Bin Yousif thought of them as hel hounds but they better resembled large, stocky cats with hound-like heads.
As Haroun eased into the light of the setting moon he concluded that their number did not matter.
Men screamed. Monsters growled and shrieked in a fight fit for entertaining the gods. Haroun searched the sky, halfway expecting to see a winged horse against the starscape.
Stil no stable boy. Surely the uproar should have brought him back. The master was bound to come, to make sure the animals were safe.
Haroun left a generous tip.
The sun would rise before long. Norath’s hounds should have to hide from the light. They could be rooted out and destroyed during the day.
If they did not destroy one another. If someone did not delude himself into thinking he could use them the way Norath had.
Haroun hoped his fireside brethren had gotten a good head start. They did not deserve to suffer for his crimes.
...
Megelin’s bodyguards were the best surviving Royalist warriors. They moved as quietly as they could, which was not especial y so. The horses and camels were nervous.
The deathcats had closed in too tight.
Megelin had told the damned sorcerer to leave the deathcats behind. Norath did not listen wel . He had brought four monsters anyway.
Someday Norath would cease to be useful. After he made Megelin’s enemies die. Then he could join his victims in hel .
Pray this meeting went wel . Norath’s mystery al y might hasten the opportunity.
Norath’s massive bulk rol ed in the moonlight just yards ahead. The sorcerer had a distinctive walk because of injuries suffered during the Great Eastern Wars. He was badly bowlegged and had trouble changing course quickly.
Megelin’s loathing grew. He was downwind. The man stank.
Norath could stop suddenly, though. Megelin banged into him. “What the hel …?”
Norath ignored him. In a growling whisper, he said.
“Someone is trying to spy on us using the Power. We may have been betrayed. We have to catch him. We need to ask why he is here, waiting.” The sorcerer husked orders to the men, then to his beasts. Two parties of six men each moved out. Those who stayed began stringing horses and camels together so they could be managed more easily.
Megelin was livid. Not one of his lifeguards had looked to him for approval of the sorcerer’s orders.
That reckoning might come soon.
What had happened, anyway? Norath seemed stricken sick. He almost danced in his nervousness.
The sorcerer could not restrain himself. “You. You. Attaq.
Come with me. The rest of you stay with the King. Keep the animals together.” He said something else in another language. The deathcats rumbled unhappily.
Norath moved off into the moonlight at his best speed.
The deathcats arrayed themselves defensively on Megelin’s side of the herd. The remaining lifeguards stationed themselves among the animals, to steady them up. They were one fright short of a stampede.
There were thirty-two horses and four camels. The King of Hammad al Nakir had to help control them as though he was a common soldier. Another mark against Magden Norath.
Megelin tried to talk to the men across the herd. The lifeguards had nothing to say. One unidentifiable voice told him to shut up. They had troubles enough already.
A shriek ripped the night. Megelin jumped. The cry stirred a deep, unreasoning dread.
Expectant silence fol owed. It lasted only seconds.
Shadows scurried past. Megelin first thought they were his lifeguards fleeing. Then one ragamuffin passed close enough to be recognized as a derelict.
The lifeguards swarmed out of the darkness seconds later.
Some grabbed Megelin and hustled him forward. Others helped move the animals.
Magden Norath was not among them.
After Megelin had been herded more than a hundred yards, the nearest lifeguard panted, “The sorcerer is dead. His head was almost al the way off. We need to get you safe.” Norath? Slain? Magden Norath? How could that be?
As the band streamed into the Sheyik’s compound Megelin heard the distant shriek of an injured deathcat.
Suddenly, Megelin was alone except for three lifeguards.
Those three barely restrained their rage. They wanted to go hunt the monster who had murdered their god.
The Sheyik’s men took the animals. Others kept pushing Megelin toward safety. They took him to the Sheyik himself, an older, heavily bearded man Megelin knew and did not like. Hanba al-Medi had served both sides: the Disciple when the Faith was in ful flood, then the Royalist cause after El Murid began to fade.
The old man was trembling, confused. He kept asking what the excitement was about and got no answers.
At that point there were no answers. The second in command of the lifeguards told Hanba, “There was an ambush. Someone knew we were coming. Four men are dead—including Magden Norath.”
The old chief blanched. He faced his king. “That can’t be possible. Magden Norath?”
“His head was cut almost al the way off. The men with him were kil ed, too.”
Despite being inside, Megelin heard the shrieks of the deathcats and the screams of men who were too close when they went mad.
Al-Medi was terrified, yet outraged. “I learned of al this two days ago. What it’s about was never explained. I could betray nothing if I wanted. What have you brought down on me?”
No doubt he spoke the truth. Norath had arranged to be here. Norath was careful. Only he had known the story. It could be argued that, logical y, only he could be the traitor.
Megelin thought his head was going to burst.
Reports came in. They were not good. Two deathcats had gone mad. They had attacked one another and anything living til the bodyguards put them down. Another six men were dead. Four were badly injured. A half- dozen derelicts had been kil ed as wel .
Megelin screamed, “Old man, what am I doing here?”
“You were brought to see me.”
Megelin turned. And was surprised. That strong young voice had come from the oldest man he had ever seen, a bent, shuffling creature thin as starvation itself. But the power round him was so potent Megelin could taste it.
A bony, crooked finger indicted Megelin. “Come with me, boy.”
Time stopped. Everyone became rigidly motionless.
Rage at the ancient’s lack of respect boiled inside Megelin
—the more so when he found that he could not resist the command. In a moment he and the living antiquity were inside a smal , isolated room, absent al witnesses.
Megelin could not control his flesh but his mind remained independent. He recognized a level of distress in his companion that bordered on terror. The old man was total y rattled—maybe because he understood just how amazing Norath’s fal had been.
The King final y realized who the ancient had to be: that most fabulous of fabulous beings, the Star Rider.
Megelin wished he had the strength and quickness to leave the old devil a sack of dead bones alongside Magden Norath.
The old man’s sneer revealed his confidence of knowing every treacherous thought whisking through Megelin’s brain.
