She waited quietly until Eywodan closed the distance between them.
“The tavern’s keeper said the Cloud Queen left three days before,” he related, “bound for the port of Berhtburh. No passengers remained behind, and I cannot see our quarry having ventured farther into this small settlement. It should be safe to assume they are all still on the ship. Since we left the isle five days behind them, we are closing the distance.”
At least they had a proper gauge of time and distance and the relative speed of both ships. Should Captain Samara not linger long here or in any port along the way, they might overtake the other vessel before it reached its next port.
And the traitor would die first.
Chapter Eight
Back on the deck of the Cloud Queen, Chap had watched Magiere and Leesil head into Berhtburh for the night. He didn’t begrudge Leesil a night ashore or Magiere time alone with her husband. The suggestion on her part had actually been a relief, for she’d sounded like the Magiere of earlier days.
Brot’an was there as well, watching the pair depart.
“I am going below,” he said in Elvish, a statement that dared Chap to challenge him.
Chap didn’t even growl; someone needed to remain aboard to keep watch on the old assassin. By way of answer, he headed for the aftcastle door in indifference, as if he, too, wanted nothing more than a nap in his own cabin.
Brot’an followed him to the bottom of the steep steps, and as Chap padded to the cabin he shared with Leesil and Magiere, he heard Brot’an move on toward the one he shared with Leanâlhâm.
Chap did not actually enter his cabin. Instead he remained outside the door. Rising briefly on his haunches, he pawed down the cabin door’s handle as if attempting to open it.
The door cracked open with a rattle from the handle. When Chap heard the other cabin door close, he waited for two breaths. Certainly Brot’an was listening for another door to close.
Chap rose on his haunches, gripped the door’s handle in his jaws, pushed on the frame with one paw to jerk the door shut. It closed loudly as if shoved from the inside. He waited until muffled voices rose in the other cabin, and then he slinked back to the stairs. Climbing those steep steps without a scrape of claws on wood was tedious.
The Numan sailors on deck had grown accustomed to the sight of him, enough so that none called to the captain or mate when he appeared. Only a few glanced his way as he crept to the aftcastle’s right side, away from the boarding ramp, and searched for a place to hide.
He wriggled into a small space between and behind two large water barrels until his rear end bumped the ship’s rail wall. With a clear view of the ship’s ramp, he settled to wait.
Evening fell into full darkness, but if need be, he would lie there all night. Now and then he peeked out. More sailors drifted off below deck until only two remained on watch, playing cards near the forecastle. Apparently the captain considered Berhtburh a safe port.
The full moon was large in the sky, and after a while Chap’s eyelids drooped. They snapped open again when the aftcastle doorway creaked open. He quickly narrowed them so that any stray light catching his crystal-blue irises would not betray him. Holding his breath, he peeked around one barrel.
A tall form walked quietly toward the ramp down to the pier.
Brot’an was up and about in the night.
Chap never believed for an instant that Brot’an would remain aboard only to keep watch over Leanâlhâm in their cabin. Both sailors at the forecastle looked up from their cards, but they knew the passengers and likely assumed the tall elf, like Magiere and Leesil, was headed into town.
Chap held his breath until Brot’an was down the ramp. Then he scurried across the deck and watched the shadow-gripper head up the pier. A rumble rose in his throat as he hesitated in following.
Leanâlhâm was still so wary of human strangers. What if she left her cabin during the night to find herself with no one but the sailors aboard? It seemed unlikely, and Chap trusted that Captain Bassett and the first mate could handle any problems that might arise. And he had to find out what Brot’an was doing.
As Brot’an stepped off the pier’s base, Chap slunk down the ramp. He stayed in the ship’s shadow until the anmaglâhk master turned north along the waterfront. Fortunately few people were about at night, and he had little trouble avoiding being seen. Three dockworkers were too drunk in their merriment to even notice him rush by along the warehouses. He hurried to catch up as Brot’an continued straight out of town and disappeared into the trees along the rocky shore.
Chap slowed at the fringe of the woods, listening and sniffing until he picked his quarry’s scent. Curiosity grew even before he tracked the old one to a clearing no larger than a wagon.
What could Brot’an possibly want out here?
The shadow-gripper stopped before a spruce tree, tilted in its growth by years of coastal winds. He dropped to one knee on the damp ground near its trunk and reached inside his tunic to grope for something.
Chap crept as close as he dared, until he stood poised behind trees leaning opposite ways and peered through the wedge of space between them. He tried to see what was in Brot’an’s hand, but the shadow-gripper pressed the object against the spruce’s trunk and held it only with two fingers.
Through the darkness, Chap made out part of a tawny oval shape trapped against the bark by Brot’an’s hand. It appeared to be a smoothly polished piece of wood.
Then Brot’an began to speak. “Are you there? Answer me. I do not have much time.”
Chap tensed at the query, thinking he had been spotted, but Brot’an remained on one knee with his head down; he looked at nothing. Chap glanced about, seeing no one else among the trees. To whom was the old assassin speaking?
Brot’an spoke again, and this time clear relief replaced his normally guarded tone.
“I am glad to hear you and that you are well, but much has happened—”
He stopped, as if interrupted, and then ...
“Cuirin’nên’a, let me finish! Your son is safe, and I watch over him, but Léshil and his purpose are not our only concern. We are still followed by the team Most Aged Father sent, and I do not know how far behind they are. Do not risk exposing yourself, but if you hear word through our underground—anything passed from Most Aged Father to his loyalists—learn more if you can. Tell me whatever you uncover when I contact you again.”
Chap’s eyes were locked wide and unblinking at what he heard. Brot’an had placed a small oval of wood against a tree and appeared to converse with Leesil’s mother ... a continent away. But Chap could hear only Brot’an.
How was this possible?
He remembered what Magiere had told him of the story Brot’an had shared with her, of how Brot’an had received a message, though the old assassin had been inside Gleann’s tree dwelling and no messenger had come. And now there was that small bit of polished wood.
Was it the key? Did it have something to do with this particular tree? Did the type of tree matter?
However Brot’an accomplished this feat, he could communicate over great distances. This was difficult to imagine, but Chap had seen stranger things among the an’Cróan, such as their living ships, the Päirvänean.
“There is more,” Brot’an added and then paused. “Yes, Leanâlhâm is with me, but Osha has separated from us ... by his choice. I believe he stayed in Calm Seatt with the young sage Wynn Hygeorht.”
He paused even longer, perhaps listening to a reply. When he spoke again, his tone was somewhat harsher.