"If anyone knows madness, it"s Medala. She"s probably driving the horde faster than they"d normally run. The Gatekeepers are likely using their magic too."
Geth picked up his sword belt and buckled Wrath around his waist, then swung what pa.s.sed for his pack-a waterskin bundled inside a blanket, all of the gear that he had carried when they fled the Sharvat Vvaraak-over his shoulder.
Neither of them spoke the words that Geth knew both of them were thinking: if the horde of Angry Eyes was less than a night"s travel behind them and gaining ground, this might be the last night they ran ahead of the orcs.
After six nights of running, of rising before dusk and stumbling to a stop well after dawn, of enduring whatever obstacles the Shadow Marches had thrown into their path, a small part of him was almost ready to turn and face the horde. He wouldn"t have a chance, but he"d go down with a fight, sword and gauntlet taking as many orcs as he could with him.
And who would those orcs be? Allies against the Master of Silence. Gatekeepers. Friends like Orshok and Batul-like Kobus and Pog.
They weren"t his enemies. He couldn"t fight them. But if he and Ekhaas could reach the Bonetree mound before them, maybe they could figure out what Medala wanted with the horde and find a way to free them.
Two more nights of running. They only needed to stay ahead of the horde. He grunted and raised his head.
Ekhaas was looking at him, her amber eyes steady. "Tonight I"ll sing you the story of Mazaan Kuun and the Hundred Elves. You"ll find inspiration in it."
Geth groaned. "Does Wrath figure in this story too?"
"It is a story of the name of Kuun," said Ekhaas as if there could be no other answer.
"Does Mazaan Kuun die?"
"No, but the elves do."
"Well, that"s something at least." Geth stalked ahead of her into the tall clumps of stiff gra.s.s that had surrounded their day"s resting place.
He didn"t need to check their path-he saw it stretched out ahead of them, though not so much in his head as in his heart, placed there by the Gatekeeper amulet Batul had entrusted to him. As the old druid had instructed him, he"d lain on the ground every morning at dawn and the amulet had shown him the way they needed to go. The closer they got to the Bonetree mound, the more landmarks Geth thought he recognized in the distance from his first visit there, but he continued to use the amulet. Its guidance was so vivid and reliable that Geth had taken to placing snares along the route ahead each morning before returning to their chosen campsite. For four of the last five nights, that strategy had earned them their next day"s food without costing them any time spent hunting.
That night, the first snare was empty. Geth stooped to retrieve the braided gra.s.s cord he"d used to fashion the snare-and paused, taking a closer look at it. There was blood, still moist and sticky, on the cord. He straightened up with a hiss. "Grandfather Rat. This snare"s been stripped."
"You mean whatever it caught escaped?" asked Ekhaas, peering over his shoulder.
"I mean it"s been stripped. Whatever it caught has been taken, and animals don"t reset snares." He tore the cord free and flung it away into the gra.s.s.
The second snare he"d set had also been stripped. He studied it and the ground around it for several long moments before rising. "I don"t like this," he said. "Whoever was here left no tracks behind. If they"re that good, they must know we"re here."
"I didn"t see anyone during my watch," said Ekhaas.
"Neither did I." There was a third snare a short distance ahead. He motioned for Ekhaas to remain silent, then crept forward cautiously, taking care to remain well down among the gra.s.s.
His first glimpse of the snare made him blink and look again to make certain he wasn"t seeing something that wasn"t really there. The view didn"t change. "Rat!" he breathed.
Caught in the snare was one of the fat gra.s.s rats that had formed most of their diet for the last several days. Carefully laid out in front of the snare were two more, possibly taken from the other snares.
There were also three rabbits, a small heap of some blushing red fruit, two flat loaves of golden ashi bread, and two swollen skins, their surfaces wet with water.
"If we were in Darguun among the Marguul clans of the Seawall Mountains, I"d say that this was a peace offering," Ekhaas whispered in Geth"s ear. "You know more about the Marches than I do. Who would do something like this and why?"
Geth"s eyes were on the waterskins. Designs had been painted onto the leather in bold, primitive swoops and shapes. He"d seen designs like that before. His teeth ground together. "Bonetree hunters," he said.
Ekhaas cursed and reached for the hilt of her sword. Geth grabbed her hand and held it motionless.
Beyond the heap of food, a thick clump of the tall gra.s.s shook, paused, then shook again. A moment later, a man stood up from behind it and walked forward. He was lean, with muscles that stood out like knotted ropes across his body. He wore breeches and a vest of leather. Tattoos covered his arms, spines of bone pierced his ears, and Geth knew his guess at the source of the food had been right. The man was a Bonetree hunter.
But he was also unarmed. Although he didn"t look at their hiding place, Geth had a feeling the hunter knew exactly where they were. Squatting down on the far side of the food, he took up one of the loaves of bread and bit into it. The hunter swallowed the bread, replaced the loaf, then picked up one of the skins, drank from it, and replaced it as well. He ate a piece of the fruit in a single bite, juice dribbling down his chin. He spat out the pit, wiped the juice away, and sat back.
"The food is good, weretouched," he said. The words were thickly accented but clear-the hunter could have made himself understood in any city of the Five Nations. "It is for you. Will you speak with me?"
A growl rose in Geth"s throat.
The hunter"s expression didn"t change, nor did the tone of his voice, but his jaw tightened. "I understand. You know I wouldn"t face you alone." He raised his voice slightly and spoke a word in the language of the Bonetree clan. "Prashenis."
All around them, the gra.s.s rustled as hunters rose from their hiding places. Behind the squatting man, a pair of hunters stepped forward, while two more-one of them barely more than a girl-stood up less than three paces to either side of Geth and Ekhaas. Both stood still for a moment, letting the shifter and the hobgoblin inspect them, then moved to join the others beyond the squatting hunter.
"You have my honor that there are no more of us here," the first hunter said. He turned to look directly at them. "My name is Breff. I am huntmaster of the Bonetree clan. Will you speak with me now?"
Geth said nothing. He knew the man"s name. Ashi had spoken it. Seeing him and the other hunters, brought back memories. Cold memories of the first raid on the Bonetree mound and the battle to free Singe and Dandra. Hot, angry memories of the attack on Bull Hollow by Bonetree hunters in the company of the hideous four-armed creatures called dolgrims that served the dark powers of Siberys. He hadn"t stayed to see the aftermath of that attack-he, Singe, and Dandra had drawn the hunters and the dolgrims after them into the wilderness to spare the hamlet-but he"d seen more than enough.
A Bonetree hunter had cut down Adolan. Geth had killed him in retaliation, but to face Bonetree hunters across a peace offering was too much!
The continued silence brought a flush to Breff"s tanned face. "Weretouched, I want to talk to you! I know you were among those who took Ashi away. I know you were the one who struck down the Revered."
The Revered-their name for Dah"mir. Geth still didn"t speak or move. The other hunters were beginning to look angry. Breff paused for a moment, then stood up sharply, his teeth bared. "Talk to me, weretouched, or you strike my honor!"
Geth"s growl rolled back in his throat and became a roar. "What honor do you have?" he said. Ekhaas hissed in frustration, s.n.a.t.c.hed her hand free, and brought it up under his jaw, snapping his teeth closed on the words. Before he could stop her, the duur"kala had risen.
"The weretouched is too angry to speak," she said. "He wants to know why the huntmaster of the Bonetree greets him with food and talk instead of with a sword."
The words were stinging, delivered with a dismissive harshness. Geth choked in alarm and braced for Breff to rush them in a fury at the insult. The hunter, however, just stiffened. "He and I have met blood for blood, hobgoblin," he answered with dignity. "I know that he has rond e reis-he is fierce and tough. I greet him with talk instead of a sword only because fighting each other gives strength to the enemy we share."
It was too much. "What enemy?" shouted Geth, leaping up. "What enemy could we have in common, you Khyber-worshiping murderer?"
He would have lunged forward, but Ekhaas flung up an arm, holding him back. The four hunters standing behind Breff grabbed for their weapons. Geth wasn"t sure they"d understood what he"d said, but it was clear they understood his actions.
Breff also held up an arm, and the hunters froze. Breff met Geth"s gaze. "The Bonetree clan no longer serves the Dragon Below," he said. "The Revered ... Dah"mir-" his face twisted and he seemed to spit the name "-turned his face from us. The enemy we share is the one who stole his favor from us, the one who pursues you with the orcs. We"ve seen her among the horde. I know that she"s stolen their favor from you just as she stole Dah"mir"s from us."
Geth blinked. "Medala?" he asked and Breff nodded.
Ekhaas stared at the hunter. "You"ve seen her with the horde?" she asked in disbelief. Breff"s face darkened again, though this time in shame instead of anger.
"The Bonetree clan is not what it was," he said. "Our numbers are small. We"ve left the ancestor mound. Other clans eat our territory and would hunt us if they could find us. We live by stealth now instead of strength." He looked up again and thrust out his chest. "But we still live, and we see more than we did when we were strong. We"ve been among the horde. We have seen. If you let us, weretouched, we will stand with you to bring down one who brought us down."
The words and the gesture made Geth look at him for second time, and he realized with a start that Breff was younger than he"d taken him to be-not as young as the girl who stood behind him, but still a young man. Young, daring, and angry. Maybe the same age as Ashi. Maybe the same age Geth had been at Narath.
Cousin Bear and Grandmother Wolf, he thought, was that what I was like?
Ekhaas"s ears, however, bent at Breff"s words and her eyes narrowed. "The weretouched," she said, "also brought you down, didn"t he? He fought the Bonetree clan. He wounded Dah"mir. Will you try to bring him down too?"
Breff turned on her, his entire body stiff. "Rond betch! You strike my honor! The weretouched has rond e reis. We"ve met blood for blood. He fights as I fight. He is an enemy to be valued, not one to betray. If I meant to bring him down-"
"-we wouldn"t be talking." Ekhaas bent her head. "I apologize."
And in doing so glanced sideways at Geth. He saw approval in her eyes. She thought Breff could be trusted.
Except that Geth wasn"t sure he wanted to trust the huntmaster and his hunters.
He could understand respect for an enemy. He"d battled foes worthy of respect. He could understand uniting against a common enemy-he"d done that too.
But working with the enemy that had devastated Bull Hollow made his stomach churn. He could see the hamlet burning, hear the screams of terror, could recall the names of the dead. All of them, not just Adolan. He could remember exchanging blows with Breff too, the hunter"s blade crashing against his gauntlet and against Wrath ...
No, he realized, that wasn"t right. In Bull Hollow he"d still carried his old Blademarks-issue sword. If he"d fought Breff with Wrath, it had been at the battle before the Bonetree mound. And had it been Breff? He"d fought through so many dolgrims and Bonetree hunters in both battles that he couldn"t be sure.
We"ve met blood for blood, Breff had said. Geth looked at the huntmaster and at the hunters standing behind him, hands still on their weapons. How many of their friends had he killed? Ashi had been a Bonetree hunter. She would have been huntmaster if she hadn"t turned her back on Dah"mir. How many of her friends had he killed? They"d never talked about it. He"d never thought of it. Had Ashi?
Blood for blood. The Bonetree had been devastated just as Bull Hollow had. If they"d left the mound, they must have been broken, and like Ashi, they"d turned their back on Dah"mir. They weren"t a threat anymore.
But Medala and whatever plan was unfolding in her mad mind were.
Geth"s stomach still churned, but he clenched his jaw against it and glared at Breff. "You can stand with me against Medala," he said, "but if we ever meet again on another battlefield, I"ll cut you down."
Breff"s smile was cold. "And I would do the same." He squatted down and picked another blushing fruit out of the pile. "Tell me what your plan is, weretouched. Both you and the horde travel toward the ancestor mound. You"ll find nothing there. It is a haunted place now."
"My name is Geth, not "weretouched,"" Geth growled at him. "And yes, we travel toward the mound. We have to reach it before the blue moon is full and before the orc horde." He said nothing of Medala"s prediction that Dah"mir would return. He had a feeling it might change the hunter"s mind about their alliance.
"You might reach it before the moon, but not before the horde. The orcs travel faster than you. They"ll catch up to you. Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow." Breff studied Geth, then bit into the fruit. "What would happen," he asked, juice running from the corner of his mouth, "if you reached the mound after them?"
They hid in an abandoned animal den tucked among the roots of an old and dying tree. The tree stood at the base of a low bluff carved by some vanished river, leaning at such an angle that Geth could guess it had begun its life higher up the bluff and been carried down by the collapse of the slope.
They were packed in close together, all except the youngest of the Bonetree hunters, who still lingered outside, keeping watch. The sweat from their bodies was strong in Geth"s nose. Breff had run all of them through much of the night-the moonlight was bright enough for the human hunters to see-before they reached the den. The rabbits and gra.s.s rats that the hunters had brought along didn"t help either.
Breff had insisted that the orcs of the horde wouldn"t notice. "They will come and be gone," he had said, "then we will emerge and follow them without danger. Che rond orc sao to sari che-the fierce orc sees only what is ahead."
They wouldn"t be able to scout the area around the Bonetree mound before the horde arrived, but Geth had to admit that the idea was far better than having the horde catch them on the way there. And once they did reach the mound, they would have expert guides as well. It had been the hunters" home for generations, after all.
What would they find there? Over the nights that he and Ekhaas had run before the horde, Geth had built a picture in his head of the Bonetree clan waiting for the orcs, angry at their defeat in the first battle before the mound and ready to take their revenge. From what Breff had described as they ran through the night, his imagination had been far from the mark. He"d a.s.sured Geth that the mound was abandoned. Even the dolgrims had retreated into the tunnels beneath and hadn"t ventured out. The declaration made Geth wondered even more about Medala"s motives in leading the horde to the mound. Could she really just want revenge on Dah"mir?
He tried to still his thoughts and empty his mind. Waiting for an enemy"s approach had never been his strength. Waiting before an attack, picking the time to strike, stalking an enemy-that he could handle. It brought an energy to him. Waiting for someone else to attack just made him fidget.
And fidgeting brought him a sharp elbow in the side from Ekhaas. The hobgoblin lay squeezed in at his left in the darkness. "Remain still," she threatened him softly, "or I will sing you into paralysis."
Geth let out a hissing breath in an attempt to calm himself. Ekhaas hissed in return. "Your breath smells."
"We all smell," he grumbled at her. He held his breath for a moment, though, trying to calm his racing heart. When the thunder of it had eased a little, he glanced at Ekhaas. For the night-blind humans, the den must have been in deep darkness. The little light that crept through the mouth of the hole was enough to let him see her clearly. "Tak for taking charge when we met the hunters," he said. "I was too angry to talk to them."
She snorted slightly, raising a small puff of dust from the ground. "That was obvious."
"How did you know what to say to Breff?"
Ekhaas"s ears stood up. "I am a duur"kala. We are the diplomats of the heirs of Dhakaan."
"That wasn"t like any diplomacy I"ve ever seen."
"That"s because you have no real understanding of honor," Ekhaas told him, baring her teeth.
Their conversation was silenced by the skittering of a single pebble outside the den. A form dropped in front of the hole, blocking the light for a moment, then crawled inside. "Ans kolaos!" the hunter said, settling against Breff"s back.
"They come!" the huntmaster translated.
Everyone in the hidden den froze. It seemed to Geth that no one was even breathing, that they all strained to hear the first sounds of the approaching horde.
He wanted to fidget more than ever.
The first sign of the horde wasn"t a sound at all, but a vibration in the earth beneath his belly. Dust drifted down into his hair. The vibration grew stronger. Another pebble fell in front of the hole. Then another.
Then a cascade of earth was falling past the hole and the moonlight was flickering as running bodies came sliding down the slope and dashed past their hiding place. It was over in a moment, but Geth knew better than to move. Those had just been the scouts. The vibration beneath his belly was still growing.
There was a sound in the air too, flooding the night and squeezing into the hole with them. The rhythm of hundreds of feet, of throbbing drums and low chanting, made the music that set the pace of the horde. And a strange music it was, neither proper words nor pure notes, but the orcs still chanted with it.
Aahyi-ksiksiksi-kladakla-yahaahyi- The youngest hunter cringed and covered her ears, but Geth froze and listened. Around his neck, the collar of black stones was bitingly cold. As the chant swelled, he could hear an undertone of crystalline ringing to it. Medala"s power, driving the horde of Angry Eyes onward.
The vibration in the ground was so strong it brought dust drifting down into his hair and eyes. The music made the air itself shake. Both vibration and music built until Geth wanted to curl up into a ball and scream-then, like a wave, they crested and broke. Dirt came pouring past the hole, the roots of the great tree seemed to shake under repeated impacts, and the moonlight flickered like a silver flame as the orcs of the horde flowed over and down the bluff.
This time, their pa.s.sing seemed to go on for half the night. Falling dirt made a heap across the hole and on top of Geth"s head, but he didn"t move. He watched the shadowy forms that broke the moonlight, half hoping that among them he might spot Orshok or Krepis or Batul. For all that he could see of them, though, the forms might have been goblins instead of orcs.
Eventually the flood began to slow. The flickering pa.s.sage of forms past the hole eased. The strange music of the horde began to fade-though as it did, he became aware of another music, as quiet as the falling dust. He glanced at Ekhaas. Her ears twitched back, but she fell silent. They all lay still and quiet in the hole long after the last trace of the horde"s chanting vanished from the air and the last hint of vibration from the ground. Finally, Breff crept up to the hole and peered out.
Geth looked at Ekhaas. "Grandfather Rat, what were you doing?" he hissed at her.
"Trying to find the countersong," she said. "Any tone can be countered by another tone, any magical song by a countersong."
"Medala"s power isn"t exactly a magical song."
"It"s still has a kind of music about it," said Ekhaas stubbornly. "My songs can block Medala"s power where Gatekeeper magic can"t. Maybe they can do more. Would you rather I didn"t try?"
Geth bared his teeth and looked to Breff. The huntmaster was watching them with barely concealed annoyance. "It"s good the orcs are gone. You two would have brought them down on us." He jerked his head toward the hole. "Come. It"s safe."
Emerging from their hiding place felt almost like emerging into a new world. So long in the gloom made the moonlight seem brighter to Geth"s eyes. The cool air was thick with the fresh odors of disturbed earth and crushed plants. Geth bounded back up the torn slope of the bluff and looked after the orcs. Under the light of the moons, the broken trail of their pa.s.sage seemed like the wake of a ship on the ocean.
He slid back down to join the others. "Let"s go," he told Breff.
The rise on which they lay two days later, looking down on the Bonetree mound, was the same one on which Geth and Batul had lain to plan their rescue of Singe and Dandra from Dah"mir"s grasp. Geth remembered vividly the scene that had spread out before him then. The members of the clan and Dah"mir"s dolgrims had been gathered together before the mound, waiting for the duel between Hruucan and Singe. In the gathering light of evening, the gra.s.s that covered the mound had bent in waves before the wind.
Only the gra.s.s and the mound were unchanged. The place where the Bonetree had gathered had turned into a battlefield that night, but except for a few scars where nothing grew, the gra.s.s had come back to hide even that. The light was lazy and golden, the light of late afternoon.
Where there had been hunters and dolgrims, there were orcs, bundled up into blankets and sleeping through the day.
Geth narrowed his eyes and studied the sleeping horde. They weren"t cl.u.s.tered together. Groups of orcs were spread out before the mound and even behind it. The groups made lines of battle, as if an army had been put into place then sent to sleep. The orcs were ready to wake and fight.
As they"d followed the horde"s trail over the last day, Geth and the others had come across a strange sight. A small plain about half a day"s travel back bore the scars of harvest, as if an army of reapers had pa.s.sed through and cut down every stalk of long gra.s.s. Now they knew where that gra.s.s had gone: beside each orc warrior lay a stack of cut gra.s.s. It would take only moments for the warriors to pull the gra.s.s over themselves and vanish into the landscape.