either side of them. Some of the Tezerenee had airdrakes, but most had only the swift but ground-locked variety. Granted the Vraad had massive sorceries at their beck and call, much of it the vile but deadly Nimthian sort, but that might end up bringing death to them just as readily as the medallions of the Seekers. As with their former home, this world did not deal well with the old sorcery. The greater the spell, the worse the backlash.
It was interesting-and worrisome, Sharissa had to admit-to see many of the armored figures around her turning to one another with apprehension. Had the patriarch neglected to inform his people that he knew they would be riding into a trap? Had they been led to believe that Darkhorse would clear much of the danger away?
Beside his father, Reegan suddenly straightened and pointed at something in the distance. It was Lochivan and the scouts… but were there fewer of them than there had been before?
“It’s about to start,” Barakas commented needlessly. He looked around in expectation.
The sky darkened as manlike forms filled the air above them.
“To your duties!” Reegan shouted. Tezerenee were already raising their bows or some other weapon. If it came to a physical assault, those with swords and lances would defend against any attackers who tried to kill the archers while they reloaded. Several Tezerenee were grouping together in what was obviously the beginnings of a major spell. Others were attempting personal conjurations. Barakas sat on his drake and waited. Sharissa wondered at his sanity, but forgot him when she realized Faunon was completely defenseless. A well-placed rock would put an end to him.
The avians had the advantage. They controlled the sky and the high ground around the column. They knew the land. While there was room for the drakes to maneuver, it was all open to the Seekers.
She wondered why the Seekers did not just bury the entire Tezerenee expedition under tons of rock. Perhaps they no longer had that ability, considering the numbers who had perished because of some prior spell.
“Why does he not summon the demon back?” Faunon wanted to know. “We would stand a better chance!”
“I don’t know!”
A warrior behind them reached for his throat and gasped. That was all. He fell from his steed and was lost under the milling forms of the drakes.
Archers were already firing. Two Seekers plummeted to the ground, already dead, but most of the others had moved out of range.
Sharissa’s mind was tugged in all directions as the two sides warred on the sorcerous plane. Men screamed around her, but she could not afford to aid them. Instead, she pulled Faunon to her and cast her best defensive spells.
“You should be fighting them,” Faunon counseled. “The avians will not ignore us for long merely because we behave. They will save us for when the true threats have been eliminated.”
A huge form fell in front of them, sending the drakes into a fearful rage. The sorceress was forced to contend with both beasts, but she still managed to bring them under control. The missile proved to be the corpse of one of the bird folk. It had hit the ground with such intensity that much of it was no longer recognizable. Whether sorcery or arrow had killed the Seeker was a moot point, but it raised another danger. With the avians directly above the column, it was possible that even in death a Seeker might take a foe with him. Sharissa craned her neck and gazed into the heavens. It seemed to her that the greatest concentration of Seekers was over their present location.
Lowering her head, the exasperated sorceress again saw Barakas sitting calm amidst chaos. He was doing little more than surveying the scene and shouting out the occasional order. He was waiting for something.
His eyes met hers and she was certain that he smiled, although the helm, of course, made it difficult to be certain. As if responding to her anger and confusion, the patriarch pointed into the sky behind her. Sharissa spun around on her saddle, fearing that even more Seekers were winging their way toward the doomed column, cutting them off from any retreat.
There was indeed a mass of winged terrors racing toward the battle, but they were not Seekers.
They were Tezerenee. Not one band, but two. They converged from the east and west, coming together just as they reached the mountains. While their numbers were not as great as those of the avian attackers, they had height and mass to their advantage. They also had the confusion of battle to count upon. Several of the Seekers noted them, but that knowledge did them little good. Engaged in combat, both magical and physical, with the column, they could not break away without opening themselves up to a rain of death from below.
Many tried just that, regardless of the risk. Seeker magic was evidently more limited, at least as far as this particular group was concerned. Those who turned to flee proved inviting targets for the archers, who brought down many before the spellcasters could take their own turn. A few Tezerenee still fell; not all of the avians were abandoning the struggle. The bird people seemed to radiate a quiet desperation as they fought the humans, as if they knew that they were fighting to preserve what was already lost to them. Yet as their arrogance and miscalculations had evidently unleashed some horrifying spell back upon their own-as Faunon and the petrified corpses had suggested to her-so now did those same faults thrust the Seekers into a trap from which there was little hope of escape.
Barakas had expected a trap and laid one of his own. This was why the expedition had moved as slowly as it had. The patriarch had sent out two smaller forces composed of airdrake riders and hidden them somewhere in the wooded lands southwest and southeast of here. Somehow, they had come just in time, though Sharissa could not recall any signal. She had certainly sensed nothing.
The patriarch, she knew, would be more than pleased to explain later. What mattered now was surviving until the newcomers were able to finish the task at hand.
“Beware!” Faunon shouted. “One has his sights upon us, Sharissa!”
That much was true, but the young Zeree felt no assault. Instead, faint images swirled about her imagination, images she vaguely recognized as Seekers.
“Sharissa?” The elf bounced against her, the only thing he could do to stir her since he was bound.
“No! Stop that!” she warned. “It’s trying to tell me something!”
Above, the Seeker dodged two arrows. It increased its mental assault, strengthening the images Sharissa perceived.
Seekers in a cavern… the cavern the Tezerenee sought.
Her father had told her of the fashion by which the avians communicated with outsiders, but he had indicated touch was necessary for the best understanding. That was not possible, but there were barriers that could be brought down.
“Sharissa! You are dropping your defensive spells!”
“I know! Trust me!” She hoped he would not press her, for her own resolve in this was wavering. What if she were playing into the talons of the Seeker?
The last barrier fell… and the Vraad sorceress was deluged with vivid images of what had been and what might be. The vision of Seekers hard at work on a master spell through which they hoped to rid themselves of the last of the Quel, the massive armadillolike race that had preceded them as masters of this continent. Sharissa gasped at the sight of the horrifying beast, although deep down she knew she was absorbing some of the avian’s own fear and hatred of the elder race.
The spell was not totally of their own fabrication. Another had influenced them in its making. Something made the image blur, and she found herself now seeing the effects of that spell. It had not been a sorcerous backlash that had killed so many of the avians, but a successful but costly full reversal of the very spell. They had realized that what they unleashed would not stop with merely the Quel, and if they allowed it to go unchecked until their old enemies were no more, then it would be too strong to ever stop.
It had taken the greater part of their population to force the-Sharissa saw a vision of fur, teeth, and huge claws digging through earth, but received no name for the monstrosities-into the lands north, where they could be made to sleep until it was possible to destroy them all.
The image blurred again and she was back in the cavern, but her view kept shifting, as if she were traveling through the system of passages leading deep into the earth. The Seeker’s fear touched her; he did not want to have to show her what lay below, but it was necessary for her understanding.
Faunon was shouting in her ear, trying to stir her, she supposed, but his words were so long and drawn out that they sounded like moans. Everything around her had slowed. Her mind had become attuned to the swift thoughts of the avian, who was desperately trying to communicate as much as possible before-
