Chap wrinkled his jowls but dropped his haunches back to the floor.
“Are you ready to listen?” Leesil asked him, but then looked at Magiere.
No one said a word.
“All right, then, this is how it’s going to work....”
When Chane finished explaining, Ore-Locks shook his head in astonishment.
“The sages would imprison one of their own?” he said. “If even half of what you say is true, then yes, we need to get her out.”
“You doubt me?” Chane asked, not truly offended.
He had spent a fair bit of time relating the whole story of the past few days and nights. It was unsurprising that Ore-Locks had doubts without knowledge of how much Wynn had been through with the guild before now.
“No,” Ore-Locks hurried to say. “I did not mean ... just a figure of speech.”
Not too long ago, Ore-Locks would not have cared a whit about offending Chane. Perhaps to both their surprise, they had become allies, if not friends. After they had located the orb at Bäalâle Seatt, Ore-Locks had taken it into safekeeping in the underworld of the Stonewalkers. The dragons, the all-eaters, had demanded that Ore-Locks become keeper of their orb.
“Once we get Wynn out,” Ore-Locks went on, “where will you take her? She will not be safe here in this city. Perhaps not even inside Malourné’s borders.”
Chane had not thought that far ahead, and he glanced at Shade. She merely whined once. Neither of them had thought much further than freeing Wynn. Where would they go? Not only would the Premin Council be hunting for Wynn, they would likely use the city guard, as well.
“Dhredze Seatt might be safe for a while,” Ore-Locks suggested. “But not at the temple of Feather-Tongue. Head Shirvêsh Mallet has ties to the guild. Perhaps in the underside of one of the settlements.”
Chane was tempted. Of all places he had been in recent years, he had felt most at ease in the underground half of the dwarves’ world—despite the fact that his height made him stand out too much. Ore-Locks’s suggestion was welcome, but Chane viewed it as a fallback position. If he and Wynn were to find the remaining orbs, she needed access to resources that could help her translate the scroll. He did not know what she had in mind for their next step, but he doubted that she would agree to hide in a remote dwarven settlement. She was nothing if not focused ... or outright stubborn.
She was determined to locate every orb before agents of the Ancient Enemy found them first. Chane had sworn to himself that her mission was his mission. But he also struggled with how to retrieve something desperately precious to him—for her.
Premin Hawes still possessed The Seven Leaves of Life and the muhkgean mushrooms and anasgiah flowers he had acquired. He was not leaving without them. And he still did not know what Wynn would want to do about Magiere, Leesil, and Chap.
That worried him the most. What did that trio’s return mean for his future with Wynn?
Suddenly, the thought of vanishing into a dwarves’ mountain with Wynn became more appealing. He would never admit it, but he was glad Ore-Locks had come to help. Chane had no one else to call on, and he could not do this alone.
“Dhredze Seatt it is,” he finally answered, “but first we have to get Wynn.”
“When?” Ore-Locks asked.
Shade’s ears perked up at that.
“Tomorrow night,” Chane answered. “We will be ready by then.”
He rose and went to his pack, pulling out a torn sheet of paper and a charcoal writing stick. He knelt before Ore-Locks and waved Shade over, and began sketching an outline of the guild’s grounds.
“We begin here,” Chane said, pointing to the keep’s front and glancing at Ore-Locks. “Considering some of your skills, the first step will be the easiest.”
Ore-Locks and Shade leaned in to listen.
Chapter 13
LATE THE FOLLOWING night, Magiere hid inside an alley’s mouth several blocks southwest of the Old Bailey Road loop. Chap stood at her side, peering around the building’s corner into the open street, with Osha and Leanâlhâm just behind them. Magiere let out a slow breath that turned to vapor in the chill night.
She still thought much of Leesil’s plan bordered on madness, but she hadn’t come up with anything better. If all went well, they might have a chance at rescuing Wynn. If all went as planned. But this entire strategy still felt wrong to her. She should’ve been the one with Leesil, not Brot’an.
She could’ve covered Leesil’s back while he scaled the bailey wall and then hauled her up by a rope. If the worst came, they’d always fought back-to-back to get out of anything ... almost anything. Instead, she was standing in the dark with two young elves and a grumpy know-it-all masquerading as a dog.
Since when had she become the distraction, the decoy?
“Hear it?” Osha whispered.
Magiere heard nothing and glanced back at him. Osha was dressed in a heavy cloak with its hood pulled forward, shadowing his face. With his longbow strung, he reached over his shoulder and drew an arrow from his quiver. The arrow’s feathers were so black that even Magiere had trouble making them out in the dark.
Leanâlhâm was dressed in a boy’s breeches, a jerkin, and a shabby cloak. Leesil had scavenged up this clothing, and Magiere had refrained from asking him where and how. The girl had been eager enough back at the inn. Now she stood there shivering, gripping her cloak closed about herself from the chill, fright, or both.
“It come,” Osha whispered.
At Chap’s huffed agreement, Magiere finally heard the distant grind and creak of wagon wheels on cobble. She glanced back again at Leanâlhâm and then down at Chap.
“Both of you stay here, even if things go wrong,” she ordered, and then raised her eyes to Osha. “Ready?”
Osha nodded once, and Magiere took off past him down the alley at a run. When she reached the alley’s far end, she headed down the next street. She ran hard to get behind the wagon’s path before Osha would have to step out in front of it.
Magiere halted at the corner where the side street met the mainway. But the sound of hooves came from her right and not left, up the way toward the alley’s mouth. She had beaten the wagon and arrived at the next intersection too quickly. She leaned back against a shop’s corner, head hanging, just listening.
As the wagon passed by, she ducked around the corner, flipped her hood back, and watched it roll up the street. She crept along the shop fronts, as any moment now ...
A shadowy form rushed out of the next alley’s mouth a dozen yards before the wagon.
Osha rooted himself midstreet and raised his bow, aiming at the driver.
“Stop now,” he ordered.
In a creak of wheels and rattle of tack, the driver jerked the wagon team to a halt. Magiere came in behind it as quietly as she could.
“What’s this about?” the driver shouted.
“I need wagon,” Osha said.
Magiere crept toward the driver’s side of the wagon.
Osha had his aim set on the driver’s head, but even if he had to fire, it would not be lethal. The driver wouldn’t know this, nor likely spot the oddity of the arrow that Osha had notched to his bowstring. When the plan had been settled back at the inn, Leesil had insisted there be no unnecessary bloodshed.
But he’d looked right at Magiere when he’d said it.
It stung her, heated her with anger, but she’d said nothing. He had his reasons, especially for what had happened up in the Wastes ... what she’d done to save him when they’d fled that icy, white plain.
Brot’an had replaced the head of one of Osha’s arrows with a lump of lead.
“Get out of my way!” the driver growled. “Or I’ll run you down.”