The Master of Whitestorm by Janny Wurts

Author:Janny Wurts [Wurts, Janny]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science fiction; American, Science fiction, General, Fantasy, Fiction
ISBN: 9780586210680
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 1992-11-19T00:00:00+00:00

shafts a second time. They fired another volley, and a third; beyond that, no more were necessary.

In the act of sounding the charge, the Captain Gener-al’s crier found himself confronted by a wall of snapping flame. He had time to wheel his horse before the confla-gration overtook him.

His scream rent air above the boom of drums as his oiled flesh touched off like a torch.

The desert made perfect tinder. Dry, greasy fronds ex-ploded with zealous violence and hurled drifts of wind-born sparks. These caught and fiercely ignited the manes and tails of the horses.

Fire lapped from plant to plant. Whirled up into crackling curtains, it closed over the glossy, fat-smeared contours of the

riders. Within minutes, Datha’s finest became embraced in a fatal holocaust.

Mares screamed and plunged and reared, to no avail.

The proud host of ten thousand transformed to a living pyre from end to end. In vain the rear ranks broke for-mation and fled for their lives; no man among them had a mount whose legs could outrun the wind.

Behind the breastworks, Korendir’s archers gazed with deadened eyes at the disaster; their ears were pierced by screams that destroyed the very memory of silence.

Although the killer winds bore the smoke from the car-nage away from them, it seemed the stench of seared flesh would never clear from their nostrils. Horses and men rolled in dying agony upon charred and blackened ground, while the remains of the sultan’s banners drifted on the breeze, immolated to wisps of ash.

Korendir left his position on the hill. He roved the length of the breastworks and roused South Englas’s men from stunned and horrified stupor. With shouts and blows and imprecations, he forced them to harness the oxen.

”Your task is done,” he snapped to any who were slow to respond. When the last man settled in his place on the sledges, the mercenary mounted his horse and moved on, a dark figure against a horizon dirtied with smoke haze. He harried his following forward with fast and mer-ciless order, while across the flats at his heels, the fire he had arranged in cold blood finished its murdering work.

Though entitled to spoils, no one under Whitestorm’s command dared to question his order.

The Datha dead were left smouldering where they lay, while the fifty archers responsible turned their stunned faces toward home. Mechanically they moved feet and legs on the three-day march to South Englas.

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