Daggers in the Dark (Book 3 of Hanthalah)

Chapter 21

          "Fuck," I panted, dropping to my knees at the northern shore of this damned island. "Fuck."

I buried my head into my hands as I watched the plan of al-Khalidun unravel before my eyes. Everything was becoming clear to me now. Why my brother had betrayed orders back in Arabia in the Ghassanid dwelling. Why he had let the Ghassanid chief escape.

It was the same reason he took off with my entire fleet.

"The ships!" the Nubian exclaimed, axe in hand, as he bolted to my side.

After a fierce harrying by demons in black, what remained of my army finally managed to cross the length of Crete back to the northern shore where we'd docked our ships. Bruised, battered and humbled, we had expected refuge, perhaps even escape, on board.

But I cursed myself and every god that wove capricious fate the moment I remembered who I'd left in charge of the docked fleet.

My bastard of a half-brother.

I remembered that he had defected many years ago to my most bitter enemies. The syndicate of cowards known as the Immortals – al-Khalidun. It was the night a ghost had appeared to me. Back from the dead. The son of my deceased slavemaster. Zayn ibn Yazid. The half-human weasel who took my son's ears, and another's life.

That night, my half-brother 'Abd al-Rahman had seemingly hesitated to hurt me. And he was stabbed by the assassins for his weakness. I'd feigned forgiveness all these years. I acted as though I truly loved him as a brother. In return, I expected vital information about these crazed lunatics who robbed me of everything dear.

That cursed day on Crete, I saw men I had shared bread and salt with for years butchered like dogs. Trained warriors I had fought with, side by side, shoulder to shoulder. The vast majority of them dead. Without putting up a fight.

All but brave Piruzan. The Persian slave soldier who they all doubted for his foreign faith. My loyal officer who sacrificed his life for my son. That great warrior, may the gods rest his soul, who took skewered one of the black-robed cunts through sheer grit and determination.

Now, it was all for naught.

I sobbed into my hands as despair overwhelmed me. Everything I had ever worked for from the day my tribe was butchered in Madinah. Every moment I had suffered, every droplet of sweat, tears and blood. It was all for nothing. All to die hopeless and weak on faraway shores.

Is this how it will all end? Is this what I've always been all these years? The one thing I despised with the fiber of my being.

Weakness.

I was a weak man. I was not fit to don the mantle of man at all. A man protects his own. A man stands steadfast in the face of certain doom.

But not Hanthalah ibn Ka'b. Hanthalah ibn Ka'b buckled and died on his knees at the first hint of ambush.

Hanthalah ibn Ka'b masqueraded all these years as something he was not. Outward, he was a God-fearing Muslim. But in the shelter of his own tent, he harbored idols of old gods. In his heart, he feared the evils of the djinn and ghouls.

To the world, he was the face of conquest. He was the human embodiment of strength. A prime example of a warrior.

But what the world did not know was that Hanthalah ibn Ka'b was weak.

Hanthalah ibn Ka'b had failed.

I grabbed the hilt of my sword and removed my face from my palms. I spun the weapon so the tip of the blade pointed in my direction. My vision blurred with tears of shame and weakness, I took one last lingering look at the retreating ships and...