“You should have let me kill you in Nibenay,” he said. “It would have saved us both a lot of trouble and pain.”
“You, perhaps, but not me,” Sadira said. She thrust the tree sap toward the prince’s face.
As he saw the crystal-shaped lump coming at him, Dhojakt turned away to protect his vulnerable nose. “That won’t work this time, stupid girl!” he said.
Sadira spoke her incantation, but the stream that shot from her hand was not one of poisonous acid. Instead, it was a thick, gummy resin that quickly covered the prince’s head and torso in a single globule. Realizing he had been tricked, Dhojakt laboriously twisted his head around to face the sorceress. As he tried to reach out for her, Sadira backed away and spoke a single command word.
The resin hardened into a milky bead, as solid as stone and just as inflexible. Beneath the amorphous globule, Sadira could barely make out the shape of the prince’s outstretched arms and the mandibles protruding from his mouth. The spell had not been large enough to cover his many legs, however. He resembled a giant centipede that had suffered the misfortune of being half-encased in a giant bead of frankincense.
Sadira sheathed her dagger, then grabbed the heavy globule and pulled. Dhojakt tried to cling to the porous wall with his clawed feet, but the weight of the milky bubble encasing his body was too much for him. With the sorceress’s help, the heavy globule slowly peeled away from the stone, until at last Sadira managed to push it off the ledge.
Then, all at once, the prince’s claws tore free. Dhojakt slipped over the edge and, his legs slashing at the sorceress in a desperate effort to drag her along, he disappeared into the darkness. Sadira slumped down on the ledge and listened to the prince’s feet scrape along the wall of the chasm.
There was no splash or final clatter. The rasp of the prince’s claws simply faded away long before it should have, with no suggestion that he had hit the canyon bottom.
The sorceress peered over the edge. She half-expected to see Dhojakt scrambling back up the cliff, but she found nothing except darkness below.
“Well done,” said Huyar’s voice. “Especially the dagger work against the guards.”
A startled cry escaped Sadira’s lips and she almost slipped over the ledge, but Huyar grasped her shoulder with a firm hand. As he pulled her to her feet, he slipped her dagger from its sheath, then pressed the blade against the small of her back.
“Let’s see what you have in your satchel, shall we?”
He used his free hand to remove the bag from her shoulder, then opened it and dumped the contents on the ground. Being careful never to let the dirk leave the sorceress’s back, he reached down and picked up the intricately carved vial that Magnus and Rhayn had procured in the Bard’s Quarter of Nibenay.
“What’s this?” the elf asked. Holding the flask next to Sadira’s face, he ran his fingers over the notes carved into its side. “The poison you used on our chief?”
“No,” Sadira answered. For the moment, the truth seemed her best option-she certainly could not hope to outrun or outfight the elf. “It’s the antidote.”
SIXTEEN
THE WILD LANDS
“My own daughter!” roared Faenaeyon. “How could you?”
Sadira stood atop Cleft Rock, staring across an olive tinged haze into the crimson disk of the rising sun. Her hands were bound behind her back, with her father pacing in front of her and Huyar standing at her side with a drawn sword. All of the other Sun Runners were gathered around the monolith, watching the proceedings in grim silence.
“I must reach the Pristine Tower,” Sadira said, calmly answering her father’s question.
“The tower, of course!” spat the chief. “Where the New Races are spawned-who’s to say you wouldn’t find the power to defy the Dragon there?” He shook his head in contempt, then waved a hand at Magnus. “Even if you were that lucky, could you bear to live with what you’ll become?”
“That isn’t your worry,” Sadira replied. “What is your concern-or rather, should have been-is that I rescued you from the slave pens in return for a promise to guide me to the Pristine Tower.”
“And when Faenaeyon wouldn’t honor it, you struck a bargain with Rhayn to make her chief,” concluded Huyar.
When Sadira did not answer, Faenaeyon stopped in front of her. “Is that how it happened?”
“I have no reason to tell you anything,” Sadira said, looking away.
Faenaeyon grabbed her jaw and turned her head back toward him. “Tell me truly, and you shall live to see the Pristine Tower,” he said. “Rhayn helped you, did she not?”
When Sadira did not answer, he pushed her down. “I thought as much,” he growled, turning around to face his other daughter. “How could you? Sadira is an outsider, but you are a Sun Runner.”
The elf shook her head. “Father, I didn’t-”
“Rhayn, there’s no use lying,” said Sadira, struggling back to her feet. “Our father is no fool. He can see for himself what happened. If you tell him the truth, perhaps some good will come of it for the tribe.”
Faenaeyon scowled at Sadira. “What are you saying?”
Sadira looked him in the eye. “You said that if I answered honestly, I’d live to see the Pristine Tower. Will you keep that promise-or is it like all your others?”
“I’ll honor my word-though you’ll rue that I did,” he answered. “Now tell me what happened.”
Sadira nodded. “The truth of the matter is that you don’t deserve to be chief-not any more. You steal what your followers earn, you treat your warriors like slaves, and you resolve disputes by taking bribes. That’s why Rhayn asked me to poison you-her idea, by the way, not mine. Sooner or later, someone else will try it again. For the sake of the Sun Runners, I hope they succeed.”
Faenaeyon listened to the words with no visible emotion, then turned to his other daughter. “Is this so?”
Rhayn glared at the sorceress and started to shake her head, but Magnus stepped in front of her. “Sadira’s right-there’s no use denying it.” He looked to the chief, then said, “You raised me in your own camp, but I also helped.”
Faenaeyon closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, he looked incredibly old and tired. “Perhaps there was a time when I was a better chief,” he said. “But that doesn’t excuse what you did. Rightfully, I should kill you all now.”
“I demand it!” shouted Huyar, raising his sword. “It’s clear that Gaefal saw them leaving Bard’s Quarter, and that’s why they murdered him. If you don’t give me justice, I’ll take it.”
Faenaeyon glanced at Huyar’s sword with a disdainful sneer. “Did you not hear me promise Sadira that she would live to see the Pristine Tower?”
“But I must have vengeance!”
“Unless it’s me you intend to attack, put your sword away,” Faenaeyon growled, stepping toward the elf.
Huyar’s anger changed to trepidation as he looked into Faenaeyon’s gray eyes. Although he was armed, and the chief was not, he clearly did not relish the thought of pitting his skills against those of Faenaeyon. Huyar sheathed his sword. Looking at the ground, he said, “I demand-”
“You demand nothing,” Faenaeyon snarled. “If you had Rhayn’s courage, you’d be chief and Gaefal would be alive.” He looked away from his son and ran his eyes over the rest of the tribe. “But I am still chief, and until someone comes who is strong enough to take my place, that’s how it’ll stay.”
When no one voiced any objections to this declaration, Faenaeyon gestured at Magnus and Rhayn. “As for you two, I’ll be merciful,” he said. “You may choose death, or you may join Sadira on her journey to the Pristine Tower.”
After glancing at Magnus, Rhayn looked back to her father. “We choose the tower, of course,” she said.