Fury is Born (Book 1 of Hanthalah)

Chapter 35

The way of the nomad.

I would hear the Bedouins boast of their superior endurance, their strength, their unwavering determination and fearlessness in the face of any foe; but, no matter how many stories you hear, you would never truly grasp their meaning until you got a taste of the desert life.

It was so for me during my time with Tulayha's tribe. This was a dwelling of a Banu Asad clan, mobilized now into that of an army camp.

At that point, the Muslims had subjugated much of Arabia – from Tabuk far to the north, all the way to the coasts of Yemen where the ocean began and the world ended. But we managed to settle down some place barren to the north of the peninsula.

The dwelling was a poor substitute to even the commodities the life of a slave in Yathrib provided. The sun never relented in its pursuit of our brains, threatening to drop us all dead. The baking sands threatened to peel the skin off my bare feet; rations were scarce, the tents were so cramped I could not stand inside without bending over, and they provided scant shelter to the harsh bite of the night's winds. Even though they were sealed off from the direction of the gales.

Within a week, my lips were parched, my belly empty and my throat ached. Yet, for all the inconveniences, the hard life lifted my spirits and strengthened me in mind and spirit. Never had I felt so powerful in my life, never so free, never a man.

No man called me slave, nor was I anyone's inferior. The chieftain chafed in suffering alongside the shepherd, the woman labored as did the man. There was no concept of elitism, and the only respect a man afforded was earned through reputation of courage, benevolence and honesty.

This was how life was meant to be; this was what the gods intended for us when they created man. Some sedentary Arabs maintained the tradition of loaning their children to one nomadic tribe or the other so they would not grow soft and sheltered, surrounded by unnecessary luxuries and the vices borne of opulence and plenty.

The men of Banu Asad were a tightly knit bunch; they were close as men could be. Tied by flesh and blood – illustrious lineage. Theirs was a bond forged through dozens of skirmishes fighting at one another's side, a bond forged by fire, sweat and blood.

They formed the majority of the camp, and by extension Tulayha's followers. Only a handful of the latter were from without the Banu Asad tribe.

The tribesmen did not take kindly to us foreigners. In the desert, a man earned his reputation with arms and nature rather than coin.

And that is what I set forth to do. The challenge of the nomadic life invigorated me, the prospect of having to prove myself to man, god, and above all, to myself.

It awakened a bottled up hunger inside me, a longing for acceptance, a yearning to form bonds of brotherhood, to remedy all that I had lost. I never enjoyed the fruits that came with family or tribe; and those I considered brothers were torn from me. For the better part of my short life, I was forced to fend for myself. With no one to look after me or have my back.

Now, I had the opportunity to form true bonds; a chance to exact vengeance on those who wronged me and would do me further harm. The nomads of Asad treated us raw recruits with flippant scorn and disgust, but I weathered their cold behavior.

Every day from dawn to dusk, I would spar with them, and learn from my mistakes or those of others. Time and again, I would be bested in combat by one Bedouin or another, and I would leap at whatever instruction guised itself in the victor's gleeful insults that usually followed the introduction of my ass to sand.

I took great pains never to repeat the same mistake twice, and though I would be bested again and again, I never tired from my path to perfection. I would wield the sword with as much prowess as I did my bow, I vowed to myself, and to keep my frustration at bay, I would imagine my opponents with the faces of Muhammad ibn Maslamah, Yazid ibn Mas'oud and any person I could think of.