Songreaver
By Andrew Hunter
Copyright 2013 Andrew Hunter
Smashwords Edition
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Chapter One
The grundlewyrm's tail exploded with a loud, wet BANG, showering Garrett with glowing green ooze. He stared in shock at the tailless body of the dog-sized reptilian creature as it slipped from his fingers and wriggled on its stumpy legs back into the cool, dark soil with an angry, grumbling snort. Garrett fought the urge to vomit, not daring to open his mouth for fear that some of the dripping goo that covered his face would get inside. He knelt in the mud and looked down at his empty, slime-covered hands.
Marla stared at him from where she knelt, just a few feet away. Flecks of lambent slime clung to her gray smock, marking the outer radius of the grundlewyrm's blast. Her long dark hair, tied back into a ponytail, had been spared the worst of it, but she reached up to wipe a glob from her cheek. She succeeded only in leaving a greenish streak that glowed against the soft shadows of the twilight swamp. She snorted with stifled laughter.
Garrett gave her a pleading look. Marla cleared her throat, and smiled apologetically.
Garrett lifted his arm to try to wipe his face clean with the back of a filthy sleeve.
"No," Marla said, "don't waste it!"
Garrett groaned, still not daring to open his mouth. A large gobbet of slime had now worked its way down to cover his right nostril, forming a little green bubble there each time he exhaled.
Marla got to her feet and covered the distance between them in two easy strides. Garrett envied her sure-footed grace. He had fallen down in the mud at least three times on their way to the wyrm burrows, and had practically taken up permanent residence in the muck upon arrival. Marla seemed perfectly at ease here, as she did everywhere, but then she was a vampire.
Marla knelt beside him and lifted Garrett's wooden collection bowl beneath his chin. She took the little wooden paddle that she had given him to milk the worms and used it to gently scrape the green slime from his face.
Garrett watched her work, her dark eyes focused intently on his face. A warm, buzzing sensation spread through his body as her cool fingers brushed against his cheek. His breath faltered, catching in his throat. Marla's eyes lifted to his, and she smiled. She set the bowl aside and rubbed the last of the slime from Garrett's lips with the tail of the long bandana that Garrett wore to cover his head and neck.
"Thanks," Garrett said.
"You can't grab them by the tail," Marla sighed.
"Yeah," Garrett said.
Marla looked down at his collecting bowl. A small pool of wyrm ooze barely covered the chunks of mud at the bottom of the bowl. Some sort of water bug pranced across the surface of the glowing liquid. "How many have you caught?" she asked.
Garrett hesitated a moment before replying. "Two," he said, "counting the poppy one."
"Oh," Marla said, "that's... very good for your first try."
"Thanks," Garrett said.
"Well, I've been a bit luckier," she said. "So, if we can catch three more, I think we can head back to camp."
"Yeah," Garrett said, his eyes falling. Then he thought of something. "Couldn't you just... magic them up out of the ground or something?"
Marla's eyes narrowed in confusion.
"I mean like the way you catch fairies... with dragon magic," he said.
Marla shook her head. "Fairies and their kin are intelligent creatures," she said, "They can be spoken to and reasoned with. Anything that can be reasoned with can be bound. They agree to do what we ask of them because they can understand what we ask of them."
Garrett struggled for a moment with the question that was churning around inside of him. "But... they don't want to do what you say. Why would they agree to do it?"
Marla's expression darkened momentarily. "With the faebloods," she said, "their very lives are but a chorus of the great Song. They are bound to it with ties far stronger than any individual's will. Being a human, you wouldn't understand that."
"You're a human too!" Garrett said, his voice a little harder than he had intended it to be.
Marla's eyes fell. "Garrett..." she said, "I'm not like you."
"Yes you are," he said, reaching out to lay his hand on her sleeve, "You're just a human like me, but you and your mom got some sort of magic stuff in your blood from a long time ago, and it makes you a little bit different. You're still human though!"
Marla let out a little laugh. "Oh, Garrett, it isn't that simple."
"Marla, you can do whatever you want," Garrett said, "You don't have to do what the other vampires say." He paused for a moment, taking a breath. "You and your mom could come live with Uncle and me. I know he'd be fine with it!"
Marla gave him a sad, sweet smile. "Garrett," she said, "if they call us home, we have to go back. We don't have a choice. We're like those fairies in the pet shop. My mother and I are bound by the same Song. We are bound right down to our blood. You just can't see the bars of our cage."
"No," Garrett said, "That place isn't your home. It isn't home because you don't want to be there."
Marla put her hand on his. Caked in mud and slime, his hand looked just like any other boy's, his scars hidden beneath a thick coat of grime.
"Garrett," she said, "you're my best friend, and I don't want to go away and leave you behind."
"You don't have to," he whispered, "We can find a way... I'll find a way..."
"No one's even made a decision yet," Marla laughed, "We're probably worrying for no reason... Let's just finish up here and get back to camp."
"Yeah," Garrett said, his voice barely audible. He pushed one hand down, deep into the cold mud, lifting himself to his feet. He picked up his wooden knife and bowl, careful not to spill any of the precious essence and looked around for a firm piece of ground.
The mud sucked at his loose Chadiri boots as he stamped his way toward a hummock of dry grass. The red leather of the boots was probably stained a permanent shade of swamp by now, but that suited him well enough. He'd seen enough red as a prisoner of the Chadiri war priests.
He set down his bowl and rubbed at the memory of shackles on his wrists. Those wounds had already healed, just a new set of scars to add to his collection.
"So, where do we dig now?" Garrett asked, weary of the whole endeavor.
"Garrett," Marla said.
"Yeah," he said, turning to face her.
Marla straightened to her full height in the center of the muddy burrowing grounds. Her ragged, mud-spattered smock and dirty trousers gave her slender form the appearance of a used-up scarecrow, but her face shone, as pale and perfect as carved marble. She smiled an impish smile.
"Would you really like to see some magic?" she asked.
Garrett nodded.
"I told you that the grundlewyrms aren't intelligent enough to be bound by magic," Marla said.
"Yeah."
Marla's smile spread into a grin. "Their blood still knows the words to the Song."
"Huh?"
"It's been a while since I tried this," she said, "so don't laugh if it doesn't work."
"I won't," Garrett promised.
Marla balanced on one leg as she tugged one of her boots off and tossed it onto the grass. Black mud ooz
ed up between her toes as she put her weight onto her bare foot and lifted the other to remove the second boot.
She tossed the second boot to join the first and spread her feet slightly apart, shifting her weight from one to the other as she drew in her breath. Lifting her arms to her sides, she began to sing, softly, in the language of dragons.
"Dae'gheret tsu'namaarae, Dae'burhet sa Na'al."
Marla's feet lifted, one at a time, and came down again on the wet, black earth, moving in the slow steps of an ancient dance. Her body twisted, her arms held out for balance, as she spun and leapt to the rhythm of her song. Her feet did not sink into the mud now; neither did it seem to stick to her skin as she stepped lightly across its surface.
Her voice grew stronger, her words reverberating with the thrumming undertones of draconic magic. Garrett felt the vibration through the wooden bowl in his hand, and he looked down to see little ripples of force upon the surface of the glowing essence contained within.
"Dae'Kheretae!" Marla shouted, punctuating the end of a chorus of her song, and the essence nearly leapt out of Garrett's collection bowl.
Each time she repeated the phrase in the rhythm of the song, the glowing essence danced and leapt.
Marla seemed to be dancing in circles now, her eyes focused on the ground. With a sudden movement, she stooped, driving her slender hand beneath the surface of the mud. She pulled it out again, just as quickly, with a wriggling grundlewyrm caught securely in her grasp.
Garrett gasped in surprise, but Marla did not slow her dance. She drove her other hand into the mud and pulled up another wyrm before pirouetting with both of the struggling creatures held at arm's length.
She suddenly dropped low on the balls of her feet then leapt again, tossing the two wyrms high into the canopy of leaves above. Her body blurred as she thrust both hands down into the ground again and yanked out the largest grundlewyrm that Garrett had yet seen in his short career as a wyrmhunter.
Marla stepped quickly to the left and right to catch the pair of wyrms that just now tumbled down from the trees above, gathering the squirming trio of glow-tailed wyrms in her arms. She sang the final words of her magic song and bowed deeply to Garrett as a shower of brown leaves rained down on the field of her victory.
The sounds of Garrett's cheers and laughter mingled with the droning buzz of insects as night fell over the swamp.
Chapter Two
Garrett let out a grateful breath when Marla's gaunt landed in the moonlit clearing near the camp of the Gloaran army. Landings were always the worst, seeing the ground rushing up at him like that. Most of the time, he kept his eyes closed for the last bit and hoped for the best. Marla, for all of her natural talent, was still a novice flyer, and her control of the great, faceless bat creatures sometimes waivered.
Garrett slid off the gaunt's bristly back, his legs a bit wobbly beneath him from having clenched so tightly to the creature's ribs during the flight. The gaunt let out a clicking hiss that turned into a rattling purr as Marla stroked the creature's mane. She whispered a few words of thanks to the beast and dropped from its back with silent grace. The gaunt ducked its black head and stalked off on its gangly legs to hide itself among the trees.
Marla passed Garrett the leather satchel that held two full canisters of essence, the fruits of their evening's labor. Garrett shouldered the bag and walked beside her as she headed down toward the trailhead that led to the main camp. He glanced back, wondering if they should do something about the trail of dried mud flakes left by his boots with every step he took on the long, lush grass of the hill.
Marla saw the question in his eyes and smiled. "I wouldn't worry about it," she said, "No one's seen the dragon since the battle."
Garrett could not stop himself from looking up at the star-strewn sky above. The old fear still fluttered in his stomach, that he would look up and see the great Chadiri dragon with Graelle, the last of the dragon riders, astride its back. Then all would turn to flame and death once more.
Only a few thin clouds stretched like silvery harp strings across the moon.
His eyes fell to a movement of shadows between the trees as someone emerged from the forest into the pale light of the moon.
"Warren," Garrett greeted his friend.
"Hi, Garrett. Hi Marla," the great shaggy gray ghoul called to them with a wave of his long forearm. His snout wrinkled at the sight of their clothing, baring his long canine teeth. "If you were gonna dig all the way to Lapria for those worms, you could have invited me."
Marla grinned. "They don't come as close to the surface when the moon is out. We may need your help tomorrow night, if the sky is still this clear."
"We may not be around for it," Warren said.
"What do you mean?" Marla asked.
"Moonwings are back from spying on the redjacks," Warren said, "Somethin' big is happening. Krauss is talkin' to the others now. Oh, and I think that other vampire friend of yours got stabbed a little."
"Claude?" Marla gasped.
"Yeah, but he's fine," Warren said with a shrug, "At least I think he his. Aren't you guys undead or something?"
Marla disappeared into the forest with a flutter of dark cloth and a cloud of dust as she left behind most of the dried mud that had caked her leggings and smock in the wake of her inhuman burst of speed.
Garrett scowled at Warren.
"What?" Warren said, "He's fine."
"It isn't funny, Warren," Garrett said, "She really likes him."
"Yeah, she does," Warren said, falling into step beside Garrett as they walked down the trail toward camp, "She likes him a lot."
Garrett chewed his lip and said nothing. The heavy canisters of essence slapped against his thigh as he walked.
"You're my friend, Gar," Warren said, "and I'm just sayin'."
"What?" Garrett snapped.
"Why are you so rankled?" Warren asked.
"Why are you being such a knob?" Garrett said.
"Hey, if I was doing something that was gonna get me really hurt, I'd hope that you'd say something to stop me," Warren said, raising his paws defensively. He looked thoughtful for a moment. "Unless it was something really amazing, like jumping over this big chasm with fire at the bottom or something. Then you should be like, Yeah, Warren, you can do it! You're the best! That would be all right."
"I'm not gonna get hurt," Garrett said.
"Sure," Warren said.
Garrett looked at his friend. "I thought you were supposed to be out with your dad tonight?"
Warren glanced away. "I... stayed here to help around the camp a bit."
"Your dad made you stay behind?"
Warren's voice fell. "No."
"You didn't want to go?" Garrett asked.
"I..." Warren hesitated. "I just didn't feel like going right now... not after the cave thing."
Garrett remained silent for a moment. He knew Warren well enough to see that something was bothering him. "I thought you wanted to do all the war stuff?"
"Yeah, I did," Warren whined, "but... I dunno. I thought it was going to be different."
"What do you mean?" Garrett asked.
Warren stopped walking and turned to face Garrett. Warren's eyes shone red against the shadow of the forest. "Garrett," he whispered, "I didn't know it would be like that... the sounds they made."
"What?" Garrett asked, his voice cracking just a little when he spoke.
Warren shuddered. "When we brought the tunnel down on the Chadiri... we couldn't see them, you know... but we could hear them."
Garrett reseated the leather cord of his satchel a bit higher on his shoulder, pulling his arms around his chest against the night's chill.
"Only a few of 'em got squished right away," Warren said, "Most of 'em were trapped inside the tunnel, stuck in the middle between the fire at one end and the rock fall at the other. They were all yellin' and givin' orders and stuff, what you'd expect from redjacks... Some of 'em though, some of 'em had got caught right at the edge where we drop
ped the roof on 'em. They were still alive but stuck in the rubble, all broken up and pinned down. Dogs, Gar! They were screamin' and cryin'!"
Warren blinked and stroked one of his long ears with his paw. "They didn't sound like monsters, Gar. They weren't redjacks and war priests and Hammers of God or whatever, they were just a bunch o' people, bleedin' and dyin' 'cause of what we did to 'em. I could hear 'em dyin', Gar, all through the rock and everything, you could hear 'em like they were right there beside you." Warren's voice had begun to break, and he rubbed harder at his ears, flattening them against his head with his hands.
"I'm sorry," Garrett said.
Warren turned his head and sniffed loudly. He hissed out a long breath and steadied his voice. "Well... I guess they were soldiers, right? I mean, they meant to come here and kill us, so we were just doing what we had to do, right?"
"Yeah," Garrett said.
"I guess we should try to be more like Max, huh?" Warren laughed, "He really loves this stuff."
"Yeah, I think he does," Garrett said.
"Well," Warren sighed, "let's go find out what's up."
They walked together to the edge of the wooded tangle that surrounded the deep hollow where the Gloaran army, or what remained of it, made camp. Garrett followed the ghoul down the steep path that descended beneath the cover of the briar-choked canopy.
As they walked down into the thick of the forest, the ground leveled out, and Garrett was able to make out the dim, greenish glow of witchfire torches through the trees ahead. He heard people speaking ahead, amidst the soft whisper of the wind in the trees. As they drew closer, he recognized the voice of Master Krauss, the tall, white-haired vampire, leader of the Moonwings. The vampires and the flying creatures known as gaunts on which they rode had been away, scouting the enemy's positions for the past three nights while the army had sat, anxiously awaiting their report.
"... establishing fortifications all along the highland escarpment," Krauss was saying, "They appear to be destroying all but a few of the lifts which they had constructed to move men and equipment up and down the cliffs along the Gloaran border... Construction has been shifted to facilitate movement between the Empire and their newfound allies to the west."
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