The Starless Crown, page 48
Brask frowned at the horns. “The Tytan. They’re summoning us back. Something must be wrong.”
Wryth clenched a fist. “But we can still—”
The commander turned from him, already dismissing him. He called to his brother and waved to the forest. “Ransin! Take two men and follow the trackers and the cats!”
Wryth tried to intervene. “We may need all those men and horses.”
Brask swung toward the ramp. “Not until we know the fate of the Tytan. I’ve given forth enough on this matter, even lending my brother to your Iflelen cause.”
He spoke the name of Wryth’s order like a curse.
“I can spare a horse for you,” Brask conceded, pointing back. “But that is all.”
The commander headed up the ramp, drawing a majority of the hunting party with him. He bellowed orders all around, readying the ship for a fast departure.
Wryth weighed the best course: to accompany Ransin or try to pick up the artifact’s trail from the air. He stared toward Havensfayre and the wall of fire burning along the lake’s edge and made his decision.
He swung around and followed in Brask’s wake.
Ransin and the others did not need his help, but if those thieves should make it to Havensfayre, Wryth intended to be there to meet them. He gripped Skerren’s orb, praying to Ðreyk that he could latch on to their trail again.
Behind him, a savage leonine scream rose from the forest.
The noise firmed his resolve.
Maybe I don’t need the blessing of Lord Ðreyk after all—only the ferocity of a pair of hunting cats.
* * *
RHAIF STIFFENED AS something fierce yowled through the mists behind them, loud enough to be heard above the clatter of the wagon. It was answered by another throat.
He searched back, fearful of what he knew haunted these forests. “Is that a Reach tyger?”
Xan still knelt with the other four Kethra’kai women. She nodded for them to keep their song strong and turned to him. “No. The cry is wrong. And tygers always hunt alone.” She faced ahead. “We must hurry.”
She leaned to the wagon’s drover and spoke rapidly in Kethra. The guide nodded and whistled sharply to those ahead. The scouts on horseback continued forward, but the other Kethra’kai sped off to the east and west on foot, likely trying to lure away the hunters on their trail.
But will it buy us enough time to reach Havensfayre?
The wagon bounded fast through the forest. Shiya’s bronze form rattled in the bed. The singing of the women stuttered and jostled. Rhaif cringed, fearing their masking might break. He stared toward where the warship had descended to the lake, but he could no longer discern its dark shadow.
Is it still there? Or is it already in the air, hunting us?
Another blare of horns rose from ahead, drawing Rhaif’s attention forward. It blasted three times, each sounding closer than the last. Ahead, the mists glowed a fiery orange, a hopeful sign that they were approaching the outskirts of Havensfayre, but also unnerving.
How much of the town is already on fire?
He feared they were racing toward their doom, but a pair of bloodthirsty screams reminded him that death lay as surely behind them. He tried to judge if those cries were separating, maybe being drawn aside by the false trails of the others. He could not tell.
He swallowed, trying to unstick his fear-dry tongue from the roof of his mouth.
Danger lay in every direction.
He stared over at Pratik. Though the man’s brow shone with sweat, he seemed to be ignoring all the threats. Instead, he focused on Shiya, as if trying to discern some last answers from her before he died.
The Chaaen lifted his eyes to Xan. “The Shrouds of Dalalæða…”
The name of those jungled highlands drew the elder’s attention from the fiery mists ahead.
“Dalalæða is a word from the Elder tongue,” Pratik said. “It means deathly stones. Does that portend some connection to the Northern Henge?”
Rhaif could not fathom why the Chaaen pressed such matters, especially now. Only then did he note the man’s shaking shoulders, the way his fists knotted in his silks.
He’s just as terrified as I am and likely trying to focus elsewhere.
Rhaif realized that seeking such a place of refuge in the face of terror and horror must have been ingrained into the man. It was how Pratik must have survived all those years of brutality at Bad’i Chaa, the House of Wisdom. He remembered the map of white scars across the man’s naked skin back at Anvil’s gaol. And then there was the cruel castration that had stripped him of his manhood, in all measures of that meaning. Back at that school, Pratik had likely sought solace in his studies, burying all that pain and terror under a pile of books.
Xan lifted her hand and placed her palm on Pratik’s cheek. She leaned closer and whispered to him. His eyes grew wide, his mouth parting with a silent gasp. Then she dropped her hand and turned away. Pratik looked again at Shiya, only now with a measure of awe. Even his shoulders had stopped shaking.
Before Rhaif could ask what Xan had told him, Llyra appeared out of the mists. She slowed her mare to draw alongside the wagon and shouted, “We’ve reached the outskirts of Havensfayre!”
* * *
IT TOOK ANOTHER quarter league before Llyra’s statement was proven true. Rhaif kept his gaze fixed forward, hardly breathing—both due to the tension and the choking smoke.
All around them, the white mists had been replaced with a black smolder. Fires raged all around. The heat grew to that of a furnace. Huge trees rose to either side. Some burned like torches, swirling with fiery ash. Others remained dark and shadowy.
People had begun to appear throughout the woods, fleeing the town on horseback, atop wagons, and on foot. The group forged through them, slogging onward.
Another burst of horns welcomed them to Havensfayre.
Rhaif stared to the east, searching for the dark shadow of that other warship. But the entire town was shrouded in smoke, making its presence impossible to discern.
Xan leaned forward to the drover, who nodded and whistled to the two scouts. Their path shifted to the west, away from the mooring fields. The scouts shouted ahead, stamping their horses, clearing the way for the wagon as the fleeing townspeople grew thicker.
Homes appeared to either side, built into the boles of giant alders or stacked alongside them. Bridges crisscrossed overhead, several of which burned, carrying the fire deeper into the town. As they rushed under one of those flaming spans, ash and embers rained down. Several stung the flanks of the wagon’s muskmules. They brayed and swished their tails angrily. The drover sang to them, trying to calm them. Still, the mules kicked and fought their traces.
Llyra kept alongside the wagon, seated atop her mare. “Where do we go?”
Rhaif glanced to Xan.
The elder kept to the drover’s shoulder, adding her voice to his. The mules slowly succumbed to the soothing bridle-song. The pair clomped along more steadily, though their cooperation might have had less to do with the singing and more to do with the wagon having cleared the fire’s edge. Ahead, the center of Havensfayre lay under a layer of smoke, but so far, it had been spared the flames.
Still, the air burned the lungs with every breath.
“Where?” Llyra pressed.
The necessity of her inquiry was punctuated by a chorus of rising screams behind them, sharp enough to cut through the roar of the fires. The source of that fresh panic announced itself with savage yowls of bloodlust.
Rhaif glanced back to the flames and smoke. The Kethra’kai must have failed to draw off the cats, or at least not for long enough. The tide of people flowing out of the town around them slowly drew to a fearful stop, miring their progress forward—then slowly that current reversed, fleeing from those screams and hunting cries.
“Faster!” Rhaif hollered.
Their wagon and horses followed the receding tide around them. They sped quickly through the streets. Llyra fought to stay abreast, kicking and whipping people around her. But the press became too much. Her mare suddenly toppled under her, tripping over bodies that had been trampled.
She leaped from the saddle and sprawled headlong toward the wagon bed. Rhaif caught her and drew her around.
She panted in his arms. “I knew you’d end up killing me one day.”
“I can only hope. But let’s still pray that’s not today.”
Llyra rolled free and stared ahead. “Where is she taking us?”
The answer appeared ahead as the scouts expertly rounded their steeds near the base of an ancient alder, so old that most of its bark had been shed, leaving only age-polished wood. Its girth was as wide as one of Anvil’s huge chimney stacks. So far, the tree had remained untouched by any flame, spreading a golden bower above, as if trying to hold back the smoky sky.
The wagon ground to a hard stop between the two scouts.
“Why are we stopping here?” Llyra asked.
It was a fair question.
Pratik craned at the massive tree. There appeared to be no doors in it. Still, the Chaaen seemed to recognize it. “Oldenmast,” he mumbled.
Xan allowed no other inquiries and offered no explanations. “Out! Quickly!” she commanded them, then turned to the tribeswomen and spoke in a blur of Kethra.
Nods answered her. They stopped singing to Shiya and reached to her shoulders, preparing to lift her out. Rhaif went to help, but Shiya rose on her own, weakly, trembling. The tribeswomen helped guide her to the back of the wagon. It seemed the singing of the Kethra’kai must have filled a well inside of Shiya. Maybe like topping off an oil lamp, allowing her to move on her own. Still, from the shaking in her limbs, that strength would not last long.
One of the scouts came around and helped Xan out of the wagon. She then supported herself with her staff. Rhaif saw that her cane’s polished white wood was the same hue as the trunk of giant alder. He also spotted a line of sculpted seashells imbedded along the cane’s length, representing the faces of the moon.
He felt a chill, remembering Shiya’s fixation with the same.
Xan joined the bronze woman as Shiya dropped from the wagon and teetered on one leg. The other limb, bent crooked at the knee, served as no more than a crutch. The women gathered around her, bracing Shiya’s arms and back.
Rhaif clambered out with Pratik and Llyra.
Xan guided Shiya a few steps away, keeping their backs to the massive tree.
“Where do we go?” Llyra asked, searching around.
To the right, another huge alder climbed into the smoke. It rose from a sprawl of timbered structures with tiled roofs. At its base, tall doors stood open under a sign of a gold-leafed tree. Despite the chaos, firelight beckoned within. A scatter of fleeing townspeople ran for those doors, seeking shelter inside.
Even Xan hobbled with Shiya in that direction, accompanied by the four tribeswomen.
Rhaif followed. “I think we’re supposed to—”
All the women stopped in the center of the square. Xan leaned on her cane and lifted her face. She began to sing. The others joined her—even Shiya. She raised her bronze features to the smoky skies, her cheeks shining with a coppery brilliance. Her eyes flashed, and a piping flowed from her throat.
The chorus grew and spread like wings through the air, wafting high and wide. It seemed impossible that so few voices could raise such a volume. The air appeared to shiver around the cluster, pushing the traces of smoke away, as if trying to open space for another.
Their call was answered by a leonine howl.
Into the square, a massive shadow stalked. A huge paw swiped at a fleeing man, sending him cartwheeling through the air in a spray of blood. The cat hissed and loosed a bollock-icing scream. Its lips curled high, slavering with drool, exposing impossibly long fangs. Its yellow eyes glowed from under a steel helm.
Rhaif knew about those alchymical-crafted caps. Each helm was attuned to its master’s unique pitch and voice. They limited another from using bridle-song to ensnare their beasts.
Still, the song in the air seemed to hold the beast at bay for now.
Or maybe it was simply waiting.
A second scyther sidled around the first’s haunches, assuming the same threatening posture, shoulder to shoulder with each other.
Rhaif edged away, backing into the wagon.
Those gathering around Shiya remained standing, still singing, as if oblivious to the threat.
What are they waiting for?
One of the scythers had enough. It bunched its haunches and leaped with a scream of fury. It flew with its forelimbs wide, paws outstretched, extending bloodied claws.
Before it crashed into the women, a dark shadow sped out of the inn’s tall doors. It struck the cat’s flank and sent it rolling to the side. The two tumbled across the packed dirt. When they finally stopped, a muscled beast with striped fur crouched atop the scyther. Its jaws were clamped to the cat’s throat. It ripped back its muzzle, tearing out fur and flesh. Blood flew high as it leaped away.
The cat on the ground writhed and mewled, coughing out gouts of its life.
The attacker ignored those death throes and faced the other cat. Its entire form bristled with challenge.
Llyra gasped, “What’s a vargr doing here?”
Rhaif squinted at the women around Shiya.
Had they somehow summoned this beast to their defense?
The answer to Rhaif’s question arrived. A young woman, flanked by others, stepped from the firelit shadows of the inn. She sang out at the square, her melody joining the others, falling into perfect harmony.
Rhaif struggled to understand who she was.
Pratik seemed to know and mumbled with awe, “Du’a ta.”
47
NYX SANG TO the beasts in the square. As she did, she added her voice to the chorus of women outside, while drawing their strands back into her. She cast herself out along those threads, like a spider dancing across a web. She did so delicately, unsure, still tentative about such a talent.
She recognized Xan by the silvery threads in her voice, Dala by the fire of her youth. The other Kethra’kai added their strength with every note. Somewhere she even sensed the faint chords of a lullaby.
Yet, wound through them all were thin cords of bronze, so ancient that they seemed to glow with tarnish and verdigris. From the corner of her eye, she spotted the source, a woman with painted bronze skin. She appeared to be wounded and fading. Yet, there was also something unnerving about her. With no moment to spare, Nyx shied from such strangeness for now.
Instead, she settled where she felt the most familiar, into the heart of a feral beast, tamed only by the warmth of a shared pack.
Aamon’s challenge flowed across the square. His low growl, commingled with a high-pitched chittering, shivered the hairs on her arms. Still, his was a song in its own right, as beautiful in its savagery as any sweet melody.
Recognizing this, she added her song to his. In a breath, her heart became his, and his lusts were now hers. She stared through his eyes and her own.
She flashed to doing the same with Bashaliia but shoved that sorrow deep.
Not now.
Instead, she reveled in the taste of blood on her tongue, the tremble of muscle. She studied the crouch of black fur, yellow claw, and slashing fang. She heard the hissing song of the cat, sibilant, savage, full of rage at everything and anything—but she also detected the pained misery of the harshly bridled.
She tried to draw that leonine song into her, while sending threads of the same toward it—only to run into a dissonance of steel that fought her.
Through Aamon’s eyes, she saw the helm fastened to the scyther’s head.
Ah …
The cat crouched, preparing to leap.
Kanthe appeared at Nyx’s side. He had his bow raised, an arrow already nocked.
“No,” she warned him.
Frell reached to her from the other side. “We can wait no longer. We must retreat to the cellars.”
Instead, Nyx stepped farther into the square. She was afraid Frell’s touch would make her lose the tempo and rhythm of the entwined song. She knew she would need every note.
Earlier in the day, when she and the others approached the Golden Bough, she had caught the first faint strands of this chorus. The song had sounded distant, far off in the woods, but as she listened, it drew steadily closer. Her group had tried to drag her through the inn and down to its wine cellars, but she balked, afraid to lose those notes. She only allowed the others to draw her as far as the cellar stairs. Posted there, she could flee from any threat, yet still remain attuned to that approaching song.
As that chorus drew abreast of the inn, the song dimmed momentarily—then burst forth with an urgency that could not be ignored. She had been drawn to it as surely as any bridled beast. Still, what drew her wasn’t any command in that song. It was a pleading, a melody of entreaty and hope.
She could not ignore it.
The others had tried to stop her, even Jace, but Aamon snapped them all back, leaving them no choice but to follow.
As she stepped now out into the square, the massive cat tilted its gaze toward her. She met those yellow eyes. Its haunches bunched as a yowl built in its chest.
Before it sprang, she drew the other women’s songs into her—the silver, the fire, the bronze, even the strands of a lullaby—and cast a net at the beast. She did not seek to capture or bridle it. She let her threads drape over the steel helm and probe the dissonance that blocked her.
She had been taught about such alchymies. She knew how the metal of such helms was forged. A bridle-master sang to the cooling steel, infusing his or her unique pattern into it as it hardened.
Knowing this, she closed her eyes and brought forth one last song, the first one she had learned. From her throat, a soft keening rose, straining the cords of her neck. She tasted warm milk as she sent those reverberations out. She remembered when she had last sung this song, fueled by the force of a thousand bats. Back then, when she had unleashed that power, she had been able to discern the vein of every leaf, even the bones of her companions. While she didn’t have that force now, its song remained inside her, etched into her, a part of her.
