Meatball30
Ball of Meat
Alkhafat, the Sheikhdom of Mekhallah
The gentle crunch of hooves on packed dirt resonated around the noble riders. For over three weeks, that familiar refrain, beasts trotting obediently towards their destination, had been one of the only sounds breaching an anxious silence, save for the occasional grunt from one of the animals and sparse conversation among the three dozen horsemen, most now haggard from their journey. Under normal circumstances, the party would have sailed directly from Tawira Mundh and up the Qaara River to reach Alkhafat, but atypical times and the Sultan's mandate demanded they instead make landfall at Junadina, traveling overland from the south.
They had made quite a sight, traveling with several magi, as many Sand Striders, pack camels and royal steeds, and two large wagons for supplies. In such dire times, any caravan so rich would make tempting prey for any would-be robbers, but the sight of the Sand Striders' blue cloth had been their deterrent.
One of the royal party's tasks had been to assess the true extent of the Living Waste's expansion, and without a doubt they had found the tales spun by Sand Striders and common folk alike featured little exaggeration. For hundreds of miles along the road to Mekhallah, the dull expanse of the Living Waste hung on the horizon like a stalking predator. It had been less apparent in the northern reaches of Misardun, where much of the landscape was already made up of dry steppes bleeding into rolling dunes. Along the banks of the Qaara river, however, just south of the Earthspine Mountains which had begun to crest into view, the earth was fair to its occupants. The land had always been hard, but vegetation and wildlife were not uncommon sights. Desolation had no home here, yet here it was, laid bare before them.
The man at the head of the party, a pale figure with a countenance like bearded porcelain, turned his gaze to the east. The hardy shrubs and short trees of Mekhallah extended towards the skyline, but he could see they eventually tapered off into nothing but loose sand drifting with the wind. These dunes seemed bleaker than they had any right to be. The sun battered them more grimly than was natural, their heat dire and wicked. The unnatural sight tied a knot of anxiety in the elderly man's stomach. His horse, a brilliant black stallion with a coat which shimmered magnificently under the sun's intense rays, loosed a low whinny, as if he could sense the doom his rider feared.
Here before the elder was an enemy not so easily defeated with spouts of fire or a swordsman's tricks. Most of his illustrious life had been dedicated to felling armies and besieging cities. From the southern jungles to the far north's rugged frontiers, how many men had fallen to his magical prowess or his tactical abilities over the years, he wondered? How many commanders had he bested in service to his closest friend and dearest Sultan? Enough to earn that moniker he hated for its accuracy - "The Sultan's Spear," many called him. Like the weapon, his bloody career was marked by effective, if fairly straightforward victories. He'd rarely been flashy, but always been successful.
Yet for all his martial achievements, how could one meet apocalypse in the field? He was now asked to call upon knowledge he'd rarely had time to refine since his youth. How the heavens may influence the world below, how the very sands can be made to ebb and flow by the grace of the Shayamun.
An uncharacteristic seed of doubt had already been sown in his mind, though it didn't show on his hard, pale features. He'd always relished a challenge, but this task seemed almost impossible. He tugged on his twin-braided beard with a three-fingered left hand.
The six horsemen passed a withering caravansary on their left, though by then it was a glorified ruin, little more than a tomb for the old man sitting cross-legged in the shade outside. Upon spotting the rider's elegant silver saber, inlaid with a radiant red-orange gem, the rugged elder gave a nod and leaned forward as far as his aching bones would allow in a sitting bow.
It had been twenty years since Mubarak Alani Jaffer had rode to Mekhallah, but he was not an easily forgotten man, even by the common folk who'd only heard stories.
"Moonlight upon you, Your Grace," the caravansary keep croaked in a voice that sounded as worn and dusty as its owner.
"And upon you," the magus responded without slowing or halting, continuing up the road. As the riders left the caravansary behind, the city of Alkhafat had finally come into view.
"The edge of the world, your grace," one of the magus' companions commented, a Sand Strider at his right hand, draped in the order's trademark turquoise cloth.
While the frontier city couldn't hold even a dim candle to the spiraling minarets and golden domes of the western isles, Alkhafat was a jewel on a harsh landscape. Nestled along the Qaara river, elegant stone bridges stretched from the south and west towards the city's gates, massive wooden constructs decorated with the sheikh's family crest, a crescent moon beneath a sun with six rays bursting forth in all directions. The dome of the Tabalist temple emerged from the center of the city, nearly the same pale blue as Mubarak's djellaba and turban. Sandstone constructions painted various shades of blue peaked over Alkhafat's stout walls, and on the river, the corpse of what was once a bustling waterside market still held more of a crowd than perhaps dozens of the countryside villages put together.
The old magus had few pleasant memories of this place. Its walls were the last hurdle in his conquests. Its streets, by the end, had been the bloodiest.
The last time Mubarak had seen the city, it was wrapped in a great inferno, the result of a devastating siege. Even from a distance, he could make out which buildings on the skyline had been rebuilt since then, though there were discrepancies between the outline of Alkhafat his eyes reported and what his memory recalled. The city was already on the decline all those years prior, and little had changed. The roads to Alkhafat had been nearly devoid of life, but Mubarak recalled many an emigrant family headed the opposite direction.
He halted their party at the ridge's crest for a time, a few miles from the walls, taking in the profile of the city beneath a particularly harsh sun. The city they'd been sent to save from the wrath of gods and nature, or else, at least protect its citizens.
Mubarak shifted his gaze to his left. Another magus rode by his side, a comely young woman with bronzed skin and kind features. Nina, she'd called herself.
They'd spoken occasionally over their weeks of travel, and he'd taken a liking to her - a sun worshiper, though not a Qariqist like himself, from a far-off land he'd never heard of. He'd been happy enough to ramble to her about the Sultanate's previously harsh stance against Solar magic, his early life and efforts to overcome such idiotic prejudice, how things had softened for their type over time. Though he wasn't sure if she was simply humoring an old man or hanging on his words sincerely, he had appreciated her company.
He spoke to her in his characteristically direct manner.
"The last time I was here, some years ago," he began, "we'd besieged the city for... months, perhaps near on a year. Before that, long combat campaigns across the river, the dunes. They fought well and defended this place fiercely, from the borders all the way back to their walls. I hated them for it."
Mubarak's three-fingered left hand once again trailed up to his beard, stroking it thoughtfully.
"I was already old. Tired. Their resistance, to the last, even as the rest of the sheikhdoms fell? It infuriated me. And when the walls were finally breached... I made no effort to hide that anger."
He turned his gaze back to the young woman at his side. He'd not often spoken to her so honestly about his doubts on the way here, but now, face-to-face with the walls of Alkhafat, he felt trapped. He felt the need to speak now, to someone who perhaps may be honest with him about questions that weighed on him heavily as they traveled to this far corner of the Sultanate.
"There remain many families here that curse me. I expect there are orphans who are worse off today than they may have been if their fathers hadn't fallen in the streets, or their mothers killed by looting soldiers," he said. "I assure you no harm will come to you, so I ask you to answer me truthfully - was the Sultan a fool to send me here? Can I hope to win these peoples' cooperation, or does my presence here hamper our mission, in your view?"
Another question seemed to catch in his throat, but he stopped himself there.
In the distance, atop the walls of the city, horns were blown and the gate guards were making preparations to welcome the royal caravan. At the sound of the horns, a great mass of common folk had flocked to the city's southern entrance, curious to see who approached.
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