Chap opened his eyes with a convulsive shudder.
He stared into amber eyes sunk deep in a dark-skinned face coated with sweat.
Sgäile sighed raggedly. His head drooped for an instant before he turned on his knees to look the other way.
“He is awake!” Sgäile called.
Chap saw the world tilted sideways where he lay with his head resting on a smooth stone floor. His vision was blurred, but he made out a silver metal oval. The doors were closed, sealing off the passage to the burning chasm below. They were back in the entrance cavern far above.
“How fares Magiere?” Sgäile asked.
Leesil half-sat, half-lay behind her, his arm wrapped around her waist. She breathed in long slow gasps, but her eyes opened now and again.
“She’ll make it,” Leesil said. “But we need more water for both of them. And we should head further up, out of this heat.”
Sgäile nodded agreement. He dug into his pack and pulled out a water bottle. At his shift of position, Chap spotted the pile of metal items on the floor halfway to Magiere and Leesil. His gaze slowly cleared, until he made out the twin winged blades, the hiltless dagger, and the strange arc of earthy golden metal. The last item troubled him most, but he focused on the dagger.
He and his companions had stumbled upon another of the lost races— the Úirishg—one of five nonhuman species that were thought to be but a myth.
Like the séyilf at Magiere’s trial, that one chein’âs upon the plateau had known Magiere and perhaps mistook her for some strangely formed kin. It had brought her tokens—or was there more to those gifts?
The visitor had seen one of its own taken long ago, and knew its lost companion would never return. Was that dagger a token of recognition for the shared blood that had been spilled at Magiere’s conception?
Or was it a plea for vengeance?
One that the little visitor, or all the Chein’âs, could never gain for themselves, locked away in the searing depths of the earth.
Chap closed his eyes. There was no way he could have offered solace. No way to tell the visitor that he had already torn out Ubâd’s throat.
The dreamer fell through vast darkness, and then suddenly stood upon a black desert. Dunes began to roll on all sides, becoming immense writhing coils covered in glinting black scales.
“Show me the castle,” the dreamer demanded.
Flight through a night sky resumed once more.
Here . . . it is here
.
The voice rose as the dreamer tumbled downward. High mountain peaks of perpetual ice loomed all around like a jagged-toothed maw. In its gullet was an immense sunken plateau crusted by snow. A speck within gained size, and for an instant the dreamer saw it become the six-towered castle bordered by stone walls.
The white plateau rushed up in the dreamer’s sight and winked out.
But no impact followed in crashing down.
The dreamer suddenly stood before high arched gates. Mirrored twins of ornate iron curls joined together at their high tops in an arched point. Mottled with rust, they were still sound and had not yielded to time. Beyond them, the castle’s iron doors rose atop a wide cascade of stone steps.
At a caw, the dreamer looked up. A raven sat upon the high gates.
The dreamer turned from the distraction, looking back to the steps and doors. Something white moved past a low window in one front tower.
It was a woman. Before she vanished beyond the window’s far side, the dreamer saw a face like snow and coal black hair.
South . . . you must travel south
.
“I am,” the dreamer answered.
No . . . you do not even try!
“How . . . when will I find it? When will you leave me alone?”
Succeed . . . and there will be no more need for dreams. Lead on, my child . . . great sister of the dead.
Magiere opened her eyes wide and lurched from under the blanket, sucking air as she looked wildly about the night.
She still lay beside Leesil where they were camped for the night on their journey back toward the shore. Chap was curled upon Leesil’s cloak near the dwindling campfire, and even Sgäile appeared sound asleep. Just beyond him lay the pack containing the “gifts” from the scorching cavern.
The blindfolded trek down the granite foothills should have been quicker than the ascent, but they’d stopped often to rest. None of them had the same strength with which they’d begun this side journey.
Tomorrow they would reach the ship and return to their voyage, guided only by Magiere’s instinct. She stared southward into the dark. All she wanted was to run until she found . . . whatever she had to find . . . and got free of this driving urge.
Magiere lay down and rested her head on Leesil’s outstretched arm. She scooted in until she felt his chest against her back. But when she closed her eyes, she saw the castle of her dream—and a pale-faced woman passing behind an ice-glazed window.
Chane had caught strengthening whiffs of sea air for the past four nights. Tonight, the salt breeze grew stronger. The ferals smelled it, too, and became restless, shuffling about each other.
Welstiel suddenly halted and pointed ahead. “There . . . look over the slope of trees!”
Chane craned his neck, eyes wide as his sight expanded.
At first he saw only a flat plain in the distance, impossibly flat. Then he caught the faint ripples upon its surfaces. Tiny shapes of waves rippled upon open water stretching to the night’s horizon.
Then another scent filled his head.
Life—human life.
The curly-headed feral began hissing and spitting, and the two younger males wailed and darted forward. Chane knew the smell would be even more intoxicating for them; it was all they desired. The silver-headed man and Sabel whimpered in excitement.
“Stop!” Welstiel ordered. “All of you hold!”
Like puppets jerked by their strings, the scampering monks halted. One young male fell to his face, unable to keep his feet as his rush ended. Sabel buckled to the ground, rocking back and forth on her haunches as her whimpers of joy became panting moans.
Their desperation wormed into Chane. He had gone longer without feeding than any of them, and he wanted blood.
“Follow me,” Welstiel said to Chane, and then looked briefly at his minions. “Do not move from this place until I tell you.” He pointed toward Chane. “Or he does.”
Chane followed Welstiel through the sparse trees. Every step along the forested ridge intensified the scent of life on the salted breeze—and the smoky odor of a campfire.
Welstiel finally dropped and flattened on his stomach. He crawled forward as Chane did likewise, and they peered over a cliff above the shore.
Chane was not surprised to see the men below, gathered around a campfire in a sandy beach cove, but the ship in the waters beyond was another matter. A three-masted schooner was harbored not far into the water, and two long skiffs had been dragged up the beach. Each was half-filled with barrels.
“Who are they?” Chane whispered.
Welstiel continued to watch the men below, so Chane returned to studying them more closely—six sailors in varied worn clothes. He could smell sweat along with their life force. Two returned to the skiffs, loading a barrel. Judging by the way they hefted it, the barrel was full of something. He could just barely hear others speaking around the fire, but he did not recognize their language.
“Why have they come here?” he whispered.
“Seeking fresh water, I believe,” Welstiel answered. “The tall one in the leather jerkin said something about their supply being contaminated.”
“You speak their language?”
"Not well. I have not heard it in many years, not since my father was ...”
Welstiel fell silent.
Chane’s curiosity was piqued. He knew little of Welstiel’s living days; only that the man was not a native of this continent. And that Welstiel’s father had worked his way up through the ranks of Droevinkan nobility.
“I can pick out a few words,” Welstiel finally added. “There must be fresh water near here. Seafarers keep careful track of such things, though I wonder about any human this far north, so near the Elven Territories.”
“They will have more to contend with than water shortage,” Chane said, true hunger mounting upon his longing. “We should bring the others.”
“No, this is better than I hoped for,” Welstiel answered, and lifted his chin toward the anchored ship. “Magiere travels this coast too swiftly to be on land. That schooner will be useful to us.”
Chane couldn’t believe what he was hearing and looked more closely at the rough seamen below. Some carried curved daggers tucked into their belts, and a few had squat cutlasses sheathed at their sides. Most were plainly dressed, though some had vests and tunics of leather, a lightweight armor for seafarers.
“I doubt they are interested in passengers,” Chane said dryly. “We could feed on them, revitalize your followers, and take the ship. But I have little knowledge of sailing, and likely your monks would know even less. Do you?”
Welstiel shook his head, eying the cove floor. “No, we will need the crew . . . and count on their greed to favor us.”
He drew a pouch from his cloak, jingling the coins inside, and Chane stared at it blankly.
They had lost most of their money back in Venjètz, or so he thought, and used what was left to purchase horses and supplies. But then Chane had never inquired, as they had never needed coins in the mountains.
“Where did you get that?” he asked.
Welstiel loosened the pouch’s string. “From a chest at the monastery.”
“You intend to bargain our way onto the schooner?” Chane said in surprise. “I doubt the monks had enough with which to tempt those sailors.”
“And I doubt,” Welstiel replied, “they will pay attention to anything but the clink of coins . . . and the possibility that we might have more.”
Chane scooted back from the ridge and sat up.
Getting out of this forsaken range was an attractive prospect, but he saw holes in Welstiel’s plan. Unless Welstiel knew these seafarers’ language better than he suggested, they could end up embroiled in a fight before a bargain was struck. The sailors below looked more likely to rob wayfarers out of the wilderness than to offer rescuing passage to the nearest port. And even so, how did Welstiel think they would react when his monks emerged from the dark, full of witless gibbering and hungry stares?
“We will circle around and search for a path down the ridge,” Welstiel said.
Chane shook his head but followed. In the end, he believed they would still have the ship—with no one left who could sail it.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Welstiel poured most of the monastery’s coins into his own pouch, but he kept out a small sum of silver pennies.
Chane watched in puzzlement. “How did monks obtain that much?”
“A wealthy patron, perhaps,” Welstiel suggested, but he did not care.
He filled the emptied pouch with small stones, adding the pennies on top so the pouch would clink when jostled.
“What are you doing?” Chane asked.
“Just follow me.”
Welstiel led the way around the cliff until they found gradual sod shelves leading down to the beach. During their descent, he contemplated the best way to approach these marauders.
Though he could pick out a few words of the mishmash Ylladon tongue, he could not truly speak it. Perhaps they’d once had a central language, or several, from whatever long-forgotten descendants had first come to this continent’s shores. Now they spoke a conglomeration of differing dialects fostered among their individual city-states. Some factions spoke old Droevinkan as well.
In his living youth, Welstiel had only had brief contact with the Ylladon, when his father came to seek his fortune on this continent. They stayed in one city-state, but his father had quickly realized that the lack of a stable hierarchy offered little opportunity for him. The Ylladon raided each other’s territories as often as they raided any outsiders’ they could reach.
They were parasites. Slavers, pirates, and thieves by the very make of their fragmented culture, but to call them unintelligent was rash. Their way of life had survived as long as the continent’s western nations, and perhaps longer.
Still, he could think of only one reason these sailors might travel so far north. And trying to hit the lower settlements of the Elven Territories marked them as foolhardy, from Welstiel’s perspective.
“Keep your sword sheathed unless I say otherwise,” he advised.
Chane followed in silence as they stepped onto the beach above the cove, and Welstiel rounded the point until he spotted the campfire. He called out a greeting in old Droevinkan.
Men scurried around the beached skiffs, then poised, waiting as he entered the firelight’s reach. All six drew cutlasses and thick knives, except the one with the horn bow aimed at him. In their mismatched attire and oiled-down hair, each was nonetheless dressed for efficiency in duty. Most wore leather vestments or tunics and either hide or heavy canvas breeches. Half had studded or steel-ribbed bracers on their forearms.