Al Allah, the first of which remained on the ground and the second of which stood obediently by him.
Tentatively, Martin stroked Hab Al Allah’s flank.
“Easy, old man…”
The horse snorted once.
And then, the lighter sound of human feet pounding through the sand toward him at a run.
“Martin!” Rasha pushed her way through the horses.
He looked up at her voice, managing a small, reassuring smile through his amazement. “I’m alright!”
Rasha sighed. Saud, Haqim, Bilal, Azim, and Rashid soon caught up.
“What happened!” Bilal commanded.
“I—I think I called them.” Martin continued to pet Hab Al Allah, almost absently as he stared around at the herd that surrounded him.
Rasha sighed. In an angry tone, she said, “Saud slipped him a whistle and bullied him into the test.”
Azim squinted, giving the man who had seen almost everything an uncharacteristic look of horrified wonder. “And he called every horse in the tribe?”
“I didn't mean to..." Martin said, a bit shamefaced. "I tried just to call the one I rode to Kadir.”
Bilal reached for Hab Al Allah, but the horse snorted at him, stamping his foot. Bilal stepped back. “And you got this one.”
Martin blinked. “I…didn’t intend to.”
Bilal shook his head. “Sometimes what we intend is irrelevant. Saud, fetch this one’s saddle.”
“Father—”
Bilal rounded on him. “And be grateful we do not discuss your part in this here with everyone watching.”
Saud’s eyes went round as dinner plates, and he ran back toward the camp.
“Sir, if...if I might…speak on his behalf…” Martin cleared his throat. “He was concerned for Rasha, and really so was I. It...seemed reasonable.”
Bilal chuckled. “What Saud intended has proven to be irrelevant as well. Here. Take the reins.”
Martin's eyes widened. “But he's...this is…Junaid’s horse, I...”
“I think Hab Al Allah disagrees. Take the reins, Martin.”
Martin slowly took the reins, and the horse nuzzled him on the side of the face once before standing still. Rasha clicked her command to Haboob, who adeptly rose off the sand. She took the horse’s reins.
Bilal spotted his own horse among those who bolted. “Why in the names of ten gods are you here? Rashid, round up the horses again, and bring me mine.”
“Yes sir.” Rashid began to give orders to the men.
Huffing, Saud returned with a saddle in his arms, and Opal the Wind-hound at his heels. Bilal gestured to Martin, who took the saddle and, with trembling hands, began to saddle the horse. After a few moments drawn out from the focused staring of all gathered, Martin turned to Bilal.
Rashid led Bilal’s horse over and handed off the reins. Bilal turned to Martin, and arched one eyebrow. “Well?”
Martin nodded, swallowing once. Taking a deep breath, he mounted Hab Al Allah, a horse whose stubborn pride had been a perfect match for his former master.
Martin closed his eyes and waited for several tense seconds, during which a few notable things did not happen: First and foremost, Hab Al Allah did not throw him, or buck, or struggle, or take off running. Instead, the horse waited patiently. During that time, no one watching made any sound. Martin finally opened his eyes and looked down at the horse beneath him, looking touched and honored. He straightened up in the saddle, squaring his shoulders.
Azim finally nodded. “Another point resoundingly made.”
“And as before,” Bilal said, mounting his own horse, “We’ll work on the efficiency. Congratulations, Master Lilac. You have a horse. And while it was never an issue before, this tribe considers you a man.”
Bilal whistled, and made a circular gesture over his head with his right hand, spurring his horse around back toward the camp.
One by one, all the others followed him. On his way by, Rashid laughed and shouted, “Well done, Master Lilac!”
Rasha was the last one to go. She sidled up to him, staring right into his eyes with no small amount of pride.
Martin met her eyes squarely, a seldom-seen light of pride and confidence in his own. “Rasha...”
“Yes?”
He dropped one hand to rest lightly on Hab Al Allah's mane, a faint questioning note entering his expression. "He was your father’s horse.”
Martin thought he saw her eyes turn up as if she were smiling. “You look good on him. Come on.” She spurred Haboob to motion back toward the camp. Martin sighed softly in relief and followed, a smile slowly spreading across his face.
As Martin caught up to Rasha, a call arose from the watchers in the desert.
"RIDERS, FROM THE NORTH!"
Rasha's eyes narrowed. With a "YA!" she spurred Haboob back to the camp. Reflexively, Martin did the same, and found himself along side her again as easily as if she had never spurred ahead. She quickly secured the reins to her saddle horn, and unslung her bow, reaching for an arrow. As they came upon the camp again, Martin saw Azim, Bilal, and Rashid, alredy mounted, and giving orders.
Rashid gestured to the men. "FORM ONE LINE TO THE NORTH! STEP TO IT!"
Martin glanced to Rasha, who gave him a look of coolly-masked worry, as if she were trying to reassure him. More men ran into the camp. "More riders to the south and east!" "Riders incoming from the west!"
Bilal's face fell. "We're surrounded...HOW MANY!"
"Impossible to tell!"
Martin looked for the telltale clouds of dust, and found that, indeed, the stars and horizon were blotted out in all directions except directly overhead. THe light of two of the moons backlit a could of dust so tall it could have been a sandstorm. The dunes shook with hoofbeats, and low rumble sounded to get closer.
Rasha's voice quavered, "Why are they attacking at night..."
Azim pointed his scimitar at Rasha and Martin. "You two prepare to break out and flee for your lives! Go!"
Another watcher called out. "STAND DOWN! IT'S RISHIM'S TRIBE!"
And then another. "QASAN'S MEN!"
Bilal stared at Azim. "Qasan?! They're a hundred miles from here!"
Rashid quickly glanced Bilal, who made a wiping gesture with his empty hand.
Rashid nodded once, and bellowed, "EVERYONE STAND DOWN!"
Soon, the thunder grew louder, and horses began to canter into the camp between the tents, forcing mounted men out of their way. Most were unmounted, a few held red-faced, tense, angry riders. One, a young man with his kheffiyeh wound around a helmet with a single long spike out of the top and a chain-mail neck-guard, screamed obscenities at his horse as it ran up to Martin and nuzzled his leg.
Some of the new arrivals, apparently afraid they had been forced into an ambush, leveled bows or readied swords for strikes. Some of Bilal's men reflexively raised to do the same in self defense, but most stowed their weapons and held up empty hands. "Peace! We are Wind-Kin!"
Rashid bellowed, "PUT THEM UP! NOW!"
"Do as he said!"
One frightened rider leveled an arrow on Martin, and Rasha sidled Haboob in front of him. She quickly stowed her arrow and slung her bow back up onto her shoulder, holding up one hand. The rider raised his bow off of her, removing the arrow, but his horse continued forward for Martin.
And then Martin noticed how many horses there were. Only a few were flesh and blood--some were made of sand, rising out of the dune floor with shapes of Wind-Kin on their backs. Some carried ancient standards, no longer in use, or wore armor or weapons from days long past, torn and worn from battle.
The young man dismounted his horse and began to beat it with a crop. "YOU WORTHLESS ANIMAL I PAID 500 GOLD FOR YOU-"
"Qasan! Peace!"
Qasan looked up up to Bilal, who, with a grave visage, nodded at the landscape.
"Look."
For miles in every direction, the dunes stood tall with horses, most of them of animated sand, or nearly translucent spirits, with ghostly riders on their back. The few real men on their horses looked about them in awe. Those close enough muscled forward to greet Martin. Saud, half-armored and on his own horse, sighed a great sigh of relief, as tears flowed from his eyes.
Azim regarded Martin with no less than wonder.
"Good gods," Bilal sighed, slinging his bow back up onto his shoulder. "I thought the Spider had come for us at last."
"As did I..." Azim did not take his eyes off Martin.
"Our Queen could do better." Martin startled with a fearful gasp. As he looked down, he saw four ragged travelers in torn clothes, their skin sun-burnt a horrible red and cracking in places.
Cultists of the Mouth. An unsettling bunch in any case, filled with a coherant madness, or a mad coherence, that made them difficult to understand, difficult to trust, but strangely...intriguing. They had saved Martin's life at least once.
The girl went on. "But that was pretty good, Emperor of the World."
Martin squinted, trying to remember what she had been called. "Is it...Keeper of the Sacred Moondust?"
The girl looked offended. "Light of the Thunder."
"I'm...Yes. Light of the Thunder." Their "titles" changed as often as a young child changed nicknames. Remembering them was nearly useless.
"It is time to go," the male of their number said. "We journey south within the hour."

-- ReginaldGusto - 21 Sep 2012