Kerian turned. He was seated by his small fire, engrossed in his papers. She asked him to explain his comment. He looked up, blinking slightly as his eyes focused on her rather than the manuscript so close to his face. She asked again.
“I can’t name what has no name,” the archivist replied, unhelpfully, then returned to his studies.
He muttered to himself, too low for Kerian to catch the words. She gave up trying to make sense of his musings and went to walk among her warriors.
The place she’d chosen for their camp was at the intersection of two broad avenues, one aligned northeast-southwest, the other crossing at right angles and aligned northwest-southeast. Rain-washed dirt had filled in the slightly sunken roadbeds over the years, but a little digging revealed they were covered by the same large paving stones as the road that had led the elves here from Lioness Creek.
The high walls of the Khalkist meant sunset came early to the valley. Hours before the light would fade from the desert outside, dusk blanketed their camp. A chill seemed to spring out of the ground, and the elves could see their breath. Patches of mist coalesced in low-lying areas.
Kerian ordered a large bonfire built in the center of their camp, which was also the center of the crossroads. Foragers had found plenty of deadfall pine, cedar, and fir limbs, though no good hardwood, and by the time the first stars winked into sight, the blazing flames were sending sparks up to join them. The firelight only made the ruins around them seem more eerie, more strange. A rotation of mounted sentries was posted a goodly distance from camp. Each elf was given a horn to blow, and assigned a distinctive call. If anything untoward happened, the Lioness would know exactly which sentry raised the alarm.
She checked on the archivist. Whatever anxiety Favaronas felt about being in the valley, it hadn’t prevented him from sleeping. He apparently had decided against sleeping in his lean-to, however, and was snoring away in the Lioness’s tent.
She and her officers rebuilt the archivist’s little campfire at the base of the great sarsen and settled down to have their supper.
“General, now we’ve found the Inath-Wakenti, how long will we stay?” asked a Qualinesti.
She shrugged, swallowing a mouthful of beans. “I see no reason to stay. We’ll start back tomorrow.”
Astonishment showed on every face. According to the information she’d given them (which she’d gotten from Gilthas’s map, the valley was at least a dozen miles long. Shouldn’t they explore further? There might be dangers they hadn’t discovered or other ruins or—
“What of the nomads? On the honor of my sword, I’ll wager they’re waiting for us.”
This came from Glanthon, one of the few remaining officers left from the royal Qualinesti army, and younger brother to Planchet, the Speaker’s valet. Glanthon was as talkative as Planchet was taciturn, and Kerian had no doubt he would expound upon his theme, so she forestalled him.
“We’ll slip out quietly, avoiding the nomads as much as possible.”
A fighter by nature, the Lioness would’ve preferred to punch her way out, thrashing the fanatical tribesmen on the way. But her elves were too few. If a single battle went wrong the entire command could be lost, and she was determined to carry the truth of the valley back to Gilthas in person. The Inath-Wakenti was not a new homeland for their exiled people. A mild clime and scenic, yes, but something here was hostile to all animal life. She put no stock in the archivist’s remark about ghosts, yet there was no denying the total absence of living creatures.
“We’ll ride east, to the mountains, and look for another way out,” she announced. “There’s got to be something-goat track, deer trail, something.” She smiled wryly over her beans. “All the animals had to go somewhere.”
“There’s no other way out.”
Favaronas stood at the edge of the firelight, by the door flap of Kerian’s tent. The Lioness and her officers stared at him.
“I studied the Speaker’s map down to the smallest detail,” he said, coming closer. “The ancient cartographer was very precise, and he shows no other way out.”
Kerian asked, “Then where did all the animals go? Did they die out?”
Favaronas admitted he didn’t know the answer to that question. He sat between her and Glanthon, accepting a plate of beans and a loaf of flat Khurish bread. Since he seemed to have nothing more to contribute, the warriors fell to talking about their clash with the nomads, dissecting the tactics and fighting skills of the Weya-Lu. All agreed that if the nomads had better weapons, they might not be sitting here now.
A horn sounded, far away. The discussion broke off, the officers alert and listening. The sound was a long, wavering note, the signal assigned to a Silvanesti scout named Camthantas. His patrol area was northeast, further along the same road they’d followed since crossing the creek.
Two more horns blew, and the Lioness was on her feet.
“Nomads?” said Favaronas, dropping his plate of beans.
