provided her with Caladnei and her equally stubborn superior, Hhormun, two fools who seemed to believe that riding camels and wearing abas was all that was required to disguise a company of fair-skinned Cormyreans as a Bedine khowwan. Had she not known that Alusair was preparing to launch a surprise teleport-attack from a secret base in Tilverton, she would have sworn the wizards wanted the Shadovar to notice them.
After a few moments, Caladnei said, 'Very well, Sheikh, but you will take us to Shade, no matter how the raid comes out' She started to back down the dusty slope.
'If you keep your promise, I will keep mine.' Sa'ar crawled down beside her, then spit in his palm and offered it to her. 'It is a bargain.' Caladnei spit in her own hand.
'You are sure Hhormun will agree?' Ruha asked, sliding down to join the pair before they clasped hands. 'The bargain is yours if you make it.'
Caladnei clasped the sheikh's hand. 'Hhormun will follow me in this.'
Ruha was not so sure. Old and portly though he was, Hhormun had proven surprisingly energetic in directing the activities of the company, from picking campsites to dictating the pace of the daily marches. When they reached the bottom of the ridge, however, he surprised her by not protesting at all and even allowing Sa'ar to plan the raid.
A few minutes later, Ruha, Caladnei, the sheikh and a dozen of his men were rubbing themselves and the Mahwa tribe's strongest camels in veserab dung, collected by the warriors a few days earlier for just that purpose.
'You're sure this is necessary?' Caladnei asked, wrinkling her nose at the awful stench of the stuff. 'I'm sure someone in the company has a spell that could eliminate our smell.'
'It is not enough to eliminate our own odor,' Sa'ar said. 'We must smell like what we want. It pleases the little gods.'
'And puts our camels at ease,' Ruha added, explaining in terms Caladnei would understand more readily. 'If they think the smell is ours instead of the veserabs, they will cause less trouble as we approach.'
'Less trouble?' Caladnei grumbled. 'I suppose none would be too much to ask for.'
They waited until a lookout signaled that the veserabs had come out of the water to rest for the evening, then Hhormun used his magic to render the entire raiding party invisible, while Ruha and Caladnei used their own magic to cast a pall of silence over the group. Though the Mahwa had been part of the coalition that relied on Ruha's magic to destroy the Zhentarim army at Orofin, that had been many years earlier, and even the sheikh's stern glower could not keep the men from grumbling and cringing as the spells were cast over them.
Finally, the raiding party circled around to the downwind side of the ridge and-with the aid of yet more magic-crept out onto the lakeshore. The nearest veserabs were only a few hundred paces away, mostly solitary bulls so cranky and strong that the Shadovar herders left them to stand guard at the edges of the flight, trusting that the creatures' instincts would make them follow when the rest were moved. Ruha, who was leading the raid by virtue of being the only person present with any experience at all handling veserabs, picked a serpentine course around the beasts, giving them as wide a berth as possible.
Once, when they entered an area of tall marsh grass, a nearby bull flared its wings and started over to investigate. Sa'ar released a sand grouse he had brought along as a diversion, and the bird burst skyward with such a riot of flapping wings and terrified screeching that it drew three veserabs into the air after it. Ruha made good use of the distraction, leading the party to within twenty paces of the three Shadovar herders camped on that side of the flight
A tug on a guideline attached to her waist brought her to a stop. Several moments later, ten fist-sized sling stones appeared in the darkening sky and rained down on the sentries. Two fell unconscious. By the time the third made enough sense of the assault to turn and see the raiding party-rendered visible when they attacked-galloping toward him on their camels, two warriors were already clubbing him senseless. Bruised as the young herder might be when he awoke, Ruha took the fact that the warriors used the butts of their lances instead of the tips as a sign of Sa'ar's concern about angering the Shadovar. Bedine raiders usually killed the sentries, so there would be that many fewer warriors available for the counter raid.
The sheikh and his other warriors were already charging into the flight of resting veserabs, hurling loops of braided rope around the necks of the smallest beasts and securing the other ends to their saddles. Most of them were coughing and reeling, struggling to stay on their mounts as the veserabs filled the air with their noxious fumes. Ruha cleared the air with a powerful wind spell, then saw an angry veserab cow leap onto a camel's neck and rip the thing's head off with four sharp-taloned feet.
More veserabs began to rise all around, filling the dusk air with fluttering clouds of dark wings. Most were simply trying to escape, but a few, especially those with calves whistling for help, were beginning to wheel toward the Bedine warriors. A veserab dived low in front of Sa'ar, pulling a grizzled warrior off the camel ahead, then dropping him back to the ground in pieces. Ruha dismissed the silence spell and pointed toward the wadi they had chosen as their escape route. 'Enough, Sa'ar!' she yelled. 'Flee!'
The sheikh did not need to be told twice. He sounded three notes on his amarat. His warriors-those who were not fleeing already-turned as one, each pulling two or three panicked veserab calves through the air behind them. Ruha hurled a flurry of magic bolts into the air and dusted half a dozen adults off the raiders' tails, then Caladnei raised a force barrier behind them. A dozen veserabs slammed into the invisible wall and dropped to the ground with broken necks and wings. The confused survivors circled away, whistling in frustration and sorrow.
Ruha and Caladnei followed. By the time they reached the mouth of the wadi, the veserabs were beginning to find their way over the force barrier. Ruha leaped off her camel and scraped up a handful of sand, then voiced an incantation and blew it toward the growing number of creatures streaming after them. A howling wind rose at her back and, scraping the canyon mouth clean of sand and dust, roared out toward the lake. The veserabs vanished into a cloud of swirling dust and did not emerge.
'Your magic has grown stronger, witch,' Sa'ar observed behind her. 'Remind me to be patient with you.'
Ruha turned to find him holding the reins of her camel. The rest of his warriors were emerging from their hiding places in the mouth of the wadi, half of them covering the raiders' back trail with bows and arrows, the other half pulling the captured veserabs down out of the air and binding them with leather hoods and wing jackets. Though most Bedine were adept at handling falcons and other birds of prey, veserab calves were both larger and more ferocious. The battle was not all that one-sided, and the warriors were paying in blood for every lace they threaded.
Ruha commanded her camel to kneel, then, as she mounted, heard one roar a little way up the wadi. She pivoted toward the sound and saw a line of tethered mounts collapsing, their throats and bellies being opened by glassy black blades as a Shadovar patrol peeled itself out of the shadows along the gulch. She loosed a lightning bolt at a figure rising up behind Sa'ar's camel and saw the fellow's head come apart before he sank back into the murk. Caladnei cried out in shock behind her, and Ruha turned to find the Cormyrean on the ground, pinned beneath her wounded camel with a ruby-eyed Shadovar warrior leaping over the top. She flung a ball of spider silk at the figure and uttered a spell, and he hit the ground encased in a sticky cocoon.
Finally, there was time to scream, 'Shadovar! Defend yourselves!'
Even Ruha could barely hear her voice over the battle din that had already risen in the wadi. Bedine were shouting to each other about demons and djinn and, finding attackers at their backs no matter which way they turned, falling fast. The Shadovar were rising from the shadows to hack off an arm or leg, then vanishing back into the murk before they could be counterattacked.
Ruha grabbed Caladnei under the arms and pulled her from under her camel. 'Are you hurt?'
'Stunned,' the wizard replied, mouth gaping at the carnage. She lowered her hand and sent a golden bolt streaking through a Shadovar rising behind Ruha, then shook her head in astonishment. 'Where did they come from?' 'Out of the shadows,' Ruha said.
She slipped around to Caladnei's back and shot a long stream of fire at a Shadovar rising behind a Bedine camel boy, no doubt holding reins on his first raid. The fireball exploded without harming the shadow warrior, as Weave magic sometimes did, and the dark figure ran his sword through the young warrior, then melted back into the shadows. 'This is how it often is with them,' Ruha said.
'Really?' Caladnei gasped. She was silent for an instant, and Ruha glanced over her shoulder to see the wizard rubbing the purple dragon on her signet ring. 'Hhormun, come quick. You need to see this!' 'Come?' Ruha
