Барб Хенди: Dog in the Dark

“Léshil? Magiere, wait!”

At a lilting female voice calling out Leesil’s an’Cróan name, Magiere looked up the ship’s walkway.

A slight young elven female stood at the ramp’s top. She wore the old cloak given to her by Wynn Hygeorht, a friend they’d all left behind in Calm Seatt. The hood’s folds crumpled across her shoulders, and the cloak’s split revealed a dusky maroon pullover. Both of these were obviously bits of human clothing scavenged along the way, like the unmanageable dark green skirt hanging all the way down to the toes of her felt boots.

Leanâlhâm waved frantically; she bore a canvas pack slung over one shoulder. This was the liveliest that Magiere had seen the girl in the three days since they’d snuck out of Calm Seatt.

“We’re not going anywhere ... yet,” Magiere called back.

As Leanâlhâm took a first step onto the ramp, a silver-gray wolf, almost bluish in the bright day, stepped to the rail’s opening.

Chap was taller than any wolf, for he wasn’t truly one. His body was that of the majay-hì, descended from wolves of ancient times inhabited by the Fay during the supposedly mythical war at the end of the world’s Forgotten History. The descendants of those first Fay-born became the guardians of the an’Cróan elves, and had barred all but their people from the vast Elven Territories on the world’s far side. But Chap was different from even those.

He was a Fay spirit, born years ago by his own choice into a majay-hì pup—a new Fay-born in the body of a Fay-descended being. He was Magiere and Leesil’s guardian and guide—and also an overbearing know-it-all.

Immediately a third figure loomed at the walkway’s top. He was as much taller than a man as Chap was when compared to a wolf. This one’s long, coarse white-blond hair had darker streaks, a sign of age among the an’Cróan. He was deeply tan, with lines crinkling the corners of his mouth and of his large, amber-irised eyes. But the feature that stood out most was the four white scars—as if from claws—running at an angle down his forehead, through one high, slanted, feathery eyebrow, to skip over his right eye and reach his cheekbone.

Neither Magiere nor Leesil could pronounce his full an’Cróan name. They’d shortened it to simply Brot’an.

Among the Anmaglâhk, that caste of assassins who viewed themselves as guardians of the an’Cróan, he was one of a handful of “shadow-grippers.” These were the masters of the caste’s skills and ways. One other had been Leesil’s deceased grandmother, Eillean, whom he’d never met. But Brot’an no longer wore his caste’s garb of forest gray hooded cloak, vestment, pants, and felt boots. Instead the full hood of his dusky wool traveler’s cloak was thrown back over a weatherworn jerkin—more scavenged human garb, like Leanâlhâm’s. But there was a reason for his change of attire.

Brot’an was at war with his own caste, but to Magiere he was still an anmaglâhk. That was as permanent as those scars on his face, and she glanced over at Leesil.

Her husband’s features hardened at the sight of the anmaglâhk master still in their midst. The hatred on Leesil’s face was plain, cold, and focused, for Brot’an had once tricked him into killing a warlord and self-proclaimed monarch. This had ignited a war in Leesil’s birthland.

Leanâlhâm started trotting down the ship’s ramp in haste, her too-long skirt flapping wildly at each thrust of her narrow feet.

“There’s no hurry,” Magiere called out. “We’re not going anywhere until— Leanâlhâm, slow down!”

Chap huffed sharply in warning and lunged after the girl. Leanâlhâm’s next hurried step came down on her skirt’s front hem, and she teetered.

“Oh—oh!” she squeaked out.

Chap quickly snagged her skirt from behind and set all four of his paws on the ramp’s surface. All that did was throw her more off balance as his claws grated on the ramp’s wood. Leanâlhâm’s pack swung off her shoulder and forward.

Magiere started for the ramp’s base as Brot’an descended behind Chap. Leesil had barely slipped the chest off his shoulder when Leanâlhâm cried out again.

“Oh, no—no, majay-hì!”

Leesil’s eyes opened wide—just before Leanâlhâm’s flying pack hit him in the gut. Gagging, he dropped the chest, and his arms wrapped around the pack as he buckled. Leanâlhâm’s skirt ripped in Chap’s teeth, and she careened headlong down the ramp in a tripping stumble. Chap tumbled backward with scraps of her skirt in his jaws, and he scrambled to get his footing. Brot’an grabbed for Chap from behind, but the dog snapped at him. Chap’s dislike of the shadow-gripper was twice Leesil’s, and Magiere tried to get in front of Leanâlhâm before ...

The girl shot face-first into the pack clutched against Leesil’s stomach.

Leesil’s mouth gaped silently as his dark skin visibly paled. Both he and Leanâlhâm toppled backward, and Magiere had to duck a mix of flailing arms and packs. She made a grab for the girl’s cloak, but her two tangled companions came to a sudden halt against a great furred hulk.

The large Northlander’s big hands under Leesil’s arms kept him from dropping onto his rump. Leanâlhâm slid off the pack and fell facedown at Leesil’s feet.

Everyone around the dock stopped and stared.

Leanâlhâm rolled over, holding her nose with one hand and whimpering. Whatever she rattled off in Elvish sounded as annoyed as it was pained. Before Magiere could help the girl up, Leesil let out a gurgling groan and clamped a hand over his mouth. At the muffled gags coming through Leesil’s hand, the big furred Northlander dropped him.

Leesil’s backside hit the dock. He instantly scrambled on all fours around the big man’s heavy boots and headed for the dock’s far edge. One sailor coiling a rope backed into a barrel and pulled his feet up, and Leesil flopped down, head hanging over the dock’s edge.

The problem was that because of his seasickness, he hadn’t yet eaten anything this day. The noise of retching dry heaves made Magiere’s stomach roll, even with all those eyes upon her and her companions. All five of them had left their homelands and crossed an ocean and then a continent in their separate ways to come halfway across a world—and they needed to get on with their task as quietly as possible.

So much, again, for passing unnoticed.

Magiere was caught between helping Leesil or Leanâlhâm. The girl sat up, eyes watering as she held her nose, and Magiere reached for her first.

“Amaguk!” someone growled in a deep voice, like a shouted warning.

Magiere spotted the fur-clad Northlander reaching for his sword. His startled eyes were on Chap as the dog stepped off the ship’s ramp ... with bits of Leanâlhâm’s skirt stuck in his teeth.

“Hold, stop,” Magiere called, trying to get the Northlander’s attention.

The big man snatched Leanâlhâm’s wrist, lifting and dragging the startled girl behind him with one hand. Magiere rushed in, one hand dropping to her falchion’s hilt as she raised her other before him, palm outward.

“No!” she barked as she pointed at Chap and then herself. “It is a pet. Mine. Pet.”

The big man grew still, eyeing her with a doubtful frown. He thumbed his nose as if it itched, and his dark eyes looked beyond her.

—It?— ... —Pet?—

Magiere flinched at those two broken words spoken into her thoughts. They’d come in two different voices, single words stolen from old memories somewhere in her head and shoved forward into her awareness. And she heard the growl behind her.

—I am—no—pet—

There was no hint of warning in those words in her head, but there was plenty in Chap’s growl. Before recent days, he’d always communicated with her and Leesil by pulling up any of their memories that he’d seen in them at least once. It was a unique talent of his, as a Fay born into a Fay-descended body. Through bits and pieces of a person’s own memories called back up, he made basic notions or commands reasonably clear ... or manipulated those unaware that he was doing so.