Don Bassingthwaite - The Killing Song

She was staring at the fallen man. Singe looked down at him as well. He was as dirty as he had smelled. The rain was making streaks in a face smudged with grime. His clothes were dirty and wet too, but otherwise in good repair. His features carried the slightly stretched look of someone who hadn’t eaten for several days. He had been living rough, Singe guessed, but not for very long. Probably less than a week.

“I know him,” said Dandra, “or at least Tetkashtai knew him. His name is Erimelk. He’s a scribe.” She knelt down beside him. “This isn’t like him.”

“There’s a surprise.” Singe straightened and twisted his arm to see where Erimelk had grabbed him. Blood stained the wet cloth in two big patches. “Twelve moons! He hits hard for a scribe.”

A hiss of warning from Natrac brought Singe’s head up again. The half-orc stood with his knife-hand held low and ready. Ashi kept her sword unsheathed.

The few kalashtar and Adarans who had been lingering on the rainy street were closing in on them, their faces hard with concern. Singe let loose a curse under his breath. He could imagine how the attack must have looked. They weren’t making a good first impression! “Dandra?” Singe said softly with a glance over his shoulder.

Dandra was still kneeling beside Erimelk, worry on her face.

Before she could rise, before the clustered locals could draw too close, though, a shout rose up. “Erimelk! Light of il-Yannah, you’ve found him, Tetkashtai!”

The locals paused and turned as new figures came hurrying up the street and pushed past them. There were four of them, three men and a woman, all kalashtar. They drew up short as they saw Natrac’s and Ashi’s weapons. The one who had called out, a big man with coarse gray hair and a worn face, was the first to step forward again. “It’s all right,” he said, holding his hands out flat and gesturing for the hunter and the half-orc to be calm. “We’ve been hunting for him. I’m sorry if he’s caused you-ah.” His gaze stopped for a moment on Singe. “You’re hurt.”

“It’s not serious,” Singe said. He glanced at Natrac and Ashi and nodded at them. They lowered their weapons. By the time he had looked back to the old kalashtar, however, the other man had already moved past him to Dandra.

“This is a poor homecoming. I’m sorry, Tetkashtai. Come away from him. You can’t have hurt Erimelk more than he’s hurt himself. We’ll look after him. Here, stand up.”

The kalashtar was holding an arm out to Dandra when his words sank into Singe’s head. You’ve found him, Tetkashtai … I’m sorry, Tetkashtai .

Twelve bloody moons, Singe thought. He can’t tell what’s happened.

The same thought must have worked its way through Dandra’s head. As rapidly as a cloud drifting past the sun, her face brightened and became confident. “Thank you, Nevchaned,” said Dandra, her voice unfamiliar and haughty as she fell into the role of her creator. “What happened-”

The old kalashtar cut her off with a shake of his head as he helped her to his feet. “The poor man,” he said sadly, and Singe noticed that he left the statement hanging to wave forward the two men who had come with him. The woman, the wizard realized, was moving among those who had been on the street when the attack occurred, calming them and sending them on their way. Before the men bent to pick up Erimelk’s unconscious form, the small crowd had already begun to disperse.

The men’s touch, however, must have roused Erimelk. The scribe’s eyes snapped open wide and for an instant he seemed to stare straight at Singe-then his eyes rolled back and the tones of a strange wordless song rippled from his lips, clashing but somehow still musical. “Aahyi-ksiksiksi-kladakla-”

The two kalashtar holding him stiffened. Nevchaned reacted instantly, pulling his hand from Dandra’s and reaching across to clap it across Erimelk’s mouth, muffling the song. “Take him to my shop, Fekharath,” he said swiftly. The men holding Erimelk began to move and Nevchaned went with them, hand still over the scribe’s mouth. The woman fell in beside them, staring at Erimelk. Nevchaned twisted around enough to nod a farewell to Dandra. “A poor homecoming,” he called back to her, “but it’s good to see you again. Are Virikhad and Medalashana …?”

“Still in Zarash’ak,” Dandra lied.

“Ah.” Nevchaned threw a brief glance at Singe and the others. For a moment, Singe thought he saw suspicion and disappointment in the old man’s eyes, then Nevchaned gave Dandra another nod and said, “ Patan yannah , Tetkashtai.”

“Patan yannah , Nevchaned,” Dandra answered coolly.

And then they were alone on the wet street once more.

Geth’s, shoulders ached from the exertion of paddling. It was a good ache, though. It warmed him from the inside, just as the sweat on his skin cooled him from the outside. Everything was in balance. The quiet dip and splash of his paddle, in rhythm with Orshok and Ekhaas’s, was a soft echo to the sounds of unseen marsh birds and animals stirring in the gathering dusk. Only the steady passing of the reedy banks marked their progress across the smooth surface of the river, cutting against the slow, strong current. Neither shifter, nor orc, nor hobgoblin spoke.

Zarash’ak, where they had acquired the small boat, was three nights travel behind them. The camp of the Fat Tusk tribe was, according to Orshok, still a night ahead. Geth’s mind drifted, at ease.

When they’d first separated from Singe, Dandra, and the others at Tzaryan Keep, he’d had found it difficult to sleep at night. He hadn’t been the only one. The message they carried was urgent. News of Dah’mir’s schemes, of the daelkyr-remembered in Ekhaas’s stories as the Master of Silence-imprisoned beneath the mound of the Bonetree clan, had to reach Orshok’s old master, Batul. The druids of the Gatekeeper sect had to be warned of the ancient evil that was reaching out for new power.

As the wastes of Droaam and then the swamps of the Shadow Marches passed beneath their feet, though, the rhythm of travel had blunted that frantic edge. They could only go so fast and no faster. Both Ekhaas and Orshok knew magic that could speed their journey and they used it, but even magic had limits. They’d fallen into a cycle of traveling hard from the late afternoon until just after dawn-all three of them could see as well at night as at day-then sleeping just enough to refresh themselves before rising and continuing on.

It was a pattern Geth remembered from his own years of wandering after he had fled the massacre at Narath and before he’d found haven in Bull Hollow. One morning as he’d taken the first watch of the day, he’d watched the rising sun chase the moons of Therendor and Dravago over the horizon and had thought back to Bull Hollow. To Adolan. What had begun as a mission of vengeance for the devastation of the village and the death of his friend at the hands of the Bonetree hunters had turned into something much larger. Confronting a dragon. Thwarting a daelkyr. It made Geth feel strangely small by comparison.

He’d wondered what Adolan would have thought of it all. He probably would have been pleased, though Geth wasn’t sure what would have pleased him more: that Geth was fighting the twisted, unnatural enemies of his ancient sect or that Geth had fought a more personal battle and confronted his own past. That Dandra, Singe, and his other allies knew now what had happened at Narath, that the terrible slaughter of a town and his old Blademarks company had been his fault.

Days and nights had passed since that morning, and Geth still didn’t have an answer.

Singe and Dandra still don’t know everything, Adolan, he thought, digging his paddle into the water once more. And Tiger’s blood, I’m fighting a dragon and a daelkyr! Who wouldn’t be scared?