Bonus Lore for Beneath the Rings: A Descent into the Abyss of Vengeance. The desert doesn’t sleep. In the uncharted heart of the Rub' al Khali, the “Empty Quarter,” where dunes devour screams and stars pierce like daggers, a shadow coils. 

They are The Obsidian Hand, a whispered curse that haunts intelligence briefings, a specter of vengeance forged in the crucible of Middle Eastern wars. In the upcoming novel Beneath the Rings, their audacious Olympic hostage crisis—a $500 billion ransom demand that holds the world hostage—rips open a legacy of terror. 

But here, in this exclusive blog, we plunge into the untold saga of their leaders, a blood-soaked tapestry of betrayal, bloodshed, and the ancient Najdi code of tha’r that binds them. These are the shadows they kill to keep hidden, bonus lore that will drag you into the suffocating dread of Beneath the Rings. The air grows thick. The dunes are listening. And somewhere, a cage door creaks open.  

It was October 1973, and the Sinai burned. The Yom Kippur War had erupted, Egypt and Syria’s bold strike against Israel a blaze of Arab defiance. Khalid Al-Masri, then a young soldier, tasted victory in the desert’s dust, only to choke on betrayal when the UN’s ceasefire halted their advance. 

In the refugee camps of southern Lebanon, where the air reeked of gunpowder and grief, Khalid and others like Rashid Nazari, a judge still clinging to justice, watched the 1978 Camp David Accords turn their sacrifices into diplomatic ash. Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, leaving Beirut’s streets red with civilian blood, cemented their rage. Lebanon’s complicity with Western powers was a traitor’s kiss. 

The world had wronged them, and tha’r—the Najdi code of blood vengeance—demanded payment.  

Tha’r is no fleeting grudge. In the Bedouin tribes of the Arabian interior, it is a sacred debt, a vow that an affront—murder, theft, betrayal—must be answered with blood, no matter how many generations pass. 

For The Obsidian Hand, born in the early 1980s from Palestinian guerrillas, radicalized soldiers, and broken dreamers, the “tribe” is the Arab world, scarred by wars and Western meddling. Their insignia—a bleeding crescent moon entwined with cryptic Arabic calligraphy—snarls their truth: peace is a lie, and only fire forges justice. Their motto, “Through fire, we are forged,” is a growl in the dark, a promise that their enemies will burn until tha’r is sated. 

The desert is their sanctuary, its vastness a tomb for secrets. But secrets have a way of bleeding out. In 2009, Khalid Al-Masri, now a decorated Yemeni officer, stood in the ruins of his village, his wife and son’s screams silenced by a Western-backed airstrike. “Collateral damage,” the report sneered. Khalid’s tha’r was born in that silence, transforming him into The Commander. 

By 2017, he struck with the “Night of Shattered Glass,” slipping into the U.S. embassy in Abu Dhabi as a maintenance worker, his device igniting explosions across three Gulf consulates. As 47 diplomats burned, Khalid’s whisper cut the night: “This is but a spark.” 

In Beneath the Rings, his voice is a blade, slicing through the hostages’ hope: “We are mirrors. What you suffer, your leaders brought upon you.” The ransom demand looms, a guillotine’s edge, and the world holds its breath.  

A shadow moves beside him—The Spectre, a gaunt wraith whose name is a ghost even to Khalid. In 2013, as Syria’s civil war tore the nation apart, he was a demolitions expert, betrayed by his rebel faction and left for dead in a mosque’s rubble. Rescued by The Obsidian Hand, his tha’r became a vow against all who abandon their own. In 2020, he infiltrated a NATO summit in Istanbul, his caterer’s guise hiding a toxin that choked 12 diplomats. 

As chaos fractured NATO’s resolve, his seven finger taps—a death knell—echoed in survivors’ nightmares. In Beneath the Rings, his camera’s red eye devours the hostages’ agony, each frame a pulse of tha’r, the lens a predator in the dungeon’s gloom. The broadcast is coming. The world will watch.  

The air grows rancid as Dr. Samir Haddad, “The Doctor,” steps from the shadows. In 1998, amidst the Oslo Accords’ fragile hope, he was a surgical prodigy in Amman, until a false rape accusation—whispered to be a Mossad ploy—led to years of torture in a cell. His tha’r emerged with his freedom, his scalpel now a weapon. 

In 2023, he performed “The Hollowing” on a CIA operative, his nerve manipulations reducing the man to a gibbering husk, spilling secrets that toppled a Gulf regime. “Pain is truth,” Haddad hissed, his eyes cold as the grave. 

In Beneath the Rings, the hostages’ screams are his symphony, their bodies his canvas for tha’r. A new experiment looms, and the dungeon’s walls seem to pulse with dread.  

Rashid Nazari, “The Arbiter,” tightens the noose. In 2014, as ISIS’s shadow darkened Iraq, foreign-backed militia slaughtered his family in a botched raid. Once a Jordanian judge, his justice warped into tha’r. In 2021, he lured a traitorous African warlord with promises of arms, then leaked footage framing him as a Western spy. 

As the warlord’s men tore him apart, Rashid’s drone feed flickered, his whisper chilling: “Justice is balance.” In Beneath the Rings, his broadcasts twist the world’s perception, the $500 billion ransom a scale for global guilt. But his next message, encrypted and waiting, could shatter nations. The clock ticks.  

Adil Rahmani, “The Scribe,” wields lies like a blade. A historian and journalist, he exposed corruption until a 2016 car bomb in Yemen’s war-torn streets stole his daughter. His tha’r turned his pen into poison. In 2022, he framed a French diplomat with forged terror links, sparking protests that paralyzed Paris. “Truth is clay,” he wrote, “and I am its sculptor.” 

In Beneath the Rings, his propaganda paints the hostages’ suffering as the West’s sin, each lie a lash of tha’r. A new leak is ready, its contents unknown, its target trembling. The world will reel.  

Zainab Al-Fahd, “The Watcher,” sees all. Betrayed in a 2018 Damascus op as Syria bled, this Iraqi intelligence officer was left for dead. Her tha’r rose with her survival, her algorithms now a web of surveillance. In 2024, she hacked a U.S. drone network, redirecting a strike to a rival militia, leaving 80 dead. “Betrayal breeds ash,” she murmured, watching the flames. 

In Beneath the Rings, her intercepts choke the hostages’ rescuers, her tha’r a silent stranglehold. But a new signal hums in her network, a whisper of betrayal within the Hand itself. Her eyes narrow. Someone will pay.  

Darius Khan, “The Enforcer,” is a storm of violence, his self-inflicted scar a vow of silence until tha’r is complete. Forged in Somalia’s chaos, he joined Khalid after crushing a rival faction. In 2019, he slaughtered 30 Saudi soldiers, carving his scar’s mirror into the last man’s face. “Carry my vow,” he growled. 

In Beneath the Rings, his blows shatter the hostages’ defiance, each strike a hammer of tha’r. But his gaze lingers on one captive, a spark of recognition flickering. A secret from his past stirs, and the dungeon’s air grows heavier.  

Alya Marwan, “The Keeper,” is a void. Her past—scholar, spy, or myth—erased, she guards the Hand’s secrets. In 2023, she unmasked an MI6 mole, dissolving his body in acid after decrypting his network. “Secrets are my cage, and I its key,” she whispered. 

In Beneath the Rings, her encrypted codes baffle the world, her tha’r a silent blade. But a file in her vault, sealed even from Khalid, hums with forbidden truth. If opened, it could unravel everything. The lock trembles.  

The hostages in Beneath the Rings—naked, bound, and bleeding in a desert dungeon—bear the weight of tha’r. Each act of cruelty, from Khalid’s assaults to Haddad’s experiments, is a ritual, balancing the 1982 Lebanon invasion’s massacres, Lebanon’s Western alliances, and the 1996 Olympic rejection of a Palestinian athlete—a slap to Arab pride. 

The $500 billion ransom is a guillotine, weighing the world’s guilt. “We are mirrors,” Khalid snarls, and the hostages’ screams reflect a pain the Hand believes was inflicted first. 

But the shadows pulse with suspense. A traitor whispers within the Hand, their identity a ticking bomb. 

The Spectre’s next broadcast could break the world’s will—or ignite a war. 

Haddad’s new experiment, its purpose veiled, hums in the dungeon’s depths. 

Zainab’s algorithms catch a faint signal, a rescue team closing in, their fate uncertain. 

The desert watches, its silence a predator’s crouch. 

Will the hostages survive? 

Can the world pay the ransom, or will tha’r claim them all?  

The Obsidian Hand is no faceless evil. They are ghosts of the Middle East’s wounds—Yom Kippur, Lebanon, Syria—their tha’r a mirror to a world that birthed their rage. In Beneath the Rings, their vengeance is a question: what happens when justice becomes blood debt? 

The answer lies in the dunes, where the sand stirs, and a scream is swallowed.  

Beneath the Rings is coming. Plunge into the lore, and share your dread with #BeneathTheRings. 

The desert waits. 

What price will vengeance demand?