Wytchfire (Book 1) by Michael Meyerhofer Page B

saving. All that mattered now were the initiates.
    And then, at last, Fadarah arrived.
    Pressing toward the tent, horsemen and footmen whirled suddenly to find fresh opponents streaming toward them. They were led, not by Humans, but by a towering man with fire streaming from his fingertips.
    Shade’s heart leapt. Through the chaos of the melee, he spotted his master. “Fadarah!” He struggled against the exhaustion he knew was about to claim his life.
    He lost sight of the Sorcerer-General in the chaos of the melee. Then a staggering man-at-arms slew the faithful Shel’ai guarding Shade’s back. Shade cast fistful after fistful of murderous fire and then reeled. A final, weak burst of flames escaped from his fingertips.
    This is it. The moment of my death. Shade raised his hands. The next blast, he knew, would kill him.
    A fresh cry caught his attention. The Sorcerer-General had claimed the horse of a fallen man-at-arms and was driving toward the tent, his great sword in one hand, fire streaming from the other. Men scattered before him. Shade had the wild thought that he might actually survive.
    Beside him, deep within the pitch-darkness of the tent, something awful came to life. It howled once—a deafening cry that shook the earth, stunning friend and foe alike. The battle was forgotten as everyone turned, horrified, to see what could make such a sound.
    Despite the danger, Shade turned his back on the fighting. “Silwren!” he cried, staggering forward. He threw aside the tent flap and was about to rush blindly into the darkness when white fire washed the world from his sight.

Chapter Five
    A Squire’s Honor

    A n autumn breeze whipped up the grassy smell of the plains and flung Rowen’s shaggy hair about as he left the town of Breccorry, riding in a wagon alongside Hráthbam Nassir Adjrâ-al-Habas. Glancing over his shoulder at the wagon’s interior, he saw that the dark-skinned merchant had told the truth. The wagon contained nothing but foodstuffs, various weapons, and a few old, sealed trunks. Rowen wondered briefly if these battered trunks were filled with bolts of Soroccan silk. Or more of his preposterous silk gowns! Rowen resisted a grin.
    He glanced at the weapons instead: Soroccan scimitars, a few Ivairian shortswords with waisted blades and man-shaped hilts, a battered round shield bearing a painted insignia faded past recognition, and a footman’s pike. He also spotted a Queshi sickle-sword and remembered a brief time he’d spent with the nomadic horse masters of the Southern Basin, tending their herds of bloodmares. It had been a comparatively peaceful time in his life, and he had considered returning more than once.
    Rowen continued scanning the wagon. He was relieved to see a pair of crossbows and even what looked like a Queshi composite bow. Those will be a lot more useful than my sword if we’re attacked by boars or greatwolves . Or bandits, for that matter. Rowen would have preferred to have two or three more guards beside him, but Hráthbam had had no luck hiring more.
    The Soroccan was a much better fighter than Rowen had anticipated, though Rowen had proven he could hold his own against the bigger man. Between them, if they armed themselves first with bows and picked off as many targets as possible from a distance, they could take maybe half a dozen highwaymen at a time.
    The wheels of the merchant’s wagon jostled and buckled. This road was clearly rougher and less traveled than the road to Lyos, but the landscape had changed very little. The grassy Simurgh Plains extended in all directions, sloping sometimes in slight hills, speckled here and there with patches of forest.
    Not many places to hide out here . If they were lucky, and they stayed sharp, they should be able to spot trouble coming from quite a distance. Rowen relaxed a little. He halfheartedly tuned back in to his boss’s seemingly endless chatter.
    Hráthbam had not stopped talking since they left Breccorry. He first