Then the rumbling growl Birdie had heard in the tunnels.
She strained to look back, but they had rounded the first bend in the staircase and the fight no longer waged on the edge of the Pit. Her foot caught on the next step, and she lurched forward. Zahar’s grip dug into her arm, yanking her back. “’Ware your step.”
The sharp words struck Birdie’s ear with more force than Zahar probably intended. More than the warning, she seized upon the idea. As they rounded the second bend, she dropped her shoulder and rammed full force into Zahar’s side. The woman hit the low rail with a grunt and pitched forward, instantly releasing her grip on Birdie’s arm to steady herself.
The torch dropped from her hand.
Birdie took off at a run, ignoring Inali’s shouted warning, leaping down three, four, sometimes five steps at a time, catching herself against the rail, and running again. Her lungs ached by the time she reached the bottom and sprinted out into the Pit, but she only made it a few steps before she came to a shuddering stop.
Zahar’s torch lay on the ground a few feet away, still burning faintly, casting a dull red glow over her surroundings, and there at her feet, was a human skull. She tore her gaze from its insane, crooked grin and caught the torch up from the ground. Elevated, the light extended farther. She was surrounded by corpses, most skeletal, a few still clad in decaying shreds of flesh and clothing. They were piled in haphazard heaps along the rocky banks of what looked to have once been a streambed, though the stones were covered with dark flecks and splotches that could only have been dried blood.
Heavy wings beat overhead, drawing her back to the present.
“What think you, little Songkeeper?”
Senses afire with fear and disgust, she craned her neck back and instantly had to duck as the raven steed plunged past and landed a few yards away. Surrounded by the slain, the steed’s nature as a carrion beast revealed itself in its snuffling breath, rasping voice, and the taut lines in its outstretched neck. It took a little hop-skip toward the nearest corpse, but a harsh word from the Takhran bade it be still.
Everything within Birdie screamed for her to flee, but she could not hope to outrun the flying steed. Her only hope lay in finding a place to hide . . . or a weapon.
The Takhran turned his gaze upon her, an easy smile playing on his lips. Yet now that she had seen what truly lay beneath his mild mannered façade, no amount of charm could make her forget. “Welcome, little Songkeeper. Meet your kind and your kin. Shall I tell you where your father and mother lie?” He spread his arms wide, disarming. “You must venture farther in for that, though in truth I have almost forgotten …”
He was taunting her.
Birdie gritted her teeth at the thought. There was no way out. If there was, he would never have allowed her to continue to roam free, even with the threat of the raven steed to chase her down if she tried to bolt. But if he wanted her to go farther into the Pit, perhaps the best thing she could do was stand her ground here. Or perhaps that was what he wanted her to think.
Mind games, that’s what this was.
Yet what other choice did she have?
Choking down her horror, Birdie set her back toward him and the piles of the slain and strode on into the Pit, following the course of the dry streambed. The sputtering torch cast a feeble glow that lit the next step and revealed nothing beyond. Uneven rocks jarred her ankles. The two warring melodies she had heard on her journey through the tunnels were even louder here, loud enough that a pounding ache battered her temples and almost brought tears to her eyes.
But the ache she could bear.
It was nothing compared to the dull throb of horror brought on by the clang of weapons, thunderous roars, and groans of the injured and dying filtering down from above, where Amos fought. To save her.
Somehow, she would find her way out of this and back to him. The thought strengthened her resolve, and still she walked on and on. Time lost all meaning, measured only by the pause between one stride and the next. Her steady footfalls were broken only by the rustle of her torch, or the crunch of bone or squelch of something slick underfoot. There was no sound from the raven steed, no sign that the Takhran followed.
But she felt his eyes upon her.
Ahead, the streambed narrowed and ended abruptly in a dome of dark rock at the base of the far wall of the Pit. The torch in her hand kept flickering, but the weak light cast myriad reflections on the rock’s faceted surface. Birdie passed a hand over the stone. Beyond, held back by some unseen force, a river of music surged and thrashed against its boundaries. She could sense it with just one touch. It swept over her, poured into and through her, flooding her being with a glimpse of something utterly terrifying in its vastness.
She pulled away, gasping for breath.
In one thing, at least, Inali had spoken true, for there could be no mistaking this for anything but the mysterious Tal Ethel, the legendary spring of melody.
A rough patch in the center of the dome caught her eye, and she bent for a closer look. Something wet struck the back of her bowed head and trailed down her neck. Hardly daring to look, yet not daring not to look, Birdie tilted her head back.
But her dim torch failed to penetrate the shadows above. Behind her, the sharp tck tck of flint and steel rang out. A stolen glance confirmed that Zahar and Inali had overtaken her, though they hung back, just as the Takhran had. For a second, the impulse for flight thudded through her chest. Then the second torch flared, flooding the Pit with orange light and chasing the shadows away from the body of the man on the wooden frame. Blood pooled at the edge of a jagged wound in his throat and fell, one drop at a time, onto the dome of rock. In that sickening cadence, the dark melody burst upon her.
Choking, blinding, smothering.
The dying torch slipped from her hand and scattered burning fragments across the rock beneath her feet. She stumbled away, gasping for breath, one hand scrubbing furiously at her neck to remove the bloodstains. The other, she clenched, willing it to be still.
Her heel struck against something.
A dark shape behind caught the corner of her eye. She froze. The rock beneath her feet was wet, the stale odor of sweat and the rankness of decay drifted through her nostrils, and if she strained her ears, she could hear the whisper of faint breathing. At any moment, she expected to feel the weight of rough hands on her shoulders, dragging her away.
Hooves rang against stone. The Takhran emerged from the shadows a short distance away, an imposing figure atop his massive raven steed. He eased the beast to a halt and sat watching her with amusement evident on his face. Holding the torch aloft, Zahar made her way to stand at his side, followed by Inali. The torch spewed an angry tongue of flame that bathed her face and hands in crimson and unleashed the blaze in her hair.
A gesture from the Takhran bade Birdie look behind.
She released the breath she had drawn into her lungs, slowly turned around, and found herself staring up into the bloodless face of a man.
For a moment, she stood there, mind scrambling to process what it was that she saw. Then the full weight of the sight struck her, and she fell back a step. The rest of the body came into view. It was a dark haired man with the hint of a beard shadowing his jawline, bound to a column of stone that stood level with her head but only reached the man’s shoulders. She heard no hint of a melody from him, and his face was ghastly pale, like moonlight on still water. His body sagged against iron restraints that crossed at his chest, hips, and knees. Neck lolled forward, chin resting on his chest, fixed eyes staring out beneath the sweep of his hair.
It was the eyes that gave him away.
Dead, they seemed, and yet somehow not. Whatever it was—a flicker of movement, a comprehension hidden deep within the depths—it spoke of life, like the faint breathing she had heard. Weak and passing life, perhaps, but Birdie seized upon the idea. Until she caught sight of the wide r
ed slash beneath his chin.
His throat had been cut.
The scarlet flow drained from the gaping wound with a steady drip, drip, drip, to pool in the rocks beneath their feet, and then trickled down and away into the streambed.
And yet the man still lived.
Struggling to breathe with the horror of it all, she felt rather than saw the Takhran dismount and come to stand beside her. “The choosing, this Dah Inali has asked for you.” His mild voice spoke beside her ear. She tried not to flinch from the oppressive weight of his presence, dared not move lest her limbs betray her fear. She meant to show him her strength, not reveal her weakness. “He believes you are ready. But there can be no real choice without truth. So this, my dear, is truth.”
“Truth?” Her voice broke over the word.
“No secrets. No concealment. No half promises and whispered legends. Nothing but truth, unembellished, in all its gory detail.” The savage look mastered his face. Almost a snarl. “There are places in this world where the echoes of the master melody run truer than in others. Yet this is the most powerful of all. Tal Ethel, a place of wonders . . . or of horrors.” He seized her hand in his iron grip and pressed her palm against the bound man’s chest.
It was cold.
She tried to wrench her hand away, but the Takhran tightened his grip until pain ran up into her shoulder, and she stilled. Her palm resonated with the slow throb of the man’s heart. It was irregular, almost musical …
He jerked her away before she could seize the thread of melody and spun her around. “You see it, don’t you, little Songkeeper?” He released her and patted her shoulders stiffly, as if trying to erase the memory of his painful grip. “The magic of this place? It keeps him living on in his death . . . it keeps them all.”
At a gesture from the Takhran, Zahar advanced past the bound man and swung in a wide arc. The glow from her torch extended beyond and around her, revealing the dome, the end of the Pit, and a semi-circle of a dozen stone columns surrounding them, split in half by the course of the streambed. Bound by iron bands to the columns, the broken forms of men, women, and children. Decaying corpses littered the bank behind.
Birdie’s feet carried her forward without her command, bearing her in Zahar’s wake along the sweep of the arc, past the dead who were yet living. She had walked through them on her way to the dome without seeing.
Without hearing.
Now, although their melodies were still silent, she could not help but see. The images seared into her memory. An old man with hair and beard the scraggly gray of a hallorm’s bark. A small Saari boy in desert leathers, black hair cropped close to his head. A young dwarf woman with smile lines beside her eyes that mocked the terror on her pale, still face.
Twelve in all.
Zahar halted before the last in line. Once he might have been tall, rugged even. But now the bones showed through his emaciated frame, his skin looked like crumpled parchment, and lank, colorless hair fell across his face. The stench of decay clung to him like a cloud, but Zahar did not retreat from it.
Birdie found her voice at last. “What is this?”
“This is power.” Zahar answered without turning.
“And power, my dear, comes at a cost.” Once more at her side, the Takhran smiled down at her. “It cannot be created. Simply transferred. And that in itself is a strange and wondrous thing. Behold your kin, Songkeepers and Songlings alike. Tal Ethel prolongs their lives for a time, and it is marvelous, but eventually the strength of the melody within them fades and their bodies rot and decay, becoming nothing more than scraps for carrion.”
As if to confirm his words, the raven steed appeared to their right, pecking at something at the base of one of the far columns. The Takhran whistled, and the beast jerked away, like a naughty child caught in the act.
Birdie fought the urge to be sick.
“Some last a month. Others a few years. Your lovely parents graced the Pit for a good seven years, though dear Auna only made it a paltry eight months…” The Takhran kept speaking, but his voice faded into the background under the numbing weight of this revelation.
So they were dead then.
Birdie had known it to be true.
“Young Rav here”—the Takhran jerked his chin toward the skeletal figure before Zahar—“has been among us now, what is it, fifteen years?”
“Seventeen.” No emotion clouded Zahar’s voice.
Still, she did not turn.
“So long?” The Takhran chuckled, and the sound of it was enough to send a shiver through Birdie’s bones. “Yet I fear not much longer. Young Rav is nearly finished by the look of it. Only the truly powerful endure long.” There was something unnerving in the Takhran’s fervent expression as he lifted his face toward the distant cavern ceiling. It was almost gleeful, as if he reveled in this moment. In this display. “You have already seen my greatest victory. Behold my pride and banner, the Songkeeper Artair.”
Birdie’s eyes flickered to the body hanging over the dome.
“Thirty years and yet the blood still flows. This, little one, is power, and it is mine.” His voice fell to a growl. “You have been told that you are powerful, but I say that you have been deceived. You are weak. Limping along on a strength not your own. Unable to control it, incapable of deciding your course, fated to follow the dictates of a Song you do not understand.”
Beneath the weight of his eyes, eyes that were somehow old and young at the same time, Birdie felt that he spoke true. What little strength she possessed was not her own. The Song did not answer her call, did not yield to her demands. She had braved the journey to the Pit, drawn by the mysterious voice in the Song, and yet now that she was here, she had no idea what it was that she was meant to do. Somehow, all her plans lay shattered at her feet, and she could do nothing but watch everything spiral out of her control.
While the Song remained silent.
The utter hopelessness of her position threatened to swallow her and the cursed trembling seized her hands. She forced them down to her side, but she knew the Takhran’s keen eyes had caught her weakness.
He swept a hand toward the columns. “This is what awaits you.”
“But it doesn’t have to.” Inali spoke for the first time since entering the Pit. He pushed forward, still clutching the long, thin box in his good arm. “This is the choosing. The burden of the Song was thrust upon us, whether we willed it or not. But you can choose the talav. You can choose to be more than your weakness. You can choose freedom . . . or not.”
Above, a strangled cry rang out and rebounded from the sides of the Pit, and in its echoes, Birdie heard the notes of the peddler’s melody. “Amos?”
“Choose and be done with it!” Zahar snapped.
But the spell of the Takhran’s words was already broken. Birdie strained her ears for any sign that harm had come to the peddler, but on the heels of his melody, she caught the first strains of the Song. It did not burst upon her with a flood of strength and power, and yet it was still there, like a gentle hand, beckoning to her.
Waiting.
Waiting for what?
She thrust the melody aside. Gritting her teeth, she turned to face the Takhran. “Choose freedom . . . or choose a living death? That isn’t a choice. You claim I am weak. Maybe so. But I am strong enough to know that I don’t need to drain the life from others to become what I am. I will not take the talav.”
The force of her words tore through the Pit.
Then silence.
32
Sling dangling limp from his hand, Ky slumped against the battlements and watched the Khelari stream into the Pass below like the floodwaters of the Adayn. A chill wind stirred the hair plastered to his scalp and sent a shiver through his body. He didn’t have a clear view of the bridge from his position, but the Khelari movements could mean only one thing: the dwarves manning the bridge’s
defenses must have fallen, and the north keep was too beleaguered to send reinforcements.
They were all of them doomed now, runners and dwarves alike.
Close to a quarter of the Khelari remained behind, mustering for the attack at the feet of the twin bluffs. With a clear path through the Pass, they could now attack from all sides at once. And now that the Pass was lost, there was no way to halt the march against the Caran’s fortress, no more purpose in fighting, but to survive.
The blaring of trumpets summoned the Khelari to the next assault, and Commander Thallus’s voice rang out in answer from the opposite keep. Gritting his teeth, Ky slung until only a few sling-bullets remained in his pouch and the earth before the keep was littered with the wounded and dying, but the Khelari would not be stopped. Everywhere he turned, ladders thudded against the wall, weapons clashed, and men, dwarves, and runners howled in pain.
If evil had a voice, Ky reckoned it would sound a bit like this.
He flung his weight against the nearest ladder, straining to force it away from the wall. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of a bearded face, then a helmeted forehead slammed into his skull. He staggered back and caught one hand on the battlements. It was the only thing that kept him upright. The Khelari swung over the battlement and strode toward him.
Ky fumbled for his sword.
A thud, the slick crunch of a blade tearing into flesh, and then the weight of the Khelari slammed against his legs, knocking him down.
“You’re welcome.” Slack set a foot to the man’s back and yanked her hatchet free, wisps of hair flung loose from her braid and flying about her face. Warm blood gushed from the man’s wound and seeped into the fringe of Ky’s trousers.
Cade tugged the corpse off him, hauled him to his feet, and cuffed his shoulder. “Try not to get yourself killed.”
Sure trying not to.
Ky took a breath, sending a fresh wave of pain shooting through his throbbing forehead, and turned to face the battlements. “Ready?”
Songkeeper Page 32