Don Bassingthwaite - The Killing Song

“You shield yourselves,” she said. “You suspect me.”

Ekhaas’s cedar smoke voice was calm. “You’re mistaken, kalashtar. The spell I sang was meant only to clear the fog of ale from Geth’s thick mind.”

Geth’s back stiffened at the comment. If Ekhaas had hoped that insulting him would earn approval from Medala, though, her plan failed completely. Medala gave her a withering look. “Don’t try to trick me, hobgoblin . I know more of the mind than you could ever learn.” This time, Ekhaas stiffened. Medala’s dark eyes glittered in the gloom of the tent. “Why should my enemies come before me with their thoughts armored like knights of Thrane? Why should they fear someone who has lost her powers?” She sat forward. “Answer me those questions, Ekhaas duur’kala.”

Geth flinched and bared his teeth. Batul hadn’t introduced the hobgoblin when he’d shown Medala to them the night before. He was certain of it. Ekhaas just drew herself up and met Medala’s eyes. “You know my name. How?”

“You already know or you wouldn’t have shielded yourself.” Medala settled back like a queen on a throne. “The minds of the Gatekeepers aren’t so well-protected or disciplined as they believe.”

“Grandmother Wolf!” Even with Ekhaas’s magic echoing in him, cold dread filled Geth. He ripped Wrath from his scabbard and held the sword tight. “You admit it? You still have your powers?”

She looked at him and his twilight-purple blade without even blinking. “Why should I hide the truth from those who see it?” she asked. Her lips twisted in a bitter grimace. “No one fears the weak-or those they believe to be weak. But who would have trusted Medala if they knew she was strong? This prison the druids have created couldn’t hold me if I chose to leave. The only chains on me are the ones I forge from my own need. I cannot take my revenge on Dah’mir and the Master of Silence alone. I must have allies!”

Foamy spittle flecked her lips. Her fingers clenched the orc clothing she wore and gouged at the flesh beneath. Muscles stood out beneath the fine skin of her neck and face. The memory of what she had once done to him-pierced him through with pain and stopped his breath with her will alone-forced Geth back a step and brought Wrath a little higher, ready to fall.

Ekhaas stood firm, though her ears were pressed back and Geth could see that her hands weren’t far from her own sword. “So you pull on the emotions of the orcs,” she said. “You push at the Gatekeepers. You send the horde dreams of glorious battle.”

Medala’s neck almost creaked as she turned her head to look at the hobgoblin. “Dreams are forbidden to kalashtar-we are the exiles of Dal Quor-but that doesn’t mean we don’t understand the power of dreams. I may not be able to see into the dreams of others, but I can whisper in their ears.” The tension seemed to drain out of her as she talked until she seemed almost calm again. “I make the horde stronger. My powers bring the orcs a unity greater than they have known since the time of the Daelkyr War. The Gatekeepers have fallen far in ten thousand years. I don’t know that they could bring together a force capable of dealing with a daelkyr, even one still bound by the magics of the ancestors, on their own.”

She drew a deep breath and met Geth’s eyes over his sword. “Will you strike down an ally who can turn the coming battle in your favor?”

Geth ground his teeth together. His sword trembled. “You? Yes,” he growled. “We brought the same warning you did. The Gatekeepers know about the danger from the Master of Silence. If you die, the horde will still march!”

Medala lifted her head. “But will it march in time?”

Her fearless, arrogant face brought out all of Geth’s fury at being forced to stand and talk with a woman who deserved to be dead. Wrath snapped back and flashed forward.

Ekhaas’s sword flashed as well. In less than a heartbeat, she drew the weapon and thrust it forward-across Wrath. Though the two swords had been forged thousands of years apart, they were both of Dhakaani design, with one edge smooth and the other jagged. The jagged edges locked, and Ekhaas forced Geth’s killing blow aside.

“Kravait!” she barked in Goblin. With Wrath in his hand, Geth understood the command. “Stand down now!”

It was hard thing not to pull his sword free and strike again, but he managed it. Ekhaas thought more quickly than he did. The words that might have been Medala’s last rolled in the pit of his stomach. He stared at Medala. “What are you talking about? Why does it matter when the horde marches?”

The mad kalashtar hadn’t moved. Her expression hadn’t even changed. “Batul claims to see the future, but his gift is weak. I’ve seen the future too, but I looked on it with both eyes. When I said that Virikhad’s struggles to take control of me flung us into a place that was elsewhere, I kept some secrets to myself. Time moved differently in the place that he took us. We saw things there while we struggled. Events. Possibilities. Certainties.”

The pupils of Medala’s eyes had shrunk as if she stared into a bright light, and they seemed fixed on something very far in the distance. Her voice was soft. Geth felt the pressure from Ekhaas’s sword ease as she let her weapon fall away, but he didn’t try to raise Wrath again. He just listened.

“We saw,” she said, “Dah’mir’s wounding at your hand. We saw his weakness and his escape, your fear and your escape. Not everything was clear to us-only the entwined paths of those we hated. We saw when you and Dah’mir came together in Zarash’ak, but not what happened when you parted. We saw what happened in Taruuzh Kraat after a fashion. We saw Dah’mir’s seizing of the ancient binding stones. We saw the power of the dragonmark break Dah’mir’s hold on Dandra. We saw him flee, and we knew that he fled to Sharn-but that was when our struggled ended, and I was returned to the Bonetree mound.”

Pin-prick eyes shifted to focus on him. “All those things were possibilities that became certainties, but there were more possibilities that remained and three that I saw most clear. First, that my enemies would meet Dah’mir in Sharn. Second, that my enemies would meet me in this place, the Sharvat Vvaraak. Third-” She blinked and stopped.

“What?” asked Geth. “What was third?”

Medala looked at him. Her pupils had resumed a normal size and when she spoke, her voice was once again as harsh as sand. “Third, that Dah’mir might return to the Master of Silence.”

“Might?”

“It is a possibility. All of these things are possibilities-or were. You met me here and that possibility became a certainty. I know from your story that Singe and Dandra went to Sharn, so that possibility has become a certainty as well.”

Geth felt like someone had grabbed hold of his spine and was stretching it. “What about the third possibility?”

“It hasn’t happened yet, but of all the things I saw, I know when it will happen.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “In the possibility I see, the blue moon is full and bright on the horizon at dusk.”

The blue moon-the moon of Rhaan, so small it might almost have been a pale azure star. Geth struggled trying to guess when it would be full again, but Ekhaas came up with the answer first. “Eight days from now,” she said.

Medala opened her eyes and nodded. “It will be Rhaan’s first fullness since I returned. The horde must be at the Bonetree mound when it rises.”

“Do the Gatekeepers know this?” Geth demanded.

Medala looked at him coldly. “They don’t need to know,” she said. “It would distract them. The horde will be there. I created it. It is mine.” A hand jerked up to touch her face. “These are the angry eyes!”