detected the telltale glints of metal armor. The elves were on the move. He threw back his head and howled.
Adala awoke at once. She looked to the wall, expecting to see four sentinels. Instead, she saw the beast silhouetted in the pale starlight. He was galloping to and fro and howling as though he had gone completely mad. She pushed herself to her feet and ran to her banked campfire. She dropped a few handfuls of kindling onto the faintly glowing embers. The twigs blazed up.
A line of men leaped into view. They were on foot, leading horses. No, not men:
“To horse! To horse!” Adala cried. “The
She ran through the camp, rousing everyone and rekindling campfires where she could. Worn out by the day’s work, most of her people hadn’t bothered to bank their fires; nothing remained but dead ash. Befuddled by sleep, her people were in disarray. They stumbled through the poorly lit camp to their horses but were forced to halt as arrows rained down from the night sky to land in front of them. They were cut off from their animals.
Alhana saw fires blooming in the semicircle of tents and knew surprise was lost. There was worse to come. Samar hurried back with an appalling report. Porthios had ordered the cavalry to attack. He intended to extinguish Adala’s followers once and for all. Alhana and the griffon riders were aghast, but Samar had seen no hesitation in the cavalry. Elves who’d fought their way to Inath-Wakenti through hordes of merciless Khurs had no compunction about obeying their leader’s ruthless order.
The griffon riders took flight. Alhana led them straight to the fore of the galloping warriors, hoping to prevent a massacre. The griffons landed amid the swirling melee. Taking advantage of their intervention, many nomads fled, abandoning everything but the clothes they wore, making a dash for the open desert.
Porthios strode through his thwarted cavalry, his ragged robe whipping around his legs.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
“What are you doing?” Alhana replied, face pale as alabaster. “The archers had cut them off from their horses. You could have ridden away and left them behind. Why attack?”
“Dead humans cannot speak.”
Furious, Alhana jerked the reins and Chisa reared, scattering the nearby horses. Porthios did not flinch. “If you have no stomach for this war, you may rejoin the Puppet King,” he said bluntly.
She devoted a few seconds to calming her fractious griffon, using the time to get herself under control as well, then proclaimed, “I am going with you, Porthios, as your wife and your conscience. Do not try to evade me in either role!”
So caught up were the elves in the confrontation between husband and wife, none noticed Shobbat creeping along the wall. When the Golden griffons had swooped overhead, Shobbat flattened himself on the rocks and froze in place lest he be torn apart by their powerful talons. Then he was on the move again, resolved to strike. His target was not the
A hardwood shaft hit him in midflight, sending him crashing among frantic horses and hostile warriors. The arrow had come from the hard-faced elf mounted on the largest griffon.
Even an argument between Alhana and Porthios could not long interrupt Samar’s vigilance for his lady’s safety. He took aim to finish off the beast, but it scrambled away. Yowling horribly in pain, it zigzagged between the horses’ legs and was quickly lost in darkness.
The shock of the creature’s attack put an end o the argument. Porthios ordered the site cleansed of any evidence of the elves’ passage. Arrows were retrieved, tracks cleared away. What remained of the camp was put to the torch.
Warriors on the edge of the group noticed her first: a lone woman clad in a black
“Go back, Weyadan,” Alhana warned. “The fight is over.”
Her warning went unheeded. Adala kept coming. She veered toward Porthios. Drawing to a halt, the nomad woman said, “Faceless One, you were cursed by Those on High. Adala Fahim curses you too. By your bloody deeds, all shall know you for the insatiable monster you truly are!”
Porthios turned away from her in silent disgust.
“The lightning will take you,” Adala added and stared up at the night sky, waiting. Nothing happened. The night was cold and quiet but for the crackle of the fire consuming what remained of the camp. Those of Adala’s people who had survived the fight had fled into the desert. The Weyadan was alone.
The warriors, with Porthios at their head, turned their horses and rode away. The griffon riders lingered, awaiting their mistress. Alhana dropped a skin of water and a bundle of food for Adala. The nomad woman did not even look at them. Her unblinking gaze was focused on the departing Porthios, as if she could compel his destruction by her will alone. There was nothing more to be done for her. Alhana signaled the riders to fly.
The dust and ash churned up by griffon wings slowly settled. Adala sought her tent. Little Thorn clopped along patiently behind her.
Her tent had fallen but was unburned. Kicking at it, she wondered what Those on High intended for her now. How could she complete the wall by herself? A weaker person might have yielded to despair. Adala decided there was a greater plan at work, a plan so vast and complex she couldn’t see it yet. But she would.
Her fallen tent rippled, though no breath of breeze stirred. Little Thorn brayed.
The beast exploded from the collapsed tent, teeth bared and paws extended. He hit Adala and knocked her flat, rolling her over and over on the ground. His head thrust forward, and he sank his fangs into her throat. To ward off the valley’s cold, she wore several layers of cloth around her neck, and those stopped his teeth from piercing her skin. His four legs securely pinned her limbs.
“You,” he rumbled. “Sign is you. Now you die!”
She twisted her face away from his foul breath and groped with one hand, seeking the dagger hidden in her bedroll. Her questing fingers found cold metal. Heedless of the pain, she grasped the bare blade and pulled the weapon closer so she could take hold of the hilt. She plunged the dagger into the beast’s neck.
Shobbat grunted in pain, but his suffocating grip on her throat did not ease. Instead, he rose up on his haunches, lifting Adala off the ground. With a single sideways snap of his wolfish head, he silenced her breathless gasps.
Immediately he released her. It felt as though the dagger had gone completely through his throat; he could hardly breathe. He managed to hook the thick fingers of one front paw around the slender cross guard and drag the blade out. Next, his blunt fingers gripped the
The Weya-Lu woman hadn’t moved. She didn’t breathe. Her neck was twisted so that her open eyes gazed unblinkingly at the stony soil.
Shobbat had killed. As prince, he had ordered the deaths of others, but never had he killed anyone personally. Killing was an ugly business, but the ignorant desert fanatic was too unpredictable and too proud to be a loyal underling. Better for him if she be dead. Such were the choices of fortune.
An owl hooted nearby, and Shobbat flinched. His injuries were painful but not grievous. Already the arrow wound was clotting, and the bleeding from the knife thrust had slowed to a trickle. His beast form was strong, but more than ever he was determined to find the wayward sorcerer Faeterus and force him to lift his curse. Shobbat was Crown Prince of Khur. With the nomads defeated and their fanatical Weyadan dead, Khur would be ready for a new leader, a prince who (at least outwardly) revered the old gods and decried his father’s corruption.
He loped away through the destroyed camp. The fires had died. The pass was once more cloaked in darkness. Shobbat circled the end of the unfinished wall and trotted north, into Inath-Wakenti. The owl did not speak again. But a cloud of bats whirled overhead, squeaking like a palace full of rusty door hinges.
