Барб Хенди - The Night Voice

“Get on with it,” he said.

Ghassan did so as Leesil adjusted the poles’ front ends. Then the domin stalled again, but this time stood staring ahead.

“What is it?” Leesil asked.

“A cavern,” Ghassan whispered, seemingly more to himself than in answer. He moved on. Not far ahead, his crystal’s light exposed a broad widening of the path.

Four pale white men stood in the way, each with a sword sheathed on his hip.

Leesil knew a vampire when he saw one.

Having been so burdened and tired, he’d forgotten to pull out the amulet that would’ve glowed to warn him before now. He dropped the poles in the same instant as Brot’an and heard the same for Chane and Ore-Locks. The impact of multiple chests echoed along the tunnel.

Leesil gripped the handle of one winged blade and drew the weapon from its sheath.

“Wait!” Ghassan hissed under his breath.

The four blocking the way wore matching black clothing—simple pants and shirts. All of them had hair down to their shoulders not quite as black as their attire. None had drawn a weapon. The tallest one stepped forward. He looked first at Ghassan and then the chests. Puzzlement flooded his features.

“Where is Beloved’s child?” he asked, almost as voicelessly as Chane.

Leesil tensed.

“Child?” Ghassan asked dryly.

Leesil already knew whom that meant: Beloved’s child, Magiere.

The Ancient Enemy had plagued his wife’s dreams, tried to lure her in, and now this. Chap had been right never to allow her into the mountain. The undead quartet seemed to have expected her. Worse, they didn’t look one bit surprised by anyone else who’d come.

The tall one’s gaze dropped again to the chests. “We will take the anchors. You will go and bring the child.”

As Leesil took two steps forward, Ghassan set down his chest and straightened.

“Really?” Ghassan answered barely above a whisper.

Doubt made Leesil glance toward the domin.

Ghassan blinked slowly, maybe lazily. Did his lips move in a soundless whisper? He then blinked rapidly and appeared to relax.

The tall vampire leader’s features went slack, and his eyelids drooped. Neither he nor the others moved at all.

“Take their heads off in one strike,” Ghassan ordered. “Preferably at the same time, so as not to arouse the others as one drops.”

Leesil hesitated and looked back to Brot’an.

Brot’an only watched the four intently and did not move. Neither did Chane or Ore-Locks, though Chane wore an angry frown as if he did not care for how easily this had been done.

Neither did Leesil. Though he knew Ghassan was a skilled sorcerer, somehow what had been done exceeded anything he had seen the domin do before. It was unsettling, and he turned his suspicion on the domin.

Ghassan’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Since when have any of you been squeamish at the thought of—”

He broke off, quickly glancing back to his targets.

The one on the rear left shook his head slightly.

The tall leader blinked. His face wrinkled in a silent snarl as he jerked his sword from its sheath.

Leesil saw no choice and rushed in, catching the undead’s sword with his winged blade. The clang of steel pierced his ears—and head—as he shoved with all of his weight to drive back his opponent. He only managed one step, and then Chane was beside him.

Chane rammed the shorter of his two swords through the leader’s rib cage and jerked it back out.

Ore-Locks thundered past at another undead closing in a rush.

Leesil knew any vampire would be stronger than he was, much harder to kill, and the longer this went on, the worse the odds would become.

“Get another one!” he shouted at Chane.

As Chane rushed on, Leesil gripped the back of his one drawn blade with his other hand. He thrust the blade’s broad point into the leader’s other side, levered as it sank in, and heard the muffled crack of ribs. Before his target overcame pain and shock, he shouldered the undead into a retreat, which freed his blade. He slashed the weapon toward his opponent’s throat.

It tore through the side of the vampire’s neck.

Black fluids splattered over Leesil’s arm and onto his face.

Chane went for the next nearest target in the passage’s wider section. Four undeads would think they had an advantage over the living. While those with Chane were worn or wounded or both, it was not this worry that set off the beast inside him. It shrieked in alarm, and his own sense of reason warned him about what was wrong.

These guardians had been expecting them ... and Magiere.

As he closed, his new opponent snarled at him, exposing elongated teeth.

The vampire would not have seen him clearly in the dark tunnel, even with Ghassan’s crystal glowing. And while he wore his “ring of nothing,” these four could not sense him for what he was.

Chane let his hunger rise and answered in kind, exposing his own teeth.

His opponent’s eyes widened in hesitation, and Chane rushed inside its guard, striking with a fist first. Its head whipped rightward with the crack of impact. He followed with his blade.

Steel sank through shirt and flesh, grating along ribs, and shock rather than death stunned the vampire. Chane wrenched out the sword, blackened with its fluids, and struck, aiming for his opponent’s neck. His blade had barely broken through the vertebrae when the vampire’s head began to topple off.

Chane spun before the head hit the tunnel’s floor. He looked quickly among his companions for who was in the worst position.

Ghassan had his back to the tunnel’s left wall, and Leesil had already put down the first, tallest one. Another body could be seen beyond Brot’an, whose right hand and hooked knife were both coated in black fluids.

The last one lay in black-spattered parts at Ore-Locks’s feet. Its upper half still squirmed, but this ended as Ore-Locks’s double-wide sword clanged down through its neck.

For an instant, all of them stood looking from one body to the next. Only the sound of their labored breaths filled the silence. It had all been too easy, and this made Chane suspicious.

“Get the orbs,” Leesil finally commanded, sheathing his winged blade and glancing warily at Ghassan.

Chane also glanced at the domin, not knowing what to think.

Leesil said nothing more as he lifted the front ends of the poles for two chests.

Four vampires had expected their arrival, possibly that of the orbs, and of Magiere as well, as if addressing mere couriers or attendants. Did the Ancient Enemy know they would come?

Still, they could only go onward. Chane hurried to join Ore-Locks as Brot’an grabbed the rear end of the poles behind Leesil. But Chane continued to study Ghassan as the domin lifted his chest and stepped into the lead. It was not long before they stopped again.

“Valhachkasej’â!” Leesil hissed.

Chane stared ahead, at a loss. Though they had stepped into a great cavern, they could go no farther. They stood before the lip of a broad and wide chasm. All of them set down their chests again, and Chane reached the edge just after Leesil.

The chasm was so deep that Ghassan’s light did not reach the bottom. The same was true for the heights above, as if this gash within the mountain rose upward as well. It did not go straight down for what they could see. Its sides were twisted and jagged, as if it had been torn open ages ago by something immense ripping wide the insides of the peak. As Chane looked to the far side, he barely made out the black outline of another wound in the mountain’s stone.

There was no bridge to that other side.

He turned to Leesil. “Now what?”

Sau’ilahk ran into the battle—or what was left of it—to escape any pursuit or those arrows that had burned like acid upon penetrating his flesh. Along the way, bodies half charred or utterly blackened littered the plain. Soon, the sounds of the battle surrounded him.