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beside Travis. He reached and stroked her ruff. "You're new, girl, aren't ya?"
Nevin gave her a long look and she slowly winked at him. "Yes, she's new
here. Several of my clan have joined us recently."
"Welcome then, Smokey," Travis said, scratching behind her ears.
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Darianna made a contented noise and licked his face. Travis laughed, wrapped
his arms around her neck, and hugged her like he would a big dog. She wagged
her tail.
A shriek of panic startled Travis and he jumped to his feet.
Randilyn blushed brightly and ducked her head. "I thought I felt something
crawling on my hand& ."
Amiri gave her a shake. "Randi, if you don't learn to control this flinch
reaction of yours, one day you'll scream and no one will answer when you need
them to."
"I'm trying. I'm really, really trying& ." Randilyn snuggled up to Amiri and
laid her head on her master's shoulder.
Everyone laughed.
* * * *
Necrodez did not like hunting in the off-season and only a very valuable kill
could lure him and his small band of humans and sa'necari from the estate he
maintained in the south. He had been one of the fortunate ones whose holdings
lay far enough from the city-state of Zol that they had not been destroyed
when the yuwenghau, Ria Torrundarsdottir, called down the storms of heaven on
Zol in the last great war. Still, it had hurt his purse and sent him back to
bounty-hunting for the past ten years. He did not do assassinations, unless
they could be achieved on the highways by ambuscade, which was his forte.
Even had he not received a personal request from the Minnorian Queen to go
after this one, he still would have. Everything he had heard so far had
intrigued him. There were two names on her list and Necrodez wondered if he
was the only one not blinded by the nature of the two myn's reputation. On the
one hand, you had Mephistis' little catamite, the boy who had escaped him more
than ten years ago, a Dark Brother of little or no magical talent. On the
other hand, you had a battle-mage, named Dawnreturning. How could the others
be so stupid as to not connect them as possibly the same mon? The word Dawn
was the giveaway. Isranon the catamite was a Dark Brother, the lineage of
Dawnhand had become Dark Brothers in defiance of Waejonan's descendants.
"Once there were three brothers, Brandrahoon the vampire, Isranon called the
Dawnhand, speaker to spirits, and Waejonan the Accursed, first of sa'necari.
Isranon defied his brothers and was destroyed, his descendants forced into the
darkness."
"What?" asked Gathos, Necrodez's second in command, hearing him mutter the
words.
"Dawn, Dawnhand, Dawnreturning. Isranon, son of Isranon, son of Isranon& . I
wonder if we'll get two bounties instead of just one out of this?"
Gathos ran a hand through his hair and then dropped it to his sword hilt.
"You think Isranon is this Dawnreturning?"
"It's possible. He could have rediscovered his ancestor's power."
"That would be a shame. The queen ain't gonna pay double."
Necrodez laughed softly. "Then we simply find a mage to kill and take his
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head along. She won't know the difference when I'm done."
The bounty hunter and his myn crept closer to the camp. Autumn had not yet
stolen all the leaves from the trees, so there was still plenty of cover to
allow them within striking distance of their quarry. Necrodez knew that every
freelancer and bounty hunter passing through Minnoras was looking for the two
myn currently riding with these people: the battle-mage Lord Dawnreturning and
Isranon, Prince Mephistis' buttboy. Whether or not they were the same person,
it still looked like this would be Necrodez's lucky night.
He glanced up at the full moon. It was both a blessing and curse. Sa'necari
did not need that much illumination to see. The more steeped in the rites they
were, the better their vision could make out the heat signatures in the night.
However, the humans in his band were not so fortunate and must rely upon the
moon. Necrodez had watched the mage strike down most of the monsters in the
unit that the Minnorian Queen had sent against King William Gryphonheart. The
mon was dangerous. But he had also seen the spear that struck Dawnreturning
down, so the mage was wounded and less of a threat. He was easy meat now.
Studying the camp further, Necrodez noted the number of females wearing
armor. None of them looked Sharani, that abominable race of warrior women who
had destroyed Necrodez's homeland. Several of them looked Jedruan or Trethian.
There were two possibilities there: one, they had simply been attracted from
all over the two continents by the fact that Gryphonheart was a woman; or two,
that somehow a band of Ymraudes had made common cause with Gryphonheart.
Either way, Necrodez did not think they provided much of a threat, living or
undead they all perished the same.
Necrodez signaled his myn to him. "Gathos, take three and start killing the
sentries."
The mon nodded, told off three, and melted into the forest.
Necrodez needed to find a human sentry to drain him and suck the mon's visage
from his body. He and four companions would then go in and take Lord
Dawnreturning from under the camp's noses. "Pacionsuidae, the first sentry is
mine. You come at him from the front and I'll take him from behind."
The greasy looking mon with stringy black hair nodded and slipped into the
trees.
* * * *
Woodfine walked the south edge of the camp, his cloak pulled tight around
him, listening to the sounds of the night. He saw the fires and knew that
Travis would be telling more of his stories to his new audience. He wished he
could be there listening. The story hour would be ended by the time that he
was relieved.
The youngest son of a noble, he sometimes missed his family and his father's
court in Gormond's Reach, especially in the stillness of the nights when it
was his turn to keep watch. He had not been at court since the day he carried
word to William about Nans' presumed death. He was grateful to have been
proven wrong.
The bushes ahead of him rattled and he stopped with his hand to his sword. A
greasy-haired mon stepped out in front Woodfine and he drew his blade free.
Distracted by the one in front of him, Woodfine did not hear the mon behind
him. A hand suddenly clamped hard over his mouth and a blade slammed into his
back and angled up under his ribs. The ranger's strength fled. His sword
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slipped from his fingers. Woodfine coughed blood against the palm preventing
him from crying out. The burning magic of the hellblade raced through him and
he knew that he was dying even before his assailant gave the blade a savage
rotation through his lungs and spleen. The scream of anguish rising from his
throat could not get past the powerful hand on his mouth. His knees gave. The
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