In the dark and the storm they did not see the top head turn slowly around to watch them ride up the valley.
Although they found a faint animal track that followed the course of the stream, the going proved very difficult. The path wound through heaps of boulders, rock outcroppings, marshy pools, and heavy brush. Sayyed and Rafnir had to dissolve their power shields because they could not concentrate on maintaining the magic and finding the path at the same time. Sayyed settled on a small globe of light instead. Once set alight, the magic sphere would glow without much attention, and its light was a welcome help in the storm-wracked night.
Barely an hour had gone by after they left the unknown statue when the canyon ended abruptly in a sheer wall of striated stone. At the foot of the wall, the stream bubbled up out of a deep, clear pool that steamed and frothed in the pouring rain. Instead of stopping, Afer turned left into a cleft in the walls that was so narrow the men would have missed it. The passage within was deep and dark and cut off nearly all the force of the wind and rain. The Hunnuli continued up the crevice without pause, ignoring the walls that closed in on both sides and towered nearly forty feet above their heads.
The men and horses walked in single file along the passage for several minutes, grateful for the respite from the weather. The Hunnuli’s noses lifted high, and their ears strained forward to catch more sign of the humans they knew were close. They were so attuned to what lay ahead, they did not notice anything behind until they heard something akin to thunder followed by a rumbling, crashing noise from the mouth of the crevice.
Tibor neighed stridently, but in the flash of a moment, two ropes that glowed a pale silver in the darkness snaked down from above. The ropes looped around both men’s necks and hauled them off their saddles. Jerking and twisting, they were pulled upward so swiftly the Hunnuli could only scream their rage and paw the empty air.
Hands grabbed at Sayyed just as he passed out, and for the second time he and Rafnir were taken prisoner by an enemy they could not see.
In the crevice below, the magic sphere died out, and the Hunnuli were left in darkness.
The gag bit deep into Kelene’s mouth, drying her tongue and forcing her mouth open to such an impossible angle she could barely work her jaw. Her lips were dry and swollen, and her entire head ached with a pounding throb that brought tears to her eyes. Ignoring the pain in her right arm, she struggled again to reach the gag, but her hands had been tied tightly to her sides and the knots would not budge. Already her hands were swelling, and she could feel blood trickling down her wrists.
She had tried several times to break the ropes with magic, to no avail. Whoever had tied them knew magic-wielders well and had crafted bonds woven from the hairs of a Hunnuli’s tail. Like the horse itself, the hair was impervious to magic. Briefly, Kelene wondered what horse the hairs had come from.
She subsided onto the pallet and thought of several vile curses she could heap on the head of the person who did this as soon as she worked her hands and mouth free. Close beside her she felt the heat and closeness of Gabria’s body trussed in the same painful manner. She wasn’t sure if her mother was asleep, unconscious, or simply biding her time. The older sorceress had awakened some time earlier, struggled against her bonds, and then slipped into a stillness without motion or sound.
Kelene sighed a short breath of frustration and looked through the dim light at her surroundings. She already knew by hean the few things she could see, yet she continued to hope she would notice something new that could help her. She and Gabria were in a wagon—that much she had realized the moment she regained consciousness hours ago. It was not a clan wagon, since the box was too big and enclosed with wooden sides and a slightly peaked wooden roof. One door at the rear allowed access into the wagon, and a tiny window opened under the roof for ventilation. The vehicle reminded Kelene of the merchant wagons she sometimes saw at the clans’ summer gatherings, the kind that had room for sale goods and a small living space for the merchant.
She and Gabria were lying on a fold-down bed rather than on the floor, and from her place she could just make out a small table folded up against the wall and a short bench. The interior of the wagon was dark, except for a few pale glimmers of light that leaked in through a crack by the door frame and around the roof.
Just beyond their pallet, in the darker end of the van, stood Nara and Demira, side by side in a wooden stall Kelene guessed had been specially built for them. The wall separating them from the women was built from thick, heavy timbers that looked strong enough to contain even a Hunnuli. Neither mare had responded to Kelene’s noises, and she wondered if they had been sedated. If she lifted her head as high as her bonds allowed, she could barely make out the two horses standing with their heads facing the front of the wagon. Each mare wore a halter and Demira’s wings appeared to be fastened to her sides by a wide strip of fabric. Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble.
Angrily Kelene struggled upright until she was sitting on the edge of the bed board. Knowing they were in a wagon was useful, but she still did not know who had taken them or why, or where they were going. She tried to think back to that night they were attacked by the river. Was it last night or two nights ago? She couldn’t be certain. Everything that had happened since she and her mother rode to the riverbank was a blank. She remembered seeing several dark men coming at her, and she recalled the pain and fear when Demira fell. Her arm had been hurt when she struck the ground, and then everything had gone black. She did not know how she, Gabria, and the horses had been moved to the wagon, nor did she see who had done it. Her memory was blank until this morning, when she woke with a crushing headache and a desire to see the perpetrator drawn and quartered by teams of slow horses.
Outside the wagon she could hear the crack of whips, the thudding of many hooves, and the creak of other wagons. Dust from the road filtered between the old wall boards and swirled in the tiny, pale beams of light that shone through the cracks in the roof. Kelene guessed their wagon was part of a caravan, but without further clues she had no clear idea which way they were going.
The wagon gave a sudden lurch, and Kelene lost her precarious perch on the bed. Unable to catch herself, she crashed to the floor on her injured arm. The pain almost knocked her out again. She lay on her back and gritted her teeth on the gag while tears trickled along her temples. Her stomach felt nauseated.
On the pallet above her, Gabria rolled over to the edge and looked down. Her green eyes were shadowed and sunken in her thin face, but they gleamed with awareness and concern.
The creak of the door alerted both women, and they lifted their heads just as daylight flooded the interior. A dark silhouette stood balanced in the open doorway in a block of light so strong neither sorceress could see who it was.
“Good. You’re awake,” a flat voice said. The speaker ignored the fact that Kelene lay on the floor and went on in a cold, deadpan tone. “We will be arriving at an oasis soon. I will bring you food and water then. If you cause any trouble, try to raise attention, or cast any spell I will kill your Hunnuli.” The figure stepped down and slammed the door shut without further speech.
The women’s eyes met in a silent exchange of confusion, worry, and anger. Kelene lay back on the floor. It seemed better to stay where she was than to struggle painfully back to the raised bed. At least her arm had quit pounding with such intensity.
She closed her eyes and turned her mind inward to the spells she had used the winter before to repair her crippled ankle. She wished she had the healing stones from Moy Tura, for one was spelled to help set broken bones. Some medicinal herbs like comfrey or boneset would be nice, too, but those and the stones were in her healer’s bag and the gods alone knew what had happened to that. Her bag, their cloaks, boots, and jewelry were gone, probably stolen or thrown away.