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Don’t get me wrong. Fear is petrifying. Turns your blood to stone. Your mind grinds to a granite halt. And pain can also grip your thoughts. Throttle them until they turn blue and cease to move.
But Zakariya is to be the next Guardian. And that is not simply a ceremonial title, a floral addition to the leader’s name. The Aab-Al-Hayaat must be protected. There will always be those who seek to take what is not theirs. And what is more tempting to the unworthy than a quick route to immortality?
I have sparred with the current Guardian. It had been centuries since a man even came close to besting me in combat before him. If I am honest, it’s one of the reasons I have remained. Peace is what he hopes I will learn from our time together. Perhaps I seek only to prepare myself further for war. Of course, he does not seek me to cease being a warrior. But that isn’t the battle he would have me win.
He sees the wahsh behind my eyes. And he would not lose me to its song.
The horn Zakariya is on is razor-sharp. I have no doubt he is caught around his bones, hanging from his ribs like a maiden’s crown on her wedding night. Horrible. Agonising. Debilitating.
Breakable.
My fights with the Guardian have been no holds barred. I’ve pruned him like a deadwood tree at times. His limbs flew off. His hands scattered left and right as he flipped his weapon from reformed grip to reformed grip without hesitation. The crunch of gristle as my sword lopped off a kneecap to gain the higher ground. Ligaments snapped like a kora’s strings, too taut, over-tightened.
And still I never beat him in a battle.
Yet, here is his successor. The warrior-born, apparently, who is going to lead this hidden section of a secretive offshoot of Islam. The Druze have not been named as heretics yet. Not for their beliefs in the cycle of life, where souls are reborn into the world, nor for their dualistic claims of two gods – an evil creator to balance out the pure spirit from which we came. Not named as heretics.
Yet.
It is only a matter of time.
And when that comes? When, perhaps, those who know of Zakariya’s abilities come seeking what he holds? Will he still be such a coward then?
‘Pull yourself free!’ I cannot hold back some of that visceral disgust. It sits heavy on my tongue. I can taste it in my mouth, a thickening fuzz that coats everything. It makes my teeth tingle.
‘No! No, no, noooo!’ Still he wails. Still he laments his own situation like a mother on news of her offspring’s death. Still he writhes in continuous pain because he is too afraid to take a greater amount for a single moment to see himself free.
Unforgivable.
Of course, during this time, the shadhavar has not been still. Hasn’t simply accommodated our discussion. Nor even offered us a cup of sweetened tea, as all civilised beings must drink during a dispute. No, it continued to probe at me as I returned the favour. Each of us wove and sought with our blades. Looking for that momentary opening that would announce an imminent end. This will not be a long battle when the fight properly begins.
The shadhavar canters back a step and turns its head over its left shoulder as though looking behind. For a moment, I think it will break, flee with its new, never-ending buffet still skewered. I ready myself to dive for Zakariya’s foot to seize him. To tear him free. Force upon him the action he is too afraid to perform.
It does not seek to flee. Instead, it cracks its head back towards me so viciously, my first thought at the crack I hear is it is from the speed, pulling sound from the air like a slingshot’s song.
It is not. It is Zakariya’s spine.
He howls a new noise – more guttural, more entirely primal. The agony must be unbearable. And yet, still he does not seek to free himself. The fool.
I, however, do not have much time to consider that. For his now loose-swinging legs come hurtling towards my face. And behind that is the rumbling thunder of the shadhavar’s hooves.
The speed it can reach from stationary is astonishing. Thankfully, so is mine. I push to the right, launching from my left foot, my blade up to parry. Zakariya’s spine is already reforming, cracking back into place, so his legs are pulling back. Not fast enough. The left boot is hurtling towards my temple…
I’d say I’m sorry. But I’m really not. My sword’s edge angles and takes off his foot at the ankle. He screams, but I am not knocked unconscious. I remain in the fight. He should be thanking me, really. Perhaps that is what the gurgling, high-pitched keening he is currently performing means.
The cutting mid-air strike yanks me round. I am close to the beast, so close I can smell its breath – hot fetid air that carries with it a smell like salted beef left six days in the sun. The curing no cure for the rot beneath.
For a moment, I think it is enough. I’ve twisted with my blade, turned so I’m parallel to its flank. There seems to be time to take it all in, to see the way the rib-wrapped muscles press the skin, stretching it to glow like forge-worked silver in the moonlight. The shadhavar is passing next to me, and I have survived the first foray. Escaped. I think it is enough.
And then its hind leg snaps out.
Chapter Six
Mount Lebanon, 3 May 1211
It is a harder angle for it to strike from, and for that I can be thankful. The shaggy hoof, pulled sidewards instead of cleanly back, doesn’t connect with my chest. If it did, I suspect it would be the end. Even I would find it hard to fight with one side of my rib cage – and everything contained within obliterated. Hard to fight and hard to live.
Instead, it only connects with my right knee. I can be thankful. The blossoming colours of the pain’s sensation as they paint their way up my leg, through my belly, lighting it on fire before grabbing my chest like constricting bars makes it hard to concentrate on giving thanks though. Instead, I concentrate on how I land.
