She had arrived too late; her father had died without blessing her and proclaiming her his successor.
She cared nothing about the blessing, but she knew that without the proclamation she stood no earthly chance against the claim Al-Asad would enforce through sheer brute force.
Superstition helped her in her need.
She believed that the soul lingered in the body for three days after the heart had ceased to beat, and she acted unhesitatingly, fearlessly, upon the belief.
She bent and picked up a lance lying upon the ground, and raised it above her head just as, without seeing her in the shadows, the men moved in a body towards Al-Asad.
She pitted her indomitable will against the mighty power of death, she flung it across the space which divided her from her father, and, for a fraction of time, pulled him back to the world he had loved exceeding well.
“Hail! father!” she shouted.
“Hail! father!” she shouted again as the men turned swiftly in her direction, then moved hastily backwards when the right hand of the man whom they supposed dead, moved.
Motionless from fear, they stared at, without recognizing, Zarah as she stood, tall and straight, in the shadows, wrapped in white from head to foot, her eyes half closed under the supreme effort she was making, her right hand raised, holding a spear ready for throwing.
She bent a little forward as she made one last bid for power, and at the sonorousness of her voice, which sounded like the calling of the evil one in the mountains, the men touched the amulets around their necks.