With a shrug, the dwarf sat beside him, pulled a pipe from his belt, and prepared it. “Artair believed there was. He always told us to look to Hawkness.”
Artair . . .
A shudder tore through him at the name. Smoke billowed across his vision. He dug his fingers into his knees, trying to stave it off, but the damage was already done. The mere mention of his name, and Amos was jolted back to the Pit. Jagged rock dug into his spine. Chimera venom coursed through his hand, a fire that blazed through the nerves in his arm and up into his shoulder. Blood spilled from the wounds in his chest. More with each erratic breath.
Spread-eagled beneath the cavern ceiling, Artair hung suspended. Blood dripped, dripped, dripped from the gash in his throat. And then their eyes met . . . and Amos could have sworn—sworn—that the Songkeeper’s eyes moved.
Shadows claimed his vision. Rough hands seized him, but it was only a momentary distraction from the crushing weight of the pain. He lurched toward the shadows, tried to drown in it. But the Takhran’s voice drew him back and banished the welcome oblivion.
“Bind him below the Songkeeper.”
The world blurred before a whirlwind of agony. Relentless. Unquenchable. Inescapable. It burrowed through his bones, ate into his mind, left everything within him screaming, begging for relief.
A breath of wind stirred across his clammy skin. He jerked back to the present and caught his good hand clenched around his crippled arm. Naught but a vain attempt to ease the throbbing pain. He unknotted his fingers and flexed his hand. Dragged his mind back to the thread of conversation. Artair. “Don’t be a fool, Nisus. All this time, an’ ye still believe in him?”
“His words have always proven to be true.”
“Boggswoggle and drivelin’ poppycock. He promised t’ free us. Instead, he got himself captured and killed.” The dwarf opened his mouth to speak, but the ghosting pain had a relentless grip on Amos’s hand, and it only served to flame the anger that he yearned to unleash. “D’ ye want t’ know what ’tis truly like in the Pit, Nisus? That’s what ye’ve come for, isn’t it? The Takhran’s got him hangin’ in there like a bloody banner. His prize trophy. The place reeks of death and unnatural power. Thirty-some odd years later, and the flesh is still on his bones and the blood still flows from his wounds, but he’s dead, Nisus. He’s dead.”
With shaking hands, the dwarf lifted the pipe and took a long draw. At long last, he spoke. “It is not your fault, Amos.”
Ah, but it was, and both of them knew it. Protecting the camp had been his task as Artair’s right hand. Just like it had been his task to train Oran, the man who had betrayed them. He had failed in both.
“Even supposing it was, you have redeemed yourself. Artair spoke of a coming Songkeeper who would bring war to the Takhran and end his rule.” Nisus paused to take a draw upon his pipe and puff out a plume of smoke. “Perhaps . . . he did not mean himself.”
“Och, Nisus—”
“Hear me out, Hawkness. You found the little Songkeeper. You protected her, traded your life for hers. And now she stands ready to bring this battle to the Takhran. Stop torturing yourself with regret. Help the Songkeeper destroy his fleet and put your suffering behind you.” The dwarf gestured with his pipe to the well where Birdie looked to be in the middle of a heated discussion with Ky. His lass was clad in dwarf armor. She looked a true warrior now, standing with her head raised and eyes afire with purpose.
For an instant he felt a glimmer of hope.
Then the stench of the Pit flooded his senses. Shaking, he lowered his head and looked at the hideous scars and twisted mass of ruined skin and bone in his crippled hand. “I can’t.”
She was safer without him.
•••
Shavings fell with each stroke of his knife. Ky rubbed his thumb across the shorn hallorm wood balanced across his knees and lifted his gaze just long enough to watch Birdie and her companions disappear into the ring of bald-tipped trees. He sat on a fallen rock with his back to the broken wall. It offered a fair vantage point for him and hid him from their line of sight.
In case anyone had bothered to look back.
He bent over his work again. One finished crutch already rested against the wall behind him. This second one was almost done. Carpentry wasn’t one of his skills, but Lorn—one of the folk they had rescued from Al Tachaad—had lent a hand with the actual woodwork and left him to smooth it all down. Working methodically, he drew the knife across a rough path until it stripped away and the shaving fell to his feet.
“Ain’t havin’ second thoughts, are you?”
He jumped. The knife gouged an uneven line in the wood.
Stifling a chuckle, Gull stepped up beside him. Planted his bow and leaned against it, like you might lean on a staff. “Not too late. Run an’ you might catch up with them.”
“I got other things to do.” It did spark a thought, though. Almost a dozen of the raiders had turned in their hawk feathers and marched off with Cade instead. He didn’t blame them. Honestly, he didn’t. War promised a sweeter revenge than his missions. Knowing that didn’t take away the sting. But it did make him wonder if maybe Gull was rethinking his decision to stay. He squinted up at him. “What about you?”
“Nah, I ain’t. Reckon they’re doin’ somethin’ important up there, sure. But I reckon we’ve done somethin’ important here too.” Gull jabbed a finger at the hawk feather stitched to the front of his jacket. “Raiders started it. Reckon we should see it through.”
Not one of the Underground runners had followed Cade. It brought a swell of pride to Ky’s chest. Just this once, they had chosen him and his mission. He would prove it worthy and soon. “We will, Gull. We will.”
Gull raised an eyebrow. “Got any plans?”
“Sure, plenty.” And none involved waiting for the Caran’s army to return, no matter what Birdie had “silvertongued” the chieftains into promising. Waiting to act was cruel when the innocent suffered.
Gnawing his lower lip, he swept the edge across the wooden grip one last time and then propped the crutch up for inspection.
“Crutches play a part in your plans?”
“You could say that.” Sheathing the knife, he stood, swung the crutches lengthwise over his shoulder, and slung his arms over them. “Come on. There’s a fellow you should meet. He’s going to help us take Dacheren.”
Willingly or not.
Part Four
29
The thunder and crash of waves upon rock heralded their imminent arrival to the northeast coast. Birdie scampered along the curve of a mountain slope, forging her way through knee-high heather and rusted sedge. Though it was almost summer, a chill wind blew from the north, tasting of salt, pasting her hair to her skull with sea mist, and leaving her cheeks numb and tingling. So close now. So close. The voice of the deep beckoned to her. She could feel the call of the water rippling through her veins.
“Hold a moment, Songkeeper.” Jirkar called up to her.
A glance back revealed that the dwarf had fallen behind, scanning for enemies. But Sym and Frey still followed close on her heels. The main army progressed at a slower pace, though not too far distant. In the two weeks since they had left Drengreth and embarked upon this mission, she’d often ventured forth to scout ahead. It was rarely necessary, since the wild creatures frequently brought her tidings of the fleet as it beat around the coastline on a southeasterly track that would bring it past Serrin Vroi on its way toward the Salt Flats and the desert beyond.
But today the tidings indicated something more.
Birdie rounded the headland and came into view of the coast. She stood atop the heights, overlooking a steep series of bounding drops to the sea below, where it frothed and foamed around the rocks. Scarce half a mile out from the shore, swinging close to catch the current that swept around the headland, floated the fifteen ships that formed the Takhran’s fleet. An eerie melody howled through the wind that filled their sails and lashed the waves into a fierce, driving force. It wailed of
death and destruction. A cloying strain of music that seeped into the soul and rotted the bones from within. Once before she had heard it, in a dream guided by the sword’s song.
Dimly, she sensed the melodies of the others pressing in around her. Sensed too the shiver of fear that gripped them at the sight of the fleet and the dismal force of the melody—a melody that could only belong to one.
She spoke the realization aloud. “Seabringer is here.”
“We are too late, then.” Sym’s voice fell.
“No.” Birdie turned to face them, glancing from one to another and trying to infuse that glance with all the strength and courage she could muster. “No, we are not too late.”
Hope had fled from Jirkar’s face. An ashen sheen tinged his skin. “Come, miss, what can we do? Without a fleet, we cannot hope to engage them in battle. We have lost already.”
She gave him a strange look. Jirkar had ever been the one with unshakable strength and faith. Yet now he looked shaken to the core. Sym as well. The effects of Seabringer’s melody?
“Things are no different than when we sat in the war-meet and decided upon this course of action. The Song has spoken. It is weaving this melody even now.” She swung back to face the sea and began the steep descent, picking her way down across sea-hammered boulders and around thickets of heather. Ever sure-footed, Frey followed at her heels. “How soon can the army be ready to attack?”
“We have no vessels, miss.” Jirkar’s voice pursued them, but he did not come down. “Our warriors cannot swim out to the ships in full battle gear. That would be beyond madness.”
“They will not need to swim.” Without slackening pace, she skidded down the last rounded drop toward the water’s edge, calling breathlessly back over her shoulder. “Have them take grappling hooks and ropes. Gather along the waterline and prepare them for a march.” She paused on a barnacled rock that jutted out over the sea, the lashing water only inches below her feet. With each incoming wave, spray shot up around her, rattling off her bronze breastplate and leaving misty droplets clinging to her face. The ebb and flow of the waves was almost hypnotic. It drew her into its fierce cadence.
Within the deep, the Song sang to her a tale of wonders.
“The ships will come to us.”
Her words did not reach them. Both the Saari and the dwarf had halted halfway down the slope with mirrored expressions of confusion and doubt, magnified by echoes of Seabringer’s dark melody. She raised her voice. “Go.”
She did not wait to see if they heeded her request but once again turned her face toward the sea. The melody-laden wind dashed the fleet forward at a relentless pace that matched the fury of the Takhran and the mindless fervor of his servants. It was that fury that drove them to take advantage of the currents sweeping close to shore around the bend of the coast. It was that fury that would propel them into her hands.
So the Song sang to her.
The fleet must be halted here or not at all. For this she had come, and at any other time the utter insanity of that thought would have driven her trembling in search of a place to hide until all made sense again. But the truth of the Song could not be ignored. It quenched the fear and doubt and infused her soul instead with an overwhelming peace.
Emhran’s peace.
Hands outstretched, she reached out for the Song and found it lurking in the vastness of the ocean. It raged and tossed, a current of light already battling the tendrils of the dark melody that poured from the throat of Seabringer and plunged, hissing, through the water. She threw her head back to the sky and began to sing. Her voice broke over the pounding waves, whipped through the wind, and clashed with the dark melody filling the sails of the Langorian ships.
She felt the shift in the currents like a tug in her chest. As one, the ships yawed toward the shore, heeling over before a sudden crosswind. Tiny stick-figure sailors scurried aloft, scrambling to reset the sails, but the damage had already been done. Enormous waves billowed behind the vessels, pressing them forward.
The sea had them at its mercy, and the Song guided the sea.
A gust of wind slammed into her, threatening to tear her from her perch. Her feet slipped on the slick rock. Frey pressed against her side, shielding her with his body. Legs splayed, head down, an anchor against the storm. Still singing, she gripped his antlers with one hand, relishing the feel of something solid to hold while the wind whipped around her, howling with the dark threads of Seabringer’s song.
Rain began to fall. Only a drizzle at first, but it crescendoed into a raging torrent that pelted her face and stung her skin. Thunder and lightning burst over the sea where the two melodies clashed. It seemed the sky itself would rip apart beneath the force. Her skin tingled with the charge in the air. It stole the breath from her lungs. A strike smote the slope above her, cascading broken rocks into the sea.
She crouched instinctively. Water crashed over her. She seized Frey’s neck and clung on tightly, singing even through the moment of swirling panic. The wave receded, leaving them standing still upon the seaweed-strewn rock. But even as it fell back, streaming across the dips and divots in the stone, a roar filled her ears. A second wave shot over the rock and knocked her flat. The force slammed her back against the rock, and the air burst from her lungs. An oily tide of water rushed into her throat.
Her voice failed.
The strength leeched from her limbs. She tried to claw her way back to the surface, but her armor weighed her down, dragging her deeper into that raging tide that pulsed with dark strains. It sang to her of fear, of death, of incalculable suffering. It sang to her of the horrors of the Pit, and in the crushing force of the water she felt again the crushing blackness that had claimed Tal Ethel.
Something struck her in the side. She latched onto it, and instantly felt a pull in the opposite direction. A tendril of music drifted down to her, soft and sweet and airy—Frey’s melody. She hung suspended between the two unyielding forces. It seemed an eternity passed, and then the hold of the tide broke and she was pulled ashore.
Frey skittered back, head lowered to allow her grip on his antlers, half dragging her as she clawed her way up the rocky slope above the fury of the sea. Oily water spewed from her throat. Lungs heaving for air, she lurched to her feet and stared out over the scene. The fleet battled the boiling sea, scarce a hundred yards from shore, but the sailors had managed to tack about, and Seabringer’s melody swept the ships around again. Soon it would carry them away.
The peace that she had felt earlier had vanished. Drained from her chest with all hope of victory by the oozing, dark melody. All that remained was a hollowness that echoed the gaping chasm of the Pit.
“Songkeeper?” Frey breathed her name. His muzzle rested upon her shoulder, pulling her tight against the arc of his neck, burying her face within the dripping strands of his mane.
Jirkar’s melody flared to her right. A moment later, he called from a little farther down the shoreline where the melodies of their forces had amassed. “We are in place, Songkeeper. What would you have us do?”
For a moment, she could not think.
She could barely breathe. Her plan to drive the ships upon the shore had failed. The dark melody was all pervasive. It hummed in the ache in her lungs, and the stink of the Pit still flooded her senses.
Then the voice of the Master Singer spoke in her mind, and before the awesome, thunderous power of that voice, all else was driven away.
Peace. Be still.
She fell to her knees.
“Miss?” Jirkar appeared at her elbow, helm tucked beneath one arm. Concern knotted his brow. “Are you all right? Our forces wait above the waterline. What would you have us do?”
“Stand.” And as if the breathless word were a command, her legs obeyed and lifted her up again. With a cold-numbed hand, she brushed the tangled hair back from her face and spared a glance at Frey. The saif started toward her, a nicker of anxiety welling in his throat. “Stand and watch. Wait for the signal.”
&nbs
p; Then, with the voice of the Master Singer filling her ears, weaving courage and peace into her heart, she lifted her voice once more in Song and stepped forward off the edge of the rock.
Into the heart of the sea.
•••
A concussive blast tore out from her. The sea roared and swept away. She opened her eyes, singing to an alien landscape. Sand strewn with reddish rocks dotted with crimson and yellow sea fans and strange funnel-shaped growths of coral in pale pinks and purples. The ocean receded in a furious tidal wave before the force of the Song, leaving the Langorian ships stranded upon the dry seabed in its wake. Some were keeled over, some broken in two by the force of the collision, and some swept away entirely by the backwash of the sea.
Eleven of the fifteen ships remained. The air was full of the creak of wrecked and settling wood. Masts teetered and fell. Rigging parted with the twang of a massive bowstring. Broken melodies cried out in terror and pain.
Behind the ships, the ocean rose in a vast wall of water that towered higher than the masts. Dark shapes of sea creatures swam in its depths. For a moment, Birdie considered releasing the Song and allowing the full weight of the sea to crash down upon the ships. Crushing the Khelari and Seabringer in one final blow. In that, they would know the havoc and terror they had unleashed upon so many.
But the Song restrained her.
And then the army of the free tribes was on the move, pouring down the slopes and out over the dry seabed. Xanthen, Adulnae, dwarves, Nordlanders, Saari, freed slaves—any and all that the Caran and Sa Itera had been able to recruit to their cause—all running across the uneven ground with little thought to the wonders that they passed. Wonders few men had seen before. They swarmed the ships, a furious, screaming mob. Bows and slings sang. Arrows whistled through the air. Grapnels flew. The Khelari fought furiously.
And Birdie stood still, in the middle of it all, singing.
From the nearest ship, a tendril of the dark melody lanced out. A robed figure stood at the top of the mast. Seabringer. The ship had keeled over, mast pointing toward the shore. The robed figure bowed his head, and his song shattered the air. It might have just been her imagination, but she thought she saw a flash of crimson at his throat.
Song of Leira Page 32
