Warmth stirred through the water around him, a sense of something like pleasure or affirmation. Deep within, he could almost hear the vibrations of a voice singing. Then the current picked up again and propelled them down the tunnel, carrying them safely through the bends and over, beneath, and around outstretched fingers of rock. Until it broke through a hole in the mountainside and spilled out at last into a pool in a green hollow. The river deposited him on the bank, and he crawled to his feet beside the others.
Ky lifted his face to the sky and breathed deeply. He felt both drained and strangely exhilarated by the ordeal. Behind them, the shattered tip of Mount Eiphyr reared its head to the sky, and the foothills that surrounded Serrin Vroi extended before his feet. The sun hung low over the horizon. He had no idea whether it had been days or weeks or even years since he had entered the Pit. But in the distance, he heard clashing weapons, whinnying horses, and roaring lions—the sounds of battle.
“Oi.” Paddy spoke up. “Where’s Hawkness?”
42
Birdie stood her ground as Earthshaker advanced toward her. Somehow, in that last scuffle on the riverbank, he had lost his hammer, pitting them against one another song against Song. The ground trembled before his advance, a line of destruction rippling through the stone. The rock tore beneath her feet, breaking off into jagged shards, and the force of the snap knocked her backward a step. Arms outstretched, she managed to stay upright.
And her song did not falter.
Over the Shantren’s massive shoulder, she saw Seabringer’s thin face twist in concentration. An instant later his melody reached out, a tentative stroking toward the river churning beyond the vortex that the Song had created around them. But the river shrank from him as it had shrunken from the Takhran, and frustration welled in his voice.
A second note from Earthshaker, and the earth beneath her feet caved in. She leapt back and found herself on the edge of a hole as deep as she was tall. Did he mean to bury her?
Behind, the clash and clang of blades pulled steadily at her ear, dividing her attention between her fight and the one waging between the Takhran and Artair. The two men grunted beneath the force of the blows. Their feet hammered the ground, and in the rhythm of their movements Birdie heard the echo of their warring melodies. Meanwhile, the two Shantren sought to pin her down and keep her from the fight.
Seabringer’s melody reached out again. And again, nothing. The Shantren loosed a cry of rage. Bloodshot eyes gleamed at her beneath stringy hair. Head down, he charged at her. Reckless. Weaponless.
She felt the tug of the Song in her chest. A strand of water spun off the side of the vortex, coiled around Seabringer, and yanked him into the raging flood beyond.
Earthshaker charged next, the riverbed shaking in time with his pulsing melody and pounding steps. The rock shattered beneath her feet, and the force threw her backward at the same time the Song’s coiling melody wound around Earthshaker. She pushed back to her feet.
Earthshaker sought to resist the pull of the water, sinking his feet into the earth as it trembled and shivered beneath him. He gave a desperate cry, cutting off the rumbling note of his song, and then the river yanked him away.
Birdie wheeled around. Of all the battles that she had seen, nothing quite compared to the fight unfolding across the riverbed. Both the Takhran and Artair made full use of every speck of terrain within the sphere, advancing first one way and then another, wielding the uneven ground like a second weapon against their opponent, striking from atop large rocks and forcing their opponent down into hollows where the river had eddied and bitten deep into the stone.
The Song urged her closer. So she inched toward the battle and found the liquid walls of the sphere creeping in behind her, narrowing down the fighting space, limiting range, until the space was so small that the walls trembled with the force of Artair’s song clashing with the Takhran’s oily, dark melody.
Within a few strokes, Artair proved the better swordsman. He forced the Takhran back against the vortex wall, and the river spat him back again. But the Takhran fought with a ferocity that reminded Birdie of the monsters he had bred in the Pit. It was a mindless, careless, overwhelming hatred that led him to lunge inside of Artair’s striking range again and again, while Artair’s attacks peppered his torso and arms and legs with gashes. But each cut that Artair landed healed almost as soon as the blood began to flow. Meanwhile, the dirk sliced Artair’s cheek, and if the Songkeeper hadn’t pulled back, it would have been his throat. The Takhran’s sword bit into the meat of his shoulder, and a strangled cry rang through Artair’s melody and set the walls of the sphere shivering.
Both were bloodied and exhausted now. Surely the fight couldn’t last much longer.
Artair beat past the Takhran’s guard and buried his gleaming blade in his chest. The Takhran’s limbs seized and his head jerked back, teeth stained with blood. Then he mastered himself and plunged the dirk into Artair’s side.
The Songkeeper fell back.
Birdie cried out. “No!” Bereft of her song, the sphere shivered and started to fall back, water melting into itself and the flood beyond. She had not realized how high the floodwaters had become. A wave crashed over the edges of the dissipating sphere and the water rose to her ankles before she could rally herself to sing again.
In that moment of silence, she heard a familiar voice.
Amos! Amos . . . here?
The peddler appeared, dripping, from the water that had borne him inside the sphere and fell upon the Takhran with a battle cry ringing from his lips. With both hands, crippled and whole, he seized the Songkeeper’s sword protruding from the Takhran’s chest, and the sword suffered his touch. He drew it from the wound, and the Takhran shuddered.
Teeth clenched in a bloodstained smile, the Takhran brought his own sword around to strike at Amos, but Amos batted it away and swept his feet out from under him. Chest heaving, he stood over his fallen foe and readied the sword for the killing stroke.
“Wait!” Birdie broke off the song again. “The talav! Amos, the talav.”
His head jerked up at her voice, and his eyes roved around the sphere before settling at last on her as if he were seeing her for the first time. “Talav?” His lips moved, muttering the words, and then understanding dawned on his face. He slid the blade beneath both the crystal-inlaid collar and the chain holding the Star of the Desert.
“No . . .” Palms splayed on the riverbed, the Takhran struggled to rise.
Amos twitched his wrist, severing the chains. Dozens of crystals fell from the Takhran’s neck like a crimson rain. They crunched beneath Amos’s boots as he stepped closer to pluck the Star of the Desert out of the reach of the Takhran’s grasping fingers. Mouth pursed, he contemplated the massive crystal a moment, and then spun it up in the air and sliced it in half before it struck a rock and the shards shattered on impact. A thin stream of water trickled beneath, bearing the fragments into the swirling flood beyond.
A thin wail tore from the Takhran’s throat. His body twitched and withered. In the blink of an eye, the handsome young man was gone, and in his place lay the shriveled form of an old, old man. Skin hung like a covering of wrinkled paper over bones that were bent and twisted beneath the weight of age. Sunken cheeks. Cavernous eyes. His narrow chest shuddered, gasping in a ragged breath.
Birdie realized then that she had stopped singing, but the sphere still held around them. A deep voice sang in her stead. She twisted around. Artair had risen. Holding the bloodstained dirk that he must have drawn from his own wound, he stepped past her and motioned for her to take up the song again. So she lifted her quavering voice to the sky and threw herself into the comforting presence of the Song as, side by side with Amos, Artair stood over the Takhran.
“Tell me . . .” The Takhran’s breathing was labored, and the words rasped from his throat. “How did you know . . . my name?”
Artair knelt at his side and set a hand atop the Takhran’s quivering chest. Softly, so softly that Bird
ie had to strain her ears to hear it, he said, “The Song has always known your name.” And in the wake of those words, the discordant strains of the Takhran’s melody shattered, riven into a thousand pieces. The conflict leeched from his body. He sank back against the riverbed. The water welled around him. In a voice that reminded Birdie of autumn mornings and brilliant sunsets and the cry of a breeze in a woodland grove, the Songkeeper sang his soul to sleep.
But the void that consumed the moment of his passing was so deep and dark and hopelessly silent that Birdie wept to hear it.
At last Artair raised his head. “Release the flood.”
And at the Song’s urging, Birdie let her voice fade and the melody trail off. She moved to Amos’s side, wrapping her fingers around his hand and hugging it to her as the vortex swirled away and the river crashed down upon them. The current of the melody surrounded them and bore them up through the tumultuous flood, carrying them out of the dark beneath the mountain and into sunlight.
•••
Three armies were scattered across the foothills surrounding Serrin Vroi. From the look of it, Amos had emerged upon the tail end of a battle between the Khelari, Saari, and the remainder of the Adulnae and the forces of the Whyndburg mountains. He dashed the droplets from his eyes and wrung the water from his overcoat as he clambered atop a large boulder extending out from the slope, searching for a better vantage point.
Behind, Birdie and Artair stood on the banks of the flood stream that had borne them from the nightmare of the Pit. They talked together, laughing softly now, and the pleasant sound flamed his raw nerves like a spark on ryree powder. He shut his ears to it and turned his focus to the battlefield below. It was a confused mess, as battlefields usually were, but there was no mistaking one thing: the Khelari were on the run. Lion-mounted Saari warriors hunted the fleeing enemy, and near the front he caught sight of two figures, gleaming with gold and wearing lion-skin cloaks. Sa Itera and Matlal Quahtli, he presumed, and if Nisus had been around, he would have bet a dicus on it. Those who surrendered were spared, but those who did not met with the swift and brutal justice of the desert.
From the battlefield, he turned his gaze to Serrin Vroi and the Takhran’s fortress. The army in the field might have been defeated, but from all he recalled of the city, the Khelari could have held out there for some time before retreating to the fortress itself. Breaking them out would be a nightmare in and of itself.
His jaw dropped, and he gave vent to a muttered “bilgewater” at the sight.
Every gate in the city had been torn from its hinges and half of the walls had crumbled. The flood that had burst from the Pit must have torn through the city as well, and yet he saw no sign of collapsed houses or streets littered with bodies. In some places he even saw folk venturing out from the shelter of their houses and staring around with awe-filled expressions. Suddenly, he felt very small and foolish. For all that he had ever been and all that was left of him, he was just a man, and this was the work of something far greater.
Someone far greater.
Footsteps crunched toward him, too heavy to belong to Birdie. Amos’s heart sank into his gut as Artair scaled the rock beside him and settled back on his heels, surveying the view. His mouth had gone dry. He couldn’t bring himself to meet the man’s gaze, just stood there working the fingers of his right hand, crippled no longer, restored when he emerged from the floodwaters.
At last Artair broke the silence. “The Takhran’s might is ended. Tal Ethel has been unleashed, and the Song flows through the land once more. It will be some time before all is right, but it is well on its way to being remade.” He gave the satisfied nod of a man who has completed a task well done.
“Aye.” Amos could barely utter his reply.
Not a word did Artair say of his failure or how Amos had fled in Artair’s hour of need or how he had doubted all these long years or how he had turned Hawkness from a hero into a petty thief and selfish criminal. All the things that Amos had thought and whispered to himself over the years, all the names that he had called this man, rampaged through his head.
Liar. Fraud. Deceiver.
Teacher. Master.
Friend.
A hand settled on his shoulder, steadying him. Artair’s grip banished the whispers of the Pit. “If it’s no trouble, I would like to have my sword back.” His eyes twinkled.
Amos’s gaze dropped to the gleaming blade clenched in his fist. He had nigh forgotten, yet now, at the sight of it, he could feel the chill seeping into his skin. Gnawing at his bones. He hastily relinquished it. Dropped it into Artair’s open palm. “No, no trouble at all.” Then, desperate to get away before he could start blathering like a blame fool, he spun on his heel and marched downslope toward the armies gathered below.
“Wait.” Artair’s voice halted him midstride.
Even now, after so many years, the man could halt him with a word. But he couldn’t bear to go back. Couldn’t bear even to turn and face him. So he just stood there, shivering in his damp clothes, until Artair reached his side once more.
“This is yours.”
The bronze hawk’s head of his dirk stared up at him, emerald eyes glaring as fierce and brazen as ever in the glow of the setting sun. It snapped him back—countless years, it seemed—to that moment when Artair had first given him the dirk, named him Hawkness, his right hand. Despite the fear and self-loathing waging war in his chest, he managed to meet those eyes that had always looked upon him with such kindness.
“Take it, Hawkness.”
Amos gaped from the dirk to the man and back again. Didn’t he know about his failures? About the years of denial? About what Hawkness had become? He deserved to die in the Pit. Deserved to have his name cast out in infamy. Deserved to lose the use of his hand—and the seaswoggled floodwaters had cured even that. The last thing he deserved was a chance to take up his role as Artair’s right hand and stand once more at his side.
“Hawkness.” Steel fingers pried his fist apart, pressed the dirk into his hand, and folded his fingers around the stacked leather grip. All the while, Artair met his stare, and in his unblinking gaze Amos read full knowledge of his misdeeds, weaknesses, and countless mistakes. Still the Songkeeper smiled, and his smile was like the first breath of spring upon a winter landscape. “There is much to be done.”
Deep breath. “Aye, Songkeeper.”
43
Birdie walked in moonlight beside the river in the foothills outside of Serrin Vroi. It hummed on its winding path westward to meet with the River Adayn, and then beyond, to the Great Sea. Only too gladly did she leave the chaos of the aftermath behind her and forge on into the quiet of the night. With the fall of the Takhran and the scattering of his army, there was much to settle over the coming days. But for now, Artair worked with the Matlal, Sa Itera, and the Caran to see that all were settled in warmth and comfort for the night.
Leaving her free to seek solitude.
One by one, she undid the stiff buckles of her armor and let the bronze pieces fall onto the riverbank, until she stood clad in the tattered lion-skin breeches and airy red tunic that the Saari had given her. Breathing easier, she scaled a rock by the river’s edge and sat with her feet dangling. The water shivered with a joyous strain of music. It wafted around her like a rising mist and spread out over the valley. A breath of cool air. A balm to her soul.
Its powers to heal had erupted in wild freedom upon release. Countless numbers had been rescued from the brink of death itself, including Sym and many upon the battlefield who had been caught in the downpour of the geyser. It would not always be so, Artair had explained. The Song would choose to heal as it always had, as Emhran decreed.
For now, she chose to revel in the aching glory of this sign of the Master Singer’s presence. She closed her eyes and sang softly along with the river.
“Now lass, tell me this: how exactly is a man supposed t’ get a wink o’ sleep with all this earthshatterin’ racket?” The peddler’s gruff voice broke through h
er song. “Is this what ye hear all the time? Bearded pikes and mottlegurds, but I feel sorry for ye.”
She turned to greet him with a smile and then stopped, struck by something wondrous. The peddler’s melody was no longer incomplete. The five notes were gone. Instead, his bluff, hearty voice rang out in echo of the master melody. A song unbroken. Made whole.
He made a show of stopping his ears and winked at her. Could he hear the song of the river too? She flung herself at him and held him tight.
He patted her awkwardly. “Aye, lass, ’tis good t’ be back.”
With a groan, Ky dropped on the rock beside them. He sprawled with his head in his hands, gazing up at the stars. “Trust me, Hawkness, this is scads better than your snoring.”
His melody too had changed.
She sat beside him, marveling at the wonder of it all as Amos and Ky chuckled and the river sang in the background and, high above, the Morning Star shone bright. Here, in this breath of peace and quiet, it was hard to recall the fear and the horror that had consumed them only hours ago.
It had been washed away, like the filth of the Pit, upon the flood tide.
Ky broke the silence as pink tinged the eastern sky. “Cade and I’ve been talking. Reckon once things settle and we’ve visited the last of the slave camps, we’ll head back to Kerby with Meli and the others. See if we can rebuild. Make the city what she was before the Khelari came.”
“Aye, reckon that’s a grand idea, lad.”
“What of you, Hawkness?”
Amos’s left wrist twitched, sending the bronze dirk flashing up into the air. He caught it with a thwack flat on his right palm, studied the blade a moment, and then sheathed it. Patted the hawk-head pommel with a sigh. “Seems there’s work for Hawkness t’ do after all. I shall go wherever Artair and the lass demand.”
“And what of you, Songkeeper?”
She glanced away into the rippling current at her feet. “There is much to be done. So much suffering. So many shattered lives . . .” Too much for a Songkeeper to heal on her own. The world had been broken by the Takhran, but even now, the river flowed once more throughout all of Leira. Mending. Renewing. Making whole.
Song of Leira Page 41
