by Troy Denning
"Destroy the fort," urged Rhayn, a tone of desperation in her voice, "It would be wise," agreed Magnus. "Without their fort, the Silver Hands will surrender. Faenaeyon will rob them, but there'll be no bloodshed. On the other hand, if the matter comes to blows, the fighting won't end until one tribe is destroyed."
"You can't trick me with your elven games," Sadira hissed. Speaking loudly enough for Faenaeyon to hear, she added, "I won't use my magic to help you steal."
"I hadn't thought a defiler would be so particular about her causes," observed Magnus.
The comment stung Sadira as no threat could have. "I only did what was necessary to save my life," she retorted.
"Then do it again," urged Magnus, glancing at Faenaeyon's angry form. "One of the lives you save will be your own."
"What do you care if one tribe of elves robs another?" Rhayn demanded. "You understand nothing! This is between the Sun Runners and the Silver Hands."
"Then your chief has no business bringing me into it," Sadira countered, her eyes locked on Faenaeyon's.
Magnus leaned his massive body close to Sadira. "What you say might be true if your were in Tyr, but you are not," he whispered. "You are with the Sun Runners, and here Faenaeyon's word is the only custom or law—as rapacious as it may seem. If he says to destroy the fort, you must—or a hundred warriors will leap to kill you when he gives the order."
The windsinger's harangue only hardened Sadira's resolve. "I won't help you," she called, speaking directly to Faenaeyon.
Narrowing his eyes, the chief started toward her. The Silver Hands yelled jeers and insults, mocking the bravery of the Sun Runners and their chief's ability to lead his tribe. One of the warriors raised his bow to fire at Faenaeyon's back.
"Look out!" Sadira yelled, her words echoed by a half-dozen warriors.
The bowstring snapped as the chief started to turn around. Before he could react, the shaft sank deep into his hip. Faenaeyon stumbled and nearly fell, then caught himself. As his own warriors began to draw their bowstrings back, he raised a hand.
"Hold your shafts!" he commanded.
The Sun Runners obeyed, though they kept their arrows nocked. Nodding his approval at their discipline, Faenaeyon stood with his back to the Silver Hands, challenging them to fire again.
Sadira resisted the temptation to reach for her spell ingredients. Faenaeyon had started this trouble on his own, and she was determined not to be dragged into it.
Inside the stockade, Toramund looked down the wall and bellowed, "Who did that? I gave no order to attack!" Several Silver Hand warriors responded by knocking a young woman off the wall.
After standing with his back to the Silver Hands for several moments, Faenaeyon reached around and tore the arrow from his hip. He tossed the shaft aside with a casual flick of his wrist, then continued toward Sadira. Although he bled profusely and walked with a limp, the chief's angry face showed no sign of distress.
"Doesn't he suffer pain?" Sadira gasped, leaving her hand in her satchel.
"No," said Rhayn, edging away from the sorceress. "He never feels anything except greed or anger. Right now, I fear it's anger."
To the other side of Sadira, Magnus tapped his kank's antennae, also moving away. "If you wish to survive, don't make the mistake of thinking he can be reasoned with."
Sadira began to doubt her wisdom in defying Faenaeyon. She could not believe he truly felt no pain. Yet, it was becoming clear he lacked the feelings that controlled the behavior of most men, such as fear and compassion. He saw the world only as a source of silver.
Faenaeyon stopped in front of Sadira, his sword still unsheathed. Though the sorceress remained mounted on her kank, her father stood so tall that he looked her straight in the eye.
"Destroy the fort," he ordered, raising his sword just enough to menace her.
Sadira dropped her gaze to the weapon. "If you lift that against me, it'll be the coins in your purse that I destroy not the bricks of the fort."
She put one hand into her satchel and grasped a cold cinder, then turned down the palm of the other and began drawing energy for a spell. "How much is my death worth to you? A hundred coins?"
Faenaeyon's eyes widened. He glanced at the shimmering stream of energy rising into Sadira's hand, then lowered his weapon. "I'll deal with you later," he said. He turned back toward the fort and pointed his sword at the elves manning it. "Their deaths will be upon your head."
"Perhaps, if the Sun Runners needed water and I refused to help," Sadira countered. "But your tribe can reach the next oasis easily. Half your waterskins remain full."
"It's not water I want," Faenaeyon responded. The chief glanced over his shoulder and nodded at his warriors.
As they drew their bowstrings back, Sadira pulled her hand from the satchel, the cinder concealed in her fingers. "Not even an elf would start a battle like this over silver."
"I am no ordinary elf," he said, lowering his sword.
The strum of a hundred bowstrings rumbled down the line and Faenaeyon's warriors launched their shafts into the air. Toramund screamed a command in response, and the Silver Hands loosed their own arrows.
Sadira flung the cinder into the air, crying out her incantation. A fiery band flashed across the sky, intercepting the two flights of arrows over the field of ashbrush. An instant later, all that remained of the shafts was a dark cloud of soot and the dark specks of errant arrowheads falling harmlessly to earth.
Faenaeyon glanced back at Sadira, the features of his pallid face contorted into a furious scowl. "It is one thing not to help, and another to interfere. Don't do it again!"
Sadira barely heard him, for the ashbrush in front of the gate tower was turning black and shriveling. She looked up and saw that the old man next to Toramund was preparing to cast a spell, and his beady eyes were looking the direction of her and Faenaeyon.
"Get down!" Sadira yelled.
The sorceress urged her kank forward, using its mandibles to push her father to the ground. She had barely leaped from the saddle before she heard the sizzle of a fireball streaking from the tower. It passed above the kank's back and, leaving the stench of burning sulfur in its wake, crashed to earth a short distance away. There it remained for a moment, sputtering and hissing, before it finally erupted.
A wave of heat rolled overhead, igniting a half-dozen dry bushes and singing Sadira's hair. Her kank bolted, and then she heard Faenaeyon's warriors screaming his name.
The sorceress lifted her head and looked toward her father. If Faenaeyon was seriously injured, she knew more bloodshed would be unavoidable. When he didn't move, she asked, "Are you hurt?"
"I am angry," the elf hissed, rising.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Sadira looked upon the field ahead. A wide expanse in front of the gate tower had been reduced to barren and blackened soil. A bewildered iguana clattered across the naked rocks, scurrying for the withered brush at the edge of the desecrated tract. There was no other sign of life in the area.
A terrible sense of loathing and hatred came over the half-elf, and she shifted her gaze to the gate tower. There stood Toramund's sorcerer, grinning smugly and showing no remorse for the desecration he had committed.
"Go away, Faenaeyon," yelled Toramund, laying a hand on the sorcerer's shoulder. "Or Bademyr will finish what he began."
Before Faenaeyon could respond, Sadira rose and took his arm. "Do as I say, and you shall have your silver," she whispered, turning her father around.
"You've changed your mind?" the elf asked, allowing the sorceress to guide him away from the fortress.
"I have," Sadira answered. To prevent Bademyr from noticing that she was drawing the energy for a spell, she kept her back to the Silver Hands. "But you must kill the defiler and no one else."
"Done," the elf agreed.
Long before she had destroyed any ashbrush, Sadira cut off the flow of energy into her body—unlike Bademyr, she did not defile lightly. She scraped a handful of red silt off the rocks at her feet
, then spun around and held her fist out toward the gate tower. She cast her spell, letting the dust slip from her fingers. The fortress bricks began crumbling away. An instant later, the entire structure stood on the brink of collapse.
Sadira closed her hand, temporarily halting the destruction. "Silver Hands!" she yelled. "Leave the walls at once, or you'll fall with them."
The elves quickly availed themselves of Sadira's advice, save for the small group in the gate tower. There, Toramund looked to his own sorcerer. "Stop her!" he yelled.
As Bademyr reached for his spell components, Sadira opened her hand and slowly let dust grains slip from between her fingers. To either side of the tower, sections of wall began to fall. Toramund grabbed his sorcerer by the shoulders, then shoved the old man over the railing.
"Our agreement has come to an end," he yelled, lingering on the tower just long enough to watch Bademyr bit the ground.
As Toramund and the last of the Silver Hands fled the gate tower, Faenaeyon waved his warriors forward, yelling, "Silver Hands, gather your coins and your daughters! The Sun Runners shall have them all!"
Sadira remained where she was, watching the injured sorcerer struggle to crawl out of the path of the approaching Sun Runners. The sorceress was surprised by her feelings toward the defiler. She had asked Faenaeyon to kill him, not because she was angry about the attempt on her life, but because he had desecrated the field.
It was not lost on the half-elf that she had destroyed a much larger area just three days ago. But she had resorted to desperate measures only to protect herself from Nok. Bademyr, on the other hand, had committed his offense with seeming indifference, and for a dubious purpose. Sadira knew that Ktandeo would have found her action as morally indefensible as that of the Silver Hands' sorcerer. But to her, there was a difference between using defiler magic to save life and to take it.
Sadira watched Faenaeyon approach the gate. Although the rest of the Sun Runners had rushed past the injured defiler, the chief went over to Bademyr. He leaned over and spoke to the sorcerer, then sheathed his sword and picked up the old man. Bademyr's head nodded in thanks, and Faenaeyon carried him back toward Sadira and the young elves who had stayed behind to watch the tribe's kanks.
After moving into the circle of defiled ground, where he had a clear view of Sadira, the chief stopped and threw his burden down. The old man cried out, then held out his hand to summon the energy for a spell. By the time Faenaeyon had pulled his sword from its scabbard, more ashbrush had begun to wither at the edges of the blackened circle.
The chief brought his blade down, lopping off the sorcerer's head. A dazzling ribbon of green and gold radiance shot from the severed neck, filling the air with a deafening skirl. Crying out in surprise, Faenaeyon leaped back and watched the sparkling lights streak into the sky. Once they had disappeared from view, he sheathed his sword and rushed into the village.
Rhayn came and stood next to the sorceress. The defiler's fireball had frightened her infant, but the elven mother seemed oblivious to her child's sobs. Sadira stepped around to her sister's back to comfort the baby. He was crying so hard that his arched eyebrows were almost flat, and his pointed ears had turned as crimson as the sun.
"Hush, little one," Sadira cooed, speaking to the child as he was customarily addressed. From what Sadira had seen, elven children were not named until they could run alongside their parents. Of the four other juveniles who spent their nights at Rhayn's camp, she had heard only the oldest called by name.
When the infant didn't stop crying, Sadira asked her sister, "Shall I hold him?"
Rhayn turned around, moving the child out of sight. "Don't comfort him," the mother said. "It'll be better if he learns to be brave."
Though Sadira doubted that comforting a frightened infant would make him fainthearted as an adult, she deferred to her sister's wishes. "Elves are hard parents," she observed.
"The desert is a hard place," answered Rhayn.
"Though I see you must have also led a hard life—or been raised by a fool. Only a brave woman or a stupid one would have defied my father as you did."
"At heart, Faenaeyon is spineless," Sadira answered. "He's no different than any other tyrant."
"My father is no coward!" snapped Rhayn, her deep blue eyes burning with indignation. She studied Sadira for a moment, then the anger faded. "And he was not always a tyrant," she said. "Once, he was a great chief who showered his warriors with silver and his enemies with blood."
"If you say so," Sadira answered, shrugging. "It means nothing to me."
"You're wrong," said Rhayn. She took Sadira by the arm and led her toward Magnus, who had gone to chase down the sorceress's kank. "Faenaeyon will overlook your defiance, for your powers are useful, and, in the end, you did what he wanted you to. But you're also dangerous to him. When you threatened his fortune, you threatened his hold over the tribe. He won't tolerate such a risk for long."
Sadira studied Rhayn for several moments, wondering what had moved the elf to share this warning with her. Finally, the sorceress said, "My thanks. I'll take my leave as soon as we find another caravan traveling toward Nibenay."
"Don't be a fool!" Rhayn hissed. She glanced around to make sure they were out of earshot of the rest of the tribe. "Even if we see another caravan, Faenaeyon will never let you join it!" Sadira scowled. "What are you saying?" Rhayn shook her head. "Are you really so naive?" she asked. "You have become Faenaeyon's sword. As long as you serve him well, he'll take care to keep you sharp. But when you become so heavy that your edge is dangerous he'll shorten your blade or destroy you altogether. Don't think that he'll let you fall into someone else's hands. There's too great a danger that you'll be used against him someday."
"I don't believe that," Sadira said. "He promised to take me to Nibenay, and so far he's keeping that promise."
"You shall see Nibenay," Rhayn said. "Do not despair of that. But when you leave, it will be with the Sun Runners—or not at all."
Rhayn paused to let Sadira consider the warning. After a few moments, she said, "There is an alternative."
The sorceress raised a brow. "And what is that?"
"All Sun Runners remember when Faenaeyon was a great chief, and that's why so many tolerate him now," Rhayn said. She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "But there are those of us who are tired of living in fear and having every coin we earn stolen by him."
"I don't see what that has to do with me," Sadira said.
"Nothing and everything," answered Rhayn. "That's the beauty of it. Even if we wished to see Faenaeyon hurt, which we don't, we couldn't kill him. Too many of the old warriors remember when he was young, and they would never stand for his assassination."
"What do you want from me?" the sorceress asked, deciding to cut directly to the point.
"If you could incapacitate my lather, the tribe would have to select a new leader," Rhayn said.
"You, of course," concluded Sadira.
"Perhaps." Rhayn shrugged. "But the important thing is, there'll be no trouble between those who support Faenaeyon and those who don't."
"Because you'll blame me," Sadira said. Over the last two days, she had begun to feel a certain fondness for Rhayn, and thought that the same had been true for the elf. Now, it was clear that her sister had only been preparing her as a scapegoat.
"It will come to that only if someone figures out what you did," Rhayn said, not even trying to deny the treachery in her plan. "Even then, you should be safe enough. You and I won't make our move for a week, until we're near Nibenay. By the time anyone realizes what's happened, you'll be in the city—free of us and Faenaeyon."
Sadira studied the elf for a moment, then shook her bead in disbelief. "You must take me for a fool," she said, "Not at all," the elf said. "I know you to be a cunning woman—cunning enough to know that if you want to leave the Sun Runners alive, this is your only hope."
"I'll take my chances with Faenaeyon," Sadira replied coldly.
"The mist
ake you are making is a fatal one," Rhayn hissed. She spun around and stalked off, her infant sobbing more loudly than ever.
As Rhayn left, Magnus came over, leading his kank and Sadira's behind him. "You must delight in danger," the windsinger observed, watching Rhayn leave. "A stranger among lirrs does not usually give two of the beasts such good reasons to eat her."
"I have faced worse than elves," Sadira replied. "But how do you know what passed between Rhayn and me?"
Magnus tilted his ears forward. "When someone speaks, I seldom miss a word," he said, waving the huge appendages back and forth. "It's the curse of my heritage."
"Which is?" she asked. When the windsinger did not answer, she pressed the question. "I've never met anyone like you. What, exactly, are you?"
"An elf, of course," The windsinger said, flattening his ears. He started walking, taking his mount and Sadira's to join the rest of the tribe's kanks.
"You don't look like any elf I know," Sadira said, following the windsinger.
"My appearance makes no difference. I've been with the Sun Runners all my life," Magnus answered sharply. Then, more gently, he said, "Faenaeyon found me near the Pristine Tower, then took me in and raised me at his fire."
"The Pristine Tower!" Sadira gasped. "Could you take me there?"
"Not even if I wanted to. I was only a babe when Faenaeyon found me," the windsinger said, shaking his head. "Besides, no matter what you've told Faenaeyon, you don't want to go to that place."
"Why not?" Sadira asked.
"Because it's beset by New Beasts, creatures more horrid and vicious than those anywhere else on Athas." He stopped walking and looked down his long muzzle at the sorceress. "You couldn't survive a day in that place. No one could."
"Apparently, you did," Sadira observed. "And so did Faenaeyon."
"When he was young, Faenaeyon did many impossible things," Magnus said, resuming his stride. "And as for myself, the winds have always watched after me."
Realizing that she would learn nothing of the Pristine Tower's location from Magnus, Sadira switched the topic to something of more immediate interest. "If you were raised by Faenaeyon, then I doubt you're a part of Rhayn's plan," the sorceress said. "You could warn him of what she's doing."