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  The elf warrior picked up the skull from the floor and looked at it closely. It had a few new cracks. Kiril growled and placed it back on the shelf. Reminders of mortality were not themselves immune to destruction. She gathered up her saddlebags and departed her chamber. The amber glow of the earthlamp sensed her absence, and after ten heartbeats, dimmed.

  The sun warmed Kiril as she spiraled down the exposed staircase to meet Thormud, Xet, and a pile of bags at the Finger Defiant’s base. The morning was well along, and the elf didn’t have to worry about treacherous night winds blowing her off the side of the mesa.

  By the time she reached Thormud, after first spying him from higher up, nothing had changed. The dwarf stood, eyes closed, holding the tip of his selenite rod to the ground.

  “Daylight’s burning, Thormud,” Kiril said. “You can poke rocks later.”

  The dwarf’s eyes opened, and he said, “The earth speaks, to those with the patience to hear it.”

  Kiril sighed and dropped her saddlebags on the pile. “I’ve heard that somewhere.”

  Thormud rubbed his chin. “The disturbance prohibits me from knowing exactly where or how far, or even the precise direction to go.”

  “But we’re going to Durpar, right?”

  “We are going southeast, yes. I think, although it is impossible to say for sure, all the way to Durpar. I must build up a picture of the topography from the echoes of the disturbance that reach me. A challenging task.”

  Kiril waved her hand at the technicalities. “Is it a task you’re up to?”

  “Yes, if left to it.”

  The dwarf was the soul of patience, Kiril knew all too well. He was …

  “You made a joke!” Kiril exclaimed. “All the gods of Sildëyuir, I thank you I was here to witness it.”

  Thormud inclined his head a few degrees in agreement.

  “All right. Think of me as one of your less-communicative stones,” Kiril said. “I’ll be over there, polishing my blade.” The elf had no intention of drawing Angul. It didn’t require sharpening or polishing—the Blade Cerulean was sufficient unto itself. Instead, she pulled a dirk out of her boot.

  The hilt of the dagger was unblemished silver, and delicate green traceries graced the blade. The weapon was one of the few keepsakes of her home. She kept it for more than just its good elven steel, trusty in a fight—it was a reminder of her childhood in the enchanted Yuirwood. In truth, she used the dagger more often than her sword. Better to wield a minor piece of elven steel than a naked, bitter soul in the shape of a long sword.

  She perched on one of Thormud’s chests and wiped down the blade with kuevar oil. Not for the first time, she wondered about procuring another long sword—sometimes the dagger, despite its incredible edge, was insufficient. Perhaps something she could use instead of drawing Angul that was dangerous in its own right. A magical blade, perhaps.

  The sun moved a full hand’s span in the sky. Finally, Thormud said, “I have determined our route as best I can. I will try additional detailed divinations as we move along, but those must wait for proximity.”

  Kiril stood, sheathing her dirk and packing her oil kit. She had traveled with the dwarf long enough to know what came next.

  Thormud went to his knees and lay down, facing the earth. He spread his arms and legs wide, as if seeking to embrace the land. His fingers clutched and he crooned a gravelly tune. The sound went right through Kiril. The noise was less acute in her ears than in the soles of her feet—the ground vibrated in harmony with the dwarf’s call. Thormud beseeched the deep earth itself, and he was answered.

  The earth convulsed beneath Thormud’s spread-eagled body. As if soft mud instead of solid stone, a blister of rock grew, raising Thormud almost fifteen feet into the air. As the blister expanded, it took on a vague shape. From formlessness came a head, a torso, and six pillarlike legs. A granite destrier was revealed, a quickening of the living earth. Kiril recognized it—the dwarf called one each time travel beckoned. Nothing ate up the empty distance like a granite destrier.

  Thormud perched immediately behind the destrier’s vulpine head. A flat expanse of the creature’s back, perfect for securing baggage or additional passengers, stretched behind the dwarf.

  Xet chimed and flew up to alight on the destrier’s hard snout. Thormud wiped sweat from his brow. Even for a geomancer of the dwarf’s expertise, calling forth such a mighty servant was difficult.

  “Are you going to sit up there taking in the view all day,” queried Kiril, “or are you going to lower that thing so I can get our gear packed?”

  Xet belled a protesting tone at her. The dragonet was always mindful of its master’s feelings. Not that Thormud had ever risen to the bait Kiril was so fond of dishing out.

  Thormud kept his position a moment longer, then patted the great head. The stone destrier grunted, almost like a living beast, and lowered itself to the ground.

  Kiril loaded and secured the gear. Thormud silently rested from his exertion.

  When every saddlebag, chest, and case was tied down to Kiril’s satisfaction, she took her position behind the dwarf. Thormud’s calling had specified the creation of two seatlike depressions in the stone of the destrier’s back. They would be comfortable enough, Kiril recalled, though the conveyance took a little getting used to.

  Thormud patted the head of the destrier once again, saying, “Run free, my friend, above the confines of your mother flesh.”

  Kiril rolled her eyes. The dwarf was fond of such purple prose. Another perk of her employment.

  The destrier stretched to its full height in a surprisingly smooth motion and began to run.

  As if it were a coyote after a jackrabbit, the granite destrier lit out across the open plain, dust streaming in its wake.

  As fast as the fastest horse at full gallop, the six-legged earth elemental streaked southeast.

  Low hills, bumpy knolls, and rocky ridges broke up the afternoon light. Covered in scrub grass, the hills’ color varied between brown and pale gold, while the barren ridges revealed dark purple striations of vanished centuries. Here and there, stone slabs thrust up from the earthen hilltops, sometimes singly, other times in groups forming ancient rings of debatable purpose.

  Since Iahn had ascended to the sunlit lands outside the magically sealed Deep Imaskar, he’d undergone a slow change in attitude. He was beginning to suspect he was made for wide open lands, not closely proscribed walls and corridors.

  It amused him to recall that prior to his recent travels, he hadn’t had the breadth of experience to think of his home as “proscribed.” Before, he’d never thought of the artificially illuminated city behind the Great Seal as confining—but he’d never known anything else.

  The vengeance taker’s gaze wandered across the wide open, sun-baked landscape. Despite the variation offered by the hills, he traveled through essentially empty terrain, free of obstacles to clutter his view. His eyes could wander without getting snagged on walls, trees, or mountains, as long as he didn’t look east.

  Without distractions to his vision, his mind had space to roam, too. The vacancy of the earth cried to be filled, and so he filled it with tumbling thoughts, ideas, and even aspirations he’d rarely pondered since his childhood. No thought was too big or too odd to entertain.

  The emptiness was restful as much as liberating. The sameness of the plain and sky was a balm, and it calmed the constant anxiety that plagued him—what was the fate of Deep Imaskar in his absence? Would he find the fugitive soon enough? If he found her, what then?

  So much for the balm of empty land.

  Anyway, he was close to his target. He smelled a change in the air.

  Iahn moved closer, altering the angle of the scene by cresting the intervening edge of a rocky bluff.

  Not more than three hundred paces from the first swelling hillside stood the coach Iahn had trailed over the last months. It could be no other—its long shape and widely set wheels conformed to the ruts he’d come to know so well. From wher
e he stood, surveying the site, he saw no horses or other beasts of burden capable of pulling the coach. As he had suspected—his quarry summoned steeds at need.

  The coach’s door crashed open, and several creatures tumbled out. Iahn blinked, startled.

  Before he could focus on the emerging figures, his attention was snatched by a hulking form that stepped out from behind the coach. Half again as tall as a human, the massive beast had thick, gray skin with features not unlike those of a troll. Its hunched, apelike posture emphasized its substantial bulk and hinted at the power of its huge fists. Its lower torso and legs were wrapped in uncured hides, forming crude clothing. A leather thong around its neck bore a raw chunk of purplish crystal.

  Unless more hid in the coach, the vengeance taker counted a total of four creatures, none of them the fugitive.

  Of the trio that spilled out of the coach, Iahn identified two people in long white gowns, reminding him of the desert nomads he’d met when he’d skirted the Plains of Purple Dust. Except those folk had been humans, and their garments had been dark brown. These were some variety of elf. One elf dervish was female, the other male.

  The last creature was humanoid, but of a race completely unfamiliar to Iahn. It was covered in a luxurious coat of ebony fur that complimented its black, pantherlike head. It had cloven hooves where Iahn expected feet or paws. Where it walked, a sheen lingered in its hoofprints before slowly evaporating. Iahn recognized it as the same glistening spoor he’d encountered a few days earlier.

  The vengeance taker noted that each wore amulets similar to the troll’s—the only visible clue that bound the entire group other than their proximity. Were these creatures servants of the fugitive, guarding her coach, or did they represent the force whispered to him by the Voice? Probably the latter, but the vengeance taker rarely reached conclusions without absorbing all possible information.

  The panther-headed creature saw Iahn and pointed. Iahn stared back, wondering what they would do.

  The two elf dervishes produced slender recurve bows from their garb, stringing them expertly in less than a heartbeat. The troll-thing swung its head around to regard Iahn, and screamed an incomprehensible battle cry. Then it charged.

  Hostiles. He knew what to do about that. Iahn stepped back behind the edge of the bluff.

  The vengeance taker muttered a few words of sorcery and ran one hand down the length of his body. Where his hand passed, his form became hazy and uncertain. Using this extra advantage, he eased back into a crevice.

  The gray troll barreled around the edge of the rise, easily and quickly covering ground using both knuckles and feet. The earth trembled with each bounding step. It did not see Iahn, but paused, snuffling. The vengeance taker, whose position was hidden by both skill and magic, studied the creature’s anatomy, musculature, and bulging veins. It was certainly of troll blood, but larger than any he had seen in a bestiary.

  Iahn had studied on occasion in the Purple Library, an ancient and sadly out-of-date collection of scrolls, text fragments, and books retained in the heart of Deep Imaskar. He was an expert on all the bestiaries there. Apparently, troll varieties had multiplied and diversified in the millennia since the collection was gathered.

  The vengeance taker studied the way the troll’s muscles moved over its bones, the way its great chest rose and fell with each breath. He gently twisted the hilt of his dragonfly blade, then pulled it apart along the revealed seam. Silently, the thinblade slipped free of its enclosing hilt, giving Iahn the advantage of two weapons—the wafer-thin stiletto, and the long dragonfly blade, shaped like the wing of a dragonfly. Iahn froze, concentrating on his pursuer.

  The troll snuffed and snuffled, its eyes vainly searching for its quarry. For his part, the vengeance taker had finished taking the creature’s measure. A hollow caught the vengeance taker’s eye, high up on the creature’s neck, right below its jaw. The monstrosity would be dead before it realized it was threatened. All he had to do was to step forward and plunge his thinblade up and in …

  The troll’s awful nose flared and the beast charged Iahn. The vengeance taker abandoned his plan, bobbing and weaving wide to the left instead. A great fist smashed into the rock, barely missing Iahn. The stone cracked like thunder and a spray of shards rained down, leaving a fist-sized crater behind.

  The beast had smelled him!

  The vengeance taker struck, driving the thinblade deep into the creature—but missed the spot where he could have spilled the creature’s life blood instantly.

  The troll screamed nonetheless, surprised at the pain in its chest. Its claws fell with lethal fury, and Iahn rolled to evade the fatal embrace. He slashed at the creature’s ankles, hoping to pierce a major artery, but its skin resisted his jabs.

  Then a gray, questing hand grabbed him.

  The troll lifted Iahn clear off the ground. He had sorely underestimated the threat the creature posed. The troll raised him higher, its roar a clarion, nearly bursting Iahn’s eardrums. Its breath was a quagmire of rot and past blood feasts.

  Scissoring his body in the troll’s rough grip, he managed to slip the tip of his thinblade into the corner of its left eye. He simultaneously swung the longer dragonfly blade around to connect with the other side of the creature’s head. It roared and dropped Iahn. The vengeance taker knew the wounds he’d inflicted were only superficial; after all, his opponent was a troll. Its flesh would knit soon enough.

  “I see him,” a voice pronounced. A slender gray shaft plunged into the ground at Iahn’s feet as the vengeance taker dodged away from the gray troll’s reach.

  An answering voice said, “So do I, but he’s wearing a charm of some sort. I missed.” The last was said with some incredulity. The second voice was speaking in Elvish, one of the many languages Iahn had studied to achieve his rank and damos.

  The two elves in desert dress stood not more than thirty paces from him, their bows drawn and nocked. The troll wheeled around, its eyes fastening on Iahn despite the blurring around the vengeance taker.

  “Hold, I have not come to fight!” Iahn yelled in Elvish. He had lost the upper hand. He didn’t doubt he could slay the troll by calling on his damos, but he didn’t want to be skewered by the elves’ arrows in the meantime.

  The hoofed one rounded the knoll’s edge. Iahn had enough experience with sorcery to recognize its infernal taint. It held up a hand, not speaking. Its eyes gleamed as if lit by tiny lavender flames. An answering fire burned in the creature’s crystal amulet.

  It said, “Then you will die all the sooner.” It spoke not in the language of the elves—it used the speech of Imaskar.

  This surprised Iahn. Perhaps these were guardians placed by the fugitive after all?

  “Who are you?” demanded the vengeance taker.

  “I am Deamiel, but you’ll have little enough chance to remember it.”

  “Wait,” interrupted Iahn. “Answer me this—do you serve the one called Ususi Manaallin? Has she set you against me?”

  Deamiel executed a tittering shriek. It said, “We serve a power greater than mortal flesh. We are its eyes, its hands, and its claws. Ususi Manaallin will fall to us by its command.”

  “This ‘power’ you serve—who is that?”

  “The death of all that remains of Imaskar!” So saying, Deamiel pointed a finger at Iahn. “Slay this filth!”

  The vengeance taker threw himself backward and tumbled expertly through the gap between the troll’s legs. His enemy’s slow-witted confusion provided him with temporary cover from the dervish archers. A quick motion married Iahn’s thinblade back into the hilt of his dragonfly blade, freeing one hand to gesticulate just so. His voice was unimpeded and able to verbalize, and residual power sang in his blood from his last sip from the damos. These, too, were his weapons and his defense, just as surely as his thinblade.

  Iahn assayed a quickslide, pushing his talent to the brink. The light dimmed. He skipped through space as far as he could. Two hundred paces, perhaps three hundred …
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br />   The broad side of the travel coach stood directly in front of him, occluding the sun’s glare. The vengeance taker leaned his weight against the side of the coach with his free hand, breathing hard but quietly. He was drained. He knew the creatures would not give him up quickly if Deamiel spoke the truth about slaying all from Deep Imaskar. One thing was clear—the creatures did not serve the fugitive.

  They must be a further materialization of the troubles that had erupted in Deep Imaskar, Iahn mused. All the more reason for him to catch the fugitive, and quickly.

  Iahn peered into the side window of the coach and saw it was empty. Cabinet doors stood ajar, and cups, food canisters, a shattered tea pot, an overturned lamp, and other items littered the floor and surfaces of the interior.

  The creatures had been inside the coach when he’d first come upon them. They didn’t know where Ususi was, either. But she had to be close. She wouldn’t abandon her travel coach—it contained all her provisions. Of course, she could summon a mount at a moment’s notice to bear her—but Iahn suspected she had invested too much in the coach to leave it behind.

  The vengeance taker studied the nearest dolmen up the slope and the unfolding hills beyond. He decided that the best place to look for the fugitive would be somewhere in those downs.

  On the other hand, he knew the cat-headed thing and its minions would find him quickly enough—he hadn’t shifted more than a few hundred yards—unless he put more distance between them and himself.

  He was already moving forward in a low, quick dash, ascending the slope, making for the first dolmen. If he could keep the coach between him and his pursuers’ eyes just long enough …

  “There! There!” Cries of discovery chased Iahn up the hill. The vengeance taker’s posture changed—staying low no longer served any purpose. He lengthened his stride and pumped his legs, calling upon all his reserves.

  He reached the first dolmen without catching an arrow or magical blast in the back, ducked behind it, and peered back carefully.