Don Bassingthwaite - The Killing Song

There were five of them-Kobus ordered the rest to remain among the horde. They spread out to walk beside and behind Geth like an honor guard. Anyone who tried to reach out and touch Geth this time got their arm slapped back. It seemed a bit severe to him, but he was grateful for the peace. He tried to focus as they walked, attempting to remember all of the things he needed to tell Batul, all of the concerns that he had and all of the questions Ekhaas had raised. Maybe, he thought, she should have been there …

A curse and then a loud grunt of pain brought his head up. They were still wading through the horde, though its edge and the tops of the stand of trees where Batul waited were visible ahead. They were passing a knot of warriors clustered together around one of their number, an orc man holding a freshly broken nose. Geth’s hand still rested on Wrath and he heard one of the warriors shout at the passing group, “What did you do that for? He didn’t do anything!”

Kobus twisted around to shout back. “He was in the way! If you’ve got anything to say about it, why don’t you come and get in my way too?” He shook his double axe threateningly.

The angry warrior started forward but one of Geth’s “honor guard” dropped him with a fast punch to the head. Kobus laughed and pushed onward.

Then they were past the cluster and neither Kobus nor the violent guard seemed to pay any attention to the grumblings behind them. Geth looked back, though, and was surprised to see not only the cluster of warriors but others orcs who had been in their path staring at them and muttering in discontent. People had stopped trying to reach past the guards to touch him-Kobus, he realized, was shoving people out of his way with all the grace of a bad-tempered bull. The massive orc hadn’t been particularly gentle about it before, but now he was actively throwing warriors out of his way as if he didn’t care that he hurt them. Two orcs slammed into each other head first. Both went down.

Even more strange, Pog had picked up Kobus’s attitude. The two of them were talking in growls, the same tones Kobus had spoken to the other warriors with after Ekhaas had left. The sounds stirred a memory in Geth and he glanced around at the warriors who had taken up positions as his guard. All of them were Kobus’s men, the big warrior’s followers before he had attached himself to Geth.

Something felt wrong. Casually, Geth picked up his pace, moving just a little bit closer to Kobus and Pog so he could hear what they were saying. It wasn’t difficult. They weren’t trying to be particularly quiet or tactful. In fact, it almost seemed as if they were taking greater care that they weren’t overheard by other orcs more than that they weren’t overheard by him.

“-don’t understand how it could have happened,” Pog was saying. “Wouldn’t the Gatekeepers have felt the taint?”

“He came with a Gatekeeper. He’s friends with a Gatekeeper. He must have found a way to disguise it. I can feel it though.” Kobus came close to sneering. “I could see it when he stood before the horde and when he came down from the slope. He’s manipulating us. Him and the hobgoblin. I think I felt it even before they arrived. To think that I painted the horde marks on his face with my own hands.” He spat, then glanced at Pog. “You’ll join us?”

Pog nodded. “I’ll hold back Batul and keep him from interfering. He needs to see what’s come among us.”

Geth sucked air through his teeth and struggled to keep a calm face. What was happening? Kobus, his men, Pog-they’d turned on him? How could they have-?

His hands clenched, one around Wrath’s hilt, the other into a metal-jacketed fist. Medala. He remembered her twisted face when he and Ekhaas had stepped up onto the slope before the senior Gatekeepers. She’d known what they’d come to do-and apparently she wasn’t going to let them have the chance to do it again. Geth had no doubts that Hona’s approaching Ekhaas just before Pog’s appearance had been more than a coincidence. The duur’kala had been deliberately lured away. And would Batul have sent Pog as a messenger? No. He would have sent Orshok or Krepis. Geth had a strong suspicion that Pog would find no one to hold back among the trees. Batul wasn’t going to be waiting.

Hona’s curiosity had been increased. Pog’s admiration for Geth had left him open for manipulation-there probably had never been a message from Batul. Kobus’s antagonism had been opened like a floodgate. Medala was playing with all their emotions.

The crowd thinned abruptly. They were past the horde. The stand of trees was just ahead, thick and isolated. Any sounds of violence would be covered by the roars of the horde as the ceremony and the frenzy of the warriors built to a peak. Should he run? Kobus’s men stayed close around him. The horde was too close-packed for him to escape into and the orcs had a good chance of running him down across open ground. Flight was no option.

“Are you ready?” Kobus asked Pog as they approached the trees.

“I’m ready.” The orc turned to give Geth a smile that seemed as false and forced as a serpent’s. “Follow now?” he said.

Geth’s mouth was dry, but he nodded casually. His grip on Wrath tightened. As they passed into the shadows of the trees, he took a deep breath, reached inside himself and shifted. Sudden fire burned through his veins. Time seemed to slow.

It took only a heartbeat to see that the twilight beneath the trees was empty. No one waited for them. In a second heartbeat, Kobus whirled, whipping his axe up into two-handed grip, and shouted, “Die, traitor!”

I don’t understand,” murmured Ashi, “I thought that whatever or whoever was causing the killing song wanted us dead.”

Dandra pressed her lips together and replied in a whisper. “That’s what Shelsatori showed me. It’s the impression I got from Erimelk too.”

“But if Moon has fallen to the killing song, why is he helping us?”

“I don’t know,” she told Ashi.

The lift they rode, the one to which Moon had guided them, slowed to a stop on a level of the middle city. The people getting off pushed and jostled Dandra and Ashi, and they had to shift to allow them past. Fortunately, very few new passengers got on. That had been the way at all of the stops the lift had made. People, festively dressed, were waiting in crowds only for the upward bound lifts. Singe had guessed that they were all heading for the upper city in anticipation of the Thronehold celebrations.

Standing just ahead of Dandra and Ashi, Moon stood firm. His unmoving stance had made it easier for Dandra to slip back away from him, allowing other passengers to come between them, so that she, Ashi, and Singe could speak. She wondered if that had even been necessary. Moon seemed oblivious to his surroundings, ignoring the passengers who bumped into him-but as Dandra’s eyes lingered on him, he turned as if he could feel the weight of her gaze. He looked back at her with an adoring intensity. “Soon,” he said.

She forced herself to nod casually. The lift glided downward again. Moon looked away once more and began to hum the eerie shifting tune of the killing song. Dandra squirmed the moment his back was turned.

“Maybe he’s helping us because he’s fallen in love with you,” suggested Ashi, keeping her voice low. “Maybe that’s holding back the violence of the killing song.”

“He’s only known me since last night! Before that, he would have known Tetkashtai.”

“We need to work this through rationally,” Singe said from behind them. The wizard had been silent since before they’d stepped onto the lift, but Dandra had known from his posture and the tightening around his mouth and eyes that he’d been thinking hard the whole time. “Hanamelk said that early victims went mad slowly while recent victims went mad more quickly but retained a cunning. I said then that it was as if whoever or whatever was behind the song was trying to find the right pitch. What if the song has found its pitch in Moon?”