Dog in the Dark

Chapter Five

A day after setting sail, the girl everyone called Leanâlhâm stood on deck near the front of the ship named the Cloud Queen. The strong wind that moved the vessel made it hard to quiet her thoughts.

At dawn she had to force herself to rise, to eat, and even to go up on deck, and the morning was now half-gone. This would be the way of things, forcing herself to go on. Each dawn would crawl toward dusk and another long night, until ...

Léshil hunched over the rail and let out a long groan. “I shouldn’t have eaten ... anything.”

Indeed he looked pale, and the others stood a short ways beyond him, but she had little desire to join them.

Léshil and the majay-hì were blatantly obvious in their determination to keep watch over Brot’ân’duivé. As if either of them could without the master anmaglâhk knowing. Léshil was openly hostile to the greimasg’äh, though now he was too seasick to watch over anyone. Meanwhile Magiere continued prodding Brot’ân’duivé with what she seemed to view as subtle queries—though she was as subtle as a thunderstorm.

Of all Leanâlhâm’s current companions, Magiere was the one with whom she was most at ease. Magiere could be terrifying when that strange horror beneath her nature surfaced. But she was also fierce, like Sgäilsheilleache, in defense of those she cared for or anyone she simply chose to protect.

Leanâlhâm’s mother had been a half-blood, born of rape. She’d fled in grief and madness while Leanâlhâm was still an infant. All assumed that Leanâlhâm’s mother had later died, but it was this mother who had given her the birth name that meant “child of sorrow,” an unfortunate name.

Magiere did not care about such things. She defied what anyone thought of her or of those who mattered to her, and no one risked saying anything about either to her face more than once.

Leanâlhâm had yet to find that kind of strength within herself.

Then there was the majay-hì, whom everyone—even Brot’ân’duivé—called “Chap.” And this was repugnant, to force a name, even one that he wanted her to use, upon a sacred being. His watchful eyes were too often on the greimasg’äh, but unlike Léshil’s, the majay-hì’s gaze was fixed, cold, as he sat in perfect stillness. It was disturbing—frightening—until he did blink, now and then glancing at her.

Brot’ân’duivé had made it very clear that he expected his young charge to remain silent regarding events that had brought them here. Leanâlhâm had bent to his will in this so far, but she was growing tired of it. This tiredness sharpened every time someone spoke that awful name put upon her.

It was too much to face. Osha was gone, and with him the last piece of a world she had been forced to give up. She ached in isolation and loneliness, and had no one to tell what had really changed for her.

And then she found the majay-hì watching her again.

Part of her felt that he more than anyone might understand what she suffered. But he was so strange, a majay-hì in form but not in his actions and his words. That he could speak into her head was unnatural. She had learned of what Wynn called “memory-speak,” the way majay-hì, clhuassas, and other sacred ones communicated with their own. But they did so with memories, not words.

Leanâlhâm’s gaze shifted again to Brot’ân’duivé, his face as unreadable as always. She certainly could not speak with him about anything that mattered.

Then another movement caught her eye.

The captain’s young second-in-command came straight toward her around the forward mast. The day before, she had noticed him watching, staring at her, as she had boarded. He had not tried to speak to her, so she had given him no more thought.

To her horror, he walked right up to her and smiled, showing a row of white teeth as he squinted at her curiously.

“Hope your quarters are comfortable, miss,” he said in Numanese. “I meant to check earlier, but things are always a bit busy the first day out of port.”

Leanâlhâm shied away. She caught most of his words, though he spoke too quickly and was too close. His toothy smile faded.

“Sorry, miss, I forgot to introduce myself. First Mate Hatchinstall, at your service.”

With another grin, he thrust out a hand at her.

Leanâlhâm cringed, backing along the rail.

Chap fixed on Brot’an and waited for any memory to slip into the old assassin’s mind. Even so, he couldn’t stop dwelling on Leanâlhâm and the meaning of those flickers of memories he’d seen in her the day before.

Various majay-hì had watched her from the forest, perhaps for a few years or more before she’d left her homeland. What did it mean? Her emotional state was a more immediate concern. As much as she functionally accepted life beyond her homeland, she was still an’Cróan. Aside from wanting to know other, more important secrets, Chap did not like being kept in the dark as to why Brot’an had dragged Leanâlhâm—and Osha—across the world.

“Maybe you ought to go below,” Magiere told Leesil. “You don’t look good.”

“I need the fresh air,” he groaned.

Then Chap spotted a sudden movement up the rail.

Leanâlhâm cringed in retreat from a man’s outthrust hand.

“It’s all right,” the young man said in a rush. “I didn’t mean to—”

A hiss of breath and the slide of steel on leather made Chap flinch and look up.

Magiere was on the move with her long falchion in her hand. He tried to tell her to stop but was too panicked to find the words among her memories. She swerved around Brot’an, and Leesil had barely straightened as she passed him.

“Get away from her!” Magiere snarled, the words rasping in her throat.

In a lunging step off the cargo hatch’s edge, she went straight at the young man’s back. Leanâlhâm’s eyes widened at the sight of her.

“Magiere!” Leesil shouted. “No!”

Seasick or not, he spun off the rail and went after her, as did Brot’an. Both got in Chap’s way, and none of them were quick enough. The young man started to look over his shoulder. Leanâlhâm’s small mouth opened, but she never got out a warning.

Magiere grabbed the collar of the young man’s coat. She wrenched him sideways with one hand, and he tumbled onto the cargo hatch.

Chap had no relief that she’d not cut the young man down, as she turned to go after her target.

Leanâlhâm cried out, threw herself at Magiere, and clung to her hauberk.

Half a breath later, Leesil slammed against Magiere’s back. He closed his arms around her and pinned down her arms and the falchion. Leesil’s growing fear and worry over Magiere’s lack of control over herself—over her dhampir nature—had taught him to act fast and hard. Magiere hissed, but he had a solid hold on her.

Chap closed in, rounding all three of them, and Magiere’s eyes had turned utterly black. In the bright daylight, tears ran from that darkness where her irises had expanded to block out the whites.

“No, no!” Leanâlhâm kept shouting, still clinging to Magiere’s hauberk.

Brot’an stepped in and pulled the girl off, though she struggled to get out of his grip. Sailors began running toward them from all sides, and the captain nearly jumped from the aftcastle on his way.

Chap circled tightly, trying to gauge the worst threat while hoping Leesil did not lose his hold.

“No, please!” Leanâlhâm pleaded in Belaskian, still fixed on Magiere. “I am all right!”

Captain Bassett pulled up his first mate, looked the young man over once for any harm, and then turned on the passengers. Chap glanced back to find Magiere still in Leesil’s hold, though she had averted her face.

“What’s happening here?” the captain demanded.

Bassett was a wiry man with gray stubble on his jaw, and he was dressed in worn boots, a battered brown hat, and a treated hide jacket. He had not drawn the cutlass hanging from his left hip.

“A mistake,” Brot’an returned, pushing Leanâlhâm behind himself. “The girl knows too little of human ways and mistook the young man’s gesture.”

It was as good an explanation as Chap could have offered, though he could not voice it.

“Hatchinstall!” the captain barked.

“Sir, I was only checking to—”

“Tell your men to keep their hands off her girl!”

At Magiere’s shout in Numanese, Chap wheeled around to get in her way. She was fixed on the captain now, but at least her eyes had almost reverted. Their whites showed but not the brown in her irises. She thrashed once against Leesil’s grip, but even at her worst she had never used her full force against him—as yet.

Chap snarled at her in warning.

“Shush,” Leesil said. “Leanâlhâm’s fine, so stop it.”

Keeping his grip on her, he looked to the angered captain. “Sorry,” he managed in Numanese. “Maybe ... wrong knowing.”

The young first mate, now behind his captain, rubbed his neck as he scowled in silence.

Chap dipped into his mind for any surfacing memories. He found flashes of Hatchinstall with the crew in ports where they spent nights in revelry. The young man’s own exploits were rather tame compared to tales of seafaring men. A simple series of pretty women flickered by, but all interlaced with a vivid first sight of Leanâlhâm coming aboard.

He had intended no harm and was only charmed by the girl’s unique, foreign beauty. But Leanâlhâm’s fearful response was real enough. She was an’Cróan through and through, and he was a human she didn’t know.

Unfortunately Magiere had overreacted to an unnecessary degree.

Brot’an cut in again. “As I said, a mistake, a misunderstanding.”

Leesil would have been the better peacemaker, if he were not so inept with spoken languages.

“We see that no threat was intended,” Brot’an added, “and apologize for any offense given. The girl is unfamiliar with any people but her own. That is what caused her alarm, not your crewman.”

“I didn’t mean to frighten her,” Hatchinstall said, as if it mattered greatly to him. “I was just ... I wanted to make sure her ... their quarters were all right.”

The captain listened in silence, but his attention remained on Magiere.

“My other friends are protective,” Brot’an added. “Please forgive this disturbance.”

Chap bristled at Brot’an calling any of them his friends. The captain relaxed slightly, and the brown had fully returned to Magiere’s irises. Leesil began to loosen his hold on her.

“Good enough,” Bassett said, “but my men have work to do. Maybe you ought to go below to quarters ... away from the chance of another misunderstanding.”

Magiere scowled openly as Leesil released her. She did not sheath the falchion and held out her free hand to Leanâlhâm.

“Come on,” she said.

To Chap’s surprise, Leanâlhâm ducked around Brot’an and grasped Magiere’s hand. Both headed off and below, and Chap huffed in frustration. Leanâlhâm’s presence was becoming both a blessing and a curse where Magiere’s growing instability was concerned.

Leesil raised both hands, palms up, and cringed with a shallow smile—a quick apologetic gesture. He then hurried off after Magiere and Leanâlhâm. Brot’an followed in turn with a nod to the captain.

“And get this beast off my deck and back on its leash!”

Chap had been watching Brot’an as the captain barked that command. When he turned his head, he found Bassett glaring down at him.

Brot’an, waiting near the doors to below, was the only one left in sight to whom the captain could be speaking. When Chap didn’t move, Brot’an snapped his fingers.

“Come,” he ordered.

Chap stiffened all over and choked back a snarl. His teeth ground together as he caught only pieces of the captain’s sharp reprimand for his underling.

“... away from the passengers ... not your concern ... If they have needs, they come to me ... or you to tell me, and that’s all!”

Chap locked eyes with Brot’an and could not stop the quiver of his jowls. Trapped in the role of pet that Magiere had forced upon him, he finally stalked toward the stairs to below.

But Brot’an had best never think of using that leash himself.

At least the momentary crisis was over. When Chap neared the bottom of the steep steps, he heard voices in the dim passage.

“It is all right, Magiere,” Leanâlhâm was saying.

“No!” came the answer, and Magiere sounded heated again. “They aren’t going to blame you for some sailor who can’t keep his hands to himself!”

That was not what had happened, but Chap raised no words in Magiere’s mind as he turned in to the passage with Brot’an right on his tail. The old butcher suddenly pushed past, forcing Chap to shoulder up against the wall.

“Leanâlhâm,” Brot’an called, continuing down the passage and opening the door to their cabin. “I would speak with you now.”

Before Magiere could stop her, the girl hurried on. She was almost inside the other cabin before Magiere took a few steps and Chap scurried after.

“She’s better off with us right now,” Magiere blurted out. “Brot’an, stop ordering her around!”

The tall anmaglâhk slipped in after the girl and closed the door. Magiere kept going, reaching for the door’s handle.

Chap cut her off with a clack of his jaws. She halted, turning and narrowing her eyes on him, but Leesil caught up quickly.

“Let Brot’an talk to her,” he whispered.

Magiere glared at him, but he did not let her get a word out.

“This is going to be a long voyage,” he continued. “Brot’an is an’Cróan, like Leanâlhâm, but he’s ... well traveled. I don’t trust him as far as I could throw this ship.... Seven hells, I’d like to throw him off the ship. But right now he’s the one to talk to her.”

Chap did not agree, but there was nothing to be done about it. He had another concern at the moment—Magiere. Her expression was tense and angry for another breath, and then she leaned forward and put her head against Leesil’s shoulder.

“Shhhhhh,” he said softly into her ear. “Come on.”

He looked a bit pale and sickly again, but he led her into their cabin. Chap followed, and only once they were inside did the concern on Leesil’s face begin to show.

“Leanâlhâm isn’t the only one who needs a bit more calm,” he said, pulling Magiere down next to him on a bunk’s edge. “We’ve been politely confined to quarters, if you didn’t notice.”

A retort might have formed on Magiere’s parting lips, but it disappeared, and she looked at the floor. Leesil pulled his legs up to sit cross-legged beside her. As he stroked the back of her hair, Chap watched the pair in silence, feeling like an outsider.

Then again, weren’t they all outsiders now, especially Leanâlhâm?

When he was around her, he could feel her sense of loss, of being lost. He wished he had given more thought to such loss himself when he, Magiere, and Leesil had left their home to follow Wynn ... to travel to this continent they knew nothing about.

But others along the way had suffered loss as well.

Chap eyed the sword hilt still clutched in Magiere’s hand; the blade’s point rested heavily on the floor. That it was still in her hand became the focal point of all that had just happened.

—Put it—away—

Bent over where she sat, Magiere raised only her eyes to him.

—Do not—draw it—again—unless—told—

Chap did his best to simultaneously echo these words to Leesil as well, so he understood what was happening. It was even harder to do than speaking to one person. Every being had a different memory of even commonly shared events, let alone words spoken or heard in past moments. Chap was uncertain of success until Leesil reached over with one hand to gently turn Magiere’s face.

“Listen to him,” Leesil said firmly. “He’s right. We don’t need—want—anything like the last time ... up in the Wastes.”

Magiere jerked her chin from his hand and looked away.

“I had to. I couldn’t stop,” she whispered. “I had to save you ... both of you.”

That wasn’t good enough for Chap after what had almost happened on deck.

—The sword— ... —Now—

Magiere flinched at his command, though she would not look at him or Leesil. Finally she unbuckled her belt, stripped off the sheath, shoved the falchion into it, and held it out to Leesil with her eyes still averted.

He took the weapon, leaned it up against the bunk’s far end, and then he grabbed her and pulled her into his lap. She collapsed there, closing her eyes in visible exhaustion as he stroked her head but looked to Chap.

Whether he was seasick or not, Leesil’s amber eyes mirrored Chap’s concerns about Magiere. There was nothing more to be done except to watch her always. But Leesil’s mention of the Wastes set Chap’s mind to wandering.

The one last terrifying event Leesil hinted at had not come until near the end of that journey. So much had happened before that, from the very beginning. After they left Wynn and sent the sage into Calm Seatt with the overland merchant caravan, the three of them had headed off in search of a place to hide the orb of Water.

The beginning had not been bad, perhaps even interesting at times. Back then they’d still trusted each other in all things, though Chap had not yet learned how to speak to them with memory-words. Still, free of conflicts, they enjoyed some closeness like the older days while exploring a strange land, finding a new path, encountering new people and races never before seen by them.

Yes, the beginning was always the better part in memory....

Chap had ducked through the brush, sniffing about and staying ahead of the horses as he led the way northwest to find a route to the central continent’s western shore.

“My butt is killing me,” Leesil whined.

Or, rather, Chap tried to stay out of earshot of Leesil’s endless complaints.

“It hurts all the way up my spine!” Leesil kept on. “Why are we risking our necks riding these half-mad bags of bones with four sticks for legs?”

It was Chap’s turn to whine, not that anyone would hear him, as he halted to look back.

“Will you stop?” Magiere said, pulling her horse up next to Leesil’s. “We’ve got nowhere to be, nobody chasing us, and no one we have to catch. Why can’t you enjoy a little peace for once ... or at least give us some peace!”

Chap huffed once in agreement. He’d listened to this exchange over and over for almost a moon.

Leesil hated sea travel, but he hated horses more. If he wasn’t on his own two feet, he wasn’t happy. And neither was anyone who had to be around him.

But Chap had agreed completely when Magiere stopped at a village and bartered for two horses and a mule. She and Leesil couldn’t make this leg of the journey on foot. The distance was too great, and they had too much to carry—especially with that cursed orb inside a second chest strapped to the mule’s back. Chap, of course, remained comfortably on foot.

His long legs had no trouble carrying him for leagues in a single day. It was a relief to lope freely out in front, seeing everything his two charges would be walking into—before either one of them did so. At first he had sympathized with Leesil’s desire to do the same.

No longer.

“I wanna walk!” Leesil grumbled.

“Well, you’re going to ride,” Magiere shot back. “Now keep that horse moving before Chap gets fed up with you and leaves both of us behind.”

She should not have put such a notion in Chap’s head, though it had occurred to him already. Of course, he would never do so ... never.

Wynn had told him a great deal about this region, including Dhredze Seatt, the stronghold of the dwarves that filled the mountain on the peninsula beyond her homeland. Chap was greatly concerned with keeping the orb away from civilization whenever possible. He had led Magiere and Leesil northwest to bypass the dwarves’ region; he was determined to keep the orb unknown to anyone before they reached the barren northern regions. There he might find someplace to hide it where minions of the Ancient Enemy of many names—or anyone else—would never find it.

A few days past, he had judged it was time to turn more westward, directly toward the coast. Dusk was coming quickly now, and they’d soon need to make camp.

“Cheer up,” Magiere said dryly. “We can’t be far from the coast. We’ll sell the horses and buy passage on a ship.”

Chap groaned out in front. Why would she say that?

Leesil uttered a series of scarcely intelligible foulmouthed retorts over seafaring again.

Chap barely heard this, as something else made him pause. His ears rose as he listened carefully until it came again.

An angry, deep-throated shout ended with a loud thud. Snarling growls followed, carrying through the trees.

“What was that?” Magiere asked, pulling her horse up beside him.

Chap’s instinct was to order her back until he learned the answer. Before he could think of a way to do so with just her memories, she kicked her mount, and it lunged past him.

“Magiere!” Leesil called sharply, all traces of whining gone.

Chap bolted after her as she pressed her horse on. Grunting, thudding, and snarling grew louder ahead beneath the pounding of hooves from Magiere’s horse and the sound of Leesil catching up from behind.

A screeching, grating yowl rolled through the trees and pierced Chap’s ears.

It shook him deep inside, as if he should know its sound.

Magiere reined her horse in behind a stand of trees at a clearing’s edge. She was out of the saddle, standing on the ground, before Chap caught up. The sight awaiting them was almost too much to take in all at once.

In the clearing, a battle was beginning between one and many—and the one held the many at bay for the moment. He could only have been tall enough to reach Magiere’s chin, at best. But he was almost twice as wide as a human. His skin was both rough and slightly flecked, as if his heavy bones and thick sinews were covered by flesh-colored granite.

Steel-streaked ruddy hair whipped around his head as he spun about at the clearing’s center. A curly cropped beard of a slightly darker hue covered his broad jaw. He wore a shirt of linked chain over a quilted leather hauberk, and heavy steel pauldrons and couters protected his shoulders and elbows.

Two war daggers were sheathed at his hips, but in one hand he held a double-bladed war axe with a long, stout haft. He swung it as if it weighed nothing to him, though it made the air hum in its passing. And when he turned in a circle and eyed all of his opponents, Chap saw something more that he recognized.

Around the dwarf’s neck was something like what Magiere wore about hers.

Wynn had once described Magiere’s orb handle or key as a thôrhk—a dwarven word, the only word that the sage knew to describe such a device. Magiere’s had ends with facing knobs for pulling an orb’s central spike.

The dwarf’s thôrhk was fashioned like braids of metal, but in place of the knobs on Magiere’s, his ended in stout, short spikes, akin to the one on the haft’s end of his huge axe.

Wynn had taught Chap as much as she could on the journey to her homeland. And Chap knew what, if not who, he looked upon.

This was a thänæ: one of the dwarves’ “honored ones,” so marked by that neck adornment. But what was he doing out here alone in the wilderness against these ... things?

One of the creatures made a threatening charge and stopped short, halfway to the dwarf. The sight of it pricked an ugly memory in the back of Chap’s mind. It had to be another fragment left behind, after his kin, the Fay, had torn out any memories of his time among them when he had chosen to be born into flesh.

The creature facing the dwarf was only a bit shorter than he was, or perhaps its half-crouched stance made it appear so. Wild spotted fur covered its beastlike torso, peeking between the gaps of scavenged armor crudely lashed over its hulking shoulders and bulging chest. It charged again on all fours—no, threes, for with one arm it gripped an old flanged mace with one flange missing. The creature swerved aside at the last instant, spun out of the dwarf’s striking reach, and raised the mace to slam it threateningly against the clearing’s earth.

The thick fingers of its hand ended in dark claws in place of nails.

Chap counted twelve of the creatures, all snorting, snarling, and screeching. They looked like some twisted cross between an oddly colored ape and a dog. Broad but short muzzles wrinkled below their sickly yellow eyes. Every feral noise displayed oversized canine teeth. Longer bristles sprouted above their heads and in tufts from their peaked ears.

They clambered, leaped, and spun on twos and fours as they feinted at the dwarf, forcing him to twist every which way. More disturbing were the pieces of rusted and rent chain, leather, and felt-pad armor over their muscular torsos. Each creature gripped some form of a thick cudgel made from gnarled tree roots or branches ... except for the one with the damaged mace.

The dwarf shouted a string of guttural words.

Chap did not understand what he heard, but the words seemed like some kind of enraged challenge. And the creature with the mace came at the dwarf.

In the instant it took Chap to take in all of this, Leesil pulled his horse up behind Magiere’s. Barely keeping his feet, he tumbled out of the saddle and took in the sight as well.

“He’s not going to last long in there!” Leesil declared, but before he’d even finished speaking, Magiere charged into the clearing.

“Give room!” she shouted.

The dwarf never even looked at her as the largest one came at him. The beast nearest to Chap swerved at Magiere’s voice. It barely saw her before her falchion struck it.

Magiere’s blade careened off its skull in a spray of blood, skin, and fur. Though it shrieked in pain, it barely flinched and twisted its head. The creature’s short, broad muzzle widened in a howl, exposing thick fangs, top and bottom.

“Ah, seven hells, she’s done it now!”

Chap glanced about at those bitter words, but Leesil was nowhere in sight. When he turned back, that thing threw aside its cudgel, dropping to all fours as it went at Magiere. Chap bolted out as another one turned her way from off to the right.

Magiere sidestepped as the wounded one swiped for her leg with a clawed hand and snapped for her gut with its jaws. She brought the falchion in with both hands amid a twist to the side. The heavy blade bit into the back of the creature’s neck.

The creature’s noise ended instantly under a wet grating of steel on bone.

Sod tore from the earth in the second one’s claws and hit Chap full in the face. He briefly lost sight of everything, and he swerved. When his sight cleared, the second one had gotten by him, with a cudgel raised in its three-limbed scamper toward Magiere’s back.

Chap panicked, for they were badly outnumbered against opponents they knew nothing about. He charged straight into the second creature’s legs and snapped at the back of its knee.

Where was Leesil?

Furred flesh tore in Chap’s teeth. He wheeled around his target as the beast stumbled, spinning to slam the cudgel down at his head. He ducked under as the weapon broke the earth and lunged up into its face. His teeth closed on the top of its muzzle and ground through fur and flesh into bone. For an instant he stared into its sickly yellow irises.

The creature screamed, thrashing its head up and back.

Chap’s teeth ached sharply as it tore its face out of his jaws. The force slung him aside, and he tumbled and rolled to his feet to go for its throat. It wailed, its own blood spattering across its beastly face and into its eyes, but it had not gone down. It shrieked at him as it groped for its fallen weapon.

A white-blond blur dropped out of the dusky sky from the branches above.

Leesil landed hard atop the creature’s shoulders with his knees. It toppled, and its head and shoulders slammed to the earth. With that momentum, Leesil drove one of his winged punching blades point first into the back of its neck.

Another muffled crack of bone filled Chap’s ears as he saw a third beast charging in. He spotted Magiere, now at the clearing’s center and back-to-back with the dwarf. The two faced the rest of the pack all around.

Chap bolted and leaped into the face of the third one. As it dropped its cudgel, trying to claw him, he bit through and tore one of its peaked ears. Before it could stop screaming and grab him, he pushed off with his rear legs and hit the ground running. Leesil would have to deal with that one, as Chap needed to make sure no more got through.

A strange cry, almost like some foreign word he did not understand, filled the clearing.

Six of the twelve beasts remained on their feet and hands. All suddenly wheeled, loping for the nearest trees around the clearing. They vanished into the growing darkness, and the clearing grew quiet but for the panting of those who remained.

Chap still tasted fur, flesh, and blood in his mouth, but he looked about for his companions.

Magiere stood with her back to the dwarf and watched the tree line for movement. Her breaths came deep and rapid. As for the dwarf, he did the same while facing the other way. Three bodies lay around him, and beneath his heavy right boot he held down the head of one creature, though it didn’t move. Leesil passed into Chap’s view as he trotted toward Magiere, but Chap’s gaze had caught something lying nearby.

He trembled—not from exertion or at the severed head of Magiere’s first opponent. It was those lifeless yellow eyes in a beastly face that made him grow frightened.

That thing was familiar to him now.

Years ago, when the three of them had traveled to Magiere’s dark homeland, he’d been lost inside a phantasm cast upon him by an undead sorcerer. In that nightmare vision he’d seen a feral version of Magiere dressed in black-scaled armor. It was only a sorcerer’s trick that played upon his worst inner fears, but he’d never been able to shake it.

In his vision she’d stood in a night forest with skulking and hulking silhouettes all around her. Among them, at the forefront of those she led, these same kind of creatures appeared. She had led an army of the enemy’s minions into the forest of his nightmare ... and everything living shriveled and died in her wake.

He also knew of these creatures from Wynn’s tales on their long journey across the continent to Calm Seatt. They had passed through barren, wild regions devoid of civilization. A part of that route was called the Broken Lands. Wynn had spoken of these creatures, among other monstrosities, said to roam there. But neither Chap nor Magiere nor Leesil ever saw anything while with that large, guarded caravan.

Here they were, what Wynn had called gôb’elazkin: the “little gobblers” or goblins, for they ate anything that lived. And they were not so little.

What were they doing so far west, moons away from their territory, in a place where they just happened to encounter Magiere?

She did not appear to see them as anything more than savage animals too humanoid in form. Neither did she recognize them for what they were, as she had never seen them before. But Magiere and the dwarf suddenly took off for the far tree line.

“They’re gone!” Leesil shouted at her in Belaskian. “It’s over!”

Something in his voice got through to Magiere, and she halted. The dwarf also paused, and they both stared back at Leesil. When Magiere reluctantly turned back, the dwarf growled under his breath, kicked a clot of sod from the earth, and followed. For a moment everyone stood silent except for the sounds of their panting.

The dwarf straightened proudly and slapped one hand against his chest.

“I am Fiáh’our,” he announced loudly in Numanese. He appeared to think this should mean something to them.

Magiere blinked uncertainly, still breathing hard, but her spoken Numanese was passable.

“Your name is Fee-yaaah ... ?”

“Fiáh’our,” he repeated, and then laughed at her stumbling over his name. “Most of your kind call me Hammer-Stag ... of the family of Loam, Meerschaum clan of the Tumbling-Ridge tribe. I thank you for adding your sword to my axe this night.” Glancing toward Leesil and Chap, he drew his shoulders back. “Even though it was not necessary, and I would have preferred to kill all the sluggïn’ân before they could flee.”

Magiere studied him—and then saw the thôrhk around his neck.

“Slug-and-ay-en?” Leesil parroted back.

Hammer-Stag chuckled. “Sluggïn’ân ... what you Numans call ‘goblins.’”

“I’m Magiere,” she put in. “That’s Leesil, and this one’s called Chap.”

Chap wondered how much of this exchange Leesil could follow, considering his spoken Numanese was not as good as Magiere’s. He appeared to listen closely as he inched in behind her.

“Well met!” the dwarf barked, and then frowned a little as he eyed Magiere in puzzlement. “Your accent is strange. Not Northlander or Wastelander ... perhaps Witenon or from somewhere further south?”

“Farther off, to the east,” she answered, and, jutting her chin at one of the corpses, she changed the subject. “Why were these things attacking you?”

“Because I am hunting them,” he answered.

Everyone paused at that.

“Hunting?” Magiere echoed. “Are they just animals of some kind?”

Hammer-Stag uttered a “tsk-tsk” and shook his head. “From your lips to the Eternals’ ears, I wish ... for they would not be so worrisome if that were true.”

With a great, growling sigh—far too dramatic for Chap’s taste—the dwarf took on a stern expression.

“They tried to raid the village of Shentángize one night past,” he continued. “No one there dared step beyond the stockade at night. I had no choice but to set out, with only my axe for company.”

Magiere blinked again and glanced over her shoulder at Leesil.

“You ... hunt ... ?” Leesil tried to say. At a loss for the next word, he nodded to a severed head beyond the dwarf.

Hammer-Stag squinted, his eyelids closing around his small black irises like iron pellets.

“Of course! They are cunning, vicious, and eat anything alive.” He peered more closely at Leesil’s face. “Ah, I should have known it was a Lhoin’na dropping from the trees.”

Both Magiere and Leesil fell speechless at the dwarf’s blustering words. Neither of them corrected him concerning Leesil’s true heritage. Hammer-Stag’s gaze dropped, and his eyes widened in wonder.

“By the Eternals!” he breathed softly.

Leesil blinked and looked down. Chap had already followed the dwarf’s gaze to the winged punching blades still in Leesil’s hands.

Made from shining white metal, their forward ends were shaped like flattened steel spades but with elongated tips and sharpened edges. At the blades’ heads were crosswise oval openings, allowing him to grip their backs. Each weapon’s outer edge extended in a wing that curved back along his forearm’s bottom to protrude beyond his elbow. Arcs of rounded metal came out halfway down the wings and around his forearms to hold the weapons in place.

“You do indeed hail from a long—and deep—ways off,” the dwarf said.

None of them knew what that meant, and Chap was a bit disturbed that Hammer-Stag recognized either the weapons or something about them. As if avoiding this, Magiere turned the talk in another direction.

“We were about to make camp, as soon as we retrieve our horses. We don’t have much food, but you’re welcome to—”

“Horses?” Hammer-Stag uttered warily. “Where?”

Chap realized the concern, but it was not the horses or the mule that he feared for most. He glanced at all of the scavenged weapons and attire of these goblins and thought of how they had to have come by those. Everything that he, Magiere, and Leesil had brought with them—especially the orb—had been left with ...

“Valhachkasej’â!” Leesil spit out, and he took off running.

Chap bolted as well, easily racing ahead. When he reached the trees, he found the horses untouched, but his sudden appearance spooked the mule. It took off into the brush.

Leesil ran after it, cursing as he vanished among the trees. “Stupid, obstinate, flea-bitten bag of bones!”

Chap began to follow, but when Magiere caught up, along with Hammer-Stag, he decided not to leave either of his charges alone with this stranger. With all the noise that Leesil and the mule made, it would be easy enough to know if they ran into trouble.

As Magiere took hold of both horses’ reins, the dwarf tsked again.

“I cannot leave all of you out here,” he said, “to become a meal yourselves. I will stand you a modest feast at what passes for a greeting house in Shentángize. There we will find you all a dry place for the night. The settlers cannot cook like my people, but anything will do.” He then sighed, deeply and forlorn. “Even though human ale is a rather poor draft.”

Again Magiere stared at Hammer-Stag as if dumbfounded. Hammer-Stag’s loud and confident manner was a bit overwhelming and off-putting.

Chap preferred sleeping outdoors unless they could find a large settlement with lodging on its outskirts. It had been more than a moon since they’d slept inside. The tiny village mentioned would not do at all, with too many eyes easily taking notice of outsiders. He was trying to find a way to warn off Magiere, when ...

“How many ... live in this village?” she asked.

Hammer-Stag shrugged, his eyes rolling upward as if he was counting. “A hundred, perhaps more.”

Magiere looked down at Chap and whispered. “I think it’ll be all right.”

At that, it was Hammer-Stag who eyed Chap with puzzlement.

Leesil came cussing and fuming into sight, with the mule resisting him at every step.

Chap lost any chance to warn Magiere off without attracting more attention. Sooner or later they would board a ship with the orb hidden away in a large chest that might have to be placed in cargo rather than in their cabin. In a village, at least, he could keep it in sight, and Magiere was still waiting.

Chap huffed once in agreement.

“What now?” Leesil grouched, looking between Chap and Magiere.

As Hammer-Stag shrugged and strode off, Magiere just cocked her head after the dwarf, and Leesil followed. Chap stepped in behind them.

As much as Hammer-Stag claimed to be hunting these goblins, he was soon making enough noise with his incomprehensible singing to attract stragglers back upon them. There was little chatter between any of them, and at any question about Shentángize, Hammer-Stag most often shrugged off the inquiry with, “You’ll see it soon enough,” and went back to his bellowing.

Chap had about enough when they finally broke through the trees into a clear area, and they spotted a stockade beyond the fallow fields. It was little more than a long, rounded wall of sharpened poles made from tree trunks driven into the earth and lashed together. A single broad gate framed by two crude watch platforms showed on the stockade’s near side.

“Did they build this to keep out those ... goblins?” Magiere asked as they stepped onward.

That seemed unlikely to Chap, as the dwarf had been fighting perhaps a dozen.

“The number of sighted packs seems to be increasing,” Hammer-Stag answered, “though they have rarely been seen this far west in many years. I tracked one pack tonight, but I will go out again ... and again until certain I have cut down the last of them.”

Chap wondered why the dwarf took this duty upon himself, but then they stood before the gate.

“It is me, Fiáh’our!” he shouted. “Open the gate!”

Low voices rose beyond the stockade wall, and the gate swung outward just a little. A few dirty faces peered out by the light of a raised tin lantern. Without waiting, Hammer-Stag pulled the timber gate wide as if it were made of twigs.

“I have guests,” he declared, “battle mates to be made welcome! Someone see to their horses.”

As two boys scurried out, Magiere held up a hand before Chap could step in the way.

“Let us get our belongings first,” she said quickly.

Hammer-Stag raised a bushy eyebrow with a shrug, as if this was not really worth concern. After grabbing their packs, Magiere and Leesil jointly hefted the chest hiding the orb. They carried it between them as Chap stepped ahead to clear the way.

They followed the dwarf over dried, cracked mud into a shabby village of randomly placed dwellings. They had little time to look around, as Hammer-Stag never slowed. He strode straight to the largest building at the center; its smokestack was billowing and light was seeping from its few plank-shuttered windows. He jerked its door open.

“I have returned victorious!” Hammer-Stag called out as he entered.

A few of the occupants left the collection of rough tables and chairs nearest the burning hearth. Villagers crowded in to greet the hulking dwarf with pats and nods.

“How many?” one asked. “How many did you kill?”

“Two dozen over the last few days,” he proclaimed. “They were on me like a horde wherever they heard me coming.” He then turned and gestured to his three new companions. “But at the last of it, these came to fight at my side. For my sake, give them food and drink and all else that they want.”

Chap noticed Magiere’s eyes shifting about as her pale face began to show panic.

She hated being the center of attention even when it was not a risk. Leesil, on the other hand, smiled for the first time all day. He kept a tight grip on his end of the chest as he pushed in around Hammer-Stag.

Several villagers had to duck and dodge the bulky chest and packs. Magiere’s expression turned stunned and then livid as Leesil dragged her past tables filled with villagers now all abuzz.

“... Timons, get the stew.”

“... Marta, fetch the ale.... Not that, the other stuff!”

“Tea,” Leesil put in quickly. “Bring ... tea?”

He had once spent years drinking himself to sleep and now would not touch ale or wine. He and Magiere rested the chest on the floor near a quickly vacated table as Hammer-Stag joined them. Chap paced in agitation once around the table and chairs before finally sitting close to Leesil ... with a good view of the whole place.

Hammer-Stag already had a fired clay mug of ale in his hand. He slammed it down on the table as he dropped into his chair, and foam sloshed everywhere.

“A good night indeed,” he proclaimed.

Magiere was looking closely at his thôrhk. She had hidden away her own, made of Chein’âs metal like Leesil’s blades, in the pack at her feet. Instead of mentioning Hammer-Stag’s thôrhk, she settled her elbows on the table and leaned in.

“We need passage on a ship heading far north,” she said. “What’s the best route to a port for that?”

“Far north?” Hammer-Stag frowned. “Why? Beyond Northlander coastal towns, villages, and trading posts, there is nothing but savages and icy wastes ... unless ...” He shook his head. “Ah, nothing for you up there.”

“Do you know a route?” she repeated.

His frown deepened, and he let out a resigned sigh. “Head west by northwest for two days by a horse’s stride until you find the coastal trade road. Follow that straight to the nearest coastal town, which should be Cantos, about five more days off.”

Magiere settled back in apparent relief.

“Only seven days?” she asked, and he nodded once. “Thank you.”

Then her gaze returned to the thôrhk around his broad neck.

So far she’d found only one use for her own—to open the orb of Water. Chap knew what she must be thinking: why would this dwarf wear such a device?

“Where did you ... What is that?” she asked carefully.

Leesil was silently but intently watching this exchange, even as a smudge-cheeked young maiden in burlap brought him a clay kettle and cup. She was trying not to stare at him—and failing.

All further talk ended as large bowls of lamb stew with potatoes and peas were plopped down before them. Then Hammer-Stag handed a mug of ale to Magiere; she took it with a nod but did not drink. Finally a wooden platter with a fresh loaf of dark forest bread was laid on the table.

The people fussed over Hammer-Stag and asked whether he needed more ale as they set out the meal. He shook his head with a brief smile, as he seemed pleased by Magiere’s last question. Once the villagers had no more reason to linger, he tapped one spiked end of his thôrhk.

“I am a thänæ among my people, an honored one,” he said. “Only those few such as I wear a thôrhk. I now further prove my worth in life through my deeds, if in death I hope to stand among the Eternals.”

The only part that mattered to Chap was that the dwarf’s thôrhk had meaning among his people but nothing to do with the purpose of Magiere’s similar one. She appeared to realize this as well and turned her attention to the meal.

Leesil leaned down to put a bowl on the floor. Chap lapped the gravy, though he kept his eyes on the room and everyone in it. The stew was savory with chunks of tender lamb. They had been living off jerky and dried fish for a moon, and before he knew it, he was licking the bottom of the bowl.

Amid shoveling mouthfuls, Hammer-Stag appeared about to speak again when Chap heard the common house’s door open. He looked up as two more dwarves entered. As they had with Hammer-Stag, the local people welcomed them in and offered food and drink. It was not until they were halfway in among the locals that Chap spotted the thôrhk through the split neck of the lead dwarf’s leather hauberk.

Hammer-Stag rose abruptly, leaving the remainder of his dinner on the table.

“Forgive me, but two companions just arrived. It is time to swap tales of our exploits. The telling is everything as the culmination of great deeds.”

Chap doubted Leesil could interpret the Numanese meaning for “culmination,” but Magiere seemed to follow the dwarf’s meaning. Deeds accomplished were told to others for some purpose among his kind beyond sharing news of events.

Hammer-Stag winked at Magiere. “You have earned your place in this telling always. From my lips to the Eternals’ ears!”

In spite of herself, Magiere tried to smile as she nodded to him.

Hammer-Stag grabbed his mug and was off with a final wink to join his companions at a table in the far corner. Chap did notice him wave over the proprietor—a large, scruffy man in a stained apron. They spoke briefly in low voices. Almost immediately the proprietor maneuvered through the tables to Magiere and Leesil.

“Are you finished?” he asked. “Had enough?”

Chap would have liked another bowl—maybe two—but Magiere answered, “Yes, we’re fine.”

“Then if you’re tired, I have a room out back. Not much, but one of my girls laid out mats and blankets. Any friend of the thänæwill always be favored here.”

Apparently being a friend of Hammer-Stag meant something in this small, isolated place.

As Magiere rose, Chap looked across the room and saw the dwarf raise his mug to them, as if in a gesture to say good night. Leesil nodded back, hefted his pack, and grabbed one end of the chest as he waited on Magiere. They were then ushered through a door in the room’s back and down a narrow passage to a small room.

“Told you it wasn’t much,” the proprietor said, setting a lantern by the door.

Though shabby, the room was clean, with three mats laid out with a small stack of woolen blankets nearby. The prospect of sleeping indoors on a full stomach finally appealed to Chap.

“It ... good,” Leesil said, and the proprietor nodded once and left them.

Chap trotted over to claim one mat, and as Magiere followed, she did something he had noticed her do more and more often. It had not troubled him at first, but it began to.

She dropped her pack on the outside mat and pulled the chest containing the orb up beside her bed. Leesil was watching her as well and looked to Chap.

Magiere’s nighttime ritual had become too common, as if she never wanted the orb far from her reach, even while she slept. During the days, she was also reticent to get too far from it. At first Chap had thought she was merely protective of it, as they all should be.

Leesil’s frown suggested otherwise—for both him and Chap. Leesil picked up two wool blankets and tossed one on Chap’s chosen mat.

Not noticing their scrutiny, Magiere removed her hauberk and lay down. Even as she closed her eyes, she reached out one hand as if to check again that the chest was there.

Chap paced in a circle, pawing the blanket out into a suitable nest. Leesil turned the lantern down but not out, and then dropped on his mat. But when Chap finally curled up, he made sure he could see the whole room, including Leesil ... and Magiere.

Perhaps she was simply being cautious until Chap could find a place to hide the orb forever.

A soft creak pulled Chap from his memory as he lay upon the cabin floor aboard the Cloud Queen. Magiere and Leesil were resting on a bunk, and Chap raised his head.

He tensed as the cabin door inched open little by little. His jowls drew back, exposing teeth, and a hooded head pushed through the narrow opening.

Leanâlhâm peered hesitantly at him.

“It is only me,” she whispered.

Chap relaxed with a sigh. What was she doing here and, more important, where was Brot’an?

Leanâlhâm hesitated upon seeing Leesil on a bunk.

Magiere, apparently asleep, was stretched out beside him with her head on his shoulder, but Leesil was awake, looking sickly again. He likely feared disturbing Magiere, for he only raised his head slightly at the sight of Leanâlhâm, and then silently waved her in before letting his head drop back against the bunk.

The girl almost retreated outside again.

Chap huffed softly rather than startle her with words called up from her memories. She finally stepped all the way in. Quietly closing the door, she stood there with her back against it. Perhaps she shied a little at meeting Chap’s watchful eyes.

The episode up on deck must have been traumatic for her. She looked lost and alone, and somehow bruised inside.

Chap wondered what Brot’an had said to her in private. It seemed clear that she’d slipped away and, with nowhere else to go, had come here. But Chap had suspected for some time that Brot’an was making her hide something, forcing her to keep something to herself. The girl’s present tentative expression only added to his certainty.

He sat up, and she looked at him with worry on her face. In the corner of his sight he could also see Leesil.

—Brot’an is—

“Chap, I’m not in the mood,” Leesil groaned.

—Brot’an is—too hard—on the—girl—

Leesil slapped a hand against his forehead, and Magiere stirred a little.

“Knock that off!” he whispered sharply, but he did not quite settle back again, and peered over Magiere, first at Leanâlhâm and then at Chap. “Wait ... what do you mean about Brot’an?”

Leanâlhâm’s widening eyes fixed solely on Chap.

She knew that he understood everything said around him—and more that was not spoken aloud. It unsettled her whenever Leesil spoke to a “sacred” majay-hì in a disrespectful manner. Perhaps more so when Chap was not speaking to her, for she could hear only half of the conversation.

Chap ignored Leesil and hopped up onto the cabin’s opposite bunk. He pawed the empty space beside him as he looked to Leanâlhâm. Hesitating at first, she finally came to settle on the bunk’s edge. When he shoved his nose into her small hand, she jumped a little, and he flipped his muzzle up, making her hand slide down his neck.

All the while she kept staring at him as if he was too bizarre to comprehend.

That was getting annoying. But as she watched him, her memories of the majay-hì returned again—the ones standing in the shadowy brush and watching her.

Chap looked into Leanâlhâm’s green eyes.

—I am—not—like them—and—they—are not—what—your people—think—

She sucked a breath, as she often did at the memory-words he called up in her mind. But at the sound she made ...

“Chap?” Leesil grumbled in warning. “What are you doing?”

Magiere stirred, opened her eyes, and murmured, “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Leesil answered. “Leanâlhâm came in.”

Magiere rolled her head and peered sleepily across at the girl sitting with Chap.

“You stay here as long as you like,” she said.

Chap felt Leanâlhâm’s tension subside a little. Her narrow fingers actually combed into his deep fur and then became still.

—I am—majay-hì—and not— ... —I am—Chap—

—You are—an’Cróan—and not— ... —You are—human—and not—

—So—who does—this make—you—now?—

—Being—more than—one thing—is not—being—less than—one thing—

—All—here—with you—are—like you—in—this—

—You—are not—less than—whole—

The sudden alarm on Leanâlhâm’s face actually frightened Chap. A rushing past moment flashed through the girl’s mind, and he latched on to it.

He—she—stood in a dank, dark forest of curtaining moss and dripping vines among close, cramped trees. He stepped out into a clear area of grass, and in a copse ahead, something glimmered beyond the black silhouettes of gnarled oaks.

He—she—shook so much that it made every breath quiver.

A rustle rose in the grass, and his breath stopped.

At first he saw nothing. He only heard a soft sliding somewhere ahead in the dark ... coming closer through the grass.

Chap, caught between facing what lay ahead, whatever was coming, or flight, felt that his legs might buckle. And he could not move.

The sounds of a mild struggle in the cabin cut through Chap’s focus.

“Magiere, please!” Leesil yelped. “My breakfast is barely staying down as it is.”

Chap couldn’t help but look. Magiere had pushed herself up on one elbow and was glaring at him from the other bunk.

“Get out of her head—now!” she ordered. “She’s had enough for one day.”

Then he noticed that the small hand upon his neck was gone.

He glanced back to find Leanâlhâm cowering where the bunk’s far end met the cabin wall. She sat there with tears streaming down her dark tan face.

“Leanâlhâm?” Magiere whispered, but when the girl did not respond, she turned her vehemence back on Chap. “What did you do?”

Chap snapped his teeth at her, huffing twice for no. He had not caused whatever crippled Leanâlhâm from within. But he’d somehow pushed Leanâlhâm too far in clinging to the memory he had seen within her.

It was gone now. Leanâlhâm’s mind was empty of memories, as if she cowered from those as much as from anything in the present.

—Lie down—rest— ... —You are—safe—here—with me—

She looked at him, but only as if she was uncertain of what she saw.

—Everything—is all right—in here—

The terror on her face began to wane; in its place came a wash of exhaustion. With her large eyelids slowly closing to hide all the brilliant green, she slid along the wall behind the bunk and half curled up behind him.

He could not turn a circle, for there was not enough room anymore. He did his best to struggle about and settle along the bunk’s edge to wall Leanâlhâm off from the world. But his thoughts were working upon what he had seen in her.

There was no way to know when in the stream of her past that dark moment had taken place. But the place itself was somehow familiar—not that he had ever been there himself, but perhaps as seen in someone else’s memories.

Leesil came to mind, but Chap was uncertain why. His train of thought was interrupted as something slid clumsily up his back.

Leanâlhâm’s small hand settled tiredly between his shoulder blades, and her fingers clutched his fur. It was enough for now that one more piece of Leanâlhâm’s reticence over a majay-hì might have been broken.