Барб Хенди - The Night Voice

“Where are your protectors?” he whispered in mock concern as he circled her. “How careless of them, especially your favored vampire.” He watched with joy as she twisted in panic toward his voice. “What would pain him more, to find you in pieces ... or still pretty but lifeless? Or did you think you would be the only one to suffer when I found you again?”

He listened to her racing breaths and watched tears stream from her sightless eyes. He had no control over vengeance against Beloved, but she would be the release for his frustration.

In one rapid step, Sau’ilahk grabbed her by the throat.

Her hands latched onto his wrist, and she clawed at his fingers as she began to choke. That sound was pure joy, and he squeezed his grip slowly tighter and tighter.

No, he would not kill her this way. That she might think so in this moment was only a delicious morsel before feasting on her life.

“Enough!”

Sau’ilahk twisted quickly around at a new voice, dragging Wynn by the neck. He had not heard anyone approach, but five strides away stood a very tall figure in a dark robe and hood. Perhaps it was too tall to be human; that one word had been lightly tainted with a Lhoin’na accent.

“Release her now,” the figure ordered.

Its hands rose slowly to brush back the hood, revealing the face of an aging Lhoin’na.

Sau’ilahk knew this one, who had been in the deep realm of the stonewalkers when he had invaded there to follow Wynn to a lost anchor—an orb.

Chuillyon had worn a sage’s robe then, though it had been white.

A sharp pain exploded in Sau’ilahk’s knee.

When his foot shifted under the impact, and his left leg buckled, he lost his grip on his prey. He glanced down as Wynn scrambled blindly away, not using the hand with which she had punched his knee. Instead, she curled that hand against her chest.

After so many centuries without flesh, physical pain had taken Sau’ilahk by surprise.

It would not happen again.

Chuillyon reached Wynn by the time Sau’ilahk regained focus. The misdressed interloper pulled the miscreant sage to her feet.

Sau’ilahk had dealt with Chuillyon before and knew to be wary. Wynn was now secondary, though protecting her would be the elder sage’s weakness. Then he heard Chuillyon’s whisper.

“Chârmun ... agh’alhtahk so. A’lhän am leagad chionns’gnajh.”

Sau’ilahk quickly looked for and spotted his stick-creature servitor. “Kill!”

The spindly legged thing coiled and leaped, arching straight for Chuillyon’s head.

The elf neither flinched nor fled and pulled Wynn close in his arms.

Sau’ilahk’s fury chilled, for he had seen this before.

His servitor shattered into loose twigs in midair, coming apart an arm’s length from its target, as if it had struck an unseen barrier. The light of its one orb eye was extinguished.

Sau’ilahk felt his connection to his creation sever.

Dull pieces of wooden branches rained down harmlessly to the ground around both sages, neither dressed as they should be. Rage returned, and he charged, closing the distance in an instant.

He did not bother drawing a sword and tore the young sage out of the elder one’s arms.

Sau’ilahk latched his right hand around the elder one’s throat. That renegade sage might be able to nullify conjury, but his skills would save him from a physical assault.

And again, Chuillyon did not move. Sau’ilahk would not hesitate to feed on the aging sage, as troublesome as Wynn Hygeorht, and then he could finish her at his leisure.

Something struck his right shoulder, and he lost his grip in agony. Stumbling and tripping in a back step, he saw a black-feathered arrow protruding from his shoulder.

The wound began to burn within.

Bow still in hand, and its string still thrumming, Osha reached over his shoulder to his quiver for another arrow as he gripped the horse with his knees. Even with Wayfarer clutching his waist, and Shade charging ahead, he knew his target for what it was.

It was not the young duke.

Chane had claimed he destroyed the duke’s body and the foul spirit within it. While Chane might be a dark thing, he was no liar. Somehow, Sau’ilahk had survived in that body seized through the use of an orb.

“Get to Wynn and light the staff,” Osha shouted, not looking back to Wayfarer.

His fingers touched the arrows in his quiver. He quickly found one without threaded ridges, pulled it, and drew it in one motion, not even looking to its white metal tip. He squeezed his knees twice, and the horse slowed. As he felt Wayfarer release his waist and slide off, he saw Chuillyon.

How had that one beaten him here? Wayfarer had said she left the elder sage behind with the priestess.

Sau’ilahk then saw him, and quickly gripped the first arrow to rip it out.

Osha released the bow’s string.

This time, he did not need to tilt the bow’s hidden white metal handle to direct the arrow’s flight. It struck below the half-undead’s right cheekbone.

Sau’ilahk’s head whipped back as he spun off balance. His enraged shriek came late after Osha’s own angry hiss that the arrow had not finished him. Shade charged straight at Sau’ilahk and sprang at a full run. An instant later, Wayfarer reached Wynn’s side, and Chuillyon rushed out after Shade.

Osha’s mount closed on and rounded the two women as he drew and fitted his second-to-last white-metal-tipped arrow.

Shade hit Sau’ilahk in the chest with both forepaws, and he went tumbling over backward. After a rebound, she whirled to go at him again.

“No,” Chuillyon shouted. “Hold, Shade.”

Osha stalled in shock.

Sau’ilahk rose, his eyes widening, and as if on instinct, he turned and ran.

Osha did not care what became of Sau’ilahk as he swung off his mount. He ran straight to Wynn, sitting on the ground and supported by Wayfarer, and he ignored everything else as he dropped to one knee.

“Are you injured?” he asked.

Almost instantly, Shade pushed in beside him, dropped one of his arrows from her jaws, and pressed her nose into Wynn’s neck. Wynn appeared to fumble in an attempt to grip the dog’s neck but did not look at anyone. She was staring downward at ... nothing.

Chuillyon neared to stand above all of them.

“Osha, is that you?” Wynn asked, a tremor in her voice.

“Yes, certainly, I am ...”

He could not finish. Wynn still looked at no one, not even Shade, though both her hands were clutching the majay-hì’s thick fur.

Osha turned cold inside, looking first into Wynn’s wandering eyes. In the dark, he could just make out the wet cheeks of her oval olive-toned face.

He looked to Wayfarer. Why was she crying as well? Then he felt sick. Still trying to deny what he saw, he waved a hand only a palm’s breadth before Wynn’s face.

She did not blink or flinch.

Her glasses lay on the ground not far from the staff, its crystal now dark. Without thinking, Osha grasped Wynn away from Shade and Wayfarer and pulled her into his chest. She felt so small in his arms.

“Help Magiere,” Wynn said, clutching the front of his jerkin. “When I last ... saw her, she had become lost to herself again and ran into the horde.”

Osha’s chest hurt as if something had broken inside him.

“No more time for grief,” Chuillyon said. “Get her up! Wynn, you must light the staff again and keep it lit.”

Osha was about to lash out at Chuillyon when Wayfarer grabbed his arm with both hands. He glared between them both. How could they be so cold, so heartless? But some of Wynn’s warning slipped through.

Magiere was now a danger to them all, one way or another. He remembered why Chane had sent him and ran his hand all over Wynn, searching her clothing.