The Night Voice

by Barb Hendee

  The chasm was so deep that Ghassan’s light did not reach the bottom. The same was true for the heights above, as if this gash within the mountain rose upward as well. It did not go straight down for what they could see. Its sides were twisted and jagged, as if it had been torn open ages ago by something immense ripping wide the insides of the peak. As Chane looked to the far side, he barely made out the black outline of another wound in the mountain’s stone.

  There was no bridge to that other side.

  He turned to Leesil. “Now what?”

  • • •

  Sau’ilahk ran into the battle—or what was left of it—to escape any pursuit or those arrows that had burned like acid upon penetrating his flesh. Along the way, bodies half charred or utterly blackened littered the plain. Soon, the sounds of the battle surrounded him.

  Now there were more bodies scattered in red or black pools and stains, either whole or torn apart.

  He slowed to a halt and looked behind him.

  There was no sign of pursuit, on foot or horseback. Turning back to the battle, he second-guessed his choice to hide in this chaos or lure into it any who came after him. Then he heard the sounds of howling and cast about for its source.

  Two forms on all fours raced along the battle’s westward edge toward him.

  He knew those were majay-hì. Whether they knew what he was or not, they would when they neared. There was not enough time to conjure anything to defend himself, and he would need his reserves for something else.

  He pulled his sword, though he had little skill with it, and fled farther into the battle. He went only far enough to be out of sight and then swerved eastward. Whatever might have been on the arrowheads that struck him still burned within the wounds in his shoulder and face. After centuries of lost beauty, damage to his appearance simply added salt to his wounds.

  He wove through combatants tearing at one another, from goblins still much like those of his living days to at least one locatha set upon but unvanquished by three Shé’ith. One majay-hì in the fray spotted him; it was turned aside by a half-charred, half-naked vampire with manic, feral features. Among all of this were ghul tearing and biting at anything living, and other things he did not recognize.

  Only twice did he have to strike awkwardly at something as he raced to the battle’s eastward fringe. There he paused, looking both ways, caught amid indecision.

  Sau’ilahk saw majay-hì ranging north and south along the fifty yards of open space to the edge of the craggy foothills. He did not know what was happening with Khalidah and Beloved, and everything here had gone wrong. In this chaos, Beloved would soon have little or no army, but while that remained, the battle was the only place he could hide.

  Wynn and her companions had once again lost the element of surprise, but what if Khalidah failed in that as well? Grabbing the medallion around his neck, Sau’ilahk focused his thoughts.

  Khalidah! Answer me!

  Again, no reply.

  Rage and frustration overwhelmed him. The dhampir—the “child”—had to be in here somewhere amid the slaughter. Why else would every other witless, undead tool of Beloved not flee for its own survival? It had to be she who had sparked this frenzy.

  And if he could not strike directly at Beloved . . .

  At the fringe of the carnage, Sau’ilahk began desperately conjuring another servitor—and another and another.

  • • •

  Leesil gazed across the chasm, at a loss. The presence of those last four vampires told him they were on the right track, but what did that matter?

  “Now what?” Chane asked in his irritating rasp.

  Panicked frustration overwhelmed Leesil. They couldn’t give up.

  Then he thought of what he’d seen Ore-Locks do. He looked left and right below the chasm’s lip, but Ghassan’s light didn’t reach far enough.

  The domin’s expression flickered before he turned right and walked along the chasm’s edge.

  “There,” he said, pointing off level into the chasm’s darkness.

  Leesil hurried over, hearing Chane behind him. He couldn’t see anything at first.

  “There is a glint there,” Chane said, pointing.

  Leesil saw it, perhaps caused by the crystal’s light reflected off some ore vein. There was a wall in that beyond a stone’s throw, so he hoped, but there was no ledge by which to reach it.

  “I can attempt to float us across the chasm, one by one,” Ghassan suggested. “It will take time. And the more exertion, the greater the risk of losing someone, as well as an orb.”

  Leesil peeked over the chasm’s edge into the pitch-black below. Half turning, he found Ore-Locks right beside Chane, though Brot’an remained guarding the chests.

  “I’m not some bat to go flitting about!” the dwarf growled, and then peered off into rightward darkness. “If there is a true wall back there, I can go through stone to the other side, but only Chane can go with me that way. As to the rest of us . . .”

  Ore-Locks shrugged, and Leesil didn’t care for Ghassan’s notion. He had another idea.

  “Everyone take off any rope you’re carrying,” he said. “Brot’an, get your bow assembled.”

  “You have something else in mind,” Chane said. It wasn’t a question.

  Leesil nodded. “You and Ore-Locks try to get to the other side with two chests. Once there, Brot’an can attempt to shoot the rope across. If it doesn’t make it the first time, we keep trying. Chane, you stay there to anchor the rope on the other side while Ore-Locks comes back for more chests.”

  Chane nodded once, and Brot’an dropped to one knee.

  The master assassin began pulling the disassembled pieces of his short bow from under the back of his clothing. Even as Ore-Locks went to the chests, Chane began searching about the open area around the ledge they were on.

  “We cannot see what might await on the far side, or farther on if the tunnel continues over there,” he said. “And I see nowhere to anchor the rope on this side. Someone will have to hold it . . . and be left behind.”

  Leesil clenched his teeth, but everything Chane said was right.

  “I will see to the last part.”

  Everyone turned at Brot’an’s comment. His assembled short bow lay beside him as he struck a stiletto’s blade against a dark stone in his hand. Sparks flew.

  “Begin assembling the ropes,” he instructed. “Tear off strips of cloth from lighter clothing, as many as possible.”

  Again, he began digging into his own clothes and produced a small clay vial.

  Leesil eyed the aging assassin. Just how many bits and pieces did Brot’an carry hidden?

  After the ropes were tied together and a small pile of cloth strips lay before Brot’an, he tied one strip to each of three out of four short arrows. He then tied more strips together and lashed that length around the final arrow and the rope’s end. Last, he poured a sluggish black fluid out of the vial onto the remaining pile of cloth and the strips around the three arrows.

  Two strikes of the stiletto against the black stone lit the pile, and Brot’an quickly lit an arrow. Brot’an rose and drew the arrow with one glance at Ore-Locks.

  “Go,” Brot’an commanded. “Return once you determine if there is a way to anchor the rope on the far side.”

  Chane hefted a chest. Ore-Locks did the same and grabbed Chane’s forearm. Both vanished into the half cavern’s wall, and Leesil had more worried thoughts.

  What if there was another passage or space beyond the far ledge? And what if there wasn’t? There had to be. What if something therein heard an arrow strike or spotted its small flame?

  Brot’an fired.

  Leesil turned, following the flaming arrow’s flicker across the chasm through the dark. It quickly grew small, until he heard it hit. He saw the tiny flicker of flame skitter across stone and then come to a stop
. As he was about to turn to Brot’an, another tiny flame followed the first, and then a third one.

  Those small flames landing apart showed there was a stone floor on the other side.

  They waited and watched for any sign of Ore-Locks and Chane.

  However long that was, it was too long for Leesil. If no anchor point was found over there, even with both Chane and Ore-Locks holding on to the rope, there was still the question of who would be left behind. That one had to be strong enough to anchor the rope’s near end. Ghassan could likely cross the chasm his own way, and Leesil had no intention of staying behind.

  “Do not be concerned,” Brot’an said quietly.

  Leesil looked back and up, but Brot’an merely stared across the chasm. It still unnerved Leesil how often the assassin thought several steps ahead of everyone, but what steps this time?

  • • •

  Chap ranged along the battle’s outskirts. The undead he could now see numbered less than the living—but there were still too many to fix on any one. Their presence ate him inside, and it was hard not to cut loose and hunt the nearest one.

  The longer Magiere remained in there, the worse the situation would become, yet he was still uncertain how to stop her. Should he run her down or try to reach her through memories? What if both failed and he was left with only one other choice?

  Could he face losing her if he had to take her over completely?

  No other options came to him.

  He readied for the worst and then heard paws and claws closing behind him. Spinning around, he bared his teeth.

  Two majay-hì raced in from the south where he had left Chuillyon and Vreuvillä. He watched as they neared and circled him. The large, mottled male passed close enough to brush his shoulder.

  An image of the wild priestess erupted in Chap’s mind.

  All he could guess was that she had sent this pair to him. For an instant, he wished his daughter were here. Shade had spent time among their kind and knew better the ways of memory-speak.

  Chap huffed once as the speckled gray female came close. In brushing her shoulder with his head, he called up his memory of Magiere fully lost to her dhampir side. Then he bolted off into the battle, looking back once to see that the pair followed him.

  He charged into the snarls, screams, and bloodshed, almost deafened by the noise and assaulted by flashes of combatants half lit by scattered fires. With only two unknown majay-hì beside him, there were too many other things all around him.

  • • •

  Chane fell to his knees and dropped his chest as Ore-Locks dragged him out of stone. For an instant, he could not discern on which side of the chasm they had emerged. Though he did not need air, he could not help choking a few times. Then he saw two of Brot’an’s arrows on stone still lit.

  Sick, weakened, and embarrassed at having dreaded yet another venture through stone, he struggled to his feet.

  “All right?” Ore-Locks asked.

  Chane nodded and pointed to the arrows. “Wave two of those to let them know we are here.”

  When Ore-Locks did so, Chane saw Ghassan’s crystal light on the chasm’s other side swinging back and forth.

  “The rope comes next,” he added.

  Though he listened and watched for anything that might come, nothing did. There was another deeper darkness at the back to this huge hollow on the chasm’s far side. The distant sound of a bowstring’s thrum pulled him back around.

  Both he and Ore-Locks stepped quickly to either side of the half cavern.

  Chane listened but heard nothing for an instant. Then came the soft clatter of an arrow and the flop of something far off . . . and down in the chasm below. It was not hard to guess.

  The rope’s weight had been too much for the shot. Only then did he remember the cold-lamp crystal he still carried.

  Chane dug it out and rubbed it between his palms. He heard another bowstring thrum. It took three more shots for the rope-weighted arrow to clear the chasm.

  Ore-Locks hooked it with his outstretched sword.

  Chane rushed over to pull the arrow free as he gripped the rope.

  “Three more chests,” he whispered, and, with a nod, Ore-Locks vanished into stone.

  • • •

  Sau’ilahk’s wounds still burned inside from Osha’s arrows, though he did not know why. He dodged through the chaos as his stick-creature servitors harried and tripped up anything in his way. Another kind of servitor, consisting of gas, wormed through the air above him.

  Seeing the battle through the roiling cloud of scintillating mist, as well as with his own eyes, made him nauseated. He had not felt this way in centuries, but this was the only way to navigate and keep his bearings. Somewhere in this madness below the mountain was the reason for why Beloved’s forces turned on themselves. More questions tormented him, and he was exhausted from too many conjuries.

  If the creatures in the horde were Beloved’s tools, why had it not seized control of them? Why did it allow them to decimate one another? And why had Khalidah still not answered him?

  Perhaps Beloved was not the only one who betrayed him. Whatever caused this chaos was the work of either of his betrayers—or perhaps both. Had Khalidah used him to regain the orbs for Beloved?

  And he still had not finished with Wynn Hygeorht.

  Through the gaseous servitor’s view, something more bizarre pulled his attention. Three majay-hì wove, snapped, and rammed through the battle, and yet others of their kind were nowhere around him. The only others he had seen had retreated to open ground.

  Sau’ilahk hesitated, trying to quell wrath and anguish. Why would these three reenter the battle but not stop to finish off any prey?

  As he watched them race onward, two of his stick-creature servitors with glowing eyes tore at a goblin in his way. One tried to get at the beast’s eyes. As that bristling monster wailed in and tore away that one, he hacked into its skull, double-handed, with his sword.

  Sau’ilahk thought of those three dogs as he focused upon his spy above.

  Follow them!

  • • •

  Leesil settled a hand on the rope pulled across the chasm between Brot’an behind him and Chane and Ore-Locks on the other side. All five chests had been taken through stone, and now Ore-Locks and Chane stood like anchors, holding their side of the rope, ready for Leesil to cross over.

  First, Leesil peeked over the nearer side into that endless darkness below, and with some hesitation, he looked back to Ghassan.

  “You’re certain you can get across . . . your way?”

  Ghassan sighed with a roll of his eyes. “Yes, if you will get on with this.”

  At that, the domin took hold of the rope in front of Brot’an.

  It appeared that only Leesil would have to cross this way, though Brot’an’s way across would be worse. There had been a good deal of arguing about that once he’d finally announced his plan.

  How he would survive a swing across, avoid slamming into the far wall, and climb or be pulled up—if he kept his grip—wasn’t imaginable.

  “Go,” Brot’an said.

  With little choice, Leesil gripped the rope, hooked one leg over it, and reached out along it beyond the ledge. He pulled himself hand over hand, stopping more than once to rest for the span of two breaths. Still, he crawled as fast as possible so the others wouldn’t have to hold him up longer than necessary.

  He was never foolish enough to look down.

  Looking up into the endless dark above was bad enough. By the time he heard Chane rasp, “You are clear,” he was exhausted.

  Leesil unhooked his legs, felt with one foot for solid stone, and dropped to his feet. He quickly took hold of the rope in front of Chane, though they all relaxed for a moment.

  Ghassan would cross first—at Brot’an’s previous insistence.

 
At first Leesil saw nothing in the dark out over the chasm. All of Brot’an’s lit arrows had been extinguished to save them, but Chane had illuminated his own crystal and left that by the edge. Something drew nearer, above in the dark, taking form by the crystal’s light.

  Ghassan slowly floated toward Leesil, though higher above, and the domin’s eyes fixed straight ahead. He never wavered or dropped lower or higher, until he began to descend. As he arced down to alight without a sound upon the ledge, it was as if he had simply taken a stroll in midair.

  The domin was about to step into the lead in gripping the rope, but Leesil waved him farther back, wanting to stay at the lead himself as Brot’an made his leap. At one quick whistle in the dark from the chasm’s far side, Leesil tensed.

  “Brace,” he said, tightening his own grip.

  The rope went slack, and Leesil’s hands clenched even tighter. He watched as the rope dropped down over the edge and suddenly shifted a bit to one side. It then lurched taut in his hands under a sudden sharp weight.

  Brot’an must have run to one side and jumped at a tangent, trying to arc around through the chasm to keep from slamming straight into its nearer side.

  “Don’t pull unless I say,” Leesil ordered the others.

  If the rope frayed on the ledge, better that it did so in only one spot so that it could be cut and retied. They would need as much of its length as possible—if any of them survived to leave this place.

  Weight on the rope increased rapidly in an instant. Likely Brot’an had used his arc to neutralize the collision and was running along the chasm’s wall.

  The rope finally centered up over the chasm’s edge.

  “Can you hold?” Ghassan asked behind him.

  “Yes,” Leesil answered.

  The domin hurried around him to the edge and looked down. He quickly straightened and turned around.

  “He is on his way up.”

  Leesil took a deep breath as he waited and held fast to the rope with the others.