by Barb Hendee
"Go with her!" Wynn cried.
Magiere didn't look back. Only she could retrieve the orb-and only Li'kan could help. No one told Magiere this. No one had to. The pull to follow the white undead overrode everything else.
Li'kan emerged into the great library, and Magiere shook free of the undead's grip. Li'kan bolted on without waiting, and by the time Magiere caught up, the undead stood before the stone doors. Li'kan tucked one narrow white shoulder under the iron beam, midway along one door and just beyond its stone bracket. She wrapped her slender fingers around the rusted iron's bottom edge, waiting expectantly.
Magiere sheathed her falchion and set herself likewise at the other door's midpoint.
Li'kan's frail body tensed, and Magiere called hunger to flood her flesh as she shoved upward.
The beam's weight nearly crushed her back down, but Li'kan slowly straightened upward.
The frail undead's half of the beam rose steadily, until it cleared the stone bracket. But every joint in Magiere's body ached as she strained to follow. She pushed harder with her legs as Li'kan held her half up against the stone door.
Magiere was soaked in sweat by the time her end of the beam grated out of its stone bracket. She dropped it, stumbling away, and Li'kan released her end. The beam crashed and tumbled across the stone floor, and a metallic thunderclap echoed through the library.
Li'kan took hold of her bracket and began pulling. Magiere tried to do the same, but her side barely moved. When the space between was wide enough, the undead stopped and slipped in.
A strange sensation washed through Magiere as she stepped through the gap.
Not a strong one, but like the lightness that followed a heavy burden cast off, as if she might never feel fatigue or hunger again. Pain and exhaustion from nearly a moon in the mountains slipped away.
When Magiere regained her senses, Li'kan stood slumped in a downward-sloping dark tunnel of rough-hewn stone. The undead's features appeared to sag.
Rather than the release Magiere felt, some sorrow or loss seemed to envelop Li'kan. The white undead hesitated, back-stepping once, and shook her head slowly. Then her body lurched as if jerked forward, and she stepped downward along the tunnel.
Magiere followed Li'kan's dim form, but glanced back once, wondering if the doors behind should be shut. But the white woman kept going.
Far down the tunnel, along its gradual turn, Magiere saw pale orange light filtering from somewhere ahead. And by that dim light, she spotted strange hollows evenly lining both sides of the way.
As she moved on, her night sight sharpened.
A figure crouched inside each of those hollows. She stopped and peered into one.
Age-darkened bones almost melded with ancient stone, but the skeleton had not collapsed when its flesh rotted away ages ago. It was curled on its knees, almost fetally, with its forearms flattened beneath it. The skull top, too wide and large to be a man's or a woman's, rested downward between the remains of its hands. With its forehead pressed to the hollow's stone floor, its eyes had been lowered for centuries.
Like a worshipper waiting in obeisance for its master's return.
Magiere glanced back up the tunnel, turning about to look into hollows along the tunnel's other side. She saw only one occupant that had once been human. Others she couldn't guess.
Some of the crouched, curled forms were small, but one was huge, with an arching spine and thick finger bones that ended in cracked claws. A ridge of spiny bone rose over the top of its downcast skull.
The hollows stretched on, endlessly, toward the dim light down the tunnel.
Li'kan turned to move on. She never glanced once at the hollows, as if the occupants' endless vigil were only proper in her presence.
Through wide arcing turns spiraling down into the earth, Magiere followed. At every step, skeletons hunkered in their small dark hovels, their eyes averted from Li'kan's passing.
Leesil thrust and slashed at the dark-haired vampire, blocking her every attempt to get past him. She slashed back with her knife, hissing and twisting beyond the arc of his winged blades. Her jaws widened with small jagged teeth and protruding fangs. Beyond her, Chap harried a silver-haired undead and a younger male.
And then Chane rushed in and tried to duck around the woman.
Leesil shifted with a sharp slash of his right blade. Chane jerked up short, twisting away from the blade's passing tip, but the mad little female came at Leesil again. And a stocky man with an iron bar closed around her other side. Leesil panicked, facing three at once.
Chane lashed out with his longsword.
Leesil braced and deflected as the small woman hacked at him. He ducked away under the doubled assault.
Then the curly-haired one raced by him and disappeared from view.
Leesil was too overwhelmed to look back for Wynn, and then Sgaile flew past him, running straight at Welstiel.
Welstiel nearly cried out as the frail white undead turned and hauled Magiere down the narrow passage. Disbelief overtook his shock.
Was the ancient one assisting Magiere? But why-and where were the others?
Any guardians here should have turned on this dhampir intruder. His abandoned patron had whispered that Magiere would be necessary to overcome them-not be assisted by them.
Welstiel tried to rush through the skirmish for the passage.
A gray-green-clad elf stepped into his way.
He saw the booted foot an instant before it struck his temple. The chamber swam in swirling black. When he shook off the impact, the elf was gone.
A glinting line passed before Welstiel's eyes.
He dropped and felt the wire drag sharply over his hair.
Welstiel whirled and swung his longsword behind, faster than anything living could avoid. He had to get after Magiere.
The blade's tip shrieked across the floor, but the elf was not there.
Chap swerved between two undead, snapping at their legs until his jowls spattered black fluid every time he shook his head. He had to weaken one of them enough to pull it down-and soon-or he might not reach his companions before they were overrun. Yet nothing he did seemed to slow these undead. They cried out but never broke down.
The silver-haired male raked out with his fingernails but missed and stumbled. Chap took the opening and lunged up for his throat.
He might not take this thing's head off, but he could tear through to its spine and cripple it. As he bit down, cold fingers clutched his shoulders from behind.
Teeth sank through his fur at the back of his neck.
Chap yelped and lost his jaw-hold. He bucked and thrashed, trying to pitch off his attacker. The silver-haired male before him raked its fingernails along his muzzle.
He kicked back with rear paws, and felt his claws tear up the young one's thigh. It let out a muffled yelp but did not pull its teeth from his neck. Then Chap caught a glimpse of Wynn near the passage. She started to run for him with Magiere's old dagger in her hand.
No-stay back!
She faltered, and a rasping voice shouted, "Wynn!"
Chap twisted sharply under the teeth in his neck. And there was Chane.
Sgaile hopped clear of the white-templed undead's sweeping sword.
This one commanded the others, and it was best to take down a leader first.
But Sgaile was stunned by how quickly this undead had shaken off his kick and eluded his garrote. He stomped down on the sword to pin it.
The instant his foot pressed steel, the blade levered up sharply.
It lifted him as if he weighed nothing, and Sgaile let the force carry him up. He rose in the air, folding his legs as the sword slashed away, and then lashed out one foot the instant his other touched down.
His heel caught the undead in the face, but his leg ached under the jarring impact.
The man only spun and stumbled, twisting away, and Sgaile caught sight of Leshil.
Leshil held fast against two, as did Chap, but neither would last long. At least one
undead had to go down quickly, or the odds would take their toll.
Sgaile's attention was pulled in too many directions, and his gaze flicked back to his opponent.
He never saw the undead's sword coming.
Its tip ripped through his cowl and across his collarbone.
Welstiel watched the elf topple backward. Before the man's back hit the floor, Welstiel snatched up his pack, searching for a clear path to the passage.
Wynn stood near its entrance gripping a dagger. Sethe made a snarling, headlong rush around Leesil, closing on the sage. The other elf beside Wynn stepped between them.
"Protect my way!" Welstiel shouted to his ferals and charged for the passage.
The lanky young elf grabbed Sethe's wrist as the iron cudgel came down. They both struggled closer to the foray, but Chane's little sage still stood in Welstiel's way. Her eyes widened, and she raised the dagger as he came at her. Welstiel swung his pack.
The metal objects within clanged as the pack slammed Wynn aside. Welstiel bolted down the passage.
Chap saw Welstiel flee and Wynn flop away under the swinging pack. He felt his blood draining in the younger undead's teeth, and its weight bore him down.
It wanted his life, and he had nothing left to try as his companions were failing. All he could think was to give this leeching thing what it wanted- and more.
Chap's paws struck stone. His legs buckled as the gray-haired one descended on him and sank its teeth into the side of his throat. He rooted himself in stone…
For Earth, and the chamber's Air, and Fire from the heat of his own flesh. These he mingled with his own Spirit. He bonded with the elements of existence-and began to burn, as he had in turning on his own kin, when they had tried to kill Wynn.
She would not see him with her mantic sight this time, as trails of white phosphorescent vapor in the shape of flames flickered across his form.
Both undead upon him began to quiver.
Chane heard Welstiel's shout and went numb as Wynn tumbled away under the swinging pack. Then Welstiel was gone.
Hate welled in Chane-all that mattered to Welstiel was his prize.
He saw the lanky elf grappling with Sethe. Wynn tried to rise-too close to the struggling pair. Sabel threw herself at Leesil, and then screamed, her voice reverberating off the stone walls. And Chane knew she had been wounded.
But for him, there was only Wynn, and his hatred for Welstiel.
As Leesil and Sabel tangled, Chane took two quick steps and snatched the back of Sethe's robe. In a half-spin, he pulled the monk from his startled elven opponent and away from Wynn. He whipped Sethe around into Leesil's back. Half-blood and feral toppled over the screeching Sabel.
Wynn looked up at Chane, and he froze-then she scooted frantically away from him. Her round brown eyes filled with fear-not startled surprise or welcome relief-as she pointed her blade at him.
Chane shuddered, as if she had already cut him.
But the path from the chamber was clear, and this might be his only chance. He turned and ran-fled-down the passage. Hatred kept the pain from pulling him down.
He had lost his meager existence in Bela so long ago and bargained with Welstiel for a better one. He would have done-had done-anything to be a part of Wynn's world. But piece by piece, Welstiel's scheming had eaten away his hope…
All the way to that fear in Wynn's eyes.
Chane burst from the passage into an immense library, as if he had run blindly into Wynn's world only to find it dark and hollow, without even one of her cold lamp crystals to illuminate a single parchment. Footsteps echoed from far off to the right, and he clung to the sound, following it. He tried not to look upon the mocking wealth of knowledge surrounding him and came to the chamber's far end.
An enormous rusted iron beam lay before two massive stone doors. The sound of the footsteps came out between them.
A strange sensation washed through Chane as he stared into the dark opening, as if he felt something beyond it reaching for him. It smothered his hunger, until all he had left was sorrow and hate.
But Chane would not be alone in his loss.
He stepped through the stone doors, hunting for Welstiel.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Leesil's new winged blades were so solid on his arms that he didn't have to think about them. They moved with his body and will. He'd agreed instantly when Wynn had told Magiere to go, for they each had a part to play in keeping the orb from Welstiel.
But at what price?
From the corner of his eye, he saw Sgaile sprawled on the floor, but he could do nothing to help. He had to keep the savage female and Chane at bay. Then Welstiel broke through and ran down the corridor as Osha grappled with a large monk wielding an iron rod.
Desperation drove Leesil to move faster as Chane tried to dodge around. The small woman with the knife threw herself at him. He couldn't turn and stop Chane.
Leesil stepped wide to the left, leaning low, and then shifted right, putting all his weight behind a swing. His right blade tip tore along the woman's waist, splitting her robe open.
Viscous black fluids spilled down her bared abdomen as shock filled her colorless eyes. She screeched and grasped her belly, trying to hold herself together. Leesil brought his left blade across and high when he shifted back to the left.
A heavy weight slammed into his back.
He toppled onto the gutted woman.
Leesil lost sight of the others in a tangle of cold bodies and limbs.
Wynn watched numbly as Chane fled down the passage. She barely even noticed the stocky undead he had thrown into Leesil's back.
So many times she had wondered where Chane was, if he was all right, and if he would finally stay far from Magiere. To see him in company with Welstiel… it was too much.
Wynn came to her senses.
Leesil twisted on the floor in the tangle of two vampires. Sgaile was down, and Chap was in trouble. Any one of them could die.
Wynn clambered to her feet with Magiere's old dagger in her hand as Leesil rammed his elbow back and up. The muscular undead with the iron bar lay atop him, back to back, and its snarl choked off in a grunt as the wing tip of Leesil's blade sank through into its ribs.
Osha tried to close on the muscular undead, his hooked bone knife now gripped in place of one stiletto. The undead rolled off Leesil to its feet and went straight at Osha.
Sgaile curled, trying to pull his knees under and get up. Beneath the warmth of spreading blood, pain spiked in his left shoulder and spread up his neck. He lifted his head, and saw Chap half-buckled beneath two undead, their teeth buried in his neck.
Sgaile cried out.
And then a tingling wave washed over him.
It was much like what he had felt when he fully opened his awareness of Spirit to the life of his people's land. This gift he had been born with, which his grandfather had wanted him to use to become Shaper, had once raised his startled awareness to a majay-hi like no other. He had stood upon a rooftop in Bela, with Leshil in the sight of his shortbow. Then his gaze had fallen upon on Chap for the first time.
As Sgaile kneeled on the chamber floor, the overwhelming sense of Spirit enveloped him.
It radiated from Chap's hunkered form.
Both undead clamped upon the majay-hi began to shudder, but Sgaile saw only death feeding upon what was sacred. He flattened one foot on the floor stones and dove as he stretched out his right hand.
His fingers closed on the younger undead's robe-waist. He tried to twist, pulling down and away as he fell, but the effort cost him. As he crashed to the floor and rolled, all he could do was hold tight.
He pulled the undead away more easily than expected.
Its shriek pierced Sgaile's ears as it tripped on him and fell. Sgaile rolled clear of its flailing limbs and snatched his hand away. He rose on his knees, looking for Chap.
The majay-hi stood braced on all fours.
But the silver-haired undead no longer clung to him. It lay upon the s
tone floor and began to convulse.
Chap slowly turned his head, torso heaving in strained breaths. His muzzle was nearly black, and his neck was matted in his own blood as he glared at the undead.
Sgaile's gaze fixed on dark lines spidering across the pale form's face and bare forearm.
Black fluids welled around its eyes and ran from its ears. The spidering lines ruptured into cracks that bled more viscous fluids. Steam rose from its wounds in the chamber's cold air, as if heat had suddenly filled this dead thing to bursting.
Then it went limp, as did the younger one. Both lay as still as corpses, steaming as if freshly dead in the frigid air.
Chap snarled once and snapped his jaws closed on the old undead's neck. He ripped and tore at it for an instant, then halted, looking expectantly at Sgaile.
Leshil and Magiere had spoken of how they hunted undead, and Sgaile knew what Chap wanted.
He pulled the tie holding Leshil's old blades to his back. As the bundle hit the floor, he ripped it open and gripped one winged blade.
Sgaile hacked down through the younger corpse's neck with all his weight. Chap released the old one, stepping back, and Sgaile took its head as well.
Leesil heard an angry grunt as the heavy vampire rolled off his back. Before he could twist and slash at its legs, the woman beneath him latched her hand about his throat.
Her mouth widened with lips pulled back from long fangs and sharpened teeth.
Leesil slammed his left blade point through her side.
Her head arched back, eyes clenching shut, but her grip on his neck didn't break. Leesil couldn't get any air.
He levered his blade through her torso, until the point ground through her to the stone floor. When he lurched upward, her arm snapped straight, and he raised the right blade and fell on her.
The blade's outside edge sank into her throat. Leesil shoved down hard.
Black fluids welled over his hand and forearm, and then his blade cracked through her neck bones. Her head rolled away to one side, and Leesil turned over, ripping her limp hand from his throat.
Leesil gasped in air-just as he looked up to see Wynn ram her dagger into the back of the stocky vampire grappling with Osha.
