Suddenly a ringing neigh sounded above the wind’s roar. There was a wild crash of hooves and a scream of terror. The Turic and the women whirled in time to see Demira rocket forward through a door in the front of the wagon. Hands reached to grab her halter, but she screamed and reared, flailing her hooves over the heads of her enemies. The fabric covering ripped and fell away; her wings spread like an eagle’s, ready to launch.
“Catch her!” Zukhara shrieked. His words were lost in a crash of thunder.
The winged mare rolled her eyes at her rider, “Go! shouted Kelene, and the mare obeyed. Like black thunder she charged the open gateway. Her legs were swollen from standing so long, her muscles were stiff and slow, and she was still slightly disoriented by the sedative. Yet carried by her desperation, Demira spread her wings and threw herself into the teeth of the storm. At once the clouds opened, and the rain poured down in blinding sheets. In the blink of an eye, the Hunnuli had vanished.
For one shattering moment Kelene thought she had pushed Zukhara too far. Quivering with furious passion, he turned on her and whipped out his dagger to press against her throat. His lean visage snarled at her like a wolf’s.
“You didn’t need her,” Kelene forced herself to say calmly. “Like any horse, she will go home.” She prayed he did not understand enough about Hunnuli to know they were not like any other horses.
Her cool words had some effect, for instead of ramming the blade into her neck, he spat a curse and dragged her inside the hall. She saw servants take Gabria away, but she had no chance to see where before Zukhara wrenched opened a door and flung her down a flight of stairs. Kelene scrambled to stay on her feet. The counsellor’s hand clamped more tightly about her wrist and dragged her down several more spiralling stairways that wound deeper and deeper into the subterranean depths of the fortress.
Silent and implacable, he hauled her on until her hand was numb and her legs were tired. At last he dragged her through a narrow archway and thrust her forward. She banged painfully against a low stone wall and had to grab at it to keep from falling.
A low, angry hiss filled the dark spaces around her. A strange smell lingered on the cold air. Zukhara snapped the words to a spell Kelene had taught him, and a bright white sphere of light burst into being. It hovered over their heads, casting its light over a huge stone ceiling that arched above.
“Down there is my weapon for the holy war I plan to launch. Unfortunately, it was injured during its capture. I brought you here to heal it and tame it to obedience. Do that, and your lady mother will get her antidote.” Zukhara pointed down, over the stone wall.
Kelene turned. She saw they were standing on an overhang at the side of a large natural cavern. Slowly she let her eyes drop to the bottom, where a broad floor formed an amphitheatre in the mountain’s heart. Curled on the sandy floor, staring malevolently up at the light, was a creature unlike any she had ever seen.
“What...” she gasped.
Zukhara’s anger receded before his pride. “That,” he said, “is my gryphon.”
CHAPTER TEN
“Father!” an urgent voice hissed in his ear. “Father, wake up!”
Sayyed stirred and groaned out of his stupor. He tried to move his arms until that same voice whispered, “No! Don’t jerk like that. Stay still. Please, Father, try to wake up!”
The frantic urgency in that familiar voice penetrated Sayyed’s groggy thoughts, and he closed his mouth and rested his aching limbs. Something seemed wrong though. Some strange thing had happened to his body that he couldn’t understand. He could be wrong, yet he felt as if he were hanging upside down.
Sayyed opened his eyes. A brilliant morning sun illuminated everything around him with a clear, sharp light. The majestic mountains gleamed — upside down — in an endless sky of blue. Then he looked down, or was it up, and saw there was nothing beneath his feet but air.
The words he spoke were short and emphatic.
“Father!” hissed Rafnir’s voice. “Please don’t move!”
Sayyed’s mind snapped fully alert, and he quickly recognized the precariousness of his position. He was tied back-to-back with Rafnir and hanging head-first over a very deep and very rocky ravine. Also, the rope that held them seemed dangerously frayed and was tied to a very fragile-looking wooden framework that overhung the edge of the chasm. And, he noted in increasing annoyance, his weapons and most of his clothes were gone. Lastly, he realized there were voices other than Rafnir’s speaking behind him.
“I’m telling you, Helmar, these are simply Turics. Uphold the law and get rid of them,” demanded a male voice.
“Turics or not, why waste two healthy men?” a female voice cried. This speaker sounded older and more insistent. “You know we need new blood if our line is to survive! These two are strong and can father children. Let them leave their seed in our women before you kill them.”
Sayyed was so startled by the gist of the conversation that he did not realize for nearly a minute that the speakers were talking in Clannish. Not the Clannish he was used to, but an old dialect combined with new word combinations and Turic phrases. He listened with both fascination and increasing anger.
“And what about you, Rapinor?” A third voice spoke. “You caught them. What do you say?” This third speaker was a woman whose voice was rich and self-assured.
Yet a fourth voice responded, “Lady, I don’t know how to advise you. Yes, I found them in the Back Door, and they look and dress like Turics. But I swear they rode black horses bigger than any I’ve ever seen, and one man had a sphere of light.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t a torch he carried?” the first man said dryly.
“A torch on a night like last? No,” the speaker said, the certainty clear in his deep, resounding voice, “The sphere was greenish-white like magic and went out when the man fell unconscious.”
“There has to be a simple explanation for that,” said the old woman irritably, “We all know magic is dead beyond the mountains.”
Sayyed aimed his head in an effort to see these people, and although he strained, he could not see around Rafnir, “What is going on here?” he said in Clannish.
His words caught the speakers’ attention. “A Turic who speaks the tongue of the clans,” said the first man. “All the more reason to kill them. They could get away and tell the clans.”
Tell the clans, Sayyed wondered. Tell them what?
“Traveller,” called the younger woman, “you were caught trespassing on land that is forbidden. Our laws automatically condemn you to death. However, we are having some doubts as to your identity. Who are you?”
Sayyed opened his mouth to answer, then closed it again. By the gods, how should he answer that? If he claimed to be Turic, these strangers would cut the rope and let him and Rafnir fall. If he said clan, they would probably do the same thing. His power itched to break the ropes that bound him and his son and set them on a more upright and equal footing with these people, but he decided to hold off exposing his talent until he absolutely had to. The speakers’ opinion of magic was very unclear.
“We are looking for our family,” Rafnir answered for him, “My wife and my wife’s mother were kidnapped by someone we do not know. Yet the wagon that carried them came up into these mountains. We had almost found them when we were caught in the storm and lost the trail. If we trespassed, we did it unintentionally, and we humbly apologize.”
The people remained quiet while they tried to understand Rafnir’s unfamiliar dialect; then they burst into talk all at once in a babble of questions, demands, and angry opinions. Other voices joined in until Sayyed and Rafnir lost track of all the words.
“Who are these people?” Sayyed asked irritably. His head hurt from his inversion, and he was tired of all the arguing.
“I don’t know. I can’t see them either. They’re just above us on a rock ledge,” replied Rafnir.
Sayyed tried again to peer around his son and only succeeded in making their rope sway. He froze too lat
e. He heard a creak and a snap, and in a sickening jerk, he and Rafnir began to fall.
“Lady!” the Rapinor voice shouted. “The rope broke!”
“Let them go!” yelled the first man.
Sayyed waited no more. He didn’t care who those people were or what they were afraid of, it was time to show them that magic was very much alive and well. “I’ll undo the ropes; you break our fall,” he yelled to Rafnir.
The wind of their descent tore at his words, but his son heard them. Magic flared from Sayyed’s hands, and the ropes dissolved into dust. With his arms free, Sayyed grabbed for Rafnir to keep him close. Rafnir’s eyes closed as his lips formed the words to a spell he had used three years ago to catch Kelene in a terrible fall. The air thickened into a cushion beneath them. Their sickening speed slowed, and they tumbled gently onto a platform of wind and magic barely ten feet from the ravine’s floor.
“Nice timing,” Sayyed said, peering down at the boulders below.
“Gods,” sighed Rafnir, “that was close. Let’s get out of here.”
“Not yet,” Sayyed growled. He glared up at the ravine face where a group of people peered over the cliffs edge. “I want to know who they are.”
He steadied himself on the platform of air while Rafnir carefully steered it up to the level of the precipice top. His arms crossed and his displeasure plain, Sayyed stepped off onto the stone and faced the group of people standing on the rocks. He looked them over and felt his anger begin to recede. He had never seen such a totally unanimous expression of astounded disbelief and awed surprise in his entire long and adventurous life. Not even the first and unexpected appearance of his magical talent had produced such stunned surprise. Every man and woman before him stared at him in speechless shock. As one their eyes shifted to Rafnir as he stepped beside his father and dissolved his spell; then they looked at one another.
Sayyed counted twenty-one men and women of various ages gathered on the cliff top, including the four in the forefront he assumed were the speakers they had not been able to see. All the people were remarkably fair-skinned, with light hair and blue, green, or grey eyes. Whoever they were, Turic blood had not been in their ancestry. In fact, if it were not for the location and their strange clothes, he would think they were clanspeople.
He decided to try something to break the barrier of tension and see what their reaction would be. His burnoose, outer robes, boots, and belt were gone. He had only his trousers and an undertunic left, so he pulled the tunic off and transformed it quickly and skilfully into a golden clan cloak. He flipped the cloak over his shoulders, stepped forward, and saluted the people as a whole.
“I am Sayyed, sorcerer and Hearthguard to Lord Athlone of Clan Khulinin. My son, Rafnir, and I have come to these mountains only to seek our kin.”
He was gratified when a woman stepped forward and returned his salute. A tall woman, she stood before her people, proud and fearless. The bright light of morning flamed on a coiled mass of red hair and gleamed on her wide forehead, arched imperious brows, and wide, firm mouth. “I welcome you, Sorcerer. More than you know. I am Helmar, Lady Chieftain of the Clannad,” she said in a clear, resolute voice.
She had a carriage of the head and a lancelike directness that reminded Sayyed of Gabria. And a woman chieftain? Gabria would appreciate that, too.
Sayyed bowed. “This was an interesting way to start the day, but I seem to remember we came with horses. May we return to them?” Despite his sarcastic choice of words, he kept his voice neutral, with none of the annoyance and mounting curiosity he was feeling.
As if a spell had been broken, the stunned silence evaporated into a flight of activity and astonished voices. Helmar gave a series of quick orders, and several people dashed away while others gathered around the two clansmen.
“This way,” said a man Sayyed identified as one of the four. He was a giant of a warrior, muscular, burly, and softspoken. “I am Rapinor, swordsman and personal guard to the Lady Chieftain. Your horses are still in the back passage.” He hesitated, his craggy face curious. “Are your mounts Hunnuli?”
“You have heard of those too?” Sayyed remarked. The more he learned of these people the more mysterious they became. How much did they know about clan magic?
“Softly, Rapinor,” Helmar admonished. “There will be time for answers after we return the horses.”
A thousand questions burned on the faces of all the people around them, but none gainsaid the chieftain as he led the strangers up a path to the crest of the ridge, here she paused and stretched her hand out to the west. “Welcome to Sanctuary.”
Rafnir whistled softly, and Sayyed simply stared.
At their feet the ridge dropped away into a deep valley that lay like a green jewel in the cold heart of the mountains. Lush and verdant, it stretched for nearly five leagues east and west, nestled between three lofty peaks. Sunlight glittered on the waters of a small lake and a river on the valley’s floor and picked out the white plumes of several waterfalls that cascaded down the western face.
“Look!” Rafnir said. His finger pointed toward the waterfalls, but it was not the water that gripped his attention. A huge ledge bisected the western face of the canyon wall midway up its height. On the ledge beneath a towering overhang was a cluster of buildings carved from the natural stone and sitting in eminence over the valley. Below, herds grazed in the meadows, and the tiny figures of more people could be seen moving about their tasks.
Helmar’s eyes crinkled in her weathered face as she watched the reaction of the two clansmen. Her expression was calm but wary, and she studied the two men as thoroughly as they studied the valley.
Beside her, an older woman touched Sayyed’s cloak. Small, bright-eyed, and quick as a bird, she was the only woman in the group wearing a long robe. The rest of the people, even the women, wore long, baggy pants, warm wool shirts, and leather vests or tunics, “Sorcerer, I am Minora, Priestess of the Clannad,” she told Sayyed.
“Ah, yes,” Sayyed said, flashing a smile, “The one who wanted to keep us for breeding stock.”
Although Sayyed did not know it, he had a very charming smile that took any sting out of his words. Minora laughed, a ringing, delightful burst of humour, “And I still do. We are very isolated here. Good breeders are hard to come by.”
He turned to look at the magnificent structure across the valley, “Did your people make that?”
The priestess lifted her chin to see his face. Short as Sayyed was, she barely reached his shoulder. “The ledge and the stone were there. We have simply worked it as we wished.”
“We could certainly use these people at Moy Tura,” Rafnir commented to his father.
A look too indescribable to understand passed over Minora’s face, and the other people hesitated, their expressions still and hard.
“What is Moy Tura?” Helmar quickly asked.
But Sayyed sensed a nuance of familiarity in her tone that belied her ignorance. “An old ruin in our land. We are trying to rebuild it,”
“Who—” she started to ask,
“My lady, you said no questions until the horses are released.” Rapinor reminded her bluntly.
She chuckled, low and throaty, and led the group on a winding course along the top of the ridge and down a steep, tortuous trail to the tiny canyon where the stallions were trapped.
“When you entered the passage last night, we sealed the entrance,” Rapinor explained. “We had no idea what we had caught.”
Sayyed’s fingers went to his throat. If his neck looked anything like Rafnir’s, a blue and purplish bruise ringed his throat where the rope had hauled him off his Hunnuli. “Indeed,” he said dryly.
Helmar cleared her throat in sympathy, and her lips twisted in a wry smile. “You must forgive our style of welcome. We do not usually allow strangers into our valley. If it had not been for Rapinor and his insistence that you were using a sorcerer’s light, you would be dead already.”
Sayyed shot a look at the burly swordsman.
Stout as an oak, the lady’s guard had not budged from her side since the two men landed on the ledge. Nor had his hand strayed far from the sword buckled at his waist. Another man, younger but more dour than Rapinor, stood on Helmar’s other side. His heavy brows framed his eyes in a frown, and his thick lips were pursed with displeasure.
“How is it that you know so much about magic,” Sayyed inquired, “what with your being so isolated in a realm that forbids its use?” And, his thoughts continued silently, why is it so important to you?
Lady Helmar cocked her head and gave him a wide, challenging stare from her green-gold eyes. “We hear things once in a while. We do not drop everyone over the ravine.” She flashed a brilliantly disarming smile.
A short hike later, they reached the valley floor and trekked to the narrow entrance leading to the crevice where the stallions were trapped. Helmar and her two guards worked their way in, followed by Sayyed and Rafnir. They heard the horses long before they saw them, for ringing neighs echoed along the rock walls, punctuated by heavy crashes reverberating on something that sounded like wood.
The clansmen saw why a few minutes later. The high, narrow passage had been completely blocked by massive stone blocks fitted together to form a thick wall. The crashing sounds came from a wooden wicket gate set in the wall.
“The Back Door,” Rapinor said. “Your horses obviously found it.” He strode forward and, standing wisely aside, drew the heavy bolts. The door flew open, and Afer and Tibor charged through ready for battle. Their eyes glowed green with angry fire, their tails were raised like battle standards, and their hooves clashed on the stone.
Seeing their riders, both stallions stopped and snorted. Where were you? trumpeted Afer. Who are these people?
Before Sayyed could respond, Helmar stepped forward and boldly put her hand on Afer’s arched neck. The stallion instantly stilled, his ears stiff and his nostrils quivering as he gently sniffed her arm and face. Tibor crowded over and smelled the chieftain from hair to belt, then nickered a greeting.
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