Don Bassingthwaite - The Killing Song

“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 passing 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 passage 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 passage 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 grass that covered the mound had bent in waves before the wind.

Only the grass 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 grass 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 clustered 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 passed through and cut down every stalk of long grass. Now they knew where that grass had gone: beside each orc warrior lay a stack of cut grass. It would take only moments for the warriors to pull the grass over themselves and vanish into the landscape.

“They prepare for an ambush,” said Breff, studying the horde as well. He looked up at Geth suspiciously. “But they face outward, as if they defend the ancestor mound. Who do they expect to come to the ancestor mound?”

Geth clenched his teeth. Over the last two days of travel, he’d managed to avoid the hunter’s questions about what they’d find at the mound. A few hints had convinced him that the orcs were going to root out the dolgrims, but the strategic positioning of the horde made that an obvious lie. Geth let out his breath and told Breff the truth. “Dah’mir,” he said. “Medala believes he will come to the mound tonight when the blue moon rises full at dusk. She says she wants to take her revenge on him.”

The huntmaster’s face tensed, but to Geth’s surprise he looked eager rather than frightened. “If we could, we would show Dah’mir our anger as well.” He paused as if in thought, then asked, “If she intends to take revenge on Dah’mir, why try to stop her?”

“For the orcs,” said Geth. “She’s tricked them into coming here. She used her powers to make sure they’d be here tonight. I think she’s after more than just revenge.”

It wasn’t difficult to figure out where Medala was. There was only one tent set up before the mound, the same symbol-painted tent the kalashtar had occupied among the horde on the Sharvat Vvaraak. A full third of the horde was clustered together before the dark tunnel that pierced the side of the mound and the tent was set up in the middle of it like a commander’s quarters.

“She’s not even trying to conceal her control any more,” Ekhaas said. “Those are the senior Gatekeepers sleeping around her tent!”

She was right. Geth could see Batul among the sleepers outside Medala’s tent. His heart rose and he drew a sharp breath. The amulet of Vvaraak that hung around his neck-the amulet that should have hung around Batul’s neck-felt suddenly light. “When the time is right,” the old druid had said, “you will bring it back and wake me from sleep.”