Барб Хенди - A Wind in the Night

Ignoring the sailors, Dänvârfij continued studying the harbor.

The sailors soon began throwing lines to men on the pier. None of them hurried, and she did not know whether she wished them to or not. Such complacency was unworthy, but the task she had been given had begun to feel endless.

“You should not carry anything,” said a deep voice behind her. “At least not yet. Let me do it.”

“The wound is not as bad as it seems,” a female voice answered. “I can carry my own pack while you assist the Covârleasa.”

Dänvârfij turned her head to see her three remaining companions, a man and two women, coming out of the aftcastle door in preparation for disembarking. Like herself, all three of them were an’Cróan and Anmaglâhk.

Though Én’nish’s complexion was tan, and her hair white blond like nearly all an’Cróans’, she was smaller and slighter of build than most. Her size was a deception she used in combat to an advantage. She was also reckless, as well as poisoned by their people’s grief madness after she had lost her mate-to-be to Léshil’s blade.

From the start Dänvârfij had opposed Én’nish’s inclusion in their purpose, but at least the young one had proven to be a survivor when others had not. Én’nish had taken a blade wound across her stomach in the last battle with their quarry, back in that degenerate human port called Drist. And again it had been Léshil who had done this.

Rhysís stood towering over Én’nish. His hair was even a lighter shade than hers. He always wore it loose, and it whipped in the wind. None of them now wore the forest gray cloaks and clothing of the Anmaglâhk; they traveled disguised in human clothing. For some reason that Dänvârfij could not fathom, Rhysís had developed an apparent liking for the color blue, even to the dark cloak he wore. His outer arm supported the final surviving member of their team, which had been eleven in count when they had left their homeland.

Rhysís released his hold on Fréthfâre—Watcher of the Woods—once she took her hand from his arm. She leaned heavily on a walking rod as she slid one foot after the other, stepping forward under her own power with great effort.

These were all that Dänvârfij had left with which to hunt the monster Magiere; her mate, Léshil; the deviant one they called Chap; and the traitor greimasg’äh ... Brot’ân’duivé.

“How soon can we disembark?” Fréthfâre demanded, though her voice was strained with weariness.

Dänvârfij did not answer at first. In Fréthfâre’s eyes, even the leisure of the crew in docking the ship would be seen as Dänvârfij’s fault.

Fréthfâre held status as shared leader of the team, but she was fit in neither body nor mind. Perhaps not even in spirit. Her wheat-gold hair, uncommon for an an’Cróan, hung in waves instead of lying silky and straight. In youth she had been viewed as supple and graceful, but now she was unseasonably brittle as she approached a mere fifty years ... barely half or less of the number most would see in a lifetime. The human red dress and light but limp cloak she wore made her appear all the more fragile.

Once Covârleasa—“Trusted Advisor”—to Most Aged Father, Fréthfâre was nearly useless now. More than two years ago, the monster Magiere had run a sword through Fréthfâre’s abdomen. The wound should have killed her, but a great an’Cróan healer had tended her. Even so she had barely survived, and the damage would never be wholly undone.

Dänvârfij was ever vigilant in showing respect for the ex-Covârleasa. “Soon,” she finally answered. “Once the ramp is set, and then ...”

She trailed off, for she was still calculating their next step.

A year and a half ago, when Most Aged Father had asked her to prepare a team and sail to this foreign continent, she had not hesitated. Their purpose then had been direct and clear. They were to locate Magiere; her half-blood consort, Léshil; and the tainted majay-hì who ran with the pair. Magiere and Léshil were to be captured, tortured if necessary concerning the “artifact” they had carried off from the Pock Peaks, and then eliminated—along with the majay-hì if possible. The last of that had not sat well with Dänvârfij’s team, even Én’nish, though Fréthfâre had not blinked.

Never before had so many jointly taken up the same purpose. Their task had been of dire importance in the eyes of Most Aged Father, who feared any device of the Ancient Enemy remaining in human hands. Eleven anmaglâhk had left together, but one more had shadowed them across the world. After the first and second deaths among them, before they knew for certain, Dänvârfij could not bring herself to believe who that one had to be.

Only on the night when she had glimpsed his unmistakable shadow had she acknowledged the truth.

Brot’ân’duivé, that traitor, had been stealing their lives, one by one, ever since.

Yet they could not stop or turn back. They could not fail Most Aged Father.

“Pull up your hoods,” Dänvârfij ordered.

The ramp was soon lowered to the pier, and, without asking, Rhysís took both packs from Én’nish. She did not argue. Dänvârfij stepped in to assist Fréthfâre, and all four departed the ship and headed up the pier into this city called Soráno. It would have been preferable to make port in the night: Dänvârfij did not doubt that the traitor would be watching the dock if he was here. However, as yet, she did not know whether her quarry had stopped here, let alone remained.

“Our first task is to confirm their arrival or continued presence,” Fréthfâre whispered, leaning heavily upon Dänvârfij’s arm. “Or if they have simply come and gone. I do not see the Cloud Queen anywhere in the harbor.”

“Nor do I,” Dänvârfij said.

The four of them left the waterfront and made their way through a surprisingly clean and organized city—a relief after the filth and chaos of their previous stop. Olive-skinned people in colorful clothing glanced curiously at them, but not with any surprise, as if the locals were used to the sight of what they called “elves.” That puzzled Dänvârfij as passersby smiled and nodded. She replied in kind to blend in, and kept moving, helping Fréthfâre down the street.

Though she would never admit it, she was faintly repulsed by the closeness of the crippled woman hanging on her. As they passed a shadowed cutway between two buildings, she glanced back at Én’nish and Rhysís, and nodded. All four of them stepped into the shadows.

“I will make inquiries more easily on my own,” she said. “Rhysís, take Én’nish and Fréthfâre to find an inn, and meet me here when finished. We will plan from there once we have viable information.” As a mere afterthought, she looked to Fréthfâre. “If this seems wise to you as well.”

She knew the ex-Covârleasa was already beyond the limit of her fading strength, but Fréthfâre merely nodded instead of uttering one of her typical accusatory barbs. Such words no longer stung Dänvârfij, and Rhysís took her place in aiding the cripple among them.

Dänvârfij left her companions behind and slipped up the cutway to the connecting alley behind the buildings. She gathered herself in a rare moment of solitude before stepping out of the alley’s far end to head back toward the waterfront. In a port of this size, there had to be at least some small place that served as a harbormaster’s office.

All such thoughts fled her mind as she turned onto the waterfront’s main walkway.

Two tall men walking toward her fixed their amber irises—in lightly tan triangular faces—on her.

Dänvârfij took in their strange wheat-colored hair, pulled back and up in identical fashion in high tails held by single silver rings. The narrow tips of the men’s elongated ears were plain to see. They were garbed in tawny leather vestments with swirling steel garnishes to match sparkling armor on their shoulders. Each bore a sash the color of pale gold running diagonally over his chest. Long and narrow sword hilts, slightly curved, protruded over their right shoulders.