Orphan's Song

by Gillian Bronte Adams

  Emhran.

  That single word—or was it a note?—brought a breath of peace into the chaos, a shimmer of light in the shadows.

  You are the Songkeeper.

  Sing.

  She closed her eyes, allowed the melody to flow through her, and sang.

  The melody tore through Ky, a purging fire, rending bone from marrow, unmaking and then remaking anew. His hand stilled, and the sling hung limp from his fingers.

  A change came over the river before his eyes. The water swelled around the base of the bridge, until the wooden planks groaned beneath the force. A wave dashed across the bridge, knocking one of the mounted soldiers into the river. The rest of the horses skidded on the wet planks, forcing the soldiers to slow their pace.

  Birdie sang without faltering.

  With every note, the stolen sword seemed to grow heavier, weighing down Ky’s belt. His hand brushed the pommel, and cold seized his fingers through the cloth wrappings. He took a deep breath, gripped the hilt, and drew the sword from his belt.

  The strips of cloth shriveled, as if consumed by fire, and fell back, revealing the sword. Long bluish-white blade, glowing and wet, like flames seen through rippling layers of water. A gold crossguard and pommel. Leather wrapped hilt. A high-pitched metallic voice emanated from the blade and blended with Birdie’s melody.

  The sword was singing!

  It wasn’t a conscious decision, but in that moment, with the soldiers bearing down upon them, the river rising, and Birdie’s song flowing through his soul, Ky knew he had to protect her. He pushed past her and Amos and lifted the sword in both hands, point angling down at the bridge.

  With a yell, he drove it into the wooden planks.

  A blinding flash. A deafening roar. A resounding crack.

  Then a firm grip hauled him backward, and he crashed into something solid.

  Gasping for breath, he sat up on the river bank, sopping wet, with Amos standing over him and Birdie sitting at his side. The River Adayn rippled past his feet, scarce a current disturbing the smooth surface of the water, but the Westmark Bridge was gone.

  He stared in amazement from the unfettered river to the naked blade in his hand, to the soaked girl beside him. His hand still tingled with the power coursing through the sword. He forced himself to release the hilt and stared at his palm, expecting his flesh to be seared from the intense cold radiating from the blade, but his skin was unscarred.

  Across the river, waterlogged soldiers and their dripping steeds clambered out onto the bank. Only about half of the soldiers appeared. Of the other half, Ky could see no sign. A few broken planks floating in the water were all that remained of the bridge. Everything else seemed to have been washed away. Even the boats that had been left on the bank after the search for the sword were gone, borne away upon the flood.

  Ky hefted the sword in his hand—such perfect balance, so different from the clumsy, lifeless blades he was used to—and slid it into his belt. Then he stood, groaning at the effort, and turned to Amos, expecting the man to take charge and issue commands as he had in the Underground.

  But Amos stood as if carven from stone, bronze dirk still held upright in his hand. His skin looked like stone too. All the color had fled his cheeks, leaving them the dull gray of the city’s walls. Deep lines marked his face like the intersecting streets of Kerby, all twisting and turning and secrets concealed.

  “We have to go,” Ky said. The soldiers weren’t fools. Even if their means for crossing the river had been destroyed, they would soon recover their wits and their weapons, and he wanted to be far away before that happened.

  “Yes, we must,” Birdie said. Her voice surprised him—it was so faint.

  He held out a hand and helped her up, but her knees buckled at the first step and she sank in his arms. Her short sword lay on the ground at his feet.

  Amos roused from his lethargy and stumbled to Ky’s side, scooping Birdie up in his arms. Her head rolled back against his chest, dark hair shadowing her white face.

  A bolt whistled through the air and plunged into the earth at Ky’s feet. He lurched back and scanned the opposite bank for the shooter. There he was, a dark figure kneeling on the bank to reload his crossbow.

  “Let’s go!” Ky caught up Birdie’s short sword and scrambled for cover, squelching up the soggy slope with Amos behind him.

  “George,” Birdie mumbled, “where’s George?”

  Ky shrugged but couldn’t bring himself to answer. Come to think of it, he hadn’t seen the cat since crossing the river, but he failed to see how a cat mattered when soldiers were using them for target practice! Far as he could see, the only thing that mattered at the moment was putting as much distance between themselves and the soldiers as they could.

  He paused on the crest of the hill to wave a derogatory farewell to the soldiers, then bounded down the slope with Amos at his heels.

  27

  Amos stamped his foot against the frozen ground. It felt solid enough, but on the Westmark, a moorland pitted with peat bogs and hidden pools, one could never be too careful. “We’ll stop here an’ rest for the night.”

  He chaffed at the delay. They’d made good time traveling, once Birdie recovered from the bridge disaster, and Bryllhyn was only another two or three hours’ brisk walk away. But both Birdie and Ky had been lagging behind since evening fell and looked like they would fall over if he didn’t stop soon.

  Ky threw himself down and seemed to fall asleep almost instantly, sprawled on his back with his arms and legs stretched out. Birdie curled up in a ball, and Amos tucked her cloak around her to keep the winter chill at bay. The poor lass was worn out. Such a wee thing. Too small and frail for the burden she was forced to carry.

  If he had his way, she wouldn’t be forced to carry it at all.

  Pity Emhran never asked him for advice.

  He paced beside the sleepers, heavy heart thumping to the rhythm of his dragging steps. His hand sought the solace of his dirk, and he pulled it from the scabbard, flipping it in the air and catching it by the blade again. And again. And again. As the hours slipped by, and he kept watch. But the action brought no comfort as it once had. With each rotation of the blade, he saw the brilliant white-blue of the sword—Artair’s sword—and heard once more the notes of the Song, and saw yet again that kindly face before him.

  Cursed fate. To think that he had forsaken one Songkeeper, only to stumble upon another. That he had rid himself of the sword and all the painful memories bound up in the blade, only to find it again. What could it be but the stars conspiring against him?

  Or Emhran.

  Boggswo—Amos bit off the end of the unspoken word. Best not to scoff at things he didn’t understand. He shoved the dirk into its scabbard and knelt beside Ky.

  The gold pommel of the sword in the sleeping lad’s belt gleamed in Mindolyn’s pale light. Slowly, Amos extended his hand until his fingertips brushed the burnished metal. A chill seeped into his bones, and an ache settled in his chest.

  Befoggling, wasn’t it? That the sword should have spent nigh thirty years in the muck at the bottom of the Adayn, yet not a mark of rust nor stain showed upon it.

  The lad startled awake and scrambled back, clutching the sword to his side. “What do you want?”

  What did he want? To revert to life as it had been less than a week earlier, with the past good and buried, and he content to hate the Takhran from afar. A sigh escaped his lips. There was no hope of that now. “How did ye find the sword?”

  Ky’s gaze assumed a new intensity, and a hard edge crept into his voice. “What do you know about it?”

  “I know ’twas found in the river.”

  “Yeah, and how do you know that?”

  Amos took a deep breath. “Because I put it there.”

  Ky was silent a moment, and when at last he spoke, his voice was hoarse. “The da
rk soldiers found it. Cade wanted to strike back at them, hit them hard, so we stole it. What’s so important about this sword anyway? Is it magic?”

  “Some might call it that.” Though Artair would not have been pleased. He claimed the Song’s power and the sword’s peculiarities came from Emhran, not meddling with darkness.

  For years, Amos had rejected the Song and the Master Singer, denied their power, even their existence. Willful blindness, Nisus called it. Yet what he had seen today summoned dozens of memories he had buried beneath a mound of deceit, until the truth at last lay bare before him and there was no hope in denying it.

  He cleared his throat. “The man who owned that sword was a friend, Artair. He was captured an’ slain by the Takhran long ago. I saw t’ it that his sword was kept out o’ evil hands.”

  “So you threw it in the river?”

  “Aye.” And he had meant for it to stay there too. Forgotten forever.

  “But what is it makes this sword so special?”

  Bearded pikes and mottlegurds! The lad asked more questions than Birdie. Amos massaged his scalp with both hands. “Because it belonged t’ a special man. Now, go back t’ sleep, lad. It’s late.”

  “Was this special man a Songkeeper?”

  Birdie spoke behind him, and Amos heaved a sigh. He’d supposed the lass to be sleeping. “Why d’ ye ask that?”

  “Because I want to know the truth.” She seized his forearm. “Amos, please, I don’t think it’s a curse.”

  He tried to break free, but she wouldn’t relinquish her grip, and he had no desire to hurt her. “Lass, I—”

  “Please! I want to know what I am.”

  “Even if the knowing’ll do ye harm?”

  She released him then and stumbled back. “How can knowing do me any more harm?” Her voice trembled on the verge of tears. “I have no home. I’ve been kidnapped. I’m hunted wherever I go. Something is different about me, and I don’t understand it. I’ve seen people die, Amos. And for what? That’s all I want to know.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Why?”

  Why. How many times had Amos uttered that word in the dark nights following Drengreth? Why. He had whispered it in the pathless tunnels below Mount Eiphyr, and screamed it to the starless sky, and yet he had received no answer. Emhran was silent. As he had ever been.

  And yet, the Song continued.

  That truth could not be denied. It stood before him in the slim figure of a girl, bewildered and forlorn, awaiting his response.

  “Aye, it’s true.” The words were out before he could halt them, and now that he had begun to speak, he found he could not stop, as if the admission had demolished the wall he’d erected to conceal his secrets. “Artair was a Songkeeper, an’ I was one o’ his followers. Even then, the Takhran hated Songkeepers an’ hunted ’em down like animals. So we lived on the run, always just one step ahead o’ the Khelari, ever dreamin’ o’ a day when we would be free o’ ’em. We thought Artair would lead us t’ defeat the Takhran, thought he would save us. Fools—that’s what we were. Deceived by our own vain hopes.”

  “What happened?”

  “One o’ our own turned traitor an’ led the Takhran’s forces right into our midst. We called him brother, an’ he brought our enemies t’ slay us in our sleep. His name was Oran Hamner.” The name tasted like poison on his tongue. “You know him as Carhartan.”

  Birdie’s head snapped up. “You knew Carhartan and you didn’t tell me?”

  “Didn’t realize ’til after he’d captured ye.”

  He should have slain Carhartan when he had the chance. Better that than worrying that the traitor was still out there, somewhere, on the trail of Artair’s sword and the supposed Songkeeper. At least the collapse of the bridge would provide them with a few days of safety, since the only other fordable crossings were miles up and down the river. Though hoping Carhartan had drowned would doubtless be asking too much.

  “What about your friend, Artair?” Ky spoke up. “What happened to him?”

  “Taken alive. The Khelari slew the rest. A few escaped, though I didn’t know it at the time. Thought I was the only one left. So I took Artair’s sword from his tent, before the Khelari could find it, an’ set off t’ rescue him.”

  “Alone?” Birdie’s hand crept back to his arm.

  “Aye. I followed ’em deep into the Takhran’s fortress, but by the time I arrived, ’twas too late.” Amos nearly choked on the word. He couldn’t bring himself to speak of that terrible journey wandering through the dark tunnels of the Takhran’s fortress, or the horrors he had discovered in the caverns below Mount Eiphyr. Artair was dead, and that was all that mattered, because it meant Artair had failed and his promises had proved vain.

  “I knew I had t’ keep his sword out o’ the Takhran’s hands, but I couldn’t bear the sight o’ it. So I traveled t’ the Adayn an’ there on the Westmark Bridge, I cast it into the deep.”

  “And then you became Hawkness,” Ky breathed.

  “Aye, lad, I became Hawkness.” It was strange that words so long concealed should come so easily to his lips.

  Birdie’s grip tightened on his arm. “And who is Hawkness?”

  “Not is. Was. He was an outlaw. Those o’ us who survived Drengreth vowed t’ fight the Takhran ’til our dyin’ breath.”

  “Jirkar and Nisus?” Birdie asked.

  “Aye, they were part o’ the original band. Others trickled in after—the Takhran wasn’t short o’ enemies in those days—an’ beneath the streets o’ Kerby, we plotted our revenge.”

  “But none of the others were as fierce and brave as Hawkness.” Ky’s eyes gleamed in the moonlight. “You’re a legend. A hero.”

  The lad’s words pierced his conscience like a poisoned shaft. “Never a hero, lad. For twelve years we warred, fought, lied, stole, cheated, ’til our cause was lost in the horror o’ who we’d become an’ our own people grew t’ hate us. Most o’ the Drengreth survivors left after the first few years. The rest dwindled away one by one. Some taken by death or imprisonment. Still more by the lure o’ a new life.

  “And that’s when I forsook the name o’ Hawkness an’ became who I am, Amos McElhenny, travelin’ peddler. But I’ve never truly forgotten who I’ve been, or what the Takhran has done.”

  There. He had said it. The truth was revealed at last, and he felt naked before it. In the silence following his words, he heard the wind creeping over the moor accompanied by the shrill weeping of the night moths.

  Then Birdie spoke. “The Song isn’t a curse, Amos.”

  “Lass, I’m tryin’ t’ protect—”

  “No!” She jerked away from him. “No. You have to understand. It’s a part of who I am, and I can’t deny that anymore. I am the Songkeeper.”

  The way she said it, so calmly, set Amos’s teeth on edge. “D’ ye even know what that means? D’ ye know what a Songkeeper is? Or the Song, for that matter, or any o’ it?”

  “How can I when no one will explain it to me?”

  “It’s dangerous meddlin’ in things ye don’t understand—”

  “But don’t you understand, Amos? This is who I am. I didn’t see that before, and I don’t know what it means yet, but I can’t deny it. I have to know more. Please. Help me.” Head thrown back, hair tossing in the wind, she seemed as fragile as a fire flower, yet as strong as a zoar tree. Even her plea for aid sounded strangely like an ultimatum.

  Images stirred on the edge of Amos’s vision. Memories he had thought defeated assailed him once more. The horrors of the Pit. The choking stench of death, so thick it seemed to assume physical form and claw at his throat. Bodies, rows upon rows of them, broken and discarded. And Artair . . .

  No! He wrenched himself back to the present and the lass standing before him. “I’m sorry, lass. I can’t help ye become a Songkeeper.”

  28

  Birdie
sat alone in the dark, huddled beneath her cloak, while the stars sang above her. Ky and Amos had long since fallen asleep, but Amos’s words still echoed in her ears. She had been so blind. All this time, she had been so worried about others forcing her to become the Songkeeper that she hadn’t realized that Amos was trying to do the opposite.

  He’d warned that people would try to manipulate her, all the while telling her that she was cursed. A shuddering breath escaped her lips. She’d thought he cared about her for who she really was, but she should have known better.

  No one would ever care about her for her own sake. Only what they could get from her.

  Stealthy footsteps crunched behind her. She reached for her sword and slowly turned.

  A familiar figure shuffled around the campsite, obviously taking pains to be silent—Amos. Half of her wanted to rush over and reason with him, beg him to understand. Surely she could make him see that her ability was a part of who she was, not a curse, and certainly not something she could ignore. But the other half of her recalled the lies and the hurt and the secrets, and refused to move.

  So she sat and watched as Amos knelt beside Ky for a moment, and then stood, wrapped his cloak about him, and marched away into the night.

  Ten minutes passed, and he did not return.

  Then an hour.

  Birdie hugged her knees to her chest. He would return. He had to. And in the light of day he would be more reasonable.

  He would come back.

  She said the words over and over to herself, as if the repetition could somehow make it come true. How long she sat there, just her and her thoughts and the airy melody overhead, she did not know. But at last, pale strands of light streaked across the fringes of the sky, heralding the approach of dawn.

  And Amos had not returned.

  A flash drew her gaze to the eastern horizon where Tauros sailed up over the crest of the earth. A long, clear note, like the call of a horn, hung in the air. The Morning Star, Artair, shot across the sky to herald the rising sun and vanished in a burst of gold.