By the time they were finished, the chiefs had gathered their men to leave. Sayyed and Rafnir rolled their rugs, loaded their bags behind their saddles, and threw clan cloaks over their Turic garb. They joined the mounted warriors and rode with them toward the rising sun. On Council Rock, the huge tent sat empty and abandoned, its task unfulfilled. Across the Altai, the Turic rearguard watched the clans ride away.
The chiefs were forced to set a slow pace for the morning because of the drifted snow and the snow-encrusted ice beneath the horses’ hooves. The warriors rode carefully, paralleling the Altai River toward the ruins of Ferganan Treld. If all went well, they would reach the sand hills south of Shadedron Treld in time to cut off the Turic raiders’ retreat over the border river.
Sayyed and Rafnir rode with the clans for nearly an hour until they reached the next passable ford on the swollen river. On a small knoll overlooking the Altai, they stopped with Lords Athlone, Wendern, and Bendinor.
Sayyed pulled off his cloak. He felt a genuine sadness when he passed it over to Athlone, a tug of regret he had not expected. True, he was secretly excited about returning to the Turic lands, but he had lived with the clans longer than the tribes, and he realized the Ramtharin Plains were now and forever his home. He grinned at Athlone, lively mischief suddenly glinting in his eyes, and he saluted his lord as a clansman. “Until we ride together again, Athlone.” He waved, then urged Afer into a canter down the slope to the river. His voice, lifted in the wild, high-pitched ululation of the Turics, sounded eerily on the still morning air.
Rafnir tossed his cloak to Bendinor, sketched a salute to Athlone, and turned Tibor after Afer. The lords watched as the two black horses plowed across the river and emerged dripping on the other side. In a moment the two were gone, lost to sight beyond a belt of trees.
For a while Athlone sat rigid on his stallion, his gaze lost on the southern horizon. It took all of his strength to sit still and not send Eurus galloping after Afer and Tibor. Fear for Gabria clung to the Khulin Lord like a wet cloak, and he wanted to challenge it directly, not delegate such vital responsibility to someone else. But Athlone was shrewd enough to accept the truth: he would be more effective north of the border in his own territory.
Silently he breathed a prayer, to Amara rather than Surgart, that the gods keep watch over his wife, his daughter, and the two men who risked so much to find them. At last he nodded to his companions and turned Eurus east, his thoughts already ranging ahead to Shadedron Treld and the hunt for the killers of his people.
6
It was midafternoon by the time Sayyed and Rafnir caught up with the Shar-Ja’s caravan. Sayyed had been right; it had not moved far in the snowy night, only going a few leagues deeper into tribal territory before stopping again. The huge cavalcade had been underway since early morning, traveling slowly along a beaten caravan road toward Cangora, apparently in no hurry to reach its destination.
A large covered wagon, draped in black and royal blue, carried the coffin of the dead Shar-Yon at the head of the caravan, and a procession of priests and royal guards surrounded it. Word of the death had already passed ahead, for the road was lined with mourners and spectators who came from nearby settlements to pay their respects to the royal dead.
The weather seemed to reflect the sad occasion with a low roof of clouds and a faint mist that teared everything in drops of glistening dew. As so often happened in spring storms, this one lost its ferocity on the northern plains. By the time it crossed the Altai and hit the arid, warm winds of the desert realm, its teeth were gone. The icy snow lasted barely five leagues into the Turic lands before it turned to mud and melted away. Only the clouds and the mist remained of the storm that had swept the Ramtharin Plains.
On the crest of a low hill, Sayyed and Rafnir sat side by side, watching the caravan pass by on the road below. They carefully studied the long ranks of warriors representing the fifteen tribes, the disciplined rows of royal guards, the mounted counselors and nobles who had stayed so reticent at the council meeting, the dozens of war chariots, the Shar-Ja’s enormous personal retinue, and the innumerable wagons, carts, and baggage vans that followed in the rear.
“I don’t see anything that even resembles a Hunnuli,” Rafnir said glumly.
“Did you expect to?” Sayyed replied in a thoughtful murmur. His eyes were still on the caravan below, his brows drawn in concentration.
“Well, no,” admitted the young man. “That would be too easy. If they’re with this caravan at all, they’d have to be out of sight.”
Sayyed scratched his beard. “Hmm. Maybe we’re looking at this from the wrong direction. We’ve assumed Gabria and Kelene were taken to trap Lord Athlone or to incite the clans to war, but what if they were kidnapped for a more personal reason?”
Rafnir looked startled. “Why do you say that?”
“Just a guess, really. I was counting heads,” Sayyed answered. “There are more men among the tribal ranks now than there were at Council Rock.”
“Are you sure?”
The older man nodded. “Law requires each tribe to send a specific number of men to escort the Shar-Ja on official journeys. I counted forty men for the Raid tribe at Council Rock. The other tribes should have sent equal numbers, but some of the units have gained more men.”
“That seems odd. I wonder who they are and why are they coming now?” said Rafnir.
“Two excellent questions.”
“So you think someone in the caravan is expecting trouble and may have taken the women to protect himself?”
“It’s possible. Two sorceresses are a powerful shield—or weapon.” Sayyed grimaced as he pushed himself to his feet. The cold, damp weather had played havoc with his knees, and unbending them was a slow process. “We’ll stay out of the way until dark, then join the caravan when it camps for the night.”
His son sprang upright with the suppleness of youth. “What if they’re not here?”
“We’ll give it four days,” advised Sayyed. “If we can’t find any sign of them here, we’ll ride north to find the Fel Azureth and start again.”
Quickly the men returned to the Hunnuli at the base of the hill. They withdrew from the road into open country among the folded hills and scrub to follow the caravan at a safe distance. The afternoon wore away slowly. The mist ended before evening, and a brisk breeze sprang up to tear away the roof of clouds.
Shortly before sunset the royal caravan stopped in a broad, flat basin near the first of a series of big oases that lay like jewels along the golden string of the caravan route the Turics called the Spice Road.
The road was an old trail that passed on a long diagonal from the merchant city of Pra Desh in the Five Kingdoms southwest across the Ramtharin Plains and the Ruad el Brashir to Cangora, the seat of the Turic overlords tucked in the foothills of the Absarotan Mountains. The Absarotan, or Blue Sky Mountains, were a southern extension of the Darkhorns and rose like a giant’s fortress above the Kumkara Desert.
The first stop along the Spice Road in Turic territory was the Tarzul Oasis. The staging settlement of mud-brick houses, inns, shops, and suppliers had grown up beside the wells of the oasis and served not only the locals but pilgrims, travelers, nomadic shepherds, and caravans as well. When the Shar-Ja’s officers stopped the caravan for the night, a flock of people, excited children, and barking dogs rushed to the camp to help, watch, or just get in the way.