“Forward, my people,” he said. “To the land of our dreams “
Chapter 5
Adala slapped the lump of cold dough against her palm. The patty was half the size it should be for a proper loaf, and the coarse flour they’d had to accept in trade felt gritty under her fingers, but it was all they had. The black iron pan was ready, so she laid the dough in the scant smear of cooking oil. The dough sizzled.
The beast lay next to her. Saliva trickled out its open black lips. Adala pinched off another ball of dough and worked it into a patty. The beast’s tongue came out.
“You are hungry?” she asked.
“Yes!”
“Supper will be ready soon.” The meal would be a poor one, but what she had she would share. Adala would not let a guest starve, no matter how strange the guest might be.
Work on the wall had ceased for the day. Exhausted men and women trudged back to their tents to eat a similarly paltry meal and fall immediately to sleep. Four had watch duty atop the wall. Adala had kept twenty on watch at first, but as the days passed and the laddad did not emerge, the size of the night watch shrank. Too many exhausted sentinels had fallen asleep on the cairn and hurt themselves tumbling off.
The beast had been with them two days. At night it hunted, appeasing its hunger with the odd ground rat or rabbit, and returning before dawn. By day, it kept to Adala’s tent, only the greenish reflection of its eyes visible to anyone passing. Few passed. Word of the beast’s supposed identity had spread. Nomads believed curses were catching, like a disease, and that anyone who strayed too close to the afflicted prince could fall victim to the same misfortune. Adala’s followers begged her to kill it or send it packing. No good could come of having such an unnatural thing close at hand, they said. But she did not heed them.
With her unshakable maita, Adala did not fear the monster. Its submission to her proved Those on High had sent it to her for a purpose. Normally, she would not have hesitated to destroy such an abomination, but it told her of its intention to enter Alya-Alash and she stayed her hand. Let the beast kill laddad if it wished, then let it be killed by them in turn.
The bread was done. Adala removed it from the pan. She poured in a bit of water. Gouts of steam hissed upward. Pieces of dried mutton went into the bubbling liquid. A hairy paw came into view, reaching for the small pile of flatbread. Adala rapped it smartly with her brass ladle. The paw retreated.
“You may eat when all is ready,” she said. “Not before.”
She dropped a handful of rice Into the simmering broth then covered the pan with an inverted wooden bowl to hold in the steam. Despite the cookfire, Adala shivered. The sun had set, and an unhealthy chill was creeping into camp. Clammy cold oozed out of the valley every night. It seeped into the bones and set the body to aching as though every particle of warmth was being leached away. Only a good, hot fire kept the gravelike chill at bay. If the cold was bad there, at the mouth of the valley, she could only imagine how much worse it must be within. Perhaps that was the death Those on High had chosen for the laddad, freezing them into corpses while they slept.
When the rice was done, Adala removed the covering bowl and spooned a modest portion of mutton and rice into it. Two loaves completed the meal, and she passed it to her peculiar guest. Shobbat inhaled deeply over the steaming bowl and licked his chops.
“When will you enter the valley?” Adala asked, partaking of her own meager meal.
“Soon. Wait for sign.”
He’d said the same each evening when she’d posed the question. This time she did not accept it.
“Tomorrow.”
Shobbat’s tongue ceased lapping up food. He regarded the somber woman with a twitch of his brow.
“Why… tom-ow-row?” His beastly mouth was ill suited to forming certain sounds.
“Those on High teach us to be hospitable for three risings of the sun. After that, a guest becomes a pest. You will go tomorrow.”
“I Shobbat!”
“So you have said, but prince or monster, you have worn out your welcome. Go of your own will or be driven out. It is your choice.”
He snarled, baring wicked fangs. She pulled a burning branch from the fire and thrust it at him. He shrank back. Lips writhing to cover his long teeth again, he capitulated.
“Tom-ow-row.”
Since the beast began sleeping in her tent, Adala had taken to sleeping outside. She unrolled her bedroll in front of the tent and settled herself for the night. Although she trusted her maita to protect her from the craven creature, she also kept a dagger hidden underneath her round, brocade pillow. As always, the day’s work had exhausted her so thoroughly, she was asleep seconds after closing her eyes.
Atop the unfinished wall, the four nomad sentinels drew scarves close around their necks and huddled together. With no fire to keep the cold at bay, their duty was misery. An enterprising Weya-Lu provided the next best thing to fire. A flask of palm wine was passed from hand to hand. One of the watchmen left to answer nature’s call. He’d gone only a few steps when his feet suddenly flew out from under him and he fell into the shadows on the valley side of the wall. His comrades laughed and called out rude comments about his inability to hold his drink. One nomad, more sympathetic than the rest, went to help him. He stumbled down the rock pile, calling his comrade’s name. The calls abruptly ceased.
The last two Khurs waited, but the missing men did not reappear. They called for their missing comrades. Before they’d done more than exchange a befuddled look, the darkness came alive. Phantoms swarmed noiselessly up the cairn, overwhelmed the two sentinels, and carried them away to be dispatched just as silently. Then the raiders subsided back into the darkness.
With the force available to him, Porthios could have ridden straight through the nomads. The majority of those remaining were old people, but stealth suited Porthios better than brute force. It spared his army any unnecessary losses and concealed their departure from the wider world. Otherwise, every informer and loose-lipped traveler between Khur and Qualinesti would spread the news that a force of armed elves was on the move. It would not require a military genius to deduce the goal of such a force. Samuval and the Nerakans would be forewarned.
Alhana, leading her griffon by the bridle, joined Porthios as he waited at the head of the concealed cavalry. He explained his plan.
“We’ll circle around the end of the wall. We must be utterly silent. No one is to fight unless attacked. The griffons will be muzzled.”
“There’s no need. I’ve explained to them—”
“Muzzled, Alhana. All of them.” he drew his cloak close and walked away.
A snort from Chisa drew a conciliatory pat. “I know,” Alhana murmured, resting her forehead against the griffon’s feathered neck. “It will be for only a short time, I promise.”
Alhana had suggested the griffon riders take to the air well in advance of the nomad camp and fly high enough to hide the animals’ scent from the Khurs’ ponies. Porthios said no. His best archers were among the griffon riders, and they might be needed should the nomads try to fight. Alhana did not dispute with him as the Lioness might have. She simply waited, and Porthios found himself offering a compromise. The griffon riders would fly over the camp, but only after the army, leading its horses, was safely by.
Elves and horses crept along in a narrow column. The nomad camp was located not behind the wall, but a short distance from its unfinished end. The rocky terrain meant the elves had to pass much nearer the human camp than Porthios would have wished. All went well for a time; then a Khurish pony neighed suddenly. Perhaps it scented the foreign horses, or perhaps it was unsettled by the strange, dank atmosphere near the pass. Porthios, waiting at the rear of the warriors, gestured toward the griffon riders. One put down the animal with a single arrow.