Troy Denning: The Parched sea

Ruha scanned the other breaches at which Bedine were attacking and saw a similar situation at each of them. "Idiots!" the widow cursed, slapping her thigh.

"Not at all," Utaiba objected, scowling. "Our warriors are dying bravely."

"Not them!" the witch snapped, looking toward the sheikh. "Us. We should have expected this! If La-" She stopped herself from saying the Harper's name in midsentence and finished instead by saying, "I should have known they'd have more than one way to defend the walls."

Utaiba nodded sadly, his eyes betraying his own regret. "We can't blame ourselves," he whispered. "When have any of us ever stormed a fort? The important thing to do now is deal with this tactic."

Ruha nodded, but did not answer. She was trying to think of a way to protect the warriors from the rubble showers. An overhead shelter would protect the Bedine warriors, allowing them to mass in front of the breaches and match the Zhentarim's firepower. Unfortunately, they had neither the materials nor the time to build such shelters. Yet, she knew that if the sheikh's plan was to succeed, the Bedine had to maintain the attacks on the breaches.

After a few moments of studying Orofin's walls, Ruha's good eye settled on a three hundred-foot section of unbroken wall. Apparently the Zhentarim were not concerned about defending that section, for there were only four men along the entire stretch. The thing the widow liked best about this particular length of wall, however, was that there was a small sand dune standing ten yards in front of it.

Ruha turned to Utaiba. "Our warriors must stop wasting their arrows by firing blindly into the fortress. Instead, each tribe should put its twenty best archers in front of the breach. Everybody else must give their quivers to the archers, who are to fire at anybody moving along the rampart, but only if they have a good target."

"That is madness," Utaiba answered, shaking his head. "With so few archers, the enemy will mass his own bowmen on the walls and pick us off like gazelles."

"No they won't," Ruha countered. "Not if they're too busy defending the breaches against the others. The rest of the warriors are to draw their scimitars and rush the breaches, but they mustn't mass together. Tell them to spread out along the base of the wall, at least three feet apart. They should slip into the gaps one at a time, and they must die rather than retreat."

Utaiba frowned. "What will this accomplish?"

"By not massing together, the warriors will prevent the Zhentarim from dumping rubble on them-or at least keep that tactic from being very effective when they use it. Our archers will keep some of the Zhentarim occupied and pinned behind their fortifications, preventing them from leaning over the top of the wall to shoot at our men along the base."

"And the attacks against the breaches? Do you think this will prove more successful than what we're already doing?"

Ruha shrugged. "I don't think it will be any less successful, but the main purpose of those attacks is to keep the Zhentarim inside the fort busy. When you and I lead the Raz'hadi into Orofin, we'll want to have as many of the Black Robes as possible thinking about other things."

Utaiba raised his eyebrow, interested but still puzzled. "And how is my tribe going to get through a breach when no one else can do it?"

The widow turned Lander's manly lips into a confident smile, then gestured toward the empty camel at her side. "Ruha is going to make a new breach for us-one the Zhentarim won't be able to defend."

Utaiba looked doubtful. "I don't remember Ruha describing any spell that could knock a hole in Orofin's walls."

"She has thought of a new way to use her magic," Ruha replied, pointing to the stretch of unbroken wall she had selected for her plan. "That part of the fort is manned by only four sentries. Ruha can use her magic to punch a hole through it. If the Raz'hadi move quickly, they will be into Orofin before the Zhentarim realize what has happened."

A careful smile creased the wiry sheikh's lips. "The witch is sure she can open a gap in that wall?"

"There is some risk, but she thinks her spell will have the power. It's certainly worth a try. If it doesn't work, all we have to do is turn around and ride away."

Utaiba nodded. "If I understood magic better, I would ask for more of an explanation. For now, however, I will have to trust that the gods knew what they were doing when they sent the witch to us."

The sheikh summoned ten messengers, then sent them to the other sheikhs with Ruha's suggestion. After the riders were gone, Utaiba turned his camel toward his men, calling, "It is time for the Raz'hadi to mount!" he commanded. "We ride to glory!"

The warriors cheered in enthusiasm, then did as their sheikh ordered. Ruha led Utaiba and his warriors a quarter-mile to the west, stopping in front of the unbroken stretch of wall. They were still over two hundred yards from Orofin, so the widow could not see if the Raz'hadi's shift of position concerned the four Zhentarim guards. It was a good sign, however, that no additional Black Robes were appearing atop the wall. Apparently the enemy still believed this section of the fort was secure.

"Now what?" asked Utaiba. "Do we fly over the wall?"

"No," Ruha answered, laying her reins across her lap. "We ride through it."

"Ride through it?" he said.

Ruha nodded, then pointed at the dune standing between them and the wall. "There."

"Over the dune?" Utaiba asked.

"The dune will be gone when we get there," Ruha answered. "Tell your men that the witch is casting a spell. They are to follow us-no matter what."

As Utaiba passed on the order, the witch prepared her spell. Keeping her back to the warriors, she took a small pouch from her robes, then withdrew a pinch of glittering white sand and packed it between her lower lip and teeth. It had a bitter, acrid taste that made her want to spit.

When the sheikh finished his orders and looked back to Ruha, she asked, "Are you ready?"

He drew his scimitar. "Through the wall?"

Ruha nodded. "Like the wind," she mumbled.

After whispering her incantation, the witch spit out the sand. Instead of falling to the ground, it streaked toward the wall with gathering momentum. As it picked up speed, the small torrent of sand gathered more particles. After flying twenty yards, the stream had become a raging river of tiny granules.

"What are you waiting for?" Ruha cried, pointing at the spell. "Follow it!"

His mouth hanging agape, Utaiba turned his mount toward the wall and urged it into a full gallop. Ruha did likewise, and then she heard the Raz'hadi voicing their war cries as the rest of the tribe joined the charge.

As they raced forward, Ruha watched the four sentries scurry back and forth along the wall, trying to summon help. They were too late. By the time the Zhentarim could organize a response, the Raz'hadi would be inside Orofin.

The stream of sand crossed the dune in front of the unbroken stretch of wall. The mound exploded with a ferocity that surprised even Ruha, causing a howl that echoed across the desert like the cry of Kozah himself. In an instant, the spell sucked up the entire dune and hurled it against the fortress, blasting a hole ten feet in diameter through the wall's glazed mudbricks. The four sentries abandoned their posts and fled along the ramparts.

As Utaiba passed the place where the sand dune had been, he looked over his shoulder with a triumphant grin, screaming wildly as a cloud of brick dust and sand billowed out of the newly opened breach to engulf him. The witch rode into the gray boil an instant after Utaiba. It was only then that she realized there had been a flaw in her plan.

The silt filled her nose and throat so thickly that she felt like she had ridded into a bed of quicksand. The sand grains stung her eyes and forced her to close them, not that it mattered. Even if she had possessed the long thick eyelashes that enabled camels to see in sandstorms, she could not have seen past her mount's head, much less guided it through the breach. Instead, the widow simply folded herself flat against her mount's back and trusted the beast to find its own way, hoping that the riderless camel still tethered behind her would follow.