Alexey Pehov - Chasers of the Wind

Ga-Nor, a tall, tanned man with red mustaches, raised himself up on his elbows and looked below. He contracted his bushy eyebrows. It really was strange that the highlanders hadn’t bothered to set up a watch.

Nothing. No movement at all. There was no sound except for a distant measured droning—a mountain river thundering through the shallows. There was no cause for alarm. If this was an ambush, it was very skillfully done. But skillful ambushes were beneath the dignity of the impatient highlanders. In any case, the Chus, as they called themselves, could not lie still for so long unless they were dead.

Suddenly Da-Tur understood.

“I swear by the hide of an ice demon! They’re dead!” he said, stunned.

“Let’s get out of here,” whispered Ta-Ana, marveling at herself. She had never been afraid of corpses, but everything that was happening right now seemed strange. “We shouldn’t disturb their souls.”

Ga-Nor nodded grimly and backed up the archer. “Dawn is still a long ways off. We can cover a lot of ground.”

Da-Tur stood up quietly, walked along the rocky ledge for about ten yards, getting as far away from the fire as possible, and then jumped down below. His comrades followed him. Glancing backward, they tried to hurry away.

A green glow suddenly flared up on the western side of the twin-peaked mountain. It turned into a ball of fire, which soared up into the sky in a steep arc, paused for a moment at its highest point, and then fell toward the spot where the carcasses of the Chus were lying. It burst soundlessly when it hit the ground, scattering emerald flames in every direction.

“A Sdisian sorcerer!”

This was an ambush, and it was made just for them. The White, the one Ta-Ana had spotted among the Nabatorians, had probably noticed the interlopers and decided to intercept them. Why risk letting the garrison at the Towers be forewarned?

“Let’s go! Quickly!”

Da-Tur could feel it in his gut as danger flooded into the ravine. He really hoped that the trap that had been set had not yet snapped shut and that there was a chance they could escape the necromancer’s grasping fingers.

“Look out! Behind you!” shouted the archer, who was standing on the ledge.

The captain of the squad turned around and recoiled. He swore loudly. The corpses scattered around the bonfire were standing up. Ga-Nor pulled his sword from his back. These creatures were surprisingly agile. The northerners barely had time to prepare for the fight.

Two set upon Da-Tur, and yet another one engaged the red-mustachioed Ga-Nor, but the last four headed straight for Ta-Ana at a brisk trot. The woman let loose an arrow into the face of one of the magical creations, but it had no effect.

The deformed faces shining in the moonlight, the bared teeth and the eyes burning with green fire would terrify anyone. Da-Tur pierced the chest of one of the Chus but it made no impression on his opponent. Ga-Nor, who had dispatched his adversary, ran to his aid.

“Cut off its head!” barked the tracker, deftly striking at the nearest corpse’s legs.

The captain spun about, split the skull of the Sdisian’s servant in half, and lunged forward to help the woman. After a minute everything was over.

The two men were panting heavily. Ta-Ana pulled an arrow from a stilled corpse with trembling hands. Da-Tur grabbed the small archer by the scruff of her neck and lifted her from her knees to her feet.

“To Ug with your damned arrow! We’ve got to try to get out of this ravine and lose ourselves in the mountains.”

They were racing along a stream, ghosting across the wet stones, their feet barely touching the ground. The ravine had turned into a narrow canyon, and the canyon walls shut out the sky. The moon was obstructed by clouds, and they had to run under the light of the stars. In the darkness all that could be heard was the heavy breathing of the scouts, the murmur of the stream, and the ever-increasing rumble of an unnamed river. After an eternity Da-Tur ordered a halt. Ga-Nor dropped down right where he stood and pressed his ear to the ground.

“No one,” the tracker breathed out finally, rising up from the stones. “They’re driving us into a trap, brother. There’s no escaping it.”

He was right. Only a mongoose could scale such steep cliffs. If they cut off the entrance and exited to the canyon, they would not escape.

“If we could get to the river,” Ta-Ana put in hopefully, “we could get away by the water.”

“We’ll get there,” said Da-Tur, his eyes glinting resolutely.

The current along the shore was strong, and they emerged from the water with difficulty. Only people ready to commit suicide or the Children of the Snow Leopard would dare swim in the dark through such a swift, icy mountain river. The former would crack their skulls against the shoals, but the latter pulled through. The soldiers had swum for more than half an hour and, thanks to the swiftness of the current, had left the danger far behind.

They collapsed upon the river stones, catching their breath. However, Ta-Ana immediately pulled herself up into a squat and pushed her hair out of her face. Then she attached a new, dry string to her yew bow, opened up a large wallet made of leather, and unfolded the oiled paper where she kept her arrows. The archer understood that without her bow things would go poorly for her and her comrades.

Ga-Nor had swallowed water while they were swimming and was now coughing it up.

The wind drove away the clouds, the moon emerged anew, and the northerners beheld the bleached and majestic ruins of an ancient city. People had abandoned the mountain capital of this former Imperial province when the War of the Necromancers began. Since then more than five hundred years had passed. No one had ever returned to live in Gerka, the City of a Thousand Columns, as travelers called it. The centuries had transformed this former pearl of the highlands into a dead kingdom of cold wind. It came here every evening from the snowcapped heights and mournfully wailed through the ruins of the ancient buildings. This place was known as a ghost town. The highlanders detoured around its borders and did not rest for the night if there was a distance of less than a league between them and its white walls.

But the northerners weren’t superstitious. The way through Gerka was five times shorter than any other. At the southernmost tip of the city a trail commenced, and that trail led to a pass, and from there it was no distance at all to the Gates.

They passed through a tall arch that had once been the main gate, and came out onto a wide street. Wherever they looked there were crumbling houses and hundreds of marble columns stretching toward the sky. The moonlight sparkled on them, enlivening them, making them seem as dazzlingly beautiful as they had been in those years when life teemed here. The silver-blue light gleamed in the gaps of the empty street, the old buildings cast dark shadows, and faint bluish wisps of incipient fog crept along the time-ravaged pavement.

Gerka stared impassively at the outsiders from the gloomy ruins of her buildings. She had no care for who came to her or why. She only sang her song with the wind. The wind was her eternal friend, but people always left and betrayed her. She had no desire to take vengeance on them for their treachery; she only desired one thing—to be left in peace. So the once great city let the three warriors from the far north pass through her without inflicting any harm on them.

Just as she would let those who followed after the redhaired warriors pass through.

The trail skirted the edge of a precipice. To the left of it was a basalt wall. To the right—a chasm. The scouts had been climbing for more than an hour already, and the valley that held the City of a Thousand Columns was far below. Da-Tur kept casting his eyes up at the faint stars. Dawn was not far off. By the time it arrived they needed to be at the pass, or better yet, beyond it.