The Arroden dropped his crossbow and defended himself with his sword, and before he died the man managed to keep Gord occupied long enough to enable another and then another of his tribesmen to join in the melee.
Even as this occurred, the escaping Yoli saw that not only were their enemies caught totally unaware, but that the Arroden were not nearly as many in number as they had made themselves seem to be. This knowledge offered the Bakluni fighters an opportunity to revenge themselves upon their hated foes. Spread out as they were, the Arroden would find it hard to regroup to counter the nucleus of warriors who had just broken through the encirclement and were now ready to fight ferociously again. While the noncombatants among their number rode pell-mell to escape, the warriors of Yoli began to fan out along each side of the broken circle, riding down upon their dismounted enemies and trampling and stabbing as they went.
As the sound of hooves came toward him, Gord disengaged from the two Arroden who fought him and darted away from the scene. A half-dozen mounted Yoli descended upon the place where he had been but a moment before. The two veiled warriors managed to unseat one of the Yollites, but they lived only long enough to see him trampled beneath the hooves of his cohorts' mounts.
All of the Arroden now knew what was happening, and many of them had regained their own mounts and begun to form into groups. The fight was far from over, and it was anyone's guess as to what the final outcome would be, but Gord had no interest now. It was time for him to forget about thoughts of revenge, to get clear of the confused battle and ride away. He had no trouble getting back to the spot where he had left Windeater. Gord mounted the steed and rode off, heading along a route that angled away from the direct line of escape that most of the fleeing Yoli noncombatants had taken. He could not avoid the flight of these dozens of people entirely, for they had fanned out once they were away from the Arroden circle and were heading in many different directions at once.
Gord hadn't gone far when he saw the shape of a fallen horse outlined against the lighter-colored ground ahead of him. Farther in the distance he heard the sound of several other horses, camels, and shouting riders heading away from where the fallen animal lay. The sound of steel on steel rang out intermittently from this cluster, and Gord assumed that some of the Arroden had broken off from the main battle to chase down the Yollites who were riding away. He slowed Windeater's pace; he saw no sense in coming too close to the fighting at this point. The frenzy of killing had left him now, and Gord felt disgusted, nauseated, and exhausted. He was drained of emotion and strength, and what he wanted most now was a place where he could rest and regain his energy.
As he came within about twenty yards of the fallen horse, a high-pitched but tentative cry rang out: 'Help!' Gord reined Windeater to a halt and peered intently toward the horse, able to see it at this distance as if the dark night were brightened by both of Oerth's moons in full splendor. He spied a heavily robed, slender figure lying on the ground beside the horse. Or was it partially beneath the animal? His vision of the form was somewhat obscured from this vantage point. He edged Windeater closer, circling to get a better view, and cautiously drew his dagger just before he identified exactly what was before his eyes. The animal was indeed dead, seemingly from a wound suffered in combat, and the figure was a woman with one of her legs pinned beneath its body. Evidently, she had been unable to free her foot from the stirrup in time when the steed collapsed and died.
'You are not going to hurt me,' the woman said groggily, phrasing the question more like a statement. Then, in a more panicky tone, she continued, 'How did I get like this? Who are you?' It was obvious to Gord that the woman was not seriously injured, but she was disoriented and puzzled.
'I am neither friend nor foe, just one who is glad to be done with fighting,' said Gord in response, trying to put reassurance into his voice.
'Will you please help? My leg is trapped!' she said, a tinge of panic creeping into the statement. 'Aid me, and I will see that you are rewarded!'
'No need for a reward, lady,' Gord replied, dismounting and walking to her. 'I will free you, and then we will both be gone from this charnel place.'
Chapter 8
Long, long ago two great empires fought a war of mutual annihilation. One empire, the Baklunish, was fractured and made backwards, and the land of this race was turned arid and poor. To this day, the Bakluni are not a nation any more, but a collection of tribes that contest with each other for the dubious privilege of controlling the harsh, featureless lands of the western part of the Flanaess.
The people of the second empire, however, suffered even more when the Bakluni retaliatory strike came. Their fair land was scathed by a magically created storm of fire — colorless flames that consumed all life. When all was done, virtually all of the once-mighty second empire, known as the Suloise, was covered in a layer of dust and fine ashes. Gray and lifeless, wind-driven and parched, this covering of ruin blanketed the land for a thousand and more miles in every direction from its center. Indeed, it stretched like water across the landscape, and the area became known around the continent of Oerik as the Ashen Desert. When the Invisible Firestorm finally ended, all who viewed this seemingly endless vista of dust and ash, a gray-black desert born of destruction, assumed that nothing could live in such a place. Of course, they were quite mistaken.
The dweomercraefters of the decimated Suloise empire were so accomplished in the magical arts that they were able to shield their capital city from the fiery storm before it fell. For a time, at least, life continued in this metropolis, buried beneath a hundred and more feet of dust. A few of the other major cities of Suel managed to prevent the ravages of the colorless fire from fully affecting them, and there were isolated strongholds of powerful magi and priests that persevered despite the devastation. The ash and dust covered so much of the landscape, though, that the blanketing might as well have been complete. To make matters worse, volcanoes born out of the upheaval erupted, adding even more flakes and grains to that which was already there, and great storms drove and shaped the whole mass. One after another the Suloise outposts of survival were smothered and buried as years became decades, decades centuries.
But life is persistent, especially on those worlds where the mutable laws of magic take precedence over the immutable laws of science. As humans died, other forms of life discovered the Ashen Desert and found it desirable. At the same time, certain living things that had somehow managed to survive the destruction that had fallen upon their land adapted and mutated to survive in the new environment. Monstrous, single-celled amoeboid creatures flowed under the dust and ashes, feeding on the residue of the fire and leaving traces of matter and moisture for other, tiny organisms to thrive upon. Giant, multicelled clusters, colony animals, fed on silicates and carboniferous materials, returning the favor by depositing as waste other sorts of minerals that smaller life forms found beneficial.
After these lower creatures prepared the way, monstrous things grew up in the domain that the amoeboids and colony growths had dominated. Various types of slugs, all of them small at first, found that they had no enemies beneath the layers and layers of dust and ash, and they thrived on the growth that had sprung up there. These slugs got much larger, but the biggest of them was still no larger than an average man. Then they burrowed even farther down and found the springs and bubbling wells that still flowed deep, deep under the dust. By feeding in such places, engorging themselves with water, the slugs became more and more gigantic, and they made still other life possible.
Because of their size, and as was their nature, the slugs moved with the aid of trails of mucous, which they secreted from all around the exterior of their bodies. This slime, once exuded, hardened quickly. The less massive slugs left small tunnels through the ash and dust, and the big ones left comparably large passages. A network of twisting, turning, pipe-like burrows grew beneath the Ashen Desert. These passages generally led from one water source to another. Eventually, old tunnels collapsed. Some were destroyed by the passage of larger slugs, others by the still-surviving amoeboids and colony monsters — puddings, as their relatives elsewhere were referred to — and many fell due to pressure caused by the growth of vegetation beneath and through the dust. While all this was going on, new passages were being made continually anyway, so the change was hardly noticed — and certainly was not perceived as such by the nonintelligent creatures that spent all their lives in this strange and forbidding domain.
Plants are hardy, and some survived the destruction to grow anew. Seeds sent roots deep beneath the surface, seeking the moisture that still lay there, and thrust stems and tendrils up through ash and dust, seeking sunlight. Where tens or hundreds of feet of the stuff covered it, the vegetation failed. But in a few places, only a
