Sanctuary

Chapter 9

The Vale of Silence was aptly named. An hour after dawn, the Lioness and her warriors were riding across a flat, funnel-shaped valley that was utterly silent, with no breath of wind stirring or birds calling. The air was warm, but far from the blistering heat of the desert outside, and laden with moisture. The area’s other name—Valley of the Blue Sands—also was appropriate. The soil beneath their horses’ hooves was bright blue-green, a strange shade between malachite and verdigris. It also contributed to the quiet. The soft soil seemed to absorb the sound of their movements.

To spare the horses undue stress, Kerian had sent Eagle Eye aloft without her, then swung up behind Favaronas. The archivist would’ve exchanged places—after all, she was commander of the armies—but she waved away his offer. Balancing easily even without the benefit of stirrups or saddle, she studied their surroundings.

They rode past scattered stands of cedar and pine, and boulders half-buried in the sandy soil. The high mountains kept the valley floor in shade long after dawn, which probably accounted for the pockets of mist that clung to the low places.

“Well, librarian, what do you think?” the Lioness asked.

“Feels dead,” Favaronas replied. “No birds, no insects, not even any flowers blooming.”

He was right. A profound stillness lay heavily over the area. Only a few miles in, the effect was becoming unnerving. It was easy to imagine how the valley came to be shunned. Curious nomads, penetrating this far, would become spooked and flee, carrying with them tales of the eerie silence. Over the years, those stories would’ve grown with every telling.

If the atmosphere was unsettling, the scenery was increasingly beautiful, as the valley opened to them. The gray Khalkist peaks on the eastern side took on a slate-blue shade as the sun climbed over them, slanting into the valley and washing the facing western range with golden light. Islands of grass appeared, not the brown or gray flora of the desert, but familiar green shoots, the first they’d seen since leaving their homelands. The presence of grass was more than nostalgic. Where grass grew, livestock could live. Where livestock could live, elves could live.

With the sun above the eastern mountains, the temperature climbed, but never beyond a pleasant warmth. The Lioness and Favaronas came to a wide, shallow stream that wandered across the valley floor. It was shaded by two small willow trees, their slender branches motionless in the still air.

Kerian slid off the horse’s rump and squatted on a flat boulder by the water’s edge. Even as Favaronas called a warning, she dipped her hand in the stream and lifted it to her lips.

“To lead is to take risks,” she said, smiling wryly, then swallowed.

He didn’t have to ask if the water was good. His horse dropped its nose into the shimmering flow and drank noisily. In minutes, the entire command had followed suit. The fresh water was like a gift from the gods. The water they’d brought was warm, and tasted like the skins and gourds in which it was carried; the well water of Khuri-Khan was bland and flat. This water was ice-cold, with a distinct and pleasant mineral bite.

Eagle Eye alighted a dozen yards away, haunch-deep in the stream, and dipped his feathered head to drink. Thirst slaked, the beast stalked ashore on the east bank and lay down to sleep among cattails and tall grass. Before long his head was under his wing, and he was snoring like a boiling kettle.

Much refreshed, the Lioness allowed her warriors to linger by the stream, watering their horses and washing their gritty faces and feet. Favaronas sat on a gray rock overhanging the stream and sketched on a slip of parchment with a charcoal stick. The Lioness watched a map of the valley take shape beneath his skillful hands.

Drawing the long serpentine curve of the creek, he asked, “What shall we call this stream?”

“You’re drawing the map. Call it whatever you like.”

After a pause, he said, “Lioness Creek,” writing as he spoke.

“Speaker’s Creek would be more appropriate.”

“You said I could call it whatever I like.”

She shrugged and pulled off her boots. The chilly water was a blessing to hot, tired feet.

Less than a quarter of an hour later, their rest was abruptly interrupted. The air shuddered from some distant concussion. No sound of explosion followed; there was only a shock wave that made the air and ground vibrate once, very hard. The horses shied violently. Favaronas dropped his charcoal marker. Kerian jumped to her feet.

“The sand beast?” Favaronas quavered.

Kerian was dragging on her boots. “Curse it! Pleasant scenery, clean water, and we start acting like farmers at a fair!” They were in unknown territory, and she hadn’t even posted pickets!

The elves quickly resumed their normal vigilance. Kerian ordered twenty riders to reconnoiter ahead. Another band of twenty she sent back toward the valley mouth, in case the nomads (or anyone else) overcame their fear and decided to follow them. Bow-armed flankers rode out from the main column to watch for danger.

With her warriors fully deployed, the Lioness felt more at ease. Favaronas, however, clutched his map in both hands and stared wildly, expecting any number of unnatural beasts to fall upon them.

“Calm yourself,” she told the scholar. “I don’t think it’s the sand beast this time; look at Eagle Eye.” The griffon was looking around, but didn’t seem particularly excited.

She swung into the saddle of a fresh horse. “It’s probably nothing more than echoes from an avalanche in the mountains.”

He blinked at her in surprise, then nodded slowly. They were all so primed to find something otherworldly in the valley, he’d never considered a simpler explanation. Still, he was glad when she sent Eagle Eye skyward. It wouldn’t hurt to have the griffon’s sharp eyes watching over them.

They forded the newly named Lioness Creek. Scouts met them, reporting they’d found a clearly defined path beyond a field of half-buried boulders. Leaving the archivist with the main body of the army, Kerian trotted forward to see.

Beyond the boulders, three elves sat on horseback in the center of a wide lane thick with alluvial sand. A fourth was on his knees, digging with his hands. As the Lioness arrived, he announced, “Pavement!”

She swung a leg over her horse’s neck and dropped to the ground. Sure enough, beneath four or five inches of blue-green soil, he’d found stone payers. The two blocks was clearly visible. Clearing a larger area revealed more payers and something even more interesting—a deep groove worn into the road. They had seen such ruts before. The grooves were made by wheels, passing over pavement in the same line year after year. This groove followed the slight downslope back toward the creek they’d just forded.

“Someone has called this valley home,” the Lioness said. Question was, was anyone still here?

She remounted and sent the scouts ahead. Her admonition to stay sharp wasn’t really necessary; the very brief respite they’d enjoyed at the stream was over. All were alert. When Favaronas moved up with the main body, he made note of the pavement on his sketch map.

The paved path led northeast, into the heart of the Inath-Wakenti. The elves followed it slowly, cautiously, encountering nothing untoward until after midday, when a scout galloped back with news. They were approaching stone ruins, very old and very big stone ruins.

Ruins dotted the continent, from Balifor to Sancrist Isle. When Kerian was on the run from the Dark Knights who occupied her country, she often sheltered in ruins in the western Kharolis Mountains, relics of a time before the Great Cataclysm. Growing up in the wild, she’d had little knowledge of ancient history. Most of what she knew had been learned from tales traded around the campfire, of the beautiful, doomed Irda race, the twins Sithas and Kith-Kanan, the decadent human empire in Ergoth. Tales stranger still were told of the realm of Istar, where magic reigned until a fiery mountain fell from the sky and destroyed the city. Where glorious, doomed Istar once stood was now the whirling maelstrom of the Blood Sea, not so far away from this place.

The Lioness sent out more flankers to sweep either side of the road. She kept to the path, leading the main column forward. All the reports she received were negative. No quarry had been found, either of the two-legged or the four-legged variety. Not so much as a rabbit or a bird crossed their paths. The widely spaced cedars and pines seemed bare of all life.

Irritated by the lack of progress, the Lioness decided to try a loftier view. She dismounted and walked a few yards ahead, whistling for Eagle Eye. The griffon came skimming in over the low trees to land in front of her. She slipped a strung bow over her head and swung onto the tiny saddle pad.

“Continue down the road,” she told her officers, then elf and griffon bolted skyward.

After years of Khurish heat, the rush of temperate air past her face was like a balm. The climate surely was better here than in Khurinost. Perhaps Gilthas was on to something.

Consternation flooded through her. What was she thinking? Trade her birthright for a little comfort? Never! Yes, this valley was more pleasant than the sweltering sandpit outside Khuri-Khan, but so what? It wasn’t her homeland. Wasn’t, and never would be.

She turned her attention to the terrain unrolling beneath her—clumps of trees, bramble thickets, broad stands of tall, fleshy aloe. No wonder the flankers hadn’t seen anything. She’d forgotten how much real foliage limited sight.

The loftier elements of the ruins rose into view. At this distance they looked to be spires of white or gray stone, jutting above the trees. Not columns in the usual sense, they weren’t fluted or faceted, only simple tapering spires. As she drew nearer, remnants of walls appeared, their dimensions amazing. Each stone block was at least ten feet long and tall as a mounted warrior. In some places the wall reared thirty feet high, massive block fitted neatly atop massive block. The cyclopean stones showed clear evidence of having been smoothed and shaped by intelligent hands.

Eagle Eye spiraled slowly down. He alighted alongside an impressively tall stretch of wall. Elf and griffon contemplated the ruins as the rest of the column arrived.

Conversation died. Everyone stared in awe at the mysterious monuments, wondering who built them, and how long ago. The lack of decoration gave the stones an air of great, indefinable age.

Favaronas noticed something else. The stones were completely free of lichen. All the boulders and rocky outcroppings they’d seen in the valley borne healthy coatings of lichen or moss. The ruins showed none. The stones stood stark and clean against the blue sky and blue-green soil.

“Have you ever seen stonework like this before?” Kerian asked.

Favaronas shook his head. “But judging by the size, perhaps it was the work of ogres.”

She found that difficult to believe. Ogres built their dwellings in a rough fashion; they didn’t waste effort carving or finishing the stones. None of the elves could think of any race, ogre or otherwise, which could move blocks as enormous as these. Two soldiers measured one of the largest stone blocks at the foot of the wall; it was twenty-nine feet long and eleven feet high.

Ahead and on the right, shouts and whistles arose, Qualinesti cattle calls. Many of Kerian’s best scouts were former cow herders. She took flight, leaving Favaronas and the rest gawking at the ruins.

The griffon headed straight for a pair of huge standing stones still capped by a massive lintel. With Kerian leaning low over his neck, the creature sailed through, wingtips brushing the pillars on either side. He warbled low in his throat, sounding so smug she couldn’t help but chuckle.

The road they’d followed to the ruins continued ahead, bound on both sides by a wall. Scouts wove in and out of the trees to Kerian’s right. They were harrying something on foot. All she could see was a patch of pale brown darting through the brush.

The fleeing figure passed briefly into the clear. It was an antelope, the mountain breed with unbranched horns curving back over its head. She swooped down, shouting for it to halt, and it turned to look up. She glimpsed large brown m eyes before the antelope’s legs got tangled in the creeper and it went sprawling in the thick undergrowth. The Qualinesti giving chase converged on the spot.

By the time the Lioness landed and ran to where the beast had crashed, there was nothing but a rat’s nest of torn vines. Two of the scouts, dismounted, were probing the foliage. The creature was gone. She helped them look, but it was obvious an animal that size couldn’t be hiding here. Backtracking out of the bed of vines, they found its tiny hoofprints. Those at least were real.

Other scouts rode up and explained how they originally had flushed the antelope. They’d been riding past a thin line of aloes and stunted pines when the creature suddenly bolted from behind them. Hungry for fresh meat, the elves had given chase.

“It came out after you passed?” Kerian said.

“Upon our oath,” said one of the Kagonesti scouts, knowing it seemed illogical.

No wild creature, having secreted itself and avoided detection, would then squander its coup by dashing out before the hunters were gone. Just as difficult to believe was that savvy scouts would miss a full-grown antelope in the first place.

The Kagonesti scout put a hand to his heart and vowed, “It wasn’t there, General. I rode right through the spot. There was no antelope there. I swear it.”

“We were in the high desert a long time,” she muttered, shaking her head. “Maybe the sun baked our brains.”

They didn’t laugh. The silent heaviness of the valley’s atmosphere was affecting even the veteran Kagonesti. All were looking around warily, as though uncertain what else might suddenly spring up from beneath their feet. Kerian, who had knelt down to study the hoofprints, stood quickly and admonished them for their foolishness.

“We have enough problems to face without making up new ones. Next thing, you’ll be telling me the creature was a spirit!”

They looked struck by what she had meant as a jest; Kerian could’ve bitten her tongue. The rest of the column was moving up, so she left the scouts and went to send Eagle Eye aloft.

Voices were hushed, as though the elves were passing through a holy place. When Favaronas arrived, on foot, Kerian was seated on a low section of wall. She gestured for him to join her. He touched the stone gingerly, as if expecting to find it hot. Satisfied, he sat down.

She told him of the quarry that had eluded them. “It appeared to be an antelope, but whatever it was, it disappeared right in front of us.”

He didn’t seem surprised to hear this. “The old chronicles speak of strange forces at work here. The manuscripts I’ve read don’t mention clear dangers. Of course,” he added wryly, “clarity is not their strong suit.”

The two of them speculated on the odd lack of wildlife. But for the phantom antelope, they had seen no animals at all, not even insects. A day had passed since they’d drunk from Lioness Creek, and no one had reported any ill effects, so the water supply seemed fine. Was there something else in the Vale of Silence inimical to life?

Kerian knew Gilthas would be sorely unhappy should his scheme to transplant the elves fail. She was sorry for the disappointment he would feel, but at the same time she was freshly annoyed at him. He seemed convinced that the time had not yet come for them to liberate their ancestral lands. But if the valley proved unsuitable for their people, then what? Were they to continue in Khurinost forever, penned in their squalid tents, relying on the favor of the human khan?

“I wonder who could have built these great monuments?”

Favaronas’s voice cut across her growing anger. The archivist had left his perch on the wall and was studying the wall further down the line.

“An excellent question, Master Archivist,” she said, folding her arms across her chest. “How long would you need to find out?”

He looked across the vast meadow of stone ruins and shook his head vaguely. “I couldn’t begin to say. It would depend on what we discover. I see no obvious hints of the builder’s identity.”

“But someone raised these standing stones, someone powerful. Long dead and long gone, I presume.”

“The former, yes,” he muttered. “The latter, perhaps not.”

“What do you mean?”

“You touched on it yourself, speaking of the vanishing antelope.” She gave him a blank look, and he added, “Ghosts. Spirits of the dead may still walk the ruins.”

Obviously her Wilder brothers weren’t the only ones whose thoughts moved in that direction. They were all letting this weird valley and its massive stone sentinels play tricks on their minds. With a dismissive snort, she jumped down from the wall and gave the archivist a friendly slap on the shoulder.

“Try to figure out who built this, Favaronas. And don’t worry; we can leave any time we need to.”

She knew this last was probably a lie. An unknown number of armed nomads was likely poised outside the valley, just waiting for the elves to return. Getting out of the Inath-Wakenti might prove even more difficult than getting in bad been.

Scouts returned. They reported the ruins went on for miles—there seemed no end to them—and still they’d found no signs of any living creatures.

It was late afternoon, and they’d kept going without stopping the night before, so the Lioness decided to make camp, here among the ruins. The warriors were glad enough of the rest, but Favaronas was distinctly nervous about the choice of campsite. Still, in this strange valley, one spot was likely as good (or worrisome) as the next.

Another courier, this one a Qualinesti was dispatched to Khurinost. The Lioness knew he would need the cover of the coming night to slip past any nomads camped outside the valley, so there was no time to compose carefully detailed reports. The messenger carried a hastily written letter in which she thanked Gilthas for sending Eagle Eye, promised to put the griffon to good use against their enemies, and outlined the bare essentials of the valley’s nature.

They made camp in the lee of a sarsen that reared forty feet high. While the warriors tended their horses, spread bedrolls and gathered kindling for fires, Favaronas busied himself at the base of the towering monolith. He built a lean-to out of pine branches, then laid a small campfire. Fed with dry juniper twigs, the flames sent a sweet aroma into the cloudless sky. Equipped with fire and shelter, the archivist unpacked his case of manuscripts and began reading. He updated his sketch map and, on spare scraps of parchment, made notes for the Speaker about what they’d seen in the valley.

Kerian was pitching her own tent—a few yards from the archivist’s fire, since she’d assigned herself the task of watching over him—when foragers returned. They brought only unwelcome news. There was no game to be had.

“You found nothing to eat? Nothing at all?” she asked.

“A few bitter roots and pine seeds, General,” said one. Another added, “I haven’t seen so much as a gnat or fly in this valley.”

“Khur is the kingdom of flies and every other noxious insect. Why are there none here?”

“Something drove them out,” Favaronas murmured.

Kerian turned. He was seated by his small fire, engrossed in his papers. She asked him to explain his comment. He looked up, blinking slightly as his eyes focused on her rather than the manuscript so close to his face. She asked again.

“I can’t name what has no name,” the archivist replied, unhelpfully, then returned to his studies.

He muttered to himself, too low for Kerian to catch the words. She gave up trying to make sense of his musings and went to walk among her warriors.

The place she’d chosen for their camp was at the intersection of two broad avenues, one aligned northeast-southwest, the other crossing at right angles and aligned northwest-southeast. Rain-washed dirt had filled in the slightly sunken roadbeds over the years, but a little digging revealed they were covered by the same large paving stones as the road that had led the elves here from Lioness Creek.

The high walls of the Khalkist meant sunset came early to the valley. Hours before the light would fade from the desert outside, dusk blanketed their camp. A chill seemed to spring out of the ground, and the elves could see their breath. Patches of mist coalesced in low-lying areas.

Kerian ordered a large bonfire built in the center of their camp, which was also the center of the crossroads. Foragers had found plenty of deadfall pine, cedar, and fir limbs, though no good hardwood, and by the time the first stars winked into sight, the blazing flames were sending sparks up to join them. The firelight only made the ruins around them seem more eerie, more strange. A rotation of mounted sentries was posted a goodly distance from camp. Each elf was given a horn to blow, and assigned a distinctive call. If anything untoward happened, the Lioness would know exactly which sentry raised the alarm.

She checked on the archivist. Whatever anxiety Favaronas felt about being in the valley, it hadn’t prevented him from sleeping. He apparently had decided against sleeping in his lean-to, however, and was snoring away in the Lioness’s tent.

She and her officers rebuilt the archivist’s little campfire at the base of the great sarsen and settled down to have their supper.

“General, now we’ve found the Inath-Wakenti, how long will we stay?” asked a Qualinesti.

She shrugged, swallowing a mouthful of beans. “I see no reason to stay. We’ll start back tomorrow.”

Astonishment showed on every face. According to the information she’d given them (which she’d gotten from Gilthas’s map, the valley was at least a dozen miles long. Shouldn’t they explore further? There might be dangers they hadn’t discovered or other ruins or—

“What of the nomads? On the honor of my sword, I’ll wager they’re waiting for us.”

This came from Glanthon, one of the few remaining officers left from the royal Qualinesti army, and younger brother to Planchet, the Speaker’s valet. Glanthon was as talkative as Planchet was taciturn, and Kerian had no doubt he would expound upon his theme, so she forestalled him.

“We’ll slip out quietly, avoiding the nomads as much as possible.”

A fighter by nature, the Lioness would’ve preferred to punch her way out, thrashing the fanatical tribesmen on the way. But her elves were too few. If a single battle went wrong the entire command could be lost, and she was determined to carry the truth of the valley back to Gilthas in person. The Inath-Wakenti was not a new homeland for their exiled people. A mild clime and scenic, yes, but something here was hostile to all animal life. She put no stock in the archivist’s remark about ghosts, yet there was no denying the total absence of living creatures.

“We’ll ride east, to the mountains, and look for another way out,” she announced. “There’s got to be something-goat track, deer trail, something.” She smiled wryly over her beans. “All the animals had to go somewhere.”

“There’s no other way out.”

Favaronas stood at the edge of the firelight, by the door flap of Kerian’s tent. The Lioness and her officers stared at him.

“I studied the Speaker’s map down to the smallest detail,” he said, coming closer. “The ancient cartographer was very precise, and he shows no other way out.”

Kerian asked, “Then where did all the animals go? Did they die out?”

Favaronas admitted he didn’t know the answer to that question. He sat between her and Glanthon, accepting a plate of beans and a loaf of flat Khurish bread. Since he seemed to have nothing more to contribute, the warriors fell to talking about their clash with the nomads, dissecting the tactics and fighting skills of the Weya-Lu. All agreed that if the nomads had better weapons, they might not be sitting here now.

A horn sounded, far away. The discussion broke off, the officers alert and listening. The sound was a long, wavering note, the signal assigned to a Silvanesti scout named Camthantas. His patrol area was northeast, further along the same road they’d followed since crossing the creek.

Two more horns blew, and the Lioness was on her feet.

“Nomads?” said Favaronas, dropping his plate of beans.

“No,” she said, her attention focused toward the sounds. “Northeast, from deeper in the valley. The other two signals are from the sentries on either side of Camthantas.”

She pointed at two of her commanders, indicating they and their troops would accompany her. Glanthon would remain to defend the camp. The warriors scattered to their duties.

“You, too, Favaronas. You’re with me.”

He jumped to his feet, face ashen in the low light. “What? I’m no warrior! And I can’t ride that beast of yours!”

“You don’t have to. I’ll go by horse.” Eagle Eye was asleep, tethered inside an angle of stone wall. He’d spent many hours in the air today and had earned a good rest.

The Lioness took Favaronas’s arm and pulled him along. “I’m sorry, but I may need your knowledge of the valley.” When be continued to babble frightened protests she whipped around and shouted into his face, “Favaronas! I need you! And I will protect you!”

In minutes forty elves, led by the Lioness, with her reluctant companion riding pillion, were cantering up the road toward Camthantas’s position. The Vale of Silence was lit only by the stars, brilliant as a thousand diamonds on a bed of ebony silk. Off to Kerian’s right, another alarm horn sounded, then another. In succession, the signals showed the source of the alarm was moving away from her and her small troop. She pressed ahead. When she reached Camthantas’s assigned position she knew something was very wrong. His horse was dead, its stomach slashed open.

“Draw swords!” Forty blades rose into the cool darkness. “First troop, deploy left; second, right! No one is to lose sight of his neighbor. At the walk, advance!”

She felt Favaronas trembling violently behind her, his hands lightly holding her waist. She was not without compassion. He was indeed no warrior. Despite this, and the deaths of his assistants, he’d not slowed them down on their difficult trek. Now he followed her into battle—perhaps not willingly, but without whining. Gruffly, she told him to stop worrying about protocol and hold on tight. His shaking hands clenched her waist.

They moved forward slowly. Her command to keep in sight of each other soon proved impossible to obey; the warriors were forced to ride around sections of walls or monoliths.

Something darted between two towering sarsens, and Favaronas let out a cry. He’d seen only a silhouette, but it was big-bigger than a horse. As he stuttered this warning, realization flooded through Kerian.

Wrenching her horse’s head around, she shouted, “The sand beast! Retreat! Retreat!”

Her words were punctuated by a nearby chorus of shouts, followed by a veritable fanfare of horns. She kicked her horse into a gallop. Favaronas yelped as he was flung backward, but his grip never loosened.

“Rally to me, by the road! Rally to me!”

The forty elves converged on their general. Several confirmed her fears. They’d seen the reptilian monster. Arrows were nocked. The horses shied and snorted. They could smell the sand beast.

And then it was upon them, zigzagging through the ancient stones with unbelievable agility and speed. Bows creaked, strings sang, and arrows sped at the monster. Every one glanced off.

The Lioness drew a bead on the monster’s eye, but it moved so fast her arrow flashed through empty air. The sand beast charged among the elves, throwing its horned head this way and that. The horses’ mad panic made it hard for their riders to avoid the beast’s rush. Horses and elves tumbled to the ground. It leaped upon one struggling pair, savaging them. All the while arrows bounced off its armored hide.

“How can we kill this thing?” Kerian shouted desperately.

One horse, braver than its fellows, lashed out at the bloodthirsty beast. With iron-shod hooves coming directly at its eyes, the monster backed up, bumping against a standing stone. The eighteen-foot monolith shifted.

Favaronas, clinging to Kerian’s back, saw this, and it gave him an idea. “General, look!” he shouted, pounding her shoulder with the side of one hand. “The stone is loose! If we topple it—!”

She began issuing orders before he’d even finished. While most of the troop fought to keep the monster where it was, fourteen elves, dismounted, gathered on the other side of the stone to push.

The attackers charged, launching arrows at the sand beast’s head. The creature was forced to blink every time an arrow flew at its eyes. Hips against the monolith, it shook its head from side to side and screeched with frustrated fury.

“Now!” Kerian cried.

Fourteen elves threw themselves on the tottering spire. it gave a little, and the sand beast obligingly stepped forward when it felt the cold stone nudge its back. The attackers pressed in, harder, and the sand beast fell back, rocking the stone backward and loosening it further.

“Again!”

Elves clambered up to their comrades’ shoulders to get at the leaning stone. With groans, grunts, and more than a few curses, they shoved the monolith. At its base, the turquoise soil began to bulge and rise. The monument was breaking loose.

“Get back! Get back!”

Elves on foot and horseback scattered. Suddenly freed of the annoying rain of arrows, the sand beast lashed out with a foreclaw. With its double burden, the Lioness’s horse lagged behind the rest. Iron claws snared the animal’s flanks. Horse and riders went down in a heap.

The great stone continued its inexorable fall. The sand beast sensed the danger, but too late. The tapered spire crashed down on its hips, smashing it to the ground and pinning it beneath tons of stone. The beast let out a high-pitched howl.

Elves scrambled up the monolith, adding their weight to the burden on the creature’s legs. As it roared and clawed at the stone, they stabbed furiously at the softer skin under its legs. Some swords snapped, but enough penetrated to make blood flow. Stirred by an agony it had never known, the sand beast arched its back with a mighty effort, shifting pillar and elves, and freeing itself. Crushed hindquarters dragging, it fled, mighty foreclaws propelling it several yards at a time. The lust to kill elves was subsumed beneath a more primal need—to live.

Her warriors found the Lioness, groggy but uninjured. Atop her sprawled Favaronas; the archivist was senseless.

“We beat it, General! It’s running away!” they shouted, moving Favaronas aside and pulling her to her feet.

The words penetrated the fog in her battered brain. “What? Go after it! Don’t let it escape!”

Mounted elves spurred away. Kerian called for a new horse. While one was being brought, she knelt by Favaronas. Blood trickled from his nose, but his eyes had opened. With her help, he sat up, holding his head in both hands.

“We aren’t dead?” he muttered.

She grinned. “Didn’t I tell you I’d protect you? I even let you land on me!”

The sour look froze on his face as his gaze went beyond her. “Look there!”

Issuing from the deep hole left by the uprooted monolith was a swarm of tiny lights. They drifted and darted in the night air: blue, white, red, and a smoky orange. The blue lights rose more quickly than the rest, and winked out one by one. White and red lights drifted to the ground and died like embers falling on wet grass. Only the orange wisps remained, circling and rising.

The Lioness had taken a few steps toward the lights, but Favaronas warned, “Stay back! Don’t touch them!”

“What are they?”

“I don’t know, but they were imprisoned by the standing pillar. They weren’t meant to roam free!”

A horse arrived for Kerian. Wincing from her accumulated hurts, she swung onto its back, telling Favaronas, “Watch those things. Tell me what happens.” She spurted hard after the sand beast.

The orbiting orange lights peeled off in groups of two and three, and followed her. Favaronas and the foot-bound warriors shouted warnings, but she was already too far away to hear.

Fiery pain kept the sand beast to a speed little better than a horse’s best gallop. The bones broken in its left hip grated against each other. Sword cuts in the tender junction of its left hind leg burned.

Great as its agony was, even stronger was the fury blazing in its breast. The need for vengeance pushed it onward. It would visit this pain a hundredfold on the one who had sent it here. If necessary, it would cross the entire world to slay the one responsible for this agony.

Something snagged its right rear foot. Brought up short, the monster toppled forward, burying its chin in the turf. Before it could get up, more ropes whistled in, snagging its horned head and front limbs. Each loop drew tight, the one encircling its neck cinching so hard it couldn’t draw breath. Then the creature found itself pulled in four directions at once.

Kerian galloped into the fantastic scene. The sand beast was down, thrashing against its bonds. Wounded and confused, it couldn’t break the ropes holding it before more arrived. Its gyrations tore up clods of blue-green soil and widened its wounds. Blood flowed freely. Additional loops cinched its neck. Its eyes bulged as the pressure on its throat grew and grew.

As her horse skidded to a halt, she was amazed to see the orange lights sweep past her. They never paused, but flowed toward the tormented beast. They held off a few feet, sparkling like quartz in firelight, until all their number was gathered, then in unison they dropped. When they touched the sand beast’s hard flesh the area was bathed in a silent flash of white light. A gust of cold wind stole Kerian’s breath. The ropes abruptly went slack, causing the straining horses to surge forward and nearly unseating their riders.

To the amazement of all, the sand beast was gone.

Wapah halted at the flap of Adala’s tent. “Weyadan, I have food for you.”

“Enter, cousin.”

He ducked under the ridge pole and knelt in front of her, taking care not to spill the contents of the tin plate he carried. Only ripe olives, bread, and rice, all cold, but she made no comment on the poor fare.

Two days had passed since the laddad had escaped into the Valley of the Blue Sands. Adala had pitched her tent where she stood, and the rest of the nomad warriors camped around her, tending their wounded and burying their dead. Here they would remain until the elves returned.

Trouble was, they were not equipped for a long stay. They had only the food and water they happened to be carrying at the time of the battle, and nothing more. It was their tradition to fight light and unencumbered; siege warfare was not their style. The bulk of their supplies had been lost when the family camp was attacked.

Shortages appeared immediately. Inmost Khurish camps, each tent had its own fire, but the nomads had so little fuel, campfires were rationed to one per five tents. Traditionally, they burned cow or goat droppings, but they were far from their herds. Water was precious, and food scarce.

Adala went without a fire, though any warrior in her host gladly would have given up his fuel to her. She sat in her tent and sewed on a project of her own, her only illumination the starshine she collected in a concave silver mirror set in the open door.

“There’s no sign of the enemy,” Wapah reported. She nodded, but didn’t look up. Her fingertips were pricked and red with irritation, the inevitable consequence of sewing so long in such poor light.

He waited for her to stop sewing and eat. When several long minutes passed with no sign of this happening, he decided to go ahead and ask the question weighing on his mind. She would eat when she would eat.

“Maita, how long will we stay here?”

Lately, the tribesmen had added this to her titles. No longer speaking of “Adala’s maita,” they named her Fate itself.

“We will stay here until the laddad come out.” She turned the heavy rectangle of cloth over and started stitching on the other side. “Or until we are told to go.”

“Told by whom?”

“Those on High. I am but Their instrument.”

Frowning, Wapah departed. It was a dark and somber camp he traversed back to the tent of Bindas, newly sworn war chief of the Weya-Lu. The tribe’s warmasters had taken to congregating there, not least of all because Bindas’s late uncle, Gwarali, never traveled anywhere without a generous supply of wheat beer. The leaders sat together in the hot darkness, sipping beer from tiny brass cups and speaking in low tones about their situation. Already there was talk of leaving the valley mouth. They didn’t need to hover here, the dissidents said. All they need do was guard to route back to Khuri-Khan, and they would surely catch the laddad as they tried to return to their people. Food, water, medicine, and other supplies could be had by trading if only they left this place and kept on the move. That was their way. Sitting here in the shadow of the Pillars of Heaven was foreign, and dangerous.

“The Weyadan knows what she is doing,” Wapah insisted. “Those on High have chosen her to cleanse our land. Do you doubt her?”

None would say so, but the beginning of that sentiment was plain in the black tent, as plain as the aroma of Gwarali’s brew.

Talk turned to strategy. What was the best way to catch and defeat the elusive elves? Their long-legged horses were strong and fast, if not as hardy as desert ponies. Laddad armor resisted the nomads’ favorite weapon, the bow. Even their swords had longer blades than the tribesmen’s.

“In Estwilde, the Nerakans rode with lances,” said Bindas. He’d served as a mercenary in the Knights’ army during the recent great war. “They pierced any metal plate they rode at.”

“You need hardwood to make lances,” another mercenary veteran pointed out.

“We can trade for it.”

“Before the laddad come out?”

And so it went. Voices rose and tempers flared as more beer was consumed and frustrations were voiced. A few of the warmasters who’d been to the world outside Khur offered to lead troops into the valley to find the elves.

The older chiefs were shocked. “Your crime would be as great as theirs!” one said.

“Where is it written we may not enter the valley?” said a young warmaster. “It is tradition, yes, but why? What makes this place so sacred?”

Wapah cleared his throat. Many rolled their eyes; the Weyadan’s cousin was known as a talker.

“When Those on High made the world, each in turn pressed a hand on the new ground, leaving an impression. Each god said, ‘This is my place. Let no one desecrate it.’ Over time, the elements and various upheavals obscured most of these places. But the Valley of the Blue Sands remains, just as when the gods made it. It is their place, not ours, and not the laddad’s.”

Silence reigned for a time, broken only by the clink of brass cups and the splash of beer being poured. Bindas drained the last drops from his cup set it down. He was asking pardon of the group, preparing to suggest they all sleep, when a strange, metallic blast rang out over the camp. The men hurried outside, joining the rest of the camp, likewise turning out to see what was happening.

The sound came again, and they found its source. On the crest of a ridge sixty yards away, framed by the starry sky, a rider on a rearing horse was blowing a horn. Bows were strung, but Bindas put a stop to anyone loosing an arrow. An enemy would hardly announce his coming with a brass horn.

The rider galloped down the stony hillside, zigzagging around juniper bushes and large rocks, to the center of the camp. This put him outside Adala’s tent. The Weyadan came out in time to receive the swirl of dust kicked up as the black horse skidded to a halt. Its rider was clothed in billowing robes, not light-colored like a traditional geb, but scarlet, turned nearly black by the starlight. His head was covered by the robe’s hood. He was lean, with a pale foreign face. He seemed small, but perhaps that was only because his horse was so large, eighteen hands at least.

“Who commands here?” he asked. The voice was male, and young. “Do you understand me? Who is your leader?” “I am.” Adala stepped forward. “Who are you?”

“I bring you a message from Shobbat, Prince of Khur!” He paused, obviously expecting a response. When Adala gave none, he added, more loudly, “The prince calls upon the desert people of Khur to save their country!”

“That’s what we’re doing.”

Adala lifted her hem and approached. She stopped quite close to the imposing horse and looked up at its crimson-clad rider. “I am Adala, Weyadan of the Weya-Lu, chosen leader of these people. This horse is not Khurish. Neither are you. Who are you?”

“A messenger, nothing more. I was born beyond the mountains. Now I serve in Khur. I have a proclamation from Prince Shobbat. Will you receive it?”

“Why does the Prince of Khur employ foreigners to do his bidding?” Adala asked.

The messenger had removed a small scroll from his belt. “My horse is powerful and swift. I came to Khuri-Khan to serve.”

Adala shrugged one shoulder, and murmured an old proverb: “A rat in a palace is still a rat.”

The rider flung the scroll at her feet. “There is Prince Shobbat’s summons. Read it, and know the truth. Or do I need to read it for you?”

The slur went unchallenged. Adala picked up the scroll and handed it to Bindas, standing near her. The war chief broke the seal and read the message aloud.

“‘Be it known, I, Shobbat, rightful prince of Khur, do set my hand to this message.

“‘Beloved sons of Khur: the plague of foreigners we have long endured now threatens our ancient land. For five years, the laddad have dwelt among us, living their foreign lives and spreading their foreign ideas. In Khuri-Khan their steel buys hearts and their heresy clouds minds. My father, the Khan of All the Khurs, Sahim, has succumbed to the lure of laddad money.’”

The nomads already thought this was true. Hearing it from Sahim’s heir was a revelation. There were murmurs and wide eyes all around.

“‘The temples of Khuri-Khan have become unclean. Sahim-Khan allows the laddad to go where they will and flaunt the laws and customs of Khur. As a loyal son of Khur’“—Bindas snorted at the irony of this phrase—“‘I cannot abide this treason any longer.’”

“Enough,” Adala said. “What does he want?”

Bindas read silently for a moment, then related the kernel at the end of the flowery message. “I therefore beseech all peoples of the desert, who hold in their hearts the true soul of Khur, to ride to Khuri-Khan and destroy the laddad pestilence there.”

Wind made the flames of the oil lamps waver. The great horse, obviously disliking the large number of humans that enclosed it, snorted and stamped its hooves. No one spoke.

“Well, what is your answer?” the messenger finally asked.

Adala stared up at the horse, ignoring its rider’s question.

Bravely, the Weya-Lu woman held up her hand. Even with her arm extended, the horse’s head, at the end of its proudly arched neck, was beyond her reach. The horse might have snapped off her fingers with one quick champ of its teeth. Instead, its nervous movements halted, and it lowered its head so the Weyadan could pat its cheek. Lowering it further, the horse nuzzled her hand.

The rider was surprised by his mount’s docility. He jerked the reins, pulling his horse’s head up again. “Are you going to answer?” he demanded.

Adala spoke, but not to him. She turned, black robes swirling around her feet and announced, “The foreign messenger and his great horse are signs. We will go to Khuri-Khan. We will raise the tribes. All the children of the desert will take up this cause. It falls to us to purify Khur.”

Looking north, toward the blackness that was Torghan’s Teeth and the mouth of the valley, she added, “Let the laddad perish in their vanity. Those on High will attend to the blasphemers.”

Half a thousand Weya-Lu warriors raised their hands over their heads and shouted in unison. “Adala maita! Adala maita!”

The noise was so great the courier’s horse reared in alarm. Only the rider’s skill and quick thinking kept him in the saddle. His task was complete, and he had no desire to linger. He put spurs to his black horse and galloped away.

Filled with new spirit, the nomads heaped all the carefully hoarded fuel on their campfires. The flames blazed up, sending gouts of sparks into the air. The tribesmen’s chant soared upward as well.

As he rode away, the Nerakan courier could see the glow of the nomad fires for a long time. He could hear their roar in chants even longer.

Hengriff, waiting on horseback in a draw a mile away heard them, too. Sparks had fallen on the tinder. All that remained was to see how big a bonfire would result.