ground so hard that the shock knocked the Lioness off her feet.
On horseback or on foot, the elves slowly converged on the fallen beast. It did not move. Kerian kept her sword in hand, ready to fight, but the monster was like a statue.
“Is it dead, General?” one of her warriors called.
Its breath washed over her feet. “No! Seems to be sleeping!”
Eight officers galloped up. Swinging out of their saddles, they ringed the monster’s head. They struck the beast with their swords, but neither points nor blade edges would penetrate it. The swords merely bounced off the beast, doing no harm to its armored hide.
“Merciful Quen!” an elf exclaimed. “Can’t we kill it?”
Kerian squatted by the beast. One eye, as big as her head, was half open. The bright green orb was as malign as ever and moved slightly to track her as she shifted position. She realized the creature could see her, but must be compelled by the power of the priestess’s gift to lie quiescent. The question was, for how long?
The officers speculated what to do. As the discussion continued, the Lioness went and retrieved the opal
She slipped it in her belt pouch. She owed Sa’ida a very large debt.
Favaronas come trotting over the crest of the hill. The archivist made his way to them, both hands clutching the pommel of his saddle, his attention fixed on the creature lying before them.
“Merciful gods and goddesses!” he exclaimed. “It’s a sand beast!”
“You recognize this abomination?”
“After a fashion, General. Sand beasts dwell in the deepest, most desolate tracts of the desert. Sahim-Khan has the head of one preserved in his palace. They’re very rare-”
“Not rare enough,” she said dryly. Raising her voice, she ordered her elves to saddle.
A horse was brought to replace her slain mount. The wounded who could ride would double up with healthy riders. They would take their dead with them as well. The monster might revive, and the Lioness wouldn’t risk leaving honorable warriors to its savage attentions.
The sand beast had slain fifty-two elves and wounded as many more. If Sa’ida’s magic hadn’t stopped it, the entire company likely would have perished.
They rode due north. Favaronas kept looking back over his shoulder, afraid the paralyzed creature might revive and be upon them again. Kerian had a different worry: Why had the sand beast attacked them in the first place? This mission was fraught with unexpected dangers, as though the desert was uniting against them, to stop the Speaker’s search for the valley of legend.
The archivist couldn’t help with her questions about the sand beast. From all he’d read, sand beasts were wild animals who, despite their ferocity, avoided contact with humans or elves.
Kerian’s horse stumbled, jarring her. She coughed as new pain lanced through her side. Favaronas offered a handkerchief.
“There’s blood on your face, General.”
She wiped her chin, dismissing his concern. “I took a few whacks. I’ve had worse.”
Day’s end was magnificent. The sinking sun gilded the forward range of the mountains, changing them from slate gray to bronze and copper. Dust was much less a problem here, as the ground was more stone than sand, and they could see for miles in every direction.
Drained from their battles, the elves slumped in the saddle. Their horses walked slowly with heads hanging. Talk around the Lioness had turned to finding a campsite for the night, when a scout came cantering back with news.
She reined up and waited for the excited young Qualinesti to reach her. The scout, a recent recruit, almost fell from his horse when he jerked the reins too sharply and his foam- flecked animal skidded to a halt on its haunches.
“Calm yourself, lad,” the Lioness said. “What is it?”
“A nomad camp, not a mile east of where we sit right now!”
Her officers crowded closer. The Lioness’s fingers flexed around her reins. “How many?”
“Big. More than a hundred tents. Maybe two hundred!”
Too vague. He should’ve brought an exact number. “No one saw you?” she asked. The young scout shook his head decisively.
“We should take the initiative-attack!” said a Wilder elf named Avalyn, one of the Lioness’s longtime followers.
“We don’t know these people,” Favaronas protested. “They may be one of the harmless tribes!”
“What difference does it make what tribe they are?” Avalyn retorted. “Nomads are all the same!”
“That’s ridiculous!”
The Lioness interceded. “We’re not here to make war on every wandering desert clan.”
“If they’re hostile, we can’t just pass them by, General,” another officer put in. “They’ll be behind us, between us and Khurinost.”
This was true enough. Kerian decided to detour from their mission long enough to inspect the nomad camp. If the tribe seemed a peaceful one, the elves would pass on. But if the nomads were recognizable enemies, the Lioness would strike.
Weariness dragged at every warrior, but no one complained as the Lioness led them away. It would be dark soon-only the highest peaks of the mountains ahead were still touched by sunlight-and this aided their cause. Humans were hampered by darkness, whereas elves could see almost as well at night as in full daylight.
The Qualinesti scout led them over a series of alluvial hills, formed of soil and gravel washed down from the mountains over the eons. The sky darkened from sapphire to indigo, and the first stars appeared. A distinctly chilly wind teased the riders every time they climbed out of a hollow and topped a hill. The breeze brought the smell of smoke. Cookfires.
Holding up her hand, the Lioness halted the column in a shallow ravine. Wordlessly she indicated Favaronas and Avalyn should follow her. The rest of the company would remain here.
The three followed the dry streambed through the ravine, halting where it emptied onto open ground. There, spread out in a ring pattern typical of Khurish nomads, lay several hundred conical tents. The Lioness halted her horse behind a screen of cedars. Silently she and her two companions studied the scene.
In the center of the ring of tents, figures moved about, silhouetted against a dozen campfires. There were no men to be seen, only nomad women in their sand-colored gebs, making supper, and children darting among the tents or helping with the cooking.
Avalyn shifted in his saddle. “This must be the base camp of the band that attacked us! All the warrior-age men are missing!” he whispered loudly.
“Even so, we don’t make war on unarmed women and children.”
“General, they would slaughter our loved ones, if they had the chance!”
“You don’t know that!” Favaronas said.
“It was done in Qualinesti!”
She silenced them both. “This is not Qualinesti. And we are not Dark Knights.”
They returned to the waiting army. The Lioness gave the order to ride, and the elves faded into the night.
Theirs weren’t the only eyes watching in the darkness. On the south side of the nomad camp, two yellow eyes stared at the ring of tents. The sand beast, recovered from the spell put on it by the opal of Elir-Sana, lay concealed by loose dirt and rocks. Its tongue flicked out, tasting the night air. Smoke smell was strong, as was human, but beneath that, the beast detected traces of elf.
The movement inside the ring of tents slowed and stopped. The humans settled into their shelters. The beast’s tongue flicked out again. The human smell was enticing, though the elf tang was definitely present. The impetus in its blood burned like a fever: Find elves; kill them. The drive could not be denied. If humans were intermingled with its intended prey, they would die, too.
The beast rose from its hiding place, shaking off dirt and rocks. In four bounds it reached the outer line of tents. It bore straight into the first tent, rending the goatskin walls to tatters with a single swipe of its horns. Within slept three humans. The first two died without waking. The third had time to shriek once before she perished.
