Kutath

"Then we should be alive when they come," said Melein, honoring her with a touch of her hand. "Come with us, sen Boaz. Walk with our Sen.”

She opened her mouth as if she would dispute; and closed it, bowed her head. When they prepared to go out, she wrapped her elee cloak about her and adjusted her mask, and set herself where other sen'ein put themselves, inward of the Kel, with Melein.

Swords came out, a whisper of steel. For his part, Niun drew both gun and kel-sword; so did Duncan; and those who possessed elee weapons held them ready. They walked quietly into the next room, where path'andim and the patha of Kedras held the door.

"They are massed out there," the patha second said softly, "all in hiding. Behind the pillars, behind the rocks both small and large. Some of the dead are not dead, to our reckoning, but wounded who fear to move.”

"Ai," Niun said, taking that danger into account. "Then we make sure of them.”

"We are at your back," said Rhian. "We follow ja'anom lead.”

"Aye," said Kalis. "I'm senior and I say so." There was a whispered agreement of other voices.

"Then follow," Niun said. He moved, first kel'anth, first to go, with the others at his back. He laid down fire and fire came back; someone by him fell, and his dus screamed rage and scrambled forward into that dark hall with a pace he could scarcely match on the polished floors. He fired where he saw fire; by his side was another with a gun, and another dus; Duncan was by him, a kel'en well-accustomed to this matter of fight.

The dusei hit glass, breached the walls into the moisture of the gardens, admitting the Kel; elee fired from cover there and then fled. More fire came from the door beyond, and of a sudden one of the dusei roared with pain and lunged forward, gone berserk, a madness the others caught, and the youth Taz with them. Taz plunged ahead, riddled with elee fire, and took several elee in the sweep of his blade before more shots brought him down.

"Yail" Duncan shouted at the dusei, bidding for sanity… Ras took a hurt; they felt it; and Taz's maddened dus plunged into elee like the storm wind. Niun went after it, bolstered the failing gun and hewed with the sword whatever opposed him, foremost of a wedge which broke and reformed around the monuments, the carven stones, the statues, sweeping the hall of life.

There were exits; they did not take them… rushed, killing, as the dusei killed, after Taz's beast, for its kel'en was dead, and it was mad. Dus'sense filled the halls, and elee fled, screaming, abandoning weapons, casting off the weight of their jeweled robes, whatever hindered them; the Kel ran over broken glass and pools of blood and the jeweled fabric of elee garments.

"Outr Niun cried, trying to break from the madness, that felt like desertion. The dus was dying; it wanted… wanted, followed the essence of Taz into the Dark, and drew the living Kel after.

He stopped, buffetted by bodies of his own kel'ein, seized at them, turned them for the open air, for the nearest breach in the walls, and out into the clean wind and across the sands. Dusei joined them. They ceased ru

The dusei crowded together; they who were linked with them did so, and Niun sank down among the others and held to his beast, its blood on him, for it was burned and glass-cut and shuddering in its misery.

Of a sudden there was a break, a cessation of hurt, like storm lifted.

"It is dead," Duncan said hoarsely, and Ras and Hlil and Rhian of the hao'nath held close to their dusei, shivering with them.

"Mfuk," Niun said. "Dus-madness. It almost took us all into the Dark Gods… gods… gods.”

His mind cleared, still numb, remote. He pushed himself to his feet, the few steps to Melein's side, to kneel and take her hand, frightened for her state of mind; but the calm came from her to him, a slight pressure of her fingers, a steadfast look. "What loss?" she asked him.

"Kel Taz; his dus " He looked about him in the dark, questioning with his look… heard names others murmured, of those left behind.

EMas was lost, and Desai. He bit his lip, sorrowing for him in particular. A double hand of the ja'anom had perished; four hands plus two of the path'andim including the kel'anth Mada; one hand three of the patha; Kalis of the ka'anomin and two hands of her kelein; a hand three of the ja'ari; two hands one of the man; four hands two of the hao'nath.

"My blessing on them," Melein said, looking suddenly very tired, and drawing her wounded arm more closely to her side. "Now we must see how the camp fared.”

"Better than here," said a voice, very young and female. There was a stirring from the hindmost ranks near the rocks, and an unscarred, veilless, worked her way through in haste. She knelt down by Melein and bowed for her touch… looked up as Melein lifted her head with her fingers.

"You are-"

"Kel Tuas, Mother. Kel Seras sent us, when the fire stopped; it came near, but never hit the camp; I do not think it hit it since. I ran and hid in the rocks, to see what I could learn; my truebrother… went in. And I do not think by what I saw “

"He did not reach us," Melein said.

"I thought that was so," Tuas said very faintly. "I have waited some little time. May I carry word to Seras, Mother, that you are safe?”

Melein took her face in her hands and kissed her on the brow. "Are you able, kel'e'en?”

"Aye, Mother.”

"Then run.”

The kel'e'en sprang up and returned the kiss, turned in blind haste; but Niun caught her arm, took an Honor from his own robes and pressed it into her cold hand. "Kel'anth," she murmured. She was ja'anom; he recalled her now, an i

"Run," he said. "Life and honors, kel Tuas.”

"Sir," she breathed, and parted their company, passed the ranks of those gathered about, serpent-quick. She was not the only messenger sped; others ran out, through the hills, shadows, young and swift of foot.

And those of them who remained, settled, reassured for what small news they had, that Ele'et had drawn the fire and the camps gone unscathed. They caught their breath, began to bind up wounds; Niun felt a growing ache in his lower arm, and found a bad slash, which Duncan bound for him. Ras had taken a wound in the shoulder, and Hlil attended it; Rhian had taken a minor hurt on his arm; there was hardly a kel'en in all the company entirely unscathed, and the dusei moaned and keened pit-eously with their own hurts, burns and lacerated paws. None of them would die, neither dus nor kel'en. Dusei licked at their own wounds assiduously, and at wounds of kel'ein where they might Niun accepted it for his own, and it helped the pain.

Sen Boaz sat among them. "Are you hurt?" Duncan inquired of her, but she denied it, sat bowed, breathing great gasps from her mask, her elee robe wrapped about her and glittering with precious stones in the starlight.

And it was not the only such robe in sight.

"Look," said Rhian of the hao'nath, pointing toward the city, where elee stirred forth, pale faces and white manes and jeweled robes showing clearly in the dark among the huge rocks about which Ele'et had its shape.

"Let them come," kel Kedras said, "if they have gone entirely mad. I weary of elee.”

"Aye," a number of voices agreed, and Niun himself sat with the blood pounding in his temples and an anger for the dead they had lost

But the elee below wandered the near vicinity of their city as if dazed, and some of them were small; children. The anger of the Kel fell when they realized that, and the air grew calmer. Kel'ein talked then, grimly, but not of killing.

Niun bowed his head against his dus and felt all the aches in his body; and those of the dus; and those of the others. There were moments when dus-sense had no comfort to give, when the beasts needed, more than gave; and he comforted it such as he could, with a gentle touch and what calm of mind he could lend.

"They do not come," he said at last to Duncan. "Neither regul nor humans. Gods, I do not know, sov-kela; I think " He did not dare to voice despair; the Kel was about them. He slid a glance instead to the human sen'e'en. "She says they will come; but she does not know. Air he said sharply, looking up, and all the company looked heavenward. For a moment he both hoped and feared.

A star fell, in the west, over the basins.

That was alL

"They will come," Melein said.

"Aye," they all murmured, as if hoping could make it so.

Duncan settled down, and Bas, and Rhian and Hlil; he did, and laid his head against the shoulder of his dus, for warmth, and for comfort of it The dusei made a knot, all touching, spreading warmth even beyond their circle.

Only the lightness, the shyness which had been Taz s'Sochil was gone from them. Somewhere up in the hills was the wild one, die only wild one. There should be one, Niun thought, one which went apart

"Ai," someone murmured, toward the dawning, and Ail came the cry from the height where the sentries sat.

The whole Kel came awake, and Niun scrambled to his feet as the dusei surged up, among the others. Melein stood, and the sen'ein, and the human Boaz, last and with difficulty… eyes lifted toward the skies.

It began as a light, a brightening star overhead, that became a shape, and a thunder in the heavens.

"Flower” Boaz cried; and if the Kel did not know the name, they saw the joy. "Ai" they cried softly, and excitement coursed through the dusei.

The elee below had seen it. Some which had come out to spend the night at the edge of the ruin fled indoors again. Others ran for the rocks, their fine robes and white manes flitting as a pallor in the dawn.