Chapter 8 — Blood and Betrayal

The road was rutted from weeks of wheels and hooves. Dry grass leaned flat, beaten into dust by too many feet. Ahmad kept to the rise above it, moving where rock and scrub gave cover. Adham climbed sure-footed, ears flicking at every sound. Nahhas loped ahead, low and silent. Reeh circled in a wide wheel overhead, black against the sun.

He had been told whispers in a small village. A handful of men were seen walking with the enemy — not pressed slaves, not captives, but walking shoulder to shoulder, showing the way through gullies and pointing toward springs. Men of our land guiding strangers. Some even smiled.

When Ahmad heard it, his blood had settled heavy and cold. This was worse than cowardice. This was feeding the foxes with your own sheep.

By mid morning, he saw them.

Down on the road, a small party moved slow. Four Franks in patched mail, spears upright, crossbows slung. Two locals walked with them, cloaks pulled back, hands free, not bound. They had a cart with a sway-backed mule, the wheels squealing. The cart was stacked with sacks and amphorae — grain, maybe oil. Enough to feed a village for weeks.

Ahmad dropped to one knee behind a rock and watched.

The two locals laughed at something one of the Franks said. They pointed to the ridge, to the folds in the land, showing shortcuts. One reached out and clapped a Frank on the arm like a brother. The mule brayed, hushed with a stick.

Then Ahmad heard it.

One of the locals raised his hand and said in Arabic, loud, almost proud:
“God wills it.”

The Franks barked back their own cry in their tongue: “Deus vult!”

The sound hit Ahmad like a stone in the chest. Different words, same meaning. He had never heard them together before. Now he knew. The invaders and the collaborators had joined voices.

His jaw clenched until it hurt. His hand closed around the fletching of an arrow.

Enough.

He stood, smooth and deliberate, drawing the bow in the same breath. The string snapped forward. The first arrow slammed into a Frank’s throat before the man had time to lift his shield. A second arrow flew before the others even turned — it buried itself in the chest of another Frank, pitching him backward over the cart.

“Wolf!” Ahmad hissed.

Nahhas sprang from the scrub like a shadow with teeth. He tore into the legs of the third Frank, dragging him down before he could raise his crossbow. The man’s scream was cut short when the wolf’s jaws closed on his neck.

“Go!” Ahmad shouted, and Reeh stooped from the sky. Her talons raked across the eyes of the fourth Frank, who shrieked and dropped his spear, stumbling blind.

By the time Ahmad reached the road, sword out, the Franks were already broken. He finished the blinded man with one slash across the face, steel cutting through bone. Nahhas shook the last until silence, blood spattering the dust.

The two collaborators froze. One bolted toward the rocks.

Ahmad ran him down in five strides. He slammed the man against the cart so hard the wood shook.
“You said it,” Ahmad growled. “You raised your hand with theirs. You said it.”

The man stammered, “Mercy! They promised food! No harm if we showed the way—”

Ahmad rammed him harder into the boards. “You showed them the way to our graves.”

“I have children—”

“You should have died in place of Ma’arra,” Ahmad spat, and drove the sword into his belly. He fell face-first into the dust.

The second man stayed on his knees, hands raised. “I only wanted to live.”

Ahmad strode forward. “So did the children of Ma’arra.” He cut him down in a single, unwavering arc.

Silence claimed the road. Only the mule shifted, stamping nervously beside the cart.

Ahmad checked the load: grain, oil, figs. Enough to keep many from hunger. Nahhas padded back, muzzle dark. Reeh settled to a post on the cart, feathers bristling.

Ahmad would not waste what people needed. He led the cart off the road, slow so the mule would not founder.

By late afternoon he reached a cluster of broken houses in the hills. The people stared hollow-eyed as he pulled the cart into the square.

“Take it,” he said. “Grain, oil, figs. Bake bread, feed your children.”

Hands shook as they reached for the sacks. A mother wept openly as she tore one open and let the grain run through her fingers.

Ahmad raised his voice. “This food was taken by those who walked with the enemy. It belongs to you. But do not hoard it. Share it with your neighbours. Share it with the next village, and the next. What I cannot carry, you must carry to them. No house should go hungry while another feasts.”

The villagers nodded, murmurs spreading. Some whispered his name. Others just stared at the wolf, the hawk, the man who had brought food where there should have been only death.

Ahmad mounted again. Adham shifted under him, eager for the road. Nahhas trotted to his stirrup; Reeh wheeled high.

He looked back once. “Keep each other alive. Remember this. Allah says: The believers are but brothers, so make settlement between your brothers. And fear Allah that you may receive mercy.”

The cart stood in the square, grain spilling like treasure, while Ahmad rode on.