House of Marlo

One afternoon when they were still miles from their destination, they were forced to take shelter from a violent storm. Shareef pulled the caravan off the road and into the leeward shelter of a large rock overhang. They waited for several hours for the storm to pass, but it only worsened. As darkness fell, Shareef realized they would need to stay the night. There was an abundance of bracken and fallen branches nearby, which they dragged into the clearing beneath the overhang and stacked against the rock wall. Shareef soon had a large fire going, but it soon brought unwelcome company. Safire’s whinny was their first warning of approaching trouble: three highwaymen on horseback. They rode into the circle of light from the fire. The first one in blocked the path between Shareef and the caravan. If the old man had a weapon, he would not be allowed to reach it. The other two approached Zahira. “Well, what have we here?” said the apparent leader of the trio, as he and the other man dismounted. They walked toward Zahira with leering grins. They were filthy, unshaven, and stank. Shareef made a move in her direction to protect Zahira, but the mounted highwayman drove his horse hard into him and knocked him to the ground. The first man to touch Zahira never knew what hit him. She lifted the dagger from his belt, and in an upward thrust, drove it deep beneath his ribs into his heart. As he fell to the ground she grasped the hilt of his sword and it slid out of its scabbard with a hissing sound as the body rolled away from her. With two hands, she brought the sword around her head once, and stepped forward toward the second assailant, severing his head from his shoulders. A moment later, the sword was hurling through the night air. It caught the third highwayman in the chest and knocked him backward off his horse. Zahira walked over to where the man lay wounded, placed a foot on his chest, and with a single tug, withdrew the sword. She lifted the sword over her head and brought it down once in the middle of his skull, cleaving it in two. She tossed the sword aside and went to see if Shareef was hurt. Shareef was stunned, but not injured. He was more shaken by what he had just observed. He was now questioning the story his brother had told him about this woman. “I’m alright,” he said, “just the wind knocked out of me, and maybe a few bruises. But we don’t want more trouble. Help me hide the bodies, then let’s scatter the horses.” Together they unbridled and unsaddled the three horses and drove them away. They dragged the bodies and their gear down into a small ravine and covered them with bracken. By now, the storm had abated, but Shareef decided to stay where they were. There would be fewer questions than if they rode into one of the encampments in the middle of the night. They would take their chances until morning. Nothing more was spoken about the events that evening. But Zahira often caught Shareef watching her now, perhaps wondering who she really was.