Word of traitors

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

1 Aryth

Dawn turned the horizon gray. Cold air trapped smoke and steam from quenched fires close to the ground. Ordered chaos stretched around Ekhaas as Dagii’s army broke camp. The commands of officers were sharp but unnecessary. Every soldier knew what to do. She watched, making note of the expressions on the faces of goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears as they pulled down tents and packed away gear. Grim. Determined. Excited. Eager.

Her own belly trembled with anticipation, the bloodlust of the dar rising in her. Fear was a distant emotion. Battle was coming.

Footsteps, muffled by ground still wet from the previous evening’s storm, emphasized by the rattle of armor, approached from behind her. “No word from Khaar Mbar’ost,” said Dagii.

“Did you expect any?” She turned around-and stared for a moment.

Dagii wore the ancestral armor of the warlords of Mur Talaan once more, but it had been cleaned and polished until it flashed even in dawn’s half light. The dents and scratches in the heavy plates were scars of honor. The three tall tribex horns mounted behind his head and shoulders could have been banners.

Dagii’s ears flicked under her gaze, and he bent his head before he answered. “Time is short. Tariic will do better to prepare Rhukaan Draal. Where will you watch the battle?”

“From the command hill. If the lhevk’rhu permits it.”

“He will if the duur’kala of Kech Volaar promises to retreat to safer ground when the battle turns against us.”

Ekhaas scowled at him. “Duur’kala of the Kech Volaar can take care of themselves. You don’t have to worry about me, Dagii.”

“I’m not worried about you.” Dagii’s ears flicked again and his face tightened as he heard his own words. He lowered his voice. “I am worried about you, Ekhaas, but I’m worried about what you’ll carry as well. Senen asked you to record the story of our fight against the Valaes Tairn when we thought there were only warbands in Darguun. Now we’re facing a warclan. You have to survive to carry the tale of what happens today.”

She looked into his eyes, amber meeting gray. “When the time comes,” she said, “I’ll retreat with a sword in my hand and elf blood on my teeth.”

Dagii’s lips twitched, though he managed to keep a stern face. “Ban,” he said, but Ekhaas could hear a fierce pride in his voice. Her belly trembled again.

The sun climbed two handspans into the sky.

Below the low hill Dagii had chosen for his command, below the earthen ramparts thrown up to give a measure of cover, warriors waited in close lines. Ekhaas could pick out the individual companies by their crests and their colors, simple strips of cloth tied to armor or polearms. Seven companies of infantry. Two more companies of cavalry, some mounted on horses, others-in the ancient dar tradition-on battle-trained great cats. Leopards for goblins, tigers for hobgoblins. The cats were the only things that moved, pacing back and forth under the guidance of their riders, always kept carefully distant from the horses.

“They’re good and hungry,” said one of the handful of warlords Dagii had picked to stand with him on the hill. “Always go into battle on a hungry cat.”

“Hungry enough to keep them keen,” said another, “but not so hungry they stop to tear into prey. That’s one good thing about horses.”

Beyond the lines of the army stretched the rolling grassy plain that would be the battlefield. Short grass waved-except where it had been trampled down in a broad swathe before the army-like a long green carpet running for leagues into the east between hills on the north and a low ridge to the south. A well-worn dirt track along its center, passing right under the feet of the waiting army. The plain was a natural passage through this part of the land; both it and the track ended at Zarrthec, and together they were much of the reason for the village’s existence.

Tii’ator lay at the far end of the track. Ekhaas’s shoulders itched at the memory of the retreat along the plain after the skirmish with the Valaes Tairn and their discovery in the Mournland. The entire way, she’d expected to feel an elven arrow in her back, though none had come. “They’ll know we’ve found them out,” Dagii had said. “They won’t bother trying to catch us. They’ll launch their attack-and this is the path they’ll travel to reach Rhukaan Draal. They won’t try to hide themselves. They’ll just move fast.”

“We won’t have much time to prepare,” Chetiin had commented.

“No. We won’t.”

Some time later, Ekhaas had realized that Chetiin and Marrow were no longer with them. She hadn’t seen the shaarat’khesh elder or the worg since.

Scouts left behind had confirmed Dagii’s prediction. If it hadn’t been for the storm that had rolled through, the warclan that rode under the swallow-tailed banner of stars would have been on top of them in the night.

On the track far out in front of the army, on the very edge of the trampled area, a solitary figure waited on a fine bay horse. Keraal.

The clear sound of a horn broke the air-and ended in a discordant honk as if the scout who’d blown it had succumbed to a sudden, fatal wound. The first death of the day, thought Ekhaas.

“They’re close,” said Dagii. “Drummers and pipers, as I ordered.”

A drum just behind Ekhaas began a low, slow beat. Warpipes droned. More drums and pipes scattered through the companies below joined in.

The first elves appeared over a rise in the distance, slim red-robed forms on white horses.

Some paused to stare at the Darguuls gathered before them. Others turned and raced back, maybe to alert their leaders. Still others continued to ride on until Ekhaas could see eyes above veils and arrows nocked on bows, but even they stopped just out of bow range of the waiting army.

The Valaes Tairn rode in clusters or alone. They had no structure, no formations, no discipline. As increasing numbers appeared and rode up to the edge of range, their lines remained ragged and shifting. If there were officers among them, Ekhaas couldn’t pick them out-or even detect their influence. When the lord of the warclan finally appeared, it was almost a surprise. Only the large, dark crystal that sparkled in his helmet set him apart from other warriors. Even the bearer of the swallow-tailed starry banner seemed more to linger near him than to ride at his side. Ekhaas saw the lord of the warclan speak to one, then another, of the elves close to him, then for a long time, he simply sat and watched the dar.

Drummers and pipers played on.

“I have heard that one of the most difficult things about fighting the Valaes Tairn,” Dagii had said the previous night, “is drawing them into a battle. They fall back before a charge. They ride around a stand. They come to a fight on their own terms. Victory is victory.”

“How do you intend to engage them, then?” a warlord had asked.

“We make them curious,” Dagii had said, ears flicking. “Then we give them a reason to fight.”

On the battlefield, Keraal shook out and raised a banner. Tall and narrow, it had until last night been the red silk lining of a warlord’s fine cloak. Now it carried a crest of three black rings, one above the other, each with three stretched slashes along the outside, like a sword blade bent into a circle with the notched edge out. Ekhaas’s heart soared, not just because she’d been the one to supply the design, but for sheer awe at the sight of a banner that had not been raised over a dar army since the beginning of the Desperate Times. Atop the command hill and on the battlefield, she saw warlords and warriors alike stand straighter as they gazed on the crest, ears rising proudly, as instinct stirred in them.

Words rose in her, and her voice rang over the sound of pipes and drums. “As the armies of the Dhakaani emperor fought, so shall we! Behold the Riis Shaarii’mal! Behold the Three Tearing Wheels of Dhakaan!”

“Give honor!” shouted Dagii from her side.

Nine companies of disciplined dar warriors responded in unison, fists striking chests in a single salute sharp as a crack of thunder.

The Valaes Tairn shifted warily. Ekhaas bared her teeth. The elves knew their ancient enemy-and they knew the symbols of Dhakaan. The Riis Shaarii’mal had flown above countless battles between dar and elves in the time of the empire. To bring it forth again was a challenge, a declaration of rivalry. The leader of the warclan leaned over and spoke with one of the elves beside him. The rider nodded and urged his horse down to meet Keraal.

“Only one?” growled a warlord on the hill.

“Patience,” said Dagii.

Drums and pipes fell silent. The elf reined in his horse a few paces from Keraal. The hobgoblin raised the red banner. “I speak for Dagii of Mur Talaan, lhevk-rhu of these warriors!” he roared in Goblin.

Behind his veil, the elf’s eyes narrowed in disdain. He answered in the musical tones of Elven, lilting nonsense to many of the dar on the battlefield but clear to Ekhaas. “I speak for Seach Torainar, high warleader of the Sulliel warclan-”

“Now,” said Dagii.

The drummer behind Ekhaas brought a stick down hard on the skin of his instrument.

On either side of Keraal, the trampled sod rose and flew back. Goblins hidden in camouflaged pockets popped up onto their knees, raised compact crossbows, and sighted. The waiting elves jerked in surprise. The elf who had ridden forward cried out and started to wheel his horse, but he was too slow. Ten bowstrings sang and ten bolts flew — and ten scarlet flowers blossomed on the white hide of the elf’s horse. The animal wore light barding, but it wasn’t armored everywhere and the goblin bolts sought any exposed flesh. The horse screamed and bucked at the pain, fighting its rider’s attempts at control. The goblins were up and running from their hiding places, racing up the dirt track to join the army. Keraal turned his horse and retreated as well, but slowly, mockingly. Bows rose among the waiting elves and arrows buzzed but they were too far and their own man, struggling with his horse, blocked true aim.

The wounded horse shrieked again. It stumbled once and its hindquarters collapsed as the strandpine sap that had coated the goblins’ crossbow bolts burned into its blood. The elf leaped from the saddle and stared in horror at his crippled mount trying to drag itself with its forelegs. Its hind legs kicked uselessly. Then the elf wailed nearly as loudly as his horse, drew his scimitar and leaped forward to slash the beast’s throat. Blood sprayed him, dark against scarlet robes. The horse’s screams fell silent, but the elf’s did not. Still wailing like a madman, he turned and raced after Keraal.

His cries were joined by others as the ragged lines of the Valenar broke and elves streamed into battle.

The only things they hold sacred, Chetiin had once said, are their ancestors and their horses.

Keraal put spurs to his horse and galloped up the track, the Riis Shaarii’mal snapping in the wind of his passage. Arrows loosed by the charging Valenar traced a dark line behind him. Ekhaas stole a glance at Dagii. The young warlord’s face was hard, his eyes intent. He held his left hand in the air, waiting… waiting…

He brought it down. The piercing voice of the warpipes rose.

And out at the edge of the battlefield, just behind the holes left by the emergence of the goblin snipers, long ropes snapped up from among the grass, pulled tight by teams of bugbears lurking in the thin woods on either side of the plain. Shards of broken glass worked in among the fibers glittered in the sunlight.

Charging horses hit the ropes hard. The trees to which they had been lashed thrashed violently, and the heavy stakes that anchored them on the battlefield leaped. The long ropes sagged and snapped, but their damage was done. Horses whinnied and fell, tumbling like toys. They screamed at broken and slashed legs, and their struggling bodies brought down more horses that weren’t quick enough to turn sharply or jump high. Some struggled back to their feet. Others didn’t rise at all. The first charge of the Valaes Tairn had been broken. But there would be another.

An outraged voice roared in Elvish for an attack, and those elves who had held back surged forward.

“Form up!” ordered Dagii and the great drum beat the signal. Lesser drums took it up and the Darguul lines folded and split. Seven squares formed up on the battlefield, shields locked together. Dagii snapped more commands, and five of the squares moved to meet the oncoming elves, warpipes wailing in their midst. Archers among the two companies that remained in the rear sent clouds of arrows arcing down ahead of the marching companies. The elves answered with arrows of their own-arrows that rattled as harmlessly as hail on the locked shields.

Above the din of battle, Ekhaas didn’t hear Keraal approach, but suddenly he was there. In his hand was clenched the Riis Shaarii’mal. He dropped to one knee and held it out to Dagii. The warlord clapped a fist to his chest.

“Ta muut,” he said.

Keraal’s ears flicked. He rose and stabbed the banner’s shaft into the soft ground of the earthworks at the brow of the hill.

The first wave of Valaes Tairn closed on the Darguuls. The beat of the drum changed, and the squares stopped, two ahead, three behind. Shields parted slightly and spears thrust through. The armored turtles of the squares abruptly became bristling porcupines. Charging elves screamed and howled, demons in their flying red robes. They slashed at the air with their scimitars. Even on the hill, Ekhaas thought she could feel the earth trembling beneath the driving hooves of their horses. She had heard stories that during the Last War, human armies that had faced a Valenar charge had often crumbled before a blow was struck, their lines broken by sheer terror.

The Darguul lines stood strong. Valenar wheeled away, forced aside by the unyielding spear points. Crowded by the rush behind them, though, they had little room to turn. Many were forced around the two leading squares, splitting like a stream around stones.

The charge of those who swung too wide to the outside foundered as their horses’ hooves found the third trap hidden under the trampled grass: all of the baskets in Zarrthec and all of the cages of willow switches that an army could weave, hidden under all the loose branches that the forest could provide. Sticks and switches and baskets closed around hooves and legs, doing no damage but fouling the charge as surely as pits of mud. And as the charge slowed, more goblin crossbowmen concealed among the autumn-brown trees at the edge of the plain loosed their bolts-not poisoned this time, but enough to bloody the elves and drop them in their saddles.

The Valenar who flowed between the squares fared no better. They found themselves in broad aisles between the forward and back formations with nowhere to go except out to the sides where branches grabbed hooves or onward through narrower aisles between the three rear squares.

So they raced on-directly into the arrows of the two companies that had stayed behind. More elves fell, but others escaped the trap of the squares.

“Cavalry!” Dagii ordered and the command drum changed its beat. The rain of arrows stopped and the Darguul cavalry took the field, sweeping in front of the standing companies to meet the elves that had made it through the gauntlet. The Darguul horse thundered across the plain, a moving wedge composed of lances, but now the elves had room to move. They melted away before the charge and answered in kind. They streamed along the sides of the horse formation, scimitars slashing, and where they passed, hobgoblins died.

But behind the horse cavalry, they met the cats.

There were no formations for them to evade. The tiger and leopard riders fought as the Valenar did, alone and in clusters. The already-trampled grass became a mass of green and brown as hooves and paws chewed into the ground underneath. Ekhaas watched an elf rider dart close to a hobgoblin, lash out with a scimitar, and wheel away out of sword’s reach. The hobgoblin nudged his tiger mount. The great cat coiled and sprang. Massive claws seized the haunches of fleeing horse and bore it down. The impact flung the elf out of her saddle. A goblin-ridden leopard pounced on her before she could even regain her feet.

The beat of the drums changed again. The infantry companies pressed forward once more, squares altering shape to become blunt-nosed wedges with the brute strength of bugbears at their head. The horse company reformed and drove in behind them.

“We have command of the field!” cried one of the warlords on the hill.

Dagii’s ears pressed flat back against his head. “A blow has been struck,” he growled, “but the battle continues.”

Beyond the foremost of the charging companies, Ekhaas saw one of the Valaes Tairn raise his hand. An orb of violet glass flashed in his grip.

Purple-tinged flames exploded at the head of the nearest Darguul company. Bugbears became writhing torches an instant before dropping. Hobgoblins scattered. The marching wedge cracked like a bone thrown into a fire. With a wild cheer, elves wheeled their horses into the broken company as drums sounded and the Darguuls fought to recover their formation.

Other wizards rode with the elves. Yellow vapors engulfed trees where goblin snipers perched. When they faded, dry leaves and goblins alike lay on the ground beneath. The tiger that Ekhaas had watched bring down a horse fell at the touch of an icy blue ray. Lightning crackled and arced among the spear points of another company. Across the battlefield, flame and frost and lightning ravaged the Darguuls, tearing openings for the Valenar to exploit. Here and there, hobgoblin warcasters responded with blasts of rippling force, but their spells were weak and few-dar were born to war, but elves were born to magic. Lightning-scorched shields parted and a warcaster thrust his staff at an elf wizard. The air shimmered between them, tearing at the elf’s red robes, but he held his ground and responded with a golden bolt that spun the warcaster around and sent him sprawling.

Arrows followed like a swarm of bees, tearing a hole in the Darguul company. Shields closed again, but the damage had been done and the formation was left with a gouge in its side. The company drew itself together, leaving the corpses of the warcaster and half a dozen warriors behind.

The early triumph of dar discipline over elven disarray was gone. In the moments when the battle shifted, Ekhaas could count more Darguul bodies on the churned ground than she could Valenar. Elven skill reasserted itself. Many of the Valaes Tairn had abandoned their horses to engage the hobgoblins on foot. The bristling spears of the surviving squares, so effective in warding off cavalry attacks, were little use against lithe foot soldiers who weaved between the shafts and wedged shields apart with scimitars. Armored squares dissolved into thick knots of hobgoblins fighting back-to-back, sword and shield against whirling scimitars. Though the great cats still stalked the battlefield, the remains of the Darguul horse cavalry had been reduced to a handful of mounted units fighting in shrinking clusters.

At the far edge of the battle, the starry banner of the Sulliel warclan moved into the thick of the fighting.

Dagii bared his teeth and retrieved his helmet, polished as bright as the rest of his armor. “There is no more command,” he said. “When war calls, all fight.” He scanned the three warlords who had stood with him on the command hill, then thumped his chest with his fists.

The warlords straightened like junior warriors on parade and saluted in return, then turned and hurried down the back of the hill. Keraal moved to retrieve the Riis Shaarii’mal, but Dagii shook his head. “No.” He looked at Ekhaas. “Take it when you leave.”

Ekhaas nodded and forced her ears to stand high as she met his gray-eyed gaze. He nodded to her, then slid his helmet over his head. A visor of brass hid the upper half of his face, as if in reverse of veils worn by the Valaes Tairn, and gave him a cold, merciless look.

He turned to the final four warriors on the hill: the command drummer, the command piper, and Biiri and Uukam, the lhurusk who had accompanied them to Tii’ator. “You will protect Ekhaas duur’kala with your lives. Our muut survives with her.”

All four answered together. “Mazo, lhevk’rhu!”

Then Dagii and Keraal were gone, following the warlords down the hill. Ekhaas looked up at the sun. Somehow it had already climbed another handspan and stood now at its zenith, an unblinking witness to the battle.

A voice shouted below. Ekhaas leaned past the earthworks and gazed down. The two companies that had been held in reserve stood straight. The one on the left, marching beneath the standard of an iron fox, moved forward, ready to take to the field. The lines of the other shifted and spread out, a frail bulwark to protect the command hill. From around the side of the hill came the three warlords, Keraal, and Dagii. The warlords were mounted on good horses and Keraal was on his bay once more, but Dagii rode on one of the finest tigers Ekhaas had ever seen. It was enormous, large even for a tiger. Its striped fur shone like fire and brass flashed from the high-cantled saddle strapped across its back. Its eyes didn’t hold the sinister intelligence of Marrow’s, but there was cunning there and a lust for blood. Under Dagii’s guidance, it loped out to take a place at the head of the company.

Dagii raised his sword-then whirled it around his head and let loose a battle cry. “Bring honor to Darguun! Attack! Attack!”

The roar of his tiger nearly drowned out the cry. In an instant, the beast was racing across the battlefield for the nearest cluster of elves. Keraal followed close behind, chain whistling around his head. The warlords and the warriors of the company followed, too, warriors trotting at a pace that ate up the ground, yet kept them in formation. The elves that Dagii had chosen as a target were still just turning when the lhevk’rhu reached them. His sword cut the head from one. The tiger’s claws tore another from his saddle. The weighted end of Keraal’s chain cracked the skull of a third.

Then they were through and plunging on. The dazed survivors they left behind lived only a few moments longer as the company of the Iron Fox rolled over them. Elves turned to meet the new charge like ants drawn to a dollop of honey. In the midst of them came the swallow-tailed banner of stars, and Ekhaas picked out the crystal-set helmet of the high warleader, Seach Torainar. Dagii must have seen the banner, too. He leveled his sword and shouted again, urging his tiger and his followers on.

The cheer that answered him came not just from the Iron Fox Company, but from all the Darguuls surviving on the field. New vigor seemed to flow into them, and they struck back at the elves. Formations drew back together. One piper, then another, and another, then even the command piper beside Ekhaas, began to play a fierce, determined tune.

Ekhaas looked down on the battlefield and clenched her teeth tight. The resurgence was glorious-and almost certainly doomed. Slim scimitars outnumbered heavy swords now. For every two elves that Dagii struck down, three more were ready to meet him.

“He turns muut into atcha,” said Biiri in awe. “If I survive, I will praise him before Lhesh Tariic!”

“Storytellers will chant his name,” said Uukam. He looked at Ekhaas, his ears high. “Stay as long as you can, Ekhaas duur’kala. Witness the end of a hero!”

She wasn’t certain she trusted herself to speak. She nodded silently instead-a nod that froze as a slow wind stirred, and the ghost of a song touched her ears. At first it was thin, so thin it could have been an echo, but then it swelled with Senen Dhakaan’s voice, as full and distinct as if the ambassador of the Kech Volaar stood beside her.

The ghaal’dar Aruget brings news. Ashi d’Deneith has been arrested at Tariic’s orders. A changeling takes Geth’s place. Makka hunts. Beware, daughter of the dirge!

Breath caught in Ekhaas’s throat. Ashi arrested? A changeling replacing Geth? What was happening in Rhukaan Draal? Her gut twisted. Dagii rode to his doom. The friends she had left behind were in trouble. Chetiin had vanished once more. For the first time since they had found the Rod of Kings and discovered the dangerous secrets it held, she felt very, very alone.

“Ekhaas?” Uukam asked. “Is something wrong?”

She raised her head-and shook it. She’d been alone before. She’d traveled and fought alone for years before she’d met Geth, Ashi, and the others. Dagii faced his death. She could do nothing less. Whatever had happened to Ashi and Geth, she might be their only hope. Ekhaas pushed out the knots in her belly and forced herself to breathe again. She could still hear Senen’s song. As long as it lingered, the magic would carry back a reply. She looked down at the struggle on the battlefield, gathered her thoughts, and opened her mouth to sing Behind her, the music of the warpipes ended with a sudden moan from the pipes and a gasp from the piper. She whirled around, Biiri and Uukam moving with her.

The piper, throat slashed, hung in the arms of an elf. The drummer stood with the scimitar of a second elf at his chest. Six more of the Valaes Tairn crouched on the back edge of the hill, weapons ready.

Senen’s song faded.

The elves screamed and charged.