Songkeeper

by Gillian Bronte Adams

  “Like the old man trusted you before you stole his cart?”

  “Me steal?” The dwarf spread his hands wide. “Never. Bought it from him—paid him handsomely too, I might add. Simply convinced him that a dozen dicus would be far more useful to him than a cart and nag that either the Khelari or one of the fighting bands are sure to commandeer any day.”

  “You convinced him?”

  Migdon snorted. “Give me six hours, bucko, and I could convince any man of anything. Silvertongue, that’s what they call me. Has just the right sort of ring to it too, if you ask me.”

  “Who calls you?”

  “They.” He faced forward again and picked up the reins. “Now would you get back in the coffin? Best sort of disguise there is. Though we really ought to do something more to make you look the part—you know, just in case folk get suspicious and insist on inspecting the body.”

  “Afraid not.” Ky tugged the lid of the coffin into place and hammered it shut with his fist, then clambered up into the driver’s seat beside Migdon.

  The dwarf looked aghast. “What are you doing?”

  Ky grinned but it quickly turned to a grimace as he stretched first his arms and shoulders and then his legs. “Six hours, huh? Well, okay then, that’s what you’ve got. Six hours to convince me and my aching body to get back in the coffin, or we start doing things my way.”

  “Oh, bucko.” A slow smirk spread across the dwarf’s craggy face. “You shouldn’t have done that. Silvertongue never loses.”

  •••

  The coffin lid slammed shut in Ky’s face, binding him once again in the stale, crushing blackness. He gagged at the stench. Migdon had insisted on treating the wood with every foul and disgusting thing known to man or dwarf—to make it more realistic, the dwarf insisted.

  More likely payback for holding out so long.

  “Told you, didn’t I, bucko?” The dwarf’s chuckle was muffled by the boards. “Silvertongue never loses.”

  Trapped like this, he had no way to escape listening to the dwarf’s gloating, but at least he didn’t have to see the triumphant expression on his face anymore. Migdon’s six hours had come and gone plenty of times since the challenge, so by Ky’s way of thinking, he had more than won. Of course the dwarf insisted that falling asleep in the first six hours negated the rest.

  “There’s a whole lot of six hours in two weeks. Bet’s still mine—just saying.”

  “Sure, bucko, if it makes you feel better.”

  Migdon snapped the reins, and the cart started off again down the track toward the Khelari blockade guarding the bridge on the southern border of the Westmark. Ky lay as stiff as the boards beneath his back, reviewing every inch of their plan as each rotation of the wheels drew them closer to the dark soldiers, closer to discovery and death. Should they have simply abandoned the nag and slipped past on foot? The question gnawed at him. Oddly enough, it was Migdon who’d suggested it, back when they first heard rumor of the blockade and the young able-bodied folk disappearing when they tried to cross. Taken by the dark soldiers, no doubt, like the folk of Kerby, like Dizzier.

  Taken to slave camps, or so the soldier Hendryk had said. Ky’s chest tightened when he thought of their fate, but he wasn’t willing to give up their cart and nag so easily. She might be long in the tooth, shaggier than a Midlands sheep, and no more than a step or two shy of what some might consider skeletal, but she set a fair pace and covered far more ground in a day than he could have done on foot.

  And he’d been gone far too long already.

  As they neared the blockade, he strained his neck to peer through the peek hole he’d insisted Migdon bore through the wood, but all he could see was a tiny strip of green hillside. They followed a hybrid plan this time—part his, part Migdon’s. There’d be no wailing or sobbing, nothing to draw too much attention. Just a grief-stricken dwarf on a cart with his son in a coffin in the back.

  Ky counted the minutes as they waited their turn in line. He could feel his limbs slowly going to sleep and wiggled his fingers and toes to try and keep the circulation flowing. The loaded pouch of his sling pressed into his side. Should they be discovered, he’d need to be able to move—and fast.

  “State your name and business, dwarf.”

  Through the peep hole, Ky could see little of the guard save the dark color of his armor. In the end, that was all that mattered, wasn’t it? He wore the dark armor, so he was an enemy. What else needed to be said?

  “Name’s Listarchus—Hipicarious Listarchus. Just trying to bring my son home, sir.”

  “That him back there?”

  “Yes, sir. My son, Buck—”

  “Reckon you won’t mind us taking a look then.” The guard’s voice was stiffer than a zoar tree and had less feeling than cold steel. “There’ve been all sorts of nasty people about lately, trying to slip all manner of trickery past my nose.”

  For the first time, Ky felt a smidgeon of fear. This was no backward recruit, fresh to duty and authority, stuck on a dead-end assignment guarding some nameless bridge on some nameless road. He spoke like a man mighty used to sniffing out trouble.

  “But I’ve no doubt a fine, upstanding dwarf like yourself wouldn’t dream of trying anything untoward like smuggling weapons in that coffin, now would you? Hoy, soldier, remove the lid.”

  “Yes, sir.” Reluctant footsteps shuffled toward the back of the cart, and a gauntleted hand settled with a thunk on the coffin.

  “You can’t do that.” Migdon’s voice assumed the shrill qualities of a wailing night moth. His voice was louder now—loud enough to reach the others waiting their turn in line. “It’s my son, you see. Died of the white fever, he did. You can’t open the coffin, sir, else you’ll risk spreading the disease to everyone standing here.”

  A ripple of fearful murmuring, so heavy Ky could practically feel as well as hear it, spread through everyone within reach of the cart. They had good reason to fear—once the white fever seized the lungs, it killed with fierce efficiency.

  But the guard wasn’t cowed so easily. “I’d sooner spread disease than weapons into the hands of malcontents, dwarf. Remove the lid, soldier, that’s an order. Shield your face with your cape if you must.”

  Ky pressed his back against the boards beneath and sucked in one last breath as the lid scraped back and a chill breeze flooded the coffin. He fought to keep from shivering. Morning light seeped through his shuttered eyes until he could practically see the veins in his eyelids and the rosy hue of blood tinting his skin.

  “Just the body, sir. Don’t see no sign of weapons.” A hard object prodded Ky in the side. “Seems a bit tall for a dwarf young-un—beardling, I think they call them, isn’t that right?”

  “He’s a half-dwarf,” Migdon growled.

  “Any case, he’s a goner, sir. No doubt about that. Delian’s fist, what a stench!”

  “Signs of white fever?”

  “His face is white, sir, and there’s specks of blood on his collar.”

  “That’ll do, soldier. Remove the coffin—you there, help him.”

  Migdon started to protest, but the soldier spoke over him. “I’m afraid that if your son truly perished of the white fever as you say, his body should be burned immediately. Not carted through the Westmark so it can spread the full contagion every step of the way. Without the coffin, you won’t be needing that cart and nag anymore, either. And as a good, honest citizen of this grand country, I am certain you intend to turn it over to the Takhran’s mighty forces to aid them in battle.”

  The dwarf did not reply.

  Ky felt as if the white fever truly had sucked the life from his lungs. Somehow, this had all gone horribly wrong. He eased his hand an inch to the right and felt for the straps of his sling but didn’t launch into the attack. Not yet.

  Migdon had been so certain his “silver tongue” could talk them out of anything
, and Ky still hoped it would work. He wanted to pass through the blockade and be forgotten immediately afterwards. There was nothing so memorable as a fever-ridden corpse suddenly coming to life.

  “Don’t touch the—” Migdon broke off in a fit of coughing and wheezing that sounded as if his lungs might burst from his throat any second. “It’s dangerous, I tell you. I scarce touched the lad when I put him in there, and look at me now!”

  Panicked footsteps shuffled back, cursing broke out, and a voice from the back of the line begged the guard to “Just let ’em pass!”

  “Now, bucko, now!”

  Ky jumped to his feet and swung his loaded sling full force into the face of the soldier who’d been instructed to remove the coffin. It clanged harmlessly off his visor, but the soldier stumbled back. Migdon cracked the reins and the nag took off at a reeling trot, clipping the guard with her shoulder as she went past. The sudden motion caught Ky by surprise, and he grabbed Migdon’s shoulder to keep from falling.

  The blockade consisted of two wagons with chocked wheels angled parallel to one another across the bridge, so that in order to pass, you had to weave around and in between them. It would be tight for the cart to pass at a trot.

  “Migdon, it’s—”

  “Leave it to me, bucko.”

  Ky spun around and braced his back against Migdon’s. The guard had managed to stumble back to his feet and stood on the threshold of the bridge, shouting instructions to his little troop. A perfect target. Ky lobbed off a sling-bullet that slammed into the back of his helmet and knocked him flat on his face.

  “Hold on, bucko!”

  Instead of swerving to make the turn between the wagons, Migdon drove straight into the second wagon, effectively blocking the path for any who might try to follow. The nag went down, tangled in the wheels and her traces.

  The impact flung Ky from his feet, but he scrambled up again in time to catch the knapsack Migdon tossed him. The dwarf dug his own massive knapsack out from beneath the driver’s seat and slung it on his back. An arrow struck the side and pierced halfway through, but it didn’t seem to slow Migdon down. He launched over the side of the cart and raced through the gap between the wagons.

  Ky sent another iron sling-bullet zinging into the bunch of Khelari racing toward them, then scampered along the edge of the cart, leapt over the struggling nag into the back of the blockade wagon, and swung over the other side onto the bridge. He took off at Migdon’s heels, dodging and weaving in an effort to avoid the arrows that skipped past their heads and glanced off the stones around their feet. Once past the bridge, they abandoned the track and took to the hills, scrambling up gradual inclines and picking up speed on the way down into vales thick with dragon’s tongue and tangleroot vines.

  The arrows stopped after they crested the first hill, but they still kept running for what felt like a mile before Migdon stopped dead in his tracks and hunched over with his hands on his knees, blowing like a horse after a long gallop. Bowed beneath his massive knapsack, the dwarf reminded Ky of the big turtles he’d often seen trundling along the banks of the Adayn.

  Ky glanced back the way they’d come. It was easy to see. Their path slashed through the tall grasses like a main thoroughfare through the city. “They’re not chasing us?”

  “Think, bucko. Put that noggin of yours to use.” Migdon tapped his forehead with one finger. “What did you see at the blockade?”

  Ky rolled his eyes. “You can’t exactly see much when you’re in a coffin.”

  “Cheeky fellow, that’s what you are. Not afraid to speak your mind—I like that about you. Here’s what I saw: only about a dozen soldiers and two wagons—two cart horses, neither hitched up. That tells me that the Khelari forces are stretched a mite thin, this quarter leastways. There’s a limit to their manpower and resources, same as with any other army. When push comes to shove, what are we but a dwarf and a boy who pulled something new and slipped past their net? They’ve got bigger fish to catch.”

  As the logic of the dwarf’s words sank in, Ky allowed himself to breathe fully for the first time since climbing back into the coffin. He slid his knapsack off and dropped to the ground, careful to avoid sitting in a patch of sticky, wet dragon’s tongue. “Next time we do the whole thing my way.”

  “It was your way that got us in trouble this time, bucko.” Migdon eased the knapsack from his shoulders and set it down with a crash. From one of the side pockets, he pulled a handful of seeds and popped them in his mouth one at a time, unshelling them with his tongue and spitting the shells out between his teeth.

  “Thought you said your “silver tongue” could talk its way out of anything.”

  “Said if I had six hours. Don’t know about you, but I didn’t care to spend another five minutes with that lot let alone another couple of hours.” He nodded sagely and spat a shell at a tangleroot vine inches from Ky’s foot. The vine’s tendrils instantly curled around the shell. “No, our problem was that we stood out because we didn’t stand out enough.”

  “What? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Sure it does. We stood out because we looked like we were trying to be sneaky. Like we were trying to fit in with the crowd but didn’t quite succeed. Now, if you’d just followed my suggestion—”

  “Oh the one where we were supposed to stagger up to the blockade, hacking and coughing, with our faces painted white and blood dribbling from our lips? We would have been shot and our bodies burned long before we reached the bridge.”

  “Well, you know what they say, ‘It’s the best laid plans that rise from the grave to bite you’—or something to that effect. I forget the exact quote.” The dwarf popped another seed in his mouth and shoved back to his feet, eyeing the massive knapsack with a rueful expression on his face. “They also say the foolish man packs from a desire for comfort, the clever man from the knowledge of roads traveled, and the wise man from the anticipation of roads to come. Guess I just have a bigger imagination than most.”

  15

  Ky planted one foot and instantly plunged into murky water that lapped at his thighs. Migdon’s hooting laughter brought heat surging to the back of his neck and the tips of his wind-chilled ears. He struggled back to what appeared to be moss-covered dry land, only to have the earth sink beneath his hands when he tried to push himself up and out.

  He splashed down again and sank to his waist.

  “Got yourself in a spot of trouble, eh bucko?” Migdon rocked back on his heels and squinted to survey the surrounding moorland. As if he hadn’t a care in the world. “That’s the problem with the Westmark, you know. Full of peat bogs, hidden pools, and this infernal marsh grass—you never see it until you’re caught.”

  Ky glared at the dwarf. He lunged for the bank, landing with the upper half of his body flat on at least partially dry ground. The edge sank beneath his weight and cold water crept up his shirt. By the time it reached his ribs, he was shivering. But he hung on, and between digging his elbows in and kicking his heels like a frog in a wallow, he managed to crawl clear of the muck and roll over on his back.

  Migdon stooped over him, jaw jutting in a frown. “You could’ve just asked for help.”

  Ky spat out a mouthful of mud and stayed where he was, gazing up at the ice blue sky of mid-morning. The high, keening cries of marsh birds sounded in all directions. A gust of wind rattled the frostbitten grasses that pricked the back of his head. It’d been ten days by his count since the coffin escapade at the bridge, and still he and Migdon were tramping across the Westmark.

  If it hadn’t been for the rising and setting sun, he would have worried they were going in circles. Round and round. Trapped forever on the Westmark until one or both of them plunged into a bog and drowned. But Tauros was his constant, a fixed guiding point, and with every step, he felt as if he were finally getting closer to home.

  Closer to them.

  “You pla
nning on napping there all day, bucko? Cause this pack is getting mighty heavy, and I want to know if I should set it down or keep it on.”

  Ky sat up and slapped the ground beside him.

  “Fine.” Migdon dropped his pack, sank down, and groaned as he stretched his legs out. “Reckon we’re due for a rest anyway. This walking—it gets to you after a while.”

  Ky just grunted and dug through his soaked knapsack, wringing out what could be wrung and rubbing the rest dry with the help of his mostly dry collar. Something moved on the back of his neck, and he slapped at it. Something wet splatted across his palm and trickled down his neck. He pulled his hand away and curled a lip in disgust at the large, white, grub-like creature smeared across his palm. Red blood oozed from its crushed belly.

  “What is it?”

  Migdon hocked a wad of spit and sent it flying into the bog. “Blodknockers. Nasty little bloodsuckers. Live in nests in the marsh grasses around the bogs. Best be sure you haven’t more than the one on you. You know what they say, ‘Where there’s one, there’s many.’”

  Ky scrubbed his hand on the ground. “You’re joking, right?”

  “Me joke? Never.” The dwarf squinted an eye at him. “Seriously though, check for more. They have a nasty little bite that will put a man to sleep. One bite won’t do it. But they tend to swarm their victims and suck them dry.”

  His skin crawled at the dwarf’s words. He jumped to his feet and slapped at his arms and legs until he was there weren’t any more blodknockers on him. For all he knew, it could just be one of Migdon’s jokes. But better safe than sorry. By the time he was done, Migdon had sprawled out with his head propped on his knapsack.