The Blue Eye. Ausma Zehanat Khan

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      ARIAN SHOOK BACK HER CLOAK TO SHOW THEIR CAPTORS HER CIRCLETS. At once, Sinnia mirrored the gesture. Both women wondered if it would matter, and if there was any hope for Khashayar, their sole remaining escort.

      The man in the burnoose paused, his eyes skirting the golden bands. He called another man to stand beside him, his voice rough with command. There were eighteen others gathered on the sand, nineteen including the one who’d spoken. They were dressed in sand-colored cloaks worn over long white thobes, their heads wrapped in red-and-white headcloths. Dark-eyed to a man, their skin was a golden-brown deepened by desert sun, weathered from exposure to its relentless heat. They stood at their ease, their eyes as clear as a desert falcon’s. Nothing in their appearance suggested they were men to fear … save for the whipcord readiness with which they had struck down Khashayar’s men.

      “Traders,” Sinnia murmured in Arian’s ear.

      The man in the burnoose heard her, his eyes wandering over Sinnia’s face, over the clustered curls that had begun to grow out from her head in tiny spirals. To Sinnia’s surprise, his eyes warmed, as he gave her a slow nod.

      “Najashi,” he said with respect, to a murmur from the men behind him. “Companion from the land of the Negus. I do not know the other.”

      Arian gave her name. After a pause, she added, “First Oralist of Hira.”

      Another murmur, different in tenor than the first. It held a tinge of fear in it.

      Arian observed the thick leather belts that cinched the cloaks these men wore. Each belt was inscribed with the words Over this are Nineteen.

      She pondered the significance of the nineteen men who surrounded them; perhaps they were the commanders of the army at their back. If the man in the burnoose was the leader of the Nineteen, then the man at his side must be his lieutenant. His stance was poised, his hand holding an iron glaive, a staff with a blade that curved up at shoulder height, just above a spike that pointed outward. The lower half of the glaive was overlaid with damasquinado, a pattern of gold incised on black steel, in contrast to the naked shaft.

      The man who held it glanced at Arian’s circlets, then looked up to meet her eyes.

      She suppressed a shiver. Though the temperature had fallen, it wasn’t the night that chilled her. It was the man’s gaze—amber eyes with stiletto-sharp flecks of blue and green. He held himself like a weapon, lethally honed and muscled, with an air of quiet command. His leather belt carried a complement of knives, each with a jeweled haft, as if he specialized in killing, and each of the blades he’d chosen was dedicated to a task. Beneath his cloak, he wore a fitted uniform in a color that echoed the sienna of the desert. He watched Arian with a focus that warned her he wasn’t an ordinary soldier.

      He was a killer who looked at her like prey.

      The man in the burnoose held one hand high to dismiss the soldiers on the dune.

      “Gather the horses; return to camp.”

      The men who remained fanned out around what was left of Arian’s group to the sound of horses’ hooves behind them. To distract them from her attempted theft, Arian said, “I would welcome the courtesy of your titles.”

      The older man spoke first. “Shaykh Al Marra.” He indicated the man with the glaive. “This is Sayyid Najran, my second.”

      Arian considered their style of dress. Their headcloths were native to the tribes of the Empty Quarter who made their home in the boundless sands of the Rub Al Khali.

      “You are far from your homes, then. What brings you here?”

      “What brings you here, sayyidina? You have traveled far from Hira at some risk to yourself.” It was a reasonable question, but it was also a dismissal of Khashayar’s escort, the Shaykh’s shrewd black eyes measuring the impact of his words.

      Arian looked over her shoulder to the vanguard СКАЧАТЬ