The old colonel leaned in, growling into his subordinate's face.
"There's war in the south as is, and I won't have you starting one here. This isn't the first time, and it won't be the last, so bite your lip and be still! Until the refugees cross the border, we cannot interfere."
"Interfere with what?" Magiere called out.
The colonel ignored her, but the captain cocked his head. His long face, reddened by the cold, was clenched, showing that it took all his effort to keep silent and obey his superior. Leesil saw the man's left eye twitch before he looked away, snapping orders to guards now gathered beside the gate.
Leesil watched more figures emerge from the distant trees, running as they came. In his youth within the Warlands, he'd seen people reach for a better life. He'd been forced more than once to take it from them. No matter how he'd sympathized with their plight, there was always Darmouth's hold upon him, his mother, and his father. They… he had done things for lord and master that left him with years of nightmares.
"Leesil, what's this about?" Magiere asked.
The first mounted soldier broke from the trees after the escaping prey.
"A slaughter," Leesil whispered.
Chap watched the chase unfold upon the field. Two full-grown men were among the fleeing peasants, bringing up the rear. The rest were women, children, and an elder boy and girl old enough to run ahead of the pack. Five riders had cleared the trees so far and sped after their quarry. Armored in leather and mail, their shields were slung upon the sides of their mounts, and each wielded a long-hafted mace with a narrow iron head.
A gust of wind blew through the city gate.
It struck Chap squarely in the face. He blinked sharply as his spirit shivered with a declaration. His kin-the Fay-spoke into his being through the chill air.
Do not interfere! This event does not bear upon your purpose.
Not so, or should we keep one from the Enemy-Chap looked briefly to Magiere before his gaze fell upon Leesil-only to lose the other to his past?
Leesil stood motionless, staring across the field. The wind pulled at his hood until strands of his white-blond hair whipped around his face.
If need be, then let it be so. The child of the dead is foremost.
Across the field, the lead rider reversed his mace. He struck down with its butt upon the back of one fleeing man, who tumbled out of sight into the grass.
Chap snarled through clenched jaws, but the sound was lost in exclamations from the loose crowd about him. He turned a tight and agitated circle, and then focused on Leesil's cold expression and unblinking eyes. Chap's awareness caught a memory surfacing in his companion's thoughts. Leesil's shame washed through Chap as he saw into a moment of Leesil's past-saw it through Leesil's own eyes.
A nightfall meeting of tradesmen and townsfolk gathered in the shop room of a local tannery. They muttered curses for their suffering, and it was not long before talk turned to how to end their ruler's tyranny. Leesil looked away from their angry faces and deafened his ears to their frustration. It had taken a whole season to gain the trust of a contact and be invited among them at this meeting. A shuttered lantern in hand, he inched toward the tannery's rear door, watching for anyone who might look his way. When he was certain he moved unnoticed, Leesil cracked the rear door and slipped out into the dark street beyond.
He opened the lantern's shutter, freeing its light, and set it on the ground before turning down the nearest side street. A handful of heartbeats passed before the quickening sound of hooves and footfalls grew louder. No one within the tannery heard the soldiers coming until it was too late.
At the sound of the shattering tannery door, Leesil ducked around a stable, pressing himself flat against its timber wall. Steel clattered and the townsfolk screamed. Leesil did not look back nor move until the night became silent again.
A rumble shuddered in Chap's chest as Leesil's memory faded, leaving only lingering misery. There was so much that Leesil carried within, and Chap feared a return to the half-elf's past might break him. Chap followed his companion's blank stare across the field to the struggling flight of the older boy and girl. And Leesil's guilt lingered in him. Chap flattened his ears as he lashed back at his kin.
In the time of the humans' Forgotten, the ancestors of the flesh I wear stood with those who opposed the Enemy. We fought beside them… for them.
His kin offered no sympathy.
Only to preserve balance. Only to preserve this world as a whole. This is not such a time-but a blink in eternity-and you let mortality corrupt you.
This is no more than Life itself, predator and prey in the cycle of survival. You would save an instant and risk losing all time!
The pounding of hooves carried to Chap's ears.
A lead rider closed on a trailing peasant woman. His mace arced down, and Chap heard the distant crack as its iron head broke the back of her skull. She pitched forward and slammed down limp into the grassy earth.
The mace arced upward, trailing blood and torn hair.
Chap snarled so loudly it drowned all other sounds from his own ears. His spirit threw a spiteful reply back to his kin.
Cower in your Eternity, if you wish… I do not agree!
Wynn shuddered, though she did not know if it was from the chill breeze or what she saw upon the field. Even so, spite smoldered inside her toward Magiere. Chane was gone. Magiere, with her irrational instincts, had killed him. Wynn could not let go of her pain.
A gust blew through the gate. The shiver of her small frame increased, and an ache expanded sharply in her head.
A multitude of voices speaking in sync came from too far away to hear-or was she hearing them? It sounded more like the buzz of insect wings or the rustle of autumn leaves through an orchard. It filled her awareness until she became dizzy, like the night that…
This had happened to her once before.
Chap paced before her in agitation, fur on the back of his neck standing up. As Wynn watched him, she heard-felt-a lone set of insect wings or one single rustling leaf answer back to the others.
A rider out in the field struck down a fleeing man with the butt of his mace.
Wynn saw Chap's muzzle wrinkle back from clenched teeth, but any sound he made was smothered by the curses and gasps of people in the street. A lone buzz of wing or leaf sounded in Wynn's head as Chap turned in circles that made her vision spin for an instant. What was he doing? She stood still, no longer shivering, and not wishing to move at all in the vertigo passing through her, sickeningly reminiscent of the night in Droevinka when she'd foolishly used thaumaturgy to give herself mantic sight… to see the elemental Spirit layer of the world.
Chap's snarl came late behind the curses of several border guards. Ears flattened, the dog lunged forward, and two startled guards backstepped as he spun to face Leesil.
The single leaf-wing buzzed in Wynn's head with a deafening roar.
She clenched her eyes and covered her mouth against a dry heave. A realization fought its way over the nausea turning rock-hard in her stomach. That sensation in her skull, that single thrash of leaf-wing countering the chorus of the others…
It had come from Chap.
Chap lunged forward, snapping and snarling. Two Stravinan guards leaning into the gateway jerked back out of his way. He closed off his awareness of his kin and spun to face those in his charge and care.
Wynn stood silent, a hand over her mouth, staring at him in panic.
Magiere's pale features were strained around blackened irises as she clutched Leesil's wrist in a tight grip.