by Barb Hendee
Sgaile's lingering patience broke. "A pack will not tolerate a lone human wandering out there."
For an instant, Leesil was speechless.
"I kept your supervision to a minimum, wishing not to make you feel like prisoners." Sgaile glanced once at Osha, who flinched. "I trusted that all of you would have sense enough to follow my instructions. That is now finished."
Sgaile whipped about, growling at the two anmaglahk. He turned on
Osha again as the pair stepped around him, one toward Leesil and the other closing on Magiere.
"Tashghealhi En’nish!" he snapped. "Me feumasij foras aiche ayagea."
Osha took off running.
"What about En’nish?" Leesil asked.
Her name was the only word he picked out. The anmaglahk closest to him shoved him back toward the tree's doorway, and Leesil set his footing in resistance.
"I merely wish to know her whereabouts," Sgaile answered. "Go inside and stay there!"
The instant Sgaile's other companion reached for Magiere, and the only warning Leesil got out was "Don't-"
She slammed her fist into the elf's face with such speed that he lurched over backward, one foot slipping up from the ground. As his back struck the earth, he rolled away in retreat, coming up unsteady and so shaken he nearly lost his footing again. Blood ran from one narrow nostril and the side of his mouth.
The one near Leesil shifted his weight, a stiletto already in his hand.
"We're going after Wynn," Magiere said to Sgaile, her breath coming long and hard."With you… without you… through you. What's your word worth now?"
Leesil didn't like how she was handling this, but it was too late to stop her. All he could do was back her up. If En’nish was loose and heard about Wynn, what might she do for vengeance if she couldn't get to him?
"You should've watched that murderous bitch," Magiere warned. "If she gets anywhere near Wynn…"
"It'll end any hope of agreement with your patriarch," Leesil added. "I'll have no part of the search for his dissidents."
Sgaile's attention shifted instantly to Leesil-in open confusion. Could it be that he didn't know of the bargain Most Aged Father tried to strike? Was he even aware his own caste wasn't as unified as he believed?
"We can get on with it," Leesil continued, "or we can have it out right here. But it'll cost you to keep us back… if you can."
Sgaile stood in angry indecision, eyes shifting between Leesil and Magiere.
Leesil slowly reached for Magiere's arm. She jerked away but settled back, waiting. He just hoped she kept her self-control, as he had one more thing to attend to.
He ducked inside and retrieved the chest containing his father's and grandmother's remains. He slipped into its rope harness and returned with it mounted on his back.
Sgaile hissed something at the bloodied anmaglahk facing Magiere, and the man trotted off into the night.
Leesil caught two of Sgaile's words, but his thought was interrupted as Sgaile spun back and stared at the chest.
"I'm not leaving it out of my sight," Leesil said. "I won't have anyone touching them while I'm gone."
Another flash of tension rippled across Sgaile's features. Even Magiere grew quiet and still.
Of the words Sgaile had spoken to Magiere's opponent, one was Urhkar's full elven name, who still held Leesil and Magiere's weapons. At least that much had been settled, and it appeared Sgaile had sent for their arms.
But the other word Sgaile spoke, another elven name…
Leesil grew angrier by the moment.
Three anmaglahk jogged down the lane between the trees. The first was Sgaile's returning messenger. The second was Urhkar, looking none too pleased, and he wasn't carrying the bundle of weapons. The third and last of the trio…
Leesil flushed with heat, and the air turned cold upon his skin.
Bro'tan.
The deer lifted its head from Chap and stood to full height. Its long ears rose, each turning of its own accord. After one step, its head swung northeast and it became still again. Both ears turned that same direction.
Chap followed the deer's gaze. What was it listening to?
The deer clopped off along its chosen path. The pound of its heavy hooves vibrated through the boulder. It headed into the trees.
The dark pack elder huffed to his kin and turned to follow the deer. All the other majay-hi scurried upslope around the boulder. Lily licked Chap once across the face and loped off behind them.
Chap stared after them. What was happening? Did they know where they were going? There seemed little to do but follow, and then a voice cried out from below.
"Chap… wait!"
He turned as the pack froze on the hillside. He ran out to the boulder's lip and looked down.
Wynn teetered into the clearing. In the moonlight, her face glistened with a thin layer of sweat, and she dropped to her knees.
Chap lunged off the boulder's side, claws digging into the earth. What was this foolish little sage doing out alone in the forest? Somehow, she had snuck out and trailed him without getting lost. As he rounded the boulder's base, he heard a deep rolling growl.
The elder majay-hi came around the boulder's far side toward Wynn, his jowls pulled back from yellowed teeth. Snarls grew one upon the next as the pack spread around the clearing. Their crystalline eyes locked on the sage crumpled to the earth. Chap turned to face them, and the elder made an arcing inward charge to get around him.
Chap lunged around Wynn into the elder's path, snapping and snarling. The elder slowed, coming in a pace at a time with his shoulders rolling.
The pack tightened its circle.
Chap could not face all of them at once. Only Lily held back, watching from hisright, and the silver yearling paced sideways in uncertainty. Lily suddenly bolted in, shoving the young one aside, and headed straight at Wynn.
Numb shock ran through Chap as he whirled to face her. He had no wish to fight Lily.
She slowed, creeping forward, and lowered her head, sniffing.
"Please… Chap, please," Wynn moaned. "Take it away!"
Lily shook her head, sneezed, and whined deeply.
Chap's eyes widened as Lily circled around, placing herself between Wynn and the other half of the pack. Chap backed up to Wynn, trying to think of some way to assure her that at least Lily meant no harm.
Wynn rolled on her back, squinting, and shielded her eyes from him.
"Please… take it," she whimpered, "from my eyes."
Her hand lowered to her mouth as she gagged. Her irises shrank at the sight of him-as if he were too bright to look upon.
Chap felt his breath turn thick and stifling in his chest. Wynn was not pleading for him to remove Lily.
Her mantic sight had risen. The little fool had somehow used it to find him and madeherself sick again! He did not have his kin to call upon for aid in cleansing her.
Chap ground his paws into the clearing's floor, binding himself to the forest through Earth, Air, and his own Spirit. He leaned down and nosed Wynn's small hand aside, and ran his tongue firmly over her closed eyelids.
He could taste it. Rampant energies running like a disease still within her, which emerged to alter her sight. He swallowed them into his body, and forced them through his flesh, down into the earth… out with his breath to dissipate like vapor.
If only this were the end of it.
Wynn dropped her hand with a limp thud upon the ground. Shesighed a long breath and swallowed hard.
The last thing Chap needed was someone to watch over in the forest. And worse still, a human wandering the territory of the majay-hi. Wynn had to go back-but would the pack wait for him to return?That was, if he could return Wynn unseen, and not end up fighting the whole pack just to get her out of this clearing.
"Where do you think you are going?" Wynn asked in a weak voice.
Chap was half-ready to snarl at her-witless girl.
Wynn sat up, and her eyes widened at Lily standing so close.
She reached out her hand, but Lily backed away one step. Then Wynn noticed the pack surrounding them.
"Chap?" she said, scrambling to her knees.
He had no time to scold her. What he needed was a quick way to put the pack at ease.
Chap circled watchfully around to Lily's side. He touched his head to hers and called up a flurry of memories of every time and place he had shared with Wynn.
Lily pulled away with a grunt and shook herself. She eyed him for a moment, and then hopped off a pace and paused to stare at Wynn. With a whine, she trotted to the steel-gray male nearby and their heads grazed.
The male jerked away-with a snarl as his twin sister inched close behind him. Lily butted him in the side and growled back, then turned to his sister.
The pack began mingling, touching heads as they passed each other. Their growls became broken with huffs and whines, and Chap saw it was still not enough. Perhaps there was nothing that could balance against human interlopers.
Chap barked for Lily's attention. When she returned, he gave her memories of Wynn brushing out his coat. He clung to the sensation of the sage's small fingers running through his fur.
Lily pulled away. But she turned her long head to Wynn, stretching out to sniff at the sage. Chap ducked his head under Wynn's hand, squirming to make it slide down his neck.
"What are you doing?" she said. "Stop playing around. This is serious!"
Oh, how he wanted a voice, just to tell to her to shut her month. He waited with his eyes on Lily.
She inched closer, and Wynn leaned away in fear. When Lily put her nose right in front of Wynn's face, the sage lifted a hesitant hand.
Wynn lightly touched the bridge of Lily's snout and slid two fingers over Lily's head.
A deep snarl filled the clearing.
The elder glared at the three of them-a human touchingtwo majay-hi. He turned away with a clack of his jaws and headed back up the slope. Soon all the pack drifted after him, all but the steel-gray twins, who held back a moment to study the trio curiously.
"What is happening?" Wynn asked.
Lily pulled out from under Wynn's hand and trotted a short way across the clearing. She stopped to wait. Chap grumbled and jerked Wynn's sleeve. He had little choice but to take her with him.
"I heard you," Wynn said. "I heard you calling… for Nein'a."
Chap looked up into her worried face.
He had called up Nein'a's name for the deer, and somehow Wynn had caught it amid her mantic state. She had mistakenly heard something unintelligible the last time he had communed with his kin. But not words.
Chap let out a deep sigh. He had no time for this.
Another aberration had surfaced from Wynn's meddling with magic and the sickness it had left within her.
How much more trouble was this little woman going to be?
* * *
Wynn ran after Chap and the majay-hi as fast as her short legs could carry her.
She guessed that Chap had somehow learned of Nein'a through the pack, but how far off was Leesil's mother? Would Most Aged Father want Nein'a close to Crijheaiche-close to other Anmaglahk? Or would he put her where she could never interact with them or any of her people?
The inky old majay-hi in the lead was out of sight, and the others were getting well ahead. Wynn had counted seven in the pack besides Chap but now saw only three. Chap lagged behind, slowing again and again for her, and the white female hung back as well. Beyond her were the two dark gray ones identical in their markings.
Without mantic vision, Wynn had to keep one of them in sight, or she would succumb to the forest tangling up her sense of direction. But her throat was already ragged and dry. She stumbled to a halt, bending over, trying to catch her breath.
"Chap!" she panted. "Chap, wait!"
He circled back, fidgeting anxiously.
"Ican… cannot keep this pace," she panted.
The white female let out a howl that startled even Chap. The cry faded, and she drew a breath to offer another one. The pair of steel-grays returned immediately, and the leader and the others appeared shortly after.
Wynn watched the dark old male stroll toward them with head low and lips quivering beneath a threatening glare. Chap might have convinced the white female, but the pack leader barely tolerated her. Beyond him, a young silver male made a great show of mimicking the elder's displeasure.
Chap spun toward the white dog, and they touched heads. She loped off to the elder and did the same. He jerked away and snapped viciously at her, but she curled her own lips in response and would not retreat. Chap trotted up behind her, leaving Wynn nervously alone.
A lanky silver male with a light blaze down his chest raised his head and snorted at her.
Chap remained still as the white female slid her head along his and paused. An instant later, she began to howl again.
It came out like a moaning bellow that carried through the trees. The dark elder snarled.
Chap circled back to Wynn, his glower all too familiar. Like the time she confessed to overhearing him when communing with his kin. He cocked his head, studying her with parental displeasure.
"I am not the one who snuck off first," she grumbled at him.
Chap let out a rolling exhale, like a growl without voice. He twisted paws into the ground as if securing his footing.
Wynn's stomach lurched.
The chattering crackle of a leaf-wing filled her head. This time the strange way it shaped was clearer than the last.
You… ride… keep up…
Wynn went slack-faced, even with nausea twisting her stomach. She only caught those few words, but she held her breath and blinked.
The leaf-wing vanished from her thoughts, and Chap lowered his muzzle, almost mournfully.
Perhaps neither of them truly believed she had heard him the first time. Now it was certain. It might have been a wonderful new thing if not for making her sick every time… if not that it was onemore wild symptom of what she had foolishly done to herself in Droevinka.
Chap lifted his muzzle toward the white female, and the flutter of a leaf-wing rose again in Wynn's head.
…Lily…
Wynn remembered the first time she saw the white female as the pack surrounded them upon entering the forest. She had said the dog's color looked like a water lily.
…yes…
Wynn held a hand out to Chap's companion, and the white majay-hi remained poised and still. She carefully touched the female between her ears, and the dog lifted its nose into her palm.
"Lily," Wynn repeated.
Lily spun about, staring through the trees with raised ears.
A large silver form stalked through the underbrush and walked slowly through the pack. The dogs dispersed out of its path, but the dark leader still rumbled. Wynn felt the tall deer's thudding hooves beneath her own feet, and the vibration grew as it approached.
Chap's multitongued words rose in her head: You will ride.
Wynn had to tilt her head back to look up at the deer's muzzle. Its large head was crowned by two tineless antlers longer than Chap's body. The crystalline eyes above her were so large they made her cower.
"Oh no."She backed away. "No-no-no!"
The deer swung toward Lily, stretched one foreleg and bent the other, and lowered itself until the two touched heads. Then the animal folded its legs and lowered its white belly to the ground.
"You cannot be serious!" Wynn exclaimed. "What about a horse… or pony… anything else?"
Chap growled and huffed twice for "no." This time, it was not his voice in her head that made Wynn queasy.
"All right," she said uncertainly."All right."
Chapter Ten
How long has she been gone?" Brot'an asked in Belaskian.
Leesil didn't care to answer. He didn't want Brot'an's pretended help. He didn't want the tall elf anywhere in sight- especially not trailing after them through Crijheaiche as they hurried in search of Wynn.
"We don't know," Magiere fin
ally answered. "Not long… we hope."
Leesil could tell she was still spiteful that their weapons hadn't been returned.
Urhkar was already out in the forest, trying to find any trail left by the sage. Sgaile said majay-hi packs preferred to range the forest's depths in their leisure, so he was leading their search inland, away from the river. They all were in agreement that Wynn was likely far beyond the settlement's bounds. A human spotted wandering the community would have caused a disturbance.
They rounded a wide oak with a gnarled trunk, and Sgaile pulled up short. He held up his hand for everyone to stop.
A female elf, tall and impossibly thin, stood on the oak's far side before its curtained doorway. By what little light spilled out around the curtain, Leesil saw her filmy eyes as she raised one thin brow in calm puzzlement. She was elderly, dressed in a long maroon robe beneath a matching cloak. Pure white hair hung around her sunken cheeks as she leaned heavily upon a staff of rippled wood.
The old woman squinted at Leesil, studying him with silent interest.
Sgaile gave her a bow and turned away to move on.
"Who was that?" Leesil asked.
"Tosan'leag of the Avan'nыnsheach… theAshRiver clan, known for their scholarly pursuits.They make fine paper and ink, such as my grandfather gave your companion." Sgaile hesitated, and then added, "Clan elders have been arriving for days. Word of your presence has spread. Humans have never been given passage in our land before. We must find your companion before they hear she is missing."
"And before En’nish does," Magiere said under her breath.
Or before Wynn stumbled alone into a pack of majay-hi.Leesil only hoped Chap and the sage ran into each other first.
As they walked, Leesil saw more wide-bellied and gnarled oaks than in the few other parts of the settlement he'd seen. At night it wasn't easy to get a good look at Crijheaiche, but they'd been walking for a while and still hadn't reached its inland end. They passed many of the tree homes, but none of the canvas or otherwise handmade structures.
After a while, the domiciles thinned, and the forest ahead thickened beyond a clearing. When they stepped into the break in the trees, Leesil stood on the edge of a wide and shallow depression covered in low-trimmed grass.
