Several hours had passed since their capture, yet the Khelari had not moved from the spot. One lit a small fire, and the soldiers took turns roasting strips of meat over the flames and tossing scraps to the slavering hound straining against its chains. The smell set Birdie’s stomach rumbling.
Carhartan sat on a hummock a few feet away, smoking a pipe with his elbows resting on his knees, eyes fixed on her. It was unnerving to think that the horrible man who had pursued her so relentlessly had once been a friend of Amos before betraying him and the other Songkeeper, Artair. But she didn’t allow herself to dwell on it for long. Just thinking about Amos made her chest ache and her mind spin with questions all over again.
Soft footsteps pattered past, then George came into her line of vision, trotted to Carhartan, and sat at the soldier’s feet.
Carhartan pulled the pipe from his mouth. “What information do you have for me?”
The cat licked his paws clean before replying. “Hawkness is in the next village, Bryllhyn. On the coast. But I’m afraid he’s been captured by Langorians, led by the notorious Pirate Lord Rhudashka. They have the sword as well. It’s caused quite a stir from what I heard.”
Birdie exchanged a glance with Ky. Amos’s capture was depressing news, but at the same time, she couldn’t help feeling the tiniest bit of relief. It left a chance—just the slightest—that maybe Amos hadn’t chosen to abandon her.
George sidled past her feet, casting a quick glance up at her before scampering away. His eyes pleaded with her . . . for what? Reassurance that all was well? He had betrayed her and handed her over to her worst enemy. If reassurance was what he sought, he would wait long indeed.
“Time to move out.” Carhartan tapped his pipe against the sole of his boot and stood, nodding toward Birdie and Ky. “Bring them.”
A soldier with disheveled hair the color of dried dune grass hurried over and dragged Birdie to her feet. He turned to Ky next, but the boy had already scrambled up.
“You’re Hendryk, aren’t you?” Ky said.
Surprise flashed across the soldier’s face. He rubbed the back of his head. “You were one of the thieves—”
“You killed my brother.” Ky’s voice lowered. “I’m going to kill you for that.”
Hendryk shifted back a step and cast an uneasy glance around, then motioned one of the other soldiers forward. “Gag the boy, too.”
Ky struggled, but the soldiers overpowered him and thrust a gag into his mouth. Birdie kept her gaze on the ground as the soldiers shoved her and Ky into line. Carhartan rode out in front with George trotting at his heels, while the hound and its keeper brought up the rear, sealing off any hope of escape.
30
Birdie hadn’t expected to enter Bryllhyn like this—bound and gagged, marched along by a band of Khelari. This was to have been her home.
Sorrow flooded her at the sight of bodies lying in the open space between the cottages, sand stained crimson beneath them. The hound bayed at the scent of blood, and its keeper struggled to maintain control. A dead silence hung over the village. Shutters painted a variety of colors, once bright, now faded and peeling, swung in the breeze. Doors yawned open, but Birdie couldn’t see anything through the twilight within.
Carhartan led his entourage through the village and down toward a blazing bonfire on the beach. A motley assortment of people milled around the fire, all clad in strange bright tunics and sagging breeches, arms and necks glittering with gold jewelry. They held overflowing tankards in their hands and were surrounded by a ring of broached casks.
Just off the shore, a long, low ship painted red and gold with two masts and sails tightly furled, rocked on the washing tide. A massive iron prong stuck out from the prow like a giant spear. Three longboats were pulled up on the beach.
Birdie searched the beach for the prisoners. She finally spotted them manacled to a heavy chain that ran between two scrubby, salt-battered trees. Two pirates stood guard at the head of the line. The Waveryder captives were packed so close together that it was hard to tell how many there were—at least a hundred—but Amos’s unruly shock of copper colored hair instantly drew her gaze.
Carhartan ignored the gathering around the fire and rode straight toward the prisoners, halting and dismounting directly in front of Amos.
Amos raised his head. Dried blood streaked his face from a gash in his forehead. His eyes widened through a mottled mask of bruises as his gaze fell on Carhartan and then Birdie and Ky. “Lass!” He lurched to his knees, yanking on the running chain. The other captives cried out.
Birdie started forward, but the soldier behind her—Hendryk—seized her bound arms and held her in place. Carhartan set his boot in Amos’s chest and shoved him back to the ground.
Heat flared down Birdie’s neck. Suddenly it didn’t matter that Amos had abandoned her, or that Amos couldn’t care for her as the Songkeeper. That didn’t change the fact that he had always been her friend.
Carhartan turned to the two guards. “This is the man. Release him to me.”
The pirates exchanged narrow-eyed glances. Carhartan rattled off something in a harsh language that Birdie didn’t understand. Then one of the pirates hurried across the beach toward the bonfire, returning a moment later with an enormous man who blazed with scarlet and gold in the sunlight.
“That’s Lord Rhudashka,” George said. The yellow cat sat primly in the sand beside her feet. Information, he’d once informed her, was currency. Apparently it was also his trade. But what made him think that she would care to benefit from his spying after he had betrayed her?
Rhudashka halted before Carhartan. A tangle of black hair hung past his jowls to mingle with his white-speckled beard. His eyes, mere slits beneath thick eyebrows, peered around him with such intense malice that Birdie’s breath caught in her throat.
He was shadowed by a thin man clad in a blue tunic with a massive gold collar around his neck and jeweled bracelets on his arms. Dozens of dagger hilts stuck out from the broad black sash encircling his waist.
“That’s Fjordair,” George murmured. “Rhudashka’s second in command.”
Carhartan dipped his head in acknowledgement. “Lord Rhudashka.”
“What is the meaning of this, Lord Carhartan?” Rhudashka’s voice was a phlegmy rumble. He spoke the tongue of Leira slowly and with a thick accent. “Why are you here? These were not the terms of our sahesk, our arrangement, with the Takhran. Our tribute is not required before the death of the moon.”
Like the onrush of a howling wind, the dark melody hammered into Birdie’s skull. She braced herself against the impact, and a shiver skittered down her back. Surely this man was as evil as Carhartan.
“This is not about our arrangement. I hunt a fugitive.” Carhartan nodded at Amos. “He has stolen something of importance, and my master wants it back.”
“That is none of my—”
“I will take him and his weapons. The rest of the slaves are yours.”
Rhudashka’s eyes glittered. “And what of the tribute?”
“Forfeited.”
Rhudashka turned to Fjordair and issued an abrupt command that sent him scurrying off across the beach. A moment later, Fjordair returned, bearing a long, cloth-bound bundle. He set it on the ground before Carhartan who knelt and undid the cloth—Amos’s cloak—revealing the gold hilt and blue-white blade of Artair’s sword.
“Release the prisoner and bring him to me,” Carhartan said. He pulled Amos’s dirk out of the bundle, wrapped the cloak back around Artair’s sword, and then stuck both weapons through his belt.
Fjordair unlocked Amos’s manacles from the running chain, and two Khelari dragged him forward and forced him to kneel in the sand.
Fear gripped Birdie. She glanced over at Ky and read the same terrible dread in his eyes. This—whatever Carhartan was doing here—would not end well. She struggled, trying to break
free, but Hendryk tightened his grasp.
Amos glared up at Carhartan through hooded eyes. “I should have killed ye, Oran.”
“You tried, remember?” Carhartan ran a gauntleted hand along the cloth-covered pommel of Artair’s sword. “It would be fitting, would it not, to slay you with the Songkeeper’s sword? You failed Artair and he was slain. Now his sword has been taken because you failed again. Were I to take this sword and drive it into your heart, it would be justice. Artair would be avenged.”
Amos’s ruddy face faded to a sickly gray, and his voice was quiet. “Ye know as well as I that it would not suffer yer touch.”
“Then I suppose this will have to suffice.” Carhartan pulled Amos’s bronze capped dirk from his belt and spun it in the air, catching it by the hilt. “Even more fitting, don’t you think, Hawkness?” He grabbed a handful of Amos’s hair and yanked his head back, exposing his throat.
Birdie jerked against Hendryk’s restraining grip, but he only squeezed her arms tighter. Help us! She wanted to scream the word, but all she could manage was a muffled grunt through the gag. She wasn’t even sure who she was speaking to, or who she begged for help, but the Song sprang to life in her heart.
Energy raced through her. She smashed her heel into Hendryk’s knee and wrenched free. With her shoulder, she tore the gag from her mouth, and the Song poured from her lips like a river of blazing fire.
Carhartan froze at the first note, and the dirk trembled in his hand. Lord Rhudashka’s bloated face darkened in wrath. Loud and sweet and clear, the notes rose sparkling to the sky and then flashed down like diamond-tipped arrows toward her foes.
A wild ringing bark cut through the melody. A scuffle broke out behind her, then cursing, and the frenzied baying of the hound.
“Lass, watch out!”
Birdie spun around. The hound streaked toward her, dragging a chain from its bristling iron collar. It coiled for the spring.
“A Waltham!”
With a screech, George sprang into the air and landed atop the hound’s head, a whirlwind of ripping claws and flashing teeth. The hound growled and flipped over, and George vanished beneath the beast’s furious attack. For a moment, Birdie could hear nothing more than the barrage of yowling, screeching, tearing, and biting.
Then the hound picked itself up, a torn bundle of red-soaked yellow in its mouth, flicked its massive head to the side, and flung the broken cat across the sand.
“No!” Birdie broke free from the shocked silence that had gripped her, dropped to the ground, and managed to work her legs through her arms so that her bound hands were before her. She struggled to her knees. “George!”
Blood dripping from its fangs, the hound twisted its hideous head around to stare at her. A growl rumbled in the depths of its cavernous maw. The beast took a step forward, then the dirk blossomed in its throat and the growl turned to a gurgling whimper.
The hound flopped down, dead.
Birdie looked up from the beast lying before her to Carhartan standing with his arm extended from throwing the dirk. She struggled to reconcile the rapid events of the last minute—George, her betrayer, leaping between her and death, and Carhartan, her captor, rescuing her.
Carhartan stalked over to retrieve the weapon. “My master doesn’t want you killed, Songkeeper. You’re far more useful alive.”
An ear piercing screech came from somewhere high above. Then, like a bolt of lightning out of the deep blue, Gundhrold dropped out of the sky.
The griffin landed on the beach in front of Birdie, sand swirling around him with the force of his wings. A wild roar burst from his throat. Pirates and soldiers alike staggered back. Then his feathered wings closed about Birdie, sweeping her up onto his back, and he launched into the air.
31
“No!” Birdie beat her bound fists against Gundhrold’s side, watching Amos and Ky and the Khelari dwindle below. “Take me back. I can’t leave them!”
The griffin shuddered. The stroke of his wings faltered, and he dropped. Wind rushed past Birdie’s head and her stomach threatened to rise, then the griffin caught himself and swooped down to the top of a rock crowned hill, behind the village, overlooking the beach. She scrambled off his back, but he leapt in her path before she could go anywhere.
“You must stay here, little Songkeeper. My wings can no longer bear even you for long, or I would fly you to—”
“What are you doing here? How did you find us?”
“I followed your trail from the forest. The Song summoned me. You must promise to stay here. I will return to help the others.”
“I can’t. I have to help—”
“If you wish to help your friends, you must sing, little Songkeeper.” Gundhrold leapt into the air and flew back toward the beach with ragged strokes. “Sing!”
Bound hands clasped before her, Birdie stumbled to the crest of the hill. Confusion reigned on the beach. The griffin attacked, darting overhead, pouncing on both Langorian and Khelari, a whirlwind of death that knew no bounds. Gundhrold’s arrival had bought Amos a few minutes at least—the prisoners were forgotten as Carhartan and Rhudashka scrambled to organize their men.
But she couldn’t just sit here and watch. She had to do something. Her friends were in danger. She would not—no, could not—abandon them.
Sing, Songkeeper.
The words, a distant echo of the melody, blazed through her mind. Everything within her burned to rush down to the beach, weaponless if need be, and fight with every last ounce of her strength. But perhaps that was not what she was meant to do. The memory of the River Adayn crossing pricked her mind. And so, she stood on the crest of the hill above the battle and sang.
Even now, the strength of the Song took her by surprise. It washed over her, warm and comforting, folding her in a loving embrace, until even the horror and chaos of the battle raging below faded. Brilliant light swept across her vision. Her wrists burned. She glanced down at the rope chaffing her skin. It was on fire? No, not burning. Glowing, a deep intense red, like embers. Then the rope snapped and fell away.
She was free.
Birdie gasped, and the Song stopped as suddenly as a torch extinguished in a pool of water. Below, the chains fell from the captive Waveryders bound between the two trees, and Amos and Ky stood, free from their restraints. The captives stared at their hands in dumbfounded amazement. A few fled over the dunes or toward the village.
But Amos clutched a length of chain in his hand, and his shout rang out over the beach, carrying up the hill to Birdie. “Stand! Stand an’ fight. Use the chains. Drive these cursed seaswoggling villains off our land an’ out o’ our seas.”
The Waveryders stirred as if awakened from a dream, bent down, and grasped their broken manacles. Then Amos shouted the attack, and the captives charged toward the pirates and the Khelari.
The clamor of battle fell upon Birdie’s ears as she raced down the slope toward the beach. She had sung. Now she was going to fight.
Amos swung the broken manacles around his head, batting aside the ineffectual sword strokes of a bumbling pirate. The fools had been drinking ever since capturing the village during the wee watches of the night. It was a wonder half of them could stand, let alone see straight enough to fight. And a mercy for the Waveryders. Chains left much to be desired as weapons.
His chain wrapped around the pirate’s neck, and Amos dragged him close, delivered a thunderous left hook to the pirate’s chin, and shoved him back. He snatched up the fallen pirate’s short, heavy sword—a clumsy weapon—and swung back into the fight.
Overall, the battle seemed to progressing decently for their side. As decently as could be expected, leastways. The griffin wreaked havoc among the enemy, sowing confusion and terror wherever he went, like a physical manifestation of death. And the Waveryders fought well, considering.
But they weren’t making any headway. The battle d
ragged on, and it would likely continue until both sides were so beaten and bloodied and battered that they retreated.
Or until the enemy lost one of their leaders . . .
Amos spun around, beating off another attack, and sought Carhartan in the crowd. He spied the dark figure and fought toward him through the press of the battle until it seemed a path opened before his feet, and his enemies fell away on all sides.
He tightened his grip on his weapons.
This time he would not fail.
At scarce five paces away, Carhartan’s gaze fell upon him. The Khelari raised his red-tipped sword and beckoned him. “Shall we end this, Hawkness? You and I? It always was you and I, wasn’t it?”
In answer, Amos set the chain whirling around his head, building up momentum, while holding the short sword out in front to ward off attacks. He swung the chain and it sparked against Carhartan’s blade. He pressed forward with a series of lazy loops and then flicked his wrist sending the manacle snaking toward Carhartan’s helm. At the same time, he cut down at Carhartan’s side with the short sword.
Carhartan parried and unleashed a progression of slashes and thrusts that were nigh impossible to block with the chain or clumsy short sword. Amos found himself retreating again and again before the attacks.
The red sword flashed past his guard and left a streaming cut on his cheek. A moment later, it flicked again and stung the inside of his forearm.
Amos swung high, as if he were going to bring the chain down on Carhartan’s helmet. At the last moment, he altered course and whipped it around from the side. The manacle slammed into the side of Carhartan’s helmet just above the ear. Carhartan staggered backward.
The thrill of victory beat a triumphant pulse in Amos’s veins. He pressed forward, following the attack with a downward cut of the short sword.
But Carhartan darted into the stroke, and the short sword glanced off his armor. With a lightning backstroke, he batted the sword away. It tore free of Amos’s grip. He stood with a hand full of air before his enemy, too close to use the chain. His hand flew to his belt, instinctively reaching for the hilt of his dirk.
Orphan's Song Page 24