“They must have taken her,” Kian said, voicing his greatest fear. He wrapped another swatch of cloth torn from the enemy’s tabard around the head of his torch. “Did anyone see tracks leading out of the valley?”
“They came from the east, and returned the same way,” Ba’Sel said, coming into the flickering torchlight at a trot, his untended wound making his face a gruesome mess.
“Are you sure?” Kian demanded. “We cannot afford to waste a moment more following a cold trail.”
“Between our own tracks-those we left when scouting the valley for Bashye, and those made during the battle-it is hard to say,” Ba’Sel admitted. “But the tracks coming from the west are ours alone, where those in the east are from both parties. If she was taken, her captors escaped that way.”
“To horse!” Kian ordered, dropping his torch and moving toward his horse.
Azuri and Hazad stirred, but the Asra a’Shah did not move an inch. Kian halted abruptly and searched their faces. All looked back impassively.
“We do not blame you,” Ba’Sel said slowly, “but my brothers and I have paid too much blood for this quest. If Prince Varis were still under our watch, honor would obligate us to stay. As it is, Prince Varis destroyed our pact to guard him when he tried to kill us in the Qaharadin Marshes. We continued on with you as long as we have only out of respect.” He bowed his head then, as if in shame, but his words were firm. “That respect remains, and should we find our way home, we will tell of your exploits and courage, and the name Kian Valara will be praised by our elders down through an age of men. But respect cannot compel us to continue this journey.”
Kian’s anger subsided under a wave of regret. He needed these men, now more than ever, if he was to find Ellonlef. “If it is gold you seek, I assure you that you will be compensated for helping me find Sister Ellonlef.”
Ba’Sel shook his head. “Gold will not breathe life back into our brothers. Even if it could, we would turn away. If what has happened in Aradan has happened in our homelands, the few of us left will need to help our people. Our numbers will not be enough, but we few are better than none at all.”
Desperation overcame Kian’s pride. “Can you, at the least, help us find the trail of those who took Sister Ellonlef?”
Ba’Sel thought about it for a moment, and nodded. “We will do that and no more.”
“Then let us begin.”
Chapter 28
Thrice over since Ellonlef had been taken, night had given way to day, only to fall again. Tied into the saddle of a galloping horse, she swayed and bounced, barely in control of herself. Her cheeks and brow hurt from being slammed against the ground; her throat was raw from the fingers that had throttled her, and from too little water since then. None of those who had taken her, nor their mounts, seemed to need rest, food, or water. On and on, at a full gallop, she and her captors surged eastward, league after league.
By dawn of the first day after her capture, the land had risen to reveal a high, scrubby desert. All visible brush off either side of the road was dead and gray and brittle, a sight just odd enough to gain her notice, but she was too weary to contemplate it. Just before the last sunset, despite the heavy smoke, she had seen a jagged line of mountains rising on the eastern horizon, a sight that left her stunned. When riding across the Kaliayth, only the Ulkion Mountains lay in the east. And amongst them, high in the Pass of Trebuldar, sat Ammathor. Even in her debilitated state, she calculated the trip had taken a fraction as long as it should have. Whatever hope she’d had of Kian being able to find and liberate her from Varis’s followers, died in her heart. It would be many days before Kian and his men could travel so far.
Looking through bleary eyes at her captors, it was hard for her to accept them as demons, not when she knew them by name, rank, and allegiance to House Racote. There were three: Spear Leader Huruga, and Swordsmen Caulir and Naa’il. To the last, she had helped them or their families during her time in Krevar. Huruga, soon after she had arrived at the fortress, returned from a border skirmish with a Tureecian arrow buried in his back, and a sword slash to his scalp. Each wound had grown septic, leaving him with a killing fever. Despite Magus Uzzret’s conclusion that the man would die within a day, Ellonlef had brought him back from the brink. And, if not for her, Swordsman Naa’il would have died from a snakebite taken while patrolling the Qaharadin Marshes; Swordsman Caulir’s young wife had needed help delivering her first child, a boy.
Those men were dead now, though their bodies survived, given abominable life by the demonic spirits within each of them. And demons they were, of this she had no doubt. She had seen the dull, silvery glint of their eyes shining in the night.
When Varis had first raised the dead, and Otaker had gone to his lady wife, Ellonlef recalled thinking that Lady Danara, and all the rest who had been raised, seemed to be lacking their normal traits. She had named them soulless. In that she had been wrong, for they had souls-not their own, but rather those of the Fallen, the first vile children of the Three. Now those monstrous spirits were loosed upon the world. But how many? Hundreds, thousands, and more….
She let her head loll back, hoping for a glimpse of the stars, but the pervasive smoke obliterated sight of anything. The worst had come to visit the world, she considered, and the age of men had fallen. The Madi’yin, with all their swatarin-induced visions of apocalypse and marauding demons, had finally been proven right.
As the night fled by, Ellonlef slumped into a tortured sleep. At some point, a growing sense of panic jolted her awake. She knew without having been told where and to whom she was going. Prince Varis Kilvar, the Life Giver. What Varis wanted of her, however, she could not imagine, and that unknown caused her the greatest fear. With her trepidation growing, she remained awake.
In time, the eastern horizon took on a bloody cast, heralding the coming dawn. Ellonlef sat straighter in the saddle, and set bloodshot eyes on the road ahead. It was then that she noticed the dust in the air. Not the thick plumes churned up by the riders around her, but of that raised hours before and yet to dissipate in the still air.
As the day brightened, Ellonlef scanned the roadway for any indication of the size of the army her captors followed. Outside of Ammathor, she knew, Fortress Krevar maintained the largest force in the kingdom, a full seven spears of cavalry, fourteen hundred horsemen, and near three times that number in archers and foot soldiers. These latter she dismissed out of hand, for armed and armored men on foot could not hope to keep up with horses. More than that, without a slow-moving caravan of supply wagons, such numbers simply could not be supported by the desolate lands of the Kaliayth.
Soon after, with the smoke-obscured sun doing little to abate the previous night’s chill, Spear Leader Huruga made a series of hand gestures to his cohorts, then kicked his mount into a faster pace, quickly leaving them behind. Ellonlef’s eyes followed him, stunned that the warhorse could find such a burst of speed after galloping for several days and nights without end.
As her mount crested a hill and rode onto a wide plateau, a sight came to her that exceeded her worst fears. Her eyes, weary from lack of sleep and full of grit, crawled over the host before her. While she could not say how many warriors waited ahead, she knew it was more than seven spears. Many times more. Thousands, she thought, sick with alarm. Only a very few were mounted. How could they have run so far so fast-
With a sinking feeling in her bowels, she understood. Varis’s powers were greater and broader than she had imagined. Somehow, he had infused multitudes with impossible endurance, which explained how his raiders had brought her across half of the Kaliayth in but three days.