The destruction of the Wadi camp took less time than the slaughter in the dragonlord’s palace. Unlike the mercenaries who had daylight and a slight warning before the Tarmaks were upon them, the people in the camp were caught asleep, trapped in their caves, fighting a foe in the dark that took them totally by surprise. By the time the defenders came awake and were able to mount some meager self-defense it was already beyond hope. The Tarmaks swept over the camp and moved in behind to attack the fortified barricades and guard positions. The last to fall was the Post where General Dockett led a bitter resistance. By dawn even that vain attempt was gone. In the small rooms of the roughhewn headquarters General Dockett fell with ten of his militia.
In a small niche halfway up the canyon wall, a small observer watched with wide eyes and a grief-laden heart as the Tarmaks dragged the bodies out of the Post and off the walls and heaped them in a pile near the entrance. With practiced efficiency the warriors chopped off the heads of the corpses and placed them on tall stakes in a row in front of the Post. The remaining dead were left to the carrion eaters and the sun. The few wounded they found were sent to join the dead.
The watcher waited.
Soon smoke curled up the canyon, and more Tarmaks appeared. Some led the camp’s few horses—including Linsha’s favorite mount—on lead lines. Others drove a miserable collection of prisoners before them. The watcher studied the captives and saw the Tarmaks had been selective—young women, older boys strong enough to work, and the surviving Knights of Solamnia. There were no Legionnaires, no militia, no centaurs; they had died fighting.
In the midst of the group, Sir Remmik stumbled by, his arms tightly bound and blood clotting on the back of his head. He looked ill and older than his years. Behind him staggered the other Knights—bloodied, bruised, and stunned. Only a few of the eighteen Knights were missing—Linsha, Sir Hugh Bronan, the young Knight who had once stood up for Linsha at her trial, Sir Fellion, and perhaps two others. The Tarmaks had obviously wanted the Solamnics alive.
Voices shouted through the canyon. Horns blew, and more Tarmaks jogged down the trails to join the gathering force by the entrance. About a dozen Tarmaks with large ropes coiled around their shoulders came in through the opening.
The watcher eyed the ropes and began to understand.
A horn blared again, an officer shouted a command, and the Tarmaks fell into a column of fours with the prisoners confined tightly in the middle. Giving a roar of conquest that echoed down the Wadi, the Tarmaks moved out at a quick trot. The dust kicked up by their tramping feet rose like a storm behind them.
The watcher stared at the lingering cloud of dust long after the enemy had left and the sound of the wailing women and the pounding of feet had passed away.
The sun rose on its accustomed path and eventually cast its rays into the Wadi. The heat increased, and the warm air rose above the walls of stone. Moved by a fitful wind, a faint odor became detectable to the carrion feeders in the vicinity. The first to appear was a magpie, its black and white feathers a stark flash of color amid the dusty browns and reds of the Wadi. A moment later a winged shadow drifted silently across the canyon floor and circled over the pile of corpses.
The observer knew it was time to go. Where there was one vulture, there soon would be dozens. Though they usually did not bother to attack owls, they could be vicious in the defense of a meal. Besides, Varia hated vultures. She stepped out of her shadowy niche, spread her wings, and dropped soundlessly into the air. She caught a rising heat wave and use it to glide through the open spaces of the canyon.
The first thing she noticed was the silence. A narrow place like the Wadi collected sounds and sent them bouncing back and forth. When the militia was active, the canyon filled with the voices of men, women, and children, the cries of stock animals, the ring of axes or hammers, the clatter of hooves, and the clash of weapons used in training. Now the only sounds the owl’s sharp ears heard were the buzz of gathering flies and the lonely rustle of the wind through the scraggly trees that grew in the shelter of the rocks.
She saw several bodies sprawled at the base of the rocks—the sentries who had once stood at the top of the canyon walls. The Tarmaks had knifed them in the dark and tossed their bodies over the precipice. Beyond the barricades, she spotted more corpses—some beheaded and dismembered, some merely killed as quickly and silently as possible. Only a few looked as if they had had time to fight back. There were no dead Tarmaks.
Gliding on, she dipped a little lower to go below the rising smoke and flew over the camp, knowing what she would find.
There were no shelters, tents, huts, workouts, or sheds left standing. Everything made by the hands of the camp inhabitants had been hacked down, trampled, burned, and rendered useless. A few pitiful dogs and goats had been slaughtered. Several clusters of centaurs lay on the trail sprawled in their own blood. More bodies were scattered across the camp’s grounds where people had tried to flee or fight. They had been felled by arrows or hacked by swords. Varia guessed many of the people still lay in the caves, murdered in their sleep by the stealthy assassins.
She swung around a few columns of smoke rising from the burning camp and flew farther up the canyon into cleaner air. But there was little more to find here. The guards who were supposed to watch the Wadi’s back ways lay dead at their posts. It was as if someone had told the Tarmaks exactly where to find each guard and sentry. There was one other thing she found that confirmed another suspicion. On four different places along the sheer tops of the canyon walls, she spotted scuff marks, metal stakes pounded into the rock, and rub marks on the crumbling edges as if ropes had dug into the earth. She studied the signs carefully from her height then flew to the end of the canyon. There was no one left alive that she could see. The camp and the city’s last defenders were dead.
At least Linsha had not been here. The Tarmaks held her for now, but she was alive, and Varia was a firm believer that where there was life, there was hope. She did not believe the Tarmaks were going to kill Linsha. Not right away. There still might be time to fly north and find Crucible again. If she could, somehow, persuade him to return, he could free Linsha and the others.
He should never have left in the first place, the owl thought peevishly, unsettled by the massacre she had been unable to prevent.
Dispirited, she rose above the Wadi and left the vultures to their meal. Somewhere out on the plains were other militia patrols and Mariana. Varia hadn’t seen Falaius Taneek in the canyon either. If he wasn’t among the dead in the caves, perhaps he was safe with a troop somewhere. They would have to be warned and sent on to their rendezvous place. Then she would return to the palace and see how Linsha fared before she decided whether or not to risk the long, dangerous trip to Sanction a second time.
Linsha squinted against the bright light of day as she stepped outside. She would have appreciated a moment to let her eyes adjust to the stronger light, but a Tarmak pushed the butt of his spear into her back and shoved her forward. She banged into Lanther and exited the dragon’s palace by staggering sideways to avoid hurting him, losing her balance, and falling on her side.
Rough hands hauled her to her feet, and the guard cursed her in his own tongue. Linsha filed that phrase away for later with every other fragment and remark of the Tarmak language she had been able to pick up. She had always had a knack for learning languages. This one, she sensed with deep bitterness, had become important.
She shrugged away from the guard and walked blinking after the rest of the prisoners into a stone paved court she had never seen before. From the placement and appearance of the crumbling buildings, she guessed they were behind the spacious throne room and great hall in the maze of stables, outbuildings, storehouses, barracks, and craft halls that once comprised the working quarters of the huge palace. The court they were in was formed by a large storehouse at the north end, what may have been a carriage house at the east, and the palace wing on the south. To the west, the remains of a toppled wall formed the fourth side of the courtyard. Everywhere she looked, she saw Tarmaks either standing guard or working industriously among the ruins.