The Night Voice

by Barb Hendee

  Another white face suddenly appeared before her.

  It nearly glowed in her fully widened sight, and those eyes—irises—without color made hunger burn until its pain drove her again. She struck, not knowing with what or how.

  As its jaws widened, exposing feral teeth and fangs, a heavy blade cleaved into its face.

  Its skull split halfway through.

  Blackened fluids welled and splattered across steel.

  It went down, slipping from her sight, but there were always more.

  Some were not pale, and she lashed out at the bristled head that appeared, its face like an animal’s overlying bones barely human. Hardened nails tore into its jaw, grated on bone beneath, and she thought she heard the sounds of screaming.

  This meant nothing, and neither did her own pain, for the hunger ate any agony and fed upon it.

  White light filled the dark sky as more screaming rose all around.

  The sound tore at her ears and into the skull. The light hurt her eyes and skin. Even hunger couldn’t eat it away. Fright took its place.

  Magiere thought of something . . . something . . . she’d forgotten.

  The longer that light hurt her, the more its pain tried to make her remember.

  Then it was gone, leaving only darkness for an instant. All around her, there were still shouts, snarls, sounds that could never be human. Compared to what she’d heard only moments ago, it all seemed as quiet as whispers.

  The howling and snarls grew louder. Screams, shouts, and worse answered.

  Magiere stared about at forms racing and charging and tearing at one another again. Some of them were true animals . . . wolves but not.

  And that light was gone, so where was Wynn?

  Magiere remembered.

  She’d lost herself and rushed into the slaughter that she’d started. Every undead in sight had turned on anything living, as if it felt her own hunger. What had she done? She should’ve led, lured, or driven them to the light of Wynn’s staff.

  And that light had come and gone.

  Magiere’s fragile awareness almost broke when she saw one majay-hì—and another and another—tear through the horde around her. There weren’t enough of them. Magiere spun, her body now in agony from every wound she’d taken, but she hacked and tore her way north out of the carnage.

  She had to find Wynn and that light.

  • • •

  Wynn gripped her staff with both hands. She stood in the darkness, hidden now near the edge of the battle. Chap was still and silent beside her, likely at equal loss for what to do.

  There was no place else they could go.

  Running to some other vantage point would have only made it harder to close in when needed. They could only hope they wouldn’t be spotted by anything in that chaos before they had to act.

  Magiere had to be in there somewhere.

  Wynn couldn’t tell one thing from another in the dark amid those black silhouettes setting upon one another. She heard the packs of majay-hì, but they were not going to last long against so many.

  “Where is she?” Wynn whispered.

  Chap didn’t answer, but something broke out of the masses in the dark. One form seemed to run toward them, and Wynn snatched the glasses dangling about her neck.

  Whether that was Magiere or not, she would have to light her staff again. In spite of that weapon, she couldn’t stop the fear.

  —Think only of the staff’s light . . . and be ready—

  Chap’s words were no comfort.

  Wynn saw more night-shadow figures break from the battle and chase after that first one. When that one came even closer, she thought she was prepared. The first glimpse of a pale face, wild black hair and fully black eyes, and a hauberk darkened with stains made her sick and horrified.

  Magiere slowed at the sight of Wynn and turned to face what followed her.

  Wynn fought the urge to run to Magiere and raised the staff’s crystal high.

  And still, Chap didn’t give the command.

  More figures came rushing toward Magiere. All she did was raise up the falchion, gripping it in both hands, and stand there. Filthy hair and feral faces became clear to Wynn’s eyes. She heard them now—their snarls, shrieks, or shouts—over the battle’s noise as they raced toward that one lone figure standing in their path.

  Magiere raised her blade higher.

  Wynn pressed the glasses with their dark lenses over her eyes, not wanting to see what would happen, and . . .

  —Now—

  Chap bolted, putting some distance between himself and the impending light.

  The words tore out of her mouth instead of flashing through her thoughts.

  “Mên Rúhk el-När . . . mênajil il’Núr’u mên’Hkâ’ät!”

  White light erupted from the staff’s crystal and burned away the night above and around Wynn.

  • • •

  Light exploded behind Magiere. It felt like fire all over her exposed flesh, and yet it did not affect her otherwise. It did not even slow her down.

  The closest one coming at her was a ghul.

  It was instantly swallowed in smoke exploding from its own flesh. Amid wails rising to almost human screams, it fell and began thrashing, trying to burrow into the hardened ground. Two pale-faced figures rounded it, and then staggered as flame sprouted to dance over their exposed hands and faces.

  The frenzied terror of so many screams, shrieks, and wails smothered all sounds of battle left behind. Those farther back and too far to see scattered.

  Magiere’s self-control broke again.

  She rushed into the smoke, taking off a charred head, and before it hit the ground, she’d already fixed on her next prey.

  • • •

  Leesil braced for the charge of the last locatha—or the only one on its feet that he could see. He rolled and flopped aside as it tried to stomp on him. When he tried to push up to all fours, its immense tail came around at his head, and he had to drop again. His right hand was empty. The stiletto was gone, but he still held a winged blade in his left hand.

  That scaled appendage whipped across his hair in passing too close.

  There was no chance to look for Brot’an or the second guard that he hoped he’d put down. He shoved off, sliding backward, and rolled over to gain his feet.

  Leesil pulled his second punching blade, and that thing was still coming.

  At a sudden scraping thud, it buckled forward in a lurched stop . . . and turned.

  Leesil saw Chane right behind the third locatha with his longsword drawn and double gripped. He—and hopefully Ore-Locks—must have arrived inside the passage and run toward the fight.

  Chane’s eyes widened in shock as the huge guard spun on him. Leesil didn’t see a mark on its back from Chane’s strike, and then he spotted Ghassan stepping out of the darkness from beneath the overhang—as if he had gone inside the entrance.

  Leesil had forgotten the domin was even with them, but what was Ghassan doing in there?

  Another movement pulled his gaze.

  Brot’an pushed up off the ground, the first guard lying still at his feet, its face covered in blackish red blood. The second locatha lay still as well. Leesil’s stiletto must have driven in deep enough. And just as Leesil quickly looked back to the last guard . . .

  Brot’an stumbled.

  Leesil flinched at the sight. For Brot’an never stumbled. Then his gaze met Chane’s for an instant. Chane’s shock vanished, and he raised his sword in a step to strike again. Leesil knew what Chane was doing. Ore-Locks then charged out of the dark and past Ghassan, his broader blade already drawn.

  Their weapons weren’t going to put that thing down, but they would keep its attention.

  Leesil fixed on the locatha’s thick, whipping tail. As Chane lunged just before Ore-Locks c
losed, Leesil knew the creature was still aware of him behind it. He wasn’t in a good way, judging by the pain in his side, but when he heard Chane’s blade scrape off the scaled hide, he charged.

  Everything depended on Chane—and Ore-Locks—so that thing didn’t have a chance to turn around. Leesil waited until Ore-Locks swung the heavy blade. He heard it hit, saw the locatha recoil, and he leaped.

  His left foot struck the base of its tail. He pushed up and wrapped his left arm, winged blade and all, around its neck below its jaws. Its large hand instantly clamped on his forearm, and even with the winged blade biting its palm, that grip crushed down. Ignoring the pain, Leesil rammed the point of his other winged blade into the side of its right eye.

  He almost lost his hold when its head thrashed back.

  He had to lean aside or be hit in the face, and he rammed the blade again, this time into the base of its jaw. He didn’t even know if Chane or Ore-Locks was still hacking at it until it began to teeter backward. All he could do was throw himself off it.

  His side hurt even more when he slammed down and had to thrash over out of the way before it fell on him. When he rolled over, he saw something he’d never expected.

  Ore-Locks dropped on top of that thing, or right beside it, and sank into the rocky surface. And as he did so, he wrapped one arm over its bloodied head and pulled the head down—straight through the stone.

  The whole scaled body convulsed, limbs thrashing, and then it lay still.

  Leesil just stared, not blinking, until Ore-Locks resurfaced partly, but he didn’t come fully out of the ground. By torchlight, he looked utterly strained and weakly reached up with one arm. Leesil tried to scramble toward him.

  Chane’s sword clattered on stone as he dropped it, grabbed Ore-Locks’s arm with both hands, and had to heave to pull the dwarf out atop the stone slope. Ore-Locks half lay there, and Chane snatched up his sword again, raised it, and turned to make certain neither of the other two guards moved at all.

  Everything seemed so quiet for so long.

  Leesil didn’t even hear the distant sounds of battle over his own labored breaths.

  Another flash of light below the mountain made everyone turn. Leesil stared down the mountain. The light did not go out this time, but it remained like a beacon in the distance.

  “I apologize for not assisting,” Ghassan said, breaking the silence.

  “Where were you?” Leesil panted out.

  “As I said, I could do nothing against these creatures,” the domin answered, “so I scouted the path inward for anything else in our way.”

  Leesil eyed Ghassan, not certain how much he believed in those words. Brot’an was on his feet, seemingly whole and steady again.

  “We need light,” Leesil said, going to retrieve his fallen stiletto.

  Ghassan took a crystal from his pocket. “I will lead the way.”

  “Not yet,” Chane said. “We had only brought two orbs through when we saw what was happening. They are not far inside, but Ore-Locks left them hidden in stone. As soon as he is able, we will bring the others.”

  Some small part of Leesil was almost relieved at the short delay, and he simply sheathed his weapons and dropped down again. It didn’t matter how Brot’an looked or acted; Leesil knew he was injured. And what else waited for them inside the mountain? A few outer guards wouldn’t be the only ones, not in this place and not even after a thousand years.

  Leesil glanced back toward the entrance, thinking on his wife. There was no way to know the fate of Magiere and those with her.

  • • •

  Chap went numb, watching the carnage.

  Wynn clutched the still-ignited staff, but Magiere was a good distance away on the edge of the light’s reach, and she had lost herself completely. She charged, hacked, or struck at one after another through smoking carcasses until she had nearly reached the battle’s fringe once again.

  Part of him feared getting near her, the same part that shrank from what might be necessary, more so with every moment. All that stopped him from acting to stop her was the memory of the guide he had left for dead in the wastes.

  Could he bear to look into her vacant eyes, staring up at nothing like an empty husk?

  Magiere had barely regained herself to seek out Wynn and the crystal’s light, as she should have done at first . . . but now?

  One thing gave him hope.

  There were riders charging through what was left of the horde.

  They raced through the chaos in twos and threes. Chuillyon had succeeded in bringing Shé’ith along with the majay-hì packs. At least the chaos that Magiere had caused put those two factions at the advantage, for the moment.

  Osha had to be one of those riders, still one of them, or so Chap hoped.

  And where were his daughter and Wayfarer?

  So long as Wynn was exposed, Chap could not even search for them, let alone rush at Magiere. Wynn was the only one besides Ghassan who could use the staff, so Chap feared leaving her unprotected.

  Indecision crushed him—until he saw a black four-footed form run around the fringe of the chaos. Others of its kind were around it.

  Chap howled loudly at the sight of Shade. The black form veered off, racing toward him, and Chap sprang forward as he called into Wynn’s mind.

  —Stay back until I call . . . or until you have to escape—

  How many times would necessity force him to leave behind the ones he most wished to protect? Even as he and Shade closed on each other, he could not help looking for Wayfarer, hoping she had not followed the packs into the bloodshed.

  Shade closed on him and shot past to wheel around. He slowed only until she caught up at his side. Though she must have wanted to race back to Wynn, he might need her to help stop Magiere.

  The only other option for him would leave Magiere as an empty husk—and leave him with one more sin he could not bear.

  Now that he knew memory-words would work with Shade, it took only one glance.

  —Come—

  As they closed in, he saw the bodies, mangled, bloodied, and broken, as the living and undead stepped upon them in tearing at one another. One he feared was an elven rider, for it was draped over the still bulk of a butchered horse. Another was clearly a majay-hì torn almost in half. There were more of the goblins than any other, but also humans—either living or not before they went down.

  Far more numerous were those still fighting, among them majay-hì of varied hues launching at what had to be undead. They only turned on living enemies when they had to do so.

  Two riders pounded and trampled through others toward a huge form Chap had never seen before. It was taller than any an’Cróan or Lhoin’na and was covered in scales.

  Chap’s focus shifted to Magiere still ahead in the chaos, and again his doubts took hold. In her current state, she was the greatest threat to any undead present. Should he stop her now or wait and let her continue? He veered off toward the east, holding his distance from her, until he was near the fringe of the foothills . . . and too far away from Wynn.

  She had to keep that staff lit, and even that would not hold off anything but an undead. He tried to see Magiere more clearly, to get a look at her face, but she charged into another cluster of combatants.

  In despair, Chap looked up and down the eastern fringe of the battle. Two forms spun out of the carnage, surrounded in a circle of wheeling and snapping majay-hì. Wayfarer and Vreuvillä backed toward the rise of rocky hills.

  A vampire and a ghul on the outskirts of the battle spotted them.

  At the sight of this, Chap lost all sense of reason and charged for them.

  • • •

  As Wynn watched Chap run, she clung to the staff with both hands, and her only thought was to keep the crystal ignited. She’d never kept the light burning for so long, and she was exhausted from her efforts in
the battle thus far.

  Still, in this moment, she had one task and one task only.

  To keep light flowing outward into the night.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Wayfarer shuddered as she backed away from the battle behind Vreuvillä. She was sick with fear at what she had seen—and where was Shade? They had lost each other in circling around the battle’s eastern side as the remainder of one pack dove in and out. Where was Osha?

  Yet even all of this worry and confusion could not wipe away one previous, horrifying sight.

  A sharp light had risen suddenly to the north, and so she had known Wynn was out there. But by that light, the warrior woman she had come to care for and respect so much was barely recognizable.

  Magiere’s fully black eyes, like those of some other creatures out here, terrified Wayfarer. She had wanted to run both to and away from the sight, but Vreuvillä had insisted, “Stay close to me.”

  The sound of tumbling stones now behind her did not wipe away that vivid memory until she heard them a second time.

  Wayfarer twisted around in fright as Chuillyon half slid, half hopped the last steps off the rock slope of a foothill. He slowed and stared out beyond her.

  It was the first time she had ever seen him without a half-amused expression on his long face. She thought he might start to weep in looking to the battle behind her. Vreuvillä fixed Chuillyon with a cold glare.

  There was no liking between them and never would be from what little Wayfarer had learned.

  Chuillyon’s gaze still focused somewhere out beyond the priestess.

  Then Vreuvillä spun toward the battle, dropped to a half crouch between two majay-hì, and spread her arms with her long curved blade ready.

  When Wayfarer turned, someone grabbed her from behind. Another of the pack rushed in front of her on guard. She heard Chuillyon whispering some chant as his arms closed around her. Two things rushed at them over the open ground from the battle’s edge.

  One had a face as white as a corpse. Human-looking, its irises sparked like colorless crystals in the distant light of Wynn’s staff. Flapping shreds of clothes were stained red and black in spatters and smears.