by William King
“We need to leave this place. We need to seek Xanadar. That is what Xothak required of us and that is what we should do.”
Yes, but first I will have vengeance for my people.
“Before you do anything, we had best leave. The Emerald Swarm will be coming for us soon. They are already starting to look this way.”
Nexali nodded and summoned her personal bodyguard to her. A flock of sandrays slid into view. They mounted up and departed, leaving the stricken field behind them. Balthazar considered the carnage dispassionately. It was nothing really to him. He had not known any of the people who died back there, and even if he had, they would have counted as nothing to him. All that mattered was that they had failed to slay his pursuer.
Balthazar consoled himself with the thought that when he got to the lost city who would have the power to remedy that. All he needed to do was to get there before his rival. He urged his sandray to greater speed.
* * *
Standing amid the blighted circle of stones, Nexali howled words of power, driven by rage at the loss of her people. They had ridden far and fast across the wastes leaving a score of her bodyguards to lay false trails for the pursuers. Only a few of the Blighted Ones remained to protect them. Judging by what he was witnessing, they would be enough.
Balthazar felt power crackle in the air. Gigantic storm clouds gathered. Enormous billows of sand raced across the desert, plumes of dust driven by the swirling, howling winds.
When he concentrated, he could see the elementals bound by the spell that Nexali cast. He was impressed. He was a mighty sorcerer himself but he did not have the skill to weave weather the way she did.
Her carapace glowed with blighted power. Her armour was a reservoir of energy. It confirmed for him if ever he had needed proof that they were followers of the same dark god. She knew how to draw upon the Shadow. She knew how to wield the terrifying energies of the blight.
He studied the weavings of the spell, interested as always in magic. This was not like summoning demons. It was a different sort of magic, a product of wild open spaces and the harnessing of catastrophic energies. It was not like the binding of demons yet it shared many of the practices.
The wind elementals were creatures of this world. They inhabited the heights of mountains. They swarmed through the clouds. They gathered wherever magical energies permeated the upper atmosphere. They were not creatures of the Holy Sun. They were not creatures of anything except their own gusty natures.
The ones Nexali summoned had the taint of blight in them. He sensed their dark energies. He felt their malice. Normally elementals were near mindless creatures of whims and moods and strange rages. These held a hatred of all living things. Something in them had twisted and curdled. If it were not for the will of the sorceress binding them, they would turn on the sand people.
Such beings could be dangerous. While they were creatures of energy and motion, they could still harm mortals. Each of the elementals swirled like a chained whirlwind but it had a head and limbs, smaller linked vortexes, at least some of the time.
Sometimes ash and sand lifted into the cyclonic form of the beings and they began to resemble animated golems of sand. On their skins, tiny flickers of lightning danced. They carried a shocking charge of power. There were scores of them and more descended from the sky as Nexali’s spell lured them down.
She used her energy to draw them as blood in the water might draw sharks. They came, imbibed her corrupt power, and then were chained by it. As each accepted her life force, it became bound by her will.
Eventually Nexali reached the limits of her strength. Moving statues of sand and wind and lightning filled the plain of sand around them. She shrieked the words of the spell, bringing it to a climax.
The army of elementals hovered over the desert and she gave them her final command. As one, they moved off, seeking their target. All around them, the sands of the desert formed gigantic clouds, obscuring the horizon with plumes of ash and dust. The elementals rose with it, forming up into swirling companies that resembled nothing more than huge tornadoes. Some split off and skittered away on their own. Some of them became diffuse entities of sand and lightning.
As one, the enormous cloud moved off into the east. Balthazar almost felt sorry for those who were pursuing him.
Chapter Ten
“What is that?” Admiral Zamara asked, pointing in the direction the Blighted Ones had fled.
Kormak saw gigantic black clouds racing towards them from across the desert, obscuring the distant mountains. It was like watching a wall of sand rush closer. Every now and again unnatural green lightning danced across the face of the tidal wave of ash and dust. A strange closeness hung in the air that made him feel as if sorcery was being worked. His hackles began to rise.
“It is a sandstorm,” said Ahexotl, “and no natural one. I have seen its like before when the weather witch Nexali binds the storm elementals to her will.”
“Weather witch?” Kormak asked.
“She is the leader of the Blighted Ones. Those who attacked you. Our enemies. It seems she is determined that we will not catch her.”
“She must be a mighty sorceress indeed to work such magic,” Kormak said.
“What can we do?” Rhiana asked.
“There are elementals in there,” said Ahexotl. “They will attack us if they find us in the open.”
“Air elementals do not like enclosed spaces,” Kormak said. “We need to find buildings or some other structures strong enough to withstand them. Is there such a place close by?”
Ahexotl nodded. “There are caves in those mesas over there that my people sometimes use. We can seek shelter within them and seal them, if more of the Blighted Ones do not wait there in ambush for us.”
“We’ll need to take our chances,” Kormak said. “I do not fancy being caught in the open by that storm.”
“It shall be so,” said Ahexotl. “Follow us.”
He loped forward in the ungainly way of his people. Kormak tugged the reins of the cart and the oxen lumbered along in the chieftain’s wake, lowing mournfully, nostrils flared, clearly made nervous by the approaching storm.
Zamara gave orders and the marines began to march more swiftly. Men cast nervous glances over the shoulders towards that approaching wall of wind and sand. Rhiana looked at Kormak, white translucent eyelid in place to protect against the dust. It made her look almost as alien as the sandfolk, as it reflected the green light of the distant lightning strikes.
The cart rumbled and juddered over the sands. The mesa came closer but not quickly enough.
* * *
A curtain of swirling sand filled the air. Kormak’s eyes felt gritty. No matter how tightly he clamped his mouth he could taste the stuff on his tongue. It dried his mouth and hurt his throat when he swallowed.
The dunes around them crumbled, moving like great slow waves under the impetus of the howling wind. Zamara rode up. His horse’s eyes were wild, and it was clear he was struggling to remain in the saddle.
“I like this not at all,” Zamara said.
“Not like a storm at sea, is it?” Kormak said.
“It’s worse.”
“At least we won’t drown.”
“No, we’ll just be buried alive.”
Even as the Admiral spoke, thunder boomed. The noise spooked the horse, making it rear and prance. The flicker of a green lightning left its afterglow on Kormak’s vision.
Then he realised it was not an afterglow. Something resembling a green thunderbolt danced along beside the cart. It had a humanoid look to it, limbs of forked electricity flickered out from below what might have been a jagged head. Kormak’s amulet warmed against his breast.
Before Zamara could react, Kormak dived from the cart, blade coming free from his scabbard. It flickered towards the lightning elemental and cut through it. The supernatural being dispersed in a shower of sparks. The hilt of Kormak’s blade felt warm. The flesh of his face tingled. The air stank of ozone and b
light.
He glanced back along the line and saw more elementals dancing there. Bolts flickered from their arms and touched men and beasts. The targets screamed. Their hair stood on end. One of them walked on stilts of light for a few moments and then pitched forward into the sand dead.
As each of the elementals struck, it flickered and vanished, as if sated by the death it had caused. Ahexotl raced to Kormak’s side.
“There will be more of them and worse when the sandstorm hits. We must go on. Not much further now.”
The soldiers raced ahead along with the frightened beasts drawing the carts. They had lost all semblance of discipline in the face of what appeared to be an attack by the storm itself. Zamara got his mount back under control and galloped after them. Terves did the same. They were like two sheepdogs trying to guide a frightened flock.
Ahead the mesa loomed. Kormak saw the caves in its side. For a moment suspicion flickered through his mind. What if all of this was a vast and elaborate trap, meant to herd the expedition into those caves for inevitable butchery?
If it was, there was nothing he could do about it now. Staying out in the storm meant the soldiers would be separated and most likely slain by those elementals or buried beneath tons of sand.
He jumped back onto the cart where Rhiana held the reins guiding the animals with swift, sure tugs. She gave him a wan smile as he took his seat behind her.
As they approached, Kormak saw elder signs worked into the walls of the mesa surrounding the cave openings. The familiar five-pointed star within a circle was there along with other symbols that protected against dark magic. They glowed in the gloom, responding to the magic in the air around them.
“Aim for the entrance and drive within,” Kormak told Rhiana. “We need to get the cart and water barrels into shelter if we can.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I am going to guard the entrance.” He vaulted down as she made her way into the gloom. Putting his back against the wall, he surveyed the scene. The storm was almost upon them, a towering curtain of blackness stretching from ground to sky. Within it, turbulence seethed and swirled. Lightning elementals flickered in the gloom. Towering cyclonic figures reached down with limbs larger than tree trunks and scooped up stragglers, raising carts and beasts and struggling men into the air hen dashing them to the ground.
Hundreds of sandfolk raced by him, diving into the gloomy caves. Scores of marines and guardsmen mingled with them, no longer scared of their companions, desperate only to get away from the supernatural horror that pursued them.
Zamara rode up. Some soldiers looked to him for guidance. With a sweeping gesture, he indicated that they should get inside the caves. Kormak drew his blade as the storm front grew closer. The runes along its length glowed. His amulet blazed on his chest.
Men and sandfolk moved within the storm, vague outlines dragged down and buried by the moving sand. The cyclonic elementals loomed large as small hills. Kormak grabbed the hand of a panicked marine, and dragged him into the cave.
An elemental tried to reach in behind him but the power of the elder signs barred its way. It shrieked in fury and agony and began to scoop up piles of sand and toss them within the cave. They were forced to withdraw deeper into the flickering darkness. Kormak covered his eyes with one hand and stumbled back, not liking the feeling of blindness.
Outside the storm howled and shrieked. More and more sand and ash swirled into the cave. Kormak thought he heard the screams of electrocuted men and terrified beasts. He struggled to contain his own fury and growing sense of helplessness.
He was supposed to protect people from this sort of thing, but what could anyone save a wizard do against the infernal power that raged outside? If the woman who had summoned the storm had been standing in front of him, he would have killed her and so, perhaps, have ended it, but she was most likely leagues away.
Their carts were being destroyed. Their supplies scattered. Their water barrels broken. Two wagons had managed to get into the cave but there was not enough food or water for the expedition. It seemed that once more he had led people to their doom, and there was nothing he could do about it.
He sensed a presence, turned and saw Rhiana standing there, her face lit by the eerie flicker of the storm. Her white second eyelids caught the lightning’s green fire, making her look demonic. Another man might have flinched, but he had spent his entire life confronting the dark and the strange, and he thought in that moment, she had an inhuman loveliness the like of which he had not seen before.
“We are trapped again,” she said, looking over his shoulder into the roiling murk.
“The storm will die away eventually. The spells holding it will fray. The elementals will become bored and unbound. All we need do is remain within the wards and we will be safe enough.”
“Unless we die of starvation or thirst,” she said. She spoke normally but the thunder outside almost drowned out her words.
“The storm will not last so long.”
“Neither will our food or water.”
“It is the water is the main concern. Men can survive on empty bellies for long enough to get back to Helgard. They cannot last for more than a few days without water. If we turn back now we can get back to civilisation. If we go on, we will die of thirst in the desert unless we can find water.”
She saw the look of concern on his face. “Wait until the storm ends before you give up all hope.”
“I am not giving up hope. I am just making calculations about how many can survive. Two wagons of food and four barrels of water will not be enough for all of us.”
“There may be more salvageable outside.”
“I doubt we will be that lucky.”
“Back to pessimism eh?”
“Back to realism.”
The wind howled. She placed a hand on his shoulder. He stared out into the curtains of ash. Monstrous shapes pressed within the clouds, moving like the outlines of beasts seen in murky water. The elder signs held. They had been lucky. Things might have gone much worse if they had not been so close to this mesa when the storm hit.
He settled down in the darkness, Rhiana held under his arm, her warm weight pressing reassuringly beside him while outside monsters raged in the gloom.
* * *
“Looks like it’s dying down,” said Zamara, peering out into the gloom.
The Admiral was right, Kormak decided. The sorcerous storm had raged most of the night. Now, the wind had lost its insane fury, and the weird calls of the elementals had faded. It seemed more like a normal sandstorm, slowly running out of energy. No one wanted to step outside yet though.
Storm lanterns flickered in corners, sending shadows skittering across the floor. Nervous faces peered back at him.
They had been lucky. They had not lost more than a dozen soldiers. There was no way of telling how many of Ahexotl’s people survived. The Emerald Swarm leader claimed that their living armour protected them from any normal storm. He was not so confident in their ability to survive an encounter with elementals.
The soldiers looked nervous. Most were marines, used to the squalls of the sea, but these clouds of moving sand and dust were as alien to them as they were to Kormak.
The wind died. The clouds settled. A dune had piled up across the mouth of the cave.
Kormak pulled the sand down so that it formed a ramp he could scramble out over. He clambered up and stared out over a transformed landscape. The sky was blue and clear. The sun was bright. The dunes rolled away towards the distant gleaming mountains. The gulleys they had followed the previous day were all filled. If he had been going purely on visual memory, he would not have recognised the place.
Rhiana emerged behind him followed by all the others in the cave. They formed a crowd along the ridge top then crunched down the other side.
A look of concentration passed over Ahexotl’s face. Rhiana grimaced as if she was being deafened by a shout only she could hear. One by one, green armoured figures emerge
d from the sand, like swimmers rising slowly from a sea. It seemed that Ahexotl had been right about his people being able to survive.
How had they been able to breathe while buried? Kormak wondered. He supposed it was no different from the way Rhiana could breathe under water, a form of magic he would never understand. He was glad it was possible. It meant that he was not without allies in this place.
Terves barked orders to the marines. They began to clear the sand away from the cave entrance.
“It’s not looking good,” Zamara said. His voice was pitched low so only Kormak and Rhiana could here. “We don’t have enough water for another week in the deep desert. Not with all our men.”
“We can split it. There’s more than enough for the marines to get back to Helgard. The wagon and those barrels will be enough for me to follow Balthazar, provided Anders comes with me.”
The mercenary stared off into the distance. His eyes narrowed. He licked his lips. “Just the two of us, Guardian? You are good with that blade but a company of soldiers was wiped out the last time I went in that direction.”
“I’ll go,” said Rhiana.
“Great. That makes three instead of two. You, me, and the Guardian.”
“Most of the men can get back to Helgard without water. It’s only a couple of days,” said Zamara. “I’ll go too. The King-Emperor would not forgive me if I let the Guardian go off by himself.”
Ahexotl lurched over. “I can spare some of my people to lead your soldiers out past Dhargon’s Beacon. Myself and my guard will come with you. I do not like the Place of Death but I like even less the idea of the Blighted Ones finding whatever it is your sorcerer came for.”
“We would be grateful for that,” Kormak said.
Zamara said, “Terves, take one barrel of water and three days rations for each man here, and lead them back to Helgard. The sandfolk will guide you. The Guardian and I will be taking the wagon and following Balthazar.”
