“Bilgewater.”
For once, the peddler didn’t erupt in a flurry of blistering indignation. He didn’t even shout. That single, half-whispered word was more powerful . . . and more frightening than anything else Birdie had heard slip past his lips.
She turned to see what Amos had seen and instantly sank back in the saddle, the strength gone from her limbs.
Planted in rows across the barren ground below stood hundreds of little brown tents topped with silver pennants that rippled violently before the oncoming storm winds. Each penant was adorned with a blazing crimson teardrop at its center. In the far corner of the camp, a large herd of horses were staked to picket lines, alongside teams of oxen and draft horses hitched to carts bearing several strange enormous wooden contraptions.
It was the Khelari army, already miles inside the border.
Only a few soldiers milled about in the open. Most seemed to have retreated to their tents to avoid the sandstorm. But when the harsh cry of a raven sounded overhead, Birdie knew it would not be long before new soldiers—fresh soldiers—joined in the chase.
“For the last time, Inali, will you not untie me?”
At Sym’s plea, Birdie glanced over her shoulder. The Saari warrior sat with her head flung back, braids escaped from their binding and flying every which way about her face, expression sad but determined. Without a word, Inali slipped a knife from his satchel, stood in his stirrups to lean over his lioness’s neck, and sliced through her restraints. From beneath the fender of his saddle, he produced her quiver of throwing spears. She snatched it from his hand and slung it over one shoulder.
“Hawkness.” Gundhrold growled, and the sound was so near and deep and threatening that it caught everyone’s attention. “We cannot delay. The alarm is spreading. What must we do?”
Amos blinked, like a man awakened from deep slumber. “Run. Always run.”
12
Straight for the heart of the sandstorm, Amos headed, and not even Inali dared argue against their course now. It was pure madness to stay and pure madness to run, but what choice was left when fate tossed you aside? It wasn’t enough that they had a company of scouts on their tail and a raging sandstorm bearing down on them. They had to stumble across the invading army too. Bad luck, plain and simple. The desert covered the entire southern quarter of Leira with a border that stretched from coast to coast. In this, at least, the odds should have been on their side.
Fooling with us, Emhran?
Amos might not have made a habit of conversing with the Master Singer, but he wasn’t above lodging a complaint or two as the situation demanded. The delay caused by the sighting of the army had enabled their pursuers to close the distance. He didn’t need to look back to know that. Mayhap it was a lingering sense from his outlawing days, when a man had to watch his back or find his neighbor’s knife in it, but Amos could almost feel them on his heels. A sort of spine-tingling, hair-raising knowing that summoned his hand to the hilt of his dirk.
And here he’d hoped charging blindly into a sandstorm would discourage them.
An arrow whipped past so close to his cheek that his head jerked back automatically as if he’d been stung. Moments later, Sym cried out, and Amos twisted his neck to see her clasp her fist to a bleeding cut on her thigh. Naught but a graze. Managing a steed and bow would be no easy task in this footing with the winds picking up. It would take a master archer to make a killing shot—that or one with impeccable luck.
Their best hope still lay in reaching the storm. It had seemed so near and terrible when they were trying to outrun it, but now that they sought refuge in its fury, it seemed to crawl across the desert, leaving Amos begging for just a little more speed, a little more time, before the pursuit caught up.
But beggars wound up dead on the battlefield.
Fighters survived.
He caught the griffin’s slanted eye and received a nod in return. “On my word,” he raised his voice just enough to be heard, “wheel and charge them.”
It bore the element of surprise, if naught else. Surprise and the strength of madness. He waited another dozen heartbeats, until his spine was practically burning from the nearness of the threat, then with a bellow, he hauled back on the steering collar and forced his lion into a sharper turn than any horse could make at full speed.
The lion dove straight into the Khelari without waiting for a cue. Amos should have been expecting it, given what he’d witnessed of Saari battle tactics. As it was, the shock of the beast slamming into one of the horses and dragging its rider down nearly threw him from the saddle.
He caught himself just in time and severed the horse’s girth with a slash of his dirk—left a decent gouge in its side too and sent the beast into a frenzied spin to rid itself of the lopsided saddle—while the Khelari struggled to rise and draw his sword. The lion roared, rattling Amos’s teeth, and pounced on the hapless soldier. Amos clutched the high pommel to keep from losing his balance as his steed worried its prey. He considered himself a hardened man, but bile rose in his throat at the sounds. Killing a man in battle was one thing, but watching your mount tear one to shreds before your eyes was another.
A glint of light on steel caught his eye, and Amos jabbed a heel into his lion’s side, forcing the beast to swing left just in time to avoid a downward cut from a second Khelari that would’ve lopped off his arm—if not his head—if he hadn’t been watching.
The Khelari swung back to the attack. Amos evaded again, hesitant to match his dirk against the soldier’s sword. The dirk was a perfectly good weapon—he’d argued its merits more than once around a common room fire with the tavern keeper and his tap on hand—but there was a reason mounted warriors carried weapons with a longer reach.
Throwing traditional technique to the blistering storm winds, Amos kicked one leg back behind him and dropped to the ground. He hit rolling, and the momentum was enough to absorb some of the shock, but his knees still felt as if they were on fire. Up beneath the belly of his opponent’s horse he crawled, dodging the stamping hooves, slashed at the back of its legs, and was out of the way before beast and rider collapsed.
Breathing hard, he turned to find his lion waiting for him. He sheltered behind the beast to take stock of the fight. Four Khelari were down—the two he had dispatched with the aid of his lion, one slain by Gundhrold, and another by Sym—four were left.
Inali rode behind Sym, spear-pipe in hand, but from what Amos had seen of the lad, he wasn’t much in the way of a fighter. Capable, just not aggressive enough. To his left, Birdie’s lion darted through the fray, bearing her from one clear pocket to another. Somehow she’d managed to get hold of a sword—a massive, unwieldy blade that must have weighed nearly as much as she did, but that didn’t stop her from trying to steer her mount into the thick of the fighting.
Fool girl.
The words raged in his head, denouncing her stubbornness, but Amos couldn’t deny feeling a faint twinge of pride. He hauled himself back into the saddle and caught hold of the steering collar—just in time to keep from being flung off as the lion darted out of the way of a charging horse. With one bound, the lion cleared a fallen Khelari, and Amos plucked the spear out of the man’s chest in passing.
Next he knew, he was engaged in a furious game of dodge and attack, trading blow after blow with a grizzled soldier mounted on a horse that more resembled a boulder than a living beast. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Birdie and Inali faced off against one of the Khelari. She seemed to be holding her own just fi—
A dark bay horse barreled into Birdie’s lion. The force of the collision snapped her into the air and knocked the beast to the ground.
Her borrowed sword fell useless to the sand.
Slowly, she began to rise to her hands and knees, head down, gasping for breath. Even in the midst of the skirmish, with weapons clanging, horses shrilling, and lions growling and ren
ding their prey, he could see her shaking as she tried to get her lungs working again.
“Lass!” The cry tore from his lips. He slammed his heels into his lion’s sides, but his blaggardly opponent was in the way, smirking at him beneath the visor of his helm. Moving on instinct rather than sight, he blocked the Khelari’s strike with the haft of his spear, still watching Birdie.
The bay horse skirted around Birdie until it was opposite Amos with her in between, then the rider dismounted, sword in hand. She scrambled to her feet and backed away, but he stood between her and her weapon, and her lion was still down.
Amos jabbed out one-handed with the spear, trying to force his opponent back, but the grizzled man refused to budge. “Get out o’ my way, ye seaswoggled, addlepated slumgullion.”
His free hand closed around the flap of the long, narrow knapsack strapped to his back, and with one swift move, he tore open the straps and hauled the cursed blade out into the open. His hand burned at the touch, and an ache ran all the way up his arm into his shoulder.
The old soldier’s eyes bulged.
But the blade wasn’t meant for him. Amos drew his arm back and flung it with all his strength. “Lass, catch!”
•••
In one breath, Birdie saw her own death stalking toward her with a light, easy step and a sneer on his face, while she stood, unarmed and defenseless, to meet him. The next, the blue-white sword landed in the sand at her feet, just short of her outstretched arm.
Darkness . . . a cavern . . . bodies …
She drove the image from her mind, leapt for the weapon, and felt her fingers close around the hilt. She whirled into motion just in time to guard against the stroke of the bay horse’s rider, responded with a slash of her own, and fell back to await his attack. The movements felt both oddly familiar and strange at the same time, as if her limbs somehow knew what to do, but her brain didn’t quite recall the commands.
A chill seized her sword-hand, binding her palm to the hilt of the sword before slowly working its way up her limbs. She suppressed a shudder. Beneath the clamor of the fight and the roar of the approaching sandstorm, a thin tremor of music floated, so faint she wondered if she’d imagined it. She seized hold of it, desperate, and allowed the melody to draw her back to the fight.
The rider rushed her, sliced from right to left, and followed up with a backhand slash that jarred the bones in her sword-hand when she blocked. Fast and strong, those were his advantages—her brain registered those facts as important bits of information, even as she was on the constant move to evade his attack. But she was small and she was faster, and it gave her an advantage, because he would not expect her to take the offensive.
None of them would. One look at her and they’d all expected her to run. She could see it in their eyes—the flecks of surprise—and hear it in the notes of their songs—the tones of disdain, of laughter. This was the Songkeeper? She gritted her teeth against the bitterness of the thought and used it to supply strength to her sword-arm.
It was not hard to feign exhaustion. She was weary of being hunted, of forever running, like a fox with the hounds at its heels. But when the fox discovers its teeth, then let the hounds beware. She allowed her sword arm to droop and stumbled a little with each step she took.
A thin-lipped grin cracked the Khelari’s expression, and he relaxed his guard. “Hand over your weapon, little one.” He jerked his chin up. “Surrender now and no harm will come to you.”
Birdie sprang at him while he was still speaking. He managed to bat aside her lunge, but the tip still tore through the leather of his jerkin and rang against chain mail. She slipped under his blade and sliced across the back of his legs—one of the few unprotected areas in armor meant for horseback.
He fell, cursing, and she drew her arm back for the slaying stroke. His head tipped back, and their eyes met. The heated strains of his melody bombarded her, leaving her battered and struggling to breathe. It sounded dark and terrible, yes, but it also sounded sad.
The notes spoke of a longing insatiable, of life unfulfilled and purposeless.
Her hand trembled.
Summoning all her strength of will, she sought to still it, only to realize that her veins pulsed in time to the melody coursing through the blade, as if the sword had a voice of its own and was calling out. Calling . . . calling . . . and the Song rose in answer.
There was no force behind it. No burst of brilliant light. No rush of unearthly power. It simply crept over her, gentle as a spring breeze.
Softly, she began to sing, staring all the while into the soldier’s fear-flecked eyes. Until she could see nothing else. Until they seemed as vast as the cavern beneath Mount Eiphyr, and the fear unraveled and became images and thoughts and moments—those tiny inconsequential moments—of a life that had once been not so very different from hers.
“Lass!” Amos’s voice seemed to come from a great distance away, and his words were disjointed and meaningless compared to the song that filled her soul and the soul she beheld in the Song. “Behind you!”
The urgency in his voice blazed through her and she reeled around. A blur leapt in front of her, knocking her to the ground, breaking her grip on the sword.
She scrambled to her feet, blinking against a tide of sand and wind sweeping against her.
Inali crumpled, blood pouring from a gaping wound in his left shoulder, revealing a tall, battered Khelari soldier standing behind him. The man grinned through swollen lips and staggered toward her, blood dripping from the broadsword in his hands.
Birdie dashed toward her fallen sword, but the dark-haired soldier reached it first. Still on hands and knees, he grasped the hilt and instantly dropped it, cursing. Steam rose from his skin, and his hand seized into a claw that spoke of great pain.
She froze, unable to tear her eyes away.
A cry, halfway between a scream and a roar, rang in her ears. The griffin slammed into the big Khelari and brought him crashing to the ground. Gundhrold struck at the man’s throat with his beak, but the Khelari seized the griffin’s bad wing with one fist and pummeled his skull with the other. Then Amos waded into the fray and brought his dirk down with all the force of a lightning bolt, and the Khelari lay still.
Birdie forced her limbs to move. She scrambled past the dark-haired soldier and reached down to gingerly tap the pommel of Artair’s sword. The familiar chill answered her touch, but nothing that warranted the soldier’s response or threatened harm to her. She seized her blade and that of the dark-haired soldier and ran back to the others, leaving him huddled and bleeding on the ground.
Sym knelt beside Inali, his head in her lap, hands pressed to the wound in his shoulder while Amos struggled to wrap an unwieldy bandage around his arm and side. The fabric soaked through as fast as he could lay it against the wound, and declarations of wrath and vengeance flowed just as quickly from the peddler’s tongue.
Tears glistened in Sym’s dark eyes, and she seemed to be whispering something to Inali.
Birdie halted a few feet away, hesitant to draw nearer. “Will he be all right?”
A wing brushed her back, and Gundhrold’s breath warmed her neck as he peered over her shoulder. “By Emhran’s grace, may it be so. Gather the lions, little Songkeeper. We must ride. The storm is upon us.”
Tucking both weapons under one arm, Birdie hurried off into the gloom. A gust of wind barreled into her and sent her stumbling to regain her balance. She could no longer see the storm approaching or guess which direction would carry them backwards or forwards on their journey. The world was lost in a cloud of orange.
She wandered the battle ground, sidestepping the still forms of dead or unconscious soldiers. The horses had scattered. Two lions were down. One with its throat slashed. Another with a gaping wound in its side.
Ryn’s throaty voice spoke suddenly next to her ear. “Mount up, little Songkeeper. We must ride with th
e wind or be torn by it.”
“Inali is wounded.” Birdie turned to face the lioness. Wounded and perhaps dead . . . but she could not say that. Could not yield hope. He had been trying to save her, hadn’t he?
“I, too, have lost my own. But there is no time for grief.” The lioness stamped an impatient paw. Another lion—Sym’s mount—stood beside Ryn. Dried blood matted its mane, but it did not appear seriously injured. “Quickly. We are true children of the desert, little one. We can find our way through wind and sand. We will bring you safely to the border, beyond the reach of those foul trespassers from the north. But we must leave now.”
Birdie mounted, and the two lions bore her to Inali’s side.
Amos’s head snapped up at their approach. He and Sym were still huddled over Inali, trying in vain to staunch the flow of blood. “We’ll have t’ ride double.” He gathered Inali in his arms and staggered to his feet. Sym’s lion crouched and allowed Amos to arrange the wounded Saari warrior on its back before rising. With one hand, Amos supported Inali’s limp frame; with the other, he gripped Sym’s arm, stopping her before she could mount. The wind was howling now, and Birdie could barely make out the words. “. . . must not return t’ the army with tale o’ our passin’.”
Sym plucked a spear from her quiver. “The Saari do not leave survivors.”
In the gusting sand, she faded within a few paces into nothing more than a shadowy figure roaming across the battle ground leaving death in her wake. A soldier’s dying groan assailed Birdie’s ears. Another begged for his life, but his voice was cut off swiftly and no further sound came.
“One is missing.” Sym reappeared beside her lion. She sheathed her spear in the quiver on her back and swung up behind Inali, wrapping an arm around his chest to keep him from falling.
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