by J. C.
Leesil reclined against the pack as Wynn settled and closed her eyes. With the sage between himself and Magiere, he covered all three of them with the cloaks and blanket.
Magiere watched him with something akin to a frown on her wind-burned face. Or was it disappointment? She finally closed her eyes.
"Go to sleep," she said, and a dull flush of shame washed through Leesil.
They were all in a desperate way, and Wynn had been injured yet again.
Leesil couldn't count the times he'd cursed at Chap for every blocked passage or dead end they'd run into. But his guilt was always outmatched by what drove him.
Somewhere beyond reach, his mother waited. As he laid his head back, his gaze fell upon the small snow-dusted chest.
* * * *
Dusk fell as Chane huddled in his cloak within a makeshift tent, listening to Welstiel's incessant murmurs.
"Iced stronghold… show me… where…"
Chane cocked his head.
Dark hair marked with white-patched temples gave Welstiel the distinguished look of a gentleman in his forties. But over passing moons since leaving the city of Bela in Magiere's wake, the once fastidious and immaculate Welstiel had fallen into disarray.
Disheveled locks, mud-stained boots, and a cloak beginning to tatter made it hard for Chane to see the well-traveled noble he had first met.
Chane sneered. He knew that he looked no better.
"Orb…" Welstiel muttered.
Chane tried to focus upon Welstiel's scattered words. He pulled the threadbare cloak tighter around his own shoulders.
Cold was a mortal concern to which he gave no thought, but he was starving. He longed for the heat of blood filling him up with life. Hunger grinding inside him made his thoughts wander.
Well past a moon ago, he and Welstiel had pursued Magiere and her companions through the Warlands and into the city of Venjetz. None of them knew Welstiel followed, and they believed Chane was gone, after Magiere had beheaded him in the dank forests of eastern Droevinka. Welstiel remained undetected, but Chane was not so certain that Magiere was unaware of his return to the world.
Welstiel purchased sturdy horses, grain for feed, and a well-worn cloak for Chane from a merchant caravan they happened upon. He also procured canvas, several daggers, and a lantern. From a distance, they followed Magiere, Leesil, Chap, and Wynn through the foothills and into the base of the Broken Range where it met with the Crown Range. On the twelfth dusk within those heights, Chane was preparing for the night's travel when Welstiel mounted and turned his horse east by southeast. Away from Magiere's path.
"We follow our own way—into the Crown Range. Magiere will find us when she has finished chasing Leesil's past among the elves."
His voice had been calm, but Chane knew better. He sensed resignation in his companion. No undead could enter the forests of the elves, or so Welstiel had once claimed.
Chane heard something that made him pause, and he urged his horse up next to Welstiel's.
Voices carried down the mountainside, not quite clear enough to understand. But his vision expanded to full range, and he caught movement far above. Magiere and her companions had set up camp below a granite spire jutting up from the mountainside. As their campfire sprang to life, Chane's grip tightened on the reins.
Wynn crouched near the sputtering flames.
Now Welstiel would have him just turn away?
Anger burned against Chane's hunger at this last glimpse of Wynn, still wearing his cloak. As far as Chane knew, Welstiel had never noticed this one telltale sign.
On the last night in Venjetz, Chane had carried Wynn from Darmouth's keep to safety. Welstiel knew as much, and Chane never denied it. Wynn remained unconscious the whole time, never seeing who carried her. But the others with her—one frail but sharp-eyed noblewoman and a strange girl child—would surely have told Wynn that he had been there.
And he had covered Wynn with his cloak.
The thought of her so far from reach, beyond his protection—especially among those bigoted elves—was unbearable. But Chane did not blame Welstiel.
He blamed Magiere.
Wynn would follow that white-skinned bitch down into every netherworld of every long-forgotten religion. Chane had once tried to dissuade her and failed. Nothing he did or said would stop Wynn. Now he had no home, nothing he truly desired, and little future other than to follow Welstiel in search of the man's fantasy—this… orb.
Welstiel believed some ancient artifact would free him from feeding on blood, though he was not forthcoming about how. From pieces Chane gathered, it would somehow sustain the man without "debasing" himself. But while Welstiel had once believed he could not procure the object without Magiere, he now planned to locate it himself and lure her to it, once she emerged… if she emerged… if Wynn ever left the elven Territories.
The "orb" of Welstiel's obsession pulled Chane from the one thing that mattered most to him. Whatever source of information Welstiel found in his slumber, it had begun doling out tidbits again, like a trail of bread crumbs leading a starving bird into a cage. Yet the trail was incomplete. Perhaps purposefully so?
All Chane wanted was to find his way into the world of the sages, his last connection to Wynn. For that he needed Welstiel's promised letter of introduction. The man had more than once implied a past connection to that guild. So Chane followed him like a servile retainer. And then Welstiel turned irrationally away from Magiere… away from Wynn.
It made no sense, if Welstiel expected to pick up Magiere's trail later, for she would surely return—if at all—through the Broken Range. Something in Welstiel's dreams now pushed the man towards the Crown Range.
Now, Chane was starving, huddled in a makeshift tent and wrapped in a thin secondhand cloak, with no people living up this high to feed upon.
Welstiel's head rolled to the side, exposing his thick neck and throat.
The grinding hunger grew inside Chane.
Could one undead feed upon another? Steal what little life it hoarded from its own feeding?
It had been twelve days since Chane had last tasted blood. His cold skin felt like dried parchment. He could not take his eyes off Welstiel's neck.
"Wake up," he rasped.
The words grated out of his maimed throat. He slipped his hand into his cowl to rub at the scar left by Magiere's falchion.
Welstiel's eyes opened. He sat up slowly and looked about. The man always awoke disoriented.
"We are in the tent… again," Chane said.
Welstiel's lost expression drained away. "Pack the horses."
Chane did not move. "I must feed… tonight!"
He waited almost eagerly for an angry rebuke. Welstiel looked him over with something akin to concern.
"Yes, I know. We will drop into the lower elevations to find sustenance."
Chane's anger caught in his throat. Welstiel had agreed too easily. His surprise must have shown, for Welstiel's voice hardened.
"You are no good to me if you become incapacitated."
Welstiel's self-interest did not matter, so long as the prospect of human blood—and the life it carried—was real. Chane slapped open the tent's canvas and stood up beneath spindly branches of mountain fir trees. Welstiel followed him out.
Half a head taller than his companion, Chane appeared over a decade younger. Jaggedly cut red-brown hair hung just long enough to tuck behind his ears.
Snow drifted around him in light flurries across a landscape barren and rocky except for the scattered trees leaning slightly north from relentless winds. Chane hated this monotonous, hungry existence. For a moment he closed his eyes, submerging in a waking dream of nights in Bela at the sages' guild.
Warmly lit rooms were filled with books and scrolls. Simple stools and tables were the only furniture, though often covered in so many curiosities it was hard to know where to begin the night's journey into unknown pasts and places far away or long lost. The scent of mint tea suddenly filled the room, and Wynn ap
peared, greeting him with a welcoming smile.
Chane surfaced from memory and turned dumbly to saddling the horses.
Both were sturdy mountain stock but showed signs of exhaustion and the lack of food. Chane had begun rationing their grain as the supply dwindled.
Géorn-metade…
Wynn's Numanese greeting stuck in Chane's thoughts. She spoke many languages, and this was the tongue of her homeland. Chane glanced sidelong at Welstiel with a strange thought.
He knew next to nothing of Welstiel's past, but several times the man had said things… comments that implied the places Welstiel had traveled. How could the man have a connection to the Guild of Sagecraft abroad without the ability to converse with them?
"Géorn-metade," Chane said.
"Well met? What do you mean?" Welstiel stepped closer. "Where did you hear that greeting?"
Chane ignored the question. "You've traveled in the Numan lands?"
Welstiel lost interest and reached for his horse's bridle. "You are well aware that I have."
"You speak the language."
"Of course."
"Fluently?"
Welstiel held the bridle in midair as he turned on Chane. "What is brewing in that head of yours?"
Chane hefted the saddle onto his horse. "You will teach me Numanese while we travel. If I'm to seek out the sages' guild in that land, I'll need to communicate with its people."
Snowflakes grew larger, and the wind picked up. Welstiel stared into the growing darkness, but he finally nodded.
"It will pass the time. But be warned, the conjugations are often irregular, and the idioms so—"
He stopped as Chane whirled to the left, head high, sniffing the air.
"What is it?" Welstiel asked.
"I smell life."
* * * *
Chap slowly paced the cavern, watching its dark heights. He smelled something.
Like a bird, but with a strange difference he could not place.
Perhaps a hawk or eagle took refuge here against the storm. The crystal's light did not reach high enough for even his eyes to see into the dark holes above. He approached the far wall, peering upward.
A thrumming snap echoed through the cavern.
An arrow struck in front of him and clattered on the stone.
Chap backpedaled, twisting about in search of its origin. He braced on all fours with ears perked and remained poised to lunge aside at any sound. About to bark a warning to his companions, he heard another sound high to his right.
Something soft… pliant… smooth that dragged on stone, followed by a brief and careless scrape of wood. Then silence.
Chap growled.
"Come back here!" Leesil called in a hushed voice.
Chap remained where he was but heard nothing further. Whatever hid above and had called to him amid the storm, it did not care for anyone coming too close. And he no longer believed it had anything to do with his kin.
He inched forward, sniffing carefully at the small, plain arrow.
The strange bird scent was strong on it, especially on the mottled gray feathers mounted at its notched end. The shaft was no longer than his own head, and ended in a sharpened point rather than a metal head. He gripped it with his teeth, and the light-colored wood was harder than expected. It tasted faintly sweet, not unlike the scent of jasmine, and maybe cinnamon, reminding him of spiced tea Magiere served at the Sea Lion Tavern.
Memory. How strange the things that came to him—and the things that would not. Things he must have once known among the Fay.
Chap looked up to the cavern heights. Instinct and intellect told him there was likely no danger, so long as they left their hidden benefactor well enough alone. Still, he did not care for a skulker watching them from the dark. He loped back to his companions with the small arrow in his teeth.
He dropped it upon the edge of the layered blankets and cloaks, prepared to nudge Leesil.
Wynn rolled her head and half-opened her eyes. Chap stepped as close as he could, sniffing at her loosely bandaged wrist, the one he had injured trying to save her.
He peered at Wynn's round face by the waning light of the crystal atop the chest. She settled her hand clumsily on his head. It slid over his ear, down his face, and dropped limply against her side as her eyes closed again.
"It is all right," she said, and even weaker, like a child on the edge of sleep, "thank you."
Chap turned a circle and curled up at Wynn's feet.
He laid his head upon his paws, trying to keep his eyes open, and watched the heights of the cavern. He never knew whether fatigue or the waning crystal finally pulled him down into darkness.
* * * *
Welstiel urged his horse through the dark, keeping up with Chane amid the scattered trees of the rocky mountainside. Occasionally, Chane slowed to sniff the night breeze.
Disdain tainted Welstiel's grudging respect for Chane's hunting instincts. He had suppressed such long ago, but given their present situation, the need for life to feed upon grew desperate even for him.
Since leaving Venjetz, Chane had reverted to the resourceful companion he had been in Magiere's homeland of Droevinka, securing supplies, setting proper camps before dawn, and hunting. Even his ambition to seek out the sages had renewed. Welstiel was pleasantly relieved, at least in part.
"Are we close?" he asked quietly.
Chane did not answer. He wheeled his horse aside, sniffed the air like a wolf, and then kicked his panting mount forward.
Welstiel followed with a frown. When they pushed through thin trees tilted by decades of wind, he caught a whiff of smoke. Chane's starvation might drive him to lunge the instant they found prey, but Welstiel had other plans.
"Stop!" he whispered sharply.
"What?" Chane rasped. He reined his horse in, his long features half-feral around eyes drained of color.
"Whoever we find, I will question them first." Welstiel pulled up beside Chane. "Then you may do as you please."
The sides of Chane's upper lips drew back, but his self-control held. He pointed between two small boulder knolls.
"Through there."
Welstiel smoothed back his hair. Despite his threadbare cloak, he still had the haughty manner of a noble. It was near midnight, and as Welstiel rounded a rocky hillock he saw a small flickering campfire. Two figures sat beyond its ring of scavenged stones.
"Hallo," he called out politely.
Their faces lifted. The flames lit up the ruddy dark features of an aging Móndyalítko couple. Unbound black hair hung past the old woman's shoulders with thin streaks of gray turning white in the firelight. She was layered in motley fabrics, from her quilted jacket to her broomstick skirt. The man tensed and reached behind where he sat. Dressed in as many layers as his mate, he wore a thick sheepskin hat with flaps over his ears.
Behind them stood a lean mule tied to a small enclosed cart not nearly so large as these wanderers usually lived in. What were they doing up here all alone? Welstiel smiled with a genteel nod and urged his horse to the clearing's edge.
"Could we share your refuge and perhaps some tea?" he asked, gesturing to a silent Chane. "We had trouble finding a place out of the wind. We can pay for the imposition."
The man stood up, an age-stained machete in his grip. His manner eased as he eyed the night visitors, who were clearly not roving bandits.
"Coin's not much good up here," he replied in Belaskian with a guttural accent. "Perhaps a trade?"
"Our food supply is low," Welstiel lied, as he had no food. "But we have grain to spare for your mule."
The old man glanced at his beast, which looked like it had not eaten properly in some time. With a satisfied nod, he waved the night visitors in.
"We have spiced tea brewing. Are you lost?"
"Not yet," Welstiel answered wryly. "We are cartographers… for the sages' guild in Bela."
The old man raised one bushy gray eyebrow.
"I know… mapmakers, wandering about in the dark
," Welstiel replied. "We stayed in the upper peaks too long. Our supplies dwindled faster than anticipated."
The woman snorted and reached for the blackened teapot resting in the fire's outer coals.
"Hope these sages—whatever they are—pay good coin to track ways that few ever travel."
Chane remained silent as he settled by the fire. Welstiel knew these pleasantries were difficult for him at such close range, but Chane would have to hold out a little longer.
"And what are you two doing up here in winter?" Welstiel asked.
"Stole cows from the wrong baron," the man said without the slightest shame. "We know these ways, but the baron's men don't."
This blatant honesty surprised Welstiel, and it must have shown on his face.
The old man laughed. "If you were the baron's hired men, you'd hardly have waited for an invite."
Likely true. Welstiel glanced at Chane and noticed his hands were shaking. In the camp's flickering light, Chane's skin looked dry like parchment beginning to show its age. Neither Móndyalítko took notice of Chane's odd silence.
Welstiel hurried things along. He returned to their horses, took a grain sack hanging from Chane's saddlebag, and dropped it beside the fire.
"Take what you need," he said. "At dawn, we head down for supplies."
"We thank you," the old man said with a casual shrug, though it did not hide the eager widening of his eyes.
"Our employers asked us to locate any structures or settlements," Welstiel went on. "Way stations, villages, even old ruins… any strongholds high up. Do you know of any we should seek out when we come back?"
The woman handed him a chipped mug of tea. "There's Hoar's Hollow Keep. A lonely old place trapped where the snow and ice last most year 'round."
Welstiel paused in midsip, then finished slowly. Locked in snow and ice.
"You're certain? How many towers does it have?"
The woman frowned, as if trying to remember. "Towers? I don't know. Haven't seen it since I was a girl."
She stepped around the ring of stones and poured Chane a mug of tea. He took it but did not drink.
"Can you tell us the best route?" Welstiel asked.