by Barb Hendee
He felt the figure’s other hand driving his head sideways and down. He thought he smelled spices—perhaps cinnamon—and dust. Then his skull smashed against the counter’s edge, hammering the side of his jaw.
Darkness swallowed Chane’s sight as he felt the folio ripped from his hand.
Wynn struggled, kicking back at her captor, until she heard him shout, “Move, all of you!”
The voice behind her head was deafening, but she recognized it. Captain Rodian held her off the ground with one arm.
“Take the back door first,” he called.
Three red-surcoated Shyldfälches ran into sight with swords drawn. One took position at the shop’s front door while the other two watched the front windows. Wynn heard more running feet and the sound of battering and breaking wood from somewhere at the shop’s rear.
A grating hiss rose into a hollow wail inside the shop.
Wynn shivered inside, wanting to cover her ears.
“Move, all of you!”
Chane barely heard the shout through the ache in his head. He tried to push himself up, but gouged his hand on a piece of broken wood. His balance failed, and he toppled against the second door behind the counter. He had no idea what was happening, but he heard that voice again outside the shop.
“Take the back first!”
Chane crawled to his knees and peered into the rear workroom. The back door bucked and crackled as something heavy struck it from the outside. It had been locked but not barred, which would slow any escape but still make it possible to force entry from the outside. Chane grabbed his sword off the floor and struggled to his feet.
The figure stood just beyond the counter.
Its cloak and robe were quiet and still, and the folio remained gripped in its hand. Its hood turned slowly, as if whoever hid within it looked from one front window to the door.
How could this thing be solid and then not, at the same time? Yet it never showed a sign of that change.
Finally it fixed upon the other window—the one where Chane had seen Wynn—and it stopped.
Another slam hit the rear door, and Chane heard wood splintering sharply. Someone had set a trap here—but to catch him or this thing? He threw himself over the countertop’s remains, rolling to the far side. As he lunged for the folio, the figure slipped beyond reach. It flew straight at the window like whipping cloth driven on a windstorm—and passed straight through.
No glass shattered; no wallboards broke. Not even the shutters beyond the panes swung in its passing. Then the folio in its grip hit against glass—and did not pass through.
The black figure might be noncorporeal, but the folio was solid.
Chane lunged for it.
An angry wailing shriek echoed outside, and the window shattered outward.
The shop filled with the sound of breaking glass. Then the noise of breaking wood and shouts carried from the rear workroom.
Chane bolted for the broken window as a scream erupted outside the shop.
Rodian watched something blacker than night bleed through the shop’s front wall. He still held on to Wynn, but the sage had ceased struggling.
The blot spread quickly over the shop’s wood planks, blocking out one window. Then it bulged like a shroud cloth in a gale. It took shape in something he’d seen once before.
The black-cloaked and -robed figure halted, one arm stretched out behind it. Its hand was still beyond one pane of the window. And Rodian saw what it held in its trailing grip.
It held a folio, still stuck behind the window, inside the shop.
The pane creaked and began to crack.
Rodian dropped Wynn and shoved her out of the way, and the window exploded outward.
He raised his sword arm before his face. Glass fragments tinkled off steel and across his glove. A wailing scream rose before his sight line cleared.
Then Wynn cried out, “Captain!”
He’d kept three guardsmen with him out front: Shâth, Ecgbryht, and Ruben.
And Shâth was rushing toward the black figure.
“Stay back!” Rodian ordered, raising his sword.
The figure stood before the shop, folio in one hand, as its cloak writhed around its robed form. But its other hand . . .
Black fingers lanced through Shâth’s chest and out his back, like barbs of shadow emerging from the guardsman’s body. The rest of its hand followed instantly as Ruben and Ecgbryht closed in. Shâth hung impaled and shuddering as the figure’s hand clenched into a fist.
Mute crackling rose as Shâth choked, but he never screamed. A dark stain spread across the back of his tabard around the figure’s protruding wrist. The robed figure wrenched its arm back.
Shâth arched as the black fist ripped back through his torso.
Blood spattered over Ecgbryht as Shâth collapsed. His body hit the street hard, with his face frozen into a gaping mouth and eyes.
The front of his tabard and hauberk were torn around a mangled hole.
It happened so fast.
A low hiss rose all around in the street. The dark space of the figure’s wide hood turned toward Rodian—no, beyond him, toward Wynn. And it rushed her like some coal-colored ghost, solid and real and yet not.
Rodian dodged in, uncertain what he could do against this thing. Ecgbryht was closer, and swung hard at the figure as Wynn scrambled back across the cobblestones. Rodian stepped in front of her.
“Wynn . . . stay away! Do not let it touch you!”
Those rasping words came like a shout. Rodian didn’t know who’d given this warning, but then he saw someone crouched upon the shattered window’s sill.
The man wore a long dark cloak with its hood thrown back. His face was pale and narrow, and there was something wrong with his eyes. Two killers emerged from the scribe shop—but why had the second one warned Wynn off?
“Stay behind me!” Rodian shouted at her. He swung, aiming for the black figure’s wrist just above the clutched folio.
Too much happened at once.
The black figure swung its free hand and latched it solidly around Ecgbryht’s throat. Rodian’s blade passed through the figure’s wrist with no resistance, and its tip clanged off a street stone.
Garrogh bolted out of the shop’s front door with two guards, Lúcan and Taméne, running behind him . . . just as Ruben charged the figure, trying to force it off Ecgbryht.
The second killer upon the sill, sword in one hand, reached out and grabbed the folio.
All this passed by the time Rodian righted his sword.
Locked in the figure’s grip, Ecgbryht drew short, rapid breaths. His features twisted and paled. The robed one released him, and he crumpled instantly. It tried to pull the folio back, and the second killer slipped off the sill to the street. Garrogh closed on the other would-be thief clinging to his end of the folio.
“Get back!” Rodian shouted at his men. “It’s a mage!”
The robed one turned its hood toward Wynn.
“No!” the other thief hissed. “You will leave her alone!”
He jerked hard on the folio, and Rodian faltered.
The two caught in his trap were at odds, but not just over the folio. Another conflict existed between them over the journeyor. Rodian set himself against either coming at Wynn.
And then a snarl trailed into a howl somewhere in the open street. He heard rapid claws on cobblestone and had to turn his head.
A tall, dark-coated dog charged along buildings in the thicker shadows beneath their eaves. Or was it a wolf?
Rodian thought he saw a streetlight catch upon its eyes, which glittered like pale blue gems.
Wynn barely spotted Chane before Rodian stepped in her way. All she saw around the captain was the robed figure. When she stared into its hood, the pitch-black within it seemed to bleed over everything in her sight. She couldn’t look at anything else.
Then she heard a distant snarl.
It seemed so far away, but so did every other noise around her. Then it trailed in
to a familiar wailing howl. She’d heard it so many times she knew it like the voice of an old friend in her head.
Chap was here, and he was hunting!
She wasn’t mad, delusional, like everyone whispered. This thing killing her people was an undead. No other reason would cause Chap to howl like that.
For an instant his face rose in her thoughts—fur so silver it might tint blue in moonlight, and eyes like crystals catching an afternoon sky.
A hissing shriek rang in her ears as she heard claws scrabbling on cobblestones. Another deep snarl sounded as a dark gray form rushed past her. It spun and circled before her on four long legs ending in large paws, and its head swung briefly toward her.
Wynn saw the outline of tall peaked ears over a long muzzle—and pale blue eyes gazed at her. Then the dog wheeled, facing the robed undead beyond the captain. She reached out, screaming his name.
“Chap!”
Rodian sucked a breath. He’d lost all control here. Everything splintered into chaos.
Garrogh grabbed the pale-faced man by his cloak, jerking him back. The man lost his grip on the folio but ducked around the lieutenant and took a swing. His fist landed hard, and Garrogh twisted away under the impact, slamming against the shop’s front.
“Don’t let him escape!” Rodian shouted.
Lúcan rushed the pale man, while Ruben swung his sword at the robed figure’s back.
A hissing shriek broke over the noise and shouts.
Rodian lurched sideways as the robed figure recoiled. Only then did Ruben’s sword connect and pass straight through, not even ruffling robe or cloak. The figure’s hood remained fixed on Wynn somewhere behind Rodian. He glanced back.
Her eyes were wide yet vacant as she stared up and beyond Rodian, as if locking her gaze with whoever hid inside the robe’s large cowl.
And the wolf rushed in between him and Wynn.
Rodian instinctively turned his sword point toward the animal, but it didn’t go for the sage. It circled her quickly, coming around between her and everyone else. Its charcoal fur was nearly as dark as the robed thief, but strange shimmers showed wherever muscles rolled beneath its coat. It was taller than any wolf that Rodian had seen, and its eyes scintillated blue in the dark.
The animal glanced once at Wynn and then rushed at Rodian, snapping its jaws.
Rodian lunged aside, raising his sword.
“Chap!”
He flinched at Wynn’s voice and saw her reaching out after the wolf, and the animal raced by him. Jaws clacking beneath snarls, it went straight for the robed figure.
The murderous, faceless mage cowered back—and then bolted, folio still clutched in its hand. Ruben was behind it, and Taméne was the only guard still standing in its path. The figure struck him across the face. Rodian heard bones crack as Taméne went down limp and flopping.
And the wolf ran after the figure. An eerie baying rose in its wake.
Rodian was stunned. But Ruben and Lúcan both instantly spread wide to either side, boxing the pale man against the shop’s front. Garrogh climbed to his feet, blinking as he shook his head once. The lieutenant spun about and lifted his sword.
Rodian regained his wits, pointing at the pale man. “Put him down, if you have to,” he barked at Ruben and Lúcan. “But don’t let him get away.”
With a quick wave for Garrogh to follow, Rodian rushed after the fading howls of the wolf.
Chane locked eyes on Wynn, but she did not look at him. She looked down the way, where the officer had vanished.
“Chap?” she whispered weakly.
She teetered around, and at the sight of him, Chane heard breath rush between her clenched teeth. The fear in her eyes was nothing compared to the hate that followed, spreading quickly over her face.
He had fallen so far from what she had once thought of him.
He had given her up that night in the ice-bound castle. With all the time that had passed, it should not still hurt this much. But after all she had been through, and seeing him in Welstiel’s company, what else could he expect from her now?
“Drop your weapon!” one guard barked.
Chane let the sword sag in his hand and could not take his gaze from Wynn’s hate-filled brown eyes.
Wynn’s head ached. She had to find Chap, but here was Chane, staring at her. How could his gaze hold even a hint of remorse after all he had done?
“Drop your weapon!” one guardsman ordered.
Chane sagged, but he never looked at the pair of guardsmen ringing him in. He looked only at her, eyelids drooping, and his sword tip dipped toward the paving stones.
And Wynn faltered.
Three city guards lay in the street, the first still staring up at the night sky with a mangled hole in his chest. Chane hadn’t done that, and something else had come for the folio as well.
“I said drop it!” the guard shouted again.
Wynn looked from the dead man to Chane. His eyes were fully open again as he studied that same lifeless body.
The guards inched in on him, yet he neither released nor raised his sword. He turned his eyes on her, nearly colorless in the dark, and slowly shook his head.
“Not me,” he rasped.
He spoke in Numanese, her language. How had he learned it so quickly? When his gaze returned briefly to the mangled body, it suddenly hardened. He shook his head again.
“It was not me!” he snapped hoarsely.
“Shut your mouth and do as you’re told!” the second guard demanded.
Doubt crept in upon Wynn.
She knew nothing of how he was involved here, but she might never learn if he were arrested. Not that two living men had a fair chance of containing an armed undead. There was only an impulse to guide her.
“Run!” she called.
One guard turned wide eyes on her. The other cursed under his breath and charged.
Only then did Wynn go chill inside, realizing what she’d just done.
Chane whirled.
He caught the charging guard with an elbow in the man’s chest and slashed at the other with his sword. The blade’s tip clipped the second guard’s shoulder as the first one buckled with a gasp. Both toppled as Chane bolted up the street, disappearing beyond sight.
Wynn turned all the way around.
She searched the night, listening for Chap’s voice. But all was silent save for the curses and muffled groans of the guards. Alone with the wounded and the dead, Wynn went numb.
Somewhere ahead, the wolf’s howls ceased.
“Where are they?” Rodian shouted. “Do you see them?”
“There!” Garrogh panted, and he pointed west down a side street. “Down there, I think.”
His expression was furious as they ran on, and Rodian felt the same. Their own trap had turned against them.
They burst out of the side street into a wide main way, but it was empty. Rodian saw no dark wolf or black-robed fugitive. Frustration choked him.
He’d had the killer in sight, cornered by his men, and then the second one appeared. Worse still, they had seemed at odds with each other. Just how many thieves and killers was he trying to catch? How many unknown individuals found some gain or threat in whatever the sages were doing with Wynn’s texts?
“Garrogh, do you hear anything?”
His second cocked his head for a long moment, and then his expression fell into a weary scowl.
“No . . . nothing.”
“Damn it!” Rodian struck the street with his sword. A quick, sharp scrape mingled with a steel clang rolling along the vacant avenue.
“Wait,” Garrogh whispered, and then pointed. “There!”
In the edge of a pool of lantern light lay a leather folio upon the cobblestones.
Rodian ran for it and snatched it up. The leather lace was broken, snapped rather than untied, and he flipped the folio open.
All the pages were still inside, but it didn’t matter. They were fakes, arranged by High-Tower and a’Seatt in this effort to lure and t
rap the killer.
Rodian raised his eyes, looking through the dark broken pools of lantern light.
Had their quarry—at least the one who’d gotten away—realized the pages were a ruse? How could anyone have even glanced inside the folio during flight?