"I thought of that. I think a little change in appearance would not hurt."
"A disguise?"
"Nothing so obvious. Just a little alteration. Even eight years ago my hair was long and gray. People would remember something like that. So I'll try shorter and lighter." She dug into her pack for a small packet she had thrown in at the last moment. "Camomile and basil," she chuckled, throwing the packet into a pot of water she had heating on her small fire. "Camomile to lighten the gray. Basil to add body and shine. If it does nothing else, it'll make me smell like a salad."
By the light of the tiny fire, she used her dagger to cut off her silver braid just above her shoulders. She tried not to sigh as she tossed the braid on the fire. Her thick, full hair had been a source of quiet pride for years and had not been cut since Steel was a boy, before her brown tresses turned prematurely gray.
She washed her hair in creek water with a sliver of soap and rinsed it several times in the infusion of camomile and basil. While it dried, she ate a quick meal, packed her gear on Cobalt, and buried her fire.
The dragon curled his neck around to look at her critically in the dim starlight. "You look different. Younger. Your hair is curly."
"It is?" Sara's hand flew to her newly shorn hair. To her surprise, she felt waves in her hair-nothing like corkscrews, but there were definitely soft curls that had been released from the weight of the long braid. She tied it back behind her head with a strip of leather and grinned. "I should have done this sooner."
On the skirts of a west wind, they crossed over the mountains and flew westward above the night-dark lands of Elkholm. They passed over the Vingaard River and into Heartlund, and at dawn they sought shelter in a strip of forest not far from the edges of the Dargaard Mountains. In the dense woodland, they spent the day resting and poring over Sara's map and planning their approach to Neraka.
Since she did not know what to expect, Sara left many of their decisions as open as possible. She did not want to commit themselves to a plan that could prove untenable the moment they laid eyes on the city. "Whatever happens," she told Cobalt, "just follow my lead."
After nightfall, Cobalt flew Sara over the edge of the grasslands into the hills and the desolate Khalkist Mountains of the old Taman Busuk. The mountain peaks rose like a series of ragged saw blades interspersed with wide valleys of grassy wasteland. Snow robed the summits and lay thick along the gray-black granite slopes. A powerful wind swirled among the peaks and set plumes of ghostly white trailing from their crowns.
To rise safely over the mountains, Cobalt had to fight against the icy winds that threatened to send him tumbling sideways or sweep him into a cliff wall. He stretched out his long neck and blunt tail, and strained with all his strength to keep his wings moving and his direction true. He did not want to be swept off course if he could help it.
Sara clung to his back and tried to keep her cloak tightly wrapped around her. She was very thankful for the leather boots and flying gloves that kept her feet and hands from freezing.
Both of them breathed a sigh of relief when they reached a valley and could fly lower into the warmer, quieter air.
They flew over three distinct splintered ranges before they reached the dense heart of the Khalkists, where the volcanoes steamed like sleeping giants and the valleys disappeared entirely. Below Cobalt's wings, as far as Sara could see, stretched a vast, bleak realm of barren peaks and stony ridges.
She shivered as much from the cold as the bleakness of the land beneath. Although she had never been near Neraka, she had heard descriptions of it from other knights at Storm's Keep. Yet that did not prepare her for the harsh, almost cruel character of the landscape surrounding the city.
I shouldn't be surprised, she thought. The city was founded by Queen Takhisis and had been the location of the Temple of Darkness. It seemed only fitting the Dark Queen would choose a place in the midst of a massive natural stone fortress.
Sara grimly held on to the horn of her saddle. She forced her mind to tramp down any tendrils of fear that tried to grow. Cobalt was close to Neraka, if her map was right, and she needed to stay alert.
Daylight glimmered on the eastern horizon when Cobalt spotted pinpoints of light on the ground far ahead. He dropped lower in altitude and skimmed along the flanks of the mountains toward the lights. They skirted a smoking volcano, turned south slightly, and glided to a landing on the top of a tall, steep-sided ridge in the highlands north of the city. In the shelter of a rock outcropping, they looked down into the basin of Neraka and watched silently while the rising sun brought the city of the Knights of Takhisis to life.
At first there was nothing to see but the city's torches and lamps clustered around the central fortress. The rest of the valley was shrouded in dense darkness. Little by little, though, the sky grew brighter and shed its pale gleam on buildings, walls, tents, and barracks. Details became clearer; colors returned. The mountain's shadow still loomed over the valley, but slowly the shade retreated as the sun rose higher.
Sara took a long, contemplative look and thought the city looked better in the darkness. The opal light of dawn could do nothing to improve the scene below.
The city of Neraka had sprung up in a wide, flat basin that reminded Sara of a piece of old, worn crockery. The valley floor was brown and barren, cracked with fissures, and any trees that may have grown on the floor or on the slopes were long gone, cut down to fuel the endless fires that burned within the city. Around the bowl loomed massive volcanic peaks that steamed and smoked and added their own fumes to the pall that hung over the city.
The city itself consisted of three main areas, one within the other, like concentric rings. In the center was the heart of Neraka, the fortified inner keep that sheltered within its confines a large open square. In the square was a crater, a deep black hole that at one time had been the foundation of a huge building. Nothing reflected off its black emptiness, and no amount of sunlight could enhance the evil gloom that hunkered over the sunken stone.
Sara knew without asking that the ruin was the Temple of Darkness, destroyed by the forces of good nearly thirty-five years before.
Outside the inner keep was the inner bailey, crowded with buildings of all descriptions. A second, higher wall, strengthened with massive watchtowers, surrounded this part of the inner city, and at its base was the outer bailey, This, too, was jammed with buildings and streets, stables and markets. Even in the early morning hours, the streets crawled with activity.
Outside the walls was the second ring of the city proper, if "proper" was a term that could be applied to the warren of brothels, bars, shops, slave pens, huts, and hovels that clung close to the fortress walls like so much fungus.
The last ring of Neraka belonged to the Knights of Takhisis and was shaped by orderly sections of barracks and tents arranged in a circle around the city. The area looked frightfully organized and busy with troops hurrying back and forth. The wall of tents reminded Sara not so much of an organized military establishment as a prison wall meant to keep inhabitants of the city in and intruders out.
Guards marched everywhere, on the fortress battlements, at the gates, in the busy streets, around the tent quarters. She could see sunlight glint off their weapons and armor and hear the distant echo of their horns. A dozen dragons, mostly blues, flew lazy circles over the valley floor, keeping a close watch on the four roads that led into the city.
Apparently the Knights of Takhisis had already built up a sizable force in the three short years they had occupied the land around Neraka. The thought made Sara shudder.