Chapter Nine

The port of Oléron was small compared to others Chane had seen: it was not even large enough to boast a harbormaster’s office. Even at night, it looked shabby and unnoteworthy. A knot formed in his stomach as he led the way into its smattering of structures, for he kept thinking back to the moment when he’d opened that cabin door.

Wynn’s expression had betrayed something like guilt as she stood inside with Osha. What could she have to feel guilty about? A small part of Chane wanted to know. The larger part did not.

At Nikolas’s vocal yawn, Chane looked down at his side.

The young man had circles under his eyes that had grown darker with each passing day. Clearly the homebound sage was exhausted and not sleeping well. Nikolas looked around at the little town, which must be familiar to him. There was nothing exceptional about Oléron to Chane’s eyes; yet Nikolas appeared haunted by the sight of it.

“I can’t re-remember if there’s an inn . . . here,” he stuttered.

Chane glanced back at Wynn following behind him, and she frowned. She, too, caught Nikolas’s misconception, and she stepped ahead with Shade at her side. As Osha tried to follow her, Chane sidestepped in the way.

His distrust of Osha only continued to grow.

“We need a wagon and horses,” Wynn began, “to get started on our way to Beáumie Keep.”

“Tonight?” Nikolas asked, a squeak of shock in his voice.

“Yes,” Wynn answered. “You know about Chane’s . . . skin condition.”

Chane looked away at the small dwellings and faded shops. For some reason Wynn’s mention of a “condition” bothered him, as if he had some weakness that others had to accommodate. He could see that Nikolas needed rest.

“Chane cannot be exposed to sunlight,” Wynn went on. “I told you we needed to travel by night once we reached land.”

“Yes, but . . .” Nikolas stammered, “but I didn’t think we’d do so the instant we landed.”

Until recently Chane had been able to resist falling dormant during the day through the use of an inky violet potion—though he still had to remain protected from direct sunlight. But he had used the last of that draught back in Calm Seatt and had been unable to prepare more. One primary ingredient was a rare flower that in his native tongue, Belaskian, was called “dyvjàka svonchek,” or “boar’s bell.” There was a superstition that only wild boars and other hearty beasts could eat it and survive. It was deadly, and a difficult component to acquire.

So for now he was stuck falling dormant the instant the sun rose. Chane spotted a possible small tavern or inn up the central street, little better than a wide dirt road. He quick-stepped to touch Wynn’s shoulder before he pointed out the place.

“Take everyone there to rest,” he said quietly. “Give me your travel orders and enough funds for a wagon and horses, and I will find a stable or livery here . . . somewhere. You speak with the inn’s owner and see if there is fresh food to purchase somewhere for the journey.”

She nodded, and he immediately felt a little better. They had traveled long ways together since he had found her again. She knew that she could rely on him.

Wynn halted, as did everyone else, as she swung her pack off her shoulders. She handed her staff to Chane and began digging in the pack.

“Do you want Shade to come with you?” she asked, pulling out a small black leather pouch.

The pouch bulged more than Chane expected. “No, keep Shade with you.”

Chane trusted Shade to protect Wynn—and Nikolas—more than he trusted that sulking elf.

“I will not be long,” he called in his harsh rasp as he headed up the street.

• • •

It wasn’t long into the night before Wynn was aboard a wagon heading south down a rough coastal road. The moon was bright, and, while sitting beside Chane on the wagon’s bench, she looked out and over the cliffs at the ocean. White-foam ribbons of waves below lapped toward the rocky shore.

Chane had insisted on driving, and Osha, Nikolas, and Shade were all in the back.

True to Chane’s claim, he had procured a sturdy wagon and a team of young bay geldings. Even better, the stable master had acknowledged the letter from Premin Hawes as a domin of the guild, and agreed to hire out the wagon and team instead of expecting a full purchase. The guild was well trusted in such things, and Chane signed for the property with the promised return of both wagon and horses once they returned to Oléron.

All things considered, the journey had gone well so far.

If only Nikolas didn’t appear to dread his homecoming so much.

If only Chane and Osha would at least try to tolerate each other.

If only Osha weren’t suffering from mysterious burdens placed upon him by the Chein’âs.

In the last of all that, Wynn hoped that once Osha had told her everything, she’d understand the changes in him and why he—and Leanâlhâm—had come all this way with Brot’an. Instead she was now even more confused.

“Are you all right?” Chane asked.

Wynn turned to find him looking down at her. Her expression must have given away her worries.

“Yes,” she answered too quickly. “I’m only wondering what we’ll find at this duchy.”

Though she said this to put him off, perhaps it was better to push down the issues with all of her companions and focus on the tasks to come.

It seemed that a messenger—either a tall woman or a slender-boned man—wearing a black cloak and a mask and gloves had brought a package with a letter for Nikolas from his father. Therein was another sealed letter, the content of which Nikolas didn’t know, for Premin Hawes. The premin had then packaged several suspicious texts—one on transmogrification—as requested for delivery to Master Jausiff Columsarn upon his adopted son’s return to Beáumie Keep in Witeny. And the old master sage had also mentioned to Hawes that something was wrong with the young duke of the keep, and there were unexplained changes in the land, people, and even wildlife and livestock in the surrounding villages.

The nature of those texts, especially that one, left Wynn wondering what was happening in the villages . . . or to the duke, a childhood friend of Nikolas Columsarn.

And then, one night after the double letter arrived, someone matching the description of the messenger had somehow breached the dwarven underworld.

That interloper had been stopped only upon reaching the wall through which Wynn had been taken through earth and stone to see the ancient texts she had brought back from the far eastern continent. That hidden place, accessible to only the Stonewalkers, was also where Ore-Locks had hidden the orb of Earth.

If the messenger and the would-be thief were the same person, how could she—or he—possibly be connected to Nikolas’s father? And how could that someone know where the orb had been hidden?

It still bothered Wynn that she’d been forced to set aside locating the orb of Spirit. But this possible attempt to steal the orb of Earth was more pressing, and so Premin Hawes had sent Wynn after their only lead.

Glancing into the wagon’s back, she saw Osha sitting cross-legged with his back against the wagon’s left sidewall. Shade lay right behind the wagon’s bench with her eyes half-closed. Nikolas had drooped where he sat, flopping sideways onto two stacked packs by the wagon’s right wall.

“We should stop well before dawn,” she whispered to Chane. “Nikolas is done in already. He’s not used to shifting time frames, day to night, like the rest of us.”

Chane raised an eyebrow but nodded. “We should put another league or two behind us, perhaps go on until the high moon, but I will watch for a suitable place to camp. We can make the young sage comfortable once we stop. I asked the stable master to loan us canvases, poles, and blankets along with the wagon.”

Wynn glanced sidelong at Chane, who kept his eyes ahead on the road. She couldn’t clearly make out his irises in the dark, but perhaps they had lost all of their color, and their pupils widened to see far better in the dark than the living could.

He had changed in strange ways over the past season. Much as he had always watched over her and even Shade, his devotions as a protector had spread to any member of the guild as well . . . even for all the misery and obstacles the premin council had heaped on her.

“Thank you,” she said quietly, looking back over the cliff.

“You do not have to thank me.”

• • •

As promised, and well before dawn, Chane spotted an adequate clearing off the road. They stopped there, and he allowed himself to get lost in mundane tasks, such as tending the horses and setting up two makeshift tents. These chores kept him busy until the moon was past its highest point. Only when Chane went to see whether Wynn needed help with the fire did he notice something else.

“Where is the elf?” he asked.

Shade lifted her head where she lay beside Wynn and peered all around the clearing.

Wynn straightened up on her knees from blowing on embers inside moss laid over spindly branches.

“I thought he was helping you,” she said, looking about as well.

Nikolas had already crawled into one tent, but Osha was nowhere to be seen.

As Wynn got to her feet, Chane focused on listening to every sound around them as he let hunger slip through his flesh to increase his hearing. Beneath the sounds of surf over the cliff and wind in the trees, he heard the gurgle of water, like a stream. Perhaps the sullen elf had gone for freshwater.

Chane did not actually care where Osha went. His purpose was to protect Wynn and aid in her pursuits. But any member of their current group who suddenly vanished without his awareness unnerved him. And then he heard the light footsteps approaching.

In less than a breath, Osha came around a near tree into camp. With his hood down, his long white-blond hair hung loose and bright in the dark. His sleeves were pushed up, exposing his tan and scarred arms, and he carried three large silver fish on a cord strung through their mouths and gills.

He could not have been gone long, and he had no hook, line, or pole. Had he caught the fish with his bare hands? More annoying was that Chane had not even heard the elf’s approach until the last instant.

Wynn sighed, which pulled Chane’s attention in time to see her smile.

“Oh, good,” she said, closing on Osha. “I managed to buy some bread, cheese, and a few apples, but those will help our supplies last.”

She was praising Osha for providing food.

Chane hated most human emotions. They were beneath him. He especially hated anything petty, even when he heard himself saying . . .

“There is still plenty of time before dawn. Shade and I will hunt for other game.”

Osha looked him up and down, held up the fish, and said in Belaskian, “Wynn does not like meat. She likes fish.”

Chane went cold. The beast inside him, the monster of his inner nature chained down within him, thrashed at its bonds as if wanting blood. He struggled to hold himself in place.

Perhaps his own hunger was why his emotions surfaced so easily. How long had it been since he fed?

Wynn stepped up to him, placing herself between him and Osha, and touched the sleeve of his shirt. “You’ve been looking paler the past few nights,” she said quietly. “There should be . . . wildlife here. Perhaps you could go and . . .”

Chane dropped his eyes from the elf to her. Some time ago she had made him swear never again to feed on a sentient being. He had kept that promise so far, and she believed he subsisted on the blood of livestock and large wild game.

This was half-true.

“I’ll cook the fish,” she said. “You go while you have time.”

She was correct, though it felt as though he was being dismissed. Still, before they reached the duchy, he needed to be at full strength.

When traveling, he always carried two packs: one was his own, and the other had belonged to his old mentor, Welstiel Massing, now dead for the final time. No matter how long Chane possessed that second pack, he would always think of it as Welstiel’s.

Without another word, Chane grabbed the second pack from the wagon’s back and walked off into the trees. He felt Wynn’s eyes upon him but did not look back.

• • •

Osha watched Chane vanish into the woods, and he fought to keep his own expression still.

Wynn ran a hand over her face. When her hand dropped, her eyes flashed with anger.

“You did that on purpose,” she accused. “You tried to humiliate him.” Then her tone softened. “That’s not like you.”

No, it was not, but it was unthinkable that one such as she would keep company with that thing. Obviously she had also changed.

“Where is he going?” Osha asked in his own tongue, perhaps too sharply. “What is he doing?”

“Hunting for himself,” she answered, keeping to Belaskian.

Osha knew that was not the whole truth.

She stepped closer, looked at the fish he held, and sighed. “Nikolas is already asleep. We should cook and eat some ourselves, saving one for when he wakes. I’ll share mine with Shade.”

Grateful for a simple focus, Osha nodded. While she stoked the campfire, he scavenged and whittled until he had forked branches planted at the fire’s sides and a thicker green bough stripped of bark for a skewer. He cleaned one fish and handed it to her, and while she skewered and set it over the flames, he started on the second one.

“You always were good at catching fish,” she said.

He looked up. “It is not difficult,” he answered in an’Cróan Elvish.

“Not for you.” She glanced away, lingering in looking to the wagon.

His curved bow rested on the wagon’s end with his quiver.

“You’ve become quite the archer,” she said. “But that’s not the bow of a . . .”

Osha turned his attention back to cleaning the fish. No, it was not an anmaglâhk’s bow, which would be assembled from parts hidden away in the back of a forest gray vestment beneath a matching cloak. He no longer possessed any of those things.

He had told her most of his story, at least for what had happened before he left his people. But he was uncertain that it had done her any good. It had not done anything for him.

“Why did you leave?” she asked, and then hesitated. “Why did you come all the way here . . . with Brot’an . . . after what he did and . . . What possible reason could you and Brot’an have for bringing Leanâlhâm?”

“What is it you want?” he snapped, growing angry now. “After all that I have told you—the shame of it—and still you want more from me?”

Her face calm, she rocked back on her heels. “Yes, I want all of it.”

Frustrated, he let his mind roll back to what had happened the night his ship reached Ghoivne Ajhâjhe.

“When I left the ship and was about to step off the dock, I saw Brot’ân’duivé standing there in the sand . . . waiting for me! He was the one who forced me to answer that summons, who sent me to the Chein’âs! And there he stood. But before I could curse his name, I heard someone cry out . . . and I looked down the shore to see Leanâlhâm being assaulted by three of my caste.” He gazed into Wynn’s shocked face. “Yes, they attacked her. One of them lifted her off the ground.” He shook his head. “They were willing to hurt one of our own people, a helpless girl.”

“Why?” Wynn gasped.

“Because of Brot’ân’duivé! I did not know at the time, but a small team of the loyalists had murdered Gleannéohkân’thva. In retribution the greimasg’äh made an attempt on Most Aged Father’s life. This sent the loyalists into madness. They were going to take Leanâlhâm hostage and use her against Brot’ân’duivé.”

Wynn’s mouth fell open. “Anmaglâhk murdered Gleann? Oh, poor Leanâlhâm. Why would they do such a thing?”

There Osha paused. He could not bring himself to tell her that the old healer was killed over a journal that Wynn herself had sent—a journal that Most Aged Father had desperately wanted, as he believed it contained information about the first orb.

“Gleannéohkân’thva was a dissident,” he answered flatly, instead of giving her the whole truth. He hoped she would stop questioning him. He had questions of his own that she needed to answer.

“So Leanâlhâm was attacked there on the shore?”

“I went to rescue her, and . . . I had to accept help from the greimasg’äh, for I could not take three of them alone without my weapons. The greimasg’äh had wounded all three before I went for Leanâlhâm’s captor. Once I had her, Brot’ân’duivé drove off the trio. But by then . . . it did not matter.”

Every scar upon Osha stung anew, as if burned by the memory, as he turned his eyes again on Wynn. “Leanâlhâm is now seen as an enemy of Most Aged Father, and, through his lies, an enemy of the people. I marked myself the same in attacking my . . . the anmaglâhk . . . in company with the greimasg’äh.”

“So you had to run,” Wynn whispered, “from your own caste, your people.”

“Because of Brot’ân’duivé! He had a new purpose—to hunt those who hunted Magiere and Léshil, and to kill them. I joined the greimasg’äh on his journey and later . . . had no choice but to join in his purpose, for I had to protect Leanâlhâm from his obsession.”

Osha fell silent, idly turning the fish on the skewer—and still Wynn would not relent.

“What happened on the voyage . . . to my homeland?”

He could not even bring himself to look at her; it was a moment before he said another word, and finally he began to speak. . . .

• • •

Osha, along with Leanâlhâm, followed Brot’ân’duivé, who somehow gained them passage on a civilian an’Cróan vessel willing to sail into human waters. If that crew had only known what the greimasg’äh had done, would do . . . but they did not. And who among the people would deny aid to an anmaglâhk, let alone the great Brot’ân’duivé, greimasg’äh and master of silence and shadow?

The people were grateful, for the Anmaglâhk served them, protected them. So it was said and believed. The ship took them around the point and south toward the Outward Bay and Bela, capital city of the human nation of Belaski. That voyage unto itself was painful.

For all that Osha had suffered, he stayed inside a cabin on board as much as he could, for Leanâlhâm would not leave the place, even for meals. Whenever he left to seek out food and water, when he brought such back, he saw panic in her eyes, as if she feared he might not return. Also, he noticed that she flinched every time he said her name.

It was longer still before Osha suspected there was more to this than Leanâlhâm’s loss of home, Sgäilsheilleache, and then Gleannéohkân’thva, but he did not press her.

There were some things one did not demand—or take. So Osha cared only for her needs and did what he could for her suffering. Yet even amid this, Brot’ân’duivé insisted upon examining Osha’s “gifts”—as he called them—from the Chein’âs and the black séyilf.

As Leanâlhâm looked anxiously between her companions, Brot’ân’duivé demanded that Osha tell him what happened in the fire caves.

Osha said nothing. And so the greimasg’äh took the sword only and left the cabin that all three of them shared. Osha did not care whether he ever again saw that human thing that had severed him from the life he had wanted in service to his people.

Brot’ân’duivé came back without the sword . . . until the fifth following day, when it was in his hand again. He thrust it at Osha.

The hilt strut had been fitted with tawny, smooth, and shimmering wood like that of the living ship of their people that carried them—a Päirvänean. The same wood was used for the hilts of Anmaglâhk blades, though it was not always grown out of a ship. Those hilts were also wrapped tightly in straps of leather, obscuring what was beneath the wrap, for a sure grip.

“It is yours,” the greimasg’äh declared, “made for you by the Chein’âs. You must learn to use it . . . though I cannot be your teacher for this.”

Osha wanted nothing to do with that cursed thing. He touched it only long enough to wrap and hide it from his sight. More than once he thought to cast it overboard, but each time he faltered, unable to do so.

Once the ship reached Bela, Brot’ân’duivé learned that the team hunting Magiere and Léshil had already set sail.

It took two days to arrange passage and board a human ship sailing to the central continent. Osha balked at that, though the thought of Leanâlhâm alone in some foreign land with only the tainted greimasg’äh was more than he could tolerate. Even if he had not cared for her as if she were of his own blood, she was the last kin of his jeóin, his teacher.

He tried to consider any option besides forcing her onto a ship bound for another continent.

“She cannot stay here among humans,” Brot’ân’duivé stated flatly, “and you cannot take her home. You would both be seized for treason.”

And why? Because they both had ties to the greimasg’äh, and thereby they were both of use to Most Aged Father.

So they boarded the human vessel and crossed the ocean.

That journey over seemingly endless water felt like a lifetime. Osha found some comfort in caring for Leanâlhâm and in the fact that Brot’ân’duivé often left them alone. It gave Osha a reason—a purpose—not to think on all that had happened to him.

When they landed in a stinking and teeming human city on the central continent’s eastern coast, Brot’ân’duivé’s demeanor changed. He settled Osha and Leanâlhâm in an inn and vanished for a while that night. The following dawn he returned . . . with a longbow, a number of bare arrow shafts, black crow feathers, other odd materials, and even some steel arrowheads.

“The loyalists head west, across land,” he said. “We will track them.”

Osha did not know or care how Brot’ân’duivé learned this. But he could not help thinking that if the loyalists hunted Magiere and Léshil, they might also hunt any of the pair’s past companions . . . such as Wynn. She had written the journal via which the greimasg’äh and Most Aged Father had started open war among the people.

That fear goaded Osha into obedience to the greimasg’äh. The next day began another long journey, this time overland. And Brot’ân’duivé would not leave Osha in peace.

As they made camp at the end of their first day, the shadow-gripper stood over him and demanded, “Give me the white metal bow handle.”

Osha was confused, not knowing what the greimasg’äh meant. When he did not respond, Brot’ân’duivé went to Osha’s belongings and began searching. Osha was on his feet in an instant, for he had had enough meddling for a lifetime.

The greimasg’äh rose, and in his hand was the split tube of white metal that was slightly curved.

Osha stared at the thing.

“It was likely made to fit the handle of a bow carried by our ship’s soldiers,” the greimasg’äh explained. “I did not realize this soon enough.”

He crouched again and retrieved the curved bow he acquired in that long night in the city. With a bit of pressure, he snapped the tube over the back side and around the bow’s handle. “It is not a proper fit, but it will do once it is properly wrapped.”

Brot’ân’duivé settled to the earth, dug in his own pack, and pulled out a long strip of thin black leather. He began by packing the strip’s end in between the tube and the handle with the tip of a stiletto, so that the tube was not loose. Then he set to wrapping and binding the white metal tube around the handle.

Osha settled to the ground. Not wishing to watch, he looked away to where Leanâlhâm had fallen asleep upon her bedroll. He hoped she did not dream of the recent past as much as he did.

“You will learn to use this bow,” Brot’ân’duivé said.

“No,” Osha replied.

Even if he could not cast aside the burdens given to him, he would not use them. He would not submit to more loss of himself in what had been put upon him as well as taken from him.

“It will be unfamiliar,” Brot’ân’duivé went on, as if Osha had not spoken. “The bow arms are longer and far more curved than those of an Anmaglâhk bow. It has greater range and power but will be more difficult to draw, and hence—”

“No,” Osha repeated.

Something cracked sharply across his chest and upper right arm. Pain made his sight flash white as he toppled over, and then anger brought him around in a crouch.

Brot’ân’duivé sat cross-legged on the earth with his left arm outstretched to the side, and he still gripped the unstrung bow he had used to strike. The greimasg’äh’s eyes, one caged by the four slashing scars, fixed on Osha.

“Enough self-pity!” he ordered. “The stretch we must cross for more than a moon is called the Broken Lands by those in the city who speak adequate Belaskian. There are creatures out here that neither of us has ever seen. Any merchant caravan crossing either way travels heavily armed and guarded. And we are only three.”

“Then we turn back and find a caravan!”

“I will not lose time in tracking my quarry or have them double back to find you, should you think to turn back on your own. You have one choice, here and now.”

Osha clenched all over as his fingers dug into the earth. Only a fool would assault a greimasg’äh, but he was beyond caring.

“If not for yourself,” Brot’ân’duivé whispered, “then what of the girl?”

Osha froze before he could lunge and glanced toward Leanâlhâm’s sleeping form.

“When a moment comes when I cannot protect you both,” the greimasg’äh added, “how will you protect her? If not for yourself, that is a reason to accept what you have been given.”

Osha hung in stillness.

“And since I cannot teach you the sword . . .” And the greimasg’äh’s extended arm whipped forward.

Osha scrambled back out of reach, but instead of striking him again, the bow tumbled to his feet.

“You will make yourself useful,” Brot’ân’duivé said.

Again Osha found he had no choice. He could not let Leanâlhâm suffer for his burdens or the bloodlust of Brot’ân’duivé. But he burned inside at the way the greimasg’äh manipulated him through using someone else . . . like Most Aged Father so often did.

In the following days, when they stopped before dusk, he learned how to fletch, but he would work only with the steel arrowheads and the black crow feathers that Brot’ân’duivé had brought. Osha would not touch the white metal heads or the five black feathers dropped by the séyilf. As he fletched, Leanâlhâm watched him. Once, she tried to offer to help, but the greimasg’äh forbade her, saying that only Osha should attend his own weapons.

However, while Osha worked upon the arrows, often starting over for mistakes, the greimasg’äh frequently slipped away, sometimes not returning until dawn. Brot’ân’duivé said nothing of where he had gone, though Osha knew the greimasg’äh was tracking the team of loyalists.

When Osha finished with the steel arrowheads and would still not touch the five from the Chein’âs—or the black feathers from the séyilf—Brot’ân’duivé fashioned those himself in less than an evening.

“Do not use these in battle unless necessary,” he instructed. “There is some purpose to them that I—you—have yet to understand. But you will learn to use them.”

Osha had no intention of doing so. When the moment came to learn the bow, he strung it with only a little effort, for he had been “adequate” with an Anmaglâhk bow. As he reached for a steel-tipped arrow from his quiver on the ground . . .

“That is not an anmaglâhk bow,” Brot’ân’duivé said, “but you will learn as if it was, and by what is taught later to even those who . . . barely managed to gain a jeóin.”

Osha heated under that slight.

“You will learn what Sgäilsheilleache did not have the days to teach you,” Brot’ân’duivé said.

Osha was at a loss as to what that meant. Yes, he had lost his teacher too soon after gaining the only one he had wanted—and the only one who might have accepted him. More baffling was that this new training did not begin with an arrow.

It began with a lit candle.

At first he wondered whether he was to shoot at it. Even Leanâlhâm blinked and frowned at this strangeness.

“Sit ten strides off and watch the flame,” Brot’ân’duivé instructed as he lit the candle and set it upon the ground. “Listen to everything around you, but keep your eyes on the flame at all times.”

And so Osha did, but only on those evenings when the wind was no more than a breeze that could not snuff the candle out. How many dusks and dawns did he do this each time until the greimasg’äh told him to stop? And one morning, instead of fluttering in the changing breeze, the flame blew out.

A trail of smoke from the wick quickly dissipated.

“What did you hear?” the greimasg’äh asked.

Osha scowled. “Wind, a breeze . . . in the grass . . . in the trees.”

“What did you feel on your body, your exposed skin, your hands and face?”

“Wind!” Osha snapped.

“Enough to blow out a candle?”

“Yes, enough to . . .” Osha paused, staring at the wick ten strides off. “No . . . not enough.”

“What is the difference between you and the candle? What did you hear that you did not feel?”

The difference became obvious, though he had never thought of this before. The wind did not blow with the same strength in each place where it passed—even with as little as ten paces’ difference.

Training continued with two, then three, and finally four candles in line out beyond him. It grew harder to know for certain, to hear the differences in the air’s movement farther outward. After that the greimasg’äh added a change whenever the wind was too strong for candles.

Brot’ân’duivé took Osha into stands of woods along the way. He gathered leaves that had fallen beneath a near tree and walked out across an open space to another distant one. He turned and, dropping a leaf every few strides, traced his steps back.

“Draw an arrow and aim for the far tree,” he said. “Watch the leaves until an instant comes when you are certain all of the leaves are still.”

Osha did so and hit the tree the first time, though it was only twenty to twenty-five paces off.

“Now wait until you see only one leaf turn, and then shoot.”

Again he hit the tree, though a little off center. This continued every morning until they camped early near some tall oaks and the wind was more brisk than a candle could bear. That evening the greimasg’äh laid out the leaves, some of which turned or flopped immediately.

“Take aim, note the movement of the leaves for three breaths, then close your eyes and shoot.”

Osha scowled at such a ridiculous practice, but he did as instructed. He never heard the arrow hit the tree.

“Retrieve the arrow and repeat . . . always with the same arrow.”

Osha went wandering off after the arrow. He spent until dusk trying to hit the tree with his eyes closed—and never did. He cheated and tried it with his eyes open, and hit the tree only half of the time. When the sky darkened too much, he turned back to camp, where Leanâlhâm had finished cooking a squirrel that the greimasg’äh had likely caught.

“So, why did you miss . . . even when you opened your eyes?” asked Brot’ân’duivé.

Osha glanced back along the way he had come. The greimasg’äh could not have seen him from camp, so how would he know?

“Because I listen,” Brot’ân’duivé said, “and you do not. Obviously you only hit the tree when your eyes were open. Return to the candles at dawn. You will use the bow and leaves only at dusk. And this time you will listen as well as look.”

The greimasg’äh fixed Osha with an unblinking stare.

“When aiming for a distant target, you will not have leaves and candles to mark the varied movements of the air at different points along the arrow’s path.”

Leanâlhâm let out a sharp sigh before Osha could. The greimasg’äh did not look her way, but Osha did. Leanâlhâm appeared as mentally weary of all this as Osha felt.

A whole moon passed before he hit a tree at least half of the time at twenty, then thirty, and finally forty paces. In that time the greimasg’äh often disappeared for a whole night. One dawn Osha and Leanâlhâm awoke, had a fire going and oats boiling in a small pot . . .

And Brot’ân’duivé had not yet returned.

Osha wondered whether to go searching, but he could not leave Leanâlhâm alone. She, too, stared off into the distance with panic in her quick breaths. And perhaps that panic sharpened when she glanced at him looking off into the distance. And then Osha started at the sound of leaves crushed underfoot, and he quickly pulled an arrow and drew it back as he turned left.

He relaxed a little even before Brot’ân’duivé stepped out of the trees. If the greimasg’äh had wished, he would not be heard until too late. Then Osha tensed again and heard Leanâlhâm gasp.

Brot’ân’duivé’s tunic and sleeves were rent and torn. One side of his hood had been sharply split, and the forest gray cloth was splattered with dark stains . . . from blood. Without a word, the greimasg’äh stripped off his tunic, cloak, and hood, dropped them in a pile, and settled cross-legged on the ground beside the fire. He looked at Leanâlhâm. “Can you wash and mend these?”

Wordlessly she nodded, but Osha studied the greimasg’äh.

There were other old scars, besides the ones on his face, on Brot’ân’duivé’s torso and arms. A line of bruises had formed along the left side of his chest and on his right forearm, but more disturbing was what was not there.

There was not one bleeding wound for all the blood on his clothes.

Osha knew then that they had caught up to the loyalists . . . who were now at least one less than they had been.

“How far?” he asked.

“A day’s walk,” Brot’ân’duivé answered, peeking into the pot over the flames as if interested only in its contents.

Osha blinked repeatedly, looking west, not believing that even the great Brot’ân’duivé could have gone so far and returned in one night.

Leanâlhâm crouched before the pile of stained and torn garments, but she still had not touched them. With her green eyes fully widened, she looked up at Osha, and Osha turned to the greimasg’äh.

“Will they not find—”

“No,” Brot’ân’duivé said as he poured water from a flask to rinse his hand with stains long dried and crusted. “The body is hidden. Once they know one of theirs is gone, they will not willingly linger against their purpose in trying to find it.”

“You left one of our—” Leanâlhâm began, but she was silenced by the greimasg’äh’s stare.

“He . . . she . . . whoever,” Osha added, “is still one of our people. How could you leave even one of them with no way back to our ancestors?”

“There is no time for sentiment,” Brot’ân’duivé whispered at first and then barked, “or do you believe these fanatics would give you such a thought?”

Yes, Osha did . . . or he hoped. Without that, at least, what was left of their people, no matter who won this conflict? And still Leanâlhâm would not touch the bloodstained clothing.

Osha took those clothes and walked off into the trees to search for a stream or pool or even a puddle that was far from Leanâlhâm’s sight. And when he returned with the soaked clothes and hung them over a tree branch to drip in the night . . .

“You do nothing for her in hiding the truth of our state,” Brot’ân’duivé said, lying on his back in the dark near the fire’s dying embers. “Her innocence and your denial of what is . . . are a danger to you both.”

Osha ignored this, though he sat up half the night and watched Leanâlhâm sleep fitfully.

In the morning his training changed again.

“You will use only an arrow with a Chein’âs point,” the greimasg’äh ordered. “We will see if its secret can be uncovered.”

“No.”

“Do as I say!”

To his shame, some part of Osha could not continue to rebel. All that previous night he thought on Leanâlhâm, and then worried about the loyalists still at least a day ahead. It was not hard to imagine what they would do once they arrived on the western coast. Somewhere in the city of Calm Seatt was one known place—and person—from where that journal had come.

Wynn Hygeorht would be easy to find at her Guild of Sagecraft as a starting point in a hunt for Magiere, Léshil, and the wayward majay-hì called Chap.

Osha pulled a white metal–tipped arrow from his quiver and drew it in his bow. His heart was not in the first shot, and he missed. The arrow vanished among the trees.

“Find the arrow,” ordered Brot’ân’duivé. “And continue.”

Osha set down his bow beside the quiver to go searching for that arrow . . . one he was reluctant to find. The morning continued, though he hit the tree only three times. When he did so, the greimasg’äh held him off with a raised hand and went to stare at the embedded arrow. Each time he returned with that arrow, his frown had deepened.

It appeared there was nothing special about the white metal arrowheads.

On the last shot of that morning, Osha missed again. The arrow glanced off the tree’s trunk and disappeared from sight.

“It is time to move on,” Brot’ân’duivé said, exhaling long and slow. “Gather your equipment, retrieve the arrow, and return to camp.”

Tiredly, Osha picked up his quiver, and, with bow in hand, he stepped off toward the tree to gauge the strayed arrow’s trajectory. Slinging the quiver over his shoulder as he walked, he raised the bow and prepared to pause at the tree and unstring it.

The bow suddenly felt wrong in his grip, and it tilted to the right as if unbalanced.

He stopped at the tree’s right side, where the arrow had struck, and looked the bow over. He wondered whether he had somehow warped it. Perhaps it was not as resilient or as soundly made as an Anmaglâhk bow. But he could not see anything wrong with it.

“What is the delay?” Brot’ân’duivé called out.

“Nothing,” Osha answered, pivoting left to get a sight line from the gouge in the tree’s bark.

The bow tilted sharply to the right in his loose grip. Warmth beyond that caused by holding it all morning grew in the handle’s leather wrap. His mind flashed with a memory of being assaulted by the Burning Ones.

Osha dropped the bow and backed away.

“What?”

He flinched at the greimasg’äh’s demand, too loud in his ears, and Brot’ân’duivé now stood beside him.

“It . . . moved,” he whispered. “It grew hot . . . and then moved.”

“Pick it up!”

Osha did not move, and Brot’ân’duivé barked at him, “Now!”

He reluctantly did so. Nothing happened until the bow was fully upright, and then he felt the warmth growing. Before he could drop it again, the greimasg’äh’s hand clamped over his grip on the bow’s handle.

“They would not give you something that would cause enough harm to be useless.”

Osha was not so certain, but the bow’s handle warmed only a bit more.

“Now turn both ways in holding it upright.”

He did so, first back toward the tree, and he felt the bow try to tilt to his right. As he turned the other way, the force of its torque lessened.

“Let it lead you . . . and follow it.”

He did so, turning as it urged him, and when that feeling of a tilt stopped altogether, Osha was nearly on top of a bramble. The greimasg’äh stomped and ripped at the thorny vines.

There inside the bramble was the lost arrow.

Brot’ân’duivé picked it up and eyed the white metal point. “Partially useful, as at least you will not lose one gift in learning to use the other.”

Osha did not see what real use this could be. Why would the Burning Ones force such a thing upon him . . . a thing that was so clearly not of the Anmaglâhk?

Each day became too much like the last as they walked onward. Much as Osha watched the land around them, out to the craggy, barren mountains to the north, he never saw a sign of anything. Whatever the humans feared in these so-called Broken Lands, it had yet to make itself known.

He divided time between practicing with his bow and caring for Leanâlhâm, who had been sheltered all of her life by Gleannéohkân’thva and Sgäilsheilleache. In spite of the shame forced upon him—that he was no longer Anmaglâhk—he would protect her as they had.

He did notice that she had begun to flinch less often when he used her name, but he remained determined not to ask her about this until she herself wanted to tell him.

There was one evening when he returned from practice that he found the greimasg’äh sitting cross-legged on the ground and facing Leanâlhâm. Brot’ân’duivé leaned in close to her, though she had her hands over her face as she wept.

“What have you done?” Osha shouted, closing quickly on the greimasg’äh.

Brot’ân’duivé ignored him, though Leanâlhâm turned her face away, hiding from everyone. The greimasg’äh rose on one knee, gripped the girl by the shoulders, and gently settled her upon her bedroll to cover her with a blanket. But when he stood and turned, Osha stepped in his way.

“Answer me!” Osha demanded.

Brot’ân’duivé eyed him in silence, and then said, “I have done nothing but listen. As to what, that is her confidence with me—unless she tells you otherwise. It is not your place to even ask.”

It was another moon before Osha saw the city of Calm Seatt in the distance, though even then he was not certain whether that city was the one until they entered late one night. But along the way, he cared for Leanâlhâm and waited for her to say something about the night he found her crying before the greimasg’äh. She never did.

As well, each morning there was always training.

Osha, whose name meant “a sudden breeze,” shot arrows through the wind until he lost count of how many struck a tree without his ever missing.

• • •

Wynn was at something of a loss after all Osha said. She didn’t know what to say about all that had happened between him and Brot’an. And so . . .

“Back in Calm Seatt, you let Leanâlhâm leave with Brot’an. If you were protecting her, why did you leave her with him?”

It was a mistake, though she realized it too late.

Osha looked stricken. “I did not leave her with Brot’ân’duivé! I left her with Léshil and Magiere, and Chap . . . and Magiere had sworn to Sgäilsheilleache to protect Leanâlhâm. My place was to protect you . . . from everything that greimasg’äh started with Most Aged Father. Even if Brot’ân’duivé fulfills his chosen purpose, it will not end Most Aged Father’s desires.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, dropping her gaze. “That was a stupid question. I think it is hard for me to understand all that you have been through . . . all of the changes.”

“Then instead of questions, what are your answers?”

She looked up to find him watching her.

“Tell me of your life since we parted,” he said, tilting his head. “I know I am not the only one who has suffered.”

This wasn’t the first time he’d stunned her since he’d reappeared in her world. No one had ever asked her about this—though Chane didn’t need to. He’d been there since she’d first uncovered the truth that there was more than one orb.

“What did it cost you to find this orb of Earth?” Osha asked. “I can see its cost . . . in everything about you.”

Wynn grew more uncomfortable under his gaze. “I don’t know where to start.”

“When you left me on the waterfront of Bela.”

The mention of their parting made her flush. She reached out and turned the spitted fish over, as on nights long gone when they had huddled by the fire in sharing their pasts.

• • •

Out in the forest Chane wrenched a young stag by its tineless antlers.

He threw it to the ground, pinned its neck with his knee, and struck once with full force against the back of its head. The animal went limp upon the damp forest mulch, though it was still alive, as he wished. He then went back to where he had stowed Welstiel’s pack before his hunt. When he returned, he dug inside of the pack, pulled out an ornate walnut box, and opened it beside the limp stag.

Inside were three hand-length iron rods with center loops, a teacup-sized brass bowl with strange etchings, and a white ceramic bottle with an obsidian stopper. All of these rested in burgundy padding. Every time he performed this act, he remembered Welstiel instructing him. . . .

There are ways to make the life we consume last longer.

Welstiel had used the cup to feed upon humans, and Chane had taken the process a step further by his word to Wynn. He intertwined the iron rods into a tripod stand and placed the brass cup upon it before lifting the white bottle with its precious content—thrice-purified water. Pulling the stopper, he half filled the cup and remembered Welstiel’s clinical explanation.

Bloodletting is a wasteful way to feed. Too much life is lost and never consumed by our kind. It is not blood that matters but the leak of life caused by its loss.

Chane glanced at the deer.

The very idea of the cup revolted him, aside from the unwelcome necessity of feeding upon animals. But he needed life to continue protecting Wynn, and he could not risk feeding on a human: she might hear of someone missing or worse.

Chane drew the dagger he kept in his pack and made a small cut on the stag’s shoulder. Once the blade’s tip had gathered a bead of blood, he carefully tilted the steel over the cup.

A single drop struck the water. The blood thinned and diffused.

He began to chant, concentrating upon the cup’s innate influence. When finished, he watched the water in the cup for any change.

Nothing happened at first.

The stag let out a low sound. It was nothing more than the last bit of air escaping its lungs as its hide began to dry and shrivel. Its eyes collapsed inward, and its jawbone began to jut beneath withering skin. In moments it was only a dried, shrunken husk as vapors rose briefly over its corpse.

Chane turned his attention back to the cup.

The fluid within it had doubled, brimming near the lip, and it was so dark red it appeared almost black. As always, he was relieved and revolted by the sight, for he knew what awaited him in drinking the conjured fluid. The first time, Welstiel had warned him with only two words: Brace yourself.

Chane downed half of the cup’s contents. For a moment he tasted dregs of ground metal and strong salt.

Then he gagged and collapsed.

His body began to burn from within.

Too much life, taken in such a pure form, burst through his dead flesh and swelled into his head. Jaws and eyes clenched, he curled upon the earth until the worst passed and his convulsions finally eased.

In feeding this way, it would be a half moon or more before he needed to do so again.

He slowly pushed himself up with his arms and sat staring at the shriveled husk of the young stag. He waited until his false fever subsided. Then he pulled a small bottle from the pack, poured in the remaining liquid from the cup, stoppered the bottle, and carefully packed everything away.

Strong and sated, in control of his senses, he headed back for camp, leaving the carcass where it lay. He smelled—heard—the sizzling fish long before he arrived.

Dawn was not far off.

However, when the campfire came into sight through the trees, he saw only Wynn and Osha huddled by the fire in close and quiet conversation. Both Nikolas and possibly Shade must be asleep in one of the makeshift tents.

Chane purposefully crushed a fallen branch under his boot heel.

At the snap of wood, Wynn looked back and up. “Did you . . . ?”

“I am fine.”

He stepped fully out of the trees as Wynn turned her back to him to look at Osha. The elf merely stared into the fire. And as Chane passed by, he could not help noticing the sudden disappointment on Wynn’s oval face, as if he had interrupted something that she wanted back.

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 625