Sandstorm Read Free Page B

the order.
    He stared into blue eyes, and for a heartbeat the world seemed to still. Then Sahayl forced himself to think. Here was a chance for distraction, to draw attention away from his father, give everyone a chance to break it up, get away. There would be no chance for peace now, but perhaps he could avoid bloodshed this time. With a savage cry, Sahayl pressed an attack, his movements fast and brutal. He knew to most combatants and onlookers he looked as though he fought wildly, with barely any control. A Sandstorm sweeping through the oasis.
    It was just enough that no one else would interfere - especially as the blue-eyed man had been the first to attack.
    Hashim would not thank his son for stealing the fight, but Sahayl had resigned himself to that before he'd drawn his sword.
    The blue-eyed man was good. Very good. It was no wonder his men had encountered him again and again. But he wasn't used to Sahayl's wild style, and Sahayl pressed that advantage ruthlessly, finally knocking the man off balance, knocking him down with enough force that as he struggled to sit up, the blue-eyed man lost his head and face coverings.
    Sahayl blinked, then threw his head back and laughed. "What's this?" he asked loudly. "The Falcon is so desperate for soldiers they've begun enlisting women?" He sneered at the man crouched in the sand. Those blue eyes, blazing with rage, were set in a fine-boned, elegantly sculpted face. There were further hints of his western blood in the lines of that face, more still in hair that was true black, almost blue where the sun hit it. Sweat beaded on his upper lips, blood staining them where the man's teeth had scraped them at some point in the fight. The man was beautiful.

    Silence had fallen as Sahayl spoke, and he continued speaking, striving to bury his father's behavior beneath his own. "What sort of brutes would bring such a flower into the world of men?" He leered. "Were you a peace offering, my desert rose?"
    With a snarl of rage the man threw himself up and forward, and Sahayl felt the sting as steel whispered along his cheek, could feel the blood beginning to seep. Still laughing, he returned the favor and watched smugly as blood blossomed on the man's right cheek.
    "Setcha!" Sheik Jabbar's voice thundered out across the oasis, forceful enough that even Sahayl stopped moving. Jabbar motioned to his men, to the blue-eyed man. "We are going.
    Tetcha. Now."
    Obediently the blue-eyed man relaxed his fighting stance, watching Sahayl cautiously as he retrieved his head wrap and then stalked to a horse the color of smoke, throwing hostile glances over his shoulder, clearly displeased that the fight had ended. Sahayl watched as Falcon mounted and gathered together, then with a sharp order from their Sheik, rode off into the Desert, vanishing quickly from sight.
    Sahayl steeled himself as his father stormed toward him. He dropped his sword, lest he react without thinking and do something he and the rest of Ghost would regret.
    "How dare you!" Hashim bellowed, fist flying, crashing into Sahayl's jaw. If he had not learned long ago how to take his father's blows, Sahayl would not be alive. He weathered the hits and let his father rage, biting back cries of pain and stifling the urge to fight back, knowing that to do so would do more harm than good. At last the storm of anger abated, leaving them both panting heavily, Sahayl on his knees in the sand. "Be certain I do not see your face anytime soon," Hashim said, then turned away and mounted his horse, curtly ordering the men to follow.
    Laughing bitterly, Sahayl wiped blood from his lip with the back of his fist and allowed Wafai to help him up. "Saa, that could have been much worse."
    "Yes," Wafai said quietly, "and one day it will be, if he is not stopped."
    "But who would stop him? I think half the Tribes in the Desert must hate us, yet none of them can manage to kill him…and I do not like the options left to us." He laughed again, and for a moment it