Don Bassingthwaite - The Killing Song

A hiss like a steaming kettle, as loud as if the ocean itself were boiling, broke from the peak of the hall’s roof. Dandra twisted around to look up at Dah’mir. His thin, feathered form was shaking and his acid-green eyes flashed as he stared down at her and Natrac. Dandra’s belly tightened with fear at the prospect of the dragon’s rage-then tightened even more as she realized that he was laughing . Dark wings spread, and Dah’mir sprang from the roof to arc high over the courtyard. A new cry from the Adarans broke through her fear.

She spun around to see the loading ramp of Mayret’s Envy slam closed, and the ship start to rise, gathering speed with every moment. Still laughing, Dah’mir settled onto the rail. His hiss turned into a mocking call that drifted down from above. “Too late! Too late!”

But the cry that truly cut into Dandra’s soul was Ashi’s desperate shout from across the courtyard.

“Dandra! Dandra, Singe is on the ship!”

Groggy voices woke to a confused chorus around Dandra-kalashtar released from Dah’mir’s power as the rising airship bore the dragon away. She heard Nevchaned close at hand, heard Natrac babbling some kind of explanation at him, heard Ashi shouting. The voices just slipped away. Dandra’s eyes were on the airship as the vessel soared up. Her mind was flung out in kesh , groping desperately.

Singe? Singe? Answer me, Singe!

Then something fell over the side of the airship. A body. The light of the elemental ring flashed on blond hair. “Singe!” Dandra screamed.

She wove vayhatana almost without willing it, and a skein of light she saw only inside her mind stretched up into the sky-stretched and stretched, but still didn’t quite reach the falling wizard. Dandra thrust against the ground, pushing herself up as high as she could to meet him, as if an extra pace’s distance could make a difference. It couldn’t. It didn’t. Singe plummeted down.

Then suddenly she wasn’t alone. Other minds reached out to hers. It was less than kesh , but also more. She recognized minds-Hanamelk, Nevchaned, Selkatari, and others-and it seemed as if their psionic strength flowed into her. She glanced down from the sky for an instant.

Hanamelk, looking tired and disheveled, stood with his hand on the statue that stood in the center of the courtyard. The statue’s crystal eyes glowed a thin, haunting blue. A misty tendril of the same color leaped from Hanamelk to Nevchaned-and from Nevchaned to Selkatari at the doors of the Gathering Light, and from Selkatari to a man Dandra didn’t know but who stood with his eyes on her, and from him to another kalashtar, and from her to yet another.

And from all of them, tendrils reached out to her.

Hanamelk’s voice echoed in her mind, words spoken at the speed of thought. We know what you did for us. Use our strength as your own .

Glance, recognition, and words took less than a moment. Dandra lifted herself, looked up again-and this time reached out to Singe with ease. Vayhatana wrapped his body. His fall slowed and stopped. For a moment, he floated in the sky, midway between the towers of Sharn and the Thronehold spectacle still unfolding high above, then Dandra drew him carefully down to the courtyard before the Gathering Light.

As his body came closer, the strength lent to her by the other kalashtar faded, until it was her power alone that supported him. The loss of their strength left her feeling as weak as she had ever felt, but the joy that filled her made up for it. Singe lay stiff within the cocoon of vayhatana , but she could sense his movements. He was alive-but it wasn’t until he drifted down into the light that spilled from the Gathering Light that she realized something was wrong.

The hair that fell into the light was blond, but touched with red. The clothes were none she had ever seen before. And the face-pale with terror-that came into view wasn’t that of a human man, but of a half-elf woman!

Natrac’s eyes opened wide and he choked out, “Benti?”

The carefully spun vayhatana vanished, spilling the woman the last few paces onto the stone of the courtyard. Dandra lifted her face to the sky, desperately seeking the rising spark that was Mayret’s Envy .

But the night was full of sparks as the final spectacle of Thronehold burst into a colorful rain of fire. Across Sharn cheers and applause rose like the wings of a hundred thousand birds.

In Fan Adar, one voice rose in a wail of loss and fury.

Thin lines of smoke rose in the south. Dusk was approaching and the sinking sun’s light rendered the smoke pale, turning the lines into bright scratches against the southern sky. Geth thought that if he strained his eyes, he could even make out the dying fires that gave rise to the nearest lines of smoke and the dark forms that lay scattered around them. He knew that was his imagination. The flat places of the Shadow Marches were deceiving. It was too easy to see what he wanted to see and too tempting to believe it, almost as if some vast impersonal force lurked just beneath the waterlogged ground, ready to trick the unwary traveler.

He twisted and looked to the east. The blue moon of Rhaan was already a handspan above the horizon. Its changing face was still a few slivers short of a perfect circle. Two more nights, he thought. Two more nights and on the following day, Rhaan would rise full, cresting the horizon just as the sun sank.

He ducked his head. The sky vanished, replaced by the thick leaves and branches of the tree he had climbed-the highest point for any distance around. He crawled carefully back to the gnarled trunk, then half-clambered, half-slid out of the canopy and down to the ground. “Less than a night’s travel behind us,” he said.

“Khaavolaar.” Ekhaas’s ears pressed back as she kicked dirt over the remains of their own tiny fire. “They’re still gaining on us. This is madness.”

“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 passed 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?”