City of Sorcerers (15 page)

As the filly slowed to a more sedate canter and fell in beside Afer, Sayyed glanced at the young woman on the Hunnuli's back. He had never seen her look so beautiful. The wind and excitement had turned her cheeks to a glowing pink, loose strands of hair floated in a halo around her face, and her eyes were shimmering like sunlight through black glass. His pain receded a little in the face of her joy, and he smiled at her, as, pleased as her own father.

"I never knew it could be like that," she said, scratching Demira's neck.

Sayyed agreed. "I often think that riding a Hunnuli is as close to flying as we can get."

Kelene started at his words and stared at him in surprise. A look of speculation slowly spread over her face, and she fell quiet as if deep in thought.

Behind her, astride his Hunnuli, Rafnir was also staring. It had not occurred to him before how pretty Kelene could be. He had always annoyed her, competed with her, or simply ignored her because she had never shown the slightest interest in anyone but her horses. Now he was seeing a new side of her, and the intent look of reflection in her face intrigued him.

What had piqued her interest so deeply? He started to wonder if there was more to this girl than the ability to win races. His own curiosity sparked, Rafnir kept his eye on her the rest of the afternoon.

The small party stopped briefly at sunset to rest the Hunnuli and have a quick meal. While the others unpacked fruit, trail bread, and dried meat, Sayyed took his prayer rug to the bank of the river to say his evening prayers. As the western sky kindled to gold, then red, then purple, and the deep star bright night poured over him, the warrior stayed on his knees, his head pressed to the ground and his heart full of tears he had not yet shed for Tam. The white cat crouched beside him like a ghostly sentinel.

Kelene watched for a time, then turned away, her heart sad. Sayyed's grief was a personal matter; she did not want to intrude with needless words or unwanted pity.

She sat down by Demira to eat her meager meal. Around her, the Hunnuli were grazing and the other clanspeople were talking, eating, and stretching their stiff legs.

Rafnir and Savaron were sitting together, their heads bent over a broken pack they were trying to fix.

Niela, a Jehanan woman well into her thirtieth year, was brushing the dried sweat from her Hunnuli's coat. Niela had always known she had a talent for magic but had not learned to use her power until her husband died, leaving her alone and free to seek her own way. Kelene had liked Niela from the first day she rode into the Khulinin winter camp to find Gabria eight years before. Square-jawed and unpretentious, Niela kept her unruly red hair tied behind her head with a leather thong and wore an old split-skirt and brown tunic.

Morad was different. A young, cocksure Geldring, he had charged into magic like a bull and frequently got himself in trouble with spells he could not control. His physical build reminded Kelene of a bull, too. Muscular and brash from his training as a warrior, the stocky Geldring was a dangerous opponent when aroused.

His younger brother, Tomian was quieter and more careful with a power he was just beginning to understand. Although he was smaller than his brother and not as proficient with weapons, he had an excellent eye for detail and was a superb tracker and hunter. .

Both brothers, though still under Gabria's tutelage, planned to return to their clan in a year or two. They, like Savaron and Rafnir, had volunteered to come with Sayyed. Niela, Kelene suspected, had been asked to come as a chaperon for her.

Kelene finished her meal and brushed the crumbs from her lap. In the process she noticed the Watcher on her tunic sparkling with countless points of new starlight.

Curious, she pulled it off and held it in her cupped hands. The Watcher tingled under her touch with a faint pulse of magic power. The gem was round, faceted on the sides to enhance its beauty, and flat across the top. It was set in a cloak brooch of finely woven gold.

Her mother had said she had only to concentrate to see into its heart, so she focused her attention down into the scintillating interior. Nothing happened for a while. The stone remained cold and lifeless in her hands. Kelene was trying harder to shut out the distractions around her when all of a sudden, she heard it-the low, faint sobbing of someone in despair. The sound seemed to be emanating from the jewel, for it was very soft and distant, yet its grief cut Kelene to the heart.

Gradually an image began to form in the stone's center. The scene was shaking slightly from her mother's movement, but it was there in full detail. Tiny at first, the picture grew larger in Kelene's sight until she could clearly make out the dim interior of the council tent. There were the rows of sick, the fire in the central hearth, and the busy healers. Then the scene moved down as Gabria apparently bent over, and Kelene saw her little brother's face for the first time since Gabria had carried him out of their tent to go into quarantine.

A sob jerked out of her, and the Watcher fell to her feet. She wrapped her arms around her knees and began to cry.

"Kelene! What's wrong?" someone said worriedly.

She looked up in surprise to see Rafnir bending down beside her. Savaron and the others were crowding around. "Coren is dead," she told Savaron through her tears.

Her older brother went visibly pale and stood hunched in the darkening night as if someone had punched him. Niela and Rafnir squatted down beside Kelene.

"I'm sorry," Rafnir said so quietly Kelene almost didn't hear him.

His sympathy and unexpected solicitude jabbed a raw nerve. She moaned, "Your mother is dead and I didn't say anything to you. Not an 'I'm sorry,' or 'I'll miss her horribly,' or 'Sorh treat her well,' or anything. I loved Tam! I loved Coren! Why did they have to die?"

Kelene paused, and her voice died away. She tilted her head to listen to a faint sound she could barely hear. The noise came again, low and cruel in the darkness.

Someone was laughing.

Beside Kelene, Rafnir and Niela slowly straightened and stared into the night.

Sayyed left his rug and joined them.

"What is that?" Morad demanded. "Who's out there?"

The laughter sounded again from somewhere close by. It was so harsh and gloating, it sent chills down Kelene's back. Everyone moved closer together, and the men drew their swords.

"Who are you?" Sayyed yelled. He received no answer. The laughter only changed from a low note of derision to a crueler ring of triumph.

Shaken, the clanspeople peered out into the dark, trying to find the intruder, but they could not see anything. All they could hear was the disembodied laughter cutting through the night. The Hunnuli snorted angrily and gathered around their riders. Even they could not see or smell any stranger beyond the circle of the clanspeople.

The noise reached a final shriek and slowly faded as if its maker were moving away. When the night was quiet again, the seven people looked at one another in frightened confusion.

"What in Sorh's name was that?" Tomian gasped.

"Mount up," Sayyed said in reply. "We're going on."

No one needed a second urging. As fast as they could move, they grabbed their saddlebags and sprang to their horses' backs. The Hunnuli leaped forward into the darkness. Before long their resting place and the source of the fearful noise were left behind. Or so they hoped.

The party rode late into the night, following the trail by the river. They lit no lights to guide their way, but trusted to the surefootedness and clear vision of the Hunnuli to find the path over the uneven ground. Although the riders were tired, they were too nervous to doze or relax their vigil for a moment. Everyone rode with their thoughts dwelling on the strange, cruel laughter.

They stopped at last near dawn and made a cold camp in a small depression between two hills. The riders threw themselves down to sleep while the Hunnuli stood protectively around them. Yet in spite of their fatigue and the late hour, not a single person slept well. They tossed and thrashed on their blankets in a welter of emotions and worry. When they did sleep, their rest was bedeviled with vivid dreams and images of fear.

Kelene dozed just as the first light gilded the horizon. Her eyes were barely closed before a dream overtook her and carried her back to the gathering. She saw her family's tent, warm in the afternoon sun, with the dogs sleeping by the entrance and her father's gold banner hanging above the awning. It looked so peaceful and normal, she cried gladly and dashed inside through the open tent flap. At the scene that met her gaze, her joy turned to horror.

Her family was all there, even Savaron, lying or sitting about the tent in varying degrees of decay. Her father was a skeleton sprawled on his bed, her mother a maggot-ridden corpse sitting on her favorite stool. But the worst was her little brother.

Even as she watched, choking on her terror, the boy's corpse, ravaged by plague sores, rose slowly to its feet and held out a hand to welcome her inside. Then he began to laugh, the same cruel, derisive laughter she had heard in the darkness by the river.

Kelene woke to her own screaming and found someone was shaking her.

Shuddering and gasping for air, she clutched at the person beside her and struggled to sit up.

"It's all right," soothed Rafnir. "You had a nightmare, too. It's over now."

For once Kelene didn't care or wonder why Rafnir was there. All that mattered to her was that he was solid, comforting, and real. She hung onto his arm until she could bring her fear under control.

Kelene, are you well?
she heard Demira say worriedly in her mind. The filly was standing close by, her muzzle lowered to Kelene's head.

The young woman rubbed her gritty eyes. "I'm awake at least." She shivered and regarded Rafnir gratefully. She was pleasantly surprised that he seemed to be more caring and friendly than she believed possible. "Did you have a dream, too?" she asked, letting go of his sleeve.

His mouth tightened at the memory, and he sat back on his heels. "I saw my mother come out of the funeral pyre."

"I dreamed of a man," Niela told them from her sleeping place. "At least I think it was a man. He glowed with a hideous red light. It was horrible!"

The other three men were awake, too, and sitting, bleary-eyed, on their blankets in the pale light of dawn.

"Gods," muttered Savaron, running his hand through his tousled hair. "If we have many nights like that, we'll be too tired to reach Moy Tura."

Sayyed groaned and climbed to his feet. He hadn't had any nightmares since he had not slept. His body complained painfully about yesterday's long ride and resting on the damp ground; his head ached with a dull, persistent pain. He looked at his small party and said simply, "Let's go."

Wordlessly they gathered their gear and struck out again on the trail north. The day was warm and dry, and the sky was bright blue scattered with fluffy clouds. The plains, already turning gold in the midsummer heat, stretched away for league after league in all directions.

By afternoon the travelers reached the fertile uplands leading to the Himachal Mountains, a narrow, rugged line of peaks that ran north and south. At the southern tip of the Himachals was Dangari Treld, the winter camp of Lord Koshyn's people.

The Dangari were more sedentary than most of the clans, and a few of their people stayed at the treld year round to raise crops and care for the clan's treasured studs and brood mares. Even though the Dangari would have gladly welcomed them, the magic-wielders pressed on, reluctant to risk spreading the plague and determined to cover as much ground as possible in the daylight. They cantered past the foothills and followed the Isin north along the flanks of the Himachal Mountains.

During the long, tedious hours of riding, Kelene had ample time to think. To keep her mind off fear and plagues and death, she turned her thoughts to speed, Hunnuli, and Sayyed's words from the day before. How incredible it would be, she kept thinking.

When the mountains loomed on the left and the hot sun was drifting toward their cooling peaks, she touched the white lightning mark on Demira's shoulder. "Have you ever thought about flying?" she asked the filly, trying to sound casual.

Demira frisked a few steps, then bounded after a meadowlark that swooped over the grass ahead of them.
Flying? I fly when I run.

"No, I mean really flying. Like a bird."

Demira's ears flicked with interest.
No, I have not thought of that. Hunnuli do not
have wings.

"Valorian helped his horse fly with magic when they tried to cross the cavern in Gormoth," Kelene said.

That is true.
The filly was silent for a while as she watched the meadowlark again.
I think I would like it.
And to prove her enthusiasm, she kicked up her heels in a playful buck and leaped forward into a spirited gallop.

Kelene threw her arms wide to embrace the wind and laughed in delight. For a short time she was able to forget her fear and worry in the glorious speed of Demira's run.

When the filly had tired and was trotting back to join the other travelers, Kelene lifted her eyes to the sky. If only she could. . .

CHAPTER SIX

That night there was no moon; the darkness grew as dense and deep as the bottom of an empty pit. Stars sparkled in glittering swathes and patterns across the sky, but in the small lightless camp by the Isin River the night crowded in on the clanspeople like an oppressive fog. They could see nothing beyond their own camp. Even the Hunnuli standing in a protective circle around their riders could only be seen by the faint glimmer of the lightning marks on their shoulders and the occasional reflection of starlight in their eyes.

The travelers lay close together on their bedrolls, trying to sleep, but even though they were bone-tired they could not close their eyes. Each of them felt a cold, shivering dread that settled in their bellies with a clammy grip. No one knew what caused the apprehension. Perhaps they feared to sleep and face their nightmares again.

Perhaps they dreaded hearing that hideous laughter. Whatever kept them awake, the clanspeople tossed on their blankets for hours and heard nothing beyond the rush of the river.