There was a thinly veiled threat in his words. Any disagreement and she would need protection from him. Hedi did not respond well to threats, but the man crouched in her way, and she doubted a dagger would be enough to get her to the door.
"What happened to her?" He looked down at Wynn, and his rasping voice softened.
"She arrived at the keep beaten and restrained. I found her locked in a room. I helped free her, and we came here. The guard we left behind might awake or be discovered at any moment."
He jerked his chin up, all traces of gentleness gone. "Her guard is only unconscious?"
"Your friend did not care for killing an unconscious man, regardless of the risk for leaving him."
He looked about, then leaned over to wipe his hands on the dead soldier's breeches. Not all the blood came off.
Hedi wished she did not need his help. She had feared for Wynn when she realized Darmouth used the scholar as bait for the assassin who murdered her father and left her mother and sister to starve. Wynn had to be Leesil's next target, and Darmouth tried to lure him in. She would not let what had happened to her father happen to Wynn.
And Leesil, who had ruined her life, would not fall into Darmouth's hands either.
Hedi would find him first.
Black wishes grew in her mind until they seemed within reach. When Byrd's assassins came for the warlord, they would bear Hedi's token. The lecherous savage would know she had committed his final betrayal, as the elves presented Darmouth with Leesil's severed head.
"Your note to the innkeeper spoke of a guide," Wynn's guardian said, and lifted her limp form in his arms where he knelt. "I see no guide."
Hedi was startled from her thoughts. "What do you know of my note?"
"Where is the guide?" he demanded.
Exposing Korey troubled Hedi, but she had no alternative. She could not find the way out without Korey's assistance, so she crouched to open the canvas bag's mouth.
A small dark brown cat hopped out. She hissed at the tall man, and the fur on her back stood up.
"What is this nonsense?" the man asked.
"It is all right,' Hedi said to the cat. "Change. He will help us."
Korey backed away, ducking behind Hedi's skirt. Her fur receded and her body grew. The man watched with fascination as Korey transformed into a little girl. Hedi pulled the cotton nightdress from the bag and covered her immediately.
"He's bad!" Korey whispered. "Cold and bad."
"We have a long way to go," she said to Korey. "This man will protect us and carry Wynn."
Korey remained half-hidden behind Hedi.
The man gently shook Wynn, whispering in the little scholar's ear, "Can you move? Wynn, wake up."
But Wynn did not awaken. Her breathing was regular, and other than her battered face her color was normal.
"She will recover," Hedi said.
He stood, holding Wynn against his chest as if she weighed nothing. Hedi grabbed the bag and took a step closer. Her head barely reached the man's collarbone.
"Get the keys off the guard," he ordered.
It took a moment, partly because Hedi could not bear to look at the soldiers' faces as she searched their bodies. Finally they were ready to descend. A skilled fighter was a stroke of luck Hedi had never counted on- but at what cost?
Deep inside, it felt like she had struck an unwilling bargain with a demon.
Chane waited until Hedi finished unlocking the door. "I will go first."
The little girl glowered at him from behind Hedi's skirt as he stepped past through the doorway. He carried Wynn down the dark stairwell, and the descent was longer and deeper than he had expected.
"Can you see?" Hedi asked from behind him.
"Yes."
He did not care for this Hedi Progae, another social elite only Wel-stiel would value. She had spirit enough to take on the soldiers and even pur one down, but she looked too much like the worthless noblewomen of Chane's childhood. And she was no thaumaturge, by his judgment.
Thaumaturgy, the magic of the physical realm, was one he had never witnessed. Even if Hedi Progae was such a mage, she certainly was not old enough to have mastered transmogrification, the changing of one living thing into another. Which meant the child had done thus herself.
Wynn murmured in his arms, and he held her closer. Even in the dark stairwell, his sight made out the curves of her oval face, the swelling around her cheek and eye… the stain of congealing blood in the corner of her mouth.
He worried and hoped she would wake soon. Wynn had purpose: to study, to learn, to build upon all that she was even now. She was not part of the cattle that was humanity. She needed to be preserved.
When they reached the bottom step Chane paused and listened for any sounds of movement ahead. He heard nothing and he stepped along the passage until he reached a set of archways that opened into a long room filled with storage. There were doors at either end of the space and along its back wall. And one heavy door behind, in the passage itself.
Chane thought he felt something nearby.
Young Korey scurried past him, caught up in her childish pursuit of an adventure.
"Oh, we're on the far side," she said, and nodded. "Papa took me down the other stairs, the… the south one. But we're on the other side."
Chane stared along the passage the other way and saw another staircase leading up.
"What are we looking for?" he asked.
"The portal," she answered, as if this told him everything. "I know where it is."
Before Chane took another step forward, he picked up something on the edge of his senses again.
The smell of forest and fresh earth… decayed leaves? Sweat and wool? The thin scents were all mixed in the stale air here. Thin but fading, as if someone had recently passed this way. And even more powerful was the smell of blood.
Chane's awareness widened, and he turned around. He found himself staring at the ornate door in the passage wall across from the center arch-way. It was thick and solid, but in the moment of silence he thought he heard heartbeats beyond it.
"We are not alone," he whispered. "Start moving… quietly."
Hedi' took Korey's hand, and as they moved on Chane saw and smelled dark spatters of blood on the stone walls and floor.
Magiere and Leesil should still be across the lake looking for the passage's exit. He wanted to send Wynn through to them, but they must have found their way in first. There had been a fight in this room, and Chane picked up the scent of a dog and some other animal he could not place.
Hedi slowed to step around the blood. Korey scurried past into the storage area and pointed at the door to the room's far end.
"That one. I remember now."
Chane followed with a glance to Hedi. "Check the door."
She did so, and when it opened she looked surprised. A trickle of anxiety ran down Chane's neck, but he stepped through the door, and Hedi closed it softly behind them.
Chane stood at the head of a short corridor with wooden doors every three paces on each side. Each had a small metal-shuttered peephole. These were cells for prisoners, but he heard and smelled nothing, sensed
"Now?" he asked.
Korey ran to a cell on the left. "This one."
Chane came up behind her. The door had a slide-bolt-and-pin fixture in place of a lock.
"Open it," he said.
Korey pulled and a piece of the door above the latch fell out.
Chane backed away. Korey stared at the rough piece of wood on the floor. She bent over and picked it up, peering curiously through the hole.
"What does this mean?" Hedi asked, and took the piece of wood from the girl.
Chane had no answer. He shifted Wynn higher in his arms, stepped carefully to one side, and looked through the half-open cell door. The tiny room beyond was empty.
It seemed certain that Magiere and Leesil had found their way in, and their dog as well, for who else but Chap would have left a dog's scent in the outer chamber. He grew wary, wondering if they had come and gone, but he doubted they would leave so quickly without Wynn. Which meant they were still in the keep, searching for her. Eventually they would have to leave, if they wanted to survive. How could he be sure they would find Wynn if he left her outside?