lightly wooded valley between a couple of rocky outcrops. The elven huts were rounded domes, not cone-shape tepees, but they were still formed of animal skins draped over wooden frames, close enough to the abodes he had known all of his earlier life to give him a pleasant sense of memory.
And these beautiful hills! It did not take a lot of imagination to be reminded of his beloved Black Hills. Even the pine trees scattered along the upper slopes and the crests would have been right at home in the lands of the Dakota. He looked along the rounded lower elevations, half expecting to see the hummocked, shaggy brown shapes of grazing buffalo.
“You men wait here,” he suggested as they reached a flowered meadow beside the stream. “I will seek this Janitha, daughter of the khan.”
The smell of the horse herd was a fine perfume in the still air, and he paused to admire the steeds grazing just a short distance downstream from the elven camp. There were thousands of them, sturdy and muscular, fattening up on the valley grass. Several of the animals were exceptional prizes, spotted pintos, golden mares, and a sleek, black stallion. “You are the chief’s horse, are you not?” he murmured to this one.
He smiled, remembering countless thieving expeditions, when he set out with his friends to take ponies from the Shoshone, the Crow, or the Pawnee. Even as he enjoyed the memory he could not avoid a taint of regret in that smile, for he also recalled how much of his energy he had expended against those other tribes, and they against the Sioux. Since he had come to Nayve he had begun to imagine the power they would have had together, if they had united. Instead, they had allowed petty wars to drain their strength and their focus, all the while allowing the real enemy to encroach farther and farther onto their lands.
Idly, he picked out another fine stallion, a pinto, admiring the way the horse watched him alertly, even moved to interpose himself between the human and the mares when the warrior approached. A touch on the nostrils calmed the animal, and Crazy Horse whispered a greeting. “You are a warrior yourself, aren’t you? I’ll bet you fairly fly into the fight!”
Energized, he breathed the Ringhills air with new awareness, tasted the lush pines in every pore. This was a place worth fighting for, he knew. He had a sense, for the first time upon Nayve, that he might have found a home.
A few minutes later he came to the first picket, an elven archer who studied him carefully with an arrow nocked in his bow. “Natac sent me,” the American warrior explained. “I am to seek Janitha Khandaughter.”
The sentry gestured with his weapon. “There. Her hut is beside the third fire.”
That elfwoman was eating a meal of beans and rice, using her fingers to scoop the mixture from a leafy plate into her mouth. She looked up as Crazy Horse came to her campfire, finished her last bite, then rose, wiping her hands on her leather pants.
“I would like to join your company. I bring a hundred men from the druid fleet,” he said. “If you will have me.”
“That depends,” she said, looking at him critically. “Do you know how to ride a pony?”
“Don’t move!” Shandira said, standing rigidly still in the middle of the bowl-shaped valley.
Miradel didn’t need any encouragement. In the first instant after the gargoyle landed she had been frozen by terror, transfixed by those hellish, glowing eyes. As soon as she stopped moving, however, the creature’s focus shifted, and it seemed to be looking around as if it had lost sight of her.
The monster shifted position, taking a step forward with a sound like the scrape of stone grinding against stone. Those massive, bestial legs stretched and extended, bent as it crouched, the grotesque belly dangling, swinging loosely. Miradel could barely suppress her gasp of horror as the gargoyle peered around, blinking, uttering deep, bone-shivering growls. The two wings looked to be solid stone, but they spread wide easily, as if they were made of tanned leather. The beast fanned them convulsively, and the blast of cold air struck Miradel like a physical blow. She needed every bit of her strength and courage to keep from staggering backward; somehow, she continued to hold herself statue still.
Standing between the two druids and the lofty throne across the valley, the gargoyle seemed oddly hesitant. Miradel could see their objective, tantalizingly close now, on the mountainside rising before them. The shimmery substance was not a godly robe, she now perceived; it was water, spilling from a crack in the rock, flowing across the face of the mountain, then pouring into a stream that spilled from the front of the ledge forming the seat of the Deathlord’s throne.
Karlath-Fayd’s massive, burning eyes still glowed above, disembodied, floating against the darkness. How often had she looked at them in the Tapestry, seen and feared the power there. Yet now, in the hall of the god himself, it was the servant, the gargoyle, that truly inspired fear.
“We have to get closer!” Shandira said. “I have an idea-but you have to stay still, like a statue, until I say to move.”
At the sound of the druid’s voice, the gargoyle looked in her direction but did not step forward. Miradel, trembling, saw that the black woman stood rigidly still, a monolith of human pride before monstrous evil. Only her eyes moved, roving this way and that, seeking… what?
“When it comes after me, you go!” said the African woman. “You’ll only have one chance. Run as fast as you can!”
At first Miradel did not fully grasp what her companion intended; perhaps her mind balked at the reality. When she did understand, she was numbed by horror and awed by the other druid’s courage. Shandira was saying something quietly, praying, Miradel realized.
“… walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil…”
“Shandira-no!” cried the druid. She thought of a mad impulse herself: she should move, dance, run-anything to draw the monster’s attention! But she remained frozen, only her mind in motion, bringing words to her mouth. “We’ll get out of this together!” she shouted. “Don’t!”
“For Thou art with me.” On the last word, Shandira looked at Miradel and smiled. Her expression was calm, almost beatific. “Thank you for all you have shown me, taught me,” she said. “I think on the world of our birth, you would be called a saint.”
“Shandira!” Now Miradel moved, but it was too late. The tall druid was already sprinting to the side, away from her companion. The gargoyle again uttered that low, ground-shivering growl and pounced after her with catlike speed, landing with a crash of stone on the flat ground where Shandira had been standing.
But now she was running with exceptional speed, evading the savage grasp of those monstrous claws in her first burst of acceleration. She darted to the side as the beast pounced again, nimbly evading the lumbering charge.
“Miradel-go!” screamed the African woman, the word echoing like an immortal command in the vast emptiness of the mountain hall.
Miradel took off in that same breath of sound, racing unnoticed behind the gargoyle as it lunged after her companion. She ran with her eyes on that lofty throne, nothing else even existing in her mind. The sounds of pursuit, the roars of the monster, seemed to be coming from very far away… another place… even another life.
Her feet pounded across the ground, the rhythm of her flight the only sound she knew. Her momentum carried her up as she reached the foot of the slope, until massive rocks like steps for a giant blocked her ascent of the mountainside.
Here she pulled with her arms, kicked, crawled up one after the other. Higher and higher she climbed, hearing no sounds now except the rasping gasp of her own respiration. She didn’t dare to look back. Instead, she only climbed, scrambling over another obstacle, ignoring the torn skin on her knees, the fingernail that ripped away during another frantic upward pull. Always she worked to climb, the great shelf of the throne drawing nearer with each second.
At last she stood on the seat of that lofty throne and stared upward in disbelief. The seat of Karlath-Fayd resembled nothing so much as a natural shelf in a steep mountainside. The spring on the far wall leaked a spray of water down the cliff, draining into a cut that had eroded across the rocky surface over countless centuries.
And those eyes? The immortal orbs of a lethal god, red fire that she had observed for centuries, had studied, and feared?
The two slits, the fiery eyes of the Deathlord, were merely cracks in the rock. The heat of the infernal ground, bubbling lava and spuming fire, glowed through.
The throne of the Deathlord was… simply… empty.
