There was no more time to ponder the mystery. The nomads redoubled their efforts. Caught in a vise of human fury, Taranath looked for a way out. Left and right were hopelessly clogged with savages. Retreat was impossible since the elf nation lay in that direction. Ahead was the only option.
The elves surged forward. They cut their way through the relatively thin line of nomads in front of them and burst into the open desert. Taranath told his cornetist to blow not “Retreat,” but “Pursuit.” Heartened to know they weren’t fleeing, the elves emerged from the human swarm and galloped away, riding due west. After some confusion while the choking clouds of dust thinned, the Khurs followed.
The only nomads who did not pursue were Adala and the Weya-Lu. Yalmuk and the Weya-Lu warriors who’d fought at Broken Tooth had ridden hard to catch up to the main army. When they arrived, they found the battle over, their people pursuing the laddad, and Adala Malta slumped on her donkey’s back.
Fearing the worst, Yalmuk touched the Weyadan’s arm. “Maita! Are you hurt?”
She straightened, and Yalmuk gasped as he saw the arrow in her chest. “I am not injured, warmaster,” she said. “Can you get this thing out of me?”
Gingerly, he grasped the shaft. Adala neither winced nor swooned but told him to get on with it. He gave a hard yank. The laddad missile came out with a tearing sound.
“Lout. You’ve torn my geb.”
Yalmuk didn’t hear her. He was examining the arrow. The sharp tip of the broadhead had snapped off, as though it had struck something hard.
“Maita, are you wearing armor?”
She parted the front of her outer robe, displaying the sash she wore underneath. Studded along its pale gray length were three flat cabochons of lapis lazuli, each as big as Adala’s palm. The one in the center was cracked in half. The arrow had struck it, breaking the arrow tip and the cabochon. Adala’s clothing had held the arrow in place until Yalmuk ripped it free.
She told him to keep the arrow. “It is more proof my maita lives and will bring us victory.”
He tucked it away and asked what she desired to do next.
“The men of Khur must be brought back. Our target is the laddad host, not their cowardly soldiers. if so many are loose in the desert, the laddad must be without protection.” She rearranged her clothing. “I will bring the tribes back. You will ride after the laddad invaders.”
Yalmuk studied her closely. “Malta, are you hurt at all?”
The rib directly behind the broken cabochon felt as though it was cracked, and she felt some pain. But she cinched her sash tight to brace it, and said nothing of this to Yalmuk, only sent him on his way. Taking up her switch, she tapped Little Thorn on the flank and trotted off to find her army.
Clouds obscured most of the stars over Khuri-Khan. In the courtyard of the Temple of Elir-Sana stood High Priestess Sa’ida, a tall staff in her hand. At the top of the staff, a glass globe burned with a swirling white light that gave out no heat but did illuminate the loathsome creature groveling before her.
When her acolytes first came running into the sacred shrine, screeching about a monster at the gate, Sa’ida had chastised them. The age of monsters was past, she said. They were being hysterical. Yet when she saw the half-man, half-beast creature and heard it speak her name, she realized she would have to apologize to the women.
“Holy Mistress,” the thing hissed. “Help me! I am cursed.”
“What are you, beast?”
“Holy Mistress, it is I, Prince Shobbat!”
She recoiled in shock, and the tiny brass bells woven through her white hair jangled discordantly. The furry beast crept closer on yellow-nailed paws. The night was a warm one, and the creature’s black tongue lolled as he panted.
Holding her staff in both hands before her, she commanded him to halt. “Whoever—whatever—you are, you may not enter the temple of the Beneficent Healer!”
Rising up on his haunches, Shobbat slumped against the temenos wall. “Oh, help me, Holy Mistress,” he pleaded. “I am hunted through the streets of my own city. My father means to kill me!”
Sa’ida took a step toward him, eliciting a chorus of gasps and cries from the acolytes crowded in the temple doorway behind her. She ignored them.
“How do you come to be in this state?”
“I do not know! Perhaps I meddled with powers a righteous man should have shunned, but…” The shrug he gave was eloquent, even if bizarre coming from such a creature.
He told her of the disgraced royal mage Faeterus and of his visit to the mysterious Oracle of the Tree, deep in the desert. The prince believed the Oracle was to blame for his condition. He told her of the grotesque images of melded humans and animals he’d seen there.
At the end of his recitation, it was her turn to shrug. “I cannot help you. I can only heal hurts, not reverse a spell of sorcery.”
“At least let me pass the night here, Holy Mistress. That is all I ask.”
“You must know that is not possible, Highness.” Her voice faltered on the title. “You would desecrate this temple. You must go and trust in fate.”
“Maita?” Shobbat’s mouth opened and saliva dripped from his ivory fangs. She realized he was laughing. “You talk like a desert dreamer. Holy Mistress, what am I to do?”
Despite his grotesque state, his anguish was genuine. She felt a small stirring of pity for the foolish prince. “Find the one who cursed you. Only he can remove the spell,” she said.
He protested the impossibility of finding the Oracle. “Yes, but there is another possibility,” she reminded him. “One who is not spirit, but flesh and blood.”
She was right. Faeterus was no spirit. He could be found. The thought of having Faeterus’s skinny throat in his jaws filled Shobbat with pleasure. The mage would cure him or else.
Seeing the thing before her grin with unmistakable malice, Sa’ida’s brief flicker of pity died. She aimed the globe on her staff at Shobbat and proclaimed, “Go from this place!”
As if shoved by an invisible hand, Shobbat was propelled backward across the courtyard and out the open gate. The gate swung shut on its own, locking with a loud clang. A luminous glow appeared above the low temple wall. Sa’ida had raised a magical shield.
Shobbat snarled. When he was khan, he would raze the woman’s wretched temple flat. No, better still, he would turn the sacred shrine into a stable. Let his prized horses appreciate the beauty of that translucent blue dome.
He laughed and the sound caused a dog nearby to bark. The noise pierced Shobbat like a knife. The dog’s scent came to him, and he knew it was a hound. Several other barks answered, and he remembered his fear. He was being hunted. He had to get out of the city.
Faeterus kept a house in the Harbalah, the northern district of the city still not rebuilt after the depredations of the red dragon Malys. The mage’s home was bound to contain plenty of things he’d touched. From them Shobbat could get the sorcerer’s scent. He would track Faeterus to the end of the world, if need be, and wring a cure from him.
As he slunk away, howls arose from every dog within a mile. Masters cursed or kicked them, and told them to shut up, unaware of the danger passing by.
Chapter 21
All night the elves argued. The fantastic spectacle in the sky faded, but the fire it ignited among Porthios’s followers waxed ever hotter.