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really was a woman standing in the middle of the battlefield, in a circle of utter calm. Maybe the tides of violence really did part around her like a rushing stream, without any man being consciously aware of the process.
    At first glance she appeared to be a woman of the desert, with the golden skin and the finely chiseled features of a tribal princess, but her bearing proclaimed her to be something more. Her body was wrapped in layered veils of fine silk, and the long sleeves beat about her body like restive wings as men fought to their deaths on all sides of her. And her eyes! They were black and faceted, like gemstones, as inhuman as they were beautiful.
    She was staring straight at him.
    Nasaan knew that there were demons of the desert called djiri, wild spirits who sometimes aided tribal warriors in battle. He also knew that their help did not come without a price. Tales were told around the campfire of warriors who had been saved from the brink of death by such creatures, only to discover that that the price demanded was their firstborn child, a favored wife . . . or even their own manhood. The djiri were capricious and cruel, and notoriously unpredictable. One of Nasaan’s own ancestors had supposedly received the aid of such a demon, back when he had led his tribe in battle against the Tawara, and the ancestral songs hinted at a price so terrible that he became a broken man as a result and ultimately took his own life.
    None of Nasaan’s men seemed to be aware that the djira was present, nor did the horses appear to see her. Yet the tide of battle parted as it approached her, like rushing water parting around an island. Men fought, bled, and died on all sides of her, but no matter how chaotic the battle became, they did not move into her space. Blood spattered across the ground not far from her feet, and clods of earth torn loose from the earth by pounding hooves came flying in her direction . . . but men and horses all turned aside as they approached, seeking bloodshed elsewhere. No living thing would come close to her.
    All this Nasaan absorbed in a single instant, and then an enemy warrior engaged him, and he was fighting for his life once more. Not until he had dispatched the man—an easy task, given the enemy’s confusion—was he able to look back at the woman.
    She was still there. Untouched by battle.
    Her eyes were as black as the desert night and filled with promise.
    A wounded horse staggered by Nasaan. Its rider, a young man in brightly polished scale armor, took a swing at his head. Nasaan caught the blade on the edge of his shield and turned it aside easily; the man’s blow was as weak as a child’s.
    She did this, he thought, as he gutted his opponent with a quick thrust and watched him tumble to the ground. Overhead the great beast was beating its wings steadily, driving dust down into Nasaan’s eyes. He blinked it away just in time to meet the attack of another assailant, decapitating the man with a single sweeping blow. Even as he did so, the man’s horse fell to its knees, so swiftly one might think it had been hamstrung.
    Magic.
    Even without looking at her, he knew that she was smiling. He could feel her presence against his skin, cold fingernails of promise pricking his spine. You want Jezalya. The words were like ice against his flesh. I can give it to you . Had his ancestor experienced something like this? Had the offer of his own djira been simultaneously terrifying and seductive, casting his soul into such confusion that he could barely think straight? The touch of a desert spirit should not be cold; Nasaan knew that. But that observation was a distant thing, and his focus right now was the immediate picture. As he turned aside the blade of yet another attacker, only her offer mattered.
    I can give you victory, she whispered into his brain.
    If he refused her, did that mean the enemy would suddenly come back to its senses? Perhaps even gain a magical advantage in turn? The