What other surprises did Abdul Sa’ad have in store for him besides the Ruallai, he wondered.

The Scorpion fastened on a face veil and was not surprised to see Bandar, like most of the riders, follow suit.

The air was misty with fine white dust kicked up by thousands of camels. Pressing forward on every side were contestants from almost every tribe on the peninsula: the white-and-black-clad Rualla from Wadi Sirhan, the dark-garbed Anayzah from the great Nafud desert, from the Najd, the Harb and the Shammar, and the Rashidis, ancient enemies of the House of Saud, and the dog-eyed Hutaym who look no man in the eye, the Huwaytat who roam the Red Sea coast near Aqaba and bow to no man, the Utaybah out of the mountains of the Jabal Tuwaiq, who measure their words as if they were pieces of gold, and from the Hejaz, the Bali, Juhaynah and the tribes of the holy places, the Al Jahadilah and the Quraysh, tribe of the Prophet himself, who wear the green silk of the Sharif, the soft men of the Ghamid and the Rijal al ma Munjaha, from the green hills of Asir, and the hard tribesmen of the Empty Quarter, the Qahtan, Yam, al Rashid, the Al Murrah, they of the great soft-footed camels who can cross the endless sands of the Rub al Khali, and from the Hasa and the Gulf, where the oil comes from, the Mutayr, the Awazim, the Bani Khalid and the Bani Hajir, and those of the lesser tribes. It was a vast panoply of riders out of a distant age and at the sight of them the women, veiled and kept to the back, began to trill the eerie cries to frighten off the evil zars of the desert and a guard unfurled the pennant of Saud bearing a sword and the words of the shahadah, “There is no God but God and Muhammed is his prophet.” It was a sight to stir the heart, one few westerners had ever seen, the Scorpion thought, and he felt his own pulse quicken.

At the sounding of the starting gun, thousands of camels surged forward over the yellow plains kicking up sprays of sand as they galloped on. A roar exploded from half a million throats as the riders swept forward in a vast wave, as if a great tribal raid or jihad had been launched.