The Amber Enchantress

by Troy Denning

  "That's because I haven't announced myself," Faenaeyon replied. He grabbed Sadira by the arm and pulled her roughly forward. "I thought perhaps he might be interested in making a purchase."

  Accustomed to the role of a slave, Sadira lowered her chin and looked frightened. At the same time, she allowed her pale eyes to wander over the muls, as though unable to resist the temptation of admiring their bodies.

  Her silent appeal worked well. The muls circled around her, studying her figure from every angle. "Lord Ghandara has fine tastes," said the tallest. "I'm not sure this stock is up to his standards."

  Sadira lifted her chin and scowled, then bit her lip as though preventing herself from making a sharp retort. As she had hoped, the guards laughed, then stood aside. "I'll show you the way," said the tallest.

  "No need to trouble yourself," answered Faenaeyon, leading his small company up the ramp. "I've been there before."

  As Sadira entered the tower, she felt as though she were plunging into an enchanted well. An ambient green light suffused the air, lighting the dust on her skin like tiny gems sparkling in a thousand dazzling colors. Ahead, the corridor divided into three branches. From each puffed a hot breeze thick with the smell of mildew and rot, masked by the overly-sweet aroma of burning incense.

  Faenaeyon ushered them into the right-hand corridor and started up the steep, spiralling slope. The hallway was lined by the scale-shaped windows she had seen from outside. By peering out the openings, she could see that they were rapidly climbing to the top of the tower. When ever they circled around to the north side, the view of the plaza below was replaced by the sheer crags of the rocky bluff. Once in a while, they passed one of the cliffside palaces, where a pair of stern-faced sentries stood guard over the causeway connecting their master's home to the tower. Sometimes, it seemed to Sadira that she heard feet walking down the corridor toward them, but only once did they meet anyone—an old woman carrying an empty fruit basket to market.

  When she felt reasonably certain they would not be overheard, Sadira asked, "Faenaeyon, what are we going to do once we reach the top of the tower?"

  "There'll be a pair of royal guards," the elf answered. "I'll kill them, and we'll cross to the wall."

  Sadira peered out a window. It was fifty feet to the ground, and the sorceress could not imagine the height of the outside wall would be any less. "Then what?"

  "You'll cast the spell you used to bring the tribe across the canyon," the chief answered. "We'll be gone before the sentries notice us."

  Sadira stopped walking. "No," she said. "To use that spell, I'd have to defile. I won't do that again."

  "You must," Faenaeyon said, continuing up the ramp. "It's the best way."

  "Then you should have asked me before bringing us here," Sadira said.

  Faenaeyon whirled on her. "I don't need to ask!" he snapped. "I am chief, and you'll do as I say." He glared at her for a moment, then continued up the corridor with no further discussion.

  Rhayn slipped a hand under Sadira's arm and dragged her after the chief. Soon, the passage leveled off and curved toward the north side of the tower.

  "Leave the guards to me," Faenaeyon whispered. "Magnus, you and Huyar keep the gate open. Rhayn, watch over Sadira."

  A few moments later, the corridor broadened into a square foyer. To one side, a bone portcullis hung over a short passage leading to the causeway. Just behind this gate, a narrow hall opened off the main corridor and turned sharply to the right, apparently opening into a small chamber that could not be seen from the main passage. A short stretch of the causeway itself was barely visible, suspended over the empty space between the tower and the city wall.

  As Sadira's father had predicted, a pair of guards stood at the portcullis. They were both full humans, wearing purple saramis, with white tabards bearing the insignia of a cilops over the top. In their hands, they held short spears and shields, both made of blue agafari wood.

  The guards crossed their spears in front of the causeway. "What are you doing here?" asked one.

  Faenaeyon continued to walk toward them at a leisurely pace, holding his hands well away from his dagger sheath. The guards took the precaution of leveling their spearpoints at him, though they did not seem alarmed by his innocuous approach.

  "You can't come any farther," said the first guard.

  The chief stopped in front of the two men and allowed them to press the tips of their spears to his chest.

  "Go on and get out of—"

  Faenaeyon sprang into action, thrusting his hands up between the two spears and spreading them apart. Before the guards could cry out, he grabbed them both by the backs of their necks. One after the other, he pulled their heads down and smashed their faces into his knees. The Nibenese cried out and dropped their spears, then the elf pushed them over to a wall and beat their heads against the stones until they fell unconscious.

  "As I promised, a simple matter," he said, motioning the others forward.

  Magnus and Huyar went into the passage and picked up the spears of the unconscious guards. Before Rhayn and Sadira stepped beneath the portcullis, however, a Nibenese templar rushed out of the side corridor. She took one look at the unconscious guards, then turned toward the causeway, already opening her mouth to call for the king's magic.

  Sadira grabbed the woman's hair and jerked her head back, smashing the edge of her other hand into the templar's throat. The Nibenese gurgled in pain, then Rhayn ended her life by plunging a bone dagger into her heart.

  "Not as simple as you thought," Sadira said, shaking her head at her father.

  "Things have not turned out so badly," Faenaeyon said, leading the way across the causeway.

  By the time the small company stepped off the bridge, the sentries scattered along the butte were rushing toward them. Faenaeyon took the spear from Magnus's hand and sent it sailing into the chest of the nearest guard, while Huyar threw his at the one approaching from the opposite direction. Seeing that the elves now had nothing but daggers, the next men in line drew obsidian short swords and rushed forward.

  "Cast your spell" ordered Faenaeyon.

  "I'll cast a spell," Sadira said, taking a small disk of wood from her satchel.

  Faenaeyon ignored her and pulled the dagger he had taken earlier from Huyar. As the chief prepared to meet the first sentry, Rhayn gave her own dagger to Huyar, then took a shard of kank shell from her satchel and began preparations for own spell.

  Sadira went to the wall and peered over the edge. She found herself looking out over endless acres of silver sandglass, mottled with boulder-sized chimps of rock-holly. In the distance, laboring under the lash of a single half-giant overseer, a dozen slaves were using buckets to irrigate the king's field.

  As the sorceress summoned the energy for her spell, the first of the sentries arrived and attacked. Faenaeyon killed his almost effortlessly, dodging a clumsy thrust, then twisting the sword from the guard's hand and slicing the man open with his own blade. Huyar had more trouble, dropping his dagger when he was slashed across the forearm, and finally Magnus had to intervene by knocking the sentry from the cliff.

  Sadira held her disk over the edge of the wall and uttered her incantation. The wooden circle rose from her hand and hovered in midair, then slowly began to expand.

  "What's that?" demanded Faenaeyon.

  "It's how we'll get off the wall," Sadira explained.

  A bowstring hummed and an arrow ticked into Magnus's thick hide. The windsinger cried out in pain, but positioned himself where he would serve as shield for the others.

  "Cast the other spell!" Faenaeyon ordered.

  "I told you I wouldn't," Sadira said, using one hand to keep her disk from drifting away as it continued to expand. "This is more dangerous, but it'll have to do."

  On the side that Magnus was not protecting, a sentry knelt and fired an arrow at the group. The shaft clattered off the stones near Sadira's head, and the sorceress could see that several more guards were coming up to join the
attacker.

  Rhayn chose that moment to cast her spell, tossing her kank shell into the air. The shard disappeared and was replaced by a full carapace. Huyar immediately grabbed it and used it to shield the group. To both sides of them, sentries cursed, then put their bows aside and rushed forward to attack hand-to-hand.

  "I think it's large enough," Sadira said, motioning Faenaeyon onto the disk. It was now the size of a large table. "Get on."

  The chief glowered, but did as ordered. Rhayn and Sadira followed next, then Huyar discarded the kank shell and joined them. Magnus came last, again positioning his arrow-flecked bulk between the others and the attacking sentries. He shoved the disk away from the wall then raised his voice in song. Within moments, a powerful wind rose, carrying the company over the king's lush fields and out into the wastes of the Athasian desert.

  FOURTEEN

  A New Chief

  In a dirt circle that the children had carefully cleared of rocks, two elven warriors stood with their shoulders pressed together and one arm locked over the back of the other's neck. They had coated their bodies with tangy oil squeezed from fresh yara buds, shaved the hair from their heads, and stripped down to their breechcloths. Both women breathed hard, the powerful muscles of their long legs bulging with effort as they struggled to keep their feet.

  The rest of the tribe stood outside the ring. The adults cheered for the warrior upon which they had wagered, while the children mimicked the contest by wrestling each other on the rocky ground. Magnus lay on his stomach at the far end of the ring. His pockmarked back was covered with a foul-smelling balm, which the elves claimed would relieve the sting of the many arrow wounds he had suffered that morning. Judging from the vacant look on his face and the gray tone of his eyes, it had accomplished its task mainly by putting him into a slumber.

  Faenaeyon sat atop a boulder near Magnus, a huge flask of broy in his hand. His face was contorted into a scowl, with an angry silver light burning deep within his sunken, glazed eyes. He gnawed constantly at his fingernails, hardly seeming to notice as he ripped away strips of cuticle.

  As Sadira watched her father, the taller of the two wrettlers slipped her free arm around her opponent's waist and spun in beneath the other's shoulders. "Good, Katza!" yelled Huyar, along with dozens of other tribe members. "Finish it!"

  Katza, a woman with a heavily lined face and the tip of one pointed ear missing, pulled her opponent onto her back. She spun her shoulders around to finish the throw, hurling the other woman headlong toward the ground. The defender, who was a head shorter than her opponent and half again as stocky, thrust out her arms to break the fall. For a moment, it appeared she would tumble onto her back. Then, at the last instant, she brought her feet down and sprang away in a cartwheel. Landing just inside the circle, the wrestler spun around and fixed a black-eyed glower on her rival.

  "Yes, Grissi!" cheered Rhayn. "Toss that kank-riding trollop into the bushes!"

  Katza cast an angry glance in Rhayn's direction. Calling a full-blooded elf a kank-rider was a terrible insult, as it implied she was not fast enough to keep up with the tribe on foot. "You're next, tul'k kisser!" growled the wrestler.

  "How you going to wrestle with a broken leg?" demanded Grissi, moving forward.

  Although Faenaeyon had called the wrestling tournament to celebrate the escape from Nibenay, the tribe hardly seemed in a festive mood. If the chief had expected the contests to bring his warriors closer together, he had been miserably wrong. So far, every match had deteriorated into a rivalry between Rhayn and Huyar, with their supporters taking sides behind them. The rest of the tribe wagered more on which group would win the day than on the wrestlers themselves.

  As Grissi neared the center of the ring, Katza slipped to the side and snapped her leg out in a vicious kick. The blow caught the shorter elf in the face, with the big toe striking the eyeball itself. Grissi's knees buckled and she reached for her eye, barely managing to keep her feet. The entire crowd gasped in astonishment. Even Faenaeyon winced, but no one cried foul.

  Katza moved forward with a smug expression, reaching out to grasp her reeling opponent's arm. Grissi let her have it, apparently concentrating all her efforts on retaining her feet. The lop-eared elf pulled her stunned opponent toward her, preparing to deliver the final throw.

  Just then, Grissi came alive. She retracted the arm that Katza had seized, pulling her astonished attacker along with it. Then she smashed her forehead into the bridge of Katza's nose. The cartilage shattered with a resonant crack and blood erupted from both nostrils.

  As Katza reached up to cover her face, Grissi grabbed her around the neck with one arm and squatted down to slip the other between her opponent's thighs. She pulled Katza's body onto her shoulders, then, in one swift motion, she stood up and catapulted the lop-eared elf out of the circle. Five of Huyar's supporters barely managed to leap aside as Katza sailed past and crashed into a rock pile.

  "I win," Grissi growled, not bothering to see if her opponent would be capable of returning to her feet. Her eye was bloodshot and rimmed with red, but it seemed to have survived intact. "Who's next?"

  A young elf standing next to Huyar began to strip. "Your tricks won't fool me," he said, throwing his burnoose to the ground. "Shave my head!"

  While the youth's friends prepared him for competition, the camp buzzed with the drone of elves settling old wagers and placing new ones. A pair of Katza's older children dragged their mother off to rest, but no one else paid the woman any attention.

  The green-eyed woman who had tried to help Sadira during the escape from the Elven Market stepped to the sorceress's side. Sadira now knew the woman's name to be Meredyd, for one of the first things the sorceress had done after rejoining the tribe had been to thank her for her efforts.

  Meredyd's lips were spread wide in an affected smile. She had a deep cleft in her long chin and a tangle of brown hair that just concealed the tips of her pointed ears. Her hips and abdomen were so swollen with pregnancy that Sadira wondered how she had found the strength to make the long run from Nibenay.

  "I've noticed you have no knife," said Meredyd. She reached beneath her burnoose and withdrew a long dagger with a blade of sharpened bone. Its ivory handle had been carved in the shape of intertwined serpents, with their beads forming the pommel. "I came across this one in Nibenay," she said. "Perhaps you'd like it?"

  The offer was not as generous as it seemed. At the beginning of the wrestling tournament, Faenaeyon had announced Sadira's true identity and declared her one of the Sun Runners. Everyone had acted as though he were bestowing a great honor on her, but the chief's true intentions had not been lost on the sorceress. By naming her a tribe member, he was trying to instill a sense of obligation in her that would make it easier for him to assert his authority.

  Since then, Sadira had been presented with many gifts, including the new cape covering her shoulders and the soft leather boots on her feet. As the sorceress had quickly discovered, each present carried with it the obligation to voice her support of a request about to be made of Faenaeyon.

  "I could use a dagger," agreed Sadira. "What do you want in return?"

  Meredyd's smile grew more sincere. "You know of Esylk's daeg, Crekun?"

  The sorceress nodded. Crekun was a handsome man from another tribe who had been severely injured during a battle with the Sun Runners. Esylk had put him on a litter and nursed him back to health, and he had been her slave ever since. "What do you want with Crekun?"

  Meredyd's hand dropped to her swollen belly. "It would be better for this child if Crekun was a Sun Runner." With a murderous scowl on her face, she glanced toward a russet-haired woman with a brazen figure and plump lips. The target of Meredyd's animosity stood near Huyar, shaving the head of the young warrior about to challenge Grissi. "Otherwise, if it happens to resemble its father, Esylk will claim the child as her property— probably when we are near some city's slave market."

  "There will be no children sold into slavery if I can hel
p it," Sadira said, accepting the gift from Meredyd's hand.

  As she sheathed the weapon, Katza's oldest son, Cyne, returned from his mother's camp bearing a skin of broy. He pushed his way to the front of the crowd, then stepped past Magnus's litter and offered the fermented kank-nectar to Faenaeyon. "My mother's arm has been broken. Therefore, I ask that Grissi wrestle her next match with one arm bound to her side." He did not even go through the customary ruse of pretending his gift was intended as anything but a bribe.

  Faenaeyon hardly glanced at the youth as he took the broy. Setting the skin down at his side, the chief looked over the boy's head to the rest of the crowd.

  As Sadira expected, Huyar's followers voiced their agreement with the youth's suggestion, and Rhayn's supporters opposed it. But Cyne's impatience cost him dearly with the majority of elves, who were still neutral in the conflict between Huyar and Rhayn. Irritated at his rudeness in not buying their support with gifts or promises, they also raised their voices against his proposal. Some of them even went so far as to suggest that Grissi's opponent be the one whose arm was bound.

  After gauging his tribe's reaction, Faenaeyon looked back to the boy. "You heard the tribe," he said. Though his words were already slurred, he refilled his flask from the skin the youth had given him. "My thanks for the broy."

  Cyne flicked his wrist and a silver coin slipped from his burnoose sleeve. Holding the disk before Faenaeyon's eyes, he said, "It's not the tribe I ask."

  The chief's eyes darted to the silver and he stuck his palm beneath the boy's nose. "Is that my coin?"

  "It is now," the youth said, dropping the silver into the outstretched hand. He remained standing before Faenaeyon while the chief massaged the coin's surface with his fingertips.

  Finally, Faenaeyon said, "Grissi will fight with one arm bound to her side."

  A disapproving murmur rustled through the camp, which Faenaeyon quickly silenced with a stern glower.