leaned sideways and rested a hand on her shorn head. “Your beautiful hair,” Alhana said mournfully. “I know it was hardly the worst that might have happened, but it was a vicious, hurtful thing for them to have done.”
Kerian realized her mistake. “Oh, it wasn’t Olin’s trash who cut it. I did it myself, before they caught me. Seemed a good idea to conceal my identity.”
Alhana blinked at her for a heartbeat then exclaimed, “What an indomitable spirit you have, niece!”
Kerian flashed her a grin, and they urged their horses into a trot, catching up with Samar and Chathendor then passing them.
The column was still more than eight miles from the Lake of Death when signs of the devastation appeared. Broken treetops, toppled markers, and blasted hedges spoke of a huge explosion. The shattered treetops sprouted new leaves, but the effects of Beryl’s fall were unmistakable.
The Kagonesti grew restless. Normally the most uncomplaining of elves, they dragged their feet. None wanted to penetrate farther into the blighted site of Qualinost. Theryontas and the volunteers from Bianost, who had been at the rear of the line, passed the balking foresters. Kerian had to double back to speak to the laggards.
“This land is cursed!” one insisted, and another said, “All who enter will be tainted by evil!”
“I fell in the lake when I first arrived, and I survived,” she told them. Of course, soon thereafter she was captured by slavers, beaten, starved, and nearly flayed alive. Perhaps there was something to their fears after all.
The end of the caravan rounded a bend, leaving Kerian and the Kagonesti behind.
“I can’t force you to come,” she said. “But what would the Great Lord have you do?”
“We will ask him,” said Nalaryn, pointing behind her.
She whipped around in the saddle and saw Porthios limping along the edge of the road. She rode to him, asking where he’d been.
“Here and there. I had tasks to perform.”
“I saved a horse for you. You could ride with Alhana.”
Even shadowed by the mask, Kerian knew his eyes were glaring at her. “Keep your mind on your own affairs,” he snapped.
Kerian knew no feeling of kinship with the short-tempered, arrogant elf before her, but with Alhana’s plaintive question echoing in her mind, she inclined her head with unusual diplomacy to the former Speaker of the Sun and explained the Kagonesti’s reluctance to proceed.
“They are wise. This land is poisoned.” His mood shifting abruptly, he suddenly added, “Of course! It’s perfect for our purpose! Even brutish humans cannot but be sickened by its miasma. The lake will cover our line of march!”
“What do you mean?” Kerian asked.
He told her. They would continue on their current path and not turn north, as Kerian had planned. Instead, they would circumnavigate the Lake of Death: skirt the north shore, turn south to pass around the eastern end, and at last return along the southern shore.
“To what purpose?” Kerian demanded.
“We will strike Mereklar.”
Her jaw dropped. Was he insane? Attack a large, well- defended city?
Before, she could say more, one of the Kagonesti announced Alhana’s return, and Porthios vanished into the trees. “Come back here!” she hissed. “I’m not through with you!”
“Kerianseray!”
Left with no choice, she turned her horse to meet Alhana. The former queen was cantering down the road, escorted by Samar and three warriors. “I have an important idea!” Alhana cried. “Griffons!”
Her face was alight with excitement, and her thick black hair, for once not confined in its usual scarf, streamed behind her. Nature is not fair, Kerian grumbled silently. She’d washed away the worst of the filth in Bianost and wore clean buckskins borrowed from one of Nalaryn’s clan, but next to Alhana she still resembled a Khuri-Khan goat herder. Alhana was several times Kerian’s age, yet no one would know it to look at her. When Kerian reached that age (if she lived so long), she would probably look like an old boot.
Kerian repeated politely, “Griffons, aunt?”
“Yes. If memory serves-and it has been many, many years-there was a haven of griffons on the south face of the Redstone Bluffs. Trainers from Silvanost made pilgrimages there to take griffonlets to raise as war steeds. Perhaps some still remain!”
It was a captivating notion. Even a handful of griffons would greatly augment their strength. With just Eagle Eye, Kerian had foiled minotaur ambushes and fended off serious nomad attacks.
“The Kagonesti refuse to go any closer to Nalis Aren anyway,” Kerian said. “We could send them to Redstone to check.”
The Kagonesti chief was intrigued. He’d never seen a griffon in the flesh. His clan weren’t mountaineers, but the new task was eminently preferable to going any closer to Qualinost’s tomb.
“We will do as Broom says,” Nalaryn announced.
Kerian grimaced. The Kagonesti had bestowed the new sobriquet on her in Bianost. Hardly as fierce or romantic as “the Lioness,” it unfortunately described her mangled haircut all too well. They knew she disliked it, but she knew it would do no good to complain. Her people loved nicknames. Each Kagonesti might be called by two or three different ones at the same time. Among Nalaryn’s clan were elves called Sky, Runner, Three-Fingers, and Breakbow.
“If you can call up Orexas, tell him of the lady’s plan,” she said.
Nalaryn shrugged. “He will know. The Great Lord has ears upon the wind.”
The small band quickly vanished into the trees on the south side of the road. Kerian felt oddly at a loss without them. Through all the struggle for Bianost, not a single Kagonesti had been hurt or killed. They were like warriors of smoke, creatures whom bandit blades could not touch.
She told Alhana of Porthios’s freshly minted notion to drag them around Nalis Aren and attack Mereklar. She expected outrage to match her own, but Alhana, after brief surprise, supported Porthios’s plan.
“He was always a bold strategist,” she murmured.
It was as close as she had yet come to acknowledging the identity of their leader, but all Kerian could think was that Porthios’s wife was as insane as Porthios himself.
The slow-moving column trudged on. The landscape began to look familiar and nightmarishly different at the same time. Shattered stones appeared along the road. Some were the ruins of local buildings; others were debris thrown out of Qualinost when Beryl hit. Vines with blue-black leaves held the broken stones in a vicious grip. Lofty spires lay like colossal fallen trees, stark white against the twisted foliage. Just a few feet from the road’s edge, the south shoulder sloped away more steeply, adding to the uncertain footing. The weird, toxic atmosphere affected all of them. Conversation faded. Draft animals became sluggish.
With dawn only two hours away, the column was strung out along the road. A mist was rising, a grayish fog that smelled faintly of rotten flesh. The odor was too much for many of the Bianost elves. Sickened, they fell out of step to find relief by the roadside.
Even a seasoned campaigner like Samar found the stench hard to bear. Ashen faced, he asked, “Are we doing the right thing? If the air gets much worse, we may not be able to continue!”
“It certainly will discourage the bandits from following us,” Alhana replied, swallowing hard.
Samar was silent for a moment, debating how best to bring up the topic that had consumed his thoughts for days: he knew the identity of the masked elf.
For as long as he could remember, Samar had been in love with Alhana. She did not know, and he intended she never would. Even after her husband’s presumed death, Samar had not allowed his feelings to intrude on her peace. But what would happen to that peace now? Samar feared there could be only one logical reason for Porthios’s masquerade. The fire that had not killed him had maimed him so horribly he could not be seen without his mask. If so, what kind of future could Alhana hope for with him?
So disturbed was he by his concerns, when he spoke at last his words were far sharper than he’d intended. “I see our masked leader is nowhere to be found. I imagine he chose a more salubrious route for himself.”
Immediately, he regretted his harsh words, but Alhana reined up and turned on him before he could temper
