“I . . .” I didn’t know. “The Builders” Sun must have done it.’ Could a fire make it rain? A fire that big might change the weather . . . certainly the flames reached high enough to lick the very roof of the sky.
“I heard that after the Day of a Thousand Suns there was a hundred years of winter. The winter of the north where water turns to stone and falls from the sky in flakes,” Danelle said, her face at my shoulder, voice rich and commanding thrills down my spine.
“I’m scared.” Lila pressed closer as the rain began to hammer on the tent roof above us. I doubted we’d be dry for long—tents in Liba are intended to keep out the sun and the wind: they rarely have to contend with the wet.
A crack of thunder broke ridiculously close and suddenly Prince Jal was the filling in a four-girl sandwich. The boom paralysed me with terror for a moment and left my ears ringing, so it took me a short while to appreciate my position. Not even thirty-six yards of thobe could entirely disguise the sisters’ charms at this proximity. Moments later, though, a new fear surfaced to chase off any thoughts of taking advantage.
“Your father made some very specific threats, ladies, concerning your virtue and I really—”
“Oh, you don’t want to worry about that.” A husky voice close enough to my ear to make me shiver.
“Father says all manner of things.” Softly spoken by a girl with her head against my chest. “And nobody will move until the rain stops.”
“I can’t remember a time when we weren’t being watched over by Father, or our brothers, or his men.” Another pressed soft against my shoulder.
“And we do so need protecting . . .” Behind me. Mina? Danelle? Whoever it was her hands were moving over my hips in a most unvirtuous way.
“Butthe sheik—”
“Gold plating?” A tinkling laugh as the fourth sister started to push me down. “Did you really believe that?”
At least two of the girls were busy unwinding their thobes with swift and practised hands. Amid the shadows thrown by so many bodies I could see very little, but what I could see I liked. A lot.
All four of them pushed me down now, a tangled mass of smooth limbs and long hair, hands roaming.
“Gold’s so expensive.” Tarelle, climbing atop me, still half-wrapped.
“That would be silly.” Danelle, pressed to my side, deliciously soft, her tongue doing wonderful things to my ear. “He always uses silver . . .”
I tried to get up at that point, but there were too many of them, and things had got out of hand—except for the things that were now in hands . . . and, dammit, I’d been in Hell long enough, it was time for a spot of paradise.
There’s a saying in Liba: The last yard of the thobe is the best. . . . or if there isn’t, there should be!
“Arrrrgh!”
I’ve found that there are few things more effective at making a man’s ardour grow softer than cold water. When the tent roof, weakened by earlier traumas, gave without warning and released several gallons of icy rainwater over my back I jumped up sharply, scattering al’Hameed women and no doubt teaching them a whole new set of foreign curse words.
One thing that became clear as the water dripped off me was that very little more was dripping in to replace it.
“Sshhh!” I raised my voice over the last of their shrieking—they’d enjoyed the soaking no more than I had. “It’s stopped raining!”
“?????? ?? ??? ?????”
A man just outside the tent, jabbering away in the heathen tongue, others joining him. They must have heard the screams. How much longer the fear of what the sheik would do to them if they burst in on his daughters would outweigh the fear of what the sheik would do to them if they failed to protect his daughters, I couldn’t say.
“Cover yourselves!” I shouted, moving to defend the entrance.
I heard smirking behind me, but they moved, presumably not expecting to emerge unscathed if reports of “frolicking” reached their father.
Outside someone took hold of the tent flap. I’d not even laced it! With a yelp I flung myself down to grab the bottom of it. “Hurry for Christ’s sake! And blow out the lamp!”
That set them giggling again. I grabbed the lamp and pre-empted any attempt at entry by bursting out, setting the foremost of the sheik’s retainers on his backside in the wet sand.
“They’re all fine!” I straightened up and waved an arm back toward the tent. “The roof gave way under the rain . . . water everywhere.” I did my best to mime the last part in case none of them had the Empire tongue. I don’t think the idiots got it because they stood there staring at me as if I’d asked a riddle. I strode purposefully away from the tent, beckoning the three men with me. “Look! It’ll all be clearer over here.” I sincerely hoped those thobes went back on as quickly as they came off. Two of the sheik’s men were bringing over one of the sisters’ maids, urging her on despite her injuries.
“What’s that over there?” I said it mainly to distract everyone. As I looked in the direction I was pointing though . . . there was something. “Over there!” I gesticulated more fiercely. Moonlight had started to pierce the shredding clouds overhead and something seemed to be emerging from the dune that I’d selected at random. Not cresting it, or stepping from its shadow, but struggling through the damp crust of sand.
Others started to see it now, their voices rising in confusion. From the broken sand something rose, a figure, impossibly slim, bone-pale.
“Damn it all . . .” I’d escaped from Hell and now Hell seemed to be following me. The dune had disgorged a skeleton, the bones connected by nothing but memory of their previous association. Another skeleton seemed to be fighting its way from the damp sand beside the first, constructing itself from assorted pieces as it came.
All around me people started to cry out in alarm, cursing, calling on Allah, or just plain screaming. They began to fall back. I retreated with them. Not long ago the sight would have had me sprinting in the direction that best carried me away from the two horrors before us, but I’d seen my share of dead, both in and out of Hell, and I kept the panic to just below boiling point.
“Where did they come from? What are the odds we camped right where a couple of travellers died?” It hardly seemed fair.
“More than a couple.” A timid voice behind me. I spun around to see four bethobed figures outside the women’s tent. “Over there!” The speaker, the shortest so probably Mina, the youngest, pointed to my left. The sand in the lee of the dune had begun to heave and bony hands had emerged like a nightmare crop of weeds.
“There was a city here once.” The tallest . . . Danelle? “The desert ate it two hundred years ago. The desert has covered many such.” She sounded calm: probably in shock.
The sheik’s retainers began to back in a new direction, retreating from both threats. The original two skeletons now seemed to sight us with their empty sockets and came on at a flat run, silent, their pace deadly, slowed only by the softness of the sand. That brought my panic to the boil. Before I could take to my heels though, a lone Ha’tari sprinted past me, having come through the camp. The sheik must have left one to patrol out among the dunes.
“No sword!” I held my empty hands up in excuse and let my retreat bring me among the four daughters. We stood together and watched the Ha’tari intercept the first of the skeletons. He hacked at its neck with his curved blade. Hearteningly, bone shattered beneath the blow, the skull flew clear and the rest of the skeleton collided with him, bouncing off to fall in a disarticulated heap on the sand.
The second skeleton rushed the warrior and he ran it through.
“Idiot!” I shouted, perhaps unreasonably because he’d acted on instinct and his reflexes were well honed.