by Barb Hendee
The shadowed figure took a step, and the barest bit of light from the recess touched him.
Leesil saw pale features inside the cloak’s hood . . . and then he couldn’t breathe.
The pale man with jaggedly cut red-brown hair hanging around his face just glared, slowly lifting the tip of a sword made of strangely mottled steel.
It was Chane.
Shock and hatred made Leesil break into a mild sweat. An undead, one of the worst he’d ever met, was inside the keep among all these defenseless sages, including . . .
Leesil’s throat went dry. Chane should be an entire continent and ocean away. And he was here, and Wynn was here.
What had that naive little sage done this time?
Leesil jerked out a winged blade, snapping its sheath lashing in half.
Chane froze as the taller elf drew two long stilettos out of his sleeves. Both blades appeared too light-toned for normal steel. He tilted his sword up, raising its tip in preparation, and the shorter elf ripped something out of a sheath on his thigh. Chane instantly fixed on that weapon.
He knew it, and he looked in the first elf’s eyes, glaring back at him.
Chane froze in indecision. It was Leesil.
Leesil inched to the far edge of the entryway and shifted sideways, clearing the way for his taller companion.
Chane’s hunger rose as the beast inside him thrashed in panic for self-preservation. Despair came, as well. It was all truly over now.
Magiere, Leesil, and Chap must have devised their own scheme to reach Wynn. In such a sick turn of fate, they had launched their attempt on the same night as Chane. Now he had run right into one of them in his own attempt to rescue Wynn. Even if he had been willing to explain, Leesil would never hesitate long enough to hear him.
Chane’s promise to Wynn became worthless under the hate in Leesil’s amber eyes. He braced himself, ready for Leesil to close in, and kept one eye on the taller elf with the stilettos.
Then he heard one of the main doors open.
Flattening against the passage’s wall, he watched Leesil and his tall companion do the same on the entryway’s far side, and then Chane leaned his head out, trying to see.
Two guards with red tabards over chain armor stepped through one of the main doors.
Chane’s thoughts went blank for an instant. How much worse could this situation become? And then . . .
Anyone who cared for Wynn had to remain free in here, especially any who were capable of finding, protecting, and rescuing her. It simply could not be him.
Chane knew Leesil would think exactly that. Between the choice of getting to her or getting rid of him, Leesil would choose Wynn. And Chane knew what had to be done.
He stepped away from the wall into full view, sword in hand. To his frustration, neither guard looked his way. Before Leesil could shout a warning at them, Chane snapped his sword tip against the passage wall.
At that sharp ring of steel, both guards looked his way, and their eyes widened.
“Stop!” one of them shouted.
Chane took off up the passage, heading north, as two sets of running, booted feet sent echoes chasing after him.
This time, Wynn clearly heard an unfamiliar voice shouting “Stop!” out in the passage. Only an instant of confusion came and went before she thought of Chane.
He must have tried another route into the library and been spotted. He’d have to fight, perhaps kill a guard, to avoid being captured. If they captured him, locked him up in a cell—even one without a window—by dawn they would see him go dormant. Anyone checking on him would find a dead man . . . until he rose again at dusk.
In being seen here, Chane’s skulking would cause a guild-wide alarm, and it would all get even worse.
Wynn grabbed the door’s handle, and Ore-Locks reached out to stop her.
“We have to go now!” she whispered, and jerked the door open.
Leesil’s mind went blank as two guards raced away up the passage’s other half after Chane. A barrage of horrors from the past flooded his emptied head, rushing in on him all at once.
Chane had been with Welstiel when they’d all converged upon the ice-bound castle of Li’kän, that ancient undead. That had been where they’d found the first orb, and Wynn had found all of those old, rotting books she’d so desperately wanted to bring home, though there were vastly more than they could carry. But to get that far, they’d fought against healer monks turned to feral undead by Welstiel . . . and Chane.
Osha had been badly injured, as had Chap, who had also nearly been pulled over the side of an abyss. Chane had been there, in the middle of it all.
The night before, Chap had sensed an undead in this city, in Calm Seatt. It had happened somewhere near where Shade disappeared. And Shade was supposed to be with Wynn.
Every time Chane crossed their path, it always had something to do with Wynn.
Leesil snatched up the amulet hanging about his neck. Magiere had given it to him long ago, once she no longer needed it to track undeads. It always glowed whenever one was near.
It wasn’t glowing even a little as he dangled it before his face. It would’ve by the time he’d even entered this building, but it hadn’t even grown warm against his chest to warn him. Yet Chane had been standing there, barely a dozen paces away.
“We move on,” Brot’an said quietly.
Leesil startled to awareness, looked at the main doors, and everything seemed wrong now. An extra guard had appeared on the wall. Two more had come into the building from the courtyard. There was no way to see what was going on out there. Something had changed since he and Brot’an had scouted this place.
“No,” he answered. “There will be more guards outside, so we need to find a way from one building to the next. We head back to this passage’s far end and look for another door that might lead into the structures along the keep’s southeast side . . . where Chap spotted Wynn.”
He didn’t like taking blind paths in desperation, but he saw no other choice. As he turned, he found Brot’an looking up the passage where the guards had now vanished. The distinct pucker of a scowl showed between the butcher’s feathery eyebrows, but he finally nodded in agreement.
Leesil stepped beyond Brot’an, leading the way, and then stopped.
Just beyond the first intersection they’d come out of into the main passage, a door swung open.
CHAPTER 18
CHANE GAUGED HIS speed to stay just in sight of the guards. He needed to give Leesil time to slip through and hopefully find Wynn, while keeping these guards out of the way. It was galling to find himself actually helping that half-blood, but there was no other option where Wynn was concerned.
“Stop!” a guard shouted somewhere behind him. “By order of the Shyldfälches!”
Did they really think that was going to work?
Beyond the common hall’s front archway, he rounded the passage’s corner and took off at full speed. He raced by the common hall’s narrower side arch and the kitchen entrance across from it.
Much as he was tempted, he could not duck into the kitchens just yet. The guards were too close, and he had to lure them farther away from the main entrance. Some parts of the main building were familiar to him; other parts were less so. Stuck with what little he knew, he was already growing frantic.
Chane skidded to a stop where the passage turned left before the library’s northern entrance. Down that turn lay the north tower, where High-Tower had his study. Short of that was the door leading to the inner bailey’s backside. That was likely locked up due to Rodian’s security measures. No doubt the same had been done for the tower’s door or even the archive’s stairwell to its left.
He noticed the kitchen’s side door across from the rear exit into the bailey. Then he heard the guards round the previous corner.
Chane bolted off, running for the kitchen’s side door, a place he knew little about. But if he kept the guards busy long enough, perhaps he might still find a way through the kitchen i
nto the storage building.
He still needed a look across the courtyard to see if Wynn was trapped in her room.
Wynn pocketed her crystal before rushing out into the dark passage. Ore-Locks pushed past her, and this time she didn’t argue. There was little to see in the dark except the dim glow of the entrance’s cold lamp, hidden from view.
“The shout came from up there,” Ore-Locks whispered.
Wynn barely made out his chin jutting northward along the main passage.
“We have to find Chane quickly,” she whispered back, “before he—”
Ore-Locks leveled his iron staff, and Wynn backed up. She had to duck left as he suddenly twisted the staff into a swing before grabbing it with his other hand. She heard a sharp clang of steel against the staff’s iron.
Wynn caught a glimpse of a dark figure stumbling into the passage wall beyond Ore-Locks. Almost instantly, a taller figure rushed forward out of the darkness at the dwarf. She didn’t have time to moan as she dug for her crystal. If these were guards, hopefully Ore-Locks could knock them unconscious without serious harm.
As the iron staff recoiled from the first strike, Ore-Locks arced it straight down in the tall one’s path. That one hopped into a midair crouch that made Wynn’s eyes widen. The staff struck where its feet had been.
Small bits of stone went flying from the impact, but Wynn’s gaze was still fixed on the tall form appearing to hover for an instant in the air. He was just too tall to have moved so quickly, and between wraps of black cloth covering his lower face and hair were large amber eyes. One of those eyes glowed out through a set of four parallel scars.
Wynn recognized his half-hidden face.
The front end of Ore-Locks’s iron staff recoiled off the floor. He turned its momentum sideways across the passage, and Wynn had to duck the staff’s back end once more.
The staff struck the left wall. Like a controlled ricochet in Ore-Locks’s great hands, its tip bounced off, arcing back across the passage, and then down at the first figure trying to push off the right wall.
“Valhachkasej’â!” that one snarled, raising his arms to block at the last instant.
Wynn saw two white metal winged blades on his arms.
“Ah no!” she breathed.
The staff struck the blades and slammed Leesil into the passage wall.
“No . . . no! No!” Wynn cried.
She tried to grab Ore-Locks, but he swung the staff back at Brot’an. Wynn ducked the staff’s butt again, and when it passed, she threw herself atop Ore-Locks’s broad back, trying to grip with her legs as she fumbled to cover his eyes with her hands.
“Stop!” Wynn shouted. “Everyone . . . stop it now!”
Rodian was still calculating which guards to move where when Lúcan had reappeared out of the northeast storage building. Since that ugly night, when the young corporal had been left so marred, he rarely expressed any open emotion. Now his hair was disheveled and his tabard was slightly askew, as if he’d been running. He looked distraught.
Rodian trotted across the courtyard, meeting Lúcan halfway.
“What’s happened?” he asked, slowing to a stop.
“The premin is gone!”
“What? How?”
“I showed her into the study and shut the door. Then one of those other handleless iron doors down there opened. Two dark-robed sages took one look at me, glanced at the premin’s door, and then ducked back inside before I could question them. Something wasn’t right, and I opened the study door to check on the premin. She wasn’t there anymore.”
Lúcan shook his head, dropping his gaze.
“I don’t know how, sir,” he continued. “Believe me, she couldn’t have snuck by me, and there’s no other way out of there.”
Rodian wasn’t going to blame his corporal, and he guessed that someone like Hawes was in little danger on her own. But he wanted to throw up his hands in frustration.
May the Blessed Trinity of Sentience take pity on him—just once—trapped again among sages!
“Watch the portcullis,” he ordered Lúcan. “I’ll handle this.”
Finding Hawes was unlikely, though he wondered where she’d gone and how. The premin had been doing something inside the main building, besides a faked search for a nonexistent initiate.
Rodian strode off for the keep’s main doors.
Wynn saw Brot’an freeze to stare back at her.
“Get off me,” Ore-Locks growled.
She looked at Leesil and then Brot’an again as the tall elder elf pulled down his face wrap. It was the only time Wynn could remember seeing the master anmaglâhk astonished, at least as much as she was.
“What are you doing here?” she breathed in shock. “Leesil, what’s going on?
Ore-Locks pulled her hands off his eyes. “You know these two?”
Leesil righted himself, wobbling. He shook out one arm and rolled a shoulder. When he jerked his face wrap down, Wynn melted in relief at the sight of his familiar features.
“Will you get off . . . now?” Ore-Locks repeated.
Wynn slid off Ore-Locks’s back and ducked around him, and then her relief wavered. “Leesil?”
He didn’t make an inappropriate joke or come to give her a quick hug. He didn’t even look at Ore-Locks after being slammed against the wall twice.
Leesil stood there, eyeing her coldly.
Wynn’s stomach knotted up again. Something was terribly wrong.
He stepped toward her, making Ore-Locks tense up, and then passed right by her. He headed down the passage, away from the main doors.
“Come on,” he said without looking back.
“But Leesil—” Wynn began.
“Now!” he snapped, never breaking stride.
“Who are these two?” Ore-Locks demanded.
“Friends come to free her,” Brot’an answered. “As have you, it appears. Introductions can wait.”
Brot’an tucked his stilettos back up his sleeves and waved Wynn after Leesil, who’d paused halfway down the passage but hadn’t looked back.
Wynn’s thoughts cleared enough to race in another direction. Chane had to be in trouble, and she turned to Ore-Locks.
“I’m safe with these two, so you need to—”
“What? No! I will not just leave you with—”
“Yes, you will,” she cut in. “You have to go find him . . . help him!”
Ore-Locks’s glare drifted from her to Brot’an and back again. Then they all heard a door handle ratchet up near the entryway up the passage.
Brot’an snatched Wynn by the arm and dragged her after Leesil. When Ore-Locks tried to intervene, Wynn waved him off.
“I’m safe,” she whispered. “Now find him and get him out of here!”
She tried to look back and see if Ore-Locks did as she asked, but she kept stumbling as Brot’an dragged her in his longer strides. They rounded the corner toward the library’s southernmost entrance, and Ore-Locks was gone from sight.
Wynn pulled away from Brot’an and ran after Leesil. When she caught up, he kept on. He didn’t even acknowledge her presence until they reached the first door to the library—which was open. With barely a glance, Leesil grabbed Wynn’s wrist and pulled her after him down that narrower passage to the second door.
Wynn had no idea how he knew where to go, and his grip was too tight. What could she possibly have done to make him so angry?
This no longer felt like a rescue.
Rodian stepped through the keep’s main doors into the entryway and heard a distant, faint shout. He thought it was Jonah’s voice, and then pounding footfalls carried faintly from somewhere up the main passage’s northern half. As he was about to head off that way, something caught his eye.
He pivoted in the other direction and peered down the passage’s southern half. Had he seen a glimmer of light down there? Had something moved in the dark between him and that brief glow?
He squinted but saw nothing, yet he was certain he hadn’t imagined it. The
n came the heavy scrape of a boot.
Pulling his sword, he turned south down the main passage. His steps quickened the farther he went, and still he saw nothing in the dark. When he reached the first left-hand turn into the passage to the library’s southeast end, again there was that soft, brief glow.
The library’s southeast door was open, and the glow had come from beyond it and the passage to the second door. How could both doors be unlocked?
Rodian broke into a run for the library door.
Chane ducked through the kitchen’s side door and around the long butcher-block table. He heard the guards coming nearer and quickly looked about.
Wynn had once mentioned leaving kitchen duty by way of a back door to the storage building. Footsteps suddenly pounded right by the kitchen’s side door. Chane ducked low, for the guards had caught up quicker than he had hoped.
“Do you see him?” one guard called.
“No. He’s fast. . . . Check the doors at the end while I check this one.”
Chane heard one set of footsteps hurry off along the passage toward the north tower. Likely the other had turned to check the rear door into the bailey. Once they found all doors locked, they would have only one route that he could have taken—into this kitchen. He was growing very tired of this and glanced quickly along the kitchen’s back.
There was a door, but it faced rearward instead of to the left, in the direction of the storage building. If he took that door and stepped into some scullery, he would be trapped.
The frustration was too much. He wavered at the decision between ducking out the kitchen’s main entrance to outdistance the guards in reaching the keep’s main doors and finding somewhere else to hide. That would put him in a bad place, as well. The guards might even hear him and turn back toward the main entryway, and into Wynn’s way if she and Ore-Locks came in.
There was one option that might keep the guards searching here a little longer. He half crawled between the kitchen’s preparation tables.
“Everything’s locked up,” one guard called.