Chane detested the constant mist and dampness of this somber forest. Who would ever choose to reside here? He started back for the shrine when a figure stepped though the foliage directly in front of him.
"Where have you been?" Welstiel asked.
Chane had not even sensed Welstiel nearby. His traveling companion was not in his usual meticulous state, and his uncombed hair hung in tufts down his forehead. His gaze dropped to Chane's chest with an expression of disgust.
Chane looked down to see that his shirt was soaked.
"I had to feed," he said, "or I would have been no use to you by morning."
Westiel stared at the blood a moment longer and then straightened himself. "Did you at least get rid of the body?"
"No, I let them lay. No one saw me, and we'll be far gone by morning."
"Them?" Welstiel's jaw tightened visibly as he glared through the dark toward the village. "Which hut?"
Chane heard the creak of leather as Welstiel clenched his gloved hands.
"The second one… on the right," he answered.
Welstiel pushed through the brush toward the hut as Chane followed. He opened the door, glancing at Chane as if he were a revolting animal.
"I will take the old woman," Welstiel said. "You carry the girl, since your shirt is already ruined."
This seemed pointless to Chane, but he did not argue. He picked up the girl's body and returned to the forest with Welstiel. They discarded both bodies halfway to the shrine in a growth of dense brash, covering them with mulch from the forest floor.
"Scavengers may finish this, and perhaps no one will know what happened," Welstiel said.
Chane suppressed disdain. He was free and masterless, with strength flowing through him that brought clarity. "Have you discerned which way the dhampir has gone?" he asked.
"Yes," Welstiel answered, not looking at him.
"Then I should change my shirt… while you saddle the horses."
Welstiel did not reply as he led the way toward the shrine.
Chapter 3
L eesil reined in his pony at the cluster of dingy huts ahead. In the damp weather, the pounding of villagers' feet and scant livestock had turned the center path to a muddy passage between squat structures with shake or thatched roofs. Lean strands of smoke arose from rough clay chimneys or simple smoke holes. The log post walls were streaked gray where rainfall had washed away the wood's natural color. Beneath the forest scent were the smells of cow dung, soot, and dank hay. Bleakness lingered like a fungal stench in the clearing that held the village captive.
This was Chemestuk.
"We are here?" Wynn asked Magiere. "This is your home?"
"It was," came the answer.
Magiere dismounted, as did Leesil, and Wynn followed their example. Daylight was fading.
"We walk from here," Magiere instructed. "Unexpected visitors need to be noticed well before they enter a village."
Leesil clutched the leather reins and pulled his pony forward. The knot in his stomach tightened as they passed between the outermost huts, and his mind held but one thought.
This is where my Magiere grew up.
She kept no secrets from him. Whatever he asked, she answered, but he'd never inquired, "What was your home like?" or "Who were your people?" Perhaps because he didn't care to think about his own past, and if he had asked her…
A way with words wasn't among Magiere's notable skills, and even so, it wouldn't have been enough for what Leesil saw.
Braids of garlic and henbane hung beside doorways with other herbs and dried plants he couldn't name. Strange symbols were carved into the outer walls and doors of most dwellings. Some were faded, while others appeared more recently gouged.
To the south was another clearing, smaller than the village space, where weathered planks, erect stones, and debarked wood shafts sprouted from the ground. Some bore garlands of wilted flowers. Leesil noticed a glitter of light through the tree branches, where a lantern hung from a tall pole.
When one of their own died, these backwoods peasants bought oil before food. They starved to keep lanterns burning for as many nights as possible, in fear of unseen things the recently deceased might attract.
It was all far too familiar, and a shudder of revulsion and shame assaulted Leesil. Around him was the living inspiration for the game that he and Magiere had used to prey upon villages for so many years.
Hunter of the dead.
He'd never imagined Magiere as one of those they'd swindled and cheated. When he glanced at her walking beside him, studying her pale and smooth profile, she looked out of place. It seemed impossible that she'd grown up in this murky world soiled with damp and ignorance. Muddied below the ankle, her boots were sturdy for wear and soundly cobbled. Her black breeches and wool cloak were travel-marred but a far cry from the threadbare clothing of the villagers. She'd pushed back her cloak, sheathed falchion in plain sight for all-perhaps as a subtle warning.
Eyes peered from doorways and windows. A few people in the open stared warily at this trio of trespassers.
Up the road out of the village's west end loomed a squat keep upon a rise lifting out of the surrounding forest. Even at a distance, its dark profile looked worn and ill-kept, like the village. Its upper rim was uneven, perhaps with broken stones, leaving gaps like missing teeth. Leesil felt the chill air sink into his bones as two more thoughts settled upon him.
Magiere's mother had died in mat place.
And Magiere had grown up beneath its shadow.
A crack of wood made Leesil jump. He spun halfway around, his hands slipping up opposing sleeves ready to draw his stilettos.
A bearded man in a soiled cap stopped splitting wood and cradled his ax as the strangers passed by. Whispers and mutters grew as more peasants returned from the fields they worked nearby in forest clearings or stepped from cottage doors. Some seemed frightened, while others were openly cold to the point of anger. Half of them carried hoes and spades.
"Night spawn!" an old woman hissed in Droevinkan, and then spat on the ground. in Magiere's path.
Chap growled back at the woman, fur rising on his neck as his step quickened. Leesil brushed his fingertips across the dog's head, and Chap slowed to stay behind him.
Magiere wasn't a stranger here, and was even less welcome than they were.
Leesil forced all somber thoughts from his mind. His punching blades were packed on the mule, and stilettos wouldn't do well against this many opponents. To protect Magiere, he'd have to be fast-and vicious enough to make fear his better weapon.
"Magiere, what is wrong?" asked Wynn. "What did that woman say, and why are they looking at you this way?"
"Stay close," Magiere answered, then whispered to Leesil. "None of your charm. It won't work this time."
Obviously, he thought. Two men approached, and before Magiere could argue, Leesil stepped in front of her.
He assumed the one in front was a village leader. Perhaps sixty or so years but still muscular, he had disheveled gray hair, and a few days' growth of beard. The wrinkled bags beneath his eyes made Leesil think of fungus lumps on a gnarled tree. Little distinguished him from the rest of those present, but his companion's face trapped Leesil's gaze.
He was in his late forties, unwashed hair hanging around his angular features and stubbled jaw-but only half stub-bled. One side of his face was a mass of scars up to his eye, as if a torch head had been pressed to his cheek and jaw. The injury made one side of his mouth twist into a permanent grimace, and a wisp of madness flickered in his hazel eyes.