She realized then that she was babbling, the words pouring from her like a flood tide, and suddenly the turmoil within seemed too great to be faced sitting down and she surged to her feet to pace around the small space. “Everywhere there is pain and suffering and loss, and I can hear it—all of it—pounding inside my head. And . . . I don’t know what I am meant to do.”
All was silent in the wake of her outburst.
She returned to her seat, scarce daring to look Quillan in the eye. But she could not avoid it. She forced herself to meet his gaze and whatever harshness and judgment resided there, only to find him smiling gently at her.
“The world, my dear, is a desperate, broken place. We cannot fix it, we Songlings and Songkeepers. We are not the Master Singer, capable of weaving the shattered threads of this world together. What can we seek but to do good with the moments and the gifts allotted to us?”
“‘To do good.’” Birdie repeated the words dully. They meant so much . . . and yet so little. Weak and feeble words compared to the weight of the decisions before her.
Quillan reached across the table and seized both her hands in his own, so intent upon speaking that he didn’t notice the end of his scarf trailing through his tankard and dripping mead onto the tabletop. “Yes, to do good.” Passion imbued his words with such force that Birdie’s gaze jerked to his face, and she felt a tinge of guilt for having been distracted by the damp tail of his scarf. “You hear the voice of Emhran. Listen to the Song. Yield to it. To be a Songkeeper or a Songling is not to possess power and control it, but merely to serve as a conduit, a passage for the Master Singer’s work.”
Releasing her hands, he gestured toward the pot of moondrops sitting in the center of the table. The fragile petals still hung in luminescent curls and spirals from the thick, milky stalks. From the look of it, the light would last several more hours before it faded. “We are like moondrops. The flowers do not possess Mindolyn’s light. They do not force Mindolyn’s light to shine where they will. They are merely vessels. And so it is with you . . . and with me.”
She stared into his eyes, searching the truth of his words, and the course of his melody blended with the depths of emotion roiling within, filling her with an overwhelming sense of urgency—and at the same time, an unbelievable sense of peace.
“We know so little of what is to come, Songkeeper. Little more than the loose threads that those with the gifting of foresight have heard and recorded over the years. But in your coming so many of those threads seem knotted together. I fear that the great battle is coming, and soon.”
His words chilled her. “Gundhrold says that it is a Songkeeper’s duty to fight.” He nodded gravely at that. “And yet Frey seems to abhor the idea of war or bloodshed.”
“Frey will not condone violence, regardless of the provocation or the peril. I am not a violent man, Songkeeper, and I do not condone killing. But I am a firm believer in the need to stand and fight, even shed blood, that wrongs may be ended and right restored. Some Songkeepers were chosen to bring peace, little one. Some to bring war. To face the terror of battle, wade into the fray, and bloody their hands so that peace might come in the end.”
“Peace.” Birdie whispered the word, and then found her courage and her voice. “I should like to bring peace.”
“Seek peace, then, little one.”
He spoke the words, although a part of him had to know—just as she knew—that peace was not likely to endure long in this world. She studied the bloodstained haft of the axe, seeming even redder and more lurid in the pale, white light from the moondrops. “And if I must fight?”
“Then fight well, Songkeeper, and may Emhran guide you.”
12
The griffin came to a bone-jarring stop that lurched Ky’s stomach and flung him forward against the beast’s feathered neck. He scrabbled for a handhold and barely kept himself from flying off head over heels. The air expelled from his lungs with a forceful whoosh that left him gasping.
“We are here, youngling,” the griffin whispered.
He didn’t even seem breathless after the long run. Ky hadn’t been doing any of the work, but every bit of him ached as if he had taken a beating. He pushed himself up enough to peer over the feather-tufted tips of the griffin’s ears. Gundhrold had crouched halfway up the side of a slope, concealed beneath the shelter of a stand of trees. The slope rose above them, peppered with boulders, trees, and thickets of sage and heather. But Ky saw no sign of the dwarven fortress or the Khelari army.
A sneaking suspicion wormed its way through his mind. What if the griffin had been lying about helping him? What if Gundhrold truly thought he meant to betray Birdie to the Khelari and planned to do away with him instead?
Foolish, really. The griffin could have easily killed him there in the woods outside the camp rather than carry him for countless miles to this forsaken hillside simply to do the deed.
He swallowed hard. “So . . . where is ‘here,’ exactly?”
“The Khelari encampment lies in the valley beyond this rise.” The griffin spoke so softly he almost breathed the words rather than whispered them, but Ky still felt the rumble of his voice through his rib cage. “We have circled the valley so we are approaching from the west and not from the direction of your camp. No need to guide the Khelari hunt should we be discovered. From a strategic outlook, the peaks encircling the valley offer an incredible vantage point to rain down death upon the army and are undoubtedly crawling with spies and patrols. We must move on silently now, and singly, and we must be wary.”
Nodding, Ky slid from the griffin’s back, landing on bent knees to cushion the impact. But his legs were weak and trembling from the ride, and his knees gave out and almost spilled him at the griffin’s feet. He caught at a wing for support, drawing a soft growl from the creature. He hastily released the wing and got to his feet on his own.
“Stay close, youngling.” Gundhrold fixed him with a steely-eyed glare. “Do not think to leave my sight, else my vengeance will find you far swifter than the blades of the Khelari.”
No, siree. Wouldn’t dream of it.
Once again he swallowed, nodded, and crept after the griffin. Stiff-fingered with weariness, he eased the sling from his waist and loaded a sling-bullet into the pouch. He kept his eyes peeled for telltale movements around them—shadows in the wrong places, eyes glinting in the trees, winged shapes silhouetted against the night sky. Odds were there were ravens aloft, but at least cover wasn’t an issue. They drifted from boulder to tree to sagebrush, taking care to stay low and step silently. The carpeting of spring growth actually made the task more difficult; while the spongy leaves deadened the noise of footfalls, they also concealed the unevenness of the ground.
It didn’t take Ky long to find himself envious of the griffin’s limber form and four-legged surefootedness. He felt a blind and hapless thing in compassion. Give him the streets of Kerby any day—filthy crowds, rubbish-strewn alleys, blind corners and all—over this strange and unpredictable wilderness.
“Be still.” The griffin’s hiss brought him to an abrupt stop midstep.
Wings fluttered above. A raven?
Ky felt sweat beading on his forehead and trailing down his jawline. The flapping gave way to a soft croak of alarm and then grew louder, more harried. Cursing, Ky planted his feet and set the sling rotating, casting about for signs of the raven. There. To the left. He lined up the shot, gauging angles and distance.
Before he could release, the griffin reared back on his hindquarters. His extended foreclaws raked the raven’s tail feathers, but the bird shot out of reach, and the griffin’s wings were slow to unfurl. No way he could launch into flight and catch it in time. Still whirling the sling, Ky sighted in on the bird. It would be a hasty shot. Risky. His mouth went dry at the thought of it. Not even within sight of the army yet and already discovered.
Doomed to fail Paddy again.
The leather strap slipped through his fingers, releasing the stone into the night. Some
thing about the shot felt right. He knew then, as he always did with a clean release, that it would strike true. Sure enough, the sling-bullet cracked against the raven’s skull, and it dropped to earth in a spray of blood and feathers, straight into the griffin’s open mouth. Gundhrold’s beak snapped shut with a satisfying crunch.
Shaking off the horror of the griffin’s feeding—and the knowledge that those same jaws could easily remove his hand or tear his head from his shoulders—Ky reloaded his sling and crept on up the slope. He dropped to toes and elbows as he neared the crest and wormed his way up to see the bowl-like valley sprawling before him, awash with firelight from the massive army encamped in a half ring before the far cliff face and the fortress of Cadel-Gidhar. Even in the moonlight, the sight was enough to make his jaw drop. Near as he could tell, the whole of Kerby could have easily fit within the enormous stone fortress that looked to have clawed its way out of the mountain to rear its proud head toward the sky. And yet, it wasn’t a piece of the mountain—not like the dwellings of the Saari. Cadel-Gidhar was clearly the work of skilled hands, and a fine work at that. Or it had been before spoiled by war.
The reek of battle and death filled the air. Smoke rose in patches from the valley floor and mountainside and from within the fortress. Here and there the dull glare of residual fires burned. Only a short while since the Khelari had arrived and already they had managed to set the world aflame. Seemed like it was the one thing they were good at.
“Well, youngling. You have seen them. What now?”
“Seeing’s not good enough,” Ky muttered, more to himself than to the griffin. “Got to get down in there, figure out what’s really going on, and try to find Paddy or any sign of him.”
“I trust you have a plan?”
Ky stifled a chuckle. ’Course he didn’t have a plan. In instances like these, having too much of a plan was almost certain to get you killed. Better to trust to instinct and not box yourself in with expectations. “Sure I do: Sneak in. Find Paddy. Sneak out again.”
“Admirable plan. Well considered, yet brief and direct.” Sarcasm was one two-legs skill that the griffin had just about perfected. If he hadn’t felt that twinge of suspicion in his gut, Ky might have believed Gundhrold was sincere. But given the fact that nobody ever liked his plans, he thought chalking it up to sarcasm was a safe bet.
“Obasi said something about the dark soldiers keeping most of the slaves on the front lines at night—called them ‘arrow fodder’ in case of an attack from the fortress. Reckon that’s a good place to start.”
“Front lines, eh? An even better plan.”
Ky started to rise, but the griffin’s wing blanketed him, knocking him flat again and giving him a mouthful of grit to boot. “And if you find young Paddy, your friend, what then, youngling?”
He spat out the dirt and shoved the griffin’s wing out of the way to free his head. “If I find Paddy, there’s no power on earth than can force me to walk away and leave him here on his own.”
That earned him a nod and, dare he say it, a glint of respect.
“So be it.” Gundhrold pulled back, allowing him to rise into a crouch. “There.” He jerked his beak toward a patch of blackness interrupting the steady lines of campfires and torches, just below and to their right. Ky tracked with him. It stood to reason that less light implied fewer soldiers and less chance of being caught. “Follow me, carefully, and I will guide you through the sentries. Be wary.”
Ky nodded and they were off again, creeping down the slope toward the firelit valley.
Only a few steps in, shadows melted together, and the world darkened. Ky glanced up in time to see Mindolyn disappear behind a blanket of clouds rolling in from the north coast. He bit back a muttered curse. The loss of the moon would make no difference in the fire-dotted camp, but here in the pitch dark covering the slope, it left him in grave danger of missing his footing and breaking his neck. Not to mention stumbling across a Khelari patrol. He had run across the tiled rooftops of Kerby in rain and sleet without a smidgen of fear in his gut. Now he was forced to choose his footing carefully and slow his pace, even while the griffin forged steadily ahead. He soldiered on—blundered, really—aiming for the spot Gundhrold had indicated. He paused now and again to listen for sounds of the griffin’s movement, but the beast moved so silently he might have been nearly on top of him and never known it.
A rustle of movement came from somewhere on his left. Ky froze, senses prickling, and strained to see. Was it the griffin? Sentries? Sweat trickled down his forehead. The noise didn’t come again, and the griffin did not appear. So much for not leaving his sight. Teeth clenched, he inched forward again, dreading with each step to feel the sting of a Khelari blade. He reached the break in the line of campfires, a hollow in the earth that dipped below the level of the rest of the camp, and crept down into it. It was longer and wider than he had expected. Desperate for movement, he settled into a crouching half jog, scanning for signs of the enemy as he went. But even though he couldn’t see anything, the place didn’t feel empty, though he couldn’t have said exactly why that was. A heaviness in the air? A rustle of movement that might have been wind and yet wasn’t?
Maybe it was the griffin.
Halfway across, he caught a whiff of some eye-wateringly foul stench. And then stepped squarely into a pile of something warm and sticky. It squelched between his toes and slurped up the back of his ankle. Bile rose in his throat as the stench grew stronger. No mistaking the reek of fresh animal dung . . . and lots of it. He didn’t want to meet whatever massive beast could have left a pile that size. He slogged free of the mess and scrambled out of the hollow and up the other side, crouching in the tall grass just within the outskirts of the Khelari camp.
Snatching a handful of grass stalks, he silently scraped as much of the mess off his foot as he could and chunked the soiled wad back into the hollow. Great. At this rate, the Khelari wouldn’t even need to send hounds to track him down. Any foot soldier with a decent sniffer would be able to pick up his trail.
Just his luck.
Even at night, activity droned through the Khelari camp as he crept alongside. Sentries paced along the border of the camp, weapons glinting in the light of the campfires. He easily avoided them. It was the ones you didn’t see that you had to worry about. Soldiers marched from place to place. Horses neighed and nickered, and here and there the roar of a lion blended with the grunts and rumbles of other strange beasts. The camp itself hearkened to a city, laid out in blocks of squares divided by roads and walkways, with any number of dark “alleys” and hidey-holes within, the whole thing so massive that a fellow could easily get lost.
Or just as easily lose himself in the chaos.
Across the way, just beyond bowshot reach, the Caran’s fortress loomed: stolid, silent, and seemingly unconcerned with the horde gathered before its walls in this lull between assaults. And yet a line of tension ran between the two forces, like a bowstring drawn to its farthest reach. Having recently endured a siege—albeit on a much smaller scale—Ky recalled the strain of anxiety constantly heightened by the endless waiting and watching and dread of the next attack, warriors sleeping on their weapons, ready to leap to the defense at a moment’s notice.
A muffled cough drew his attention, and he pressed himself flat in the grass. Up ahead, in a quieter, darker section of the camp, a lone firepot guttered on a stand before what looked to be a large pen—more of a cage, really, since it had a roof—formed of long poles lashed together and fastened to stakes in the ground. Shadowy forms milled about within, indistinct even with the wavering light. Something about that seemed strange, but Ky couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
The cough came again, and then a lone soldier appeared around the side of the cage. He moved with an odd, rolling gait that seemed better suited for the deck of a ship than a battle in the mountains. Whistling a jaunty tune, he came to a halt beneath the firepot, keeping time by tapping a coiled whip against the side of his leg.
&nb
sp; A slavekeeper.
The realization made Ky’s blood run cold. Because the thing that had been bothering him about the creatures in the pen suddenly made sense. There hadn’t been any reflection of eyes in the light of the firepot. Most animal eyes glinted at night. Human eyes didn’t. Sure, there were some exceptions on the animal side of things, but it was a safe bet that it wasn’t cattle or horses or hounds or anything of the like caged in there.
It had to be the slaves.
What were the odds that he would happen upon them so soon after reaching the camp? Maybe his luck had finally taken a turn for the better.
He waited until the whistling slavekeeper continued pacing his rounds and then started toward the cage, staying low to the ground. Three steps in, a twig snapped beneath his toes. He jerked to a halt, heart hammering painfully in his throat, and his fingers slipped to the haft of his sword. Too late he tried to duck back out of sight.
The slavekeeper twisted around and broke off his tune with a curse that would have made even Slack blush. The man flung his head back and opened his mouth. Ky didn’t wait. No time to get off a shot. Or even draw blade. He charged straight at the Khelari, clutching his loaded sling in one hand, dropped his shoulder, and hit the man low in the gut.
Down he went, and Ky with him. The man might not have been a soldier, but he moved well in a fight, managing to control his fall and twist around, longer arms and legs snaking around Ky and throwing him down. The crushing weight of the slavekeeper settled on his chest while the blood rushing to his head beat a panicked tempo through his ears. Wriggling like a fish on the line, he managed to keep his arms free, but scraped the healing burn on his right arm painfully across the ground. He rammed an elbow into the man’s thigh, sling straps whacking his own face with the force of the motion.
Song of Leira Page 14