Alliances

Chapter 18

Adala sat on a small carpet, shielded from the broiling sun by a square of blanched cotton. She gripped a stick in one hand and tapped it against her leg in a quick, regular rhythm. Normally she used the stick to urge Little Thorn to move. At that moment she wished she could use it on her entire nation.

Just after dawn, a patrol of Mikku horsemen had thundered in, babbling inexplicable news. The laddad were gone! A broad swath of trampled sand led away from Chisel and Broken Tooth. Horsemen went to investigate the two plateaus. The first party ascended Chisel unopposed. They found only abandoned rubbish. The party that tried to climb Broken Tooth was greeted by a shower of arrows and rocks. The nomads withdrew and went to learn the Maita’s judgment on the strange situation.

Chiefs and warmasters arrived, dismounted, and doffed their sun hats in deference to Adala. Chisel was empty, they told her. Tracks led away from Broken Tooth and joined up with those from Chisel. The laddad seemed to have departed both plateaus, so who remained on Broken Tooth?

With a sharp word, Adala silenced them all. “It’s clear as a midnight sky,” she said and stabbed the stick into the sand, as though spearing laddad flesh. “They slipped away, leaving a few of their number to deceive us.”

The Tondoon chief lifted his hands. “But how, Maita? Our night patrols saw and heard nothing! How could so many escape without being detected?”

“Foul magic again, or treachery.”

Despite all the changes in the world, the nomads had never lost their belief in and respect for magic. But it was her mention of treachery that upset the chiefs most. They all spoke at once, loudly disclaiming that any child of the desert could betray his people.

“Be quiet,” Adala said, and they were. “We ride after the fleeing laddad, and this time there will be no quarter. I have been too gentle, too forgiving”—the chiefs traded looks—“but no more. The time of gentleness is past. Let every warrior carry two swords today.”

Solemnly, the chiefs and their warmasters vowed to obey. Carrying two swords was an order with an especially grim meaning. In battle a nomad carried his best sword, leaving his spare in his tent. If his sword broke or was lost, honor decreed he ride back to his tent, fetch his second blade, and return to the fight. Carrying both swords meant the warriors would fight until death claimed them.

“The Weya-Lu do not go with us,” Adala announced. “They will remain here and storm Broken Tooth.”

The warmasters nodded sagely. It would be unwise to ride off in pursuit of one enemy and leave another unmolested behind. Adala had reserved for her own tribe the difficult task of assaulting the steep pinnacle and crushing the defenders that remained.

The men galloped away. Only the Weya-Lu warmaster, Yalmuk, stayed with Adala. He was new, having succeeded hot-tempered Bindas, who had perished fighting on Lesser Fang. Bindas had been young; Yalmuk was barely twenty. Like nearly everyone in the tribe, he was Adala’s distant kinsman.

She gestured for him to sit. Yalmuk squatted with the boneless grace of youth. Adala pulled her stick from the ground and traced an aimless pattern in the sand. “Is there any sign of Wapah?” she asked.

“No, Maita.” He jerked his head, tossing long hair from his eyes. “It’s as if he was carried off by the wind.”

She pondered that. Something untoward might have befallen Wapah. They were surrounded by dangers, and no one’s life was safe. On the other hand, loquacious Wapah was a master of the desert. He knew its fickle moods, knew the many dangers that lurked in its trackless expanses. Since his possession by the Oracle of the Tree, he had been different, not as talkative and—obvious only to Adala—his staunch support of her and her maita had waned. Had the meddling spirit seduced him away from their people’s true path? She did not like to think so.

Yalmuk was not so delicate. “Only a man who wants to disappear vanishes so completely,” he said. Despite her chilly reception of his words, he did not hold back. “Wapah knew the desert like no one else, Maita. He could have led the laddad around our patrols.”

She glared into gray eyes that were so like Wapah’s. “You have no proof of that!” she snapped.

He covered his face with his hands, an act of obeisance. “That is true. I beg forgiveness, Maita, and withdraw the slur on your honorable cousin.”

Your cousin, too, Adala fumed silently. Despite the words, Yalmuk’s tone made it obvious he still thought Wapah had betrayed them. Yalmuk was a savage fighter, but Adala disliked him and his family. So many Weya-Lu of higher precedence had fallen that he had been left as the ranking warrior in the tribe. It was with double satisfaction she gave her next order.

“Take the Weya-Lu and storm Broken Tooth. I want that rock cleansed of its foreign taint today.”

“I will spare no one!”

“Spare any you take,” she retorted. “I want to learn where their people have gone.”

The great mass of warriors had departed, hot on the trail of the fleeing laddad. It was a nearly empty camp through which Yalmuk rode to join up with the Weya-Lu.

The fortunes of war had fallen hardest on Adala’s tribe. No more than three hundred fighting men were grouped together in the center of camp, and nearly all wore bandages on heads, arms, or hands. Most had the dark eyes common among nomads, but a dozen or so of the gray-eyed strain were scattered among them. As Yalmuk approached, the Weya-Lu raised a sword in each hand, showing they were armed as their Maita had commanded.

“Cousins and brothers!” Yalmuk declared. “To us has fallen a great honor-that of reclaiming the last of our ancient mountains from the foreign invaders! We ride to cleanse Broken Tooth!”

Passionate cheers greeted his pronouncement. The men had lost their families in the nighttime massacre of the Weya-Lu camp. Like Adala herself, they believed the laddad warriors had killed their wives, parents, and children. In their hearts burned a flame of vengeance so bright, not even the desire for survival could outshine it.

Yalmuk divided his band into three equal parts. The first part would ride around Broken Tooth and attack by the north trail. The second, led by Yalmuk himself, would storm the southeast trail, the only one wide enough for horses to ascend abreast. The last group would wait halfway between the other two and reinforce whichever seemed destined for success.

“We attack at noon,” Yalmuk said. Only an hour away, the hottest time of day would be good for desert nomads and bad for soft-skinned foreigners.

Off they rode, singing the Weya-Lu war song:

Atop Broken Tooth, Planchet heard them. He’d been expecting an attack, even after he saw the bulk of the nomad army ride away on the trail of the escaping elves. With the wind blowing their dust in his face, it was hard to see how many nomads were coming. Judging by the full-throated chorus, it must be several hundred.

He stood atop the rock signal tower. Below him were ranged his two hundred defenders. They wore helmets and breastplates whose design hadn’t changed much since the days of Kith-Kanan. Each elf had sword, spear, and bow, although there were precious few arrows. Planchet had insisted the Speaker take most of their dwindling supply with him.

The spears ported on each fighter’s right shoulder were an odd, tragic note, reminding Planchet again of the atrocity committed against the elves. Few had the use of their left hands, and some bore injuries on other limbs as well. Yet none had hesitated to volunteer for the final battle. He saw Qualinesti, Silvanesti, and half a dozen Kagonesti, their facial tattoos rendered nearly invisible by the dark tans given them by the Khurish sun.

He took a deep breath. “Warriors, I salute you!” he proclaimed. “The enemy is coming. To your places, as we planned.”

The ordered ranks broke apart. Sixty elves trotted across the rough plateau toward the north trail. Planchet expected a two-pronged attack, with the heaviest blow coming from the north. He’d allotted his sixty strongest warriors to defend that trail.

He led the balance of his force to the southeast trail. It was heartbreaking to see how many could barely walk, much less fight. But they had played their role to perfection, keeping the nomads here, allowing the Speaker and their people to escape. They had one final gift to offer, to sell their lives as dearly as possible.

All night long they had dragged stones to the top of the trail, erecting a zigzagging, waist-high wall across the path. Tent poles, suitably sharpened, studded the ground ahead of the barrier. If the nomads tried to ride the elves down, they’d receive an unpleasant surprise.

Like the slow inevitability of death, the column of desert dust came nearer and nearer. Two plumes separated from the main cloud and streamed around the foot of the peak, heading inexorably for the north trail.

Planchet nodded. Just as he’d expected.

The rumble of hooves came from the southeast trail. The sound grew steadily louder then suddenly ceased. The telltale column of dust that marked the nomads’ advance dissipated, the air scrubbed clean by the constant wind. Planchet’s soldiers took up their swords and spears without a word being spoken.

“At one hundred yards, archers will draw and loose,” Planchet said. His calm voice carried with surprising clarity over the barren mountain top.

A yell came from the winding trail, rising from the throats of a hundred Weya-Lu tribesmen. It started low and rose to a piercing wail.

“Ready to receive cavalry!”

Spears were lowered to hip height and locked in position. The wind changed direction, swirling around Broken Tooth and bringing a cloud of stinging sand with it. The nomads were moving again, charging up the steep trail toward an enemy they couldn’t see but knew was there.

As he awaited them, a memory flashed unexpectedly into Planchet’s mind: Qualinost on a summer’s night. The view from his room in the Speaker’s palace was green and immensely peaceful. Spread out below his window, the city was lit by thousands of amber lamps and by the clouds of winking fireflies drawn to the lights.

The nomads arrived, riding hard around the final bend. The path was wide enough to allow five abreast, and that’s how the Khurs came, galloping knee to knee, screeching like creatures from the Abyss.

“Present!” Planchet commanded. The few archers raised their arrowheads skyward. “Loose!”

Many arrows fell short. The elves’ injured hands kept them from drawing and holding properly. Planchet shouted for them to loose at will, and additional arrows raked across the head of the enemy column. Saddles were emptied, and the fallen nomads were trampled by hard-riding comrades with little room to maneuver. In these conditions, if a rider couldn’t keep his seat, even a minor wound could prove fatal.

Planchet drew his sword and stepped into line with his warriors. Arrows flicked over their heads, so low they felt the wind of the missiles’ passage. Before the elves was an awesome panorama: plunging horses in colorful desert trappings, sides flecked with foam, teeth bared. Their riders were no less fearsome, with their swords held high, teeth pale against dark beards, and their deep-voiced shouts mingling with the squeals of horses and the thunder of churning hooves.

The horsemen hit the line of elves, and it gave way at once, but the leading ranks of horsemen went down like chaff before a scythe. Following riders sent their lean ponies leaping over the fallen to land behind the elves. At once the left and right halves of the elves’ line drew apart, forming tight squares against the marauding horsemen.

Yalmuk was elated. In a single charge, he’d broken the laddad, something his people had never done before. He called for a renewed charge against the small knots of enemy warriors. At the same time, he ordered the reserve of one hundred called up immediately to exploit the advantage.

The elves’ left square threw back the nomads twice. Most of the archers had ended up with that square, and they did dreadful damage against targets almost close enough to touch. The spear- and sword-armed elves were in dire straits. Buffeted by furious horses, slashed by nomad swords, they couldn’t defend themselves fast enough, and their strength dwindled quickly.

The right square, in which Planchet fought, began to back away, always a dangerous thing to do when under attack. Speaking with unruffled calm, Planchet guided them backward across the plateau onto rising ground. Their interlocked shields, bristling with spears, warded off three intense charges. By that time, Planchet found himself up against the stone signal tower. He formed his fighters in a tight circle around the pile of rubble stone. Each time an elf fell, the circle drew together, shrinking tighter and tighter.

On the north side of Broken Tooth, the sixty strongest of the crippled elves ambushed nomads trying to gain the summit by stealth. They rolled boulders down the trail (so narrow there, the nomads had to advance single file) and jabbed at the mounted men from atop tall outeroppings. The Weya-Lu were forced to retreat, dismount, and come back up the trail on foot. The fight became a hand-to-hand brawl as nomads clambered over boulders and ledges to get at their foe. The nomads’ superior numbers and better health took a toll: the elves started falling back. They saw Planchet’s band encircling the lookout tower, so they made for that last defensible position.

Yalmuk could not prevent the northern company of laddad from reinforcing those besieged at the stone tower. His lieutenants cheered that development, saying it bottled up all the enemy in one place. Yalmuk scowled and spat blood in the dust. He wanted the battle finished. Where was his reserve? They should have arrived by now!

They finally appeared, riding at a leisurely pace up the southeast trail. Yalmuk drove his heels into his mount’s sides and flew at them, cursing their ancestors and their descendants, berating them for taking their time. He formed them into a dense column four abreast. While his tired warriors kept the laddad busy, Yalmuk prepared to smash the invaders once and for all with his fresh reserve.

Standing on the lowest step of the tower, Planchet did his best to direct his faltering command. He shifted his strongest warriors to trouble spots, shielded his weak and wounded fighters, and parried every attempt by the nomads to break his circle.

A shadow fell over the battle scene. Planchet spared a moment to look skyward. A quartet of heavy clouds had formed next to the mountains north of the Lion’s Teeth. They slid south and coalesced over Broken Tooth. Planchet wondered if it might actually rain.

His beleaguered warriors cried out. Planchet saw the nomad leader slowly clearing a swath through his engaged warriors, creating a path for the final charge of his reserve.

Now is when we die, Planchet thought.

Favaronas was certain no one had penetrated as far into Inath-Wakenti in untold centuries. All around, the landscape was as untouched as the gardens in a painting. Each footfall broke a crust of mold undisturbed for ages, which meant he, and even the light-footed Robien, left a plain trail. Their quarry, Faeterus, had left no footprints at all. Even so, Robien followed him. Favaronas couldn’t see the slightest evidence of a trail, but the strange Kagonesti went steadily ahead, never faltering, as if connected to his quarry by a string. Robien moved through darkness and daylight with equal speed.

They passed through orchards of fig and crabapple, but no fruit grew on the trees or lay rotted on the ground. With no bees to pollinate them, the trees could bloom but not bear fruit.

They left the level valley floor behind, entering the rising ground on the eastern side of Inath-Wakenti. The land began to slope up, and Robien pulled ahead of his weaker comrade. Periodically, Favaronas leaned against a handy boulder to rest. His body left a dark sweat stain on the pale stone.

Above, the slopes of Mount Rakaris were plainly visible. Its sides were terraced, the lowest step some five hundred feet above the valley floor. From what Favaronas had told him, and from the direction of Faeterus’s trail, Robien had deduced that it was Faeterus’s goal.

The tracker had told Favaronas a bit about his quarry—how Faeterus had been royal mage to several Khurish khans and had been responsible for calling up the sand beast that wreaked such havoc among the Lioness’s warriors in the valley. Favaronas began to fear what would happen if the magician succeeded in reaching the mountain slope. If Faeterus deduced the meaning of the stones and tapped the hidden forces of the valley, their lives likely would go the way of all animal life in Inath-Wakenti.

“Hello, my friend.”

Favaronas jerked. He slid off the boulder and landed on his rear with a jolt that snapped his teeth together. The shabby mage stood over him.

“You don’t seem glad to see me,” Faeterus said mildly.

“No, it’s—I’m just not accustomed to climbing mountains.” The hood turned, looking ahead. “Your companion does not have that problem. Who is he?” The frightened archivist didn’t answer, and the hood swung back to face him. Faeterus repeated the question more forcefully.

“Robien,” Favaronas whispered. “A bounty hunter hired by Sahim-Khan.”

Faeterus set down his shoulder sack. When the bag touched the ground, it began to squirm. Favaronas inched away from it.

“I’ll deal with the bounty hunter,” Faeterus said. “I do wonder how he was able to track me. Does he use any unusual implements, an amulet perhaps, a special jewel, a wand?” The archivist shook his head. He did not mention Robien’s oddly colored spectacles.

The mage shrugged. “No matter. I shall find out after.”

Favaronas did not ask what he meant. He feared Faeterus would answer.

The mage knelt by the leather sack, which was still moving. “I, too, brought provisions into this bloodless valley. But my victuals must be fresh.”

He unfastened the clasp and withdrew a large mourning dove from the sack. As he brought the bird, headfirst, toward the front of his hood, Favaronas swallowed hard and looked away. Unfortunately, he still heard the awful crunch. The headless, bloodless bird landed between his feet. Favaronas jerked them back, wrapping his arms around his up-drawn knees.

“I thought we were to be colleagues,” Faeterus said with icy sarcasm. The archivist’s gaze never lifted. “For your treachery, I should serve you as I did this bird. But I won’t. The culmination of my grand design requires a chronicler. Sorry specimen though you may be, you’re the only chronicler I’m likely to find.”

Several small stones trickled down the slope, rolling past the boulder where Favaronas cowered. Faeterus was instantly alert.

“Say nothing of seeing me. A chronicler can write as well with only a single hand or eye.”

The mage disappeared. His drably robed figure blurred into nothing, and his footprints smoothed away. The headless dove, even the blood spattered around it, vanished as completely as had the mage.

Robien came down the hillside at an easy lope, stopping at the spot where Faeterus had stood. Seeing Favaronas shivering by the boulder, Robien asked if he were ill.

“The pace is too swift,” Favaronas stammered, hoping his voice did not betray him. “I had to rest.”

Robien extended a hand. “Come. I want to reach the first plateau by sunset.”

As he drew the frightened Favaronas to his feet, Robien raised one black eyebrow. “Your hand is cold, yet you’re covered in sweat. What ails you, scholar?”

Favaronas longed to tell Robien all, but Faeterus’s threats still rang in his ears. He forced a weak smile and laid a hand on his stomach. “Too many roots and nuts.”

The one thing that hadn’t vanished when Faeterus disappeared was the mage’s walking stick. Robien picked up the thick tree branch and offered it to Favaronas.

“This is just the right length. Perhaps it’ll help you make the climb.”

The archivist tried to decline, but Robien insisted, so he took the stick and resumed his uphill slog. After a short time, he became aware Robien wasn’t following. In fact, the bounty hunter was squatting on his haunches, studying the ground by the boulder. Favaronas imagined that telltale traces of Faeterus’s presence stood out like beacons to the wily tracker.

Head down, Favaronas plodded silently up the hill.

Thunder rolled over Khuri-Khan and caused the sandstone buildings to vibrate. The sound was so rare, Khurs all over the city paused and looked skyward. Rain hadn’t fallen in Khuri-Khan in many months.

In the windy plaza atop the Khuri yl Nor, the royal palace, Prince Shobbat found the sound not amazing, but painful and frightening. His nerves seemed to worsen with each passing day. Loud noises oppressed him, bright lights burned through his closed eyelids, and everyday smells sent him into unexpected paroxysms of disgust or delight. Four days earlier, he’d had to quit a meeting early because the smell of roasting lamb made him ill.

The meeting had been a vital one, a secret rendezvous with three of the outlawed priests of Torghan. The Torghanists had long hated Sahim for his tyranny, for his lack of reverence to their god, and for the foreign laddad taint he had allowed into Khur.

The priests offered to put seven hundred fanatics in the streets of Khuri-Khan whenever Shobbat should need them. They would set fires and storm the souks as required. The riot would form the first stage of Shobbat’s plan to bring down his father, Sahim-Khan. When the city garrison marched out to quell the disturbances, Shobbat would admit a special cadre of Torghanists into the palace. Every member of the cadre was a trained assassin who had volunteered to kill Shobbat’s father.

Shobbat and the priests were discussing how best to appease the bloodthirstiness of the fierce warriors—perhaps the cadre should draw lots to determine who would have the honor of killing Sahim?—when the aroma of roasting lamb had come to Shobbat’s nose from the tavern below. A hairbreadth from vomiting, the prince fled, leaving the astonished priests wondering at his sincerity and his sanity.

Shobbat wanted his father dead. His sincerity, as the sages say, was perfect. As for his sanity, even the prince himself was no longer sure.

Worse than the sensitivities to light, smell, and sound were the strange waking visions. Colors would become brighter and brighter, until they seemed to vibrate of their own accord. Every candle flame, fire, and torch wore a rainbow aura. People and animals trailed visible clouds of scent, which wafted behind them as they walked or swirled around them as breezes blew. Without warning, any of his senses could become agonizingly intense.

The sun had set, bringing twilight to the rooftop plaza. To the east, dusk made the sea a smooth, gray-blue mirror. Silent flashes of light illuminated the distant, northeastern mountains. At each stroke, Shobbat flinched as though a lash had been laid across his back.

Voices from the steps below heralded the approach of Sahim-Khan and his entourage. Shobbat panicked. He mustn’t be seen in his current state, but there was nowhere to hide. Beyond the waist-high parapet at his back was a sheer drop to the coast. The sea crashed and foamed around house-sized boulders two hundred feet below.

Light was brightening the top of the stairs, light from the lanterns borne by Sahim’s servants. Shobbat put his back to the parapet and froze in panic.

Sahim was arguing with the new emissary from Neraka, Lord Condortal.

“What Neraka desires is of no consequence!” Sahim snapped. “I will not send my army after the laddad!”

“We had an understanding.” Condortal was a very tall man, his head hairless but for thick eyebrows and even thicker side-whiskers, both the color of polished walnut wood. He never seemed to speak at any level but loud, which was not a trait that endeared him to Sahim-Khan.

The sovereign of Khur was accompanied by Hakkam, general of his armies, six guards, four attendants, and two councilors. The Nerakan emissary had his own suspiciously muscular “advisors.” When the two lantern-bearing attendants turned to light their monarch’s way on to the plaza, they let out twin shouts.

“Great Kargath! What is that?” Sahim-Khan exclaimed.

Next to the parapet crouched a sleek, powerful-looking animal. Five feet long, not counting its bushy tail, it was covered in red-brown fur, with pricked ears, short nose, and enormous dark brown eyes. Ivory fangs protruded from its black lips.

Six soldiers interposed themselves between the beast and the khan. At their sergeant’s order, one hurled his halberd, but halberds are clumsy projectiles, and the weapon missed its mark. The sergeant called for crossbows. The animal glared at the humans as though it understood the word. It growled deep in its throat. Bowling over a soldier, it galloped the length of the plaza and leaped over the wall.

“Someone’s pet, I expect?” Lord Condortal said dryly.

“Not in my palace!”

The guards ran to where the beast had jumped. The drop was thirty feet to the flat roof of the Khuri yl Nor’s domestic quarters, but the creature must have survived the leap since there was no sign of it among the brass chimneys and open trapdoors.

“What was that thing?” asked Sahim.

His men had no answer. Condortal exchanged an unreadable glance with his underlings. “Some call them wolverines or red bears,” he said. “In our country they’re known as king martens, though I’ve never seen one as large as that. Do you not have them in Khur?”

“Certainly not.” Sahim drew his crimson and gilt robe closer around his chest. Beneath the silk, he wore a mail shirt, but iron links seemed sadly inadequate compared to the four-inch fangs of such a beast. The look of utter, mindless hatred in its eyes would have made a lesser man shudder. Sahim-Khan did not shudder; he acted.

“General, hunt that beast down and kill it. Bring its lifeless carcass to me.”

Hakkam turned to go, but his monarch’s voice halted him.

“Use the royal regiments, Hakkam, not just the palace guard. Issue crossbows and pikes. I want it dead tonight!”

The general bowed and departed, his face conveying none of his confusion. The khan was obviously rattled, but why? The creature was a strange-looking beast but it had probably followed the coast looking for food, and somehow ended up here. Why such a heavy hand to kill one animal?