Song of Leira

by Gillian Bronte Adams

  Amos did not respond.

  “We waste our time here, dwarf. I knew I should have gone to Dacheren.” With a disgusted snort, she stalked back to the rope and waited, hands on her hips, for the dwarf.

  Nisus remained. “Come, Hawkness, will you let your pride keep you?”

  “Pride? Ye’re a beswoggled fool. I haven’t any pride left at all. I’m nothin’.”

  The dwarf gripped his shoulder. Amos flinched away. “Yes. And yet, my friend, you are too proud to accept that fact and move on in spite of it. You wallow in misery and leave your lass, whom you should be protecting, to face this battle alone.” Disappointment etched a furrow across the dwarf’s brow. “All because you have let the Takhran convince you that you are broken, damaged, dangerous. You, Hawkness, who should be our leader.”

  Blunt words, edged with truth. Amos winced before the impact. Honest speech had ever been Nisus’s preferred weapon. But he struck too late now. Too much had already been lost. He rubbed the knot forming between his eyes. “Just be gone.”

  “All your life you have been a skeptical man, Hawkness. No one could slip a trick past you. There was not a lie you could not see through or a trap you did not suspect. The eyes of a hawk—you saw it all. Will you now blindly accept the lies of the Takhran?”

  Silence hung weighted between them. And yet . . .

  The earth crumbled beneath Amos’s feet. He gripped the rock that served as his seat, seeking to steady himself as the world of nightmares shattered. Nisus’s words sliced through the lies the Takhran had wound around him and the falsehoods he had repeated to himself. It fell away now, peeling from him like bandaging from a wound. He felt raw and bloody beneath.

  With a heavy sigh, Nisus rose. “Maybe you are right, then. Maybe I am a fool. Maybe Hawkness did die in that Pit.”

  The dwarf made it to the rope before Amos found his voice. “Wait.” And to his wonder, Nisus did. “Artair is dead, Nisus, but—”

  Nisus gripped the rope.

  “Wait! Wait. Ye didn’t let me finish. I saw him—in the Pit. The man was dead, Nisus, I swear it, and yet . . .” He rallied to force the words out without choking on them. “And yet I could’ve sworn I heard his heart beatin’.”

  In the silence that followed, Amos could have sworn he heard his own heart beating. But he had uttered the words. At long last he had spoken them, and what a strangely terrifying and oddly freeing thing it was.

  “Hawkness . . .” Wonder lit Nisus’s face. “Do you know what this means?”

  “Aye, I do.” And mayhap, if he insisted stoutly enough, he would believe himself. “Some devilish trick o’ the Takhran. He boasted o’ it, ye know, boasted o’ the power that riddles the Pit, infusin’ it and him with an unnatural life. We’re not battlin’ a man, Nisus. We’re battlin’ a terrifyin’ creature with powers we cannot even fathom.”

  “No, my friend. This is not the Takhran’s doing. It cannot be. Artair’s part in this tale is not done. There are promises that have yet to be fulfilled.”

  “An’ ye’re mad if ye think a dead man can fulfill ’em.”

  “No madder than you are if you think I will allow you to stand idly by while the little Songkeeper ventures into danger alone. She is our hope.”

  “There’s naught we can do.” Amos nodded toward the tunnel winding away beneath the earth. “She ventured into the deep.” Abruptly, he found himself explaining the realization that he’d had about the river Artair had told them about, and that was surprising, but no more surprising than the fact that Nisus, the scholar and Xanthen councilor, listened.

  Before he finished, the dwarf snagged the torch from Sym and started forward a few steps, bending to inspect the ground, here and there running a hand across the rough surface of the rock. Crouched, he glanced back at Amos. Flames lighted the bones in his face and shadowed the hollows. “She went this way?”

  Amos nodded.

  In an instant Nisus stood before him. The dwarf slid an extra sword from his belt and offered the hilt to him. It was a working weapon, dented and scarred. Nothing ornamental about it. “We cannot leave her alone. Twice you have braved the caverns below Mount Eiphyr. Will you brave them a third time, old friend? For Artair’s sake? For the little Songkeeper?”

  Amos’s gaze fell from the misshapen pommel to the one good hand resting on his knee and the twisted mess of crippled bone and disfigured flesh beside it. Rotted away by chimera venom on his last jaunt through the tunnels beneath Mount Eiphyr. Some would have claimed it a mercy that he survived it.

  Only he knew that dying would have been the mercy.

  Supposing that the Master Singer did exist—and given the existence of Songkeepers and the Takhran and the Shantren, he had to admit it was a possibility—he had to wonder if Emhran simply had it in for him. Did he enjoy his suffering? Or did the Master Singer find his staggering and stumbling through life amusing, like watching a blind man feeling his way along a rocky forest path?

  Or maybe, somehow, there was a purpose in this.

  He was startled to find that he hoped it was true. Hoped it with every breath that careened through his lungs. It was a strange thing, to feel hope again. “Ye know that naught would draw me down those dark an’ twisted paths. Naught but my lass.” The desperation in Birdie’s pleading eyes flashed across his mind. He took a deep breath. Seizing the hilt of the sword, he stood and belted it to his waist. “For her, I will d’ what I must.”

  33

  Too late . . . too late . . .

  The dismal beat hammered in Ky’s skull as he pounded down the slope. Dark armored soldiers and slavekeepers ranged across the basin floor, killing without mercy. The slaves were slow to react. Ignorant of the danger. Ten fell. Then ten more. Ky yelled in fury and slammed shoulder first into a slavekeeper poised to run a woman through. The sword stroke went wild. Ky swung his loaded sling into the slavekeeper’s face. Sent him staggering back into the path of Obasi’s sword.

  The woman’s eyes glazed with horror.

  Behind her, a Khelari raised a spear. Ky yanked the woman out of the way. She went down in a heap, arms curled over her head. Safe. But he was too late to save the old man behind her. The spear took him in the gut, and down he went, blood drenching the basin floor.

  Ky turned a circle in the middle of the melee, trying to orient himself and then work toward where he had seen Meli last. A dozen different fights raged on all sides. Most of the slaves didn’t even try to defend themselves. Some dropped, cringing, to the ground. Others hid, dashing up the tunnels only to be cornered by the hounds. But some fought. Latching onto anything they could wield to defend themselves—stones, pickaxes, hammers. It was the most brutal kind of hand-to-hand combat. Neither side yielding a step. Kill and live. Or die.

  A bolt whistled past his ear. He ducked involuntarily, though by the time he ducked it had already flown past him. A handbreadth to the right, and he would have joined the slain. On either side of him, a slave and a raider collapsed, bolts in their backs. He whipped around. All along the rim, slavekeepers raised crossbows to their shoulders and sighted down the stocks. Aiming into the basin. Toward the camp.

  As one, the crossbows went off with a snap that Ky felt in his bones. The volley slammed into the mass of slaves. Not four feet away, Obasi pitched back, three bolts to the chest. He went down as if someone had torn away the earth beneath his feet. A strangled cry burst from Ky’s throat. He whipped off a shot toward the nearest slavekeeper on the upward slope. Stung him. Made him mad. And then laid him flat with a second sling-bullet. But the others were already reloading . . .

  His mistake struck home like a punch to the gut.

  No matter how fast he slung, there was nothing he could do to protect the slaves or his raiders from the next volley. The raiders’ initial charge had scattered the slavekeepers on the slopes, but more must have come from the watchtowers. He had led them straight into an ambush. Raced into battle like an idjit without thought.

  Their deaths were on his head. />
  Sling looping circles around his arm, he broke free from the panicked mass and charged up the slope toward the line of reloading crossbows. It left him exposed to the next volley, but what did that matter? The raiders depended on him. Flick of the wrist. Sling-bullet zipped away. On he ran. All thought vanished then but the next shot. Reload. Run. Aim. Release.

  A bolt glanced off his pauldron. They had spotted him. The force stung his shoulder, but he didn’t slow. Dashed off a shot at a slavekeeper about to fire down into the basin. An awkward throw—the sort he knew would miss as soon as he released—pulled too soon because of the pinch in his shoulder. Sure enough, it sailed harmlessly past the Khelari’s ear.

  The slavekeeper swung toward him instead. Ky dove into a roll as the crossbow came to bear. Risky. Too soon and the man would adjust his aim. But the bolt zipped past overhead. He had timed it well.

  Howling on his left—a hound bounded toward him from his flank. Ky lurched upright and yanked the sword from his belt.

  The earth shifted beneath his feet.

  Had he been struck by a bolt? He stumbled to regain his balance, and the hound pitched past him. But there was no pain. And the Khelari around him were steadying themselves too, casting apprehensive glances at one another. Ky planted his feet as the hound wheeled and charged again. The ground trembled a second time. It grew into a shaking that spidered up his legs and jarred his bones. In an instant the screams of the dying and the clamor of battle were swallowed in the roar of rushing water and the rumble of falling rocks.

  Earthshaker.

  But no sooner had the thought flashed through his mind than he heard something else rising above the roar of collapsing stone. A familiar voice singing a familiar song. He reeled around. Dust billowed from one of the tunnel openings. Out of the thick plume walked Birdie. Clad in dwarf armor, streaked in dust and mud, without a weapon in her fist. At the sight of her Ky felt his heart lift, as if her presence alone embodied hope.

  Behind her the dust settled, revealing a mound of shattered rock blocking the entrance. A thin stream of water spilled out over the rock and trickled down through the valley, where it ran red. Voices cried out in alarm. There came a rustle of movement behind him. Sword high, Ky spun back to face the Khelari, but they were already on the move. Fleeing at the sight of the Songkeeper in her wrath. She strode heedless into the midst of the slaughter, and where her song rose, chains snapped, fear fell upon the Khelari, and courage returned to the raiders.

  And then the wild creatures appeared, cutting through the camp like wraiths that vanished at will. Petras. Burrow cats. Rock wolves. Even the soft gray, antlered beast, Frey. And behind them: Jirkar, Cade, Tymon, and a host of dwarves. The advance company of the Caran’s army. Howling, they fell upon the Khelari. Bore into them and overwhelmed them. Within minutes, the tide had turned.

  And then, abruptly, the battle was over.

  Ky felt no relief. This horror could not have been farther from victory. Numbly, he knotted the sling around his waist. He kept the sword drawn. Clenched it tightly in his fist as he spun on his heel and marched down into the basin to face the aftermath.

  Picking his way through the bodies was slow, difficult work. Littering the ground, Khelari and slavekeepers lay side by side in death with his raiders and the slaves—men, women, and children from every tribe in Leira. With each step, his anger grew. He didn’t dare look at the lifeless faces . . . but he didn’t dare not look. Because any one of them might be Meli or Paddy or Syd, and he had to know.

  He couldn’t bear the not knowing.

  Chest shuddering, he halted beside piled bodies and bent to look through them. A hacking cough drew his gaze. Propped with his back to a barrel of ryree powder, a slavekeeper sat with an arrow in his chest, whip coiled beside his hand. Ky started to turn away before the anger could wrench him into action, but the slavekeeper coughed again, spewing blood.

  “Aw, c’mon, Shorty.” The slavekeeper’s bloodstained mouth twisted into a grin. “Don’t look so grim. You’ve come to gloat, haven’t you? Enjoy it.”

  Blood roared in his ears. His limbs seemed to have forgotten how to move. Another earthquake could have struck and torn the valley walls down around him, burying him in the rubble, and still he would have stood there. Stunned. Searching in vain for his voice and his scattered wits.

  It was Dizzier.

  The older brother, assigned by Cade, who had mistreated and bullied him throughout his time in the Underground, while teaching him everything he knew about the streets before finally—unthinkably—sacrificing himself so Ky could escape.

  “Yeah, it’s me. You can stop your gawking and pick your chin up off the ground.” Dizzier lifted a hand to wipe the blood trailing from the corner of his mouth. His injuries hadn’t slowed his tongue, but his hand was weak, trembling. “Still kicking. No thanks to you.”

  “But,” Ky croaked. “You’re one of them.”

  “You know the rules. Did what I had to. Join ’em or die. Not much of a choice.” His fingers twitched feebly toward his throat. Then the grin was back, spreading like a gash across his face. “Just lookit you, Shorty. All growed up and in charge. Reckon you finally learned some of those lessons I tried to drill into you. How’d you get Cade out of the way? Leave him to the dark soldiers too? Knew you had it in you.”

  Disgust surged in Ky’s throat. At one time, he would have given just about anything to make Dizzier acknowledge him. But not now. Not like this.

  Shaking his head, he turned away to continue his search through the killing ground, but a thought stopped him. Dizzier was one of them. A slavekeeper. Odds were he might know something. He cleared his throat and spoke without turning about. “You seen Paddy?”

  “The redhead?” A cough shattered Dizzier’s words. It took a full minute of choking before he was able to go on. “What’s it matter? He’s gone. No going back, Shorty. You know that. Gotta look out for yourself.”

  Ky clenched his sword hilt. “You didn’t. You near got yourself killed protecting me.”

  “Nah, I didn’t.”

  “I saw you.” He spun around, determined that for once in his rotten life, Dizzier would admit the truth. “That soldier—Hendryk—was going to shoot me in the back. You wrestled him for the crossbow. Got stabbed for it.”

  A wet chuckle gurgled from Dizzier’s mouth. “Wasn’t tryin’ to save you. Thought I saw a way out and took advantage of your distraction. Expected to break free. Wound up here instead with a hole in my side.” He shook his head pityingly. “You really are an idjit.”

  Ky’s blood ran cold. Yeah, he reckoned that was about right.

  Weighing the sword in his hand, he stared down at Dizzier. Only he couldn’t see the older boy’s pale, blood-flecked face anymore. Instead, images of this disastrous raid consumed his mind. He was an idjit to ever believe that Dizzier could change, or that he could accomplish something good. Just him and his overblown sense of right in the face of so much cruelty. He had charged in here like a fool, so bent on protecting folks and saving Meli that he hadn’t given a thought to the destruction he could unleash. Now the valley was littered with the dead and the dying, and he had brought it upon them all.

  He turned away.

  “I’ve seen Paddy.”

  That brought him to a spine-tingling stop. Didn’t know if he dared believe it or not, but he turned around all the same, drawn to listen in spite of himself.

  “Poor fellow was mighty beat up when he got here. Lost a lot of blood from that leg wound. Didn’t last a month. But I reckon you knew that would happen, seeing as how you ran away and left him.” Dizzier’s head lolled to one side. “Just like you did me.”

  Something shifted inside Ky. Broke off. Left him drowning in rage, sorrow, and disbelief. Dizzier was dying, nothing more than a wreck of what he had once been, and still it took every ounce of the self-control he had built up over the years to keep from throwing himself on the boy and pounding him with his fists until his grief was expended.

/>   The grip of the sword creaked under his hand.

  He took a step forward.

  A strange look settled in Dizzier’s eyes—almost one of relief. He thrust his chin up, daring the action. Like a slap of water to the face, it brought Ky reeling to his senses. He pried his fingers from the sword hilt, let the weapon fall, and walked away.

  34

  Once again Birdie walked a battlefield, singing souls to sleep. Only this was no battlefield. It was a slaughter. She waded knee deep through death. It surrounded her on all sides. Here and there she stumbled across one whose melody hovered in the vale between life and death. And then the Song rose like a fountain within her and poured from her lips, recalling the singer to life before she moved on to the next.

  And the next.

  The numbers overwhelmed her.

  She came across a barrel tipped over beside one of the inner mounds of rubble, spilling a pile of uncut crystals, many still attached to chunks of rock. Her fingers settled around the nearest one, and she lifted it, weighing it in her hand. At Al Tachaad, slaves had forged weapons and armor for the Takhran’s armies. Here in Dacheren, had they mined crystals for the Shantren’s talavs?

  “Songkeeper!” Frey’s warning dashed the Song from her lips.

  She spun around. A blur of white flashed in front of her, knocking her aside. When she lurched back to her feet, Frey stood over the body of a slain slavekeeper, antlers bloodstained. Horror flashed in the midnight pools of his eyes. A crimson drop marred the pristine white of his forelock. Head bowed, he shuffled back, snuffling at the ground and dragging his antlers through the dust to wipe away the blood.

  Tears spilled from her eyes, and she let them fall. Such a small thing to acknowledge such a weighty loss of life and innocence. The destruction that the Takhran unleashed upon the world—how could one fight it, when the very act of fighting was itself another act of destruction? How could one seek peace and strive to do good?

  When war must come first?