The Night Voice (21 page)

Wynn ground her teeth.

Ghassan would never receive any real answer, only politely dry and somewhat snide humor to fend off more questions. Wynn wished she and Magiere could have a little private “talk” with Chuillyon. That would get some answers or confirm her suspicions.

Chuillyon too often appeared—in too timely a fashion—at destinations without sufficient time to have traveled there. Once she had encountered him at Chârmun after last seeing him in Calm Seatt. That was nearly impossible, considering she had used the fastest route by sea and inland from Soráno. And last night, he had been surprised—no, astonished—and then eagerly curious at the sight of Leesil's branch.

And that had been cut from Roise Chârmune, an ancient “child” of Chârmun.

Could it be so simple?

Wynn had seen amazing impossibilities in a handful of years. A few included Chuillyon, such as his shielding Princess Reine Faunier-Areskynna, a royal of Malourné by marriage, from conjured fire racing toward her.

“I think you have some way to transport yourself,” she accused, “though maybe it is limited . . . to certain
marked
places.”

Chuillyon straightened, her words taking him by surprise; he calmed and took a sip from his cup. “You have always had an imagination that exceeds your exceptional intellect.”

If possible, Wynn grew angrier. “Do you know where Leesil's branch comes from?”

For an instant, she thought he might deny such an interest, and then he blinked.

“Do tell,” he replied.

“From Roise Chârmune, the tree of the an'Cróan ancestors.”

His gaze shifted with a slower blink as he set down the cup but kept his eyes on the stark landscape.

“I am sure that means nothing to me,” he said, “but I am curious. Why are you so far east in the desert?” He smiled, still without looking at her. “The possibilities are rather limited.”

Wynn glared at him. It hadn't taken him long to reason out where he now was, though the answer would be obvious to anyone from this half of the world.

“If you cannot enlighten us,” Ghassan cut in, startling Wynn, “in any way, perhaps another touch of Leesil's branch will send you back to wherever you came from.”

Wynn wished Ghassan had not jumped to that implied truth. There was as much to learn from Chuillyon's evasions as from a straight answer. But yes, however Chuillyon had arrived, it had something to do with Leesil's branch.

Chuillyon smiled broadly. “Do you think you can manage that?”

“Yes,” Ghassan answered. “I can.”

This bothered Wynn. Suddenly she was not so eager to be rid of Chuillyon. The thought of Chârmun, or its offspring, Roise Chârmune . . . or Leesil's branch . . . brought something else to mind.

What was little known before the Forgotten History was that Chârmun and the land in which it grew was the only place the Enemy's undead minions
could not go. If it weren't for Chane's “ring of nothing,” he couldn't have even entered there now.

Did Leesil's branch have such properties in a lesser way? If so, how could that be activated? And there was still Chuillyon's method of travel to fathom. If he could pass from Chârmun to the branch, reasonably he could go the other way. And being able to take others with him might be useful if the worst came in the end.

There was much Wynn needed to know.

Chuillyon smiled softly as he turned his head, though not toward Wynn. He eyed Ghassan instead. The two obviously had some things in common.

Both were scholars once highly placed in their respective guild branches, one with arcane skills and the other with almost theurgical abilities in nature. Both had fallen and both had been cast out, though the causes for Chuillyon were not clear. Not yet.

“And what
are
you doing out here?” Chuillyon asked casually. “Perhaps I can be of assistance?”

Brot'an still sat passively cross-legged before the second tent's flap, but now he gazed intently at Chuillyon. Whether he saw a use for the errant once-sage or simply some reason to get rid of an “unknown variable,” Wynn wasn't certain. She didn't trust Chuillyon, but she did believe he would want to stop the Enemy from rising as much as any of them.

Ghassan's sudden smile was disturbing. “We came out here to hunt undead. I do not see how you could be much help.”

“Oh, I could,” Chuillyon answered, “as Wynn can attest, at least concerning one wraith.”

Ghassan's smile faded. He looked to Wynn. “He fought Sau'ilahk?”

Reluctantly, Wynn nodded. “Yes.”

Exactly how was unknown. Chuillyon's influence was more akin to prayers than spells, but he had halted Sau'ilahk several times.

“What else have you done?” Brot'an asked.

Wynn still liked Brot'an more than others did, but his sudden interest after such a long silence chilled her.

• • •

At sunset, Magiere insisted they try to pick up the trail of the undead from the night before. Leesil resisted a little, but Magiere still feared they were too late. The undead traveled harder and faster than the living, especially after feeding.

In truth, she didn't know why she'd collapsed and lost her fury when she'd tried to rush in and stop the slaughter. It shouldn't have happened. She feared it ever happening again, and what if it did? All she could do was prepare to leave camp.

Leesil stood waiting. The look on his face told her he was still uncertain about her going back out. Maybe he doubted her as much she doubted herself.

Brot'an offered to remain behind with Wynn and watch Chuillyon, and Magiere agreed.

At the sound of rustling canvas, she turned to see Ghassan emerge from the other tent. Though he was often hard to read, she'd gotten to know his ways well enough to see he was preoccupied.

“What now?” she asked.

He frowned. “I scryed for Chap and Chane's location. They have left the Lhoin'na lands, heading southward, toward the Slip-Tooth Pass. It will still take many days more before they reach the northside entrance to the tunnel running beneath the mountains into Bäalâle Seatt, but they are en route.”

Magiere stiffened. “What does that mean for us?”

He sighed as if the rest were unpleasant. “Within two days—and nights—we must turn west if we are to meet them within a day or two of their exiting the southern side of the Sky-Cutter Range. They will never find us out here on their own, and they have three more chests—orbs—with no beasts of burden they can bring through.”

Magiere had known this was coming but wasn't ready. They'd learned
next to nothing so far. The Enemy was rising, calling its own to the east, but all that was little more than what her gut had told her. She'd hoped to learn the Enemy's actual hiding place before meeting up with Chap.

At times it felt like only Wynn was on her side. Brot'an didn't count, since he'd always pushed for the best tactical choice—and he wanted to meet up with Chap and bring all five orbs together. Ghassan was worse, at times eager to push on and at other times not.

Magiere could feel Leesil watching her; he said nothing, and he didn't have to.

“A night or two,” she said. “So we keep looking until . . .”

Even she heard the overoptimism in that, but Leesil merely nodded. As he and Ghassan gathered what was needed, Magiere stepped off to the edge of the camp. Wynn looked over, and Magiere had only to cock her head.

The small sage got up and came to join her. Magiere kept her voice low as she eyed Chuillyon, who made an obvious point of ignoring everyone.

“See if you can get anything more out of him,” Magiere whispered.

Wynn nodded. “Of course.”

With that, Magiere patted Wynn on the shoulder and headed out with Ghassan and Leesil following. She remembered exactly where to go and strode quickly across the packed sand into the foothills under the endless black sky of winking stars.

Tracking would've been easier in daylight, but none of them could last long walking under the fierce sun, especially Leesil. If she got close enough to her quarry, she wouldn't need tracks to follow.

Before she realized, ahead stood the upslope they had climbed last night.

Magiere rounded it on the desert side instead, steeling herself for what she would find. Spotting the first body, she slowed, and Ghassan and Leesil caught up.

Blood had already dried upon flesh, into the sand and torn clothes, and on weapons still in limp hands or lying nearby. Belongings were scattered from ripped and torn tents. Even three camel carcasses were torn up and lay
still in the dark. Gruesome, it was exactly what she'd expected, but the littlest corpses—the children—were the worst.

Nothing could prepare anyone for that.

Even a half dozen undead, if there had been that many, didn't
need
to feed this much. And once sated, they'd slaughtered the rest for . . . who knew why. Maybe just the pleasure. It was as if they baited her, though they couldn't have known she was near. It was like what she'd seen from Chane back in her homeland.

No, this was worse.

“Ghassan,” she said.

He stepped ahead and she followed. They stopped beside two half-dug graves with several bodies in pieces with arms and legs gnawed to the bone. She hadn't seen any of that last night, but it told her something more.

These people had been attacked more than once, and on separate nights.

Magiere's jaw locked at the sight of a man's severed head with his face partially torn off. He had to have been digging one grave when he was attacked, but vampires didn't kill like that.

It made no sense.

Leesil looked down beside her. “What in seven hells hap—”

“Back up, now!”

Magiere stiffened at Ghassan's command, just before hunger and rage flooded through her. She pulled the falchion without even thinking, spun, looked in every direction, but saw nothing. Her jaws began aching under the change in her teeth.

All she managed to get out was, “What . . . here?”

“Move quickly!” Ghassan ordered.

Leesil now had both winged blades in hand. He turned all ways, looking about as he took one back step.

Magiere heard a faint shifting of sand and grit, but it didn't come from his step. She heard it again, and then the choking stench of carrion welled up around her. It was too strong for even the carnage.

A fierce grip latched onto her left boot.

Sand gave way before she could jab her sword down, and a blast of grit and sand shot up, blinding her. Something grabbed her belt and then her sword hand's wrist as it clawed up and pulled her down in the sand at the same time.

When her sight cleared, she looked down into a gray-white face with a mouth full of distended, yellow, almost needlelike teeth. The creature jerked her downward as the sand seemed to open under her feet. She screamed as jaws closed on her forearm above the falchion.

Magiere felt herself sinking fast. She released the falchion weighing down one arm and struck down into the gray face with her other fist. When its head whipped aside, she groped for the Chein'âs dagger sheathed beneath her hauberk at the small of her back.

When her hand closed on the hilt, she heard Leesil cry out.

• • •

At a hiss of sand, Leesil saw something launch out of the sinking ground beneath Magiere's feet. He pushed off to charge for her, but the sand suddenly gave way beneath his own feet. He sank so fast that his legs became mired. Something sharp raked and stabbed into his left thigh, and he cried out.

He hacked down with his right blade . . . and it struck only sand.

A gray-white, bony face jutted out of the sand now past his knees.

Its mouth opened, exposing what looked like teeth but too jaggedly sharp. It eyes were like black pits that swallowed faint moonlight, and where there should have been a nose were collapsed nostrils.

A clawed hand released his thigh—where it had jabbed him—and hooked its fingers higher into the rings of his hauberk. It hissed once before he slammed his punching blade's outer edge down into its face.

Leesil heard Magiere's screech shift into a vicious, grating snarl. That was all that told him she still lived.

“Get free and run to me!” Ghassan shouted, now sounding farther off. “More may come!”

Leesil understood that, though he didn't look for Ghassan. He didn't have time.

With his blade pressed into the creature's face, he writhed and wrenched one leg out of the sand. Once he'd kicked down into its face, he pushed to wrench his other calf free. In a roll, he slashed his other punching blade's tip as that thing crawled out after him.

When he gained his feet to face it down, something latched onto his left ankle.

• • •

Khalidah watched from where he had scrambled to a slab of stone rising from the sand.

Magiere rolled, slashed at one burrowing attacker's face with hardened nails, and then followed with the white metal dagger. Smoke rose amid crackling when the blade split gray flesh down a sunken cheek and into the hollow of a collarbone.

The creature's screaming wail took another two blinks to come.

All that Khalidah saw then were two obscured figures flailing amid tossed sand and smoke. No, he saw one more thing, off to the left beyond Leesil.

Another spot in the sand began to sink rapidly.

A third one was rising.

“Leesil, run to me, now!” Khalidah shouted.

He had no intention of letting either Magiere or Leesil fall prey to these things. He still needed them to get to Beloved—especially if so many of its undead were gathering to it.

At more screaming and screeching, Khalidah glanced toward where Magiere had been. Still, all he saw were two shadows flailing at each other.

• • •

Magiere slashed at her attacker again, barely able to see its shape in the dark through smoke and cast-up sand. Her hardened nails tore through something soft in its face—an eye socket perhaps. At its scream, hunger welled up and burned in her chest and then her throat and finally her mouth.