Tamir fished a scope out of the pocket of his robe and held it up to his good eye. He thrust me behind him, towards my tent. “Wake up your friend,” he said, “and both of you stay out of the way. Shayat! Bandits.”

The word shocked me back into myself. “Bandits?”

Tamir shoved me. “Wake up your friend. Stay out of the way.”

I took two steps towards my tent before that wretched pull tore me east again. There was this compulsion to go east, to meet the bandits where they were. They watched me, and I was tethered to them. It was Shayat who ended up waking Sorcha. Sorcha ran up to me, tried to pull me back, but I wrenched myself free of him, drawn east, drawn to bandits, drawn to death. I saw the flicker of a shadow on the dunes, a mote of black marring the gold landscape. “There! There!” I cried, and broke into a run.

There was a faint whistling, and then sharp, blinding pain.

I heard myself scream before I knew it was me screaming. Shayat knocked me to the ground and slammed her hand over my mouth. The pain killed the draw, broke me mercifully free of the count. “You’ve been shot. Stay here, stay quiet.” I nodded, and she slunk away from me, soundless and agile as a desert cat.

Sorcha cursed, loudly, and ran to me. Shayat caught his arm and pointed at the camels. “What? Fuck the camels! He’s got an arrow sticking out of his chest!”

Shayat wore authority, command, effortlessly. She gave him one look—a single glance of muted impatience. Sorcha frowned and sighed and cast worried glances my way, but he coaxed the camels to him, caught their reins, and led them west into a hollow between dunes. Black figures appeared on the dunes, and a volley of arrows struck the ground where the camels had been moments before. Tamir dodged one arrow by mere inches. Shayat and Tamir exchanged glances, a whole conversation without words. Tamir whistled into the east. “Parley!” he shouted. “Parley!”

Shayat crouched low and crept along the dunes. Tamir pulled me upright, and I wailed. As I’ve said before, I do not handle pain well, and even less so when it is such a traumatic and unexpected thing as that.