Land of the Jackals

Prostration for the sun began just before sundown, as the dunes were soaked red in the dying rays of light before the swollen moon showed her face in the sky.

She had been prone for ages; supplicated, hands stretched before her, wrists loosely bound in golden cord. It would be long before the priest granted her permission, releasing her from soft torment as sweat beaded across her back. Smoking myrrh filled the columns, silk wavering from the tops of the temple to mask the whispers of those seeking penance. Shuffled footsteps swam around her, hymns rising and fading like jackal calls in the night.

To remain still as a statue. To ignore the scent of fruit rotting sweet in the sun, of cooked meats drifting from fires in the distance. Her own tongue, heavy with salt and sand, grittiness sticking to her teeth as she pushed thoughts of food and drink from her mind, pressing her forehead hard into the sand until the burning stones scrubbed her mind clean.

It was almost enough to ignore the slither of scales along her back.

Kalahari's thin shoulders locked, jaw aching from a snarl held back. She squeezed her eyes shut, ignoring the questing hands on the knobs of her back, testing the cord around her thin wrists.

A voice, lazy and indolent, like a courtesan drunk on palm wine. "Is this how the clan serves when I am gone?" More hands, brushing hair from her face, pinching her swollen cheek, prodding bruises blooming under her skin. "Someone failed to take my advice."

She could not look up. She wished not to answer, but the sun crawled at his own pace down the horizon. "Someone failed their duties." Kalahari spoke in the crass tongue of commoners, not the high tongue priests demanded.

A rattling laugh to match the gentle clink of scales. "You put too much faith in the words of men," he continued. "Another piece of my advice you always fail to heed." Then, in a voice hiding his worst traits, bargaining his cruel desires: "It should be me calling the Sun."

"Show up next time," Kalahari hissed. Shadows swam behind her eyelids, blotting the red-flesh tone into a dull, bruised hue. A break from the sun's heat against her back as coils surrounded her, muddying her sense of space into a cage. It went against the temple's grounds to speak ill to family on sacred sand; at least he never seemed bothered by it.

Something thunked beside her in the sand: the pungent, cloying scent of blood filled her mouth like water as it glugged down her throat. "I was busy covering your mistakes! Not all of us are able to shirk credit for a raid botched and walk away with the clan's holy blessing!"

Kalahari shifted, hands curling around the cord as if she could hide the mummified flesh twisting her withered palm. "We're alive," she breathed just as something lashed the air beside her, renting it in two with electrical charge.

"You're alive because I am here!" Rage lapped at his tongue, rendering syllables into a harsh hiss. The sense of space shrank around her again, muscle and scale sliding closer. "I chased our enemies to the edge of the Sun's reach and threaded them through His palm; you are here praying for the sun to rise so we might see the rain we've needed for months." The voice, close to her ear, skittering down her neck: "Tell me, Princess Kalahari, does the god hear your mewling so low?"

She tasted anger in the back of her throat like a cut; she clenched every single muscle in her back and arms until her bones turned to stone. The sand yielded to her frustrations, shifting and moving against her skin. It wanted to be used. It wanted to lash out against the impertinent snake coiling around her, feeding into her doubts. The sense of space around her closed in, walls of dry scale intending to crush. So badly did he want for something she had; envy made the serpent his skin.

Yet, even as hands hovered above her, even as he coiled and blocked the sun, he would not touch her. Around her was the blessing he sought, the duty of the clan and the pride of the desert. He worshiped the desert, but she imbued it. Her fingers curled into the sands, a challenge to the soft sliding of the dunes he made beside her. She remained still, never once flinching or opening her eyes.

So he let her finish her prayers. His voice remained silent in the chorus to mark the passage of the day, but his presence a message; she could lead the prayer, but he would block her from their sight. Another bloodless battle between them. As she uncurled from her position, opening her eyes to the wall of white scales, he took up her horizon, his coils blocking her in, the encroaching night framed by his arms and the burning ember of his eyes. He did not move his coils to let the priest forward, instead letting the old man trip over his scales, looming over her like the moon.

With the curved blade, the priest cut the cord wrapped around her wrists; oil was poured from the golden jar shaped in the gaping jaws of a lion to cool her skin, leaving her smelling vaguely of the lotus flowers crushed within. She always felt akin to drowning like this, worried if she opened her mouth the oil would flood her lungs and blood until her fragrant flesh was set upon by the jackals. Would Bayuda carve her back for those very dogs, or would he defend her from the salivating animals waiting for her in the shadows of the dune? Looking at him, she could never be certain.

The priest shrank away to sweep up the day’s offerings as Bayuda remained poised over her. Blood stained the golden tattoos on his hands, dried dull copper, and the scimitar pressed to his waist hung by cloth dyed crimson. The sour scent of sweat and the damp threads of his black hair spoke to days marching across the sands; he probably had not even gone to see their father before cutting across the temple to find her.

“Did you get them?” She sounded so child-like speaking to him, her voice high and reedy, a question always burning on her lips about duties he knew.

Her half-brother crossed his arms. “See for yourself.”

The sack, staining dark under the moon’s indifferent light. She controlled the shake in her hands as she loosened the rope, and the dark, greasy hair beneath her fingers confirmed what was in the bag. Instinct demanded she close the bag, unable to see the gruesome evidence of her mistake. But Bayuda could move like lightning on the belly of a snake; his hand gripped the back of her neck, steadying her, challenging her.

“Do not yield to such animal fear,” Bayuda’s command cut like a whip. “This is your doing, Kalahari. This man was your enemy. Accept his death like a warrior, or flinch from it as a coward.”

She didn’t want to. She already felt the reminder of her magic winding down her arm, the cruel miscalculation of trying to attack a clan based on her own botched instincts. But she could not let Bayuda be right about this. She pulled the head out of the bag, observed the bloodied stump on the neck, the drooping eyes, the face slack-jawed in terror.

“The Sun watches you and shall guide you to your next life,” Kalahari whispered to the dead man she failed to kill.

The serpent was satisfied. Bayuda took the sack from her limp grasp, ruffling her hair. “It’s not so bad, when they’re already dead,” he said, holding the head to gaze into the man’s eyes. “When they’re alive, oh… much worse. Try to force your enemy to accept the blessing of the Sun as they bleed on your sword; the stains never seem to leave.” For a long moment, Bayuda was still, his lips moving without sound. As Kalahari reached for him, Bayuda drew back, almost flinching from her grasp.

“You will want to stay back,” his voice drifted, far away from her. “The king is not going to be happy when I show I was only able to capture one of them.” Another hesitation, more words between them unspoken straining to be given voice, but Bayuda turned his back on her. “I’ll find you after dinner.”

Only the imprint of his serpentine presence was left behind in the sand. Kalahari wanted to run after him as much as she wanted to run away, throw off the crushing mantle of her responsibility and follow the line of the sun until she ended up somewhere beyond the desert. Instead, Kalahari lowered herself back onto the sand, and tied the broken cord back around her wrists.

Her prayer became for Bayuda, but he would never hear it.