“It seems we are on the right path,” Hadjar smiled.
He wanted to mock Glen a bit, but instead grabbed the hilt of Mountain Wind. His senses had alerted him to the presence of an enemy so powerful that even after advancing to a new stage, Hadjar didn’t think he could defeat them.
“The right path,” a vaguely familiar voice sounded.
A wind blew. It was making the sand whirl around them, which didn’t allow them to look around. It was no surprise that they didn’t immediately notice the figure standing on one of the small dunes.
It was a woman of medium height. Her body was hidden by a light steel breastplate. Her tattered caftan skirt fluttered in the wind. Her sharp facial features were emphasized by a tattoo that stretched from her left to her right ear. Around the warrior, leaving behind blurred trails, three purple spheres floated. She also had a broadsword in a scabbard at her waist.
“The King of the Desert invites you, Hadjar Darkhan, to negotiate with him,” Sankesh’s daughter said. “In an hour, six miles north of here. Come alone.”
The wind brought her last words to them, since Rahaim and Ilmena’s murderer had already disappeared among the sands.
Chapter 369
After a brief argument, Hadjar set out. He made Einen promise not to hide in the shadows. He was sure that Sankesh would easily detect the islander’s presence.
He also left Azrea back at the camp. The tigress, contrary to his expectations, didn’t try to resist. Poking her head out lazily, she’d sniffed at Tilis, snorted, and then jumped into Karissa’s lap.
Habitually checking whether his sword’s scabbard was tightly fastened to his belt, Hadjar went to the meeting place. Along the way, he examined the ruins. The ancient stone buildings, almost completely hidden within the sand dunes, weren’t all that amazing. This could’ve been a simple border city or fort. The only thing that really drew his attention was the obvious difference between these buildings and the architecture of the modern desert cities. However, they’d been here for many hundreds of thousands of years, forgotten by the gods, allowing the sands to slowly immerse them in eternal oblivion.
“I’m surprised you came.”
Sankesh’s daughter appeared out of the sand, almost copying how Einen did it. However, Hadjar easily sensed her approach in advance, unlike Einen’s. Or maybe his transition to a new stage of cultivation was why he’d been able to notice her. He hadn’t had enough time to determine the limits of his new abilities yet.
“You’ve gotten stronger since our last meeting,” the girl said. An unnatural power was emanating from the purple spheres floating around her. It was surely an artifact. “And dumber.”
“Courage is often confused with stupidity,” Hadjar shrugged.
“And vice versa,” the warrior agreed. “My father is quite fond of you. Every day, we discuss where to put your head in our palace back in the Pearl of the Sands.”
“In Rahaim’s palace, you mean,” Hadjar corrected.
He noticed how the girl’s eyes narrowed with an oddly casual indifference. She put her hand on the hilt of her broadsword, but didn’t draw it.
“If you talk to him like that, you certainly won’t live to see today’s sunset.”
“I don’t understand why you’re so worried about my safety.”
Suddenly, the girl’s lips widened in a predatory grin.
“Little Serra talks about you all the time. It’ll be a shame if she doesn’t get to see my father skin you alive and leave you to rot in the sun with her own eyes.”
Now Hadjar’s hand involuntarily reached for Mountain Wind, but his mind took control of his body just in time. He’d learned some important information right then: Serra wasn’t with Sankesh at the moment...
“I wouldn’t rot, I’d languish,” Hadjar corrected her.
They made the rest of the trip in silence. About fifteen minutes later, high, white tents appeared. Soldiers scurried between them, dressed in armor with the solar emblem. Hadjar had wondered how they withstood the heat while wearing so much steel, but now he could feel a stream of energy in their arms.
Sankesh was a wealthy and far-sighted general, who gave artifact armor to even his common soldiers. Admittedly, he probably didn’t have any ordinary and weak soldiers in his army.
Walking through the camp, Hadjar got a lot of sidelong glances. In his simple caftan, old shoes, and shabby turban, he stood out sharply against the backdrop of the military fortification. To be honest, he felt a bit of nostalgia. About three years had passed since he’d commanded his own military camp.
Without wasting any time, Hadjar counted the number of tents and weapon racks. According to his modest estimates (he was really missing the neural network’s help right then), there were at least six hundred soldiers in the camp. Each of them possessed an aura ranging from at least the highest stage of Formation to the Transformation level.
Computing module is currently rebooting…
Approximate time until completion is…
These six hundred soldiers were a very formidable army. With them alone, Hadjar could’ve captured the entirety of Balium in a week. He sensed the echo of the auras of several Heaven Soldiers, so it would’ve taken him even less time.
Soon, all his calculations stopped. Compared to their commander, everyone else seemed unimportant, like a smoldering coal in the presence of a forest fire.
Sankesh lived up to his reputation. He sat at a strong oak table. His tan arms were as thick as Hadjar’s thighs, and Hadjar wasn’t exactly flimsy.
As for armor, the King of the Desert wore only gold bracers, greaves, and a chainmail skirt. His winged helmet lay next to him. His long, black hair lay on his shoulders, which looked like boulders that had been torn from a cliff. Nearby, set against the table, was his halberd, clearly something he was proud of and flaunting. One glance at the weapon was enough to determine its titanic weight. Propping up his square jaw with his fist, Sankesh was indifferently observing the commotion in the camp.
“Father,” the female warrior fell to her right knee and looked down. “I’ve fulfilled your order. This is Hadjar Darkhan, with whom you’ve expressed a desire to talk.”
Hadjar didn’t know what a normal relationship between a father and daughter was like in the desert, but he suspected that it wasn’t this servile and official.
“You can go, Arliksha,” Sankesh nodded.
Well, Hadjar now knew the name of Ilmena’s and Rahaim’s murderer.
Arliksha, still not looking up, walked backwards for at least thirty feet. Only then did she turn around and disappear among the tents.
There were no guards around Sankesh. That immediately caught Hadjar’s eye because it was so unusual. Propriety, if nothing else, demanded that the head of the army went everywhere with his personal bodyguards.
“They’re in there,” Sankesh pointed behind him with his thumb. “They couldn’t bear the heat, and their religion forbids them from wearing my emblem.”
Hadjar looked at the huge tent embroidered with gold, amber, and diamond threads. At its entrance hung the skin of a desert lion, a creature so fierce that it was often mentioned in children’s horror stories.
Now it was clear what had made the scars that covered the Spirit Knight’s hands and that his powerful body couldn’t heal.