Nothing. It was as though Tanila's husband had vanished in the depths of the desert, and the sands had settled over him for a thousand years.
"I … I am sure he was a brave man, Tanila," he offered, knowing his answer was not enough.
In the distance, by the foot of the Red Plateau, the campfires waxed with a brighter light, and for the first time on that somber evening, the sounds of music and storytelling arose from the encampment. As is often the case in a warrior's camp, the rebels were putting the ambush behind them. Having mourned the dead for a brief space, they had set about to bolster their hearts for the coming day.
For if the Istarian cavalry had struck once …
Stormlight glanced toward the fires, which seemed to glow across a gap of miles and years. Part of him longed to be in the midst of the councils. There his cool presence was encouragement.
"Go ahead and join the others, if it please you," Tanila urged. "You have been most kind."
She sat by the fire, her dark hair covered in ash and sand, but oddly, almost unnaturally, beautiful.
Larken's drum sounded, and her sinewy voice carried over the campfires. They were too far away for Stormlight to make out her words, but he no longer listened to them.
For the first time, as he sat beside her near the fire, Tanila smiled at him. He banished his awareness of the camp at once, his thoughts transfixed by her depthless amber eyes.
He remembered little of what he said to her that night, but he was surprised that he said it.
Long tales he told, ranging across hundreds of years, of his wandering days with the Lucanesti, and finally of the ambush, the slavers, and his hostage people in the caverns below Istar. The telling drained him, sapping his strength as his story unwound. And Tanila changed as he spoke, the mourning lift shy;ing from her until Stormlight could see only the dev shy;astating, almost haughty beauty that had no doubt imprisoned …
Moccasin. Yes, that had been his name.
Tanila listened intently as Stormlight told her of the night among the crystals when, for the first time, Fordus read the mysterious glyphs of the gods. Tanila was most curious about that night, her ques shy;tions soft at first, encouraging the story, then more subtle, more detailed. When he turned to other sto- -ries-of their exploits in Fordus's youth, of the hunts and the battles, and of this great venture against the rule of the Kingpriest-her interest seemed to waver. Yet he persisted, story after story as the night passed toward morning.
She asked him most often about the opals, leaning toward him hungrily as he explained the stones his people had hunted for since the early times: the white and the black, the water and fire.
And of course the opal darker than black-the glain, which the Lucanesti called the godsblood, for obscure reasons lost in the Age of Light. Her ques shy;tions tunneled and probed, her eyes urged and tempted and haunted.
The eyes. The elf felt swallowed by their loveli shy;ness.
The dawn came before he expected or even imag shy;ined, the eastern horizon rising from the darkness and the night's fires fading into the sunlight. Slowly, with the barking of dogs and the cry of Larken's hawk hunting overhead, the camp awakened. Now Stormlight could make out shapes moving from tent to tent, and he realized to his dismay that he had
been thoughtless and rude, filling Tanila's mourning night with his boastful stories.
"And all of this . . . from that single night in the salt flats," Tanila remarked, her amber eyes brilliant and alert.
Stormlight shifted uncomfortably and rose to his feet. The eyes again. Where had he seen them before? His memory was tired and scattered.
She was just a girl. Dark-haired and very beauti shy;ful.
But she had noticed him-preferred him-to For-dus.
As he was turning back to her, to those glorious amber eyes, as he thought of another story and a story to follow that one, suddenly a call rose up from the encampment. Fordus approached, hobbling, leaning on Larken for support.
"So this is where the night has kept you!" Fordus exclaimed, a strange laughter in his voice.
Now Tanila rose to her feet, brushing back her hair with a graceful wave of her translucent hand. Mod shy;estly, she lowered her gaze at the approach of the commander.
Fordus's sea-blue gaze darted from Stormlight to Tanila as though he read a glyph in the morning sand. He smiled fiercely, and the bright blue of his eyes grew suddenly flat and cold.
"Who is your friend, Stormlight?" he asked qui shy;etly, gently pushing away Larken and standing unsteadily on his own. "Lady, I do not recall your presence in this camp, and I would remember those eyes and the long temptation of this raven hair."
Larken stepped away, a look of familiar hurt and anger passing over her face.
Fordus took two wobbly steps toward Tanila and extended his hand, his fingers playing softly with a braided strand of her hair. "I know I would remem shy;ber you," he murmured lazily.
"Her name is Tanila," Stormlight replied icily, glaring at the commander. Fordus was like this- had always been like this-the joy of the chase and the conquest impelling him in the hunt, in battle, and in more tender matters. He meant no harm, no injury, but when he set forth, he was cold and indif shy;ferent to the hearts of all around him.
"Tanila?" Fordus replied, blue eyes locked with amber in a fervent, stormy exchange.
"The widow of Moccasin," Stormlight continued. "One of your followers, who fell yesterday in the ambush." His own voice annoyed him with its thin, weak self-righteousness.
"I am sorry to hear of your loss, Tanila," Fordus said, his expression never changing. "In such a sor shy;rowful time, it is the commander's duty to see . . . that all your needs are met."
"Great Branchala!" Larken spat, turning from the fire and stalking back toward the camp, whistling to the hawk as she broke into a run.
Of course, Fordus's gaze never wavered.
"I shall study to be deserving of your kindness," Tanila replied, almost formally and yet with a subtle and sinuous heat.
It was Stormlight's turn to mutter.
Then, overhead, Larken's hawk screamed in alarm.
All eyes shifted to the bird, the moment forgotten in the outcry and the approaching tumult of his wings. Lucas swooped out of the pale morning sky and, gliding low across the shadowy sand, struck the gloved hand of his mistress and frantically pulled himself upright. His shrieks and whistles were shrill, almost deafening, and a strange green light flashed over his pinions. Larken soothed the creature, her fingers stroking his feathers like harp strings.
Stormlight rushed to the side of the bard. Fordus was not far behind, the pain in his foot forgotten.
Larken stared at them, her brown eyes wide with alarm.
"Istarians?" Fordus asked, his right hand reaching instinctively for the throwing axe at his belt. Still the bird screeched and yammered. Larken raised her hand to the two men, motioning for their silence.
Not Istarians, she signed with one hand, inclining her ear toward the loud, insistent bird. Not sandlings nor ankheg, not panther …
"Then what?" Fordus exclaimed impatiently.
Larken shook her head, her fingers slow and deliberate.
Their fresh hostility forgotten for the moment, Fordus and Stormlight exchanged troubled glances.
It is nothing he knows, Larken concluded, as the bird whistled once more and fell silent. Nothing he has ever seen. There is no word for it in Hawk.
"Then we shall find the words for it," Stormlight declared.
Fordus nodded and drew forth his axe.