Барб Хенди - Of Truth and Beasts

Chane dropped the flowers and grabbed his wrist. He thought he felt his skin begin to split beneath his grip, but instead, the veinlike marks were worming up his forearm, beneath his shirt’s sleeve.

He began to grow ... cold.

He never felt cold—not after rising from death—not even when his hands had frozen solid in the mountains. Paralyzing, icy pain filled his black-veined hand, quickly following those worming lines into his arm. The cold carried agony to his shoulder and into the side of his throat and face.

Chane shrieked, the sound deafening in his own ears.

He began to fall, darkness thickening before his eyes, as his widened senses collapsed. Someone—somewhere—called out his name.

Was it Wynn, or did he only wish it so?

Sau’ilahk slowed at a scream carrying across the plain.

Chane vanished into the grass, and before his scream faded, Wynn’s cry spread over it. She was here, looking for him. Most certainly the dog would be with her.

Everything changed in an instant for Sau’ilahk. He heard the dog’s snarls, and then someone thrashed farther off near the forest’s edge.

Sau’ilahk could not bring himself to flee into dormancy. Frustration was unbearable with the temptation of Wynn so close, and Chane had been alone with that ring so close within reach. Sau’ilahk hovered in the dark, caught in indecision, until ...

The thrashing in the grass kept coming closer. It was now well beyond where Chane had stood, and the sound of snarls and growls came with it.

—Wynn ... stay back!—

Shade’s command erupted in Wynn’s head as the dog charged into the grass toward the last place they’d seen Chane. Wynn wasn’t about to stand there, and she bolted after Shade. All she could do was follow the grass parting in the passing of Shade’s black form.

It was only moments until she realized they should’ve reached Chane. Shade didn’t stop there. She charged onward into the plain as Wynn slowed for an instant.

“Shade?” she called in a hushed voice. And then, louder, “Shade, get back here!”

Shade’s snarls grew more distant by the moment. All Wynn could do was hurry onward, until she nearly tripped over a fallen form writhing in the grass.

Even in the dark, she could see Chane curled up and convulsing. He gripped his right wrist, silently choking and gagging as if ... as if trying to breathe.

Wynn dropped to her knees beside him, not daring to risk igniting a cold lamp crystal. That would only alert anyone else out here. She grabbed his face, trying to turn it toward her, and his flesh felt damp and icy, as if he’d been out in a winter storm.

“Chane?” she whispered, but he wouldn’t focus on her. “Chane! What’s—”

A massive hand clamped over her whole jaw and mouth. It smothered her voice as something hulkish wrapped her in thick arms and jerked her back. Before Wynn began struggling, an iron staff toppled and flattened down the grass beside her.

“Quiet!”

Ore-Locks’s gravelly hiss was too loud next to Wynn’s ear.

“Riders ... across the plain,” he whispered. “Do you want them to find you ... or him , like this?”

Ore-Locks removed his hand. As he released Wynn, she spun away on her knees, but his attention was fixed into the distance along the forest’s tree line. She didn’t even wonder how he had found her.

“I don’t hear anything,” she said urgently. “Now help—”

“I can feel hoofbeats on the earth,” Ore-Locks answered, “long before a human can hear them.”

Wynn was too frantic to answer back. Shade had run off, and she didn’t know what was wrong with Chane. If Ore-Locks was right, they had to leave before the patrol stumbled on them.

“Get him out of here,” Ore-Locks ordered, hefting his dropped staff. “I will delay the riders long enough.”

“No! I can’t lift or drag him by myself. You have to help.”

Wynn finally heard the hoofbeats, more than one set. The Shé’ith were coming.

Ore-Locks hissed something under his breath as he reached down to grab hold of Chane’s shirtfront.

Sau’ilahk blinked through dormancy. It was a half-blind shift.

Uncertain where he would awaken on the plain, it would be enough to baffle the majay-hì. That beast had somehow sensed him. The instant Sau’ilahk reappeared, he heard the rapid pound of horses—two, perhaps three—and he whirled to find his bearings.

The road was far off to his right, so he must have shifted north, maybe a hundred yards more along the plain’s midline. He traced the road to where it met the forest’s edge and the nearby place where he had spotted Chane.

There were two shapes there now, but he was too far off to be certain who they were. The hoofbeats pulled his attention. The shapes of three riders were farther along the forest’s edge in a direct line toward those two waiting figures.

Sau’ilahk panicked. How much more downfall could come atop a missed opportunity? He had heard Wynn call out Chane’s name, so what had the undead been doing out here? He could not afford to have Wynn delayed—or arrested. Perhaps she and hers were finally prepared to move on, out of that cursed forest to where he could track her once again.

The very thought that he would have to save her burned Sau’ilahk within as he skimmed the grass and blinked once more through dormancy.

Wynn looked out across the night plain as Ore-Locks hefted Chane over his shoulder. The dwarf headed toward the tree line, but she didn’t follow him yet. Shade was still out there on the plain.

“The dog knows where to find you,” Ore-Locks whispered.

He was right, and she couldn’t afford to call out for Shade.

Another shriek broke the quiet, and Wynn stiffened.

Even Ore-Locks spun about, staring along the tree line, as the sound of something heavy hit the earth in the distance. The rhythm of hoofbeats broke amid the frightened whinny of horses. Thrashing in the grass followed as someone shouted and cursed in Elvish.

The riders had stalled, run afoul of something, but what? That thought had barely finished when Wynn heard Ore-Locks snarl under his breath.

“Be still!”

Chane was struggling, clawing at the dwarf’s back.

Wynn rushed toward them, but before she reached out, Ore-Locks dropped his staff again. He latched both hands on Chane’s torso and heaved. Chane hit the nearest tree trunk, and the impact twisted him midfall.

His shoulder struck the earth first, and his arms and legs whipped down across the base of large tree roots. Almost immediately, he began clawing the earth, as if he hadn’t felt the impact. He couldn’t seem to get up, and he started crawling toward Wynn.

Ore-Locks closed on Chane, cocking one clenched fist. Wynn threw herself onto the dwarf’s back, wrapping her small hands over his face to obscure his sight.

“Enough,” she said directly into his ear.

When Ore-Locks froze, Wynn slid off his back and ducked around him to drop beside Chane.

Chane wasn’t lying at the dwarf’s feet. He was still trying to crawl off and kept whispering something as Wynn grabbed him, trying to pin him down.

“Flowers ... my flowers.”

Wynn looked to the grass plain. Chane hadn’t been trying to crawl to her. A memory of white petals came to her.

“What have you done?” she breathed.

Magiere had once been seized by the an’Cróan while in their land and taken before their council of elders to be tried as an undead. Fréthfâre, who had acted as prosecutor, had pulled a vicious trick in front of everyone. She’d held up the white flowers and proclaimed ...

“ Anasgiah —the Life Shield. Prepared by a healer in tea or food, it sustains the dying, so they might yet be saved from death. It is vibrant with life itself, and feeds the life of those who need it most.”