As Linsha and Leonidas walked the narrow paths of the camp, they passed corrals and pens that were nearly empty, tents and huts and caves where people slept, clearings where a few children played, and groups of people bending to a myriad of tasks. Everyone was busy, for there was always work to be done. No one sat and did nothing, except the wounded. A few people nodded or waved to the Lady Knight and her escort, but most paid little heed. They concentrated on their work with the joyless weariness of people who knew they had nowhere else to go.
They were a disreputable looking bunch, Linsha observed. The mercenaries she had met two days before looked better equipped and certainly better fed. The people she saw now were dirty, lean from thin rations, and hollow-eyed from exhaustion that went bone-deep. Living in a strong, defensible sanctuary was well and good if there was enough food and water to go around, but here there usually wasn’t. The refugees didn’t have the means to grow crops, and any hunting party or scavenging patrol ran the risk of being caught by the Tarmaks or mercenaries. Several patrols had disappeared without a trace while too many others were found slaughtered.
Food was not the only thing that had become hard to replace. Weapons, clothing, saddles, horseshoes, tools, medicine, armor, rope, and blankets were all in short shrift. Everyone made do the best they could with makeshift repairs and crude replacements. The dead of the enemy were stripped whenever possible, and a few supplies had come in from the barbarian tribes to the east and the centaur clans to the north. But it was not enough. It was never enough. And no one knew what would happen when winter set in. Winters on the southern edge of the Plains of Dust received the brunt of the fierce winds and cold from the southern glaciers. They were long and hard and difficult enough to deal with when there were snug walls, warm fires, and plenty of food.
Linsha wished for the thousandth time that Crucible had not left. Crucible had provided a valuable service by tracking down and killing cattle from Iyesta’s scattered herds to feed the hungry in the camp. He also served as a powerful guardian to the encampment.
“I miss him, too, you know.”
Linsha started at the voice beside her ear. She had been so deep in thought she’d forgotten the owl on her shoulder. Sometimes, she swore, Varia could read her mind.
“Who? Crucible?” Leonidas snorted. “We will all miss him. Especially at meal time.” He shook his shaggy head and looked around the camp. “I wonder how long it will be before the Tarmaks know he is gone.”
Linsha had wondered the same thing. And what would the Tarmaks do about it?
Shortly the activity of the camp fell behind them and they passed through a fortified earthen wall recently completed. Sentries stepped out, saluted the Lady Knight and the centaur, then faded back out of sight. The camp was nearly two miles from the mouth of the Wadi and could be reached only along a narrow path that hugged the canyon floor between towering walls pockmarked with caves and scarred with gullies, washouts, and dead ends. It was a perfect place for an ambush.
At the mouth of the Wadi, Crucible had triggered a landslide that blocked all but a pathway barely wide enough for two horsemen to ride through abreast. There, cleverly disguised at the juncture of the massive slide and the canyon wall was a small complex of stone shelters and holding cells that represented the headquarters of the beleaguered force. The refugees simply called it the Post.
When Linsha and Leonidas approached, they saw three men and a centaur standing around a rough table laden with maps. The men, bent over the table, were talking and gesturing all at once. The centaur stood slightly apart, his arms crossed over his chest and his face impassive as he listened. He was a stranger to Linsha-a tall, rangy horse-man with a reddish-blond beard and mane and a coat the color of polished cedar.
“Who is that?” Linsha asked her companion.
“I don’t know,” Leonidas replied, curious himself. “From the look of the harness he wears and the white color of his arrows, I’d guess he’s from Willik.”
Willik. Linsha tracked through her memories for that name and found it. Willik was a centaur settlement in Duntollik, the free human-centaur realm pressed precariously between four dragon realms. Until recently the harried people of Duntollik had maintained a mutual protection pact to help defend their lands from the green dragon, Beryl, to the west, the blue Thunder to the south, and black Sable to the north. Only Iyesta to the east had given them any aid and support. Now that two of the four dragons were dead, Linsha considered what was happening in that land that would bring a messenger so far from home.
The group around the table glanced up when they heard Linsha and the centaur. Pausing in their discussion, the three men waited for the two newcomers to arrive.
These three men, Linsha knew, were the reason the small fighting force in the Wadi had held together as long as it had. They were the backbone, the spirit, and the strength of everyone who sought refuge in the canyon.
By sheer weight of seniority and forceful presence, Falaius Taneek, the commander of the Legion of Steel, had assumed overall command. Bluff, blunt General Dockett of Iyesta’s once-proud militia became his second-in-command. Knight Commander Jamis uth Remmik of the Solamnic Order grudgingly filled in as third ranking officer.
Although the Solamnic commander would have preferred to keep his Knights separate, he was realistic enough to know they had nowhere else to go. He could not pull them out, for their small numbers could not easily strike off across the vast Plains of Dust on their own without supplies, horses, or support, nor could he withdraw in good conscience. He had not received orders to retire the Solamnic Circle from of the Missing City, and Lord Knight Remmik based his life on the strict adherence to the Law. Instead he curbed his feelings and stayed with the eighteen Knights who were left from his garrison of seventy-five and lent his considerable talents to scrounging supplies and building defensive fortifications.
As she drew near to the men, Linsha felt her teeth grind. Only Falaius and Dockett looked pleased to see her. Sir Remmik deliberately angled his body to keep his back turned to her so he would not have to look at or speak to her. The Knight Commander had never forgiven her for several alleged crimes and for surviving the Tarmak attack on the city when most of his favored Knights had been slaughtered. He had declared her blacklisted to all Solamnic Knights, although he’d never had time to send a full report to the Grand Master in Sancrist, and ordered the Knights of the Circle to behave as if she did not exist.
Linsha found his attitude ludicrous. She knew she was innocent of the crime he despised her for, and in the close proximity of the Wadi, it was difficult to avoid someone who struggled beside you to survive and whom you had worked with for more than a year and a half. Linsha took perverse delight in being unfailingly polite and friendly to Sir Remmik and forcing him to acknowledge her in the presence of others, even when she preferred to punch him in the sneer on his aristocratic face.
This day, however, enough traces of her bad temper remained to kill any thoughts of playing nice to Sir Remmik. Striding up to the table, she spoke warmly to Falaius and General Dockett, nodded to the centaur, and passed her gaze over the Solamnic Knight as if he did not exist.
The Legion commander and the militia general were used to such hostilities between the Lord Knight and the exiled Lady Knight, but the centaur looked surprised by their rudeness.
“Lanther just arrived,” Falaius told Linsha. “He’s in the pens.” He held out a hand to stop her before she turned. “Lady Linsha, this is Horemheb of the Willik clan of Duntollik. He has brought us news you might find interesting.”