"Fuck," I panted, dropping to my knees at the northern shore of this damned island. "Fuck."
I buried my head into my hands as I watched the plan of al-Khalidun unravel before my eyes. Everything was becoming clear to me now. Why my brother had betrayed orders back in Arabia in the Ghassanid dwelling. Why he had let the Ghassanid chief escape.
It was the same reason he took off with my entire fleet.
"The ships!" the Nubian exclaimed, axe in hand, as he bolted to my side.
After a fierce harrying by demons in black, what remained of my army finally managed to cross the length of Crete back to the northern shore where we'd docked our ships. Bruised, battered and humbled, we had expected refuge, perhaps even escape, on board.
But I cursed myself and every god that wove capricious fate the moment I remembered who I'd left in charge of the docked fleet.
My bastard of a half-brother.
I remembered that he had defected many years ago to my most bitter enemies. The syndicate of cowards known as the Immortals – al-Khalidun. It was the night a ghost had appeared to me. Back from the dead. The son of my deceased slavemaster. Zayn ibn Yazid. The half-human weasel who took my son's ears, and another's life.
That night, my half-brother 'Abd al-Rahman had seemingly hesitated to hurt me. And he was stabbed by the assassins for his weakness. I'd feigned forgiveness all these years. I acted as though I truly loved him as a brother. In return, I expected vital information about these crazed lunatics who robbed me of everything dear.
That cursed day on Crete, I saw men I had shared bread and salt with for years butchered like dogs. Trained warriors I had fought with, side by side, shoulder to shoulder. The vast majority of them dead. Without putting up a fight.
All but brave Piruzan. The Persian slave soldier who they all doubted for his foreign faith. My loyal officer who sacrificed his life for my son. That great warrior, may the gods rest his soul, who took skewered one of the black-robed cunts through sheer grit and determination.
Now, it was all for naught.
I sobbed into my hands as despair overwhelmed me. Everything I had ever worked for from the day my tribe was butchered in Madinah. Every moment I had suffered, every droplet of sweat, tears and blood. It was all for nothing. All to die hopeless and weak on faraway shores.
Is this how it will all end? Is this what I've always been all these years? The one thing I despised with the fiber of my being.
Weakness.
I was a weak man. I was not fit to don the mantle of man at all. A man protects his own. A man stands steadfast in the face of certain doom.
But not Hanthalah ibn Ka'b. Hanthalah ibn Ka'b buckled and died on his knees at the first hint of ambush.
Hanthalah ibn Ka'b masqueraded all these years as something he was not. Outward, he was a God-fearing Muslim. But in the shelter of his own tent, he harbored idols of old gods. In his heart, he feared the evils of the djinn and ghouls.
To the world, he was the face of conquest. He was the human embodiment of strength. A prime example of a warrior.
But what the world did not know was that Hanthalah ibn Ka'b was weak.
Hanthalah ibn Ka'b had failed.
I grabbed the hilt of my sword and removed my face from my palms. I spun the weapon so the tip of the blade pointed in my direction. My vision blurred with tears of shame and weakness, I took one last lingering look at the retreating ships and...
"Hanthalah!" the Nubian cried.
I spun to find his arm outstretched, pointing toward the sea. I followed his finger and found...a docked ship?
I stole one last glance behind me, looking over the dark figures that were still giving chase. They would be here with daggers as cold as their hearts at any moment.
"Aboard!" I bellowed at any who could hear me. "Aboard!"
I waded in the knee-high water, hastening toward the single ship that blessedly remained ashore. I clung to the rail, hauling myself on board, sinking in a heap of splattered clothing and torn chainmail on the wooden planks.
My head darted all around the ship, surprised to see the familiar faces that greeted me, concerned over the state of me.
My boys. A few I had left behind with the ships. The crew of this one.
"Oh, thank the gods!" I exclaimed, sobbing quietly to myself, more of my fleeing troops clambering aboard.
"Careful there," a warm voice rasped. "You're getting my deck wet."
I looked up to find kindly quartermaster Abu Musa. The man who had been a Roman Syrian admiral, the man in charge of my flagship.
"Abu Musa!" I cried out with glee. I found my feet and threw my arms around the massive man's shoulders, sobbing as though a child in his mother's arms. "You stayed. You stayed."
The quartermaster did not return the hug. "Your bastard of a half-brother told me to tag along. I told him we had clear orders to remain at our posts. Absolute madman, I tell ya. You would have done better to leave me in charge of the fellows. But, err, of course you wouldn't. Not with this."
He hefted the heavy silver chain at his neck that ended in a large cross.
"You're right," I sniffled. "It was a mistake to put that bastard in charge of anything at all."
Abu Musa met my eyes for a brief moment before toying with his silver cross. Finally, he nodded toward the retreating ships. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
My eyes shifted from Abu Musa to the stolen fleet and back again.
Finally, I grinned.
***
"Quicker, Abu Musa, quicker," I prodded my quartermaster.
"Come on, lads," he roared at the rowers. "Put some vigor into it. Just a little bit more, boys, just a little more!"
The shores of Crete were distant both in memory and in reality, as the wind lapped at our cheeks and sent my hair billowing behind me. Water foamed white as the rowers' oars sliced through the surface, gaining on the fleeing ships.
My ships.
"How much longer?" I asked my quartermaster. I wanted to get within earshot of the vessels.
"You're lucky the winds are strong," he grunted. "And the current is with us."
Finally, something is with me this miserable day, I thought, cursing the gods again. I touched the stick at my neck and whispered a prayer. I wondered where Amina was. I had not seen her since the assassins struck.
I shivered, remembering tales from my childhood of the djinn that dwelled rivers and seas.
"The marid species," old man Qusayy, who had been as a father to me, once said. "They are the most arrogant of the djinn. And the waters are their abode. These cold and calculating beings can grant you any number of wishes. So long as you use flattery or magic to summon them. But all is at a price, of course."
All is at a price, I thought, watching my cunt of a half-brother slip away from between my fingers. I fingered my son's stick, and spoke to the djinn of the seas. The marid. Flattery, Qusayy had said.
"Great marid," I spoke in a hushed tone so that Abu Musa did not think me a lunatic. "What a wonderful abode you have taken. On a clear day, as my oars dip into the surface of your home, the waves unfurl as though pieces of the most lucrative linen."
The ship rocked beneath my feet, swaying and bouncing with a wave. The gales thundered against my ears, the force of them sending straying hairs into my mouth. The rear end of the closest ship inched closer.
"Great marid," I repeated. "When the sun abandons its zenith and descends to the earth. Your great home is painted a lush gold, crisp and welcoming. It washes the eyes of the tired and coddles the hearts of the sorrowful."
Abu Musa's roaring commands fell deaf against my ears. Perhaps they were lost to the winds. Perhaps I was drowning in my own thoughts. Perhaps the presence of the djinn engulfed me. Formed a thick shroud around my being.
"When the moon takes its place in the heavens, your great home stands serene and inevitable. One looks and finds the sea as dark as the eyes of a beautiful maiden long gone. Its waves glimmering and set alive like jewels and pearls."
The motion of the ship rocked me, sending me staggering to the railing. We crashed into a wave, spraying us with water that drenched us from head to toe.
But we were closer than ever. I could make out faces on their decks now.
"Oh, great beings of the sea. I bear witness that your might is stronger than that of any god. If the beauty of your abode is reflected in you, then surely it must be true. Marid of the sea. One wish is all I seek. Marid of the sea.
My brother's head will bring me glee."
And they came through. We sliced past the first few ships lagging behind, now on course with the entire fleet. The rowers rose from their benches, cupping their hands together and shouting to their comrades aboard the other ships to abandon their oars and return to their rightful commander.
But I did not share in spreading the message. My eyes were elsewhere.
I hefted my sword and strapped a shield to my left arm as our vessel raced past more ships, quickly finding its way to the head of the unorganized column.
I donned a helmet and hopped off the raised platform.
"By the gods," I grunted. "Hubal. Allah and his three daughters. And by the marid of the sea."
I kissed the flat of my blade, the steel cold on my lips, and raised it to the heavens.
And, I ran.
I bolted through the deck. Past startled sailors and stunned rowers. All the pain and sorrow, all the weakness and hopelessness weighing me down, had been washed away by water and wind.
Now was the time for vengeance.
I darted past the rowers' benches toward the ship's prow. Using my momentum, I sprang forward and jumped on the rail. I hopped off the prow and found myself floating in the air.
For a brief moment, I enjoyed a moment of pure euphoria as I hung there, defying the nature of our world. I did not fall nor did I rise. For the briefest of moments, Hanthalah ibn Ka'b stood mighty above man and god. A star in the skies. An elevated being, above worldly concerns.
But like all moments of joy, it was quickly devoured by the beast we know as time. The one true enemy of us all, the one foe who cannot be defeated.
I landed with a giant thud on 'Abd al-Rahman's ship, buckling my knees on impact before straightening myself and snarling at the cringing rowers.
Silence had descended upon the now decelerating ship, all eyes on the madman with the sword and shield. I stalked forward, making for the prow.
And there he was. Calm and cold as you please. In his dark robes, he was standing there, his back to me, his hands clasped behind him.
"Grab a sword, you motherless, father-killing cunt," I demanded of him.
"It is a pretty sight, is it not?" 'Abd al-Rahman inquired, looking out over the horizon.
"You think you belong among them?" I continued. "You useless lout. You've never belonged anywhere. Your father never recognized you as his own. The city people saw you as a stranger. Your mother died. Your brother has always despised you."
"I've always found the sea to be the perfect place to die, don't you think?" he interjected, half-turning.
"Your tribe is dead."
He did not answer.
"You killed your own father."
"The memory burns bright," he replied, a tinge of sourness in his tone.
'Abd al-Rahman walked forward, his face placid and emotionless. Pale, as though the blood were sucked out of it. I shivered, my fury curbed, as I remembered Amina the witch.
"What makes you think they have a use for you, huh?" I demanded of my brother. "You have never been accepted. You have never belonged."
"Much like you, brother," he replied. "I suppose it runs in the family."
I spat in his face. He was a horse's distance away from me.
"So does tormenting those weaker, as well," he rambled on, ignoring the lone spittle falling lazily down his face. "I was but a boy when you crammed me into your home in Madinah. I was but a child longing for the embrace of father. All that boy needed was a warm welcome. A tender touch. A fatherly figure. A man to learn from."
"Are you going to cry now, boy?" I growled. "Grab a sword and fight. Or are you only brave behind my back?"
"Everything I am today, I am because of you," he continued. "I have never belonged, I agree. Not in your hostile household. Not while lost in the desert plains after I contributed to the massacre of my own tribe. Not in Damascus or in the Syrian mountains at your side. Treated like an inferior."
"Treatment well-placed, then," I interrupted.
"I have never been accepted by al-Khalidun," he admitted. I raised an eyebrow. "I've gone against orders. For brotherly love."
I scoffed. "Brotherly love. Stealing my ships is how you show affection?"
I saw the blow coming too late. The dagger appeared in his hand in a heartbeat, just before he lunged at my vulnerable right side, unprotected by the shield.
The reflexes that came second hand to me thanks to a hundred battles saved me that day. Almost unconsciously, I swerved ever so slightly to the left so that the dagger protruded out of the right side of my chest.
I did not yet register pain. I knew that I must act swiftly.
I slammed my shield into his face, sending him staggering backward. He tried composing himself but I hurled my shield like a disc at him. The iron rim struck him in the knees, and he fell with a cry to the deck.
With the weight of a thousand eyes upon me, I looked down to find a silent plea in my brother's eyes. It reminded me of the defeated warriors back in the pits, in Damascus.
"You lived a traitor, and you died a coward."
I raised my sword overhead and finished him off once and for all.