The Silver Sparrow

Where Real Torture Begins

The wind howled as it rushed over them, adding yet another blood-curdling note to the rumbling hoofbeats and the sounds of slaughter down below.

Ogui, Zozi had called him. A Rashai word they used to call raid survivors that had no use in the slave quarters or the pleasure district. Those who became beggars or scavengers, wandering aimlessly in the desert with no real purpose in life. The scums. The garbage. The leeches of the society.

Better a fucking leech, Hasheem thought, than one of them.

"Take your pick, why don't you?" Hasheem hissed, his anger about to go through the roof. "I'll be sure to take mine when you come for it. What are you waiting for?"

Zozi swore and kicked his mount forward, closing the gap between them. Hasheem's hand gripped hard on the hilt of his sword in an instant, yanking half its length free from the scabbard.

"Clear that blade, and I will have that arm, right here, right now!" Nazir's warning speared through the air to address Hasheem, his words carried over to the rest of the men who suddenly stiffened on their mount. Then he whipped his head towards Zozi, stared him down, eyes blazing golden. "You. Stand down!"

A moment of stillness blanketed the area. Hasheem held on to the hilt of his blade, watching his opponent quietly and waited. The first reaction to that command, whatever it would be, wasn't going to come from him.

A few breaths later, Zozi sheathed his sword and pulled back a step, before inclining his head respectfully to the khumar. Hasheem snapped his back into the scabbard but kept his hand in place as he continued to assess the situation. 'It's never over until you're on your bed with a drink in one hand and a woman in the other,' Dee's words circled in his mind, 'and even then she may still cut your throat.' He'd learned that lesson a long time ago. Had survived heeding it. Not going to quit now.

"I will have no more bloodshed on my watch here today." Nazir turned his mount to face Hasheem. "You will have to pick a limb, or Djari will pick one. Do what you need to do to get your shit together. I expect you to be back at camp before Raviyani is over. Run, and Djari will pay for your treason. Do that, and I'll hunt you down like a dog and tie you to the gate of Sabha after I'm done working on you. Zozi." The man straightened abruptly at the tone, the small grin that had been drawn during the speech disappeared in an instant. "You will accompany me back to camp where you will be on guard duty tonight for having fired that last arrow after the horn. Try me again, and we will be discussing which limb of yours to remove."

And with that, Nazir turned his horse and left with the rest of the White Warriors, followed not so far behind by Zozi who looked like he'd just swallowed some horse dung by mistake.

Hasheem watched the party disappear from the slope, his stomach churning at the number of choices he had left to make. Losing a limb wasn't a problem—missing body parts had been a common enough sight where he'd lived or now resided—but staying meant he would have to live with these men who weren't any different from the Rashais they called their enemies. The truth was, everywhere he ran, he seemed to end up where he'd started.

'Run, and Djari will pay for your treason.'

Some choice, that, Hasheem thought with a grimace before shifting his gaze to a different direction.

The sun was low on the horizon, bleeding on the hunting ground below and painting the ivory rocks of the desert bright red. The hunt was starting to die down, and the warriors had already begun to clear the valley floor. Hasheem turned to the one figure left by the big rock, at whose feet laid the body of his brother. Khali was still there, staring at the arrow sticking out of Khodi's eye, his face a thin sheet of ice over a bottomless depth of some muddy water you didn't want to step in.