As I thrashed up to my feet, and time accelerated from its glue of fear and failure, some words repeated themselves in my mind, words from Karla's poem. I will die for this love, die for this love. Tariq had wounded the pack leader, and it hung back behind the others, dispiriting them for a few moments. The howling grew louder, however, and there was another quality to it then, a throbbing moan of frustration. It was as if they were sickening for the kill, and tormented by their failure. I hoped that in their agony of disappointment they might turn on one another if they didn't bring us down soon. Then, without warning, they sprang at us again.
They came in groups of two and three. They attacked from two sides at once. The boy and I stood side-to-side and back-to-back, fighting them off with desperate jabs and slashes. The dogs were insane with the blood lust. We hit them hard, but they cowered only seconds before leaping at us again. Everywhere around us was fang and snarl, snap and howl. I leaned over Tariq to help him drive back a determined rush from three or four of the beasts, and one dog managed to sprint in behind me and bite down hard on my ankle. My leather boot protected me, and I drove the dog away, but I knew we were losing the war. We'd retreated hard up against the mound of timbers, and there was nowhere else to go. The whole pack was snarling and lunging at us from only two metres away.
Then, from behind us, there was a sound of growling, and the crunching rattle of timbers slipping away under the weight of something that had jumped onto them. I thought that some of the dogs had somehow worked their way around onto the heap but, as I turned to meet the challenge, I saw the black-clad figure of Abdullah as he sprang, leaping over our heads into the midst of the thrashing jaws of the pack.
He whirled, striking out left and right. He jumped, drawing his knees up tight and landing with the supple tautness of a trained fighter. His movements were fluid, swift, and economical. It was the awful and beautiful frugality of snake and scorpion. Lethal.
Exact. Perfect. He'd armed himself with a metal rod, about three centimetres in diameter and more than a metre in length. He swung it two-handed as if it was a sword. But it wasn't the superior weapon or even his uncanny agility that terrified the dogs and drove them back. What routed them in panicked flight, leaving two of their number skull-crack dead, was the fact that he'd taken the fight to them; that he'd attacked, where we'd defended; that he was sure of winning, where we'd merely struggled to survive.
It was over quickly. There was silence, where so much sound had screamed. Abdullah turned to look at us with the metal rod held above his shoulder like a samurai sword. The smile shining from his brave young face was like moonlight gleaming on the minaret of Haji Ali's white mosque.
Later, while we drank hot and very sweet Suleimani chai in my hut, Abdullah explained that he'd been waiting for me in the hut, and heard the dogs. He told us he came to investigate it because he'd sensed that something was dreadfully wrong. When we'd talked the adventure through several times, I prepared three places for us on the bare earth floor, and we stretched out to rest.
Abdullah and Tariq slipped effortlessly into a sleep that eluded me. I lay back, in a darkness that smelt of incense and beedie cigarettes and cheap kerosene, and I sifted the events of the last few days through a sieve of doubt and suspicion. So much more had happened during those days, it seemed, than in the months before them. Madame Zhou, Karla, Khaderbhai's council, Sapna-I felt myself to be at the mercy of personalities that were stronger, or at least more mysterious, than my own. I felt the irresistible draw and drift of a tide that was carrying me to someone else's destination, someone else's destiny. There was a plan or purpose. I sensed it. There were clues, I was sure, but I couldn't separate them from the busy collage of hours and faces and words. The cloud-mottled night seemed full of signs and portents, as if fate itself was warning me to go or daring me to stay.
Tariq woke with a start, and sat up, staring about him. My eyes were adjusted to the darkness. I saw the moment of fear on his pale face clearly, a fear that tightened into sorrow and resolve even as I watched. He looked to the peacefully sleeping form of Abdullah, and then to me. Without a sound, he stood and dragged his sleeping mat over until it met mine. Snuggling down under the cover of his thin blanket once more, he cuddled in beside me. I stretched out my arm, and he rested his head on it. The smell of the sun was in his hair.
