The compact cloud of the nun's vaporous being went swirling into the bushes that hid Moriana, lending an almost imperceptible rosy glow to branches, leaves and the bole of a tai by the princess's elbow.
Never fear, my child, came Ziore's familiar thought pattern. I've learned a few things since meeting you. 'What are you doing?' whispered Moriana. Trying to control the leader's emotions, came the mental reply. I can read his intentions clearly enough. He means to hide his men in the reeds by the river and wait until you try to cross the open space. 'Can you control him at such a distance?'
My powers grow greater with use. I think I can. Now hush and let me concentrate.
Flashing the shadow of a wry smile at the thought of being reproved by the cloistered, innocent spirit, Moriana lapsed into silence. Straining her every sense, the princess detected small, furtive sounds of the forest, little creatures scurrying from cover to cover or digging holes against the coming of night and predators. She felt a definite kinship with the tiny, hunted woods beasts.
So acute was her hearing that she heard the slow rise and fall of Stormcloud's breath ten yards away. She heard the wind whispering above the murmur of the river, heard the mighty throb of distant wings, heard now and then a scrap of human voice as the riders called to each other. The squadron turned slowly above the south-eastern bank of the Marchant looking for a likely place to land and lie in ambush without the necessity of remaining airborne for long, tiring hours.
They've seen no sign of us since immediately after the battle, Ziore said in Moriana's mind. I'll try to convince the leader that we've passed long since, or crossed by another route.
Moriana nodded. She watched the flyers through several more of their aerial circuits. One dropped out of formation, his bird's claws stretching down to seize the earth. Another rapped a command at him so sharply that the sound came clearly to Moriana's ears, though she couldn't understand its sense. The meaning became clear soon enough: the landing bird hammered the air with its spread wings and soared again, tucking its talons up against its pale belly feathers.
A bird rider peeled from the formation and arrowed his bird straight at Moriana's hiding place. Moriana caught her breath. Had her sister protected these men with a spell that allowed them to sense magical tampering with their senses? Was it possible they detected Ziore's subtle compulsions and now homed in on the source? Synalon and the sorcerors of the Sky City were cunning and knowledgeable. Moriana alone knew of the long hours of arcane studies her sister had devoted to such matters. But the lead eagle rose quickly, the others rolling into a long line after it, climbing toward the heights of the southern sky. They were a thousand feet up when they passed overhead and vanished from Moriana's view in the treetops.
A long sigh gusted from Moriana's lips. A branch tickled one cheek and she brushed it away. Still cautious, she rose from the bushes.
A moment later the foliage stirred off to her left and latic Stormcloud rose from his own cover, as silently as she. His eyes widened as he looked past her. Stormcloud blinked at the sight. Moriana – turned to see Ziore's form hovering at her side.
'I take it we owe your familiar thanks for the warning,' the mercenary captain said, jerking his head in the direction the departing bird riders had taken. 'Yes, but she's not my familiar. Ziore is my friend.' Stormcloud nodded polite acknowledgement at her emphasis.
'I was able to control the emotions of their leader,' Ziore explained aloud.
Moriana looked sharply at her spirit friend. Was the flush of success rendering the shade too talkative? Then she relaxed. If she couldn't trust Stormcloud with the knowledge of the genie's power, there was no one left she could trust. Not unless Darl came out of his damned self-hating fog.
'That could prove handy,' said Stormcloud, eyeing the pink figure appraisingly.
'Yes,' Moriana agreed curtly. Tugging down the hem of her skirt, she walked past him into the woods, aware of the man's eyes on her all the while.
CHAPTER THREE
Preoccupied, Prince Rann Etuul walked along a back street of Bilsinx, his stride eating up a surprising length of ground for one so short. Bulbous towers loomed on either side of the cobblestoned street, and in the distance in front of him rose tall minarets. Pale, drawn faces peered out at him through glass rippled with age and purpled by the sun. He gave them no more attention than he gave his surroundings. All his thoughts centered on the great gray oval of the City in the Sky floating a thousand feet above his head, drifting to the east like an immense stone cloud.
He similarly paid little attention to his companions, the three armed men in black and purple swaggering in a loose wedge before him and the thin and pimply adolescent mage who trotted behind. Hard-pressed to keep up with his prince despite longer legs, the young wizard Maguerr half stumbled and half ran while managing to stroke a wisp of ginger-colored beard and cradle a geode the size of a human head against his hollow chest.
Rann hummed a wordless tune as he walked and thought. The events of the past few days amounted to nothing more than history for him now. Past glory faded with the promise of future triumphs. His destiny, the destiny of Queen Synalon, the destiny of the City in the Sky lay to the east.
East. The City in the Sky, by some process forgotten even before men wrested control of it from the reptilian Hissers who had built it, could have picked one of three directions to move after it floated into Bilsinx from the west. From the central city of the Great Quincunx, the pattern it had followed immutably over the center of the Realm since Felarod had confined it after the War of the Powers, the Sky City could have gone north to Wirix, south to Brev, or east to Kara-Est. Brev was the smallest of the Quincunx cities and had already made proper obeisance to Synalon. Wirix raged defiant and strong in the midst of Lake Wir, almost as remote from the land as the City itself. There would be little profit in conquering Wirix immediately.
The city that Synalon must subdue next was Kara-Est, richest seaport of the Realm, most powerful of all the five Quincunx cities. And it was toward Kara-Est that the City now headed.
On its last transit of Bilsinx, the Sky City had dropped a deadly rain of stones on the ground city's defenders, as bird riders wheeled down unleashing a steel-shod storm of arrows. An attack by the Highgrass Broad mercenaries had completed the defeat of Bilsinx, along with a commando attack on the Mayor's Palace by Sky Guardsmen under Rann's command. The city had fallen quickly under his brilliantly waged campaign and fighting prowess.
And more important than the fighting, the prince's honeyed words had soothed the anxieties and resentments of the subject Bilsinxt. They had even sent a body of their light cavalry to fight Moriana's army beside the very bird riders and heavy dog-mounted lancers and bowmen who had stormed their city. His diplomatic ways had turned a defeated enemy into a wary ally.
Now giant shapes grew in the large central plaza of Bilsinx like arcane fungi, turning into vast bloated sausages and rising upward toward the City silently floating overhead. Eagles harnessed to long, stout tethers guided the cargo balloons with a precision otherwise impossible. Time weighed heavily. Preparations for further battle occupied all of Rann's waking thoughts and even haunted his dreams.
He nodded in silent pride. Below the elongated shapes swung gondolas fairly straining with their cargoes of arrows, foodstuffs and a hundred other necessities in preparation for the coming battle of Kara-Est. Alone of all the Quincunx cities, to say nothing of the cities of the Sundered Realm, Kara-Est had substantial defenses against attack from the air. As it was the greatest prize of the Quincunx, so it would be the dearest won.