“Sharissa.” Darkhorse bowed his head low and would not look her in the eye. The ice-blue orbs seemed dimmer than she recalled.
“Will he be all right?” Faunon quietly asked her. “It almost seems that we might have to protect him.”
“Even if he cannot, he will be better off free of that horrible device!”
The patriarch stirred himself. “Demon, your friend has requested we seek your assistance. The citadel of my people may now be a deadly trap to all those who enter. We might have need of your considerable power.”
“My power is not so considerable now,” the shadow steed muttered. “I have trouble keeping my form even. Why ask, anyway? You have my life in your hands. Merely command me as you have before.”
Barakas looked down at the box in his hands. He looked at Sharissa. A spark of life still remained in his eyes. To the ebony stallion, he replied, “I made a pact with the Lady Sharissa. A pact of freedom if she will do this thing for me. That pact includes you.”
He threw the box to the ground with as much strength as he could muster.
Darkhorse’s horrific prison shattered with such ease that Sharissa and the others could only stare at it for several seconds.
“Hurrah,” murmured a sardonic Gerrod in the background.
Life, or something akin to it, returned to the Void dweller. Darkhorse laughed, relief from the strain of so agonizing a captivity vying for dominance. He was still very weak, but now he at least had spirit. Sharissa smiled.
“I owe you much, patriarch, for what you did to me, but I will abide by my friend’s pact. When this is done, however, we depart and, should your path and mine cross again, there will be a reckoning.”
The warriors reached for their weapons, but Barakas waved them off. “I expected no less.”
The shadow steed, still wavering in form, turned to face the party’s objective. “Then let us be on with this task. I yearn for an end to this.”
Grimacing, the young sorceress urged her mount forward. She, too, yearned for an end, but wished he had phrased things differently.
Gerrod rode up to where she and Faunon were and pressed his animal between theirs. The elf frowned in his direction, but kept silent because of the warlock’s friendship with her.
“I have something for the two of you… small tokens of luck, nothing more.” He reached out and handed each of them a small crystal. “Humor me and keep them with you.” Before they could ask what he intended, the warlock was behind them again. No one else had paid particular attention to the exchange, so concerned was the rest of the party with their kin who had remained in the citadel.
Darkhorse trotted several paces ahead of them as they neared the Tezerenee settlement, he being the one least likely to face injury if surprised. Sharissa’s eyes narrowed as she studied the open gate. It was not merely open, but almost off its hinge and very battered, as if something had sought to break through-but from the inside.
The riding drakes stirred and began sniffing the air.
“They smell blood,” Faunon said, his eyes not leaving the battered gate.
“How do you know?” she asked. She could see no sign of blood, but that did not mean there was none.
“I can smell it, too. An acrid, coppery smell it is.”
“Silence!” hissed the patriarch.
Maintaining careful hold of the reins of their animals, the party reached the open entranceway. The broken gate left more than enough room for a massive drake to pass through. Darkhorse paused and turned to the humans.
“Do I enter?”
“What do you sense?” Sharissa asked in a quiet voice.
“Everything and nothing!” He glared at Barakas. “I can no longer trust my senses.”
“Enter, then,” muttered the lord of the Tezerenee. “Enter, scan the area, and return to us.”
“I live to serve you,” mocked the unsteady stallion. He turned back to the huge arch and trotted inside.
Sharissa nearly held her breath the entire length of his absence. She recalled how it had felt to combat Lochivan and Ivor, both of whom had displayed astonishing potential in sorcery. In being transformed into these abominations, it seemed that the Tezerenee were also being adapted to the powers of the land itself. Why not, if the renegade had wanted them to be the new masters? Certainly with foes like the Seekers and the Quel still living, the new kings would need all the skills they could acquire.
Darkhorse returned. He was puzzled. “There is nothing that I can see or sense in any other way. This place is a chaotic maelstrom of force. If there is anyone here, I cannot tell you.”
“No bodies?” Gerrod asked, much to the shock and anger of his former clansmen.
“There is blood, but no bodies, not even bits.” The ebony stallion smiled humorlessly at the patriarch.
“We enter, then,” was all Barakas had to say in turn.
The citadel was in ruins. Many of the smaller buildings had been completely leveled; others missed walls or parts of the ceiling. Rubble was strewn everywhere. One of the towers had collapsed, crushing the building below it. Even part of the surrounding wall had been battered.
“Random violence,” the elf commented. “There seems no purpose in any of the destruction. Some of it looks as if the attacker ceased in midstream and departed.”
“There is one consistency,” Sharissa remarked. Lord Barakas turned at the sound of her voice. She pointed at one of the battered walls of a building that still at least partly stood. “Most of the rubble, save for the damage to the protective wall, lies in the courtyards and open areas.”
“Meaning?” the clan master asked, not caring for her delay in stating the point.
“Meaning that the destruction came from within the buildings for the most part, then spread out here.” She defied him to counter her claim with any of his own.
His only reply was “We will move on and see how the rest of the place fares. Only then will we investigate inside.”
He was stalling and everyone knew it, but no one wanted to be the first inside the buildings-where the true carnage might be awaiting them.
A short time later, they noticed the prints in the earth. They had come across drake prints throughout their search, even before they had entered the citadel, but not so many as this. There were prints everywhere, many of them bloodstained. Sharissa was intrigued despite herself by the thoroughness with which the drakes appeared to have scoured this area.
At the clan master’s command, two of the remaining warriors rode forward for a piece and vanished around some buildings.
“Where did you send them?” Sharissa asked, not liking anything that lessened the strength of their party.
“To verify something for me. They will be in no danger. The other gateway is not far from here.”
“And us, Father?” Gerrod asked, his eyes darting here and there as if he expected a hundred Lochivans to leap out at them.
“We dismount. I need see no more of the yard. It is time to investigate the buildings.”
Knowing the futility of arguing, Sharissa and her companions dismounted in silence. Two Tezerenee took charge of the steeds. As the sorceress smoothed her clothing, she happened to glance up at Darkhorse.
She could see through him!
“Darkhorse!” All thought of the ghostly citadel pushed aside for the time being, Sharissa ran over to the eternal and tried to touch him. His eyes were closed, and his form seemed wracked with pain.
“I… I am weaker than I supposed, Sharissa! I fear that I will be very ineffective for quite some time!”
“But you will be all right?”
“I… believe so.” Darkhorse opened wide his eyes and glared at his former captor. “My apologies… for… any inconvenience, dragonlord! I do not know what could be the matter… with me!”
What remark the patriarch was to make would remain lost, for the two Tezerenee given the unenviable task appeared around the corner. They seemed anxious but not frightened, a good sign as far as the sorceress was concerned. Anything that frightened the Tezerenee was not something she had any desire to face.
The two dismounted the instant they reached the party. Both knelt before their lord.
“Speak.”
