Stephen Hunt - Jack Cloudie

‘We are on a dune whale,’ said Omar.

‘I do not like to attract the attention of competitors,’ said the killer.

So, the killer travelled under the sands. There was a screeching noise from the rear of the room and Omar imagined he could see the super-pressurized blast of smoke from the dune whale’s engine being funnelled through the blowhole above. They would not stay on the desert’s surface for long, for that dirty boom would have alerted every nomad and wild desert fighter for miles around that here was a prize worth taking. Omar could just see the corkscrewing nose drill of the dune whale turning at the front of the craft, and then he was swung about as the machine dipped forward and started tunnelling below the fine orange sands again.

‘That will be the last venting before we reach the caravanserai,’ announced the pilot.

‘You must be a rich man to travel this way,’ said Omar.

‘I will be richer still with the bounty on your head,’ said the killer.

‘Perhaps I will serve you so well that you will not wish to hand me over to the priests of this new sect.’

The killer walked over to Omar and unlocked his chains, dropping the scimitar onto his lap. ‘Start by sharpening that.’

Omar looked incredulously at the sharp blade that had fallen into his care.

‘Raise it against me,’ said the killer, ‘and we will discover what you are worth to the new sect’s high keeper with no hands attached to your wrists.’

‘What is the name of the man who owns this sword?’ asked Omar.

‘Farris Uddin. But master will do well enough for you.’

There was something about this man, Omar realized, something familiar: as if he had known him before, perhaps in a previous life. No, his senses must be playing him false — he couldn’t have met this deadly force before. Surely I would have remembered.

Omar started to draw the whetstone down against the length of the shining silver steel. Sharpening the blade for the man who might be his new master, or his executioner.

It seemed burning hot to Omar, out in the open again after so long trapped in the close shaded confines of the deadly Farris Uddin’s dune whale. The dune whale’s captain had set them to rest next to a line of similar giant teardrop-shaped craft. There would be no more diving under the desert for Omar and his captor; the deep orange sands gave way to rocky ground from here on in. Omar didn’t know precisely where they were, but if he had to hazard a guess, he would say that they had travelled southeast, away from the thin patch of civilization that ran along the coast, across the desert, and towards the great centre of Cassarabia; to where the empire’s true civilization was counted to start.

They had reached a caravanserai, a series of windowless buildings connected by rocky palm-tree shaded lanes. Merchants sat outside the crenellated walls selling dates, black bread and yoghurt. Omar could almost feel the cool shade and taste the spray of moisture from the fountains within.

A line of sandpedes emerged from the stables on the side of the caravanserai, the drovers crying commands and cracking their whips against the hundreds of bony legs straining under the weight of their enamel water tanks. Omar recognized some of the drovers — the water sloshing about their tanks had come from Haffa a couple of weeks ago.

Farris Uddin tied Omar’s hands together with a length of leather and bound it to the rail on a stone trough meant for tying up camels.

‘I will not run, master,’ said Omar.

‘No. You won’t.’ Uddin disappeared into the stables, leaving Omar outside in the beating sun, tied up like an animal with only the half-shade of the palm leaves for shelter.

I suppose I won’t at that.

Watching a kestrel circling overhead, Omar’s glance fell down to the end of the street where one of the water traders was talking to three men and pointing back towards the stables where Omar was standing. He looked around nervously. There was nobody else here. Just himself, the trough and the stables. A coin was exchanged and the three men began walking purposefully down the line of sandpedes towards him. Omar pulled at the leather thong tying him to the rail. Too tight to slip. Too thick to chew through. Omar tried to keep calm. Perhaps the gang had just been asking for somewhere to stable their steeds? But the hope of that disappeared as they got closer. Three tall rangy thugs wearing crossed belts filled with crystal charges for the rifles strapped to their backs. Caravan guards, or hunters of men?

‘There’s a pretty parcel,’ said one of them, looking Omar up and down. ‘Left trussed for us to find.’

‘The wrist ties are mine.’ Farris Uddin’s voice sounded unexpectedly behind Omar, making him jump. The killer moved like a ghost. ‘As is the slave that is bound by them.’

‘A male slave is worth only fifty altun,’ said the thug. ‘The bounty on a heretic that served the House of Barir is ten times that.’

‘Then I have made a fine profit.’

‘A profit like that,’ said the thug, licking his lips expectantly, ‘deserves to be shared.’

Farris Uddin glanced languidly about the street, as if he was surprised to see where he had ended up. ‘Is this the desert wastes? Is this the heathen borderlands? No, it’s the empire, and the Caliph Eternal’s law states that taking another’s property is theft. That’s sharing you can be executed for.’

‘There is no garrison here,’ snorted one of the thugs. ‘And you have not paid for the protection of the caravan.’ He tapped his neck, indicating the space where the bronze seal and chain would be if Omar’s new master had paid to travel under the immunity of one of the caravan trains.

‘A guardsman,’ said Farris Uddin, his voice turning low and dangerous, ‘does not need protection. He is protection.’

‘Oh, ho!’ The three of them roared with laughter, while one poked a finger at the preposterous Uddin. ‘You are a long way from the great palace, then, noble guardsman. Is the court of the Caliph Eternal coming up here to pay for dune whale trips around the town to amuse the great ruler’s harem?’

‘It is strange, noble guardsman,’ said the most sizeable of the thugs. ‘For I am sure you have been marked out to me before as Udal the Viperneck; a mere bounty hunter, just the same as us.’

‘My name is Farris Uddin,’ insisted the killer, pulling his collar down to reveal his bare throat. ‘And I have no tattoos on my neck.’

Omar blinked in disbelief. The killer had possessed the tattoos back in the master’s palace at Haffa. Omar had seen them. What is going on here? All three thugs slid out their scimitars in unison and Omar groaned when he noticed that Uddin was totally unarmed. The careless fool must have left his weapons saddled to a camel inside the stable and he had come out here without his pistols and blades.

‘You are a stubby little liar, Udal, or Uddin, or whatever you are called. But we have just the thing to shave another few inches off your height.’

Farris Uddin raised his empty hands in supplication. ‘There is no need for that. I can see you are set on stealing my slave. I would not have my death on your heads.’ He walked to Omar and untied the leather knot from the long palm-wood rail. ‘You are too much trouble to me already.’

‘Easy come, easy go, master,’ said Omar.

As the three thugs came to seize Omar, Farris Uddin snapped the rail off the trough and jammed it like a spear into the face of the tough on the left, before sliding it around and shoving it into the features of the man on the right. Only the thug in the centre of the trio was left standing, looking on in astonishment as both his friends tumbled to the ground. By the time the man had remembered the sabre in his hand, Uddin had snapped the pole in two over his leg; he used the twin batons to dance a series of rapid strikes across the thug’s head and shoulders. With his scimitar falling to the ground, the third fighter crumpled to the dirt under the fierce tattoo of blows.