Барб Хенди - The Night Voice

Now he had taken company with a Noble Dead, gone into the northern wastes, and unearthed the same orbs. And again, he believed this was necessary.

He could not call it right or good—only necessary.

How many more great but lesser sins would he bear next to Nawyat?

Closing his eyes, he pictured Magiere, Leesil, and Wynn, who trusted in him, and yet he no longer truly trusted himself. He did only what he hoped was right in the end even though many things he had done felt wrong.

Questions built like whispers in the depths below his thoughts.

There was only one—and the many—who had answers: his kin, the Fay. Part of them—like himself—had somehow been trapped inside those orbs. If he touched one again, could he find answers?

To do so he would need to have Chane unlock the chests, and Chane would want to know why. Chap could never tell any undead what was hidden inside the orbs.

A rhythmic splash shook him to awareness, and he looked out over the water. The longboat was returning to shore, and quickly enough, Chane leaped out to rush up the frozen beach.

“The ship sails south at dawn,” he rasped. “Let these sailors load the orbs. We need to board now.”

The longboat’s prow ground to a halt on the beach, and two sailors hopped out to approach.

With some reluctance, Chap huffed once at Chane in agreement. He did not like the idea of letting the sailors handle the orbs, but even if Chane loaded all the chests onto the longboat himself, it would still take several men to get them onto the ship.

Chane lifted one chest himself. A young Numan sailor gripped the handles of another one and attempted to heft it up. Chap had worried about this. Although the orbs were about the size of a helm, they were unnaturally dense and heavy.

“What have you got in here?” the sailor asked, trying a second time with more effort.

Chane glared at the man without answering. The sailor said nothing more and managed to lift the chest with both arms while his companion carried the third, empty chest.

Moments later, they were on the water, and then it was not long before they boarded the ship ... with a darkened, bloodstained deck and huge hooks on chains coiled along its side.

“Whaling vessel,” Chane said in a half whisper.

They were shown to a cabin below and provided with help to get all their belongings stowed safely inside. Upon entering the cabin, Chap could not help wrinkling his nose. The entire place stank and felt too closed in. However, Chane’s normally stoic expression vanished, replaced by some mild relief.

Chap looked the cabin over. Without a small, wide-based lantern set upon the floor, the place would have been dark, for there was no porthole.

Still, Chap understood. Chane must have dreaded those days lying dormant with nothing between himself and the sun but the tent. Chap pushed such thoughts away, for after all, the vampire had died years ago and now existed in an unnatural state. Such things deserved no understanding or consideration.

They passed the night in silence.

When the sun rose, Chap managed to lever the door’s handle with his teeth while Chane lay dormant, and he slipped out into the passage, pushing the door closed behind him. That he had to guard the nature of Chane from discovery did not mean he had to sleep anymore in the monster’s presence. He felt the ship move and headed up on deck for a quick look.

When he climbed the steep steps and looked out across the deck, a few sailors paused to look over. They gave him no further notice and went back to their duties, and he walked over to the starboard railing. Rearing up with forepaws on the rail, he looked out over the sea. They were not far enough north to have to deal with breaking through frozen water, but large flats and chunks of ice were visible.

Now that he was alone again, Chap’s thoughts turned to their next destination: Dhredze Seatt.

He had never been to this dwarven city before, and Chane had. Not only had Chane spent time in Dhredze Seatt, he apparently had connections to several religious figures living in a local temple. Even more unthinkable, he was ... connected to one of the stonewalkers, a guardian of the honored dead.

How any of this had come about was still baffling, but the end result was that Chane would be leading the way through the seatt, and Chap was going to have to trust him to deal with the stonewalkers in order to retrieve the orb of Earth. Trusting—and depending—on Chane in any capacity went against every instinct inside him.

And yet, there was no choice.

Dropping his paws from the rail, he heard a crack as the ship’s prow broke through an ice floe.

Wynn walked as straight and rigid as everyone else into dusk. Today, they had started walking in the late afternoon once the sun dipped low. She was still embarrassed by having fallen unconscious a few nights ago. Maybe the others watched her or not; either way, she wasn’t going to let that happen again.

Leesil had joked that it was dumb luck that no one else had gone for a “sand dive” on the trek. Wynn didn’t laugh and only flushed.

Without Shade or Chane, she had no one with whom to betray a hint of doubt or weakness. Why was that? It hadn’t always been so with Magiere and Leesil, but it was now. So she pretended her collapse never happened, wouldn’t speak of it, and pressed onward.

And why hadn’t she awakened when—according to the others—she’d hit the ground face-first?

That wasn’t right, and it was suspicious.

Tonight, she brought up the rear and watched her companions ahead. She couldn’t help thinking that the five of them were a bizarre quintet.

Brot’an nearly always led the two camels, and walking behind those was not pleasant. By nature, camels were often bad-tempered, though they obeyed the master anmaglâhk. Ghassan walked beside the animals in comfortably long but slow strides. From what Wynn knew, he had spent part of his life in the desert. Magiere and Leesil were six or seven paces ahead of Wynn and off to the other side. But they were always close together, which made Wynn even more uncomfortable.

At times, she had reconsidered the sleeping arrangements.

With only two tents, she shared one with Magiere and Leesil, while Ghassan and Brot’an took the other. This had simply ... happened . By now Wynn couldn’t help worrying about Leesil and Magiere’s lack of privacy.

Eight mornings past, as they began to set camp before another burning noon, she’d mentioned that they might prefer to sleep by themselves. This implied she would rest in the other tent.

Magiere scowled. “You ... in a tent with the domin and Brot’an? I don’t think so!”

While Wynn appreciated her friend’s protective nature, she still couldn’t help feeling like an interloper. She never thought she would miss another night in that overcrowded sanctuary, but at least there she had slept on the floor with only Shade watching her.

And she missed Chane.

Now trudging after the others, Wynn wondered if they would find anything to support the reports Ghassan had received from the new emperor. What if they found nothing, no matter how far they went? Had it been a mistake for Chap and Chane to go after the other three orbs? Were they risking something worse by bringing all five together ... perhaps for nothing?

When the choice had been made, she’d been certain; now her doubts continued to grow.

Brot’an’s sudden halt caught her off guard. She wasn’t the only one to take more steps before stopping.

“What is it?” Magiere asked, circling in.

Ghassan had frozen as well, while Leesil glanced back and held out a hand to Wynn.

“Come on,” he said.

At another time, she might have been annoyed at his “older brother” attitude. Now she didn’t mind and quick-stepped forward to take his hand. Together they gathered with the others, but Brot’an still gazed ahead. Then he pointed.