Kate Gallagher and the Hornshurst Talisman

Hawklight hesitated and reined in his mount. It stood quivering and panting in the heat as he searched the ground for clues. Something was wrong! They’d come across the abandoned campsite. The blackened charcoal was still hot, and the wind that blew stronger after sunrise encouraged some embers to splutter and glow beneath the gossamer of grey ash. Two sets of footprints headed north and a rider had turned towards the east once more. They followed the hoof prints. The trail led up the side of a shallow ridge and on to a rocky plateau. Years of eroding forces had stripped away the softer rock strata leaving behind sharply defined mounds of hard red rock scattered across the plateau so that it resembled an immense chessboard. At first, he couldn’t make sense of it. The trail had been easy to follow, despite apparent attempts by the rider to mask the trail. Then suddenly the trail ended—nothing, not a sign anywhere! Why would it just disappear without any trace on this exposed wasteland surrounded by—? “Get down!” he screamed and twisted in his saddle before lunging across at Kate. He succeeded in knocking her from her mount but not before the shuriken blade had whistled in from nowhere and sliced a deep gash through his raised shoulder where, moments before, his head had been. He hardly felt the cut; it was like being sliced by a razor, but he knew the wound was deep and that he was in trouble. Sparks flew from his shoulder, and he bled energy as the skin of the memories that defined him tore apart. They crashed heavily to the ground. Hawklight fell across Kate but even so, he landed awkwardly and was knocked unconscious. They spooked the two Hon’chai, which galloped a short distance to safety then turned to watch. Kareem raised his head tentatively above the rock. He’d chosen the ambush site well; the sun was directly behind his back in the sky. Some sixth sense had warned him that he was being followed. When he saw the two riders, he’d been impressed by their skills and also been a little unnerved. He’d failed to notice them before, and couldn’t believe how close they’d managed to get without being spotted. He was growing careless. Whoever they were, they were dangerous foes indeed. Who else would be following him? He needed to take out the big man first and almost succeeded. He knew the blade had struck home from the snick! sound it had made, but the man had anticipated the ambush. Had it been enough? He remained still and watched as the dust settled. There were two bodies lying among the rocks; neither moved. One of the Hon’chai slowly wandered back to where they lay. He watched as it lowered its muzzle and nosed the bodies. There was no response. The animal raised its head and snorted. He waited another ten minutes, straining for any sign of movement. Flies had begun to gather, attracted by the faint fizzing of tiny sparks near the big man’s head. Kareem couldn’t make out the wound—was it shoulder, neck, or head? It could have been any one of them. With any luck, they would both have broken their necks on impact. But they didn’t look like soldiers of Cherath, and that troubled him. He crept out from behind the rock and cautiously approached the two bodies. The tall one was sprawled across the small one. He stepped closer. The small soldier had been wearing a head scarf, like a keffiyeh or Arabic headdress, to keep out the sun, and it had fallen aside to reveal a cascade of dark black hair that caught the sun and reflected a colour back that was almost inky blue. This was a young woman! Kareem had not expected that. She looked familiar somehow, but as he stooped closer something else caught his eye, a flash of sunlight. He glanced away and saw that it was his throwing blade half-buried by sand and so he missed the one moment her eyes fluttered open. “Reicitor!” she cried and brought Rhyanon to bear in one smooth movement. The blast caught Kareem squarely across the chest and blew him off his feet and into a slab of stone twenty feet away. He slipped to the ground unconscious, the way a gob of jelly slides down a glass window. He drifted back into consciousness slowly, in stages, where he was increasingly aware of growing pain. By the time real images swam into view his entire body seemed to throb incessantly. He tried to sit up and was half throttled by the noose that fed from around his neck and down his back to where his hands and ankles were bound together. This was no ordinary rope; it glowed blue and tightened wherever it detected strain against it. Kareem was, literally, spellbound. He groaned and sank back on to the sand. The young woman, hardly more than a girl, was squatting on the ground across from him, and she glared at him. She stood and sauntered across to where he lay, put her boot against his ribs and rolled him onto his side to check his bindings. He gasped in pain. Satisfied, she let him roll back again. “You’ll live,” was all she said before she walked away.