He awoke to silence and the darkness of night.
After a long lapse of time like an interminable scream, he raised his head. The wind had piled dust over him, and his movement disturbed it. It filled his throat and mouth and lungs. But he bit back a spasm of coughing, and listened to the darkness.
All around him, Doriendor Corishev was as still as a cairn. The wind and the vortex were gone, leaving only midnight dust and death to mark their path. Silence lay over the ruins like a bane.
Then he had to cough. Gasping, retching, he pushed himself to his knees. He sounded explosively loud to himself. He tried to control the violence of his coughing, but he was helpless until the spasm passed.
As it released him, he realized that he was still clutching his sword. Instinctively, he tightened his grip on it. He cursed his night blindness, then told himself that the darkness was his only hope.
His face throbbed painfully, but he ignored it.
He kept himself still while he thought.
This long after the vortex, he reasoned, all his allies were either dead or gone. If the vortex and the birds had not killed them, they had been swept from the ruins by Fleshharrower's army. So they could not help him. He did not know how much of that army had stayed behind in the masterplace.
And he could not see. He was vulnerable until daylight. Only the darkness protected him; he could not defend himself.
His first reaction was to remain where he was, and pray that he was not discovered. But he recognized the futility of that plan. At best, it would only postpone his death. When dawn came, he would still be alone against an unknown number of enemies. No, his one chance was to sneak out of the city now and lose himself in the Wastes. There he might find a gully or hole in which to hide.
That escape was possible, barely possible, because he had one advantage; none of Fleshharrower's creatures except the ur-viles could move through the ruins at night as well as he. And the Raver would not have left ur-viles behind. They were too valuable. If Troy could remember his former skills-his sense of ambience, his memory for terrain-he would be able to navigate the city.
He would have to rely on his hearing to warn him of enemies.
He began by sliding his sword quietly into its scabbard. Then he started groping his way over the hot sand. He needed to verify where he was, and knew only one way to do it.
Nearby, his hands found a patch of ground that felt burned. The dirt which stuck to his fingers reeked of attar. And in the patch, he located Ruel's twisted body. His sense of touch told him that Ruel was badly charred. The dark bird must have caught fire when it died, and burned away, leaving the Bloodguard's corpse behind.
The touch of that place nauseated him, and he backed away from it. He was sweating heavily. Sweat stung his burns. The night was hot; sunset had brought no relief to the ruins. Folding his arms over his stomach, he climbed to his feet.
Standing unsteadily in the open, he tried to clear his mind of Ruel and the bird. He needed to remember how to deal with blindness, how to orient himself in the ruins. But he could not determine which way he had come into this open place. Waving his arms before him, he went in search of a wall.
His feet distrusted the ground-he could not put them down securely-and he moved awkwardly. His sense of balance had deserted him. His face felt raw, and sweat seared his eye sockets. But he clenched his concentration, and measured the distance.
In twenty yards, he reached a wall. He touched it at an angle, promptly squared himself to it, then moved along it. He needed a gap which would permit him to touch both sides of the wall. Any discrepancy in temperature between the sides would tell him his directions.
After twenty more yards, he arrived in a corner. Turning at right angles, he-followed this new wall. He kept himself parallel to it by brushing the stone with his fingers. Shortly, he stumbled into some rubble, and found an entryway.
The wall here was thick, but he could touch its opposite sides without stretching his arms. Both sides felt very warm, but he thought he discerned a slightly higher temperature on the side facing back into the open space. That direction was west, he reasoned; the afternoon sun would have heated the west side of a wall.
Now he had to decide which way to go.
If he went east, he would be less likely to meet enemies. Since they had not already found him, they might be past him, and their search would move from east to west after the Warward. But if any chance of help from his friends or Mehryl remained, it would be on the west side.
The dilemma seemed to have no solution. He found himself shaking his head and moaning through his teeth. At once, he stuffed his throat with silence. He decided to move west toward Mehryl. The added risk was preferable to a safe escape eastward-an escape which would leave him alone in the Southron Wastes, without food or water or a mount.
He leaned against the unnatural heat of the wall for a few moments, breathing deeply to steady himself. Then he stood up, grasped his sense of direction with all the concentration he could muster, and started walking straight out into the ruined hall.
His progress was slow. The uncertainty of his steps made him stagger repeatedly away from a true westward line. But he corrected the variations as best he could, and kept going. Without the support of a wall, his balance grew worse at every stride. Before he had covered thirty yards, the floor reeled around him, and he dropped to his knees. He had to clamp his throat shut to keep from whimpering.
When he regained his feet, he heard quiet laughter-first one voice, then several. It had a cruel sound, as if it were directed at him. It resonated slightly off the walls, so that he could not locate it, but it seemed to come from somewhere ahead.
He froze where he stood. Helplessly, he prayed that the darkness would cover him.
But a voice shattered that hope. “Look here, brothers,” it said. “A man — alone.” Its utterance was awkward, thick with slavering, but Troy could understand it. He could hear the malice in the low chorus of laughter which answered it.
Other voices spoke.
“A man, yes. Slayer take him!”
“Look. Such pretty clothes. An enemy.”
“Ha! Look again, fool. That is no man.”
“He has no eyes.”
“Is it an ur-vile?”
“No-a man, I say. A man with no eyes! Here is some sport, brothers.”
All the voices laughed again.
Troy did not stop to wonder how the speakers could see him. He turned, started to run back the way he had come.
At once, they gave pursuit. He could hear the slap of bare feet on stone, the sharp breathing. They overtook him swiftly. Something veered close to him, tripped him. As he fell, the running feet surrounded him.
“Go gently, brothers. No quick kill. He will be sport for us all.”
“Do not kill him.”
“Not kill? I want to kill. Kill and eat.”
“The Giant will want this one.”
“After we sport.”
“Why tell the Giant, brothers? He is greedy.”
“He takes our meat.”
“Keep this one for ourselves, yes.”
“Slayer take the Giant.”
“His precious ur-viles. When there is danger, men must go first.”
“Yes! Brothers, we will eat this meat.”
Troy heaved himself to his feet. Through the rapid chatter of the voices, he heard, go first, and almost fell again. If these creatures were the first of Fleshharrower's army to enter the masterplace-! But he pushed down the implications of that thought, and snatched out his sword.