Song of Leira

by Gillian Bronte Adams

  Birdie took a step forward, and the petra shrank in on itself, presenting a bristling hide and a tail fluffed up like a fireflower. “It’s all right.” She caught a glimpse of the axe in her hands and hastily grounded it. “I’m a friend.”

  The beast regarded her in silence a moment and then nodded, a quick downward jerk of the head that reminded her of a bird pecking at a worm. “I know you.” Spoken softly, but with a hint of assertion. “I know you, I do. Yes, yes, I do, little Songkeeper.”

  Something about the way the beast said it put her at ease. For once, hearing her name spoken by a stranger did not set her muscles taut with a sense of impending danger. There was no sign that the petra bore the talav, and without it, so far as Birdie understood, there was no way to conceal or fake the melody. But more than that, there was a sense of transparency and innocence to the beast that begged to be trusted.

  This was no evil creature.

  “You know who I am,” she prompted, “but I don’t know—”

  The petra darted suddenly around the tree, made a circle, and came a stop at her feet, tail wagging slightly, causing her whole body to shimmy from side to side. She seemed incapable of sitting still, practically vibrating with an energy that seemed even more unusual when one considered how close she had been to death moments before.

  “Khittri.” The petra trilled, meeting Birdie’s gaze full on with a flash of her teeth. “I am called Khittri.”

  “And I am called Birdie.”

  A shiver shook Khittri’s body from whiskers to tail tip—though from the light in her eyes, Birdie thought it was from excitement rather than fear. The petra broke away, dashed a little ways up the trunk of the tree, and clung there, tail twitching and bristling. Then she dropped, landing on all four feet and scampered away to weave in and out between Birdie’s legs, melody rising up in a cheery, disjointed sort of song that brought a smile to Birdie’s lips.

  “Little one?” Gundhrold’s voice sounded nearby, thick with concern.

  She spun to look for him. “Over here!”

  He loped into view a moment later, wings folded neatly across his back, padded feet making little sound in the supple spring foliage. At the sight of her his pace eased, and the tension faded from his shoulders and hindquarters. But the sternness of his expression as he drew nearer did not lessen—if anything it deepened. “Take care, little one. You should not go alone. How can I protect you if you go dashing heedlessly about?”

  For some reason the testiness in his voice only served to lighten her own mood. She couldn’t deny a strange sort of satisfaction in the knowledge that she had escaped his watchful eye, if only for a moment.

  More foolishness.

  In her mind, it was Amos’s voice that dismissed her actions, and it took all her effort to shake free from the sorrow that came with it. She turned to introduce Khittri, but the petra was gone. Vanished without a trace.

  Suspicion shot through her. Had she been fooled yet again by another of the Shantren? Then she caught a glimpse of reddish gold peeking out from beneath the crisscrossing branches of a sage bush and heard again the reassuringly bright and airy notes of the petra’s melody, and the fear dissipated.

  “Well, little one?” The griffin settled back on his haunches to unfold his wings, spreading them to soak in the patches of evening sunlight penetrating the trees. He gave no indication that he had seen the petra, but Birdie would have been surprised if he had missed it. Slipping anything past the griffin was no easy task. “What say you? Given your affinity for danger and recklessness, have you considered my plan? Will you try for Cadel-Gidhar at my side?”

  And here at last it came, the moment of decision.

  Eyes averted, Birdie stepped into the next patch of light, basking in the warmth on her skin and using the delay to gather her thoughts. When Gundhrold had first suggested his plan, it had been fear that held her back. Fear of failure. Fear of defeat. Fear of finding herself wanting, as she had proven wanting against the Takhran in the Pit. And the fear was no less real and terrible now than it had been then. But fear did not hold her back.

  Lack of conviction did.

  She was hesitant to set out in pursuit of a plan—any plan—without first knowing in her soul that it was the right course of action. If the need arose, she would not shrink from the fight, but she was no warrior like Sym. The skill she had with a blade sufficed to save her own hide, but not to lead soldiers into battle. If the mighty Adulnae could not hold out on their own, what good could she—Songkeeper or no—accomplish trapped in Cadel-Gidhar with them?

  She realized then that she knew her answer. Had known it all along.

  She had only lacked the courage to speak it.

  “What say you, Songkeeper?” Gundhrold turned a narrowed gaze upon her, and the light of battle shone fierce and true in his eyes. “Will you fight?”

  “Yes, Gundhrold, I believe I will.” She spoke slowly, letting the words steep in the resolve boiling in her chest. “But not from within Cadel-Gidhar.”

  His beak snapped shut. “But the fortress must hold.”

  “It is guarded by all the strength of the dwarves. There is more for me to do without.” She gestured vaguely to the wooded slopes surrounding them, still gripped by the promise of an idea as yet unformed. But there was no need to explain to the griffin that she had no settled alternative plan. Not yet, at least.

  Feathers ruffling in the breeze, the griffin stood silent a moment and then made a soft, humming noise deep in his throat. “You are firm upon this?”

  “I am.” Such confidence conveyed in one little phrase. Confidence she could only hope that she truly had. “I must be.” Whatever doubts she had, they withered as she began to speak. The act of voicing her thoughts completed the transformation from hope to resolution. “If I am to be the Songkeeper, I must find my own way.”

  Through the Song, if it was willing, she would find her way and fight in it too.

  Gundhrold held her gaze a moment longer—his eyes searching hers as if to unearth the secrets buried within—then nodded, turned about in a flutter of wings and scattered leaves, and was gone. He had sworn to abide by her choice. And come what may, she had made it. Yet all the bluster in the world could not ease the recollection of fear squirming in her chest. She did not want to become again that weak and cowardly thing. Afraid to move. Afraid to act. Afraid that her decisions even now were guided and tainted by that fear.

  But denying the fear was only another way to be ruled by it. Admitting it, staring it in the eye, and then striding boldly on anyway—that was true courage. Come what may. She sought the strains of the Master Song and found it floating near at hand. Strengthened by its closeness, she flung herself open to the melody and felt the fear dissipate, replaced by the warmth of the Singer’s presence.

  Upon the breath of the Song, she whispered a prayer.

  Oh, but let it be right.

  “Bir-die.” Khittri trilled, emerging from the bush on shrinking feet. She halted, whiskers twitching as she sniffed the air, and then darted into motion, dancing a blinding pattern over Birdie’s feet and around her legs. She came to a skittering halt, crouched on her forelegs with her head tipped back and a grin on her pointed snout. “Bir-die.”

  “Yes?”

  “Bir-die.” Khittri drew the word out. She seemed to enjoy the way the name rolled off her tongue. “The way you seek, I can show it to you. Show you the way, I can, if you come with me. Truly, yes, indeed, I can.”

  “The way?”

  It took Birdie a moment’s puzzlement to realize that the petra was referencing her own words about seeking her way as the Songkeeper. She fidgeted with the haft of her axe. It seemed beyond far-fetched that this wild mountain creature should truly know anything at all about her kind, let alone a way—to what?—as she seemed to imply. But there was no shadow of falsehood behind those bright, green eyes.

  So like Amos’s, they were.

  And that perhaps was what decided her.

  �
��Bir-die, come tonight.” Khittri sat back on her haunches, glide flaps draping her flanks like the folds of a cloak. “Tonight. Tonight. Come alone. Come by moonlight.”

  “Come where?” The notion triggered a hint of the unease that she was trying to quell. Would not a servant of the Takhran seek to draw her out on her own so she could be taken all the more easily? And yet—she cast a glance around—she was vulnerable now.

  But the petra just scampered away beneath the low limbs of the sage. “Come by moonlight tonight. I will show you the way.” With a flick of her tufted tail, she disappeared from view, and Birdie ducked to see where she had gone. The sage concealed the entrance to a burrow. She crouched there a moment longer, half expecting the flighty little creature to dart out again, and then returned to camp in silence.

  Dare she risk it?

  The answer when it came was not a wholly comforting one.

  Indeed she dared. But should she?

  10

  The stillness in the cave gnawed at him. Flat on his back in his bedroll Ky lay, heat fading from overworked muscles, sweat trickling down the side of his neck. He turned his eyes to the moonlight leaking through the leafy screens to paint luminous patterns across the floor and highlight the runners sleeping in bundled lines like sausages on a string. The hum of shallow breathing only strengthened the heavy hush, punctuated here or there by a soft moan or a whisper of movement.

  It seemed wrong that they could find peace so easily when Paddy and any others who might have been taken alive from the slaughter at Siranos now suffered beneath the lash and chains of the slavekeepers. Only a few ridges away.

  Might as well have been a hundred miles for all that he could get to them.

  He shifted in his bedroll, suddenly stifled by the closeness of the air, and tossed aside the dwarf cloak that he used for a covering. The desert jacket and leggings were stuck fast to his skin, and he could feel the wet damp of his hair slicked down over his forehead. Maybe it was the thickness of the atmosphere, maybe the reek of so many bodies in close quarters, maybe the aching deep in his muscles that hearkened to past beatings—whatever it was, it brought to mind the hold of the slave ship where he had been imprisoned with Birdie after the battle of Bryllhyn.

  Cruel chuckling filled his ears.

  He felt again the trailing coolness of a knife’s edge across his eyelid.

  He lurched to his feet to lean against the cool stone of the cave wall and shook off the grip of the memory. By habit his hand went to his pouch, palming a sling-bullet to roll between his fingers. He let his gaze rove over the sleeping runners, pausing here and there on a familiar face, unable to account for the sense of pride that crept up inside of him at the sight. They slept soundly—the deep, heavy sleep born of long days and hard work. Gull sprawled out in a wild tangle of limbs, bow and arrows stashed closed to hand. Meli curled like a cat beneath someone’s cast-off cloak. Syd was a lump in the corner, almost indistinguishable from the shadows. Misfits, the lot of them. Maybe not much by anyone else’s reckoning. But they were his.

  Not just because Cade had “given” them to him when he passed on the leadership of the Underground, but because he had fought for them, bled for them, endured for them, and was willing to die for them too. Obasi was right. He did bear the burden of responsibility. Like a poorly fitting suit of mail, perhaps. It hung about his neck, threatening to choke the life out of him if he did nothing to relieve the guilt.

  Because no matter how you looked at it, Paddy had been left behind.

  Ky eased away from the wall. Truth was an ugly, uncomfortable thing to stare in the face, and maybe there wasn’t anything you could do to change that fact, but once you had looked it in the eye, what you did with it was up to you.

  He slid the sling-bullet back into his pouch and paused to make sure his sling was wound around his waist, purloined the clunky sword he had used for practice, nicked a handful of dried rustshrooms from Dor’s supply, and then ducked out into the night.

  The cool breeze made the cave seem sweltering. He plucked the sweat-slick animal-hide jacket away from his chest and almost instantly found it easier to breathe. The escaped slave, Obasi, sat with his back to the large boulder to the left of the entrance, clearly asleep—body slumped, head dangling in slumber. It was as close as the man would venture to the cave.

  Ky chose his steps with care, picking his way across the clearing. Once in the woods, he moved at a bolder, more confident pace. He was no coward creeping away in the dead of night, skulking in the bushes to stay out of sight. There were lookouts posted somewhere about. Chances were he would run into one of them, and so long as he didn’t get an arrow to the side for his pains, he welcomed the chance to explain his plan.

  “Off somewhere?”

  For all that he had been peeling his eyes and ears for signs of the lookouts, somehow Slack still managed to catch him off guard. The girl materialized from behind a zoar tree, slapping the flat of her hatchet blade against her palm with a dull thwack.

  “Done with it all, are you? Couldn’t cut it? Figured.”

  “No.” Ky growled. That girl never failed to get his ire up. With an effort, he swallowed it and fell back on honesty. “It’s Paddy. Slack, he’s in trouble. I got to find him.”

  It could have been a trick of the moonlight, but he thought her eyes widened at his use of her name. But she just nodded—a long, slow nod—and wrapped her fingers around the head of the hatchet, catching it and holding it still. “You’re mad, you know?”

  For some reason folks always felt the need to tell him that. Usually just before a colossal failure on his part—an odd coincidence, if you thought about it. But he didn’t see any reason to dwell on it just now.

  “Can you look after them . . . while I’m gone?”

  Just the slightest hesitation before speaking this time. “I’m not a nursemaid to watch the younglings whilst you’re off killin’ Khelari.” She near about spat the words at him.

  Her anger caught him off guard. He scrambled for a response. “’Course you aren’t, Slack. But they’ll need someone to look to, to organize and lead them until I get back. Reckon it’ll be a day or two at . . .” He let his voice trail off as that same strange expression he had seen a couple times earlier passed across her face. For the life of him, Ky still couldn’t determine what it meant. Whether he should be unsettled or set at ease.

  A curt nod. “Reckon I can.”

  With that, she faded into the shadows again, leaving Ky to journey on alone.

  A waxing moon illuminated the trees, granting Ky sure footing and a clear view of his path up the mountains. He stuck the short sword through his belt and settled into a steady pace, resolutely turning his thoughts from the Underground behind to Paddy ahead. No matter what dangers lay in his way, nothing could dampen the relief of action. Of setting his eyes upon a goal—however mad—and doggedly pursuing it.

  But he hadn’t made it far before an uneasy sense warned that someone was nearby. Watching him. Rustling branches within the surrounding woods drew his attention. Closer, he heard the skittering of feet through the brush. That brought him up short, images of the dead hounds and slavekeepers flashing through his head. It stood to reason that they could have been missed by now. Maybe others had come searching. Maybe the griffin had not succeeded in hiding the bodies and the blood trail from the wounded Saari, or in laying false trails to throw off potential trackers. Maybe the Khelari were now on their way to the camp.

  The rustling grew louder.

  He inched a hand toward his sling then changed tack toward his sword instead. If it was Khelari, chances were they’d be better armored than the slavekeepers had been, and sighting a sling-bullet to the open face of a helmet was no small task, moonlight or no moonlight. The leather grip squeaked beneath his hand.

  A dune rabbit shot out of the bushes and almost ran into his feet. He stumbled back and the beast skidded to a halt at the sight of him. He could see the rapid beat of its heart thumping through its rib c
age and felt the echoing gallop of his own. The dune rabbit snuffled its whiskers and must have decided he wasn’t dangerous, because it sat back on its haunches, peering up at him beneath a pair of floppy ears, and then lurched away in a set of ungainly leaps.

  Ky peeled his fingers away from the hilt of his sword but kept his hand hovering close by. The dune rabbit might have decided that he wasn’t dangerous, but Ky wasn’t convinced. Having Birdie around had made him more aware of critters. Warier too.

  “You are late, youngling.” A harsh voice spoke beside his ear.

  Instantly, every muscle tensed, like a sling gone taut before release. Adrenaline surged through his veins, a wild, fearful, prickling rush. He didn’t dare turn around but let his hand drift closer to his sword hilt, inwardly cursing his luck.

  A wing enveloped him. It trapped his arms to his sides, crushing and smothering in its feathery mustiness. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t reach sword or sling. Could barely breathe. But somehow being deprived of the ability to act allowed reason to burst through the fight instinct hammering in his head.

  The wing. The voice.

  “Gundhrold?” He croaked out the words with the last air in his lungs.

  “Indeed.” The wing loosened slightly, and then the griffin released him completely. He spun around, gripping the sword just in case. But the smug beast just cocked a feathered eyebrow at him, a look of such scalding amusement and disdain that it made Slack’s glares look friendly. “Do you intend to use that?”

  Not anymore . . .

  Ky pried his hand from the sword and folded his arms over his chest instead, trying to regain some shreds of dignity. “What do you mean, ‘I’m late’? Were you expecting me?”

  “Of course.”

  “How? Didn’t tell anyone what I was planning—except Slack on the way out. Couldn’t have. Didn’t even know I was planning it until I left.”