25 Sypheros The healing song took only moments to work through Marrow’s flesh, but they were moments in which Ekhaas could hear commands, screams, and curses from beyond the trees. The instant the deep puncture closed, leaving a hairless patch the size of her thumb among Marrow’s dense fur, Ekhaas rose and crept cautiously up the game trail that led out of the grove. Chetiin and Marrow came after her-or at least she thought they did. Goblin and worg vanished in the shadows. Ekhaas had a sense that they were still close, but she couldn’t see or hear them.
At the edge of the trees, she paused, sword ready, and looked out.
The tall grass of the hillside had been trampled by a fight. The sentry who had been so confused by Dagii’s curt nod lay dead a little way up the slope. Blood from a slashed throat soaked the ground, but his bell-covered wrist remained outstretched.
Lithe forms in red garb and veils flowed over the hill like cats racing across a field. At the edge of the camp, hobgoblins and bugbears formed up into a perimeter two ranks deep. Shields and spear points flashed in the firelight. Ekhaas recognized the voices of Keraal and the two lhurusk who commanded the soldiers shouting orders-contradictory orders, she thought. The surprise of their attack spoiled by Dagii’s strategy of bells, the Valaes Tairn prowled just beyond spear’s reach, looking for an opening.
“The ranks are too thin,” said Chetiin. “They’ll crumble.” His scarred voice seemed to come from right beside her, but she had to look twice to find him and Marrow.
“At least the elves aren’t riding.”
His ears twitched. “Not all of the Valaes Tairn fight from horseback. It doesn’t make them any less deadly.”
Ekhaas scanned the hillside for Dagii and found him hugging the wall of the ruined clanhold. A hobgoblin on his own-the elves would turn on him as soon as they spotted him. He needed a distraction to give him the chance he needed to join his soldiers.
He looked down the hill and saw her. As if he guessed her thoughts, his ears went back and he shook his head. She raised her ears in response and bared her teeth. Then she focused her attention on a point of the hillside below the camp and behind the prowling elves. A breath drew up her song.
The magic passed her lips as a whisper, but burst out behind the elves with the roar of a tiger.
The attackers whirled. Whatever misgivings Dagii might have had about her causing a diversion, he took advantage of the moment’s confusion. He charged, howling a battle cry. His sword slashed one elf across the back of the leg, taking him down, then cut deep into the belly of another who spun to meet him. Realizing they been tricked, more elves turned to him. The ranks of Darguul soldiers strained as warriors took an unthinking step, ready to defend their commander.
“Hold position!” Dagii roared. “Archers, give cover!”
From high up in the ruins of Tii’ator clanhold, arrows spat down on the ground between Dagii and the elves. One took an elf warrior, pinning veil to throat. Another struck a shoulder, but most only forced the elves to check their advance. A few arrows hissed up from the base of the hill-the Valaes Tairn had archers in concealment as well-but they fell short. The ranks of hobgoblins opened like a parting curtain and Dagii plunged through. He disappeared, but his voice rose. “Archers, loose!”
Arrows fell again, this time carefully aimed. The elf who had taken an arrow in his shoulder took a second in his chest. Other elves danced back, some struck, others simply avoiding the deadly rain. They were on all sides of the camp though, and the archers in the ruins were forced to divide their efforts. Ekhaas saw one of the hobgoblins silhouetted for a moment against the starry sky; the heavy bow he carried seemed too thick to bend, yet bend it he did, and another elf died.
“Form up-double fortress!”
The thin lines of the Darguul perimeter dissolved and reformed into two solid rectangles of soldiers parallel to each other with camp and campfires between them. Ekhaas caught another glimpse of Dagii. He’d claimed a helmet and a shield. Three other hobgoblins clustered around him for a moment: Keraal with his chain and the two lhurusk. Keraal and one of the lhurusk were nodding, but the other one seemed inclined to argue. His hand thrust toward the second formation of soldiers.
Dagii’s fist, still wrapped around the hilt of his sword, punched out and cracked him in the jaw. The struck hobgoblin staggered, then ducked his head and joined the distant column. Dagii sent the other lhurusk with him, then he and Keraal melted into the first formation.
“Archers, hold!”
The arrows stopped. For a moment, the night was still, the Valenar waiting for the Darguuls to move, the Darguuls waiting for the Valenar.
Then a scimitar flashed up, whirling around the head of its wielder as she let out a high, musical war cry-and abruptly the night was filled with war cries. The elves ran at the defenders, not as disciplined dar might, but singly, each elf fighting alone. They darted and cut and dodged, their red garb like dancing flames in the night.
“Hold position!” Dagii commanded. “Hold!”
The wave of elves broke and receded for a moment, and Ekhaas saw that for all its apparent ferocity, that attack had been a show. She couldn’t see the faces of the veiled elves, but their posture was stiff and their weapons trembling. They were disappointed, she guessed. The mock attack had been intended to break the enemy formation and draw them out. The Darguuls had resisted.
An elf voice screamed. The wave crashed forward again.
This time, the scimitars flashed out in earnest. “Forward ranks, attack! Archers, loose!” roared Dagii.
Spears thrust at the elves. A few found flesh, but the elves were clearly used to this tactic and many slid or ducked to come up inside the reach of the first rank-only to encounter spears jabbed forward by the second rank underneath the arms of their comrades. At the same time, the first rank of Darguuls dropped their now useless spears and drew swords. Arrows rained down on those elves who hung back or tried to pull away, making retreat almost as dangerous as staying close.
And yet a band of elves had leaped into the gap between the two rectangles of dar, leaping bedrolls and campfires. They didn’t, however, attack the defenders, and Ekhaas knew immediately what they were up to. They were going for the gaping charred doors of Tii’ator. They would try to take the ruined clanhold and seize the high ground from the hobgoblin archers.
She started to rise, to shout a warning, but Chetiin grabbed her hand and pulled her back down. “Dagii knows!” he rasped-just as the warlord of the Mur Talaan shouted out, “Rear ranks, close!”
The rear ranks of each rectangle spun around and slammed together like the jaws of a vise. The running elves found themselves trapped. Scimitars turned against heavy dar swords as they tried to fight their way clear.
Chetiin drew breath through his teeth. “The elves will call for their archers soon. Marrow, with me.” He turned black eyes on Ekhaas. “Stay hidden! The elves will be looking for a spellcaster now. Hopefully they’ll think you’re fighting among the ranks in the camp.”
He turned and disappeared without another sound into the shadows. Marrow padded along with him, cold vengeance in her eyes. Ekhaas looked after them for an instant, then up at the struggling elves and dar, and made her decision. She wasn’t going to stay out of the fight like a coward.
She rose to her knees, watching the battle and at the same time listening to the darkness. After a long moment, she heard a muffled thump, like a falling body, from the direction Chetiin had gone. At least one of the unseen elf archers was no longer a danger. She crept forward in the long grass, then stood, singing as she moved. Magic danced along her skin. She felt it as a tingling, a kind of scraping as if her flesh were being gently drawn apart; then, like a soap bubble, the feeling burst. The song flicked away from her and took on another form.
Three more Ekhaases rose out of the grass alongside her. Thin echoes of song tied them to her-what she did, they imitated. She strode up the slope of the hill, closer to the battle. Elves who had managed to escape the close fighting and retreat for the moment cried out as they saw her. Or rather, as they saw them.
The warriors acted just as she’d hoped they would, in the heat of battle seeing four figures, lightly-armed scouts perhaps, instead of just one surrounded by magical illusions. Three of the elves broke off and came gliding toward her, eager for an easy kill to dishearten their opponents. Ekhaas smiled and eased sideways a little so the Valaes Tairn were across the hill from her rather than uphill with Darguuls at their back One of the elves brought up a bright throwing knife, hurling it with a snap of his arm.
She threw herself aside, a move that was both too slow and completely unnecessary. The knife flashed in the air and plunged through one of her illusory duplicates. Ekhaas felt as much as she saw her double wink out of existence.
Even if the knife hadn’t struck it, she’d given herself away. Not even the most coordinated troops would dive for cover with the same movement. She spoke a little Elven, more than enough to understand one of the elf warriors as he pieced together what had just happened. “Spellcaster!” he shouted. “She’s a spellcaster!”
No time now to draw them closer to her. Ekhaas cursed, rolled back to her feet-the elves were charging, bounding across the hill-and sang again. Not an illusion this time. Not a diversion. Not a stunning burst of sound. The song that rippled from her lips was dark and deep, a haunting song that played across hearts like footsteps in an empty room or the distant cry of carrion birds. The strides of the elves faltered. Above their veils, their eyes grew wide. One began to tremble, his scimitar falling from his hand.
They turned and fled, gripped in the terror inspired by her song. They weren’t the only ones-two more, caught by the edge of the magic, fled with them. Another two, perhaps sensing a shift in the tide of battle, went too.
Seven of the Valaes Tairn taken out of the fight. Perhaps not dead, but as good as until they stopped running. Her side of the hill was nearly empty of living elves. Only a handful were still on their feet. The fighting had shifted to the other side of the hill, beyond the remains of the Darguul camp, and even that sounded like it was growing less frantic.
The same commanding elf warrior whose whirling scimitar had signaled the Valenar attack seemed to realize the same thing. She thrust away from the hobgoblin she had been fighting, raised her scimitar again, and this time Ekhaas heard distinctly the orders she cried. “Arrows! Feather me these dogs!”
But no arrows fell out of the darkness except those loosed from the ruined clanhold. The elf’s veil had been dragged aside in the fighting and Ekhaas saw her fine-featured face twist in rage. Her scimitar fell as the hobgoblin she’d thrust away came at her again and he went down with his shoulder half cut from his body. Ekhaas ran forward, but the elf was turning away, hand reaching into a pouch to produce a ceramic flask very much like the one the elf in the trees had carried.
With a swift motion, she hurled it into a campfire burning at the back of a knot of hobgoblins.
The fire erupted into a column of gold-white flame that blasted all those nearby, defenders and attackers alike, off their feet. The Darguul defenders took the worst of it though: their backs smoldered and two hobgoblins lay where they fell, unmoving.
The elf commander turned again, a second flask in her hand, and took aim at another fire. “Stop her!” Ekhaas shouted.
A chain hissed out of the battle and wrapped around the elf’s raised forearm. The whipping metal spun up her wrist and hand, hitting the flask-and shattering it. Shards and golden dust rained down over half of the elf’s face. Her eyes opened wide and she shrieked in agony. Red welts streaked her skin wherever the dust touched. She dropped her scimitar and groped at her face, but Keraal still held the end of his chain. With a tremendous heave, he yanked the elf off her feet to squirm on the ground. His free hand grabbed the fallen scimitar and drove it into her back.
Shrieks and squirms ended. Once again silence fell on the night as Valaes Tairn and Darguuls stared.
Then the dar were shouting in victory and the last of the elves were fighting to escape. Hobgoblins moved to pursue the red-garbed forms that darted into the night but Dagii’s stern voice called them back. “Let them go! The battle is ours!”
A cheer rose. A trio of bugbears grabbed Keraal where he stood, panting for breath, over the body of the elf commander, and hoisted him onto their shoulders. Keraal stared around in surprise and his eye fell on Ekhaas. He grabbed one of the bugbears and tried to point at her, but Ekhaas just shook her head and stepped back.
Dismissing her remaining illusory duplicates with a whisper of song, she went to find Dagii.
She found him walking among the victims and the survivors of the attack. He saw her and nodded, but stopped first beside a young warrior crouched over the body of a fallen elf, flipping through the folds and pockets of her clothing. The warrior glanced up, saw who it was, and sprang to his feet, thumping his chest in a salute. Dagii looked him up and down. “Who are you?”
“Faalo of Rhukaan Taash, thevk’rhu.”
“You killed this elf?”
Faalo straightened. “Yes. My first kill in real combat.”
“A good clean blow.” Dagii examined the wounds on the body. “Well done.” He clapped Faalo on the shoulder, a moment of contact between two comrades in victory. Faalo seemed to stand even straighter, his ears high and proud. Dagii released him and came to Ekhaas.
“I saw what you did,” he said.
“Driving off seven elves or giving you a chance to join your soldiers?” she asked him.
“I was thinking of the elves.” His gray eyes narrowed. “The diversion was not so well done. I could have made it back on my own. You put yourself at risk.”
“At more of a risk than facing seven elves?” Amber eyes met gray.
“Chetiin shouldn’t have let you do that either.”
“Chetiin went to deal with the elf archers.” She dropped her eyes and looked him over. His armor had new dents and scratches. The links of mail protecting one side of his torso were broken and his stance favored that side, though no blood seeped through the padding beneath the armor. A thin bloody scratch traced the line of his jaw just beneath his helmet. She stepped around him, examined the stump of the arrow that still stuck out from the back of his shoulder, and snorted. “I’ll give you healing now.”
“There are warriors who need it more than me.”
“You are their leader. They look to you for command. You need to be healthy.” She pushed him over to one of the remaining campfires. “Take off your armor so I can get the arrowhead out.”
His face flushed. “Not in front of the troops!”
“Why? I’m a duur’kala. I’m offering you healing.”
The muscles of Dagii’s jaw tightened and his mouth pressed into a thin line. He reached up-a little awkwardly because of his side and his shoulder-and pulled off his helmet. The shadow-gray hair that had come early to him fell lank and sweaty. Ekhaas helped him remove his mail coat and the padding beneath. Ekhaas started to peel away the light linen shirt he wore beside his orange-red skin but Dagii caught her hand. “Leave it on,” he said with a little embarrassment in his voice.
“It will be ruined.”
“I have others.”
She nodded. Dagii sat down on an abandoned pack and she went around behind him. Slowed by his armor, the arrow hadn’t penetrated deep, but it had dragged bits of padding and linen with it into the wound. Ekhaas tore the hole in the shirt a little wider, then took a firm hold of the broken shaft and pulled. Crusted blood broke and fresh blood seeped out. Dagii grunted softly, but she could feel the tension in the broad muscles beneath her fingers. A leather flask had also been abandoned by the fire. She opened it, sniffed and tasted the contents, then sluiced water over the wound until it was clean. Then she pressed one hand over the hole and sang a healing song.
Dagii drew a short breath as the magic worked on him. Ekhaas could feel a little of the song as well, vibrant and energizing. She shifted the song, sending it deep into his flesh, and reached around him with her other hand to touch the place where an elf scimitar had broken his armor. He flinched slightly at the second touch, then relaxed into it.
Maybe she allowed herself to sing slightly longer than was absolutely necessary.
The clearing of a throat made both her and Dagii jump a little bit. Keraal and the two lhurusk stood a discreet distance away, carefully looking anywhere but directly at them. Ekhaas ended her song and stepped back. Dagii rose and the three waiting hobgoblins came forward as if they had only just seen the two of them standing there. All three were smiling, even the lhurusk that Dagii had struck. “A triumph, Dagii!” he said.
“You fought well, Uukam-and you, Biiri.” He nodded to both lhurusk, then to Keraal. “And you, Keraal. Ta muut.”
Keraal didn’t bend his head. “Ekhaas duur’kala turned the tide,” he said. “Her song started them running. But a triumph?” His ears lowered and he shook his head. “I wouldn’t call it that.”
Biiri and Uukam looked ready to protest but Dagii raised a hand to them. “I agree with Keraal. How many warriors did we lose?”
“About half,” said Biiri. “Twenty or so. It could have been worse.”
“Yes,” said Dagii, “but it could have been better. I count ten dead elves.”
“Five more fled at the end,” said Keraal. “Ekhaas forced seven away.”
“Four archers lie dead in the dark. Plus three who tried to ambush us.” Chetiin came strolling past Ekhaas.
The reaction from Keraal, Uukam, and Biiri was immediate. They grabbed for their weapons and dropped into defensive crouches, their ears back and their teeth bared. “Shaarat’khesh!” snarled Uukam.
“Easy!” Dagii said. “He’s a friend. He’s-”
“I’m Maanin,” said Chetiin smoothly. “I’m with Dagii to redeem the honor of the Silent Clans.” He crossed his arms and waited. Slowly the three warriors lowered their weapons, though Keraal was the last to do so. His ears twitched and he looked to Dagii and Ekhaas, then nodded.
“Maanin,” he said. He looked back to Dagii. “One of the Silent Blades instead of one of the Silent Wolves?”
“Do you want to argue with four more elves dead?” Ekhaas asked him.
Keraal’s eyes narrowed but he bent his neck in the slightest of nods.
“Maanin’s place here is not the issue,” Dagii said. “Ten elves dead here, four and three dead below the hill, twelve fled in fear or defeat.” He put his hands on his hips and looked around at all of them. “Twenty-nine Valaes Tairn sent against forty Darguuls. If not for Ekhaas’s song, I think that more than half our number would be dead right now. Don’t claim a victory here-claim a lesson learned.”
The others had no response.
Dagii nodded. “Uukam, Biiri, give the warriors a short time to celebrate, then order them back to discipline. The camp needs to be restored and sentries set again. It’s possible the elves may try their luck again. Keraal, pick out those who fought worst in the battle-they’re to collect the dead and bury them in the morning.”
Keraal’s ears flicked. “Those who fought worst are already among the dead,” he said with the ghost of a smile.
Dagii returned the smile, then jerked his head dismissing all three. When they had gone, he looked down at Chetiin. “Maanin?”
The goblin seated himself on the pack by the fire. “You don’t want to be seen with Haruuc’s assassin, do you? Trying to defend my innocence to all your warriors would only raise more questions. Better that I be someone else for a while.”
“You could have stayed in hiding,” said Ekhaas. “Keraal knows something isn’t right.”
“Hiding isn’t always an advantage. Tell Keraal the truth later. When there are fewer things to concern him-and you.” Chetiin glanced up at them. “I followed the fleeing elves a short way. I doubt that they’ll return tonight, but the odd thing is that they had no horses.”
Ekhaas narrowed her eyes. “You told me that not all Valaes Tairn fight from horseback.”
“They don’t,” said Dagii, “but all of them use horses for transportation. If they didn’t ride, their camp must be close.” His smile became grim. “We can scout them out.”
“Marrow can track them by scent,” Chetiin said.
Dagii nodded. “Let me find some light armor. Something that won’t give us away.” He looked at Ekhaas. “You’ll come?”
“Try to stop me.”
“You should find some light armor and a less rattling weapon for Keraal and bring him too,” said Chetiin.
Dagii’s ears rose at the suggestion. So did Ekhaas’s.
“He’s already suspicious of you,” she said.
“Suspicions are like gardens-left untended, they grow wild.” The goblin’s thin lips pressed together for a moment. “But in this case, I like the idea of an extra sword at my side. The Valaes Tairn are cunning.”
“I’ll find Keraal,” said Dagii.
Keraal, outfitted in leather with a sword at his side, reacted to Marrow with surprise at first, then gave her a deep, respectful nod. The worg growled something to Chetiin, who smiled.
“What did she say?” asked Keraal.
“She appreciates your gesture of submission but says that only pups present the back of the neck.”
Keraal’s ears flicked and he addressed himself to Marrow, “I doubt I would survive your tenderness, mother.”
Marrow’s tail waved rapidly, her ears flipped forward, and her mouth opened so that her tongue hung out. She looked, Ekhaas decided, amused.
“Humor, Keraal?” asked Dagii.
The other warrior’s mouth set in a firm line. “It happens sometimes,” he said.
Marrow led them into the night. The campfires faded behind them, obscured by trees and the rolling landscape until only the sharp finger of the ruined clanhold was visible against the sky. Biiri and Uukam had orders to break camp and return to the main army if Dagii didn’t return by mid-morning. They had tried to persuade him not to go, but Dagii had insisted with the same argument he had given Ekhaas: he needed to see the Valaes Tairn forces for himself.
For a while, the trail of the fleeing elves was so easy to see that Ekhaas could have followed it herself. She supposed that the elf warriors she had frightened with her song had made it, driven by their fear without a thought for stealth. Here and there, blood made a smear on the ground or on a leaf, evidence that at least one of the elves had been wounded in the battle. As the obvious trail of broken branches and crushed grass faded, Marrow moved to the fore. She cast about, sniffing, then stopped, whuffed sharply, and growled at two trees.
Chetiin found a long branch on the ground and approached the trees cautiously, tapping ahead with the branch. It caught something. Chetiin peered at the trees though Ekhaas could see nothing. Taking a few steps back, the goblin flung the branch.
There was a snap and a short hiss. The branch jerked and fell apart in three pieces, the leafiest piece somehow remaining suspended and bobbing gently in the air. “Come look,” Chetiin said. “It’s safe now.”
Ekhaas ventured forward. Three thin dark wires curled up close to one of the tree trunks. The leafy branch was caught in the embrace of one. A broken tripwire showed how the trap had been triggered. “They were stretched between the trees,” said Chetiin. “A goblin walking into that trap would have been seriously injured.”
“Will there be more traps?” asked Keraal.
“There might be,” Chetiin admitted. “But I think it’s more likely this was set as a warning, to deter pursuers or at least make them wary and slow them down. We should be fine.”
“Should be?” Keraal said.
Chetiin shrugged.
“Keep alert,” ordered Dagii. “Marrow, show us the way.”
The elves must not have anticipated the presence of a scent-tracker-the worg was able to follow their trail with ease, even when there was absolutely no visible sign of their passage. Once or twice, false trails appeared, seemingly accidental traces indicating that the elves had turned this way or that, but Marrow led them right past. Just as Chetiin had suggested, there were no more traps. Accounting for variations forced by the landscape, it seemed to Ekhaas that they were heading consistently to the east.
The realization brought a chill to her flesh. She leaned close to Dagii. “We’re heading for the Mournland.”
“I know.” His voice was taut. “They must make their camp close to the border. No one would be likely to wander this close.”
The guess was proved wrong as they came around the shoulder of a hill. Across a broad, very shallow valley the dead-gray mists of the Mournland’s border rose into the sky. Ekhaas had been close to the mists before, close enough to hear the screams and roars of the unseen monsters that made the cursed land beyond their home. Tonight, in this place, the mists were quiet, hanging like a drifting, billowing curtain. The valley, marked by the small, dry riverbed, lay empty but for a few withered trees under the moonlight. There was no elf camp.
They all stopped and stared. Ekhaas looked away to the north and the south. “Maybe they turned aside here,” she said.
Marrow’s hackles rose and she growled. “They didn’t,” Chetiin translated.
“Who would want to make camp in the Mournland?” asked Keraal with a grimace.
“Someone who wanted to hide from prying eyes or magics,” said Dagii. “Someone desperate or frightened enough might flee there to throw off pursuit.”
“Do you think the Valaes Tairn were that frightened of us?”
“No,” Dagii said. “All the more reason to believe they’ve camped there.” He slipped off down the gentle slope into the valley, moving from stunted tree to stunted tree.
“He is mad, isn’t he?” muttered Chetiin, but he moved down after the young warlord.
One by one, they followed Dagii in to the valley. Only Marrow didn’t stick to the dubious cover of the trees, instead flowing like a sleek black shadow along the faint rise and fall of the valley floor. Nose to the ground, she trotted all the way to the very edge of the mists before returning to join them in the shadow of the crumbling riverbed. She snarled and whimpered, and Chetiin said, “That’s the way they went, but the mists smell”-he paused, searching for the right word to translate the worg’s language-“wrong. Unnatural.”
Ekhaas searched her memory for anything she’d heard of the Mournland. “They say that laws of life and death are suspended there-that wounds don’t heal and dead flesh doesn’t decay. Water, plants, and animal life are tainted.”
“It’s true,” said Chetiin, his scarred voice unexpectedly soft. “I’ve been there. Don’t count on your healing songs, Ekhaas. Don’t count on anything-nothing is as it seems. We’ll need to be careful. If the Valenar raiders have made camp inside the border, they’ll be extra vigilant because of the Mournland’s dangers.” His face tightened. “The mists may be a problem. They’re disorienting.”
“Won’t Marrow be able to track through them?” asked Dagii.
Chetiin gave him a curt nod, “Yes, but they confuse more than just your sense of direction. If you feel anything… odd, if you feel like you just want to lie down and sleep, fight it.”
“We’re going in and out,” Dagii said. “We won’t stay long and we won’t fight unless we have to. We see what we need to of the Valenar camp and then we leave.” He looked around at each of them, then nodded to Marrow. The worg loped up the bank, Dagii close behind.
There was no need for a warning to stay together. Ekhaas knew that they all understood it implicitly. The wall of mist drew closer and closer as they climbed the valley’s far slope-then all at once, they were inside it, as if the Mournland had reached out to claim them.
Moons and stars were completely cut off. By rights, she shouldn’t have been able to see any better than a human in the dark, but somehow she could. A dim radiance seemed to permeate the mists, as if they caught the moonlight, rendered it thick and opaque, and smeared it through the air. She could see no more than two paces in front of her. Chetiin was a shadow and Dagii, walking beyond him, a ghost. Ekhaas felt no shame in reaching ahead to put one hand on Chetiin’s shoulder and reaching back so that Keraal could grasp the other.
The mists were slightly cool, but not cold. If she stopped moving and the heat of her body warmed the air around her, she probably wouldn’t feel anything at all. Sounds were at once magnified and muffled as if she held a great glass vessel around her head. Her footfalls on the ground-which was dry in spite of the mists-were as quiet as if she walked on green grass, yet her breathing was loud in her ears. She swallowed and heard it like a big stone dropped from a height into a still pond.
It was impossible to tell if they were moving. The mists were constant, the rise of the land-or maybe its fall-so gradual that it could have been level. She understood what Chetiin had meant when he said the mists could be disorienting. It would be easy to wander in circles. Easy too to simply stop and stand still…
“Ekhaas.” Keraal’s voice. A push from behind her. Startled, she stumbled. Her hand left Chetiin’s shoulder. Instantly, the goblin’s small hand seized hers in a hard, rough grip.
“Keep walking,” he said.
“I thought I was walking.”
“It’s the mists.” He sounded tired.
There was a muffled sob from ahead. “Dagii?” Ekhaas called.
“It’s nothing.” His voice was thick.
“Nothing?” Keraal now. Ekhaas looked over her shoulder. His face was drawn and wracked with guilt. “My clan is dead. I led them to their destruction. You know my grief, Dagii. Tell me yours.”
“No, I can’t. I… can’t.” Dagii struggled. “I-”
“Fight it,” Chetiin murmured like a distant echo. “You must fight it.”
Ekhaas ground her teeth together and dragged up a song from inside her. There was magic in it, but not the focused magic of a spell. Rather it was a simple magic, just as it was a simple song, the kind of tune heard in every dar drinking hall-or the drinking halls of any other race for that matter. Into it she poured all of the bawdy joy that she could, singing it as loud as she dared.
“Ahhh, when I was a baby, my mother gave me suck.
She changed my clothes and wiped my nose and tied my hair for luck.
But now that I’m a warrior, I hold other things more dear.
I love my sword, I love my song, but most I love my beer!”
She heard Keraal snort in amusement. She squeezed his hand and Chetiin’s. “Sing!” she said, and launched into the chorus.
“Beer! I love my beer! Beer I love! I love my beer! Be-eer-eer-beer!”
Slowly and dirge-like at first, the men joined in, but their song gained strength until even Dagii sang “Be-eer-eer-beer” with an offkey lustiness. By the time she launched into the second verse, their joined hands were swinging back and forth in time to the song.
“When I was a child, my father gave me sticks.
He told me they were spears and blades and taught me many tricks.
But now that I’m a warrior, I keep my weapons near.
I have my sword, I have my shield, I also have my beer!
Beer! I have my beer-”
In no story that Ekhaas had ever told or even heard had the heroes crept up on their enemy while simultaneously singing a drinking song. In fact, she was fairly confident that no duur’kala had ever heard of such a thing. There was no dignity to it. There was precious little stealth. If there had been elves lurking in the mist-though she couldn’t imagine that they would linger here-they probably would have dismissed the whole spectacle as an illusion too odd to be believed.
And yet it was ridiculously fun. By the time Marrow came to a halt and huffed at them in warning, they were all laughing softly, the terrors of the mist banished. Up ahead, the mists were thinning and honest moonlight filtering through. Marrow sat down on her haunches and growled at them. Keraal, wiping tears out of his eyes, choked, “Yes, mother! As you say, mother!”
Chetiin chuckled. Marrow actually looked bewildered.
Dagii drew a deep breath, steadying himself. “Move to the side,” he said, gesturing. “If the elves come this way frequently, they may have sentries posted.”
They followed him, each of them struggling to suppress the lingering humor of the song that had seen them through the mists. Ekhaas gulped lungfuls of air, pride warming her belly. Dagii caught her eye and gave her a thin smile that was as rewarding as gold.
As they emerged from the mists, she could feel the wrongness of the Mournland that Marrow, through Chetiin, had tried to describe. The air felt too thin, the moonlight too harsh. The stars didn’t twinkle but instead seemed hard as ice. There was a smell in the air that reminded her of a lightning strike or certain powders burned in an alchemist’s furnace. Even the land had changed-somehow they stood just below the rocky brow of a steep slope, though she was certain that they hadn’t climbed anything more than a gentle grade. Looking back along the brow, she could see a gap, probably the start of a way down the other side and likely the way that the elves had gone.
The boulders lining the brow of the slope made climbing easy, but Chetiin still reached the top before any of them. Staying low to avoid presenting a betraying silhouette, he stuck his head up over the edge, froze for an instant, then ducked back down, his eyes very wide. With one hand, he waved them all forward. With the other, he gestured for absolute silence.
Dagii reached the edge next. Ekhaas watched his ears stand before falling back flat against his head. Then she was at the edge, too, and peering between two boulders down into another wide valley -at a camp that stretched from one side of the valley to the other. Tents made a small town. Horses picketed together at the center of the camp made a herd that could have raised a noise like thunder if they’d been running. Next to the picketed horses stood a pavilion flying a long swallow-tailed banner with a pattern of stars. There was activity at the pavilion. The survivors of the attack on Tii’ator were likely reporting their defeat. Ekhaas tried to guess at how many elves moved beneath the harsh moonlight and how many more might be asleep in those tents. Far more than the four or five warbands Tariic had anticipated in his rousing speech in Khaar Mbar’ost.
Dagii touched Ekhaas’s hand and motioned for her to go back. All of them slipped carefully to the ground and joined Marrow back at the edge of the mists.
“Maabet!” cursed Keraal. “That’s a full Valaes Tairn warclan. They’re hiding an entire warclan in the Mournland! How did they get them all through the mist?”
“I don’t know,” Dagii said tightly, “but they must have some trick. How many do you think there are?”
“Three hundred,” said Keraal at the same moment as Ekhaas and Chetiin said, “Four hundred.”
Dagii nodded. “We’ll assume the worst. Four hundred Valaes Tairn warriors. Based on our experience tonight, enough to crush our troops without lathering their horses.”
“What do we do?” asked Ekhaas.
“We laugh our way back through the mists,” Dagii told her in tones that brooked no laughter whatsoever. “We return to Tii’ator, dispatch all of our messenger falcons in the hope that at least one makes it to Khaar Mbar’ost, then we run back to the main army, make a stand outside Zarrthec, and hope we can slow them down.”
Keraal grunted agreement. Chetiin nodded. Ekhaas looked at all three of them. “Slow them down? If they get through us, they won’t have far to go to reach Zarrthec.”
Dagii bared his teeth. “They’re not interested in Zarrthec, Ekhaas. They didn’t bring that many warriors to attack a village, and if they wanted to harry the countryside they would be doing it already instead of hiding here. A force of that strength is meant for a big target. They’re planning an attack on Rhukaan Draal.”