Барб Хенди - The Night Voice

All he wanted was to reach Magiere and never see this place again.

Chane resurfaced at the base of the mountain with Ore-Locks still gripping his arm. After such a long pass through stone, he instinctively gagged and gasped, though he did not need air. His final exit from the cavern had not gone quite as planned, and his mind was churning with all that had happened there.

Back when he had first fled the cavern and down the tunnel at Wynn’s insistence, the following moments had been his longest in memory. Fretful for the others’ possible failure, he had done one more thing once out of sight of the cavern.

He took the orb of Spirit from its chest and carried it all the way to the chasm’s edge. As a result, his hunger vanished, and the beast inside him whimpered back into hiding.

In this way, if whatever was to happen did not work after Wynn lit her staff, and he had to return, he would not have to retrieve that one orb. All he needed to do was shove it over the edge into the deepest depths.

When Leesil came looking for him, obviously he had found one empty chest in passing. He was coldly furious and panicked, though Ore-Locks had harassed him along the way, trying to assure him that Chane would not take an orb without good reason. It was not until Chane led them to the chasm’s edge and the orb that Leesil realized and accepted the truth that Chane had been trying to separate the orb of Spirit from the Enemy.

In turn, Chane did not blame him for the need to take it back once Wynn’s plan for it had been explained. Ore-Locks had already buried the other four orbs in stone where they could never be found or reached. The three of them returned the last orb to the cavern. A cloak had been thrown over the sun crystal so that its light shone downward. Chane was not burned so long as he kept his distance.

However, even once the orb of Spirit was placed in against the small roots of Leesil’s branch, not everything had gone well.

Chuillyon found that he could not transport Chane out of the mountain. Yes, he tried, but it did not work. The bodies of Ghassan and Brot’an could be transported, but not that of an undead. Neither the offspring of the first tree, nor Chârmun itself, would allow this, it seemed.

So Ore-Locks had taken him out through stone.

And now, here Chane was in the dark beneath the stars, still ill from the long passage. He fell to his knees as Ore-Locks released him and, before the young stonewalker could ask anything, Chane waved him off.

“I am ... all right,” he managed. “Give me a moment.”

Ore-Locks did, and Chane looked northward. Somewhere out there, Chuillyon had moved the others through Leesil’s planted branch to the sprout that the elder elf had left behind. Osha and Wayfarer and Shade had hidden away Magiere with that sprout, and Wynn was now there, still blind.

In the cavern, after everything had ended, Chane had looked into her light brown eyes in her oval, olive-toned face. Perhaps she had known, for she turned away from him. He had felt broken inside in ways worse than wounded flesh, and there was no way to rid himself of that sorrow, for the dead could not weep.

“Are you ready to move on?” Ore-Locks asked.

Chane slowly rose up without answering.

Chuillyon had done his best to describe where he had placed his sprout with the younger trio and Magiere. Finding that place would take only a little effort; reaching it might be more troublesome. With a final nod of agreement, Ore-Locks followed as Chane hurried down the last of the foothills below the peak.

As they neared the open plain, they slowed to a pause without a word, looking out upon the carnage. Both of them could see well at night, Chane more so.

Charred, torn, and dismembered bodies were strewn everywhere; some majay-hì and Lhoin’na lay among them. But as far as Chane could see, most of the horde was dead or scattered.

He spotted a few still moving. He heard the occasional distant moan, cry, or wail. And once, a figure too dark for even him to clearly make out flitted as if running and stopping here and there among the fallen. At least once he heard a scream cut short.

Ore-Locks did not move at these sights or sounds.

Then they heard sooner than saw Shé’ith riders harrying stragglers in flight.

Much as others might see all of this as Magiere’s doing, in part, Chane saw otherwise. At the sight of so many dead, he knew this level of frenzied slaughter among the horde itself would not have happened without her. She had ignited it, and as a result, the undead servants had turned upon the horde’s greater living numbers.

Without this having happened, Wynn and anyone else out here would not have survived—even with her staff.

“Enough,” Ore-Locks whispered. “I have seen enough.”

So had Chane.

They turned northward and drew their weapons quietly. Both remained watchful for the slightest sound or movement in the dark. It took a while to search out where the others hid. It was Ore-Locks who first spotted something in the dark, and pointed.

Chane bolted at the sight of shimmering hair near the base of one foothill. He was still a hundred strides away when that one rose up, drew an arrow in a bow, and then froze. Chane slowed to a quick walk, so as not to startle Osha any further as he drew closer.

Osha—cut and battered—looked stricken sick. Tracks of dried tears striped the grime and dust on his face. Chane could not find any words, though some small part of him envied those tears. Osha turned away into the foothills, and Chane followed with Ore-Locks.

The first sign that they neared their destination was the spark of two crystal blue eyes in the moonlight. Shade wheeled, rushing down the deep hollow’s left side, and turned inward ahead of them. Among the huddled forms farther in near the steep back, Chuillyon was nearest and rose up.

“We will wait until close to dawn,” he whispered, “before we try to regain the camp or contact any allies still out there.”

Osha turned back without a word, likely returning to his place on watch.

Chane agreed with waiting until close to dawn, so long as he had time to reach a tent. He looked upon the others present.

Leesil and Chap sat to one side with Wynn to the other, all looking down and toward the hollow’s rear. Chane wanted to go to Wynn, though there was little space. Wayfarer was just beyond them, curled in, half lying, half leaning on one arm, and her head hung forward.

The girl pressed a scrap of cloth around a snapped arrow shaft sticking up from a still form lying on the hollow’s most level spot.

Magiere’s eyes were closed, her mouth barely parted. Black lines like veins ran through her pale face, neck, and arms as she lay in the remnants of her armor. The cloth Wayfarer held over the wound partway up Magiere’s right shoulder was stained dark as well.

More than once, Chane had wanted to finish Magiere. Here and now it would have been so easy to do. Not even Chap or Leesil could have stopped him in time.

But his hunger for vengeance had abandoned him.

Ore-Locks pushed in at his shoulder. “Has she ... Is she on her way to her ancestors?”

Wynn lifted her head a little at that. “No, not yet, but the arrowhead was Chein’âs metal ... and had been dipped—”

“In the healing potion,” Chane finished.

Osha had done as he had instructed.

Wynn turned her head slightly at his voice. By the light of one dim cold-lamp crystal in her hand, he noticed that she looked better now than she had in the cavern, as if she were no longer in pain, but her eyes still focused on nothing.

“Where is the rest of the potion?” he demanded. “Why have you not—”

“I tried it,” Wynn said, “and gave what was left to the others, except Magiere.”