The Hidden City

retreat!’
    The Peloi turned tail and galloped to the east across the rattling brown gravel. A thin cheer went up from the massed regiments of the Cyrgai, and the trumpet sounded again. The ancient soldiers, still in perfect step and with their ranks still perfectly straight, broke into a running charge. Sergeants barked the staccato cadence, and the sound of the half-boots of the Cyrgai beating on the barren ground was like the pounding of some huge drum.
    And then the full light of a winter midday dimmed as if some frit, silent wings had somehow blotted out the sun. A chill wind swept across the desert, and there was a wailing sound like the sum of human woe. The suddenly stricken Cyrgai, rank upon rank, died soundlesly in mid-stride, falling limply to earth to be trampled by their blindly advancing comrades, who also fell, astonished, on top of them.
    Kring and Tikume, both pale and trembling, watched in awestruck wonder as the ancient Styric curse did its dreadful work. Then, sickened, they wheeled and rode back eastward, turning their backs on the perfect soldiers rushing blindly into chill, wailing obliteration.
    ‘These clothes are good enough for Arjuna and Tamul Proper, neighbor,’ Sparhawk told the shopkeeper later that same day, ‘but they don’t exactly turn the trick in a duststorm. I think that last one put about four pounds of dirt down my back.’
    The shopkeeper nodded sagely. ‘Other races laugh at our customary garb, good Master,’ he observed. ‘They usually keep laughing right up until the time when they ride through their first duststorm.’
    ‘Does the wind blow all the time out there?’ Talen asked him.
    ‘Not quite all the time, young Master. The afternoons are usually the worst.’ He looked at Sparhawk. ‘How many robes will you be needing, good Master?’
    ‘There are six of us, neighbor, and none of us are so fond of each other that we’d care to share a robe.’
    ‘Have you any preferences in colors?’
    ‘Does one color keep the dust out better than the others?’
    ‘Not that I’ve noticed.’
    ‘Then any color will do, I guess.’
    The shopkeeper hustled into his storeroom and returned with a pile of neatly-folded garments. Then he smiled, rubbed his hands together and broached the subject of the price.
    ‘He overcharged you, you know,’ Talen said as they emerged from the cluttered shop into the dusty street.
    Sparhawk shrugged. ‘Perhaps,’ he said.
    ‘Someday I’m going to have to teach you about the finer points of bargaining.’
    ‘Does it really matter?’ Sparhawk asked, tying the bundle of Cynesgan robes to the back of his saddle. He looked around. ‘Anarae?’
    ‘I am here, Anakha,’ her whispered voice responded.
    ‘Were you able to find anything?’
    ‘Nay, Anakha. Clearly the messenger hath not yet arrived.’
    ‘Berit and Khalad are still several days away, Sparhawk,’ Talen said quietly. ‘And this isn’t such an attractive place that the messenger would want to get here early to enjoy the scenery.’ He looked around at the winter-dispirited palm trees and the muddy pond that lay at the center of the cluster of white houses.
    ‘Attractive or not, we’re going to have to come up with some reason for staying,’ Sparhawk said. ‘We can’t leave until the messenger gets here and Anarae Xanetia can listen to what he’s thinking.’
    ‘I can remain here alone, Anakha,’ Xanetia told him. ‘None here can detect my presence, so I do not need protection.’
    ‘We’ll stay all the same, Anarae,’ Sparhawk told her. ‘Courtesy and all that, you understand. An Elene gentleman will not permit a lady to go about unescorted.’
    An argument had broken out on the shaded porch of what appeared to be a tavern or a wine-shop of some kind. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, Echon!’ a wheezy-voiced old man in a patched and filthy robe declared loudly. ‘It’s a good hundred miles from here to the River Sama, and there’s no water at all between here and there.’
    ‘You either drink too much or you’ve been out in the sun too long, Zagorri,’ Echon, a thin, sun-dried man in a dark blue robe scoffed. ‘My map says that it’s sixty miles—no more.’
    ‘How well do you know the man who drew the map? I’ve been here all my life, and I know how far it is to the Sama. Go ahead, though. Take only enough water for sixty miles. Your mules will die, and you’ll be drinking sand for that last forty miles. It’s all right with