Barb Hendee - Dhampir

"I'm tired. Chap's tired. Even that ridiculous donkey looks ready to keel over." Leesil shrugged, unimpressed by her apparent dilemma. "You're outvoted."

"Do you want to be traveling after sundown?" she asked.

He took another drink, then noted he, too, was in need of good bath. "Certainly not."

"Then get up."

"Have you looked at the horizon lately?" He yawned and lay back in the grass, marveling at the tan-colored, sandy earth and salt sea smell in the air. "We'd best make camp and find your tavern in the morning."

Magiere sighed, and her expression grew almost sad and frustrated at the same time. Leesil felt a sudden desire to comfort her, until the ache in his feet reminded him what a pain in other regions she was being. Tomorrow would be-should be-soon enough, even for her. Let her stew over it if she liked, but he was not moving another step down the road until morning.

He watched Magiere's gaze turn toward the ocean, noting the clean lines of her profile against the brilliant orange of the skyline. She glared out at the horizon as if willing the far edge of water to deny the sinking sun access and hold it there. Her head slowly dropped, just enough for her hair to curtain her face from view. Leesil heard, just barely, the soft sigh that came from her lips. He gave an exaggerated sigh of his own.

"It's better this way. You don't want to wake the caretakers up in the middle of the night." He paused, waiting for acknowledgment or rebuke, but Magiere remained silent. "What if the place looks bleak and depressing in the dark? No, we'll arrive like true shop-folk at midday or so and assess the place in broad daylight."

She looked back at him for a moment, then nodded. "I just wanted to… something pulls me like a puppet."

"Don't talk like a poet. It's annoying," he retorted.

She fell silent, and once again they took up their familiar routine of setting up camp. Chap continued to sniff at and dig in the sand, thrilled to be released from his rolling prison.

Leesil occasionally glanced over at the sun. Perhaps they had been in the gray, damp world of Stravina too long. There was a definite difference between wet and damp. Wet was thin salt spray blowing inland from a fresh sea, with an offshore breeze to gently dry you off. Damp was shivering in blankets that brought no warmth in some mountainside hut and watching the walls mold.

"Will we see this every night in Miiska?" he asked.

"See what?"

"The sunset… light spreading across the horizon, fire and water."

For a moment, her forehead wrinkled as if he spoke a foreign language, then his question registered. She, too, turned toward the sea. "I expect."

He snorted. "I stand corrected. You are no poet."

"Find some firewood, you lazy half-blood."

They made camp on the far side of the road that divided them from the shoreline. In reality, it was quite a distance down to the water, but the enormity of the ocean created an illusion of closeness. The last hint of daylight dropped below the horizon, and thick, wind-worn trees provided cover from the evening breeze. Leesil was digging through burlap bags in the cart for leftover apples and jerky when Chap stopped sniffing playfully about and froze into a stance of attention. He growled at the forest in a tone that Leesil had never heard before.

"What's wrong, boy?"

The dog's stance was rigid, still and watchful, as if he were a wolf eyeing prey from a distance. His silver-blue eyes seemed to lose color and turned clear gray. His lips rose slightly over his teeth.

"Magiere," Leesil said quietly.

But his partner was already staring at the dog, and then at the forest in equal intervals.

"This is like what he did that night," she whispered, "back in Stravina near the river."

They'd spent a number of nights in Stravina near a river, but Leesil knew which night she meant. He pulled his hands out of the cart and put them up his opposing sleeves until he grabbed both hilts of the stilettos sheathed on his forearms.

"Where's your sword?" he asked, keeping his gaze fixed on the trees.

"In my hand."

Ratboy's eyes flicked open, and the black, damp walls of his tiny cave disoriented him for a moment. Then he remembered his mission. The hunter. Time to backtrack.

As he emerged into the cool night air, he rejoiced in the feeling of freedom the open land offered. This was a good night. Yet part of him already missed Teesha and the odd comfort she created in their warehouse. "Home" she called it, though he couldn't remember why any of their kind needed to make a home. It was her idea, with Rashed to back her up. Still, no matter how much he liked the open, he'd grown accustomed to the world they'd built in Miiska. Best find the hunter quickly so he could take his time killing, draining her, and then return home before dawn.

Below the cliff, the white sandy beach stretched in both directions, but he quickly turned away and scaled upward to the cliff's top, fingers gripping the rough wall of earth and rock effortlessly. The beach might be faster traveling, but it was too open. Reaching the top edge, he swung himself up and was about to gauge his bearings when the scent of a campfire drifted to his nostrils.

His slightly tapered head swiveled, and at the same moment, he smelled a woman, a man, and a donkey. Then his nose picked up something else. A dog? Edwan had made some ridiculous comment about a dog. Ratboy hated Edwan almost more than he hated Rashed. At least Rashed offered valuable necessities-a place to sleep, a steady income, and the shielding disguise of normality. Edwan merely sponged up Teesha's time and gave nothing in return. All right, so he had located the hunter and her companions, but that was a small thing. And what could he, Ratboy, have to fear from a dog, a tamed one traveling with its masters?

Quivering elation rippled through him. Had he found his prey so easily? Could this woman be the woman? Had she literally made camp within sight of his sleeping den?

Orange flames from the fire were just visible through the trees, and he wanted to get a better look. He dropped down to his belly and cast about for some way to cross the road unseen. The road offered no possibility of cover, so he decided to simply cross it quickly. In a blink, like a shadow from flickering firelight, he was across the hard dirt path, blending into the trees and brush on the far side. He crawled closer to view the camp.

The woman was tall, wearing studded leather armor, and looked younger than Ratboy expected. She was almost lovely, with a dusty, black braid hanging down her back as she poured a flask of water into a pot near the fire. Her companion was a thin, white-blond man with elongated ears and dressed almost like a beggar, who stood digging about in the back of a small cart and then…

A silver-gray dog, nearly the height of Ratboy's hipbone, leaped to its feet and stared right at him, as if the foliage between them did not exist. Its lips curled up. The growl escaping its teeth echoed through the quiet forest to Ratboy's ears. Something in the sound brought a strange feeling into his chest. What was this feeling? He hated it, whatever it was, and it made him pull back behind the thick trunk of a tree.

Edwan had said something about a dog.

A dog was nothing. Peering out again, he saw the woman grab her sword, and he smiled.

"What's wrong with him?" Leesil asked. Chap's low snarling continued, but he stood his ground, not attempting to advance in any direction.

"I don't know," Magiere answered, for lack of anything better to say. And in truth, she didn't know, but she was beginning to suspect the hound harbored some extra sense, some ability to see what she could not. "Get the crossbow from the cart and load it."

For once on this trip, Leesil didn't argue and moved quietly and quickly to follow her instructions.