Sadira spoke her incantation and flicked the silver bead at the shard, hoping to drive it through Abalach’s heart. The pellet streaked straight to its target, striking the jagged blade at a shallow angle. There was no blast of magical power, as the sorceress had expected. Instead, a pearly aura spread over the steel, and it began to hum with a high-pitched chime.
Abalach’s eyes went wide. She twisted a hand around behind herself, trying to reach the blade. Sa’ram stepped closer, lowering his skeletal arm to attack the queen’s back. Before the banshee could touch her, the Scourge stopped chiming. A huge geyser of black fluid shot from the shard’s jagged end and splattered Sa’ram’s gnarled form.
The inky liquid spread quickly, coating the banshee beneath a thick layer of ebony slime. Wherever the fluid stained Sa’ram’s twisted bones, they untwined and rearranged themselves into a less contorted skeleton. The back grew round and hunched, while the arms became long, gangling things that ended in barbed talons. The banshee’s gray beard disappeared, then a skull of sable bone rose from the shoulders in its place. The head seemed remotely human, with a drooping chin, a small jawbone, and a pair of rather flat cheekbones. Blue sparks replaced the banshee’s orange eyes, while a crown of yellow lightning crackled around his skull.
“Rajaat!” Abalach gasped, facing the apparition.
“Uyness of Waverly, Orc Plague!” The skeleton stared down at the queen, billows of black fume shooting from its nostrils. “I have come for you, traitor!”
Abalach-Re stumbled away. “No! You can’t be free!”
Sadira sprang at the queen’s back. Slipping one arm around Abalach’s throat, she used her other hand-and all her supernatural strength-to drive the Scourge’s tip deeper into the queen’s body. She felt the steel grate against a bone, then pass into a lump of softer tissue.
Abalach howled in pain but abruptly fell silent when Sadira twisted the blade. A convulsion ran through the queen’s entire frame, and she fell limp. Brown smoke began to pour from her nostrils and mouth. Her limbs went stiff, and the muscles of her stomach started to quiver. A terrible heat poured off her body, and her clothes began to smoke.
Sadira turned and hurled Abalach away, not bothering to extract the Scourge’s tip. The queen spun through the air with her arms and legs splayed stiffly at her sides. She dropped to the ground a dozen paces away, landing with a hollow thud. For a moment, the body just lay there, staring blankly into the sky while brown fumes rose from its nose and mouth. Finally, the corpse folded in on itself then burst into a column of bronze flame. The explosion left nothing behind except a salt crater stained brown with soot.
When Sadira looked back toward the black skeleton, she found it melting into a pool of bubbling sludge. The only recognizable feature was the head, and even it was quickly dissolving. The sorceress saw no sign that the ebony mass would reassemble itself into anything resembling Sa’ram. She silently spoke a few words of gratitude for the banshee’s efforts to protect Rkard.
A moment later, Rkard took her hand and tugged at her arm. “Come on,” he said. “Jo’orsh says that stuff’s dangerous.”
The sorceress opened her eyes and allowed the boy to lead her to Jo’orsh’s massive figure. “I’m sorry about your friend,” she said, craning her neck to look into the banshee’s orange eyes.
“There is no need for sorrow,” said Jo’orsh. “A banshee can hope for nothing except to find rest, and now Sa’ram has.”
“And what of that?” Sadira asked, gesturing toward the black pool. “Was that really Rajaat?”
“Yes,” the banshee replied. “Your spell allowed his essence to escape the Scourge’s shard.”
The sorceress swallowed and stared at the bubbling fluid. “How do we put it back?”
“You cannot,” Jo’orsh replied. “But there is no need for worry. Like Rajaat himself, it is locked inside the Black. It can harm only those foolish enough to touch it of their own wills.”
A shiver of terror ran down the sorceress’s spine. “Then the sorcerer-kings didn’t kill Rajaat?” she asked, turning back to the banshee.
Jo’orsh did not answer, for he had vanished as quickly as he had arrived.
“What happened to your friend?” Sadira asked, taking Rkard’s hand.
“He’s still here-like always,” the boy said. He scowled thoughtfully then looked up Sadira. “It’s okay that I helped you, isn’t it?”
Sadira furrowed her brow and pretended to consider his question seriously. “I don’t know. Didn’t your mother tell you no heroics?”
“She did,” the young mul grumped. “But I don’t see why. Rikus gets to be brave.”
He pointed toward the oasis. When Sadira turned around, she saw her husband charging up the hill on the heels of the Raamin army, waving his sword and cursing his enemies for cowards. The sorceress could not help laughing. The mul did not seem to realize that Caelum had bridged Abalach’s chasm with an arc of flickering flame, or that Neeva was leading four hundred warriors-all that remained of the Tyrian legion-across the trestle to help him.
Sadira started toward the chasm. “Come on,” she said. “We’d better let Rikus know the battle’s over.”
TEN
THE FORSAKEN VILLAGE
The two inixes stood in the center of the dusty plaza, their saddles empty and their reins hanging loose. Having battered down the bone railing that enclosed the village well, the great lizards had stuck their horny beaks into the dark hole as far as their stocky necks allowed. Apparently, they could not reach the water, for they were bellowing angrily and snapping their serpentine tails from side to side. The beasts’ riders, four Tyrian scouts, were nowhere in sight.
Magnus stood at the edge of the plaza, his dark eyes searching for some sign of the missing riders. He counted fifty-two stone huts ringing the plaza, each shaped like a beehive and covered with a scaly roof of gorak hide. He did not see any villagers peering out of the door ways, nor any of their herd-lizards roaming the dirt alley ways between the shacks. The place looked deserted. Even the scouts seemed to have disappeared without leaving any footprints by which to track them.
The unnatural quiet disturbed Magnus even more than the lack of visible activity. As his big ears swiveled around the plaza, he heard nothing-not a child whimpering, not a gorak scratching at a stone wall, not a stifling wind hissing through the streets. The place was as noiseless as death.
“Do you think this is Samarah?” asked Rikus. The mul whispered his question, apparently reluctant to disturb the eerie tranquility of the place.
The windsinger shrugged. “It’s in the right place,” he replied, starting toward the well. “But the inhabitants seem to have abandoned it.”
“Or been driven away,” said Sadira. Her voice was loud and sharp as she stepped from a narrow path between two huts.
“What do you mean?” asked Neeva. She was clutching her battle-axe in both hands, as if she expected to be attacked at any moment. Caelum and Rkard were not with her. When the scouts had not returned, she had sent them with what remained of the Bronze Company to examine the village’s southern perimeter. The Tyrian legion was circling around in the opposite direction, inspecting the north side. “Did you find something?”
The sorceress shook her head. “No, but I’m worried about what happened to Sa’ram.”
“Then tell us why,” Rikus demanded. “This is no time to make us guess.”
Sadira scowled at the mul, but Magnus interposed himself between the two spouses before she could retort. “Perhaps we should have something to drink first,” he said. “Thirst is making all our tempers short.”
The windsinger was not being very honest, and they all knew it. After the battle against the Raamins, the coolness that had come between Sadira and Rikus had warmed slightly for about a day. Then something had gone wrong, and now they could hardly speak without quarreling. From what the windsinger had gathered, Rikus had tried to make love to Sadira, and that had angered the sorceress, who was still mourning her other husband’s death.