A horrendous thump hit the earth. Wynn felt the impact through her feet and spun toward the sound.

Vreuvill landed in a backward hop as earth, mulch, and moss splashed up around where Ore-Locks's staff had struck. Ore-Locks jerked the iron staff back up, lashing its end when Vreuvill tried to advance.

Stunned that Shade had tried to both stop and defend Chane, Wynn didn't know to do. She didn't understand what had driven Chane into this sudden a.s.sault. But Shade was being harried by two more of the majay-h. Ore-Locks spun his staff, the b.u.t.t end swinging out at a third dog. They were all outnumbered, and the pack would be on them far quicker than the last time.

Chane came up on one knee and reached for his upright sword. Ore-Locks whirled the staff around overhead and took a thundering step toward Vreuvill. Wynn looked at only Chane.

His eyes were on the priestess, and his face twisted into the mask of a monster. When his lips curled back, she saw his teeth had changed.

Wynn could see only one choice.

"No-at Chane!" she shouted to Ore-Locks. "Put him down!"

Ore-Locks blinked once, slack-faced. In a second blink, fierce determination tightened his broad features. Wynn had an instant of frightful doubt when the iron staff changed directions midswing.

The iron bar struck Chane's head off-center, glancing downward with full force on his shoulder.

The crack and ringing sound wrenched the breath out of Wynn.

Chane wobbled like one of those wind-whipped branches. He dropped onto both knees but didn't go down, and the staff's end struck the ground. Wynn again heard-felt-thunder in the earth.

Ore-Locks turned the staff over, stomped forward one step, and brought the staff's other end down with his full weight. Wynn whimpered as she thought she heard bones break, and Chane crumpled to the ground like a sack of stones.

The whole clearing went silent except for Shade's threatening snarls and ragged breaths. All the other majay-h held their positions. Ore-Locks stepped in, his eyes on Chane, the long iron staff poised in his large, tight fists.

"Enough," Wynn gasped, trying to push him off.

Vreuvill was watching them all, and Wynn feared if the priestess got closer, she might see Chane bleeding something other than red blood.

"What is this?" Vreuvill demanded.

Wynn needed to get Chane away from here. "I'm sorry. It's the forest. You know it can affect some humans."

It was a feeble lie, as Wynn well knew. The Lhoin'na forest would not turn any human into a mad beast.

"He's ill," she added. "We should get him back to the city."

"Clearly," Vreuvill returned.

"I won't forget your help tonight," Wynn said.

"I will not forget you."

It was a sharp ending, as the priestess turned away. The pack was slower in following her. The last to pause at the clearing's edge were the silver-gray female and mottled brown male. The female lingered an instant longer, watching Wynn as her mate dove into the underbrush.

"Did you learn anything else?" Ore-Locks demanded.

He hadn't heard everything that she had. Only she-and for some reason Vreuvill-could feel and hear the Fay speak. All he cared about, still flushed from battle and hovering over Chane, was whether she could better serve his own ends.

"Pick him up," she said shortly, looking in panic at Chane's limp form. "We're leaving."

Sau'ilahk still hung on the plain, pushed so far through rage and fear that he had grown ignorant of what might have happened with Wynn. He would not allow himself to sink fully into dormancy's comfort. Only just so far that the night around him appeared darker than it should.

Sau'ilahk . . .

At that thundering hiss in his mind, he answered.

Yes . . . my Beloved.

Why do you leave the sage beyond your sight? Dog her, drive her, at any cost. Serve-if only to serve your one desire.

Sau'ilahk grew so very still in that half slumber upon the edge of his G.o.d's dreams. He could only do as commanded if Wynn still lived. And being so ordered, did his Beloved know so? It brought him thin relief, though he wondered how, even for a G.o.d, Beloved knew this. Wynn's life was still for his taking, when the time came.

But there and then, he was so weary and depleted. He doubted that he could conjure another servitor or even summon some beast to bind as another familiar. Certainly not-not unless he fed yet again.

Sau'ilahk wondered at his G.o.d's determination, but he dared not argue nor reveal doubt or suspicion.

Yes, my Beloved.

CHAPTER 16.

Wynn reached her room at the guild and opened the door, and Shade trotted in. She held it while Ore-Locks carried Chane inside, and then breathed a short sigh of relief at having completed their rush through the redwood ring.

Even late at night, there had been too many sages about. Wynn had urgently clanged the outer gate's bell and then hurried in when the attendant came. She'd quickly dismissed his offer of aid or to fetch a physician when he saw Chane hanging limply over Ore-Locks's shoulder.

At least now they were behind a closed door.

"Lay him on the far ledge," she said.

Ore-Locks nearly dropped Chane onto the ledge. Chane landed with a thud, but his eyelids didn't even flutter.

"Careful," Wynn yelped.

Ore-Locks backed away, not bothering to straighten Chane's skewed limbs. Wynn pushed past and tried to make Chane comfortable, but as she lifted his dangling left arm onto the bed's edge, she stalled.

A dark stain-not red, but black-had spread around a slash in the side of his shirt. It was still wet. She tried to think of what to do as she tucked his arm against his side to hide the stain. How did one tend the wounds of a vampire?

"Yes . . . I saw it."

She didn't jump at Ore-Locks's low voice. Perhaps out in the dark, Ore-Locks hadn't noticed the stain's true color.

"It's not serious," she said, pulling part of Chane's cloak from under him to cover the evidence.

"Truly?" Ore-Locks returned. "No serious blood loss . . . or any crippling bone breaks?"

Wynn stiffened and then turned slowly about.

Had Ore-Locks tried to kill Chane in the clearing? Was this some test to confirm the dwarf's suspicions? Regardless that a living man might have died under the dwarf's iron staff, did he now think he had been wrong?

Shade sat on the bed ledge nearer the door, her eyes fixed upon Ore-Locks's back. Twice she glanced toward Wynn.

"You saw what happened to him out there," Ore-Locks insisted. "What is he?"

And there it was. Ore-Locks could no longer pretend to look the other way, and Wynn could no longer hide that Chane wasn't a living being.

"Why should I answer, if you think you already know?"

"That black thing, that . . . wraith, as you called it," he went on, "came among our honored dead. You brought it, as well."

"No, I didn't."

"How many of these creatures do you-"

"You were there in the tunnel when I destroyed Sau'ilahk," Wynn cut in. "And you know Chane was just as desperate to kill that wraith. Don't you ever compare Chane to Sau'ilahk." She paused. "He protects me. I thought that's what you wanted."

Ore-Locks didn't answer.

"He's the same man you knew yesterday," Wynn continued quietly. "The same you've sailed with, who has slept across the wagon bed, who has fought beside us. Nothing has changed."

"Yes, it has," he returned. "Everything has changed . . . except our destination. What else did you learn in the clearing?"

The shift of topic caught Wynn off guard. "Nothing," she answered.

"I could see it in your face! You heard more out there than I did."

Ore-Locks took a step toward her.

Shade hopped off the bed ledge and growled at him, but he didn't acknowledge her presence. Ore-Locks seldom made open demands. This night's events had clearly shaken him.

"You tell me, or-"

"Or what?" Wynn challenged, but she wasn't as unafraid as she sounded.

Only the monumentally naive wouldn't shake to their bones in facing the threat of a dwarven warrior, especially one as tainted as Ore-Locks. But Wynn knew she had the upper hand, and certainly he knew it. He simply thought he could scare her, which was equally true.

"I'm the one who uncovered your lost seatt," she said. "I'm the one who can find it-not you. Even if I told you more, you wouldn't understand it. You need me, but I don't need you . . . and I never did."

Looking into his face, for an instant Wynn saw the dark figure of Ore-Locks in his sister's smithy. As she tried to pick herself up after being thrown out of his family's home, literally, Ore-Locks had closed on her. He loomed over her now as then, like a ma.s.sive granite statue caught in a forge's red light.

Still, whatever Ore-Locks hadn't figured out about Chane, or the unfathomed hints Wynn gained from the Fay, she wasn't giving these to him. He would do nothing to her as long as she was his only way to find the burial place of his traitorous ancestor.

Ore-Locks hadn't moved. Wynn kept her eyes on him but waved Shade off.

"Get out of the way," she said.

"Where do you think you are going?"

"Water, food, bandages-"

"Bandages for what?" He jutted his chin toward Chane. "He is not even alive."

"I don't have to explain myself to you."

He hesitated, caught in indecision, as his gaze shifted between her and Chane. A gravelly exhale escaped him.

"I will get them," he said, though he paused again before turning away. "You will not leave this room until I return . . . shortly."

Again, he seemed worried about leaving her unguarded, even here at the guild. Or perhaps he didn't wish to let her out of his sight. She didn't care either way, as long as she had breathing s.p.a.ce to gather herself. As Ore-Locks left and the door closed, this night brought one thing to clarity.

Each of Wynn's companions tried too hard to keep her safe for their individual reasons. At the moment, Shade seemed the only one with whom Wynn could reason fairly-and that in itself was ironic because of their difficulties in communication. Ore-Locks was no longer the one who worried her most, and his harsh words were not unwarranted.

Something had happened to Chane out there in the forest.

Whatever . . . however that tainted toy of Welstiel's, the bra.s.s ring, allowed him to walk into elven lands, it wasn't enough. He'd lost himself in that last moment, when he'd tried to a.s.sault Vreuvill, nearly shattering a tense truce. Even that worry wasn't the worst of it.

Wynn had tried to put aside what Chane was for so long. It was easier, more convenient, and even a relief to have him at her side. Some might have thought it flattering, perhaps enamoring, akin to a dark-natured stranger who always appeared to save her. Chane was more dangerous than that, and Wynn was no juvenile girl with her head clogged by myths and legends coated in misguided romanticism.

Her purpose put her at great risk. Despite the harm she'd caused along the way, in the end the price of failure-or success-could be her life, but the alternative for so many others was too great. The path ahead terrified her compared to the life she'd known and wished she could take back.

Wynn accepted this, but Chane didn't.

Not even the whys and wherefores entered into it for him. He didn't believe in the absolute necessity of her mission, not on any level that mattered beyond his own desire. All that mattered in this world to Chane, beyond himself or his vision of the guild, was her.

Something had to be done.

Chane opened his eyes. At first the ceiling above looked unfamiliar. Anxiety rushed in, followed by pain. He could not remember where he was or how he had gotten there.

Apprehension increased as his sight cleared. The entire ceiling was covered in bark that flowed down the wall on his right. He rolled his head to the side.

Wynn sat cross-legged on the floor, writing in a journal-or perhaps she was crossing something out. Shade lay on the bed ledge across the room, watching him, as usual.

Chane realized that he lay upon a bed ledge in their room at the guild. This did not take the edge off his discomfort. His head throbbed, as did his side and left shoulder, but worse were the scattered and disconnected fragments of memories as they began to return.

What had happened in the clearing around that barkless tree?

"Wynn?" he rasped.

She looked up, dropped the journal and quill, and crawled toward him.

"Are you . . . are you all right?"