Unlike Osha, Leanâlhâm had been taught Belaskian, the Farlands dominant language, by her deceased uncle and grandfather. Brot’an had tutored her in some basic Numanese, although how the old butcher had learned the tongue so quickly still bothered Chap. Leanâlhâm’s heavy Elvish accent would simply support her guise as an acquaintance from afar, here to visit Wynn.
If she was refused entry, then it could be assumed that Wynn was indeed a prisoner—but her location would be in question. If Leanâlhâm was let in by guards but then refused by the sages, at least they would know Wynn was still on guild grounds. And in that event, hopefully, Chap could at least gain the inner courtyard in order to try what he wanted to accomplish.
That mattered the most. Somehow, they had to at least reach the courtyard.
Leanâlhâm had been ordered—both by Brot’an and Magiere—that at the first sign of trouble, she was to get out any way possible; Chap would take care of himself. The girl had promised this. Magiere had also instructed her to pay attention to any unsought memories that suddenly surfaced in her mind. This confused Leanâlhâm quite a bit, and even more when she was told why, for it was the only way Chap could warn or instruct her.
The problem, of course, was that Chap had not spent enough time watching for Leanâlhâm’s memories. He could only call back a person’s own memories that he had already seen in that same person’s mind. Leanâlhâm was instructed that if she suddenly remembered—for no reason—their flight in secret from the attack of the anmaglâhk, she was to turn and flee. She had so badly wanted to be useful that she would have promised anything.
However, the prospect of this task and the reality were two very different things. Now Leanâlhâm glanced down nervously at Chap.
She was fully cloaked with her hood pulled up, and he could not help feeling humiliated by the piece of cord around his neck as a makeshift leash. Yes, it had been his idea, and with the other end clenched in the girl’s hand, he had led her and not the other way around. Still, his discomfort got the best of him, and he disliked even the illusion of being anyone’s pet.
Chap was well aware Sgäile and Gleann had protected Leanâlhâm from the world with a vengeance. Then Brot’an and Osha had taken up that role. This entire endeavor was outside the girl’s experience. He wished he could reassure her, even if it was another lie.
She seemed to read his expression and said, “I am not afraid.”
He could see that was not true.
“It is all right,” she insisted. “I am ready.”
Stepping out, Chap pulled on the leash cord until she stepped in beside him. When they finally passed through the bailey gate and approached the closed portcullis, he craned his head, peering through its broad beams. He saw only one guard standing inside, but he could not see much of the courtyard down the gatehouse tunnel.
Leanâlhâm came within arm’s reach of the portcullis, and then Chap spotted another guard stepping into view at the tunnel’s far end. Both guards wore red tabards over chain vests, and the nearer one had a helmet with a nose guard. The one pacing beyond the tunnel’s far end had sandy-colored hair and a close-trimmed beard across only his jaw above a clean-shaven throat. His boots clopped softly on the courtyard’s stone as he passed beyond sight.
“May ... enter?” Leanâlhâm asked in broken Numanese.
“What’s your business?” the closer guard questioned, glancing once at Chap.
“I am here ... visit friend ... Wynn Hygeorht.”
The following silence left Chap tense. He was uncertain why until he realized the boots on the inner courtyard’s stones had stopped echoing down the tunnel.
“No visitors today, miss,” the guard said politely. “I’m sorry.”
“Please ... I come long way.”
The sound of footsteps resumed. Chap spotted the guard with the close-trimmed beard turn into the tunnel’s far end and head for the portcullis.
Rodian couldn’t yet see who was outside the portcullis, but he was almost sure he’d heard the name of Wynn Hygeorht. As he approached the gatehouse tunnel’s outer mouth, he was surprised to see a slender girl—perhaps a young woman—in a full cloak with her hood pulled forward. Beside her was a very tall, mottled black and gray dog ... or was it a wolf?
The girl was definitely no sage by her attire, but Rodian’s guardsman partially blocked his view of the dog.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“Just a girl ... an elven girl,” Guardsman Wickham answered with a nod. “Here to visit, she says.”
As Wickham turned, he exposed the dog to Rodian’s full view. The animal was indeed wolflike but taller, nearly as tall as the dogs used to hunt them.
“Who are you here to see?” he asked, stepping up to look through the portcullis beams.
The girl, or rather young woman, by her height, backstepped and dropped her head. Her face wasn’t clear to his view, with the hood hanging to hide her eyes, but the dog was plain to see. Its strange blue eyes, tall ears, and tapered muzzle reminded Rodian of ... Shade. Wynn’s animal could be of the same breed, although he’d never before seen another like her.
The young woman hadn’t answered his question.
Rodian worried he might frighten her off, and he wanted to know more about this odd pair. If she ran, he wouldn’t have time to catch her with the portcullis down.
“Wynn Hygeorht,” the young woman finally confirmed.
Rodian’s first instinct was to arrest her on the spot and question her, though he’d still have to get her to stay put until the portcullis opened. Perhaps he might learn even more by letting this visitor actually see Wynn ... with him present, of course.
“Open up!” he called above.
The young woman inched backward again, though the dog didn’t, and the cord leashing the dog pulled taut and stopped her. The portcullis ground upward, and before it had even cleared Rodian’s head, he ducked under.
“I’ll take you to her,” he said. Now he could see inside her hood.
She was pretty, even beautiful, with the large, slanted eyes of a Lhoin’na, though her skin appeared slightly darker than most of those people. She was indeed young, though that didn’t always mean much with an elf. Pretty women did not affect Rodian, but what struck him the most was the way her green eyes shifted nervously about, always watching everything, always watching ...
Rodian tensed. All Lhoin’na had amber-colored eyes, not green. Wynn Hygeorht had a penchant for the strangest of companions.
He took care with his manner, yet she still appeared afraid, and this raised his suspicions more. What was she hiding? He gestured down the tunnel with one hand.
“This way.”
Turning his back on her, he walked up the tunnel but listened for the sound of her steps. What he heard first was the click of claws on stone. So the dog had immediately followed, and only then came the young woman’s footfalls. When Rodian emerged into the courtyard, he barely had a chance to glance back and make certain she was there.
“Captain, what are you doing?”
Rodian looked ahead to find Domin High-Tower stomping toward him out of the keep’s main doors. He let out a deep, slow breath and went to cut off the domin before the dwarf frightened Wynn’s strange visitor even more.
Chap had gotten what he needed in entering the courtyard, but when he spotted the stout dwarven sage, he knew he might have only moments. He hoped what he was about to try would work, though he tried it only once before.
On the way to the Pock Peaks in search of the first orb, Wynn had been cut off from everyone and lost in a blizzard. He had searched hard for her, but without a line of sight, he had no way to speak into her thoughts. He had tried, anyway, and it had worked for one instance.