Gabria, meanwhile, listened patiently to the silence, knowing for the moment there were no platitudes Kelene would want to hear. Now that the pain was in the open, they could ponder and study and maybe work out a solution. Gabria fervently hoped so. Besides the delight of having grandchildren, she cherished the practical hope for an increase in the number of magic-wielders to carry on the traditions of Valorian’s blood. Kelene and Rafnir were an excellent match, and should they produce children, their offspring would be powerful indeed.
Their companionable silence lasted for a few precious minutes more before the two women heard the sound of running feet. A head hooded in a gold cloak abruptly thrust itself through the tent flap, and a male voice cried, “Come quickly! There’s been an accident by the river.” The speaker vanished just as hastily, and his footsteps pounded away before the sorceresses recognized him or could ask any questions.
“That was helpful,” Kelene grumbled, gathering her healer’s bag and her cloak. “He could’ve stayed long enough to say who or what.”
“He did look very flustered,” chuckled Gabria. She swept on her own gold cloak over her warm split-skirts, leather tunic, and boots. She gathered an extra blanket from the bed and hurried outside behind Kelene. The messenger was nowhere to be seen.
Nara and Demira stood side by side under the slanted roof of their shelter.
“Did you see which way that man went?” Kelene asked, squinting through the cold gloom.
Toward the grove of trees by the river, Nara responded. He was in a hurry.
Without complaint the two Hunnuli left their dry shelter and bore their riders along the faint trail left by the messenger’s footprints down toward the Altai. There was no sign of the chiefs, but neither Gabria nor Kelene worried overly much. They half expected their husbands to be at the scene of the accident.
Both women peered ahead through the gathering twilight and saw little more than dark shapes and shadows. The temperature had dropped further during the afternoon, and now snow mixed with the sleet to form a slushy white coverlet over the freezing mud.
The Hunnuli bore left along the bank and trotted into a grove of cottonwood, wild olive, and shrub oak. The trees, barely budded, cluster thickly along an old bow of the river and formed a dense screen beside the bank.
Gabria glanced around. She could not see very much in the flying snow, and the clan camp was lost from view. “Are you sure he went this way?” she asked her mare.
“Over here!” a voice shouted. “Quickly!”
The two mares thrust their way through the thick undergrowth toward the sound of the voice until they reached the edge of the trees by the water. In the dull light they saw a body lying prostrate on the stony shore, and four or five men in clan cloaks bending over it.
The Hunnuli’s ears suddenly swept forward in a single motion. Their nostrils flared red, and both mares dug in their hooves and slid to a stop. Danger! flared their minds.
Kelene caught a glimpse of two men whirling around and throwing what looked like dark balls at the horses. In the space of a heartbeat, she saw the balls burst into a dense yellowish powder directly in the faces of the mares. Nara trumpeted in rage, but the powder, whatever it was, filled her lungs. She staggered sideways and crashed against a tall tree trunk before Gabria could stop her. Two men immediately dropped from the trees and pulled the sorceress to the freezing mud. Another man roped Nara’s head and neck.
Kelene had no time to react. Desperate to save her rider, Demira flung herself forward to free her wings from the crowded trees. Then the powder took effect, and she lurched and fell to her knees at the edge of the water, her eyes rolling. Kelene fell hard. Pain shot through her right arm and down her back. Fury and fear flamed her blood, but a hand clamped a damp cloth over her nose and mouth. Unable to speak, unable to use her magic, Kelene inhaled foul, metallic fumes from the cloth and felt her body go numb. The dim light faded to gray before it blinked out and was lost.
The men quickly flung their clan cloaks and the dead outrider into the river. Swiftly they blindfolded the dazed mares and roped them side by side. They flung the women’s bodies over the Hunnuli’s backs. Several more men and horses worked their way across the river. With the strength of the additional horses to steady them, Nara and Demira were forced forward across the rising Altai into the darkness on the opposite bank. In less than a moment the river was empty, and Kelene and Gabria were gone.
4
Across the clan camp, Eurus lifted his great head. He stood in a huddle with Afer, Tibor, and the smaller Harachan horses of the other chiefs, trying to keep warm while the men conferred one last time in Sha Tajan’s tent before the darkness became complete. The stallion stirred irritably and blew a gout of steam, like smoke from a dragon’s mouth.
Something was wrong. Eurus could feel it like an ache in his belly. He slammed a hoof into the slush and snow. The Harachan, though handsome, graceful animals, had little of the Hunnuli’s intelligence, endurance, or power. They rolled their eyes at the restless giant in their midst and shifted nervously away from him.
Afer nickered to reassure them, and they settled warily back into their group. Only the Hunnuli could not calm down again. Afer and Tibor both grew restive, and after only a few minutes, the three Hunnuli sidled away and trotted back to the Khulinin tents.
At first glance, everything looked normal to the Hunnuli. The tents were holding their own against the gathering ice, a few sheltered campfires were burning, the guards were at their distant posts, and the camp was quiet.
When the stallions came to the chieftain’s tent, though, their anxiety blew up into alarm. The two mares and the women were gone, and their tracks, already filling with snow, pointed down toward the dark river.
Afer neighed a long, demanding clarion call that rattled the camp and brought men alert, but there was no response from either Nara or Demira. Like black thunder the three stallions galloped along the mares’ trail to the grove of trees. There they slowed to a walk and let their keen eyes and sharp sense of smell lead them through the dense undergrowth to the river’s edge.
They caught the scent of Nara and Demira in the crushed grass and of Hunnuli blood mingled in the slush and mire of the shore. There, too, they detected traces of many men: churned footprints, a pool of human blood, and the scent of sweat and fear.
Another smell teased Eurus’s nose, a scent that was pungent, powdery, and metallic. It made him dizzy, and he quickly snorted it out. He scented Gabria’s faint scent in the brush by the trees and Kelene’s on the rocks by the Altai. And that was all.
The riverbank was empty. The women and the mares had vanished.
Tibor and Afer wheeled and charged back the way they had come, while Eurus searched up and down the bank for some sign of his mate and her rider. At his side, the Altai tumbled and rolled in a muddy, heaving current that reached higher and higher up the shore, washing away the scent and sign of the attackers and their victims.
Troubled shouts and running feet crashed through the quiet of the grove, and hooded lamps bobbed their light in the deep twilight. The old stallion returned to meet Athlone, Sayyed, and Rafnir, who were out of breath and wild-eyed. Afer and Tibor came with them.
“Tell me,” gasped Athlone. Other men, Gaalney and Morad among them, joined their chief on the bank, and Eurus told the five sorcerers what had been discovered.
Lord Athlone breathed long and deeply before he roared, “Sayyed, I want the entire camp checked tent by tent to be certain they are not there. Rafnir, take squads of men up and down the river to search the banks. The rest of you come with me!”