Those rolling mounds were coils, each one larger than the height of a man. They glinted from a strange dull light that came from nowhere, and she saw their surface. They were covered in scales like a mammoth serpent, writhing around her in the forest with no beginning or end and no space between.
"Great patron," Ubad continued with arms once more in the air. He leveled one hand out toward where he'd last heard Chap move. "I bring you the minion of your enemy to devour!"
His other hand reached out toward Magiere.
"And the child you desired, for when you awaken from your long slumber… May it come soon."
Chap turned about, running back and forth. The low cry issuing from his jaws sounded almost human in its anguish. He ran to Magiere's side of the clearing, scrambling back and forth between her and the coils in the forest.
The coils reached the clearing's edge, sliding within the trees, but they came no closer. When Magiere peered carefully, she could see trees beyond them. They were not wholly real, yet Chap was in a state of panic.
And Ubad supplicated himself.
Was this what he served… what he had made her to serve?
"il'Samar…?" Ubad said. "I feel you with me… Will you not take her, after all the many years of my labor?"
Chap ran around Magiere and charged for the necromancer.
Ubad's scream filled Magiere's ears even before she turned to see the dog strike. The animal atop Ubad was still the long-legged and silver-blue figure who'd been with her and Leesil for years, but all that she'd learned of him in recent months vanished in that moment.
Chap's jaws snapped closed on Ubad's throat, choking off the man's wail. The dog's victim thrashed at him as Chap began ripping and tearing flesh.
A voice filled Magiere's head as if it came from all around her.
High… in the cold and ice. Guarded by old ones… oldest of your predecessors.
The words slipped into her mind, deep and resonating, and suffocated all other thoughts. She felt their vibration in her whole body, and she looked out to the roiling coils in the forest.
Sister of the dead… lead on.
Chap's snarls halted to be replaced by rasping pants.
The voice faded from Magiere's mind as the coils faded from the forest. All that remained around her were the dark spaces between the trees. She looked down to where Ubad lay and cringed.
She had seen horrible things in her life. The mangled mess of the necromancer's throat was no worse an end than she herself would have given the man. It was the sight of Chap she found so unsettling.
He paced with his back to her and stared into the trees. His low rumble came out in gasps, and his sides rose and fell in rapid pants.
"Chap?" she called quietly.
The dog spun about with a snarl. The fur upon his muzzle, throat, and chest was soaked dark red, and with his jowls pulled back, his teeth were stained, as well. His brow furrowed around wide, wild eyes. He stood looking at her between glances toward the trees, as if he expected the coils of dark to return. And underneath his feral appearance, Magiere saw him quivering.
Chap was terrified.
Magiere had never seen this in him before, and it made her look warily into the forest and then back to Chap again. She wasn't even certain he recognized her, but she held out her hand, palm up, not trying to reach but waiting for him to catch her scent.
Chap's jowls pulled back slightly. He took a slow step toward her and stopped.
"That was what you've been keeping from us," she said softly. "Or what you have been keeping me from?"
After a stretched silence, he barked once.
There was no time for more questions.
"Leesil… and Wynn," she said. "Can you find them?"
Before he answered, Magiere felt a sudden tension in the air pass over her. It was the same sensation she'd experienced just before Ubad had gone blind.
Chap lifted his head, ears cocked as he stared steadily into the trees. The quiver of fear had left him, and he was poised. He gave her one look with wide clear eyes in his blood-spattered face and bolted into the forest.
For an instant, Magiere was at a loss as she ran after the dog, about to call out for Chap to stop. Then she heard his hunting wail ahead of her.
There was another Noble Dead somewhere in the forest.
Welstiel's strength was all but drained, but he kept whispering and watching, feeding the ring to keep Ubad blinded until the necromancer was finally dead. Exactly why the majay-hi had gone mad, he wasn't certain, but he had seen the coils of his dreams appear in the forest. The shock of that sight had almost broken his concentration.
All the long years, the black-scaled coils in his dreams had taunted him with hints to what he sought. Something that could change his sickening existence. It seemed the patron in Welstiel's slumber had been with Ubad for far longer. Perhaps it had even been this patron that his father had so often muttered to in the dark. When the voice came, not in dream but in the night itself, it had not spoken to Welstiel or even to Ubad. The necromancer's groveling was ignored, and he was abandoned.
Welstiel had heard the coil's words.
Sister of the dead… lead on.
The voice in the night had spoken to Magiere. And the words were similar to those it had whispered into Welstiel's dreams.
As he stopped chanting and slumped upon the forest floor, he slipped the ring back upon his finger before his shaking hands dropped it. A piercing wail issued from the dog, and it raced into the forest with Magiere following. With the ring's sphere of influence contracted to its wearer once again, there was nothing to limit the majay-hi's awareness. It had sensed something more out among the dark, wet trees.
Chane.
Welstiel was surprised by how much this thought disturbed him. He tried to rise but collapsed again upon the ground.
Magiere pushed herself to keep up and didn't call out to Chap.
A short distance into the trees, the dog ceased wailing but continued to run. Magiere trusted Chap's judgment in a fight against the undead. If he chose to run in silence, he had a reason.
With Ubad dead, perhaps Chap had picked up on Vordana or another of the necromancer's minions. If such still moved and searched in the forest, there was hope that this meant Leesil and Wynn were still alive.
She ran on and on behind Chap, using her blade to slash away anything in her path that she couldn't force her way through. When Chap stopped ahead of her, Magiere slowed as she approached him.
He was alert and tense, and stepped forward through the brush between two oaks. She followed, sword at the ready.
Chap paused as they entered a clearer area and stared at the base of a tree across the way. Magiere followed that gaze.
The sight was unreal, and it took her a moment to believe she was not seeing some vision like the coils in the forest.
The headless bodies of both undead mariners lay before her. The neck stump of the nearest one was ragged and torn, its head nowhere to be seen. The other lay farther off, a longsword impaled through its chest, pinning it to the earth. Its head had rolled away from its body.
A man with red-brown hair and a handsome face knelt upon the ground, holding someone in his arms. Magiere saw his profile and remembered the last time she'd seen him in the sewers of Bela.
Chane.
The person he held moved and sat up.
Magiere looked into Wynn's frightened eyes.
The sage's shoulder was bleeding badly beneath a makeshift wad of cloth Chane pressed against it. Magiere had no idea what was happening here, but she didn't care. She stepped forward with her falchion out.