The crowd in Ishak’s tent had swollen to such a number that many of the warriors and hunters of both tribes who had elected to stay spilled outside into the darkness. Adhem and the other three members of the scouting party had arrived back with news of the movement of the young ones’ camp toward the west. The meeting was brief. The warriors of the combined tribes were to ride through the night and attack at dawn. The ghost children were to be destroyed before they ever reached the priestess or her army.
As the warriors rode westward into the moonlit night, Ahmad found himself in a group that included his cousins, Adhem and Yusef. Adhem rode easily, his reins in one hand, his other hand resting casually on his thigh or the hilt of his sword. Yusef, on the other hand, had pulled the tail of his head shawl up to conceal the lower portion of his face, even though it was a windless night, and rode with a studied determination, his eyes fixed on the western horizon. Ahmad attempted to speak to him a few times, but finally gave up and let his horse fall a few paces behind Yusef’s. He stood up his stirrups. Looking back, he could just make out the shapes of Husam, Nasr, and Jamilah some distance behind. Remembering his promise to Qirfah, he was determined to keep them in his sight.
The riders arrived at the old campsite, the one where they had found Chani, well before dawn. It had been deserted long before. They wasted little time there and were quickly underway again, riding due west.
Adhem’s horse fell into pace beside Ahmad’s. “Their new camp was barely a half day’s march from here,” he told Ahmad. “On horseback, it will be but an hour or so.” But, when the riders came to the place where the scouts had sighted the young ones earlier in the day, they found the site deserted. As the first rosy fingers of light caressed the eastern sky, the riders came to a stop. Nothing remained of the camp but swaying grasses and a few cold fire circles. Ahmad watched as the trackers from both tribes dismounted to study the ground. He edged his horse closer to Adhem’s.
“They must have seen us,” Adhem muttered. “How? We were sure we passed unseen.”
Ahmad shook his head, remembering the way Jasara had looked so distant, then spoken with such authority. She heard the voice of The Eye, just as Fouad had. Who knows what the Eye had told her. Frowning, he nodded to the west. “We know they’ve gone west. Why are we wasting time here?”
Adhem shrugged, but he, too, looked into the western darkness.
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