Should she just sleep here? The air began turning awfully cold, and an inbound wind blew straight into the cleft. Her only other choice was the city, and she did not like that place, with its structures of dead wood and stone.
Perhaps she closed her eyes a bit too long while her chin rested upon her pulled-up knees. When she opened them again, night had fallen and ...
A large ship—bigger than anything else in dock—was coming into the harbor. Would a ship of this size be the kind that the fisherman had spoken of, one that would eventually head for human waters?
Crawling from the cleft, she stood watching as the ship settled in near the pier’s end. She wondered about its hkomas—what humans might interpret as a “captain.” If he would give her leave to board, she might soon be away from this land—perhaps by the next dawn, and she would not even have to watch as the coastline faded from sight forever.
Once the vessel docked, a ramp was lowered. Within moments a tall man walked down and onto the long pier. Even from a distance she could see there was something unusual about the way he moved. She could not hear his footfalls upon the planks, and the manner in which his left arm swung with his loose white-blond hair pricked her awareness.
When he passed beneath a lantern along the pier, her breathing quickened.
Strangely, he no longer wore an anmaglâhk’s garb but only the breeches and tunic of a coastal clan. His cloak was brown, and the end of a long and narrow canvas-wrapped bundle, tied to him by a cord, protruded over his shoulder. With his gaze fixed hard upon something beyond the pier’s end, he did not see her until she cried out.
“Osha!”
Magiere stiffened as Leanâlhâm fell silent.
“What?” she asked. “What was he looking at?”
Leanâlhâm pointed to Brot’an without a word, and Brot’an sighed. Magiere could see this was taking its toll on the old shadow-gripper as well.
“What happened?” Magiere insisted.
With a brief pause for another breath, Brot’an picked up where the girl left off....
Brot’ân’duivé had been in Ghoivne Ajhâjhe a full day as he waited in the shadows and watched the smaller docks at the mouth of the Hâjh River. His quarry would have taken a barge and most likely had already arrived, but there was always a chance that part of the team had been delayed somehow. He wanted to explore all possibilities before taking action blindly.
If he could put an end to their purpose here, then there would be no need to leave. He could stay to attend to other matters, to finish what he had failed to accomplish: to remove that worm-in-the-wood of his people at any cost. But no anmaglâhk arrived at the barge docks.
The team had already come and gone. His only option was to follow—to track them. As darkness fell, he slipped from cover and went to the harbor to look for any ship he might know with a hkomas who could be trusted for both information and passage.
He kept to the rocky upslope along the shore for its darker cover, far from both the dock lanterns and those along the city’s frontage. It took him a while to spot a suitable vessel, but in that he finally had some luck. His gaze came to rest on a midsized ship in the harbor—with a hkomas who knew him.
Brot’ân’duivé also noticed a larger ship settled in at the longest pier, but he did not give it much thought. He had taken only a step toward the smaller vessel when a tall man disembarked from the larger one.
The way the man walked down the pier gave him away. The smooth gait of an anmaglâhk was broken by a slight awkwardness others would not notice. He did not wear a forest gray cloak, and something long and narrow was lashed over his back with its cord bound across his chest.
Brot’ân’duivé stepped through the sand toward that other pier as Osha, now dressed like a coastal dweller with a traveler’s cloak, neared the shore.
Whatever had been required of Osha by the Chein’âs, the Burning Ones, must have been brief. Even for all the time that had passed, he could not have come all this way otherwise. Why had he not returned to the inlands, to the caste, or even to the ruin of Sgäilsheilleache and Gleannéohkân’thva’s home enclave?
Osha passed beneath a dock lantern. Its brief light exposed his lost, grieved expression.
Then came a sudden change.
His head barely turned, or perhaps it was only his eyes that did so.
Sorrow shifted to anger so spiteful that Brot’ân’duivé knew the young one had spotted him, though he did not know what he had done to deserve such venom. Then a cry broke over the soft lap of water upon the shore.
“Osha!”
Brot’ân’duivé’s gaze shifted to the cry’s source.
Leanâlhâm came out from the shadows of the rock clefts and ran toward Osha.
Brot’ân’duivé stalled where he stood. How could the girl be here? Osha halted, eyes widening at the sight of her, and another movement in the night pulled Brot’ân’duivé’s focus.
Three forest gray forms, nearly black in the darkness, rushed out of the trees between two buildings up the shore. Leanâlhâm was only halfway to Osha when they leaped, clearing the rocks to land upon the sand, and they raced to close in on the girl.
“Leanâlhâm!” Osha shouted.
He glanced once more, accusingly, at Brot’ân’duivé and broke into a run.
Brot’ân’duivé quickly scanned the city’s front.
Only three anmaglâhk were visible, but he had no notion of how many Most Aged Father had sent—as they were no doubt after him. Perhaps upon not finding him, they had instead focused on the girl.
He knew he should flee. He should do anything necessary to remain out of their sight until he caught a ship to pursue his quarry. His purpose was worth more than two lives among the people ... even two lives he knew well.
One anmaglâhk caught Leanâlhâm up in his arms, lifting her off the ground. She kicked and squirmed in fright as Osha shouted something. The other two closed in to cut him off.
Brot’ân’duivé unsheathed a stiletto and palmed it with the blade’s tip between his fingertips and its handle flattened against his forearm.
Brot’ân’duivé paused, looking beyond Magiere and Léshil to Leanâlhâm.
“The rest is yours, if you wish,” he said quietly.
As the girl gazed back at him, some of her tight anger vanished. If nothing else, perhaps speaking the end of it all—for her—might serve more than one purpose here.
Magiere twisted about, taking a protective step toward the girl. Leanâlhâm raised a hand to hold Magiere off.
“It is all right,” she whispered, and just as quickly, she picked up where Brot’ân’duivé had left off....
Running wildly toward Osha, the girl suddenly felt herself whisked off the ground, and impossibly strong arms held her in the air. On instinct, she kicked and struggled, but her captor did not appear to notice.
Panic engulfed her, as she had no idea what was happening ... until she saw Osha nearly flying toward her up the shore. Then she caught a glimpse of forest gray sleeves on the arms pinning her.
The Anmaglâhk were supposed to protect her, protect all of the people. She had no faith in that anymore, not after the loss of Sgäilsheilleache and the way her grandfather had died.
“Let go of me!” she shouted, and then suddenly feared for more than herself.
Osha had no weapon in his hand as he charged in. She caught glimpses of forest gray on each side of her, and realized there were more of them. Without warning, the one who held her suddenly dropped her feet to the ground. She was so shocked that she tried to bolt too late.
One of his arms whipped around her and pinned both of her arms to her sides.