The Phoenix Transformed by Mercedes Lackey & James Mallory

Author:Mercedes Lackey & James Mallory [Lackey, Mercedes & Mallory, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780765315953
Publisher: Tor Books
Published: 2009-09-15T07:00:00+00:00

IT was easier to walk back through the camp tonight, which didn’t improve Tiercel’s mood. The tents had been grouped in blocks of nine, with lanes between each block. The outermost tents of the outermost block faced the desert; the rest faced the clear space in the center. The new arrangement meant that some tribes—like the Kareggi—overflowed several blocks, while others—like the Nalzindar—didn’t even take up a fraction of one block. Tiercel didn’t know where the Nalzindar were, but he didn’t think even Harrier could convince Shaiara to set her tent on one of the inside blocks, so he simply kept walking around the outside of the camp until he came to something that looked familiar. As he walked, Kuram and Zin passed him, several dozen yards further out. They were quiet and intent, their eyes fixed on the horizon.

When Tiercel finally got to the Nalzindar tent, Ciniran was sitting on the edge of the carpet, coaxing a miserly fire to warm a pan of broth. “Tomorrow at the midday halt we are to see what stocks of foodstuffs remain to each of the tribes and order them for the good of all,” she said when she saw him. She made a rude noise of amusement. “Here, it will be a simple matter. There is salt.”

“That’s all right,” Tiercel said. “I’m not really hungry.” He was thirsty, though, and at least they still had water—for the moment. He took down one of the waterskins that hung on the outer tentpole, and drank thirstily. After that, he moved to go inside.

“No,” Ciniran said, stopping him. “Shaiara says tonight that tent is yours.” She pointed to the tent set next to theirs.

Tiercel frowned and shrugged. He hadn’t thought—after all the people they’d lost to the Shamblers—there was any point in putting up a second tent, but it wasn’t worth arguing over. He walked the few steps to the doorway and ducked inside. Even in the middle of the night cold, the tent smelled of heat, and dust, of the goats and shotors whose hair had gone to make the felt of its fabric, and of a faint lingering scent of smoke. By now the tent-smell was familiar and homelike, and it took an effort of memory for Tiercel to summon up the smells of his own bedroom back in Armethalieh: the sharp scent of the cedarwood that lined his closet, the sweet soft scent of the beeswax that was used to polish the wooden furniture, the clean sunshine and lavender scent of the linen sheets on his bed . . .

It wasn’t an effort he made very often.

One of the bespelled lanterns hung from the center tentpole. It didn’t give a lot of light, but it was enough for him to see that this tent seemed to be being used for storage. He could see their third tent and its poles, the carpets that went with it, a neat line of saddles waiting for morning. The saddles belonging to the slain Nalzindar

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