So sweet.
Khai took the kiss deeper, sliding his hands over her shoulders and down her back to draw her slender body more tightly against his. It seemed as if the curves of her body molded against his as she rose on her toes to meet him, her hands sliding up over his shoulders to curl around his neck. He breathed the soft scent of her in, felt the warmth of her body against his, her breasts against his chest, her hips tight against him. Memory taunted him. He remembered touching her, her body surrounding him, taking him inside her. Warmth filled him as his body tightened in response.
She tasted marvelous, incredible.
Khai lost himself in her, in that precious moment. He could have kissed her forever but this was neither the time nor place to do so.
The strong muscles of Khai’s shoulders bunched beneath Irisi’s hands and then his hair spilled over them as she speared her fingers into the thick heavy waves. She loved the feel of him, the sense of him…
It felt as if she melted into him, her limbs went weak and yet fire ran in her blood.
Looking down into her steady gaze, brushing a hand down her cheek, Khai said, roughly, in answer to her fears, “I’ll take my chances.”
Let the Grand Vizier do as he pleased. For her sake they would be careful so she didn’t have to worry so much for him, but he wasn’t going to let her go. He wouldn’t give her up, not now, not knowing what he knew.
That she loved him.
Not knowing what was in his own heart and soul – that he loved her, too.
Those ethereal eyes met his.
Irisi traced the line of his beard by the side of his mouth with her fingertips.
“Egypt would be much less without you in it. I don’t know if I could bear that.”
Khai cupped her cheek as his thumb brushed over her lips, before he pressed a kiss lightly beside one lovely eye.
“I’m harder to kill than you think. If this were another time, another place, I’d convince you of it,” Khai said, eyeing her.
It was clear he was teasing, pretending to do the manly strut.
She laughed.
Amused, she gave him an answering glance, a smile curving her lips.
“And how will you do that? Will you spar with me to prove you’re more than a match for any he sends?”
She the unbeatable warrior…
He smiled and said as he circled his arms around her and lifted her from her feet, “While that has its attractions, I think we can find another way.”
So beautiful, his Irisi, and so maddening, so beguiling. What was it to realize he was in love with her?
All the world.
“Can we?” Irisi asked, tilting her head back to look into his dark eyes, seeking the assurance there she needed.
Hope suddenly, impossibly, unfolded within her.
“We’ll find a way, Irisi,” he said, “that I promise.”
Letting out a breath, she nodded. It was enough. It would have to be.
He reached for the waterskin, following her back to the tent she shared with Banafrit.
“My lord Khai, welcome,” Banafrit said, as if surprised to see him, but her dark eyes were knowing, satisfied, and quite pleased.
So, he’d chosen
, Banafrit thought.
And rightly
.
What else was there in the world to get through the darkness but love?
“How can we serve you?” she asked. “Have you eaten?”
Wonderful smells filled the tent. Khai’s stomach growled.
“No,” he said, “and I’m starving.”
“Then join us,” Banafrit offered, holding out a piece of flatbread filled with lentils and savory vegetables. “Irisi cooked it.”
Her eyes sparkled with merriment, clearly teasing.
Irisi looked at her, rolling her eyes at such blatant matchmaking and shook her head in amusement.
“Don’t listen to her, Khai. We both cooked, but you’re welcome to join us.”
“I’m famished,” Khai admitted.
Smiling, he took the offered bread from Banafrit, but looked to Irisi, who was laughing.
“So, I will.”
It was very good.
Sometimes it was such simple things as made all the difference
, Banafrit thought, watching them.
It was no surprise to Khai that when the next attack came it came in the darkest hours of the night when their people were the least prepared, when they were weariest, when patrols slowed, and guards fought sleep. Some part of him had expected it.
Yelping cries broke the deep silence of the near desert. Ululating howls split the night. The moon was only a faint sliver of light above the sand. Screams of men shattered the peace as well, turning the darkness nightmarish and horrific.
He had his sword in hand as he ran from his tent at virtually the first cry.
Irisi and Banafrit, too, burst from their tent fully dressed, having slept in their clothes against just such an event.
“Nebi, my friend,” Irisi shouted, “find Khai.”
Emu, Kiwu, Alu circled around them before settling, their gazes intent on the darkness around them even as Nebi bounded off.
“Guard,” Irisi said to the others.
In the darkness, it was difficult to see, but Isis was a mistress of the moon as well.
Calling up a spell for light, Banafrit cast it into the sky. Silvery light brightened the desert around them, catching the Djinn off guard, revealing those that had crept close around the camp unseen in the darkness. Several of the guards and some of the patrols were already dead, one or two were possessed and the Djinn had closed around the camp in a half-circle.
Archers launched a flight of fire arrows into the air as those in the camp scrambled to face the new threat.
“Irisi,” Banafrit cried. She needed help, she had to maintain the spell for light.
Already calling up the necessary spells in her mind, in answer Irisi summoned a miniature sandstorm to sweep along the one side of the camp, burying the Djinn who attacked there, however temporarily. This, though, was the land of the Djinn, it was their country. It wouldn’t hold them for long. Some of the soldiers, though, raced to the settling sand and rammed their swords down into it as the sandstorm passed. When otherworldly hands pierced the sand, scrabbling for them, they scrambled back to safety.
Others soldiers ran to form a rough line of defense.
Using the wind, stealing brands from the watch fires with it, Irisi sent them as torches out among the oncoming Djinn to give the archers and spearmen a target they could see well enough to hit.
Djeserit’s people were already fading out into the darkness, taking the fight to the enemy.
With only that little light for his falcons to see by, Kahotep called up owls instead and sent them swooping soundlessly into the night.
No outcry marked the damage done to the Djinn, but there was certainly enough from the dying men, blood-curdling screams that tore through the darkness.
Irisi looked to Banafrit in concern as she called up another spell and sent another sandstorm raging across the far side of their lines.
Out in the camp among the men, Khai shouted orders, getting his people to form up, sending some to fill the gaps in their defenses.
A Djinn raced out of the darkness, keeping low, aiming straight for him.
Khai held and then stepped aside at the last minute, his sword slashing across the chest of the thing, spinning away from its claws to drive his sword through its back.
It burst into smoke and disappeared.
Sila.
“Move,” he shouted to those standing, staring.
They moved, racing for the front lines.
With his chariots useless in the darkness, Khai heard Baraka shout to his spearmen and archers to support those on the front lines while Akhom bellowed orders to guard the supply wagons and get his own people into formation.
A coughing roar from Alu and the sudden surge of the lions to their feet, their great heads swinging in alarm, was all the warning Banafrit and Irisi had, that and the sudden prickle of magic that came from all around them.
Sila appeared among them as if from nowhere, wafting smoke-like up from the sands as those Djinn were like to do.
No warrior, and unaccustomed to such surprises on the battlefield, Banafrit was caught off guard, too startled to move, to react swiftly enough. Her brief hesitation was fatal.
Irisi flung her hands upward, conjuring her swords into them. They appeared a fraction of a second too late to save Banafrit as a sila drove a borrowed spear deep into Banafrit’s chest even as Irisi fell back from the claws of another as it manifested in front of her. One sword Irisi buried in the sila that attacked Banafrit. She flung her other sword up to defend herself…
“Banafrit!” she cried, in grief and horror as she saw another sila appear behind Kahotep. “’Ware, Kahotep!”
She tossed one sword up into the air, caught it and threw it like a javelin into the back of the sila that closed on Kahotep, even as she slashed at another with the one she tore from the Djinn who’d struck at Banafrit. All three lions found prey as more Djinn appeared among and around them.
The priest spun, dodging out of the way as Emu raced across the ground low and fast, gathered herself and then leaped to take down the sila.
Emu’s siblings found other quarry as more of the Djinn appeared among them.
Besieged, Irisi lashed out around her, throwing up her shield sword as a sila slashed at her. It lost its claws to the edge, then its life to her other blade.
Where else were they vulnerable?
Irisi looked across the line of tents in time to see Akhom fall, driving one marid off with his sword while punching the sila that killed him in the face as the General went down.
There was no more time to save him than there had been to reach Banafrit.
And Khai out in the fading silver-lit darkness?
Her heart leaped into her throat at the thought even as she turned for Banafrit. The older woman staggered, her eyes wide and shocked as her hand went to the spear that had taken her life.
Silver-lit? The light! Banafrit had called up that spell. It would die with her.
Even as she reached Banafrit, Irisi saw Djinn appear around them as if from everywhere and anywhere.
Looking up into Irisi’s eyes as Irisi caught her, Banafrit touched the wound in her chest almost in bewilderment, but the knowledge of her own death was there in her eyes even as Irisi tried to Heal her. The light in them faded even as Irisi eased her dearest friend and surrogate mother to the ground.
A scream of fury sounded behind them.
Irisi turned her head.
Spinning, Djeserit had clearly sensed the threat from behind her, only to come face to face with another sila. One like it had just taken the life of her closest friend. Her eyes turned feral as she bared her lengthening teeth at it in fury.
Djeserit snarled into the Djinn’s face in despairing fury and backhanded it as it leaped at her. The force of the blow sent the thing tumbling back into the darkness. She bounded after it.
The spell Banafrit had been conjuring was released, unchecked, as she died.
Irisi cried out in denial, in grief and sorrow.
A tremendous burst of wind slammed into the ground to the west of the camp between the oncoming Djinn and the army bracing for the imminent assault. An explosion of sand, it caught up everything before it with the enormous power of a dying priestess and blew the Djinn deep into the desert.
Caught off guard, the Djinn lost nearly half their number in one moment.
Darkness fell as suddenly as the wind had struck.
Knowledge exploded within Irisi, a great burst of it not unlike the downburst of wind out on the desert plain, the sacred knowledge of all the High Priestesses who had come before her were released within her. It was nearly overwhelming at a time when she couldn’t afford to be overwhelmed. Frantically she fought to absorb the knowledge as she fought to keep it from being her undoing, scrambling mentally for the spell for light that Banafrit had cast.
On Banafrit’s death that, too, had disappeared, plunging the camp into near darkness lit only by the lurid glow of the distant watch fires and the firebrands Irisi had tossed out among the Djinn.
The army was fighting blind.
Khai looked up as darkness fell and his heart froze. Suddenly he couldn’t see. Nor could his men.
More importantly, what did it mean? Which priestess had cast that spell and which had fallen? Banafrit or Irisi?
His heart seemed to freeze in his chest, aching.
Just as suddenly Light surrounded them once more, silvery light as if from the moon. Isis’s light once more showered over the encampment.
Khai had no time to look back toward the tents to see who stood there…and who didn’t…
He shouted orders to his men to prepare them to meet another attack by the remaining Djinn.
Another, smaller burst of wind swept along their left flank, catching up the Djinn to blow those, too, out into the desert.
At least one of Isis’s priestesses was still alive. He wasn’t certain whether to be relieved or not.
What had happened?
Nebi spun, snarling in warning into the shadows as something rushed toward them. Khai turned to face the new threat.
The numbers of Djinn were so much fewer after that windstorm. Hope filled him.
A hail of arrows cut through the ghul and ifrit, decreasing those numbers even further, as cold iron swords drove back the sila. Whatever form they took, the iron in the steel of the swords was enough to daunt even them and the few Marid.
There was a chance they would survive.
To Irisi’s relief she could see the joined forces push back the remaining Djinn. It seemed to her that the Djinn sensed it, too. One minute they were there. The next they were gone.
Once more the army staggered, as bewildered at this sudden withdrawal as they had the last, everyone staring around looking for an enemy to fight.
The Djinn were gone.
For the moment, at least, it seemed it was over.
Irisi felt scoured inside and out, as if she’d been turned inside out, as everything she’d known and much she hadn’t swept through her and from her, leaving her empty before knowledge flooded back into her, an enormous rush of it. It burned through her, searing, incredible… Faces. Dozens of them. Priestesses and Priests. Generations of knowledge, of spells and skill…
Opening her eyes, she looked down into Banafrit’s serene face. Banafrit’s dark eyes closed as the last of her life fled her.
Shock and grief rocked Irisi.
Exhausted, stunned, clutching Banafrit in her arms, Irisi looked out over the battered encampment.
Bodies were strewn everywhere. The wounded cried out softly and then with greater force as their pain penetrated. Horses wandered loose, trailing reins and the scraps of their chariots. Some of the soldiers stood in bewilderment, looking around in evident confusion and relief at the sudden withdrawal of their foe.
Irisi felt much the same.
To her relief she saw Kahotep get to his feet by his tent, Emu beside him watching warily as Djeserit reappeared from the shadows.
By the command tent chaos reigned with no one to give orders.
Khai. Irisi’s heart wrenched with fear.
Where was he? Or Baraka? She’d seen Akhom fall. Who now would command the armies?
She was nearly sick with fear and grief at the thought of another loss, her gaze searching the battlefield for a familiar form even as she rocked Banafrit in her arms.
A solitary figure stepped through the smoke and the shadows, making his way across the encampment. His waving black hair streamed down to his shoulders, his dark eyes were tinged with gold and he had a young lion at his heel.
Khai.
Irisi’s heart beat again. She very nearly wept.
She saw that he, too, looked around incredulously, as if trying to believe that, for the moment, it was over and he was alive.
Resolutely, Khai walked toward the tents situated on the rise. He had to know…
Then he saw her, Irisi’s golden hair a beacon in the silvery light, even as she saw him... His heart eased, the relief immense.