Sy-wen climbed from the dragon’s neck. She sent her love to the great heart inside, then lifted her hand away. The magick reversed itself amid a flurry of scale and cloud, and Kast stood beside her once again. He stepped and wrapped an arm around her, pulling her tight.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered in her ear.
She sank against him, needing his warmth and touch.
Kast faced the group. “The desert legion has been destroyed. Carrion eaters and worse feed upon the remains.”
Innsu moved nearer with a cloak for Kast. “How could that be? They were a thousand of our fiercest warriors.”
Sy-wen answered. “The evil here has grown stronger, fed on the blood of your own children.” She explained in detail what she had seen, including the sharks encircling Tular. “It was as if the desert had turned against them.”
Kesla’s face paled in the rising moonlight. “Then how can we hope to succeed? If the desert is already corrupted, we’ve lost before we’ve even begun.”
Sy-wen pushed out of Kast’s arms. “No, if we lose heart, we give the evil power over us. We must not give up hope.”
Joach stepped forward and touched Kesla’s arm. “Sy-wen is right. We’ll find a way.”
KESLA KNELT IN the sand, unmoving. The ruins of Tular lay a half league away, but it seemed much closer. The tumbled pile of sandstone filled the world ahead of her. With the moon full overhead, it was nearly as bright as day.
Kesla squinted and made out the line where the sharks roiled in the sand. She had spent half the night searching for some break in the ring of death, circling the entire curtain wall. It seemed impossible.
They had considered having Ragnar’k ferry them over to the city, but judged this option only as a last choice, since the presence of a dragon flapping back and forth over the walls might draw more attention than they wanted.
Then, a short time ago, from out of the desert, a possible answer had appeared. Innsu had spied a single rider, racing atop a frothing malluk. From the black sash across his red desert robes, it was clearly an outlaw, most likely one of the cowards who had fled the caravan. Innsu had strung an arrow on his bow, meaning to take him out before he alerted Tular, but Joach had pushed his arm down.
“If he’s heading to Tular,” Joach had argued, “perhaps he can show us a way through the sharks.”
They had all agreed it was worth the risk and had sent Kesla to spy upon him. She had sped after the rider on her lithe legs, sliding from shadow to shadow with her assassin-trained stealth.
She now knelt beside a boulder, no more than the length of five malluks from the rider. He had slowed his mount at the edge of the roiling sands. The road to the open gates ahead was blocked.
As Kesla spied, the outlaw tossed back his hood. His dark hair was unkempt, and a pale scar shaped like a spider blazed on his left cheek. From his cloak, he tugged out a small object. It hung from a braided cord around his neck. He slipped it over his head and held it at arm’s length ahead of him. Kesla squinted but could not make out what swayed at the end of the cord. But whatever it was, it cast off a poisonous greenish light.
The rider lifted his object higher. Was it some signal to unseen eyes? But Kesla noticed his attention was not on the crumbled watchtowers flanking the city gates, but upon the sands ahead.
She heard him mumble a prayer of protection under his breath. But it was no spell, only a simple desert supplication taught all children.
The outlaw urged his mount another step forward, but it balked at the churning sands, its nostrils scenting the danger there. The rider took a whip to his mount and got it to take a small step forward. He again lifted his glowing talisman.
As the sick light spread over the deadly sands, the sharks fled from it, diving away with a frantic flip of their leathery tails. A path opened.
Encouraged and clearly relieved, the rider whipped the malluk again and slowly drove the beast forward. Ahead, the sharks fled from the glow of his talisman and extended a safe passage toward the waiting gates. The gait of the malluk increased as it sensed the sharks to either side. The lumbering beast shuffled forward while the sand sharks swept up behind it, closing in once again after the green light had passed.
Kesla squinted at the phenomenon. The outlaw’s pendant must act as some protective ward, aglow with black magicks.
In his small island of safety, the outlaw continued to work his way toward Tular.
Kesla rose from her hiding spot and hurried forward. She knew she would have only this single chance. With a flick of her wrist, she loosed her climbing line and spun the trio of trisling hooks at the end of the braided silk rope.
She took careful aim, adding her own silent prayer, then cast out her line. The hooks flew as swift as any arrow, flying past the rump of the malluk. Once they reached her target, Kesla snapped her wrist. The hooks latched onto the cord from which the glowing talisman hung and snatched it from the outlaw’s surprised fingers.
With her catch hooked, Kesla flung her arm backward and cartwheeled away, dragging the line back over her in a smooth arch. Rolling to her feet, she lifted a hand and caught the flying talisman in her palm. She shook free the trisling hooks and clutched the prize in her fingers.
Across the way, she saw the outlaw swing around in his saddle, a curse on his lips. Outlaw and assassin stared across at each other. Then the realization of the danger struck the rider as his mount suddenly reared, its neck stretched in a silent bellow of agony.
With the glowing protection gone, the sharks swamped back over the little island of security. The malluk’s hind legs began to sink into the sand, devoured from below. The outlaw pulled his feet higher up in the saddle and scrambled away from the bloody sands. He crouched atop his mount’s shoulder, his eyes wide with terror, his face pale.
At the last moment, he leaped from the beast’s shoulder, aiming back for the road. But the malluk spasmed in death, throwing his balance. The man tumbled into the sands. Without a pause, he shot back to his feet, trying to spring away once again in a mad leap. But as he sailed upward, a monstrous bull shark shot out from the sand and caught him in midair, clamping his midsection and snapping him in half. Blood fountained as his severed torso flew. Other sharks burst up, snatching, biting, ripping. By the time his carcass landed, it was unrecognizable as a man. Behind him, his mount fared no better.
Kesla turned away, remembering the caravan of terrified children. She felt sorrow for the death of the poor, mindless malluk behind her; but for the outlaw, she felt nothing.
Kesla glanced down and stared at her glowing prize.
From the cord hung a large, serrated tooth of a sand shark.
JOACH FOLLOWED KESLA through the gates of Tular, crouching in a watchtower’s shadow. Joach studied the arrow slits and parapets for any sign of movement. Nothing. It was as if the city were as empty as it appeared. He squinted beyond the gates. The moon shone directly overhead, full and bright. The ruins of the ancient castle ahead were a mix of silver and shadow.
Behind him, the others hurried past the threshold, panting. Richald was last, leaning on his crutch. He glanced with a scowl as the sharks ate away the path behind them. Joach followed his gaze. The way back was again a sea of churning sand. “What now?” the elv’in asked.
“We forge on,” Kesla said. She lowered her arm from which the stolen talisman hung and hid it back under her cloak.
Though the night was cool, everyone’s faces shone with nervous sweat. The path through the sharks had frayed at their nerves—especially with the stripped bones of the malluk poking up from the sand. Innsu took the lead from here, running lightly on his toes as he guided them to the deeper shadows.
Weapons appeared in everyone’s hands. Last night, the blades and arrowheads had been dipped in the blood of the skal’tum killed by Ragnar’k. By fouling their weapons, they had given the edges the ability to slice through the dark protections of the skal’tum, offering some defense against the monstrous beasts.
As the
y worked through the ruins, Kesla kept to Joach’s side, while Kast and Sy-wen flanked Richald behind them. They all moved silently, watching for hand signals from Innsu to move from shelter to shelter.
Joach stared at the toppled spires and scorched walls. He could only imagine the old war that had wrested Tular from the ghouls. In his head, the boom of catapults and the strident wail of battle horns echoed. He pictured the flaming arcs of dire magicks, the screams of the dying. For a moment, he could almost smell the balefire in the air. Joach’s fingers tightened on his sword’s grip, remembering the thrill of magick coursing out from him, tied to his spirit and focused through a poi’wood staff. The stump of his wrist suddenly itched with the phantom memory of gripping Greshym’s staff. He rubbed the smooth wrist on his hip with a pained expression, trying to erase the flare of desire.
Kesla glanced at his movement, her eyes asking if he was all right. He waved his sword tip forward.
With a worried nod, Kesla crept around the broken bust of a huge statue, lying on its side in the sand, half buried. Joach hurried under the gaze of its sand-scoured eye, unable to escape the feeling of being watched, studied like a scurrying bug. But as much as he searched, nothing threatened.
Slowly, as the moon crossed above them, they worked through the ruins without incident, aiming in a zigzagging pattern toward the opening in the Southwall that led into the inner chambers and tunnels. At last they found Innsu crouched on his ankles beside a low wall, his back against the stone.
He waited until they were all lined up beside him, then motioned around the corner of the wall. His voice was the whisper of sand over rock. “The way lies unguarded.”
They all readied themselves, steeling their resolves.
“An open yard lies between us and the opening. We must move swiftly. I spy several openings in the wall’s face.”
“Watchers?” Kesla asked.
Innsu shrugged.
Richald half crawled toward them. “I can help. Sand lies thick all around. A slight breeze should cough up a bit of dusty cover.”
“Could the magick alert those within?” Joach asked.
“Not if I ply the winds with care. The night winds are already sharp and gusty. It would not take much to guide its flow here for a brief moment.”
Innsu shrugged again. “It’s worth trying.”
Joach nodded.
Richald leaned back against the sandstone wall, his eyelids lowering as he touched his power. A bit of elemental fire danced along his fingertips, but it was a weak trickle. “Be ready,” Richald said. “On my word.”
Kesla leaned a moment against Joach, a silent gesture of support. She raised her desert scarf across her mouth and nose. The others followed suit, waiting, tense.
“Now!” Richald whispered.
As a group, they rushed around the corner as a sudden gust raced through the ruins, coughing up a small sandstorm before it. Joach and the others disappeared within it. They ran toward the black tunnel entrance, sand stinging their eyes and winds whipping their cloaks.
Kast half carried the limping Richald with him.
Joach glanced up at the Southwall. Lost in the sandstorm, its heights were barely discernable. Ahead, a slightly darker shadow in the blank wall of swirling sand marked their goal. Innsu was first through, followed closely by Kesla.
At the entrance, Kesla spun around to urge the party forward, waving an arm. Joach urged his legs to move faster, his vision blurred by stinging tears. But he was not too blind to miss a pale shadow burst from deeper in the tunnel.
Innsu suddenly flew backward into the sandy yard, his curved sword sailing away. As the man landed on his back, Joach saw the bloody claw marks strafed across his chest.
Kesla dove out of the tunnel after him, moving with an assassin’s speed.
Behind her, on her heels, skal’tum boiled out of the tunnel. The lead beast snatched at her but only caught her cloak. Kesla fought to shed her garment.
In the yard, Innsu rolled to his feet in the face of the onslaught. Daggers appeared in both hands, but he was too late to save himself. His body spasmed as the poison in the claw wounds struck his heart. His arms jerked as he fell. The daggers flew from the dead man’s hands and buried themselves in the eyes of the skal’tum that clutched Kesla. The beast fell backward with a wail.
Kesla rolled free and raced to join Joach and the others gathered in the yard. “Innsu.” She sobbed. But now was not the time for mourning.
From the tunnel, more skal’tum poured into the yard, while underfoot, monstrous scorpions shook free of their subterranean nests and danced toward the group, poisoned tails raised in threat.
“Behind!” Kast yelled.
Joach glanced over a shoulder and saw the sands roil and churn, driving toward them. It was the sand sharks again, closing off any retreat, driven to a thrashing fury.
A trap.
Sy-wen moved closer to Kast. “We can flee with Ragnar’k. Carry everyone away.”
Joach backed away. What choice did they have? He began to nod when Richald threw down his crutch.
“No!” he said coldly, and shoved back the sleeves of the robe. “Flee now, and all is lost. I won’t allow it.” He jammed both arms toward the rushing monsters. Back arching, he drew upon all the energy in his body.
Energy cascaded brightly along his bared forearms, and a fierce gale slammed into the yard. Sand blew up with a scream of winds and struck the skal’tum with the force of a hammer. Beasts tumbled against the wall. Scorpions flew in the grip of whirlwinds and cracked against the unyielding stone.
“Run!” Richald said, driving his arms apart and blowing a way clear to the tunnel. “I can’t hold this wind for long.”
“Richald . . .” Joach began to argue, but he knew the elv’in was right. If any chance to destroy the Weirgate existed, it had to be now. Whatever evil had rooted here was already close to consuming the desert. He remembered his journey to the silver stream in the dream desert and the sight of the black whorl of disease consuming and spreading.
Richald met his eyes. The elv’in prince’s face was hard and proud, but behind the sharp features, Joach saw the trembling strain as he reined the winds, and also a twinge of fear: a brave man who knew his death had come. “Go,” Richald said between tight lips. “ ‘As long as we live, there’s always hope.’ ”
Joach recognized his own words, spoken to Richald as the elv’in fought to hold his burning ship together. He understood the unspoken acknowledgment behind the prince’s words. Richald would not lose heart this time. “Thank you, Richald.”
The prince nodded, then turned his full attention forward, shoulders hunching as he fed all his power into a final gale of sandy winds. “Hurry!”
Joach led the way, bent against the winds that tugged at his cloak like a maddened dog. He rushed down the narrow path as scorpions and winged monsters fought the full assault of the wind. The tunnel ahead lay empty.
He dove into it and was followed quickly by the others. He stopped at the entrance and turned to face Richald. The elv’in’s arms trembled. He stumbled backward.
Kesla grabbed Joach’s sleeve and tugged out the shark tooth pendant to light the dark tunnel behind him. “We must be off, lose ourselves in these tunnels before they break free.”
Joach frowned. Her plan was shortsighted. As soon as Richald was overwhelmed, the skal’tum would hunt them, scour the tunnels for their blood. Another plan was needed.
Joach shook free of Kesla and bared his forearm. He drew his sword across the flesh of his arm.
“What are you doing?” Kast asked, sheltering Sy-wen behind him. Wincing at the sharp pain, Joach held out his arm and dribbled a solid trail of blood across the entrance. He intoned words to draw himself away, slipping into the dream desert, drawn easily by the amount of spilled blood.
As he concentrated on the red line in the sand, focusing his attention, a scorpion pounced to the tunnel’s entrance. He barely saw it, lost between the dreaming and the real. The
poisoned creature raced toward his leg, but before it could strike, a dagger impaled it between its stalked eyes, pinning it to the sand.
Kesla retrieved her weapon from its twitching body, then kicked it aside. “Hurry, Joach. Richald weakens.”
Ahead, Joach saw a skal’tum scrabble out of the sandy gale, crouching. But its prey was not Joach.
“It’s going for Richald!” Kast said.
Joach fought to keep his attention focused. A moment more. Then new movement caught his eye—not out in the courtyard of Tular, but in the dream desert itself. Someone rose from the sands off to his left. The visitor had been sitting near where the bright silver river wound through the empty sands. Even from the distance, Joach recognized the familiar figure. It was Shaman Parthus.
“Let me help you,” Parthus said. The shaman stepped forward with the unnatural speed of this landscape, closing in swiftly, but Joach knew he had no more time.
Even as Parthus reached his side, Kesla cried out, “Richald!” Beyond the tunnel’s entrance, the screaming winds died.
Joach snatched at the lines of power between the two worlds and fed his spirit into the dream sands. “Do my will!” he urged, and flung his arm high.
At his command, a wave of sand swept up to fill the tunnel’s entrance, closing off the yard.
Though he had willed it, Joach still stumbled backward, stunned as he snapped back into the real world. Kast caught him, but Joach struggled back up. “We must hurry,” he said, eyeing the sculpted structure. “I don’t know how long this pile of sand will hold them back.”
Kast touched the wall as Kesla held her glowing talisman higher. “It’s not sand,” the large man said. “It’s rock.”
Sy-wen ran her fingers along its surface. “Sandstone.”
Joach felt the wall himself. It was solid. “Must be the flow of power here,” he mumbled, remembering how the energy of Greshym’s staff had transformed his first dream sculpture into rock—but he was not entirely convinced. He recalled the figure that had shared the dream desert and frowned. “Or maybe it was something Shaman Parthus did? He said he could help.”