Karim disagreed.
He squinted at the sky. He was running out of time.
“I’m going to scout up that way,” Karim told the others. “You stay here, hey?”
“Fine with me,” Hager said with a yawn.
“I’m coming with you!” Djet exclaimed.
“Too bad,” Babu sighed, gripping the haft of his spear. “I was going to use the boy for target practice.”
Djet paled, which made the other Jackals laugh.
“Come on, sen,” Karim said, ruffling the boy’s dark hair. “Help me get the tools together.”
After gathering up his talismans and slinging his pack over one shoulder, Karim made his way toward the valley wall. Djet scampered by his side like an enthusiastic puppy.
“If anyone can find it, you can,” he said, beaming. “Of that, I am sure.”
Karim grinned and touched a knuckle to his nose in thanks. Tomb robbery may not have been the noblest of occupations, but for him, it was the best in a series of unpleasant options. Men of the Anen tribe either tended to the flocks, which were the lifeblood of their people, or they took up spears and fought to defend them. Karim had resisted choosing a path during his youth, despite his father’s urging, but his indecision came to a head several years ago when a pack of Shass raiders had come upon their camp in the middle of the night, made off with a dozensheep, and killed three of their men.
One of those men had been Karim’s father.
He’d been left to care for his mother and three younger siblings, with no trade to speak of. His brother, several years younger than Karim, swiftly dedicated himself to the blade—hungry to avenge their father’s death if the Shass tried to plunder them again. Although Karim understood his desire, he didn’t share it. Neither leading warriors into battle nor sheep into pasture sounded particularly appealing. Either way, the job always ended in slaughter.
His little sisters, who were only ten and eleven years old, had seemed to age overnight. The last vestiges of their childhood had died along with their father.
Soon after the raid, the tribe moved camp. After several days’ travel, Karim had been sitting by the fire at dusk, feeling adrift, listening to the swish of his brother’s practice spear and the crackle of the flames. Gazing at his new surroundings, he’d fixated on the shape of a distant pyramid. The sight reminded him of the stories his father had told him about the Khetarans, the river kingdom that shunned the tribes of the Red Lands.
“Their river—they think it gives them supremacy, hey?” his father used to say. “To them we are like vermin, but when the time comes to bury their sacred dead, where do they bring them? Toourhome.Ourland. They think that whatever the sun touches belongs to them.”
It was because of the Khetarans that the lives of his people were so full of hardship, Karim’s father had said. They were pompous and greedy, spoiled by the riches the river had brought them—completely unlike the rugged Anen, who had no time for superstition and frippery. Worse, the Khetarans had the audacity to use the Red Lands as their personal graveyard and build massive monuments and underground tombs there, but offer norespect to its people.
By the fire, Karim left his own sorrow—the loss of his father, and the suffering of his family in the wake of his death—at the Khetarans’ feet as well.
Perhaps he was too much of a coward to fight and too capricious to tend a herd, but Karim knew one thing. He was clever enough to find a few Khetaran tombs and take back some of what they owed him—what they owed all his people. A little gold to balance out the blood piled up on their ledger. Besides, Karim enjoyed a bit of excitement, and grave robbing beat wading through hordes of sheep any day.
That was the real reason Karim had spoken up for Djet when the boy’s own tragedy struck. In Djet’s plight he’d seen a mirror of his own.
“So, what are we looking for?” Djet asked as they ascended a rocky hill at the foot of the valley. A cloud of dust rose around their feet as they climbed.
“Something that doesn’t belong,” Karim said, squinting at the cliffside ahead.
They stood together, scanning the area. Then Djet spoke. “Everything looks the same.”
“Look closer,” Karim replied, a hint of a smile in his voice, “and tell me all that you see.”
Djet straightened, his round face suddenly serious as he studied the landscape before him. If this was a test, he clearly wanted to pass.
“I see a bit of lovegrass. There and there,” he began, slowly. “A pile of stones. An old acacia tree. A small hole—perhaps a snake burrow? And… and…” He struggled to continue, then sighed in frustration. “I see nothing, Karim-sen. I am sorry.”
“You see more than you think.” Karim pointed to the pile of stones Djet had mentioned. “How do you imagine those came to be there?”
Djet looked at him and shrugged.
Karim waved him closer, and together they approached the pile. He bent and took up a handful of the stones, smelling them and rolling them between his fingers. Standing again, he ran a hand along the valley wall, thoughtful.
“Nature alone gathers no mounds, not the size of this one,” Karim said. “This is the work of man. These stones are different from the others around them, which means they must have been dug from within the cliffside…” He walked forward a few feet, then stopped. Kneeling, he called Djet to his side, pointing at a thin stream of sand pouring from a crack in the wall.
