Songkeeper

by Gillian Bronte Adams

  But Meli . . . where was Meli?

  His search seized on a small form curled in the snow a few yards away. Somehow he managed to force his limbs to move and crawled toward her. Looked to be asleep, her face was so peaceful. He reached for her and paused at the sight of his outstretched arm, gaping at his burned and blistered skin. Swallowing the pain, he hovered over her until he felt a faint breath of air on his cheek.

  He shoved his arms beneath her and rocked back, cradling her against his chest, then surged to his feet. Gaze sweeping the courtyard, he staggered forward.

  Ash filled the air. Half a dozen bodies lay twisted in the gateway—some Khelari, some from the Underground. Through the gate, he glimpsed the backs of the runners melting into the growing twilight as they raced to freedom and safety. Then the Khelari formed a line before the gate, blocking his only hope of escape.

  His knees buckled, but a hand seized his elbow and kept him from falling.

  “Oi, Ky, steady.”

  “Paddy?”

  “Shure, who else? You didn’t think I was goin’ to leave you behind, did you?” Paddy steered him into a jog toward the wall-top steps where the ryree fires were only beginning to die down. Enough confusion reigned in the courtyard with the Underground escape and the onset of night that they made it to the first step before any Khelari started in pursuit. “Let’s pick up the pace, shall we?”

  Somehow, Ky willed his legs to run, though every step jarred his insides and practically blinded him with pain. Paddy was more than supporting his weight, he was almost carrying him and Meli both, up the wall-top steps through a haze of smoke and rubble.

  Shouts behind.

  Muted.

  Heavy footsteps ahead.

  A soldier loomed out of the haze.

  Paddy’s shove sent Ky staggering against the battlement, only just able to keep from dropping Meli. The staccato clatter of swords matched the uneven thudding of his heart as Paddy and the soldier went at it hammer and tong, but there was nothing he could do. He was unarmed. Sword gone. Strength gone. Sling-bullets all but spent.

  Worthless in a fight.

  His gaze latched onto one of the Khelari ladders still propped against the battlements, and he lurched toward it. All clear below. Supporting Meli with one arm despite the pain lancing through his ribs, he managed to drag himself up onto the battlements and swing out onto the ladder, giving him a clear view of Paddy’s fight.

  Sidestepping a thrust, Paddy brought his sword sweeping up under the Khelari’s guard. The man stumbled back, clutching his arm to his side, and Paddy followed with his favorite pair of moves, a forward lunge and a slash at the midsection. The Khelari crumpled, and Ky breathed a sigh of relief as Paddy started toward the ladder.

  Then everything went wrong. A second Khelari stormed out of the haze.

  “Behind you!”

  Paddy swung around and just managed to block the first strike. It threw him off balance, and he stepped wide to regain his footing. A mistake. The dark soldier’s blade swept around and sliced across the back of his thigh, driving him to the ground with a cry.

  Bile burned the back of Ky’s throat, and he clutched at the ladder.

  A weapon . . . he needed a weapon.

  “No, Ky. Get out of here.” Paddy struggled to rise and cradle his injured leg at the same time. “Please. For Meli’s sake—”

  “Stay down, cur.” The dark soldier set a foot in Paddy’s back and shoved him down, grinding his face against the stone. “We’ll catch your little friend too, never fear.”

  “Go!”

  Paddy’s desperate voice broke Ky from his daze. Half a dozen Khelari raced along the walkway from the right. More from the left. Below, he caught snippets of voices rounding the curve of the keep. And here he was, pinned on a ladder, barely able to stand, let alone walk, with a girl in his arms.

  A girl who was counting on him to keep her safe.

  He had never felt so hopeless.

  Paddy’s eyes locked onto his, pleading, and somehow, he found his arms and legs moving without his command, carrying him down the ladder to freedom and safety. With each painful step, he swore that no matter how long it took, he would rescue his friend.

  No one was getting left behind.

  35

  Cold unlike anything Birdie had ever known before seized her hand and radiated up her arm and into her chest, setting every nerve on fire, and drawing a cry of pain to her lips. She pulled the sword from the Takhran’s chest and let it fall from her shaking fingers—fingers that were graying at the tips, as if the color had been drained from her skin. As she stared, the color slowly returned, and with it came a tingling rush of pain.

  The Takhran reeled back, eyes wide and staring. He stumbled and dropped to his knees, catching himself with both hands in the streambed where Zahar and Rav’s blood mingled. Head hanging, he knelt with his breath coming in gasps and blood dripping from his open mouth.

  A flash of memory overtook Birdie. For a moment, it seemed as though she saw herself as she had in the Hollow Cave. Standing in the dark of the Pit. Artair’s sword in her hand.

  Bodies all around.

  She blinked and emerged into the present, catching Inali staring, eyes bulging behind his spectacles. His horror unsettled her. Whether it was directed at her or the Takhran, she could not say. But it shook her into motion.

  Drawn almost against her will, Birdie crouched over Zahar and touched a quivering finger to her neck in search of a pulse, a breath, any sign of life. There. A flicker of movement. She yanked the cloak from her shoulders and pressed it against the gaping wound, hoping, as warm blood seeped through and spurted over her fingers, that it would be enough.

  Whoever Zahar truly was, whoever she had become, surely she did not deserve to die like this, bleeding out on the floor of the Pit.

  Forsaken.

  A low chuckle sent a shiver down her spine.

  She knew what she would see, even before she turned around. The Takhran no longer knelt in the streambed, but stood with his hands clenched into fists at his sides, blood dripping between his fingers, the wound in his chest gradually sealing before her eyes. The red jewels in his wide silver collar pulsed with the dull blaze of embers.

  “You cannot harm me, little Songkeeper. Do your worst! Release Tal Ethel, if you think yourself able. Its power will become mine. Life unending in my grasp. You cannot win.”

  And Birdie believed him.

  Believed him with every ounce of certainty in her heart. This mission was madness. To think that she could stand against the monster who crushed armies and toppled kingdoms, who used people as pawns until they were worn through and then cast them aside to be trampled in the dust, who bled her people dry to siphon their strength and make it his …

  What hope had she against such as him?

  “Come away, little one.” Inali’s terrified voice whispered in her ear. “Come away.”

  “Help me.” She strained to lift Zahar’s limp form.

  It was a foolish burden to take on, perhaps, but everything they had done so far had been foolish, and Birdie could not simply leave her behind. Inali bore the brunt of it, but together they managed to lift the woman. She sagged in their arms, moaning, as they took off toward the iron staircase. Birdie tried not to think about the warm blood running down her shoulder and seeping into her tunic, tried not to wonder if there was any point to any of this anymore, as the Takhran’s chuckle chased them across the broken surface of the Pit.

  “Run, little Songkeeper, you cannot get far.”

  And yet he did not follow.

  Perhaps her sword strike had done some harm, even if it was merely temporary.

  Wings fluttered overhead, and Birdie knew that a raven followed high above, where weapons could not reach. It could alert the soldiers to their coming and bear tidings of their path wherever
they went, making escape impossible. But for now, there was nothing to do but run.

  Run like cornered beasts, charging blindly at the walls of their trap.

  Up the staircase they climbed, lungs heaving, legs burning with the strain of supporting Zahar. At the top, a dark soldier raced toward them, and Birdie reached for her sword, only to recall that it still lay in the empty streambed below.

  “This way!” The soldier tossed the helmet aside, revealing Sym’s snapping eyes and wild braids. “No time to delay.”

  “But . . . Amos? Where is he?” Birdie scanned the cavern. Clumps of wounded and dead Khelari littered the ground beside the corpse of a massive, three-headed monster of a beast, but there were countless more soldiers racing toward them, and even more pouring in from the tunnels every second.

  Across the Pit, the light of a torch flared on red hair where Amos fought with sword and dirk against three Khelari. He was tiring, Birdie could see that. Strokes coming slower and slower, steps lagging, armor rent and broken. Another moment, and he would be on the retreat. He blocked the next strike, but his foot slipped and his opponent flung him back.

  Straight into the path of one of the three-headed monsters.

  The warning died on Birdie’s tongue as the beast pounced, lion’s head seizing Amos in its jaws and shaking him like a leaf. One set of flashing claws tore the breastplate from his chest. Then it flung him down again, the jolt snapping his head back with a force that should have stunned him. It crouched for the kill, but Amos brought a fist up to guard his throat, and the snake’s head sank its fangs into his hand instead.

  Still he managed to batter his way free and stagger to his feet, assuming the wide-footed stance and belligerent broad-shouldered pose that she knew so well.

  Then the goat head rammed its horns into his chest.

  Birdie’s breath caught in her throat. Her ears burned with the peddler’s agonized scream—a scream that she was too far away to have truly heard. She had no power to speak or cry out, nothing but the blinding impulse to move, to go to Amos though a hundred Khelari stood in her path. To save him.

  As he had saved her, over and over again.

  “We must go, little Songkeeper.” Sym seized her shoulders and wrenched her away. “There is nothing you can do. We must leave.”

  Birdie lashed out blindly, but the Saari warrior held her tight and dragged her after Inali and Zahar. Her vision faded until there was nothing but dull flashes of torchlight, and she heard nothing but the thudding of feet mingling with the hammering of the blood in her ears, and felt nothing but the sickening sensation of movement and of loss.

  36

  Frantic barking jolted Birdie, drawing her back to herself. They were running along the far edge of the cavern toward a series of tunnels that led back beneath the arms of the mountain, with the raven winging overhead, and the sounds of pursuit close upon their heels.

  A hound appeared alongside, and Sym spun to slay the beast, but a familiar rasping voice sounded in Birdie’s ear. “Little Songkeeper, I said we would meet again.”

  “Renegade?” Birdie found her voice again and with it her wits. She caught Sym’s arm before the blow could fall. “Wait. He’s a friend.”

  The beast’s white eyes glinted up at her. “Follow me.” He took off at a bound, and wordlessly, Birdie started after him. They ran at full tilt now, Sym aiding Inali with Zahar, Renegade steering them toward the nearest tunnel. But just before they arrived, a dozen Khelari clattered out and drew up in rigid formation before the opening.

  Cursing, the hound skidded to a halt, and Birdie nearly fell over him in her haste. The soldiers advanced toward them, and Sym danced out in front of Inali, a pair of spears whirling in her hands.

  “Catch!” She yelled to Birdie.

  On reflex, Birdie’s hand shot out and caught the spear, but she found she could not move beyond that. She just stood there, clutching the unfamiliar weapon, watching as the soldiers closed in, all grins and brandished weapons and muttered strains of the discordant song. But she was too weary, too soul-sick and broken inside, to even care.

  A screech rent the air.

  The broken body of a raven landed at Sym’s feet. With a roar like that of thunder, in a storm of feathers, beating wings, and flashing claws, Gundhrold bowled into the Khelari, knocking three down at the first pass. He pounced and brought down another two, then Sym leapt to his side, cutting through the Khelari like a scythe through wheat with Renegade at her heels.

  In a moment, the dozen Khelari lay expiring on the ground or had fled into the tunnels. Birdie stumbled forward and found herself caught and held beneath the griffin’s wing. There was no time to wonder how or why he had come. The cavern was alive with shouts and cries and the clatter of weapons and armor.

  A brazen horn call rang out somewhere in the depths of the tunnels before them, and the color faded from Inali’s cheeks. “They are calling out the Shantren.”

  Sym helped him lift Zahar to the griffin’s back. “Then we must leave before they regroup.”

  A wet muzzle pressed into the hollow of Birdie’s palm, and she glanced down into the blank eyes of the hound. He nudged her forward, teeth showing in a snarl. “Go, little Songkeeper. You will know the way. I will draw them off your scent. Go and do not stop.”

  With a grunt, he spun around and took off down one of the side tunnels, baying in a voice that could shatter stone. And in his wake, tendrils of the Song crept up around Birdie. She shrank from the melody that had not answered when she called, but it would not be silenced. It filled her ears with whispers of music and lit the path before her eyes.

  What choice did she have but to follow?

  With the others at her heels, Birdie chased after the Song into the dark of a tunnel without torches, down through the maze of passages beneath the mountain, and out at last onto a snow covered hillside beneath the light of a waning moon and the morning star.

  A distant roll of thunder greeted her, and energy charged air sent tingles spidering across her skin. In the east, three bright stars hovered over the horizon, bearing in their radiating beams of light a three-noted harmony that spoke of warmth and life and growing things. A warm breeze sprang up, ruffling the hair plastered to her neck and leeching the chill from the air. In minutes, the melting snow squelched beneath her feet.

  Spring Turning had arrived.

  Murmured voices drew her gaze to Sym and Inali as they lifted Zahar from Gundhrold’s back and laid her down on a cloak, then worked feverishly to tend her wounds. Birdie hung back, studying the blood staining her upturned hands. They were still now, as if broken at last of the cursed tremors that had plagued her. She should help. After all, it had been her decision to rescue Zahar from the Pit. But no matter the reasoning, she couldn’t muster the motivation or stomach for the work or the company. Inali had betrayed her. Zahar was one of the Shantren.

  Yet for some reason, they had escaped . . .

  She felt the griffin’s eyes resting on her, and welcomed the distraction from the bitterness of her thoughts. “How did you know to come?

  With a rustle of feathers and folding wings, he settled on his haunches beside her and heaved a deep sigh. “The Master Singer does not speak to me in the same way that he speaks to you, little one, nor can I hear the grand, sweeping melody of the Song. Yet I am a Protector. I sensed that you were in danger, and I came. It is as simple as that.”

  Simple, perhaps, but no easy task.

  Zahar moaned and her eyes flickered open, roving in a wild circle before settling at last on the griffin at Birdie’s side. Sorrow bloomed in the uninjured half of her face. “So …” Her voice was so low that Birdie could scarce hear it. “We meet again.”

  “You were dead.” Never one to mince words, Gundhrold padded over to her, and Birdie followed, reluctant to leave his side. “I saw you fall.”

  “Fall, yes, to chimera v
enom and flame.” Zahar’s eyes misted over. “But not dead. That would have been better by far. I survived . . . and Rav traded his life for my healing. I took the talav, his bloodstone, but only once the Takhran swore that he would be released one day.” She laughed, a low, choking laugh that brought blood spilling from her lips. “Betrayal. It is his favorite weapon. And yet... he cannot fathom when it is employed against him.”

  Her eyelids drifted shut.

  Birdie seized her hand. “No! What about Tal Ethel? What do you know of the Songkeeper of legend?”

  “Only …” Zahar’s gaze drifted up to Gundhrold. “Only that you . . . must release Tal Ethel . . . our last hope . . . defeat the Takhran.” Her face had gone whiter than the melting snow, yet somehow she managed to lift a trembling arm to point at Inali. “You cannot trust . . . one wearing the talav . . . the sword . . . must remove it . . . the sword …”

  Then her arm went limp and her eyes sank.

  And Birdie knew that she was gone.

  The griffin’s wing settled around her shoulders, and she endured it, though it brought no comfort. She just sat there, listening to the drip drip of melting ice mingling with the gasp of breath leaving Zahar’s lungs and the echo of the peddler’s agonized scream. But it was not sorrow that burned and broiled in her chest . . . it was rage.

  Finally, Inali spoke. “I should leave you now.”

  “Leave us?” Gundhrold surged to his feet, hackles bristling along his neck and back. “So you may return to your master and tell where we have gone?”

  Inali’s mouth dropped open. “My life is forfeit for what I have done.”

  The griffin rumbled an assent.

  “No, you do not understand. I cannot return.” Inali’s voice shook. “Death awaits me in Serrin Vroi. You think I betrayed you, but I only meant to aid the little Songkeeper. To offer her the freedom that my master gave me. My intentions were good.”

  “For your own good, perhaps.” The griffin stalked forward, muscles standing out like cords on his chest. “Sheathe your tongue, twice accursed traitor. If you are doomed either way, far better that we end you here and leave your rotting corpse for your master to find. I offer you a swift death. Will the Takhran be so merciful?”