The Darkness Before the Dawn (Dark Sun: Chronicles of Athas 2)

Chapter One

The fifty or so Jura-Dai elves who cavorted before the flaming wreckage of the enormous wooden merchant wagon didn't seem to care. Their brightly colored cloaks and shirts and loose, blousy pants flapped gaily as they spun and danced in the flickering light, and their voices rose in laughter and song. Of course, they were the victors. The losers-slave runners who had made the mistake of taking one of the tribe captive-were inside the caravan, the smoke of their flesh and bones adding to the wagon's in a single enormous funeral pyre. The few who hadn't died in battle had been driven along with the slaves the elves had freed out into the desert to fend for themselves.

Jedra, a half-elf who had been imprisoned along with the Jura-Dai tribesman, watched the party from partway up the flank of a nearby dune. He could feel the heat of the flames on his face even there, but he was out of the elves' way. That seemed safest, even though he and the human woman, Kayan, had been invited to travel through the desert with the tribe in repayment for their help in psionically guiding the rescue.

Kayan sat beside him on the dune, her elbows on her knees and her rounded chin resting in her hands. The ends of her brown hair shifted in the breeze, but after eight days in the hold of the slave wagon the shoulder-length strands were too sweaty and greasy to be lifted much by a mere air current. Her skin was smudged with dirt and soot as well, but Jedra didn't care. They shared a bond much deeper than the mere physical; he had only to close his eyes to see how beautiful she was.

"The elves certainly seem uninhibited," she said.

Below, some of the elven warriors stood only a few feet from the flames, their backs to the watchers on the dune, but from their stance it was obvious that they were urinating on the fire. Or trying to. The rest of the tribe- women and children as well-were cheering and heckling as first one man, then another, leaped back from the intense heat before he could accomplish the job. A few of the more inebriated managed weak trickles before they, too, were forced back, finally leaving a single warrior standing before the burning wagon. He was tall, and burly for an elf. His only clothing was a pair of bright red pants, and his glistening back rippled with muscle as he calmly went about his business, then buttoned his pants and turned around to receive riotous applause. Jedra noticed with chagrin that the elf had more hair on his chest than he himself did. Half-human ancestry evidently didn't give him the advantage even there.

"He's one of the ones who freed us," Jedra said. "He fought all the way through the caravan to the slave hold. I guess he's entitled to cut loose a little."

"Mmm-hmm."

The elves had appropriated a haunch of meat from the wagon before torching it. It looked like either a leg of mekillot or maybe a whole ink; whichever it was, they had tied it on a spit and were slowly roasting it beside the fire.

The champion elf was impatient, though. He swaggered over to the meat and carved off a fist-sized hunk of it with his sword, then skewered the flesh on the end of the blade and held it closer to the flame. Jedra winced. He could almost feel the heat curling the hair on the elf's arm.

Almost? Suddenly he realized that he was feeling it. His wild psionic talent had linked him empathically with the elf, and Jedra was feeling the other man's pain. He hastily broke contact. The elf suddenly jerked his hand back as his own mind bore the entire sensation again, and the other elves laughed. Fortunately nobody-not even the warrior-suspected Jedra's role in his embarrassment. Jedra vowed to keep a tighter rein on his talent, though. He had known for only a few days that he had any psionic ability at all, and he was still learning how to use it. He could get himself into trouble very easily if he wasn't careful.

The breeze shifted, and the aroma of cooking meat drifted across the dune. Kayan's stomach rumbled. She smiled and patted herself on the bare skin between her halter top and breechcloth. "I could certainly use a few bites of that," she said.

Jedra nodded. "Me, too. That slop they served us in the wagon was even less than I used to get on the streets in Urik."

"It was far less than what a templar's assistant eats," Kayan said, a note of sadness in her voice. Her former life had gone up in flames as surely as the caravan before her. Born into a noble's household, she had become a psionic healer for the templars, a position she'd held until she crossed someone in power. Overnight she'd found herself in the hold of a slave wagon bound for Tyr. The elves had rescued her from that fate, but even so she would no longer eat good meals every day, nor live in a spacious apartment near the sorcerer-king's palace, nor help control the resources of an entire city.

Standing, he said, "I think we should take the elves up on their offer before they decide to withdraw it."

Kayan held out a hand for him to help her to her feet. "Yes," she said, brushing the sand off her breechcloth, "I suppose even associating with boisterous elves is better than starving to death."

They descended the sandy slope hand-in-hand, using one another for support, obviously not accustomed to desert travel. The loose sand rubbed uncomfortably between their sandal straps and their feet, and Kayan kept stopping to shake it out. It wasn't so bad when they reached level ground.

They approached the party with caution. They had watched the elves chase away other survivors from the caravan when they drew too close. Even with their invitation, they weren't sure how they would be received. They were right to be cautious; the elves looked at them suspiciously and whispered among themselves in their own language, and three warriors-one with a sword and two with longbows held ready-moved to intercept them. Before the warriors reached them, however, Galar, the elf who had been enslaved with them, spotted them and held out his arms, saying in the common tongue, "Aha, my friends, you have decided to join our celebration!"

"We don't want to intrude," Jedra said diplomatically, "but the smell of food has overcome us."

"Intrude! Impossible!" Galar spoke loudly for all to hear. Shaking his head until his reddish-blond hair fell into his eyes and had to be shaken out again, he said, "It was you who led the tribe to us, and who fought the slave master with your minds. Without your psionic talent I would still be in the slave hold, another day closer to Tyr, and the Jura-Dai would still thirst for their revenge. You cannot intrude upon a celebration held in your honor." He reached down for Kayan's arm and led her into the midst of the elves, calling out, "Let's show our friends the hospitality of the Jura-Dai. A pint of mead for each of them, and the best cut from the roast. And if we don't hear a song about their exploits by the end of the feast, I'll have the bard's head on a pike!"

Galar's enthusiasm amused the other elves-save for the bard, whose eyes bulged as he realized he now had to come up with an amusing ditty or face the taunts of his drunken tribe. Jedra caught his eye and shrugged in silent apology for his inconvenience, but the bard didn't look mollified.

Jedra didn't have time to worry; within seconds a smiling elf maiden shoved a mug of mead into his hands, slopping a fourth of it over his forearm in the process, and Galar led him on toward the crowd gathered near the cooking spit. Jedra's mouth watered at the wonderful aroma that wafted from the dripping carcass. Inix, it looked like from his closer vantage.

The warrior who had been roasting his own meat had taken refuge behind a shield and edged up close to the burning wagon. The gobbet of steak impaled on his sword hissed and sputtered in the flame, and the warrior would occasionally pull it back to take a bite from it before thrust

ing it out into the fire again. He scowled when he noticed Jedra watching him, until Jedra raised his mug in toast to his benefactor. Then the elf nodded curtly and turned back to his show of bravado.