Between Their Worlds_A Novel of the Noble Dead

by Barb Hendee

  “Over there,” Leesil said. He turned down that side street, but halfway along the first block, he froze and spun to his left.

  “What now?” Magiere mumbled.

  Leesil peered into a cutway between the buildings, but it was too dark to see where the back end might meet an alley behind the buildings. He could swear something had moved in the corner of his sight. It was only an instant’s glimpse when . . .

  “Leesil!” Magiere hissed. She dropped the chest, and it thudded onto the street.

  Leesil spun back as Chap snarled.

  A tall figure stood midstreet, short of the next crossing road. He’d barely made it out when a memory raised by Chap filled his head. That image echoed what he saw.

  The light of the far porch lanterns didn’t help much, but the figure wore a cloak with the corners tied up around its waist. The fabric of its leggings and sleeves was dark, but tinted to green. And in that memory he saw what his eyes couldn’t make out within the shadow of its cowl.

  Above a wrap of forest gray across its mouth and nose were large amber, almond-shaped eyes below high, feathery blond eyebrows in a face darkly tanned.

  The figure in the street was an anmaglâhk, a member of a caste of spies and assassins among the an’Cróan, the elven people of the eastern continent. Something narrow, the length of a forearm, glinted silvery in both of the figure’s hands.

  Leesil heard someone land too softly down the street behind him, and he jerked free the bindings on the sheaths lashed to his thighs. As Magiere ripped her falchion from its sheath, he pulled both winged punching blades, whirling to face whoever was behind them.

  Another anmaglâhk stood silent up the street.

  How could they be here—now—from the other side of the world?

  Chap’s sudden snarl cut off in a clack of his teeth. Leesil barely looked back as Chap bolted forward, straight at the one blocking the way. Before Leesil could shout at the dog to stop, a barrage of memories flooded his head.

  He saw himself and Magiere running through the elven forest in the Farlands. Then came an earlier time when they’d fled from being outnumbered by Lord Darmouth’s men in Leesil’s own homeland. Images came faster and faster, all of them memories of flight.

  They weren’t outnumbered here, but Leesil couldn’t mistake Chap’s intention—if they quickly overwhelmed the one ahead of them, they might be able to make a break.

  “Run!” Leesil shouted to Magiere, as he dashed after Chap.

  Another forest gray figure dropped from the rooftops. It landed a dozen paces ahead, between Chap and the first anmaglâhk. Smaller and slighter, it instantly charged, and Chap swerved into its path. Leesil kept his focus on the first one until . . . the second smaller one leaped.

  Chap’s teeth clacked on empty air as the small anmaglâhk hurdled over him.

  The option to run was gone, and Leesil swerved into the small one’s path. He blocked its first slash with his left blade. In that instant, he saw its—her—eyes. Everything around him seemed to grow still and quiet.

  Leesil had faced these assassins more than once, blade for blade. He knew their cold, dispassionate, deadly calm. His mother had been one of them and trained him in their way, but this small anmaglâhk’s amber eyes glistened, as if they might well with tears. They weren’t filled with the calm of an assassin fixed on its target. They were overwhelmed with anguish that had built to fury.

  Leesil almost faltered. He’d seen eyes like those before . . . when they recognized him.

  They had looked upon him in youth and long after. They peered at him within his dreams, out of faces ravaged by grief. They watched him in his sleep for every life he’d taken at the order of Darmouth, who had held him and his parents as slave servants.

  Those were the eyes that starved for vengeance.

  But of all he’d killed in his youth, not one had been a member of this elven people, the an’Cróan—“Those of the Blood.” His only an’Cróan victim had come much later, and it had been one of the anmaglâhk.

  One night, when he’d stopped over in the Warlands on his way to the an’Cróan’s hidden land to find his mother, two anmaglâhk had gone after the warlord Darmouth. Leesil, along with Chap and Magiere, had been forced to defend that tyrant. In the end, a master anmaglâhk named Brot’an had tricked him into murdering Darmouth. But before that, Brot’an’s accomplice, Groyt, had come at him. Leesil had killed Groyt in self-defense, but that meant nothing to those left in grief.

  Leesil never forgot the names of those he’d killed or those his victims left behind. And now he faced a victim of grief.

  Én’nish, betrothed of Groyt, slashed a hook-bladed bone knife at Leesil’s throat.

  He caught the strike with his left blade, and his mind cleared. He would take the guilt heaped upon him, for he’d earned that. He could suffer that and more, as he already had, to get Magiere away from here.

  Leesil drove the point of his other winged blade for Én’nish’s midsection.

  Chap’s hope of flight vanished when the small anmaglâhk leaped over him. He did not turn back for it.

  If Leesil could handle that one elven assassin, perhaps Magiere could fend off those coming from behind. But they all had to reach the next intersection, or they would be boxed in.

  Chap had to take down the one that remained in their way.

  He had no idea how these assassins had made it here—or how they had even picked up a trail. But there was no need to guess who they were after. Aoishenis-Ahâre—Most Aged Father, patriarch of the Anmaglâhk—had wanted Magiere dead since the day they all walked into the Elven Territories, and then left that place still alive.

  When the first anmaglâhk charged wide, trying to follow its smaller comrade, it did not surprise Chap. He turned to intercept it, head-on. The elf instantly slowed, slashing down with an oversized bone knife, its silvery white blade curved into a hook.

  The blade passed through air before Chap had even closed, and he saw hesitation in the male elf’s eyes.

  He had been uncertain if this advantage would hold. Apparently, it did. Even among anmaglâhk, all an’Cróan feared harming a sacred majay-hì. He would not be so kind in turn.

  Chap leaped, snapping for the man’s face, and the anmaglâhk spun out of his reach. As he landed, the elf tried to charge onward, and he wheeled around. He quickly closed from behind, jaws spread, ready to tear out the back of the elf’s knee.

  Magiere saw Leesil dash out in front of her and clash blades with the smaller anmaglâhk ahead of them. As the first anmaglâhk who’d appeared tried to close, Chap wheeled around it, coming at it from behind. At the snap of his jaws, that elf dove forward upon the cobble and rolled aside to its feet.

  Magiere’s senses widened fully, and the night lit up her sight.

  Her eyes watered at the stinging points of lantern lights down the street. Hunger welled like acid rising from her stomach into her throat, and that burning flushed through every muscle and bone. Her jaw ached under the change in her teeth.

  She heard and felt through the street’s cobble the running footsteps behind her. She spun away to the street’s side, whipping her falchion in a level arc amid her turn.

  A tall anmaglâhk ducked under the blade. Before she could reverse, he charged straight at a shack’s front. Her reason gone, instinct drove Magiere to turn fast. Instinct was too late.

  She barely finished a direct thrust, and all her falchion did was shatter through the shack’s boards. The anmaglâhk took another step upward, as if running up the wall. He pushed off, arching over her head before she could rip her sword free.

  Magiere knew a blade in her back was next—but it never came.

  One arm suddenly wrapped around her throat. The other shot out around her, as he gripped her wrist above her sword hand. His weight pressed on her as he wrenched her neck to the right.

  Magiere began to topple under the strength of her assailant. Amid the twist, he folded her sword arm in against her stomach. He was trying t
o put her down and pin her.

  Shock and panic cleared her mind, and her hunger receded partway. Anmaglâhk didn’t fight like this. They came like ghosts in the dark, only felt by the touch of a fist, foot, or sharp, silver-white weapons.

  Rage and hunger flooded back in, until it was all that was left in Magiere’s mind.

  She latched her free hand on to the forearm around her neck and threw her own strength into their toppling spin. She caught a glimpse of Leesil fighting the smaller anmaglâhk, and then her view filled with buildings across the street.

  Magiere grounded her feet and heaved with both legs.

  The shack’s corner crackled as her weight and effort slammed the anmaglâhk back into it. His grip on her neck faltered, and she thrashed free, ripping her sword arm out of his grip. She slashed at him as she turned, but he ducked, and her falchion tore a hunk out of the shack’s corner.

  “Fhœt’as-na â, äm-an!”

  Magiere barely heard that shout in the street, and then her left leg suddenly gave way. She stumbled in confusion, and only then did a searing pain cut through her heat. She looked down with wide eyes.

  An arrow shaft protruded through Magiere’s left thigh, and her leg buckled completely.

  * * *

  Leesil’s thrust missed as Én’nish bent her midsection like a marsh reed. All he could do before her next thrust was throw himself at her. Something struck the inside of his right calf, forcing his foot to slip, but it wasn’t enough. He slammed down on top of her.

  Rolling off, he slashed wildly with one blade, and heard a clang of metal. He kicked out once but didn’t connect as he spun away into the street.

  Coming up into a crouch, he saw Én’nish do the same.

  She stared at him with a hatred he’d seen cast his way more than once. Holding out her curved bone knife, she had reverse gripped it in her left hand, ready to hook one of his own blades when he came at her. Her other hand wielded a narrow stiletto of the same silver-white metal, ready to thrust in low where he’d have to drop his own second blade to catch it.

  Én’nish’s eyes shifted for less than a blink, but Leesil didn’t catch where she’d glanced.

  “Fhœt’as-na â, äm-an!” she shouted.

  Leesil didn’t understand the words, but he whipped his head both ways.

  To the right, Chap circled the first anmaglâhk, who was on his feet but too hesitant to close on the dog. To the left, a rearward anmaglâhk struggled to regain his feet, while yet a fourth had dropped from a rooftop and was rushing toward the street side. Magiere was crumpled on one knee, struggling to get up.

  An arrow shaft stuck out both sides of her left thigh.

  Én’nish shifted into Leesil’s path, blocking his sight as the fourth anmaglâhk closed on Magiere. Leesil couldn’t hesitate any longer.

  He charged, thrusting both blades at Én’nish’s head as he shouted, “Chap, Magiere’s hit! Archer on the roof!”

  Én’nish whipped her head aside, thrusting the stiletto under at him, and he slashed downward with both hands.

  His left blade pulled down her bone knife hooked in the winged blade’s handle. He felt something grate along his left side, catching briefly in his hauberk’s iron rings. A tearing sound came and went, but he didn’t know if it came from his armor or her clothes.

  Én’nish spun out of Leesil’s way before his right blade could take off her hand.

  Leesil didn’t slow as he spotted Magiere trying to rise. Racing toward her, he slashed wildly at the fourth anmaglâhk closing in just before he rammed straight into Magiere. She toppled backward into the cutway under his force, and Leesil blindly slashed back to fend off anyone behind him.

  He hated to leave Chap alone in the open, but he had no choice, and Chap could outdistance anyone here, if he had to.

  Leesil kicked out at the anmaglâhk still trying to regain his feet at the shack’s corner. That one ducked and somehow spun into the cutway’s mouth, rising with a blade in each hand. Én’nish had to be closing by now, and Leesil had lost track of the fourth elf, but he couldn’t look back. He had to keep the one in front of him from turning around and going after Magiere.

  Something thin and silvery flashed downward before Leesil’s face.

  He had barely an instant to thrust upward with his right winged blade. A garrote caught on the tip of his blade. Then a knee rammed into his back as the wire’s wielder pulled it tight. His blade jerked in against his chest, its tip and the wire cinched against his throat.

  “Yield, or she dies . . . you all die!” Én’nish hissed behind him.

  Her accent was thick but the words were perfect Belaskian, Leesil’s native tongue, and the words stuck in his head.

  Yield, or she dies . . .

  They were trying to take Magiere alive.

  Magiere stumbled along the shack’s wall in the cutway’s darkness where Leesil had shoved her, and she then crumpled. Even with piercing pain in her thigh, she struggled to gain her feet. At the sounds of clashing weapons and Chap’s snarls out in the street, she clawed up the wall and looked back.

  In the cutway’s mouth stood the black silhouette of an anmaglâhk, and beyond him . . .

  Leesil stood a few paces from the cutway’s mouth with the point of one of his own winged blades at his throat. For an instant, Magiere didn’t understand, and then she spotted the forest gray, cowled head over Leesil’s left shoulder.

  A silver-white garrote was pulled tight around his neck. Only his blade’s tip kept the wire from cutting into his throat.

  At that sight, fear flooded through Magiere, and hunger rose to eat her pain. She felt her eyeteeth elongate as reason died under fury, and she tried to shout at the one holding Leesil. All that came from her throat was a harsh, high-pitched screech that filled the night air.

  The anmaglâhk in the cutway’s mouth stiffened and backed up a half step.

  Magiere shrieked as she charged.

  Leesil’s mouth opened, perhaps shouting to her, but she didn’t hear him. She gripped the falchion’s hilt with both hands. Nothing mattered but killing anyone that touched him—anything that even got near him. She didn’t get far.

  Magiere lurched to a halt, arching backward, as something pulled her cloak taut from behind. She tried to slash back with her falchion one-handed, but the long, heavy blade rammed against the narrow cutway’s wall. She struggled to turn and grab hold of her cloak.

  A sharp strike landed on Magiere’s shoulder at the base of her neck. The night’s brightness dimmed as everything spun in her sight. She lost her grip on the falchion as she was wrenched back down the cutway.

  “Magiere!”

  Leesil couldn’t help crying out when she suddenly lurched backward into the cutway’s deeper darkness. She vanished from his sight. In only a breath, he heard the clatter of heavy steel, as if her sword had dropped. Fear turned him cold.

  How could so many anmaglâhk be coming at them from so many directions? He had just shoved Magiere into the hands of another waiting there in the dark cutway. But the one between him and the opening froze and didn’t follow her. That one didn’t even turn around as he whispered something sharp in Elvish.

  Leesil couldn’t follow the words, but he felt Én’nish fidget behind him. She barked an answer, and the only part he recognized and understood was “bârtva’na”—no, do nothing. Then he was jerked back as Én’nish shouted up the street.

  “Vorthash majay-hì—äm-an!”

  Leesil spotted Chap still ranging there. The one anmaglâhk that the dog kept at bay glanced toward Én’nish and then back down at Chap. That one raised his blades to poised positions, and then he hesitated.

  Én’nish shouted again in greater anger, and Leesil took his chance. He slammed his free arm back, driving his elbow and a blade’s long wing tip at Én’nish’s abdomen.

  It struck nothing.

  The wire cinched tighter around Leesil’s neck, and his pinned blade tip bit into his skin.

  All that Chap had bee
n able to do was hold one anmaglâhk at bay. He could outrun and cut off any one of them, but he could not fully outmaneuver his adversary. In his effort, he had backed farther and farther toward Leesil and Magiere. Even in his rushes at his opponent, he had not laid tooth or claw into the man. Yet his adversary still appeared unwilling to strike him. And somewhere above was an archer.

  Magiere had been hit, and Chap had not even been able to turn to see what had happened to her.

  “Vorthash majay-hì— äm-an !”

  Chap understood the shout: Kill the majay-hì—now!

  The anmaglâhk’s eyes flickered above the forest gray wrap across his lower face. He raised his weapons but still did not attack. When the shout from the female came again, his eyes rose, glancing down the street.

  Chap took two lunging steps and leaped.

  Both of his forepaws struck the man’s chest. As his weight followed, the elf began to topple. Chap struck with his rear paws, tearing at the man’s thighs, snapping his teeth at the man’s face. The elf jerked his head away, and his skull struck the cobble first under Chap’s bulk.

  Chap spun off, charging down the street, but his breath caught. The smaller anmaglâhk had a garrote around Leesil’s throat, and Magiere was nowhere to be seen. Panic quickened Chap’s heartbeat more than his efforts. As he was about to throw himself at Leesil’s captor, he heard a breathy hiss in the night air and twisted aside.

  An arrow tip struck the cobble a stride to his right.

  Chap glanced up as he raced on, and he tried to gauge from where the arrow had come. He caught the soft puff of a bowstring’s release, and he quickly swerved again.

  No arrow struck the street. The sound of the bowstring had not come from along the first arrow’s path, but a barking Elvish curse followed from that direction.