Word of traitors

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

1 Aryth

Uukam and Biiri drew their swords and moved in front of her with the reflexes of trained soldiers. Strategy flickered in Ekhaas’s mind. The elves must have made their way through the woods to the back of the hill. They were already too close to blast them with sound or sing fear into their souls. There would be no disabling all of them. This fight would be toe-to-toe and they’d need every sword at hand.

The elf whose scimitar hovered over the drummer’s chest drew back his blade, ready to strike, as the other elves charged. Ekhaas focused her will on him, drew on her magic, and let loose a wail like a ghost rising from the grave. The elf’s head snapped around, eyes wide. His scimitar paused, trembled.

And the hobgoblin drummer struck back. The short thick rods of brass that had beaten the great drum knocked the scimitar out of the elf’s hand, and cracked across his face. The elf reeled back but the hobgoblin stayed with him, raining blows with lethal rhythm.

Then the other elves were on her, Biiri, and Uukam. Curved blades crashed on the warriors’ shields. Two couldn’t hold back six-seven, as the elf who had killed the piper dropped his victim and joined the attack. Ekhaas snatched her sword from its sheath and thrust her free hand into the face of the first Valenar to come at her. Song burst from her throat, and light as bright as a sliver of the noon sun flared from her palm. Dazzled, the elf fell back a pace. Ekhaas stepped after him, chopping down with her sword. It screeched off of armor beneath the red robes, but the elf cried out and retreated.

Another took his place, swinging backhand as he whirled past. Ekhaas twisted her sword and the scimitar caught among the heavy teeth on the back of the blade. Biiri struck past her in a blow that sheared through metal and flesh. One elf down.

Two-Uukam cut through the torso of another, leaving her grasping at a terrible wound. Three-the drummer’s opponent didn’t rise as the hobgoblin straightened, drumsticks red with blood, chest heaving with exhilaration.

“Call for aid!” Ekhaas shouted at him. He dashed for his drum, but jerked and spun around between one step and the next. Two arrows sprouted from his back.

Where eight Valenar could go, more could surely follow.

Clenching her teeth, Ekhaas threw herself across the hilltop. Uukam and Biiri shifted instantly to protect their own backs. Four elves still faced them. One went after Ekhaas and hooked her foot with his. Ekhaas sprawled face first into grass and dirt. The impact knocked the wind out of her, but she forced herself to roll.

A scimitar gouged the soil a handspan behind her. She kicked blindly and felt her boot connect. The elf staggered back. Ekhaas got up on her hands and knees and scuttled to look over the back edge of the hill.

Six more of the Valaes Tairn were climbing the slope, two covering the ascent with arrows nocked. One swung his bow toward her. Ekhaas sucked air into her lungs, swept her free hand through the air, and forced out a thin, liquid song. The ground beneath and around the elves turned dark and shiny as greased leather. Their feet slipped out from under them, and they went tumbling back down the hill in a flurry of robes, scimitars, and wildly-loosed arrows. Ekhaas grinned — and pain like fire seared down her back with a force that knocked her to the ground. Gasping, she twisted. The Valenar she had kicked stood over her, raising his scimitar for another strike. Ekhaas kicked again, but he avoided her easily this time and shifted to get a better blow.

His foot came down on the pipes dropped by the slain piper. The sagging leopard skin bag collapsed under his heel and the pipes released one final startling bleat of sound. The elf leaped in surprise. Ekhaas pushed herself away from the edge of the hill and back to her feet. She could feel blood running down her back underneath the leather armor. Her back burned with every movement, but she could still raise her sword. The elf moved around her, picking the moment of his next attack.

“Ekhaas! With us!” shouted Biiri. From the corner of her eye, she saw him cut down one of the Valenar who menaced him and Uukam, just as Uukam struck out with his shield, forcing back the other two elves. The two soldiers turned as one, offering her a chance to reach their side.

Ekhaas took it. She feinted at the elf, then dodged past him to join Biiri and Uukam. Three hobgoblins fighting together now-but four elves circling them, death in the eyes that shone above red veils.

“We’ll force an opening,” Uukam rasped, his voice thick with exertion. “You run. Get to the woods.”

Fierce determination rose from Ekhaas’s gut up into her throat. Her ears stiffened. There would be no escape through the woods, but she also felt no desire to flee. Eight Valenar had taken them by surprise and they had still brought half of them down. They could take the other four. They would take the other four. “No!” she spat. “No running. We fight! We fight as the Dhakaani fought! We fight and win!”

Her voice rose in a song, harsh and martial, a song she’d heard Dagii’s soldiers chanting as they marched to the devastated clanhold of Tii’ator. It was no spell, but she wove magic into it, invoking the ferocity and discipline of an entire army prepared for battle. Biiri and Uukam stood straight as the song caught them up. New strength seemed to enter their arms, and Ekhaas’s as well. Her grip on her sword grew steady; the throbbing pain of her wounded back grew distant.

The Valaes Tairn appeared to feel the song, too. They glanced at each other, scimitars wavering slightly. Then one of them cried out in Elven, “For the glory of Kaelan!” and leaped forward.

Biiri’s shield snapped up to catch the falling scimitar-and Uukam’s sword cut beneath to tear open the elf’s belly. Without even a pause, he swung himself over the falling body, slicing with the lower lip of his shield at the next Valenar. The elf ducked under the sudden blow, only to meet Biiri’s rising sword. Ekhaas stayed with them, her back to theirs. The two remaining elves shouted and plunged at her as if to end the song. She dropped down and struck back in a low, wide arc. They moved like dancers, evading her sweep with ease.

Uukam and Biiri whirled, closed in on either side of Ekhaas, and brought their heavy swords around with a speed and force that turned elven grace into bloody tatters. Biiri’s blade cut the head from one elf. Uukam’s shattered the scimitar of the other and drove on into his chest. Red robes fluttered to the ground and torn flesh thumped down on top of them. Ekhaas’s song rose then faded away. For a moment, it seemed that the only sound was her and her companions’ breathing, the sound of triumph more certain and primal than any cheer.

Then the sound of the battle that still raged below the hill burst over them. The clash of metal. The shrieks of horses, the roars of great cats, the screams of the dying. Biiri’s sword, still raised, dropped. “Now we run, Ekhaas duur’kala,” he said. “Dagii commands it. You carry our muut.”

He moved to the earthworks at the brow of the hill to seize the crimson banner of the Riis Shaarii’mal, but when he reached it, he froze, staring down. Ekhaas rose from her crouch. Both she and Uukam went to stand beside him. Her ears flicked then went flat.

While they had fought atop the hill, the battle had shifted and surrounded them.

The reserve company that protected the bottom of the hill was a thin wall fighting raging opponents. The squares of the five companies that had first marched into battle were like sputtering flames, clinging to life. Even as she watched, two were extinguished completely as the elves surged and overwhelmed them. Bursts of lightning and fire flared here and there, wiping out more dar. What remained of the Darguul cavalry fought either with the reserve company or with the loose formation of the final company to enter battle, the Iron Fox. Maybe half of the Valaes Tairn warclan lay dead-but so did more than three-quarters of the Darguuls.

Along the seething border between dar and elves, Dagii fought Seach Torainar. The tall tribex horns mounted to the shoulders of Dagii’s armor marked the lhevk’rhu as surely as the flashing crystal in the high warleader’s helm did him. Bounding tiger leaped around wheeling horse. Hobgoblin sword and shield met deadly Valenar double-scimitar-two curved blades joined end to end through a single long hilt. Keraal fought close by, his whirling chain warding off any of the Valaes Tairn who tried to take Dagii from behind.

“Paatcha!” said Uukam in awe. “This is a battle worth dying in!”

“It’s a battle one of us must survive,” Biiri said. “Ekhaas duur’kala, if we don’t leave we’ll be caught.” He grabbed her arm and tried to pull her away.

She shook him off. “We’re already caught. There are elves at the back of the hill.”

Uukam cursed and raced across the hilltop to the back edge, then cursed again. “A squad of our cavalry fight them, but more come. Our riders won’t hold for long.”

“We could fight our way through,” said Biiri, baring his teeth.

“And be struck down by Valenar arrows while we ran.” Trembling eagerness ran through Ekhaas. “Dagii makes a stand. The battle isn’t over.” She spun and thrust her finger at Biiri. “Bring the drum! Play!”

“I can’t!”

Uukam snatched the bloody brass rods from the hands of the dead drummer. “I can.”

“Then do it. Beat a pace like a loping tiger. Biiri, watch our backs.”

Ekhaas stepped up onto the earthworks so that she stood beside the Riis Shaarii’mal. She took three deep, slow breaths, then one that was very deep. She reached down inside herself, drew up the power of the song that twined around her soul, and sang as she never had before.

There had been words to the song she had sung for Biiri and Uukam. The tune had been familiar to them. What she sang now had no words, and the tune was ancient. Another duur’kala or one of the dedicated lorekeepers of the vaults of the Kech Volaar might know it. Ekhaas was certain that no one on the battlefield below had ever heard it, yet she was equally certain that it would fire the spirit of every dar, every true child of ancient Dhakaan, who did. The greatest glories of the past could never truly be forgotten.

Song rolled out of her belly and her chest as it had rolled out of duur’kala of old, but freshly infused with her magic-and from the first note, it seemed that what she sang was even older than Dhakaan, that it grew out of a primal need to fight for life and to triumph over death. The sensation was dizzying, but Ekhaas poured everything she felt into the song. Long hours of training in Volaar Draal had taught her how to project her voice, but even a duur’kala’s voice couldn’t carry unaided over the battlefield. A slim thread of magic stolen from the magnificent whole amplified and tied it to the rhythm Uukam beat out on the great drum. Both song and drumbeat rose into the sky and echoed across the plain, pure as sunlight and as powerful as a storm.

The battle paused, all eyes looking up at her in amazement, elven bright and dar dark. In the elves she could see a sudden tension, an instinctive mistrust of this martial music. In the dar, though, she saw exactly what she had expected. Wonder. Longing. Awe. Rage.

She sought out Dagii. The brass half-mask of his helm was raised to her-then he thrust his sword in the air. “Attack!” he roared. “Attack!”

The battle crashed back into motion. Dagii urged his tiger at Seach Torainar, but a ripple in the currents of fighting forced the two leaders apart. Quick-thinking elves launched a volley of arrows up at Ekhaas but the angle of the hill and a fold of the earthworks offered her protection. Or perhaps the song itself deflected the arrows. Ekhaas’s voice soared.

In her mind’s eye, she saw the glories of Dhakaan portrayed in the stories and artifacts that had come down through the ages to the Kech Volaar.

Carved cities and mighty fortresses.

Vast armies sweeping enemies before them-gnolls, elves, the dread daelkyr and their foul minions. Works of staggering majesty.

The magical songs of duur’kala and the wondrous creations of daashor.

The deeds of emperors and generals and warriors-heroes of the dar.

She channeled what she saw into what she sang, and her song was the song of the Empire of Dhakaan.

The beat of Uukam’s drum became the beat played by all the drums that had survived on the battlefield. The rhythm anchored Ekhaas to the fighting soldiers of Darguun. It carried her vision into living hearts, bringing a renewed energy to the goblin who rode his leopard against a Valenar horse, to the bugbear who laid about him with a steel mace that reaped lives as a scythe reaped grain, to the hobgoblin warcaster who beat his broken staff against the bleeding head of a staggering elf wizard. Ekhaas watched the reserve regiment at the base of the hill gather itself and throw back the Valaes Tairn. She watched the fragments of Darguul companies flow together, form themselves into wedges and force their way through their enemies to reach each other. She watched the Iron Fox Company, under Dagii’s command, take a position at the heart of the swirling battle.

And Valaes Tairn died-but so did Darguuls. Slowly, in spite of the valor of the dar, the battle turned back to the favor of the elves. A newly reformed company collapsed. A rush of elven cavalry drove the reserve company back to the base of the hill and shattered their lines. Beneath the swallow-tailed banner of stars, Seach Torainar whirled his double scimitar around his head and gathered elves for a rush on the Iron Fox. Dagii shouted and roared, urging his warriors into stronger lines to meet the attack.

“Maabet!” Biiri cried from behind her. “They’re through. They’re coming-the elves are climbing!”

The beat of Uukam’s drum faltered, then faded, and Ekhaas knew he had gone to aid in whatever defense Biiri could muster.

She sang alone. Her throat was raw. Her jaw and chest ached. She knew that the veins and muscles of her neck must be standing out, straining like the rigging on a ship in a storm. She looked down on the defeat of Dagii’s army and almost-almost-the sorrow of a dirge, of the fall of Dhakaan and the beginning of the hard Desperate Times, crept into her song.

No. She wouldn’t let Darguuls die with the sounds of mourning in their ears. She wouldn’t sing defeat before the Valaes Tairn.

Ekhaas reached deep into herself, flung her arms wide, and sang defiance. Her song soared again as she built on the old music, weaving a new vision into it. A vision of a homeland for an ancient people, restored to pride after long millennia. A vision of a red tower above a sprawling, bustling city; of clan chiefs and warlords gathered in unity to take back the land that belonged to the dar; of a new age for hobgoblins, goblins, and bugbears. Haruuc’s vision.

She threw back her head and howled Darguun’s pride to the sky.

Another howl answered her.

And another.

And another.

And the elves of the Sulliel warclan were shouting in alarm and fear. Ekhaas’s gaze snapped back to the battlefield.

From the hills and woods on the northern side of the plain poured a river of black and gray and white. Small, lithe forms hunched over powerful shoulders that bunched and surged beneath thick fur. Goblins and wolves, the larger shapes of worgs among them as well. Taarka’khesh. The Silent Wolves, silent no longer.

Hope gripped her and her song rose, wild and triumphant. She howled and wolves howled back. Ekhaas heard startled shouts from Biiri and Uukam and elven screams from the backside of the hill, and she knew that the Valenar who had sought to capture them had new problems. Across the battlefield, the taarka’khesh crashed into the elves, throwing them into disarray. Teeth snapped at the legs of horses. Short blades and crossbows bit into elf flesh.

Another rider joined Keraal at Dagii’s side. Dressed in black, he was all but invisible against the black fur of the great worg he rode, but Ekhaas knew him. Chetiin-and Marrow-had returned.

The double scimitar of Seach Torainar dipped and spun, gutting a goblin with one blade and piercing his wolf mount with the other. Then the weapon rose high and whirled. The high warleader raised a slim horn to his lips and blew a long, wailing note-and he wheeled his mount and raced from the battlefield. Everywhere, elves broke off their fighting to follow his retreat. Ekhaas might have been standing at the ocean’s edge, watching the tide turn. Victory had turned into a rout.

Those Valenar who were still mounted offered a hand to comrades on foot, or else turned to cover their escape. The taarka’khesh didn’t pause. Elves who stood to fight and horses too slow in their flight were overwhelmed by snapping, tearing jaws and stabbing blades. The retreat was a flurry of red robes and white flanks galloping away along the plain; the pursuit was a rushing shadow, night chasing day into the east instead of the west.

The desolation of the battlefield was revealed. Corpses of elf and dar, horse and great cat and wolf. Of the proud Darguul army, only the Iron Fox Company remained in any numbers.

Ekhaas’s song swirled to a final ringing note that filled the sky in triumph. The power of it faded from her body and left her trembling. Her right hand found a shoulder of the earthwork for support. Her left found the Riis Shaarii’mal. She plucked the banner from the ground and thrust it high.

A cheer rose from the survivors of the battle, muted and small amid the carnage, yet deafening in its own way. A rider turned his tiger, racing it across torn corpses and churned grass, and urging it up the steep slope of the hill’s front in mighty bounds. When the beast reached the earthworks, Dagii slid from the saddle, pulled his helmet from sweat-drenched hair, and dropped to his knees in front of Ekhaas. His ears stood tall. His shadow-gray eyes were wide with pride and adoration.

“Taarka’nu,” he rasped. Wolf woman.

Ekhaas’s strained throat could barely work but she forced her voice through it. “Ruuska’te,” she whispered. Tiger man.

He rose, put his hand over hers on the shaft of the Riis Shaarii’mal, and they turned to face the battlefield together. The survivors roared again, even louder than before.

The long shadows of late afternoon reached along the plain. The survivors of Dagii’s army gathered dar corpses. A pit would be dug and a cairn built over it. Later a proper monument might be erected to the heroes who had expected only to slow an attacking army and had instead defeated it.

The bodies of elves and their horses were left where they lay. Carrion eaters were already circling in the sky and gathering in the woods.

Most of the taarkakhesh and a number of the surviving great cat cavalry still pursued the fleeing Valenar. The howls of wolves and worgs echoed out of the east, relayed over great distances. “The elves make no stand,” Chetiin said, listening to the howls along with Marrow. “They may run all the way to the Mournland. Horses can outpace cats and wolves over long distance but the taarka’khesh will patrol the border for a time to make sure they don’t try to come back.”

“They’ll find their way back to Valenar,” said Dagii. He sat on a log, one bandaged leg thrust out before him. A scimitar had pierced a weak point in his armor. One of the taarka’khesh had offered him magic to heal it, but Dagii had directed him to chant his spells over Ekhaas’s wounded back instead. “Through the Mournland or down to Kraken Bay for passage on a sympathetic Lyrandar ship.”

Keraal, standing with his arms crossed, grunted agreement and added, “Lhesh Tariic owes a debt to you. He should greet you in Rhukaan Draal as a hero.”

Caught in the middle of a sip of numbingly hot herbal tea intended to soothe her throat, Ekhaas grimaced. She looked around. The four of them were, for the moment, alone. She wasn’t sure she wanted to speak in front of Keraal, but she didn’t think she had much choice.

“That may not happen,” she croaked. Her voice sounded as strained as Chetiin’s. “A song message from Senen Dhakaan came to me during the battle. Tariic has arrested Ashi, and a changeling has taken Geth’s place. She said Makka is hunting, too. I don’t know what that means, but-”

“Something is wrong,” Dagii said.

“I’m going back,” Ekhaas told him. “Ahead of the returning troops. I may be able to slip into the city.”

Dagii nodded. “I’m going with you.”

“No,” said Chetiin. The shaarat’khesh elder’s ears cupped. “Your place is with your soldiers. I’ll go with her.”

Keraal’s eyes had narrowed in suspicion. Dagii bared his teeth and flattened his ears. “There’s more happening than you know, Keraal. This may be a test of your oath to serve me.”

“Ban,” the other warrior snarled. “I see as well as a hawk by day.” He looked at Chetiin. “Your name’s not Maanin. You’re Chetiin.”

Marrow growled. The goblin’s ears flicked, but he nodded.

Keraal looked back to Dagii. “Did you hire him to assassinate Lhesh Haruuc? I hated him, but I wouldn’t have done something like that. If you did, you don’t have the muut or the atcha I believed you did.”

Breath hissed between Dagii’s teeth and his ears pressed back even further. “I didn’t-and Chetiin wasn’t the assassin. Suggest something like that again and I’ll pit my sword against your chains.”

Tension pulled at the air between the two warriors. Ekhaas’s hands tightened around her mug, but before she could say anything, Keraal bent his head. “I am without honor in this, lhevk’rhu,” he said in apology. “I doubted you.”

Dagii said nothing for a moment, then his ears rose slightly. “I have a story to tell you, Keraal, but it will wait for the journey back to Rhukaan Draal.” He looked at Ekhaas and Chetiin. “If Geth and Ashi are in trouble, we should hurry. It would take three days if we travel at the pace of the slowest survivor. A small company could make it in two. Tariic would think nothing of that-a victorious warlord isn’t slow to share his news.”

“Your arrival can serve as a distraction, then,” said Ekhaas. “Chetiin and I will go ahead. I know magic that can speed our travel.”

“Save your voice.” Chetiin scratched Marrow’s head. “You’re not the only one who knows something of swift travel. The Silent Clans will aid us. I guarantee that no one will know we’ve returned to Rhukaan Draal.” He glanced at her. “If you’re not too tired to leave tonight.”

Ekhaas’s ears stood tall. “I’m ready.”