Swords of Arabia: Warlord Page 3

  The emerging picture was fascinating; particularly when one added the fact that Fouad had discussed the issues with his mother before the Council. All this, plus his total lack of reticence in admitting it openly, showed that Firyal’s influence was formidable indeed. Loathe Fouad as she did, Zahirah knew him well enough not to underrate his towering ability. Anyone who had such influence over such a man, particularly if that person was a woman, must themselves be of extraordinary talent. Zahirah, her long-term plan ever fresh in her mind, filed this information away, resolving to ingratiate herself even more with the Sheikha than had occurred naturally up to now.

  It took four days for Fouad’s new allies to send word to their tribes and for all their forces to gather. It took a further four days’ hard riding to reach the vicinity of Narash town, coastal capital of the sheikhdom and the scene of Mishari’s treachery. Fouad crested the hills, which overlooked the walled town half a mile away, shortly after dusk on the eighth day. His instinct was to attack under cover of darkness, but he knew that many of his followers and allies would be horrified at what they would see as a lack of honour, so he settled down to wait out the night. He spent the time discussing tactics with his allies. Again, his decision had already been made, and once his supporters had fed it to the council, he opted in public for what he and Firyal had already decided in private.

  First light saw him seated on the highest hill with his warriors gathered around him, as he despatched a lone envoy to offer Mishari one last chance of peace. A worthless gesture, he knew, but one his future plans to re-unite the family demanded. He watched impassively as his messenger, one of his bravest young men, neared the walls of the town.

  His face didn’t lose its rock-like rigidity even when a shot rang out and the figure spun round in its saddle. For a moment, it looked as if he would be unseated and fall to the sand, but, with a huge effort, the rider righted himself and pulled hard on the reins to control his startled mount. Regaining control, he wheeled sharply and, hunched low in pain, rode back towards his own lines.

  Fouad waited no longer. Rising in his silver-edged saddle, as he let out his war cry of “For Allah and Fouad,” he raced down the shifting slopes. With wild cries, two thousand or more riders followed him, war cries of the various tribes and clans freezing the blood of all but one of the defenders huddled in the town.

  Mishari, half-crazed with power and hashish, saw himself as invincible and stalked the Citadel’s ancient walls, spitting defiance and venom at the approaching riders who were now flooding out in all directions, tightly enclosing the town on its landward side. On its seaward side, boatloads of Fouad’s supporters were already scudding into place across the blue waters of the Gulf to blockade the mouth of the harbour. Fouad was determined to ensure that no one was able to flee the beleaguered capital and gain sanctuary in one or other of the Gulf Statelets to the south, or even worse, with the al Saud.

  The sun dancing off the swords and spears of both the land and waterborne troops, as well as the silver inlaid in many of the ornate saddles, dazzled the defenders and was another reason for them to close their eyes. Nothing though, even hands and fingers stuffed into frightened ears, was enough to shut out the sounds of approaching death. War cries, mingling with gunfire and the screams of excited horses, reverberated round the high walls with dreadful clarity in the clear, desert air.

  As the fighting commenced, the cries of the wounded and dying added to the increasing clamour. Most of the casualties were, as Fouad had known they would be, amongst the attackers. It was inevitable; swirling around as they were with impotent fury beneath the town’s strong walls, they fell easy prey even to the mediocre marksmanship of those manning the defences. It had to be. Fouad needed the appearance of an orthodox frontal assault to lull the defenders, whilst other plans went into operation. In the meantime, he plunged down deep into the fray, riding dangerously close to the city walls, jeering at the defenders and particularly Mishari, as weak-livered jackals, and then riding away out of range of the town’s few muskets with such arrogant contempt that even this prudence seemed a slur on the defenders’ manhood.

  “Fouad! The signal!” Fouad wheeled his horse round in a vicious arc as he heard Faisal’s cry. Triumph lanced from his eyes as he saw the yellow and gold cloth draped, as if by accident, on the furthest corner of the baked mud walls. His men had the city gates!

  Swiftly he rode towards the heavy, iron-studded gates guarding the town’s entrance, at the head of fifty of his personal guard. As his sweating, excited horse neared them, they swung open with a groan which echoed the defenders’ own. Not checking their pace, the attackers swept through the entrance, cheered by those of their number who had infiltrated the town during the night. Fouad raced at breakneck speed through the narrow winding streets, into and through the souk or marketplace and on toward the massive citadel. The fortress, built many years before by the Portuguese, dominated the town and, until it too was captured, Fouad knew that the town wouldn’t be his.

  Few opposed his force. Mishari’s strength was already ebbing. Many surrendered and joined up with those riding in immediately behind Fouad’s guard. Those who didn’t, died.

  The gates! Had his followers still got control of the gates to the Citadel itself? The question pounded in Fouad’s mind as he swept through the town, his face cast in a look which made him seem as death incarnate. He knew that if they hadn’t, his strategy was in desperate trouble already. He could have had the gates to the town any time since last night. His men, aided by supporters left behind by Fouad when he’d fled the town eight months before, had been in position but were under instructions to wait until they received a signal from another group of Fouad’s men inside the fort itself. These had the even more difficult task of gaining control not just of the gates, but also of the winding, deliberately narrow passage leading from them into the wide square at the fort’s heart. They had signalled that they were now moving to take control.

  This control though, Fouad knew, as he raced desperately to reach them, could only be temporary. Mishari, weak and inept though he was, had competent men around him who would be watching the gates for just such a move. This was why Fouad’s men hadn’t been able to make a move until he was actually in the town with reinforcements and then only with a few hand-picked men. It was a fine balance – they’d had to be near enough to immediately take control, but not close enough to raise the defenders’ suspicions.

  Once Fouad made his dash through the town, loyalist troops were to wrest the Citadel gates from Mishari’s men. If Fouad failed to reach them they would be killed. If Fouad reached the gates and they’d not got control, or had lost it, he would be penned up against still hostile walls with only a small force to protect him. Then Mishari’s supporters, now hiding in the town’s small houses, would re-emerge and kill him. The risk had to be taken. To capture the town but still have Mishari penned up in the fort would leave his back dangerously exposed, and even weaker to face Saud than if he’d not attempted to regain his throne. Minutes would tell him whether his finely balanced plan had worked or was in ruins.

  Mishari and his advisers, watching from the walls of the Citadel, were perplexed. Why was Fouad risking his life with the speed of his approach, when a more leisurely mopping-up exercise in the town made more sense?

  “The Jackal’s turd has been touched by Allah!” Mishari sneered, using the Islamic term for one who is mad.

  Ali ben Sa’ad, his oily advisor, demurred. Though far brighter than his master, he was equally confused by Fouad’s behaviour, but knowing him, he knew there would be a reason. He had an uneasy feeling that his own neck depended on his finding that reason, and quickly. Fouad had, though, over-estimated the ability of some others of his half-brother’s advisors. Most of them, clustered around the renegade, were inclined to side with Mishari and confidently awaited word of Fouad’s destruction; a confidence about to be brutally shattered.

  “Merciful heaven! The gates!” shrieked Ali, his words cutting
through their complacency like a knife. “He must have people trying to seize the Citadel’s gates! Quickly,” he ordered those nearest, “send reinforcements down, or we’re undone!” Panic seized Mishari and his retinue as the advisor’s words were driven home by a rising wail of despair coming from under their very feet. The guards surrounding the citadel’s gates below were already fighting to stay alive as they were attacked from behind by Fouad’s warriors.

  Mishari’s men fought with the frightened ferocity of cornered rats. Their actions were guided not by love for the usurper, most held him in secret contempt, but fear of what would happen if – when – Fouad won. This fear, and the tenacious defence it engendered, put Fouad’s whole strategy at risk. Despite their superhuman bravery, his men couldn’t secure the gates. He was now less than three hundred yards from them and their thick wooden surfaces, strengthened with heavy strips of iron, still remained firmly shut to his racing force.

  The leader of Fouad’s men inside the gates grew frantic as he heard the hurrying footsteps of reinforcements on the steps above his head. The situation was worsened still further when, as if sensing that Fouad’s thrust was faltering, men started running out from the doorways along their route and, with swords and daggers, fought to stop his headlong dash. Fouad himself cut down six men within the next hundred yards, his men fifty more, as they fought desperately to maintain their speed. Once that was lost they knew they were finished.

  Rounding the last corner, the fort’s gates less than fifty yards away, Fouad found his way barred by a solid wall of men stretched across the narrow roadway. His mare reached the waiting defenders in seconds and he found himself surrounded by yelling tribesmen trying to pull him from his horse. Their hands were slippery with sweat from the heat, intense in the confined space, the sun’s already fierce heat doubled by its harsh reflection from the white of the houses. Screaming, many strained to grasp his arms whilst others pulled at the horse’s bridle, forcing her to a rearing halt.

  His danger was acute and his bodyguard, seeing this, re-doubled their efforts to close around him. To no effect. Too many pressed in on the embattled sheikh for them to succeed. He was as good as dead, and those enemies surrounding him knew it and, screaming their victory, launched themselves at him for the death strokes. Fouad’s horse stumbled and, fighting to keep her upright, he almost missed the figure who leaped from an adjacent roof, curved sword glittering evilly as it flashed down toward his unprotected head. For a moment, Fouad looked into the eyes of his assailant and his blood chilled. The fanatical glare of the zealot blazed down on him and he knew he was facing one of his brother’s Wahhabi allies. Abandoning his efforts to right his mare, his own sword scythed upward in reflex action faster than thought. His would-be assassin screamed as his arm, severed below the elbow, landed at his feet. Fouad pushed the shocked tribesman from him, leaving his followers’ horses’ hooves to finish him off, and turned to deal with the mass of men closing in on him from all sides. So intense was the fighting and the noise that he almost missed the cry from one of his guards.

  “Lord Fouad! The gates!”

  He raised himself in his saddle and saw that the huge gates were slowly opening. His men had seized them! Fouad felt a moment’s fierce elation as he rallied his men. He knew he had seconds at most to reach the gates and reinforce the small force who had so brilliantly taken them. His war cry erupted from all their throats as they raced the last yards through the arched gateway into the space under the stone tower.

  Defenders swirled around them, desperately trying to push them back out of the fort. A dozen, suspended like bats from handholds on the vaulted roof, dropped onto their shoulders. Many of Fouad’s men died from daggers thrust into their throats before they realised where the danger was coming from.

  Grappling with an attacker, Fouad himself survived only because of Mohammed, his young half-brother. A little further back in the jostling group of horsemen, he hadn’t been attacked immediately. Seeing his brother’s danger, he shouted a warning and surged forward, pushing aside friend and foe alike in his frantic haste to reach Fouad.

  “Back, you pig’s offspring!” he spat, as he reached Fouad’s side, his sword impaling one would-be assassin against the walls of the narrow entrance. “Above you, Fouad!” he called in sharp warning as another silent figure dropped from the shadowy roof above them. Fouad, fighting off yet another attacker on his left side, couldn’t respond quickly enough and grunted with pain as the figure landed heavily on his shoulders; the man's weight threatening to drag them both from the frightened horse. Mohammed, reaching across the gap between their mounts, rose in his saddle and stabbed his sword sharply downwards. The attacker, his throat ripped open, fell backwards with a gargled scream.

  “Thank you, Fledgling!” Fouad gasped, using the affectionate nickname he’d given him as an infant. Mohammed had only time for a quick grin of acknowledgement before a large body of reinforcements swept around the corner and it needed all their tenacity to avoid being forced out back into the town.

  The stone-hard flooring around the gateway was becoming as lethal a part in the battle as any of the swords or daggers above them. In its blood-soaked slipperiness, it was a bigger danger to Fouad’s mounted attackers than to the defenders, much more sure-footed and agile in their bare or lightly clad feet. Seeing this, Fouad ordered some of his men to dismount. His action stemmed, in some part, the seemingly irreversible push backwards his force was undergoing. He knew, though, that they were in a desperate situation. Unless Faisal and the others had managed to follow him through the gates of the town and reach him soon, the whole campaign would collapse inside these gates.

  “They’re coming! I can hear them!” Mohammed called jubilantly, as if reading his brother’s mind. Fouad, straining, could hear nothing and thought for a moment that his young brother’s enthusiasm was making him hear things. But no! Now he could hear the rising chant of many war cries as his men and their allies fought off the defenders at the town’s gates and flooded in. Not a moment too soon, as Fouad saw, even more reinforcements poured into the narrow neck of the passageway. Now though, his men had new heart. They were easily able to hold off even this new threat until sufficient of their own men reached them and turned the battle, at last, in Fouad’s favour. Though it took another two hours’ fighting for Mishari’s defeat to be certain, when it came it was absolute.

  Chapter 4

  Fouad the Victor didn’t delay in administering justice. He had his brother and his leading supporters brought before him. Seated on a small dais in the Citadel’s square, his men in a large circle facing him and his sword at his feet, he looked down on them in contempt. He said nothing though for several moments, letting the tension, already almost unbearable, rise even higher. He looked to his right, where Firyal, veiled and silent, sat with two of her women in attendance. She had, contrary to the normal rules of warfare, ridden with a small escort in the wake of the attacking army. Her dozen racing camels had kept her party within hours of the main horse-borne force and she was thus able to catch up to the fighters whilst they were engaged in taking the town and fort. She had known she was risking capture, and worse, if the battle had gone against her son. As did he. Whilst carefully avoiding ordering her to desist, he had strongly tried to persuade her, with no success. Firyal was determined and that determination had placed her and Zahirah next to him, a full, though discreet, part of his victory celebrations. Before those celebrations, however, justice needed to be done.

  Most of the ten men gathered in front of him, their arms tied viciously tight behind their backs, looked up at him in fear and with no hope of surviving the next few minutes. The justice of Fouad the Hawk had been too well known these dozen years for them to have few illusions on that score. Two, however, did harbour such hopes. As if he sensed this, Fouad chose to deal with them first.

  “Bring forward ben Sa’ad,” he commanded suddenly into the silence. Stumbling under the heavy-handed shoves of his guards, Ali was pushed forward. />
  “Lord Fouad,” he said servilely, giving a deep bow. Unfortunately for him, any effect was dissipated by his rear end receiving a swift kick from one of the guards, and he ended his greeting face down in the dirt, where Fouad was inclined to leave him. Signalling for him to be kept on his face, he ordered his bonds to be cut. “Ali ben Sa’ad,” he mused, “I find you in strange company for one who was my advisor. And my father’s before me.”

  “My Lord, I can explain!” A wretched figure as he sprawled in the dirt, his thin body wracked by trembling, he started to try and exonerate himself.

  “Desist! You can tell me nothing I don’t know,” Fouad interrupted him. He spoke the truth. He was well aware that Ali, finding Fouad not as malleable as his father had been, had resented the subsequent decline in his own influence. The ageing palace schemer had joined forces with the young, dissatisfied Mishari, himself only recently pardoned for previous plotting. Ali believed, rightly, that the weak younger man would immediately let more power return to and stay in his hands, than the resolute Fouad ever would.

  “Let him rise,” Fouad instructed, after he had contemplated the grovelling official for a few moments. Ali rose as quickly as his shaking legs would allow and stood with bowed shoulders, still trembling violently.

  “You were my servant and you betrayed me,” he began. Casual though his tone was, there was an undercurrent which congealed the blood of all near enough to hear it. Even the innocent. “I gave you my hand in friendship and you betrayed me. Remind me, which hand did you grasp mine with?”

  Ali looked up puzzled, as Fouad paused. Seeing that the sheikh required an answer, he extended his right hand and replied hesitantly in a voice whose croakiness bore witness to his stress. “This one, Lord.”