The moon hung full and low in the deep blue sky and Maslakhat stood tall and still, daring to eclipse the great silver orb with his slender form gleaming brightly. Breath escaped from his nostrils and vanished quickly in the frigid winter air as his eyes poured over the sloping dunes with careful scrutiny. It was a quiet night, but not the peaceful sort of quiet. He couldn’t sleep; restlessness burned at his guts, and he knew that something would need to be accomplished soon. It would only be a matter of time before the insufferable black mare and her lackeys discovered he had taken up residence here, right under their muddled noses. And the element of surprise was not one he wanted to waste.

Sound carried in the desert, the rolling dunes offering hints of whispers between their gentle slopes. His ears quivered as an unfamiliar voice reached them in the night. Suddenly conscious of his highly visible post, Maslakhat drops down in the valley of a nearby dune with a silent skirting of sand. He followed the voice, unable to make out the precise words. Was there one? Or two?

At last he spotted her descend the dune nearest the oasis and he moved quicker now, gliding over the sand with elegance that only thousands of years of careful bloodlines could allow as he rounded the bend to interrupt her path.

“Going somewhere?” he spoke, his voice cool and even as he stood between her and the water.


MASLAKHAT
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