ascent,” Wynn continued, “a black shadow passed overhead.” She raised one arm, draping her robe’s sleeve below her eyes. “When I looked up, I barely made out the transparent ghost of a raven as it dived down through the chute.”
She jabbed her other hand through the sleeve, the fabric whipping aside as her fingers shot out at a nearby table. One young male stiffened sharply in startlement, almost dropping his tankard.
“That black ghost rammed straight through the first Anmaglâhk!”
More dwarves sat upright in their seats.
“He grabbed his chest in pain, but something more pulled my eyes skyward. A hint of white flashed by, running down the chute’s wall. It went straight at the elves, and the second one vanished from the chute’s mouth as it came. That white form was gone, and the first elf slumped against the stone wall.
“Chap raced after them, for in protecting me, his heart would never turn him from a fight. I rushed after him but stopped at the chute’s bottom when I saw the one fallen Anmaglâhk. The elf’s ribs protruded around a gaping hole in his chest . . . where his heart had been torn from his body.”
Wynn raised her hand, closed in a partial fist like a claw, as if gripping that heart. She turned, walking slowly around the platform. All the dwarves watched in silence.
“Then I heard the snarls and screaming,” she whispered. “I rushed on after Chap to a sight I still cannot push from memory. The other elf lay dead in the snow, his head torn from the gushing stump of his neck . . . and standing over him was a naked white woman.
“She was so deceptively frail in build, but with fangs and clear crystal eyes. Her hair shimmered black as night, its tendrils writhing in the snow- laced breeze. She was undead, a vampire, but centuries old. And she had torn apart two of the Anmaglâhk like gutted fish.”
Wynn paused near another table and locked eyes on a young wide-eyed dwarven couple.
“I could barely breathe,” she whispered, “as I stared at her.”
This time she did not hesitate and took another long drink. Her brown eyes glittered as she twirled back around to the platform’s center.
“To my despair, Chap charged. So fierce was he that he held the white woman in combat for a while. But finally she threw him against the cliff side, and he fell limp in the snow. She turned her eyes on me . . . and I ran!
“I barely made the chute’s mouth before she was on me. She grabbed my throat and slammed me against the sheer stone as I cried out.”
Wynn paused so long that Chane thought someone might speak.
“She released me . . . and cringed away against the chute’s far wall.”
Hammer-Stag leaned forward, neither smiling nor scowling, his eyes locked on Wynn.
“She stared at me with those colorless eyes. Even through terror that froze my body more than cold, my thoughts were racing. I had cried out for her to stop . . . and the sound of my words, not my voice, had caused this. I spoke again.”
Wynn glanced toward Chane.
“She had been locked away in those white mountains, alone for hundreds upon hundreds of years . . . so long that she’d forgotten the very sound of speech. Upon hearing words once more, so vaguely remembered, like a home lost so long she had forgotten even the hope of it . . . she did not kill me.
“Instead, she grabbed me and raced through the mountains. She carried me to a six-towered castle trapped upon a great snow plain, the very place my companions and I had been searching for. She was the guardian of the treasure we sought.
“Even wounded, Chap came for me, and finally closed upon us once we reached the castle doors. I spoke to the white woman again. She did not understand me but held off from tearing me apart as she had the elves . . . only because of the sound of my words and that I spoke to her.
“She was mad, driven insane by isolation. She led Chap and me inside her castle, the first to enter it in . . . well, who knows how long. All because I kept speaking to her, and she listened.”
Wynn turned a full circle, her hands held open.
“She was destined to destroy all who came near the treasure, but I alone gained her secrets. Though helpless, I was strong enough of