Daggers in the Dark (Book 3 of Hanthalah)

Chapter 25

The cries of gulls reverberated in my pounding head, accentuating what already seemed like an unbearable headache.

Hangover? I guessed, my mouth too dry to open, my throat even more so.

I had no recollection of the night prior. Must have been one celebration, I guessed. I couldn't even open my eyes.

But what was that taste? Sand?

The gulls' screaming seemed nearer now. I groaned, swatting away what seemed like a mosquito. But I got bit again.

With a surge of energy, I twisted on my bed, swatting away the –

"Aaaaaa!" I screamed, matching the shriek of the equally terrified pack of gulls I sent bolting away.

I sat up with a fright, my chest heaving and my heart pounding, taking in my surroundings, attempting to register where it was that I sat exactly.

For it was no bed at all. I was on a beach littered with pale corpses, wrecked chunks of ship hulls and discarded weaponry.

***

I ducked behind the trunk of a tree, taking shelter beneath a canopy of leaves overhead that peaked the trees of this forested landscape.

The hooves of a horse thundered past, accompanied by a shout and a nicker farther away. I held a blade I found by the beach close to chest, and a similarly extracted shield was strapped to the other arm.

I had picked my arms and armor with care. I was stranded in Roman territory – I assumed on the southern coast of Anatolia that we had been sailing by. So, I needed to look the part in order to avoid death. Or worse.

I discarded turban and Arab helm in favor of one that could pass off as Roman. I wore a typical chainmail shirt and sandal boots I found on the corpse of one of the washed-up troops. All that I scavenged and more from the beach. I had an abundance of choice.

I had no idea what to do. I knew I needed to return to Syria, Damascus in particular, but I had not figured out the finer details yet. There would be military garrisons within the major port cities near where I was. I assumed the group that had just darted by were patrols sent to scout the area, or perhaps search for any survivors from the shipwrecks.

Mu'awiyah's land force must have been long gone, I assumed, once they received word of the storm. I would not be able to link up with them.

The battle was one thing but that storm...quite another. I had survived the former but the latter nearly proved the end of me. I'm sure that was the case for many others.

I could not risk boarding a ship that would take me off these shores. And I had no coin to pay for a voyage, besides. I needed to take the land route, infested with yet more patrols, and worse. Forts. Well-manned, heavily protected forts that dotted the landscape all the way to the borders with the Levantine province of the Caliphate.

And 'Abd al-Ka'aba...

My son who had been missing since the battle, thrown overboard to his fate. If he had survived the plummet, he would surely be here as well. Roaming the Anatolian hinterlands and the lush Roman valleys renowned for their exquisite beauty.

I needed to find my son. Whatever the cost.

But first, I needed to make sense of where I was.

We had been sailing close to the Lycian coast, near the port city of Finike. Now, I found myself in wooded area. But I knew that I would be in close proximity to the city. West of it, in fact. Perhaps I could sneak inside, masquerading as a Roman soldier, and learn what I could about the shipwrecks. Surely there were other survivors.