by Barb Hendee
Rebel Fay
The Noble Dead
Book V
Barb & J.C.
Hendee
Synopsis
D esperate to free his mother from a caste of ruthless elven assassins, Leesil joins his beloved Magiere, the sage Wynn, and their canine protector, Chap, on a difficult journey through mountains and harsh winter.
Should they survive the hardships of wilderness, they still face the perils of the mysterious Elven Territories. Unbeknownst to them, they've been united at the command of Chap's Fay kin to forge an alliance against the forces of dark magic. But now Chap must guard his companions from enemies and allies--not always certain which is which. And as they uncover the truth, they discover just how close the enemy has always been.
In memory
of Dan Hooker,
who stood by us
from the start.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Epilogue
Prologue
E illean's heart grew heavy as she walked away from the city of Venjètz and into the night forest. Dressed in breeches, cowl, face scarf, and cloak, all dark-tinted, between night-gray and forest-green, only her movement would have betrayed her presence to any watchful eyes.
She did not care for sentiment, but lingering melancholy nagged her just the same.
Brot'ân'duivé walked silently beside her.
Tall for an elf, he stood almost a full head above her, yet he was proportioned more like a human. Both traits were common among his clan. His hair was bound back beneath his cowl, but a few silvery strands still wafted across his dark-skinned forehead. Faint lines surrounded his large amber eyes.
She had not asked him to come on this strange journey. Yet here he was.
They had traveled for nearly a moon from their homeland—what humans called the elven Territories. Crossing the Broken Range and its western foothills, they arrived at the lake beyond Darmouth's keep. And for what? To bring a majay-hì pup to Léshil, a grandson she had only watched from afar.
Foolishness—and yet she had felt compelled.
With the pup now safely delivered to Cuirin'nên'a, her daughter, Eillean brushed her gloved hand against fir tree branches as she walked. She missed her people's verdant forest, and it was time to return home.
Brot'ân'duivé's cowl was up and a wrap covered his lower face, the same as hers. Not that it mattered. He too hid his emotions behind a passive mask. Perhaps their age and decades among their caste were responsible.
He was not that much younger than she, and she had walked this world for more than a human century. Not so old for an elf, though beyond middle-aged, but venerable for a life of service to the people. A life among the Anmaglâhk was seldom a long one.
"Why do this, if it troubles you so?" Brot'ân'duivé finally asked. "Why bring the pup for Léshil? Taking a majay-hì from our land will not sit well with our people."
Always direct—his most devious approach. No matter how well Eillean hid her mood, he often sensed it. It was in part why she had taken him into her confidence shortly after Léshil's birth.
"I stopped at the enclave where I was born," she answered quietly. "There were few faces left that I remembered. A female majay-hì had borne a litter in the settlement, and this one pup was not playing with the others. I picked him up and…"
"Now you have doubts?"
"Léshil must be strong… uninfluenced by ties beyond his training. It was why Cuirin'nên'a chose to bear a son of mixed blood, an outsider to any one people. I do not wish to soften him."
"A companion does not make one soft."
Eillean scowled slightly. "You sound like his mother, and I fear Cuirin'nên'a has too much love for the boy."
"As you have for her," he answered.
She stopped walking. "You are most irritating."
His calm eyes peered down at her over his face wrap's edge. "One emotion can serve to counter another. And you are still hiding from something more."
"We labor from within the shadows," she said. "Cuirin'nên'a cannot elude the risks she faces alone. She bred Léshil in her own body and now trains him to kill an Enemy we still do not know. All we have are Most Aged Father's fears and his mad obsession with crippling the humans. I am tired of waiting for something we cannot predict."
She paused with a small snort. "So I brought my daughter a majay-hì pup for her son… and do not ask me why again! Perhaps it may clarify this future none of us can—"
"It might," he said.
Eillean stalled at a sudden spark of warmth in Brot'ân'duivé's eyes. How did he always know the right thing to say… in the fewest words possible and in the most annoying way?
Emotion had no place in an anmaglâhk's life. It clouded judgment in choice and action when both might be needed quickly and without conscious thought. That was the difference between life and death in silence and in shadows. But Brot'ân'duivé always found a way to goad her.
Eillean stepped into Brot'ân'duivé's way, bringing them both to a sudden halt.
"Swear to me that no matter what comes—no matter what you must do—you will protect Cuirin'nên'a, and that her vision will be your vision. Swear to me that all she has done will not be for nothing."
Brot'ân'duivé put his hand upon her shoulder. It slid softly down her arm to her hand.
"I swear," he whispered.
Eillean had lost her bonded mate, Cuirin'nên'a's father, long years ago. His death shattered her, and she had barely clung to life. She was too old now for such things, and still…
She put her free hand on Brot'ân'duivé's chest and clutched the fabric of his tunic. She did not let go so long as she felt his hand in hers.
Who among the living—even the Anmaglâhk—could claim to have never been a fool at heart?
Chapter One
C hap fought for each breath the blizzard tried to rip away, and every step sank him nearly chest deep in the snowdrifts clinging to the cliff's path. Squinting against the wind, he flexed his paws to fight the numbing cold.
His fur and the folded blanket Magiere had tied across his body were thickly crusted, and his vision blurred if he looked up too long at the whitened sky. To his right, a deep gorge fell beyond sight, while on his left, the peak's steep face rose sharply, its upper reaches lost in the blizzard.
Lashing snow and hail had pelted his face for three days as he led his companions onward. This was the third storm since they had entered the winter-shrouded Broken Range over a moon ago. The map Wynn had procured in Soladran had guided them partway, but once beyond the Warlands' foothills, it was of little help.
Chap had crossed these mountains only once before, and in winter as well, as a pup. Leesil's grandmother, Eillean, had carried him in the company of the deceitful Brot'ân'duivé. Here and now, so many years later, Chap tried not to think upon his failure.
He could not find a passage through to the elven Territories.
Chap flattened his ears. Each time he raised them, pelting flakes collected in the openings and sent an icy ache into his skull. Eve
n that pain did not quell his panic. Rather, his fear grew as he looked back down the narrow path.
A dozen paces back, a short figure trudged toward him, half-obscured by snowfall blowing in the harsh wind. It was Wynn. Beside the small sage thumped the hulking silhouette of a burdened horse, either Port or Imp. Farther behind came two more figures with the bulk of the other horse.
And three questions still plagued Chap as he waited for his companions to catch up.
Why did Aoishenis-Ahâre—Most Aged Father—seed war among the humans? Why had the dissidents among the Anmaglâhk—Leesil's mother and grandmother included—created Leesil to kill an enemy they knew nothing about? Why had Chap's own kin, the Fay, now abandoned him?
More than a season past, he had left Miiska with Magiere and Leesil. Every day and league brought more questions he could not answer. All he had wanted in the beginning was to find Magiere and keep her from the hands of the returning Enemy. And Leesil had been his instrument to accomplish this. It was—should have been—a simple task to accomplish. Perhaps this life in flesh made him foolish and naive, stunting the awareness he had shared among his kin.
Wynn's muffled form grew distinct as she neared, one mittened hand braced against Port's shoulder. Her cloak's hood was cinched around her face, and the wool blanket tied over her cloak was caked with frozen snow. A loose corner of Port's baggage tarp snapped and cracked in the wind.
The little sage stumbled and then collapsed.
Her knees sank in the snow, but her left arm jerked straight up, as if her hand were frozen to Port's shoulder. A cord tied around her wrist disappeared beneath the tarp at the base of Port's neck. It was all that kept her from falling facedown into the drift. She dangled there, legs dragging through snow, until Port halted under the extra burden.
Chap lunged down the path and shoved his muzzle into the scrunched opening of Wynn's hood. He licked furiously at her face, but she remained limp and slack-faced, as if not seeing him.
Dark circles ringed her large brown eyes, and her olive complexion had gone pallid. Food had run low, and for the last quarter moon they traveled on half rations. Wynn's chapped lips moved slightly, but her faint words were lost beneath the wind's howl.
Chap pressed his head into her chest and shoved upward. Wynn twisted, not quite gaining her footing, and flopped against Port's shoulder. Chap braced his shoulder under her hip, ready to force her to stand.
"Get up," a voice growled. "On… the horse."
Magiere stood at Port's haunch with Imp's reins clutched in her gloved hand. She held her cloak closed and looked from Chap to the young sage. Like Wynn's, her appearance was one more warning of the cost of Chap's failure.
Snow clung to black locks dangling free of Magiere's hood. A crusted tendril swung across her white face, but even her steaming breath could not clear the ice. And her irises were full black.
No other sign showed of her dhampir nature. No sharpened teeth, no elongated fangs, no feral anger twisting her features. Only her eyes showed that she held her darker side half-manifested.
Chap watched her change each dawn to remain strong enough to move on and watch over Leesil and Wynn. Each dusk when she let go, her exhausted collapse grew worse, and the next morning's rise took longer. Wind-burn marked her face, and it was disturbing to see stains of color on her ever-pale cheeks.
Magiere dropped Imp's reins and closed on Wynn. She grabbed the sage's cloak front with both hands. Wynn lashed out wildly with her free arm, knocking Magiere's hands away.
"No—too much!" she shouted, and her voice grew weak as she sagged. "I am too much… Port carries… already carries too much."
Magiere pulled Wynn into her arms, shielding the smaller woman from the blizzard. Around Port's far side, a third figure struggled past along the steep slope.
Leesil sidestepped across the incline, bracing one hand against Port's far shoulder. His calf-high boots were caked to their tops. At each step, the slope's white blanket cracked and chunks slid around his legs. Strands of white-blond hair blew over Leesil's face to cling to his cracked lips. He scanned the expanse over the gorge and settled angry amber eyes upon Chap.
Determination fueled Leesil in the worst of times. But since discovering his father's and grandmother's skulls displayed as trophies in Darmouth's crypt, it had become something else.
Chap had seen the warlord's death in Magiere's memories. And in Leesil's, he had felt the blade sink through the tyrant's throat to jam against the man's spine. From that moment, Leesil's determination sank into blind obsession beyond caution or reason. Any suggestion by Magiere to turn back and wait out the winter met with vehemence. Though he was as worn and weak as his companions, Leesil's fanaticism pushed all of them onward.
Somewhere in Imp's baggage, the skulls rested in a chest, where they were to remain until the moment Leesil placed them in his mother's hands. Cuir-in'nen'a—Nein'a—was alive and waiting, a prisoner of her own people.
If they all lived to find her.
"Enough!" Leesil shouted at Chap, but the storm made his voice seem far away. "Find shelter… anything out of this wind."
Chap turned about, facing up the path and into the gale. For an instant, he forgot and lifted his ears. Snow filled them, and his head throbbed.
Where could he find shelter in these dead and barren heights?
The narrow path traced the steep mountainside, rising and falling over rock outcrops peeking above the drifts, but he had seen no worthwhile shelter or cover all day. The last place they'd stopped for the night was a half day's retreat behind them. They were too fatigued to reach it before dark.
Chap trudged up the path, wrenching chilled muscles. He rounded the next outcropping and stopped. In this lifeless place, he tried to sense Spirit from anywhere… anything. He reached out through the elements—Earth and frigid Air, frozen Water but no Fire, and his own Spirit. He called to his kin.
Hear me… come to me, for we… I… need you.
Cold seeped up his legs from stone and snow and frozen earth.
No answer. Their silence brought no more despair than he already bore, and his spirit fired another plea.
How many times must I beg?
He tried often enough. Once before, Wynn had flinched and swallowed hard, and Chap knew the young sage sensed his efforts. Her awareness of his attempts to commune with his kin, as Wynn called it, had slowly grown.
Chap had not spoken with them since the Soladran border. He had turned from the Fay in outrage and raced to the aid of fleeing peasants. After all the times they had harassed and chided him, not once since entering these mountains had they answered his call. He looked back to three silhouettes in the storm huddled near the horses' larger shapes.
I have brought them here… and they will all die here!
Wind across the hidden peak above issued a mournful whistle. It ended in a strange staccato of shrill chirps. It was the only answer Chap received. He lifted his muzzle at the sound.
A horse screamed under a rumble like thunder.
The upper slope's white surface appeared to move. Every muscle in Chap's body tightened.
He lunged back down the path, struggling through the snow toward the others. Panic sharpened with each bound. He closed the distance as the rumble grew abruptly.
Leesil vanished beneath a river of cascading snow.
The slide collided into Port, pouring over him as Imp screamed and backed away. Port's rump pivoted toward the gorge's lip and caught Magiere's back. Chap lost sight of her and Wynn as the avalanche spilled around and over them.
Wind and the thundering slide smothered Chap's howl. He staggered to a halt at the slide's rushing edge. Twice he tried to wade in, only to thrash his way back before the current could drag him over the edge.
Port's head and forelegs broke through the slide, snow spraying up around the horse. It seemed impossible that the animal held its place, and Chap saw no sign of the others. Port struggled up on the precipice's edge, thrashing head and forel
egs in the deep drift, but he could not pull himself up.
The river of snow slowed, and Chap lunged in before it stilled completely.
He plowed toward the horse, probing the snow with his snout as he searched for anyone not forced over the edge. His nose rammed against something.
He smelled oiled leather and wool. A metal stud grated along his left jowl. He snapped his jaws into the leather as a voice carried from the gorge below.
"Magiere!"
It was Wynn, somewhere below yet still alive. There was no time to wonder how, and Chap heaved on the leather hauberk clenched in his teeth.
A gloved hand reached out of the snow and grabbed the back of his neck.
Chap's paws scraped upon stone beneath the drift as he backed up, hauling Magiere up from where she clung to the precipice by one leg and one arm. He did not let go until she was on her knees.
"Leesil!" Wynn called out, voice filled with alarm.
Leesil rose from out of the deep snow at the path's far side with a stiletto in each gloved hand. He had somehow managed to duck in against the slope and anchor himself with his blades.
Chap darted around Magiere to peer over the edge and into the gorge.
Port's haunches hung out in midair, and Wynn clung to his baggage. She was coated in white. The cord from her wrist to the saddle horn had snapped, and she had held on to baggage lashings. She dangled against Port's rump as the horse kicked wildly at the cliff's side, trying to find footing. Wynn's eyes widened at the sight of Chap.
"Help me!" she cried and tried to pull herself farther up.
Port whinnied in panic as he slid farther over the edge. His shoulders and forelegs sank deeper in the drift. More snow shifted, tumbling around him to strike Wynn's head and shoulders. One of her hands lost its grip, as wind slapped the loosened baggage tarp into her face.
Chap leaned down, snapping his jaws, but the sage was far beyond his reach.
"Leesil, get to Wynn!" Magiere shouted and dove for Port, grabbing the horse's halter.
But Leesil scrambled the other way, toward Imp at the snow-slide's edge.