“If isn’t the spiders, it’s someone imitiating them-and doing very well at it.” Sadira said.
“Like who?”
“It can only be halflings,” the sorceress said. “Their normal language is half bird squeaks and squawks. What I heard is probably a dialect they use to hunt spiders.”
“Halflings don’t come into the desert.”
“These have,” Sadira said. “You’d better prepare for battle.”
The captain rolled his eyes. “Please. The sentries have seen nothing-”
“And they won’t, until it’s too late,” Sadira countered. When Milo still made no move to stop the dancing, the sorceress said, “Come with me. I’ll show you.”
With that, Sadira walked over to the wall. Milo followed a step behind, reaching beneath his wrap to draw an obsidian blade. The pair climbed out of the campsite, then dropped into the dark sands outside the ancient foundation. The two moons lit the crests of the surrounding dunes in a shimmering yellow glow, leaving the troughs bathed in impenetrable purple shadows. Like a range of snorting hillocks, the silhouettes of the inixes loomed a short distance to the west. A gentle breeze blew from their direction, carrying on its breath the mordant smell of their reptilian bodies.
Sadira’s kank was staked few yards apart from the rest of the caravan mounts, isolated from the larger beasts to keep it from being inadvertently trampled. Like the inixes, her mount still carried its cargo-her personal belongings and her waterskin-in case the caravan had to leave in a hurry. A dozen spear-carrying sentries prowled among the animals, watching for elves or predators that had snuck into the area hoping to find an easy meal.
Milo started toward the animals, but Sadira caught his arm and led him in the opposite direction. “Halflings are hunters,” she explained. “They’ll all approach from downwind, where the inixes can’t smell them.”
“Lead the way. They’re your halflings.”
Sadira took him around the north side of the foundation, to a short stretch of moonlit cobblestones-all that remained of the ancient road the tower had once guarded. The lane ran a dozen yards north before being swallowed by the endless sands of the desert. The half-elf paused here, listening for signs of the halfings, then dashed into the sands across the road. Milo followed a few steps behind, easily keeping up with her in spite of his awkward robe.
Sadira guided them into the a dark trough and waited. Soon, her elven vision began to function, lighting the night up in a vivid array of colorful shapes. The special eyesight was one of the few inheritances she valued from her father. When no other light source was present, it allowed her to see in the dark by perceiving the ambient heat that all things emitted.
Sadira instructed Milo to grip the tip of her cane, then set off through the pink-glowing sands. She had to stay in the dark troughs and not look at the glittering crests of dunes. Even the weak light of the moons would wash out her elven vision, rendering her as sightless as a man staring into the crimson sun. Still, by staying in the shadows, she would have the advantage over any halflings they happened upon. The little men did not share the gift of elven vision and were as unseen in the dark as humans.
Despite his own blindness, Milo easily kept pace with Sadira. Within a few minutes, they had snuck a hundred yards into the sands, and the half-elf stopped at the base of a large dune. To their right was a small expanse of rocky, moonlit scrubland, with even higher dunes on the far side. In order to proceed any farther, they would have to cross the open area or climb over the mound ahead. Sadira elected to wait here, for any halflings approaching camp from this general area would face the same obstacles.
“Do you see something?” whispered Milo.
Sadira shook her head, then remembered he could not see the gesture in the dark. “No,” she said. “It’s better to hide. If the halflings hear us moving about, we’ll never find them.
They waited several minutes, the music of the ryl pipes drifting to them on the wind. Sadira’s body responded to the melody or its own accord, and she could only keep from swaying to its rhythm through a conscious act of will. Milo did not show as much restraint as she did, letting his head bob in time to the insistent beat.
At last, a short trill sounded from the other side of the moonlit expanse. It was answered immediately by another, and then a third.
“Do you hear that?”
“Yes,” Milo replied.
“Come with me,” Sadira said, concluding that her quarry was approaching camp somewhere beyond the open expanse.
The sorceress stepped onto the edge of the scrubland, then waited while the moonlight washed out her elven vision. The sweet smell of newly cropped tinchweed was mixed with the sour odor of fresh inix dung, and the sorceress guessed that this was where the drivers had grazed their mounts at dusk. The halflings had probably been here even then, watching in silence-no doubt looking for her and the cane that she had neglected to return to Nok. It was an unfortunate time for the halfling chieftain to decide that he wanted his weapon back, for she had no intention of giving it to him.
After Sadira’s sight returned to normal, she started across the brush-flecked field at a sprint with Milo close behind. They were about halfway across when a loud trill sounded from the shadows just ahead. Sadira halted, realizing that the halflings were even closer than she had thought.
Milo continued past her, whispering, “Let’s catch him!”
A thick-tongued voice cried out from ahead. “No, Milo!”
“Osa?” he gasped. A strident chirp sounded from ahead of the captain. He stopped abruptly and raised his sword, crying, “By Ral’s light!”
As Sadira moved forward to see what was wrong, the tip of a barbed spear burst through Milo’s back. When the sorceress reached his side, she saw that a halfling had risen from the center of a spinifex bush and attacked. The warrior’s eyes were gleaming yellow as he pushed his small spear further into Milo’s body.
Screaming in anger, the sorceress brought the obsidian pommel of her cane down on the halfling’s tangled mess of hair. It struck with a sharp crack, and the halfling collapsed in a heap.
Milo dropped his sword and stared at the spear in his stomach with disbelieving eyes. As the captain pitched onto his face, something rustled behind Sadira. She spun around and saw a halflling crawling toward her on his belly. The sorceress did not give him a chance to stand. She leaped to the warrior’s side and smashed his head again and again with her cane.
Sadira heard a set of heavy footsteps, then looked around to see Osa’s bulky form rushing toward her. The mul was limping badly, and the sorceress could see that the shaft of a barbed spear protruding from the woman’s thigh.
Osa stopped at Milo’s side and felt his pulse. When she detected no heartbeat, the mul kissed him in a last farewell, then snatched up his sword and looked to the sorceress. “Go!” she said, nodding toward the dune from which her husband and Sadira had come.
“I’m sorry about-”
Sadira did not have a chance to finish her apology, for Osa leaped to her feet and resumed her sprint across the moonlit field. The sorceress ran after the limping mul, but could not keep up even at her best pace.
As they approached the shadows where Sadira and Milo had hidden, several trills sounded ahead. Sadira stopped immediately, realizing a group of halflings was lurking in the darkness. Osa continued on, oblivious to the sounds.
The sorceress pointed the palm of one hand toward the ground, spreading her fingers apart. Shutting out all other thoughts, she focused on her hand, summoning the energy for a spell. The air beneath her palm shimmered, then power began to rise from the ground into Sadira’s body. As soon as she felt the surge weaken, the half-elf closed her fist and cut off the flow. If she had pulled more energy into her body, she would have killed the plants from which she drew it, defiling the soil and rendering it barren for ages to come. By stopping when she had, however, the sorceress had caused no permanent damage to the land. Within a day, the shrubs would recover their lost life-force and continue to grow as if they had never been tapped.