Jack Whyte - Standard of Honor

The worst part of his helplessness sprang from not knowing where he could even begin to search for his friend Lachlan, who had done so much for him. Moray could be anywhere out there, sheltering miles away in some rocky hole or in the lee of a dune, or he could be lying dead within paces of this cave, smothered and buried by drifting sand. Frustrated beyond bearing, to the point of not caring who else might hear his shout, he cupped his good hand by the side of his mouth and called Lachlan’s name at the top of his voice, then listened carefully for an answer from the silent immensity of the desert. Four times he tried, facing a different direction each time, before accepting the futility of what he was doing. He inhaled deeply then, gritted his teeth, and set out strongly without looking back, trudging ankle deep in sand towards wherever the Fates directed him, and although aware that he was leaving deep and unmistakable tracks as he went, he consoled himself by almost believing that Lachlan Moray might stumble across his trail and follow him.

SINCLAIR SOON DISCOVERED that the sun had been halfway up the sky when he set out, because as he walked onward, taking great care over where he placed each foot, it climbed higher until it was directly overhead. He thought about stopping to eat and drink at that point, but he was on a long, level stretch and, remembering the difficulty he had had with the water bag, he decided to wait a little longer in the hope of finding something to sit on before making the attempt.

And so he moved on, changing his direction slightly towards a low rise in the sand ahead of him and to his right. Soon after that, although he could see no incline, the increased strain on his legs told him that he had begun to climb, and some time later he crested the high point of a long, low ridge and stopped to stretch and work the kinks from his hips and shoulders.

Standing straight and eyeing the distant horizon, he caught a flicker of movement at the edge of his right eye and spun to face it. But there was nothing to be seen other than bare, smooth sand and the slowly rising edge of the ridge, curling away from him, back the way he had come, to form a large dune. He stared for a long time, his eyes narrowed to slits as he quartered every inch of rising ground up there, and it came again, a definite flicker of movement, low to the ground, just as he was about to turn away. But he lost it again immediately. He flexed his fingers on the shaft of his spear and set out determinedly, up the length of the low ridge, feeling the pull of the slope sapping the strength from his tiring legs, and straining for another sight of whatever it was up there that had moved. It was small, he knew, but he was also hoping it would be edible and sufficiently accommodating to allow itself to be caught and eaten.

Several minutes later he saw the movement again, but as soon as he focused on the spot where the movement had been, he also saw what had confused him: indistinguishable from the sand behind it, the edge of the spine that formed the ridge was curling back to his right just at that point, and the space behind it had been scooped clean by the wind. What he had seen was the twitching ear of a horse that was hidden by the edge of the spine. Now he could see the animal’s entire head, a pale and unusual golden color, almost the exact shade of the sand surrounding it, and as he saw it for what it was, the beast lowered its head out of sight again.

Sinclair had instantly frozen into a crouch, raising his spear defensively and fighting against the rush of tension in his chest, for where there was a horse, so far from any signs of life, there must also be a rider. It was several moments before he decided he was not in imminent danger of attack, and he moved forward slowly, inch by inch, until he could raise his head above the edge of the sandy spine and look down into the place below.

The horse skittered away from him as soon as it saw him, but Sinclair paid it no heed. His entire attention was claimed by an unevenness in the flat, windswept sand beneath the shelter of the ridge, and a small triangle of green-and-white cloth that lay just at the edge of the irregularity. He rose up cautiously and scanned the area around the disturbance for footprints, but the only tracks were those made by the horse, and so he stepped off the crest of the ridge and plowed down the steep slope, leaning far back and bracing himself strongly with the shaft of the spear.

By the time he reached the bottom he was grimacing with pain as his heavily braced broken arm objected to the violence of his lurching descent, but as soon as his feet touched level sand he drew himself up and stood swaying, gritting his teeth until the pain subsided to a tolerable level. He looked about him before crossing to the triangle of cloth, which he grasped and tugged. It moved only very slightly, weighted as it was with sand, but what he had uncovered was enough to confirm his suspicions. He had often seen the desert nomads using large cloth squares to fashion temporary shelters from the sun, and sometimes from the wind, weighting the rear edges with sand and propping up the leading edge with a stout stick, or sometimes two of them, to erect a small, primitive one-man tent. The man this one had been made to protect was probably dead beneath it, but Sinclair barely gave that a thought. That man had been an infidel, perhaps even a Saracen, and Sinclair’s sole concern at that moment was for his own welfare. Had the fellow been carrying food and water when he died?

He took note of the right-angled corner and the lines of the triangle’s edges, then traced its approximate shape and size with his right heel, digging an outline and gauging the length of the sides from memory. When it was complete, he slowly knelt, taking care not to overbalance, then began to scoop holes for his knees, piling the sand up on his left side as he removed it. By the time he had judged his knee holes deep enough, there was a pyramid beside him, and he braced his useless left arm with his other hand as he lifted it and placed it on top of the small mound, immediately relieving himself and his shoulder joint of the weight of the rigid limb. Only when it was firmly braced did he bend forward again, and, using his good forearm as a shovel to sweep the burden of sand from the cloth beneath, he began working doggedly, one-handed, to uncover the fabric, but making no attempt to raise it in any way.

Before he was halfway done, he had felt the outline of the corpse beneath him and had formed a picture of the dead man, lying on his left side, his legs outstretched stiffly, his right foot pointed as though frozen in the act of kicking someone. But there were other shapes beneath there, too, and as the thirst grew in him, aggravated by the hard work, Sinclair prayed that some of them were vessels containing water.

Finally the green-and-white-striped cloth lay almost completely exposed, the outline of the dead nomad clearly limned beneath it. Sinclair straightened his back and drew in one great, deep breath and held it. He took one corner of the cloth in his hand, counted to three, and then swept the covering away with one great, swooping tug, steeling himself against the possibility of finding a long-dead, rotting corpse. He found nothing of the kind, no rush of foul air, no swarming flies or insects, and he breathed normally again.

The man who lay there, face pillowed on the ground, was newly dead, but his rich clothing and fine armor made it plain he had been no common desert nomad, caught and overwhelmed by the storm. On the sand at his back was a folded pile of white cotton cloth that Sinclair recognized as a kufiya, the large, square scarf that the nomadic people of the Arab races used to shield their heads from the desert sun, and on it the man had carefully positioned a finely made Saracen helmet, its tapering crown rising to a high spike. The edges of the headgear were trimmed with a light, intricately fashioned visor and a shoulder-length canopy of fine mail. Beside it rested a long, curved scimitar, its bone hilt polished by age and its scuffed scabbard attesting to years of use. Whoever he was, the man had bled to death. His entire lower body was blackened and encrusted by a seemingly solid casing of gore-clotted sand. Beneath one outstretched foot, the one Sinclair had noticed as being frozen in a kick, was the stick that had supported his shelter, and Sinclair had no difficulty in imagining what had happened. The dying man’s last, agonized kick had brought the shelter down upon him, shutting off his life.