“Hold off the enemy,” Gilthas said simply. “If we move all night, we should have everyone back together on the far side before sunrise.”
It was a daunting task, perhaps an impossible one, to keep the far superior nomad force on this side of the wadi until morning. Taranath saluted smartly and rode off to carry out his sovereign’s commands.
“There is too much courage here,” Wapah said to no one in particular.
“I agree,” said Gilthas. “Too much courage and too little compassion.”
He coughed a few times, but no blood appeared. The ministrations of Truthanar were keeping his illness in abeyance.
He remained on the south bank until the last of his people descended the narrow trails into the wadi’s broad bed. With him were six councilors (three each of Qualinesti and Silvanesti), a bodyguard of nine, the human Wapah, and Hamaramis. The old general would not think of arguing with his Speaker, but Gilthas knew he was furious at having been left out of the impending fight. Gilthas sympathized. His own thoughts continually strayed to Planchet and the elves left behind on Broken Tooth.
The sun lowered itself onto the western desert, painting the tan landscape in orange and red hues. The sky deepened to indigo. Stars appeared. The air cooled quickly, and Gilthas shivered. He pulled a cape on over his long-sleeved affre.
“How far do you plan to go with us?” Gilthas asked Wapah, standing on his right.
“As far as the khan of the laddad requires.”
“Then I require you a while longer.”
The last of the elves had entered the wadi. It was time for the Speaker to follow. His bodyguards dismounted and led their animals because the track into the wadi was narrow and steep. Gilthas led the way, pushing through thorn bushes. A branch snapped back unexpectedly and scored a bloody line below his right eye. Hamaramis wanted to inspect the gash, but Gilthas brusquely ordered the party to proceed. More than one of those accompanying him thought he appeared to be weeping tears of blood.
Half a mile away, the rearguard waited for the enemy to close. Months of fighting the nomads had convinced Taranath of one truth: however brave and bold the Khurs were, when pressed, their response was to close up together. By hitting them hard, Taranath knew he could force them to draw in all their riders, thus keeping them away from the civilians crossing the wadi.
Word came down the line that nomads were in sight on the left. Taranath ordered the crescent line of riders to re-form into a column of sixes. Haggard but disciplined, the elves arranged themselves quickly. Then, by word of mouth only, Taranath sounded the charge.
The lead riders of a Mikku patrol were picking their way through the scrub cedar and thorn trees when the elf cavalry burst upon them, as unexpected as a storm in the desert. The warriors in front didn’t even have time to draw swords before they were annihilated. The trailing elements rode back to summon help.
Taranath continued to harry them, his mounted archers picking off scattered warriors. First fifty, then a hundred, then several hundred Mikku warriors faced about and cantered back to the main body of nomads, three miles behind.
Taranath left a small band to press the retreating humans, swung the bulk of his warriors in a wide loop to their right, and fell on the flank of the unsuspecting Mikku. He hit them just as the first riders reached the main body of the nomad army, shouting warnings of an attack. The result was a complete rout. Attacked on two sides, uncertain how many laddad they faced, the Mikku fell back in confusion. Taranath left another token force to carry on the flank attack and once more led the majority of his warriors in a loop, curving around to the left. When they emerged from a line of lordly black cedars, the whole of the nomad army lay before them, moving slowly, swords sheathed.
The Silvanesti among Taranath’s troopers stood in their stirrups and gave the ancient victory cry—“Sivvanesu!”—the archaic pronunciation of “Silvanesti.”
Assuming a wedge formation, the elves hit the unwary nomads and smashed through, cutting off the entire Mikku contingent. Taranath’s warriors rode through the confused mass of humans, swords flashing and arrows singing.
The Tondoon and Hachakee tribes, taken by surprise, began to back away from the furious assault. They weren’t afraid. They only wanted to put space between them and their enemy so they could draw swords and meet the foe on equal terms, but Adala, arriving on Little Thorn, assumed the worst.
“For shame, men of Khur! The enemy puts himself in your hands, and you retreat! Where is your honor? Give them the sword!”
The warriors nearest her protested. She scorned their explanation. “A fight is never settled by fleeing the enemy. I’ll show you how it’s done!”
She tapped Little Thorn’s flank with her stick. Guiding the donkey around the taller ponies, she rode straight at the laddad. Warmasters and tribesmen alike shouted for her to turn back, but she wouldn’t heed them. She was a charge of one, furious, unarmed, lacking even a speedy means of retreat.
Young Othdan, chief of the Tondoon, roared, “I will not sit with an idle blade in my hands while the Maita perishes! Tondoon, follow me! ”
Not to be outdone, the chiefs and warmasters of the Hachakee turned their magnificent gray horses around and spurred hard. Holding the reins in their teeth, they filled each hand with a sword.
Taranath could not understand what was happening. One moment, the nomads were ready to break; a breath later, they were thundering back, a bloodthirsty tide set to engulf the smaller elf force. It was no proper charge or calculated thrust, merely a mass of men, horses, and whirling blades crashing toward the astonished elves. On the right, the Mikku saw the change of fortune and rallied, causing Taranath to face attacks on the left and right. He stood in the stirrups and scanned the chaos, looking for a way out. His gaze fell on an incongruous figure—a small donkey, moving as fast as his stumpy legs would allow, bearing a rider clad in black robes. He didn’t recognize the rider, but the mass of nomads thundering after the donkey told him it was an important person.
“Formigan!” he shouted. “Put a shaft in that donkey’s rider!”
The renowned archer nocked a black oak shaft (his last missile) and drew the bowstring to his chin. All about him was utter chaos, with elves and nomads hurtling back and forth between him and his target, yet he waited calmly for his moment then loosed.
The arrow struck true. A great groan rose up from the nomads at the sight of the still-quivering black shaft protruding from their leader’s chest. The impact drove the breath from Adala’s body and rocked her backward, but she felt no pain, and no blood flowed. Elation sang through her veins.
With all eyes upon her, she lifted her donkey switch high and cried, “See how my maita protects me, even from the weapons of the evil laddad! Men of Khur, children of Torghan, will you fail now?”
“No!”
The thunderous roar seemed to shake the very ground beneath Taranath’s horse. The general was stunned by the failure of Formigan’s shot. Could the donkey rider be wearing armor beneath those black robes?
There was no more time to ponder the mystery. The nomads redoubled their efforts. Caught in a vise of human fury, Taranath looked for a way out. Left and right were hopelessly clogged with savages. Retreat was impossible since the elf nation lay in that direction. Ahead was the only option.
The elves surged forward. They cut their way through the relatively thin line of nomads in front of them and burst into the open desert. Taranath told his cornetist to blow not “Retreat,” but “Pursuit.” Heartened to know they weren’t fleeing, the elves emerged from the human swarm and galloped away, riding due west. After some confusion while the choking clouds of dust thinned, the Khurs followed.
The only nomads who did not pursue were Adala and the Weya-Lu. Yalmuk and the Weya-Lu warriors who’d fought at Broken Tooth had ridden hard to catch up to the main army. When they arrived, they found the battle over, their people pursuing the laddad, and Adala Maita slumped on her donkey’s back.
Fearing the wors
t, Yalmuk touched the Weyadan’s arm. “Maita! Are you hurt?”
She straightened, and Yalmuk gasped as he saw the arrow in her chest. “I am not injured, warmaster,” she said. “Can you get this thing out of me?”
Gingerly, he grasped the shaft. Adala neither winced nor swooned but told him to get on with it. He gave a hard yank. The laddad missile came out with a tearing sound.
“Lout. You’ve torn my geb.”
Yalmuk didn’t hear her. He was examining the arrow. The sharp tip of the broadhead had snapped off, as though it had struck something hard.
“Maita, are you wearing armor?”
She parted the front of her outer robe, displaying the sash she wore underneath. Studded along its pale gray length were three flat cabochons of lapis lazuli, each as big as Adala’s palm. The one in the center was cracked in half. The arrow had struck it, breaking the arrow tip and the cabochon. Adala’s clothing had held the arrow in place until Yalmuk ripped it free.
She told him to keep the arrow. “It is more proof my maita lives and will bring us victory.”
He tucked it away and asked what she desired to do next.
“The men of Khur must be brought back. Our target is the laddad host, not their cowardly soldiers. If so many are loose in the desert, the laddad must be without protection.” She rearranged her clothing. “I will bring the tribes back. You will ride after the laddad invaders.”
Yalmuk studied her closely. “Maita, are you hurt at all?”
The rib directly behind the broken cabochon felt as though it was cracked, and she felt some pain. But she cinched her sash tight to brace it, and said nothing of this to Yalmuk, only sent him on his way. Taking up her switch, she tapped Little Thorn on the flank and trotted off to find her army.
Clouds obscured most of the stars over Khuri-Khan. In the courtyard of the Temple of Elir-Sana stood High Priestess Sa’ida, a tall staff in her hand. At the top of the staff, a glass globe burned with a swirling white light that gave out no heat but did illuminate the loathsome creature groveling before her.
When her acolytes first came running into the sacred shrine, screeching about a monster at the gate, Sa’ida had chastised them. The age of monsters was past, she said. They were being hysterical. Yet when she saw the half-man, half-beast creature and heard it speak her name, she realized she would have to apologize to the women.
“Holy Mistress,” the thing hissed. “Help me! I am cursed.”
“What are you, beast?”
“Holy Mistress, it is I, Prince Shobbat!”
She recoiled in shock, and the tiny brass bells woven through her white hair jangled discordantly. The furry beast crept closer on yellow-nailed paws. The night was a warm one, and the creature’s black tongue lolled as he panted.
Holding her staff in both hands before her, she commanded him to halt. “Whoever—whatever—you are, you may not enter the temple of the Beneficent Healer!”
Rising up on his haunches, Shobbat slumped against the temenos wall. “Oh, help me, Holy Mistress,” he pleaded. “I am hunted through the streets of my own city. My father means to kill me!”
Sa’ida took a step toward him, eliciting a chorus of gasps and cries from the acolytes crowded in the temple doorway behind her. She ignored them.
“How do you come to be in this state?”
“I do not know! Perhaps I meddled with powers a righteous man should have shunned, but.…” The shrug he gave was eloquent, even if bizarre coming from such a creature.
He told her of the disgraced royal mage Faeterus and of his visit to the mysterious Oracle of the Tree, deep in the desert. The prince believed the Oracle was to blame for his condition. He told her of the grotesque images of melded humans and animals he’d seen there.
At the end of his recitation, it was her turn to shrug. “I cannot help you. I can only heal hurts, not reverse a spell of sorcery.”
“At least let me pass the night here, Holy Mistress. That is all I ask.”
“You must know that is not possible, Highness.” Her voice faltered on the title. “You would desecrate this temple. You must go and trust in fate.”
“Maita?” Shobbat’s mouth opened and saliva dripped from his ivory fangs. She realized he was laughing. “You talk like a desert dreamer. Holy Mistress, what am I to do?”
Despite his grotesque state, his anguish was genuine. She felt a small stirring of pity for the foolish prince. “Find the one who cursed you. Only he can remove the spell,” she said.
He protested the impossibility of finding the Oracle. “Yes, but there is another possibility,” she reminded him. “One who is not spirit, but flesh and blood.”
She was right. Faeterus was no spirit. He could be found. The thought of having Faeterus’s skinny throat in his jaws filled Shobbat with pleasure. The mage would cure him or else.
Seeing the thing before her grin with unmistakable malice, Sa’ida’s brief flicker of pity died. She aimed the globe on her staff at Shobbat and proclaimed, “Go from this place!”
As if shoved by an invisible hand, Shobbat was propelled backward across the courtyard and out the open gate. The gate swung shut on its own, locking with a loud clang. A luminous glow appeared above the low temple wall. Sa’ida had raised a magical shield.
Shobbat snarled. When he was khan, he would raze the woman’s wretched temple flat. No, better still, he would turn the sacred shrine into a stable. Let his prized horses appreciate the beauty of that translucent blue dome.
He laughed and the sound caused a dog nearby to bark. The noise pierced Shobbat like a knife. The dog’s scent came to him, and he knew it was a hound. Several other barks answered, and he remembered his fear. He was being hunted. He had to get out of the city.
Faeterus kept a house in the Harbalah, the northern district of the city still not rebuilt after the depredations of the red dragon Malys. The mage’s home was bound to contain plenty of things he’d touched. From them Shobbat could get the sorcerer’s scent. He would track Faeterus to the end of the world, if need be, and wring a cure from him.
As he slunk away, howls arose from every dog within a mile. Masters cursed or kicked them, and told them to shut up, unaware of the danger passing by.
21
All night the elves argued. The fantastic spectacle in the sky faded, but the fire it ignited among Porthios’s followers waxed ever hotter.
The battle lines were strangely drawn. On one side, Alhana Starbreeze and Hytanthas Ambrodel were all for going immediately to the aid of their brethren in Khur. Despite their loyalty to their lady, both Samar and Chathendor were on the opposing side. Among the royal guards, those burning to avenge the elves slain in the desert far outnumbered those aligned with their commander, Samar.
The debate took place around a bonfire built in the center of the plateau. Porthios watched from a crag a dozen feet above the assembly, his robe and mask painted scarlet by the blazing fire. Kerian sat cross-legged on the ground, not far from Alhana in her camp chair.
After the vision in the sky, Kerian had removed herself to her tiny tent. Alhana sent an elf to ask her to join their discussion, but when he hailed her, the Lioness threatened to strangle him with her bare hands. Her voice was choked and hoarse. They left her alone. She eventually joined the group around the bonfire but was uncharacteristically silent. She concentrated on sharpening her sword with a whetstone, but as voices on both sides of the issue grew heated, she set the stone aside. The metallic scraping was hardly soothing to anyone’s nerves.
Alhana indicated Hytanthas could speak on behalf of her faction. The young Qualinesti warrior, backlit by the fire, declaimed eloquently on the need to go to the aid of their people. “Will we allow our brothers and sisters to be slaughtered in a distant desert?”
“Yes, it is distant,” Samar said. “Khur is not our land. It is no place for Qualinesti, Silvanesti, or Kagonesti. We are invaders there. No wonder the Khurs fight to drive us out.”
Alhana challenged her loyal friend. “Gi
lthas did not lead our people there to conquer or occupy. He sought only a haven from the barbarians who overran our countries. He dealt with the Khurish khan in good faith. Now the Khurs seek to exterminate those who were their guests. Captain Ambrodel is right: How can we sit by and let this happen?”
“Khur is very far,” Chathendor pointed out. “Many hundreds of miles. If we marched for Khur tomorrow, the Speaker and those with him would be long gone by the time we arrived. We’d be marching into the arms of those who destroyed a great host of our brethren. With not a thousand souls ourselves, what should we accomplish but our own doom?”
The elderly chamberlain’s reasoned words carried weight. A murmur arose as those in the crowd began to take sides. There were far more voices raised on the side of caution, of remaining here, than for the position espoused by Hytanthas and Alhana. Hytanthas looked at the Lioness. She’d said not a word since belatedly joining the group, and was staring at the sword lying across her knees. He feared to ask what she thought. She’d made it plain she had no desire to return to Khur.
Alhana had no such reservations. “Niece,” she said, “I must know your thoughts on this.”
Kerian began sharpening her blade again: one stroke on the right side, one stroke on the left. The metallic hiss punctuated her words.
“We all saw the image in the clouds.” Scrape. “We all agree on what we saw.” Scrape. “My question is, was it true?” Scrape.
She looked up at Alhana. “Since I arrived in Qualinesti, our paths seem to have been shaped by powers greater than ourselves or Neraka or the bandit chiefs. A city garrisoned by hundreds falls to a band of twenty. We find arms enough to equip a rebellion and elude an army of thousands hunting us. And you, aunt, are saved from certain death by some means I still don’t understand. Is this all common chance? Or are we being directed?”
The assembly pondered her words. The only sounds were the crackle of the bonfire and the faint scuff of Porthios’s leather-soled boots as he descended the pinnacle. He came closer, but remained in the shadowy edges of the bonfire’s light.
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