by Barb Hendee
“What if . . . ,” he began, but hesitated to say the name aloud. “What if another undead comes back past us?”
Wynn cocked her head at him. “No matter what has happened here, Chane would never harm me . . . and I will never allow him to harm Osha.”
Her reckless confidence infuriated Leesil. “Chane’s not the only one down there!”
Wynn turned her serious brown eyes on Sgäile. “Then make certain no one else gets past you.”
He nodded to her. “We must hurry.”
Leesil hated that Wynn was right. Gripping both blades, he slipped between the heavy doors, whispering sharply, “No one gets past us.”
Magiere turned and faced her half-brother, his sword in hand.
As always, her dhampir instincts never picked up his undead presence.
In a somewhat tattered cloak and scuffed boots, his hair was slicked back from his forehead and his white temples were tinged ocher in the cavern’s dull glow. He was still as poised as when she’d first met him in Miiska—and as arrogant as when he’d revealed his nature to her in the sewers of Bela.
He didn’t look surprised to see her.
That should have puzzled Magiere, but it didn’t.
Welstiel had followed her.
In all the years he had desired the orb, he’d never found it—never could—which was why he’d toyed with her. He needed her, and for more than just bypassing the guardians he’d believed were waiting in this place.
But he had nothing to say now that Magiere wanted to hear.
All his manipulations of her had left a trail of innocents, dead and butchered, in his path, from her own mother, Magelia, to the first owner of her Sea Lion Tavern, and on to Chesna, torn and bleeding to death on her father’s porch. Welstiel was a monster, regardless of their sharing a father— who’d given neither of them a choice in what they were.
Magiere hesitated with a quick glance at Li’kän.
The white undead gave Welstiel no notice, gazing only at the orb with her fingertips poised on the metal hoop about her throat.
Magiere didn’t care to face Welstiel out on the narrow bridge above the chasm. She had to either lure him to the platform or drive him back to the hollow of the cavern’s entrance.
“No, not at all what I expected,” Welstiel repeated.
“What didn’t you expect?” she asked, hoping he might advance.
“I am moved by the sight of you.” But his tone carried no such sentiment. “Your black hair, that old armor, and you . . . so determined that you actually found it. We are alike, you and I. We share the same blood.”
Her welcome old anger finally came to her.
“I have blood—you don’t. We’re nothing alike!”
“No? But you can feel it, just as I can.”
Welstiel held both arms out wide in a grand gesture, sword still in hand, and smiled softly.
Magiere did feel it—her hunger had become distant, like a vague memory. She felt all of the dhampir within her, yet her mind was clear.
Welstiel lowered his arms. “Take it, Magiere. Bring it to me. I understand it as no one else does, and what it can do . . . for us. It is freedom from what our father put upon us.”
And Magiere saw the tactic she needed.
Her intentions for the orb didn’t matter. Telling Welstiel it belonged with the sages would only keep him arguing. She was tired of his coy persuasion, always pulling her off balance or driving her where he wanted.
“I understand it,” she hissed. “No more hunger, yes? No more hunger . . . for me!”
She settled a hand on the orb’s spike, tilted her head down, and cast him a mocking glance.
“I don’t share what’s already mine!”
Welstiel’s eyes flicked toward Li’kän, but the ancient undead remained enraptured by the orb. Magiere slid her falchion from its sheath, sweeping the blade up before her, and Welstiel shifted his gaze to it.
Magiere felt sickened for an instant. Her half-brother had made this weapon, connecting him to her. And still, he hesitated upon the bridge.
Did he wonder if he could survive against a hunter of the dead, the thing he’d helped create? No, his real fear was making the wrong choice and losing his prime desire—the orb, his obsession.
Magiere grew anxious. She’d never been good at manipulation. She met things head-on, the only way she knew how to win. And she couldn’t wait any longer.
She took a step onto the bridge toward Welstiel.
A presence—another undead—expanded in her awareness, and she stopped.
Chane walked toward them along the narrow stone bridge, longsword in hand.
He too looked weatherworn, but his red-brown hair was cut jaggedly shorter than the last time she’d seen him—on the night she’d taken his head in Droevinka. As he drew closer, she saw the scar around his throat. Vapor rising from the chasm left a sheen upon his pale skin.
Welstiel never looked back; he simply smiled. The odds had changed.
But Chane’s sudden appearance didn’t make Magiere fearful for herself. She had left Leesil and the others to watch her back, and yet here was Chane. So what had become of her companions?
Where was Leesil?
“I have no need to kill you, Magiere,” Welstiel said. “Just bring me the orb . . . and after I leave, you and yours can go.”
Chane halted and flinched sharply. His gaze fixed on Welstiel’s back.
Magiere had no time to ponder Chane’s strange pause. She’d never faced Welstiel in a straight-up fight, not as she had with Chane. And Chane had nearly bested her twice. Her main advantage now became the bridge’s narrow path. Only one of them could come at her at a time, if she blocked both from getting to the platform.
Even if Welstiel did get past her, Magiere didn’t believe Li’kän would allow him near the orb. She shook her head slowly.
“You’re such a coward,” she said. “Always in hiding, killing the defense-less in the dark.”
“I saved you!” he answered, and anger leaked into his voice. “I brought you to that village myself! I left you armor and my own weapon, and amulets that kept you alive, until you faced who and what you are.”
“So selfless!” she spit. “Take my head then, and you can have it all back . . . along with your prize.”
Welstiel suddenly half-crouched upon the bridge, clearing Magiere’s view of Chane.
“Kill her,” he said calmly.
Magiere tensed.
Chane swung his longsword back and forth like a pendulum. With glittering hatred in his eyes, he arched the blade back and up—and then lunged in behind Welstiel, dropping low.
Magiere went rigid, but Chane didn’t leap toward her.
He grabbed Welstiel’s left forearm and slammed Welstiel’s hand upon the bridge. Welstiel fell to one knee. Before he could turn or jerk free, Chane brought his sword down.
The blade split through Welstiel’s gloved fingers and clanged upon the stone.
Welstiel cried out in pain—and Magiere’s instincts sharpened.
Welstiel’s undead presence flooded Magiere’s awareness, like a curtain ripped away from a window to expose the night outside. He dropped his sword, and it clattered on the bridge as he grabbed his maimed hand.
Chane snatched up Welstiel’s severed fingers and backed up along the bridge.
“Kill her yourself!” he rasped and turned to run.
He reached the cavern’s entrance hollow and vanished in a pocket of darkness beyond the reach of the chasm’s light.
Magiere held her place in stunned confusion.
She watched Welstiel’s pale face twist. Black fluids dripped from his fingerless hand as he stood up, looking after Chane. Then he whirled to face her.
Open fear flickered across Welstiel’s features. He quickly snatched up his sword and backed along the bridge.
Magiere spasmed as another undead presence filled up her senses.
Beyond Welstiel, the muscular undead with the iron bar stepped i
nto the chasm’s dim light.
“Here!” Welstiel shouted. “Defend me!”
Magiere rushed onto the bridge to take Welstiel’s head.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Chane stepped into the cavern’s entrance hollow still clutching Welstiel’s severed fingers—one of which wore the arcane ring of nothing.
He felt no hunger at all. Why?
Welstiel’s pack lay against the hollow’s near wall. He must have set it aside before facing Magiere. Chane grabbed it as he headed for the tunnel.
Running footsteps echoed from the entrance, and he stopped short.
Whether it was one of Welstiel’s ferals or Leesil and the others, Chane was too weary for a fight. All he wanted was to get away from this place. He turned back to the chasm’s edge.
Reaching around the landing’s side, he felt for the lip of the nearest pocket in the cavern wall. When he found a secure hold, he swung out and into the pocket.
He landed face-to-face with a mound of slick stone, like a half-formed figure rising out of the rock floor. He wriggled past to crouch in the rear and began pulling the glove’s remnants off Welstiel’s severed fingers.
The second one bore the ring of nothing, slick with black fluids.
Chane slipped it over his own finger without bothering to wipe it off.
The pocket’s walls wavered briefly in his sight.
Leesil ran down the arcing tunnel, followed by Sgäile. He slowed only once when he spotted the skeletons in their stone cubbies. Chap raced on, giving them no notice.
The dog’s eerie hunting cry rolled along the tunnel walls an instant before Leesil burst out into a widened hollow.
Hundreds more cubbies pockmarked the vast cavern before him. Vapor wafted up from the glowing chasm, partly obscuring four narrow stone bridges arcing out to a stone platform above the wide chasm’s center. Magiere stood but one step off the platform along the nearest bridge—with Welstiel a few paces in front of her.
“Get to that one!” Sgäile shouted, pointing with Leesil’s old blade.
The muscular undead stepped to the bridge.
Leesil didn’t see Chane anywhere as he sprinted forward. Chap closed first and snapped his jaws on the hem of the undead’s robe.
“Hold him!” Leesil shouted.
He grabbed the big undead’s robe between the shoulders, trying to get a grip with his punching blade still in hand. From the corner of his eye, he saw Welstiel block Magiere’s first swing.
Leesil heaved hard as Chap lurched backward with his jaws clenched. The undead’s robe began to tear in the dog’s teeth. The muscular vampire stumbled as Sgäile closed from behind, raising Leesil’s old winged blade.
The undead set his feet and twisted sharply around, swinging the iron bar.
Leesil’s grip broke as the robe tore in his hand. He teetered, and Sgäile barely ducked as the iron bar arced through the air. It came straight at Leesil’s neck.
He had no chance to regain his balance and raised both blades.
The bar connected with a sharp metal clang. The sound vibrated through his forearms as he was thrown off his feet.
Leesil landed hard on the stone floor.
The bulky undead lunged again for the bridge.
Magiere willed rage to come, pushing everything but Welstiel from her mind. Fury, like an echo of lost hunger, flooded Magiere at her first swing.
Welstiel blocked her blow with his longsword and stroked it aside, but his maimed left hand spattered black fluids all around. He retreated another step, drawing her further out onto the bridge. Rising vapor dampened Magiere’s hair and strands of it clung to her cheeks.
“This is not necessary,” Welstiel nearly shouted. “I know it speaks to you and fills your head with deception. Do not listen to that thing hiding in slumber, toying with us both! Everything I have done is to protect the orb—”
“For yourself!” Magiere returned.
Mention of that whispering voice, the connection between him and her, only made fury grow inside her. She snarled and swung again.
Welstiel dipped his longsword, catching her heavier falchion.
Beneath the impact of steel, he faltered, and quickly shifted his block. Magiere’s blade slid along his and spun away. Welstiel came about and slashed for her throat. She didn’t have time to pull the falchion up, and had to drop low.
The longsword passed just above her head. She jerked her falchion back, slicing across his side.
Welstiel’s mouth gaped beneath his widened eyes, and he retreated another step.
The blade he’d created to defend himself against their father was now used against him. He felt its searing touch just like any other undead.
Magiere flushed with pleasure at his pain—and wanted to hurt him more.
As her mother, Magelia, had lain bleeding to death in her birthing bed, Welstiel had taken her only child, born of rape by an undead father and the blood rite of a necromancer.
But Bryen and Ubâd were gone. Only Welstiel remained to suffer for all three.
Magiere reached behind with her free hand. She pulled the long silvery war dagger from the back of her belt.
Leesil flopped over and slashed for the undead’s leg. His blade’s tip sliced across its calf, splitting cleanly through boot cuff and breeches. The vampire whipped its curly-haired head around.
Maddened eyes fixed upon Leesil. It swung down with the iron bar, and he twisted the other way. Stone chips scattered over his face as the bar’s end cracked upon the floor.
Leesil slammed his blade down atop the bar before the undead could lift it again. Chap lunged in, wrapping his jaws around the undead’s other ankle, and Leesil saw the split where he’d struck its calf.
Thin trails of black fluids still ran down its leg—but no wound remained. It had already closed.
The iron bar lurched, squealing with sparks as it scraped free of Leesil’s blade. He looked up as Sgäile kicked out hard.
The undead’s head snapped back under the blow. Chap released his jaws and bit into the side of the man’s knee.
“Over the edge!” Sgäile shouted. “Into the chasm!”
Leesil kicked into the undead’s other knee as Chap shredded the one in his teeth.
Sgäile whirled. His foot lashed out and connected again.
Leesil caught a glimpse of Magiere.
Welstiel backed along the bridge. Magiere charged him with both sword and dagger drawn.
Magiere flipped her dagger, gripping it point down. The heavy falchion was slower than Welstiel’s longsword, and she might not parry well with the dagger. But the silvery blade braced along her forearm might keep her from losing a hand if she had to block. All that mattered was stopping Welstiel’s sword, just for one moment.
