Disposal untly plowed through the soft sand, laboring for breath but, like the three hundred To-gai ponies running beside him, not slowing. The feint against the walled city of Pruda had gone perfectly, with very few To-gai-ru lost to the city's defensive volleys.
And predictably, before the fleeing To-gai-ru had gone far, Pruda's gates had swung wide and their garrison of several hundred, along with a seem-ingly equal number of peasants, all eager to join in the slaughter, had come forth, some riding horses, some on camels, and many others just running behind, brandishing everything from fine swords to farming implements.
Brynn brought her riders along the base of one huge dune, then turned about it and paused, all riders fitting arrows to their bows.
On came the lead Behrenese pursuers, and the To-gai-ru kicked their mounts into another run. Many of the skilled riders of the steppes turned back in the saddle, trusting their mounts to run true, and began letting fly their arrows.
The Behrenese pursuit halted abruptly as the front ranks thinned. Brynn and her riders heard the calls for retreat, for a return to Pruda. When she looked back and confirmed that the Behrenese had broken off pursuit, she halted her force, and gradually turned it about, taking care to send spotters out wide to make sure that their enemies were indeed heading back to the safety of their walls.
Walls they would never reach, Brynn knew, for as she had led her small force and the pursuing Behrenese out into the desert, the bulk of her army had filtered in behind, taking up a position in front of Pruda.
When Brynn and her riders caught up to the retreating Behrenese, they found them stopped in their tracks, desperately trying to form into some semblance of a defensive formation, for they faced a force thrice their size, and one comprised of skilled, veteran To-gai-ru warriors. grvnn had hoped it would go like this, with the Pruda garrison de- froved right before the city's wall, in clear view of those terrified defenders maining within Pruda. She noted the leaders of the doomed Behren- , e soldiers huddling, likely discussing whether or not they should ask for quarter.
But that was not to be. Not there and not then.
Before their huddle had produced anything at all, Brynn brought Flame-dancer up high above her head and cried out for the charge.
Showers of arrows led the way as the To-gai-ru encircled the force.
"They should have tried a charge straight through the line, back to their gates," Brynn remarked to those around her. ?Their cowardice has cost them all hope."
Another volley of arrows rained on the Behrenese, and then another, and then came the charge. Even among the Behrenese soldiers, few offered any fight, for they were all too busy trying to scramble away, trying to find some hole in the To-gai-ru line to get back to their city.
Some did manage to get through, but of the force of nearly a thousand who had left Pruda in search of a glorious victory, more than nine hundred soon lay dead or dying on the bloodstained sands.
And a To-gai-ru army of four thousand now stood before the thinly manned gates.
Merwan Ma blinked open his eyes, quickly moving his hand up to shield them from the glare of the hot late-afternoon sun.
He heard the noise almost immediately, but it took him a long while to connect the sounds to the truth of them.
They were screams of terror.
The battered Shepherd forced himself up to his elbows, wincing with pain all the way. He didn't know where he was, but he saw the white walls of a Behrenese city in the distance, swarming forms all about it, and lines of thick black smoke rising from many of the structures within.
The Shepherd's heart sank.
"Pruda," came a voice beside him, and he turned to see the Jhesta Tu mystic, his companion and his savior.
"Pruda?" Merwan Ma echoed, hardly able to get the name out of his mouth. ?The greatest center of the arts and learning in all the kingdom. Oh, what are your friends doing?"
"They are fighting to be free."
"Pruda is not a warrior city!"
"Obviously," Pagonel dryly replied.
"They cannot destroy it," Merwan Ma remarked, his words turning into a pained grunt as he tried unsuccessfully to sit up, only to wind up flat on his back, crying softly.
He felt the hot hands of Pagonel on his wounds a moment later, and though they surely brought relief, he tried to slap them away. ?Savage!" he said. ?Heathen barbarian!"
"But not one who would murder his supposed ally," the mystic remarked and that notion surely defeated Merwan Ma's attempted resistance.
"Do you think this savagery?" the mystic asked.
"Can you name it any other thing?" came the incredulous reply.
"Do you think it savagery on a scale anywhere close to what the emis saries of your Chezru Chieftain have forced upon the people of the steppes?"
Merwan Ma's generous lips grew very thin.
"You do not believe me."
"My master is a generous and wise man," the obedient shepherd insisted with as much conviction as he could muster. ?He is the God-Voice of Behren, who speaks to and for Yatol."
Pagonel dropped a dagger beside the prone man. ?Then do his bidding," he remarked.
Merwan Ma stared from the dagger to the mystic. ?A challenge?"
"A challenge to your conscience and your faith, perhaps," said Pagonel. ?Your God-Voice wished you dead, so take up the dagger and fulfill his plans for you. I promise that I will not try to heal you once you have plunged the dagger into your heart."
Merwan Ma looked away. ?It is a mistake," he said. ?A rogue Chezhou-Lei."
"There are no rogue Chezhou-Lei," Pagonel replied. ?You know as much. That warrior acted upon the orders of your God-Voice, that you were to be killed and it would be made to look like a murder by a To-gai-ru slave.
It is perfectly obvious, to me and to you."
"You know nothing."
"I know that you would be lying dead in Dharyan if I had not carried you away and tended your wounds."
"And you think that I am therefore indebted to you?"
The mystic chuckled and shook his head. ?I think that there is a mystery here, one that both of us do not quite understand, but that we both desper-ately wish to understand. There is a reason that your Chezru Chieftain wanted you dead, and I wish to know of it."
Merwan Ma looked away.
"Consider my words and consider the truth, Merwan Ma," Pagonel said. ?There is something very wrong here, from your perspective. Perhaps you believe that you still owe loyalty to the man who would see you dead."
Merwan Ma chewed on his lower lip and did not look back at Pagonel, and the mystic let it go at that, certain that the man was conflicted, at least.
It was a good start.
The mystic shielded his eyes and looked back to Pruda, and knew that the battle was over. Then he looked off to the south, where the two elves the dragon were waiting, and he knew that Agradeleous would not be that it had ended so quickly and cleanly, and without his aid.
"The Library of Pruda," Brynn heard one of her soldiers mutter in obvi-a\ye. And indeed, the woman felt the same way, for here before her was , ereat building, the most renowned and revered center of knowledge A learning in all of Behren, perhaps in all the world. Inside were shelves <
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