City of Sorcerers (37 page)

The wraith raised his fist. He was about to curse the sorcerers when he hesitated in mid-motion. The imprecations died on his lips. He paused, silhouetted against the lurid flames, his head turned to the south. An odd look crossed his harsh features, then he snapped his attention back to the men in the dim archway. His fierce gaze seemed to probe into each, as if seeking an answer to some silent question. Without another word, the wraith banished his fire. He stepped back into the gathering darkness and strode out of the men's sight.

Morad let out a gusty sigh of relief. He was breathing heavily and drenched in sweat. "Thank the gods, that's over."

Savaron scratched his jaw, his face worried. "Bitorn certainly left in a hurry. Do you suppose he suspects something?"

"We'll know soon enough," the Korg answered dryly. "Bitorn is so full of hate and pride, he'll let us know if he finds out what we've done."

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The first light of Amara's sun had barely lit the eastern horizon when Savaron and the other men awoke. A long sleep had worked wonders for Sayyed, and he lay on his bed alert, hungry, and full of questions.

While Morad fixed a meal for everyone and Rafnir told his father what had been happening, Savaron decided to go to the south gate and check on the wraith. Bitorn's strange behavior the evening before still bothered the young warrior. He wanted to be certain the dead priest was still outside the walls.

The Korg offered to go with him, so the two men mounted Savaron's Hunnuli for the ride to the southern gate. They had gone no more than halfway through the city when they heard a bellowed summons that shook the old ruins.

"Sorcerers!" Bitorn's voice blasted the air. "Come forth, heretics! Show me your craven faces."

Savaron's stallion needed no urging. He bounded forward at a canter along the road. Savaron and the Korg felt their apprehension rise as Bitorn continued to call. He was still shouting outside the walls when the stallion slid to a stop in the gateway.

The wraith was standing near Tam's dead Hunnuli, his form brilliant with red rage, his face livid. "One of your number is gone!" he roared at the two magic-wielders. "I sense her presence is missing, and I saw tracks at the north gate. Where is she?"

"She was afraid of the plague," Savaron growled in return. "She fled on her own instead of following us."

"Not that one! She is strong. She would give her life for you pitiful people. I believe she is returning to the gathering." Bitorn stooped and laid his hand on the dead Hunnuli. At his command the corpse lifted its head. The horse had been lying in the sun for several days. Flies swarmed around it, and the stench of its rotting flesh gagged the two men, but it slowly staggered to its feet. It stood by the wraith, its head hanging from its long, sunken neck.

"I am leaving you for now," the wraith hissed at the men. "You are free to stay here and die or come to the gathering to meet your doom. One way or another, I will find you when I am ready." He mounted the decaying Hunnuli and turned it south. It broke into a gallop down the old road.

"No, wait!" Savaron yelled. He leaned forward to send his Hunnuli chasing after the wraith, but the Korg's hand closed over his shoulder and pulled him back.

"Let him go. You can't fight him alone." "But Kelene---"

"Is leagues away. Bitorn will not catch her now," the Korg said.

"Then why is he leaving us? What did he mean 'when I am ready'?" Savaron asked worriedly.

"It is what I feared: he is returning to the gathering and his tomb. He wants to rejuvenate his body before Kelene finds a way to stop the dying."

"Why didn't he do that before?"

"I think he took a chance," the Korg replied. "Remember, Bitorn has to be in the vicinity of a dying person in order to steal the life-force at death. When your party left the gathering, he hadn't stored enough energy to return to his body. He was forced to decide: should he stay at the gathering among the dying and regain his strength at the risk of allowing you to succeed in your mission, or should he follow you and destroy your party alone somewhere on the plains. Knowing Bitorn, the fact that you were all magic-wielders certainly swayed his mind. He could have killed you and your friends, sustained himself on your life-force, and returned to the gathering to accomplish his ultimate goal." The Korg paused and smiled ironically. "However, together you proved too strong for him. Now he has realized he made a mistake. He will certainly waste no more time returning to the gathering."

Savaron shrugged, half in frustration, half in anger. "Then what can we do?" he demanded.

"Nurse your friends back to health and go back to the Tir Samod as fast as you can. Kelene will need your help."

* * * * *

Far to the south of Moy Tura's highland, Kelene and Demira were continuing their flight across the Ramtharin Plains. They had traveled for hours the night before until Demira was too tired to safely continue. After a brief rest in the lee of a tall hill, they had gone aloft again at sunrise.

On Demira's back, Kelene watched the filly slowly flap her wings to lift higher to another air current. The horse tilted her long, black feathers ever so slightly, then glided on the warm, rising air. Kelene studied the filly's movements with delight.

Demira had learned a great deal about the characteristics of her unusual wings and about her newfound relationship with the air. She flew now with an increasing grace and confidence.

Kelene relaxed on Demira's back and patted the filly's neck. She and Rafnir had been right about the advantages of flying above the terrain instead of struggling over it. Flying was considerably easier, and the land more beautiful. Kelene had tried to imagine what her world would look like from a bird's view, but she hadn't even come close to the truth. The plains spread beneath her in an endlessly changing panorama of patterns, colors, and shapes. Ordinary objects took on new reality when seen from high in the air. Trees became green spheres; eroded creek beds became serpentine trails; wildflowers, shrubs, and grasses became delicate patches of color that blended and swirled. Best of all were the dappled cloud shadows that soared across the land with silent, gentle grace.

Kelene was so entranced by the world below she did not notice the passage of time or Demira's increasingly labored breathing. They had reached the eastern slopes of the Himachals and had turned south when Demira finally called for a rest. She spiraled down to the ground, landing heavily, and stood wearily while Kelene dismounted.

I am sorry. I just cannot fly very well yet,
Demira apologized.

The woman laughed softly and took the Hunnuli's muzzle in her hands. "Don't apologize for that! Do you know how far we've come? We have already passed Tomian's mound and the Citadel of Krath. We're somewhere near the Defile of Tor Wrath and the Isin River. My beautiful horse, be proud of yourself!"

Demira nickered, a sound of gratitude and pleasure, and after a drink from a small creek, she and Kelene walked until her wings were rested. They traveled the rest of the day, flying as long as Demira could safely stay in the air, walking or trotting when she was tired, and stopping only for water. They passed Ab-Chakan and followed the Isin River south toward Dangari Treld.

When night came Demira and Kelene both were exhausted. Neither of them had traveled so hard in their lives and the effort had expended almost everything they had.

They ate some food and slept where they were on the bank of the Isin River.

They rose before the sun, cantering south in the early dawn light until the plains were bright with day and a fair breeze was blowing. Demira turned into the wind, increased her gait to a gallop, spread her huge wings, and soared into the morning.

She was stiff from her exertion the day before, but sleep had refreshed her and the cool wind from the north helped lift her weight into the sky.

Kelene was quiet and subdued. She tilted her face to the Sun and prayed. Two days had passed since Lord Athlone had fallen ill. If his sickness ran the normal course of other plague victims, he had perhaps one or two days left. Kelene knew she and Demira had one more full day of travel before they could reach the Tir Samod.

Any mishaps or bad weather could be disastrous. They had to arrive at the gathering in one day, or they could be too late to save the Khulinin chieftain.

Late in the afternoon when the hot air currents were rising from the plains and the clouds were beginning to billow into the sky, Kelene spotted something in the distance near the river. She pointed it out to the Hunnuli, and Demira slowly glided down for a closer look.

"Oh, no," Kelene breathed. The dark blobs on the ground became more distinct and recognizable: five clan summer tents set up in a haphazard cluster under the thin shade of some cottonwood trees. Strangely, there seemed to be no animals and no people. There were only the tents sitting alone. Kelene hesitated. She was badly torn by the choice that had suddenly been thrust at her. Should she ignore this group and push on to the gathering and her father, or stop to check for any plague victims and use up valuable time?

Her healer's instincts guided her decision, and she told Demira to land. Ever so carefully the filly dropped down, trotted a few steps, and came to a stop by the edge of the little camp. Several death birds flapped heavily out from between the tents and settled into the trees to wait.

Kelene reluctantly slid off Demira, her bag in her hand. "Hello, camp!" she yelled, but no one answered. The tents remained ominously silent while their felt walls twitched in the wind.

Kelene studied the place before she moved. There was no outward sign of trouble---no tracks of marauders, no arrow-riddled bodies or burned tents. There was only a blackened fire pit, an empty bucket, two carts, some saddles on the ground, and a broken halter hanging from one of the tent poles. But there were no animals and no people in sight.

It took all of Kelene's willpower to step away from Demira and walk to the nearest tent. The heavy reek of decay surrounded her the moment she reached the entrance. Covering her nose and mouth with the hem of her tunic, she peered through the open tent flap and saw two bodies lying on the pallets. The people had been dead for days and were so disfigured by decomposition and the teeth of scavengers that Kelene could not tell what they had looked like. Only a blue cloak hanging on a tent pole identified them as Dangari.

Kelene blinked her eyes and ducked out of the tent. Her skin was clammy in spite of the heat, and her head felt dizzy. She made herself go to the next tent and the next, in the hope of finding someone still alive. But she was too late. She counted ten adults and three children dead in the hot, dusty tents. She almost tripped over one man lying sprawled in the dirt between one tent and the river, an empty waterskin in his outflung hand. He had died very recently, for his skin was still intact enough for Kelene to see the open red marks of plague boils on his arms and face.

When she was through examining the camp, she leaned against Demira and buried her face in the filly's mane. She inhaled the warm smell of horse to try to rid her nose of the stench of death.

"They're all dead," she murmured into Demira's neck. "They must have tried to flee the gathering and brought the plague with them." There was nothing more she dared take the time or strength to do---their clan would have to come later and bury them. She mounted Demira, and the Hunnuli galloped away from the little camp.

The carrion birds waited only until the horse and rider were out of sight before settling back to their meal.

Through the long hours that followed, Kelene hung on to Demira and prayed for strength. She knew from her previous glimpses in the Watcher that the Dangari tents were probably a forewarning of what she would find at the gathering. The memory of the bodies by the council tent and the fact that her parents were in their own tent, rather than in the grove, were indications that the clans could no longer deal with the number of victims.

The thought of the dead and dying led her into another probability that she hadn't considered yet: the numbers of sick and living. She had the first real hope of a cure in her bag, but she was the only one at that moment who could use it, and the idea that she would have to treat hundreds of sick people alone was enough to start her shaking.

There had to be a few healers still alive and a few more magic-wielders with the talent to heal. Maybe even Gabria.

Kelene rubbed Demira's sweaty neck, as much to encourage the filly as to comfort herself. All she had to worry about now was carrying the stones to the gathering. Once she was there, Gabria would know what to do. With her mother's help, Kelene knew she could handle whatever she had to face.

But only if Lord Athlone were alive. Kelene knew her parents well enough to know that they lived for each other. If her father died. . . Kelene did not want to imagine beyond that possibility.

The afternoon wore on, hot, dusty, and breezy as Kelene and Demira worked their way south toward the Tir Samod. They were so tired that each step became harder than the next and each flight became shorter. By the time early evening crept onto the plains, the little filly was exhausted.

"We're almost there," Kelene reassured her. "I see the hills that border the river valley."

Demira didn't answer. She pushed into a trot to the crest of a tall hill overlooking the valley of the Isin and Goldrine rivers and paused at the top. She and her rider looked down into the broad, green valley stretching away into a blue haze.

Kelene saw the smoke before she saw the gathering place downriver. Dark columns rose in thick, curling strands' through the trees before the light winds bent the plumes over and sent them drifting south. The fumes were too dense and yellowish to be wood smoke and too concentrated to be a grass fire or an attack on the camps. The priests must still be burning incense to drive away the plague. Kelene took that as a positive sign.

Demira pricked up her ears. Her head lifted a little, and she snorted as if gathering herself for the last challenge.
We have a good wind behind us. I think I can
fly the rest of the way.