The morning sun did not rise gently over the camp; it struck the earth like a hammer.
Khalid sat outside his tent, scrubbing sand from his brass coffee pot. His mind was still drifting through the alleyways of the Old City, replaying the whisper of Layla's voice, the rustle of parchment, the scent of jasmine that seemed to cling to his very skin. He felt light, untethered, as if gravity had lost its hold on him.
A shout shattered the peace.
It was a raw, guttural roar—the sound of a man who has forgotten reason. Khalid dropped the pot. He knew that voice.
He ran toward the edge of the camp, his sandals slapping against the hard-packed earth. A crowd had already gathered near the horse lines, a chaotic knot of shouting Bedouins and the distinct, sharp red of Ottoman fezzes.
In the center of the circle, Hamza stood like a cornered bull. His khanjar was drawn, the curved steel glinting in the sunlight. Opposite him, three Ottoman tax collectors—soldiers in ill-fitting uniforms, dusty from the ride—held their swords steady. A fourth man, their captain, lay in the dirt, clutching a bloody nose, cursing in Turkish.
"Thieves!" Hamza screamed, spitting at the feet of the soldiers. "You come for the gold, we give you gold. You come for the sheep, we give you sheep. But you will not touch the mare! She is of the Kuhaylan bloodline! She is worth more than your miserable lives!"
The soldiers stepped forward, their faces tight with humiliation. "The Pasha demands the best of the herd as tribute," one of them snarled. "Stand down, savage, or we will burn this camp to ash."
"Burn it!" Hamza laughed, a manic, dangerous sound. "And I will roast you in the flames!"
He lunged.
"Stop!"
Khalid's voice cracked through the air like a whip. He did not shout with rage, but with authority. He pushed through the crowd of his tribesmen, stepping into the deadly space between his brother and the Ottoman steel.
He did not draw his weapon. He held his hands out, open and empty.
"Hamza, put the blade away," Khalid said, not looking at his brother, but locking eyes with the lead soldier.
"He tried to take Najma," Hamza growled, vibrating with adrenaline. "He insulted our father."
"And you have bloodied his nose," Khalid said calmly. "The debt of the insult is paid. To kill him now is to declare war."
Khalid switched to Turkish. It was fluent, elegant, the language of the court, not the gutter-talk the soldiers used. "Effendi," he addressed the standing soldier. "My brother is young, and the sun is hot. The mare is wild; she would throw your captain before he reached the city gates. We do not wish for the Pasha's representative to be injured by an unruly beast."
The soldier blinked, surprised by the sudden shift in tone and the refined accent. He lowered his sword an inch. "He struck an officer of the Empire. The punishment is death."
"The punishment is death for rebellion," Khalid corrected, his voice smooth as silk over a blade. "This is a misunderstanding over livestock. If you report a rebellion, the Pasha will ask why you could not control a single tent of goat-herders. He will ask why he should pay you. But..."
Khalid reached into his sash. He pulled out a heavy pouch—his own savings, meant for books, meant for the future. He tossed it to the soldier. It landed with a heavy thud in the dust.
"...if you report that the Al-Fayid paid their taxes in full, with a bonus for the trouble caused by the heat, then everyone returns to Damascus with their heads on their shoulders."
The soldier stared at the pouch. He looked at the captain, who was wiping blood from his mustache and nodding groggily. The soldier sheathed his sword. He bent down and snatched the gold.
"Keep the mare," the soldier spat, glaring at Hamza. "But tell your dog of a brother that the Pasha has a long memory. The Wolf of Damascus sees everything."
They mounted their horses, kicking up a cloud of choking dust as they galloped back toward the city walls.
Khalid watched them go until they were specks on the horizon. Only then did he turn to Hamza.
Hamza had not sheathed his dagger. He was trembling, not with fear, but with impotent rage.
"You paid them," Hamza hissed. "You paid them for the privilege of letting them insult us."
"I paid them to keep you alive," Khalid said, his voice weary. "I paid them so that our father does not have to bury a son today."
"You speak their tongue like a lover," Hamza stepped closer, invading Khalid's space. "You weave words and toss gold while I defend our honor. You are not a Bedouin, Khalid. You are a merchant in a shepherd's robe."
"Honor?" Khalid snapped, his control finally fraying. "Is it honor to slaughter four men and bring a battalion down on our women and children? That is not honor, Hamza. That is vanity."
Hamza sheathed his knife with a violent motion. He leaned in, his face inches from Khalid's. "Vanity? Perhaps. But they fear me. They looked at me and saw a warrior. They looked at you, brother, and they saw a purse."
Hamza turned and stormed off toward the Sheikh's tent, the tribesmen parting for him with murmurs of admiration. They liked Hamza's fire. It warmed them. Khalid's ice only made them shiver.
Khalid stood alone in the settling dust. He felt a phantom weight in his sash where his money had been—the money he had secretly hoped might help him start a life away from the sand.
He looked toward Damascus. The threat hung in the air, heavier than the heat. The Wolf of Damascus sees everything.
The Pasha would hear of this. The gold would silence the soldiers, but the story of the wild Bedouin who drew a blade on the Sultan's men would travel. And the Pasha, in his palace of stone and shadows, would not forget.
Khalid felt a sudden, sharp dread. He had saved the mare. He had saved Hamza. But as the wind picked up, carrying the metallic scent of blood from the captain's nose, Khalid feared he had just signed the first line of their death warrant.