Barb Hendee - In Shade and Shadow

Chane let the sword sag in his hand and could not take his gaze from Wynn's hate-filled brown eyes.

Wynn's head ached. She had to find Chap, but here was Chane, staring at her. How could his gaze hold even a hint of remorse after all he had done?

"Drop your weapon!" one guardsman ordered.

Chane sagged, but he never looked at the pair of guardsmen ringing him in. He looked only at her, eyelids drooping, and his sword tip dipped toward the paving stones.

And Wynn faltered.

Three city guards lay in the street, the first still staring up at the night sky with a mangled hole in his chest. Chane hadn't done that, and something else had come for the folio as well.

"I said drop it!" the guard shouted again.

Wynn looked from the dead man to Chane. His eyes were fully open again as he studied that same lifeless body.

The guards inched in on him, yet he neither released nor raised his sword. He turned his eyes on her, nearly colorless in the dark, and slowly shook his head.

"Not me," he rasped.

He spoke in Numanese, her language. How had he learned it so quickly? When his gaze returned briefly to the mangled body, it suddenly hardened. He shook his head again.

"It was not me!" he snapped hoarsely.

"Shut your mouth and do as you're told!" the second guard demanded.

Doubt crept in upon Wynn.

She knew nothing of how he was involved here, but she might never learn if he were arrested. Not that two living men had a fair chance of containing an armed undead. There was only an impulse to guide her.

"Run!" she called.

One guard turned wide eyes on her. The other cursed under his breath and charged.

Only then did Wynn go chill inside, realizing what she'd just done.

Chane whirled.

He caught the charging guard with an elbow in the man's chest and slashed at the other with his sword. The blade's tip clipped the second guard's shoulder as the first one buckled wi [onest th a gasp. Both toppled as Chane bolted up the street, disappearing beyond sight.

Wynn turned all the way around.

She searched the night, listening for Chap's voice. But all was silent save for the curses and muffled groans of the guards. Alone with the wounded and the dead, Wynn went numb.

Somewhere ahead, the wolf's howls ceased.

"Where are they?" Rodian shouted. "Do you see them?"

"There!" Garrogh panted, and he pointed west down a side street. "Down there, I think."

His expression was furious as they ran on, and Rodian felt the same. Their own trap had turned against them.

They burst out of the side street into a wide main way, but it was empty. Rodian saw no dark wolf or black-robed fugitive. Frustration choked him.

He'd had the killer in sight, cornered by his men, and then the second one appeared. Worse still, they had seemed at odds with each other. Just how many thieves and killers was he trying to catch? How many unknown individuals found some gain or threat in whatever the sages were doing with Wynn's texts?

"Garrogh, do you hear anything?"

His second cocked his head for a long moment, and then his expression fell into a weary scowl.

"No… nothing."

"Damn it!" Rodian struck the street with his sword. A quick, sharp scrape mingled with a steel clang rolling along the vacant avenue.

"Wait," Garrogh whispered, and then pointed. "There!"

In the edge of a pool of lantern light lay a leather folio upon the cobblestones.

Rodian ran for it and snatched it up. The leather lace was broken, snapped rather than untied, and he flipped the folio open.

All the pages were still inside, but it didn't matter. They were fakes, arranged by High-Tower and a'Seatt in this effort to lure and trap the killer.

Rodian raised his eyes, looking through the dark broken pools of lantern light.

Had their quarry—at least the one who'd gotten away—realized the pages were a ruse? How could anyone have even glanced inside the folio during flight?

"Ruben and Lúcan should have the other in custody," Garrogh said. "We'll get some answers out of that one!"

Rodian simply nodded. Turning, he headed back at a trot, all the way to the Upright Quill. But upon drawing closer to the scriptorium, he slowed in caution.

Four of his men lay in the street.

Only Lúcan was on his feet, hovering with sword in hand over Wynn, as the sage tended Ruben's bleeding shoulder.

Shâth lay with limbs askew where he'd fallen in a bloody mess.

Far to the shop's right lay Ecgbryht's limp form, his head cocked up against the shop's wall. Nearly all color had faded from his rough face, making the stubble of his blond beard stand out. His features were frozen in shock beneath tangled strands of gray-streaked hair. Taméne lay where the figure had struck him… his eyes open, his neck broken.

And the pale-faced man was nowhere in sight.

"Where is he?" Rodian snarled. "Where's the other one?"

"Ask her!" Lúcan snapped, nudging the sage with his boot's toe.

Wynn held a torn wad of tabard against Ruben's bleeding shoulder. She didn't even look up.

"What have you done now?" Rodian demanded.

Her shoulders curled forward as if she might collapse in exhaustion. Then she squeezed her eyes closed in a pained cringe.

"Gods damn you!" Rodian snapped, not caring what anyone thought. " You are under arrest."

Wynn tucked the makeshift bandage inside Ruben's split tabard, closing the edges over it. She rose up to lock eyes with Rodian, and then movement in the corner of Rodian's sight made him jerk around.

A shadow-cloaked figure approached along the deeper darkness of the next shop's awning. Rodian raised his sword, inching toward the silhouette draped in a black cloak and… a hat?

Pawl a'Seatt stepped out, wearing a black cloak over his matching vestment and a pressed white shirt.

Upon his head was the flat-topped hat of black felt with a brim almost wide enough to shield his shoulders. He swept his gaze over the scene, pausing briefly on the shattered window of his shop.

"What are you doing here?" Rodian demanded. "You and yours were to keep away until I told you otherwise."

Master a'Seatt didn't answer.

"Did you find the dog?" Wynn whispered.

Rodian glanced back in disbelief. Wynn gazed down the empty street like a child who'd wandered off and only just realized she was lost. Rodian didn't care.

After all the careful setup and planning, he'd failed. There had been not one but two perpetrators here this night, and both had escaped. Three of his men were dead and another injured—and he had nothing to show for it. And it was all wrapped around one meddling little sage.

"Garrogh, see to the men," Rodian growled, and he snatched Wynn by the arm, dragging her down the street.

Wynn sat alone on her cell's bunk within the military's castle, staring at a heavy wooden door with no inner handle. On top of everything else that her superiors held against her, being arrested was going to destroy any grain of credibility she had left. She took a deep breath, trying to calm thoughts spinning out of control, but the effort failed.

A shrouded black figure, who could walk through walls, had stolen a folio and killed three of the Shyldfälches. The city guards had barely slowed it down. This only strengthened Wynn's belief that it was an undead as well as a powerful mage.

And Chane had appeared in the company of this monster, just as he had with Welstiel.

Then Chap had bolted out of the dark to protect her—only to vanish in pursuit of the black-robed undead.

It was too much to hold all at once in her head.

If Chap was here, then where were Magiere and Leesil? Though she ached to find Chap, to learn why he'd come, her jumbled thoughts kept turning back to Chane.