Secen nodded, his face pale under its tan.
The travelers were silent as they gazed about them in nervous curiosity. They had arrived at the plateau late the night before, but they had not tried to enter the city for fear of losing Branth’s trail in the dark. Now it was the dawn of a warm, breathless day, and Branth’s tracks led directly into the old ruin.
Just in front of the riders, the entrance lay open, its gates in pieces. A stone lion crouched nearby, cracked in two, resting on the rubble.
Piers studied the lion curiously. “I thought there used to be two,” he muttered. “The stories always mentioned a pair.”
Athlone took a deep breath. “Let’s go,” he called. Eurus, his ears pricked and his nostrils flared, walked warily into the city. The others came behind, keeping dose together as they passed the fallen lion and the piles of rubble at the gateway. The ruins closed in around them.
The party silently followed the tracks of Branth’s horse through weed-choked streets, around crumbling houses and wind-torn towers, past empty shops and decaying walls. Grass grew in every available chink, and piles of broken stone lay everywhere. Here and there a few fallen statues or shattered fountains could be seen in the ruins, attesting to the grandeur of the once-proud city.
Gabria was amazed by the remnants of beauty that still survived in the desolation. Moy Tura had not been a large city, even by the standards of two hundred years ago. It had been a close community of people dedicated to the art of sorcery. They had built what they thought was the greatest, most magnificent city in the known world.
That was the tragedy, Gabria thought to herself. All of their beauty, wisdom, and power had not protected their homes from the jealousy, greed, and anger of the outside world. The sorcerers who had lived here had been too isolated from their their kin. They had put themselves on a pedestal and had ignored the warning signs when the pedestal started to crack.
According to legend, the city was betrayed by a sorcerer, a bitter man who had told the clans of the secret ways into the city—ways that skirted Moy Tura’s deadly magical defenses. The man was, in turn, betrayed by a chieftain. He, along with all the other sorcerers, were massacred. It took the gathered clans only one day to destroy the city. For two hundred years it had lain, slowly sinking into dust, hidden behind a shroud of fear and terrifying legends.
Gabria’s thoughts were still on the past when Sayyed rode close beside her and drew her out of her reverie.
“I hope all the tales about this place aren’t true,” he said. His horse snorted at a rat that scurried past.
Gabria shivered and watched Treader chase the rat into a pile of stones. “So do I. There are some particularly nasty’ ones: ghosts, a guardian, a sorcerer’s curse, hidden traps for unwary looters, and evil beings that lurk in the city at night.”
“That guardian,” the Turic said, looking nervously around. “Even the Turic tell the story of Moy Tura’s guardian.”
“The Korg?” Piers said behind them. “No one has proven that it exists.”
“What’s the Korg supposed to be? Doesn’t that word mean lion?” Gabria asked.
“Yes, it was an ancient breed of large lions that once lived on the plains. That lion at the front gate was supposed to be a korg, one of two that guard the gates,” Piers explained. “But the guardian of the legends was a sorcerer originally—a shapechanger. He altered his shape to avoid the massacre and remained here after the city was destroyed. It is said he went mad and lost the power to revert to human form.”
Gabria thought of the desperate sorcerer and stared sadly over the ruins around her. Living here would drive anyone mad. Even in the sunlight the shattered city was bleak and desolate. So much wisdom gone to waste.
The riders fell quiet again. Their voices seemed jarring and unnatural in the dead city. It was better to ride in wordless haste and get through there as fast as possible.
Before long they found the remains of Branth’s night camp in an empty house. His tracks, still clear in the dust, continued from there deeper into the city.
The travelers were over halfway through the ruins when Nara and Eurus threw up their muzzles and tested the air.
Branth is close, the mare told Gabria, and so is something else. She sprang forward.
“What is it?” Gabria cried. All the horses broke into a canter along the road.
I do not know. It is strange. It is near Branth.
Treader suddenly erupted into a furious barking, Ahead! The man is close. He bolted into the arched entrance of a courtyard. The riders followed him at a run. They burst through one of four gateways into what had once been a spacious, stone-paved courtyard in front of a multi-columned temple. Now the court was full of debris and the temple was a pile of collapsed walls and shattered columns.
“There!” Athlone shouted, pointing toward a horse and rider in the shadow of the temple.
The rider glanced back at them in surprise, then he whipped his head around and stared at something in the temple ruins. His horse reared violently.
The travelers raced across the courtyard, led by Treader and those riding the Hunnuli. They saw Branth more clearly now. He was trying to regain control of his terrified horse. He savagely yanked its head around and whipped it forward into a frantic lunge just as a strange, fearsome beast sprang out from the fallen stones of the temple. A huge paw swiped at the horse’s rump and missed. Branth wheeled his horse around a pile of stones, screeched in triumph, and sent his mount bolting out of the courtyard through another gate.
Snarling with rage, the beast turned to face the oncoming riders. Its body was half again as large as a Hunnuli’s, but it had teeth like curved daggers and a great, tangled mane rumbling about its hideous face.
“The Korg!” Piers cried. “It’s the missing stone lion.”
Athlone reacted instantly. “Split up! Get out of here!”
The riders obeyed, for everyone could see that no weapon of theirs would make a dent on the stone flanks of the huge lion that faced them. They turned and rode desperately for the several gateways behind them. The beast roared in fury; its eyes glowed with an uncanny yellow light as it raced after the fleeing horses.
Before Gabria realized what he was doing, Sayyed slowed his horse and turned in the saddle. His hand raised, he fired a very pale blue bolt of Trymian Force at the lion. The feeble energy bounced off the beast’s face, stinging it into a greater frenzy. It leaped forward faster.
“Sayyed, get out of here!” Gabria screamed.
The Turic’s expression turned to horror, and he fled after the others. The warriors and Piers were already riding through the entrances. Gabria and Tam on Nara, Athlone on Eurus, Treader, and the colt were together in the courtyard when the lion finally caught them.
Gabria immediately created a wall of magic around her companions. The lion slammed into the invisible barrier and rocked back on its haunches. For just a moment, its yellow eyes blinked in stunned surprise, then it roared and paced along the front of the barrier, looking for a break in the wall.
In the brief respite provided by the shield, they made a dash for the gateway from the courtyard. In that time, Gabria also made up her mind to stop the creature, but without endangering Athlone. Quickly she told Nara what to do. “Hang on!” she yelled to Tam. The girl’s arms tightened around Gabria’s waist.
Just as Eurus reached the edge of the courtyard, Gabria dissolved the wall of force. Nara swerved sideways with Treader and the colt beside her, and Eurus galloped through the arch before Athlone realized what had happened.
The stone lion did not hesitate. It turned after the mare and followed her as she galloped back toward the temple. Gabria fired a powerful blast of Trymian Force that exploded on the lion’s chest. The energy knocked the beast back, but it did no real damage. The lion was up and after the horse in a heartbeat.