The Unfinished Song - Book 6: Blood (34 page)

Hawk had recovered. He leaped, without a rope, to the next platform over. Even without shifting his shape, he was strong and confident enough to jump so far as to nearly fly. He followed her up to the tallest platform.

Seemingly out of nowhere (but actually out of a strap on her thigh, hidden by her legwal), Dindi pulled a new spear. It was even shorter than the others, but it had a wickedly sharp point of obsidian.

She thrust this at Hawk as he reached the platform.

And missed.

An immense groan of dismay rippled through the crowd. They knew this was Dindi’s last chance.

Hawk knew it, too. He pulled the spear out of her hand, as if taking a toy from a naughty child, reversed it in one smooth motion, and thrust it into her chest.

Brilliant scarlet splattered both fighters. Blood freckled her face. In that moment, as Hawk stared down into Dindi’s shocked eyes, his grin of triumph slipped, and dismay and self-loathing replaced it.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, little clown.”

Dindi fell from the tower, tumbling head over feet, down, down, down, and landed in a heap on her own white cape, turning it to scarlet.

The black bird and rider circled the mountaintop. The humans were gathered around the Plaza of Eagles, where a rickety forest of ladders and platforms had been built.

I’d have thought the ceremony would be over by now
. Vessia spoke to Mrigana silently.

They landed out of sight a way up the mountain, behind a crag of rock. Mrigana shifted back to a woman. They both studied the human crowd and the courtyard of wooden structures.

“I believe they are fighting, two by two,” Mrigana said. “This must be personal combat for the Ram’s Right.”

“Fools. As if they will not have enough real fighting soon enough, they waste their lives on this.”

Mrigana shrugged.

“Humans,” scoffed Vessia. “Can’t live with them, can’t wipe them from Faearth.”

Mrigana allowed herself a faint smile. “That remains to be seen, I suppose.”

The two Aelfae women found Xerpen in his usual spot, seated on a cushioned dais in a feathered bower, watching the proceedings with the other high caste humans. Xerpen met Vessia’s eyes, but in front of the humans, he did not ask her about the negotiations with the Maze Zavaedi.

“Enjoy the spectacle,” he said, with a gesture to the unfolding duel. “We will speak of important matters over the next meal.”

Vessia took the seat on the cushion indicated, but she did not enjoy the spectacle of one human bopping another with a pointy stick. She doubted Xerpen did either, but of course he had to put on a show for the humans if he wished to lead them. She drummed her fingers on the rock beside her, which was there to serve as a table. A slave offered her some beverage and a bowl of salty, dried fish, but she waved him away.

She was bored until the final fight, when Amdra suddenly grew tense. That interested Vessia, who followed Amdra’s gaze to Hawk. He strode into the center of the courtyard.

To Vessia’s surprise, Hawk’s opponent was no burly or cunning Zavaedi. It was the sweet little clown girl, Dindi.

“Xerpen, what is this?” Vessia demanded. “The girl is under my protection.”

“You must learn to trust me, Vessia,” Xerpen said. He reached into a bowl beside him and crunched some salted fish, heads, tails, bones. He licked the salt off his glinting lips.

Vessia glanced at Mrigana. Mri’s eyes were dark and inscrutable.

Am I the only one who feels something here is very wrong?
Vessia wondered. Maybe
she
was the one with something wrong with her. She could not forget the passion in the human warlord, as he swore he would storm the mountain to take her for his own. Surely she could not have been his wife? The other human, the one called Danumoro, had implied she had been the warlord’s captive once before. It was a humiliating idea, yet that, too, did not feel quite right.

The crowd burst into laughter. Even some of the high caste Eagle Lords and Riders clustered near Xerpen’s bower cracked smiles, until Amdra growled at them. They darted nervous glances at Xerpen, saw his frown, and smothered their own smiles.

Everyone (except Xerpen and Amdra) was laughing, or trying hard not to, at the antics of the little clown girl. She tripped, stumbled, and blustered her way from one end of the plaza to the other, now climbing, now falling, now clinging ridiculously to the top of a pole, as if by sheer caprice. It seemed as if at any moment, her luck must run out, and Hawk must skewer her. Yet in some unbelievable fashion, she would stumble into a new and even more awkward position.

Was it luck, magic, or skill? Even Vessia was not sure. Xerpen’s sober expression leaked no clue about his thoughts. Mrigana’s face was equally impassive.

At the top of the highest boma, the fight abruptly slid from comic to tragic. Hawk thrust a spear into the girl, and she fell.

The crowd fell too, into shocked silence.

Vessia leapt to her feet. Fury rocked through her at the senseless death.

Two men broke away from the crowd, screeching in anguish. At first, Vessia thought they might be the girl’s kin, but no, they were dressed as clowns. Vaguely, Vessia remembered seeing Dindi practicing with the other clowns the day before.

One clown, the big fellow, bent over the heaped girl and covered her corpse with large Raptor feathers. The other clown clutched his head in his hands and wailed. Then he pointed accusingly at the crowd.

“You should all be ashamed of yourselves!” he shouted. “For all of you stood and watched and cheered, yes, even cheered this slaughter of innocents, and did nothing! Evil ruled over you, and you did nothing to stop it!”

Several high caste men and women drew in sharp breaths at this near-treason. Indeed, the impact of the clown’s words on the crowd was startling. Men and women who had indeed applauded as one unequal fight had followed another, or at least guarded their silence, now broke into open weeping. Others began to grumble darkly. Vessia recognized a twin to her own anger in those mutinous mutters.

Xerpen stood, his face stormy. Before he could speak, however, a new sound came from the courtyard.

It was sobbing, but silly, melodramatic sobbing. A girl wandered out behind a feather formation and patted the backs of the two male clowns.

“Oh, it’s so sad! So terribly tragic! My eyes are melting like spring snow!”

“That’s nothing!” cried the accusing clown. “My eyes are a RIVER!”

“My eyes are an OCEAN!” she shouted back. “Ah… Why ARE we crying?”

“Why—because of your tragic death, of course!” he replied.

That’s when the crowd caught on. They began to laugh and cheer. It took Vessia a moment longer because she could not believe it.

The little clown girl bowed to the crowd. She pulled the “spear” out of her chest, to reveal that it had been a false wooden tip, filled with lamb’s blood. Her two confederates pulled back her “blood-stained” cloak, to reveal the place where she’d landed was a deep pit entirely filled with raw wool—and one thin intestinal skin filled with more sheep’s blood.

The three clowns bowed to Xerpen.

Vessia, who had been close to attacking him, hugged him instead. Then she slapped his face.

“Trust you, indeed!” she said. “You nearly stopped my heart! Who put you up to this silliness? Pranking is not your style. Was it Hest’s idea? Or Yastara’s? Or was it the human influence?”

Xerpen rubbed his cheek.

“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” he said dryly.

Amdra ran up to him. She looked as though she too might hug him, but instead she knelt at his feet and kissed his robe.

“Thank you,” she said simply. A worry remained on her brow. “You
will
still honor this as Hawk’s win? You’ll return my son?”

“Of course he will,” said Vessia. “It’s obviously a win all around.”

“Obviously,” said Xerpen, after a fraction of hesitation. He smiled at Amdra. “Go tell Hawk, my dear.”

After Amdra darted away, Xerpen withdrew with Vessia on his arm.

“I hope the negotiations with the enemy went as well as my little show,” he said.

Vessia’s brief joy faded. “No. I am afraid not, Xerpen.”

“Then war is inevitable. I feared as much.”

“There is still a way to avoid mass bloodshed. I know you won’t approve, but I mean to seize it.”

“Vessia…”

“The Maze Zavaedi is under the delusion that I am his wife.”

Xerpen stopped walking, his anguish exposed.

“You knew,” she accused.

“He…” Even more than his voice, Xerpen’s pause betrayed injury. “…He captured you once before, Vessia, and held you hostage for many years, with threats and foul magic. I had hoped… hoped to spare you the humiliation of that memory. Those years were not pretty for you. For any of us.”

She drew a shuddering breath. “I feared it must be something like that. And yet, it changes nothing.”

“No. I discern what he asked for, Vessia, and… No! Thrice
NO
.”

“Yes. I must go with him.”

“Never.”

“Xerpen.” She kissed him on the cheek. “I love you. But this is the only way.”

“I can’t allow it,” he warned.

Vessia smiled sadly, knowing he was powerless to stop her. “I want my clown back, too. I’ve grown fond of her. I will bid her farewell along with the others, in the guest lodge.”

Dindi was not certain her gambit had worked until Gwidan and Hest arrived to escort her back to the stone yard in front of the lodge where the Aelfae were guesting. The sun was already close to setting, because days ended more quickly in the shadow of the mountains. The air was brisk but clear.

“You’re a fool,” Gwidan admonished her. “Why did you risk your life on such a prank?”

“It
was
funny, though,” said Hest. He grinned at Dindi. “Who’d have thought Xerpen had it in him to put on such a show.”

“You should have told us,” complained Gwidan. “It was our turn to guard you. Vessia would never have forgiven us if you had actually fallen to your death.”

“I didn’t think Vessia would care,” said Dindi.

“Do you think Aelfae have no feelings?” demanded Gwidan. “It is
your
kind who care nothing for others.”

“Gwidan,” Hest reproached, “Don’t badger the girl.”

Mrigana arrived alone. Her thick, shiny black hair had been freshly plaited with nightshade blossoms, and Dindi wondered where the Aelfae found such flowers in the mountains. Mrigana stood and stared at Dindi for a long time. Dindi felt like tiny spiders crawling over her but didn’t dare move, as if this were some strange test.

Mrigana inclined her head, offering silent acknowledgment. Of what, Dindi was not certain. She sagged in relief when Mrigana finally turned away and wondered why the confrontation had made her so tense.

When at last Vessia arrived at the Guest House, the other Aelfae surrounded her. They asked her about her meeting, the army, the possibility of war.

“Yes, it’s a human army, and they agreed to parley,” she said. “They are led by someone called the Maze Zavaedi, the current War Chief of the Rainbow Labyrinth. He demands only one thing to withdraw his army. Me.”

The other Aelfae, all except Mrigana, burst with objections. Vessia silenced them with one gesture.

“We are not going to waste our people’s chance at renewal by waging war against the Humans!” she said. “Once Xerpen is in a stronger position and more of our people are resurrected, you will negotiate for my release. For now, however, if we can buy time by giving the enemy one hostage, it is what we will do!”

“No, Vessia.”

Xerpen stood at the top of the stone steps that led down to the courtyard. The sunset sky was at his back, like a bloody banner.

“I told you,” he said mildly, “I will not give you up to that man.”

“It’s not your decision, Xerpen. You cannot stop me.”

“You leave me no choice.”

He gestured to the sky.

Thunder fractured the firmament, and lightning fissured the flagstones where Gwidan would have been if he had not leapt out of the way. A black cloud broiled out of a clear sky, and, from the depths, a blacker shape tore down at them. The monster had bat wings, a ram’s head with huge curving horns, and cloven hooves. It trailed flags of seethe and smolder. The Storm Wraith landed a mere stride apart from Gwidan with such force it cracked the courtyard. It opened its mouth, impossibly wide, and howled out a tempest. Sleet and hail fell from the sky in torrents, as if emptied from a giant bucket.

Gwidan did not hesitate; he smote off the head of the monster at once.

The ram’s head dissolved into black rain as it fell, even as a new ram’s head bubbled out of the bloodless neck of the Storm Wraith. It was undead, like the others, like the Mud Monster and the Bog Mummy.

“Don’t touch it!” Dindi cried over the roaring wind and yowling wraith. “It has Death magic!”