Drawing her falchion, she rested it against her thigh as Chap shot across the alley’s mouth to lurk at its other side. They were ready, for even when Osha and Leanâlhâm arrived, the “distraction” was far from over.
Én’nish flitted among the street’s darkest shadows beside Rhysís as they followed the strange pair driving the wagon away from the castle. She let them get far enough away that not even a quiet disturbance would be heard or seen by the red tabard guards on the castle’s bailey walls.
Rhysís pulled the pieces of his short bow out of the back of his tunic and assembled the two arms into their white metal handle. He and Én’nish paused once around a street corner. She waited while he strung the bow and pulled aside the shoulder of his tied-up cloak to reveal his quiver of short arrows. She had always found his skill set to be strange.
He was equally skilled—above sufficient—in everything an anmaglâhk valued: hand-to-hand, weapons, languages, subterfuge, interrogation, and tracking. But he had no skill of excellence. For some reason, this bothered her.
Most anmaglâhk were sufficient in most skills but excelled at one or two. She excelled in hand-to-hand, with blades or not, and her small size had more than once drawn an opponent into overconfidence. Rhysís also spoke less than any anmaglâhk she’d ever known—though he seemed to know Dänvârfij well. As a result, Én’nish didn’t care much for him, though he was a sound partner on a hunt like this. At the moment, that was all that mattered.
She glanced back along the way they had come. The small castle was no longer in sight. As she looked down the street to the wagon now a block ahead, she raised one hand and brushed her thumb across her first two fingers.
At the signal, Rhysís notched an arrow, and Én’nish drew her stilettos.
The wagon suddenly turned a corner and passed out of sight.
Én’nish let out a grating breath. But as soon as they regained a line of sight, Rhysís would put down the driver. They could easily take the disguised sage to Fréthfâre, and then Rhysís could go to notify Dänvârfij.
This was not a difficult purpose to fulfill.
Én’nish broke into an open run along the empty street, with Rhysís close behind her. When she neared that corner, she swerved in under the last shop’s awning. Then as she crept toward the corner, she made another silent gesture.
Rhysís ran wide in the street, raising his bow to aim down the alley, and Én’nish readied to duck around the corner.
An arrow’s quick hiss broke the silence.
In the side of Én’nish’s view, Rhysís suddenly twisted away, and he had not fired his bow. A vicious snarl erupted in the alley as she saw an arrow sticking through the fabric of Rhysís’s hood. Its black feathers protruded next to his cloth-wrapped jaw.
Rhysís himself was unhurt.
Something glinted on Én’nish’s other side, rushing at her head. She ducked and spun out before the alley’s mouth.
The nearer pillar of the shop shattered, making the whole awning above begin to buckle. As she looked atop the wagon’s bed in the side alley, the driver stood there with a long, curved, elven bow raised and readied.
There was no sign of the disguised sage.
Én’nish barely made out a face in the shadowed hood pulled forward over the driver’s head. His amber eyes and dark skin with too-long features and ...
It was Osha, the failure, and onetime student of Sgäilsheilleache. He must have been the one on the rooftops nights ago, the archer to whom Brot’ân’duivé had called out. Osha swung his aim toward her, another arrow already notched and pulled.
“No!” someone growled in the alley’s dark. “Take the other.... This one is mine.”
Out of the dark alley came the monster, stepping around the shattered remains of the shop column.
Magiere’s sickening white skin caught the dim light of a street lantern up the way. She raised her heavy, one-edged sword, gripped it with both hands, and charged. The silver majay-hì bolted straight at Rhysís from the alley’s other side.
It had all been a decoy, a trap. That was all that Én’nish had time to realize as she heard Osha’s bowstring release and saw Magiere’s sword coming fast at a downward angle.
Én’nish ducked and spun, hearing the sword pass too close to her head.
Magiere’s falchion tip clipped the street’s cobble, and she reversed her hands instantly to bring the blade back in a waist-high slash. This anmaglâhk seemed too small to be one of the an’Cróan, but that only confirmed what she guessed.
It had to be Én’nish beneath that hood and face wrap. The same who’d wanted Leesil dead when they’d entered the Elven Territories of the Farlands. The one who’d wrapped a garrote around his throat only a few nights ago.
Magiere was sick of these murderers coming at her—at Leesil—and she didn’t resist when hunger boiled from her stomach into her throat.
The night lit up, searing her eyes as her sight fully widened. All she saw was the one who’d tried to kill her husband. Even a notion of capturing one of these assassins, forcing one to tell everything of Most Aged Father’s plans, vanished from her thoughts as she swung.
Leesil had told her to just run decoy and get away. But he wasn’t here.
Én’nish dropped and rolled under Magiere’s arcing falchion. The vicious little killer rose to her feet without a stall and ran for the tilted awning above the broken column.
Magiere lost all self-control. She let the falchion spin out of her hands, clattering across the cobble, and she lunged after her prey.
Én’nish leaped upward. Her forward foot landed halfway up the awning’s remaining support post. She twisted her torso back toward the street.
Even functioning on instinct, Magiere knew what to do. She rushed in before Én’nish planted her other foot and seized the woman’s trailing calf before she could push off into the air. She pulled Én’nish off balance and heaved the small woman overhead toward the open street.
Én’nish shrieked and tumbled through the air as Magiere charged after her.
The small, forest gray form fell and tumbled across the cobble to slam against a wall at the street’s far side. Magiere didn’t slow to snatch up her falchion as her target clawed up to her feet.
Magiere didn’t even think of a weapon. All she felt was a need to end anything that tried to harm her mate. All that remained was hunger and the drive to tear her prey apart with her hands ... with her teeth.
Chap rushed the male anmaglâhk as he tried again to fire an arrow. An instant before he leaped, the bowstring released. He heard the arrow hiss away behind him as his forepaws caught his target square in the chest.
There was no time to look back and see if Osha had been hit.
Chap did not even have an instant for surprise that the anmaglâhk had not tried to evade him. They both slammed down on the cobble in a tangle.
He snapped and snarled, trying first for the man’s face. The anmaglâhk took a swipe with his bow. Its thick center struck Chap’s muzzle, and the pain briefly stunned him. Then he felt the elf’s free hand push at his face. He snapped blindly at it, hoping to maim that bowstring hand. Instead, his teeth closed on a forearm, and he thrashed his head, tearing at it. Beneath the anmaglâhk’s sudden outcry, Chap heard Osha’s shout.
“Chap, move!”
But he did not—not until the anmaglâhk brought a knee up into his side.
Chap gasped and tumbled away as forest gray fabric shredded in his teeth. Somewhere nearby came a shriek that smothered the clatter of metal across cobblestones. When he rolled to his feet, trying to catch his breath, the anmaglâhk was already standing again.
The man’s sleeve behind his draw hand was shredded and blood-soaked. Still, he held the bow steady, aimed in Osha’s direction. He began to sidestep, his eyes shifting right just once, likely looking for his companion.