“You will do as you are told.” said Torian firmly.
“We did not sign on for this,” the captain protested. “We were hired to protect the caravan along the trade route, not go chasing off into the barrens on some fool’s errand.”
Torian drew his dagger and threw it with such speed that the motion seemed little more than a blur. The knife flew through the air with unerring accuracy and plunged into the soft hollow of the mercenary captain’s throat. The captain made a coughing, gagging sound, and his hands went up to the blade as blood spurted from his mouth. He fell from the kank to land in a heap upon the rocky ground, his blood staining the stones. Before any of the others could react, Torian had drawn his sword. Like his knife, it was made of steel, rare and almost priceless, the sort of weapon only a very wealthy noble could afford, assuming he was fortunate enough to find one.
“Does anyone else think this is a fool’s errand?” Torian said. “Then come try your hand against this fool.”
The mercenaries glanced at one another, then at their dead captain, lying at their feet. Torian knew just what they were thinking. There were eight of them, and he was only one. But though the odds favored them, he had a steel blade, and they all knew what that meant. Their own obsidian blades would shatter against his, and he had already given them a lethal demonstration of his abilities. Nobles were not generally known as fighters, but Torian had learned the blades from early childhood with the finest weapons master in Gulg, and he was confident not only of his skills, but of his ability to intimidate the soldiers. They were merely peasant mercenaries, after all, and a lifetime of subservience to the upper classes had conditioned them against even the thought of raising their weapons to an aristocrat.
Still, to guard against that possibility, Torian prudently chose to drive his point home a bit more forcibly. “Your captain was a fine tracker,” he said. “His abilities were almost the equal of my own. Perhaps one of you has similar skills. Perhaps you will find your way back out of the barrens on your own, without me. On the other hand, perhaps not. Either way, choose and choose now. But I tell you this, the only way that any of you will go back is if I am lying there, beside your captain.”
The mercenaries exchanged nervous glances once more. Even before they replied to him, Torian knew he had already won.
“We shall follow you, my lord,” one of the men said.
“Good,” said Torian. “You are now captain. Your pay shall reflect your new status. Additionally, each of you shall be awarded the sum of fifty gold pieces when we return with the Princess Korahna.”
He smiled at the greedy fire in their eyes. Fifty gold pieces was an unheard of king’s ransom to these men. They could serve for the remainder of their lives and never see such a sum. To Torian, it was a mere pittance. His was one of the richest families on Athas, with extensive holdings and close business ties to the House of Ankhor, one of the most powerful of the merchant guilds. And once he had Korahna for his wife, he would be one of the most politically powerful aristocrats on Athas, as well, allied to not one, but two royal houses. For that, he would crawl across the barrens, if he had to.
“My knife, captain,” he said. The newy promoted mercenary captain pulled the steel blade from the throat of his predecessor, wiped it off on his body, and handed it up to Torian.
“We ride,” said Torian, turning his mount and heading west. The mercenaries followed. Any one of them, he knew, could easily strike at him once his back was turned, but he also knew none of them would. Not now. Strike at a man’s fear, he thought, and then appeal to his greed, and he is yours forever. He knew what tools to use for manipulating men.
But what tools had Korahna used to manipulate the elfling? Had she appealed to his masculine instincts as a woman in distress? That was certainly possible, but then Sorak was not a man. He was an elfling, and neither elves nor halflings were known for placing the interests of others ahead of their own. How had she convinced Sorak to help her escape?
Had she promised him wealth? Had she promised him her body? He did not think it was the latter. A desperate woman might well turn to the last resort of offering sexual favors, but then the elfling had a traveling companion who, while a priestess, was no less desirable than the princess. And villichi priestesses, though often celibate, were not always vowed to chastity.
Wealth, then. A reward from the Veiled Alliance for her safe return. Yes, he thought, that would make the most sense.
The Veiled Alliance would, indeed, pay handsomely to have her back. A daughter of a sorcerer-king who had taken the preserver vows would be a powerful weapon in their hands. And elves had a love of money that surpassed that of even the greediest humans. As for the priestess, she would, of course, be strongly motivated to come to the aid of a fellow preserver, provided Korahna was able to convince her that she was sincere. Yes, now that he understood their motives, he felt better. It was always helpful to understand one’s enemy, and Sorak, in stealing Korahna from him, had declared himself Torian’s lifelong enemy. He would soon realize exactly what that meant, thought Torian, and he would come to regret it bitterly.
He turned his attention once more to the ground ahead of him. He soon picked up the trail. There had not been much of a trail to follow from the spring. He had risen early, as he always did, to practice in the still-cool morning air with his blades, and as he stepped outside his tent, he heard a curious noise. A short distance from his tent, he had discovered the guard Sorak had tied up. The man had painstakingly inched his way back toward the tents, crawling like a caterpillar. When Torian cut his bonds, the man had told him what had happened. Torian immediately ran to Korahna’s tent.
The sentries on duty outside had told him that the princess was still asleep inside, and that no one had been by since they had taken up their posts. Torian had thrown aside the tent flap, gone inside, and found no trace of Korahna. But he found the slit she had made with her knife in the back wall of the tent. He had personally killed both sentries, then, before raising the alarm, he carefully followed the trail Korahna had left behind. The sand blown by the desert wind had covered up any footprints she had made but he found broken twigs on a scrub brush she had brushed past, and the trampled new shoots where she had stepped. He had already known where her trail would lead. He saw where the elfling and the villichi priestess had camped the previous night, and he realized that she had fled with them. He surmised that Sorak had stolen the guard’s footgear to replace Korahna’s dainty sandals. That, and the fact that they had not stolen any of the other kanks, told him which way they must have gone.
Had they taken the southern route, it would have made sense for them to steal two of the kanks in addition to their own so that they could make quick time to outdistance the pursuit they had to know would follow. But kanks would make no better time across the rocky barrens than a man traveling on foot, and with no forage to be found, they would have to feed their mounts from their supplies. Three kanks would deplete them quickly. With one, perhaps, they stood a chance. But it would be a very slim chance, indeed.
Torian had never heard of anyone surviving a trek across the barrens. Of all the races of Athas, elves and halflings possessed the greatest powers of endurance. Perhaps, against all odds, the elfling would make it. It was even possible the priestess would, as well, with the elfling’s aid. The villichi were rigorously trained to deal with all kinds of hardship.
But Torian had no illusions about Korahna’s surviving such a journey. The little fool would die out there in the barrens, even if they did not fall prey to the creatures who roamed there.