is my liege. Please allow me the honor of leading this exercise to prevent this vile artifact from ever being used.”
“You want a partner for this dance?” Hayden drawled. “’Tween the two—”
“No heroics, no chances, no mistakes.” Indris stopped him short. “You’re both fine warriors, but against twenty Fenlings? You’ve no chance. Worse, I’ve seen Belamandris fight.”
“You defeated him,” Ekko reminded Indris.
“Because he saw what he wanted to see, not what I really was. Belamandris was proud, but he won’t make the same mistake again. He’s one of the best swordsmen I’ve ever seen, Ekko. Make no mistake, there’d be but one outcome if you faced him. I’ll not lose you to vengeance.”
The others reluctantly nodded their assent.
“North?” Shar asked. Indris nodded, and the sharp-featured Seethe slipped into the darkness on silent feet. Indris followed her, with Omen walking stork-like in his wake.
They had been moving at a quick trot for more than half an hour when Indris turned over his shoulder to check on the others. Omen was still behind him, yet Ekko and Hayden seemed to have fallen farther back. He called out to Shar and Omen to stop until the others could catch up.
Minutes passed, with no sign of either. The moon had set a little over a half hour before. The brilliant light of the Ancestor’s Shroud bathed everything in a faint sepia glow.
“What do you think has happened to them?” Shar asked. She perched on the edge of a broken tree stump, her pointed chin at rest on her knees, her long arms wrapped around her shins. The dark-blue scutes around her hairline and fingernails were mottled shadows against the faint luminescence of her skin. The shadows of her elongated ears reminded Indris of horns.
“I’ve not a clue,” Indris muttered. Frogs and crickets sang to one another. Bats screeched. The reeds and grasses hummed, harmonica-like in the night breeze.
“Perhaps the ancient rifleman was in need of rest?” Omen said. The Wraith Knight had simply stopped, one foot in front of the other, arms akimbo in a frozen parody of movement. It happened more frequently than it used to.
“Let’s hope so. If they don’t get here soon, we’ll need to go back along the trail till we find them.”
“It has been a good plan thus far, Indris,” Omen offered. “Nobody we care about has died. A most auspicious sign, would you not agree?”
“It makes a nice change, Omen, thank you,” Indris said sourly. Shar laughed. “We’ve certainly done worse in our time.”
“Always liked your plans,” Omen continued blithely. “Plans within wheels within spirals within circles making our enemies dizzy. Dizzy. Busy. Bees. The droning of the bees like the murmurs of the Ancestors, where everybody floats and—”
“They come,” Shar said flatly. Her hand drifted to her sword hilt. She drew the weapon. The glass rippled faintly with blue-white radiance, the surface of a pond in a sun shower. “Quickly and not alone.”
Indris scowled, hand on the butt of his storm-pistol. Changeling vibrated softly in her sheath. A few moments later, Indris saw two figures pelting along the trail.
“Amonindris,” Ekko said. Indris saw the Tau-se’s quiver was almost empty of its gold-fletched arrows. The bolt loops on Hayden’s belt were likewise missing more ammunition than Indris remembered. Ekko dropped a head-size wooden box on the ground.
Indris felt slightly nauseous. Tainted disentropy flared from the box in waves, oily and…wrong.
“Sherde!” Indris rubbed his forehead at the sudden, sharp pain that blossomed there. “What did you two do?”
“My father once told me if you can’t do something smart, do something right,” Hayden grinned. He nudged the box with his toe. “This little box won’t be harming nobody ever again.”
“Company,” Shar snapped. She glared at Ekko and Hayden, her skin and eyes radiant with anger. “Weren’t you told to leave it be? What possessed you to such heights of idiocy?” She leaped from her perch, eyes intent on the path behind them.
“You need to destroy the Spirit Casque, Amonindris,” Ekko said defiantly. “We brought it here for you to destroy it.”
“Do you have any idea the power it would take? I can’t destroy it here!” Indris hissed. He could feel tendrils of malicious intent from the box lapping across him. “You found it, you carry it, Ekko! Now run, you fools!”
Indris could see the fatigue on Hayden’s weathered features. He hoped the old man would have it in him to move as they needed to.
Hayden and Ekko’s little escapade might have doomed them.
“I think we’re safe,” Shar gasped. She came