Swords of Arabia: Warlord Read online

  Toward evening of the second day, when the shadows were just starting to creep into the deep, burning blue of the blazing sky, they reached a small oasis, its lush greenness richly shimmering, a stark, enticing contrast to the harsh sandy wastes surrounding it. Clearly their destination, Zahirah realised, as she recognised some of the horsemen who galloped toward them as belonging to the advance party Fouad had sent out ahead of them.

  Their column halted as the riders approached. Zahirah continued to peep out of the gap between folds of the ornate, brightly coloured litter that she and her infant son were travelling in with Firyal.

  Borne regally aloft on the rocking back of a camel, the litter, though stuffy, was reasonably cool and the time had passed pleasantly enough with Firyal starting to teach her the mysteries of reading. After two days Zahirah had begun to accept the older woman’s kindness and interest in her and was already starting to recognise some of the simpler words in the book.

  Lessons were forgotten, however, as everyone strained to hear what the riders were saying to Fouad, riding at the head of the column surrounded by his guards. Though they couldn’t hear directly, word was soon passed back to them that the oasis was safe for them to approach. Had the advance guard not been there it would have been a different story. The fifty warriors had scarcely arrived the day before when they had come under attack from a force of Wahhabi tribesmen.

  “The Wahhabi!” Zahirah paled as she whispered the name of the desert’s fanatical warriors of God.

  She looked over at Firyal and recalled her words before they left. “Listen well on this journey, child, and you will learn much that will answer your questions and give you knowledge that you will need in your future life.”

  She would then explain no more and Zahirah had been left puzzled, but alerted to note everything that transpired. She still was more than a little bemused by the Sheikha’s words, though. The only question she’d wanted an answer to was why her tribe had been attacked with such utter savagery, and she already knew the answer to that; Fouad the Hawk was a sick animal.

  By late morning of the day after their arrival, the small oasis was starting to become very crowded. Large numbers of horsemen, armed to their eyebrows and with the far-sighted, implacable gaze of the true desert nomad, were galloping in by the hour. By the time the arrivals slowed to a trickle, Firyal estimated there were several hundred, all escorts for the powerful sheikhs her son must bind to him or lose his kingdom.

  Zahirah and the other women were kept busy preparing food for the new arrivals and had little time to look around at the activity going on about them. As each leader arrived he was shown immediately to Fouad’s large tent, where he was greeted with the traditional sweet tea, followed by the elaborately prepared coffee made, as was the Narashi custom, by Fouad himself.

  Firyal, out of sight behind hangings, was able to hear every word, but she knew that little of importance would be decided, or even discussed, until after the great feast to be held later that night. She knew because Fouad, who valued her judgement, had kept her informed as to all his plans and the reasons behind all his actions. This had always been his habit, but now even more so since they had been forced to flee when Mishari, Fouad’s half-brother, had rebelled and seized power. Firyal also knew that the odds were against her son achieving the alliances he needed to launch a counter-attack.

  Two years or so previously it might have been different, but that was before their traditional allies, the powerful Rashid, had suffered the first of a series of devastating blows. The prestige of the powerful dynasty, if not their power, had been seriously weakened by their loss of Riyadh to ibn Saud. In itself an unimportant town, its value lay in the fact that it was the ancient capital of the al Saud, then in impotent exile in Kuwait. While the Rashid held it, it was a potent, living symbol of the weakened power of their – and Fouad’s – traditional enemy.

  Now the Rashid held it no longer. Re-taken in a daring raid with a few dozen supporters by the charismatic ibn Saud, its recapture had sent shock waves throughout Arabia; shock waves which continued rippling outwards towards Arabia’s eastern coasts and Narash. The growing strength of the house of Saud, traditional enemies of their own lines, made many of the coastal sheikhs uneasy about their future. Even now, tribesmen loyal to ibn Saud were gathering deep in the Nejd region of central Arabia, prior to, one day, sweeping through into the east and, eventually and inevitably, on down into Narash. Firyal knew the likelihood was that if Mishari didn’t kill Fouad, Saud would. Of the two, she would bet on the latter. She had few illusions that Mishari, a son of a junior wife, was able enough to fight off either his avenging brother or the expansionist Saud.

  As the feasting got under way, with the sun setting with its usual fiery splendour, she sent for Zahirah to join her. “Sit and listen, child. The Council will commence shortly and we will know whether we have a chance to live or are to die.”

  Fouad, on the other side of the drapes in the men’s quarters, was equally pessimistic as he turned to Faisal ibn Aziz. Elderly and immensely dignified, he was the leader of one of the larger tribes who traditionally had used Narashi grazing lands and deemed themselves allies of Fouad’s line.

  “Will you not ride with me against the rabid dogs and avenge the wrongs they have done to both our houses?” Fouad asked his long-time friend.

  The grey beard of Faisal shook as he voiced his doubts. “Assuredly great wrongs have been done us. For over a hundred and fifty summers, ever since Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab allied to the al Saud, our lands have been destroyed each time they attack us, and always it is in the name of Islam!” he spat. He caught the rising murmurs of agreement coming from the two dozen other tribal chiefs gathered at Fouad’s request.

  “All in this tent have suffered as the Saudi tribesmen sweep in and massacre all in their path. Yet, I wonder – is the time ripe to fight them? Should we not wait quietly until events favour us again?”

  “I think we should wait,” said a short, wiry man with a vivid scar across his cheek. “Even the Rashid, despite their strong Ottoman support, were defeated by their forces at Anayzah, only weeks ago – so why not we?”

  “The Rashid will retaliate, if not this year, then next or the one after that; it has always been so,” Fouad interjected quietly.

  “This may be so, but whilst they remain weakened, the al Saud can use all their forces against us,” argued another, to many nods of agreement.

  Fouad listened impassively as the discussion continued. Speaker after speaker reaffirmed their hatred of the al Saud, with their fierce intolerant brand of Islam. Equally, almost all then went on to state their belief that to fight them was useless. Fouad could sympathise. Ever since a fierce religious teacher called Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab had ridden out of the desert with his message of war to cleanse a polluted Islam, no tribe had been safe from ferocious attack. This was particularly so after he allied himself with the House of Saud and thus gained a powerful backer. A force of unimaginable power, zealotry and conquest was forged. In the long and bloody decades since many tribes had submitted to the fierce doctrine and were now advising him to do the same. He refused, stating his house ruled Narash, a land with no stomach for the intolerant Wahhabist teachings and one also free from any overlordship but the weak and distant Ottomans.

  “We are as the al Sabah and al Khalifa,” he responded now, as the suggestion was put again. “We are as we were before the rise of these pigs and so we will remain.” Would that it were true, he thought to himself. In truth, his house, although ruling the land of Narash from the coast into the desert lands of the interior for centuries, had never had as independent a status as either the al Sabah of Kuwait or the al Khalifah of Bahrain. Nor, crucially was Narash, unlike them, effectively under the protection of the overwhelmingly powerful British Empire. This was due not only to Narash’s historically very strong ties to the Ottoman Empire, but also to the fact that they had always fallen halfway between these recognised, semi-independent rulers and th
ose tribal chiefs who owed homage to a greater tribe. It was this ambiguity that made his task all the more difficult. Pride wouldn’t allow acceptance of any Saudi-influenced overlordship and historical precedent didn’t automatically bestow the veneer of near-independence.

  At the end of several hours of talking, Fouad knew he had lost. The tribes wouldn’t unite behind him. He had no option, therefore, but to try and force the usurper Mishari off his throne and then turn on ibn Saud, with only his own warriors, at the same time praying that the waiting Saud held off his own attack. He knew that he wouldn’t. The instant he, Fouad, moved to attack Mishari, Saud would attack him. Caught between the two forces, Fouad knew he would be destroyed.

  He knew he would lose, even as he rose to attempt one last argument; the closed faces surrounding him told that. As he started to speak, a shout from a lookout startled them all. The sheikhs waited impassively as information was brought to them about the cause of the disturbance.

  “Lights and singing, Lord,” a guard reported to Fouad. “Out in the desert,” he added unnecessarily. Eventually the cause of the noise entered the camp and a pathway cleared as if by magic. An unkempt figure clad only in a loincloth and goatskin cloak and playing a shababa, a flute- like instrument, capered into view, the flickering firelight making him seem even more outlandish to the stunned onlookers.

  The surrounding Bedouin backed away as they saw his wild eyes and heard the high-pitched wail of his voice intoning some unknown song. They wouldn’t harm him. His demeanour marked him out as mad and therefore, according to Narashi custom, touched by Allah and, as such, sacred; but equally they wouldn’t get too near him.

  He capered and pranced dangerously near the fire, his outstretched arms seeming to weave over and into it. The whole air crackled and flashed with an unseen energy. Even the fire itself seemed to respond as it flickered and flared, the heightened flames threatening to consume him. As he stopped in front of Fouad, a strange transformation took place, though afterwards men disagreed about what they had, indeed, seen. To some it appeared that he actually grew. From a small, old man with a hunchback, he seemed to become larger, younger and his voice deepened. To others he seemed to shrink to even less than he was before and his limbs took on the rounded softness of a young girl and his voice took on a gentle sweetness totally at variance with that used as he entered the camp. Then, despite standing right by the fire burning near the mouth of the tent, he suddenly started to shake as if with extreme cold.

  Word had spread about the strange visitor and the area to the front of the tent rapidly became crowded with those wishing to get a sight of him. Fouad ordered them back out of sight.

  “Respect the Holy Man!” he commanded.

  Under the spellbound gaze of the sheikhs, the Holy Man transformed yet again, into a white-clad, shimmering figure; to some, a golden youth, to others, a doe-eyed girl. Then, out of the vision’s mouth came a chant:

  The hawk is homeless in the east

  And flies alone over desert sands.

  His wings dip in tired defeat,

  His enemies circle; he is doomed.

  As they move in for the kill, his beak

  Lashes out and beats them back.

  Foes destroyed, he soars aloft

  Sweeps through the sands to

  Western coasts and there he

  Makes his final home.

  King of Hawks and wolves

  And all of deserts’ dwellers.

  Utter silence greeted his words. Then suddenly those nearest to him leapt up in awed amazement. As the strange storyteller had been chanting his strange rhyme, the air around him had seemed alive with crackling, spurting flames pouring from his fingers. Chanting his words, he’d taken a goatskin from around the shoulders of a startled but acquiescent chief and, in the total silence which greeted his chant, it was seen that markings now covered it.

  Faisal ibn Aziz took it and gasped, “His words are on the skin!” He touched it reverently and pulled back sharply as he felt the heat still emanating from the scorched leather. He looked in awe at the figure whose fingers were scorched and blackened.

  “He has made a prophecy,” he breathed. All around nodded in stunned agreement. Immensely superstitious, as all desert dwellers were, they all knew they had witnessed God speaking through the madman. The tent erupted into growing turmoil as the message itself, rather than its means of delivery, hit them all. Faisal again was the first to voice the unbelievable.

  “He has prophesied victory for Fouad,” he said simply. Many heads nodded; the Hawk was too much Fouad’s symbol for them to be in any doubt. Fouad waited, as impassive as ever. The madman had prophesied victory and dominion over the lands of the Nejd and Hejaz, all land to the Western Sea. The enormity hit them anew.

  Hassan ibn Abdulla, fiercest in his refusal to fight against the Saudi warlord, as his people had already suffered most, stood up and faced Fouad saying simply, “Fouad of the Shawaq, I ride with you.”

  Within seconds, Fouad had similar promises from all at the council. As he received their pledges of support he hid his elation. His eyes rested for a moment on the hangings behind which his mother watched, and their eyes met in mutual, blazing triumph.

  Chapter 3

  Fouad moved swiftly after the sheikhs rallied to his war banner. Without exception, all the chiefs at the Majlis followed Hassan’s lead and pledged his tribe. Events and politics made Fouad relentless in the councils that formed the next day to discuss strategy. Reports reaching him suggested that he had little time, perhaps only days, in which to use the power the unexpected outcome of the inter-tribal council had given him.

  A second, though unstated, reason for speed existed. Though his kingdom centred on the coast, his family were desert-bred Bedouin and he was very aware that desert alliances were frequently as shifting as the sand on which the people lived. Thus, no delay could be considered. The only question was – which foe to face first? Mishari or Saud? Family or family’s sworn enemy?

  Should he, with his now much enlarged forces, bank on his half-brother’s known caution, indeed, cowardice, when it came to battle and set out to fight the war-like Saud, confident he wouldn’t be attacked from the rear? Then, when he’d weakened, if not beaten the Saudi forces, turn and deal with the rebel in his, Fouad’s, own palace? Or should he gamble that Saud would delay any attack on him while he, Fouad, rode back into Narash and dealt with the renegade? This would also bring forward the day when he could free Nawal, a favourite sister and other family members whom he hadn’t managed to get out when Mishari usurped his throne.

  In some ways that gamble was greater, as Saud, battle-hardened and very experienced in desert warfare, was unlikely to let such an opportunity slip. He had already used the intra-family quarrels of the Rashid on his northern borders to his own advantage. The instant he knew Fouad was turning east to fight Mishari, he would launch his own warriors against his hated rival.

  For that, even more so now, was what Fouad was. The holy man’s words had gone far beyond predicting merely that he would hold what his family had always held. By the references to overlordship of all in the west, he had predicted the downfall of Saud. A double-edged weapon. Any less powerful a prophecy wouldn’t have rallied the frightened tribes to him. Its very power and effect on the superstitious Bedouin would, however, be enough to ensure Saud’s vengeful fury and a redoubling of his efforts to assert, he would say, “re-assert”, his family’s hegemony over all the east and Narash in particular. The destruction of Fouad and his house would, from the moment he heard of the dangerous prophecy, become Saud’s number one aim. Fouad knew it, because he would react in the same way. He also would tolerate no one who so challenged his line. He would pursue them to their destruction, destroying their tents, their grazing, their waterholes. He would slaughter their men in the heat of battle and their women and children in the cold light of victory. Whatever was necessary to make safe his own, he would do.

  His decision was made even before he lis
tened to the endless wrangling of the desert chiefs, as each attempted to sway the others with his rhetoric. It was irrelevant. Fouad, with his inner circle, knew there was only one way to go. However great the risk of Saud ripping into his exposed back, Fouad knew that the war with Saud and his fearsome Wahhabist fighters would be a long one. To wage it successfully, Fouad would need a strong base of his own. To lead his unruly confederation, he couldn’t rely on any chief to provide him such a base. Not if they wanted to keep their respect. He had to attack Mishari. Now.

  His decision made, he informed his council, being careful to observe the proprieties to avoid offence by seeming to hurry their deliberations. All were notoriously touchy; he knew he could lose valuable support over such a slight. Then the meeting dispersed, each man to prepare for the move.

  “You did well, my son,” Firyal congratulated Fouad, as he entered the inner part of the tent.

  Fouad nodded, “It was the only path. As we discussed. To attack Saud first would have been risking too much and too soon.”

  Zahirah, seated as she now often was with Firyal, was caught unawares by this speech and her eyes flew in surprise to the Sheikh’s face. Suddenly remembering both her position and her policy of not attracting his attention, she swiftly lowered her gaze again.

  Firyal, at a sign from her son, rose and left the tent with him. They left Zahirah, busy with her task of preparing wool for weaving, deep in thought, reviewing the recent conversation over and over again. It wasn’t merely that Firyal had congratulated Fouad on the Council’s decision. Nomadic tribes often gave more leeway to their women than more settled peoples did in such matters, as they did on issues such as the veil and in their being less strict on seclusion, so Zahirah was, to some extent, used to it. That Firyal spoke so openly, however, in front of her, showed she was not afraid her son would take umbrage, either at the comment or on being congratulated in front of one who was virtually a slave.