was Ro Karn. Vvelz was working a healing spell on him.
“Will he live?” Mors asked once the situation was explained to him.
“Only as long as you wish him to,” Vvelz replied tersely. He tossed the broken arrow into the gully. His hands were covered in blood. “I thought you would want me to aid him, Mors.”
“He knew what he was doing.”
Vvelz glared up at him. “This is your son!”
“He's Li El's creature.”
Catchflea coughed. “Mors, how much does the queen value Karn? Perhaps he would be useful as a hostage, yes?”
Mors hung his head a moment, then replied. “Put him in a wagon under guard. If he causes trouble, kill him. Otherwise, bring Ro Karn with us to Vartoom.” Mors cast a hand about, trying to find Di An. The barren child was usually right at his side. “Where are you, Di An?” he called. Mors could not see that she was with Riverwind some ten yards distant. The exhausted plainsman had finally collapsed and was sitting quietly while the elf girl gently washed the cuts on his face. Catchflea hurried over to them.
The blind elf put out his hands slowly, reluctant to blunder about on his own. He feared he was all alone till he felt another hand grasp his. Mors gripped the hand, though it was sticky and damp.
“I'll lead you,” Vvelz said. The blind elf said nothing, but closed his fingers tightly around Vvelz's hand, smearing himself with Karn's blood.
Chapter Eleven
The Blue Sky People advanced on Vartoom in a quiet mass, without formation or order. Everywhere they passed, diggers threw down their tools and joined them. A sense that something vitally important was happening possessed the Hestites. The warriors captured with Karn were abandoned. Riverwind was surprised to see many of them fall in with the crowd and walk peacefully beside the same diggers they had tried to slay only hours earlier.
“Why are you surprised, tall man?” Catchflea said. “The cause they fought for now must seem totally lost. And Li El is not loved by any of them.”
Riverwind looked at the chains around his wrists. Mors had insisted the young plainsman be bound, so that if Li El reasserted her power over his mind, he could do little real damage to the digger army. “Her cause is not lost yet. Li El is very powerful on her own.”
The old man put a hand on the young man's back. “She is, yes, but she cannot hope to defeat so many. Mors will drown her in rebellious diggers if she resists.”
“She will resist.”
In the center of the moving mass of Hestites strode Mors and Vvelz. Those ahead broke down walls and fences so the blind elf could go forth unimpeded. He maintained a tight grip on Vvelz's hand. The sorcerer did not complain.
Behind Mors, four diggers carried the unconscious form of Ro Karn. Vvelz had stopped his bleeding and closed his wound with the healing spell, but the shock and damage of the arrow was still there. Riverwind and Catchflea followed behind the elves carrying Karn, and trotting at the tall plainsman's side was Di An.
The crowd stopped only once. A canal was cut in the stone floor of the cavern, watering the wheat fields at the base of the city terraces. There were two broad stone bridges across the canal, and these were blocked by hastily assembled contingents of the Host. The Blue Sky People milled about, uncertain whether to charge the bridges. Mors, Vvelz, the plainsmen, and Di An gradually worked their way to the front of the crowd.
“Who is that?” Mors called.
A soldier with a golden sun riveted to the front of his helmet replied, “Hail, Ro Mors!”
“Quarl? Is that you?”
“It is, Ro Mors.”
“Stand aside, Quarl. You cannot stop us.”
“I have my orders,” the warrior called back.
Mors turned away from the bridge. “Take the bridges,” he said loudly. Armed diggers closed in, swords and spears flashing by the brazen sun's light.
Quarl advanced his thirty warriors to the center of the bridge. Along the banks of the canal, diggers began slipping into the sluggish water and wading across. Smoke obscured the second bridge, but the clatter of arms reached his ears, telling Riverwind the battle there was joined.
The Blue Sky diggers moved cautiously. It was one thing to ambush warriors in open country, hampering them with pepper and flying rocks. But to meet them face to face in the confines of a bridge, sword to sword-they went forward slowly indeed. The warriors behind Quarl grew impatient and shouted taunts.
A blast of hard wind swept over the bridge, swirling smoke in the diggers' eyes. Vvelz snatched his hand from Mors's grasp. “Lie down and cover your heads!” he shouted.
“What are you babbling about?” Mors demanded.
“Li El-!”
The dull boom of thunder rolled down the cavern. Ripple patterns appeared on the canal's surface. The wading diggers cried out as the water surged forward, rising in a wave twice their height. A smoke whirlwind formed over Var-toom. The Blue Sky People screamed and fell to their knees, covering their heads with their hands. Soon, out of a crowd of thousands, only Mors and Riverwind were left standing.
“Rage on, Li El!” Mors roared. “See if you can blow me away!”
Hardly had he spoken when the ground beneath his feet started to shake. On the bridge, warriors and diggers alike forgot their fight and stampeded to safety. The whirlwind engulfed the warriors on the far side of the bridge. They were lifted shrieking into the air. Li El was savaging her own troops.
The diggers on the bridge almost made it to safety. When they were only a few steps from solid ground, the bridge pavement between them and the shore cracked and collapsed into the canal. The diggers wavered on the edge of the drop until the whirlwind rolled up behind them. Panicking, they leaped into the churning water and were carried away.
Riverwind tried to shield his face with his arms, but smoke and flying grit stung his eyes. He fought his way through the cowering Hestites to Vvelz and dragged the sorcerer to his feet. “Do something!” Riverwind shouted. “Stop her, or we'll all be finished!”
“I can't,” Vvelz wailed. “She's too strong!”
Riverwind shook the terrified elf and bellowed, “Try, damn you!”
He set Vvelz on his feet. Silver hair flying in the wind, the sorcerer shakily extended his hands. He cried, “Attend what you hear!” His words echoed in the plainsman's head, even over the thunder of the whirlwind.
Vvelz incanted: “Storms and shakings of the ground, begone! Smoke and vile vapors, depart! All is order, all is calm! Attend what you hear!”
The funnel cloud actually retreated, and the maelstrom in the canal subsided. Riverwind shouted encouragement to the sorcerer. Sweat popped out on Vvelz's face. Tremors racked his body. He clenched his thin fingers into fists.
“Obey the balance of nature! Disperse, you creations of an evil mind! You cannot exist any longer. Begone! Begone! Begone!”
The whirlwind shrank to a narrow, writhing column of dense black smoke. The canal lost its wild fury and lapped slowly around the fallen stones of the bridge-and the bodies of drowned diggers.
Vvelz turned to Riverwind and Mors. His eyes were huge in his face. Astonishment shone from his face. “She is beaten!” he whispered. His face flushed with joy. “I have defeated my sister at last!”
Even as he spoke, the black coil of smoke swooped down like a monstrous tentacle and seized Vvelz. It wrapped around him three times and hoisted him kicking and crying into the air. Instinctively Riverwind leaped at the smoky coil, trying to save the sorcerer. His bound hands passed through it and were stained black with soot. He
