Covered in blood and ash, Johnny and Autumn charged back up the mountain. The Spider King turned to their advance and leaned forward. Tommy watched in sick fascination as little white strands appeared around the strange sockets in the creature’s humped shoulders. More and more collected there as if a throng of ghosts were trying to escape. The Spider King grunted, and the tiny threads formed into a milky white stream that sprayed out toward Johnny and Autumn. It hit them hard and knocked them backward. But they didn’t roll. This liquid webbing adhered them to the mountain. They were stuck fast.
“Help!” Autumn cried out. “Cut us out!”
“It’s spreading, going to suffocate u—uh—glguuh—help—h—!”
The Spider King reared up on his hind legs and roared. The Drefids and Gwar on the slope below cheered with shrieks and grunts.
When Tommy and Jimmy got to the place where their friends had been stuck in the web, they found Kat already there. She’d managed to cut the spreading white muck away from their faces. With Tommy and Jimmy’s help, they set Johnny and Autumn free.
But what did it matter? Tommy thought as he looked up at the approaching Spider King. They were all sick to their stomachs. They’d taken their best shot. They had nothing left. And death was inevitable.
“What do you know of power?” asked the Spider King. “You are children born of a weak race, raised in an even weaker society.”
Thunder rumbled. It seemed to be right on top of the mountain.
“Your elders put too much stock in you . . . no, too much stock in the old ways . . . myths.” He held up his claw. “Look, look behind you. See my armies, my fortress, my lands? I KNOW power, real power! Power to create life, power to take it . . . even power to wake the dormant volcano to vomit up FIRE!”
Tommy did look, and at first he saw only what the Spider King told him to see. But then he saw farther out, beyond the reach of the Spider King’s six eyes. Tommy saw a train of beings trodding slowly across the Lightning Fields north of the volcano. It was not a precise military march. Slaves, Tommy thought. Grimwarden, Goldarrow, Charlie . . . they’d succeeded. Well, if nothing else, Tommy thought, we’ve bought them some time.
But that was little solace. Time for what? Maybe to get to the Dark Veil. Maybe to the underground rivers. And then what? Another cavern, another Nightwish? All this effort all to go back and hide for another eight hundred years?
“So,” said the Spider King. “They have taken the humans . . . how ironic. Elves take generations of Gwar and enslave them. Now they release MY slaves?” His expression contorted. “Hypocrites! LIARS!” He mastered his emotion once more. “What of it? I will kill you, their precious lords, gutting the Elves of their spirit forever. And if it takes hundreds of years to find the remnants and kill them all, what of that? I have new horizons to explore.”
“What now?” Jimmy whispered from behind.
Defeat. That was Tommy’s first thought. Utter defeat. But no, Tommy wasn’t the type to quit.
“Tommy?” came Kat’s quiet voice. She wasn’t reading his thoughts. Maybe she didn’t want to know.
“Come, brave Elves,” said the Spider King. “I am waiting.”
“We’ll fight,” Tommy said at last.
“But we’ll lose,” said Johnny.
“I know,” Tommy said.
42
The Rainsong
TOMMY STOOD up, exhaled loudly, and cracked his neck side to side. He turned to his friends and said, “You know how ridiculous this all is?” He was almost laughing. The other lords looked on him with deepening concern but listened nonetheless. “I mean, me . . . the curly-haired nothing, chronically average—the kid known for never having cable TV—and here I am in another world as a warrior, a lord, a prophesied hero. We all are.” He looked at each of his friends in turn. “We’re a bunch of misfits. A motley assembly of the broken, the lost. And yet . . . here we are. It’s kind of a miracle.”
A miracle. The Rainsong. Wait, he thought, maybe it’s not a good-luck charm to stick in our pockets or just for information.
“Where’s Kiri Lee?” Tommy asked suddenly.
“He hit her,” said Johnny. “I . . . didn’t see where she went down.” The wind buffeted them as they looked around. Another flash and crack of lightning.
The Spider King was waiting too patiently. “Will you mount one last stand? A final heroic verse to your very sad, sad song?”
“Kat, reach out to Kiri Lee with your thoughts,” Tommy commanded. “Tell her to sing the Rainsong.”
“But there are only six of us now,” said Jimmy.
“Jimmy,” Tommy said, “none of this has turned out the way we thought it would. None of us really has a clue what the Rainsong will do, but the prophecies said the Rainsong must be heard over mountain and field. If I’m going down tonight, then I’m going down singing. For us. For Ellos.” He laughed. “You remember the words, right?”
“Beneath the burning firmament of heaven,” Autumn sang out.
Johnny answered, “Live the Children of the Light.”
“Blood of kings, strength of queens,” sang Tommy.
Jimmy belted out the last line as loud as he could, “Sons and daughters, each we stand.”
“Kiri Lee’s not answering,” said Kat. “I can’t find her mind.”
“Okay,” Tommy said, “spread out. Sing while you search for Kiri Lee. If she’s alive, she’ll hear it.”
To the Spider King’s amusement, the young lords scattered, once more attempting their useless attacks. And now they were going to sing . . . some ancient hymn? “Enough!” he thundered, slamming his claws to the ground.
“Everyone, sing!” Tommy yelled.
But not more than a minute after they started their search, they heard something. Soft at first, but growing in strength, Kiri Lee’s exquisite voice. She hovered high overhead and sang with a heart ten times her stature, “Beneath the burning firmament of heaven live the Children of the Light . . .”
Sounds of battle made it hard to hear the words distinctly. Metal and rock, bone and scream. Everything vied for dominance over the small voice that fought to be heard.
“Blood of kings, strength of queens, sons and daughters, each we stand. . . .” Some of the soldiers stopped fighting. Even the Spider King glanced upward.
Kiri Lee’s tribe medallion began to glow, a silvery, bluish light that illuminated her weakening face. With every word that poured past her lips, the medallion grew brighter.
“Let every crooked road be straight. Let injustice suffer our wrath. . . .” But she was not alone. The other five lords found their place among the lyrics and began singing with her.
“By the hand of the justice bane, we dispatch the ruthless, wicked, and foul. . . .” Their medallions all began to glow.
Tommy looked to Kat. Is it working? he thought.
She nodded; then a wide smile formed on her face. Grimwarden had been right after all. The song was a supernatural weapon to be used against the enemy . . . but how did it work?
The Spider King, moving as only spiders can, raced up on each of the lords, snapping at them with his claws, firing his webbing to trap them. But each time they eluded his blows and eluded capture. Spinning like a dumb beast after its tail, the Spider King grew infuriated, but somehow Kiri Lee’s voice rose even above his rants. She dodged globs of webbing, the projectiles arching harmlessly through the air.
Is anything happening? Tommy wondered. He didn’t see anything. Sing faster! It was all Tommy could think. The song was having no apparent effect on the battle at hand. They must have to finish it first. Tommy ducked a terrible swipe from the Spider King and rolled into a Vexbane crouch, two fingers extended to the ground.
He looked down on the battle between the enemy forces and the flet soldiers. More and more warriors from both sides had come, but they all gave the lords and the Spider King a wide berth.
The last lines couldn’t come too soon. Kiri Lee’s voice rose like the crescendo of a symph
ony: “The Lords of Berinfell take up their thrones, and the Mighty of Allyra, their mantel awaits. For Ellos empowers those who draw near, holding hands as one, their destinies intertwined.”
And just like that, the melody and the glow of their medallions vanished, swallowed by the sounds of war.
The young lords looked about even as they ran. Nothing had changed. The battle still raged. The Spider King still chased.
Ah, Tommy thought as he ran. I almost believed something would happen.
“Me, too,” Kat answered, her thoughts going silent while she listened. And then she told Tommy: “Kiri Lee thinks it’s because Jett died. There are only six of us.”
Maybe, thought Tommy.
Laughter. Tommy heard Kat’s laughter in his mind. What? he asked.
“Jimmy thinks it’s because his voice stinks.”
Tommy laughed, too, and watched Johnny blasting fireballs at the Spider King, Jimmy directing him so that they wouldn’t get caught.
“I’m tired of running,” said Kat, a sad finality to her words.
Tommy stopped suddenly. I am, too. He drew his rychesword.
Kat was forty yards across from him. She drew her long knives.
Before we do this, Tommy began, there’s something I wanted to say to you. I—
“Wait!” He thought it but said it out loud as well. Listen!
“There’s just noise. I don’t—”
And then Kat heard it, too. It wasn’t very loud at first. Almost a murmur. But present, nonetheless. Kat looked back to the other lords. Mounting wonder painting their expressions, they stopped running. They heard it, too: the Rainsong.
As if their own singing of the ancient verses had summoned a congregation to worship, the song came to life again, only this time with the voices of many. “They’re singing,” said Kat.
“They’re singing,” said Tommy.
Each lord in turn said the same, except for Kiri Lee, who did not seem surprised, for she sang, too, lending her dulcet, sweet-sounding voice to the others.
With swords still swinging and bows still firing, the great army of the Elves was actually singing. Word for word, note for note. Louder and louder it grew, spreading across the mountainside, and then down into the Lightning Fields, even up the far side of the battlefield.
Tommy, closed his eyes wondering how they all knew it. Had Grimwarden taught them at Nightwish? Had enough Elves heard Kiri Lee singing it as she walked those long halls? Tommy didn’t know. It didn’t matter. It was the most beautiful song he’d ever heard. It echoed into every space imaginable, filling the hearts of the noble with hope and the hearts of the wicked with a growing uneasiness. It rang in every turret and tower of Vesper Crag, and surged back into the Thousand-League Forest. But when Tommy opened his eyes, he witnessed a sky unlike any he’d seen before. Dark gray and roiling like a night sea, the clouds churned and seemed to press down on Vesper Crag. Lightning, blue, purple, and white, crawled within the seams and creases, spreading in flashes beneath the clouds but never striking down to the ground.
Even the Spider King stopped his pursuit and stared.
“Come on!” Kat’s voice in Tommy’s mind.
Kat was quickly on the stairs. The other lords were with her. “Come on!”
Tommy ran across and joined his friends.
“It’s getting darker,” said Johnny. “Something’s definitely up.”
“Guys, look out there.” Autumn pointed to the northwest, past the volcano to the horizon. There was a black wall of cloud moving deceptively fast toward Vesper Crag. It was massive, consuming the sky and lesser clouds as it came.
“There!” pointed Kat. Another such thunderhead rolled in from the northeast. And yet another from due south. The three fronts converged overhead, and the gray was swallowed up in the center. Fingers of lightning began to crawl out of this same central point above the mountain peak.
The thousands of Elves who remained continued to sing. Tommy and the other lords looked about in wonder, then started backing down the mountainside. This was no ordinary song, nor was the God they served a mere religious icon, lifeless and powerless. Ellos was here. With them. The lords could feel him now. In the air. In their hearts.
“We were foolish,” said Kiri Lee.
“Foolish?” Tommy felt it but wasn’t sure why.
“To think this was just our song,” she explained.
Jimmy laughed. “We fancied ourselves as Chosen Ones, we did.”
“Well, we are,” said Tommy. “But . . . not just us.”
“So then the song?” said Johnny.
“It belongs to all of Elvendom,” Kiri Lee said. “It should never have been hidden.”
“I don’t think the Rainsong was hidden,” said Tommy, new insights crystallizing in his mind.
“But the Keystone,” said Kat. “The Old Ones hid it away in that cistern.”
“No,” said Tommy. “It was abandoned, while our people chose other songs to sing.”
43
Backsliding
THE YOUNG lords joined in the verses with their kinsfolk, raising their voices and drawing their swords. “Hear now, the song of the Chosen. We lift our voices as one Body, righting ancient evil with our union. Let the captive be set free—The chains of slaves be broken at last.”
The medallions glowed again, only this time more fervently. Tommy looked up. The clouds were swirling swiftly now, lowering every second. More and more flashes of electricity came from the deepening hollow overhead. Tommy’s fears told him the Spider King was summoning a dark force against them, but his heart believed it was something else. Believed it was Ellos.
There was power here.
“ELFKIND!” Tommy yelled. “Friends! Rally to me!”
“They can’t hear you,” said Kat.
“Then you tell them,” ordered Tommy.
“But—”
“You read my thoughts and project it to them,” said Tommy. “All of them.”
Kat had never tried to project her thoughts to more than a few at a time, certainly not to thousands. Without another word, she listened in on Tommy’s thoughts. Then, taking a deep breath, she focused first on the closest Elves fighting near the tower. She heard such a cacophony of voices but systematically pushed them all away, clearing space for her thoughts to enter. “Elves and friends of Elves, this battle is won in the name of Ellos the Almighty! Rally to the Lords of Berinfell and flee this place!”
Again and again she cried out to them, and soon a fair stream of Elves descended toward them, chased by Warspiders and Gwar. The Drefids remained and their leader, the Spider King, forced to stay to fight the Elves and their allies.
As the flet soldiers approached, Tommy commanded them to leave Vesper Crag, to get outside of the walls as quickly as possible. Tommy knew they had questions . . . he did, too . . . but they couldn’t stop, not until they were outside the walls. “Keep telling them!” he urged Kat.
FLASH!
A bolt of lightning blasted down from the inverted whirlpool of black clouds, striking the tower of red light with such force that the structure exploded. Blocks of stone hurled out, crushing those in their path. A massive piece of stone and mortar hurtled into the Spider King, pinning two of his rear legs.
And that was precisely when they all felt the first drops of rain. One splattered on Kiri Lee’s forehead. She giggled. Kat held out her hand. Tommy closed his eyes and faced up, letting the drizzle wet his face. As the Elves marched by the lords, the rain increased. It became a shower. Tommy noticed some of the Elves slipping on the stairs. The water mixed with the ash and made a kind of gray slime. The rain came down even harder now and seemed to be increasing in intensity by the heartbeat.
“Kat, tell them now!” he yelled.
“I am!” she fired back.
“Skip all the flowery stuff and just tell them to GET OFF THE MOUNTAIN NOW!”
“Okay, okay!” She closed her eyes and projected.
The area at the top of the mounta
in was clearing out . . . certainly of Elves who got the message. But even the enemy forces were evacuating. The Spider King struggled still against the weight upon his legs. Five Drefids remained with him, trying to pry the monstrous stone just enough for his legs to come free.
“Uh, I think we need to leave now, too,” said Jimmy, spitting out the rain that accumulated instantly when he opened his mouth. “It’s about to get really bad.”
“Right,” said Tommy. “Johnny, Autumn, Kiri Lee—let’s go!”
Rain pelted harder than ever, soaking them from head to foot. Every other step was a slip. Many of the Elves slid out of control for great distances until they slammed into enough of their countrymen to stop them.
When the lords reached the last few stairs to the arched window opening, water was running in a stream next to them. Half of it poured into the window, and the rest continued its journey down the mountain. Each of the lords spared more than a glance at that window, but Kiri Lee stopped.
“Kiri Lee!” Tommy called, his words whisked away by gulps of water. “What . . . what are you doing?”
“I’m not leaving Jett here!” she yelled back.
“Wha—no, Kiri Lee, you can’t go back in there!” Tommy couldn’t say any more from that distance. He grabbed Johnny by the arm. “Can you get any flame going in this?” he asked.
Johnny grinned. He held out his palm, and it instantly pooled with water—which flash boiled to steam and turned to a wild, flickering flame.
“Good,” said Tommy hurriedly. “Make yourself a hum—no, an Elven-torch and lead our people to safety!”
“Got it!” Johnny said, and flared the fire in his palm until it shone like a beacon. “Follow me! Follow me!” he yelled.
Kiri Lee had made up her mind, Tommy knew that before he went to her, but he had to try. If she wouldn’t budge, then he knew what he had to do.
“Kiri Lee,” he said, taking her arm firmly, “if you go down there and this flood keeps up, you’ll get washed out like a drowned rat.”
“I told you,” she said, “I’m not going to leave him here.”
“Then I’m going with you,” said Tommy, and he put a foot through the window. That was when Kiri Lee shocked him.
Venom and Song Page 41
