Songs for the Sacred and the Soulless Read online

  When Tiomot angered Dandil by raiding a newfound Cyanan gold mine, and events had started to unfold exactly how Tuskin predicted, King Dandil was all ears. Adding Zar to the mixing pot had made the plan complete by confirming information that Tuskin had only suspected, and it wasn’t long before he had the king’s complete confidence. After several more meetings, the king stood by and simply waited for the word. After he had met with Zar and Scarlet Quill when Zar had returned to the continent, Tuskin brought that word to Dandil.

  “That’s Mount Halrea,” said Tuskin, noticing both king and prince glancing up to the west at the peak that towered in the distance. “Beyond it is Mount Or. It’ll come into sight in a mile or two.”

  “Or,” the prince sounded, his tone sounding equally mixed between statement and inquiry. “I’ve heard rumors of witches living there.”

  “The Caverns of Or,” said Tuskin, deliberately slow and spooky.

  King Dandil looked to him with lifted brows. “Well, tell us, Lawless Tuskin, are they merely rumors or is it true?”

  Tuskin stared off at Halrea in the distance, seeing the base of the hills that surrounded Mount Or creep around the mountains that were blocking its view as they continued northwest through Lolia. They had passed Wyndor to the west of them, and Red Valley would be ahead in the distance after they came around the mountains. A few more days north would bring them right below Sirith. “Haven’t seen ’em with my eyes,” he answered. “But that don’t mean it isn’t so. But I’ve come across a witch or two here in Lolia, so they could be up in those hills.”

  “And in the mainreach?” the king questioned. “What strange things do you find in the mainreach?”

  “Only thing strange in the mainreach are the people trying to rule it, my king. Then, maybe, once or twice in the summer, you see Leviathan in the sky.”

  “We can see the dragon from Brim as well,” said Hinrik, sounding rather proud of the fact. “We see it often, actually.”

  “Even that far south?” asked Tuskin.

  “Aye,” King Dandil replied. “We’re seeing it more and more, flying over the Burned Coast.”

  Tuskin was intrigued and asked, “Does it not attack you—your people?”

  “It never has,” the king replied. “The creature does not seem to want to be long out of the water. And everything it needs is in the water.”

  “Right you are, my king,” said Tuskin. “And let us hope it stays that way.”

  When the army had reached Dorad, Tuskin advised them to head immediately west for a day or two before continuing north to put as much distance between them and the city of Sirith as they could. Tuskin knew that Tiomot’s most trusted and powerful retainer, Banas the Brute, commanded a force that was stationed in Sirith. If they kept the army as far away from Sirith as they could, they could pass unnoticed with a little luck, but they’d have to go around the mountains and approach Snowstone from the west. Tuskin was certain Banas couldn’t have much more than two hundred men in Sirith—men he employed as the city guard and mercenaries loyal to the noble houses he protected. Still, why fight an unnecessary battle when the real prize was Snowstone Castle? They would possibly have to fight Banas later after they had taken the castle, only if he was fool enough to attempt to reclaim the fortress of Snowstone with so few men. It was more likely he would accept that his king had been defeated and either flee or offer his allegiance to the new ruler.

  “Riders, my king.” The man had ridden up between Dandil and Tuskin and motioned his head to the north. His long hair was as bright and fancily adorned as Prince Hinrik’s, with silver beads sparkling out from his braided red locks.

  Far to the north over the plain two riders blurred in the distance. They were so far and tiny that Tuskin hadn’t noticed them himself, and he felt a bit disappointed at the fact since he prided himself on always being aware of his surroundings and seeing what most men didn’t.

  “Should we pursue them?” the same man asked.

  Dandil shot a quick glance at Tuskin, who had already pulled a seeing glass out from his saddlebag.

  “No. They’re not Snowguards, and chasing them will bring us too close to Sirith.” The riders afar off were modestly clothed in linen and leather. No chainmail, no steel save the swords belted at their waists. One had a bow over his back.

  The Cyanan commander, who now guided his camel between Tuskin and Dandil, stretched an open hand towards Tuskin and dipped his head. Tuskin handed the man the glass, and he recognized him from his many visits to the Palace of Brim. His name was Baram, and he had a reputation for the deadly wielding of his scimitar he had named Sorrow. Tuskin had witnessed the man one time practicing alone in the courtyard, throwing the light, curved blade around with such speed and abandon that he could hardly take his eyes off of him. He had looked to be distraught, angry, or burning with hatred, the way he swung his blade in circles, rapidly spinning, his body twisting and ducking as he whirled around faster than any man ought to be able to turn without becoming dizzy. Tuskin remembered thinking that if anyone stood before the man when he was swinging his blade like that they’d be chopped all to pieces.

  “Could be just hunters,” said Tuskin as the commander looked long and hard through the seeing glass.

  “Or scouts,” Baram returned.

  Tuskin sighed. “Aye, or scouts. It does not matter which. If we chase ’em, they’ll flee to Sirith.”

  “Which will defeat the purpose of pursuing them in the first place,” said the commander, handing the glass back to Tuskin.

  “And if they don’t flee,” Tuskin picked up, “say we send only two of ours, and for some reason they fight and don’t flee—it will still bring us too close to Sirith.”

  Dandil looked pensive but said nothing. It was Prince Hinrik who called, “How many men will we have to fight if news of our march makes it to the city?”

  “Well, if Banas the Brute wants to take his chances with the two hundred or so men he has charge of in Sirith,” said Tuskin.

  “Two hundred men?” the prince called, laughing. “Is that all?”

  “Perhaps a bit more, perhaps a bit less, but, aye, that’s the way of it. But they say Banas the Brute is worth twenty alone.”

  “Perhaps we’ll see about that,” said the prince, words trailing behind the sound of sucking teeth.

  “The easiest fight is no fight,” said Dandil, who had been shaking his head at his son’s responses. “Even if it appears we have the advantage. Nothing is sure in war.”

  “Agreed, my king,” said Tuskin. “For now, we’ll do nothin’, as there’s nothin’ to do. We’ll keep to our course. If word gets back to Sirith and they send a force, we’ll meet it when it comes, and hope the number of men matches my estimations.”

  It was another day west over the plains of Dorad when they halted at the coming of dusk and pitched tents to make camp for the night. The man who commanded the cavalry, Ringo the Hammer, could be heard barking commands, and less than an hour later the tents were up just in time for the night. Dandil was housed in a tent in the center of the camp with his son Hinrik and with two guards posted outside. Both guards were as big as bears, even if they were a bit aged, and Tuskin imagined they were men who had been in Dandil’s service a very long time and were deeply trusted. Tuskin’s tent was not far beside it; he shared it with Baram and three other soldiers he didn’t know well. A fire soon burned between his tent and the royal tent, and even through the dark Tuskin could see the grim faces of the two guards who stood watch in front of the tent which housed the king and prince. And not long later, there were two guards standing outside of his tent as well.

  Tuskin placed an ear to the ground of his tent, mainly out of curiosity, once the night had quieted a bit. One step, two step, one step, two step—one man. And another series of vibrations from another direction: one step, two step, one step, two step—another. He knew the patrols he heard were well within a hundred feet. So, in addition to the two guards in front of his door and the other two guar
ding the king, there were at least two more mobile patrols, and that was just in the immediate vicinity. The Cyanans seemed to be keeping a watchful eye, and only with that thought, and the word of Baram, who claimed that Ringo had a company of scouts and patrols rotating duties to guard far outside the camp, was Tuskin able to relax enough to shut his eyes and sleep.

  That sleep was deep but brief.

  Shouts rang through the morning, stirring Tuskin from his sleep. Another shout, loud and coming from right outside his tent, rang out, and Baram shifted up and grabbed for his sword. The tent’s flap waved back, and a soldier’s head poked in. “An army comes, three leagues off! Rise!”

  Scouts had reported to Ringo the Hammer that a force of nearly two hundred men was marching towards them from the northeast. Tuskin knew it was Banas the Brute.

  Ringo, with cropped, messy red hair and a shaggy beard to match, ordered the infantry up and armed until the men stood in formation a few miles from the encampment and faced northeast. There was a handful of scouts still checking the perimeters for additional threats, and King Dandil and Prince Hinrik, both with shields on their arms and swords in their hands, were mounted in front of the other cavalry with Tuskin and Baram. Only Ringo stood behind them as he commanded the force with a voice like thunder. He called the archers up to the front.

  It was nearly two hours later that the black sky had turned to gray dawn and they could see hazy figures in the distance. Shouts rang from ahead, and through the morning fog a formation of soldiers loomed, peeking from the mist like an army of phantoms.

  2

  Lyla continued north, mounted on Storm, hoping to reach the town of Riianne before dusk. She had heard about the town in Bruuda and learned that it lay just inside Lolia’s border, where traveling north from it just a league would bring one into the mainreach. Her journey had been a simple one but perilous. She had headed north from Elezer, past the capital of Brim, and into Lolia. But the void between Cyana and Lolia had been unforgiving. She had run out of water faster than she imagined, and if it wasn’t for the trusty Cyanan camel she was riding, she may not have made it. The animal had served her well, but since she had become a wanted woman in the south riding that very same mount, she sold it as soon as she escaped the desert.

  The land she traveled now was far removed from her dry and scorching Cyana. It seemed there was some brook or pond every few leagues, and riding Storm into Riianne was as simple a task as breathing.

  The buildings of the town were beautiful, for every structure, whether shop or cottage, looked like an ancient wooden temple, their high arched roofs setting them apart from the buildings Lyla was accustomed to seeing. Everything was built from wood, and she had never seen such unique carpentry anywhere. Though the sun was setting and she was tired from her time on the road, it still took a rather unnaturally long period of time to find the nearest inn due to her dawdling around in admiration of the place.

  When she finally found an inn called Sleepy Willows, she tied Storm to the tying pole and made her way around to the entrance. As her hand reached for the door, she saw an unfortunately familiar sight, a wanted poster nailed to the door, the very thing she had seen in Cyana that prompted her to leave.

  Lyla’s heart fluttered as her eyes examined the parchment, and she laughed at her own reaction after seeing a face that wasn’t hers. As if they would know me here.

  It was the face of a man who she thought to be rather handsome, with locked hair that fell just past his shoulders.

  “Zar,” read Lyla, committing the name to memory. “One-thousand pieces of gold.” She smiled and pushed open the door.

  Lyla could tell the men of the place rarely saw Cyanan girls. Not that she wasn’t attractive, but there were other pretty faces in the room—pretty faces with thin waists and bulges in the right places. No, it was her Cyanan features, brown skin with curly hair as red as fire, that drew their attention. They knew exactly where she was from, and regardless of how elegant and sophisticated Riianne seemed because of its architecture, men would be men and she was exotic to them.

  After ignoring the stares for a while and shooing off a few unwanted approaches, Lyla finally found a candidate who she deemed acceptable to spend the night with. While there were other ways to obtain a free room and wine for the night, none were so simple and pleasurable.

  She left before her company awoke, before anyone awoke, before the sun awoke. She untied Storm from the tying pole and rode off towards the north. She had come from a place that was as far south as anyone knew, and since the trouble she had caused there had amounted to gold on her head, all she wanted to do was get north.

  She had come out of Lolia and entered the mainreach as far as she could tell. The sun was half-risen, the air ahead a hazy mist of morning fog when she heard it. Clamor rang in the distance, the thundering of hooves and echoes of distant shouts. She rode closer until she saw them, men mounted and on foot, rushing about, swinging steel, and trampling the dead under their feet as they marched over the plain. Her way north was blocked by a battle.

  “Should I attempt to do something about this?” Lyla whispered, pulling Storm’s reins until the animal spun in a slow circle as she looked around. “They are blocking our way north.”

  Ahead to the west Lyla could see a mountain pass where a cliff hung over the plain, and she cut sharply to the left, guiding Storm to curve around to it without moving north into the skirmish. She smirked as she made for the pass, scared and excited as war cries rang through the dawn. No one had seemed to notice her, circling around the melee that lay a quarter mile away; but the few arrows that flew over her in the wind were just as frightening, even if they were strays.

  When she made it up the pass to the cliff she had seen from the ground, she looked down onto the battlefield below, wondering if her music would be loud enough for those fighting on the ground to hear.

  “I wonder who they are,” said Lyla, giving Storm a few gentle pats on her crest. “I wonder if I can affect them from here.”

  There was a flag flying that Lyla couldn’t quite make out through the fog of the dawning. The apparel of the men fighting was just as indistinct. Lyla grinned at the thought of what she had attempted the day before—to persuade a person with no music save the rhythm and rhyme of her words. While she indeed planned on using an instrument this time, already slinging her harp from her back, she was quite a ways away and it was a larger group than she had ever performed for.

  Lyla wasn’t sure a song of sleep would work now. It wasn’t relative to what was happening. In her experience, to affect people, there had to be some relativity. Men who were making camp for the night could be put to sleep; naturally, there were already a bit tired and had it somewhere in their mind that they wanted to rest. A man who found her attractive could be convinced that he was in love with her; since it was already in his mind that he wanted her, to make such a man infatuated with a song was entirely possible. But men on the field of battle, blood coursing from a fight, she doubted she could put them to sleep. But there was something else she could try, and she was ready for another experiment.

  She had heard of boys who ran off to war with visions of being heroes until they saw what war really was. She had been told there was nothing glorious about war, real war with men fighting, dying and being torn apart, not the idea of war or the story book wars. She imagined that while being victorious over an enemy was likely one of the best feelings a soldier could experience, the act of fighting was an entirely different matter. Most of all, she imagined that however noble the cause of both parties fighting down below, amid the blood, the broken bones, and the screams, most of the men just wished that it could be over.

  Lyla hopped off Storm, kneeled and positioned herself in front of her harp. She looked up at the mare and smiled.

  “I shall sing them a song of peace.”

  Tuskin’s spear sunk through the man, but the two others on foot slashed at his mount’s legs until the horse reared, hooves flying through the
air. He felt himself slipping and tried to hang on, but before he knew it he was lying with his back against the dirt. He swung his head to the right and a blade dug into the earth, right where it had been.

  Tuskin rolled. A sword’s edge scraped over his studded leather armor, but it hadn’t hit flesh. It hadn’t wounded him. He slid a hand-axe from his belt and was on his feet. He feinted from the path of a blade and chopped into a throat. He pulled the axe’s blade from under the man’s throat even quicker than he had put it there, pulled his other axe from his belt with his left hand and chopped again.

  He left the two men in the dirt.

  About ten paces ahead, Ringo the Hammer was also on foot and hacking three men into the dirt. Prince Hinrik was even farther ahead, too far into the enemy force; he had ridden his camel at full speed and crashed into a line of them. While they had far more men than the enemy, the brash Cyanan prince rushed so deep into their lines that where they were now, it was hardly noticeable that they had the advantage. Concerned for the young man’s safety, Tuskin and Ringo had followed the prince in his reckless charge as closely as possible; but as Tuskin looked to where Hinrik had crashed into a group of enemy soldiers, he could no longer see the man at all.

  “You fool!” Tuskin shouted. “We have more men! Be patient!”

  A circle of enemy soldiers formed ahead, all turned into the center of the gathering, swinging wildly.

  “My prince!” Ringo roared, running forward into the crowd and swinging his giant sword, knocking apart the formation with the impact of his charge. His blade knocked back two at once, and three others on the other side of him toppled over as his broad, steel-plate covered shoulders crashed into them.

  Tuskin jumped into the fray.

  “Get the prince out!” he called. His axes in his hands, he caught a blade and steered it away from his face, chopping with his other axe. He turned and another was there, and another. Two at his left; he dodged right. One there at his right, he ducked and chopped the man’s thigh. The two on his left were in his face, one slashing at him. Tuskin caught the blade with his axes, hooking it like claws, circling out of the way of the other. He chopped down into the man’s shoulder—the one he had circled around. The other whose blade he’d parried swung again. Too slow. Tuskin buried his axe’s head underneath the man’s arm.