A bandit slid down a dune to the south of us. He was a scout; he’d slipped into place some time before. He trained an arrow on Tamir. He was swathed head to toe in red-brown cloth, covered in sand. All that was visible of him were his eyes and his fingers. His skin was a deep brown, his eyes were human. He was a tall man, even by human standards, and lean. His visible skin was windburned and weathered. I cried out in wordless panic, and the bandit scout aimed his arrow at me. “We want the camels,” he said in Inalan, “and anything else you have.”

Tamir was quiet for a long while. “How long have you been tracking us?”

“Camels, tinker,” the bandit said. He drew the bow, the glinting point of the arrow trained right at my throat. I wrenched myself out of Tamir’s grasp and ran. I ran blindly, stupidly, my back to the bandit. I heard the thunk of his bowstring. The arrow lodged into my calf, and I crumpled into the sands. “Camels,” the bandit said, “or he dies.”

Shayat’s voice rang out, clear and hard. “Give the elf your bow,” she said, “and you might be able to save your brothers.” She spoke Qin. The bandit translated her words slowly. First disbelief, then anger, then fear flickered across his face.

And Shayat laughed. It was a cold laugh, a cruel laugh. When I turned to look at her, I found her standing with a graceless, galling ease as she wiped the blood from a knife. There was a promise of violence in her carriage and in the smoothness of her brow.

The bandit pulled up his bow and aimed at her, but it was after two seconds’ hesitance and done too late. As soon as the bandit turned, Tamir had a knife at his throat.

“You have this one chance to save them. You can stand here and fight us while they bleed out, or you can leave us be to tend our wounded while you tend yours.”

Shayat, bleeding from a gash across her forehead and covered in the blood of someone else, tossed her knife in the air. It spun end over end in a lazy arc. She caught it thoughtlessly, easily, ready to fight. Tamir let the bandit watch her do it. He let the bandit see, and then he let the bandit go. The bandit lowered his bow to the ground, whispered a prayer, and backed out of the camp.