Directly over the Speaker’s tent, a neat round hole had been bored through the towering clouds. It looked as though a giant finger had poked through the overcast sky and into the center of Khurinost. A whirlwind spun down from the hole, drawing streams of cloud vapor with it as it descended on the Speaker’s tent.
As the wind screamed, Planchet shouted orders. Healers knelt around the Speaker’s bed, covering him with their bodies. Warriors formed a square, facing outward with swords drawn.
Only seconds after it was first sighted, the vortex touched down on the Speaker’s tent, tearing it apart. Walls and ceilings collapsed. Elves were buried under masses of fabric. I Hands over their heads, the Speaker’s loyal guards kept the roof off him and the healers covering him.
Suffocating in the thick canvas, Planchet could not see but only hear the chaos. Elves were shouting, footsteps pounding. Carefully, he thrust the tip of his sword through the canvas and made a small opening. No one protested, so he widened the hole.
“My ancestors!” Planchet breathed.
“What is it?” demanded Gilthas, pushing away the healers covering him.
“Not what, Great Speaker-who!”
The Lioness was bounding over the wreckage of the tent. Eagle Eye hadn’t even touched ground before she was off his—back and running toward her husband. She wore only the tattered remains of her smallclothes, and was soaked from head to toe. She cleaved through the astonished guards and healers, dropped to her knees, and took her husband in her arms.
Gilthas said her name, over and over, as Planchet propped him up from behind. Despite the fresh blood that seeped from his cheek and neck, his voice was joyous with relief.
“Kerianseray, how? How in the names of all the ancient gods did you get here?”
“I flew. You sent Eagle Eye, so I returned him.” Her voice quavered nearly as much as his. “All the way from the Valley of the Blue Sands, I came.”
She eased him back against the strong shoulder of Planchet. “An arrow!” she said, studying his wound with a practiced eye. “I knew it!”
“How did you know, lady?”
Kerian shook her head at Planchet’s question. “Never mind. Who did it. Was it Khurs? Nerakans?”
The valet admitted they didn’t know yet.
With Kerian’s help, Planchet settled the Speaker on his bed, then went to round up food and drink for her. And clothes, though he did not say as much to her.
While they were moderately private, Gilthas took her hand. “You look wonderful,” he whispered, his tear-filled eyes looking her up and down.
She grimaced, suddenly self-conscious. “We ran into a storm aloft, a tornado. I’m lucky it left me any clothing at all!”
“Only the Lioness could ride home on the back of a whirlwind,” he teased. “Are your warriors near?”
She shook her head, embarrassment hardening into grim lines. “No, they were just leaving Inath-Wakenti when I had to leave them.”
Briefly, for her throat was truly parched, she described their experiences in the valley—the phantom lights, the stone ruins, the disappearance of the sand beast and many of her warriors, and the utter lack of any animal life.
“Not so much as a fly lives there, Gil. Leave it to the ghosts and will-o’-the-wisps.”
During her recitation, however succinct, Gilthas began to succumb to the effects of his wound and fever, as well as the shock of her arrival. He was barely conscious.
“Can’t be done,” he murmured, and she had to bend close to hear what he said next. “We must leave this place.”
His eyelids closed, and he slept.
Planchet returned with a jug of palm wine in each hand. The guards and servants began working to rig new supports for the tent roof. Kerian took a jug of wine and put it to her lips.
Planchet informed her of the disappearance of Lord Morillon. She replied with a flippant comment, but his careworn face was very somber. “He’s been found, lady,” he continued. “In the desert outside the north city gate. His throat was cut from ear to ear”
Daybreak came, with the nomads nowhere in sight. Glanthon had riders scour the pass for signs, but the Weya-Lu appeared to be gone. The pine copses and juniper thickets on the hillsides overlooking the pass were empty. On the floor of the pass, a distinct trail of hoofprints led due south. The way out of Inath-Wakenti was free and clear.
As the Lioness had commanded, the company of elves would bear west, not south, the direction from which they had come. This eventually would put them on the caravan road from Kortal to Khuri-Khan. Since that road bypassed the cauldron of the High Plateau, it was a safer route in some respects, but for several days they would be riding further away from their comrades in Khurinost and closer to the border with Neraka. Still, Glanthon agreed with his commander’s reasoning that this was the best way to go. Feeling a bit naked without the encircling mountains, trees, and ghostly ruins, the elves rode forth into the open desert again.
