Magiere's smooth brow furrowed again but not in irritation. She put her hand firmly upon his far cheek to pull his face toward her. Her voice was soft yet firm.
"Quick and quiet, as always. No one will know we passed." Her hand slid down against the chest of his hauberk. "I'll let no one out there touch you."
Leesil tried to smile for her but couldn't.
Fleeing her homeland of Droevinka had been hard for Magiere, much as she openly detested the place. He'd made her understand why they had to leave so quickly.
In a clearing near Apudalsat, deep in the southeast of Droevinka, Magiere had faced the mad necromancer Ubad. In all the years since the night of her birth, he'd awaited her return. Ubad had called up something old and forgotten in the shape of massive black coils like a serpent. By all Leesil could guess, the necromancer's minions-or those of the coils among the trees-still searched for Magiere. And so she'd fled north with Leesil all the way through Stravina.
Now the province of Leesil's old lord and master, Darmouth, lay before them. Leesil knew it was now his time to return "home" if they were to find passage by land through the untracked Crown Range and into the territory of his mother's people, the Elven Territories. Somewhere in that hidden realm, his mother might still wait. Cuirin'nen'a-Nein'a, as his father had called her-was a prisoner of her own people.
And if his mother survived… if she hadn't died because her son had fled slavery… then what of his father, Gavril?
"Leesil?"
Startled, he looked at Magiere. She now faced inward toward the city, and he followed her gaze.
Leesil saw nothing but people on their way to somewhere else. They wandered or strode purposefully in and out of shops and stalls along the main way from the gate. But one short figure dodged awkwardly through the others, drawing closer by the moment.
Wynn Hygeorht looked like a younger sister dressed in the oversize hand-me-downs of an elder brother. The heavy sheepskin coat over her short robe was too large for her small frame, and the coat's hood had slipped down. She tried to hold the collar closed with one hand while the other gripped the bunched top of a canvas sack slung over her shoulder. The bouncing bundle threatened to unbalance her small frame as she hopped around puddles. Beside her trotted Chap, breath steaming in the air, paws muddied, and his silver-gray fur damp across his back. The two must have been caught in the morning rain while doing errands.
Street activity increased to a flurry, as if Wynn's passing stirred up an ever-multiplying warren of rabbits. People gathered in clusters, speaking quickly before scampering off to join others. Shopkeepers slipped out their front doors, and hawkers halted their carts. Passersby spoke with them, gestures emphatic, but neither would-be customer nor merchant showed interest in goods or services.
Wynn skidded to a stop before Leesil, and the canvas sack jostled and nearly toppled her into the mud. She caught her footing before Leesil had to grab her. Her round olive-toned cheeks glowed from the cold, and her small mouth was obscured by her hand clenching the coat's collar. Her wide brown eyes blinked rapidly. When she released the collar, Leesil saw the worry on her round face.
"Where have you been?" Magiere asked. "The day was long when you ran off, and now it's all but gone!"
Wynn's mouth gaped. Her strange fright vanished with a clench of her delicate jaw, and she turned on Magiere. Leesil winced before Wynn snapped out her first word.
"You knew it would take time to find a courier! I have to return finished journals to the guild in Bela, and there are few enough caravans on the move in winter. So what did you expect? Not to mention finding any cartographer who could show us a way through the mountains. And I needed more paper, ink, and supplies for my work."
Leesil let out a slow sigh, though the two women didn't notice.
Bitterness had grown between Magiere and Wynn. It started in the Apudalsat forest when Magiere beheaded a vampire named Chane- whom Wynn had foolishly befriended. Since then, Leesil had tried to keep the peace, but sooner or later any "discussion" between these two erupted into petty bickering. Leesil would pull Magiere aside while Chap herded Wynn the other way, but the long trek and deepening winter had worn Leesil's patience thin. Before he could cut loose with a tongue-lashing, Chap shoved himself between the two women, snarling at both.
Near a guards' hut to the street's side, a chattering cluster of city folk fell silent and backed away. Two border guards lowered their spears and took steps toward the dog.
"Enough, Chap." Leesil touched the dog's back and cast a warning glance at Magiere and Wynn. "I think they catch your meaning… or they'd better."
Wynn clenched her lips, eyes closing, as Magiere looked away with a scoff. The two guards returned to their post as Chap settled to a low grumble.
"Did you find us a map?" Leesil asked. "Or some clue to a way through the mountains and into the elven lands?"
Wynn rolled her little shoulders, shaking off anger as well as her sack of acquired goods. The canvas bundle dropped to the ground.
"There is a passage into the lower reaches, but few have gone beyond and none of those have ever returned. The master cartographer let me copy what little there was in her records, since no one ever asks for or commissions a map to a place no one wants to journey."
Wynn pulled a folded parchment out of her coat and handed it to Leesil. He turned it in his hand but didn't open it. Another quarter moon would pass before they needed the map, and judging by Wynn's words, it didn't promise much help.
"That doesn't sound good," Magiere said.
"And?" Leesil replied.
"I'm not saying…" Magiere returned quickly. "I would never-"
"No one before had Chap along to find a way," Wynn offered.
Chap huffed agreement, and Leesil looked down into the dog's crystalline eyes. An old memory from youth surfaced into Leesil's thoughts.
His mother sat upon the bedroom window ledge in their house, wrapped in a thick russet dressing gown. Her white-blond hair fell straight and glistening down her back, and she stroked it slowly with a rowan-wood comb. Slender and tall in the evening light, with the forest across a lake in the distance outside, she looked like a young oak growing alone in a barren field far from the other trees.
Nein'a turned, exposing a sleek triangular face with a narrow chin and a caramel complexion deeper than Leesil's own. She raised one feathery eyebrow above her oversize and almond-shaped eyes, like some lithe and long-boned forest creature trapped in the world of humans. Unearthly, large amber irises like coals in a furnace focused upon Leesil as she spoke.
"Leshil?"
Leesil shook himself, clearing Chap's memory play from his thoughts. "I told you never to do that. Stay out of my head!"
Chap licked his nose.
Given all the time since first discovering the dog's true nature, Leesil was certain it was some rude gesture.
"It is his way of communicating," Wynn argued.
"It's far more than that," Magiere grumbled.
Wynn turned another spiteful glare at her. "He is anxious as well to find Leesil's mother!"
Leesil suppressed a groan as the squabbling began again.
If they'd only get the true matter over with, once and for all, though even that might not settle things. They were both stubborn, or perhaps Magiere's pigheadedness had worn off on the young sage. Either way, Wynn was idealistic to the point of delusion. Her deceit over Chane's trailing all of them into Droevinka wouldn't be forgotten by Magiere-or by Leesil.
"It's no surprise," came a deep, gravelly voice. "Except that this time it took so long for them to jump for each other's throats."
The words took Leesil by surprise. He spun about, wondering who in this faraway place knew his companions that well. Neither of the two men was familiar to him.