He slowed as he reached the back of the army, the Riders parting for him and the four shamans behind him. Within moments, they were at the front of the line.
Quotl brought his mount up short.
Across a stretch of dry scrub, tufts of stubborn grass, and the hastily constructed defenses they’d dug into the red rock debris of the eastern edge of the plains, the Wraith army waited, a black line of nearly indistinguishable figures against the hazy, yellow dawn. Winged birds wheeled overhead, nearly three dozen of them, too large to be any bird that Quotl knew of. His eyes narrowed, dropping to the group at the front of the army, picking out riders on horseback and bulkier forms, more massive than the mounts. Others moved across the desert rock, but they were too small in shape to see clearly.
He scanned the nearer dwarren line, found Tarramic a hundred stretches distant, standing out in front of the line with a smaller group beside him. Quotl pulled his gaezel’s attention right and nudged the animal forward, arriving at a brisk trot.
“Where have you been?” Tarramic demanded. Panic edged his tone.
“Preparing,” Quotl growled back. “The shamans of Thousand Springs are ready.”
Tarramic looked as if he’d argue, then shot Corranu, the clan chief of Painted Sands, and his head shaman a quick glance. He glowered at Quotl. “What of those on the heights?”
“They know what to do. What of Silver Grass?”
“They were in position and waiting at last report.”
“Then we are as ready as we will ever be.”
Tarramic nodded. “And Ilacqua? The gods of the Four Winds?”
“The ground has been blessed by the Archon, the appeals made to the gods last night after the Wraith army arrived.”
Tarramic turned to face the silhouette of the army in the distance. The sun had begun to rise over the horizon, a heat shimmer making the army indistinct. “May Ilacqua guard us all,” he murmured.
Quotl looked toward Azuka, reaching into his satchel to pull out a small knife. Peyo, the head shaman of Painted Sands, did the same, kneeing his own mount closer to Quotl’s.
“I see the hulking forms of the terren from this distance, and I assume there will be kell. The two usually come as a group. We can handle the stone-skinned and the diggers. But what of the dreun?” He jerked his head toward the creatures flying overhead.
Quotl kept his eyes on the ground. “We will have to rely on our archers for those.” When Peyo shifted uncomfortably, he added, “They have the arrows from the forest. They know what to do.”
“And if there are urannen among the army?”
“Pray we have enough arrows.”
A sudden horn call split the air from the direction of the Wraith army. Tarramic instantly motioned toward the Rider beside him, who pulled a drum into his lap and pounded out a short rhythm. Behind, a much larger drum passed the message along to the rest of the army, and Quotl felt the tension on the air triple. The apprehension pushed against his skin, shimmering in his perceptions like heat waves, fraught with fear and smelling of sweat and dust and leather.
He suddenly, desperately, wanted the reassuring feel of his pipe in his hand, the tang of willow bark burning his throat and lungs.
Then, abruptly, the Wraith army began to move.
Tarramic barked an order, the drum carrying the cadence to the army behind, and then Tarramic and Corranu-the two clan chiefs-suddenly broke away, Tarramic riding south, Quotl and the rest of the Thousand Springs entourage following an instant later, Corranu and Painted Sands heading north. As they charged across the rocky soil, Quotl heard a battle roar from the clan behind him, rising higher and higher, pushing him and the others at the forefront forward. His heart hammered in his chest and air still chill from the night seared his lungs. At his side, Azuka suddenly raised his scepter and cried out to Ilacqua, to the Four Winds, his words lost in the thundering of the gaezels as the main portion of the army caught up with its clan chief.
They swept across the desert, dust rising behind them, swinging out and around the ditches and ridges and onto the flat beyond. The Wraith army rushed forward to meet them. To the north, Quotl could see Painted Sands mirroring their maneuver, their plume of dust rising to obscure the single colonnade of natural rock that had survived the landslide and stood up like a finger from the desert floor, the cliffs of the Break behind.
As they drew nearer, the riders on horseback became visible and Quotl’s heart shuddered, his eyes widening in shock.
“Alvritshai!” Tarramic roared from the front of the line. “Alvritshai ride with the Wraiths! We have been betrayed!”
The resultant roar drowned out the sound of the drums, even as Quotl noted that among the Alvritshai riders were the terren and the kell, and outdistancing them all were the gruen, the sleek feline creatures racing for the dwarren front lines.
It didn’t make sense. The Alvritshai with the creatures of the Turning? They’d fought the urannen and the Wraiths after the Accord had been signed, had suffered as much or more than the dwarren when the power of the Wells had been released. The dwarren had been able to retreat to their warrens to escape; the Alvritshai had not. And why would the Alvritshai attack from the east, from the wastelands?
But there was no time. No time to think, no time to plan, no time to pray.
The gruen hit the front dwarren, leaping up from the ground and attaching themselves to the Riders, and before the first screams could cut through the thundering hooves of the gaezels and the charging horses, the Alvritshai behind slammed into the dwarren line.
Quotl found himself in a crush of bodies, gaezels attempting to leap forward through the press. Within ten feet of his position, dwarren were roaring and hacking at the Alvritshai and the gruen. The taint of blood flooded the air, but Quotl was too distant to use his knife. Dwarren blades rose and fell and the eerie, high-pitched screams of dying gaezels shivered through Quotl’s skin. Steel clashed, the Alvritshai mounts in the front rearing and kicking. Close by, one of the dwarren ducked beneath the flailing hooves and gutted one of the steeds, then was crushed with his gaezel under the falling horse.
Quotl began chanting, raising his scepter, and felt the dwarren around him respond, surging forward as those shamans nearby took up the chant.
Then, two Riders away, a pack of the gruen appeared, their black, hairless bodies swarming over a Rider and his mount in the space of a breath. The dwarren roared, hacked at the gruen bodies as they raked him with their claws and latched onto his arms and armor. The Rider’s gaezel shrieked and panicked, eyes rolling white. It tried to leap away, but there was no room.
With a startlingly quick move, one of the gruen seized the dwarren by the throat with its teeth and ripped it away.
Before the body had begun to sag, one of the gruen emitted a harsh chittering sound-
And then they all launched themselves deeper into the dwarren lines.
One leaped straight for Quotl.
He cut off his chant in mid-verse and swung the scepter, catching the gruen in the side. It barked in pain, slamming into the back of the Rider beside him, but twisted and jumped to Quotl’s mount, going for Quotl’s face.
Quotl brought his knife up. The impact with the creature jarred his hand, but he felt the blade sink deep into its chest. It hissed and reached with its claws, already dying, but Quotl thrust it to the side with disdain.
A sense of calm enveloped him, one that he experienced with his meditations and spirit journeys. Except here there was no smoke to help disassociate himself from his body so he could join the spirit world. He drew in the energy of that calm anyway, began to slash at the gruen with a cold, methodical detachment. The creatures’ black blood flew, coating the blade, his fingers, making his hand slick, but he didn’t stop. He tightened his grip and brought his scepter to bear, the gaezel beneath him reacting to his movements, shifting left and right as if it sensed his needs, leaping forward into gaps or rearing back and turning. It snorted and pawed the ground, ducked its head and used its horns, impaling gruen and scoring jagged cuts along the Alvritshai horses if they pressed too close. Quotl focused on the gruen, left the Alvritshai to the Riders’ blades, and found himself muttering chants from the histories as he struck, lines from the oldest records, from the time of the previous Turning, the words taking on the distinct accent of the Ancients, punctuated by a slice of his knife or the impact of his scepter. And the gruen
