Sanctuary

“I will be done before he arrives.”

As the elves drew closer, the nomad chiefs and warmasters sat up straighter on their sturdy ponies. The elves were mounted on long-legged horses, making them seem taller. Seated as she was on her faithful donkey, Adala was the lowest person in the entire group. She was also, as always, the only woman present, She gave no sign of noticing any of this. Instead, she finished her repair of the basket, working the ends of the new rim into place, then hung the container from the short horn on her saddle.

The elf on the white horse leading the others stopped. Looking up and down the line of nomad chiefs, he announced, “I am Planchet, councilor to the Speaker of the Sun and Stars, monarch of all the elves.”

Mild surprise rippled through the human assembly. He had spoken in Khur.

Adala seemed unimpressed. She replied in the Common tongue, “I am Adala Fahim, Saran di Kyre, Weyadan of the Weya-Lu, and keeper of the maita. I would speak to your khan.”

Now the elves were caught off guard. Planchet regarded the black-draped, motherly woman with surprise. Clearly, he had expected to be dealing with one of the fierce-looking men. “Our Speaker is engaged. I represent him,” he said.

“And I speak for the Weya-Lu, the Mikku, the Tondoon, and the Mayakhur.”

“You are the leader of all those tribes?”

“In this cause, by the will of Those on High, I am.”

“I am honored to meet you. How shall I address you?”

“She is Weyadan or Maita,” Wapah offered. Some of the chiefs glowered at him for speaking out of turn.

Planchet recognized the second word as meaning something like “destiny” or “luck.” He chose the other, less emotional, title. “I am honored to meet you, Weyadan. There are many swords here today. How can we keep them in their scabbards?”

“Many transgressions have been committed against our people by the laddad. I tell you only two: You are foreigners, and you are invaders.”

“We have the permission of Sahim-Khan to dwell in his country,” Planchet countered.

“Sahim-Khan will answer to Those on High for his venality.”

“So shall we all, Weyadan.”

Adala’s dark eyes hardened. “You send spies to measure our land. You have entered a valley sacred to Those on High. This is sacrilege.”

“Our Speaker meant no blasphemy,” Planchet replied evenly. “We need a place to live where the climate is not so harsh. He heard the Valley of the Blue Sands was such a place. We had never heard it was sacred. We thought only that there we would be out of your desert and away from your cities. Desecration was not our intention.”

A snort of disbelief came from one of the younger warmasters. The chiefs around him, although plainly just as skeptical, glowered at him for his breech of manners.

Adala never took her eyes from Planchet. “What’s done is done, and you must answer for it.”

“We must dwell some place, Weyadan. It is the right of every living being to have a home.”

“You had homes and lost them. The gods have turned their backs on you, laddad.”

From his place behind Planchet, Hytanthas listened to the exchange with growing annoyance. He had expected the nomads’ leader to be a simple, uncouth fanatic. This woman was neither. There was strength in her, strength even the young Qualinesti recognized, but while Planchet was mindful of the diplomatic niceties, she persisted in hurling insults and epithets.

Planchet tried to reason around Adala, saying dark forces had conspired to deprive the elves of their homelands and they sought only to take their fate in their own hands and find a new sanctuary. If some customs of the desert folk had been transgressed, he regretted it, but the survival of the elven race required bold measures.

“What of the customs of war?” Adala asked, her entire demeanor suddenly eloquent of barely suppressed fury. “The custom that one does not murder wives and mothers, children and the aged, those who cannot fight!”

The tenor of the meeting changed instantly. Hatred emanated from the nomads, like the heat of the desert. Planchet was taken aback. After the Lioness’s ill-conceived but undeniably dramatic gesture with the dead sand beast, he’d put the rumored massacre out of his mind. Like the city-dwelling Khurs, the elves now believed that if the deaths had happened, they were the work of a wild beast.

Unfortunately, the nomads knew nothing about that or about the possible involvement of the rogue Faeterus. They still blamed the Lioness’s troops for the deaths of their families.

Hoping her answer would help him formulate a response, Planchet asked Adala to explain her accusations.

“Hundreds of Weya-Lu were murdered near the entrance to the Valley of the Blue Sands. No warriors were present, only children, women, old people; yet every one was cruelly slain. Not simply put to the sword, but ripped to pieces, then set afire!”

“Why do you think we are responsible?” he asked.