Songkeeper

by Gillian Bronte Adams

  Ky pushed up onto his hands and knees and shook his head to clear his blurred vision. The motion felt thick and sluggish, like someone had wrapped a thick cloak around his head.

  Something struck his arm. Pain shot through his wrist. He crashed on his face and rolled into a ball, clutching his throbbing wrist to his chest. Blows came hard and fast, and he didn’t even try to defend himself. Just stayed in a ball, waiting for it to end.

  So this was why he was still breathing.

  At least something finally made sense. He was their whipping boy. Leverage. The strings they tugged to force Birdie to become their puppet.

  Good luck with that.

  “So.” Matlal Quahtli, chief of the Saari, drew the word out as if savoring the flavor. His hazel eyes—startlingly light against his dark skin—narrowed at Amos. “You are Hawkness.”

  Amos scrubbed his sweaty hands on his sand-crusted trousers, painfully aware of Gundhrold’s piercing glare also burrowing into the back of his skull. Ever since Sym and Inali agreed to lead them to the Matlal, the griffin had warned him repeatedly not to say anything to offend their host. Probably with good cause. Amos’s tongue had a way of running off on its own, and the Saari apparently were a touchy people.

  Best not to say anything yet.

  He shifted on his heels, boots scraping on the rough stone floor. The sound echoed through the Council Hall, a vast chamber carved into the cliff face of Nar with one side open to the valley below. Matlal Quahtli stood with his back to the opening, presenting an imposing silhouette against the afternoon sun—a warrior’s figure clad in a massive lion skin cloak, mane forming a collar about his neck, spear held upright in his hand. Gold beads rattled in his dark braids, and jeweled cuffs gleamed on his wrists.

  “Outlaw . . . thief . . . peddler.” Quahtli sounded almost amused. “Hero and despoiler of Kerby. Sworn enemy of the Takhran. You have worn many guises over the years.” He took a step forward, and all humor vanished from his voice. “I wonder . . . which guise do you wear today?”

  Amos cleared his throat, racking his brain for a suitable response. One that preferably didn’t include any name calling or insultery—a feat in and of itself. Just how was one supposed to respond to a question like that?

  “A different guise altogether. One I’m not over-fond o’ wearin’.”

  Quahtli raised an eyebrow. “And that would be?”

  “I stand before ye as a humble servant t’ petition ye for aid, great Matlal. In return, I offer my service in your struggle against the Takhran.”

  “The great Hawkness offers us his service?” A voice spoke behind him—a deep, mellow woman’s voice. “Well then, our fight is as good as won.”

  Bristling at the implied insult, Amos twisted his neck around to see the speaker. A woman emerged from the shadows of the arched entrance and crossed the Council Hall on sandaled feet. Her scarlet robe stood out against the dull red of the stone like a patch of blood. Tawny hair hung in beaded locks to her waist. A white lioness padded at her heels, two small boys seated on its back.

  Quahtli extended a hand to the woman and drew her to his side. “My wife, Sa Itera.”

  “Hawkness.” Itera tilted her head to one side, studying Amos.

  He pulled the feathered cap from his head and fought the urge to retreat before the onslaught of yet another scrutiny. Itera was tall, her head level with Quahtli’s, leaving Amos wishing for just a few more inches. He resented having to look up at anyone.

  The white lioness flopped to the ground at his feet, breath expelling from her lungs in an audible huff, and the boys tumbled, giggling, off her back into the space between her forepaws. Purring like a thunderstorm, the lioness licked their heads with her great, pink tongue.

  Revealing a set of massive, curved teeth.

  Amos started forward, reaching for his dirk, but the lioness looked up at his movement and growled deep in her throat. He halted. “Um . . . is it wise t’ let the beastie do that?”

  Quahtli’s brow furrowed. “We are the Saari.”

  As if that explained anything at all.

  The lioness practically had the lads’ heads in her jaws now—jaws that could split their skulls as easily as Amos could snap his fingers. He forced himself to look away, fighting the queasiness in his stomach.

  Itera was speaking. “. . . exploits are known even here in the desert. It is wondrous—the stuff of legends.”

  Gundhrold chuckled, breaking his self-imposed silence for the first time since Sym and Inali had shown them into the Council Hall. “Indeed. Pure legend, most of it, but that is beside the point. Matlal Quahtli, Sa Itera, there is no time to lose. The Songkeeper has been captured by Langorian pirates who sail along the southern coast even as we speak. If we make haste, we can intercept them before they round the tip and should be able to free the Songkeeper, but we will require your assistance if we are to succeed.”

  Require?

  And the beastly catbird had been worried Amos might come across too strong?

  Quahtli broke away from Itera and halted on the edge overlooking the valley, lion skin cloak ruffling in the dry desert breeze. “You say you require my aid to rescue your Songkeeper, but you offer no reason why I should give it. My people prepare for a battle we cannot win in a war intended for our destruction.” He turned around and folded his arms across his bare chest. “Why should I risk their safety to rescue a legend?”

  Amos studied the sun-bleached toes of his boots. This was one question Gundhrold would have to handle. After only recently being forced to admit the existence of the Songkeepers, Amos hardly made the best advocate.

  The griffin tossed his head, neck feathers bristling like the lion’s mane about Quahtli’s neck. “I am a son of the desert and the last of my kind. Believe that I speak true when I say that the safety of the desert children is foremost in my mind. Legend or not, the Songkeeper may be the best hope we have of resisting the Takhran.”

  Sa Itera placed a gentle hand on Quahtli’s arm. “Not just a legend. You know this.”

  Quahtli turned away. “I will speak with Hawkness. In private.”

  Without a word, Sa Itera and Gundhrold stepped back into the shadows of the Council Hall. Even the lioness padded after them, dragging the two boys by the back of their fringed trousers, leaving Amos alone with the chief. Quahtli beckoned him to the edge. He paused with the toes of his boots jutting out over a hundred foot drop and surveyed the surrounding city and the valley below.

  The city climbed up both sides of the cliffs flanking the valley, buildings simultaneously carved from the sand-blasted rock and built into it. Narrow bridges connected the two halves, Nar and Kog. Rough workmanship all of it. Functional, strong, but with none of the unnecessary embellishments common elsewhere in Leira. Here there was no point to adornments. The desert claimed all sooner or later. Before the force of the sand storms and the endless wearing of the wind, ornaments would crumble. But this city would endure. It was, Amos realized, as much a thing of the desert as the cliffs on which it was built and the Saari warriors who had built it.

  “The Khelari are coming.”

  Quahtli’s voice sliced through the silence, recalling Amos to his purpose.

  “Daily my warriors skirmish with the Takhran’s soldiers on our northern borders. It is only a matter of time before his army marches into this valley. And what then? I must either surrender my people and our freedom to his rule, or see their corpses lie cold and prey to carrion fowl in the sand.” Quahtli fingered the tip of his spear. “We are too few to fight him.”

  “So it has ever been.” Amos clasped his wrists behind his back, coaxing the stiff muscles in his wounded side to stretch. “We are always too few.”

  “But fight we will.”

  Amos huffed a laugh. “Aye, ’cause that’s what we do. Ye and I. We’re warriors. It’s how we lived an’ it’s how we’ll die, fightin�
� till the last breath leaves our lungs an’ our bodies cling t’ the dust whence we came. It’s the only thing we know.”

  He gestured at the balcony of a sand-worn house on the opposite cliff where a Saari woman was just visible, rocking her baby to sleep. “But what about them? Don’t they deserve better ’n that? If there’s the slightest chance ye might be able t’ protect ’em, hadn’t ye ought t’ take it?”

  “The slightest chance. Is that what this is?” Quahtli fell silent a moment, then his stern face relaxed into an expression Amos suspected was meant to be a smile. “Then yes, you are right, I must take it. Options are scarce, and promises of aid are few and far between. Two more warriors are nothing, even if they are Hawkness and the Songkeeper, but hope—that is a rare gift. I shall give what aid I may to rescue the Songkeeper, and in return, you both will help protect my people and inspire their hearts to courage when hope fails. What do you need?”

  Bleating bollywags, that had gone quicker—and calmer—than he’d expected.

  Amos tugged his feathered cap over his forehead and rattled off the agreed upon list. “Oh the usual. Weapons, supplies, any warriors ye can spare. Oh, an’ transportation t’ the coast, if ye don’t mind.”

  “Is that it?” Quahtli hefted his spear over one shoulder. “Are you sure there isn’t anything else I can do for you?”

  Was that a trace of sarcasm in the chief’s voice? It would appear king stone-face had a sense of humor after all. “That should about cover it, but if I think o’ aught else, I’ll let ye know.”

  Amos turned to leave, but Quahtli’s voice stopped him midstride.

  “It was said that Hawkness stood apart and swore allegiance to no ruler, divine or otherwise. How then do you now seek the Songkeeper? Are you willing to bow to a master’s will? Do you believe she can help us?”

  Cool bronze met Amos’s questing hand. He rubbed a finger along the familiar swoop of the hawk’s head pommel of his dirk.

  What did he believe?

  Birdie was the Songkeeper, no doubt about that. He’d seen far too much to try denying it anymore. But that didn’t mean he was ready to acknowledge Emhran’s lordship. Not yet at least. The old catbird was the one convinced Birdie could somehow save them all.

  All he wanted was to see her safe.

  He shifted his weight to the other foot, twisting to meet Quahtli’s frown. “Aye, I do.”

  It was boggswoggling how easily the lie slipped past his tongue.

  •••

  The blows continued even after Ky’s groans lapsed into silence.

  “Stop. Please, please, stop.” Birdie’s voice was so hoarse from begging, she could scarce hear the words over Fjordair’s rasping breath as he pummeled Ky’s limp form again.

  And again.

  “Sing, little Naian.” Rhudashka’s breath fell hot against her ear. His eyes glittered with unfettered desire. “Sing if you wish it to stop. If you wish to save little zabid.”

  “I can’t.” Birdie clenched her fists until her arms shook with the force, rattling the manacles on her wrists. She stumbled to the ship’s rail and leaned forward, breathing in the crisp sea air and letting the spray wash the tears from her face. “I can’t.”

  I must.

  Chest heaving with constrained sobs, Birdie clung to the rail and closed her eyes. The dull thud of Fjordair’s blows seemed to slow in the background. It scarce surprised her to hear the dark melody skirling in and out among the rhythm of the beating.

  But the Song . . . the Song . . . where was the Song?

  Where are you?

  Faint on her ear, she caught a trace of it dancing through the deep throb of the ocean waves. Distant but not absent. Full, powerful, beautiful—just as she remembered it. A burst of sunlight in the midst of a storm. It rose to greet her like an old friend.

  She grasped at the thread of melody and pulled with all her strength. She was the Songkeeper. The Song must answer her call. But she might as well have tried to pull down the stone walls of Kerby barehanded.

  The melody refused to answer her summons.

  She tugged harder and it retreated.

  Head reeling, Birdie collapsed against the rail, legs too weak and exhausted to support her frame. The sobs she had been trying to hold back ever since her capture spilled at last, and she no longer cared that the pirates witnessed her weakness . . . and her shame.

  Rhudashka’s heavy voice washed over her. “You are weak, little Naian. Your friend suffers, yet you do nothing to help him. You are—”

  A babble of Langorian broke out behind, cutting Rhudashka off midsentence.

  Birdie slid down to her knees and rested her forehead against the rail. It was no use. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t control the Song. Couldn’t control anything. The sea breeze swept around her, tugging at her matted hair and lifting it from her shoulders. A cool drop spattered the back of her hand.

  She raised her head.

  A wall of dark clouds swept across the sky toward the Langorian ship. The breeze increased to a steady wind carrying the scent of rain in its gusts. Waves billowed and grew until they were the size of the hills surrounding the Sylvan Swan, back in faraway Hardale.

  It was a storm . . . a storm at sea . . . and it would reach them in a moment.

  The deck erupted in a flurry of motion. Pirates hurried this way and that, resetting sails, coiling lines, lashing down any loose cargo on deck. Rhudashka barked a command, and two pirates scooped up Ky and tossed him down into the hold.

  Rhudashka turned to her. “We are not finished, little Naian. There is much more you still have to learn. The storm, it has given you little . . . reprieve. We will speak again.” He motioned with one hand, and Fjordair seized Birdie’s manacles and dragged her back to the hold.

  She stopped on the top rung and caught Fjordair’s arm before he flung her down into the hatch. “I won’t let you hurt him again. I will stop you.”

  An empty threat, but she could do no more.

  Fjordair simply barked a laugh and shoved her down the ladder. She crashed against the filthy floor of the hold and lay where she had fallen, too weary and sickened to try to move.

  The hatch slammed shut.

  4

  “Please be all right, Ky. You have to be okay.” Birdie muttered the words beneath her breath, working feverishly to tear a strip from her skirt. In the chaos of the storm’s onset, the pirates had left the manacles on her wrists but forgotten to chain her to the deck. Or perhaps they had simply realized that it didn’t matter. Ankle irons or no, there was no escaping from the hold. At least now she had some freedom of movement to tend Ky’s injuries. Outside, the storm howled and the ship shuddered before its force. Roaring waves, wind like thunder, and the creak and groan of straining timbers filled her ears. The ship tilted to one side, and she skidded forward, chains digging into her wrists. She caught herself and scrambled backward to press against the side of the ship, bracing her feet on the slick floor.

  Her heel struck something soft—Ky. She felt for his limp form and tugged until his head rested in her lap, cradled from the battering fury of the sea. Newly torn rag in hand, she bent over him again. In the darkness of the hold, she could hardly see her own hands, let alone Ky’s face. But she could feel the warm stickiness seeping through the cloth and coating her fingers.

  Blood . . . on her hands.

  She drew in a shuddering breath. It was fitting. Ky had been injured because of her. Because of who she was and what she was supposed to be. Because she had failed. It was starting all over again. Others suffering because of her. Instead of her.

  Gritting her teeth, Birdie allowed the pain of the thought to wash over her. The ache—she drowned in it. As if the sorrow she felt could somehow atone for her inability to change anything.

  A hand gripped her arm.

  She started and the rag slipped fr
om her fingers.

  “What . . . happened?” Ky’s groan was barely audible over the raging wind.

  “Ky.” She gasped in relief and only just managed to steady the quake in her voice before she responded. “Ky . . . are you all right?”

  “Dunno.” His words slurred together, voice so low she had to tilt her head forward to hear. “Still in . . . one piece?”

  “Yes.”

  He grunted. “Good. Wasn’t too keen . . . on old Crazy-knives . . . practicing his artistry.”

  Birdie felt for the rag and clutched it in her lap. Why had Fjordair put aside his knives? He hadn’t been bluffing when he threatened to carve Ky’s face. So why just the beating and not the knives?

  Her stomach churned. She couldn’t escape the feeling that this was just a short reprieve, a ploy to set her at ease, before the real danger began. Next time, it would be the knives and not the fists. She had to figure out how to master the Song before then.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “So sorry.”

  “Yeah, well, sometimes there’s nothing you can do.”

  Words had never sounded so hollow. She could hear the lie in his tone. He didn’t believe it any more than she did.

  Ky’s head lifted and his shoulder brushed against hers as he sank back against the side of the ship and then scooted away. Silence hung between them, so thick Birdie felt she could reach a hand out and touch it. Behind her, the ocean roared, beating angry fists against the side of the ship. Was it just her imagination, or was it getting louder?

  “She probably thinks I’m dead by now, or taken by the dark soldiers. Meli . . . she was waiting for me to come back. I promised.”

  Birdie’s breath caught in her throat and she searched in vain for a reply.

  “I promised.”

  She twisted the rag around her fingers. “I know.”

  What was it he’d said? Sometimes there’s nothing you can do. Maybe sometimes promises had to be broken. Maybe sometimes you were doomed to failure from the start, no matter how hard you fought. But acknowledging your own helplessness was no consolation—if anything, it just made you feel worse.