Sister of the Dead - By Barb Hendee & J. C. Hendee Page 0,117

way here. Why would a Droevinkan lord want such a thing?"

Magiere paced around the fire pit. "The place feels familiar, but I know I've never been here. I've never been this far east. "

Wynn joined her. "You are certain?"

"Yes, I'm sure. "

Leesil stopped examining the tapestries and circled the room to peer through archways and test old doors. Wynn was about to begin herself, hoping they might still find records or other information in this place. She spotted the first dead rat and stepped back.

"Leesil!"

"What?" He hurried over. "What is it?"

Rats did not frighten Wynn, and she had certainly seen dead ones before.

Instead of being bloated or rotten, the carcass was shriveled. The skin had shrunk around its rib cage and limbs, as if it had starved to death. In a place like this, where the forest grew wild and thick, that seemed impossible.

Chap sniffed it and growled.

"Another one, " Magiere said from a few steps away.

They scanned the floor, kicking aside debris and checking the shadowed comers. There were at least a dozen tiny corpses about the hall, all in the same condition.

"All right, " Leesil whispered. "Do I need to say how much I don't like this?"

Chap whirled about, and his growl rose to a snarl. He cut loose an angry wail.

The sound resonated from the stone walls, and Wynn tried to cover her ears. This was Chap's hunting wail.

Magiere set down her lamp beside Wynn and pulled her falchion. Chap circled them, doubling back now and again as he looked toward the archways and doors all around.

"Leesil, blades!" Magiere shouted, but Wynn barely heard her above Chap's noise.

Leesil's cloak was already dropped to the floor. He wore his studded hauberk and slipped the holding straps on his thigh sheaths to draw both winged blades.

"Chap, quiet!" he shouted, and the dog's voice dropped back to a growl. "Where is it?"

The dog bolted toward a small archway at the back of the round hall. Magiere and Leesil rushed after him.

Wynn carried both cold lamps. She ran behind her companions down a narrow passage, more frightened of being left alone than of what they might be hunting. She had seen Chane throw Vordana's brass urn into the smithy's coals, seen it melt, and watched as the sorcerer dissipated into smoke. But the dying trees and shriveled rodents fostered doubt in her mind.

She could not see much with the others ahead of her. Chap's growl abruptly shifted to a snarl, and Leesil pulled up short. Wynn caught sight of Magiere in the jostling lamplight as she turned left. Leesil followed, and Wynn hurried to catch up.

As they passed a side opening in a widening of the passage, Chap swerved and leaped through the doorway. Magiere and Leesil turned, as well. As Wynn stepped in behind them, she glimpsed a blur, little more than a moving shadow, racing away.

She faltered as fright took a sharp hold on her.

A creature like Vordana would never flee. He would not need to.

Someone screamed out, "No, no! Please no. "

Leesil and Magiere were in front her, weapons out but poised where they stood. The broken shelves and scattered pots and implements on the floor told Wynn they were in some type of kitchen. Vordana, or any undead, would not plead in fear. She pushed past her companions with a shout.

"No, Chap! Stop it!"

Leesil grabbed her from behind. Both blades were in one hand as he wrapped his other arm around her waist. He lifted her out of the way as if she were a small cat. Wynn struggled to see what they had cornered. The cold lamps jangling in her grip made light waver across the walls, and she could not make out anything beyond Chap but the arch of the cooking hearth.

Leesil dropped Wynn to her feet and grabbed Chap by the scruff of his neck. "Enough, get back. "

Chap snarled but obeyed, and Wynn steadied one lamp, holding it up so that its light spilled out beyond the dog.

Cowering inside the barren hearth's hollow was a boy dressed in tatters turned dark by dirt and grime. Gaunt, with filthy brown-black hair to his shoulders, he squirmed to the hearth's far side and pressed one shoulder tightly into the comer. He covered his face as he looked out in horror, only one eye peeking between stick-thin fingers. There were fresh slashes down his arm from Chap's claws.

"Chap, what have you done?" Wynn cried.

Magiere crept forward in a crouch, ready to lunge at the boy, and