“What is the nature of your mission?” the Punjari captain asked.
“That’s for my friends and me to say directly to King Zargov. Only he can hear our message.”
The captain looked over their rich attire and trappings and sneered. “You’ll talk to me or no one,” he said.
“Then we’ll talk to no one,” Jafar al-Sharif spoke up, “and you can kill us right here. When King Zargov asks you what those strangers with the important message had to say, you can tell him you killed us before you found out.”
The captain eyed the strangers angrily, taking particular notice—as others had done before him—of the ghostly girl on the fourth horse. He hated to be outbluffed—but he knew King Zargov would want to know more about these intruders personally.
“You’ll meet King Zargov,” the captain snarled. “Then yo
