Lets go. Lets go, Radetic grumbled. You men. Help those two get onto their animals.

Haroun looked back once. The battleground was littered with dead and dying. The majority were followers of the Disciple. Did we get him? he croaked at Bragi. Do you think we got him?

No, the northerner said. We didnt.

Damn! Damn damn damn!

Bragi snorted wearily. If he doesnt have a god on his side, he has a devil. Ride. Theyll be after us as soon as they get themselves sorted out.

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

King Without a Throne

Twenty-one horses, twenty-three men and eight camels made up the caravan. They straggled across a bleached-bone desert beneath a savage noonday sun. Only the most gravely wounded rode. Those afoot cursed and coerced the faltering beasts along the rocky, dusty, wind-whipped bottom of a dry wadi. Humiliation, despair and the anticipation of death were their marching companions. Ahmeds treachery was an agony each man bore like a brand, but no man wore it more painfully than did Ahmed himself.

For each man only the will to resist, to survive long enough to avenge, remained. The kingdom had been lost, but its blood, its Crown, lived on and would be preserved against tomorrow.

These things didnt occur as discrete thoughts. The men were too weary. Determination was baked into their bones. Consciously they were preoccupied with the heat, with thirst, with exhaustion. In the short run only one thing mattered: taking another step.

The wadi dissolved into a badland of tent-sized boulders. This is the place, Ahmed croaked.

I forbid it, Haroun replied. Im King now. You deferred to me. I forbid it.

Ahmed gestured. Men took positions among the rocks. God go with you, sire.

Damn it.

Haroun. Radetics voice was half whisper, half groan. Let the man die the death he chooses.

Hes right, Bragi said. He began to collect the remnants of water carried by those who would stay in ambush.

Haroun agonized. These men hardly knew him. It was not meet that he should leave them to die. Ahmed

Go, sire. Their dust draws close. We die for the Blood. By choice. Just go.

Bragi finished gathering the water. Haroun, will you come on? Do I have to drag you?

All right. All right. He started walking.

There were six of them now, all but Megelin walking. Radetic rode, his guts slowly leaking onto his animals back. Haroun led his horse. Bragi tried to keep the animals and three youngsters together.

Im a king, Haroun told himself. A king. How can that be?

Ali was dead. Yousif was dead. Fuad was dead, as were his sons. Ahmed had chosen to die in atonement. Now there was only Haroun bin Yousif. After him, the Scourge of God.

He would not permit Nassef to take the kingdom.