Glen Cook - Splinter Of The Mind's Eye

El Murid conquered his anger. Nassef was following the rules. He could do no less. "I don't understand why not. I look and I listen. I see hosts pass through Sebil el Selib. I hear that we can summon a horde to our banner. I'm told that much of the desert is with us."

"Perfectly true. Though I can't say how much of the desert is on our side. More with us than with our enemies, I think. But it's a big desert. Most people don't care one way or the other. What they really want is for us and the Royalists both to leave them alone."

"Why, then, do you urge me to delay? That's the argument you want to present, isn't it? And I remind you of your own observation that we're alone. You can be as frank as you like."

"All right. Stated simply, twenty thousand warriors don't make an army just by gathering in the same place. My forces are only now beginning to coalesce. My men aren't used to operating in large groups. Neither are the Invincibles. And the men from areas that we've controlled a long time have lost their battle edge. Moreover, there isn't a man among us, myself included, who has the experience to manage a large force."

"Are you claiming we'll be defeated?"

"No. I'm telling you that we'd be risking it, and that the risk will go down every day that we put off fighting them on their own terms. Which we would be. They would know we were coming. They have their spies. And they have men who do know how armies work."

El Murid said nothing for a minute. First he tried to assess Nassef's sincerity. He could not fault it. Nor could he challenge his brother-in-law's arguments. His frustration at being trapped in Sebil el Selib returned.

He could stand his containment no more. He would tolerate it not one minute longer than it would take to assemble the host.

"My heart tells me to go ahead."

"That's your decision? It's final?"

"It is."

Nassef sighed. "Then I'll do everything I can. Maybe we'll be lucky. I do have one suggestion. When the time comes, take command yourself."

El Murid scrutinized his brother-in-law narrowly.

"Not because I want to shirk responsibility for any defeat. Because the warriors will fight harder for the Disciple than they will for the Scourge of God. That might be the margin between victory and defeat."

Again El Murid had the feeling that Nassef was being sincere. "So be it. Let's go see if Meryem is ready for dinner."

It was a quiet family meal, with few words spoken. El Murid spent much of it examining his ambivalent feelings toward Nassef. As always, Nassef was hard to pin down.

Nassef had argued no harder than a man of conscience should have. Had El Murid misjudged his brother-in-law? Was the news reaching him becoming distorted by the Invincible minds through which it passed?

His frustration mounted as the days turned into weeks. The army grew, but the process was so damnably slow! His advisers frequently reminded him that his followers had to come long distances, often pursued by Royalists, and as they approached Sebil el Selib they had to contend with Yousif's patrols.

But the time came at last. The morning when he could kiss Meryem good-bye and tell her that when next they met it would be within the Most Holy Mrazkim Shrines themselves.

More than twenty thousand men responded to Nassef's call. Their tents were everywhere. Sebil el Selib reminded El Murid of Al Rhemish during Disharhun.

Yousif's people had been quiet for nine days. They had ceased contesting the passage of the warrior bands. Nassef had been telling anyone who would listen that he did not like it, that it was a sign that the Wahlig had something up his sleeve.

Then the news came. Yousif had mustered every man he could, some five thousand, and had installed himself at the oasis near Wadi el Kuf. His neighbors had loaned him another two thousand men.

"We'll have to fight him there," Nassef told El Murid. "There's no choice. We can't get to Al Rhemish without watering there. This is what he's been waiting for all these years. The chance to get us into a conventional battle. It looks like he wants that chance so badly that he doesn't care about the numbers."

"Give him what he wants. Let's rid ourselves of him once and for all."

Nassef guessed right most of the time. But he had erred in calling in all of El Murid's supporters. By so doing he stripped the desert of his sources of intelligence. He and El Murid would not learn the truth about Yousif's stand till it was too late.

Nassef selected twenty thousand men. El Murid took twenty-five hundred Invincibles. They left a substantial force to defend the pass in their absence.

It was a morning many days after departure. The sun hung low in the east. They moved up on the waterhole by Wadi el Kuf.

The wadi was a shallow, broad valley a mile and a half east of the waterhole. It was filled with bizarre natural formations. It was the wildest badland in all Hammad al Nakir.

Nassef and El Murid raised the Lord's standard atop a low hill a mile south of the oasis, and an equal distance from the wadi. They studied the enemy, who was waiting on horseback.

"They don't seem impressed by our numbers," Nassef observed.

"What do you suggest?"

"It seems straightforward. Hold the Invincibles here, in reserve. Send the rest in one wave and overwhelm them."

"This is a strange land, Nassef. It's so silent."

The stillness did seem supernatural. Thirty thousand men and nearly as many animals faced one another, and even the flies were quiet.

El Murid glanced at the wadi. It was a shadowy forest of grotesque sandstone formations: steeples, pylons, giant dumbbells standing on end. He shuddered as he considered that devil's playground.

"We're ready," Nassef said.

"Go ahead."

Nassef turned to Karim, el-Kader and the others. "On my signal."

His captains trotted their horses down to the divisions they commanded.

Nassef gave his signal.

The horde surged forward.

Yousif's men waited without moving. They had arrows ready on the strings of their saddle bows.

"Something's wrong," the Scourge of God muttered. "I can feel it."

"Nassef?" El Murid queried in a voice gone small and tentative. "Do you hear drums?"

"It's the hoofbeats... . "

El Murid did hear drums. "Nassef!" His right arm stabbed out like a javelin thrust.

The devil's garden of Wadi el Kuf had begun to disgorge a demon horde.

"Oh, my God!" Nassef moaned. "My God, no."

King Aboud had harkened to Yousif's importunities at last. He had sent Prince Farid to Wadi el Kuf with five thousand of the desert's finest soldiers, many of them equipped after the fashion of western knights. With Farid, in tactical command, was Sir Tury Hawkwind of the Mercenary's Guild. Hawkwind had brought a thousand of his brethren. They were arrayed in western-style lances of a heavy cavalryman, his esquire, two light and one heavy infantrymen.

Nassef had time to think, to react. Heavy cavalry could not charge at breakneck speed across a mile of desert and up a slight hill. And Hawkwind obviously meant to bring his shock power to bear.

"What do we do?" El Murid asked.

"I think it's time for the amulet," Nassef replied. "That's the only weapon that will help now."

El Murid raised his arm. Without a word he showed Nassef his naked wrist.

"Where the hell is it?" Nassef demanded.

Softly, "At Sebil el Selib. I left it. I was so excited about coming, I forgot it." He had not worn the amulet for years, preferring to keep it safe within the shrines.

Nassef sighed, shook his head wearily. "Lord, choose a company of Invincibles and flee. I'll buy you all the time I can."

"Flee? Are you mad?"

"This battle is lost, Lord. All that remains is to salvage as much as we can. Don't stay, and deprive the movement of its reason for existing."