Барб Хенди - Between Their Worlds

“Hurry!” Wynn urged, glancing once toward where Rodian had gone. Already other guards were in the street around them, but they were too busy heading for various other ways to the docks.

When Wynn looked back, Osha was gone.

She hadn’t heard or felt anything; he just wasn’t there anymore. In that moment, she was the one who felt as if she’d found something she’d left behind only to have it vanish before her eyes. She hadn’t even thanked him or said good-bye this time.

Shade appeared at her side and looked up the cutway toward the wagon. Wynn looked, as well, perhaps hoping, but there was no sign of Osha. She ran to the wagon, looking in its back for one thing. But the long and narrow canvas bundle that Osha had brought with him was gone, as well.

It was so strange the way he had insisted he bring it rather than stow it with the rest of the gear to be loaded on the ship. Stranger still, he treated it as some burden that revolted him.

Wynn was suddenly aware of someone behind her, and she cringed in shame.

“Are you all right?” she asked, unable to look back.

“Yes ... only one partially penetrated,” Chane answered. “The wood plank did well enough, but you will need to pull the other arrowhead out.”

As she turned around, Chane dropped to one knee and looked away. She found two broken-off arrows in his back. One protruded more than the other, the back of its white metal head still showing through Brot’an’s forest gray cloak.

Wynn quickly jerked that one out, for it had only stuck in the plank that she’d fastened onto Chane’s back before they left the inn. They’d known whom the anmaglâhk would shoot first, and that had been why they’d dressed Chane in the anmaglâhk cloak and boots that Brot’an had acquired.

The other arrowhead was deeper in Chane’s back. Wynn could feel that the plank had split on its impact.

“Brace yourself,” she whispered, but she hesitated as she gripped the second snapped-off shaft.

It was coated in Chane’s black fluids, which had already soaked into the cloak. Her grip slipped as she pulled, and she felt him flinch once. She finally had to wrap a corner of the cloak around the splintered shaft’s end.

Chane winced as the arrow came out, and the black stain spread through the cloak and across his back. There was nothing more to do, as they’d have to wait to remove the broken plank.

“It will heal,” he whispered as he rose.

Several guards stood nearby, and Wynn worried about how much they had just seen. It was night, and even real blood didn’t look red in the dark. She held on to Chane’s forearm as she looked toward where Rodian had gone. Now all they could do was wait for the captain’s return.

That, too, was part of the plan.

Rodian nearly collided with two of his men as he ran out of the path’s far end at the dockside. Lúcan caught up with him, but Angus lagged behind.

“Where are they?” he demanded.

The two guards before him looked about, shaking their heads.

“We never saw them,” said the first. “And they didn’t get by us.”

Lúcan rushed out, peering both ways along the waterfront. He stepped to the left of where one pier jutted out into the bay and looked down toward the water below. Rodian watched his trusted corporal take a slow breath as he looked about again—and then he cursed several times.

It was as if the strangely garbed pair had vanished. What was it about them that had kicked all of his instincts into alarm? And Wynn Hygeorht still waited in the keeping of his men.

Rodian called Lúcan to follow and strode back between the warehouses. When he came out onto the backstreet, Wynn stood there beside Shade. She looked far too composed for his waning patience. Behind the pair stood that tall, pale bastard who’d struck Snowbird on his escape from the guild grounds.

Rodian glared at that one, at Wynn and the dog, and then looked around. There was one more who was missing—the one with blond hair and a bow. It didn’t matter as much as it should have, for he had found Wynn Hygeorht.

“Who were those people?” he demanded. “And why did they come at you?”

Wynn shrugged. “I don’t know, but I feared turning myself in until I had enough protection from you. And now I am safely in your custody.”

Rodian clenched his jaw to keep from shouting. “You expect me to accept that?”

“I assume your orders are to return me to the guild.”

He paused to take a few breaths. Angry and confused as he was, his ultimate problem had been solved. Wynn was in his custody, and with no bloodshed. Forcing calm, he clung to that and tried to ignore all the questions nagging him. But in spite of everything, he still wasn’t prepared to force her back to the guild if she didn’t want to go, and as of yet, no one had filed a formal charge against her.

It would have been much easier for him if he just did so. That was what the royal family wanted—demanded.

“I want some answers,” he said.

“I’ll try,” she replied, “but I have a few requests.”

Rodian raised one eyebrow at her continued audacity. “And what are those?”

“That my companion and dog be allowed to come with me ... and that they can stay with me at the guild.”

The Premin Council had not filed any charges against Wynn Hygeorht or her tall companion, let alone the dog. Wynn’s request seemed a relatively benign—and unnecessary—condition. Rodian could certainly file assault charges on the one called Chane, but it was too damn much trouble.

And Wynn was just too calm about it all, as if she already knew.

“What else?” he asked.

“You will take me to the gates of the guild and stop there,” she went on. “Then you will find Premin Hawes and bring her out—alone. I won’t go inside without her first coming to get me.”

That was a puzzle greater that any other she’d given him. Hawes had hardly proven herself obliging to Wynn.

“And last ...” Wynn said, heading toward the wagon.

Rodian waved off his men about to close on her. She reached into the wagon’s back and returned with a wrapped parcel in hand.

“I’ll need a private moment someplace,” she said, “to change clothes before we get there.”

Rodian shook his head. He’d salvaged his public reputation and immediate position, but it remained to be seen how he stood privately with the royal family. And yet ...

“When all is done,” Wynn added, “and when there’s time, I’ll tell you what happened here, what happened to me at the guild ... as much as is possible.”

BROT’ÂN’DUIVÉ STOODin the shadows of a warehouse adjacent to the docks and watched one particular ship anchored in the bay. He noted the rise of the moon and listened for the city’s night bells to gauge the proper timing.

He was not given to regret, but he had laid a final task on Osha, a risk as well as a burden. Osha was the only one who could accomplish it, and Brot’ân’duivé hoped the young one would manage this final piece of the plan well enough.

It was one piece that Brot’ân’duivé had added and not shared with the others.

Dänvârfij was unable to cast off doubt and fear of failure as she watched the guild’s castle. She still could not believe she had allowed Brot’ân’duivé to take her word-wood. He had known exactly how to hobble her team. Now there would be no effective way to split her forces, should the need arise. No doubt, if he found out where they hid, he would come for the second one held by Fréthfâre to cut them off completely from Most Aged Father.

The guild grounds were quiet, with little activity aside from guards walking the bailey wall. Dänvârfij’s eyelids drooped, and she forced them open, angry with herself.