Seven Sorcerers(44)

The next day rains rolled off the sea, cool and heavy. Dahrima slept a little beneath a crag of chalky stone overlooking the waves. She was far enough from the river delta to avoid the fisherfolk. Upon waking she killed a hare with a throw of her knife, and built a small fire to cook it before resuming her northward run.

Another day of moving along the coast brought her to a sheltered cove, where she stopped to pick oysters from the shallows. She ate them raw and drank from a rocky stream feeding the inlet. She slept there in the damp shadows of the cove.

Now she walked the eastern edge of the Stormlands once again. Looking out across the peaceful turquoise waters, she could not envision the great armada sailing above it. Perhaps Zyung’s forces had already reached the haunted valley. If so, Vireon must know. This was another important reason why she must scout ahead. What human could travel as far and as fast as she could with as little nourishment or rest? Knowing that she was close now, Dahrima picked up her speed. Her memory of maps was keen, and she estimated that another day of running would bring her to the Valley of the Bull which was now a valley of death.

The sun was an orange disk of flame hovering at the blue sky’s zenith when Dahrima topped a ridge and found her destination. The land fell away from her in graceful curves, green and pleasant despite the rumors of evil that hung about it. The broad, flat valley narrowed as it approached the seacoast. The Orra was a silver ribbon winding from misty highlands to pour itself into the sea at the mouth of the vale. Dahrima had left the rain behind when she departed the oyster cove; this was no longer the Stormlands with its daily showers. Yet plenty of white clouds floated above the valley, reminders that storms were not unknown here.

Across the silver river lay the shattered stones of Shar Dni. In the eight years since its doom, the city’s jumbled remains had been smothered by a multitude of mosses: green, brown, ochre, yellow, and azure. In the bright sunlight it seemed a scattering of jewels lay among the weedy pavements and toppled walls. The great stones that were not covered by moss had faded from white to gray, and nothing remained of the city’s towers but the jagged stubs of splintered foundations. They stood here and there among the devastation like the toothy stumps of fallen Uyga trees. No trace of the blue temple-pyramids remained, or if they did the creeping mosses had blanketed them entirely.

White gulls flew in flocks above the river, picking fish from the shallows. The rotted husks of warships and trading vessels lay half buried in sand about the crescent bay. One pointed prow stuck up from between the reeds of the delta, the rest of its bulk having been swallowed by mud. When Dahrima looked carefully, she saw the white glimmer of scattered bones beneath the moss and weeds.

A great arched bridge of stone had once straddled the river, connecting the western road with the threshold of the city gate. A few of the bridge’s great stones protruded from the river’s placid surface. Only the eastern and western ends of the crumbled bridge remained intact, each one arcing now into thin air. All the Sharrian wall gates were gone, leaving hollow gaps in the disintegrating ramparts. The damp sea air ate away at the mortar slowly. In a few more years what sections of the city wall that remained would be nothing more than piles of broken stone, like the rest of the city.

Dahrima was pleased to see that the grasses of the valley were as verdant and healthy as legend insisted. She walked down the hillside toward the shattered bridge. The ruins did not seem haunted from this vantage. Sad, perhaps, but not cursed. It reminded her of Old Udurum when the titanic Serpent-Father had reduced it to rubble. Yet the Valley of the Bull did not fill her with the foreboding and unease she had expected.

Memories of Old Udurum played through her mind as she waded across the cool river. Thirty years as Men counted the calendar had passed since the oldest enemy of Men and Giants had risen from beneath the Grim Mountains to destroy the old City of Giants. In those days the Uduru dwelled apart from their small cousins, as they had for three thousand years. Fangodrel the First, father of Vod, had ruled the city then. Those were days of lasting peace, long hunts, and endless revelry.

Dahrima had lived for eight centuries behind the walls of Hreeg’s City. Often the wilderness of Uduria had called her to the hunt. She had known a dozen lovers in those days. She had never blamed King Fangodrel for the curse of barrenness that had fallen upon her kind. The wise among them said it was mighty Hreeg’s fault, for the original Giant-King had driven Omagh the Serpent-Father back into the deep earth without killing him. Sleeping in his underground haunt for two thousand years, the Lord of Serpents had dreamed a curse upon Giantkind. The curse of gradual extinction borne by the Uduri. Sterility.