Faeterus had reached the arena of battle. The mage extended his left hand toward the furious sand beast and uttered a string of mysterious syllables. An invisible concussion drove the beast backward a few feet, but that was all. Metallic lids narrowed over its eyes, a throaty growl rose from its throat, and the beast advanced again.
“You’re only making it angry!” Hytanthas yelled. “Keep it busy, and I’ll help you fight it!”
The mage’s hooded head turned toward him. “Yes, perhaps you can be a help, at that.”
Faeterus spoke a word, and the globe of light overhead went out. Hytanthas, his attention focused on getting to his sword, was suddenly astonished to find himself not only plunged into darkness, but dragged backward as if in the grip of an invisible band. He protested, flailing futilely against the force that held him. Faeterus waited until he was nearly in range of the sand beast’s claws, then released him. With the beast thus distracted, the mage made his escape. He vanished into the outer darkness.
Hytanthas wasted no time. As soon as the magical force let him go, he hurled himself to one side, rolled, and came up running. Clad only in mail shirt, leggings, and sandals, he was unarmed and helpless. Once determined to take Faeterus back to the Speaker, he would have to settle for bringing word of the mage’s whereabouts. If he survived!
Behind him, he could hear the creature’s advance. Chunks of masonry flew, date palms snapped, and broken walls burst apart as the sand beast kept coming. Its aim was uncanny. Either it could see very well in the dark or it had some other way of sensing Hytanthas’s whereabouts.
The elf turned to see where it was. In that brief pause, the sand beast jumped at him.
Hampered by injury, the creature came up short, but one foreclaw swiped across his mail shirt. Once more his armor saved Hytanthas from death, but even the glancing touch of the metallic claws was enough to tear through the mail as though it was linen.
The sand beast was thrown off balance. It crashed to the ground and rolled down a short slope.
While the monster floundered in a rocky, weed-choked area that once had been a stone-lined pond, Hytanthas made good his escape. He clambered up the shell of the gatehouse and dropped inside. Loose rubble shifted beneath his feet and he landed awkwardly, slicing his leg on a sharp limestone block.
Swallowing a groan of pain, he listened for sounds of the sand beast’s pursuit. Instead he heard human voices, men’s voices. A tiny ember of relief flickered inside of him. Perhaps Sahim-Khan’s soldiers had heard the uproar in the Harbalah and come to investigate.
A new fire burned in the air over the villa grounds. No magical orb, it was a flaming arrow. Its light fell on the sand beast, dedicatedly gnawing off its own wounded leg, and something else: five mounted men. They cantered through an opening in the villa’s outer wall. One had a long lance couched under his arm. The rest carried swords or bows. Their armor was Nerakan, not Khurish.
Hytanthas had no intention of cowering in safety while others battled that horror. He hunted through the debris in the gatehouse and found a length of lead pipe, corroded but heavy. With his makeshift weapon in hand, he slipped out to wait for the riders to reach him.
The sand beast gave up trying to sever its injured leg and dragged itself onto the cracked payers of the road to wait for the oncoming riders. It was breathing hard, its nostrils sending clouds of white vapor into the cooling night air.
The five riders drew abreast of Hytanthas and rode on by. The one in the center, carrying the lance, was Lord Hengriff, the Dark Order’s emissary to Khur. The five charged the wounded sand beast. Hengriff’s lance pierced its broken hips. The monster roared in pain and whirled, snapping the lance shaft but leaving its head buried. One foreclaw raked through the air, and a horse went down. It and its rider had been shredded; neither rose again.
Circling away, Hengriff drew a two-handed sword. Hytanthas couldn’t imagine wielding such a weapon with only one hand while on horseback, but the big Knight handled the sword with practiced ease. With his three surviving men guarding his flanks, he galloped straight at the sand beast. He rose in the stirrups and swung the sword, using all his size and strength to drive the blade in up to its hilt behind the monster’s shoulders. His men loosed arrows at its head from only a few feet away. Two pierced its eyes before the beast shuddered and fell like a poleaxed steer. The ground shook from the impact, nearly knocking the approaching Hytanthas off his feet.
Hengriff, dismounted, leaning against the sand beast’s ribs. He was slumped forward over the pommel of his sword, which he still gripped in both hands. His eyes were closed, his head bowed, and Hytanthas thought the breath had been driven from his lungs. The elf cleared his throat to speak.
“Shh,” Hengriff said. “The heartbeat is fading.”
