Sanctuary

Chapter 5

The sun was not yet up when Planchet entered the Speaker’s private chamber to wake him from a deep slumber. As he reached to rouse him, the loyal retainer noted how the hardships of ruling a people in exile had left their mark on the Speaker. He was a young elf, not yet touching middle years, but faint lines tracked the skin between his eyes and bracketed his mouth. His hair was lighter, due not only to the effects of the harsh Khurish sun, but to the silver-gray strands visible here and there. Despite this, in the dim light the sleeping ruler of the elven nations resembled a youth again, curled up in the bed linens, one arm outstretched over the emptiness where Kerianseray had been.

Planchet whispered, “Sire, wake up! Captain Ambrodel has returned!”

Gilthas opened one eye. “So soon?”

His valet nodded and held up a clean gown. Gilthas rose and slipped his arms in, tying the sash with a single brisk jerk.

Two days past, the evening of the day the Lioness had left Khurinost, Gilthas had sent Hytanthas Ambrodel into the nomad city disguised as a human. The captain’s task was to glean information about who was responsible for the attack outside the Temple of Elir-Sana. The Khurs were attributing the assault to a robbery gone wrong. The story told by Kerian and Hytanthas made that simplistic explanation unlikely. Gilthas had requested an audience with Sahim-Khan to make a formal appeal for an investigation, but he didn’t intend to leave the matter entirely in Khurish hands.

As they left his quarters, Gilthas asked, “Did Hytanthas discover who was behind the attack?”

“No, sire,” said Planchet, “but he says he has gleaned much information.”

The Speaker’s audience chamber was full of its usual inhabitants—Lord Morillon and his Silvanesti, various court functionaries, and Hamaramis, commander of the Speaker’s private guard. They stood to one side, eyeing a disheveled Hytanthas Ambrodel. Planchet had ordered refreshment for him, and the young elf was making the most of it. He had a lamb chop in one hand and a slender silver urn of nectar in the other. He wore a thick, black wig cut in the style of a city-dwelling Khur, which concealed his upswept ears. His skin had been darkened with walnut juice. If Gilthas hadn’t known better, he would have taken the captain for a scruffy denizen of Khuri-Khan.

Hastily lowering the urn from which he was drinking, Hytanthas bowed to the Speaker.

Gilthas looked him up and down and wrinkled his nose. “You smell like a chamber pot!”

Hytanthas ruefully agreed. “The places I’ve been were no garden, sire.”

Although eager to know what the young elf might have learned, Gilthas first asked that the room be cleared of all but his closest advisors. As the courtiers departed, he seated himself on his throne and accepted a tiny cup of kefre from Planchet.

At last Hytanthas was free to relate his story. He began with the hostels he’d visited, looking for nomads with the vulture tattoo. Desert dwellers came and went from Khuri-Khan all the time, alone or in small groups, to trade, to work, and to sample the comparative luxuries of settled life. Hytanthas had found no Torghanists in the nicer hostels, and so worked his way down the ladder to the lowest flophouses. The Khurish he’d learned was flavored with the accent of the capital, so he pretended to be a city dweller dodging the Khan’s justice. In the cellars and hovels where very poor travelers could rent a scrap of blanket for a few coppers, he let it be known he was available for rough work. This generated little response. He soon found out why.

The supply of thugs was already dominated by nomads, who toiled for next to nothing. Among the Khurs, revenge was seen not as a crime, but as a matter of honor, and it was considered only natural that devotees of the god of vengeance would make themselves available to assist others, weaker or fainter of heart, in obtaining the revenge they required. For Torghanists, this was a sacred duty. Hytanthas’s attempts to find an assignment as an assassin offended them. When he continued his efforts, bragging on his skill with a blade, he was cornered by three hard-eyed nomads who warned him against trespassing in their domain. The three were devotees of Torghan.

Hytanthas had heard rumors of a benefactor to the Temple of Torghan. Someone was making rich gifts to the god—someone who expressed a strong dislike of elves. This was not lost on the Torghanists. Harassment and assaults on elves in Khuri-Khan were on the rise.

“So the attack on Kerianseray and yourself was part of a wider campaign of hatred?” Gilthas asked.

“No, Great Speaker. According to a conversation I overheard in a Khurish tavern, this benefactor actually paid to have General Kerianseray murdered, and he—the Khurs used the male pronoun—he was unhappy the attempt had been bungled.”

The identity of the benefactor remained a mystery to Hytanthas, but he had made another discovery he considered of such importance that he had prematurely aborted his mission and returned to Khurinost. The discovery concerned one of Sahim-Khan’s hired sorcerers.

The Khan had a variety of mages willing to do his bidding. One in particular rumored to be a rogue wizard, was a secretive fellow about whom little was known.

“The very few who’ve seen him in the streets say he’s rather nondescript. He wears ragged, heavy brown robes and walks with a limp. His name is Faeterus,” Hytanthas said. “I believe he is an elf.”

This statement left the Speaker and his advisors speechless for several seconds. Lord Morillon recovered first.

“What is the basis for this wild speculation?” he demanded.

The haughty tone annoyed the captain. “It isn’t speculation. Well, not entirely.”

Hytanthas admitted there were a great many stories about Faeterus. Gossip was rife about his antecedents, and the “experiments” he was said to conduct in his secret abode, and it was never said aloud that he was anything other than a human. However, one city-dweller, ancient by Khurish standards as he was more than eighty years old, had confided to Hytanthas his theory that the sorcerer was laddad.

“According to this human, Faeterus has been in the city since before he himself was born.” Lord Morillon opened his mouth to protest, and Hytanthas rushed on. “The mind of this old human is still sharp and clear. The other Khurs are dismissive of him, but I found him extremely persuasive.”

The name Faeterus was unknown to any in the room. Hamaramis noted it could be an assumed name, perhaps a corruption of the mage’s true identity. The closest Silvanesti equivalent would be Faetheralas, and in Qualinesti, Fanterus.

“Could this sorcerer be the benefactor of the Torghanists?” asked the Speaker.

Hytanthas did not know, but all agreed that an elf who had so turned his back on his own kind that he could hire his services out to a tyrant like Sahim-Khan certainly was capable of anything.

“Make inquiries,” the Speaker ordered. “Someone, somewhere, knows this Faeterus.”

Planchet brought up the Nerakan emissary who had been seen skulking about the Khuri yl Nor. He asked Lord Morillon, who had been to the palace more often than anyone else, to describe the human in detail. As a lifelong courtier, the Silvanesti didn’t miss much in his own milieu.

When Morillon finished, Planchet stood frowning, gnawing his lower lip in thought. Gilthas prompted him to speak.

“There was a man, a Nerakan, a vassal of that wretch Redlance,” Planchet finally said. “He was dark, as you say, and had a very rough voice. It’s been years since I thought of him, but I believe his name may have been Hengriff.”

During the fight for Qualinesti liberty, a special group of Nerakan Knights was formed to track down the Lioness. Their leader, Lord Liveskill, stood high in the councils of Morham Targonne, master of the order. Liveskill left the dirty work of hunting the Lioness to a hardened warrior named Vytrad Redlance, who led a band of ninety-nine Knights. Their paths crossed Kerianseray’s three times. The last time, Vytrad perished fighting her in single combat. Only a dozen or so Knights of this special band had survived, and they never returned to hunt the Lioness again. Given Targonne’s lack of patience with failure, the remnants of Liveskill’s band might easily have been dispatched on the least pleasant duties the Order could arrange—such as emissary to the desert wastes of Khur.

Vytrad’s second-in-command at the time of his death was a brawny, bull-voiced fellow who chose to preserve his men rather than let them die trying to save the fanatical Redlance. Fighting his way out of the trap that cost Vytrad his life, Hengriff single-handedly killed four of the Lioness’s best warriors. When he rode away with the survivors of Vytrad’s command, Kerian was only too willing to let them go.

“So who is directing the Torghanists, Neraka or the renegade wizard?” Morillon wondered.

The Speaker shrugged. “In either case, we can’t allow treachery to undermine our place here. Peace and goodwill are vital for our survival.”

“Sahim-Khan is no friend of the sect of Torghan-worshipers, sire. If they challenge his authority, he will stamp them out most ruthlessly,” Morillon said.

“Unless their efforts are part of some deeper intrigue between the Khan and the Knights,” Planchet said. “He may be using them against the Knights—or perhaps the Knights are using the Torghanists against the Khan.”

Hytanthas shook his bead. “What murky times we live in.”

“Every time is murky when you’re in the midst of it,” said Gilthas, smiling faintly. “In any event, the ‘benefactor’ of the Torghanists must be identified. So must the Khan’s rogue mage.”

What they would do with this knowledge once they had it was something the Speaker preferred not to worry about just now. For the moment, they would concentrate on uncovering their enemies.

A reward was considered. The Khurs were fond of elven steel, and the right price might buy more information. But the Speaker said such an offer would also raise a host of dubious opportunists. Hytanthas proclaimed his readiness to return to the city, and this Gilthas readily approved. The captain’s persona as a human desperado might yet yield additional important leads.

“Find this benefactor, Captain Ambrodel, and bring him before me. Whether he wants to come or not.”

Hytanthas saluted. When he departed, Planchet followed. Taking him aside, Planchet said, “Don’t risk yourself with this blackguard, Captain. If possible, bring him in alive, but if circumstances require it, don’t hesitate to kill him. Better this agitator should die than escape, or kill you.”

Hytanthas nodded. For all his youth, he was a veteran, having fought the Knights in the woods of Qualinesti. In his very first skirmish, the Knights had surrounded a nearby village and threatened to destroy it unless the Lioness and her companions surrendered. She would not, so the Knights slaughtered everyone in the village, from elders down to babes in arms. Two hundred thirty souls. Hytanthas never forgot his brutal initiation to war as fought by the Knights of Neraka.

Standing in the open square outside the Speaker’s great tent, valet and warrior were about to part when a commotion came to their ears. The byways of Khurinost were busy at this hour, and both elves strained fruitlessly to see beyond those thronging the paths, but it was obvious that the roar of voices was coming from the direction of Khuri-Khan.

“Sounds like a battle!” Hytanthas exclaimed.

“It’s trouble all right, but not warfare.”

Planchet borrowed a halberd from a guard standing watch outside the Speaker’s tent, then bade Hytanthas accompany him. “Come, Captain. Let’s see who makes such a noise on a hot morning. Maybe your mysterious sorcerer or the fell emissary of the Dark Order.”

To the ignorant, Hytanthas’s companion might have seemed a weak comrade to take into danger, but Planchet was no ordinary servant. He had commanded Qualinesti forces in the final battle to escape the collapsing kingdom, and his inspired leadership enabled thousands of elves to escape the net closing around Qualinost. Given a choice when confronting danger, Hytanthas would take Planchet over anyone else in the Speaker’s entourage—save the Lioness herself of course.

The paths through camp quickly clogged up with frightened elves, clutching bundles of goods and struggling to put distance between themselves and the city. Planchet and Hytanthas made repeated attempts to ask what was happening, but no one stopped long enough to answer. At last Planchet turned his halberd sideways, blocking the footpath from tent to tent. Like water caught behind a dam, elves filled the passage, seeking other ways out.

“What’s going on?” Planchet shouted as he struggled against the growing mob pushing against the shaft of his weapon.

“We were attacked in the Grand Souks!” an elf woman replied.

“They attacked everyone, or only elves?” asked Hytanthas.

“Only elves!”

Planchet moved out of the way, lifting the halberd. Refugees surged past. When the mob had thinned, Planchet and Hytanthas hurried on to the city.

The gate into Khuri-Khan was unguarded. The usual oddments of gear surrounding it—cloth sunshades for the soldiers, stools, and skins of wine and water hanging from posts—all had been knocked down and trampled. The gate itself stood open. A few steps inside they found a dead man, a Khurish guard. He’d been stabbed in the back.

The Lesser Souk had been sacked. Dozens of soukats, with their heads broken or worse, lay in the wreckage of their booths. Here and there, women and children tugged at the broken structures of cloth and lath, trying to find a lost husband or father, or to salvage the family inventory. Many of the beleaguered merchants stared with open hostility at Planchet as the two elves walked past. Hytanthas was still in his scruffy human disguise.

Whatever had happened was over in the Fabazz. Sounds of conflict echoed down the winding streets, growing fainter and farther away. The two elves had just decided to give up their search and return to Khurinost when a troop of the Khan’s soldiers burst from a side street. Their articulated coats of plate armor and spiked helmets gave them the look of exotic insects, swarming from a hidden nest.

One of the Khurs spoke, pointing a finger at the ostensible human and his elf companion. The rest of the foot soldiers turned as one to stare at them.

“Not good,” Planchet muttered, edging away. “I think I hear the Speaker calling.”

Hytanthas agreed. They backed away, never taking their eyes off the soldiers. The Khurish officer, recognizable by the bronze sunburst on his helmet, shouted at them to stop.

“What language is that?” Planchet said, still sidling away.

“Can’t understand a word he’s saying.”

The officer cut the air with his hand. Plates jangling, his soldiers ran at the elves. They trampled the already broken stalls, drawing protesting wails from the soukats and their kin.

“How many are there, do you reckon?” Hytanthas asked.

“Forty, fifty.”

“No shame running from odds like that.”

“None at all,” Planchet said and dropped his borrowed halberd.

The two belted back the way they’d come, the shortest route to Khurinost. It would have been easy enough for two elves to outdistance a pack of burdened humans, but when Planchet and Hytanthas reached the street above the city gate they found that the portal was no longer abandoned. Worse, the iron portcullises were down, and the timber gates shut and barred.

The sounds of martial pursuit were growing closer. There was no time to bluff their way past the guards. Planchet, who knew Khuri-Khan best because of his frequent trips to buy supplies for the Speaker’s household, led Hytanthas away from the gate to Har-Kufti Street, the paved lane that encircled the city just inside the wall.

“Where are we going?” asked Hytanthas.

Planchet panted, “Temple Walk. We might find sanctuary in the Temple of Elir-Sana!”

The captain had no better idea, so they turned off Har-Kufti onto a narrow lane that led to the center of the city.

They might have evaded the soldiers, laboring under the twin handicaps of desert heat and bulky armor, but street urchins and doorway idlers obligingly shouted directions to the troops. Hytanthas cursed them in broken but effective Khurish.

The street suddenly ended on a square lined with ruined houses, destruction wrought by Malystryx and still not repaired. it wasn’t the holy sanctuary, but at least it offered possibilities for concealment. Hytanthas tore the boards off an open doorway, and they squeezed inside. Flattened against the wall, they tried to calm their labored breathing. The ruined house bore no roof. All the palm wood beams had fallen in, and half the upper floor’s tiles and bricks had tumbled to ground level. The place stank of fire and the peculiarly rank odor of the Red Marauder’s breath.

The Khurish troops entered the square at a walking pace. They must have known the street was a dead end, and their quarry was trapped. Quietly, they fanned out, checking every ruin. It was only a matter of time before they reached the one in which Planchet and Hytanthas were hiding.

The Speaker’s valet searched the rubble and drew out a reasonably stout length of timber, a crude weapon to supplement the sword he wore. When he straightened, he realized he was alone. Hytanthas was gone. A tap on his shoulder caused him to look up. Hytanthas was climbing the pyramid of charred rafters toward the nonexistent roof. He gestured urgently for Planchet to follow him; the searching soldiers were only yards away.

There was no way of knowing how much the beams had been weakened by fire. But they had no other options. Frowning mightily, feeling much too old for this sport, Planchet began to climb.

He was little more than six feet off the floor when a Khurish soldier shoved his head in the empty window opening below.

“Excellency!” he yelled. “Some of the boards are off the door here, but I don’t see anyone!”

From a distance came the reply: “Look twice, fool! Our orders are to bring any laddad before the Khan! I have no desire to explain your failure in that duty!”

The Khur poked his head in again, looking left and right and cursing his commander with whispered eloquence. The two elves hardly dared breathe, so close was he. At last, he withdrew.

“No, Excellency. No one here!”

Planchet’s legs shook with the release of tension. His foot had been a scant six inches above the soldier’s helmet spike.

The valet hauled himself up beside Hytanthas, at the top of the crumbling wall. A forest of rooftops and brass flues greeted their eyes, spreading uphill to the center of the city. The Khuri yl Nor was clearly visible to their right, the palace rising beyond the heights of Temple Walk. Gleaming in the morning sun like a pale blue beacon was the dome of the Temple of Elir-Sana.

“Do you see it?” Hytanthas demanded. “We can reach the temple over the rooftops!”

Planchet grunted. To him it looked like a very long way to go, the terrain more than a little uncertain. Still, as with the climb itself, they had no choice.

The jump to the intact roof of the house next door was easy enough. Two more jumps, and they were out of the ruined district. Hytanthas would’ve discarded his thick black wig then, but Planchet cautioned against it. The captain’s human guise might come in handy.

Wherever possible, they kept to the roof edges, creeping alongside the low parapets that rose up from the brick outer walls. Khurish roofs were made of palm fronds, plastered with mud, and wouldn’t taken much weight. Although lighter than humans, the elves didn’t want to risk breaking through.

After traversing six houses beyond the ruined district, the fleeing pair reached the more solid roof of a four-story building. They rested in the latticework lean-to that shaded one corner. It enclosed a rooftop garden filled with kefre shrubs, cardamom plants, and foliage neither elf recognized.

“Did you hear what the soldier said? They’re arresting all elves in the city!” Hytanthas exclaimed. “What could’ve happened?”

“Perhaps Neraka or the minotaurs at last offered a price the Khan could not refuse.”

“The Speaker must be told!”

Planchet looked at his sooty, scratched hands. “If we survive he will be told.”

Eight streets away from the pair of elves, the priest Minok also was hiding, huddled below a darkened stairway, gulping hot, dry air. For two days the Khan’s men had been hunting him. He had escaped them originally, outside the palace, by the grace of his great god. A short distance from the Khuri yl Nor-far enough so his screams couldn’t be heard at the palace—four soldiers ran at him with swords drawn. A nomad by birth and no coward, Minok could hardly stand his ground without a weapon. Arms were forbidden to priests, and he strictly adhered to the precepts of his order. So he fled.

Unfortunately, the wily guards split up, with two circling wide through back alleys to cut him off. Minok had no chance to gain the safety of his temple. His heart sank when he saw the glint of naked iron blades coming up on either side. He ducked down a familiar side street and ran for the front door of a large house at the rear of the square.

Then Torghan interceded. Before Minok reached the house, a powerful hand grabbed him by the back of his robe. Lifting him completely from his feet, it hauled him into a darkened outbuilding. He found himself thrust under a dusty brick staircase with nary a word spoken. He waited, sweating and shaking with fear, while soldiers tramped up and down the street outside, searching for him.

A skylight opened. The light that streamed down revealed Minok’s hiding place to be larger than he’d realized, and it illuminated a polished table at which sat Lord Hengriff. The servant who had opened the skylight retreated to the shadows.

“Come out,” said Hengriff. In the stillness his voice boomed like a drum, and Minok flinched.

Minok emerged, stood stiffly, and tried to brush the dust of the streets from his priestly robe.

“Thank you,” he said gravely. “I was sure I was done for out there.”

“You’re not done until I’m through with you. I’ve too much invested in you to let the Khan kill you out of pique.”

Hengriff did not ask the priest to sit down. Papers and open scrolls covered the tabletop. A fresh sheet of foolscap lay under Hengriff’s hand, with lines of black script neatly printed down half the page. Unlike most nomads, Minok could read, but Hengriff’s writing made little sense to him. It was some sort of cipher, written for his superiors, no doubt.

“The attack today went well,” Minok opined.

Hengriff’s black eyes narrowed. “It did not. I told you to seek out elves, not the soukats of the Fabazz. No one in Khuri-Khan will blame the elves for what happened today. They know your nomads are responsible!”

Minok spread his hands. “My people are poor wanderers of the desert. When they saw the riches of the Lesser Souk spread before them, they lost their heads.”

“You’ll lose yours if you bungle again!”

Minok promised he would not fail a second time.

“Too late for that,” Hengriff reminded him dryly. “Your assassins also failed to slay the Lioness outside the Temple of Elir-Sana.”

Cautiously, Minok said, “Permit me to ask, Excellency, why you don’t kill these laddad yourself. Why do you need the Sons of the Crimson Vulture to shed blood for you?”

“I’m trying to school a nation.” Minok’s look indicated he did not understand, so Hengriff added, “All your people, not just the followers of Torghan, need to learn how to deal with elves. If I kill them, it’s foreign intervention. If Khurs kill them, it’s a patriotic act.”

Minok bowed. “You are most wise, Excellency.” A sly expression crossed his narrow face. “It also discomfits the Khan, does it not?”

Hengriff made a fist. “There are lessons he must learn too.”

He rang a small brass bell, summoning the servant who waited just outside the shaft of sunlight. A few words to the servant and the fellow scurried away, returning moments later with two large men. Hengriff gave orders that the men, two of his personal bodyguards, escort Minok back to the Temple of Torghan. He warned the priest not to show his face for a while, to give Sahim-Khan time to forget he’d sought Minok’s death.

Minok did not thank him, only turned, head high, and started out. He and his protectors had gone only a few steps, when be staggered suddenly and clapped his hands over his ears.

“That ringing!” he cried. “Mercy, do you hear a great bell?”

The only bell in sight was the small brass instrument on Hengriff’s table. But it sat silent. Neither Hengriff nor his bodyguards heard anything, as they stared in surprise at the priest of Torghan. Minok was in obvious pain.

“Something is being summoned! Something great and terrible!”

Minok’s eyes rolled back in his head, his knees folded, and he dropped to the floor, unconscious. A thin stream of blood trickled from each ear.

Hengriff gestured at his men. The priest was not dead, but could not be revived. They covered him with a cloth to conceal him, and departed, carrying him back to his temple.

The Knight stared after them with a frown on his face.

Although he’d heard and felt nothing, he could not dismiss the sensations of an initiated priest. He made careful note of what Minok said, and when he said it, appending this to his next dispatch to the Order.

The report would soon be on its way to Jelek. Before the War of Souls, the Order’s leader, Morham Targonne, had moved the knighthood’s headquarters from Neraka to Jelek, some thirty miles northwest. Hengriff, himself from Neraka, had thought the move a singularly stupid one. Jelek was nothing more than a squalid little backwater, and the only reason Targonne had chosen it was because it carried the dubious (to Hengriff’s mind) distinction of having birthed him.

Lord of the Night Targonne had been dead five years now, and the Order had been weakened by the events of the War of Souls: a great defeat at the Battle of Sanction and the disappearance of Targonne’s successor, Mina, the self-proclaimed prophet of the One God. The Order’s current leader, Lord Baltasar Rennold, was determined to restore its honor and sense of holy purpose. Rennold was nothing like Targonne, who had been a distinctly dishonorable man with the soul of a bookkeeper, yet Hengriff was uncertain what Rennold would make of this latest news. Rennold did not much care for him, holding against Hengriff the excesses and failures of his superiors, Lord Liveskill and Vytrad Redlance.

The Lord of the Night had set Hengriff three goals—the annexation of Khur, the final destruction of elven power, and the seizure of any remaining elven treasure. If he wanted these goals accomplished, he’d best heed every word in Hengriff’s report.

The flat desert below the Pillars of Heaven rang with the clashing of swords and the pounding of many hooves. Dust swirled around maneuvering companies of riders. Over all, the sun shone down from a perfectly cloudless sky.

The enemy had fallen upon the elves just after dawn, before all the Lioness’s warriors were in the saddle. A hundred nomads appeared out of the south, shouting tribal war cries and brandishing swords. The elves who were mounted rode straight at the oncoming horde, holding them off while their comrades readied themselves for battle. The Lioness led that first small force against fearful odds.

The nomads certainly were brave and bloodthirsty, but they had no formal training in arms. Once their initial surprise rush was spent, they found themselves at a severe disadvantage. They lacked any protective armor and most bore only a single weapon, a straight sword without a crossguard. Nomad archers used a short bow of cow horn and wicker laminated together. Deadly at short range, its effectiveness fell off sharply with distance. At two hundred yards—where elf bows were commonly used—nomad arrows merely bounced off elven armor. The iron-headed Silvanesti arrows went right through a nomad’s chest at that range.

The Lioness organized her band into three sections: two hundred, two hundred, and one hundred riders. One of the companies of two hundred, armed with swords, held off fierce rushes by the nomads while the group of one hundred emptied Khurish saddles with precisely aimed arrows. The remaining two hundred riders circled northward, trying to surround the enemy, but the nomads would not be caught. They regrouped and charged at any vulnerable point that they saw. The desert around the tribesmen was littered with the fallen. Many were elves, but mixed in with them were the bodies of desert dwellers and their ponies.

After an hour of fruitless slaughter, the nomads began to lose heart. They had expected to stampede the elves, and when the Lioness’s troops stood firm, nomad ardor waned. Without the discipline to carry on fighting all day, as the desert heat rose to its most incandescent the tribesmen rode away. The dust-caked elves gladly let them go. Kerian had no wish to pursue the foe. She didn’t have the resources for a long chase across the desert, and more hostile nomads might be lurking beyond the horizon.

Fewer than twenty of her warriors had been killed; half that many more had notable injuries. The desert was dotted with a dozen slain nomads. As elves moved among the fallen, scavenging food and precious water, they noticed many of the humans bore the mark of the Leaping Spider clan, the dominant clan in the Weya-Lu tribe.

“Why did they fight us?” Favaronas wondered. “We’ve done nothing to them.”

“We’re foreigners in their land,” Kerian replied grimly. It was a philosophy she understood. If armed Khurs had ridden through Qualinesti, her instinct would have been exactly the same: drive them out.

The scholar did not share her outlook. Shaking his head, he mumbled something about “live and let live.” She had no patience with such feeble notions, but held her tongue. Since finding his assistant lying dead beside him, Favaronas had been somewhat shaken. He took to keeping as close to Kerian as possible. Still, he did not complain and did not hamper her or her warriors.

They buried the dead, elf and human, to discourage scavengers, with the Lioness urging speed and taking a turn at the digging herself. Their second day on the High Plateau was waning, and she wanted to put as much distance between her people and the scene of battle as possible.

The Khalkist range bulked larger on the horizon. The gray peaks resembled low-lying clouds at this distance. The terrain began to change. The thick layer of sand gave way to sand and rocks, then broken gravel. Animal life was seen, even if they were only small creatures, easily frightened lizards sunning themselves on the rocks, their emerald green and burnished gold hides sparkling in the bright light. Foliage reappeared: stunted cedars, creosote bushes, thorny creepers, and a type of grass so wiry that even their hungry horses wouldn’t eat it. Still, the presence of plant life was a welcome change from the unrelieved sand of the High Plateau. They had passed out of the deep desert into the only slightly less hostile lowlands of the mountains.

Kerian sent an advance party forward to reconnoiter the way to the valley mouth. According to Gilthas’s map, the lone entrance to the Inath-Wakenti was a nondescript pass that gave no hint of its importance. They had to find the right one, the exact one, or their journey would be in vain.

The troop topped a small rise, carpeted with shards of gray slate. A startlingly cool breeze struck their faces. The wind coming down the mountains hadn’t yet acquired the desert’s desiccating heat. The Lioness gave word to halt.

Water was dispensed. Kerian removed the bowl-like bottom from the gourd, poured water into it, and let her horse drink. Then she squatted in the shade cast by her mount and drank from the leather-wrapped gourd herself. The water inside was so warm that she could have brewed tea with it.

A distant, loud cracking sound rent the air. Everyone paused and looked to the mountains, the apparent source of the sound. Thunder? It had been a long time since any of them had seen rain.

Favaronas, resting like the Lioness in the shadow of his horse, asked, “Will we get a shower, do you think?”

It seemed wishful thinking; there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. “Probably just a rockfall,” she muttered.

Another boom echoed down from the gray peaks. Hearing it more clearly this time, the Lioness stood quickly, facing the desert. The sound actually was coming from the direction of the desert and echoing off the mountains. Yet all any of them could see was a stony landscape dotted with twisted cedars and spiky brown grass, and beyond that, a shimmering expanse of sand and mirage water.

When a third peal of thunder broke over the slate hill, Kerian ordered everyone to horse. The cooling wind had died away, and to the south a plume of dust rose straight into the air. The cloud was sizable and compact, indicating a tightly knit group of riders. The nomads were following them.

The Lioness sent Favaronas out of harm’s way, over the crest of the hill, then distributed her weary warriors in a wide, crescent formation, with the tips facing the approaching dust cloud. From her place in the center of the formation, she shaded her eyes with one hand and stared south. The column of dust dispersed in the wind as it rose higher into the air.

The elves glimpsed movement at the bottom of the hill. Something burnished and bright flashed between the bushes. The Lioness squinted. It was a single object, larger than a man on horseback, and not a group of hard-riding nomads. She wondered what it could be.

The answer appeared the next second. In a blur of preternatural motion, the approaching creature leaped from the foot of the hill and landed in front of the elves, barely a dozen yards away. Its rapid motion generated a sound like thunder. Horses reared, neighing shrilly in fright. Elves throughout the formation shouted with shock and dismay.

Standing before them was a terrifying apparition. It had four short powerful legs, a long tail studded with ivory barbs, a compact body four times larger than a bull, and a thick, upright neck. The creature’s head caught every elf’s attention. Long, angular, and covered with burnished green-gold scales, it was the head of a monstrous reptile.

“Dragon!” someone cried, but Kerian didn’t think so. Squat and wingless, this was an earthbound creature. A crown of vertical horns encircled the monster’s head from one earhole to the other, and a single thick horn erupted from its nose. Except for its unnatural size, it could have been a desert lizard.

“Archers!” the Lioness called. “Aim for its head!”

A hundred bowstrings twanged, and a hundred arrows arced through the air. The beast’s eyelids slid over its slanting green eyes with an audible click, and the missiles bounced off its metallic hide. Eyes opening, the monster launched itself into the center of the elf formation.

Its speed was terrifying. With great sideways swings of its head, it mowed down horses and elves right and left, ripping them apart with its horns. When a horse fell directly in front of it, the creature opened its jaws and snapped the living animal in two.

“Break! Break formation!” the Lioness cried. Like quicksilver under the blows of a hammer, the elves flew apart. The monster dashed after the slowest riders, knocking them off their mounts with its horned snout. Several dismounted elves ran upon the creature’s blind side and attacked it with swords. Their blows rang ineffectually against its hard scales.

At the Lioness’s command, the bugler sounded retreat. She tried to restore some order to her ranks, but every time a sizable body of elves formed, the creature dashed at them, ripping them apart and trampling them under its clawed feet. In a quarter of an hour it slew more elves than the nomads had in a morning’s combat.

Archers sniped at its eyes, and one succeeded in lodging a clothyard shaft in the right one. Grunting, the beast stuck out its blood-red tongue, snaked it around the offending arrow, and yanked. This procedure diverted the beast long enough to allow the elves to re-form and gallop for the crest of the slate hill. The monster caught up with them in two bounds.

The Lioness didn’t see the beast coming. One moment she was astride her horse, the next, she lay sprawled on her back, sliding over the rough, stony ground. Her horse, decapitated by the creature’s horns, was flung aside by one powerful clawed foot.

The beast advanced until it was standing over her. Dazed, she saw its wide, pale green belly blotting out the sky. She drew her dagger. With both hands, she rammed it into the creature’s underside. It felt as if she was stabbing an anvil. Her point skidded off and the dagger twisted out of her grasp. The monster’s right hind leg came forward, caught hold of Kerian’s leg, and threw her several yards.

She rolled over and over, coming to a halt against the carcass of her dead horse. Her hands and forearms sang with pain, and her head pounded. Around her, shouts and screams resounded, but sounded faint and far away. Even the searing light of the sun seemed dim.

Is this any way to fight?

The calm voice echoed in her head—her conscience, she supposed—sounding very like Gilthas. Why not? In most ways he was her conscience. She could see his face before her, his eyes full of disappointment. Get up, he told her. Don’t just lie in the dirt beside your dead horse.

Laboriously, she pushed herself up on her hands, uttering an obscenity. Her leg ached where the creature had grabbed her, and she was certain she’d broken a rib.

The annoying voice in her head went on, telling her how stupid it was to fight such a beast with sword and bow. What else did they have?

It will stop the killing—at least for a time. Keep it close by, seeker.

This time the voice in Kerian’s head belonged to Sa’ida, high priestess of Elir-Sana. Her words rang clear as mountain ice, cutting through the pain and the fog of exhaustion. She realized she had indeed been tossed back onto the body of her own horse. She tore open the small saddlebag, thanking the gods who live that the poor animal had fallen on its right side. Groping through the dried leaves, she drew out the odd stone.

Sa’ida’s mysterious gift, the beautiful opal egg, lay heavy in her hand.

Now what? The priestess had given her no instructions, no explanation of how the gemstone was supposed to help her. Should she touch the monster with it? Daunting prospect! Perhaps if she tied it to an arrow and loosed it at the beast.

The elves had scattered, trying to keep out of the monster’s reach. It made sudden, blindingly fast rushes at the small groups.

Her face scratched and bleeding, hair standing wildly around her head, the Lioness stalked the creature. It saw her. Its eyelids clicked together, and the soulless reptilian visage never changed as it advanced. No dizzying rush this time. Instead, it came on slowly, raising one foot at a time like a prowling cat preparing to pounce. When it was ten yards away, the Lioness held up Sa’ida’s gift.

“Here’s a present for you, monster!” she shouted.

So saying, she leaned back and hurled the opal. Her aim was true. The orb hit the beast in the center of its chest, stuck there briefly, then fell to the ground. The creature’s forward motion halted abruptly. It froze, one foreleg lifted off the ground, for the space of two seconds, then its legs unaccountably collapsed. It struck the ground so hard that the shock knocked the Lioness off her feet.

On horseback or on foot, the elves slowly converged on the fallen beast. It did not move. Kerian kept her sword in hand, ready to fight, but the monster was like a statue.

“Is it dead, General?” one of her warriors called.

Its breath washed over her feet. “No! Seems to be sleeping!”

Eight officers galloped up. Swinging out of their saddles, they ringed the monster’s head. They struck the beast with their swords, but neither points nor blade edges would penetrate it. The swords merely bounced off the beast, doing no harm to its armored hide.

“Merciful Quen!” an elf exclaimed. “Can’t we kill it?”

Kerian squatted by the beast. One eye, as big as her head, was half open. The bright green orb was as malign as ever and moved slightly to track her as she shifted position. She realized the creature could see her, but must be compelled by the power of the priestess’s gift to lie quiescent. The question was, for how long?

The officers speculated what to do. As the discussion continued, the Lioness went and retrieved the opal egg. Its color had changed. Once glowingly white, it was now a dull ivory color, the pink and gold streaks on its surface faded.

She slipped it in her belt pouch. She owed Sa’ida a very large debt.

Favaronas come trotting over the crest of the hill. The archivist made his way to them, both hands clutching the pommel of his saddle, his attention fixed on the creature lying before them.

“Merciful gods and goddesses!” he exclaimed. “It’s a sand beast!”

“You recognize this abomination?”

“After a fashion, General. Sand beasts dwell in the deepest, most desolate tracts of the desert. Sahim-Khan has the head of one preserved in his palace. They’re very rare—”

“Not rare enough,” she said dryly. Raising her voice, she ordered her elves to saddle.

A horse was brought to replace her slain mount. The wounded who could ride would double up with healthy riders. They would take their dead with them as well. The monster might revive, and the Lioness wouldn’t risk leaving honorable warriors to its savage attentions.

The sand beast had slain fifty-two elves and wounded as many more. If Sa’ida’s magic hadn’t stopped it, the entire company likely would have perished.

They rode due north. Favaronas kept looking back over his shoulder, afraid the paralyzed creature might revive and be upon them again. Kerian had a different worry: Why had the sand beast attacked them in the first place? This mission was fraught with unexpected dangers, as though the desert was uniting against them, to stop the Speaker’s search for the valley of legend.

The archivist couldn’t help with her questions about the sand beast. From all he’d read, sand beasts were wild animals who, despite their ferocity, avoided contact with humans or elves.

Kerian’s horse stumbled, jarring her. She coughed as new pain lanced through her side. Favaronas offered a handkerchief.

“There’s blood on your face, General.”

She wiped her chin, dismissing his concern. “I took a few whacks. I’ve had worse.”

Day’s end was magnificent. The sinking sun gilded the forward range of the mountains, changing them from slate gray to bronze and copper. Dust was much less a problem here, as the ground was more stone than sand, and they could see for miles in every direction.

Drained from their battles, the elves slumped in the saddle. Their horses walked slowly with heads hanging. Talk around the Lioness had turned to finding a campsite for the night, when a scout came cantering back with news.

She reined up and waited for the excited young Qualinesti to reach her. The scout, a recent recruit, almost fell from his horse when he jerked the reins too sharply and his foam-flecked animal skidded to a halt on its haunches.

“Calm yourself, lad,” the Lioness said. “What is it?”

“A nomad camp, not a mile east of where we sit right now!”

Her officers crowded closer. The Lioness’s fingers flexed around her reins. “How many?”

“Big. More than a hundred tents. Maybe two hundred!”

Too vague. He should’ve brought an exact number. “No one saw you?” she asked. The young scout shook his head decisively.

“We should take the initiative—attack!” said a Wilder elf named Avalyn, one of the Lioness’s longtime followers.

“We don’t know these people,” Favaronas protested. “They may be one of the harmless tribes!”

“What difference does it make what tribe they are?” Avalyn retorted. “Nomads are all the same!”

“That’s ridiculous!”

The Lioness interceded. “We’re not here to make war on every wandering desert clan.”

“If they’re hostile, we can’t just pass them by, General,” another officer put in. “They’ll be behind us, between us and Khurinost.”

This was true enough. Kerian decided to detour from their mission long enough to inspect the nomad camp. If the tribe seemed a peaceful one, the elves would pass on. But if the nomads were recognizable enemies, the Lioness would strike.

Weariness dragged at every warrior, but no one complained as the Lioness led them away. It would be dark soon—only the highest peaks of the mountains ahead were still touched by sunlight—and this aided their cause. Humans were hampered by darkness, whereas elves could see almost as well at night as in full daylight.

The Qualinesti scout led them over a series of alluvial hills, formed of soil and gravel washed down from the mountains over the eons. The sky darkened from sapphire to indigo, and the first stars appeared. A distinctly chilly wind teased the riders every time they climbed out of a hollow and topped a hill. The breeze brought the smell of smoke. Cookfires.

Holding up her hand, the Lioness halted the column in a shallow ravine. Wordlessly she indicated Favaronas and Avalyn should follow her. The rest of the company would remain here.

The three followed the dry streambed through the ravine, halting where it emptied onto open ground. There, spread out in a ring pattern typical of Khurish nomads, lay several hundred conical tents. The Lioness halted her horse behind a screen of cedars. Silently she and her two companions studied the scene.

In the center of the ring of tents, figures moved about, silhouetted against a dozen campfires. There were no men to be seen, only nomad women in their sand-colored gebs, making supper, and children darting among the tents or helping with the cooking.

Avalyn shifted in his saddle. “This must be the base camp of the band that attacked us! All the warrior-age men are missing!” he whispered loudly.

“Even so, we don’t make war on unarmed women and children.”

“General, they would slaughter our loved ones, if they had the chance!”

“You don’t know that!” Favaronas said.

“It was done in Qualinesti!”

She silenced them both. “This is not Qualinesti. And we are not Dark Knights.”

They returned to the waiting army. The Lioness gave the order to ride, and the elves faded into the night.

Theirs weren’t the only eyes watching in the darkness. On the south side of the nomad camp, two yellow eyes stared at the ring of tents. The sand beast, recovered from the spell put on it by the opal of Elir-Sana, lay concealed by loose dirt and rocks. Its tongue flicked out, tasting the night air. Smoke smell was strong, as was human, but beneath that, the beast detected traces of elf.

The movement inside the ring of tents slowed and stopped. The humans settled into their shelters. The beast’s tongue flicked out again. The human smell was enticing, though the elf tang was definitely present. The impetus in its blood burned like a fever: Find elves; kill them. The drive could not be denied. If humans were intermingled with its intended prey, they would die, too.

The beast rose from its hiding place, shaking off dirt and rocks. In four bounds it reached the outer line of tents. It bore straight into the first tent, rending the goatskin walls to tatters with a single swipe of its horns. Within slept three humans. The first two died without waking. The third had time to shriek once before she perished.

The tents did not impede the sand beast’s progress. It raced through the camp. Tattered canvas and leather caught in its horns trailed through the banked cookfires, catching fire. One tent was set alight, then another, and another. Against the heightened glare, humans raced about, yelling. Methodically, the creature slew them all, in case they might be elves in disguise.

Barely twenty minutes after the beast’s entrance into the camp, silence reigned. The only sound was the crackle and pop of the fires burning unchecked in three different places. Nothing remained alive, and the smell of blood was strong.

Too strong. The beast left the silent camp and circled upwind. A tantalizing whiff of elf came to it, borne on the cool night wind from the mountains. With uncharacteristic deliberation, the sand beast set out again and resumed trailing the pack of elves.

Near dawn the first riders of Adala’s band reached a hilltop overlooking their camp. Horrified by what they saw, they sent for the Weyadan and her warmasters.

The nomad war party had passed the night in the saddle, trying to swing wide around the elves’ path and outflank them. Unfortunately, they didn’t know the foothills as well as they did their usual terrain, and too many of them became lost in the gullies and ravines. They’d finally assembled as the sky began to lighten, and Adala was taking them back to camp when word came of the terrible disaster.

White-faced, the Weyadan rode through the savaged camp. No one was alive. All those left behind—wives, children, old folk—had been ruthlessly slain. The tents and supplies that weren’t burned had been shredded and trampled.

“Who could have done this?” asked Wapah, riding at Adala’s elbow, the tears flowing unchecked down his face. This question was repeated over and over by the stricken men—and punctuated by harsh screams as one after another they found their butchered, burned families.

Outside her tent, Adala made her own dreadful discovery. Her two youngest children, the last remaining at home, lay dead on the blood-drenched ground. Brave, forthright Chisi lay atop Amalia as though she’d tried to shield her gentle sister from the horror that had found them. On her knees beside them, Adala wept, swaying from side to side as anguish buffeted her.

“The laddad did this,” she finally said.

Wapah frowned. “No, Weyadan. However barbarous we find them, they are not such fiends. It is some fateful occurrence. Perhaps—”

“Fool! Can’t you see with your own eyes?”

He stared at her—her own eyes were great bottomless holes of pain. “The laddad did this,” she said fiercely, raising her voice to repeat her words for all the others. “The laddad did this!”

Bilath reported no broken elf weapons, no dead elves, and no dead elf horses, but Adala insisted the laddad had gleaned every item after the massacre, to hide their guilt.

Nothing Wapah or Bilath could say would dissuade her from this conviction. Then one of Bilath’s men brought shocking news that stopped all speculation. In a nearby ravine were the prints of three horses. The prints bore the unmistakable mark of laddad smithery. More, they led down the ravine, away from this camp, and joined a mass of similar hoofprints. An army of laddad had indeed passed by.

“For these murders,” Adala vowed, “they will pay.”

Wapah, though unconvinced, said nothing.

The others shouted and wailed their anger.

No longer was this a war only to preserve the sacred land of Khur from foreigners. Now, cradling her daughters’ torn bodies, her robe stiff with their blood, Adala of the Weya-Lu dedicated herself to Torghan, god of vengeance. No prisoners would be taken. No quarter would be given. This was a war to the death.