The string thrummed, followed a moment later by a solid thwack. He couldn’t see the target, but from the sound of it and Gull’s praise, it had been a good, clean shot. Not bad. He mouthed the words to himself. Still a little thing, yes, but no longer the tiny, helpless wisp he had taken on his first independent run.
She would be okay.
Mind made up, he pushed up to his feet, straightened his shoulders, and turned to walk into the camp—only to find the griffin once more studying him intently.
“You truly mean to leave them?”
The words stuck in his throat, but he managed to get them out. “I have to.” And somehow just saying it gave him the confidence to carry on. “I can’t just walk away and leave all those people caged up like that, and Paddy with them. I have to go back. I have to do something.”
“Go back where?”
Ky stiffened at the voice behind him and turned around. Birdie stood a few paces away, axe low at her side, dark hair lying in a tangled mess about her shoulders. She seemed breathless, and her cheeks were flushed, almost like she had been running. Come to think of it, he hadn’t seen her when he surveyed the clearing, and she had come up from behind them, away from the camp. Could’ve been nothing—she could have been on sentry duty—but he thought he caught a faint gleam of defiance in her eyes. Made him wonder what exactly she had been up to alone in the woods.
He cast a sideways glance at Gundhrold to see if the griffin had noticed, but the griffin was preoccupied with preening the dried blood from his feathers and only lifted his head to nod a quick greeting as Birdie drew nearer.
“You have been gone all night?” Birdie glanced from him to Gundhrold and back again. Understanding dawned in her eyes. “You have been to the war camp.”
It was a statement rather than a question. Ky resigned himself to admitting the truth. Might as well. He had made his decision after all. The others would find out soon enough. “Yeah, to scout the slave camp.” He eased himself to the ground—wincing at the stiffness that had gradually claimed his muscles—propped his elbows on his knees, and gestured with his head toward the empty spot between him and Gundhrold.
She hesitated before accepting his invitation, eyes flicking between him and the griffin, weighing the signs, trying to figure out what was going on. Only a moment, but enough that Ky noticed it. Life on the streets taught a fellow to be a master of reading subtleties in actions and expression. Just one of those things that was necessary for survival when choosing the wrong mark could get you strung up . . . or taken by the Khelari.
In halting words, Ky explained about the trip to the war camp and his decision to rescue the slaves. Birdie said nothing. She sat with her head cocked to one side, eyes downcast, an intent expression on her face as if she was listening to something in the distance. Her song, maybe? He didn’t know exactly what he had expected from her—disbelief, surprise, encouragement? Something more than silence at least.
Gundhrold sighed heavily. “Your determination comes from a stout heart, youngling. Have no doubt about that. But a stout heart is no shield against the weapons of the Khelari. They will have doubled—nay, even tripled—the watchers after this night. And if it should come to blows, what can your sling and sword do against the numbers that will surround you? You cannot hope to succeed on your own.”
“I’ll figure something out. I always do.”
Birdie stirred, blinking as one awakening from a dream. “I will help.”
“You, little one?” The griffin sounded surprised, and after a night on the hunt with him, Ky got the feeling that he wasn’t surprised by much.
She nodded. “It is a Songkeeper’s place to seek to do good, isn’t it?”
“It is.” A softness crept into the griffin’s voice, and he stooped to look Birdie in the eye, wing hovering around her shoulder. Ky suddenly felt an outsider in his own plan. “And it has long been the Songkeeper’s mission to free the captives and release those in chains.”
That stirred up a flash of memory. Manacles biting into his wrists, grit in his teeth, pirates and soldiers at his back. Birdie’s song had freed him from chains then. But her strange powers seemed inconsistent at best. She might have freed them that day on the beach, but they had spent weeks in captivity on the Langorian ship. Maybe she had learned a mite more since then. Maybe she could control it better now.
But it wasn’t something he counted on to have his back in a fight.
Gundhrold’s furrowed brow only confirmed his doubts. “The Songkeeper’s aid is not an insignificant thing, youngling, and yet it will not be enough. This is no small raid you are undertaking. Are you prepared to risk all? Are you prepared to risk them?”
“Them?” Ky started to his feet. It brought him face to face with the griffin, with that fierce, hooked beak only inches away from his eyes. But he wouldn’t back down. Not on this. “Hold on just a minute. They’re not going to be involved. I mean to do this on my own.”
“And yet you cannot succeed on your own.”
Then I’ll die trying.
The words blazed through Ky’s mind, but he halted them before they reached his tongue. Sometimes dying seemed the easy way out. No more responsibility. No more driving need to protect. No more burning shame when he failed. But what good would dying do the slaves or the Underground? If he died in the fight, he would have failed them all.
He folded his arms across his chest, trying to imitate the belligerent stance that Hawkness had been so good at. “I won’t force them into battle.”
“But you will need their help.” Gundhrold sat back on his haunches, head cocked to one side, blinking at Ky. “Why do you train them in the arts of war if you do not wish to lead them into battle?”
“So they can protect themselves.” He wasn’t naïve enough to believe that they could find some hole in the ground in which to hide while everything burned around them. But preparing them to defend themselves was a far cry from leading them into battle.
“But they are your army, are they not?”
Ky resisted the urge to laugh at the bitter irony of it. Because wasn’t that how Cade had viewed them—as his personal army? And wasn’t that what had led to so much of the conflict between the two of them? Cade had trained his runners, hammered and shaped them, and then unleashed them in his own personal vendetta against the dark soldiers, counting the lives lost as the expected cost of achieving victory.
That wasn’t what Ky hoped for the Underground. The streets might have honed them into something more than mere kids, but they were not warriors. And yet, who was he to decide which lives were worthier of saving? The Underground? Or Paddy and the slaves?
Hang it all!
“Archers, retrieve your arrows.” Gull’s voice snapped Ky back to himself.
Slow, plodding footsteps crashed through the woods, followed by a lighter, fleeter step. Ky pulled away from Birdie and Gundhrold and pressed his back against the trunk of the tree, hoping the surrounding undergrowth grew thick enough to shield him. He motioned for them to get down too. The griffin’s face wrinkled in distaste, but he hunkered down behind a thicket of sage on the bank of the creek, and Birdie crouched at his side. Maybe hiding was foolish, but Ky’s mind was still too muddled to answer questions.
The clumsy footsteps drew nearer and then came to a stop. He heard a long intake of breath . . . and then silence. The second set of footsteps moved on, starting and stopping in short bursts. But the seconds ticked past and still there came no sound from the closer runner. Cursing himself as a fool, Ky pushed up just enough to peer through the thick foliage—and saw Syd standing only a few feet away, mouth open, white-blond hair falling in a tangled thatch over his forehead, bow and empty quiver in his hands. He was looking right at Ky. There was no curiosity in his gaze, only puzzlement.
“Syd!” Meli called from deeper in the woods. “I found one. Did you find the other?”
Syd blinked once. Twice. Then he clapped his mouth shut, gave Ky a solemn nod, and crashed away through
the undergrowth. He dipped down into the creek bank, emerged a moment later with a dripping arrow in his hand, and then was gone. Seconds later, Gull gave the command to fire again.
Ky rose and brushed himself off. He had already spent too much time skulking in the woods, and he was no closer to an answer than when he had arrived. Or maybe he was close to it—sitting right on top of it, in fact—but he just couldn’t stomach it yet. “Come on. We should go. I need time to think.”
Claws stung his shoulder, halting him. “And to lie low.”
Right. Lying low. Just what he was good at.
•••
The faces of the slaves in the pen haunted him. He couldn’t forget the deadness of their eyes or the empty expressions on their faces. He saw them in the embers of the evening cook fire and saw them in the encroaching shadows when Mindolyn dipped behind the trees. He saw them when he closed his eyes to rest and when he bent over the creek in the morning to wash the sleeplessness from his face. And when spurts of sleep did come, their faces melted and blurred until a dozen Paddys stared back him, eyes blazing with accusation.
Calling him a coward because he couldn’t bring himself to leave.
Not yet.
So he threw himself into work, pitching in alongside his runners from sunup until sundown. Simply living from one moment to the next. Lying low, while Gundhrold patrolled beyond the camp. Completing one task and moving on to the one that followed. No weighty decisions. No life-and-death plans. Just hunting, gathering, training, maintaining—the life of a runner. With all of them working side by side, in a matter of days the cave was no longer just a cave. It had sheltered lookout positions, secret paths through the woods, a true fire pit inside the cave in addition to the cook-fire ring in the clearing, and the beginnings of a set of shelves to hold food supplies and a rack for weapons—it was well on its way to becoming a functional hideout that Hawkness would have been proud of, replacing the cavern that had been their home.
It should have satisfied him. But the restlessness only grew.
Ten days after his visit to the slave pens, he found himself pacing through the woods, rolling a sling-bullet through his fingers. He was not far from the camp—only a short walk beyond the lookout stations. An empty supply sack was slung over his shoulder. He’d told Slack that he would be out gathering. Hadn’t had much luck yet. Pity collecting thoughts didn’t count.
The harsh croak of a bird stopped him short. A mountain hawk sprawled in the loam a few feet away. Wings bent, neck limp, the wicked tip of a Khelari quarrel protruding from its spine. Ky crouched beside it. He plucked a loose feather from the earth and held it up to his eyes. Banded rust and gold with flecks of black. Tip glistening with blood. A baleful light filled the bird’s eyes. It shrieked at him, and its wings fluttered in a pitiful attempt to rise.
“Easy, easy. It’s all right.” Ky scooted back.
The bird settled again. Twitched feebly. And then its head flopped back, emitting a short, raspy croak before it shuddered and was gone. Ky stood, unable to account for the rush of anger in his chest. Hawks weren’t meant to end up like this, helpless and flightless on the earth. Grounded in death. They were meant to soar the skies, fierce and wildly free. Like Hawkness. He had lived up to his name, a true freedom fighter and every ounce the legend the Underground had believed in for so long. It was why they had chosen the hawk as their symbol—because the Underground had stood for freedom too.
Then.
Ky paced beside the dead bird, stepping around the scattered feathers. He weighed the sling-bullet and the feather in opposing hands. Over the past week, the Underground had started pulling together. The issues with Slack hadn’t completely disappeared—she still had her set of followers, and he had his, and navigating the division between them was a dangerous maze—but things were beginning to run smoothly. They ate. They trained. They posted lookouts. They laughed and shared stories around the evening campfire. They slept.
They were safe.
But it was all so pointless.
Order, work, discipline. All of this, he had given to them. But the Underground needed more. It needed a purpose. Cade had known that, even if Ky had a hard time seeing it then. In Kerby, they had existed to spite the dark soldiers who had tried to crush them, whether it was petty raiding like pilfering cheese from the garrison kitchen or simply surviving when all the odds foretold their death. They had taken what they needed to survive, but they had also taken a fair amount of pride in bearding the lion in his den and living to roam the streets another day.
Out here, what pride was there in simple survival?
This comfortable safety would tear them apart. He had to give them something to fight for. Something to believe in. As surely as he needed to find it for himself.
Across the way, dull red berries dangled from the thorny limbs of a chita, reminding Ky of his excuse to come out here. With a sigh, he got to work. He pocketed the sling-bullet and the feather and started plucking berries from the bush and stowing them in his sack. At least he needn’t come back empty handed, though the berries were at the far end of ripe. The scarlet flesh was already bursting through the dull skin, mushing between his fingers as he picked.
Staining his skin.
His mind went back to the feather tip dyed in blood, and an idea struck him. The answer to both his problems. On impulse, he shed his lion-skin jacket and spread it out on the ground. This—this was taking a page from Migdon’s book. At the very least, it was just theatrical enough to be something Migdon would have condoned.
He gathered loose feathers from the ground, then emptied his sack of chita berries and crushed them between his fingers until the juice ran down into his palm. Dipped a finger in and studied the broad canvas of his fringed jacket. He wasn’t much of a hand at drawing, but it wasn’t about the craftsmanship so much as it was about the symbol.
Hawkness’s symbol.
•••
Myriad melodies danced around her. Birdie could see them when she closed her eyes, like miniscule luminescent orbs weaving in and out of the hazy afternoon sunlight filtering through the trees. The melodies of Underground runners working in the clearing, insects droning through the spring grasses, wild creatures roaming through the woods beyond, and the griffin sunbathing beside her. She knelt on the bank of the creek, damp earth seeping into her worn leggings as she slowly unwound the bandage from her wrist and lowered her hand to soak in the coolness. It was fortunate that Gull was a fair hand with needle and thread; otherwise her tattered clothes wouldn’t have survived this long. As it was, both leggings and tunic were a patchwork of seams and scars. An odd picture of the world she lived in.
“Your wrist is healing well, Songkeeper.”
She nodded, twisting her fingers and wrist through the gentle current. It was soothing. The bite wounds had long since scabbed and begun to heal, pale pink flesh showing through ragged tooth marks. The bone did not ache as it once had. It was more a lingering weakness now—one that she still found endlessly frustrating.
Ky’s melody alerted her to his presence before the first crackling twigs announced his arrival. He dashed up to the opposite side of the creek a little ways down and paused on the bank, breathing hard. Birdie bit back a gasp at the sight of him. Hawk feathers intertwined with the fringe of his lion-skin jacket and trousers. The hide itself had been painted with a series of symbols in the shapes of predator birds in flight and claws marks, all in a dull red that looked like blood. His hands were stained with the same dye. He looked a fearsome, savage creature.
Head thrown back, his gaze roamed the woods until he saw her and the griffin and sloshed across the creek toward them, a sack slung over one shoulder. “I have a plan.”
“Indeed, youngling?” The griffin lifted his head and flicked one lazy eye in Ky’s direction, but if he noticed anything unusual about the boy’s appearance, he obviously didn’t consider it worth rising. He let his head fall back and huffed a long breath through his open beak. “Past time, isn�
��t it? Spending weeks skulking in the woods may not be unusual for a band of ragged street rats, but it is hardly the course of action for a Songkeeper.”
Birdie ignored the rebuke in his words and stood back from the creek, wiping water from her hand onto her damp leggings. “You have a plan to free the slaves?”
“You both sound so surprised.” Ky dropped the sack at his feet and folded his arms across his chest. “The pieces have been rattling around inside my head since I first set foot in the Khelari camp. Trying to sort them all out, though . . . Well, that was the tough—”
“I trust it is a better plan than last time, youngling.”
Ky just rolled his eyes at that. “We’ll need fire. Lots of it. And noise. Flaming arrows and a couple dozen of those battle horns we took from Siranos should do the trick.”
Gundhrold’s eyes narrowed with comprehension. “You mean to bait the quimram.”
His words made no sense to Birdie, but Ky gave a confident nod and rocked back on his heels. “Yes. Nothing like a decent distraction plus a solid ounce or two of misdirection to get any raid off to a good start.”
“You play with fire, youngling.”
“Maybe.”
Birdie picked up her discarded bandage and carefully wrapped her wrist. Extra support made it easier to trust the limb. And if it was to be a dangerous raid, she would want both hands to wield her axe. She glanced up at Ky. “Why are you dressed like that?”
His shoulders twitched in a shrug, but his jaw was set. “Gundhrold’s right. Leaving isn’t the answer. I’m going to need help from the Underground to make this work. And maybe they need me to make this work for them too.”
A note of iron determination coursed through his melody. Gone was the tremor of indecisiveness, of anxiety. It was the strongest—and hardest—she had ever seen him. It worried her. Using her teeth, she tied off the bandage and let her hand fall to her side. “What do you mean to do?”
He had already started marching toward the camp with a long, loose-limbed stride that reeked of confidence. He didn’t bother turning around, his answer floating back over his shoulder. “What I have to.”
Song of Leira Page 16