Yet the closer they drew to the capital, the more evidence they found of the Gryphon’s brutal advance. An increasing number of small villages and farms were located along the road, and many had been raided to feed the voracious army. More bodies hung from trees or lay hacked in front of their abandoned houses. One building, a storehouse from the looks of its burned remains, had been blasted to splinters by what they all recognized was magic.
“Would Kelene do that?” Hajira asked, nonplussed by the amount of damage.
“If Zukhara held a knife to her mother’s throat, she might,” Sayyed said heavily.
“That is something I have wondered since you told me this tale,” Helmar said. “Why don’t Kelene and Gabria use their sorcery to escape? They’ve been held for days now, and we know they’re alive.”
“Zukhara has poisoned Gabria, but beyond that I do not know, and I have been thinking about it from the night we realized they were gone.”
She is afraid of him,
Demira sent.
I know that from her touch, but I do not know why. He kept me asleep for so long and then, when I woke, she made me escape.
Sayyed shook his head. “So what hold does he have over her? Kelene has the courage of a lioness and the stubbornness of a badger. I hope she is just biding her time.”
“And what will you do if Zukhara forces her to fight us?” asked Helmar in her quiet, husky voice.
“We will leave that to our gods,” he replied, so softly she could barely hear him.
The road wound on along the treeless, rolling hem of the foothills. To the west the sun had dropped behind the massive ramparts of the Absarotan peaks. To the east a purplish haze settled peacefully over the flat, arid lands bordering the Kumkara Desert. Ahead of the troop where the road rolled south over a long, easy hill, the riders spotted the first grey clouds of smoke climbing on the still evening air. Soon they noticed a murmur as deep and threatening as thunder rumbling in the far distance. The riders glanced uneasily at one another Hajira sat in his cart and strained to see ahead. The road was deserted now; the countryside was empty of life. A tension hovered in the air as palpable as the sounds that grew louder and more distinctive the closer the troop drew to the top of the hill. By now they could distinguish the din of thousands of voices raised in anger, the clash of weapons, and several large explosions.
The troop hurried forward to the top of the slope and there halted to stare down at the scene below. Cangora, the ancient capital of the Turic rulers, sat in a great bay in the sheltering arms of the mountains. Roughly equal in size to old Moy Tura, it climbed in gentle levels and terraces up the natural slope of the valley to a massive hump of rock that towered over the city and prevented attack from the rear. Cangora was also fortified with thick stone walls and high, domed towers that provided a solid line of defence across the bay. Its only large entrance was a massive gateway hung with the huge copper doors that gave the city its Turic name, “Copper Gate.” After the vanished holy city Sargun Shahr, it was the most important site in the Turic realm, a centre of trade, religion, and art. Cangora had never been taken in battle.
The Gryphon’s army had drawn up before the great city in shouting, seething ranks. They had no siege engines and not enough men to assault such a large fortification, but even from their position on the distant hill, the Clannad could see Zukhara’s army would need nothing more than the one person who stood before the massive gates to open its way into the heart of the city. A distinctive blaze of fiery blue light seared from the person’s hand toward the top of one of the towers. The dome exploded in a deadly blast of stone, melting lead, and burning timbers. Three other towers had already been destroyed.
“Is that Kelene?” asked Helmar in surprise and consternation.
Hajira leaned forward over the driver’s shoulder, staring at the figure so far below. “No, by the Living God’s hand,” he answered. “That is Zukhara!”
A horrified hush fell over the watching warriors. The answers to so many questions fell into place.
“The Lightning of the North,” snarled Sayyed. “It’s not Kelene’s sorcery, it’s his!”
In spite of the darkness the watchers on the hill could see frantic activity on the walls. Weapons blinked in the torchlight, and people struggled to put out the fires before they grew out of control.
Just then a large, dark shape winged slowly over the city. Torchlight and the light from several fires by the front gate glowed on the golden wings of a living gryphon. On its back sat the figure of a woman, her dark hair unbound, her body unmoving.
Demira suddenly neighed in anger and would have sprung into the air if Sayyed had not seen the tension in her muscles and anticipated her intention. “No!” he bellowed and gave her halter such a tug, it yanked her off balance and into Afer’s side. “No! Do not even think it. Not yet. Wait and see. We cannot rescue her in front of an entire army.”
The mare neighed a strident peal of frustration.
Let me get her. I can outfly that thing!
The black stallion snorted fiercely in reply.
No, you cannot. That is a creature born to the air. And if you will not think of yourself think of Gabria and Nara!
Demira pawed the ground. Her coat broke out in damp patches of sweat, and her tail swished a furious dance, but she accepted their logic and angrily clamped her wings to her sides — for now.
Another sound drew their attention back to the besieged city. The braying voice of a single horn echoed across the distance. The attackers fell quiet. The man in front of the gates blared out a thundering message. The troop could not hear his words, but they heard his exalting tone and knew what he demanded.
Nothing happened for a long while. The gryphon continued to cruise over the city; the army shuffled impatiently like a hunting dog waiting for the kill. Smoke swirled from the tops of the shattered towers.
At last another horn sounded, this time from the battlements of the city’s wall, and the huge gates swung slowly open to allow a small contingent of men to exit the city. From their robes and the flat gold chains glinting on their chests, Hajira identified them as members of the Shar-Ja’s council. They bowed low to Zukhara.
“That’s it then,” he growled. “If those men are negotiating, the city will surrender. I had hoped the governor would put up a fight, but they have probably killed him.”
The words had no sooner left his mouth than the envoy turned to point to something, and two more men dragged a body out of the gateway and dumped it at Zukhara’s feet.
A roar of triumph swelled from the ranks of the Gryphon’s fanatics. They lifted their weapons high and crashed their shields together, making a cacophony of noise that filled the valley from end to end and shook the foundations of the city. The great gates opened vide. The Gryphon and the Fel Azureth entered Cangora in triumph.
A pall of mist shrouded Gabria’s dreams. Dense and heavy, virtually impenetrable, it hung across her subconscious, obscuring the visions that formed in her mind. She struggled to get through the fog to a place where the air was clear and the light was as bright as the midday sun over the Ramtharin Plains, but there seemed to be no end to the clinging, gloomy mist. No beginning. No end. No life. Just dismal obscurity.
Then she heard a sound familiar to all clanspeople: the distant drumming of hoofbeats. A jolt of fear went through her. It had been twenty-seven years since the massacre of her clan and the inception of the vision of her twin’s murder. She had suffered the same dream or variations of it several times since then, and it never ceased to cause her grief and pain. It always began in fog and always included the sound of hoofbeats. She half-turned, expecting to hear her brother’s voice, and found she was alone in the mist. No one spoke; no other sounds intruded into her dream. There was only the single beat of one approaching horse.
Gabria looked in the direction of the sound and saw a rider on a ghostly white horse materialize out of the mist. A Harbinger, her mind said. The immortal messenger sent from the god of the dead to collect her soul. Zukhara’s poison had worked at last.
But her heart said no. Her heart still beat in her chest, faster now with growing excitement, and her thoughts, too, leaped at the vision coming toward her. Harbingers were male, as far as anyone knew, but the rider on this glorious white horse was a woman, and a magnificent woman at that, dressed for battle and bearing a sword. A helm hid her face, and the style of her clothing was unfamiliar, but behind her back, rippling like a chieftain’s banner, flowed a cloak as red as Corin blood. The woman lifted her sword in salute... and vanished.
Gabria stirred restlessly on the bed. “They’re coming,” she whispered.
Ever alert even in sleep, Kelene roused and moved close to check her mother. “Who is?” she asked, but Gabria sighed and slipped back into deeper sleep.
The light from a candle by the bed flickered over Gabria’s face and highlighted the sharp angles of her features with a yellow outline. Kelene bit her lip worriedly. Normally slender, Gabria had lost so much weight she looked gaunt. The poison in her system made her nauseated, and it had been all Kelene could do to persuade her to take liquids so she did not become too weak and dehydrated. Her long, pale hair, usually shining and meticulously brushed, lay in a limp and bedraggled braid. Her skin had taken on a greyish pallor, and her strength had ebbed, so she tired very easily. In fact, she showed so many of the same symptoms Kelene had noticed in the Shar-Ja, Kelene seriously suspected Zukhara had poisoned him as well.
Wide awake now, Kelene slid off the bed and walked across the room to a window seat set in a deep embrasure. She didn’t like sleeping on that high bed anyway, it was too far from the ground. A warm pallet on the floor made more sense and was certainly easier on the back than those overstuffed feather mattresses the Turics saw fit to put on their beds. Of course, this room was meant as a guest room for visiting nobility, not clanswomen accustomed to tents and stone ruins.
Kelene cast a censorious glance around the darkened room and curled her lip. The whole thing was too big, too elegant, too overdone. Large pieces of ornately carved furniture, murals, thick rugs, and pieces of decorative art had been arranged in the room by someone, Kelene was sure, with a very tense and cluttered mind. The effort had been made to impress, not to make comfortable, and she found the whole effect annoying.
Suppressing a sigh, she drew back the drapes and unlatched the glass-paned window. Glass was a rarity among people who spent most of their lives moving tents around, but Kelene liked the feel of the smooth, cool surface and the way light could pass through. If she ever returned to Moy Tura, Kelene decided to find a glassmaker who could teach her how to create the panes and the beautiful coloured glass bottles, vials, and jars she had seen the Turics use.
She leaned out over the sill and drew a deep breath of the night air. Far below her the city of Cangora dropped gradually down street after street to the great copper gates that now stood closed for the night. The city was dark, brooding in silence after its easy defeat by the Gryphon the night before.
After the surrender of the city, Zukhara had taken up residence in the Shar-Ja’s palace at the foot of the magnificent buttress of stone that thrust out from the foot of the mountain and formed the foundation of Cangora’s defences. Kelene could not see the rock formation from her window, but she had noticed it from the gryphon’s back and recognized its unopposable might. The Turics had recognized that strength long ago and built a large temple on the top of the lofty stone. That temple, Zukhara had told her, was the main reason he had come to Cangora. Unfortunately, he had not yet told her why.
Thankfully she had seen him only once since he locked her and Gabria in the room near his quarters, and then it had been for just a brief time while he displayed her to the remaining members of the Shar-Ja’s council. In the meanwhile, he had been constantly busy, swiftly solidifying his position in the city and spreading his war throughout the realm. The city governor’s body had been hung in a gibbet by the front gates and was quickly joined by three more city officials who protested Zukhara’s right to impose martial law on the population.
He set a nightly curfew for all city inhabitants, and the Fel Azureth patrolled the streets in squads to ruthlessly enforce his brand of civil law. The rest of the army, those who were not billeted at the palace, moved into several inns and a number of large homes around Cangora, throwing out the inhabitants and plundering stores. Zukhara did little to keep them in check, and anyone foolish enough to complain found himself talking to rats in the city’s prison. Those who did not profess their belief in the Gryphon’s holy calling also found their way to the dungeons.
It was hardly an auspicious way to begin one’s magnificent reign, Kelene thought sourly. She lifted her gaze beyond the night-cloaked city to the heights beyond where the caravan road came down from a broad, open hill. Although she could not see the distant landscape, she remembered it well.
“They’re coming,” her mother had said.
Who was coming? Was someone out there riding to their rescue? Or was it something she could not yet understand, something Gabria had seen only in a dream? Kelene studied the place where the hill should be as if she could penetrate the blackness and see what was there. Last night she had heard something — or thought she had. There had been a brief sound that called for just a moment over the roar of the army and the crash of its weapons. It had risen so faintly she still wasn’t certain it had been there, but it sounded so familiar, so dear. Maybe it was just wishful thinking that she had heard Demira’s voice on the hilltop beyond the city.