Chane.

Welstiel was surprised by how much this thought disturbed him. He tried to rise but collapsed again upon the ground.

Magiere pushed herself to keep up and didn't call out to Chap.

A short distance into the trees, the dog ceased wailing but continued to run. Magiere trusted Chap's judgment in a fight against the undead. If he chose to run in silence, he had a reason.

With Ubad dead, perhaps Chap had picked up on Vordana or another of the necromancer's minions. If such still moved and searched in the forest, there was hope that this meant Leesil and Wynn were still alive.

She ran on and on behind Chap, using her blade to slash away anything in her path that she couldn't force her way through. When Chap stopped ahead of her, Magiere slowed as she approached him.

He was alert and tense, and stepped forward through the brush between two oaks. She followed, sword at the ready.

Chap paused as they entered a clearer area and stared at the base of a tree across the way. Magiere followed that gaze.

The sight was unreal, and it took her a moment to believe she was not seeing some vision like the coils in the forest.

The headless bodies of both undead mariners lay before her. The neck stump of the nearest one was ragged and torn, its head nowhere to be seen. The other lay farther off, a longsword impaled through its chest, pinning it to the earth. Its head had rolled away from its body.

A man with red-brown hair and a handsome face knelt upon the ground, holding someone in his arms. Magiere saw his profile and remembered the last time she'd seen him in the sewers of Bela.

Chane.

The person he held moved and sat up.

Magiere looked into Wynn's frightened eyes.

The sage's shoulder was bleeding badly beneath a makeshift wad of cloth Chane pressed against it. Magiere had no idea what was happening here, but she didn't care. She stepped forward with her falchion out.

"Get your hands off her!"

At the sight of Chap and Magiere, Chane scrambled out of the way, reaching for the longsword embedded in the headless corpse.

"No, Magiere," Wynn called. "He saved me. He came to help me."

"Came to help you?" Magiere's rage increased. "Wynn, get back!"

She charged toward Chane as he jerked out the longsword and turned to face her. Black fluids stained his shirt around a tear in the fabric. She thrust under and up, breaking inside his guard and slicing him across stomach with the falchion's tip.

Chane gasped at the touch of her blade and retreated. Magiere knew it would burn him as a mortal weapon would not.

"Stop it!" Wynn shouted.

Chap rushed by and launched into Chane with snapping teeth. Both dog and vampire toppled back across the wet ground. Magiere followed, waiting for an opening to pin the undead down by running him through. He saw her, kicked up, and caught her in the jaw, then pitched Chap away so hard that the dog roiled off into the brush.

Chane rose up, shifting his gaze between his two opponents. Magiere sidestepped, watching for an opening.

"Wynn is correct," he said. "I only wanted to save her from these walking dead."

"Liar!" Magiere snapped, and she felt her canines extend as she shook her head. "You're nothing but a killer… and you're getting tired."

Chap was on his feet again, but he limped upon his rear left leg. He growled again, watching Chane's every move, and hobbled closer. The calm in Chane's light brown eyes faded, and he looked at Magiere in anger.

"So are you," he replied.

Magiere charged Chane, swinging for his head. He dodged, spun, and swung back. When she blocked, he let his blade slide off hers.

He turned so fast, she could barely follow. Instead of slicing back with the sword, he slipped inside her guard and slammed his fist into her cheek. Only Rashed, the Suman undead of Miiska, had ever struck out with such force. Magiere went down.

A moment later, he was standing above her, sword gripped in both hands, its tip pointed down at the center of her chest.

"No!" Wynn shouted, and the sage threw herself over Magiere, kneeling with one palm raised toward Chane. "Please, do not hurt her."

Chane hesitated, lowering the blade as he stared at Wynn.

Magiere reached up and grabbed his wrist. He tried to jerk away, and his own effort pulled Magiere to her feet and Wynn tumbled away. Magiere thrust her sword up through the circle of Chane's arms.

The falchion's tip bit into the soft skin below Chane's jaw, tearing his neck open as it slid out over his right shoulder. Black fluid spat from the wound. He toppled back, and Magiere fell on top of him, flattening the longsword between them. She rolled left, blade up, and swung down on his exposed neck.

Chane's head shot off his body and rolled through the mulch.

She remembered Wynn shouting… Chap snarling… but all she could do in the moment was breathe until her self-control returned.

Wynn crouched by Chane's body, pulling at his shirt as she sobbed. The bandage had fallen from her wound, and she was bleeding again.

"No… oh, Magiere, no," she whispered.

"Stop it," Magiere told her.

Wynn looked up with wild eyes. "You murdered him, as if he were nothing! What are you, Magiere? You think you are better than him? You are worse."

Enough anger swelled in Magiere that she almost slapped the sage. The little fool had put her trust in a monster. Then she remembered Wynn's earlier words, and her anger became cold suspicion.

Chane had come to help her.

"How long has he been following us?" Magiere asked. "How long have you known?"

"Since Stefan's village," Wynn shouted, dirt smearing in tears upon her round face. "I did not banish Vordana-he did! He is the one who saved us from an undead you could not overcome. But I was afraid to tell you… because you might have killed him."

Wynn dropped her head upon Chane's chest.

Magiere stood up and backed away.

"You lied to us? Betrayed us? All those nights you curled up with Chap, you knew an undead was trailing us. You even knew who it was-and you didn't say a word?"

She trusted few people, and she had trusted Wynn with her life and Leesil's.

Chap ceased growling and stood watching them both. He looked to the south and whined as he trotted toward the heavy brush. When he barked once, Magiere joined him, peering out into the forest.

Leesil came toward them, at times leaning against or catching himself on a tree trunk or low branch. Relief washed everything else away for the moment, and Magiere hurried to him. As he grabbed for her, she pulled him close. He threw an arm over her shoulders for support.

"I'm so glad to see you," he said, half-breathless. "I lost Wynn."

"Are you hurt?" she asked.

"Just weak. Vordana caught up to me."

She looked back the way he'd come. "Where is he?"

Leesil lifted his other hand, waving off her concern. "He's back there somewhere… most of him, that is. We won't have to see that awful grin of his again."

Magiere pulled his face in close to hers without a word. Leesil, always so constant, who kept her in the light.

"We have to find Wynn," he said.

Magiere pulled him through the brush, and he took in the scene of the decapitated mariners, and Wynn with her face resting on the chest of a headless corpse. Leesil pulled away from Magiere, catching sight of the head beyond the body.

"What in? Wynn, you're bleeding. Is that Chane?"

The sage lifted her face, but she didn't look at him. She had ceased weeping and stared vacantly into the dark.

Magiere had no pity for her. She had betrayed them.

"We have to burn the bodies," Magiere said.

Wynn blinked once and grabbed Chane's sword. She could barely lift it, but she pointed the blade out, and her shoulder started bleeding harder. "You are not touching him!"