But this wasn’t how she had wanted it. She asked for answers, and he handed her a sword? She lowered the blade. “Don’t you understand, Jirkar? I don’t want to fight them. I want to be free of them.”
Jirkar’s hand settled over hers, tightening her fingers about the hilt. “Don’t you understand, miss? You were born to fight them.”
The bronze hawk stared up at Amos as he flipped his dirk in the air, catching it by the tip of the blade each time. Fierce green eyes, uncannily like his own, blazed in the light of the fire and burned deep within his soul. A flick of the wrist, and the blade snapped up, rotated twice, and he caught it again without having to move his hand.
The action—so simple—brought back dozens of memories. The rush of adrenaline before a raid, muscles tight, lungs burning from shallow breaths, and then the slow calm train of thought made possible by performing this mindless task to release the nervous energy.
Distant shadows flitted across his vision, carrying him farther back in recollection. He held the dirk for the first time, the carved wooden handle odd to his touch, the strange hawk’s head, unnerving. A gift. A kindly face bent over him, lips parted as if to speak, but Amos pulled away.
The hawk’s gaze met his own, unblinking. Liar. Amos stiffened at the whispered accusation. Coward. Deserter. Balderdash. Betrayer. “Boggswoggle!”
He plunged the dirk into the log he was sitting on, catapulting himself back to the present. Back to the forest, beside the fire, with Nisus seated across from him and plates, cups, and remnants of their meal scattered about.
Nisus pulled his pipe from his mouth and thumped it against the log, knocking the ashes out. “You have not been exactly truthful with us.”
“What d’ ye mean? I’m in no mind for foolishness.”
“I assumed you were running from the Khelari because of the past . . . but that isn’t it, is it? It’s because of the girl. Because of what she is.”
Nisus knew.
Somehow—Amos didn’t know how—Nisus knew about Birdie. Heat crawled down Amos’s neck and into his arms. His nostrils flared. He bolted upright, caught Nisus by the collar, and threw him up against a tree. “I don’t care who ye think she is, but I’ll have no more o’ such talk. She’s my lass, an’ I won’t let the likes o’ ye fill her head with lies.”
“Amos? Is everything all right?”
At Birdie’s voice, Amos released Nisus, allowing the dwarf to fall into a heap at the base of the tree, and staggered back, stumbling for something to say.
Birdie stood with Jirkar at her back, a drawn sword in her hand. The sight of his wee lass with a weapon in her fist set Amos’s skin bristling and drove all other thoughts from his mind. It was all well and good that she learn to defend herself—though he planned on doing any necessary protecting—but if Nisus and Jirkar intended anything more than that, he would put a stop to it.
He started forward. “What’s the meaning—”
“Everything’s fine.” Nisus scrambled upright and laid a restraining hand on his arm. “Do not mind us, miss. We were just reminiscing about old times.” The dwarf bent to retrieve his pipe from where it had fallen at Amos’s feet and spoke to him in a low voice. “Surely there’s no harm in the little miss learning to protect herself? Let them be.”
Amos glowered at Nisus, but sat down again, watching as Jirkar led Birdie to the far edge of the fire’s glow and began to instruct her in the art of the blade. The lass’s movements were stiff. She held the sword gingerly, as one might hold a snake, and her sweeping strokes hinted of a life spent wielding a broom.
But she would learn soon enough.
And that worried him.
Amos tugged his dirk from the log, sheathed it, and pried his fingers from the hilt. “So, Nisus, are we—the last survivors of the old days—to quarrel with one another? Fine gift for the Takhran that would be.”
Nisus knelt beside the fire and set a kettle over the flames. “Tea?” From seemingly nowhere, he produced a pewter tea bowl, saucer, and a bag of tea leaves. He plucked a pinch of leaves, rolled them between his fingers, then dropped them into a mesh pouch that he set in his tea bowl. “Imported all the way from Langoria. Care to have some?”
Amos shook his head. He’d forgotten Nisus’s strange fondness for the watery grass-flavored commodity. “I prefer a som’at stronger drink.”
Steam puffed from the kettle’s spout. Nisus lifted it and poured a stream of boiling water over the leaves in his tea bowl. He removed the leaves after a few moments and sat down across from Amos, cupping the bowl in his hands. “I am surprised you dare mention the old days. From what I have heard, you seem to have forsaken them.”
“I have.”
“You were once a follower of Artair—”
“I was a fool. Deceived. Blind.” He rolled the words across his tongue, savoring the bitter taste. “I know better now.”
Nisus sipped his tea. “Sounds like the fool is talking now. Since when is willful blindness better? Jirkar may be a mite bludgeon-headed, but he is not deaf. He overheard you two talking. Will you deny that the girl has the same skills that Artair had?”
“Artair failed us. Everything he led us to believe was a lie.”
The fire popped and crackled in the silence following Amos’s words. He could feel Nisus’s gaze resting on him and could picture the accusatory squint of his eyes. Not that it mattered. Let Nisus think what he would. “What d’ ye want from me?”
“War with the Takhran is coming. Regardless of your feelings about Artair, you know what the Takhran is. You know what he can do. We need your help.”
The words were familiar. Amos had used almost the exact same argument in an attempt to persuade Dalton only days before. So much had changed since then. “What we? Yer kin from the mountains?”
“Not just my kin. Warriors from all over Leira are ready to take up arms. We may not be united yet, but we will be.”
Amos pursed his lips and released the stale air from his lungs with an audible hiss. He stared into the flames. “An’ . . . what . . . does it have t’ do with me?”
“Our Caran was murdered last year. His son, the new Caran, is young, inexperienced, a mere beardling. We have allies, but they will not come to our aid without a strong captain to unite us. They will not accept the Caran’s leadership, nor will the Xanthen bow to one of their generals. Armies, weapons, and equipment we have in abundance. All we lack is a leader.”
Amos’s head shot up.
A fire smoldered in Nisus’s gaze. The dwarf leaned forward, hands clasped in front of him, tea bowl forgotten. “After Artair’s death, Hawkness led us into battle, earned the undying hatred of the Takhran, and swore never to rest until his reign had ended. Yet today, the Takhran remains, but Hawkness has disappeared.”
“Aye.” Amos’s throat tightened. “Hawkness disappeared, an’ he’s long gone by now. Just like Artair. Just like the rest o’ them.”
Nisus nodded slowly. “That is why we need you. Consider it, Amos. The tribes would hail you with open arms. The Xanthen would accept your authority as one of Artair’s oldest followers. You could unite us and lead us to victory.”
Amos studied the web of scars covering his hands. He should have known there was no escaping the past. One could only hope to evade it for a time before it came snapping at the heels like one of the Takhran’s cursed hounds. Still, at the thought of once more standing against the Takhran, his chest tightened, and he felt the coolness of the dirk’s hilt beneath his fingers without intentionally moving his hand.
“The Takhran’s armies march on my homeland as we speak,” Nisus said. “He will come south when the north is defeated, if not before. You’re running out of places to hide. And you cannot conceal the girl forever.”
A chill swept over Amos. Had he so soon forgotten his responsibility to Birdie that he would even consider resuming his old life?
Steel rang on steel. Across the fire, Birdie blocked Jirkar’s stroke and danced away from his next attack. Her forehead pinched in concentration. She might not be skilled, but she moved with a grace and rhythm that could well prove deadly with experience. It reminded Amos of a flowing stream. Of music.
“In the mountains, among my people, she will be safe.”
A bitter taste flooded Amos’s mouth. “With an army upon yer doorstep? Aye, that sounds like a safe place t’ me.”
“We will protect the Songkeeper.”
Amos clenched his fist around the hawk’s head until the sharp beak drove into his hand. “Oh an’ is that why ye’re teachin’ her t’ fight? Ye’d lead her t’ her death.”
“You cannot keep her from what she is, from what she must become! You cannot deny her gift.”
“But I can protect her from those who’ll use her for their own gain.”
Nisus thudded his fists against the log and pushed to his feet. “You see monsters in everything and everyone. Cannot trust anyone, can you Amos?” He stalked away, then stopped. “We will lose, you know. Unaided, our army might as well be weaponless for all the good we can do against the Khelari. We’re defeated before we start.”
The denial stuck in his throat, but he forced it out. “Whatever I once was, I’m not that now.”
Words he had spoken only a few days earlier tore through his mind: Amos McElhenny won’t change. The Takhran can bet his life on it.
Had he, the great Amos McElhenny, changed?
“We need a leader.” Nisus was pleading now, and hope shone in his eyes.
Amos couldn’t look, couldn’t bear to see the hope snuffed out like a candle into darkness. He studied the sun-bleached toes of his boots.
“I’m not yer leader. I never was.”
16
By all rights, he should be dead. Nothing more than a rotting corpse lying in the gorge while carrion fowl feasted on his remains and that cursed griffin sheared the flesh from his bones. The thought was enough to instigate a treacherous quiver in Carhartan’s reining hand, a quiver that persisted despite his attempts to resume mastery of himself.
Amos had been there, too.
It wasn’t every day one survived both a griffin attack and a visit from a ghost in the flesh.
Misty though his vision had been as he’d emerged for a moment from unconsciousness before slipping back, he had seen the man’s wild green eyes and flaming hair and that cursed dirk in his hand. Amos had called him by name—Oran Hamner.
A name he had believed buried in the depths of the past.
The burn scar on his neck started throbbing again, and a hiss of pain escaped his lips. He dropped his reins to his steed’s neck, plucked the pipe from his side pouch, and balancing it against his chest with his left arm, managed to light it. He took a long pull. The familiar action brought a sense of steadiness to his shattered world.
Amos once vowed to kill him.
So by what mystical alignment of the stars was he still alive?
The steady tapping of the horse’s shoes on the cobbled street jerked Carhartan from his thoughts. Above, a thin strip of star studded sky showed through the narrow gap between overhanging buildings. Firepots dangling from iron poles highlighted the dirt and grime covering the city of Serrin Vroi. A few ragged peasants shuffled past, eyes downcast and faces averted.
Carhartan emptied his pipe and gripped the reins again, fighting to quell the tide of anxiety threatening to dash him to the ground in the face of ruin. This was the second time he had tried unsuccessfully to capture the Songkeeper. Finding her after all these years had been the wildest stroke of luck in his career. Her capture would have restored to him the favor he had enjoyed for a brief period following that first success, so long ago.
The discovery that both Amos and the griffin still lived, coupled with the Songkeeper’s escape, struck a double blow against his ambitions. It must not happen again. The Takhran would not look kindly upon a man who failed a third time.
He forced his sagging posture erect and spurred the horse to a faster pace. The steed snorted, and the tempo of the iron-shod hooves increased. Even if death awaited him, there was no sense in lingering.
He preferred to meet danger head on.
Gray dusk shattered before the approach of night, and the last faint gleam of Tauros’s rays faded. Just ahead, the city changed. The overhanging houses fell back and the narrow street opened into a paved road across a square lined with zoar trees. Beyond, the serrated peak of Mount Eiphyr stabbed the night sky, and along its base, ablaze with red light, ran the wall of the Takhran’s fortress.
The road passed through a circle of fountains in the center of the square, long silent, now broken and filled with dust and leaves. Carhartan craned his neck back to look up at the ebony trunks towering overhead, straight as columns until they spread into a canopy of silver green at the very top. Fallen leaves clumped at the bases of the zoars and skittered across the square, pursued by a chill breeze.
Ahead, the outer wall of the fortress wound down the side of the mountain in serpentine fashion. Protective battlements, a four towered gatehouse, and a massive double portcullis guarded the gate, but the gate itself stood open.
Once Carhartan had dared remonstrate the Takhran over the strategic fallacy of leaving the portcullis raised and the entrance unbarred at all times. His master had simply laughed and ignored his suggestion. A closed gate, he said, was a sign of weakness.
Carhartan, riding now across the drawbridge toward the open gate, was impressed by the wisdom of his master’s plan. The gaping hole, rather than appearing to be a chink in the impregnable defenses of the wall, seemed a warning that here was strength too great to fear attack. Arrogance, perhaps, but the Takhran’s armies stood unopposed.
Hounds bayed as Carhartan approached, sending the rumor of his coming deep within the fortress. As he rode beneath the gleaming spikes of the first portcullis, two bristling hounds sprang toward him. Chains clinked, yanking the ravenous beasts back. Saliva dripped from their fangs, and their white eyes gleamed in the light of the torches.
His horse trembled, nickering and pawing the ground, but Carhartan waited in silence for the Watchman to appear.
The black cloaked figure materialized out of the shadows, torchlight glinting blood red off the curved blade of the double-headed battle axe he bore on his shoulder.
A dozen soldiers clattered after him and fell into line just within the entrance.
“Who goes there?” The Watchman’s deep voice rebounded off the gatehouse walls.
“Lord Carhartan, Second Marshal of the Khelari, bearing a message for the Takhran.”
The cloaked figure shoved a torch in his face, and the light blinded him for a moment. Then the Watchman stood back and lowered his axe, the metal studded shaft thudding against the stone floor. “Let him pass.”
A cranking winch sounded from the darkness within the gatehouse towers, and the chains receded, dragging the slavering hounds backward, inch by inch. The soldiers parted, and Carhartan rode through the tunnel-like entrance. Garbled voices muttered overhead, and through narrow arrow slits and murder holes in the ceiling above, he made out the flickering light of a fire and shadowy forms pacing back and forth.
He emerged from the gatehouse into the castle bailey where rows of wattle and daub buildings served as barracks for the Takhran’s ever growing army, stables for his steeds, store houses, and smithies. The massive Keep, built into the side of Mount Eiphyr, stood before him. He dismounted, handed his steed to a waiting soldier, along with his broken sword and instructions to have it repaired, and climbed the stairs to the entrance.
He followed the familiar path to the oak door at the end of the main passage and clanked into the great hall in the midst of the supper hour. White-aproned serving lads bustled to and fro along the lines of tables, bearing enormou
s platters covered with the proceeds of the hunt on their heads. Scarce a vacant spot remained at the tables in the lower portion of the hall, but the great table on the dais stood empty, a refuge of quiet in the chaos. The savory aroma of the meal mingled with the far less pleasant scent of unwashed clothes, sweaty humans, and drooling hounds.
Carhartan felt a light touch on his arm. A soldier stood at his elbow, helmet in hand and head bowed. “If you please, Lord Carhartan, the Takhran sent me to fetch you. He said you were to come to the Pit the moment you arrived. The cage is waiting at the top.”
Carhartan swallowed the bile rising in his throat, and as the man started to lead, thrust him aside. “No need. I know the way.”
Stammering his obedience, the soldier drifted back into the crowd. Carhartan crossed the great hall, turning a blind eye to the disturbance his appearance caused among the line of feasters, and left through an arched door beside the dais.
The fact that the Takhran had known of his imminent arrival did little to settle the quiver of apprehension in his throat, though it scarcely surprised him. Winged spies kept the Takhran well informed.
Feet thudding on the stone steps, Carhartan descended the narrow winding staircase past three levels, until he came out onto a ledge. The cage hung before him, creaking and swaying on its chains in the shaft. It shuddered and dropped a few inches when he stepped in. His left hand settled on the winch, metal grated on metal, the chains groaned, and the cage slowly sank.
Minutes marched past, each rotation of the winch bringing him deeper into the bowels of the earth below Mount Eiphyr. The square of light marking the entrance grew smaller and smaller above. He cursed his own forgetfulness for neglecting to bring a torch
The cage came to rest against the cavern floor with a shock that threw him off his feet. He slammed into the wall of the cage, catching the bars just in time to keep from falling. Forehead burning, he stood tall, straightened his cloak and sword belt, and strode out into the cavern.
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