The Nomad - By Simon Hawke Page 0,17

welcome visitors instead of raiders. And travelers, in search of stimulation with an edge of danger, often made a detour to the village of Salt View, where they could indulge in gaming to their heart’s content, attend elaborate theatrical productions, drink their fill, and take their pick of willing wenches. Usually, they would depart without so much as a ceramic in their purses. And yet that never seemed to stop the flow of eager new arrivals.

Salt View had to be their destination, then. Was it possible this king they sought to raise was residing in Salt View, so close to Nibenay? Valsavis frowned. He disliked the thought of the game ending so quickly.

But surely, he thought, if there were a powerful wizard in the village of Salt View, the Shadow King would have been made aware of it. The people of Salt View would sell their own mothers for a profit. No, thought Valsavis, it seemed unlikely. What then?

There was, apparently, some connection between the elfling and the Veiled Alliance. Was there a chapter of the Veiled Alliance in Salt View? If so, he had never heard any mention of it. The members of the Veiled Alliance were all preservers in active opposition to defilers, and there were no defilers in Salt View. Magic-users were unwelcome there, whether preservers or defilers. So the probability was that the elfling and the priestess were seeking someone or something else. Valsavis could not imagine who or what that could be.

It was a puzzle. Valsavis was intrigued by puzzles, especially when they were posed by those he stalked. He mounted his kank as the dark sun began to set on the horizon. He checked his waterskins to make certain they were full. It was going to be a long, hard journey, but he was sure to find something of interest at its end. An elfling Master of the Way with a priceless magic sword, assuming it really was the legendary blade called Galdra. A beautiful, young villichi priestess well schooled in the arts of combat and survival. And a mysterious wizard king to be, powerful enough to excite the caution of Nibenay himself.

Yes, worthy adversaries, all.

Valsavis urged the kank forward, down the slope to the Great Ivory Plain. And so the chase begins, he thought with satisfaction.

Chapter Two

Sorak knew the marauders had their base on the western slopes of the Mekillot Mountains. Those foothills were near the caravan route from Altaruk to Gulg so, to give the marauders a wide berth, he headed on a diagonal, southeasterly course, rather than going straight south. It added at least another day to their journey across the Great Ivory Plain, which was not an attractive proposition, but on the other hand, it reduced their chances of encountering marauder scouts.

It also brought them closer to the village of Salt View, which was located just beyond the mountains, near the eastern tip of the range. According to The Wanderer’s Journal, there was a pass roughly at the middle of the range, which was the normal route that one would take to reach Salt View, but Sorak intended to give that a wide berth, as well. It would be a logical place for the marauders to post lookouts. What better place to ambush unwary travelers than in a desolate mountain pass?

They reached the northern slopes of the foothills just before daybreak on the seventh day of their journey. According to the rough map in The Wanderer’s Journal, the distance across the Great Ivory Plain from Nibenay to the mountains was approximately forty or fifty miles. The actual distance they had traveled had been easily twice that. In his days as the Wanderer, thought Sorak, the Sage was obviously not a very accurate cartographer. Either that, or errors had crept in over the years as the journal had been copied numerous times for distribution. Sorak hoped the former was the case, for if errors had crept into the journal, then he had no way of knowing how far he could trust its contents. It was an unsettling notion, especially since the journal was supposed to contain clues that would guide them on their quest.

They had been as sparing with their water as possible, but they had still run out. For Sorak, with his elfling powers of endurance, going without water was not as much a hardship as for Ryana, whose human constitution had greater need of it, especially on the Great Ivory Plain. It was much cooler traveling at night, but