Winged Magic (26 page)

“Lady, that is generous, but I don’t think your horses could keep up with a Hunnuli,” Rafnir replied distractedly.

The lady chieftain laughed softly as if at a private joke. “On the mountain slopes you have not been able to witness the full talents of our white horses, young Rafnir. Be assured, the whites will match your blacks,”

Sayyed pursed his lips and looked thoughtful. “And I suppose your white horses are descended from clan stock, too.”

She nodded, her eyes merry. “Of course.”

When she didn’t add more, Sayyed bent forward, cupped his hands over hers, and said earnestly, “One day will you trust me enough to tell me the full truth of your history?”

Helmar’s eyes fell to their linked hands, and something flickered in the back of her heart, that same heart she thought she had hardened to the attentions of men. “One day,” she said and pulled her hands free.

Rafnir went back to his pacing, but this time he did not slam the shield as he passed — a good sign, Sayyed thought. The older sorcerer continued with his plans, letting Rafnir stew over his duty. “There is another favour I must ask, Lady,” he said, and hesitated before he went on. “It could be very dangerous, but it is important to me and maybe to the Turics as well.”

“Ask.”

“I need someone to get word to my brother, Hajira, in the Shar-Ja’s caravan. He is the sole guardian of the Shar-Ja’s only living son. That boy has to be protected at all costs.”

Helmar steepled her fingers. “I know nothing of this boy or the Shar-Ja beyond what you have told us, but even that little shines brighter than what I have heard of this Zukhara. I will find someone willing to go.”

“My lady, with your permission,” Hydan said, rising to his feet. “I will go. I speak a little Turic, and I owe Sayyed a favour for shooting his arm and making us late.”

The clansman looked around, surprised. He had not expected help from that quarter. “Can you find your way?”

“Hydan is one of the few who leave the valley on occasion to visit nearby settlements. He is a good man,” Helmar added. “His only faults are a temper he can’t control yet and an overreaching desire to protect what he values.”

The swordsman’s face turned red, but he did not waver when she asked, “You understand what you might have to face?” He nodded. “Then go with my blessing and ride safely.”

After that was settled, Sayyed, Rafnir, and Helmar bent over the map again to finalize their plans. Although Sayyed had made most of the decisions to that point, he was very interested to learn Helmar had a quick grasp of the worsening situation and a sharp mind for tactics. She was the one who suggested sending other rangers out to gather news and who pointed out a rough trail over the Khidar Pass that would take them directly to the Spice Road and cut off leagues of extra travel.

One point confused her though. “What will we do when we catch up with this Zukhara? What if he’s already joined his army of fanatics?”

Sayyed could only shake his head. The same thought had occurred to him with no brilliant inspiration to light its way. “I won’t know until we get there,” he admitted. “So if I have any ideas...” He yawned, too tired to finish. The fire had burned low by that time, and everything that could be planned had been discussed. Sayyed’s swarthy face had washed to a greyish pallor, and he moved with uncomfortable stiffness when he stood. Helmar took one arm and Rafnir the other, and they led him firmly to a bed. He was asleep before they had pulled a blanket up over his chest.

The castle bailey was bustling with activity when Sayyed woke the next morning. After a quick wash and a quiet moment for his morning prayers, he strode out into the sunshine in time to say good-bye to Rafnir and his guide.

Rafnir had not verbally agreed to leave the search for Kelene and Gabria, but Sayyed knew his son well enough to hope he would accept the reasons for this request. He stood out of the way, his arms crossed, while Rafnir buckled one of the Clannad’s saddle pads on Tibor instead of the heavy Turic saddle.

“I’m trusting you to find Kelene,” Rafnir said, his voice sharper than he intended. He modified his tone a little and went on. “I never fully understood how you could grieve for Mother for so long, but when I think what it would be like to lose Kelene, I begin to see.” He clasped his father’s arm and sprang to Tibor’s back. “I will bring the Clans!” he vowed. He was about to go when he turned and tossed out one more observation. “Father! I think Mother would approve of Helmar.” He waved, and in a clatter of hoofbeats, the black stallion and the white cantered out of the fort and on their way.

“What was that?” Helmar asked, coming to stand by the sorcerer.

A quirk of a smile passed Sayyed’s lips. “He said good-bye.” He wasn’t sure why Rafnir would feel inclined to say what he had, and yet he thought his son was probably right. Tam would have liked Helmar. A gust of wind flounced by, snapping his cloak and sending dust swirling around the bailey in tiny whirlwinds. The sky was achingly blue and cloudless, but the air this high in the mountains was thin and still chilly in the mornings. Sayyed shivered as a finger of breeze brushed past his neck, “Tam,” he whispered. Then he glanced over at a straight nose, a dusting of freckles, and a pair of green eyes set in a frame of red-gold lashes — so different from Tam’s delicate oval beauty — and he was glad Helmar was there.

Hydan left next, with Sayyed’s message wrapped around Hajira’s gryphon knife and tucked carefully in his shirt. He had scrounged some Turic clothes, including a shortcoat emblazoned with Zukhara’s red emblem, and had saddled his reluctant horse with Rafnir’s Turic saddle. He looked passable enough, if rather uncomfortable in the saddle, and he saluted his chief and trotted out in Rafnir’s wake.

A short while later, Helmar led her troop out the fortress gates. To her delight and secret relief, every warrior chose to go with her on her quest to help Sayyed rescue the sorceresses. They took with them all the supplies and equipment they could pack on the backs of the garrison horses. Sayyed waited with Afer until the riders were out of sight; then he hurried down a winding stairs to the dungeon level. The prisoners crowded around the doors as he unlocked them.

“You have to the count of one hundred before this place is destroyed,” he said calmly.

The Turics took one look at his face and fled the castle as fast as they could run. The clansman leisurely rode out the gates, counting as he went until Afer reached the bottom of the ravine. He turned and studied the cliff wall.

“...ninety-eight... ninety-nine... one hundred.”

Sayyed raised his good arm, pointed to the cliff at the base of the castle wall, and sent a long, steady beam of power into the rock. There were no explosions this time, just a rumbling sound that began beneath the beam and radiated rapidly outward. Suddenly an enormous chunk of the rock face slipped loose. Cracks appeared in the fortress walls; then the ground fell from beneath the structure. The hall, most of the outbuildings, several towers, and half the walls slipped down, tumbling and crashing in a cloud of stone, dust, and debris to the ravine floor. The remains of the fortress lay shattered, and the entrance to the narrow spiral stair
case leading down to an empty cavern vanished in a pile of rubble.

Sayyed found the sight of the gaping ruins small satisfaction for all the trouble Zukhara had caused. Afer snorted in agreement. Swiftly they set off and soon caught up with the Clannad.

Now that the troop agreed to risk daylight travel, they made excellent time. They rode south at a brisk pace back the way they had come, and in less than two days they reached the back entrance to Sanctuary. Taking with her most of the packhorses and three of her warriors, Helmar left the others to rest and refresh themselves in the tumbled glen.

Sayyed did not know what she said to her people in the valley, but she came back the next dawn with twenty-five more riders and a glowing expression on her face.

“Minora sends her blessings,” was all she would say.

She led her warriors up the slope of a high hill and stopped to watch them pass by. Sayyed paused beside her. The world before them lay bleak and unpeopled, the mighty peaks turbaned in cloud, the slopes mottled with forests and bare outcroppings of stone. Beyond the wild lands to the east where the mountains gave way to the arid plains, the horizon was swathed in mist, as if already obscured in the smokes of war. Behind the troop lay the narrow path to Sanctuary and all that name implied. Sayyed, who had seen for himself the beauty and security of the valley, marvelled at the courage it took to step out of the protective walls and ride into a dangerous, troubled world. Some of the men, he knew, had never set foot outside their valley.

Overhead, Demira neighed to the people below and wheeled over the slower moving column, keeping a sharp vigilance from the sky.

That day and the next the Clannad rode in deadly earnest, first to the east to the less rugged and more open foothills, then south toward the Turic capital of Cangora, located on the fringes of the great southern desert. They rode hard, and for all their settled ways, they and their white horses endured as well as any nomadic band.

Their guide was an older man, a short, powerful warrior with the lively, quick glance of a curious child. While most men of the Clannad did not usually leave Sanctuary, a few trained as scouts or rangers and learned the mountains and the trails from tradition handed down from other rangers and from years spent exploring the great peaks. This man knew the trail Helmar had found on the Turic map and led his people unerringly on the shortest and safest route possible.

They saw smoke the second afternoon, a dark column of fumes that rose above the plains and slowly spread across the southern skyline. Demira flew to investigate, and when she returned, her message was dark and grim.

I saw a caravan, a big one, scattered along the side of the road for nearly a league. There were wagons burning and dead men everywhere.

Sayyed felt a cold fear grip his belly. “Can you describe any of part of it? Was the Shar-Ja’s wagon there?”

I did not see that wagon, but I saw dead guardsmen with his colours, and I saw other wagons I recognized from Council Rock.
Her tone faltered, and she dropped her long lashes.
Even the plague camp did not look or smell so awful.

Sayyed and Helmar exchanged a long look, but neither could ask about Hydan or Hajira or Tassilio. Even if their bodies lay in the dust of the Spice Road, Demira could not have distinguished them from her place in the sky. They rode on toward the smoke and hoped that somehow the two men and the boy survived. On the third evening, one of Helmar’s scouts found them as they rested the horses along the bank of a scraggly, half-dead stream. The rider trotted his sweat-soaked horse directly to Helmar and nearly fell off as he tried to dismount.

“The clansman was right,” the scout said wearily. He was so tired he could barely stand. “I went down to the settlement at Khazar and talked to some of the merchants and shepherds. The news is spreading like locusts. They say the Fel Azureth have risen. The Gryphon has declared himself the true ruler of the Turic and has called a holy war to purge the land of unbelievers. Half the men in the settlement are leaving to join him, the other half are talking about fighting him. They say the Gryphon is marching on Cangora and that his forces massacred the Shar-Ja’s caravan.”

“Is anyone attempting to organize the resistance against him?” asked Sayyed.

“Not that I know of. I heard many of the tribal leaders who accompanied the Shar-Ja were killed in the massacre, along with most of the royal guards. The tribes are in confusion. The Shar-Ja’s soldiers are leaderless, and no one knows what befell the Shar-Ja.”

Sayyed leaned back against Afer’s strong side. “By the Living God, this gets worse.”

“Aye, it does,” responded the exhausted scout. “They say the zealot’s army meets no resistance because he carries the Lightning of the North.”

“What is that?”

“I have never heard of such a thing. But I also heard a gryphon flies in the vanguard with a black-haired woman on its back. A woman reputed to be a sorceress.”

Sayyed’s eyes widened. “A gryphon? Do you mean a real one?” He whistled. “And Kelene on its back? No wonder the people won’t fight him.” His voice broke off, then went on. “Did you hear any news of the boy, Tassilio?”

The scout shook his head. “All I heard was that the caravan was on the road when fighting broke out in the ranks of the tribal levies, and before anyone knew what was happening, the entire caravan was under attack. They never had a chance.”

“Do you think Hydan had time to reach them?” Sayyed asked Helmar.

She knew who he meant, but she had no reassurance for him. “I don’t know.”

His hand fell to the hilt of his sword; his sharp gaze limed far away. “Are you sure you still want to go? This become far more than a rescue of two women from an unknown assailant.”

“We have gone too far to turn back now. I will ride with you, Sorcerer.” She lifted her hand, and he clasped it with his own, making a joined fist to seal their vow.

“Besides,” she added with a grin, “in the words of Hydan, ‘I still haven’t seen this Lady Gabria.’”

Kelene gripped the gryphon’s sides with her knees and dug her fingers into the feathery-fur down to touch the creature’s warm skin. After a lot of practice, she had learned that the best way to communicate with the creature was through the same sort of mental link she could establish with the Hunnuli. It was difficult and tiring, but the gryphon was much more
likely to obey that than a mouthful of nonsense words shouted in her ear. Down, young one. It is getting too dark to fly.
A growl issued from the gryphon’s throat, but she finally obeyed and began to spiral slowly to earth. Kelene sighed. Riding a gryphon was exciting, because unlike Demira, the animal had been flying since birth. Exquisitely graceful, as skilled as any bird, she read the nuances of the forever changing currents and flew as if her body were a part of the wind. But she was also wilful, resentful, and still very wild under the
weak link of obedience Kelene had established. Unlike Demira, who adored her rider, Kelene knew the gryphon only tolerated her and waited for the day she would be set free. The sorceress understood how she felt and tried to be as kind as possible, but that did not make riding the gryphon over these long, hot days any easier.