From far away, a sound reached his ears. It was so distant and faint that no one else might have noticed it among the soft night noises.
A wolf let go a long, throated howl.
"Children of the hunt," he whispered, concentrating. "Come now."
Leesil leaned against the front wall of a candle maker's shop just across the street from the tavern. He wondered how much longer he could stay on his feet.
Karlin the baker stood nearby, anxiously peering this way and that. Leesil tried to hide his own physical condition as well as he could. The pain in his chest and back had long since spread to a numb rebellion throughout his whole body. He feared his legs would buckle and betray him, but he had to keep going.
Magiere was inside the tavern, donning her armor while he carried out his part of the plan. Sensible in its simplicity, it entailed arming the townsfolk with bows, if possible, and pitchforks and shovels when necessary. He'd placed most of them on watch inside homes, shacks, and small buildings in a perimeter around The Sea Lion, as too many on the roofs or outside would give them away. He'd wanted to prepare a firetrap ahead of time, but rejected the idea as too easy for the enemy to spot. Instead, he had women armed with dry boards, flasks of oil, and flint with makeshift lines of tinder and wood between buildings, ready to be ignited quickly if needed.
The whole point was to keep the vampires inside the perimeter and not allow them to escape once they entered. He had no idea what more these creatures were capable of, but hoped he'd already seen all they could do. There were childhood tales he remembered of undeads that flew or transformed into beasts large and small. He said nothing of this to the townsfolk.
To their advantage, four of Ellinwood's patrol guards-Darien among them-had offered their help. Leesil had positioned them in an old storehouse close to the tavern. Two of them were even properly armed and looked capable of hard fighting. Perhaps, like Darien, they had lost loved ones, or they were just disconcerted by Ellinwood's disappearance and looking for leadership. Leesil didn't care which. He was just slightly relieved to have anyone besides bakers, weavers, townsfolk, and merchants to hold things together.
Strangely enough, his right hand and most dependable "soldier" was Karlin. The man's resourcefulness was astonishing. Between Karlin's ability to organize a band of frightened laborers and find a wealth of tools to serve as weapons, Leesil could not have managed without him. Now the two of them moved to stand outside the tavern, occasionally seeing one of the townsfolk peering out a window.
"Everyone ready?" Leesil asked, not remembering until too late that he'd already asked this same question twice before.
Karlin nodded, and for a moment he reminded Leesil of Brenden. Although he was beardless, the baker's solid, yet massive, form and matter-of-fact countenance were familiar. He was also considerate of others and had brought Leesil a heavy, dark blue shirt which hid the half-elf's injuries and helped him blend into the night. Leesil tied his hair under a long black scarf, the last wrap of which he pulled across his face, leaving only his eyes exposed. He could vanish into the night shadows if need be.
"What if one escapes from the tavern and Magiere can't kill it?" Karlin asked, voicing doubts for the first time now that they were alone.
"I've told the archers and the guards in that storehouse to inflict any harm possible." Leesil lifted his hand and held up an ax. "If they can even stun it, I think I can take its head off."
Karlin flinched, biting his lower lip.
"It may sound grisly," Leesil admitted, "but what it would do if it escaped would be far worse."
"I'm not questioning you," Karlin answered softly. "You and Magiere have more courage than I can imagine."
"And Brenden."
"Yes," the baker said, nodding. "And Brenden."
Leesil recalled his first proposal that morning, that he and Magiere find a ship or boat and disappear. If Karlin knew that, he wouldn't think so highly of his present company.
"We should keep out of sight for now," Leesil said. "Everyone knows what to do. I want to stay close to the tavern. With the guards on the seaside, we stay in this shack, landside. If need arises, we'll be able to close in."
Karlin nodded. For some unsettling reason, Leesil thought of his own beautiful mother and the green trees of his homeland. They were bare in the winter and lush in the spring, so unlike these cold firs and evergreens around him now that never changed. Of all the places where, and for all the reasons why, he thought he would die, defending a small coastal town of common folk from undeads was not among the possibilities he'd ever imagined. But then again, perhaps Karlin and these laborers had nothing to do with his efforts. Of the faces pushing to the forefront of his mind, only one truly mattered-one with smooth, pale skin, a serious expression, and thick black hair that shimmered red in the light.
Teesha never spoke of nor consciously acknowledged several senses she'd developed after Corische turned her. She considered a heightened sense of smell, attuned to all the small and tedious odors constantly present, to be unladylike. Nevertheless, as she slipped into Miiska and approached Magiere's tavern, the smell of the town was wrong. Scents of perspiration from fear and nervous exhaustion hit her and continued to grow the closer she drew to The Sea Lion. The strength of it contradicted the quiet of the empty streets.
Casting out with her mind, she absorbed a jumble of thoughts carried on the presence of life in the town.
I'm thirsty.
Where's Mother?
Joshua always teases me because I'm short.
I'm going to marry Leesil when I grow up.
Mustn't let 'em escape Magiere.
What simpletons these mortals were. Then she caught a flash of thoughts joined in a cluster. Frightened, but simple and clear.
Children. Where were they?
Turning in the night air with eyes half closed, she felt for their origin, as if the cluster of thoughts were a breeze she could feel upon her face and judge its direction.
Moving quietly along the sides of buildings, Teesha stopped when the wash of thoughts across her became strong and near. She found herself facing the end of one of the main streets toward a stable in the lower half of town not far from the tavern. On the roof, she could make out two adult men crouched or sitting. She felt the tension in them, and it was easy enough to send them a tingle of apprehension that made both turn toward the shoreline, as if unsure whether they had heard something. She slipped silently across the road to the wall of the stable.
Teesha lingered on the outside, carefully separating the patterns until she could identify at least ten… no, twelve young minds somewhere within. She was about to step in and seek them out, then stopped.
Empty streets smothered in fear.
Children hidden away.
Two guards on the roof.
They had laid a trap in the town.
She slipped inside the stable's door. Upon her entrance, a large bay gelding threw his head and snorted. Entering his thoughts, she calmed him.
"Shhhh, sweet beast," she crooned softly to the horse. "The night is when you sleep."
The gelding quieted, pawed once at his stall floor, and settled with eyelids drooping.
Teesha sensed that one of the smaller girls missed her mother terribly. Looking about, all she could see were two bales of hay, straw scattered thickly across the floor, a few broken pitchforks, and the one horse in its stall. The other five stalls proved empty. She looked about once more, then stood motionless.
"Murika," she called in a gentle voice. "Where are you?"
Silence followed and then, "Mama? I'm down here."