Daggers in the Dark (Book 3 of Hanthalah)

Chapter 6

"She's your daughter, Hanthalah!" Ramla proclaimed, removing her head from my chest. "One that you haven't seen in years!"

I sighed, rolling my eyes. "Your point?"

"My point," Mu'awiyah's daughter went on, drawing that alluring smile on her face before nudging my shoulder. "Is that she's your daughter and you are obliged to take care of her."

"Obliged by whom?" I demanded. "Or what?"

Ramla raised an eyebrow. "Spare me the act of manliness. You know very well what I speak of."

She had a point. A man was required to tend to his own, like a shepherd unto his flock. And it wasn't some religious drivel either, it is the way of the Arab, embedded into our blood, a lineage that extends to the legendary ancestors of the Arabs.

But I hadn't the heart to lay eyes upon Ruqayya, my daughter by Sumayya.

Andronicus had sent word for years, beseeching me to pay attention to her. Now, he was forcing me to face reality; the man that raised my daughter, the former ship captain that spirited me away to Alexandria all those years ago, sent a message some days prior that he would journey to Damascus so that Ruqayya could meet with the man who spawned her.

I dreaded the ordeal. I had all but erased memory of this forgotten daughter of mine. Whenever she crossed my mind, the memory of that horrid sight in Hims was restored, vivid as the day itself.

The severed head of Sumayya, the woman who had been my lover, wife and the mother of my child. Worse, it was a damning reminder of how helpless I was in the face of the looming threat of this organization so tenacious in its desire to destroy me piecemeal.

Each time they struck devastating blows that crippled my confidence, and I was none the wiser. And I had nothing to show for it. I knew naught of this clandestine organization that put those I loved in jeopardy.

Ramla bint Mu'awiyah was the one person who knew precisely how I felt, evidently, as her expression softened, and she laid a hand on my shoulder. She was a smart woman.

"You will not weather it alone when they come."

"Oh, but I will. They know when and where to strike. No army can withstand them. They're cowards, Ramla. They are molded by the darkness, embraced by the shadows. They hide in plain sight like the djinn of legend. They bide their time to strike at the opportune moment like the viper of the desert. We lack knowledge of their identity, their whereabouts. Everything but their motive."

"'Abd al-Rahman has not provided valuable information as you had hoped?"

I snorted. "'Abd al-Rahman is past his twentieth year, yet he is but a boy. A foolish one with delusions of grandeur."

My half-brother had re-emerged the night my son was deformed. Qasim had stabbed him in the back for attempting to murder me; an act that would have undermined the efforts of the guild, as my foolish half-brother later claimed. We managed to salvage 'Abd al-Rahman and nurse him back to full health. He offered little in terms of solving the al-Khalidun enigma, but he proved a respected officer in the ranks of Mu'awiyah.

"It's an enormous worldwide organization, spanning all the lands touched by the sun," was what he said when we prodded him for information of the guild he had been affiliated with. "There are members from all over. Men both dark and pale, with eyes slanted or wide. Men of a thousand different backgrounds! There are even women among them! Believe it?"

"I'm less interested in their diverse membership," I prodded him further. "What of their hideouts? Their leaders?"

'Abd al-Rahman only shook his head. "No headquarters. We don't know the names of leaders. Only their epithets. The Crow. The Raven. They are unlike anything you've ever seen or will ever see. I was swept from the sands after...you know. After...what you did with the Banu Namr."