Word of Traitors: Legacy of Dhakaan - Book 2 Page 23

  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 l
ess 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 groun
d—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!”