Alliances

The chiefs and warmasters gathered around their leader. Their sturdy desert-bred horses were shorter than the war-horses ridden by elves, but still towered over Adala’s donkey.

Known as the Weyadan, Mother of the Weya-Lu, but more frequently called simply “Maita” by her followers, Adala sat on Little Thorn’s back beneath a square of black damask supported by four tall poles. As always, her hands were busy. She was darning holes in the robe of one of her kinsmen. Months ago most of the Weya-Lu women and children had been slain in a night raid on an unprotected camp. The atrocity was blamed on the laddad, who had a warband in the vicinity. Since then Adala had taken on various domestic tasks for the surviving wifeless men. Chief of the Weya-Lu and anointed leader of the temporarily united desert tribes she might be, but she also sewed, mended, and cleaned as necessary to support her loyal warriors.

“What say you, Maita?” asked Danolai, warmaster of the Mikku. “Why waste our lives against a departing foe?”

“The blood of our people is still hot upon the sand,” Adala replied evenly. “Who would not avenge his kinsmen, wrongly slain?”

The men looked away. Adala’s youngest daughters, Chisi and Amalia, had been among those slain in the treacherous night raid. Adala had always been certain the laddad were behind the terrible crime. Her followers had been less sure until the tracks of shod horses were discovered nearby. Nomad ponies wore no shoes.

“They are too great for us, Maita.”

It was obvious most of the men present agreed with Danolai. Adala looked at him, her eyes hard.

“Then go home,” she said. “If you think the laddad are greater than you, then you are nothing. Take the other nothings and go, but leave your swords in the sand. You have no right to bear arms.”

The men blanched. A nomad’s sword, narrow bladed and bare of guard, was as vital a part of his identity as prowess on a horse or skill as a storyteller. He could experience no greater shame than to have his sword taken away and driven pointfirst into the sand. The gesture implied every degree of cowardice.

Adala’s cousin Wapah, sitting a horse at her side, spoke. “Our great throw did not succeed. But while we live, we can fight again.” His pale gray eyes were unusual among nomads, but common in Wapah’s Leaping Spider Clan.

“Every fight weakens the laddad. This is not their land. This is not their climate. One day their foreign ways will fail them, and they will be ours.”

Kindly folks called Wapah a philosopher. Those less charitable labeled him a garrulous gossip. But his was the only voice of reason between Adala’s unyielding belief in her maita and the chiefs’ despair. Old Kameen, the only clan chieftain from the ruling Khur tribe to join Adala’s cause, seconded Wapah’s words.

“We should be patient,” he advised. “Keep a close watch on the laddad. Gather the tribes again, and strike when the time is right.”

Adala finished her sewing and bit off the thread. “Kameen speaks wisely,” she said, folding the mended robe. “We will hang on the heels of the laddad until my maita shows us when to attack again.”

No one had a better idea to offer, and no one showed any sign of abandoning the fight. Fear of shame and a ferocious commitment to honor ran deep among the Khurs.

Several miles away, the elves were facing a crisis of their own. The damage to their dwindling supplies proved worse than first thought. One-fifth of their available water and a sixth of their edible oil had been lost in the attack. The great number of wounded meant the column could not maintain even the slow pace it had been making. Their time in the desert would be prolonged, and they did not have the supplies to meet the needs of everyone.

Planchet, Gilthas’s valet and bodyguard, arrived with General Taranath and other officers of the army. Planchet had been leading the right wing of the elves’ column. Surveying the destruction, his sunburned face paled a little. The carnage of men, elves, and horses traveled in a direct line to the Speaker. Planchet knew his sovereign well enough to realize he hadn’t retreated an inch.

Standing next to his horse, Gilthas was a thin figure clad in Khurish attire. Most elves had adopted the practical desert dress. Some, like Hamaramis and Planchet, added Qualinesti-style leggings, feeling uncomfortable on horseback without them. The Silvanesti among the Speaker’s councilors clung stubbornly to their silk robes, no matter how frayed and threadbare.

Planchet hailed his liege with great relief. “Sire, what is your will?” he said, dismounting.

“To lie in the cool shade of a birch forest with my feet soaking in a crystal stream.” Gilthas smiled wanly at the elf who was his valet, bodyguard, sometime general, and close friend. “What do you want, good Planchet?”