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The bodyguard’s eyes flicked from Mr Ambrose to the big Egyptian atop the ledge, who had to be the bandit leader. Karim’s face twisted into a fierce scowl. Roaring like a lion, he leaped forward, catching hold of the ledge and pulling himself up. The bandit leader’s eyes went wide, and he hurriedly stepped forward to tread on his approaching assailant’s fingers, but Karim was already up and storming forward. The Egyptian had just enough time to pull his scimitar free, before Karim brought down his own weapon.
Blood spewed up, and I hurriedly averted my eyes. But in the rest of the cave, the fight was just as vindictive. Mr Ambrose was duelling with two opponents at once, swinging his sabre with a deadly precision that spoke of years and years of experience. I looked down at my measly little dagger.
‘One of these days,’ I growled, ‘I’m going to beat him into showing me how to use a proper weapon!’
I heard footsteps approach from the right, and whirled around just in time to see someone rush towards me, a metallic glint in his hands. I moved instinctively, throwing myself to the ground and rolling over. The sabre pierced the air above me, and the man stumbled over me with a foul curse. Jumping up, I whirled around again and swung the dagger.
There was a wet thud, and the bandit went rigid. Slowly, he slid to the floor.
‘Well, well, well…’ I murmured, staring at the dagger in my hand. ‘Maybe this isn’t so bad after all.’
‘Hanem! What are you doing?’
Turning, I saw Youssef gaping down at me from an opening in the wall above me.
‘Stabbing people,’ I called up to him. ‘What does it look like?’
Muttering a curse, the Egyptian swung himself down. The rest of his men were right behind him, bloodstained but alive.
‘The Effendi told you to stay safe!’
‘That’s what I’m doing,’ I told him, wiping the dagger on my burnous. ‘By killing all potentially unsafe people.’
He rolled his eyes, and waved at three of his men. ‘You three! Stay with her and guard her! If anything happens to her, the Effendi will have our heads on a platter! The rest of you, come with me!’
With that, he dashed off into the fray.
‘“If anything happens to her, the Effendi will have our heads”,’ I mimicked, scowling after him. As if Mr Ambrose cared one bit what happened to me! He was a cold, hard, feelingless, arrogant, infuriating…
Well, it didn’t really make much sense to finish the sentence. The list of bad adjectives would take up three good-sized pages.
‘Get them, men!’ I heard Youssef shout from not very far away. ‘Kill them all! This time, it’s an order!’
And I watched as they set upon the bandits. It only took minutes for the shift in the balance of power to show. Where before the fight had been slowly swaying back and forth, now the bandits were steadily being pushed back, until they were pressed in a line against the back of the cave. One after the other fell, staining the cave floor with his blood. No quarter was being given, and none was fool enough to ask. The bandits knew they had killed every single member of the caravans that had come through the desert. They knew what to expect in return.
It was a bloody business, and strangely, brutally beautiful. In another age, another place, this is what justice would have looked like. Today, it was revenge, pure, simple and unapologetic. Finally, the last bandit dropped to the ground, dead.
Well, nearly the last one.
‘Move, you piece of scum!’
Holding the man’s neck with one huge, muscled paw, Karim shoved the disarmed, battered and bleeding bandit leader down off the ledge. A fist in the back sent him stumbling forward towards Mr Ambrose, who stood, not even breathing hard, gazing down at the body of the last man he had killed as if he were looking at a rotting cockroach.
‘On your knees, worm!’
Giving the bandit leader another shove, Karim forced him down on his knees in front of Mr Ambrose and placed his sabre at the last surviving bandit’s neck.
‘One wrong move, scum, and you are dead!’
‘Your threats are meaningless!’ growled the prisoner. ‘You will kill me anyway!’
‘True.’ Bending forward, Karim hissed into his ear: ‘But if you’re not careful, I might just take my time and make your final moments very special.’ His scimitar grazed the man’s throat, drawing blood.
Mr Ambrose was still looking at the dead man at his feet. Slowly, he bent and gripped the corpse’s burnous. A quick flash of steel, and part of the burnous was in his hand, cut clean off. He used it to methodically wipe the blood off his sabre. Only when the weapon was pristinely clean did he turn towards the man Karim had in custody.
‘Your name is Radi?’
The man spat on the ground at Mr Ambrose’s feet. Mr Ambrose didn’t even blink. He motioned to Karim, who grabbed the man’s arms and twisted. A scream echoed through the cave. When it had subsided, Mr Ambrose repeated, his voice still as cold as ice: ‘Your name is Radi?’
