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and the despair in his eyes, were as moving as anything she had ever heard, and she felt impelled to
answer them.
"How could you have known? And even if you had known, what could we have done about it?" she
asked, softly, trying to keep her own fear and borderline hysteria out of her own voice. "No one could
run away from something like that! And nothing I built could have withstood it! If these Julamites were
determined to slay us with their storm, I fear that there was nothing we could have done to prevent what
happened. I know of no conjurer who could match that kind of power, not even Queen Adria."
Accusations died unspoken, and slowly the men nodded a grudging agreement. Ware shook his head
slightly, but said nothing-only his own bleak face told her that he did not consider himself to be any less
at fault. She felt a strange pity for him; he was so alone among them, and he was so accustomed to being
the authority, that this failure to anticipate disaster must come doubly hard to him.
He turned his gaze from the darkness to the flickering fire. "If the Julamites are this strong, I must
assume that the other tribes of this land have become just as strong," he said, finally. "The only good
news I can offer is that I do not think we will be troubled by another mage-storm. It takes particular
conditions to enable a weather-wizard to turn an ordinary storm into a mage-storm, and it is very
draining on the wizard himself. And I know the Julamites cannot have more than one weather-wizard of
such strength; they are an ambitious people, and a powerful wizard would not permit any rivals."
Like the Queen, Xylina thought, but did not say aloud.
"Then what can we expect?" Faro asked after a moment. He cast a glance past Ware's shoulder at the
east. "You said yourself these people are all likely to be hostile. It's almost dawn; surely we're in for
some other surprises." Faro seemed to be recovering his strength and his wits, and Xylina was grateful.
She had hated to see him sitting there, trembling.
"I wish I could tell you," Ware replied helplessly, shrugging. "I am sorry, but since I was last here a few
months ago, many things have changed that I did not expect to change. For that matter, I did not expect
to find this realm here; it was much farther to the east when last I traveled. There are a score of tribes in
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this realm, and all of them have different wild magics. I know I saw the ur-birds of the Lgondians above
us yesterday, but I do not know whether they will attack us, or whether their masters will. If the
Julamites are so strong-have the other tribes become weaker, or stronger? I simply do not know!"
"Well, give us a starting point at least!" Faro snapped. "Give us a plan! We can change the plan, if need
be, but at least we will have one. You are the only one who knows anything about this place."
Ware opened his mouth as if to retort angrily-then closed it. He nodded slowly. "I apologize," he said.
"You are right. We must do something other than sit here on a rock. We will have to try to travel
stealthily-and Xylina will have to conjure everything we need, from this moment on, save for food and
drink. We must try to be unobtrusive, unchallenging, and if the fates are with us, the tribes may think us
too weak to bother with. That is the only way that we will succeed in passing through here, now that our
company is so decimated."
"Eh, well," Horn replied at last, with a glance around him, "At least we won't be carrying heavy packs."
That elicited a laugh-a strained one, but it was at least genuine. Xylina felt a little of the tension leave
her. Things were bad-but they were not yet dead.
When there was enough light so that it was possible to see effectively, Faro sent the men out to try and
find whatever might have been left of their supplies and weapons. That was when they discovered some
of the fantastic things the whirlwinds had done. A straw was found driven into the wood of a ruined
wagon-frame like a nail. A single wild-bird egg scarcely larger than Xylina's thumbnail was found
balanced on top of one of the toppled palisade-stones. One of the swords was discovered twisted into a
bizarre knot-like shape.
Xylina scoured the grass, looking for anything that seemed out of place, for often only a corner of
something protruded out from under the mat of rain-flattened grasses. She found scraps of fabric, bits of
wood, and a few metal arrowheads and spear points, but that was all. After a few hours, her eyes ached
from peering into the grasses, and squinting against too-bright sunlight. She returned to the rest with a
pocket full of metal and a few ragged bits of cloth that was not of her conjuration.
When they all gathered again at mid-morning, there was not much good news. Some few of the food
supplies had been found: a bag of grain, some journey-bread, and some dried peas; also enough of the
weaponry that each of them could be armed after a fashion. The wagons were wrecked and there wasn't
a piece larger than a hand anywhere; the livestock were gone beyond even Ware's ability to hunt. Only
one of the mules and two of the missing men were ever found dead; as for the rest-Xylina did not care
even to hazard a guess.
Horn butchered the poor mule as well as he could with nothing more than his belt-knife, and strung as
many ragged strips of meat as he could over conjured fires to smoke-dry. They conferred together over a
strange and haphazard meal of soaked journey-bread and roast mule about what, exactly, Xylina could
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