The Treasured One

They all stood watching as the yellow cloud began to roll down the slope.

‘I’d say that we aren’t the only ones having trouble with this,’ Danal said, looking on down the slope. ‘The bug-people are streaming out of the breast-works we abandoned last night like something awful was about to happen to them.’

Keselo frowned, probing through the memories of the various courses he’d taken at the University of Kaldacin. Then he remembered something. ‘I think it might have something to do with the way bugs breathe, Brigadier,’ he said.

‘Breathing is breathing, isn’t it?’

‘Not exactly, sir. Bugs, insects - whatever we call them - don’t have noses like people or animals do. They breathe through a series of holes down their sides instead. A small, ordinary bug wouldn’t really have many problems with a sandstorm because those holes along their sides are very thin. These giant bugs we’ve encountered here, though, would have much larger breathing holes. If one of them happens to take a deep breath in the middle of a sandstorm, there’s a very good chance that it’d suck in enough sand to clog up the breathing holes. If that happens, it’s entirely possible that the bug will die of suffocation.’

‘Aw,’ Danal said in mock regret, ‘what a shame.’

‘Is it at all possible that this silly sandstorm will kill them all, Keselo?’ Andar asked.

‘I don’t really think so, sir,’ Keselo replied. ‘That Wasteland out there is pretty much all desert, so sandstorms are probably very common. I’m sure that the bug-people have come up with many ways to protect themselves - burrowing down into the ground, maybe, or even piling dead friends up in heaps and then crawling under them. The fact that they’re running away suggests that they know just how dangerous a sandstorm can be, and I’m sure that they instinctively know how to protect themselves.’

Then from far out in the Wasteland there came a shrill scream that seemed to fade as it came from farther and farther out in the glittering yellow desert.

‘Could that possibly be the Vlagh itself making all that noise?’ Omago asked.

‘It’s possible, I suppose,’ Keselo replied. ‘Then again, though, it probably wasn’t. The Vlagh has many servants whose only purpose in life is to protect their queen. They won’t let anything happen to her.’

‘I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to that,’ Andar declared. ‘Fighting wars against females is so unnatural.’

‘That particular female thinks that all we are is something to eat, Andar,’ Danal disagreed. ‘Ordinary courtesies go right out the window in a situation like that, wouldn’t you say? Let’s face it, my friend. If the Vlagh happens to invite you to dinner, you’re likely to be the main course.’

The Inland Sea

1

Veltan, like the others, had been more than a little dubious about Longbow’s assertion that the church armies were unknowingly coming to aid them in their struggle with the servants of the Vlagh, but the sudden appearance of that ‘sea of gold’ - which wasn’t gold - and the almost hysterical reaction of the assorted Trogites coming up from the south had convinced him that the voice which had come to Longbow had spoken truly.

The more troubling question gnawing at Veltan now was just exactly who this unknown friend was, and how she had managed to pull off such a colossal deception. It was quite obvious by now that their ‘unknown friend’ had been operating at a level of sophistication far beyond anything Veltan or his brother and sisters could possibly have managed.

Right now, however, Veltan had more important things to attend to. He sent out his thought to his pet thunderbolt, and somewhat to his surprise, she didn’t grumble or complain as she almost always did, but came to him immediately.

‘Good baby,’ he said to her. ‘We need to go on down to the Falls of Vash and have a look at some people down there.’ He hesitated slightly. ‘I don’t want to hurt your feelings or anything, but do you suppose you could be just a bit quieter than usual?’

She flickered questioningly.

‘I guess it’s not really all that important, dear,’ he said. ‘There’s been quite a bit of peculiar weather around lately, so those strangers won’t be too surprised - no matter what happens.’ He mounted and settled himself. ‘Let’s go, baby,’ he said, glancing at the slowly settling sandstorm.

He was more than a little surprised when they reached the huge waterfall and his pet rumbled faintly instead of producing that deafening crash.

‘Good girl,’ he said. ‘That was just fine. Wait here. I’ll only be a few minutes.’

He dismounted and drifted on down through the air toward the crudely constructed bridge that connected the Trogite ramp with the rim of the gorge that lay to the south.

The red-uniformed soldiers of the Amarite church were plodding up the ramp, and there were very few of them still waiting down below.

‘Well, good enough,’ Veltan murmured. ‘From the look of things, I’d say that this is the tail-end of the column. Give them another half-day, and they’ll all be up here.’

Then he saw a familiar face among the Trogites coming up from below.

‘I guess that answers that particular question,’ Veltan murmured as he watched the scrawny former soldier Jalkan limping up the ramp, accompanied by a grossly fat clergyman stumbling along beside him, wheezing and sweating gallons as he came. The two of them were surrounded by bleak-faced guards wearing the black uniforms of the Regulators.

Veltan reached out with his ears to see if the two enemies might possibly reveal anything useful.

‘It’s only a little farther, Adnari,’ Jalkan said in that nasally whining voice that Veltan had always found so irritating.

‘Let me catch my breath, Jalkan,’ the fat man wheezed, stopping and wiping the sweat off his face.

‘No,’ Jalkan said firmly. ‘We can’t block off the ramp. The last brigade’s still behind us, and we can’t delay them.’

‘I don’t give a hoot about the soldiers, Jalkan!’ The fat man flared. ‘Their only purpose in life is to serve the church, and in this part of the world, I am the church.’

‘Not in a war, Adnari Estarg,’ Jalkan disagreed. ‘Not unless you’d like to take up falling and dying as a hobby. The soldiers in that brigade know that there’s gold just ahead, and if you delay them too much, they might very well decide to dispose of you by shoving you off the side of the ramp, and it’s a long way down from here.’