"North, now!" cried Bukal. "We'll see how the Lady Vydys likes running her estates without the Baemae!"
Vydys—!
Dark loveliness, rising from a dead guard's corpse with her knife still dripping blood.
Craig shuddered.
Only then they were rising, circling, and there was no time for thoughts or shudders. High through the emerald sky they flashed while the hills fell away and the village vanished. Koh's green ball sank from sight beyond the horizon. Roh climbed afar, tinting Lysor's fields all blue and purple.
And still they raced north, the night wind whipping at hair and garments.
Then, far below, a black line scarred the grasslands. Craig caught a faint shout: "The barrier!"
Again, he was above the land of the Kukzubas barons.
Ahead, the stocky Bukal waved a sweeping signal. Discs slipped earthward.
Another signal. They dropped lower ... lower ... came at last to ground in the shadow of a grove of great sefopp trees.