could feel it coming. It was so vivid to him that at first he could not grasp the fact that the tornado was not moving with the wind.
The gale blew straight out of the south, tearing dust savagely from the ground as it came. And the tornado cut diagonally across it, ignored the wind to howl straight toward Doriendor Corishev.
Troy stared at it. Dust clogged his mouth, but he did not know this until he tried to shout something. Then, coughing convulsively, he wrenched himself away from the sight. At once, the sirocco hit him. When he stopped looking at the tornado, the force of the wind sent him reeling. Ruel caught him. He pivoted around the Bloodguard, and threw himself toward Lord Mhoram.
When he reached Mhoram, he shouted, 'What is it.
“Creator preserve us!” Mhoram replied. The yowling wind whipped his voice from his lips, and Troy barely heard him. “It is a vortex of trepidation.”
Troy tried to thrust his words past the wind to Mhoram's ears. “What will it do?”
Shouting squarely into Troy's face, Mhoram answered, “It will make us afraid!”
The next moment, he pulled at Troy's arm, and pointed upward, toward the top of the tornado. There a score of dark creatures flew, riding the upper reaches of the vortex.
The tornado had already covered more than half the distance to Doriendor Corishev, and Troy saw the creatures vividly. They were birds as large as
They were the most fearsome creatures Troy had ever seen. As he stared, he tried to rally himself against them-judge their speed, calculate the time left before their arrival, plan a defence. But they staggered his mind; he could not comprehend an existence which permitted them.
He struggled to move, regain his balance enough to tell himself that he was already tasting the vortex of trepidation. But he was paralyzed. Voices shouted around him. He had a vague impression that Fleshharrower's hordes greeted the vortex with glee-or were they afraid of it, too? He could not tell.
Then Ruel grabbed his arm, snatched him away from the wall, shouted into his ear, “Warmark, come! We must make a defence!”
Troy could not remember ever having heard a Bloodguard shout before. But even now Ruel's voice did not sound like panic. Troy felt that there was something terrible in such immunity. He tried to look around him, but the wind lashed so much dust across the ruins that all details were lost. Both Lords were gone. Warriors ran in all directions, stumbling against the wind. Bloodguard bobbed in and out of view like ghouls.
Ruel shouted at him again. “We must save the horses! They will go mad with fear!”
For one long moment, Troy wished High Lord Elena were with him, so that he could tell her this was not his fault. Then, abruptly, he realized that he had made another mistake. If he were killed, no one would know how to save the Warward. His final plan would die with him, and every man and woman of his army would be butchered as a result.
The realization seemed to push him over an edge. He plunged to his knees. The sirocco and the dust were strangling him.
Ruel shouted, “Warmark! Corruption attacks!”
At the word
The understanding made him reel, but he reacted lucidly, adroitly. He took one last look around him, saw one or two figures still surging back and forth through the livid anguish of the dust. Ruel was moving to capture him. Overhead, the dark birds dropped toward the ruins. Troy picked up a rock and climbed to his feet. When Ruel touched him, he suddenly gestured away behind the Bloodguard. Ruel turned to look. Troy hit him on the back of the skull with the rock.
Then the Warmark ran. He could not make progress against the wind, so he worked across it. The walls of buildings loomed out of the dust at him. He started toward a door.
Without warning, he stumbled into First Haft Amorine.
She caught at him, buffeted him with cries like fear. But she, too, was someone faithful, someone who threatened him. He lunged at her with his shoulder, sent her sprawling. Immediately, he dodged into the maze of the masterplace.
He fell several times as the wind sprang at him through unexpected gaps in the walls. But he forced himself ahead. The clarity of his terror was complete; he knew what he had to do.
After a swift, chaotic battle, he found what he needed. With a rush, he lurched out into the centre of a large, open space-the remains of one of Doriendor
Corishev's meeting halls. In this unsheltered expanse, the force of the wind belaboured him venomously. He welcomed it. He felt a paradoxical glee of fear; his own terror delighted him. He stood like an exalted fanatic in the open space, and looked up to see how long he would have to wait.
When he glanced behind him, his heart leaped. One of the birds glided effortlessly toward him, as if it were in total command of the wind. It had a clear approach to him. The ease of its movement thrilled him, and he poised himself to jump into its jaws.
But as it neared him, he saw that it carried Ruel's crumpled body in its mighty talons. He could see Ruel's flat, dispassionate features. The Bloodguard looked as if he had been betrayed.
A convulsion shook Troy. As the bird swooped toward him, he remembered who he was. The strength of terror galvanized his muscles; he snatched out his sword and struck.
His blow split the bird's skull. Its weight bowled him over. Green blood spewed from it over his head and shoulders. The hot blood burned him like a corrosive, and it smelled so thickly of attar that it asphyxiated him. With a choked cry, he clawed at his forehead, trying to tear the pain away. But the acid fire consumed his headband, burned through his skull into his brain. He lost consciousness.
He awoke to silence and the darkness of night.
After a long lapse of time like an interminable scream, he raised his head. The wind had piled dust over him, and his movement disturbed it. It filled his throat and mouth and lungs. But he bit back a spasm of coughing, and listened to the darkness.
All around him, Doriendor Corishev was as still as a cairn. The wind and the vortex were gone, leaving only midnight dust and death to mark their path. Silence lay over the ruins like a bane.
Then he had to cough. Gasping, retching, he pushed himself to his knees. He sounded explosively loud to himself. He tried to control the violence of his coughing, but he was helpless until the spasm passed.
As it released him, he realized that he was still clutching his sword. Instinctively, he tightened his grip on it. He cursed his night blindness, then told himself that the darkness was his only hope.
His face throbbed painfully, but he ignored it.
He kept himself still while he thought.
This long after the vortex, he reasoned, all his allies were either dead or gone. If the vortex and the birds had not killed them, they had been swept from the ruins by Fleshharrower's army. So they could not help him. He did not know how much of that army had stayed behind in the masterplace.
And he could not see. He was vulnerable until daylight. Only the darkness protected him; he could not defend himself.
His first reaction was to remain where he was, and pray that he was not discovered. But he recognized the futility of that plan. At best, it would only postpone his death. When dawn came, he would still be alone against an unknown number of enemies. No, his one chance was to sneak out of the city now and lose himself in the Wastes. There he might find a gully or hole in which to hide.
That escape was possible, barely possible, because he had one advantage; none of Fleshharrower's creatures except the ur-viles could move through the ruins at night as well as he. And the Raver would not have left ur-viles behind. They were too valuable. If Troy could remember his former skills-his sense of ambience, his memory for terrain-he would be able to navigate the city.
He would have to rely on his hearing to warn him of enemies.
He began by sliding his sword quietly into its scabbard. Then he started groping his way over the hot sand.
