The desert did not scream; it whispered. It was a constant, dry hiss of sand against fabric, of wind against stone, a sound that wore down mountains and men alike until they were nothing but grit.
Khalid Ibn Walid sat cross-legged at the entrance of his tent, the heavy goat-hair flap pinned back to welcome the cooling air of the dusk. In the Nafud, twilight was not a time of day but a mercy. The relentless white sun had finally bled into the horizon, bruising the sky in shades of violent violet and burnt orange.
In his lap lay a book bound in cracked leather. It was a ledger intended for counting sheep and calculating trade taxes for the upcoming caravan, but the back half was filled with something else entirely.
Khalid dipped his reed pen into the small pot of black ink. He had to be quick. In this heat, even the moisture in the ink jar seemed to fear the air, vanishing before it could kiss the paper.
To love a thing, he wrote, his hand hovering over the page, is to admit it can be lost. We build walls of stone to keep out the wind, but what wall can keep out the silence?
He stared at the sentence. It felt clumsy. Inadequate. He crossed out "silence" and wrote fate. Then he crossed that out too. He wiped the nib of the pen on his thumb, leaving a smear of black like a bruise on his skin.
"You are frowning at the book again, brother. Has the price of wool dropped, or did the sheep offend you?"
Khalid didn't jump. He knew the footsteps of his brother, Hamza, by the vibration in the ground—heavy, confident, striking the earth as if demanding it yield.
Khalid closed the book, sliding it under the low wooden table. "The sheep are fine, Hamza. I am merely calculating the tribute for the Pasha."
Hamza ducked into the tent, bringing with him the smell of horses, sweat, and cardamom smoke. He was two years younger than Khalid but looked five years older. The sun had etched deep lines around his eyes, and his beard was wild and untamed, unlike Khalid's neatly trimmed scruff. Hamza was the desert incarnate: harsh, bright, and dangerous.
"The Pasha," Hamza spat the word, grabbing a brass cup and pouring himself water from the clay jug. "A fat man sitting on silk cushions, demanding gold for protection he does not provide. If Father would let me, I would pay him in steel, not coin."
"And that is why Father sends me to speak, and you to guard," Khalid said softly. "Steel rusts, Hamza. Words... words last a little longer."
Hamza laughed, a sharp bark of a sound. He dropped onto a cushion opposite Khalid, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Words? Look outside, Khalid." He gestured to the open flap, to the endless, rolling dunes turning grey in the fading light. "This is the world. It is made of rock and wind. There is no poetry here that can stop an arrow or fill a belly. You read too much. It makes you soft."
"Softness allows one to bend," Khalid countered, picking up a silver prayer bead from the table and rolling it between his fingers. "The rigid branch snaps in the storm. The willow survives."
"There are no willows in the Nafud," Hamza said, his voice dropping, losing its mocking edge. He looked at his brother, and for a second, Khalid saw the affection buried under the bravado. "We leave in the hour. The camels are restless. They smell the rain coming from the north."
"Rain?" Khalid looked up. "There is not a cloud in the sky."
"They smell it on the wind. Damp earth. Green things. They smell Damascus." Hamza stood up, tightening his leather belt. "Put away your ink, brother. Tonight we ride. Try to look like the Sheikh's heir, not a scribe."
Hamza ducked out, leaving the tent flap swaying.
Khalid remained still for a moment. He could hear the camp coming alive around him. The guttural groans of the camels as they were forced to stand, the clatter of cooking pots being strapped to saddles, the sharp cries of mothers calling for their children. It was a symphony of movement, a tribe that had learned that survival meant never staying still.
He pulled the ledger back out. He ran his thumb over the spine. Hamza was right, of course. There were no willows here. To be soft in the Nafud was to die.
But Khalid was starving. Not for food—the Al-Fayid flocks were vast—but for something he couldn't name. He felt like a man trying to read a letter in a pitch-black room. He hoped, with a desperate, terrifying ache, that Damascus held the lamp.
He stood, his knees cracking slightly. He tucked the book into the deep pocket of his thobe, right against his chest. He strapped his curved dagger, the khanjar, to his waist. It felt heavy and cold, a foreign weight.
He stepped out of the tent. The wind caught his ghutra, whipping the fabric across his face. He didn't push it away. He looked North, towards the invisible city, towards the trade routes, towards the fate that was waiting to break him.
"Let us go, then," he whispered to the wind.
He walked toward the camels, leaving his footprints in the sand. By morning, the wind would blow, and the sand would shift, and it would be as if he had never stood there at all.