Aisha groaned. “The danger’s passed.” Her voice was hoarse with disuse.
Mazen snapped into action, immediately reaching into his saddlebag for their waterskin. The liquid was tasteless, and yet it seemed the sweetest thing he’d ever had in his life. He had to force himself to take sips and to hand the waterskin over to Aisha afterward.
Loulie glanced warily over her shoulder. “You think those are the same ghouls we evaded before?”
Qadir frowned. “Most likely. Though their tenacity is… unusual.”
The merchant groaned. “Is it too much to ask for one day of uneventful travel?” She flexed her fingers in Qadir’s direction. He handed her their waterskin. Mazen didn’t realize he was staring at her until she lowered the waterskin and frowned at him. “Something on my face?”
His thoughts were so formless and scattered that he was at a loss for how to respond. He was just so glad to see that her visage had resolved into a definitive shape again.
Thankfully, Aisha filled the awkward silence. “It’s a good thing ghouls are slow,” she said. “Otherwise, from the sound, we’d have to deal with an army.”
Mazen tucked the information away. He had gathered that ghouls deadened noise where they wandered, but it was helpful to know one could estimate the size of a group by the quiet it provoked. Useful and extremely disquieting.
Loulie scowled. “They probably smell the death on the two of you.”
Aisha snorted. “Don’t act so virtuous, relic seller. If they’re tracking any of us, it’s you. You have a bag of relics. You’re practically walking ghoul bait.”
A memory snapped into place at her words; Mazen remembered the story his mother had once told him about the ghouls. One he could still recall the beginning of…
“In the desert there exists a group of undead jinn who have one foot in death and another in life. What they lack in strength, they make up for with their sharpened senses. Though they are mostly blind, they can smell magic from miles and miles away.”
There was a lull in the narrative as he tried to remember the rest.
“Sayyidi.” Aisha’s voice was a hiss.
Mazen looked up and saw the merchant staring at him. She looked perplexed.
“Oh.” It dawned on him he’d said the words aloud. “Sorry, I was… remembering a story.”
The merchant looked at him intently, eyes narrowed as if she were trying to read him. Mazen’s heart hitched. No, it was as if she were looking through him—
He saw a flash out of the corner of his eye.
A hiss of wind in his ear. A thud as something pierced the dirt.
Mazen followed the group’s startled gazes to an arrow shaft protruding from the sand. He pressed a hand to his cheek, but there was no cut, no blood. Just a phantom pain chased by a current of fear.
Then: pandemonium.
Another arrow shot past them. One, two—a volley of them, coming through a curtain of dirt. One whizzed past the merchant’s shoulder. Another grazed Mazen’s horse. It rose with a terrified whinny, and Mazen gasped as he dug his heels into its flanks. He was able to remain in the saddle only by holding tight to the reins.
He calmed his horse enough to steady his vision and look beyond the wall of dust. His heart stopped when he saw their assailants: an army of shambling white forms garbed in black, with sunken eye sockets shadowed beneath their hoods. If not for their unnaturally long, wiry limbs and empty eyes, they could have passed as human.
Mazen was torn between wanting to scream and wanting to cry.
“Where did they come from?” The merchant’s voice was barely a whisper.
Her bodyguard reached out, set his fingers on her wrist. “Loulie,” he said softly. “There are too many; we have to outrun them.”
The merchant glanced down at her compass. Even Mazen could tell it was useless, for the arrow was spinning in wild circles. Loulie shoved it into her pocket with a shaky sigh.
And then they fled.
But there was no escaping the ghouls. The air filled with wails and shrieks as the undead creatures fired on them from various directions. Mazen swerved in his saddle to avoid one arrow only to have another tear a hole through his pant leg. He couldn’t help the sound of distress that escaped his lips as he flattened himself against his horse. It took all his concentration to maneuver around the creatures stumbling into his way.
Loulie made no such effort. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her ride right over a ghoul without batting an eye. But the creature retaliated before it fell, sweeping its sword through the air and ripping the bottom of her cloak. Loulie cried out, and the sound caught the attention of her bodyguard. Qadir glanced over his shoulder, eyes wide with alarm. He relaxed only when Loulie waved a hand to reassure him of her safety.