There was another lurch. They picked up the voice of Ves wafting down from above, followed by another voice, male. Both were speaking N’naradin.
“Can you understand them?” Pasha asked. “You’re better than I am.”
“I don’t know,” Anna said, pressing her ear against the door. “Don’t—wait. Something about Great Spring.”
They glanced at each other. “She failed to… something,” Anna translated. “I don’t know. It’s muffled.”
There was the scrape of the sealed door opening and footfalls on the ladder to the cabins.
Anna gave him a desperate look and backed away from the door.
It opened to reveal a large man in black robes trimmed with gold. Behind him lurked two even larger men in leather jerkins, embossed with the sun-and-moon symbol of N’narad. They hefted long brass hammers with spikes pro
