Samir strode down the empty, dark street a hundred yards from the house without looking back. At the corner, where the Street of Dancing Fools ran back up the hill toward the gate that faced Akkad and Pelasia, he crouched and withdrew a bag, a cloak, and a sheathed sword from behind a stack of boxes.
He took one last, sad look back up the street.
It was sad, for certain, but Ghassan would never understand or approve. Life in M’Dahz would change sooner or later and Samir knew with certainty that he was one of very few souls who could survive this and prosper. He would find a way to live in the town and eventually to turn things around.
But the way ahead of him was, for the foreseeable future, a life of running and hiding, of consorting with thieves and murderers and living on the very edge of the law until the laws were once more worth abiding by.
Ghassan was too noble in thought for that. He was too straight and would never even think of what Samir was proposing to do. His brother would be safer in Calphoris with his precious militia, wearing a uniform and living to a code of duty.
One day, when everything was put right and the wounds that had been torn in their home had been healed, he would find Ghassan and they would return to the house of their mother. After all, they were family.
With a sigh, he hefted the sword and tore his eyes from the house where his brother waited before making his way down the street toward the port.
The last rays of the sun had left the streets of M’Dahz almost an hour ago.
Ghassan crouched in the rafters of the grain warehouse, peering out through the hole in the roof at the city’s defences and leaning on his pack for support. The Pelasian soldiers patrolling the wall passed every ten minutes or so and there would be plenty of time for him to sling over a rope and drop to safety. If he placed it right, the rope would remain unnoticed at least until sunrise.
It saddened him a little that the walls of his hometown were patrolled like a prison, the watchful guards directing their gaze inward more often than out, preventing their captive populace from fleeing the clutches of the twisted satrap Ma’ahd.
He sighed and fought back the panic once more.
He knew with cold certainty that Samir would not come. Whatever his brother was planning it was clear to Ghassan that he had no intention of meeting at the warehouse. The dividing of the purses; the enforced promises; most of all, the look on the smaller boy’s face as they had clasped hands that last time. Samir would not come.
But Ghassan knew with equal sureness that he had to go. He had to do this, even if he never saw Samir again. Someone had to find a way to bring the hand of Imperial justice at Calphoris against this Pelasian butcher who had destroyed everything and murdered everyone that they had loved.
Ma’ahd would pay for his crimes.
The desert nomads have a saying.
“When something is broken it should never be discarded. So long as the pieces remain, the whole can be remade.“
The moon set slowly over M’Dahz and a new day dawned.