Black Jade

with Kane and Yago at my sides. I waited for Sunji to bring the droghul to justice: either slaying or capturing him. It should have been an easy thing for Sunji and the three judges, backed up by the eight Avari warriors, to cut him down. But two of the Red Priests and six Zuri warriors, with Oalo, rode forward to aid the frenzied, murderous droghul.

And then the droghul seemed to summon up some secret torment from within himself as he cried out in a voice ringing with a fell, new power: VALARIIII!

I felt a hundred daggers, like ice, pierce every part of me and seize hold of my limbs. So it was with Sunji and the Avari. Many of them lifted them lifted their swords with a dreadful slowness-many more Simply froze altogether in terror.

VALARIIII!

Now Avraym dropped his saber and pressed his hands to his ears, even as Oalo plunged the point of his saber into his back. Sunji could hardly lift his saber to defend himself against the Red Priest attacking him. In the sea of screaming horses and men all around me, it seemed that the Avari were losing their will to slay the Zuri, while the Zuri warriors struck back at their executioners with a renewed fury. I did not know why the Zuri seemed immune to the droghul's terrible cry:

VALARIII!

All across the burning canyon, Avari warriors began dropping their swords or clinging to their horses. Now it was the Zuri who showed them no mercy. Their sabers slashed out like lightning as the Avari's screams became one with the droghul's.

'Damn you, Elahad! Damn the Valariii!'

The droghul cut down the last of the men drawn up in front of me. He ignored Kane, off to my right, who desperately battled two Zuri warriors. The droghul spurred his horse closer, then slashed his sword toward my face. I barely parried it, and its shiny steel clanged against Alkaladur's silustria and struck out flaming sparks. Again and again he tried to cleave me in two. My skin, with no armor protecting it, fairly twitched with a deep, sick fear. I moved slowly, so terribly slowly, as if trying to lift my sword through a raging stream of ice water. I knew that the droghul would kill me, and soon.

And then, from out of nowhere, it seemed, Yago came galloping forward in a whirl of dusty white robes and flashing steel. With perfect coordination, he swerved his horse and closed in just as the droghul raised back his sword to decapitate me. Yago leaned forward in his saddle, and quick as the wind sliced his saber through the droghul's throat. This vicious cut opened up the droghul's windpipe and the great artery there. Blood spurted, and a red froth flowed from the droghul's mouth. Although he could not speak to howl out his paralyzing cry, his eyes remained full of hate. They fixed on my eyes like red-hot nails. They told me that I had murdered him, Morjin's droghul, but that I could never touch the one who moved the droghul's limbs and mind. One day, and soon, Morjin would come to take a terrible vengeance. This the droghul promised me in his last moment of life. Then Yago's saber flashed out again, and this time cut clean through the droghul's neck and struck off his head.

After that, the battle did not last very long. The Avari warriors regained their wits and strength. Their terror at the droghul caused them to fall upon the remaining Zuri with great wrath. They killed them cruelly, down to the last man. Sunji himself put his saber through Oalo. Then he went about the field making sure that all the Zuri were dead.

I sat on top of Altaru, gasping for breath and staring down at the droghul's body. The bodies of warriors, Zuri and Avari, lay everywhere, baking in the hot sun. Already the flies had gone to work on their hideous, gaping wounds, and vultures came from afar to circle in the air.

Kane nudged his horse over to me. His black eyes flashed at me as if in joy that we had survived another battle, in one way the worst yet. He asked Yago how it was that the droghul's voice had left him untouched. Yago couldn't hear him. He moved closer to Kane, and threw his hands up to the sides of his head. His fingers dug free two sticky, red barbark nuts. It seemed that at the very beginning of the battle, he had used them to stop up his ears.

'The voice-of that thing,' he said, pointing down at what was left of the droghul, 'could have frozen the sun itself. By what sorcery can a man stop another solely through his voice?'

I had no answer for him, and neither did Kane. The mystery of how the Zuri warriors had fought on beneath the droghul's piercing cry, however, was soon solved. Sunji rode back over to us, and opened his hand to show us a yellowish-white, greasy clot of matter.

'Beeswax,' he said to us, 'taken from the Zuri's ears. They came prepared to murder us.'

He told us that eighteen of his warriors had died in the battle, while another fifteen bore serious wounds. All the Zuri were dead. But one of the Red Priests who rode with them still lived.

'Come, Valashu Elahad, you must bear witness to this,' he said to me. 'You, as well, Kane. And you, Masud.'

We picked our way across the battlefield until we came to a large rock. The captured Red Priest had been bound with ropes and cast back against it. His long, gaunt face, like a living skull, was horrible to look upon. His eyes radiated both fear and hate. Three Avari warriors stood over him with their sabers drawn. Laisar and Maidro stood there, too. Laisar held in his hand a large, green bottle. He showed it to Yago and said, 'Poison — taken from the priest's saddlebags. It is proved beyond any doubt: the Morjin thing and his priests are all poisoners!'

And Maidro added, nodding at Yago, 'Surely they would have poisoned our wells, too.'

While the Avari went about preparing their dead for burial and tending their wounded, Master Juwain and Liljana came down from the rocky heights above — Maram and Atara, too. When Yago asked after Turi, Liljana coldly informed him that children had no place on a battlefield; Turi, she said, was safe in the company of Daj and Estrella.

'But the children need water,' she croaked out in a voice as dry as dust. 'We all do.'

Some of the Avari were surprised to learn that we had brought children with us, for Sunji had not yet had time to inform them of this. One old warrior, as tall as I, shook his head disapprovingly as he said, 'Children drink water even more quickly than a hot wind.'

Liljana, I thought, was ready to walk over and rip free the water-skin from the back of the warrior's horse. Then she espied the captured priest, and her whole body shuddered with revulsion. 'I know you — you were there that day in the throne room! You put the irons in the fire, the ones they used to burn Master Juwain! You were only a guard, then, filthy torturer!'

The priest looked up at her and said, 'Lord Morjin rewards those who serve him. Just as he does those who oppose him. I regret only that he didn't use the pincers to tear out your filthy tongue and that I won't live to see how he rewards you. But at least I had the pleasure of seeing him blind the scryer.'

Although Atara said nothing to this, I felt a cold rage building inside her. She stood orienting her blindfold toward the sound of his voice.

'If I had pincers, now,' he said, 'and my hands were free, I would gladly tear off her — '

Kane, stepping quickly over to him, delivered a vicious kick to his mouth, for a moment silencing him. The priest sat there almost choking on blood and broken teeth.

Sunji moved over to Kane and grabbed his arm to keep him from further assaulting the priest. He told him, 'This poisoner has helped kill my warriors, and his punishment is for the Avari to mete out.'

'So, we have grievances, too, as you have heard.' 'Would you kill him so easily then?'

'No, not easily,' Kane said. 'We have grievances, yes, but even more we have questions that must be answered.'

'You may ask all the questions you wish,' Maidro said to him, 'after we have given the poisoner to the sun.'

As Maidro explained, the Ravirii tribes, even the Avari, punished well-poisoners by staking them out naked beneath the blazing desert sun.

'It is a terrible death,' Maidro said to Kane.

'Terrible, yes,' Kane said. 'But the pain of it is spread out over too many hours. It would be better if this priest were made to take his own medicine. Hot irons would roast him just as well and loosen his tongue more readily!'