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Minala edged to Kalam's side and laid a trembling hand on his uninjured shoulder. 'Gifts from gods make me nervous,' she whispered. 'Especially this one.'

He nodded, in full agreement.Advertisement

'Oh,' Shadowthrone said, 'don't be like that! My offer stands. Sanctuary, a true opportunity to settle down. Husband and wife, hee hee! No, mother and father! And, best of all, there's no need to wait for children of your own – Apt has found some for you!'

The mists surrounding them suddenly cleared, and they saw, beyond Apt and her charge, a ragtag encampment sprawled over the summit of a low hill. Small figures wandered among the tent rows. Woodsmoke rose from countless fires.

'You wished for their lives,' Shadowthrone hissed in glee. 'Or so Apt claims. Now you have them. Your children await you, Kalam Mekhar and Minala Eltroeb – all thirteen hundred of them!'

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The priest of Elder Mael

dreams rising seas ...

Dusk

Sethand

The whirlwind's spinning tunnel opened out onto the plain in an explosion of airborne dust. Wiry, strangely black grasses lay before Sha'ik as she led her train forward. After a moment she slowed her mount. What she had first thought to be humped stones stretching out in all directions she now realized were corpses, rotting under the sun. They had come upon a battlefield, one of the last engagements between Korbolo Dom and Coltaine.

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The grasses were black with dried blood. Capemoths fluttered here and there across the scene. Flies buzzed the heat-swollen bodies. The stench was overpowering.

'Souls in tatters,' Heboric said beside her.

She glanced at the old man, then gestured Leoman forward to her other side. 'Take a scouting party,' she told the desert warrior. 'See what lies ahead.'

'Death lies ahead,' Heboric said, shivering despite the heat.

Leoman grunted. 'We are already in its midst.'

'No. This – this is nothing.' The ex-priest swung his sightless eyes towards Sha'ik. 'Korbolo Dom – what has he done?'

'We shall discover that soon enough,' she snapped, waving Leoman and his troop forward.

The army of the Apocalypse marched out from the Whirlwind Warren. Sha'ik had attached each of her three mages to a battalion – she preferred them apart, and distanced from her. They had been none too pleased by the order of march, and she now sensed the three sorcerers questing ahead with enhanced sensitivities – questing, then flinching back, L'oric first, then Bidithal and finally Febryl. From three sources came echoes of appalled horror.

And, should I choose it, I could do the same. Reach ahead with unseen fingers to touch what lies before us. Yet she would not.

'There is trepidation in you, lass,' Heboric murmured. 'Do you now finally regret the choices you have made?'

Regret? Oh, yes. Many regrets, beginning with a vicious argument with my sister, back in Unta, a sisterly spat that went too far. A hurt child . . . accusing her sister of killing their parents. One, then the other. Father. Mother. A hurt child, who had lost all reasons to smile. 'I have a daughter now.'

She sensed his attention suddenly focusing on her, the old man wondering at this strange turn of thought, wondering, then slowly – in anguish – coming to understand.

Sha'ik went on, 'And I have named her.'

'I've yet to hear it,' the ex-priest said, as if each word edged forward on thinnest ice.

She nodded. Leoman and his scouts had disappeared beyond the next rise. A faint haze of smoke awaited them there, and she wondered at the portent. 'She rarely speaks. Yet when she does... a gift with words, Heboric. A poet's eye. In some ways, as I might have become, given the freedom ...'

'A gift with words, you say. A gift for you, but it may well be a curse for her, one that has little to do with freedom. Some people invite awe whether they like it or not. Such people come to be very lonely. Lonely in themselves, Sha'ik.'

Leoman reappeared, reining in on the crest. He did not wave them to a quicker pace – he simply watched as Sha'ik guided her army forward.

A moment later another party of riders arrived at the desert warrior's side. Tribal standards on display – strangers. Two of the newcomers drew Sha'ik's attention. They were still too distant to make out their features, but she knew them anyway: Kamist Reloe and Korbolo Dom.

'She will not be lonely,' she told Heboric.

'Then feel no awe,' he replied. 'Her inclination will be to observe, rather than participate. Mystery lends itself to such remoteness.' pqdm.com