Curious, Varia flew to his arm and sat quietly while Lord Bight stepped back into a narrow passage and closed the panel. Without speaking, he carried her down narrow stairs and down dim and musty passages until they reached the lowest level of the palace cut deep into the bedrock of the hill. They came to another stone wall that slid aside under Lord Bight’s hand, and proceeding with caution, he stepped out into a dark tunnel.
“What is happening?” Varia said at last.
“I had to make a few arrangements,” Lord Bright replied, his voice curt.
“Where are we going?”
“Mount Thunderhorn. Crucible will go to Missing City.”
He said nothing more, but Varia was satisfied. She gripped his arm and rode quietly while he carried her down deeper into the maze of tunnels and passages that cut underneath the city of Sanction. Here in the realm of the Shadowpeople, he slipped silently through, unseen by his people above, and came at last to the tunnel that linked the lower levels with the cavern that was Crucible’s lair.
“The dragon cannot stay long on the Plains,” Lord Bight said as he climbed the long stairs. “You understand that. Much is happening. I fear a greater war than our small siege is about to descend on Ansalon. Crucible must come back.”
Varia hooted her agreement.
They reached the back entrance to the cavern close to a deep cleft that dropped down into a stream of lava. The cave was deadly hot and reeked of molten rock. A deep rumbling noise vibrated the rocks around them. The noxious fumes and the heat did not seem to bother Lord Bight, but Varia was forced to fly out of the cave and wait. Moments later, the bronze dragon emerged, stretching his stout legs and unfurling his long wings. He looked like he had just awakened from a nap.
He waited until the owl found a safe perch on his back, then he leaped off the ledge. He rose high above Mount Thunderhorn, his wings outstretched to catch the hot air boiling off the volcano. With a flip of his tail, he turned south and soon left Sanction behind.
12
To the people who lived in the region of Missing City and to those travelers who crossed the Plains, Sinking Wells was an oasis, a resting place, and a source for tales. Called a well, it was actually an old sinkhole created thousands of years before when an underground cavern collapsed. Through the centuries it slowly filled with sand, dirt, dead animals, and wind-blown debris until it dropped only thirty feet at its deepest end. The only thing that sank was the water level that rose or fell according to the rainfall and the underground water table. During some years the water would brim near the banks of the oval-shaped hole, and other times the water dropped out of sight below ground, forcing visitors to trek down a slippery path to an old well shaft that pierced down into the earth at the bottom of the sinkhole.
As Linsha well knew, Sinking Wells was not a fortress. It was a gathering place. It had no fortified walls, protective landmarks, or even heavy brush where people could hide. All it had was water and a central location in the region around Missing City. Now, a few days after the massacre at Scorpion Wadi, it also had twenty-six survivors, scouts, messengers, and outpost guards-the last remnant of the city’s proud defenders.
A search party found Falaius Taneek four days after the massacre at Scorpion Wadi. The small party of humans and centaurs had worked tirelessly the past nights to search every known watchpost, hiding place, campsite, and trail known to the militia to find any stragglers, survivors, and patrols that had not received news of the massacre or of the rendezvous at Sinking Wells.
On their way back to the Wells, they passed one of several stock ponds along their route. The pond, a depression dug by farmers to catch rainwater for stock, was nearly dry, but a sharp-eyed centaur noticed a body lying in the thick grass and trotted over to investigate. His call brought everyone else running.
The old Plainsman was feverish, dehydrated, and bore several wounds. But he was a man of the Plains, tempered by heat, strengthened by barren wastes, empowered by storms, and toughened by years of hard labor. He needed only water and the joy of seeing familiar faces again to find the strength to rise. The centaurs vied to offer him a ride, and two Legionnaires, who had accompanied the troop, walked beside him, their wan faces smiling for the first time in days.
A large group greeted the party when they returned to Sinking Wells shortly after dawn. Cheering the return of the Plainsman, they followed the search party to three crude tents that had been set up in the shelter of a copse of trees. The tents served as a headquarters for the militia leaders and a healing place for the sick and wounded. Mariana, accompanied by two elves, walked out of the headquarters tent to meet the Legionnaire.
The half-elf smiled and extended a hand to help Falaius to the ground. “Old Man, it is a joy to see you!”
A grin of sorts spread across his weathered face at her nickname for him. “Young woman, the pleasure is all mine.”
He refused to go in the healer’s tent until he had talked to General Dockett or Knight Commander Remmik, so Mariana ordered a healer to come to him. They brought him soup and a pallet and made a couch for him under the trees. A fire was built, and while the Legion commander ate his soup, the Captain told him of General Dockett’s death, the slaughter in the Wadi, and the capture of the Solamnic Knights.
Falaius ran his gaze around the faces of the people who had gathered to listen, and his heart grieved. There were too many faces missing, too few here beside him. Of those he saw and recognized, most were people who had been out on patrol or stationed out in the watch posts. There were a few messengers, one child, one Solamnic Knight, and some new arrivals he did not know. Of the guards he had been with the night of the attack and the people he knew to be in the Wadi, there were none.
“Falaius,” Mariana said when he had finished his soup. “We looked for you in the canyon. We spent three days searching the gullies and caves for you. We gave you up for lost. How did you survive?”
A grimace passed over the Plainsman’s features. “If our gods had not left us, I would have said the hand of a god passed over me and held me in grace. I was checking the outlying pickets along the top of the Wadi when we were ambushed by Tarmak assassins. One of our guards managed to give a warning before he was killed, and a moment later, we were attacked. I was struck by several arrows, and Tomarick, the Legionnaire who accompanied me, took two in the back. Even so he had enough strength left to help me kill two attackers.” He paused, his deep-set eyes staring into the past. “He had enough strength, too, to push me into a crevice and hide my body with his. I shall honor Tomarick’s name for the rest of my time in this life.”
His listeners leaned forward to better hear his tale. When he did not continue right away, someone from the back of the crowd said, “Then what happened, Falaius?”
Mariana passed him a cup filled with deep red wine, part of a small stash one of the centaurs had found in an abandoned farm. He inhaled the aroma with pleasure and sampled it before he continued.
“I don’t know what happened after that. The Tarmaks must have passed me by, because the next things I remember seeing are daylight and hearing the sounds of vultures. It was almost midday.”
Mariana nodded. That explained why Varia hadn’t seen him. She’d left the canyon about midmorning.
The centaur who had carried him back asked, “How did you get to the stock pond? That is almost seven miles away.”
Falaius pointed to his bandaged leg and bloodstained boots. “One step at a time. I moved at night and was planning to make my way here. I am very grateful you spotted me.”
“We are grateful, more than you know, that you are here,” replied Mariana.
The Legionnaire’s expression folded into a frown. “But many are not. Tell me what else has been happening? Have you heard news of Lanther or Linsha?”
With the help of various comments and additions from others, Mariana told him the rest of the news of the battered militia, of the scattered and grief-stricken survivors that came trickling in to the Wells, of the stunned patrols who returned to find their families dead, of the search party that found him, and of their struggle to regroup and find more help. She reported Varia’s news of the prisoners, and the remarkable survival of Sir Hugh,
