The captain looked out into the trees but farther inland than where Chane had gone. Wynn wasn’t certain what Martelle saw. His features hardened, and his breaths grew heavy, sharp, and audible. He took off into the trees at a rush, and Wynn hurried after him.
It was so dark that she wasn’t certain what he was doing. When he stopped ahead of her by one tree and stood there looking down, she reached into her robe, pulled out a cold-lamp crystal, and swiped it along her robe.
Wynn stepped wide around the captain as the crystal ignited in a soft glow. The captain didn’t even look up.
Beyond his feet lay the body of another keep guard.
The man’s hair was so grayed that it looked nearly white under the crystal’s dim light. He had shriveled and aged beyond recognition of who he was ... had been.
Wynn knew what this meant. Her breaths quickened until she began to shake as she looked everywhere through the trees.
Sau’ilahk was here somewhere.
“Did you see what happened to him?” Martelle asked.
Wynn spun on him. “Give me the staff now!”
The anger in Martelle’s face increased, as if bits and pieces of all that had happened to him came back. He faced her and didn’t even glance at the staff.
“Where’s the archer, the Lhoin’na?” he asked.
“Give me that staff, or we’re all dead! It’s the only thing that can stop who did this.”
The captain leaned the staff farther out of reach and raised the point of his sword into her way. Then she heard footsteps behind her and looked back. Another guard stepped around the wagon’s front and the dead horse as he looked from her to his captain.
Wynn turned and bolted out of either’s reach for the nearest open way between the trees. A loud thud from somewhere on the road carried in the night.
“Not move! Stay!” someone shouted.
Wynn knew that broken Numanese before she even halted and turned.
Osha stood some twenty paces inland, in the middle of the road. He had one arrow drawn back as he aimed at the guard and the captain near Wynn. Another arrow was gripped in his hand holding the bow.
And at his feet was the orb’s trunk.
Wynn didn’t have time for relief. Osha suddenly swung the bow and pointed it up the road past the overturned wagon.
“Stay! Quiet!” he shouted, likely at the other guards still out there.
Wynn barely heard the captain shift a slow step behind her. She didn’t turn as fast as Osha did, and she followed the line of his aim back to Martelle watching her and him. And then she flinched back another step.
A sword’s tip appeared from behind the captain and dropped lightly on his left shoulder.
“Do not move!” a voice rasped. “I do not wish to harm you.”
Chane stepped out of the shadows behind Captain Martelle; the tip of his long dwarven sword still rested on the captain’s shoulder. Wynn sagged in relief for an instant and then hurried in to jerk her staff out of the captain’s grip. Up close, she stalled at the sight of Chane.
He wasn’t wearing his cloak, and his hair was wet. A dark smear showed on one side of his jaw, as if something had been wiped away in careless haste.
And a thôrhk—an orb key—of ruddy metal hung around his neck.
About to ask, Wynn looked him straight in the eyes. Chane shook his head once and quickly looked away, leaving her at a loss. Obviously he didn’t want her saying anything as yet, but where was Shade?
Chane looked over her head toward the wagon’s front. His eyes narrowed as his features hardened, and his gaze remained fixed as his head jerked once toward the wagon. Wynn backed away from the captain before she turned to see the one guard near the wagon’s front retreating slowly.
“Osha?” Chane shouted, though it was only a strained rasp.
“Have them all!” Osha shouted back.
He swung the bow slightly as he tracked the retreating guard, and Wynn quickly threw the lit cold-lamp crystal out to give him more light. It bounced to a stop a few yards from the trunk.
“Please join your men,” Chane said as he nudged the captain to follow the one guard. “We have no intention of harming any of you. You need only listen to what I will tell you.”
Wynn glanced at the orb key still around Chane’s neck, though he kept his eyes on the captain.
Wynn and her companions had not only recovered an orb but its key as well this time. They had all survived, but ...
Wynn grabbed Chane’s arm as he passed, but he wouldn’t look down at her.
“Back the way I came,” he whispered. “A short way into the trees. She is ... injured. Hurry ... and I will come for both of you.”
Wynn swallowed so hard that it hurt. She didn’t even question her safety in knowing Sau’ilahk could be near, and she took off into the dark forest.
“Shade!” she shouted, trying to get out her spare cold-lamp crystal as she ran.
She heard nothing but her own clumsy footfalls and her own fast breaths. She didn’t get the other crystal out until she spotted a dark heap in the open between three tall trees.
Wynn recklessly dropped the staff and fell to her knees as she swiped the crystal twice across her thigh. All but Shade’s head was covered with Chane’s damp cloak, and the tip of her tongue hung from between her front teeth.
“Shade?” Wynn whispered, leaning close.
The dog didn’t even twitch, though her eyes appeared open in the barest slits.
Wynn carefully peeled away the cloak. A careful touch revealed that blood was still wet in Shade’s neck fur and along one foreleg, but there wasn’t much, not enough to leave her in this state. Wynn carefully felt everywhere, though she feared causing more injury. Her fingers lightly passed over the back of Shade’s head.
Her fingers stained red, and her breath caught.
“Please open your eyes.... Look at me.... Say something.”
Not one memory-word came to Wynn.
Her bloodstained fingers trembled in hovering less than a finger’s length above Shade’s body. Her sight warped and blurred as the tears began to fall.
“Don’t you leave me, sister,” she whispered. “Not like this.”
Almost holding her breath as she watched Shade, Wynn still sat there in the dark. Even when Chane and Osha came, she couldn’t move.
Chane quickly rounded her and crouched on Shade’s far side, and still Wynn watched only Shade.
“We must leave,” he whispered. “I have given the keep guards the treasury chest and as much of a story as I could concerning the duke taking flight. We need to go before they question anything and turn back.”
Chane lifted Shade, and Osha had to pull Wynn to her feet.
In a forest clearing, a corpse lying facedown in the wet dirt twitched in the predawn.
Sau’ilahk opened his eyes but saw—heard—nothing at first. Everything was so quiet—too quiet—now that all of the wind had died. He lay still, not even blinking, as he tried to understand where he was. Then he remembered Chane Andraso and the black majay-hì. At that he panicked and tried to lift his head, but it barely rolled over the wet earth.
The sound of that movement was all he heard. Not a footfall, a paw’s claws upon the ground, or even a breath.
Sau’ilahk grew frantic. Why could he not even hear his own breaths?
And he remembered ... dying ... after Chane tore out half his throat and then suffocated him with one hand.
Sau’ilahk sucked in air and choked on blood congealed in his throat. He struggled to push himself up and put a hand to his neck. He felt the mess of his own flesh, and his hand came away coated in a sticky black-red mess.
Shock numbed his mind, and when he could actually think again, there was something missing ... something he had not felt in that one touch to himself.