Paul Thompson - Sanctuary

At the top of the depression, she halted Little Thorn. The donkey lowered his head to munch on a clump of saltbush.

Through the haze and warping heat rising from the sand, she saw a single rider approaching on a tall bay horse. Archers on the hilltop followed her every move with arrows nocked. With utter nonchalance, the laddad woman came onward.

Someone behind Adala remarked on the elf’s bravery. Adala shook her head. “It is not courage, but arrogance. She does not believe we can harm her.”

Haradi moved forward. “Maita, let me slay her! I will do it for you, for all the tribes of Khur!”

Men, no matter their tribe, were united by a childish love of glory. “Be still,” she said, as to an impatient youngster.

The Weyadan was wrong about one thing; it wasn’t arrogance that fueled Kerian’s bravery, but calm acceptance. The archers on the hill didn’t concern her because she knew the nomads wanted revenge, not simply to kill her. She knew she wouldn’t die today, knew it might be days before she died. Maybe longer. On the other hand, there was a possibility, however slim, that she would get out of this alive. If she did, then nothing would stop her goal to restore the fortunes of the elven nation.

After announcing her intention to turn herself over to the nomads, she took the time to write several letters to her comrades and friends. The last, and shortest, was to her husband.

Save our people. Take them home, she wrote. That was all. Words didn’t seem to matter anymore, but maybe by this gesture she could restore Gilthas’s will to do the right thing for their race.

Twenty yards from the line of bedecked barbarian chieftains, Kerian halted her horse. She wished Eagle Eye was here. Nothing made a grander or more frightening impression than a rampant Silvanesti war griffon.

“I hear you wanted to see me,” she called.

Bilath shouted, “Come closer! It is not seemly to bellow at such a distance!”

Kerian made no move to comply, so some of the warmasters started toward her. She drew her sword in one fluid motion, feeble daylight flashing off the elf-forged blade. The nomads stopped.

“Did you come to fight or surrender?” Adala called.

“Fight! The Lioness never surrenders!”

So saying, she dug in her spurs and shot ahead, leaning low over the horse’s neck. Arrows hissed into the sand behind her as she charged. In moments she was among the nomad chiefs, thrusting and slashing. This ended the threat from the archers who couldn’t loose at her without hitting their own leaders.

Adala steered her donkey out of reach as Kerian laid about on all sides. She lopped the hand off a chief in a bright green geb, then booted another in the ribs with her iron-shod foot. The nomads’ swords were keen, but close in their lack of handguards was a grave disadvantage. Kerian cut off fingers of two warmasters who tried to flank her, her blade hissing down their swords, finding no crossguard to halt its run, and biting into their hands.

Unable to cope with this whirlwind up close, the nomads flew apart like grains of sand before a storm gust. Shouts rang as the chiefs called for support. Then one nomad cried, louder than the rest, “No, I will take her! For maita!”

Kerian now faced a single opponent, Haradi of the Tondoon. Only twenty, already he was warmaster of the most populous of the seven tribes. He was handsome, with olive skin, green eyes, and a closely trimmed beard. He also had the only sword with a handguard in the nomad army. The weapon was a relic of his father’s days as a Nerakan mercenary.

The two combatants went round and round, slashing, probing, finding no openings. Kerian had to keep one eye on the other nomads swirling close around her in case they tried to intervene. None did.

With his blade inverted, Haradi stabbed at her face. She diverted his sword enough to spare her eyes but not her left ear. The tip of his sword tore through the shell of her ear, an ugly, painful wound. She promptly repaid him with a thrust under his outstretched arm, which pierced his armpit. He gasped, slumped forward, and dropped his sword.

She would have finished him, but the world around her exploded. Lightning flared and thunder crashed all of a sudden, pitching Kerian to the ground. Had any nomad come upon the Lioness then, he would have found her an easy kill.

The flash seared her eyes so severely she couldn’t see. All was white glare and roaring noise. She couldn’t have been hit directly by lightning; she’d be dead. But the strike must have come very close.

In the midst of the intense, dazzling light she saw a flicker of darkness. Gradually it grew more distinct, became darker and more defined. She heard the flutter of wings.

For a moment she thought it was Eagle Eye. But it was not the majestic griffon that flashed past her bleeding face, but a large bat. Why did she keep seeing bats? she wondered, though the question did not much trouble her. She was floating in a strange, disconnected netherworld.

A torrent of cold rain jerked her back to reality. She found herself lying close behind her fallen horse. The poor bay was dead, its neck broken, and her left leg was caught beneath its weight. Nearby was the nomad warrior’s mount, also dead. Of the warrior himself, she saw no sign.

Men on horseback surged past her. Shaking off confusion and streaming rain, she realized they were Sahim’s royal cavalry, not nomads or elves. The heavily armored Khurish horsemen had charged into the Lake of Dreams, smashing the larger but disorganized nomad host and driving it back. Flying above the hard-riding Khurs were five balls of blue fire.

She rubbed her eyes and shook her head hard, thinking her vision had been affected by the blast, but the lights remained. Larger than the will-o’-the-wisps at Inath-Wakenti, they flew more purposefully, turning in a stately, slow dance some thirty feet above the battlefield. Neither Khurish cavalry nor Khurish nomads seemed to notice them.

Kerian wrenched her leg from under the dead horse and stood. Immediately, the blue globes angled toward her. They moved so swiftly, she had no chance to dodge. At their touch, the world exploded once again in a crack of thunder and blaze of light.

The storm clouds dispersed quickly after the battle. Like a forge-hammer, the sun returned to beat down on the scene. The Lake of Dreams was littered with the remnants of the flight. Hakkam’s cavalry, reinforced by fresh contingents from the city, had driven the nomads back so hard and fast, their camp was overrun and abandoned to the Khan’s men. Hakkam ordered the camp burned. While the elves watched from Khurinost, a tent city not unlike their own was ruthlessly destroyed.

Hakkam broke off his pursuit of the beaten nomads. He and his men rode back to Khuri-Khan, to be greeted by the cheers of their people. In the wake of the cavalry’s departure came scavengers from Khuri-Khan to poke in the ashes of the nomad camp. By the Khan’s law, robbing those who had fallen in battle meant death. Despite this, desperately poor (or boldly greedy) Khurs stripped fallen warriors on both sides. In the Grand Souks, so much iron and brass turned up in the days following the battle, the price of scrap metal fell by two-thirds.

Late in the day, scroungers quartering the Lake of Dreams found a big bay horse, quite unlike the usual nomad ponies. The bay was trapped in the laddad fashion, with a heavy war saddle and mail aprons protecting neck and hindquarters. It lay dead at the edge of a six-foot-wide hole in the sand. The crater was lined with blackish-green glass, remnants of a lightning strike. No rider’s body was found nearby.

Thorough if not reverent, the Khurs stripped the horse of its trappings. To do so, they had to heave the dead animal up. Beneath it they found a thick pile of leaves, still green, though crisp and dry. It seemed a weird discovery, but none of the Khurish scavengers recognized the leaves. They had never seen the ash trees of more temperate climes. Exposed by the removal of the fallen horse, the desiccated leaves whirled away on the wind.