A warrior hailed her. He had found the sorcerer’s sanctum in the broken tower. She entered the tower through a large door that swung inward on silent hinges. The interior was lit only by the faint daylight from an open trap door overhead. She mounted a ladder they’d knocked together from house timbers, and entered Faeterus’s former residence.
The round room was filled with carpets, tapestries, and numerous pillows. Daylight penetrated through hairline cracks in the tower walls. Aside from the overblown furnishings, all they found were more pieces of disintegrating parchment, a collar and leash for the manticore, and an empty wicker cage.
One of the elves bent down, peering into the shadows. He stood up abruptly, cursing.
Kerian came over. “What is it?”
“Dead birds!” Six common pigeons, the bane of soukats all over Khuri-Khan, lay dead on the rug. Their headless bodies were arranged in a neat line.
Kerian spied a squat brass urn in the corner. Recognizing it as a Khurish oil pot, she picked it up and shook it. It was half full. She sent her warriors out. As they went back down the ladder, she began pouring mutton oil on the thick carpet. Tossing aside the empty urn, she swept parchment fragments into a heap on the oil-soaked carpet. With flint and steel, she showered sparks on the little pile of tinder. Soon, the first red flame crept forth. Smoke was puffing from the trap door opening as she joined her elves.
Outside, Kerian saw the first flames erupt from the windows of the villa proper and knew the job was done. Not only was she taking away an enemy’s fortress, she was sending him a clear message: The Lioness had taken the field against him, and there would be no quarter.
In the gardens, the other half of her company had gotten a dozen ropes around the sand beast’s carcass. The gangrenous wound on its hip gave Kerian great satisfaction. Hengriff may have slain the beast, but she and her warriors had slowed it down so he could do the job. Had he encountered the sand beast as they first had, she had no doubt it would have killed the Knight as easily as it had her brave warriors.
Having roped the stinking carcass to their protesting horses, the elves awaited her next order.
“Follow me,” she told them.
The company rode out of the Harbalah and into Khuri-Khan proper. At the rear of the procession, six riders dragged the lifeless body of the sand beast behind their mounts. From windows and doorways Khurs reacted with horror as the putrefying remains were dragged past their houses, shedding blood and flesh as it went. Some screamed, and many cursed the laddad as they passed.
The warrior riding nearest the Lioness said, “General, why are we—?”
“It’s a gift for Sahim-Khan,” she said calmly.
The elves held their formation, but all wondered whether they were on a suicide ride. The human Khan had been known to kill for insults far less than this.
The bulk of the carcass forced them to keep to the wide thoroughfares. These took them through the heart of Khuri-Khan. By the time they skirted the Grand Souks, a crowd had gathered behind them. The Lioness ignored the hostile, angry Khurs and rode steadily on.
Word of their approach sped ahead, and they arrived to find the gates of the Khuri yl Nor solidly shut against them. Kerian directed her troopers to drag the decaying sand beast up to the gate and cut it loose.
From the battlements above, a Khurish officer yelled, “What are you doing, laddad? You can’t leave that there!”
She removed her helmet. Despite the clouded sky, her golden head shone like a land-bound sun.
“I am Kerianseray, consort of the Speaker of the Sun and Stars,” she proclaimed in her best command voice. “This is a gift for Sahim-Khan with my compliments. Summon him.”
The officer laughed harshly. “No one summons the Khan of All the Khurs!”
“Tell him it has to do with the massacre of the nomad camp, and with his pet sorcerer, Faeterus.”
Mention of the atrocity stirred the mob behind the elves. Angry shouts and denunciations flew. The elven warriors, tense already, fingered sword hilts and worked to control their restive mounts. Only Kerian remained calm. She sat tall on her bay horse, back straight, eyes never leaving the Khurish officer.
Perhaps it was her calm insistence, or the growling mob behind her, that convinced him, but the officer disappeared from the battlement. For a time nothing happened. Distant thunder rumbled. Flies, drawn by the carrion, tormented everyone. “Unclean!” cried the mob. “Drive the killers out!”
At last the double gates parted. The crowd fell silent. Thunder murmured again.
A double line of Khurish soldiers, twenty in all, marched out the gate. Behind them walked, not Sahim-Khan, but Hakkam, commander of the Khan’s army. The soldiers halted and Hakkam strode between their lines, approaching the Lioness.
“Lady Kerianseray,” he said. He grimaced at the carcass. “You’ve been hunting, I see.”
“No, General. Like a vulture, I only picked up what was already dead. Is Sahim-Khan coming?”
“Of course not. Say what must be said to me.”
Sensing that she had gotten as far as she could, she crossed her wrists on the pommel of her saddle and leaned forward over them.
“This stinking carcass is all that remains of a sand beast. I believe they are native to your remote desert.” Hakkam conceded they were. “It was slain a few nights ago by Lord Hengriff. You know the man?” Kerian said sarcastically.
Matching her tone, Hakkam replied, “A warrior of considerable prowess. Not the best intriguer.”
“This beast was slain in the Harbalah, on the grounds of a villa destroyed by Malys. The beast traveled there from the Valley of the Blue Sands, where it tried to kill me and my entire company.”
Her words set the mob surging and muttering again. Kerian raised her voice to be heard above them. “At first I thought it had come across us by accident, but after its first attack, it tracked us across fifty miles of open desert. We passed by the peaceful camp of the Weya-Lu tribe one night on our way to the valley. We did them no harm. The sand beast, on our trail, must have slaughtered them after we passed on.”
A profound silence descended. The buzzing of the flies sounded very loud.
“When we fought the beast a final time, we wounded it, and it escaped.” Wisely, she didn’t cloud the issue with talk of will-o’-the-wisps and the instantaneous transference of the one-ton sand beast from Inath-Wakenti to Khuri-Khan.
“Ask yourself, General Hakkam, ask yourself as I have done, why did this creature, wounded and in agony, turn up on the grounds of a wrecked mansion in your city?”
He folded sinewy arms across his chest and obligingly said, “Why?”
“It was returning to its master, the sorcerer Faeterus, who lived in the ruined mansion. Maddened with pain, it attacked one of my warriors who was keeping an eye on the mage. The fortunate arrival of Lord Hengriff put an end to its murderous rampage.”
Hakkam stared at her for a moment longer, eyes narrowed in thought, then slowly approached the dead beast. Its rotting hide was nearly invisible beneath a writhing coat of blowflies. Hakkam was a hardened desert fighter and did not flinch.
“What proof have you?” he called out over the buzz and whir of busy insects.
“The proof of my word, and the proof of logic. I do not kill innocents. A sand beast will, and did.”
“And this sorcerer you speak of?”
“At large in your city, perhaps in the palace of the Khan even now. Find him, General. Put your questions to him.”
She raised a gloved hand, and in unison her escort wheeled their horses. A crowd of nearly one thousand Khurs packed the back of the square. The Lioness rode back through her warriors and continued unhesitatingly toward the wall of humanity. When the Khurs realized she was not going to turn aside, they scrambled out of her way. The rest of the elves followed her.