Chapter 24
Karim
For two days and two nights, Karim led the Hudjefa through the eastern desert. Some people stumbled along the way and had to be carried. A few fell and did not rise again. When finally, on the third day, they saw the Iteru glittering on the horizon, nearly all of them sank to their knees and cried.
“I want to see!” Aya clambered onto Karim’s shoulders to get a better view. There was a scattering of palm trees and scrubby bushes ahead, and their vivid greenness was welcome to the Hudjefa’s weary eyes.
“It’s so pretty!” Aya exclaimed.
She’s never seen the river before, Karim realized. None of them have.
The sight of it must have felt like a miracle.
Kicking off their sandals on the riverbank, the people ran into the water, cupping it in their hands and pouring it over their faces and into their mouths.
They smiled and laughed—a sound Karim hadn’t heard since before the attack on Perset.
Aya joined them, shrieking with delight as she splashed the other children.
Behkai was excited too, galloping into the water then out again, stopping to shake himself all over and spray Karim with a combination of dog-water and slobber. Karim retaliated with a string of curses, though he had to admit the dog’s shower was quite refreshing.
Elyas watched it all, his expression equal parts exhaustion and relief. He was doing remarkably well given his injury, a testament to the old man’s stubborn nature. He gave Karim a grateful pat on the back. “What now, sen?”
“Once all our waterskins are filled and the animals are watered, we can hail a trading ship to help us cross. Some of your embroidered linens and a sheep or two should be enough payment. Once we’re on the west side, we’ll set out for the Anen’s camp.
They move the flock north this time of year, so I’m hoping we won’t have too much trouble finding them. ”
Elyas nodded. “And you think your tribe will embrace us?”
Karim licked his lips. “I plan to make the decision clear to them, sen—if you take my meaning.”
Elyas shifted uneasily and crossed his arms. “I will not force myself upon another tribe, no matter how desperate our situation. I trust you, Karim-sen, but I have seen enough bloodshed. I will not be the cause of more.”
“I understand.” It was Karim’s turn to be uneasy.
Babu would be on the other side of that river.
The big man wouldn’t have forgotten his promise to slit his throat from ear to ear if Karim ever showed his face again.
He still believed that Karim had murdered Djet in the tomb so he could take all the treasure for himself.
It would not be a happy reunion, and more than his own life was on the line.
“I’ll shed as little blood as possible,” he told Elyas.
In fact, if I strangle Babu, he won’t bleed at all.
***
It was only after they’d been wandering the Red Lands for several hours that Karim had his first doubts about finding the Anen.
His keen sense of direction had never led him astray before, and being back in his native land only sharpened his senses.
Yet, he could have sworn he’d seen that very same tree an hour earlier… or had he?
“You aren’t leading us in circles, are you, dear?” Miri asked. Her tone was sweet, but it had an edge to it. “If God is truly leading you, perhaps you could ask him to do it with a bit more haste? My knees aren’t what they used to be.”
“They should be here,” Karim muttered. “I swear, they should be right over this—”
Then he heard the unmistakable sound of a bleating lamb.
Excited, Karim turned to Miri and Elyas. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
He hurried to the top of a tall hill, a grin spreading over his face at the sight of a herd of sheep grazing in the scrub. A hooded man walked among them, a shepherd’s crook in his hand.
“Greetings to you!” Karim shouted, waving his arm. “Don’t be alarmed! I come in peace!”
The man looked up, his hood dropping back. The face beneath was lean and puckered with blemishes, his hair dark brown and curly.
The young man’s brow furrowed. “Brother?”
Karim couldn’t believe his eyes. “Gamil? Is that you?”
It can’t be. When I left, I could have sworn he was still just a boy!
Karim sped down the hill while the shepherd shoved his way through the herd toward him.
“My god, it is you!” Karim cried.
Gamil nearly knocked him over with his embrace. “Karim-sen—where have you been? Babu and Hager came back saying the most terrible things, and when you didn’t return, we thought you were dead!”
Karim stuck out his lower lip and tilted his head.
“Well, you weren’t far wrong…” Instead of launching into what would have been an extremely long story, he held Gamil at arm’s length and studied him.
“Let me have a look at you, sen. What is that on your face, hey?” He poked at the patchy beard growing on his brother’s jaw. “A bit of dirt?”
Gamil swatted his hand away and gave Karim a shove. “You’re just jealous because I’m taller than you now.”
It was true. In a matter of weeks, Gamil had shot up like a reed.
He was gangly and his face still hadn’t quite grown into his mouth and nose, but Karim could clearly see the man his brother would become peering back at him.
A man who looked remarkably like their father.
Karim swallowed. Half his childhood was stolen when Father died, and the other half I took when I abandoned him.
Shame struck him like an open palm.
Once a thief, always a thief.
It had been easy to forget about his family in the face of oracles and magic and monsters.
Perhaps a bit too easy. He’d barely spared a thought for them—in fact, he’d tried his very best to avoid thinking of what might have happened to his family during his absence.
He was too afraid of what he’d find when he returned.
Gamil looked all right—though Karim was surprised to see him holding a shepherd’s crook instead of a blade. Karim dared to hope that perhaps the rest of his family was fine too.
“Come! Come! We must tell the others that you’re back!” Gamil tugged on his arm, his face bright with childlike excitement.
Karim smiled. There’s my little brother.
Gamil led him past the herd before Karim remembered the Hudjefa. “Wait a minute, sen,” Karim said. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
Gamil didn’t seem to hear him. “Dima! Faiza! Look who I found!”
A large tent stood nearby, one that Karim recognized instantly. Two girls looked up from their work milking a pair of ewes in front of it. When they saw the brothers coming toward them, they jumped up in astonishment.
Twelve-year-old Faiza screamed. As the youngest sibling, she did a lot of that—regardless of whether an event was good or bad. She raced over to them and threw her arms around Karim’s waist, her round cheeks already streaming with tears. Karim reached down to pat her wavy hair.
“It’s all right, sena, it’s all right,” he said, trying in vain to calm her.
Faiza continued to wail as if a jar had been unstopped and its contents were pouring out.
Dima, who was thirteen but behaved as if she were twice that, did not approach them. She was an ample-figured, serious girl—much like their mother. Instead, she crossed her arms and leveled Karim with a critical frown. “So? Did you?” she asked.
Karim cocked his head, trying to hear her over Faiza’s ceaseless blubbering. “Did I what?”
“Did you really kill Djet for treasure?”
“Dima!” Gamil chastised.
“It’s a fair question.”
“It’s not!” Gamil retorted. “How can you ask our brother if he would do such a thing? He loved Djet! We all did!”
“The brother I know wasn’t a murderer,” Dima said, her voice low. “But the brother I know also wouldn’t have left us.” To Karim she said, “At least when we thought you were dead, you had a good excuse for being away.”
Dima’s words speared him, and Karim welcomed the pain.
It was the least that he deserved. Still, he didn’t want them to think he had anything to do with Djet’s death.
“I tried to save Djet, I swear it. Babu wouldn’t believe me, and he said he’d kill me if I ever returned.
” He sighed. “But you’re right, Dima. I should have come back sooner. ”
For a long moment, no one moved or spoke. The only sound was Faiza’s sniffling. Finally, Dima closed the space between them and leaned her forehead against Karim’s chest, nudging the tear-soddened Faiza out of the way. “I built a barrow for you, sen,” she whispered. “Next to Father’s.”
Karim grimaced. I’ve been so selfish and stupid to think they would simply forget about me. “I’m so sorry, sena. For everything. Can you ever forgive me?”
“Maybe. Did you meet any pretty girls while you were roaming the kingdom?”
A grin quirked at Karim’s lips. “Well…”
Faiza perked up, wiping her snotty nose on her sleeve. “Oh? What’s her name? Did you kiss her? What color dress was she wearing?”
“Wait a minute,” Gamil broke in. “Saved Djet from what?”
Suddenly there was a clatter, and they all turned toward the sound.
A woman stood beside the tent, a pile of branches and twigs dropped at her feet.
She was not much taller than Dima and wore a dark brown robe that had seen better days.
The three younger siblings took one look at the woman’s expression and backed away from Karim.
Karim gulped. “Greetings to you, Omma.”
From the way she looked at him, he might as well have burst into flames.
Before he could attempt to explain himself, Karim’s mother stepped over the firewood, strode toward him, and slapped him across the face.
Karim’s cheek stung, and he rubbed it. “Would you believe you’re the second woman to do that recently?”
The next thing he knew, his mother grabbed him and dragged him into a tight embrace. “You stupid, stupid boy,” she said, her voice muffled as she pressed her face into his hair. “Don’t you ever do that to me again.”
He hugged her back, feeling a little weepy himself. “I won’t, Omma. I promise.”