by Barb Hendee
A silver-haired and slender man in a long, heavy coat called out orders from the aftcastle to the crew as a younger man with a shaved head came trotting across the deck.
“You’re the passengers from the guild?” he asked without a greeting.
Wynn nodded, but he rushed on before she could speak.
“I’m First Mate Shearborn.” He looked over the small group, ending on Shade. “The request to take on three more passengers arrived only yesterday, but I managed to arrange an extra cabin. You’ll have two between the lot of you—and two bunks per cabin.”
Wynn frowned; of course Shade could stay with her and sleep on the floor with an extra blanket, but all three men couldn’t sleep in a cabin with only two bunks. And that wasn’t the only problem.
Nikolas had no idea what Chane was . . . and could not be exposed to the sight of Chane lying dormant—as if dead—all day. Osha was a stranger to Nikolas, who was already under enough stress. And frankly Wynn wasn’t certain she wanted to share space with either Osha or Chane, with neither wanting the other anywhere near her.
“It is of no matter,” Chane rasped as he stepped forward to look down at her. “You and I will share, as we have done before.”
Wynn was more than acquainted with the tones of his damaged voice. He was not trying to be arrogant or overbearing, though he could be both at the same time. He simply stated the least complicated option. They had shared confined spaces in inns, elven tree dwellings, and excavated stone rooms in the bowels of a dwarven seatt, always living by night until Chane fell dormant at dawn.
Yes, his assumption was the best of poor options, but when Wynn looked back and up over Nikolas’s hanging head, Osha was watching her sternly. His large amber eyes shifted once toward Chane, and narrowed before looking to her again.
Wynn turned back to First Mate Shearborn. “Thank you for your efforts on such short notice. We’ll manage fine with two cabins.”
The first mate stepped off with a gesture toward the aftcastle door, and, without looking back at anyone, Wynn followed.
• • •
The next morning, far down the coast in Soráno, Magiere began to worry. Though her small group had adequate lodgings at a clean inn, they’d had no luck in finding passage south toward il’Dha’ab Najuum in the Suman Empire.
Part of the problem was Brot’an’s insistence that no one risk being seen in the open on the docks. Magiere hadn’t disagreed with him as yet. Leesil even thought it was “a fair bet” that they’d arrived ahead of any anmaglâhk still trailing them. But each passing day made it more likely that those assassins might have caught up and would be watching the entire port.
Magiere finally grew fed up with sitting, partly because Leesil had already had enough. It had taken hard arguments with both him and Brot’an to get them to see that she was the most normal-looking of all of them, if she covered herself up well enough. For the past few mornings she’d made furtive trips to the harbormaster’s office to ask about any possible ships headed south.
She’d had no better luck than Brot’an.
This morning, barely past dawn, she slipped back into their room at the inn and found both Leesil and Chap expectant and eager. Chap was stretched out across a bed—his silver-gray body long enough to cover its width—and Leesil sat beside him.
Wayfarer was there and hurried over to take Magiere’s cloak. Brot’an, possibly checking to see if she had been followed, stood peering between the closed curtains and out the window.
“Well?” Leesil asked too loudly.
Much as Magiere knew he hated sea travel, it was obvious he was starting to hate the four walls around them even more. It was a nice enough room, large and airy with two double beds. Brot’an always slept on the floor, which left the second bed to Chap and Wayfarer. All in all, the situation could have been worse.
But for as long as Magiere remained silent, though Leesil was desperate to press on, the answer to his question was obvious.
He flopped backward on the bed beside Chap and, with a groan, ran his fingers through his long, unbound hair. Chap dropped his head on his paws with a threatening rumble as a stream of memory-words rose in Magiere’s mind.
—This isn’t working— . . . —We need . . . to walk the piers . . . and . . . talk to captains . . . directly—
Magiere winced. “Don’t growl at me! I’m no happier about this than any of you.”
Leesil lifted his head and looked first at the dog and then at her. “What did he say?”
“He wants to start talking to ship captains.”
“Then I should do so,” Brot’an put in, still peeking out the window.
Magiere clenched her jaw. “You’d be spotted quicker than anyone. We’ve all tried disguises, and I’m sure they’ve learned to look closer at anything suspicious. You’re a head and a half taller than any of the natives . . . even taller than most travelers and sailors in the port.”
Glowering in all directions, Leesil sat up slowly on the bed’s edge and began tying the old green head scarf over his bright, white-blond hair. Wayfarer glanced at Chap, but she didn’t speak and remained standing, clutching Magiere’s cloak in both hands.
“They’ve got to be spread thin by now,” Leesil muttered, looking to Brot’an, though normally he didn’t speak to the shadow-gripper unless he had to. “Can you guess how many are left?”
“I know exactly how many,” Brot’an answered, “and exactly who they are. Three women and one man, and one of the women is crippled.” He finally turned to look only at Magiere. “Fréthfâre is with them, for Dänvârfij would not have made some of their rasher choices.”
Chap snarled as his head snapped up, and Leesil’s mouth fell open for an instant. Even Magiere felt anger rising and had to push it down before she could speak. She had run Fréthfâre through with her own falchion, though that vicious advisor to Most Aged Father, leader of the Anmaglâhk, had survived. Magiere didn’t mind Brot’an’s guarded secrets, but only so long as he remained useful.
“You’ve known this since Drist?” she asked him. “Didn’t you think that was something you should’ve shared?”
Brot’an raised his right eyebrow, which made the scars skipping around it spread. “You never asked,” he replied passively.
Again not trusting herself to speak, Magiere closed her eyes. They should have attempted this conversation before, but both Leesil and Chap were dead set against sharing anything with Brot’an unless necessary. And the old assassin had a habit of only trading information.
“Én’nish is one of the women,” Leesil put in. “I caught her across the stomach with a blade in Drist. She couldn’t be fully healed yet.”
Brot’an nodded once.
Magiere’s anger began to fade. “That leaves two in good health, and two can’t cover the entire port.”
“The two are highly skilled,” Brot’an countered. “They can cover more area than you realize. You are correct that they might spot me, or even Léshil in disguise, more easily among the local inhabitants. You two are also taller than the people here.”
“Then what are we supposed to do?” Leesil asked in frustration.
“I could go,” Wayfarer said quietly.
To make it all worse, Magiere had already seen Brot’an look the girl’s way.
“With Chap,” Wayfarer added. “I speak enough Numanese, and I saw other dogs on piers with the people here.”
“No!” Magiere snapped.
“I saw a number of black dogs down there,” Wayfarer continued without flinching, and her beautiful green eyes were so calm that she almost didn’t seem herself. “It seems a common color in this place. We could try the trick Leesil used before.”
At that, Chap growled.
Wayfarer actually frowned at the dog, something no one would have expected for how much she, like her people, revered the majay-hì.
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“At least the people of Calm Seatt thought you only a wolf,” she said to him, “instead of . . . what you are.”
Chap silently watched the girl, and one of his ears twitched as he looked over at Leesil.
Leesil stiffened upright to his feet and whirled on the dog. “No, it isn’t a good idea!”
Magiere could guess what Chap had said.
“I am smaller than any of you,” Wayfarer went on. “Covered in a plain brown cloak and leading a black dog, no one would notice me.”
Magiere wasn’t about to let the girl fall into the hands of the anmaglâhk, and grasped Wayfarer by the shoulders. “You can’t walk around the port, not even with Chap. What if you were spotted? Have you thought of that?”
—I can protect her—
Magiere ignored Chap, but Wayfarer frowned as she looked to Brot’an. “Greimasg’äh?”
Brot’an had grown too quiet, and that worried Magiere when he looked at her.
“The girl and the majay-hì need only look for the larger ships,” he said. “Find one with a captain willing to take passengers, and then arrange for payment.”
“No!” Leesil insisted.
“I agree, they cannot go alone,” Brot’an added. “I agree that I cannot be seen walking openly around on the docks . . . and neither can you. Wayfarer may be the only one who can blend well enough. I will trail her and Chap to the port but hide off the open waterfront, exposing my presence only should a threat occur.” He looked to Magiere. “If you had a better option than what you have already tried, you would have said so. We must find passage and leave this port.”
Magiere’s thoughts were blank; she didn’t have a better option.
Brot’an turned to Wayfarer. “I will teach you how to walk in a way that will support a guise.”
Magiere took a step back in defeat and then studied Chap. “We’ll need a bucket of coal.”
Leesil didn’t look fully convinced, either, but he didn’t argue. “We’ll have to do something with his ears, too.”
Chap hopped off the bed.
—No one . . . is touching . . . my ears—
Magiere crossed her arms. “You think not?”
• • •
Midmorning of the same day, Dänvârfij—Fated Music—stood at the prow of a small Numan trading vessel called the Falcon as it maneuvered into dock at Soráno. Leaning on the rail, she looked out across the port and strained for a glimpse of a large cargo ship bearing the name Cloud Queen.
No such ship or any of its size was in sight.
A few of the sailors glanced her way, as she and her small team had remained below deck for most of the short voyage. As she did now, she had often worn a cloak with its hood pulled over her head when she left her cabin, so some of the men still tried for a curious glimpse.
To them she would appear overly tall and slender, with strands of long white-blond hair escaping the hood if the wind was too strong. She pushed such back inside her hood, exposing one pointed ear for an instant.
Any human aboard would have paused at the sight of her slanted, oversized eyes with large amber irises in a darkly tanned face too narrow to be human. And from that they would think her one of the Lhoin’na, the elves she had heard about of this continent. But her homeland was half a world away in a place that humans near there called the Elven Territories.
Ignoring the sailors, Dänvârfij continued studying the harbor.
The sailors soon began throwing lines to men on the pier. None of them hurried, and she did not know whether she wished them to or not. Such complacency was unworthy, but the task she had been given had begun to feel endless.
“You should not carry anything,” said a deep voice behind her. “At least not yet. Let me do it.”
“The wound is not as bad as it seems,” a female voice answered. “I can carry my own pack while you assist the Covârleasa.”
Dänvârfij turned her head to see her three remaining companions, a man and two women, coming out of the aftcastle door in preparation for disembarking. Like herself, all three of them were an’Cróan and Anmaglâhk.
Though Én’nish’s complexion was tan, and her hair white blond like nearly all an’Cróans’, she was smaller and slighter of build than most. Her size was a deception she used in combat to an advantage. She was also reckless, as well as poisoned by their people’s grief madness after she had lost her mate-to-be to Léshil’s blade.
From the start Dänvârfij had opposed Én’nish’s inclusion in their purpose, but at least the young one had proven to be a survivor when others had not. Én’nish had taken a blade wound across her stomach in the last battle with their quarry, back in that degenerate human port called Drist. And again it had been Léshil who had done this.
Rhysís stood towering over Én’nish. His hair was even a lighter shade than hers. He always wore it loose, and it whipped in the wind. None of them now wore the forest gray cloaks and clothing of the Anmaglâhk; they traveled disguised in human clothing. For some reason that Dänvârfij could not fathom, Rhysís had developed an apparent liking for the color blue, even to the dark cloak he wore. His outer arm supported the final surviving member of their team, which had been eleven in count when they had left their homeland.
Rhysís released his hold on Fréthfâre—Watcher of the Woods—once she took her hand from his arm. She leaned heavily on a walking rod as she slid one foot after the other, stepping forward under her own power with great effort.
These were all that Dänvârfij had left with which to hunt the monster Magiere; her mate, Léshil; the deviant one they called Chap; and the traitor greimasg’äh . . . Brot’ân’duivé.
“How soon can we disembark?” Fréthfâre demanded, though her voice was strained with weariness.
Dänvârfij did not answer at first. In Fréthfâre’s eyes, even the leisure of the crew in docking the ship would be seen as Dänvârfij’s fault.
Fréthfâre held status as shared leader of the team, but she was fit in neither body nor mind. Perhaps not even in spirit. Her wheat-gold hair, uncommon for an an’Cróan, hung in waves instead of lying silky and straight. In youth she had been viewed as supple and graceful, but now she was unseasonably brittle as she approached a mere fifty years . . . barely half or less of the number most would see in a lifetime. The human red dress and light but limp cloak she wore made her appear all the more fragile.
Once Covârleasa—“Trusted Advisor”—to Most Aged Father, Fréthfâre was nearly useless now. More than two years ago, the monster Magiere had run a sword through Fréthfâre’s abdomen. The wound should have killed her, but a great an’Cróan healer had tended her. Even so she had barely survived, and the damage would never be wholly undone.
Dänvârfij was ever vigilant in showing respect for the ex-Covârleasa. “Soon,” she finally answered. “Once the ramp is set, and then . . .”
She trailed off, for she was still calculating their next step.
A year and a half ago, when Most Aged Father had asked her to prepare a team and sail to this foreign continent, she had not hesitated. Their purpose then had been direct and clear. They were to locate Magiere; her half-blood consort, Léshil; and the tainted majay-hì who ran with the pair. Magiere and Léshil were to be captured, tortured if necessary concerning the “artifact” they had carried off from the Pock Peaks, and then eliminated—along with the majay-hì if possible. The last of that had not sat well with Dänvârfij’s team, even Én’nish, though Fréthfâre had not blinked.
Never before had so many jointly taken up the same purpose. Their task had been of dire importance in the eyes of Most Aged Father, who feared any device of the Ancient Enemy remaining in human hands. Eleven anmaglâhk had left together, but one more had shadowed them across the world. After the first and second deaths among them, before they knew for certain, Dänvârfij could not bring herself to believe who that one had to be
.
Only on the night when she had glimpsed his unmistakable shadow had she acknowledged the truth.
Brot’ân’duivé, that traitor, had been stealing their lives, one by one, ever since.
Yet they could not stop or turn back. They could not fail Most Aged Father.
“Pull up your hoods,” Dänvârfij ordered.
The ramp was soon lowered to the pier, and, without asking, Rhysís took both packs from Én’nish. She did not argue. Dänvârfij stepped in to assist Fréthfâre, and all four departed the ship and headed up the pier into this city called Soráno. It would have been preferable to make port in the night: Dänvârfij did not doubt that the traitor would be watching the dock if he was here. However, as yet, she did not know whether her quarry had stopped here, let alone remained.
“Our first task is to confirm their arrival or continued presence,” Fréthfâre whispered, leaning heavily upon Dänvârfij’s arm. “Or if they have simply come and gone. I do not see the Cloud Queen anywhere in the harbor.”
“Nor do I,” Dänvârfij said.
The four of them left the waterfront and made their way through a surprisingly clean and organized city—a relief after the filth and chaos of their previous stop. Olive-skinned people in colorful clothing glanced curiously at them, but not with any surprise, as if the locals were used to the sight of what they called “elves.” That puzzled Dänvârfij as passersby smiled and nodded. She replied in kind to blend in, and kept moving, helping Fréthfâre down the street.
Though she would never admit it, she was faintly repulsed by the closeness of the crippled woman hanging on her. As they passed a shadowed cutway between two buildings, she glanced back at Én’nish and Rhysís, and nodded. All four of them stepped into the shadows.
“I will make inquiries more easily on my own,” she said. “Rhysís, take Én’nish and Fréthfâre to find an inn, and meet me here when finished. We will plan from there once we have viable information.” As a mere afterthought, she looked to Fréthfâre. “If this seems wise to you as well.”