Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #17 August 2015 | Page 62

At this point Abdul arrived with still hot food
and the debate was silenced for a while.
Once everyone had eaten Abdul gathered up
the used bowls and jars and packed them back onto
the donkey for his return trip to the village, The crazy
foreigners would not return to the village for at least an
hour, when it became fully dark.
#
Some two hours later and well after dark the
village was settling down for the night, aside from
the area between the two houses the foreigners were
renting. The villages had learnt to ignore the crazy men
who would talk until midnight, all except a few of the
youngsters who would creep close enough to hear tales
of ancient crypts and men long dead whose names
were chiselled onto statues or pillars.
Abdul was one of those curious young men and
he loved to sit, just outside the light from the oil lamps,
where he could listen to the two old men who argued
all the time but knew so much that they even made the
village Imam seem uneducated.
Still there would be work in the morning and
so, reluctantly, the young men would return to their
homes to sleep. Tonight as they separated Abdul
noticed a figure that also stood in the shadows and
listened. He did not look like a villager nor was he one
of the foreigners, Abdul paused to look at the man and
it was at this time that the old archaeologists decided it
was time to retire. One of them lifted the lamp and the
light spread across the street to shine upon the man.
He was clad in the garb of a Bedouin, a desert man, a
sword through his sash.

With his family safe he left the house again
for a few minutes, he spoke with the village elders
who woke several of the younger men and set them as
guards. More than a few spent the night with loaded
rifles close at hand.
Sunrise the following morning revealed no sign
of the Bedouin though several armed men checked the
village carefully to be sure. Then with no sign of danger
the diggers broke their fast and walked out to the dig
site to join the archaeologists who were already there.
#
It was mid day when shouts and then the sound
of gunfire drifted over the village from the direction
of the dig site. Abdul was leading one of the family
donkeys with baskets full of old bricks. The village
was building several new houses for some of the extra
workers who had been drawn to the area by the wealth
coming from the dig.
The young man turned to see where the noise
was coming from and as soon as he realised it was
coming from the dig sit he dropped the donkeys lead
and ran toward the hills, the dig and his father.

Abdul ran to find his father, the men of the desert meant trouble, they seldom came alone and for one
to be in the village unknown could mean a raid. Mohamed ordered his son to stay in the house and protect
his mother and the other children while he loaded his
rifle, then the man slipped out into the dark street.
He returned some ten minutes later having
seen nothing, but he had spoken to the men of the
houses opposite the foreigners, one had said he had

heard someone outside his house but had thought it
was the young men listening again. A Bedouin in the
village could mean nothing, he could be here to trade.
But for one to have come into the village in secret, to
have hidden in the darkness and spied on the foreigners, that left Mohamed uneasy.

By the time he reached the edge of the dig site
there was a lot more shouting and a number of shots,
both the boom of muskets and the sharper crack of
foreign pistols. He ran past several dead diggers and
found his father with a small group of diggers fighting
with several black clad Bedouin. Abdul shouted his
father’s name and Mohamed turned to his son.
“Abdul, quickly, go to the village, get your
mother and brothers down to the river and into one of
the boats. Quickly boy, go and X^H[Z