Barb Hendee - Thief of Lives

A gray wolf as tall as Chap stood in their path, a low rumble issuing from its throat.

Chap leaped to the tabletop beside Leesil, knocking both candelabra to the floor in a clatter. He answered the wolf with a snarl of his own, jowls back to expose flexing jaws.

Before Leesil could fire, Chap lunged off the table, and the wolf launched himself forward. They slammed together, knocking the end chair over, as the room filled with sounds of snarls and snapping teeth.

Leesil shifted back in panic. So much for the element of surprise.

Chane lay fully clothed upon his bed in the cellar's back room, listening for any sound. Though he heard nothing, his nerves were tightly alert.

Someone was in the house.

His consciousness slipped upward through the building until it touched avian thoughts somewhere upon the main floor.

At first the perspective was disorienting. His raven, Tihko, looked downward from a height, its vision partially obscured by tiny reflections of light in the dark dining chamber. Yes, Chane made out the table clearly now. Tihko was in the chandelier, crystals blocking parts of the room, but why were those crystals sparking softly with light? Twinkling reflections began to move.

Dim light spread from one side of the room where the half-elf stood.

It was the first time Chane had truly seen this man. Hair hidden beneath a dark scarf, he was of average height. Surprising, considering his mixed blood, as most elves were taller than humans. Now armored in a leather hauberk, he carried in one hand a loaded crossbow, and the other gripped a strange, wide-pointed blade extending from his fist, the outside edge arching back along his arm.

Beside the half-elf was the blue-gray hound, its shining eyes peering about the room. Directly behind them was the hunter. At the sight of her, Chane experienced a surge of hunger.

Back in the kitchen doorway was a young boy clutching a crossbow. A puzzling thing. Chane wondered why the hunter would bring a child into this. The light dimly illuminating the room came from the hands of a young woman in gray robes.

Chane stiffened on his bed, and in response Tihko thrashed his wings, making Chane's vision through the bird's eyes waver.

Wynn was in the house.

Her appearance rattled Chane enough that he nearly lost contact with the raven. He watched the half-elf carefully enter the room, knees slightly bent.

Tihko's loud caw filled Chane's head. The half-elf dropped low and looked up. Behind him, the boy raised the crossbow, and aimed at the raven-at Chane.

A shaft of pain pierced Chane through the chest and his vision went black.

Chane convulsed sharply into a ball, the pain stabbing through to his back. When he thrashed over the bedside, his tiny urn jangled on the floor stones. He pushed himself up to his knees, as the cellar back room snapped into focus.

Tihko was dead.

Sounds of snarling and crashing pounded down through the floor from above, and Chane's thoughts tangled. He could slip through the passage into the sewers and let Toret and Sapphire face the hunter and her minions. But what if Toret survived and realized he had run? As long as Toret lived, Chane was his slave. And then there was Wynn.

He cleared his mind, and reason presented the only possible course of action.

Chane pulled his long sword from its sheath and headed for the opening to the hidden passage at the base of the cellar stairs.

"Don't shoot," Leesil ordered Vatz. "You might hit Chap."

"I ain't stupid," the boy answered.

Leesil dropped the crossbow on top of the dining table. He heard Magiere pick it up and follow behind him as he inched toward the whirling tangle of hound and wolf battling in the archway. Chap could handle a wolf, but the fight made enough noise to wake the dead, literally.

When the wolf twisted away from Chap's lunge, Leesil kicked out hard at it.

The wolf slammed against the archway's side and lost its footing. Leesil stepped in, swinging his blade downward across the animal's neck. At the last moment, the wolf righted itself, head turning toward Leesil's forward leg.

Chap darted in, jaws snapping closed over the wolf's snout, and he jerked, pulling its head away. Leesil's blade struck the animal's throat, sinking through fur and flesh, and nearly severing its head. The wolf dropped to the floor, motionless. With one last thrash and snarl, Chap released his grip. Magiere slipped past Leesil through the archway, and he saw the yellow glow of her topaz.

She groaned. "Anything in this house with ears is certainly awake now."

"Wait," he said. "Let me."

She stopped and let him lead. When Leesil looked back, he found Vatz pulling his quarrel out of the raven's body and Wynn, her brow furrowed in apprehension, staring at the wolf's corpse.

This was not going well at all.

Alone in the room he usually shared by day with Sapphire, Toret opened his eyes to a distant cawing. His sluggish thoughts cleared.

Chane's raven was loose in the house, and its racket echoed up from the main floor. Toret remembered his wolf.

He tried to do as Chane had taught him, tried to see through its eyes, but he caught only bizarre flashes of images passing through its mind. The view through its eyes was disorienting, misty, and kept shifting about.

Something black dropped from the ceiling, and he barely heard its thud upon the table through the wolf's ears. Then the blue-gray hound appeared on the table, glaring at him with crystal-blue eyes as it snarled.

To the table's side was a man in leather armor he couldn't see clearly. Then he made out the curved blade along the man's arm.

Leesil.

The hound lunged at Toret from the table. He flinched and lost contact with the wolf.

Toret panicked. The half-blood had found him. Was it still day-or night?

He forced himself to stay calm. If Leesil was here, then the hunter was with him, and Sapphire might still be dormant.

She'd been so angry with him as dawn came that he said nothing when she'd stayed in her own room. He rose quickly from the bed. His sword leaned in the room's west corner. Part of him wanted to leave it and return to Ratboy's ways of tooth and nail, but upon leaving the room, he picked up the blade.

Leesil stepped into the parlor, with the others close behind, and felt the mood inside the house instantly change.

Colors here meshed in a warmth that surprised him. A tan-and-russet Suman rug covered the floor, and thick brocade draperies enclosed the windows. Mauve velvet divans were placed around the room below paintings of open glades and forests hung upon the walls. As Wynn stepped into the parlor's archway, the light of her crystal further enlivened the room, and Leesil's gaze passed to the back wall. There was a life-size portrait of Sapphire in a rich red gown.

Wynn examined the portrait. "Someone lives in this space. Can you feel it?"

This room felt different. The inhabitants never went to the dining chamber or kitchen, but they spent time in here. Down the hallway were only the foyer and front door, and a stairway beginning there led up to the next level. Beneath it was another set of stairs leading below.

"Up or down?" Magiere asked.

She still held the crossbow atop her falchion, and her topaz appeared slightly brighter. Chap growled toward the front foyer, lowering his head.

"Up it is," Leesil said.

He sheathed his blade and held out his hand to Wynn. She handed him the crystal, and he began working his way down the hall, watching for anything unusual. The last time they'd invaded an undead's lair, he'd tripped a wire and been buried under a rigged cave-in.

When he reached the foyer, he turned to the stairs leading up. In place of the usual knob on the bottom of the staircase's oak railing was a softly glowing orb. It cast light like that of the sage's cold lamps, only dimmer, and appeared to serve no other purpose than illumination. Leesil turned his attention to the stairs themselves. Again, he found nothing, and that unnerved him.