Sanctuary

Chapter 16

Eight men abreast, the Khurish royal cavalry rumbled out the city’s north gate. Their armor was a mix of native and Nerakan style, with pointed helmets, angular breastplates, and Spiky knobs at every bend of knee, elbow, and ankle. Their favored weapon was a very heavy saber, its blade shaped like a crescent moon. Their mantles had started out royal blue, but long exposure to the harsh sun had faded them to the color of the spring sky over Khuri-Khan. The Khurs were among the best soldiers hired by the Dark Knights, but since the arrival of the elves Sahim-Khan had allowed the longstanding contract with Neraka to lapse. He had ample compensation from taxes, fees, and other official extort ions to replace the money paid by the Order.

General Hakkam rode at the head of the column, flanked by standard bearers and heralds. Once the tail of the column cleared the city gate, he halted his men and sent out flankers on both sides and well ahead to scout the situation. The cavalry moved forward at a walk, alert for ambushes. In his long career, Hakkam had fought nomads before. They were fearless, hardy, and addicted to surprise attacks. He had no intention of losing men to (or being humiliated by) a rabble of tribesmen, especially with the laddad as witness.

The scouts soon returned with strange news. A sizable force of mounted laddad were on the north ridge, watching the nomads. The tribesmen were massed in the Lake of Dreams. This dry depression, six miles from Khuri-Khan, had earned its name because travelers commonly saw mirages of water in the broad hollow between dunes. Like the laddad, the nomads were motionless, waiting.

Hakkam uttered an oath. His lieutenants thought he was cursing the nomads or the laddad, but in fact he was abusing the name of Sahim-Khan. What had the master of Khur sent him into?

“Forward” he said, facing his horse west. At a leisurely walk, five thousand Khurish horsemen followed their general into the unknown. Shafts <...> the clouds, casting beams down on the glittering clanking procession. Unlike Adala, Hakkam didn’t take the light as a sign of godly favor. It was shining in his men’s eyes.

Alone of all the nomads gathered on the dune ridge overlooking Khuri-Khan Adala slept. After returning from the tense meeting with the laddad lord, she finished some mending, then lay down in her small tent and went to sleep. Rain and thunder did not disturb her, nor did the presence of eighteen thousand armed laddad.

After midday, the sky grew dark and swollen, as if the heavy clouds would burst of their own weight, soaking the land below. Sentinels galloped back to the nomad camp with peculiar news. A single laddad rider was approaching Bilath had sent a band of bow-armed Weya-Lu to the high sandhill on the north side of the Lake of Dreams. From there they could pick off anyone daring to enter the camp. They might have dealt thus with the rider had not the sharp-eyed warmaster of the Tondoon, Haradi, recognized her. Haradi had been with Adala at the parley and had heard talk of the female laddad warmaster Kerianseray, also called the Lioness. This rider had burnished gold hair, which fell unbound past her shoulders It must be the Lioness.

Etosh dispatched Wapah to waken the Weyadan.

Wapah knelt outside the closed door flap of Adala’s tent and called softly. She bade him enter. He put his head inside, keeping his eyes respectfully on the ground.

“Weyadan, the female laddad warmaster comes. Alone!”

She lay with her back to him. Without moving, she said, “Summon the chiefs and warmasters. They will sit in judgment of the criminal.”

“It is maita,” he said sagely, and then withdrew.

Adala sat up slowly. Her head still ached, as it had ached for the past three days. The sky was responsible. The clouds hung over the desert like a gravid beast. She’d never known air this ponderous. It weighed on her so heavily she felt her skull would crack from the pressure. The usual cure for headache, chewing a leaf of the makadar bush, had provided no relief at all.

She poured tepid water in a copper pan and washed her hands, face, neck, and feet. During her ablutions, she blessed the names of her ancestors and called upon Those on High to judge her deeds this day. If she was found wanting in virtue or truth, she begged the gods to strike her down.

A bundle lay just inside the entrance to her tent. It proved to be a beautiful new robe of red linen, handsomely embroidered in white. The style and skill of the needlework marked it as having come from the women of the Mayakhur tribe. The collar and matching headdress were silk, hand-dyed, and fit for the khan’s consort, but as much as Adala respected the sentiment behind the gift, she couldn’t wear the beautiful robe. This was not a feast day, nor a day of celebration. Justice was to be done, harsh justice. It was not a time for festive clothes.

She put the new clothes aside and retied the sash of the much-mended black robe she wore every day, and slept in as well. Taking up an ivory comb—a gift from her late husband, Kasamir, and one of her few fine possessions—Adala mastered her unruly hair. Lately, she had noticed that some of the hairs the comb pulled out were not black, but gray.

Once her hair was smoothly braided, she emerged from her tent. Every chief and warmaster awaited her. They stood in a double line, facing inward, with Adala at the apex. Small patches of daylight speckled the ground, shining through rents in the ceiling of clouds.

Turning to the Weya-Lu on her right, Adala greeted Bilath and Etosh. Wapah stood a few steps behind them, as he was neither chief nor warmaster. Then came Yannash of the Tondoon and his warmaster Haradi, then Hagath of the Mikku, and so on down one line and up the other, ending with the Mayakhur leaders on Adala’s left. She took an extra moment with Wassim, thanking the chief of the Mayakhur for the embroidered robe given her by his women and explaining why she could not wear it today. Then she addressed herself to the entire gathering.

“The day is coming,” she said. “For our land, for justice. We must be strong.” She spread her arms. “This land was granted us by Those on High, but only so long as we remain pure enough to hold it. Let the foreigners, the killers of our children, be purged from Khur.”

She spoke calmly, but her last declaration brought a cheer from the assembly. They raised their swords high and shouted, “Maita! Maita! Maita!”

Beyond them, the warriors of Khur heard their chiefs and warmasters proclaiming their loyalty to Adala’s fate, and they echoed it even more loudly. Again and again they roared, voices soaring to the turbulent heavens and rolling out in all directions. People for miles around could hear them.

Raising his voice to be heard over the shouts, Bilath said, “Weyadan, what of the sorcerer and Sahim-Khan? We came to impose justice on them, too.”

“Sahim will meet his fate, but not today. As for the supposed sorcerer, I do not know him. If he is guilty, the gods will bring him to us.” Adala frowned. She could have forgiven Sahim-Khan his past transgressions if he had sent his soldiers to fight alongside her people, but he had not. He continued to cower behind his stone walls. In time, Adala had no doubt her maita would deal with him, too.

Wapah brought Little Thorn forward and helped her climb onto the donkey.

“Let this day be long remembered,” she said. “It is the day justice was reborn in Khur!”

With these words and the acclaim of ten thousand voices, Adala rode to the lip of the Lake of Dreams, trailed by her loyal chiefs and warmasters in their varying martial finery. The Mikku were the best armed, but the Tondoon were the most numerous. They wore no metal at all, reserving what iron and brass they had for their swords and daggers. Tondoon weaponry was highly prized.

At the top of the depression, she halted Little Thorn. The donkey lowered his head to munch on a clump of saltbush.

Through the haze and warping heat rising from the sand, she saw a single rider approaching on a tall bay horse. Archers on the hilltop followed her every move with arrows nocked. With utter nonchalance, the laddad woman came onward.

Someone behind Adala remarked on the elf’s bravery. Adala shook her head. “It is not courage, but arrogance. She does not believe we can harm her.”

Haradi moved forward. “Maita, let me slay her! I will do it for you, for all the tribes of Khur!”

Men, no matter their tribe, were united by a childish love of glory. “Be still,” she said, as to an impatient youngster.

The Weyadan was wrong about one thing; it wasn’t arrogance that fueled Kerian’s bravery, but calm acceptance. The archers on the hill didn’t concern her because she knew the nomads wanted revenge, not simply to kill her. She knew she wouldn’t die today, knew it might be days before she died. Maybe longer. On the other hand, there was a possibility, however slim, that she would get out of this alive. If she did, then nothing would stop her goal to restore the fortunes of the elven nation.

After announcing her intention to turn herself over to the nomads, she took the time to write several letters to her comrades and friends. The last, and shortest, was to her husband.

Save our people. Take them home, she wrote. That was all. Words didn’t seem to matter anymore, but maybe by this gesture she could restore Gilthas’s will to do the right thing for their race.

Twenty yards from the line of bedecked barbarian chieftains, Kerian halted her horse. She wished Eagle Eye was here. Nothing made a grander or more frightening impression than a rampant Silvanesti war griffon.

“I hear you wanted to see me,” she called.

Bilath shouted, “Come closer! It is not seemly to bellow at such a distance!”

Kerian made no move to comply, so some of the warmasters started toward her. She drew her sword in one fluid motion, feeble daylight flashing off the elf-forged blade. The nomads stopped.

“Did you come to fight or surrender?” Adala called.

“Fight! The Lioness never surrenders!”

So saying, she dug in her spurs and shot ahead, leaning low over the horse’s neck. Arrows hissed into the sand behind her as she charged. In moments she was among the nomad chiefs, thrusting and slashing. This ended the threat from the archers who couldn’t loose at her without hitting their own leaders.

Adala steered her donkey out of reach as Kerian laid about on all sides. She lopped the hand off a chief in a bright green geb, then booted another in the ribs with her iron-shod foot. The nomads’ swords were keen, but close in their lack of handguards was a grave disadvantage. Kerian cut off fingers of two warmasters who tried to flank her, her blade hissing down their swords, finding no crossguard to halt its run, and biting into their hands.

Unable to cope with this whirlwind up close, the nomads flew apart like grains of sand before a storm gust. Shouts rang as the chiefs called for support. Then one nomad cried, louder than the rest, “No, I will take her! For maita!”

Kerian now faced a single opponent, Haradi of the Tondoon. Only twenty, already he was warmaster of the most populous of the seven tribes. He was handsome, with olive skin, green eyes, and a closely trimmed beard. He also had the only sword with a handguard in the nomad army. The weapon was a relic of his father’s days as a Nerakan mercenary.

The two combatants went round and round, slashing, probing, finding no openings. Kerian had to keep one eye on the other nomads swirling close around her in case they tried to intervene. None did.

With his blade inverted, Haradi stabbed at her face. She diverted his sword enough to spare her eyes but not her left ear. The tip of his sword tore through the shell of her ear, an ugly, painful wound. She promptly repaid him with a thrust under his outstretched arm, which pierced his armpit. He gasped, slumped forward, and dropped his sword.

She would have finished him, but the world around her exploded. Lightning flared and thunder crashed all of a sudden, pitching Kerian to the ground. Had any nomad come upon the Lioness then, he would have found her an easy kill.

The flash seared her eyes so severely she couldn’t see. All was white glare and roaring noise. She couldn’t have been hit directly by lightning; she’d be dead. But the strike must have come very close.

In the midst of the intense, dazzling light she saw a flicker of darkness. Gradually it grew more distinct, became darker and more defined. She heard the flutter of wings.

For a moment she thought it was Eagle Eye. But it was not the majestic griffon that flashed past her bleeding face, but a large bat. Why did she keep seeing bats? she wondered, though the question did not much trouble her. She was floating in a strange, disconnected netherworld.

A torrent of cold rain jerked her back to reality. She found herself lying close behind her fallen horse. The poor bay was dead, its neck broken, and her left leg was caught beneath its weight. Nearby was the nomad warrior’s mount, also dead. Of the warrior himself, she saw no sign.

Men on horseback surged past her. Shaking off confusion and streaming rain, she realized they were Sahim’s royal cavalry, not nomads or elves. The heavily armored Khurish horsemen had charged into the Lake of Dreams, smashing the larger but disorganized nomad host and driving it back. Flying above the hard-riding Khurs were five balls of blue fire.

She rubbed her eyes and shook her head hard, thinking her vision had been affected by the blast, but the lights remained. Larger than the will-o’-the-wisps at Inath-Wakenti, they flew more purposefully, turning in a stately, slow dance some thirty feet above the battlefield. Neither Khurish cavalry nor Khurish nomads seemed to notice them.

Kerian wrenched her leg from under the dead horse and stood. Immediately, the blue globes angled toward her. They moved so swiftly, she had no chance to dodge. At their touch, the world exploded once again in a crack of thunder and blaze of light.

The storm clouds dispersed quickly after the battle. Like a forge-hammer, the sun returned to beat down on the scene. The Lake of Dreams was littered with the remnants of the flight. Hakkam’s cavalry, reinforced by fresh contingents from the city, had driven the nomads back so hard and fast, their camp was overrun and abandoned to the Khan’s men. Hakkam ordered the camp burned. While the elves watched from Khurinost, a tent city not unlike their own was ruthlessly destroyed.

Hakkam broke off his pursuit of the beaten nomads. He and his men rode back to Khuri-Khan, to be greeted by the cheers of their people. In the wake of the cavalry’s departure came scavengers from Khuri-Khan to poke in the ashes of the nomad camp. By the Khan’s law, robbing those who had fallen in battle meant death. Despite this, desperately poor (or boldly greedy) Khurs stripped fallen warriors on both sides. In the Grand Souks, so much iron and brass turned up in the days following the battle, the price of scrap metal fell by two-thirds.

Late in the day, scroungers quartering the Lake of Dreams found a big bay horse, quite unlike the usual nomad ponies. The bay was trapped in the laddad fashion, with a heavy war saddle and mail aprons protecting neck and hindquarters. It lay dead at the edge of a six-foot-wide hole in the sand. The crater was lined with blackish-green glass, remnants of a lightning strike. No rider’s body was found nearby.

Thorough if not reverent, the Khurs stripped the horse of its trappings. To do so, they had to heave the dead animal up. Beneath it they found a thick pile of leaves, still green, though crisp and dry. It seemed a weird discovery, but none of the Khurish scavengers recognized the leaves. They had never seen the ash trees of more temperate climes. Exposed by the removal of the fallen horse, the desiccated leaves whirled away on the wind.

“And the dead?”

The Tondoon chief consulted the tally in his hand. “Four thousand one hundred and sixteen slain or rendered incapable of further fighting,” he said solemnly. Adala thanked him.

She and her champions rode near the head of their warbands, making for the safety of the deep desert. Iron-fisted Hakkam had finally ceased his pursuit, not wanting to risk his cavalry in the deeper sands, but still the nomads kept going, west toward the lowering sun, into the fastness of the desert.

The faces of the chiefs around her were grim. Practical as ever, Adala was noting the cuts and tears in their robes. She’d need an army of seamstresses to mend them all.

“What now, Weyadan?” asked her kinsman Bilath, trying not to sound dispirited.

“We continue the fight,” she answered simply. “This war isn’t finished until one side or the other is undone. We still live. Those who live can continue the fight.”

“But can we defeat the Khan and the laddad?” The new chief of the Tondoon, Othdan, scowled and clenched the reins of his pony. Like Bindas of the Weya-Lu, Othdan was young, only twenty-six. Many of the old faces were gone. Othdan was succeeding two chiefs who had died fighting; one had been forty-four, the next, thirty-seven.

He reminded them of the scouts’ reports. The laddad had at least ten thousand cavalry that had not entered the fray. There were nods and murmurs of agreement. The Weya-Lu fighters remembered how fiercely even a small force of laddad cavalry had fought during the journey to the Valley of the Blue Sands.

“How can we stop such troops?” Othdan said. “They’re too powerful!”

“Too powerful to fight in open battle, yes,” Adala agreed. “But as ants devour the panther, so can we overcome the laddad. It will take patience and skill. We must bind up our wounds and wait for our opportunity.” Her stare burned into each of them, like the blazing sun in the west. “None of us must forget the debt we owe our dishonored dead, to avenge their murders and purify the land of Khur of its foreign taint!”

Wearily the chiefs agreed and turned their mounts to gallop off and see to their men. Only Wapah remained.

Adala was silent for a long time, so long that Wapah thought she dozed. But she wasn’t sleeping. She was thinking hard thoughts.

“Do you still believe in my maita?” she asked. “Many think our defeat by the Khan’s troops means Those on High have abandoned us.”

“I believe,” he said simply. Then, because he was Wapah the philosopher, he added, “Does the herd know the mind of the shepherd, Adala Weyadan? Virtue will triumph. Your maita will triumph.”

For a moment a smile played over one corner of her mouth. Good old Wapah. “How can you be so sure?”

“Your maita must triumph. If we are given the choice between good and evil, it follows there is value to making the choice. Evil means chaos and the end of our lives. Since sane people do not willingly end their lives, we choose good so we may survive. For the world to survive, good must triumph.”

In the face of such confidence, Adala did not mention her own doubts. Sheer power had saved the laddad this time. Such force was itself neither good nor bad. The morality lay in how it was used, as a sword could kill an innocent child or a fiendish enemy. If Adala and her people were to prove victorious, they needed power of their own before they faced the laddad in open battle.

Striding the halls of the Khuri yl Nor, Prince Shobbat stopped every so often and looked back into the shadowed recesses behind him. He kept hearing noises-rustlings and soft scrapings, like the scrabbling of rats. It was not rodents but assassins he feared. Hengriff’s death might stir trouble with the Dark Knights, but the Order had no patience with bunglers. They might blame Hengriff for his own death, for mingling too intimately in Khurish affairs. Either way, their next emissary would have to be a far more clever plotter to get the better of Shobbat.

He smiled at the thought. The expression ended in a wince of pain. His father had a hard fist; Shobbat’s jaw was well bruised.

The stone walls jealously hoarded every sound inside them. As Shobbat entered his private quarters, again he heard a soft rustling sound, as of padded feet. Turning quickly, he saw them. Half a dozen monstrosities, like the ones the Oracle of the Tree had shown him, lurked in the shadows along the far wall of his sitting room. Animals with human heads, and humans with animal heads.

Terror ran its icy fingers through his gut, but he refused to give in to his fear. The creatures weren’t real, they were only hallucinations, a product of his weariness and the ache in his head. He’d had a very trying day. He closed his eyes tight, then opened them.

It worked. The monstrosities were gone.

He laughed in relief. In answer, six inhuman voices chuckled and growled.

The elves who’d chosen to follow the Lioness returned to Khurinost somber and chastened. Their leader was gone, and shortly after she rode away to give herself to the nomads, Sahim-Khan’s warriors fell on the unsuspecting tribes like a thunderbolt. The elven warriors had accomplished little this day. The nomads were in headlong flight for the safety of the deep desert. The body of Lady Kerianseray had not been found. None knew whether she was dead or alive.

The Speaker of the Sun and Stars awaited the return of his prodigal warriors in a small pavilion pitched just outside the northern edge of Khurinost. With him were Planchet and Hamaramis. He leaned on a cane crafted from a spear shaft. Decorating the front of its wooden handle was a square-cut amethyst, the gift he’d received from the old gemcutter weeks before.

Hytanthas Ambrodel was among the returning riders. The young Qualinesti broke ranks and approached. He dismounted before the Speaker.

“Captain Ambrodel. What word do you bring me?”

“A sad one, Great Speaker. There is still no sign of Lady Kerianseray.”

Gilthas had feared as much. He’d ordered the Lake of Dreams searched for any trace of his consort. The captain had led the search himself.

The Speaker sent him back to the returning riders. Hamaramis cleared his throat. “Great Speaker, what of the warriors who mutinied? They disobeyed their commanders and followed Lady Kerianseray against your orders. They must be punished.”

From their faces, Gilthas thought they’d been punished already. The old general obviously did not. “Discipline must be maintained, sire,” Hamaramis added.

“Punish over half the army? What would that do to morale?” Gilthas said gloomily.

Planchet intervened. “Certain zealots can be singled out, Great Speaker.”

After a pause, Gilthas nodded. “Don’t treat them too harshly,” he said. “Their loss is my loss.”

He swayed a little, despite his cane. Smoothly, Planchet eased a stool behind him and he sat. The valet hid his own worry, but he’d begun to wonder whether the Speaker would ever be whole again. The Khurish priestesses had cured him, yet he was still so weak, the silver in his hair more pronounced. Gilthas was not much older than Captain Ambrodel, but he seemed a generation removed.

“Sahim-Khan has done us a great service today,” the valet suggested. The nomads had been repulsed without the loss of elven life—save one, perhaps.

“I wonder how much he’ll charge us for the service,” Hamaramis muttered sourly.

Gilthas gazed over the dunes that filled the landscape around the tent city. The tan hills seemed to him the body of a vast sleeping giant, lying on its side.

“Sahim will not get another copper from us. This incident proves the time has come for us to go.” Hands cupped over the head of his cane, Gilthas looked up at his loyal friends, first Hamaramis, then Planchet. “To Inath-Wakenti, the Valley of the Blue Sands.”

“Is the place hospitable?” asked Planchet. “What of the dangers Lady Kerianseray mentioned?”

“We have many scholars and sages among us. They will unravel the mysteries. Besides—” Gilthas frowned. “There are dangers here too, and they will grow greater if we stay.”

The nomads had been driven back, but only temporarily. They would recover and return, using the desert as a shield against Sahim’s powerful but ponderous army. Plots in the city would continue so long as the Sons of the Crimson Vulture agitated against the elves. The rogue sorcerer Faeterus was still at large. Compared to these pressing ills, how terrible could Inath-Wakenti be?

Gilthas saw his retinue watching him, and he knew their troubled thoughts. He, too, sometimes wondered whether he had become obsessed with a spot on an old map. Was it sanctuary or delusion? The only way to know the truth was to go there.

As inevitable as drawing breath, his thoughts returned to Kerian. He refused to count her as dead. He would know in his heart if her life had ended. More likely, she had been carried off by the nomads, to whom she’d so valiantly surrendered herself. He already had resolved to send a small band of warriors to determine her fate and rescue her if possible. He would put Hytanthas Ambrodel in charge. However far the nomads went, however long it took, the dedicated captain would follow. If Kerian had been slain, Gilthas must know. If she was Adala’s prisoner, he must get her back. The one thing he could not do was remain any longer in Khuri-Khan. Sahim’s resources would be invaluable in the search for Kerianseray, but the elves must leave him on good terms. If they tarried, Gilthas risked losing the entire elven nation. The survival of his people must outweigh the welfare of his wife.

Dreams were murky things. As the sun settled low between the western dunes and the hot blue sky cooled to the colors of fire, Gilthas closed his eyes and let his chin rest on his hands. They were all such a long way from home. Like children, they were trying to find their place in the world. But children, he mused, didn’t usually have half a continent trying to kill them.

Trying. Many had tried, and failed. The ancient race of elves, firstborn of the world, would not be swept into oblivion without a mighty struggle. They would call on every scrap of strength, talent, and enterprise to save themselves. A hundred thousand had followed their Speaker into exile after the dual destructions of their homelands. From this core of strength, this seed, a new elven nation would grow. All that was needed was a sanctuary to allow the seedling to take root.

Dreams were awake. Gilthas opened his eyes to the dying sun.