by Barb Hendee
And yet she now knew where another orb lay hidden. Worse than this, that bit of severed, ruddy metal in Jausiff’s hand left Wynn wondering.
Could any key be used to track any of the orbs? And, again, how had the orb of Spirit been located among Aupsha’s people and then stolen?
“Captain Holland, open the gates,” the duchess ordered.
All of Wynn’s fearful speculations ended—and then shifted—when the captain didn’t move.
“My lady,” he said. “Do you know where the duke has gone?”
“My brother has run off with what is left of the treasury,” Sherie returned. “There isn’t even enough left to pay the guards or servants. I am in charge while my brother is absent, so why are you questioning me?”
Wynn wondered whether this was a ruse, or if the duke had also stolen money from the keep.
“The treasury?” Holland asked, incredulous. “Do you wish me to go after him?”
“No. I’m sending others instead.”
The duchess said nothing more and stood there staring at him.
The captain, a hardened soldier probably bent to the breaking point with all that had happened in the past day and night, merely stared back a moment longer. But it seemed he would still obey the duchess, for he looked to the other guard nearby and nodded. The two of them began sliding the heavy iron bolts out to separate the gates.
Wynn kept silent until she heard rolling wheels and clopping horses behind her. Chane and Osha had the wagon in motion.
“Give me the device,” Wynn whispered to Jausiff.
He glanced down in surprise. “No. I am coming with you.”
“So am I,” Nikolas added.
“You can’t, either of you,” Wynn countered. “Neither can Lady Sherie . . . not for an assault on the duke! If this fails, someone will have to speak for us, so none of you can be involved.”
Before anyone could argue further, Wynn held out her hand to Jausiff.
The master sage scowled and slowly held out the device. “Do not lose hold of it,” he warned, “for once it has been activated, it must remain in contact with your skin, or it will cease to function until reactivated.”
That didn’t sit well with Wynn. There might come a moment when she would have to let go of it, if events took an even worse turn. As Jausiff placed the ruddy metal in her hand, she closed her fingers around it.
“I’m coming,” Nikolas then argued again. “Karl is my friend, and I’m going to help him. He’ll listen to me before any of you.”
Wynn shook her head. “Whatever the duke has been doing with that artifact, he isn’t the man you knew anymore. Look after your father and the duchess, and leave Karl to us. Do not leave the keep until you hear from me.”
Nikolas, almost looking at Sherie, barely turned his head and didn’t say another word.
Wynn knew he would stay, and judging by the silence behind her, she knew the wagon was close. She turned to find Chane up on the bench with his long dwarven-made sword unsheathed beside him. Osha stood in the back with his bow in hand and the quiver of black-feathered arrows rising above his right shoulder. Wynn was thankful that a show of force was unnecessary as she scrambled into the back with Osha, and Shade loped out ahead through the open gates.
• • •
Chane was about to flick the reins.
“Bring my brother back,” the duchess said, looking right at him.
No matter the role he had played in this place as bodyguard to Wynn, perhaps she recognized another noble when she saw one and tried to appeal to his honor.
He would make no promises.
Chane snapped the reins, and both horses broke into a trot, heading out the gates and down the slope along the road. He looked ahead through the dark for Shade, as the dog would never go far from Wynn.
They were barely out of sight of the keep when Wynn made a change.
“Osha, take the reins and drive,” she said. “Chane, back here with me.”
“Why?” Chane asked.
“Just do it!”
Osha climbed over the bench, and Chane handed off the reins to join Wynn. He found her awkwardly removing the sheath from her staff while still holding the strange piece of ruddy metal. Once the sheath was off, and the staff’s long crystal was exposed, she began digging one-handed through his pack and pulling things out at random.
“What are you doing?” he rasped. “What good will your staff be against—”
“Look at this,” she said, holding out the piece of metal. “It’s part of an orb key or handle.”
Chane looked up from her hand. He was not certain what this meant, but he did not care for it.
“Aupsha’s people had a key for the orb stolen from them. They cut it into pieces so it could never be used with the orb . . . but they did something else to it . . . somehow.” And she looked up at him. “It’s activated now, and so long as someone holds it, this piece of key can be used to point the general way to an orb . . . and not just the one the duke has. I know this because Aupsha was the one who broke into the Stonewalkers’ realm in tracking the wrong orb.”
Chane was momentarily stunned. Before he could form a question, Wynn turned back to his pack and pulled out his gloves, mask, and glasses.
“When you found the orb of Earth in Bäalâle,” she went on, “Sau’ilahk had gotten ahead of you. You found that the orb was still there, but you didn’t find a key handle. When Magiere returned from the Wastes, she had a key to match the orb she found there, yet the orb in Bäalâle had none. We couldn’t figure out why Sau’ilahk left the orb of Earth, but perhaps it wasn’t the orb he really wanted. Maybe he took the key instead . . . and maybe he knew how to make it work in another way.”
Chane did not like what she was hinting at. “No . . . Neither I nor Shade have sensed an undead in this place.”
“Maybe he’s kept enough distance. Maybe you couldn’t sense something through the keep’s stone . . . or down below it. But who else could have taught Karl how to tamper with an orb . . . or might have a key to open one?”
Chane wanted to dismiss all of this, but he could not. He had not bargained for carrying Wynn into another confrontation with the wraith. Perhaps she was wrong.
Wynn put everything else she had pulled out back into his pack until all that remained in her lap were his gloves, mask, and scarf, and the original pair of dark-lensed glasses that had been made with her sun-crystal staff.
“Get these on and pull up your hood . . . and be ready,” she said.
Chane sighed, a habit left over from life. He did as she asked, for once he was completely covered, Wynn could freely ignite the sun crystal as necessary, and he could withstand its arcane light for a short while.
The possibility that she might need to use the sun-crystal staff stripped away all comfort in being prepared. Then something more occurred to him.
“If Shade senses an undead, she will . . . go berserk. She might try to attack alone and drive it off before it senses you. That is what I would do in her place.”
Somewhere out in the dark Sau’ilahk could be with, trailing, or awaiting Duke Beáumie.
Wynn leaned forward. “Osha, faster!”
Chane pulled his gloves on and reached for the mask.
Chapter Nineteen
Sau’ilahk sat on a wagon bench while Guardsman Comeau drove the team of horses down the inland road. The coastal wind blew relentlessly at his back and made him wish he had thought to bring a cloak. What a strange thought that was after centuries of never feeling any physical sensation.
A heavy oil lantern rested between himself and Comeau and provided some light. Under the bench, behind his feet, was a small locked chest filled with gold sovereigns of Witeny—the Beáumie family treasury. And around his neck hung the orb key he had stolen from a forgotten dwarven seatt and learned to use to find the orb.
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Three Suman guards, including Hazh’thüm, rode in the wagon’s back, where the orb was stowed in a small trunk beneath a tarp. The other three jogged behind the wagon, followed by four mounted keep guards, including Lieutenant Martelle.
Those last four, along with Comeau, believed they accompanied their duke, Karl Beáumie.
Sau’ilahk had purposefully chosen to turn inland and take the long way around through the duchy to the nearest port. There would be less chance of encountering anyone presumptuous enough to question the “duke” traveling by night with a contingent.
The magnitude of what Sau’ilahk had accomplished slowly began to sink in.
He possessed flesh again, which would soon need proper care, as well as the mending of any effects inflicted upon it by the orb. The extent of his success so far was almost overwhelming. Still, a few doubts and worries nagged at him.
For one, he had left Wynn Hygeorht alive.
That choice galled him, though he had seen no way to kill her before leaving. With his new body, he could not slip through the keep’s stone to take her life in the night, even if he had ordered her isolated from her companions. Nor, as the duke, could he simply have her executed, for others present would question such an act and likely speak of it later to others. The guild would hear of her death eventually, and for now he needed to remain an inconsequential noble in a nation that had abandoned its monarchy.
He was also uncomfortably uncertain about how much of his previous nature remained at his command now that he had taken living flesh. He had not considered this carefully enough in his maddened desire. Besides his ability to feed upon the living, how much else could he still do?
And last but foremost, what of Beloved?
Sau’ilahk no longer needed to slip into dormancy each dawn, only to suffer dark restlessness in the coils of his god until the next dusk—or so he assumed. Against all unknowns, he could accept other losses in exchange for that. Oh, yes, he would still serve his god, but only for his own return to power.
Looking down, he studied the unmarred left hand inside its black glove. As of yet, he had not wanted to examine the other deformed one too closely, though he would find a way to mend it soon enough. As the wagon rolled along, his thoughts turned to other things.
Using his teeth, he removed the glove from his left hand and rubbed his fingertips together. The hand was perfect, slender but strong. After a sidelong glance at Guardsman Comeau, attentively managing the wagon’s horses, Sau’ilahk reached down and flattened that hand upon the side of the bench.
There was one thing he could test now, in the dark, when no one would see.
Applying his will, as he had once needed in order to make his hand solid, he pressed against the bench’s side. Almost instantly he felt his fingers and palm sink as if pressing through mud instead of wood. Pressure soon mounted. He felt wood press around his flesh and begin to crush it.
Sau’ilahk jerked his hand from the bench.
“Something wrong, my lord?” Comeau asked.
Sau’ilahk saw only puzzlement in the young guard’s face. “No, merely a sliver from the old wood. I will tend it later.”
Comeau nodded, turning his attention back to the reins.
Sau’ilahk cradled that one perfect hand in his lap. It was enough to know he could still alter himself, though inversely from what he had once required when taking phyiscal action as only a spirit. Perhaps when sated on more life, he might come and go as he once had, unlimited by physical barriers. As with other things, learning more of what had changed would have to wait.
His thoughts turned to more immediate matters.
He knew very little of this land and nation, only that Witeny was a politically ambiguous place, maintaining its noble lines as part of its heritage but not as a governing class. All decisions of state were handled by a national council, which was reputed to be as corrupt as any aristocracy. He had no intention of remaining a minor lord in a remote duchy and collecting a pittance of taxes from the coastal villages under his stewardship. He intended to return to his native land, and for that he needed true wealth.
Whatever coin he had taken from the keep was hardly enough, but his title as a duke was something with which to work; titles could still open ways closed to commoners. Perhaps he could claim unrest in his province and seek advice and aid from those of Karl Beáumie’s station or above. That would be a start.
The wagon lurched and jumped under him, and he gripped the bench’s edge.
“Sorry, my lord,” Comeau quickly offered. “I can’t see all the little holes in the dark.”
Sau’ilahk offered no rebuke, as he continued pondering more important matters. Then something dark caught in the corner of his sight.
It was almost as if he had glimpsed himself—his former nature as a black spirit. He turned his head too quickly and too far, straining his neck as the wind at his back blew hard across his face. Slapping the hair from his eyes, he looked more carefully.
Something rushed through the night among the north-side trees along the road. Before he could utter a warning, a dark figure in a cloak and hood shot out toward the left horse before the wagon.
The animal lurched, threw up its head, and screamed.
The figure veered off, rushing back into the trees, as the horse began to fall.
“Whoa!” Guardsman Comeau called, heaving on the reins.
The wooden shaft in the falling horse’s harness snapped as the horse collapsed against its companion, and the wagon’s left front wheel struck the first struggling beast. The horse on the right was trapped by its harness as it went down.
Sau’ilahk’s eyes widened when the wagon lurched upward, nearly throwing him into the back. As the wagon toppled sideways, he jumped.
Inertia threw him toward the trees to the left, and by pure chance he missed any of their trunks in the dark. When he hit the earth, his feet gave way, and he tumbled out of control. Shock numbed his mind at the pain of being battered and whipped by bushes and leaves as low branches snapped under his wild fall.
Sau’ilahk rolled to stop on his stomach with cold, damp mulch against the side of his face and some in his mouth. He was too stunned at first to move, and then pain came back.
Was he injured, broken, harmed in any way? This could not be happening to him after waiting so very long to have flesh again.
Hearing the noise and shouts of men, he carefully pushed himself up and turned on one knee.
A fire burned at the front of the overturned wagon resting on its left side. At least one of the downed horses was screaming. The lantern had broken and its oil ignited, and flames threatened to reach the wagon’s bench. Two of his men tried unsuccessfully to free a third one pinned under the wagon’s side. Something dark, likely blood, leaked from the side of the man’s mouth.
Guardsman Comeau stumbled toward the wagon’s front and shielded his face from the flames as he tried to reach the horses. Amid confusion, the four keep guards dropped from their horses to follow the other three Sumans.
Looking about in shock, Sau’ilahk saw that the orb’s trunk had toppled to the roadside and was exposed from beneath the tarp still dangling from the wagon’s upturned side. One keep guard ran by, ignoring the chest as he tried to pull the tarp free and tamp down the flames.
Sau’ilahk struggled up, but not to run in and help. He turned all ways as he looked among the trees. The person who had caused all of this was still out there in the dark.
“Grab the bottom!”
Sau’ilahk turned back as Lieutenant Martelle was directing the others in trying to tilt the wagon to free the pinned Suman.
“Lift on the count of three,” Martelle shouted.
At the count, two of Sau’ilahk’s men and another keep guard heaved but to no avail.
Sau’ilahk had no interest in this, and he hurried toward the orb’s trunk. Then he sp
otted Hazh’thüm with two more Suman guards at the wagon’s rear.
“Retrieve and guard the trunk,” he ordered in Sumanese. “Then find the treasury as well.”
With a sharp nod, Hazh’thüm waved to his men and pointed toward the trunk. They both ran in, grabbing for its end handles. As the second man touched it, dust or a sudden mist appeared to blow in around him upon the wind.
The cloaked figure took shape before Sau’ilahk’s eyes.
The figure rammed a shimmering blade through the Suman guard’s yellow silk tabard, and the man dropped his end of the orb’s trunk and fell across it. Sau’ilahk stood frozen at the sight of the tall, slender, masked figure with a now-darkened blade in its hand.
Hazh’thüm shouted something that made Sau’ilahk blink and look away for an instant. When he looked back . . .
The other Suman had dropped his end of the trunk and reached for his sword’s hilt. The cloaked figure lunged in. The blade had barely sunk into the man’s chest when the cloaked one vanished in a whirl of dust swept away by the wind.
The second Suman guard toppled before Hazh’thüm arrived. No blade protruded from the man’s chest, though his yellow tabard began to darken. Blood soaked through and spread in a circle as his back hit the road. He lay still and silent, and his eyes remained open.
Hazh’thüm spun about, looking in all directions.
Two Suman guards were dead. A third was still pinned under the wagon and dying. Oil on the roadside still burned brightly. And Sau’ilahk shook off his shock and looked everywhere for any sign of the one who appeared to have blown away on the wind. Then he realized the wind no longer came straight in from the west.
It now came a bit more from the north. He and his contingent were on the road’s north side. As he stepped fully out of the trees, he peered southeast across the road and ignored the groans of the man still pinned under the wagon.
Three of his Sumans were functional and would obey unto death—for greater fear of him. He was uncertain how far the keep guards would obey their duke after what they had just seen.