Sanctuary

The elf screamed. One of his comrades yanked the palm-sized spider from his face and flung it to the ground. He stamped it with his iron-shod boot.

Tragically, the evil already had been done. Two fang marks showed clearly on the elf’s cheek. From the holes, red streaks were spreading even as the Lioness watched. The stricken elf went rigid, his eyes and mouth wide in agony. The Lioness shouted for a healer. The elf began to tremble, then convulse. Despite his comrades’ strong arms, he went down, dragging them with him.

“What can we do?” the Lioness yelled at the nomad.

He shrugged, his face hard. “Iron’s the only cure for him now.” He drew a finger across his throat.

She turned away from him in disgust, and dismounted. The elf’s face was dreadful, his mouth stretched wide in a scream he could not vent, and his face mottled by the red streaks that mapped the lightning-fast flow of poison through his blood.

Kerian knelt beside him. With a tenderness few could imagine, she touched his cheek. His skin was cold. What had been living flesh now felt like marble. His eyes, blue irises lost in a bloody sea, shifted toward her slightly.

In the heat of pursuit, with Knights of Neraka or worse baying at her heels, she’d had to use the iron cure before. She loathed it. It was all they could do for the dying elf now, to spare him needless suffering, but she hated it nonetheless.

Her free hand still resting on his face, she ended the elf’s torment. His gaze remained fixed on her, grew unfocused, then empty. Kerian closed his eyelids.

“His name was Nafarallun,” said one of the elves holding him. “Born a Qualinesti.”

The remaining leather pouches were pounded flat, unopened. Stone-faced, the nomads awaited the same fate.

“Go home, men of the Leaping Spider clan,” the Lioness said tersely, looking down at them from horseback. “We have not come to harm you, but if you make war on us, we will show you no mercy.”

The elves formed up and rode away. Soon, the marooned nomads were only dark smudges against the blond sand, then they were lost from sight.

Around Khuri-Khan the desert was stony, with hills of sand piled up by contending winds from the mountains in the north and the sea in the east. The Khurish capital was set in a shallow depressions like a dry lakebed. All day the elves climbed out of this low-lying area. Stones became scarce, and the sand grew finer. There was no shade in sight anywhere. Each elf had donned eyeshades of the style worn by nomads, which looked very like bandages wrapping the head: stiff strips of hide held in place by thongs looped around the ears. The “bandage” had very thin horizontal openings, which admitted just enough light to see. Without the eyeshades, most of the elves would have gone blind in a day or two. Elves and horses were draped in white cloth, another nomad trick. The light color deflected the killing rays of the sun.

The column paused every few miles for water. Horses drank first, riders second. A warrior could persevere even when thirsty, but a horse would balk unless watered.

As the distance from Khuri-Khan increased, they found less and less evidence of intelligent life. They were too far east to encounter travelers on the caravan route to Alek-Khan and Kortal, and too far west to meet traders using the only paved road in Khur, the Khan’s Way, which led to Delphon. Here, at its harsh edge, it was easy to see why even the hardiest nomads shunned the High Plateau.

The wind died. This spared them the stinging dust, but allowed the heat to grow. The entire column looked like a procession of phantoms, white-draped wraiths plodding slowly ahead through the calf-deep sand.

Under her stifling shroud, the Lioness fought against the lethargy that had her nodding in the saddle. She slipped a hand into one of the smaller saddlebags draped across the pommel of her saddle. Within, next t’ the smooth coolness of Sa’ida’s enigmatic gift, she felt dry flakes. These were the leaves that had fallen on her during her last night in Khurinost. They had quickly dried in the desert air. She hadn’t mentioned the odd occurrence to anyone, not even Gilthas. What could she say? A bat flew over and dropped ash leaves on me? Her husband would think she’d been sampling the Khurish homebrew. Yet, she was sure that the fallen leaves meant something.

Swaying in the saddle, the Lioness had plenty of time to consider what she knew about ash trees. The wood was hard and durable and made good tool handles, pike and lance shafts, and arrows. Eastern Silvanesti had a great many ash trees. So did the woodlands of Wayreth in Qualinesti. Had the leaves come from one of those places? Was the strange rain an omen, a sign that, one day, she was destined to return to one of the elven homelands?

If circumstance permitted she would ask Favaronas about ash trees. Doubtless, the scholar knew all sorts of trivial lore about them. Perhaps she would find a clue in his knowledge.