D & D - Red Sands Read Online Free Page A

long before.
    Tamakh spotted some steps rising to the battlements on the wall. Up they went, crouching low in the shadows. Jadira reached the top first. She dropped prone and carefully peeked around the corner. Coming straight toward her were two soldiers armed with halberds and walking side by side. Starlight glinted on their breastplates, and their white cloaks hung limply from their armored shoulders.
    Jadira put a finger to her lips and motioned for the others to move back. They slipped down to the street again and ducked under the stone risers. One Faziri tramped down the steps. At the bottom, he paused, leaning his halberd against the wall. After a quick look around, the soldier pulled a rattan-covered bottle from under his cloak. He uncorked it and drank deeply. The tang of cheap wine filled the air.
    Jadira felt Marix tense. She knew what he was thinking—as the Faziri enjoyed his illicit drink, he might rush out and take the soldier by sword. She caught Marix's arm and held him. He looked at her question-ingly. Jadira shook her head.
    The soldier replaced his bottle and walked on. Tamakh let out a wheezing breath.
    "Why didn't you let me drub him?" asked Marix.
    "You might have been seen, or he might have withstood your first attack," Jadira said in hushed tones. "Besides, we can't leave a trail of fallen Faziri guards wherever we go."
    "If the wall is closely patrolled, how will we get out?"
    The priest tugged thoughtfully on his scalp lock.
    " There's the garden," he said.
    "What garden?" asked Jadira.
    "The Garden of Rare Beasts—the sultan's menagerie," Tamakh explained. "It lies in that direction." He pointed south. "It would not be guarded at night."
    Jadira said, "Lead the way, Holy One."
    They went on in silence. Once the warning clatter of hooves and wheels forced them under a scaffold erected for repair work on the palace casements. A two-horse team pulling a light carriage trotted by. Filmy curtains of fjauze billowed behind it. A golden lion's head snarled from each corner of the curtained enclosure. Two fierce lancers rode behind the vehicle with weapons at the ready.
    "Interesting," Tamakh said as the carriage turned out of sight. "Unless I'm mistaken, we've just witnessed the passage of a royal concubine."
    "A what?" asked Marix.
    "Never mind. Where is this garden you promised?" said Jadira.
    Threescore paces farther along, they came to a low wall, plastered white and shining. Behind it grew a thick row of date palms, each twice a man's height. Tamakh rolled heavily over the obstacle. Marix vaulted the wall nimbly, and Jadira followed. They plunged into the trees.
    They emerged onto a luxurious carpet of green grass. Rows of orange lilies, their blooms tightly furled for the night, rustled and swayed in the breeze. A path of crushed stone wended through the flower beds.
    Tamakh moved surely through the garden, as if he'd been there a hundred times before. Chirping crickets fell mute as the escaping prisoners passed. Somewhere back in the green-black trees, a nightjar whirred its song. In response, a deep-throated growl reverberated down the starlit path.
    "What was that?" said Marix, alarmed.
    "Lion," replied Jadira.
    "Griffin," Tamakh corrected. "The sultan collects only the rarest and most exotic of animals." Marix expressed a hope that the beast was securely caged.
    The first of several oval pens appeared on their right. A large recumbent form lay at the rear of the enclosure, giving no hint of what strange creature it might be. Across from the first pen was a long rectangular cage, closed on the top. As Jadira passed in front, a large hairy arm shot through the bars and seized the trailing edge of her robe.
    Jadira tripped and fell, turning to look up as she did. Two brown eyes the size of her fists glinted out of the gloom. She didn't scream, but kicked madly at the grasping hand. Marix leaped between the cage and the fallen woman. His scimitar curved upward, biting deeply into the thick, hairy