Song of Leira

by Gillian Bronte Adams

  Softly, she began to hum Gundhrold’s notes, infusing them with that unfathomable sense of stillness and calm that she had felt in his melody that night. Peace. Peace. Peace. All encapsulated and breathed out in the notes. When she finished humming, the echo of the notes aligned with the echo of the Song in the tunnel, forming a deep resonance that sent a chill dancing across her skin.

  She could not meet his gaze just then. Leaving the torch burning on the cave floor, she reached past him and seized the rope. “Tell the runners the truth. Plan your missions, and free the slaves. Any battle could be our last. Let’s do all the good we can until then.”

  “Good.” Ky straightened at the word, and resolve firmed his melody. “And if it entails wreaking havoc on the Takhran, so much the better, right?”

  •••

  Sling in hand, Ky paced atop the broken wall on the southern edge of camp. He had volunteered for an extra shift on the night watch. Again. It was fast becoming a habit. The way he figured it, if he wasn’t going to sleep anyway, he might as well give someone else the chance to rest. Ten nights in all they had spent at Drengreth, and still sleep eluded him. It came only in fits and spurts that left him feeling no more rested than before.

  He scanned first the patch of open ground beyond the wall and then the ring of bald-tipped trees before glancing back within the ruins where the others slept beside banked fires. It was a warm night, so most had opted to sleep beneath the stars rather than in the shelters. Over the past few days, the shelter-building teams had made great progress. They were temporary structures, fashioned from dead wood lashed together with vines, to tide them over until more permanent structures could be built. Still, it was a start.

  But a start to what?

  The thought nagged at him. With so few runners left and so many freed slaves—and now even several refugees from the Khelari rampage through the mountains—flooding their ranks, they could hardly be called the Underground anymore. Honestly, he was surprised he had retained his rank as leader. But so far the newcomers had melted seamlessly into the life of the camp, following the structure that he had set in place, all simply grateful for a safe haven.

  Still, how safe was a refuge without a solid wall? He tapped a heel against the broken stone—what remained felt solid enough—trying to get a feel for the amount of work that would be required to fortify it again.

  “Forget it, young cub.”

  The voice caught him off guard. Ky spun, sling at the ready. He pulled back at the last instant, barely managing to keep the loaded pouch from snapping the Saari’s nose. “Obasi.” Disgusted at himself for being taken unawares, he turned back to his post. “What are you doing awake? I took your shift.”

  The Saari’s eyes were shadowed and expressionless in the dim moonlight. “You are not the only one who finds sleep elusive.” He slung a leg over the broken section of wall and then shifted to sit cross legged on top of it. Slapped a hand against the stone. “Forget about the wall. It is a lost cause. The fallen stone is shattered, useless, and the winds and storms of the past thirty years have buried many of the pieces. Nothing you could build could withstand the Khelari. It would be a waste of effort.”

  Ky pondered his words, turning a tight circle. “What if we made it smaller? Not the height, I mean, but the circumference. What if we made a smaller perimeter, tore down the wall completely, pulled it in, and rebuilt it?”

  Obasi laughed outright at that. “You are too ambitious for your own good, young cub. Too many plans. If you are not careful, you will drown beneath the weight of them all. A wise man learns focus. Would you build a wall, or would you free the slaves? You cannot do both.”

  He had to admit the soundness of that reasoning.

  “Fine. Tell me what you know about the slave camps.”

  The last time he had asked that, the Saari’s reaction had been so fierce that Ky had been more than a little afraid for his hide. But now Obasi dove into the telling without any hesitation. His words were blunt, tongue uncaring. He did not shy from the horror of the telling or mince over the details. Al Tachaad was the name of the camp where he had been imprisoned before he was attached to the army. Ten days travel west would get them there. Much of the work done in the camp was iron- and metalwork. The slaves labored over blazing forges, crafting everything from weapons and armor to horseshoes and wagon wheels.

  Ky took in the Saari’s knotted forearms and scarred hands and shook his head. Blacksmithing didn’t sound much like work Paddy was cut out for. Odds were he would have been taken somewhere else . . . if he was still alive. He said as much.

  “Smaller slaves tend the forges and keep the fires burning hot. The taskmasters make them chop firewood, man the bellows, shunt raw materials about—that sort of work. And digging. Lots of digging.”

  “Digging? What for?”

  The Saari shrugged and bitterness twisted his tone. “I did not ask. But there were always ryree blasting teams and diggers at work in the slope behind the camp.”

  This Al Tachaad sounded like a big operation. Weapons, armor, forges. It was bound to be heavily guarded. Ky rubbed a hand across his chin. “Maybe we should start smaller.”

  “Start smaller where?” Obasi pounded a fist against the broken stone. His vehemence startled Ky. “You have nothing else. And you acted upon less when you stormed the army encampment before Cadel-Gidhar. Do you wish to free the slaves, or do you wish only to rescue your friend? You must choose, young cub.”

  “I wish to free them all and rescue my friend.”

  “And yet you sit and do nothing.” Obasi’s lip curled in disgust. “When will you act?”

  Only with an effort was Ky able to keep his voice level. “When I’m ready. I’m sure as slinging not going to risk lives to serve your vendetta or cross out my guilt. It’s not worth it. This is my mission, and if we do this, we’re going to do it right.”

  “How?”

  “We train. We scout. We plan. We make sure we can win.”

  Cold calculation settled in Obasi’s eyes. “It is ten days travel to Al Tachaad. Every day we wait, lives hang in the balance.”

  “And if we attack before we’re ready, every life that’s lost is our fault.” This he would stand upon, and he would not be swayed. But the notion of a ten-day jaunt to scout Al Tachaad and then another ten-day jaunt home, all just to plan the mission was daunting, to say nothing of the travel time for the mission itself. He had far too much to do to get the camp established.

  A horse would speed the journey. Not that he had much hope of finding a horse here, or of riding one if he did. But then . . . if he could find a beast to go, why did he have to go at all?

  “The wild creatures.” The words slipped from his tongue before he could stop them. Obasi’s brow wrinkled in confusion, so he hastened to explain. All the wild creatures who had escorted them here hung about the hillside still. He saw them sometimes with Birdie. She never said, but he reckoned that they kept her appraised of what was going on beyond the broken-down walls of their refuge. They could travel more quickly than he or any of the runners to Al Tachaad, scout it out, and deliver the news to Birdie.

  “The Songkeeper will never agree to that.”

  But Ky grinned jauntily at the Saari’s disbelief. If there was one thing he had learned from Migdon, it was how to convince folks to do what you wanted while leaving them convinced that it was what they had wanted all along. A memory surfaced, and he muttered the words to himself. “‘They don’t call me Silvertongue for nothing.’”

  Bewilderment seemed to have claimed a permanent residence on Obasi’s face. “Who are they?”

  Ky just winked.

  22

  With the glorious tide of the Song still flooding her senses, Birdie sat back, surveying the injured dwarf sprawled on the stretcher before her. Raw and oozing burns covered much of the dwarf’s body. She had trembled and seized with the pain until consciousness mercifully fled, and she now lay almost frighteningly still.

  “Nothing�
�s happening . . .”

  The two dwarves who had carried the stretcher crowded in behind Birdie, peering over her shoulders. Anxious. Fearful. They had found her beneath the grove of trees that surrounded the well and beseeched her to help their sister, who had been injured when Khelari raided their village. It wasn’t the first time in the past month that strangers had arrived begging for her aid. Somehow word had traveled through the mountains of the refuge at Drengreth and the “healer” who lived there. Those the Song did not lead her to heal she attempted to aid with the bandages, herbs, and instructions Quillan had provided. But there were others far more skilled in the medicinal healing arts than she. No, these people came to her seeking the Song.

  “Why isn’t she healed?”

  “Wait—”

  In the wake of the Song, new flesh began to spread across the woman’s bones like a creeping tide, overtaking the burns until they appeared to melt away. The two dwarves knelt by her side, and when her eyes finally opened, the three laughed and cried together. Moving as quietly as she could, Birdie collected the bandages and herbs she had cast aside when the Song moved her to heal the woman and crept away.

  Back in the center of the camp, she found a quiet spot to sit on the edge of the pervasive hustle and bustle. The stillness that followed an outpouring of the Song always left her drained. A handful of workers toiled around the shelters. Others were out gathering or clustered around the cookpots that bubbled constantly over the central fire ring, while still others patrolled the woods or drilled in the training ground that Ky had insisted on clearing from the jungle of overgrowth and vines. Within moments Frey and several other scouts—a burrow cat, Khittri, and a hound—trotted over to her, drawing curious glances as they wove through those at work.

  “Songkeeper.” Frey dipped his antlered head in greeting. “Is all well?”

  She nodded. “I only wish that I understood.”

  “Understood what, Songkeeper?”

  “The Song. Why it heals some. Why it leaves others to suffer.” Her gaze strayed to Amos. The peddler paced feverishly before a gap in the wall, left hand twitching by his side. She recognized the movement—it was that flip of his wrist that he had used to send his dirk spinning when he was trying to work a problem out. But the dirk had been lost in the Pit.

  Boisterous voices drew her attention. A group of runners bounded past with pieces of Khelari armor—most likely lifted from dead bodies at the latest skirmish site—slung over their shoulders. Ky marched at the rear, deep in conversation with Obasi. No large force had yet drawn near the mountain camp, but stray soldiers occasionally wandered within the borders patrolled by the raiders. And as freed slaves and refugees took hawk feathers and swelled the ranks of the raiders, their borders extended farther.

  On the edge of the training ring, the raiders dumped the armor in a large pile and started sorting through it, until Ky’s arrival kicked them into action and they broke off into pairs to spar.

  “Songkeeper . . .” Frey’s voice recalled her to their purpose.

  It had been three weeks since the wild creatures agreed to carry out Ky’s scouting mission to Al Tachaad. “What news?”

  Frey spoke first, relaying the latest sightings of the Khelari as they ranged about the mountains wreaking havoc. There had been a gradual pulling away of forces from the eastern mountains, and what seemed to be a large-scale movement toward the northwest coast. It struck Birdie as odd, but she did not have the griffin’s knowledge of strategic warfare to understand the reasoning behind it. At the very least, it meant they would be safer here at Drengreth. Less chance that soldiers would stumble across an ill-concealed trail or that scouts would discover them.

  “And what of Al Tachaad?” She shot a quick glance toward the sparring raiders. Ky had joined the pairs, wielding a sword no less. She knew his distaste for the weapon. “Were you able to find the camp?”

  In answer, the saif swept his head toward the hound sprawled at his side, muzzle resting between his paws. “You recall Renegade?” The hound’s ears perked up at his name, and his tail thumped the ground. “He scouted Al Tachaad.”

  Renegade? “Yes, of course.” She could not forget the hound whose diversion in the Pit had allowed them to escape the forces the Takhran sent after them. It shamed her to realize that she had not wondered what had befallen him afterward. She smiled at him. “What did you find?”

  “It is ripe for the taking, Songkeeper.” The hound sat upright, and a growl rumbled in his throat. “Many hounds fill the ranks, so I was able to slink in and walk among them without being spotted. They keep a poor watch.”

  This was news Ky would want to hear. Birdie waved to get his attention. He shot her a quizzical look. It distracted him from his fight just long enough to take a hard knock to the ribs that sent him to one knee. Stifling a laugh, she gestured for him to come over. With a look of disgust at the sword in his hand, he waved aside the raider he had been sparring with and then nodded to Obasi and Gull to join him as he jogged to her side.

  “This about Al Tachaad?”

  She nodded and motioned for Renegade to speak, translating his observations to the others. Finally, when their questions were exhausted, Renegade slunk away, and Ky, Obasi, and Gull fell into a discussion of the best plan of attack. Huddled together the way that they were, around a map that Obasi sketched in the earth, Birdie got the sense that she was no longer needed or included.

  As she turned aside, she caught Amos staring at her with a strange expression on his face. It made her pause. Weeks had passed since he had said more than a sullen yes or no in answer to a question, and small as the camp was, he somehow managed to avoid her. But he was here now, and he had acknowledged her presence. That alone gave her the courage to summon a smile and ease toward him.

  “Afternoon, Amos.”

  There was a watery glint in Amos’s eyes. “Many a time I looked up an’ saw Artair standin’ there, just like that. Knee deep in wild critters, chattin’ away with them. Naught but passin’ the time o’ day, pleasant as ye can imagine.” His voice faltered. “Ye put me in mind o’ him just then.”

  His sorrow throbbed so deep, it ran through his melody like infection in a festering wound. Hurt. Anger. Betrayal. All of it seething together into a reeking concoction. “Amos.” She reached for his arm, unintentionally touching his crippled hand. He shook free.

  “Stay shy o’ me, lass. It’ll be best in the long run.” Reeling like a drunken man, he lurched away, leaving her standing there alone. And yet, not quite alone. Frey’s melody alerted her to his presence before he spoke.

  “You must give him time, Songkeeper.”

  Birdie closed her eyes, fighting the wave of anger and panic rising in her chest, because in this she was utterly helpless. And though the Song whispered a melody of peace in her heart, she could not bring herself to dwell in it. Flinging the hair from her face, she spun toward Frey. “Let’s go.”

  White lashes flickered in surprise at her request, but he knelt so she could climb on his back. “Where to?”

  “Anywhere.”

  Without another word they were off, leaping through a gap in the broken wall and dashing through the bald-tipped trees, and then racing away across mountain paths at a reckless pace. Frey traveled with the force of the wind, and the earth fell away beneath his cloven hooves with an exhilarating speed that did not slacken, even as afternoon faded into evening and evening into night. Soon Birdie realized that she knew where they were going.

  Mogrinvale.

  They reached the damp, green hollow as the first rays of dawn slid over the edge and bathed the streamlet in light. Birdie knew instantly that something was wrong. The place reeked of death. From the flare of Frey’s nostrils and the way his muscles tensed, he sensed it too. His pace did not slow until they rounded the last bend of the vale and beheld the cave.

  Slate-gray feathers littered the ground at their feet. The karnoth pair were tangled in a dragon’s tongue vine, breasts pierced through with Khela
ri bolts. The corpse of a rock wolf lay sprawled across the streamlet, hacked with sword wounds, blue-gray fur rippling in the water. As if in a daze, Birdie slid from Frey’s back and walked to the cave.

  Quillan sat just within the entrance, surrounded by a veil of moondrop flowers, now pale and fading in the light of day. His lyre lay in his lap, stilled fingers resting on the strings. A dark stain marred the cheerful yellow scarf about his neck. There was no sign that he had sought to defend himself against the fury that had been unleashed.

  Here was a man who sought peace . . . and this was how the Khelari responded?

  Frey knelt on his forelegs with an odd little sound and bent his antlered head toward Quillan in silent farewell. But Birdie’s heart felt like stone within her. More suffering and death. Yet, somehow, she was always left standing, unharmed. Tears came to her eyes.

  Where was the rightness in that?

  The faint strains of a discordant melody nudged at her awareness, brought the blood rushing to her temples. She tapped Frey’s withers and motioned for him to follow as she inched back down the vale. She longed for a weapon. The melody was so weak it was hard to follow. Then a wet cough sounded from behind a fallen boulder, not far from the body of the wolf. And hidden behind the boulder, a Shantren. The man lay crumpled on his back, chest a mass of shivering, riven flesh beneath the shreds of his blue robe, legs twisted beneath him.

  Teeth clenched, Birdie stared down at the wreck of her enemy. With injuries like those, the blood loss alone could kill him. A stirring of the Song beckoned her to compassion, but she dashed it aside. No compassion had been shown Quillan. This was war, was it not? What sort of mad warrior unleashed death and destruction upon her enemies and then sought to bind their wounds afterwards?

  And yet Quillan’s voice in her head echoed the urgings of the Song. Seek to do good.