The Gates of Winter - Mark Anthony [272]
He moved through the herd of goats. The animals bleated until the dervish touched them, then they fell silent. He ran his hands over their hides and could feel the blood surging beneath, quickened by their fear. One swift flash of a knife, and hot blood would flow, thicker and sweeter than water. He could slake his thirst, and when he was finished he would let the blood spill on the ground as an offering, and with it he would call spirits to him. They would be only lesser spirits, to be sure, enticed by the blood of an animal—no more than enough to work petty magics. All the same, it would be satisfying. . . .
But no, that was not why he was here. He remembered now; he needed water, then to send word, to tell them he was here. He staggered toward the circle of huts. Behind him, the goats began bleating again, lost without the boy to herd them.
This place was called Hadassa, and though the people who dwelled here had now forgotten, it had once been a prosperous trading center, built around a verdant oasis and situated at a crossroads where merchants from the north coast of Al-Amún met with traders of the nomadic peoples who lived to the south, on the edge of the great desert of the Morgolthi.
However, Hadassa was not immune to the plague that affected this land, and over the decades the flow of its springs had dwindled to a trickle. The merchants and traders had left long ago and not returned; the city's grand buildings were swallowed by the encroaching sand. Now all that remained was this mean collection of huts.
When he reached the center of the village, the dervish stopped. The oasis, once a place of sparkling pools and shaded grottoes, was now a salt flat baked by the sun and crazed with cracks. Dead trees, scoured of leaf and branch, jutted up like skeletal fingers. In their midst was a patch of mud, churned into a mire by men and goats. Oily water oozed up through the sludge, gathering in the hoofprints. The dervish knelt, his throat aching to drink.
“You are not welcome here,” said a coarse voice.
The dervish looked up. The water he had cupped dribbled through his fingers. A sigh escaped his blistered lips, and with effort he stood again.
A man stood at the other edge of the mud. His yellowed beard spilled down his chest, and he wore the white robe of a village elder. Behind him stood a pair of younger men. They were thin and stunted from lack of food, but their eyes were hard, and they gripped curved swords. Next to the man was a woman of middle years. In youth she had likely been beautiful, but the dry air had parched her cheeks, cracking them like the soil of the oasis. She gazed forward with milky eyes.
“The cards spoke truly, Sai'el Yarish,” the woman said in a hissing voice, pawing at the elder man's robe. “Evil flies into Hadassa on dark wings.”
“I cannot fly,” the dervish said.
“Then you must walk from this place,” the bearded man said. “And you must not come back.”
The dervish started to hold out his hands in a gesture of supplication, then stopped, awkwardly pressing his palms against his serafi. “I come only in search of water.”
One of the young men brandished his sword. “We have no water to spare for the likes of you.”
“It is so,” the old man said. “A change has come over the land. One by one, the springs of the desert have gone dry. Now ours is failing as well. You will not find what you seek here.”
The dervish laughed, and the queer sound of it made the others take a step back.
“You are wrong,” he said. “There is water to be found in this place.”
From the folds of his serafi he drew out a curved knife. It flashed in the sun.
“Do not let him draw blood!” the blind woman shrieked.
The young men started forward, but the mud sucked at their sandals, slowing them. The dervish held out his