A Flame Run Wild (27 page)

The horses' hooves left great pocks in the dunes as they climbed. Almost instantly the pocks filled at the wind's ghostly hands, and on the caps of the dimes the streaming sand blew in pale shifting threads. Alexandre's big black led the way, his master's slim body supple as a reed as they negotiated the undulating sands. Lisle came next, then Flanchard, with the rest fanning loosely behind. Three scouts ranged well ahead.

In perhaps a half hour, the scouts sighted Saladin's camp and waited for the raiders to catch up to them. The camp was a dark, sprawling octopus of tents, the largest capped with pennants bearing the Saracen crescent. "We will take that long left-handed arm with the fat tents," Alexandre ordered. "Split and go in on both sides. Take no loot, but quietly kill every Saracen you find. Retreat instantly at the trumpet's call and ride to the wadi east of Acre, then you ten"—he designated the far riders on his right— "fan to the south and be prepared to harry and delay the enemy for the rest to ride on to Acre." He looked at Lisle. "My lord, you, with Flanchard as your second, will lead the main body to Acre. Milord de Signe and I will be with the harriers."

Alexandre could feel Louis's eyes on him. Louis was well aware that the harriers had the most hazardous assignment. Alexandre smiled grimly at him. He had not deliberately chosen Louis to bait the Saracens, but he would have no regrets if Louis was skewered and no longer able to harass Liliane. He only wished that Jacques was available; that one was a plump worm to dangle before Saladin's army!

Like deadly, vengeful spirits, they entered the Saracen camp with only the whickers of tethered horses to greet them. Quietly slashing the canvas tents, they turned long rows of sleepers into blood-stained bundles that would never move again. Cries rose as the canvas was jostled and ripped. An isolated scream rose up to the moon, then another. Clatter sounded as the rest of the camp was aroused. Men poured from their tents, slashing in retaliation. The swords' rise and fall quickened to swift, urgent hacking. Minutes later, Alexandre raised a smeared gauntlet and the clarion called out over the slaughter.

In moments the raiders were remounted and pounding to the west, leaving behind a furious uproar. The Moors appeared on the horizon just as the raiders split. Louis was one of the first to veer off, Alexandre among the last. The pounding of pursuing hooves and the cries of revenge rose like the beat of a racing, bursting heart. The visibility was short and the sensation was that of a hideous, rushing mirage, overwhelming all in its path.

Two riders veered after Alexandre, as another part of the Moorish band pursued the rest of the harriers. Alexandre wheeled to meet the pair as they closed in on him. Digging in his heels, he spurred forward. To his horror, his right stirrup broke. With a fierce wrench at his ankle, the girth snapped, pitching him sidelong onto the sand. Alexandre hit hard, rolling, the gritty spray biting his face and blinding him. Stunned and disoriented but still clutching his sword, he leaped awkwardly to his feet, only to have the wrenched ankle cave under him with a burst of pain. He stifled a curse, gasping as he forced himself upright again. A shouting rider loomed from the darkness, slicing down-at him. Reacting with blind instinct, he desperately blocked the attack with the flat of his Wade, twisted his wrist to slide steel on steel and thrust high to make contact with an armpit. The Saracen shrieked and pitched forward, his flying weight dragging Alexandre backward off his feet. The Saracen, far from dead, was up first. His sword arm useless, the Saracen shifted his blade to the other hand. Awkward and frantic to end a disadvantaged fight quickly, he sliced and went wide. In seconds, Alexandre's sword found his attacker's stomach. An instant too late. The thud of hooves filled his skull as the second horseman leaned out in space, javelin poised, its point trained on Alexandre's breast.

Then the Saracen leaned forward at a grotesque angle. He hurtled off the horse, a feathered quarrel buried at the base of his skull. In moments, another Saracen galloped from the darkness. Alexandre tightened his grip on his sword as the rider charged him. As he drew back his sword to meet the assault, he heard his name unbelievingly. "Alexandre!" The Saracen reined in with a flurry of sand and extended a hand down to him.

"
Le bon Dieu!
What the . . . ?"

Amber eyes flashed in a flawless face. "Hurry! Others are behind me!"

"Liliane! You spying little witch . . . !" Wasting no more time on his startled fury, he vaulted onto her gray mare. "Come on, to camp!"

She spurred the mare forward. "We shall never reach Acre carrying two! The pursuit's too close!"

"Then head northwest. There is an oasis where we can try to hide until they are past."

They were surrounded by the starlit night, the sand-shifting wind and the mare's labored breathing as it struggled up the dunes. Though Alexandre said nothing, Liliane could feel his tension and anger. If they survived, she was in for trouble. Except for the dunes glimmering about them, they could see nothing beyond fifty yards. That meant they had to keep fifty yards between themselves and the Saracens to remain unseen. She feared that the jingles of the mare's bridle bit might carry; the desert had an uncanny way of sometimes swallowing sound, sometimes magnifying it. Just now, they were beginning to hear the gallop of many horses closing from the east. Liliane urged the mare to hurry, but it was already straining. If they did not find the oasis soon, they would be run down. At that moment, the mare tripped, pitching them both forward to roll down a dune. Stunned, they rolled to evade the thrashing horse. As it floundered up, Alexandre scrambled to his feet to catch its rem. Trembling, the mare slid down the base of the dune and limped to a halt.

"The devil," Alexandre hissed. "She has taken a wrench." He slapped the sorrel on the rump to send it lurching off, then caught Liliane's hand and dragged her after him. "Come on, run!"

"What about the mare?" she gasped. "Good horses are worth their weight in gold in Acre. She will cost a fortune to replace!"

"Which would you rather give up, a sack of gold or our skins?" he retorted. "We might as well try to conceal an elephant from the Saracens out here. The mare will head for the nearest water. We may be able to find her at the oasis."

Liliane had to concede his point. The hoofbeats were closer now, coming in waves that sometimes seemed to recede before they grew inevitably louder. Then, abruptly, they became thunder.

He thrust her toward the shadow of a dune. "Down!" The flat of his hand hit her squarely in the small of the back. She went down on her face in sand. A split second later, Alexandre landed atop her. She started to fight to clear her nose and mouth from the sand, then lay still as if she were shrinking. Hoofs threw stinging sand against her ears and cheeks. With bated breath, she waited for the horse to stumble and fall, waited for the next mount to pound them into bloody mush. . . . The ground shuddered beneath them, deafening them so that when at last Alexandre pulled her up, she scarcely realized that the Saracens were past.

Without a sound, Alexandre limped over a vast dune that swelled leviathan under the dim moon. The dune receded and another swelled. On and on they stumbled until she merely clung doglike to Alexandre's belt. Then, painfully, her forehead and nose connected with his mailed back. "There," he whispered. "See it?"

Liliane dimly saw a dull, silvery glimmer; a moonlit gleam. From what? Nothing lay in this desert but the hot sand beneath their feet. A pale female was the desert by night—undulating curves and sand whispering into the wind like a woman's hair. At dawn, the sun would rise like the shield of cruel Mars, and they would wander at the mercy of both the broiling heat and the Saracens. The desert would become a Medusa with the deadly embrace of a hundred stinging serpents. Only now the desert was virginal, free of the envy of gods.

Alexandre caught her arm. "Are you all right? You look faint."

She smiled a little at his anxious tone. "I can keep going, but you must not let me stop to breathe so much; it goes to my head."

He gave her hair a little tug. "That gleam you see in front of us is the oasis, so we have not far to go now. Make no noise. Saladin may have left us a few surprises among the oasis palms."

Alexandre was silent for a moment, staring down at her. He touched her hair again, then fanned it lightly out to catch the wind's whisper. Like a golden spiderweb, it floated and fell, fragile, as if lying upon the water's surface before it sank. "The desert becomes you," he murmured. Then he drew her into his arms. His leather breastplate was cold, his arms hard, yet she felt only his heartbeat, the warmth of his mouth. They might have had the desert, the whole world to themselves. Danger, reality, all was merely an echo. She clung to him tightly, as if Acre had never been, as if the Saracens might not swarm upon them in moments. Not moving, their embrace held dancing and music, and they felt young as they might never be again. The desert threatened death but yielded life, as well. Their kiss was sweet, defiant.

After a long while, they parted reluctantly. "I ought to beat you," Alexandre whispered, "but I keep wanting to do it with your hair.
Dieu,
what a maddening, alluring creature you are. ..." His head lowered as if he were going to pursue that allure, but then he released her with a sigh.,"We are mad, both of us, to minutes, we could be slit to ribbons, yet here we are, playing like lovebirds." When she started to protest, he laid a finger against her lips. "Not another coo,
ma comtesse
. I want to enjoy more than a ruffling of your feathers tonight. Staying alive is a prerequisite to making love."

She giggled. "I have always wanted to see a pigeon's teeny, weeny—"

He swatted her bottom. "Mind your tongue, you minx. Teeny weeny's all you deserve tonight; that and a gray old man. Your persistent pursuit of disaster is aging me."

Creeping like centipedes, they finally arrived at the oasis. The dry palms rattled in the wind. Frayed, heavily listless but for the stirrings of their long fronds, the palms were high and thin, scattered among thick catalpa and thorn bush. A low gully led through the undergrowth to a pool of water at the center of the oasis. Motioning Liliane to keep low, Alexandre followed the gully, his feet silent upon the dry round stones at its base. A stirring of dark shapes ahead made them freeze. A long head lifted, tugging as if trying to be free of something. A low scrape of rock sounded.

"Two horses ahead," Alexandre whispered against her ear. "Stay here. Use the bow if their riders show."

Leaving her crouched in a cluster of thorn bush, Alexandre began to circle the fringe of the clearing around the water. Moments later, a slight thrashing occurred in the undergrowth. Liliane held her breath and readied the bow. A burnoosed figure reared from the brush only inches from her, grabbed at a horse's head and swung up onto its back. She fired a quarrel at the flash of white above the burnoose. The Saracen went down. To her horror, the man was not dead. With a long gash splitting his nose and cheekbone, he charged her, his scimitar a wicked blur. Then a silver band blocked his throat and a dirk's blur counter-pointed the scimitar. The Saracen's hand clawed up, raked out, jerked and dropped limp. Liliane looked away as Alexandre pushed the dead Saracen away, then stooped to wipe his blade. He glanced up at the nervous tethered mount and the edgily dancing companion mare. "We are in luck. We ride back to camp. There is only one saddle, so the other horse must be a runaway." When she did not answer, he turned. "What is wrong?"

"Nothing," she replied briefly. "I am just a little tired."

He eyed her keenly. "Tired of walking or tired of splendid gore? Your stomach would not be beginning to rebel at your chosen profession, would it?"

"Do not be rotten, Alexandre." She slumped down on a low bolder. "Do you really think I have been enjoying this marvelous, mosquito-ridden summer? Enjoy trying to slaughter men I do not hate, for a cause I find repellent?"

"Oh, I thought you were having a fine time," he replied sardonically. "Tonight was particularly splendid. A pity you missed the show at Saladin's camp. We killed most of the wretches in their beds. Very gallant and chivalrous, we were. If they ever capture one of us, I should not blame them if they buried us alive in scorpions."

"Stop it!"

"Oh, but then you did not miss all the show. You arrived for the finale, and I do owe you thanks for saving my skin." His head cocked quizzically. "Just how did you happen to arrive at so convenient a moment?"

"I joined the Saracen pursuit," she replied dully. "I was dressed like them. In the dark, they never noticed me."

He was silent for a moment, then his breath came out in a hiss of weariness. "I might have known. But, then, why not? Why do we not all dress like Saracens and end up fighting ourselves? What is the difference?"

"We are fighting each other again as we did this afternoon," she said quietly. "A little while ago, we were kissing."

Alexandre stroked her hair. "Come, let us walk by the water. I want to declare an armistice."

Her eyes slid over the Saracen. "I am not in the mood."

"I should think a man's death might put you very much in the mood to enjoy peace," he murmured. "For myself, I need to look upon water tonight. I hope,
par Dieu
, that it is clean." He walked off toward the glimmer in the darkness.

After a few minutes, Liliane followed him. The last thing she wanted now was to be alone with the Saracen—alone with herself. She saw Alexandre wandering about the patch of water. For a time, she followed him at a slight distance. The water was quiet, unlike anything she had seen in Palestine. Whatever muddy dregs the basin might hold, the pool surface looked clear at night. Beneath unnaturally large stars, it lay, a rare, liquid jewel where no fish swam among its facets, mirrors among mirrors. She moved close to Alexandre. "What if the Saracens come back?"