Rebel of the Sands (Rebel of the Sands #1)(44)

We plunged in with the rest. One second I was staring into a terrified face, the next I was shoved against a wall. One second Jin was there, then his hand was torn from mine. And then I was alone, running in a crush of strangers. I stripped off my khalat as I went, turning myself back into a boy.

Gunshots sounded far behind us. I took a corner hard, my hands busy with tying my sheema, and I stumbled and went down. Hands were there, on my shoulders, pulling me to my feet. I looked back to see a man I didn’t know, keeping me from getting trampled.

I didn’t even have time to thank him before the crowd swallowed him and forced me on down the streets.

Open gates. The sight made my heart take off faster than the Buraqi had. My legs picked up speed, pumping twice as fast, carrying me forward like I was running on the winds and the sand, too. Forward. Forward. Out of the walls. Out of the trap. A shout of pure relief and joy and life on my lips.

And then all I could see was the sand and I forgot about everything. About fear. About bombs. About Jin. The desert reached out for us all with huge open arms. The churning mass that was chaos in the streets became order in the sand, welcoming us home.





fifteen


We had no choice except to walk through the dark. There were dangers in the desert night, but there were threats behind us in Fahali, too. And we needed to be far away from them by the time dawn came. Not even Commander Naguib would be stupid enough to follow us through the desert in the dark.

Night in the desert was different when it wasn’t on the edge of the campfire. When there was no laughter and music and storytelling from the caravan to eclipse the sounds that came from the dark. There were things that made noises underneath the sand in the desert night. Things that screamed from the mountains. Now we could hear them all.

The Camel’s Knees huddled close together. The only noise that came from them was the clink of the tack on the beasts and the sound of mumbled praying. Yasmin’s face looked pale in the light of the lamp swinging from the back of the nearest camel. One of her little cousins had fallen asleep with his head on her shoulder.

“Three hours until dawn,” Jin said, checking the sky.

I nodded as he dropped back to hold up the rear of the caravan while I stayed in front. I knew we’d been walking for a long time. Distance had swallowed Fahali behind us. The night seemed much bigger than it ever had. And I felt a lot smaller than I ever had.

I heard a sound then and stopped walking. There was something out there. I turned slowly, peering into the dim glow offered by the moon and the handful of oil lamps that hung from the camels we’d been able to take with us, casting them in small pools of light.

I saw it a second before it sprang. The ghoul unfurled from a viscous leathery ball into spindly limbs and filmy black wings, its huge gaping mouth opened in a screech as it leapt.

I fired. A few of the caravan folks cried out and ducked instinctively at the noise.

My bullet caught it square in the chest. Black guts scattered across the sand. The thing screeched again. And this time, from the deep of the night, a hundred identical voices screeched back.

Yasmin turned the body over with her toe as the caravan silently stared. Frozen in shock.

“A Nightmare,” Yasmin confirmed.

I hadn’t seen a Nightmare since I was a kid. One had crawled into the house I grew up in while we slept. My mother had put a kitchen knife through it before it got to anyone. It’d barely put up a fight. But that one was alone and injured and desperate. This one was in its own territory, where they traveled in packs.

I could see them now as my eyes adjusted to the dark. Scuttling through the sand, their sinewy wings rippling through the blackness. They fed on fear instead of flesh and blood. One venomous bite sent victims into an uneasy sleep, and a second drew out the fear that bled from the first bite. Some said they drained the soul itself. Most folks didn’t wake up from a Nightmare bite.

I checked the handful of bullets in my pocket.

“Everybody stay close to the light,” I called down the caravan. Ghouls couldn’t hunt in the day. Firelight wasn’t exactly the same, but it was the closest we had. “This doesn’t change anything. We keep walking, and—”

“Skinwalker!” The voice belonged to Tall Oman. My gun swung up, ready to face the new monster, tracking Tall Oman’s pointed finger.

Only it was me he was pointing at.

My sheema, badly tied after the escape from Fahali, had fallen away when I shot, and now my hair was tumbling down to my shoulders, my face on show.

Tall Oman came at me in long, angry strides. Jin was in front of me in a blink. His hand caught Tall Oman in the chest three steps before he reached me, a warning gesture that he could easily turn more painful if he wanted. “Rethink your next move, my friend.”

“He’s a Skinwalker,” Tall Oman spat, though he had the sense not to strain any farther against Jin’s grip. “He changed his shape.”

“No.” Parviz held up a lamp so he could see me clearer. “She’s a liar.”

“Well, I didn’t so much lie as trick you.” It was a relief to speak in my own voice, even if it was strained by false lightness. “The difference being you can blame yourselves as well as me.” I wasn’t shaking anymore. I refused to shake, no matter that the whole caravan was looking at me like I was some abomination.

It was Isra who whispered too loudly to Jin, “So I guess she’s not your brother, then?” She treated me to a once-over. “And here I was thinking you might be worth marrying to young Yasmin. Should’ve been suspicious when you listened to her so close. No man does that.”