Magiere gently but firmly pushed the girl behind her. “Why bring her into all of ... whatever this is?”
Leanâlhâm looked past Magiere, likely at Brot’an, but again, the old shadow-gripper did not answer.
Chap almost turned to look, as well, until he saw Leanâlhâm’s tear-stained expression harden with a scowl ... as if in blame. Suddenly, a rising memory in the girl filled Chap’s awareness.
He saw through Leanâlhâm’s eyes as Brot’an stepped silently out of the night between two trees. The butcher was dressed in full anmaglâhk raiment, but Chap—or, rather, Leanâlhâm—saw rips and rents in the forest gray fabric of his attire, along with several large, dark patches. When he came a few more steps, the dark spots on his clothes became visible, still glistening.
Brot’an was spattered and stained in blood, his own or someone else’s—perhaps both. The steady drip down the back of his right hand and off his dangling fingers was nearly black in the dark. Chap heard himself—heard Leanâlhâm—suck a breath in that remembered moment.
She averted her eyes, and the memory sank beyond Chap’s reach. The girl took hold of Magiere again.
“Come,” she said softly. “We have a safe place ... where I can tend your wound.”
Chap heard a rustle of cloth behind him.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Leesil snapped.
By the time Chap spun, Brot’an was halfway down the cutway to the next street. His hood was pulled back up. Before Chap could move, Leanâlhâm rushed by.
She caught up with Brot’an and grasped his arm. He turned on her, making her flinch. Leanâlhâm looked back to the dead anmaglâhk lying at the near corner where the cutway crossed the alley.
“Please,” she begged Brot’an, “do not leave him like this.”
Chap heard the others shifting behind him, likely looking at the body. Anmaglâhk death rites were complicated and strict, but Brot’an was unmoved.
“I will prepare him for our ancestors,” he answered, “when the living are tended first.”
Brot’an reached out with two fingers and snapped the shutter of Leanâlhâm’s lantern closed.
The sudden change of light caught Chap off guard. By the time he blinked, only Leanâlhâm stood in the cutway’s far half. He lunged past the girl, peering ahead, but the anmaglâhk master was gone.
“Come, Léshil,” Osha said in Belaskian, using Leesil’s elven name. “We go quick. Safe place.”
Chap did not turn back for them. He ran on until the cutway emptied into another street. There he raced up and down, peering all ways.
Brot’an was nowhere to be seen.
Chap rumbled in his throat, even as he heard the others exit the cutway behind him. A hand fell gently on the base of his shoulders, startling him.
“I know, old friend,” Leesil whispered, “but he will answer us, soon enough.”
Dänvârfij—Fated Music—stood near the window of the room at their inn. Though she had chosen an establishment for her team of anmaglâhk not far from the Guild of Sagecraft, the view simply overlooked the street below. It was safer that way.
She had sent what was left of her contingent to watch the guild’s castle from all sides. Hopefully, tonight they might finally learn the whereabouts of the monster, the one called Magiere. That one would likely return to this city somehow, someday. If she could not be spotted, then perhaps her half-elven consort or the tainted majay-hì might be. One way or another, that half-undead abomination would be found.
Dänvârfij did not let her hopes rise too high. She and hers had been in Calm Seatt for more than two moons and yet seen no sign of Magiere or her companions. Only one hint—one hope—had surfaced last night.
Wynn Hygeorht had returned to the guild, seemingly from nowhere.
So long as the little sage remained here, this city was the one place where Magiere might eventually reappear. The sage was Magiere’s only other known companion besides Léshil and the majay-hì they called Chap.
Dänvârfij still pondered how to learn where the young sage had been and how to use her if necessary to locate Magiere. As yet, nothing effective had come to mind—or at least nothing that would maintain secrecy and not end with the young sage’s death. For even if Wynn knew nothing of Magiere’s whereabouts, the little human might still be used as bait for a trap.
Dänvârfij closed her eyes, pondering events that had brought her to this deadlock. She remembered a weathered face with sharp features and white-blond hair cut so short it bristled upon his head.
Hkuan’duv—the Blackened Sea—had been her mentor for five years.
She had traveled with him, trained with him, and slept beside him on the open ground. In the beginning, she hardly believed that one of the four remaining Greimasg’äh—shadow-grippers—agreed to be her jeóin, or “assentor.” He would be the one to complete her final training, until he judged her fit to stand for herself among the caste. Always cold and remote, it was only after two years with him that she had begun to suspect his feelings for her went deeper than that of a mentor.
Dänvârfij knew she was not beautiful. Tall for her own people, she could look most males in the eyes. Her nose was a bit too long, her cheekbones a bit too wide, and then there were her scars. All anmaglâhk had scars, though some were unseen to the eye.
But Hkuan’duv had loved her, though he had never acted on it.
Anmaglâhk lived lives of service. They were not forbidden from bonding to another, but it was rarely done. They were wed to the guardianship of their people—in silence and in shadow—and Dänvârfij never revealed her awareness of Hkuan’duv’s true heart. The day he assented and released her among the Anmaglâhk was the day she had bested him with the bow during a hunt. In the following years, they occasionally shared purpose in a mission. She found quiet contentment, simple joy for the future, knowing she might again spend such times with him.
It was enough—it had to be enough—until Most Aged Father sent them after that pale-skinned monster who had walked in and out of their land. They were to wait and watch until Magiere acquired an “artifact” of the Ancient Enemy and then take it from her by any means. More untenable was that one of the most honorable of the Anmaglâhk—Sgäilsheilleache, Willow’s Shade—had sworn to protect Magiere and hers. It had all ended in horror beyond Dänvârfij’s imagining.
Hkuan’duv and Sgäilsheilleache went at each other over whatever that half-dead woman had taken from the castle. That alone was unthinkable among their caste—and then they killed each other in the same instant.
Outnumbered amid failure, Dänvârfij had fled in grief for her homeland.
Telling Most Aged Father what had happened was only second in misery to her loss. He had called the death of Hkuan’duv a tragedy for the Anmaglâhk—for all an’Cróan. “Tragedy” was not a strong enough word for Dänvârfij. But it was the death of Sgäilsheilleache that struck Most Aged Father the most, almost more than the failure of Dänvârfij’s purpose.
She had seen the misery beneath the rage in the ancient patriarch’s eyes. Then, once word had somehow slipped out concerning what had happened, some anmaglâhk cursed Sgäilsheilleache as a traitor. Most Aged Father had suffered that in silence.
The unthinkable had happened. Anmaglâhk had killed anmaglâhk. Their collective purpose had been wounded by the death of Hkuan’duv. Repercussions spread like ripples from a drop of blood striking a pool of ...
“Tea ... is there any left?”
Dänvârfij opened her eyes as she turned from the window.
Fréthfâre—Watcher of the Woods—sat bent forward in a corner chair, a heavy walking rod leaning against her right thigh. As the true leader of the team, she was the only other who had remained behind with Dänvârfij. But she was not fit to lead, in body or in mind.