The Night Voice (12 page)

Chap had not even considered the possibility of a stonewalker accompanying them, and he did not care for the idea now.

Cinder-Shard appeared about to retort when Chane interrupted.

“Ore-Locks speaks the truth, and as much as I respect you, Master Cinder-Shard, this is ultimately his decision, and I will follow his wishes.”

“I will not be countered!” Cinder-Shard barked. “Not by something like you.”

Chap sensed a crisis building. What if Cinder-Shard refused to release the orb? Could Ore-Locks get to it himself? Or was it hidden where only Cinder-Shard knew?

There could be no chance of losing it now, and Chap locked his eyes on the dark, grizzled dwarf. He was uncertain if memory-words would even work with a stonewalker, but he had to try. Cinder-Shard's contention with Ore-Locks had already evoked conscious memories of past arguments.

—Give the anchor . . . to Ore-Locks . . . and . . . send him . . . with us—

The master stonewalker jerked out one blade in a back step, but he eyed Chane. Chap heard Chane draw a blade as well. Ore-Locks immediately stepped between them, blocking Chap's sight line to the elder stonewalker.

“Enough!” Ore-Locks shouted, unaware of the cause. “Both of you, put your blades away. Chane . . . now!”

Chap glanced back once with a snarl and a huff for “yes.”

Chane glanced down once, eyes narrowing in suspicion—then widening in realization. He slipped his shorter blade back into its sheath.

Chap pushed around Ore-Locks's legs before the young stonewalker realized. He focused on Cinder-Shard with another snarl and clack of teeth.

—Look . . . down . . . not . . . to Chane—

Cinder-Shard did so, and his brow furrowed with confusion.

—I am majay-hì . . . and . . . more— . . . —I . . . protect . . . the anchors—

He paused to let the realization sink in as to who actually spoke.

Cinder-Shard's confusion melted into visible shock.

—Give . . . the anchor of Earth . . . to Chane . . . and send Ore-Locks . . . with us—

Cinder-Shard still stood his ground with blade in hand, and his scowl returned. He slowly looked from Chap to Chane. Shock plus doubt returned when he met Chap's eyes once more.

“You travel with him?” He pointed the dagger toward Chane. “Knowing what he is?”

—He is . . . useful . . . and . . . another guardian . . . for . . . the anchors—

Cinder-Shard's frown deepened again. He finally looked up and waved Ore-Locks out of his way. With hesitation, he slipped the broad-based dagger back into its sheath.

“This majay-hì somehow speaks in thoughts, in voices, from my past,” he said directly to Chane, though Chane said nothing. “He expects me to do as suggested, and he claims that he protects the anchors . . . as in more than one.”

Yes, Chap had made that slip in desperation and anger, and he still saw it as necessary. Both sides here needed a show of trust to end this conflict, and he had chosen to be the first. How could stonewalkers trust them—trust him—if he did not trust in them?

Chap huffed once at Chane to confirm Cinder-Shard's words.

With a slow nod, Chane turned to Ore-Locks. “We have already traveled
to the wastes and recovered the orbs of Water and Fire. We have hidden them nearby and will carry them south . . . with yours.”

“Here?” Cinder-Shard demanded, as if nearing patience's end. “Where?”

“At the mouth of the old tunnel that once led to the prince's cell.”

Cinder-Shard's gaze wandered in an expression of open panic.

“You must let me do this, Master,” Ore-Locks said.

Long moments of silence followed.

“How will you travel?” Cinder-Shard finally demanded of Chane.

“First by sea, though we have yet to find outbound passage,” Chane answered cautiously. “We only need to go as far as Soráno, and then by land.”

The master stonewalker hesitated again, and then spoke directly to Ore-Locks. “The
Kestrel
is in the harbor. I will make certain the captain gives you passage.”

Ore-Locks released a sigh of relief, and Cinder-Shard leaned down toward Chap with a wrinkled brow.

“Considering the topic at hand,” he said, “I can only guess sending the two of you together is another twisted jest by Chuillyon.”

Chap had no idea what that meant, and when he looked to Chane, the undead's jaw clenched. Whoever this Chuillyon might be, Chane knew of him or her.

“Take these two out the aqueduct tunnel,” Cinder-Shard instructed Ore-Locks. “Retrieve their anchors and take them to the ship. I will have dealt with the captain by then . . . and I will arrange to have the anchor of Earth stowed in cargo.”

Before Chap could even wonder how the master stonewalker could accomplish all of this so quickly, Ore-Locks heaved another sigh of relief.

“Yes, Master,” he said, “and thank you.”

Chap did not care to leave this place without the third orb. But so far, regardless of a temper and a quite sensible hatred of the undead, it seemed unlikely that the master stonewalker would break his word.

“Give me the chest,” Cinder-Shard commanded.

Chane did so, along with the third lock and key.

What mattered most to Chap was that he had succeeded here—even though Chane's presence had been both a help and a hindrance. And the other problems, such as passage, had been solved. There was one more minor relief as well.

Chap would not face another cursed lift or tram to leave this place.

M
agiere trekked through another desert dawn and deeper into the foothills, which had grown higher the closer she traveled toward the main Sky-Cutter Range. She had only Ghassan and Brot'an for company. Wynn and Leesil had remained in camp with the orbs.

“We should turn back,” Ghassan said, glancing toward the eastern, lightening sky.

“A little farther,” Magiere countered, pressing on in the lead.

She felt torn at going back after having found nothing again. Finding anything to support Ghassan's belief in the Enemy's reawakening seemed slimmer and slimmer by the day.

She'd lost count of the nights since they'd found the bodies, or parts of the bodies, and there was no way of truly knowing what had happened to those people. The nights now repeated the same choice: who scouted and who stayed behind. Any who went out had to cover as much new ground as possible before returning at dawn . . . to collapse in exhaustion. They had already moved camp, always eastward, numerous times to expand the search.

Along the way, more time was lost in finding wells and stealing water for both themselves and the camels. Food stores held up but were dwindling. Everyone was tired of jerked goat meat, cracked flatbread, and dried-up figs.

Magiere never said so aloud, but she wondered if any of this would amount to anything. Leesil said less and withdrew more each day, and she couldn't offer him a word about when all this would end.

It couldn't end yet. They had to continue eastward.

Magiere stopped and half turned.

Brot'an, like the rest of them, wore a long cloth tied over his head, stretching down his back and overhanging his eyes, even at night. The light-toned muslin made his tan face look even darker. They still often traveled in early daylight or even in the later afternoons to escape the worst heat. Sleeping midday was necessary to take cover from the burning sun.

“What do you think?” she asked.

No one fully trusted Brot'an, but she depended on his judgment in scouting. He seemed to know exactly how long it would take to return to camp, no matter where they went.

“A bit farther, if you wish,” he answered. “From here, we would make it back to camp well before midday.”

Nodding, she turned onward around another hill instead of over it. A warm breeze blew across her face . . . and she froze.

She smelled blood—a thick scent—and turned her face into the breeze. Without thinking, she bolted upward for the top of the hill. Something more had been changing in her the farther east they went.

There had always been times when her senses sharpened. This had always come with the rise of her other half. But lately . . .

When she gained a vantage point, she pulled her falchion and froze, looking downward.

“Magiere!”

She heard Brot'an's sure steps racing upward behind her, followed by Ghassan's. When both joined her, they too looked down at the remnants of a massacre.

Magiere had almost known before she saw it. There had been other moments like this, not foresight but, well, maybe fore-sense. If Chap had been
here, and thankfully he wasn't, he might have known. Leesil and the others didn't know about her growing ability, and she kept it that way.

Now hunger did widen her sight.

Bodies were strewn about at the hill's back base, most with limbs flayed out where they'd dropped. As to the blood scent, Magiere's sight widened further at the sight of torn-out throats.

One boy was short of manhood. Three others were children.

Four people in faded and semitattered robes and head wraps moved through the bodies. They rarely paused. One veiled woman knelt and hunched with her head nearly on the chest of a small body. The other three were men, two young and one with a steel gray beard.

Magiere rushed down without thinking.

Four more people peeked out around and over lower boulders where they had hidden. These looked panicked. One shouted out to the searchers, and a young man among them pulled a long, curved knife.

“Sa'alaam!”
Ghassan called from behind.

Magiere had picked up enough common Sumanese to know he'd shouted the word for “peace,” but it struck her as a poor choice. How could these people be at peace among their dead with strangers suddenly descending on them? She swung wide from the boulders before reaching the gulley's floor.

Brot'an was only an instant behind her. He ignored the men and studied the scene without reaction. Ghassan skidded to a stop with both hands up as he faced the men.

“Desert nomads,” Ghassan whispered. “Let me deal with them.”

When he stepped away, something else struck Magiere. The one word Ghassan had spoken stalled most of the survivors, but all of them watched him carefully as a second man pulled out a curved knife almost long enough to be a short sword. He barked something like a question.

Magiere couldn't follow the man's words. Even Brot'an frowned slightly, and his Sumanese was better than hers.

“A different dialect?” he murmured.

Magiere looked back to the bodies and began to count—eleven.

Ghassan talked quickly with the survivors, always keeping his hands out and visible. The two young men did most of the talking or questioning, while the stern and haggard old man listened and watched. The three women—one still bent over a body, one peering from around a boulder, and another clutching tightly an elder boy—were all silent.

Ghassan continued speaking to the men.

“What are they saying?” Magiere demanded. “What happened here?”

When he glanced at her, every muscle in his face looked tight.

“They say they were attacked before dawn,” Ghassan began, “by madmen . . . with the teeth of animals. They were too fast, too strong to fight, when they started to slaughter people and . . . eat them.”

Magiere's brow furrowed in confusion with one quick glance at the nearest body, a man, probably in his twenties, though dried blood obscured his face.

“I do not think they understood at first,” Ghassan added, “that it was blood, not flesh, their attackers were after.”

That made sense to anyone with sense.

Too often, those who knew of the undead thought that everyone else did as well, as if such things were commonly known. In truth, the undead were few, rare, and that was their advantage.

Yes, Magiere had seen otherwise, but that didn't count.

Sometimes they came because of her and what she was. In a large world, there were unlimited new places to hunt, filled with unwitting prey. And the cunning ones kept it that way, even killing off the reckless among their own kind.

She closed her eyes and didn't listen as Ghassan struggled to learn more from the survivors. This time, the monsters had come in numbers, disregarding secrecy. Frenzy marked their starvation, and no undead needing to feed on life would willingly come to such desolate, lifeless places.

Magiere no longer doubted Ghassan's reports from the new emperor.

Opening her eyes, she called out, “How many attacked them?”

Ghassan glanced back at her but didn't answer. He returned to conversing with the two young men as the old one watched and listened to everything. Ghassan's tone grew sharp and fast, and a young one answered him in kind.

“Ghassan, what are they saying?” Brot'an called out.

At that, the trio of men and even one woman looked at him.

Ghassan spun around, glaring. Who wouldn't be angry in the face of all this? Magiere certainly was, but the domin rarely betrayed his thoughts, let alone his feelings.

“Answer Brot'an,” she told him.

“I am trying to gain information,” he said, his voice strained. “Something with a bit of sense, but they have little of that!”

This didn't seem believable for the amount of back-and-forth between him and the others. Then again, she knew sages too often thought the learned—educated—were so much clearer and informed than anyone else.

She waited for his frustrations to get the better of him, and Ghassan took a long, tired breath as he stepped toward her.

“Forgive me. I am unsettled.” He paused an arm's length away and lowered his voice barely above a whisper. “They say it happened quickly in the night. Some managed to run and hide. Any who stayed to fight were found dead. It happened very fast.”

“How many came at them?” Magiere asked.

“Six . . . to nine . . . or something in between.” He shook his head. “Too many different answers to be certain.”

She'd never known vampires to travel in numbers greater than three, and those were rare. They weren't social creatures. Any undead disliked sharing territory, but out here . . .

“That is all,” Ghassan finished. “They cannot describe their attackers beyond ‘mad' and ‘strong' or ‘beasts in human form.' And I think it unlikely they will let us help bury their dead.”

He stepped even closer to whisper softly. “We are lucky they feared
attacking us upon sight, likely because we came near dawn. That may change. We should leave to return to camp and move it immediately.”

Magiere didn't like that. She'd had to walk away from victims too many times. What she wanted most was to try to track the undead who had attacked here. If they'd managed to get high enough in the rockier terrain, Brot'an might still track what she couldn't smell or feel at a distance. But then her gaze shifted in looking over the domin's shoulder.

The two younger men stood close to the elder, speaking quietly. And the gray-bearded old man watched Magiere and her companions without blinking.

“We leave now,” Brot'an said.

Magiere bit down the instinct to argue with him, and she still felt Ghassan held something back. Her only certainty was the proof of why Ghassan had brought them eastward.

She dreaded wiping away any doubts Leesil had left.

• • •

Chane stood on the deck of the
Kestrel
, watching the main pier of the docks below Chemarré.

On the previous night, Ore-Locks had led him, Chap, and two other stonewalkers to carry the two hidden orbs to the ship. By the time they arrived, all had been arranged exactly as Master Cinder-Shard had said.

The third orb—Ore-Locks's orb—in the third chest was waiting in the ship's hold.

Neither Chane nor Chap had liked the idea of leaving the orbs out of their sight, but it seemed better than trying to stow them in the one cabin they all shared.

Still, Chap was down in the hold for now, refusing to leave the orbs unguarded until the ship left port and they were out to sea.

The only thing delaying their departure was Ore-Locks.

Upon getting them settled aboard the
Kestrel
, he had claimed that he
had several matters to attend to back in the seatt. Of course Chane understood this, as Ore-Locks was about to leave his current life behind and venture off on an extended journey with no set time to return. He must have duties and responsibilities among the stonewalkers. Or at least that was what Chane assumed . . . though he now grew anxious while waiting.

The vessel itself had been a pleasant surprise, roomy and clean, and their cabin sported two comfortable bunks. The captain had not appeared pleased at last-minute passengers, but he said nothing and was civil about all arrangements. Even Chane's offer of coin for passage had been refused. It still seemed strange, even suspicious, that Cinder-Shard, master of the dwarves' underworld, had such influence among the living, especially among nondwarves.

Movement at the pier's landward end caught Chane's attention—and there came Ore-Locks striding toward the ship.

Even with his face shadowed by the large hood of a traveler's cloak, there was no mistaking him. Chane stepped out to head toward the ship's ramp, where two sailors also stood waiting.

When Ore-Locks finally came up the ramp, he stopped and pushed his hood back, revealing dark red hair now hanging unbound over the shoulders of his iron-colored cloak. He no longer wore his caste's black-scaled armor, though he still bore its twin battle daggers tucked into his wide belt. He was dressed plainly in brown breeches and a natural canvas shirt . . . beneath a burnt-orange, wool tabard.

In their previous journey together, Ore-Locks had donned that same vestment to disguise himself as a holy shirvêsh of Bedzâ'kenge, Feather-Tongue. Back then, he had also carried the traditional iron staff of that order, but not tonight.

Instead, he wore a sheathed sword on his left hip.

Shorter than Chane's longsword, which was made of prized and mottled dwarven steel, Ore-Locks's weapon was nearly twice as wide of blade. No, he had not brought the nonlethal staff—metal, wood, or otherwise—common
to many shirvêsh orders. He had come prepared for battle and war, and he glanced down, following Chane's stare.

“Not big enough?” he quipped.

He always had a dry, caustic manner if and when he showed humor at all.

“Not for you, certainly,” Chane answered.

Perhaps he felt something to which he had never become accustomed except with Wynn, and later with Shade. It was rare—no, unique—that he wanted company from anyone else. This long journey with Chap had been more difficult than he imagined, for as a natural enemy of the undead, Chap hated him. The majay-hì could not be blamed for that, based on what Chane was . . . and more, what he had once been before Wynn.

Chane offered his hand to Ore-Locks. Though the young stonewalker hesitated for an instant, he took it.

• • •

Khalidah had been furious upon returning to camp with Magiere and Brot'an that morning. Yet he kept his feigned air of concern as Magiere and Brot'an reported to Leesil and Wynn what they had encountered.

In truth, Khalidah had no concern over the survivors. The reckless slaughter was another matter.

Leesil listened to the news stoically, and, of course, the sage asked every question imaginable, including putting up a moment's fuss over how to help the survivors. The half-blood said nothing.