The emir gave his shield to Talon, and cried, 'Get the babe to shelter!'
Then, mindless of the danger to himself, he stopped and began to drag the old man as best he could. War dogs swarmed around the emir curiously, sniffing at blood, looking fierce with their blood-red leather masks and spiked collars. The dogs sniffed at the old man, but a few hailstones convinced them to abandon him and race for shelter in the trees.
'Hurry!' the emir cried to the refugees who scurried past him, but the refugees were already running as fast as they could.
Talon jogged forward with the shield held high, sheltering the mother.
Up ahead, the first of the warriors reached the tree line and raced under the branches, leading in the women and children, then sprinted back with shields held high to gather other refugees.
Lightning boomed and the earth shook. Rain began to fall among the hail, slashing like knives.
Balls of frozen ice struck Talon in the back, and one shattered against her shoulder. She cursed at the pain and ushered her charge under the trees, panting and wet.
Under the pines, it was as dark as night and as still as a tomb. The smell of leaf mold was overwhelming, and huge yellow mushrooms, like misshapen heads, dotted the forest floor.
Talon turned to see if anyone else needed her help, and saw hundreds of men of the war clan bringing people in, including ten dozen folk that had to be dragged or carried.
The emir carried the old man under the pine and laid him down on a soft bed of pine needles. Then he grabbed the shield from Talon and raced back out into the storm.
The Wizard Sisel had the poor folks laid just beneath the great pine, and there he bent over the injured, treating them as best he could.
In green robes that looked more like roots that had grown together than any cloth spun by human hands, the wizard looked like some strange fungus.
Racing out into the storm, the emir found a child, a young boy crying and bloodied from hail, and raised his shield above the lad and brought him in.
By the time he returned, nearly everyone was under the shelter of the tree. Dozens lay on beds of fir needles, dead.
Talon stood with her mouth agape, amazed to see that even a couple of minutes in a summer storm here could be so devastating.
She knelt beside the emir and studied the young boy. He was still breathing fine, but the child stared at the dead in shock. The emir spoke to him, gently calling out, until the boy was able to focus once again. But still the boy sat in a daze.
'Where is your mother, boy?' the emir asked. The child looked to be no more than six or seven years old. He had curly blond hair, and deep brown eyes. He had the strong features of one of the warrior caste.
'Gone,' the child said, eyes growing wide.
'Gone where?'
'I don t know. She s been gone for two days. My da went off to fight the wyrmlings, and he didn t come back either.'
Talon considered. The child s mother must have disappeared when the worlds were bound. If she had merged with her shadow self, there was no telling how many hundreds or thousands of miles away she might be. At this very moment, she was probably teary-eyed and desperate to get home.
Like my own father, she told herself. Sir Borenson would be desperate to reach her.
As for the boy s father? Well, there were plenty of corpses along the outer walls of Caer Luciare.
'Tell you what,' the emir offered. 'I ll be your big brother for a while. I can take care of you. Are you hungry?'
The child knew better than to talk to strangers. He hesitated for a long moment, then admitted that he was hungry. The emir offered him some cheese from his pack.
The Wizard Sisel came to their aid, stood over the child for a moment, then reached into the pocket of his robe and pulled out a handful of moss, which he used as a compress to stop the boy s bleeding.
In the gloom under the trees, Daylan raced ahead, calling, 'Quickly now! Quickly-everyone into the cave!'
Talon could see nothing ahead but blackness, no sign of a cave. Still, she got up and followed the sound of moving feet, until suddenly a brilliant light shone out up ahead.
Up on the hill, between the boles of two vast pine trees, Daylan stood holding a star in his hand. Its brilliant light cut through the shadows, revealing a sanctum here among the woods.
He stood beside the boles of twin pines that seemed almost to grow out of the same root. Each bole was hundreds of feet in diameter. Carved into each tree was the face of a man, with solemn eyes and a serene expression. Leaves of oak stood in place of his hair and beard.
It was an ancient symbol, and feared among the folk of Luciare. But on Talon s world it was a welcome sign. It was the face of the Wode King.
The carved faces on each bole seemed to peer inward, and each hovered above Daylan, dwarfing him, for each of the images was sixty feet tall.
But the Wode King did not seem frightening on this world. Instead, Talon felt comforted by the images, as if they exuded an aura of tranquility.
Daylan pushed on an outcropping of jagged gray stone, and suddenly a hidden door swung in, revealing a large round hole, like a burrow, tall enough for a man to walk through.
Daylan stood at the door, shouting, 'Quickly! Get inside. It is safe in here, for the time being. And you don t want to be caught out in the dark.'
Talon did not know what might be found in the night. Strengi-saats, Darkling Glories. Those creatures she had heard of. But Daylan spoke in terror, as if worse things might prowl the edges of these meadows.
But no one moved forward, for the tunnel ahead was dark.
'What is this place?' the Emir Tuul Ra asked.
He peered into the hole cautiously, his daughter Siyaddah at his back.
'It s a sanctuary,' Daylan said, 'long abandoned. Once it housed many folk, and was a joyous place. It should be large enough to shelter the whole company. There is fresh water below, fed by underground streams. You may bathe there, and drink. You will find it quite pleasant. Make yourselves comfortable-
'But first, send some warriors down if you must. I suppose that it would be wise to make sure that nothing… unpleasant has found its way in.'
At that, bark suddenly stripped from the trees and three men appeared from the shadows at Daylan s back, striding into view. Their skin and faces were bark for a second, but smoothed in the space of a heartbeat, as if they were trees turning into people.
Each of them was perfect in his way. One man had hair of yellow as gold as sunlight, and another had hair of red, while the third had long tresses of hair like spun silver. They were of different heights and builds, yet each was handsome beyond words, and each stood boldly, eyes shining as with inner wisdom. Each of the men bore a staff of golden wood, and they stood, barring the entrance.
Bright Ones, Talon realized. These were perfect men.
One of them spoke in a strange tongue, and the words smote Talon, for they seemed to penetrate her mind, and she understood him as if he spoke her own tongue.
'Daylan Hammer,' the tallest of the three said, a man with long silvery locks who wore a doublet in colors hard to define-gray as charcoal, it seemed, but it flashed green when he moved. 'What have you done?'
Daylan turned to the three. 'So, the sanctuary is not as empty as I had hoped.'
A Bright One said, 'Daylan, you were banished from our world. It is only out of respect for what you once were that I do not destroy you now!'
Daylan said, 'My life is mine to keep or spend. You cannot take it from me, Lord Erringale.'
Erringale, the leader, was a man of stern features. He looked to be elderly, but in an indefinable way. His body seemed young and strong, as if he were only in his mid-forties, but his face was lined with care and creased with worried wrinkles, so that he looked as if he might be sixty or even seventy. But it was his eyes that revealed his true age. There was a wisdom in them that was vast and indeterminable, and there was the sadness in them that can only come from someone who has seen far, far too much death.
