Hytanthas made good his escape. He clambered up the shell of the gatehouse and dropped inside. Loose rubble shifted beneath his feet and he landed awkwardly, slicing his leg on a sharp limestone block.
Swallowing a groan of pain, he listened for sounds of the sand beast’s pursuit. Instead he heard human voices, men’s voices. A tiny ember of relief flickered inside of him. Perhaps Sahim-Khan’s soldiers had heard the uproar in the Harbalah and come to investigate.
A new fire burned in the air over the villa grounds. No magical orb, it was a flaming arrow. Its light fell on the sand beast, dedicatedly gnawing off its own wounded leg, and something else: five mounted men. They cantered through an opening in the villa’s outer wall. One had a long lance couched under his arm. The rest carried swords or bows. Their armor was Nerakan, not Khurish.
Hytanthas had no intention of cowering in safety while others battled that horror. He hunted through the debris in the gatehouse and found a length of lead pipe, corroded but heavy. With his makeshift weapon in hand, he slipped out to wait for the riders to reach him.
The sand beast gave up trying to sever its injured leg and dragged itself onto the cracked payers of the road to wait for the oncoming riders. It was breathing hard, its nostrils sending clouds of white vapor into the cooling night air.
The five riders drew abreast of Hytanthas and rode on by. The one in the center, carrying the lance, was Lord Hengriff, the Dark Order’s emissary to Khur. The five charged the wounded sand beast. Hengriff’s lance pierced its broken hips. The monster roared in pain and whirled, snapping the lance shaft but leaving its head buried. One foreclaw raked through the air, and a horse went down. It and its rider had been shredded; neither rose again.
Circling away, Hengriff drew a two-handed sword. Hytanthas couldn’t imagine wielding such a weapon with only one hand while on horseback, but the big Knight handled the sword with practiced ease. With his three surviving men guarding his flanks, he galloped straight at the sand beast. He rose in the stirrups and swung the sword, using all his size and strength to drive the blade in up to its hilt behind the monster’s shoulders. His men loosed arrows at its head from only a few feet away. Two pierced its eyes before the beast shuddered and fell like a poleaxed steer. The ground shook from the impact, nearly knocking the approaching Hytanthas off his feet.
Hengriff, dismounted, leaning against the sand beast’s ribs. He was slumped forward over the pommel of his sword, which he still gripped in both hands. His eyes were closed, his head bowed, and Hytanthas thought the breath had been driven from his lungs. The elf cleared his throat to speak.
“Shh,” Hengriff said. “The heartbeat is fading.”
Understanding came, and Hytanthas shuddered. The Knight wasn’t recuperating from the mighty blow he’d landed, he was listening to the creature’s life slip away. The young elf said nothing, conscious of the three other Dark Knights sitting on horseback around him.
“That’s it.” Grunting, Hengriff worked his sword free of the monster’s carcass. Cleaning the blade on a scrap of leather, he angled a considering look at Hytanthas. “The kill would’ve been more satisfying had it been at full strength. How did you manage to wound it, elf?”
His disguise in tatters, wrung out by fear and fighting, Hytanthas had no strength left to fence with the Nerakan. “I didn’t,” he said bluntly. “It arrived like that.”
An absent nod, then Hengriff spoke to one of his men. “Goldorf, that lance broke too easily.”
“Time was short, my lord. I had to improvise.”
“What of Faeterus?”
This question was directed at Hytanthas. The elf told the truth: The mage had disappeared when the sand beast arrived.
“I know you,” Hengriff said, eyes narrowing. “I’ve seen you before. Ah, yes! You were in the Speaker’s honor guard, when he had his audience with Sahim-Khan.”
Hytanthas had been only one of fifty elves in the honor guard. Impressed by the Knight’s memory, but striving not to show it, Hytanthas inclined his head, confirming his identity.
“So, you came here hunting Faeterus? You’re triply lucky, elf. Lucky the mage’s wards didn’t get you, lucky his ugly pet didn’t gut you, and lucky we came along to deal with the sand beast”
Hengriff sent his men on to the ruined villa. “I came hunting the mage, too,” he said. “He was pursuing his own course, raising the nomads against the elves and the Khan, sending this creature out to kill that she-dragon Kerianseray. I wonder how it ended up back here.” He shook his head. “Things have a habit of doing that around Faeterus. Appearing or disappearing without warning.”
“Have your men been sent to kill the mage?”
Hengriff didn’t answer, but he didn’t really need to. Hytanthas doubted the Knights would have much luck. Faeterus didn’t seem the sort to linger where danger threatened.
The elf was losing strength, swaying on his feet, exhausted, thirsty, and injured from his battles with manticore and sand beast. It seemed he was always tired or injured or thirsty, these days. Perhaps he’d been that way for years, for all the years of his exile. Stupid not to have planned better, brought food and water. He’d not expected to have to wait so long for Faeterus. Certainly hadn’t expected to battle a human-headed manticore and a wounded, enraged sand beast.
Hytanthas realized Hengriff was speaking to him. He had no idea what the human had said. Worse, he’d completely forgotten the Nerakan was here, had forgotten everything but the miasma of fatigue and privation that enveloped him. He forced his slumping shoulders to straighten and gripped the lead pipe more tightly.
“I’m leaving,” he announced. “Don’t try to stop me.”
A wolfish smile appeared on the Knight’s face. “Go back to your people, elf, before you drop where you stand and another of Faeterus’s creatures has you for dinner.”
Before he departed, honor demanded one last thing of Hytanthas. “Lord Hengriff,” he said with formal precision. “You saved my life. Thank you.”
“That was today. Don’t expect a like outcome next time.” Hengriff mounted his horse and cantered away, heading up the hill to the villa.
Hytanthas went in the opposite direction, beginning the long trek back to Khurinost. The world was indeed a crazy place, when a soldier in the Speaker’s host was saved from death at the hands of a rogue elven wizard by a Dark Knight of Neraka.
Chapter 11
Chanting to synchronize their efforts, a gang of elves hauled away on the ropes. A timber frame rose off the ground, wavered a bit, then climbed higher as the warriors continued to pull.
“Easy! Easy there!” Kerian called Out. If they pulled too quickly, the frame would topple forward on them.
The early twilight had come to Inath-Wakenti. By torchlight the scene resembled a nightmarish dream. All the soldiers of the Lioness’s command were mustered around the hole that had opened up when they pushed the monolith over on the sand beast. Some were on horseback, others on foot, but every one was armed and ready. The reason for their increased wariness could be found in their dwindling numbers.
Two nights had passed since the vanishing of the sand beast. The Lioness’s original vow to leave the valley quickly was set aside after this event. She decided they would remain an extra day to search for the elusive monster. They hadn’t found it. Instead, several of her warriors had gone missing. All were sentries, riding guard duty alone on the perimeter of the camp. Then, just past noon on this day, five more elves had vanished. The five were on foot, foraging for roots and nuts, no more than twenty yards from the site of the overturned monolith. When they didn’t return, a search was conducted.
It turned up no signs of struggle, no torn ground, no dropped possessions. The elves were simply gone, together with everything they carried.
As Favaronas was the nearest thing to an expert on the valley, Kerian asked him what he thought was happening.
“I don’t know, General,” he said, shivering with the fear that had become his constant companion.
