First and Last Sorcerer

Chapter Seven

Dänvârfij froze in indecision upon the rooftop. She watched as her quarry came out of the imperial gates, and though their faces were obscured, hidden, or unclear, the deviant majay-hì was unmistakable. Before she could act, an alarm was sounded.

Guards ran out after the prisoners—Dänvârfij’s stolen prisoners. Arrows flew down into the street from somewhere high across the mainway. Two unknown figures appeared and hurried off Léshil, Magiere, the quarter-blood girl, and Chap. Even then, Dänvârfij had stalled again at the appearance of a tall swordsman with another majay-hì—a black one fighting beside him.

Three more guards ran out of the gate.

Rhysís as well could only stare.

Within moments¸ the swordsman and black majay-hì ran down the mainway, obviously trying to draw off any pursuit. Dänvârfij recognized those two who had fought beside an interfering little human “sage” back in Calm Seatt.

Was Wynn Hygeorht somewhere down there as well?

As the swordsman and black majay-hì vanished from sight, six imperial guards in gold sashes rushed out of the gate. How bitterly ironic, considering that Dänvârfij no longer needed even one to interrogate.

“What action do we take?” Rhysís whispered.

Magiere’s group was now too large in addition to there being several unknowns among them. For Dänvârfij to attack so many with only Rhysís would be a great risk, and there was no way to know if or when the swordsman and black majay-hì would double back to join their companions.

“Report to Fréthfâre but keep to the rooftops,” she answered. “I will track our quarry to their final destination. We can then find a way to separate and capture the ones we want.”

In that, they would need Én’nish, despite her near crippling wound. Even in the face of so much effort wasted, Dänvârfij took hope in her quarry’s panicked flight.

Magiere had barely been able to walk, but she was out in the open. It was simply a matter of finding a way for her or Léshil to be taken alone. For the first time in a long moon, Dänvârfij breathed more easily.

“Go,” she told Rhysís.

He ran silently over the roof and leaped to the next one across an alley. As the imperial guards rushed off to harry the decoys, Dänvârfij slipped over the building’s front. She dropped easily to the street and headed after the true prey of this night.

Brot’ân’duivé crouched in stillness at the rooftop’s edge, his stiletto in hand with its blade flattened beneath his forearm to hide it from the moonlight. He absorbed the most unexpected events taking place below in the street.

Wynn Hygeorht had a penchant for chaos, though it often hid something purposeful. Yes, he recognized her even though strangely cloaked. Her movements and gait were unmistakable, and the others had not hesitated to follow her. Unfortunately, the surprising young woman too often overlooked and failed to anticipate complications.

Two of Most Aged Father’s loyalist anmaglâhk were watching from above as Wynn and the others slipped beyond sight. Dänvârfij had dropped to the street to follow as Rhysís raced across the rooftops deeper into the city, likely to report to Fréthfâre.

Brot’ân’duivé was uncertain what Wynn Hygeorht would do next—or where she would take Léshil and the others. He did not like indecision, especially his own, and glanced toward Rhysís slipping farther away.

A choice had to be made between two different targets.

Brot’ân’duivé flipped his stiletto, bit the blade in his teeth, and swung over the roof’s edge to drop.

Osha nocked another arrow and aimed as Chane and Shade fled up the mainway. He understood their need to draw the guards off, but they were heading for a more populated district. How would the citizens react to a howling wild beast if Shade did not fall silent, and soon?

There was nothing to be done. The guards must be lured away, but Osha worried that, with Chane to slow her, Shade might not have enough of a lead.

He turned his eyes on the gate as six men in gold sashes ran out and down the street. He aimed ahead of them and released the bow’s string. Ducking low as the arrow flew, he saw it strike the cobble two strides before the lead guard.

That one skidded to a stop, forcing the others to do so as well. At their shouts to one another in looking about, Osha dropped below their sight on the roof.

He no longer heard Shade’s howling, and neither she nor Chane was in sight. The guards below would have to slow in their search without a visible quarry.

Osha stayed low as he crept around to the chimney’s back, facing the roof’s inland edge. About to drop into the cutway and head for the chosen place to meet the others, he looked back one last time ... and stalled.

Across the mainway along the rooftop silhouettes, something moved beneath the moonlight, silently running deeper into the city’s northern reaches. In less than a breath, it leaped as if vaulting a narrow street or alley somewhere below. The noise of the guards down the mainway had faded, but even so, Osha never heard the shadow land on the next rooftop.

Nor did it slow in doing so.

He did not know who the shadow was, but he knew what it was by its ways and movement.

Anmaglâhk.

Somewhere in this city, it was still possible that Brot’ân’duivé sought his own pursuits. If he yet lived, there would have been no chance to seek him out—not that Osha wished to—while striving to free the others.

But Brot’ân’duivé would never be seen in the open like that running shadow.

And Osha remembered something the domin had said.

There had been two light-haired elves among those who had captured his long-lost friends. At the time Ghassan had mentioned this, Osha and Wynn had wondered ... but this was a large continent with its own population of elves.

Osha rose in panic upon the rooftop. Any remnants of doubt vanished.

After all that had been done to cut off Dänvârfij and her team, they had tracked Magiere and Léshil to this city. One of them was now in sight—likely male to judge by its height—and was not going in the direction Wynn’s group had traveled.

An anmaglâhk outnumbered would wait and follow or seek others to assist. If this messenger succeeded, more of Dänvârfij’s team would soon descend upon the others ... upon Wynn.

Osha dropped from the roof’s edge, landing so hard in the cutway that he had to tuck and roll. Rising with his legs and one shoulder aching, he bolted across the mainway, without even looking for guards, and scrambled up another building to rise and search the night.

And he saw the shadow even farther away.

There was no time for stealth as he raced over the top of the city. Everyone else was in danger, including helpless Leanâlhâm ... including Wynn.

As he ran, he reached over his shoulder and felt for an arrow without a thread ridge, one with only a steel tip. Gripping that, he hesitated for a half breath. A trained anmaglâhk could hear an arrow coming and evade it, especially in the quiet of the night. He pinched the thread-ridged arrow between his last two fingers and also grabbed a different one—without a ridge—between his first two fingers.

He now held one arrow with a Chein’âs white metal head and one of plain steel.

Osha halted, quickly drew back the steel-headed arrow, and fired.

He aimed slightly low and left to catch his target in the thigh and hobble it. If the arrow hit by chance, that would be enough to halt his target’s flight. As the arrow left the bow, he drew back the white-tipped arrow and fired again—the first to mask the sound of the second in flight.

In that instant, Leanâlhâm broke through Osha’s thoughts of Wynn.

He had left her to Léshil, Magiere, and Chap. He had believed they of all people could keep her safe from harm, even in the company of Brot’ân’duivé after the loyalists had been cut off. She had not been safe after all, but imprisoned in a foreign land. The greimasg’äh had escaped that same fate ... and left Leanâlhâm there.

One blink after Osha had fired the first arrow, the shadow lurched to the right.

This did not matter; that was where he had aimed the second arrow.

A bit of white glinted in the dark as moonlight caught on a thin line of metal ... like an anmaglâhk blade. Wynn was now somewhere below in the streets and unaware of pursuit.

Osha instinctively twitched his grip on the bow.

Beneath the leather wrap in his grip hid another gift of the Chein’âs: a white metal bow handle to match the head of the second arrow. Out in the dark, that arrow shifted in flight as his aim instinctively fixed dead center upon the shadow.

He never heard it strike.

The shadow’s silhouette suddenly twitched, convulsed, and toppled. He heard it fall to the roof and slide. Then came the distant sound of cloth tearing. In the silence that followed, Osha remained rigid in place, until he heard the body’s impact upon a street somewhere below.

Osha stood frozen and could not lower the bow. A flickering image of Wynn overlaid the one of a shadow convulsing in the dark. Both visions burned into his mind, and he grew sick, began shuddering, and fought to keep his feet.

His first kill—which he had never wanted—was one of his former caste.

* * *

...what are you ... why have you come ... who do you serve?

...no one left to trust ... no one will come for you ...

...all are locked away or fled ... you are alone ... forever ...

That whispering chorus echoed out of memories in Magiere’s head. She was barely aware of being dragged through night streets she didn’t recognize. Even the pain of her torn wrists, feeling as if they were still manacled, wasn’t enough to shut out those whispers.

“Magiere, please!”

That voice was louder than the others. It pierced her right ear, as if she had actually heard it.

“Help me ... try to move your feet ... and walk.”

It was so familiar, that voice. It taunted her, but she couldn’t place it. Air and strange smells—different from the cell’s stench—rushed across her face and filled her nostrils. Her arms and shoulders ached as if stretched to their limits by whatever chains now held her up.

...no one will come for you ...

Those words again scratched and skittered like bugs crawling in her skull. At their pain, she opened her eyes.

Magiere cringed as a passing light burned her irises. She shut her eyes in a hard blink. When she opened them again, strange buildings along a dark street rushed past her, except for another lantern drawing nearer ahead as she was ... dragged onward.

“This way,” someone half whispered from up ahead, and that voice was also familiar, like the one in her ear. “The shrine isn’t far. We’ll hide around the back to wait for the others.”

What was happening?

Magiere barely turned her head, and Leesil’s face appeared so close to hers. He was looking forward to wherever that other voice had come from. She became vaguely aware that both of her arms were over the top of two people who were dragging her along. She didn’t look the other way for the second of those two; she looked only at Leesil.

She had dreamed of him amid the whispers for so many ... how many days or nights? The skin over his face was tight, and he was panting.

“Leesil?” she breathed.

His face twisted instantly toward her, and she shook under his sudden stop.

“Wynn ... wait!” he called.

His voice hurt her ears after so long hearing nothing but whispers in her head. His bloodshot amber eyes filled with relief.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and again, “I’m so ... sorry ...”

Confusion tangled with hope. Was he truly here to save her? Had he just called to Wynn? No, Wynn was far away, and none of this was real. Anguish killed hope as Leesil blurred in her sight.

“No ... no, don’t cry,” he whispered. “Everything is all right ... everything. We just have to go a little farther.”

Her left arm jerked upward and then dropped at her side. Leesil stumbled as her whole weight shifted against him.

“Ghassan! What are you doing?”

At that other voice—again out in front—Magiere tried to turn her head.

“He must carry her alone, so I am free to act as needed.”

This third voice—deep and tainted with an odd accent—came from her left. She didn’t have a chance to look as someone else rushed toward her.

Magiere’s eyes opened a little wider at pain from her left arm being raised again. When it came down, it settled on smaller shoulders much lower than those of whoever had helped carry her before. She swallowed the pain as she looked over into ...

Large, wide, round eyes of deep brown peering up at her out of an olive-toned face hidden inside an oversized cloak’s hood.

“Wynn?” Magiere whispered.

With only a brief half smile, Wynn nodded and then twisted her head to look up the street. It took effort for Magiere to follow that gaze.

There was Chap, and Wayfarer leaned on his shoulders with one hand as the two looked back at her. Despite relief on the girl’s haggard face, there was lost panic in her forest green eyes.

Wynn suddenly stiffened. “No! That’s not it,” she half voiced, her eyes fixed on Chap. “Three more intersections ... then a right and two more.”

Chap must have babbled into Wynn’s head again.

“We need to go!” that foreign male voice ordered, now somewhere behind. “I will watch at the rear.”

Chap turned off up the dark street, forcing Wayfarer to follow.

“Can you go on?” Wynn asked.

“Yes ... yes,” Magiere answered, looking to her lost husband. That was where she had always drawn strength when she thought she had no more.

“I’ll make this up to you.” He breathed into her face. “I swear.”

What did he have to make up for? He was the one who’d saved her.

No ... you are alone ... forever ...

At that last echo of whispers weakly scratching at Magiere’s skull, her hate came back.

Hate gave her strength. Someone had done all of this, someone in that shimmering robe, and someone would die for what had been done to her and those she loved.

Brot’ân’duivé wove swiftly and silently through shadows in the alleys, cutways, and streets as he tracked Dänvârfij. He kept enough distance that even she would never hear him, though she would not have seen him if she looked back.

“Wynn, wait!”

As Dänvârfij halted at the alley’s mouth, so did Brot’ân’duivé near its other end. He had so intently focused on the hunt that the voice from far ahead caught him off guard.

Léshil should not have betrayed the others’ position so carelessly. By his voice, they were no more than another city block away. Perhaps they were even down the street beyond Dänvârfij. It took only the span of a breath to reassess the situation.

Imperial guards would be sweeping the city, though as yet he had not seen or heard any nearby. When they appeared, and they would eventually, they would not give attention to any nearby altercation as they sought to recapture prisoners. And his own prey might use that complication.

Brot’ân’duivé abandoned the need for the proper place and time. He backed out of the alley and charged up the last side street to round the corner for the street onto which the alley emptied. He stopped at the corner amid the cloying stench of a spice shop, but he did not see either Dänvârfij or the others along the open, empty street. That alone was the only fortune as he crept toward the alley’s mouth.

Dänvârfij went still upon hearing Léshil’s voice—followed by other voices too soft to hear clearly. Her first impulse was to scale to the rooftops, get ahead of her quarry, and only then drop to the street when she could take either Léshil or his monster of a mate. The others would not dare challenge her for fear she might kill a hostage.

She quickly rejected this notion.

Her task was to track and scout wherever their quarry would hide. Soon enough, imperial guards would flood the streets in a wide search. Attempting to take one of her targets now might prove a wasted opportunity if she had to escape capture herself.

Rhysís was to report to Fréthfâre, and then Dänvârfij was to follow with more information. They were spread thin in number, and it was essential to adhere to set plans. With the pending search of the guards, Léshil and Magiere would not dare move from wherever they next hid.

To know that place was all that mattered. And upon the rooftops, she might be delayed or cut off by any street too wide to leap across.

Dänvârfij cleared her thoughts with regained purpose and stepped out of the alley.

A shadow filled the corner of her sight, and she instantly spun toward it.

There was no mistaking who stood there, even without the garb of his caste. In a catch of breath she thought of all those of her team who had died since leaving their homeland.

Dänvârfij knew she stood no chance against a greimasg’äh, a “shadow-gripper,” a master of her caste’s ways. Once, she had revered him, lived in awe of him.

Sadness, mournful and infuriating, flooded her.

No anmaglâhk feared death. They feared only failure.

“Traitor!” she called him.

To her dull surprise, his answer was soft, perhaps sad.

“That would be you—and Most Aged Father—to our people.”

Hkuan’duv, her own jeóin and teacher, had been a greimasg’äh long before he died while killing Osha’s jeóin, the revered Sgäilsheilleache. By Hkuan’duv teachings and her love for him, Dänvârfij would not allow the traitor to walk away unmarked.

Brot’ân’duivé saw Dänvârfij’s expression drain of all emotion. It would have been better for her to hesitate, perhaps flee, and die more quickly that way. When she rushed him, he did not move at first.

Her first strike never landed.

The blade passed a whole hand’s thickness from his chest as he twisted and dropped into a crouch. He slammed one palm up into the elbow of her outstretched arm. The other slapped the inside of her forward knee.

Both of her legs buckled willfully instead of just the one. As she came down, her extended arm folded and her elbow slipped off his palm before his strike was completed. She slashed down with her blade as she dropped into a crouch to match his own.

Brot’ân’duivé twisted his striking hand, and her blade slid off his palm as he threw himself into the near building’s sidewall. He folded his outer leg before his weight overcame inertia and pulled him down the wall, and he thrust out with a foot.

To his surprise, she intercepted the heel coming toward her head by raising her shoulder. The kick still knocked her back to roll across the street stones. She was on her feet again as he rose up.

He did not close but stood his ground, waiting as she poised for another rush.

He half expected her to charge past him at a tangent, seek the wall to step up, and come down upon him from above. Or perhaps she would finally turn and run.

Brot’ân’duivé had calculated every option available when Dänvârfij came again.

In a flash, her lunging foot slid forward along the ground. It was too predictable, though that was his mistake as much as hers.

He barely sidestepped, twisted, and spun the blade in his other hand, still held hidden beneath his wrist. He drove it toward her right eye as she hit the ground in a hurdler’s straddle.

She collapsed forward over her outstretched leg, ducked her head under his thrust, and her right hand struck for his forward knee. He shifted weight to his other leg, taking the blow as she pushed off her rear-cocked leg, shot upward, and thrust her blade for his abdomen.

Brot’ân’duivé speared both hands downward as he dropped his own blade.

One hand turned her blade aside as his other thrust down along the far side of her head. He let his weight drop with a sudden crouch as his deflecting hand swung up under her blade arm. His other snaked in and folded around her neck.

Brot’ân’duivé thrust up with both legs, arching his back.

A mute but sharp crack of bone answered his effort.

She went instantly limp with her head wrapped under his right arm. Then came the clatter of her blade upon the street. He waited for three calming breaths.

When he let the body flop to the street, he stood there looking at her. Dispassionately, his gaze traced from her open but blank eyes, with large amber irises, to the barely parted lips and then on to the neck, broken and twisted aside at an unnatural angle.

It had all taken too long and left him wondering why he had let it be so. When he turned away, a sharp pain in his left side halted him.

Brot’ân’duivé brushed aside his cloak.

He stared at blood soaking his tunic around a clean slice in the fabric. It was not that he had been wounded. This had happened more than once in his life, but not in recent memory against only one opponent. In fascination, he looked back at the still body in the street.

She had wounded him. Not severely, but still ...

A strange sorrow overtook him but not for her death.

Dänvârfij, “Fated Music,” lay still with empty eyes staring up at nothing. Like all of his people, when she had come of age, she had gone to sacred ground to face the spirits of their ancestors. By whatever one saw in that place—which was never to be spoken of—a new name was taken.

Brot’ân’duivé heard no music in the street or anywhere in this faraway city. For all the loyalists he had killed, he had felt nothing. They had become the enemy, serving a paranoid madman who endangered the people.

His regret was not that he had killed her. It was the waste of what she might have become. In that silent moment, without even the whistle of a bird in the dark, it was as if her name—her life’s truer purpose—would never be fulfilled.

Regret turned to an anger he could not suppress. Perhaps that regret had been there all along, for there was one other thing he had almost left behind. He returned to lean down over her corpse. After removing all her weapons, he searched for one specific object, found it, and held it up.

Smooth and tawny and oval, it had been grown from the very tree in which Most Aged Father had lived for perhaps a thousand years. It was a communication device much like one that Brot’ân’duivé carried for speaking to other factions of dissidents among his people. The ones carried by anmaglâhk on a mission had only to be pressed against the trunk of any tree to speak to Most Aged Father.

This was the last word-wood possessed by Dänvârfij’s team. Without it, they were cut off from their tyrant patriarch.

Brot’ân’duivé studied the smooth bit of wood. Instead of destroying it, he slipped it through the bloodied slit into hiding within his tunic. He retrieved his own stiletto, which he had also forgotten. He had forgotten or overlooked too many things this night.

Before joining Léshil and the others, he had one more stop to make, to retrieve a few things he had purposefully hidden.

He left Dänvârfij’s body where it lay.