Singer's Reward

by Hausladen, Blake;

  The unwelcome tingling of fear grew, and I would have fled in panic if I’d not felt the dark touch so many times before. The Chaukai urging us on were overcome and fled. Liv did no better, and ran for her life, leaving only the Emilia and me outside the gates. She was feeling it too, but did her best to hide it.

  “What do you intend?” I asked her.

  She turned and folded her arms at me. For all I knew a thousand beasts were moving up behind me beneath the water. Emilia would know if I was safe or not, but she was not about to tell me.

  “We can stand her all day,” I said.

  She glanced back at her mother and the rest beyond the gate. They were yelling at us to run.

  “What of the gods holds your leash, Dia?”

  “None.”

  “Is that so? How is it you stand here while all the rest flee?”

  “This is nothing ...” I started to say, but knew it was not. “I don’t know, Emilia. I’ve no power that I know of. I’ve learned some words but have never sung a song. I spent a season the prisoner of the Ashmari in the Bunda-Hith but never sipped their mercury or desired to dance with the Shadow. I am the mother two Vesteal children, and want very much to be back to them.”

  “What you want is not really of very much consequence, is it? You are a liar the same as all the rest. These foul gods lurking in the trees and shadows are taking hold of all of you. I saw the blue light take hold of you and the magic of the ghost’s song filled your head. You took it in like a sprung, Dia. You’re as dangerous as Lilly now. Maybe worse.”

  “Do I look like I have thousands of magic words rattling around in my head? I do not know the Song of the Earth,” I shot back, but neither she no I believed my lie. I changed tack. “And what about the god that has hold of you? What makes him so different that you can stand here so angry with the rest of us for trying to survive?”

  “We are their toys. The Vastness was in Sikhek’s ears all those years ago when he tortured his family and forced the Earth to make the Vesteal and give men magic. It picked me because I was the smallest, loneliest, most insignificant being in all of Zoviya and wanted to see how many people he could make me kill. It wants the fight between the Shadow and the Earth to last forever. All of this is a great game for them. I say no more.”

  “What then? How do you intend to be rid of them?”

  “Stop talking, Dia. You are not listening. Nothing we do will hurt them or remove them.”

  “But what does that mean? You don’t like the rules so you are going to stop playing?”

  “No. I am going to end the game.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “Oh yes, I will. You do all you can to change the outcome. I won’t get in your way. Bayen blue hell,” she said with a tip of her head and a smile as though she was from Dagoda, “I’ll even stand with Evand and tell him everything he wants to know. Just watch and see what will happen. All the pieces will come smash together and the only effect any of it will have had upon the gods above is to entertain them. I am going to knock every single piece off the board, Dia, the next time someone tries to tell me what to do. Let’s see them play when there is nothing left to play with.”

  Somewhere beyond the gates someone screamed in pain, and the dark touch upon us fell away.

  “Ahh—another noble sacrifice,” Emilia said and started toward the bridge. “I wonder what Geart’s next move will be?”

  I took her by the arm, and she spun around as if to dare me to strike her.

  I wrapped her into a hug instead. “Is there no one you love enough to fight for?”

  She struggled, and for a long moment my skin began to warm. Then she flinched, her head whipped around, and she looked west as though she’d remembered something.

  “Pia,” she said, wrapped her arms around me, and sobbed.

  “Where is she? Is she safe?”

  The tears rolled form her. A small nod was all she had left in her.

  I hefted the girl up and carried her to her loving mother.

  82

  General Leger Mertone

  The Night of a Thousand Scouts

  “They are at risk. What is keeping, Rahan?” Barok asked as relay officers raced through the streets and across the ancient bridge. Most eyes were upon Soma’s battered ship or the brazier-lit pennants above each of the Copper Quarter’s tower, looking for signals that Geart had attacked. Barok and I had our attention fixed upon Rahan’s tower above the spillway for an indication he had loosed the Moat River in order to protect Dia the druids from the beasts that would move up the river. So far though, his signal had not changed since the Whittle was sighted.

  “No signals that we are attacked, yet, either,” Barok said, “But I can hear and feel them.”

  “I don’t trust it either,” I said, and we sent another set of scouts out to put eyes on every station in search of trouble. Bluecoats were crisscrossing the city as well.

  “The Whittle’s pennants are down,” a lookout called, and a murmur rose along the walls.

  “Hold,” I said, “that’s her captain moving off the ship in good order. We’ll see her colors again when they make it into the streets of the Warrens.”

  Other calm officers said the same up and down the long walls below the bridge, and the scene quieted once again. Barok was one of those radiating calm, and I would have remarked upon it, but our attention was upon the return of scouts who report again and again that no attacks upon the city had been observed.

  Barok’s demeanor soured when a crackle of magic erupted near the Whittle, but as the sound faded the slow pressing weight of darkness vanished. We all took queues from the Sermod around us, as they stood up from their hard work and smiled. I tried to enjoy the moment, but still did not trust the calm.

  I said to the happiest looking priest, “Find a captain of scouts and a boat large enough for a signal fire. Get out onto the middle of the river. If Geart and Sikhek can crawl across the bottom of the ocean, these beasts can crawl up the river.”

  His eagerness did not please me, and I was glad again that Avinda had called an end to their singing. I pointed two Sermod after the man, and they understood me. One verse from him and the knives they wore would be put to use.

  The Whittle’s colors came into view, moving toward us up Gatehouse Road. Dia was there but many who had gone with them were not. She and a young yellowcoat officer reached the gatehouse and started up to us, while Liv and others continued on with Emilia toward Evand’s Clock Tower.

  “Where are the rest of the druids?” Barok asked as we watched Evela and Fana carry Lilly and the wounded into the collection of tower homes behind the gatehouse that had been converted to receive those in need of care.

  The yellowcoat officer came up alone while Dia took a moment with the children in strong room at the base of the gatehouse. The sail chief was young for the insignia she wore on her sleeves but as steady as they came. Her captain had also taught her now to delivery a report, and most of our pent up questions regarding their voyage south, save a critical few, were answer before Dia joined us.

  Her reunion with Barok was as touching as the last time, if shorter, and bitter sweet for the necessity of keeping the children in the gatehouse strong room, out of reach of Geart’s fowl.

  Dia’s eyes did not betray her fatigue, but her hands were trembling.

  “Thank you, Tayler, please tend to your Admiral, with our compliments,” Dia said and then excusing several others from the parapet. When she was done, all that was left was the Sermod and Chaukai standing guard in the corners.

  She drew us away from them to a battlement looking out across the Warrens. She had something in mind to say, but came to a halt when she took in the view of the tower homes. I’d had the same reaction. They were too different from the squalid shacks I’d grown up in along that same road. Each was as tall and as magnificent as the apartments upon the Deyalu. High iron fences spanned the spaces between each, and arrow loops peered out at every angle. Hundreds of little k
eeps like Urnedi, glowing white in the sun. The Warrens would not die easy.

  “You have to give Rahan credit,” Barok said.

  Yes,” she said. “Yes, you do.”

  I gave her another moment to marvel before I asked the questions. “Did Lilly learn the rest of the words?”

  “She may have,” Dia said, “I doubt the other girl did. But this is not our problem. Someone else learned the song.”

  “Who?” Barok asked when she would not say it.

  “Me.”

  Barok calm melted, and my armor gave me away with a series of pops and tings. Dia looked ready to tip the world on its ear and cut it in two.

  “Are you sure?” Barok asked. “How did it happen?”

  “It has been happening since the Priests’ Home. Aden pounded words at me, trying to convert me the way he did his acolytes, and when I came off the glacier I began soaking them up whenever I heard them, Verd, Pashwarmuth, Courfel, and upon the lawns beneath the palace. I should not have gone to Dagoda. The druid’s voice poured into my ear, and Emilia saw it happens. She knows I learned the song.”

  “Did you sing with the druid?” I asked. “

  “I have never tried to sing and I never will,” she said. “But other will try very hard to convince me.”

  “Can we trust Emilia not to tell the others?”

  “She is a problem onto herself. She came very close to killing us all.”

  “At Dagoda?” I asked.

  “No. Everyone everywhere, and I think she is strong enough to do it. I had been talking to her about aiming it at the Hessier, and she tried very hard to do it. That’s how Pikailia died. The event convinced Emilia that we cannot hurt the spirits so she has it in mind to kill everyone so the Spirits cannot continue their game.”

  “How can we keep that from happening?” Barok asked.

  “She has a dear friend named Pia, somewhere west of here. She would fight for her friend, maybe, but no one else.”

  “Aren’t there enough children in harms way?” Barok asked.

  “They are all in harms way, whether they are in Bessradi or Katat. I am going to ask Evand to bring her friend her.”

  Tayler was crossing below toward the tower homes, when Soma emerged, moving fast toward us.

  “Is she okay?” I asked her.

  “None of us are okay. She is worse than most. The Vastness was cruel to her. Sikhek was cruel to her.”

  “Was the magic that pushed away the Shadow’s touch hers?”

  “Akin to it, yes. A Chaukai from her crew, a colonel Graves, stole a pinch of my blood from her Soma’s pouch while she was knocked out used it to aim a magic at Her. The Spirit of the Earth blasted the ground around her, killing him and two others.”

  “More men intent upon sacrifice themselves,” Bark said. “Grave tried to do the same aboard the Whittle according to Soma’s logs. What did he do with the blood he stole?”

  “Sikhek has done something similar in Aneth to Soma, tricking the Spirit into thinking Soma was in danger. We believe his intention was to convince the Spirit to grant him the same power Soma has, but he did not survived the blast.”

  “A remarkable result, none the less,” I said. “The Shadows was all but sucked out of the city by it.”

  “The Chaukai will only too eager to repeat the same once Geart pushes his way back onto the city,” Dia said. “Burhn and the priest of the Bunda-Hith were equally willing to die to save the world from the Spirit of the Earth.”

  “What will happen when if the pull of the spirits gets stronger?” Barok asked.

  “I saw some of what will come during Soma’s fight with Emilia aboard the Whittle. Every person aboard went into a rage and we would have killed each other if the madness has lasted any longer.”

  “What is left for us then?” Barok asked.

  “We must kill Geart and his Hessier, and we must do it quickly. I will be made to sing that song.”

  The quiet city was going to sleep as though it were other cloudy night. “I almost wish that he had attacked,” I said.

  Dia nodded, but the tremble of fatigue I’d seen in her hands had moved into her shoulder and knees.

  “There is a barracks attached to the gatehouse,” I said. “I am going to liberate the bed from the officer’s quarters and move it into the strong room for you. It is time for you to both to go to bed.”

  “Not yet,” Dia said, “First we must—”

  “No. The next stiff breeze is going to knock you over.”

  “But—”

  I pointed and the moment was too much like a hundred late nights at Urnedi when it was Dia who ordered Barok and me to bed. They laughed with me and took each other by the arm before following me down.

  The Chaukai and soul-irons moved fast to make it possible, and when I closed the door on the strong room, they and their children were huddled close and fast asleep.

  I banished every living person from the gatehouse, and posted Gern outside their door. The rest of the soul-irons stood guard with me, and if I didn’t know better, I would have thought the respite a gift from Geart to them.

  83

  King Barok Vesteal

  The Battle of Bessradi, Day Two

  “Not yet,” Dia said and held me close. “Leger will knock if it is urgent.”

  I snuggled back into her embrace and was glad she had the forethought to tend to the children while it was quite outside. Both were clean, fed, and wrapped in my arms. Cavim was going to be a terror when he grew older, but that morning he was content to nap in his father’s arms.

  The activity outside settled, Dia quietly snored, and I found another patch of sleep.

  It was Clea in the end, who called on us to be moving with one of her short cries that had Dia up in a flash. I could feel her heartbeat as she raced to tend to her.

  I touched her arm and she slowed.

  “Sorry. The Sutlers that snatched us in Pashwarmuth had no patients for a crying baby.”

  I hugged her and helped her with the children. We found Gern in the small assembly room beyond the room’s monstrous door, and he saw my good mood. He called on those nearby, and the gatehouse became like the Urnedi of old. A hot meal arrived, Errati reported the uneventful night, and fresh clothes were laid out for us in the strong room. Ready for the day, Dia handed the children to my alsman. I’d have never thought him the nursemaid type, but the way he smiled swayed me. He was also neither Chaukai nor capable of the smallest magic.

  “Any news of Fleur?” Dia asked him.

  “None, but with the beasts holding in place as they are, Mercanfur wants to send a tall ship with a volunteer crew downriver after her.”

  “At once,” Barok said. “Where can we find the admiral?”

  “He is at the harbor. Leger has a signal ready for him above.”

  Dia kissed the children and Errati’s cheek before we hurried up.

  We found Leger upon the eastern battlement overlooking Tin Bridge. I spotted the ready signalman and gave the order. The pennant went up, and as we joined Leger along the wall, a tall ship began to pull up anchor.

  Leger’s idea for a boat to safeguard the river from beasts crawling upstream had become a flotilla of four tall ships and a dozen smaller craft, but other than the vigor of our navy, I did not like what I saw. Hessier a thousands deep lined the water’s edge from Rahan’s spillway all the way northeast to the shores of Lake Rahan. More were moving in behind them like black smears of wet paint.

  “Any sign of Geart?” I asked.

  “The flow his Hessier would suggest he is somewhere near Courfel. Evand sent word that Emilia is working a fresh map, so we should see the truth of field soon enough.”

  “Geart is spreading out and settling in,” I said. “Any chance we could attack around the main body and get to him?”

  He pointed up. It took me a second to find it, but Geart had a hawk circling high over the city. Even the one would be enough to alert him to any large moves.

  “He means to
press the terror of his creatures at us until we break,” Dia said. “He tried the same as we were sailing away from Dagoda.”

  “This feels too much like when the Hessier came for us at Urnedi,” Leger said.

  I tried to imagine that the expanse of Bessradi’s buildings was the green of Enhedu’s forest, but the tang of city many smells prevented the daydream. “Not so much.”

  “This is not at all how it was for me,” Dia said. “Unless there is some mad ride that I need to—”

  She stopped there, having remembered her ride out to Dagoda.

  “See?” Leger said. “Just like last time.”

  Dia laughed and slapped the armor on my shoulder with the back of her hand. It went clank, and Leger feigned that it was a mighty blow.

  I smiled a touch, but it faded. “What would Geart remember of that day?”

  “Pain. Sadness,” Dia said.

  “I mean of the way the Hessier fought. The reason they lost.”

  “They rushed,” Leger said. “If the Hessier had moved with some patience, they could have picked at us with their magic and taken us apart. The got convinced we had a druid that could hurt them and they rushed.”

  “We need to fake the song,” I said.

  “What?” Dia asked.

  “Geart is doing exactly as Leger just described,” I said. “He is settling in and will go slow. Look at him. He will encircle us and only grow stronger. He has won, unless we can bait him into attacking.”

  “How can he know if we are able to sing?” Leger asked.

  “If he can see us with that bird, he saw what was left those aboard the Whittle. He stopped attacking. We are not a threat to him.”

  “He would send everything at us,” Dia said. “Do we dare provoke such an attack?”

  Leger was grinning. “With Rahan’s engineers and 180,ooo Hemari at our disposal to prepare the ground his beasts will cross? Yes, I would.”

  “I don’t want any of the druids or Chaukai nearby when I do it,” Dia said.

  “That I can guarantee,” Leger said.