Paul Thompson - Alliances

Just after dawn, a patrol of Mikku horsemen had thundered in, babbling inexplicable news. The laddad were gone! A broad swath of trampled sand led away from Chisel and Broken Tooth. Horsemen went to investigate the two plateaus. The first party ascended Chisel unopposed. They found only abandoned rubbish. The party that tried to climb Broken Tooth was greeted by a shower of arrows and rocks. The nomads withdrew and went to learn the Maita’s judgment on the strange situation.

Chiefs and warmasters arrived, dismounted, and doffed their sun hats in deference to Adala. Chisel was empty, they told her. Tracks led away from Broken Tooth and joined up with those from Chisel. The laddad seemed to have departed both plateaus, so who remained on Broken Tooth?

With a sharp word, Adala silenced them all. “It’s clear as a midnight sky,” she said and stabbed the stick into the sand, as though spearing laddad flesh. “They slipped away, leaving a few of their number to deceive us.”

The Tondoon chief lifted his hands. “But how, Maita? Our night patrols saw and heard nothing! How could so many escape without being detected?”

“Foul magic again, or treachery.”

Despite all the changes in the world, the nomads had never lost their belief in and respect for magic. But it was her mention of treachery that upset the chiefs most. They all spoke at once, loudly disclaiming that any child of the desert could betray his people.

“Be quiet,” Adala said, and they were. “We ride after the fleeing laddad, and this time there will be no quarter. I have been too gentle, too forgiving”—the chiefs traded looks—“but no more. The time of gentleness is past. Let every warrior carry two swords today.”

Solemnly, the chiefs and their warmasters vowed to obey. Carrying two swords was an order with an especially grim meaning. In battle a nomad carried his best sword, leaving his spare in his tent. If his sword broke or was lost, honor decreed he ride back to his tent, fetch his second blade, and return to the fight. Carrying both swords meant the warriors would fight until death claimed them.

“The Weya-Lu do not go with us,” Adala announced. “They will remain here and storm Broken Tooth.”

The warmasters nodded sagely. It would be unwise to ride off in pursuit of one enemy and leave another unmolested behind. Adala had reserved for her own tribe the difficult task of assaulting the steep pinnacle and crushing the defenders that remained.

The men galloped away. Only the Weya-Lu warmaster, Yalmuk, stayed with Adala. He was new, having succeeded hot-tempered Bindas, who had perished fighting on Lesser Fang. Bindas had been young; Yalmuk was barely twenty. Like nearly everyone in the tribe, he was Adala’s distant kinsman.

She gestured for him to sit. Yalmuk squatted with the boneless grace of youth. Adala pulled her stick from the ground and traced an aimless pattern in the sand. “Is there any sign of Wapah?” she asked.

“No, Maita.” He jerked his head, tossing long hair from his eyes. “It’s as if he was carried off by the wind.”

She pondered that. Something untoward might have befallen Wapah. They were surrounded by dangers, and no one’s life was safe. On the other hand, loquacious Wapah was a master of the desert. He knew its fickle moods, knew the many dangers that lurked in its trackless expanses. Since his possession by the Oracle of the Tree, he had been different, not as talkative and—obvious only to Adala—his staunch support of her and her maita had waned. Had the meddling spirit seduced him away from their people’s true path? She did not like to think so.

Yalmuk was not so delicate. “Only a man who wants to disappear vanishes so completely,” he said. Despite her chilly reception of his words, he did not hold back. “Wapah knew the desert like no one else, Maita. He could have led the laddad around our patrols.”

She glared into gray eyes that were so like Wapah’s. “You have no proof of that!” she snapped.

He covered his face with his hands, an act of obeisance. “That is true. I beg forgiveness, Maita, and withdraw the slur on your honorable cousin.”

Your cousin, too, Adala fumed silently. Despite the words, Yalmuk’s tone made it obvious he still thought Wapah had betrayed them. Yalmuk was a savage fighter, but Adala disliked him and his family. So many Weya-Lu of higher precedence had fallen that he had been left as the ranking warrior in the tribe. It was with double satisfaction she gave her next order.

“Take the Weya-Lu and storm Broken Tooth. I want that rock cleansed of its foreign taint today.”

“I will spare no one!”

“Spare any you take,” she retorted. “I want to learn where their people have gone.”

The great mass of warriors had departed, hot on the trail of the fleeing laddad. It was a nearly empty camp through which Yalmuk rode to join up with the Weya-Lu.

The fortunes of war had fallen hardest on Adala’s tribe. No more than three hundred fighting men were grouped together in the center of camp, and nearly all wore bandages on heads, arms, or hands. Most had the dark eyes common among nomads, but a dozen or so of the gray-eyed strain were scattered among them. As Yalmuk approached, the Weya-Lu raised a sword in each hand, showing they were armed as their Maita had commanded.

“Cousins and brothers!” Yalmuk declared. “To us has fallen a great honor-that of reclaiming the last of our ancient mountains from the foreign invaders! We ride to cleanse Broken Tooth!”

Passionate cheers greeted his pronouncement. The men had lost their families in the nighttime massacre of the Weya-Lu camp. Like Adala herself, they believed the laddad warriors had killed their wives, parents, and children. In their hearts burned a flame of vengeance so bright, not even the desire for survival could outshine it.

Yalmuk divided his band into three equal parts. The first part would ride around Broken Tooth and attack by the north trail. The second, led by Yalmuk himself, would storm the southeast trail, the only one wide enough for horses to ascend abreast. The last group would wait halfway between the other two and reinforce whichever seemed destined for success.

“We attack at noon,” Yalmuk said. Only an hour away, the hottest time of day would be good for desert nomads and bad for soft-skinned foreigners.

Off they rode, singing the Weya-Lu war song:

Atop Broken Tooth, Planchet heard them. He’d been expecting an attack, even after he saw the bulk of the nomad army ride away on the trail of the escaping elves. With the wind blowing their dust in his face, it was hard to see how many nomads were coming. Judging by the full-throated chorus, it must be several hundred.

He stood atop the rock signal tower. Below him were ranged his two hundred defenders. They wore helmets and breastplates whose design hadn’t changed much since the days of Kith-Kanan. Each elf had sword, spear, and bow, although there were precious few arrows. Planchet had insisted the Speaker take most of their dwindling supply with him.

The spears ported on each fighter’s right shoulder were an odd, tragic note, reminding Planchet again of the atrocity committed against the elves. Few had the use of their left hands, and some bore injuries on other limbs as well. Yet none had hesitated to volunteer for the final battle. He saw Qualinesti, Silvanesti, and half a dozen Kagonesti, their facial tattoos rendered nearly invisible by the dark tans given them by the Khurish sun.

He took a deep breath. “Warriors, I salute you!” he proclaimed. “The enemy is coming. To your places, as we planned.”