Барб Хенди - A Wind in the Night

One step below the rise’s crest lay the arrow he had guided around the tree. Its white metal head was obscured with blood, as was two-fingers’ width of its shaft. He snatched it up as he ran and slid downslope, for there was no time left to wonder where Aupsha had gone now.

Osha slung his bow over his shoulder as he slid both arrows back into his quiver. He grabbed the trunk containing the orb and stalled for an instant at its weight. Then he went running through the forest for the road. Often glancing behind himself, he hurried back for Wynn.

No one, especially a cloaked and masked shadow, reappeared among the trees.

Osha had the orb. He had not failed Wynn.

Chane ran with Shade in his arms, and she did not stir even once at being jostled so roughly. Her breaths were still slow and shallow. The blow might have done more damage than he could sense or see.

Back in the clearing, he had hesitated only long enough to grab the blood-smeared orb key off the duke’s—Sau’ilahk’s—shredded neck. He then quickly hung it around his own neck and retrieved his swords before he had gathered up Shade.

Amid his flight, shocks of pain shot through Chane’s back into his chest as he began to wonder ... to fear....

Had the death of the duke’s body truly taken Sau’ilahk with it? Had the wraith been trapped and killed by that as well? And, worse, how much should he tell Wynn?

She—they—had one too many times believed Sau’ilahk to be finished off. How could he tell her what he had realized in the final moment as he had faced the duke, and then share his own uncertainty? What was crueler, to know or not, and either way be left in doubt?

Unable to even shout at Shade to awaken, Chane looked down on her. He let hunger come again to eat his pain and charged faster through the trees than a living man could have with such burdens. His anger grew at the knowledge that even Wynn—or anyone within reach—might be unable to do anything for Shade.

Wynn anxiously watched for Osha’s return, for he had been gone far too long. She was about to go after him when Captain Martelle climbed to his feet.

Looking around, the captain appeared beyond confused. There were two other guards on the ground. One of them wasn’t moving, but the other began to stir as the last of the keep guards stumbled from the trees with a large knot on his forehead. That one stopped and stared at the others as Martelle continued turning slowly, looking everywhere.

Karl Beáumie was nowhere to be seen.

Wynn was lost for what to do. If she ran after Osha, what would happen if Chane and Shade returned to face the guards? She looked into the northern trees, but even if they were returning, it was too dark to see anything in there.

Someone snatched the staff out of Wynn’s hand.

She turned in surprised anger and looked up into the bleary and equally angry eyes of Captain Martelle. He now held her staff in one hand and a sword in the other.

“Where is the duke?” he demanded.

Wynn hesitated again, trying to think of a believable lie. “He ran off ... after ... after some of the Sumans turned on him. My swordsman went after him.”

For the moment, trying to take her staff back would be foolish, even if Martelle believed her. She could hardly blame him, since she’d used the staff to blind him and his men. Grabbing the staff in a sudden lunge to ignite a flash might not work this time.

Martelle’s angry expression turned confused as well, and he didn’t make another threatening move. After all, she was a sage, and Aupsha was the one who had actually attacked his men, though they wouldn’t recognize the servant woman the way she was attired now.

All that became pointless as the captain stepped around her and headed for the wagon’s front end and the dead horse. Wynn clenched her jaw as she followed. What would he think when he saw the dead bodies of the Sumans that lay beyond the overturned wagon?

The horse she’d freed had rushed off but remained in sight down the road. The captain halted before he fully rounded the dead one, and Wynn knew what stalled him.

A headless body lay there, likely Chane’s first opponent.

She circled wide so as not to startle the captain, but by the look on his face, he wasn’t remotely troubled by the deaths of the duke’s foreign guards. Perhaps he understood that something was terribly wrong with his duke and this was all part of it, but Wynn grew worried over something more. She stopped herself from spinning frantically to search and perhaps prodding the captain to act rashly.

The one wounded but still-living Suman was gone from behind the wagon.

Wynn swallowed hard, half wishing she hadn’t let Osha stop her.

Martelle stepped along the wagon’s back, but Wynn again looked down the road—and still there was no sign of Osha. She considered whether to tell the captain what was truly happening here. When she glanced back, he had paused, taking in all that he saw. He finally stopped studying the carnage and almost turned.

The captain looked out into the trees but farther inland than where Chane had gone. Wynn wasn’t certain what Martelle saw. His features hardened, and his breaths grew heavy, sharp, and audible. He took off into the trees at a rush, and Wynn hurried after him.

It was so dark that she wasn’t certain what he was doing. When he stopped ahead of her by one tree and stood there looking down, she reached into her robe, pulled out a cold-lamp crystal, and swiped it along her robe.

Wynn stepped wide around the captain as the crystal ignited in a soft glow. The captain didn’t even look up.

Beyond his feet lay the body of another keep guard.

The man’s hair was so grayed that it looked nearly white under the crystal’s dim light. He had shriveled and aged beyond recognition of who he was ... had been.

Wynn knew what this meant. Her breaths quickened until she began to shake as she looked everywhere through the trees.

Sau’ilahk was here somewhere.

“Did you see what happened to him?” Martelle asked.

Wynn spun on him. “Give me the staff now!”

The anger in Martelle’s face increased, as if bits and pieces of all that had happened to him came back. He faced her and didn’t even glance at the staff.

“Where’s the archer, the Lhoin’na?” he asked.

“Give me that staff, or we’re all dead! It’s the only thing that can stop who did this.”

The captain leaned the staff farther out of reach and raised the point of his sword into her way. Then she heard footsteps behind her and looked back. Another guard stepped around the wagon’s front and the dead horse as he looked from her to his captain.

Wynn turned and bolted out of either’s reach for the nearest open way between the trees. A loud thud from somewhere on the road carried in the night.

“Not move! Stay!” someone shouted.

Wynn knew that broken Numanese before she even halted and turned.

Osha stood some twenty paces inland, in the middle of the road. He had one arrow drawn back as he aimed at the guard and the captain near Wynn. Another arrow was gripped in his hand holding the bow.

And at his feet was the orb’s trunk.

Wynn didn’t have time for relief. Osha suddenly swung the bow and pointed it up the road past the overturned wagon.

“Stay! Quiet!” he shouted, likely at the other guards still out there.

Wynn barely heard the captain shift a slow step behind her. She didn’t turn as fast as Osha did, and she followed the line of his aim back to Martelle watching her and him. And then she flinched back another step.

A sword’s tip appeared from behind the captain and dropped lightly on his left shoulder.

“Do not move!” a voice rasped. “I do not wish to harm you.”