Though near to passing out, Jaska managed to claw to the surface. He blinked rapidly, trying to clear the sand out of his eyes. He was dazed and unsure of what had happened. He put his hand to the back of his head. It returned with blood on it.

He spotted Hyrkas on all fours, coughing sand from his lungs and trying to rise. He ran over and helped him to his feet. "You all right?"

Hyrkas nodded. "The others?"

"I just crawled out."

Passing by three lifeless horses and a mostly buried camel, they found Caracyn half covered and unconscious. He was still clinging to his brother's arm. Bakulus was awake but buried deep and unable to move his limbs. Hyrkas dug him out while Jaska looked for the others. Almost immediately he found one of the other Arhrhakim struggling for breath, leaned up beside the canyon wall.

"Do you need help?"

Lharro shook his head. That was the best he could do. He barely had enough breath to cough the sand out of his throat. He had never felt so dry in his life and he longed to return to his dark, dank home.

Jaska was worried about Zyrella, but he knew she was likely far away in the desert above. First, he must find the others, who were more likely to have survived, though he refused to dwell on that thought. He spotted a silver glimmer on a freshly made dune ahead. He ran to it and found only Caracyn's broadsword. Time was running out.

"Jaska!" Hyrkas called. "We found someone!"

Jaska staggered over to where Hyrkas was digging around a hand sticking out of the sand. Ohzikar. Blood darkened the sand. They dug him out as fast as they could.

Somehow, Ohzikar had survived. There were deep gashes on his forehead and hands, but sand had stopped up the wounds. The templar rose to his knees and gasped, "Zyrella? Where?"

Jaska shook his head. The Arhrhakim and Bakulus rushed on to search for Chaolis.

"We must ... find her."

"She can't be nearby. And there are others to see to."

"Go on and look for her, Jaska!" Hyrkas shouted. "We will search here."

Jaska returned half an hour later, having scouted some way in the last direction he'd seen the Stain tugging her. Ohzikar looked up at him from where he lay, nursing his injuries. He'd taken off his chainmail, exposing deep bruises on his midsection. He probably had a few cracked ribs. Ohzikar's eyes looked desperate.

Jaska shook his head. "I couldn't find her, though I could only walk so far. And I tried the Shadowland, but I couldn't see anything because of that damn cloud."

Ohzikar cursed. Then his head sagged from exhaustion and anguish. Jaska saw Caracyn, lying unconscious but breathing deeply. The others hadn't returned. And what of the strange man who had been with them? Jaska stumbled off to help in the search. He hadn't gone twenty steps before he saw the strange man returning with a lifeless body.

~~~

With a hand pressed over the bleeding wound on his arm, Hjrun scurried back from the canyon's edge and rejoined Adynarh. "Jaska and six other men are below. Some are injured. Two are yet unconscious or dead. The rest look able."

Adynarh considered their options as he bandaged the wound on his leg. His head still ached from being struck by sand kicked up by the explosion. He looked down at the unconscious priestess he and Hjrun had found through their tracking power after using her glowing form as a beacon.

She had many scratches and a nasty bruise on her forehead and left cheek. But he knew that her main problem was sorcery fatigue. He bound her limbs and gagged her tightly.

"We can't defeat them if Jaska is well enough to move around," Adynarh said. "We'll just take the priestess to the Grandmaster."

He lifted her onto the saddle of his nightmare horse. If not for that unnatural beast, he might not have survived the night. The sandstorm hadn't bothered it at all. The black cloud, however, terrified it.

~~~

Salahn grinned wickedly as Adynarh brought Zyrella up the slope and across the sand bridge. Both he and Hjrun dismounted, bowed low, and apologized for not capturing or slaying Jaska. Salahn signaled them to be silent, interrupting their report.

"It doesn't matter. We have Zyrella. The two of you shall receive more than the tremendous rewards I previously promised for her capture."

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"You're not going to pursue Jaska now, master?" Adynarh dared to ask in his surprise, not yet thinking about his reward. "He is wounded and without a mount."

Salahn eyed him sternly and hid his temptation to follow his instincts and pursue Jaska. "No, my servant. Nalsyrra's warning yet stands. I will not cross this chasm, nor come near to that black cloud. In time, he will come to me. Trust in that. I now have a means to lure him without fail."

~~~

Hyrkas and Lharro knelt over fallen Chaolis and chanted a mournful, growling dirge. Chaolis was the first Arhrhakim in over five centuries to die outside of Vaalshimar.

Perhaps sensing the disaster, Yumiryo had sprinted toward the crevice at the mouth of the cave, allowing Rahazakir to avoid most of the sand blast. It was said that the favored mount of a pathfinder gained some of her rider's abilities. Rahazakir had never once doubted this.

As soon as the blast had ended, his instincts took over. He immediately thought of saving the man most in danger, and his pathfinding guided him. Ignoring those closer to him, he rode on. His dangerous gambit hadn't paid off, but fortunately all the others were safe. He hoped there was more than luck involved in that.

He explained to the southerners what he had done and apologized for not getting there in time or for helping those who were closer. He could tell they didn't understand. Part of that was a fault in their vastly different dialects.

Rahazakir pulled Jaska aside. "I can lead you to the priestess."

"Zyrella's alive?"

Rahazakir shrugged. "I'm a pathfinder. All I can do is open my mind and find the way to her."

"That's a strange talent."

"And never definite, but I've learned to trust my instincts. We must hurry though, before the Stain traps us. I've never seen it recoil before, but I don't believe it will take long for it to recover."

"Lead on then."

No other mount had survived, so Jaska climbed into the saddle behind Rahazakir. They sped back the way Jaska had entered the canyon.

"The Stain carried her in the opposite direction," Jaska said.

Rahazakir shrugged. "She lies this way now. That's all I know."

As they came up the trail to the canyon's edge, Jaska feared he would find Salahn waiting on him. He even began to tremble. But the sand bridge was gone and so was Salahn. When had the Grandmaster left? And why? Certainly there wasn't any reason for him to leave. He could have survived the sandstorm easily with his new powers, unless he wasn't that confident yet. Or unless he feared the Stain. Perhaps he knew things about it Jaska didn't.

Rahazakir pulled up with a flustered look plastered to his face. "It's gone," he said. He closed his eyes in concentration and paced his mount in circles. After a few minutes, he sighed in frustration. "The impulse, the lead, it's gone. Vanished entirely. I can't track her any longer."

"She's dead then?"

"I can't say. This has never happened to me before. I've never even heard of such a thing. Sometimes a path can't be found or a person traced, but once discovered, a path remains."

"I must risk the Shadowland from here then."

"The spirit realm?" Rahazakir asked.

"If that's what you call it."

"I don't really know. Such knowledge belongs only to shamans among my people."

The Shadowland was utterly dark. Jaska could feel the presence of the Stain and nothing else. Neither Zyrella nor his former master. Had Salahn captured her and masked himself? That seemed a distinct possibility, but if so why not come for Jaska as well? There was nothing to stop him. Jaska shook his head. "Let's ride around and look."

They did so, but after an hour Rahazakir said, "We should get the others and move from the canyon. We can't remain here. I can feel the Stain coming for me once again."

Jaska reluctantly nodded. As they rode back, a thought occurred to him. "You said that you could feel the Stain coming for you?"

"For the chief of the Yritti the Stain holds special interest, though it pursues all my people. Or at least that's normally the case. It turned to come after you, and it has never done anything like that before."

"Somehow I'm not surprised. Exactly what is this Stain?"

"The greatest sin of my people. It has pursued us for twelve generations since our debasement, relentlessly chasing us across the desert. We can move fast enough to survive, but just barely. We were once a settled people in a fertile land, but since then we have avoided civilization so that no others might suffer, for the Stain is miles wide and it will kill any whom it crosses."

"What sin was so bad that such a thing came to be?"

"I cannot speak of it to an outsider. Trust only that we earned it."

"How did you know we were here?"

"A dream told me. And the Bright Spirits, my ancestors, verified it to me. They said that if I risked helping you against your enemies that you would help us destroy the Stain."

Jaska chuckled. "Well, a prophet told me to look for friends in the desert, so here we are."

"What's funny about that?"

"Only that I can't defeat your Stain anymore than you can defeat my enemy."

"Then what hope is there?"

"Little, and but one. There is a weapon that can kill demon or god, and I must find it to kill my former master. If it will work against him, then it may work against your Stain as well. I was told that your people could help me find it."

"Well, I'm a pathfinder, so it's possible. Does it lie in the desert or far away?"

"Somewhere in the Eastern Mountains."

"The Temple of Avida?"

"Yes! Do you know how to get there?"

"No, and according to legend it moves nightly so that even if a man finds it, it's gone the next day. But I will help you, and we shall see."

Jaska conveyed his appreciation then drew into silence as he scanned the surrounding terrain with a heavy heart.

"If I'm not prying too much," Rahazakir said, "what did this priestess mean to you?"

"To Ohzikar, and to me, she meant everything. She was my only barrier from madness, and I fear what life shall be without her."

~~~

Ohzikar again looked up to Jaska with a flicker of hope in his eyes. Jaska shook his head and told him they must leave. The templar burst into a rage. "She didn't leave you behind when we should have!"

Jaska held out his hands. "What would you have me do? I can't locate her, and neither can the pathfinder. We don't have the time to scour the desert looking for traces, not with this cloud of evil creeping toward us. And who knows what has become of Salahn and his two palymfar? And who can say whether even she could have survived such a blast?"

Ohzikar cursed, picked up what little gear of his he'd recovered, and stalked away with thudding steps that were only barely slowed by his injuries. A half-hour later, they overtook him and continued onward, without him saying another word. Jaska was too miserable to even try to speak with him. Besides, what could he say?