Songreaver (2 page)

Marla saw the question in his eyes and
smiled. "I wouldn't worry about it," she said, "No one's seen the
dragon since the battle."

Garrett could not stop himself from looking
up at the star-strewn sky above. The old fear still fluttered in
his stomach, that he would look up and see the great Chadiri dragon
with Graelle, the last of the dragon riders, astride its back. Then
all would turn to flame and death once more.

Only a few thin clouds stretched like silvery
harp strings across the moon.

His eyes fell to a movement of shadows
between the trees as someone emerged from the forest into the pale
light of the moon.

"Warren," Garrett greeted his friend.

"Hi, Garrett. Hi Marla," the great shaggy
gray ghoul called to them with a wave of his long forearm. His
snout wrinkled at the sight of their clothing, baring his long
canine teeth. "If you were gonna dig all the way to Lapria for
those worms, you could have invited me."

Marla grinned. "They don't come as close to
the surface when the moon is out. We may need your help tomorrow
night, if the sky is still this clear."

"We may not be around for it," Warren
said.

"What do you mean?" Marla asked.

"Moonwings are back from spying on the
redjacks," Warren said, "Somethin' big is happening. Krauss is
talkin' to the others now. Oh, and I think that other vampire
friend of yours got stabbed a little."

"Claude?" Marla gasped.

"Yeah, but he's fine," Warren said with a
shrug, "At least I think he his. Aren't you guys undead or
something?"

Marla disappeared into the forest with a
flutter of dark cloth and a cloud of dust as she left behind most
of the dried mud that had caked her leggings and smock in the wake
of her inhuman burst of speed.

Garrett scowled at Warren.

"What?" Warren said, "He's fine."

"It isn't funny, Warren," Garrett said, "She
really likes him."

"Yeah, she does," Warren said, falling into
step beside Garrett as they walked down the trail toward camp, "She
likes him a lot."

Garrett chewed his lip and said nothing. The
heavy canisters of essence slapped against his thigh as he
walked.

"You're my friend, Gar," Warren said, "and
I'm just sayin'."

"What?" Garrett snapped.

"Why are you so rankled?" Warren asked.

"Why are you being such a knob?" Garrett
said.

"Hey, if I was doing something that was gonna
get me really hurt, I'd hope that you'd say something to stop me,"
Warren said, raising his paws defensively. He looked thoughtful for
a moment. "Unless it was something really amazing, like jumping
over this big chasm with fire at the bottom or something. Then you
should be like,
Yeah, Warren, you can do it! You're the
best!
That would be all right."

"I'm not gonna get hurt," Garrett said.

"Sure," Warren said.

Garrett looked at his friend. "I thought you
were supposed to be out with your dad tonight?"

Warren glanced away. "I... stayed here to
help around the camp a bit."

"Your dad made you stay behind?"

Warren's voice fell. "No."

"You didn't want to go?" Garrett asked.

"I..." Warren hesitated. "I just didn't feel
like going right now... not after the cave thing."

Garrett remained silent for a moment. He knew
Warren well enough to see that something was bothering him. "I
thought you wanted to do all the war stuff?"

"Yeah, I did," Warren whined, "but... I
dunno. I thought it was going to be different."

"What do you mean?" Garrett asked.

Warren stopped walking and turned to face
Garrett. Warren's eyes shone red against the shadow of the forest.
"Garrett," he whispered, "I didn't know it would be like that...
the sounds they made."

"What?" Garrett asked, his voice cracking
just a little when he spoke.

Warren shuddered. "When we brought the tunnel
down on the Chadiri... we couldn't see them, you know... but we
could hear them."

Garrett reseated the leather cord of his
satchel a bit higher on his shoulder, pulling his arms around his
chest against the night's chill.

"Only a few of 'em got squished right away,"
Warren said, "Most of 'em were trapped inside the tunnel, stuck in
the middle between the fire at one end and the rock fall at the
other. They were all yellin' and givin' orders and stuff, what
you'd expect from redjacks... Some of 'em though, some of 'em had
got caught right at the edge where we dropped the roof on 'em. They
were still alive but stuck in the rubble, all broken up and pinned
down.
Dogs, Gar!
They were screamin' and cryin'!"

Warren blinked and stroked one of his long
ears with his paw. "They didn't sound like monsters, Gar. They
weren't redjacks and war priests and
Hammers of God
or
whatever, they were just a bunch o' people, bleedin' and dyin'
'cause of what we did to 'em.
I could hear 'em dyin'
, Gar,
all through the rock and everything, you could hear 'em like they
were right there beside you." Warren's voice had begun to break,
and he rubbed harder at his ears, flattening them against his head
with his hands.

"I'm sorry," Garrett said.

Warren turned his head and sniffed loudly. He
hissed out a long breath and steadied his voice. "Well... I guess
they were soldiers, right? I mean, they meant to come here and kill
us, so we were just doing what we had to do, right?"

"Yeah," Garrett said.

"I guess we should try to be more like Max,
huh?" Warren laughed, "He really loves this stuff."

"Yeah, I think he does," Garrett said.

"Well," Warren sighed, "let's go find out
what's up."

They walked together to the edge of the
wooded tangle that surrounded the deep hollow where the Gloaran
army, or what remained of it, made camp. Garrett followed the ghoul
down the steep path that descended beneath the cover of the
briar-choked canopy.

As they walked down into the thick of the
forest, the ground leveled out, and Garrett was able to make out
the dim, greenish glow of witchfire torches through the trees
ahead. He heard people speaking ahead, amidst the soft whisper of
the wind in the trees. As they drew closer, he recognized the voice
of Master Krauss, the tall, white-haired vampire, leader of the
Moonwings. The vampires and the flying creatures known as gaunts on
which they rode had been away, scouting the enemy's positions for
the past three nights while the army had sat, anxiously awaiting
their report.

"... establishing fortifications all along
the highland escarpment," Krauss was saying, "They appear to be
destroying all but a few of the lifts which they had constructed to
move men and equipment up and down the cliffs along the Gloaran
border... Construction has been shifted to facilitate movement
between the Empire and their newfound allies to the west."

The vampire stood in the center of a small
clearing, dimly lit by a half dozen torches. Several other vampires
remained at the edge of the firelight as their leader addressed the
two commanders of the Gloaran army.

"They're giving up the invasion?" Serepheni
said, her voice incredulous. The priestess of Mauravant stood, as
always, at the side of Max Zara, one hand on his arm. Her fiery red
hair glistened against the dark green silk of her riding jacket, a
bemused smile on her lips as her eyes turned to the man in black
armor beside her. "Max," she asked, "did we just win the war?"

Max Zara, Deathlord and General of the
Gloaran Army, looked unimpressed. His face remained hard, framed by
dark hair, grown unkempt in the course of the long campaign. An old
hatred burned in his eyes. "What of Prex?" He demanded, "Where is
the Inquisitor?"

Master Krauss paused before speaking. Though
Garrett could not see his face beneath the heavy scarf that he
wore, tied just below his eyes, the vampire might have been
smiling. "After relieving Graelle of his command, Inquisitor Prex
has departed to oversee the conversion of Astorra and its people to
the will of Malleatus."

Garrett's mind reeled at the news. Graelle,
the dragon rider who had destroyed Garrett's home, whose dragon had
burned the flesh from Garrett's body, was no longer in command of
the Chadirian army. Garrett stared at Max, watching his
reaction.

For the briefest of moments, a look of sick
horror hung on Max's weary face. Then, a terrible expression of
dawning glee slowly stretched his lips back over his teeth. His
shoulders shook beneath his death's-head pauldrons, his laughter
growing slowly from a silent trembling to a loud burst of
near-maniacal amusement.

Serepheni looked at him with a cautious smile
and concern in her eyes.

Max finally caught his breath again, still
wheezing with laughter as he turned to lift his gauntleted hand
toward Garrett as he stepped out from the trees. "Garrett," Max
said, "It seems as though Prince Cabre is about learn the price of
his treachery."

Garrett's blood ran cold at the mention of
Cabre's name. The cowardly prince had let Garrett take the blame
for Cabre's murder of his own father, and had him beaten and left
him to die at the hands of the Chadiri. If not for Warren and
Marla, Garrett would have been burned alive by the sadistic
Inquisitor Prex, and the only witness to Cabre's crime would now be
dead.

"The Chadiri are going to Braedshal?" Warren
asked, a tremor of fear in his voice.

"Prex and his retinue broke camp early last
morning," Krauss said, dismissing the ghoul with a glance before
turning again to face Max Zara, "All we could learn of their
destination was that it lay somewhere within the Astorran region.
Braedshal is the most likely place that the Inquisitor will
establish his headquarters. Some kind of warding spell protects the
Inquisitor, keeping us from approaching undetected. One of my
riders was injured in an attempt to get closer."

Claude, the youngest of the Moonwing vampires
rose to his feet from where he sat in the shadows at the far edge
of the clearing. He wore his long black hair pulled up into a
topknot, and his neck scarf hung open to reveal the expression of
suppressed pain on his pale, angular face. A rough bandage was
bound tightly across the gray leather of his left trouser leg, but
the wound only added a bit of stiffness to his movements as he
stood. Marla rose with him, standing at his side, her eyes and lips
tense with worry, as though ready to catch him if he swooned.

"I would tend to your wounds, noble rider, if
you will allow it," Serepheni said, "We are in your debt." The
young priestess regarded the boy with empathy.

"Nothing is required, my lady," Claude
answered, raising one long-fingered hand, "Such an injury will not
trouble me past a day's rest. Thank you."

Serepheni smiled and looked to Max again. "Is
it true then?" she asked, "Have we won?"

"Well," Max mused, "It's not exactly how I
would have wanted to end it, but I suppose there is a certain
poetic justice to it all. The dragon lord gets packed off home to
explain his failures to the bell-ringers, and the little prince of
Astorra gets to find out just what sort of snake he's crawled into
bed with. I think I can let Prex live long enough to make Cabre
watch his father's kingdom burn. Once Prex has turned Astorra's
legacy into a fine pile of ash, I'll show up and collect the debt
he still owes me."

"But Ymowyn is on her way back to Braedshal!"
Warren growled.

Max looked at the ghoul, a bit flustered to
have his reverie broken by Warren's forwardness. He frowned.
"Warren," he said, "Lady Ymowyn has survived, undetected, in the
underground of the largest city of Astorra since she was a little
girl. She knows better than to stick her nose up when the Chadiri
arrive."

"But she's not hiding from a bunch of stupid
knights now," Warren said, "Vampire guy says the inquisitor has
some sort of weird magic that shows where his enemies are. That's
probably why they send him to inquisite people! She doesn't know
what's coming. If they find a ghoul... a
Kiri... a whatever she
calls herself,
like her they won't exactly welcome her to the
church picnic. We have to help her!"

Serepheni gave Max a pleading look. He sucked
air through his teeth.

"All right," Max said, "We'll find a way to
warn her. We owe her that much at least. Besides, we can't afford
to lose our only friend in the whole of Astorra. I need to know
what's going on in there."

"What are we going to do?" Warren
demanded.

Max shook his head. "We'll decide that
tomorrow, Warren. Tonight, let's just enjoy our victory and get
some rest. I think its time we went home."

Garrett woke up late the next day to the
sound of boots tramping through the underbrush. He yawned, filling
his lungs with the old, musty smell of the tent he shared with
Warren, but the ghoul's blanket lay empty beside him.

Garrett rubbed his eyes and stretched his arm
out to lift the tent flap. A zombie, wearing the tattered red
tabard of an imperial soldier, trudged past with an armload of tent
poles.

"Not
that
way! Over there!" someone
shouted, and the zombie shifted course slightly and headed off into
the forest.

Garrett grinned at the sound of the voice and
stuck his head out of the tent.

"Cenick!" Garrett cried, lifting his
hand.

The broad-shouldered necromancer with the
tattooed face turned and waved back at him. The big man's faded
purple robe hung loosely from his massive shoulders and sagged
where he had cinched his belt a bit tighter at the waist. "Good
morning, Garrett!" he said, "I take it you've heard the news?"

"Yeah!" Garrett said, tugging a dusty robe on
over his head, "We're going home."

Cenick walked over to Garrett's tent and
knelt at the flap. He looked around, and, satisfied that there were
no other living ears close by, he lowered his voice and spoke.
"I'll be glad to get back and find out what the Templars have been
doing in our absence. They'll have to answer for what they did to
you... and for whatever they've done with my collection."