The gray shadows of arrows went soaring up into the sky to meet the death that was diving down at us. With a scream of horror and disappointment, the flyers broke apart, dissolving into the air, and the purple cloud groaned.
“Together, fire!”
I had heard that voice before somewhere a long, long time ago, probably in a former life or, perhaps, in a dream.
We couldn’t hear the twang of the bowstrings or the flight of the arrows. There was only the rain rustling on the ground and the cloud constantly groaning like an expiring ghost. The flight of transparent arrows bit into its belly, leaving behind huge ragged holes.
The loud, lamenting wail of a doomed creature rolled on and on above the earth, farther and farther . . . I put my hands over my ears, the sound was so loud and so terrible. I think they must have heard it even in Djashla.
The phantoms fired a third time and the cloud flared up as bright as the sun, flooding the surrounding region with purple light. In less than a minute I had collapsed from exhaustion and been deafened and blinded. There was nothing left to do except to curl up in a ball and try to emerge from this appalling nightmare.
When I came round, it was all over. There were no more purple storm clouds in the sky, the phantoms had disappeared as if I had simply dreamed them, and even the rain had stopped. The clouds had disappeared, giving way once again to a clear blue sky. The sun was shining straight into my eyes, but the former suffocating heat had been replaced by warm summer weather.
I tried moving first one arm, then the other, and then tried my legs. I seemed to be alive. Squinting downward, I saw that I was lying on a blanket and someone’s considerate hand had covered me with another one.
“Welcome back,” a voice said above my head, and then Uncle’s bearded, smiling face appeared in my field of view. “So you’re awake now? We were thinking of singing you the funeral song of forgiveness.”
I cleared my throat and tried to sit up. I managed it without any difficulty, which meant that I was already back to normal after the piece of magic that Valder had worked. Once again I tried mentally summoning the archmagician who had swapped the Forbidden Territory for a life inside my head. But as always, it didn’t work. The magician had either hidden himself away and didn’t want to answer or he had simply disappeared.
“How long have I been lying here?” It was evening when those purple flyers attacked us and now, if the gods hadn’t changed all the rules while I was out of it, it was early morning.
“A little while,” said Alistan, walking up to me.
“How long exactly?” I persisted.
“A little over a day.”
Not bad going.
“How are you feeling?” Miralissa had come over with the count and now she put her hand on my forehead. Her skin was dry and her palm was hot.
“I seem to be in good shape. What happened?”
“We should ask you that,” said Alistan. “What happened at the edge of the ravine, thief?”
“I don’t know.” I frowned. “I can’t remember.”
“Well try, Harold.” Markauz’s voice had an ingratiating tone to it and he even forgot to call me thief. “It’s very important.”
The entire group looked at me expectantly.
“First those creatures were flying at us, then Tomcat did something, but it didn’t help, then I saw one of them getting close to me, and then something happened.”
“Something?” Miralissa echoed, raising one eyebrow in surprise. “Do you really not know what happened?”
“I really don’t,” I said without the slightest twinge of conscience.
I genuinely didn’t know what the archmagician had done to kill the flyer and toss me out of its path. So I hardly had to lie at all.
“In the hundredth part of a second someone created an attack spell of such great power that I thought my hair would burst into flames! Only a very experienced magician is capable of doing that.”
Uh-huh. Someone like my friend Valder.
“Well, it definitely wasn’t me who did it.”
“Naturally,” Alistan said coolly. “But we’d like to know who did.”
I shrugged.
“And the phantoms? Who, I mean, what were they?”
“They’re the spirits of the men whose bones lie on this side of the ravine,” I said. “The soldiers of the Dog Swallows Brigade returned to our world when they sensed the shamanic magic at work.”
Miralissa kept her pensive gaze fixed on me. I think she knew perfectly well that I wasn’t telling her everything, but for some reason she didn’t try to shake the truth out of me right there and then.
“What the Nameless One’s shamans created could have awoken the spirits of the fallen.”
“And what happened to that cloud?” I asked.
“It disappeared.”
