by Barb Hendee
Magiere ran her hand down Chap’s neck.
He hated being relegated to the “distraction” as much as she did. Like her, he hadn’t been able to fault Leesil’s plan or come up with anything better.
“Shouldn’t be much longer,” she said.
Chap’s shoulders stiffened under her hand. An instant later, she heard the creak and clatter of wagon wheels on cobble.
Drawing her falchion, she rested it against her thigh as Chap shot across the alley’s mouth to lurk at its other side. They were ready, for even when Osha and Leanâlhâm arrived, the “distraction” was far from over.
Én’nish flitted among the street’s darkest shadows beside Rhysís as they followed the strange pair driving the wagon away from the castle. She let them get far enough away that not even a quiet disturbance would be heard or seen by the red tabard guards on the castle’s bailey walls.
Rhysís pulled the pieces of his short bow out of the back of his tunic and assembled the two arms into their white metal handle. He and Én’nish paused once around a street corner. She waited while he strung the bow and pulled aside the shoulder of his tied-up cloak to reveal his quiver of short arrows. She had always found his skill set to be strange.
He was equally skilled—above sufficient—in everything an anmaglâhk valued: hand-to-hand, weapons, languages, subterfuge, interrogation, and tracking. But he had no skill of excellence. For some reason, this bothered her.
Most anmaglâhk were sufficient in most skills but excelled at one or two. She excelled in hand-to-hand, with blades or not, and her small size had more than once drawn an opponent into overconfidence. Rhysís also spoke less than any anmaglâhk she’d ever known—though he seemed to know Dänvârfij well. As a result, Én’nish didn’t care much for him, though he was a sound partner on a hunt like this. At the moment, that was all that mattered.
She glanced back along the way they had come. The small castle was no longer in sight. As she looked down the street to the wagon now a block ahead, she raised one hand and brushed her thumb across her first two fingers.
At the signal, Rhysís notched an arrow, and Én’nish drew her stilettos.
The wagon suddenly turned a corner and passed out of sight.
Én’nish let out a grating breath. But as soon as they regained a line of sight, Rhysís would put down the driver. They could easily take the disguised sage to Fréthfâre, and then Rhysís could go to notify Dänvârfij.
This was not a difficult purpose to fulfill.
Én’nish broke into an open run along the empty street, with Rhysís close behind her. When she neared that corner, she swerved in under the last shop’s awning. Then as she crept toward the corner, she made another silent gesture.
Rhysís ran wide in the street, raising his bow to aim down the alley, and Én’nish readied to duck around the corner.
An arrow’s quick hiss broke the silence.
In the side of Én’nish’s view, Rhysís suddenly twisted away, and he had not fired his bow. A vicious snarl erupted in the alley as she saw an arrow sticking through the fabric of Rhysís’s hood. Its black feathers protruded next to his cloth-wrapped jaw.
Rhysís himself was unhurt.
Something glinted on Én’nish’s other side, rushing at her head. She ducked and spun out before the alley’s mouth.
The nearer pillar of the shop shattered, making the whole awning above begin to buckle. As she looked atop the wagon’s bed in the side alley, the driver stood there with a long, curved, elven bow raised and readied.
There was no sign of the disguised sage.
Én’nish barely made out a face in the shadowed hood pulled forward over the driver’s head. His amber eyes and dark skin with too-long features and . . .
It was Osha, the failure, and onetime student of Sgäilsheilleache. He must have been the one on the rooftops nights ago, the archer to whom Brot’ân’duivé had called out. Osha swung his aim toward her, another arrow already notched and pulled.
“No!” someone growled in the alley’s dark. “Take the other. . . . This one is mine.”
Out of the dark alley came the monster, stepping around the shattered remains of the shop column.
Magiere’s sickening white skin caught the dim light of a street lantern up the way. She raised her heavy, one-edged sword, gripped it with both hands, and charged. The silver majay-hì bolted straight at Rhysís from the alley’s other side.
It had all been a decoy, a trap. That was all that Én’nish had time to realize as she heard Osha’s bowstring release and saw Magiere’s sword coming fast at a downward angle.
Én’nish ducked and spun, hearing the sword pass too close to her head.
Magiere’s falchion tip clipped the street’s cobble, and she reversed her hands instantly to bring the blade back in a waist-high slash. This anmaglâhk seemed too small to be one of the an’Cróan, but that only confirmed what she guessed.
It had to be Én’nish beneath that hood and face wrap. The same who’d wanted Leesil dead when they’d entered the Elven Territories of the Farlands. The one who’d wrapped a garrote around his throat only a few nights ago.
Magiere was sick of these murderers coming at her—at Leesil—and she didn’t resist when hunger boiled from her stomach into her throat.
The night lit up, searing her eyes as her sight fully widened. All she saw was the one who’d tried to kill her husband. Even a notion of capturing one of these assassins, forcing one to tell everything of Most Aged Father’s plans, vanished from her thoughts as she swung.
Leesil had told her to just run decoy and get away. But he wasn’t here.
Én’nish dropped and rolled under Magiere’s arcing falchion. The vicious little killer rose to her feet without a stall and ran for the tilted awning above the broken column.
Magiere lost all self-control. She let the falchion spin out of her hands, clattering across the cobble, and she lunged after her prey.
Én’nish leaped upward. Her forward foot landed halfway up the awning’s remaining support post. She twisted her torso back toward the street.
Even functioning on instinct, Magiere knew what to do. She rushed in before Én’nish planted her other foot and seized the woman’s trailing calf before she could push off into the air. She pulled Én’nish off balance and heaved the small woman overhead toward the open street.
Én’nish shrieked and tumbled through the air as Magiere charged after her.
The small, forest gray form fell and tumbled across the cobble to slam against a wall at the street’s far side. Magiere didn’t slow to snatch up her falchion as her target clawed up to her feet.
Magiere didn’t even think of a weapon. All she felt was a need to end anything that tried to harm her mate. All that remained was hunger and the drive to tear her prey apart with her hands . . . with her teeth.
Chap rushed the male anmaglâhk as he tried again to fire an arrow. An instant before he leaped, the bowstring released. He heard the arrow hiss away behind him as his forepaws caught his target square in the chest.
There was no time to look back and see if Osha had been hit.
Chap did not even have an instant for surprise that the anmaglâhk had not tried to evade him. They both slammed down on the cobble in a tangle.
He snapped and snarled, trying first for the man’s face. The anmaglâhk took a swipe with his bow. Its thick center struck Chap’s muzzle, and the pain briefly stunned him. Then he felt the elf’s free hand push at his face. He snapped blindly at it, hoping to maim that bowstring hand. Instead, his teeth closed on a forearm, and he thrashed his head, tearing at it. Beneath the anmaglâhk’s sudden outcry, Chap heard Osha’s shout.
“Chap, move!”
But he did not—not until the anmaglâhk brought a knee up into his side.
Chap gasped and tumbled away as forest gray fabric shredded in his teeth. Somewhere nearby came a shriek that smothered the clatter of metal across cobblestones. When he rolled to his feet, trying to catch his br
eath, the anmaglâhk was already standing again.
The man’s sleeve behind his draw hand was shredded and blood-soaked. Still, he held the bow steady, aimed in Osha’s direction. He began to sidestep, his eyes shifting right just once, likely looking for his companion.
Chap took a quick step at that opening and then faltered.
Magiere’s falchion lay in the middle of the street, and he raised his eyes and spotted her. He panicked at the sight of her twisted features. A raised memory of hearth and home would not reach through to her now, and Leesil was not here. There was only one other thing that might make Magiere respond.
Chap had to end this fouled exploit.
Still dazed, Én’nish tried to twist away as a blurry hand came for her throat. She barely whipped her head aside, for her opponent was now too fast and so impossibly strong.
The hand latched onto her shoulder and crushed its grip closed. Én’nish cried out in pain that made her sight darken, and she lashed out with a foot.
It connected with the inside of a knee. Her assailant instantly began to topple, but the grip held. It did not break until Én’nish’s back hit the street. Those fingers bruised her shoulder muscles before she rolled away.
She rose, shaking her head to clear her senses amid pain. Then fear overrode anguish, anger, and hate. She looked into the face of a monster not three paces before her.
The white face beneath stray tendrils of black hair was covered in a sheen like a quick sweat. Tears rolled from narrowed eyes that were completely black, with no whites. Features twisted in rage and madness. An open mouth exposed the teeth, the fangs, of some animal.
This was the true face of the monster called Magiere.
Rhysís came into Én’nish’s peripheral view, backing up the street’s far side. “Break off!” he shouted in their own tongue. “Now!”
All the anger came back to Én’nish, but horror overwhelmed it again when the monster took a lunging step.
Magiere stalled at an eerie wail that pierced Én’nish’s ears.
It was like the mewl of a large cat, but so loud in warning, as if rising from the throat of a dog. As that sound seemed to vibrate through Én’nish’s bones, she shivered, and Magiere turned in its direction.
Én’nish spotted Chap lowering his head, and her spite resurfaced again. She held out a stiletto, pointing it at Magiere as she shouted in Elvish, and Rhysís instantly leveled his aim on the majay-hì.
* * *
“Think of your misbegotten mate and the love he took from me! I will suffer that for a lifetime . . . but I will see you suffer the same an instant before you die.”
Chap caught every word of the smaller anmaglâhk’s shout in Elvish, even as his wail to Magiere had left his throat raw. There was no mistaking Én’nish’s voice.
Magiere twisted back at the woman’s vicious voice, but she could not have understood those words. The anmaglâhk archer swung his aim toward Chap.
Before Chap could move, Osha lunged out in front of him.
“You shoot, you die!” Osha shouted, and then his voice dropped to a menacing whisper. “Even if I die . . . you die!”
Chap did not know why Én’nish had spoken in her own language. Perhaps the young woman had intended only Osha to understand and be rattled. It had not worked. Osha stood poised and steady, just the same, with an arrow fully drawn back, its black feathers almost to his dark tan cheek.
“We leave—now!” the other anmaglâhk barked in Elvish, but Én’nish hesitated and then took a step back.
Magiere started to lunge, and Chap went at her with a vicious snarl and snap. This had to end now. Neither side would win, even if half of them ended up dead.
Magiere wheeled on him, and as he looked into her fully black eyes, Én’nish’s words still stuck in his head.
Think of your misbegotten mate and the love he took from me! I will suffer that for a lifetime . . . but I will see you suffer the same an instant before you die.
He kept rumbling as he closed on Magiere.
Én’nish’s threat was real, though it mattered little. There was never a doubt that these assassins wanted Leesil dead almost as much as Magiere. One of them had a personal vendetta, and that was both doubly dangerous and potentially useful for the future.
Magiere stared at him, half panting from exertion or fury, but she did not move.
“Chap?” she whispered.
He almost collapsed in relief when she recognized him, but he quickly reached for her memories. Of all those he had glimpsed before in her, he had to find and raise those of Leesil amid her awareness filled with older, hate-laced recollections of Én’nish and other anmaglâhk. He flooded her with memories that might soothe her. But he was also aware of Osha, just to his left, stepping into sight.
Én’nish and her accomplice were gone.
“All right?” Osha whispered.
Focused only on Magiere, Chap was uncertain to whom the young elf spoke. When Osha tried to step around toward Magiere, Chap sidestepped and cut him off.
Magiere stumbled back against the street’s far wall. Perhaps she was now aware enough to stay back.
Chap kept his focus on her memories. Her head sagged until her face was curtained by black hair, but her fingers twitched, clutching at the wall stones like claws.
Magiere sank into those memories of hearth and home. There was the moment of her wedding, of holding Leesil’s arm as they walked down the aisle, with Osha and Wynn walking together behind them. The whole place was filled with their neighbors and friends in Miiska.
She didn’t fight these memories and let Chap wash away everything else in her thoughts. But Wynn still waited, here and now, and Leesil was out there trying to get to her.
“Enough,” she whispered, though it slurred between her teeth. “That’s enough, Chap.”
When she raised her head, the whole world was dark and dim again before her eyes. There was only Chap watching her, and Osha behind him, with his bow at his side and an arrow still notched to its string.
Magiere remembered so little of what had happened only moments before.
“We go now?” Osha asked insistently, though a slight frown wrinkled his high brow. “Go where Brot’ân’duivé say. . . . Follow plan.”
Chap huffed once.
Magiere stared at Chap as Osha’s words sank in. They were simply supposed to act as a decoy, draw off any lurking anmaglâhk watching the guild castle, and seed a little chaos among them.
They’d done their part. She took a deep breath and heaved herself off the wall.
With a last worried glance at her, Osha turned away. Chap lingered until Magiere actually followed and then fell in beside her. As they neared the alley’s mouth, Magiere looked at the wagon, trying to peer beneath, but no one was there.
“Leanâlhâm?” she called.
Something moved at a near corner of the alley’s mouth. Leanâlhâm stood looking out, wide-eyed, from the shadows.
Magiere faltered in the middle of the alley’s mouth. The girl was supposed to have stayed hidden until they came for her. Had she been there all along and seen everything?
Osha passed Leanâlhâm and stopped short of the narrow space between the wagon and the alley wall. Leanâlhâm still looked at Magiere without blinking, stuck where she was at the alley’s corner.
“Are you . . . all right?” the girl whispered.
“It’s time to go,” Magiere said, and reached out.
Leanâlhâm flinched and pulled back, and then so did Magiere.
Osha carefully put his hand on the girl’s shoulder, turning her to follow him, but Leanâlhâm glanced back over her shoulder. It was too hard for Magiere to see her face in the dark of the alley.
No doubt the girl kept looking back at her as Osha led her away. Magiere stood there, unable to follow.
Once, as an invader in Leanâlhâm’s homeland, Magiere had been asked, or rather intimidated into, something by Sgäile. Looking back now, it seemed like some forewarning of what
had come later: Sgäile’s own death. She’d agreed to watch over Leanâlhâm if she could. And she would protect that girl of mixed blood, now caught between worlds like the rest of them.
But how could Magiere protect Leanâlhâm from herself?
Chap huffed and nudged her leg, and Magiere finally followed him down the alley, where they left the wagon behind. It was no longer needed.
As Leesil crept through the strange library with Brot’an, he never wanted to see another library ever again. Most especially not one made by the sages.
Every time they cleared another row of shelves, casements, or little cleared spaces with tables and stools, he spotted a light ahead on the ceiling rafters. And every time he had to slow and peek about, only to find no one was there.
The absurdity of his task struck him anew. Yes, this had all been his idea, but that wasn’t the point. Of all the things he’d expected to do in Calm Seatt, breaking Wynn out of her own guild wasn’t one of them.
And who in seven hells left this many lights on all night?
He and Brot’an had even stopped to puzzle over one. Leesil was familiar with Wynn’s crystal, but hers was powered by body heat, friction. What kept these others glowing in their wall mounts? He glanced about nervously. Did someone come at regular intervals to warm the crystals? If so, he needed to move faster.
“There,” Brot’an whispered, pointing.
Leesil spotted the next staircase leading down. He quickly headed for it, and they descended—finally—to the last floor of this bookworm’s labyrinth.
They neither saw nor heard anyone. Their only company was an overwhelming number of books, parchments, sheaves, tables, and chairs—and wall-mounted cold lamps spaced far enough apart to leave spaces of shadow among the casements.
Leesil glanced back at Brot’an, and the old butcher almost appeared to scowl. When they reached the inner wall of the first floor, Leesil hurried southeast, looking for a door. They found one—right below yet another cold lamp.