Sadira was surprised at the emotions she felt. To be sure, there was anger and hatred. A large part of her wanted to strike him down and, after revealing her identity, leave him in the scorching sun to die alone and maimed. Another part of her, less murderous but just as vindictive, wanted to tell him how she and her mother had suffered over the years, and, by blinding and deafening him, inflict some measure of agony in return for what they had endured.
That third aspect of Sadira’s feeling confused her the most. Part of her didn’t hate her father at all. Deep inside, she was amazed to see him standing before her. Until now, he had always been a distant abstraction, an enigma whose thoughtless cruelty had caused her a lifetime of pain. Now Sadira was merely curious about him. She wanted to know what kind of man he was, and whether he had ever tried to find out what had happened to Barakah and his unborn child.
After several moments of allowing the tepid water from Rhyan’s waterskins run to down her throat, Sadira finally removed the neck from her mouth. “My thanks,” she said, handing it back to the woman who, she realized, was her half-sister.
Magnus kneeled at the sorceress’s side. “Allow me to see these wounds before we resume the run.”
As the windsinger’s thick fingers began fumbling at the bandages on the sorceress’s arm, Faenaeyon opened her satchel and began to look through it.
Sadira was on her feet immediately, the palm of her good hand facing the ground and ready to draw energy for a spell. “Close it!” she demanded.
Cringing, Rhayn stepped away from Sadira’s side. “Don’t try to stop him,” she warned, half-whispering. “It’s not worth it.”
“Put my satchel down!” Sadira insisted, stepping toward her father.
The elf continued to paw through the sack, hardly looking up. “Why? Are you hiding something from me?”
“We had an agreement,” Sadira said. “I told you what would happen if you didn’t honor it.”
Faenaeyon pulled her purse from the satchel. “I said my tribe would take you to Nibenay,” he sneered. “I didn’t say how much I’d charge.”
He tossed Sadira’s satchel at her feet, then turned away with her coin purse still in his hand. The sorceress started after her father, already drawing the power for the spell that would kill him.
Magnus wrapped a huge arm around Sadira’s waist and lifted her off the ground, at the same time closing his fist around her hand. “Are you as mad as he is?”
SIX
SILVER SPRING OASIS
Faenaeyon strode into the lush field, using his bone sword to beat a swath through thickets of tart-smelling ashbrush. When he closed to within fifty paces of the mud-brick fort, he stopped. “Toramund!” he boomed. “What have you done to me?”
An armored elf leaned out of the gate tower. Though the distance was too great to see him well, Sadira could tell that he wore a leather helmet with a nose guard and broad cheek plates. In his hand, he held a curved sword with a blade of kank-shell.
“Take back your Sun Runners and be gone, Faenaeyon,” he yelled back. “All ye’ll get from the Silver Spring is a belly full of arrows.”
To give weight to Toramund’s words, the elves standing along the walls flexed their bows, each pointing an arrow at Faenaeyon’s chest. The Sun Runners, men and women alike, responded by nocking their own arrows. Sadira guessed that Toramund had about fifty elves on the walls, while her father had at least twice that number outside the fort.
Despite the looming threat of battle, Faenaeyon showed no sign of backing off. Instead, he ran a contemptuous gaze over the enemy warriors, as if challenging them to fire.
The sorceress turned to Magnus, who was mounted on a kank at her side. Since she had joined the Sun Runners, the windsinger had been her constant companion, healing her wounds and watching after her safety. “What’s all this about?”
“Silver,” the windsinger answered, focusing his black orbs on the small fort. It had obviously just been erected, for none of the mud bricks showed any sign of erosion, and the highest rows were still black with dampness. “The Silver Hands claim this spring as their own and demand a silver coin from anyone who wishes to water his beasts here.”
Sadira grimaced. It had been only a few days since she had helped the Sun Runners across the Canyon of Guthay, but already she could imagine how Faenaeyon would respond to such an outrageous price. “What happened the last time you were here?”
“There are more Sun Runners than Silver Hands,” Magus answered, twitching his ears.
“So you watered without paying,” Sadira concluded.
“No,” answered Rhayn, giving the half-elf a sheepish grin. “We robbed them.”
Rhayn stood on the opposite side of Sadira’s kank, near the leg that had been wounded by the halfling spear. The elf’s skin glistened with sweat from the morning run, and a lanky infant dozed in a sling on her back. Although the child was Rhayn’s, Sadira did not know who had fathered him-or his four siblings. The elf woman treated more than a dozen men as a city woman might her husband, despite the fact that many of them made camp with meeker women who seemed half slave and half wife.
“Apparently the Silver Hands have decided to build a fort rather than suffer the indigity of another robbery,” said Magnus, his ears turned forward in a thoughtful manner. “Rather far-sighted, don’t you think?”
Back in the ashbrush field, Faenaeyon stopped glaring at the enemy warriors and returned his attention to their chief. “Open your gates, Toramund,” he yelled. “My warriors and beasts thirst for your water, and my purses hunger for your coins.”
Faenaeyon grabbed the purse he had taken from Sadira, the lightest of the five on his belt, and shook it for emphasis. A few Sun Runners laughed at his boldness, but many others cast a nervous glances at each other.
“Does he want to start a fight?” asked Sadira. “Why doesn’t he strike a deal?”
“Elves are too smart for that,” Rhayn answered, looking at Sadira as though she were a child.
“Elven tribes know better than to trust each other,” Magnus explained patiently. “It’s the great downfall of our otherwise noble race.”
Sadira wanted to ask what was noble about an elf, but thought better of it and held her tongue.
After a short pause, Toramund responded to Faenaeyon’s threat. “Take your rabble and be gone, before I lose patience!”
“Your goatyard won’t save you,” Faenaeyon countered. “I have a sorceress who can change bricks to dust with fewer words than I have already spoken.”
“Rhayn? That trollop daughter of yours couldn’t conjure light from a burning torch,” Toramund scoffed.
Toramund reached into the depths of his tower and pulled forward a gray-haired man with a long beard. “Bademyr will make short work of Rhayn-and of your windsinger besides.”
Faenaeyon’s laugh echoed off the fortress walls, rolling back toward his own warriors in cruel waves. “It is not my daughter that I speak of-though you shall soon apologize to her.” he cried. With a dramatic flare, he faced Sadira and said, “Destroy the fort, Lorelei.”
“No,” Sadira replied.
Her response brought a disbelieving murmur from the Sun Runners, and several warriors turned to stare with gaping mouths at the sorceress.
When Sadira made no move to cast a spell, Toramund mocked, “Your new sorceress must be powerful indeed, if you cannot control her. I’m so scared that I’ve made water in my boots. Perhaps you would like to drink that, Sun Runner?”
Faenaeyon paid the insult no attention. Instead, he glared at Sadira, his lips curled into an angry frown. He did not speak or move, but the mad light in his eyes made the message plain.