Troy Denning - The Parched sea

"It wasn't much of a battle. It was more like digging mice from their dens," Didaji objected.

Ruha found herself hearing the gaunt man's words instead of concentrating upon the runes in the book. Sighing in frustration, she set the book aside and started toward the door of her tent. That was when Lander's voice said, "If it's a battle you want, Didaji, wait until Orofin."

"You too, Lander?" Ruha muttered under her breath. "I thought you'd have better sense than to disturb a witch's study time."

Oblivious to Ruha's whispered admonishment, the Harper continued, "When we storm that fort, I promise there'll be plenty of fighting."

Ruha shook her head, then slammed her spellbook shut and blew out her candle. "I might as well sleep," she hissed to herself, half-amused and half-angered by her girlish reluctance to speak crossly to Lander. "When I'm upset, I can never concentrate anyway!"

After the Battle of the Fissures, the Bedine army rode straight to Orofin. The warriors did not tarry to let their camels graze upon the heaths of salt brush they passed, and, though they traveled through the finest gazelle country in Anauroch, they wasted no time hunting. Even with the skins they had recovered from the asabis, the fourteen tribes were short of water, and that meant they were short of time. They had to reach Orofin, and then they had to storm it.

It took the army four days of hard travel, stopping only a few hours each night to sleep, before they crested a ridge and Sa'ar pointed into the broad valley below. In the center of the dell, a stand of swarthy foliage stained the tawny ground, its lush color muted by the graying light of dusk.

"Orofin," Sa'ar said. "If we hurry, I know a good place from which to inspect its battlements."

The sheikhs ordered their tribes to encircle the fortress with their camps and eat the best meal they could manage. After the orders had been given, Sa'ar led the sheikhs down into the valley, into several acres of ruins, then finally stopped at a two-story bridge that spanned a canal of stagnant water.

Like Anauroch itself, the bridge was at once stark and beautiful. The square pediments were made of granite blocks, now entirely covered with a lush growth of thick green moss. Above the pediments stood two tiers of roadway, consisting of three arcades each. The arches were shaped like horseshoes and crowned by a shallow point, reminding Lander of Sembia's cottonwood leaves. A colored-stone mosaic of different geometric patterns faced each arcade, save that the central arch on both tiers was decorated with a diamond motif.

Lander forced his camel to kneel. He cast a longing eye at the waterway, but didn't even consider drinking from the obviously poisoned streams. Twilight was almost upon Anauroch, but the valley was quiet. No raptors welcomed the lengthening shadows with their eerie screeches, no lions roared a challenge to the newcomers, no hyenas betrayed their presence with cowardly yelps. The silent animals all lay within a few yards of the water, their bodies bloated and rank from exposure to the sun. Even the vultures that had come to prey on their carcasses lay dead.

The scene in the water itself was more gruesome. The gentle current had carried dozens of human corpses down the canal and heaped them against the east side of the bridge. They were floating in the murky dark water, bloated and inert and reeking of decay.

Utaiba pointed a finger at the terrible scene. "The Ju'ur Dai," he said.

"I thought they were the Zhentarim's allies," commented Didaji.

"Perhaps they were," Lander answered, fighting the urge to wretch. "They outlived their usefulness. Yhekal would not want to risk having them change sides in the middle of the battle."

"They got what they deserved," Sa'ar grunted, spitting into the canal. "Without the Ju'ur Dai to guide them, the Zhentarim might not have realized the importance of Orofin."

The stout sheikh led the way up to the second tier of the ancient bridge. As the others followed, the Harper could see why the sheikh had selected this vantage point. From the added height, he could see that Orofin had once been a mighty city, with four canals radiating outward from a fortress guarding the deep well at its heart. Not much remained of the metropolis now. Wind-blown silt covered the foundations of long-fallen buildings, crisscrossed here and there by crooked lines that had once served as avenues and alleys. Thick hedges of green briars, interspersed with acacia and wild apricot trees, lined the four canals that still divided the city into quarters. A grand avenue, connecting this bridge to three others that spanned the other canals, formed a great circle around the entire oasis.

Lander and the sheikhs were more interested in the fortress than in the city. It still stood in the center of the oasis, its crumbling ramparts breached in nine or ten places by man-sized gaps. Dark shadows skulked among the ancient crenelations topping the walls, reminding Lander more of underworld spirits than distant Zhentarim soldiers.

"How should we attack?"

It was Sa'ar who asked the question. The burly sheikh rested an elbow against the arcade wall and did not take his eyes off the fortress when he spoke.

"Under the cover of darkness, tonight," said Didaji, his face swathed in his red scarf.

"Our men are too tired," countered Utaiba, kicking a stone off the bridge into the stinking canal. "Besides, the Zhentarim well be alert for an assault tonight."

"We cannot wait for tomorrow night," objected Yatagan, the wizened old sheikh of the Shremala. "My men have only swallows of water remaining. If they do not drink from Orofin's wells by noon tomorrow, they will never fight again."

"You would rather they died tonight?" retorted Utaiba. "Who among them has the strength left to draw a bow more than a dozen times?"

As they were wont to do, the sheikhs fell to bickering. Lander simply shook his head, then stepped to the next arcade and stared at the fortress in frustrated silence. Apparently Ruha was the only one who noticed his disgust, for she came to his side while the sheikhs continued to argue.

"Now is not the time to quarrel," the Harper said, looking in the direction of the cacophony.

Ruha shrugged. "They are sheikhs of different tribes," she said. "They must argue before they reach a decision."

"There isn't time for debate," the Harper said.

"If you have a plan, tell it to them," Ruha said. "You have earned their respect. They will listen."

"I don't have a plan," Lander sighed, turning back to the fort. The admission made him realize that he was as frustrated with his own dearth of ideas as he was with the bickering of the sheikhs. "Utaiba is right; we're too tired to attack tonight. But Yatagan is also right. If we wait until tomorrow night, half our men will be dead."

"We can't attack in the morning?" Ruha asked.

"It looks like that's our only choice," Lander said. "But the Zhentarim arrows will have a much easier time finding our men."

"Perhaps that is where I will be of help," Ruha replied, stepping closer to his side.

The sweet odor of frankincense, the Bedine equivalent of perfume, wafted up from her aba, and a familiar longing washed over the Harper. The vision of the young witch's beautiful face flashed through his mind again, and his thoughts were quickly wandering away from the battle at hand. Lander's desire for her had become as hot and engulfing as the sands. He often found himself unable to think of anything but the time when the Zhentarim would be destroyed, when he would be free to take Ruha and leave this blistering land.

A muffled hiss drew Lander's thoughts back to the present. The sound was followed immediately by a quiet splash in the canal, then by another muted hiss and the ping of steel striking rock.