The Unfinished Song - Book 6: Blood (47 page)

“You go too far!” he shouted at Vessia. “I’ll not let you ruin the New Day!”

“I’ll not let you slaughter these mortals!”

She whirled the feathered staff and would have struck him down with it, but murk erupted between them, and the Storm Wraith leaped out of the bubbling cloud to defend Xerpen. He lashed her with lightning. Vessia must have imbued the staff with her power, for it met the bolt and did not snap, though the force of the collision pushed her back. She opposed blow for blow, but, with each step, she gave ground, and the horned Wraith advanced. The Storm Wraith held out both hands and shot out a wreath of lightning. Vessia writhed and shrieked in the electric cage of shimmering shadow.

“Even as an immortal, you cannot win against the undead!” mocked Xerpen. “Surrender now, and I’ll end your agony!”

“Never, Xerpen!” she wept. “You have become a monster!”

Out of the excavation under the Blood House, a dark shape, winged like a bat, but slender and ravishing, shot into the sky, flew over the chasm, and landed directly behind the Wraith. The newcomer’s dark hair whipped behind her like a banner while she drew a scythe in front of her. With one slice, she beheaded the Wraith. The goat head rolled on the ground at her feet, glassy eyed; then both head and body exploded in black dust.

“Your night shadows don’t frighten me, Xerpen,” she sneered. “I
invented
the night.”

Kemla punched Tamio in the shoulder. Normally, it would not have hurt, except for, oh, hey, maybe he had a huge gaping
wound
there.

“Ow!” He jerked away, crossing his arms. “Watch the bruise!”

“Why didn’t you stop her?” demanded Kemla. “How can you let Dindi throw her life away?”

“How could I stop her?” Tamio asked, outraged. “You know how she is! Why didn’t Hadi stop her?”

“I tried,” Hadi said miserably. “She was determined to give up her life for the White Lady.”

“I don’t see why.” Kemla glared at the half dozen Aelfae who stood in the center of the plaza. “The White Lady is a traitor to the Rainbow Labyrinth. She’s not Xerpen’s captive, she’s
helping
him.”

“I don’t think she has any choice,” Tamio said.

“There’s always a choice,” sniffed Kemla. “
I
wouldn’t help the enemy, even if he threatened to kill all of you.”

“Nice to know,” Tamio said dryly.

“Don’t be a fool, Tamio. A man like that would kill you anyway, so why would I help him on his flimsy promise to spare your lives? I should hope you would do the same.”

“She’s right,” said Amdra coolly. “Xerpen is without honor in any sense understood by human or fae. He has his own code, which he reweaves daily to suit his needs.”

“A code that can be unwoven is no code at all,” said Hadi.

Amdra smiled thinly.

Tamio strained to see the Bridge of One Thread. They couldn’t see Dindi’s duel with the Deathsworn very well from their hutch. The bone cage was not quite suspended off the cliff, but it sat at an uncomfortable angle on the edge of the rock, directly over the chasm. All that held it from falling was a single rope, tied to a tall totem post. An Eagle Lord stood guard next to the totem post, holding a spear and a stone hatchet.

“The moon eats the sun,” whispered Amdra. She sounded terrified.

They all looked up to the sky, including Tamio, so he almost missed the signal. He happened to glance across the plaza at the right moment. In the center, Xerpen raised and lowered his staff. It was a signal. The guard at their cage took out his stone hatchet and started hacking at the rope that held up the cage. Fortunately, the rope was thick, consisting of many twined braids, and the stone cut only a handful of strands at a time, but Tamio could see it wouldn’t take long before the rope snapped. If that happened, the entire cage would roll down into the crater.

Into the seething, fetid abyss of the Black Well.

Vessia was apparently arguing with Xerpen, though from the cage, Tamio couldn’t hear the words. Had she remembered her allegiance to Rainbow Labyrinth after all? She shouted something to the other Aelfae, and they darted across the plaza. Each Aelfae confronted one of the Eagle Lords cutting the ropes on the cages. Fights ensued. There were only five Aelfae, but there were fourteen cages, and fourteen Eagle Lords cutting ropes to send them into the abyss.

Unfortunately, Tamio’s cage was one where no Aelfae arrived to challenge the Eagle Lord. He saw the distress of his fellows, and hacked all the faster.

“Listen!” Tamio said to the other captives. “When that rope breaks, we’re all going to roll right into the hole. Unless we all throw our weight together at just the right moment in the other direction. Wait for my signal!”

No one breathed a word. Tamio’s focus narrowed to the finger width of remaining rope. Going… going… gone!

“NOW!” he shouted.

Everyone in the cage threw themselves forward at the same moment that the cage snapped free of its mores. It rocked, yielded to the internal pressure, and rolled back toward the plaza, instead forward into the chasm.

Screams off to the side told Tamio that another cage of slaves had not been so lucky, and all the captives had been thrown into the black smog. When dark mist closed around them, their shouts of alarm turned into screams of agony that made him shudder.

The desperate captives kept tumbling over one another, like piglets caught in a water jug, rolling end over end. The cage came down over the head of the Eagle Lord himself. He gaped upward one moment, and, in the next, the cage crashed down over him. That didn’t kill him, but it did stun him and pin him down long enough for Tamio to grab the hatchet from the man’s hands. The Eagle Lord grabbed Tamio’s foot and tripped him, but then Kemla kicked the man, and Amdra bent and snapped his neck.

Tamio hacked the cage at the places where the bones were sewn together with sinew, the weakest links. The captives burst free of the cage. They were not the only ones. Other Eagle Lords had fallen to Aelfae, who had opened the other cages, and hundreds of freed slaves stood at the edge of the plaza, liberated, terrified, and furious all at once.

But more Eagle Lords remained in the front rows of the crowd who had gathered to watch the final sacrifice of the Paxota. In other words, almost the entire tribe of Orange Canyon. The Eagle Lords shouted at their people.

“The slaves are rebelling! They are enemies of our people! Quash them! Quell them! Destroy and dispel them! Defend the Great One!”

The warriors of Orange Canyon roared. The Tavaedi class was well armed with weapons of all kinds, and the wit and training to put them to deadly use. Behind them, the mob possessed rage, blind devotion, and overwhelming numbers. A few hundred slaves couldn’t win against those odds.

Many of the slaves didn’t even try to make a stand. They scattered, seeking whatever shelter rock, lodge, or slave hut had to offer.

“Stand together and fight, you fools, or they’ll hunt us down one by one!” shouted Amdra.

Tamio couldn’t blame the captives. He was contemplating a run for it himself.

Two men dressed as clowns ran to them. He recognized them from Yellow Bear: Gremo and Svego.

“Gwenika, come, we have an important mission!” Svego told her.

“What is it?”

“Saving our own lives! Come, we’re going to hide before that mob rips us to shreds!”

“Um, I should stay and fight….” Gwenika said, though she was clearly terrified.

Gremo lifted her up over his shoulder, and he and Svego carried her away.

Tamio grabbed Kemla by the arm. “You must go hide, too. Don’t fight.”

“Are you mad?” She wrenched herself free. “I may be a bitch, but I’ll not be a coward!”

“Listen,” he said urgently. “If I survive this war, I swear to you, I will be a new man. I will honor you, and marry you, and be a good father to our baby. If I get a second chance, I’m going to do the right thing, Kemla. But even if I die,
you
must survive.”

“They’re almost here,” she snarled. “If anyone should hide, it’s you, Tamio, you’re still injured and not fit to fight. Go with Gwenika and her clowns. Get out of my way!”

“I forbid you to fight!” he shouted. “You have
my
baby in your belly!”

She stepped past him and tossed her spear into the chest of the first Orange Canyon warrior to reach them. “And you’ll have a
spear
in
your
belly if you don’t watch yourself, you mucking fool!”

She wrenched the spear from the fallen man. Tamio slammed his cudgel into another warrior who attacked her while she struggled with the weapon. The rest of the warriors were upon them.

Kemla was right about one thing. Only a few moments into the battle, Tamio nearly collapsed with pain. Not from any blow of his opponents; he’d prevailed against three or four separate attacks, but he pulled open his stitches and his wound oozed. He forced himself back to his feet. He didn’t know how long he had left to live, or how many of the enemy he’d take with him to Lady Death’s arms before he departed, but he knew one thing: He’d die before he let the bastards put him in another cage.

Snaking switchbacks up the west slope ended in a meadow where the natural tree cover ended. In the summer, it would have been furry with mosses and wildflowers, but in this unseasonably lingering winter, the sward was thin over the frozen ground. The mist parted just as Finnadro and the Green Woods warriors, wolves, and Sylfae rumbled over the field.

The mass of Orange Canyon tribesfolk was facing the other direction. Their best fighters were furthest away, attacking some hapless slaves at far edge of the summit.

The wolves yowled as they ran, and it was this terrifying sound that drew the attention of the crowd. Cries of alarm rippled through it, and the assembly turned into a panicked mob. Those closest to the Green Woods army were Drover Caste, the least equipped to fight. The more levelheaded among their warriors shoved the women and children aside and formed a ragged line, spears raised to meet the onslaught. A wedge of Green Woods attackers roared and plunged into that line, and, all along the seam, spears darted in and out like bobbing awls. Flint blades dug deep into bellies. Ropes of gut, coated with bile, slopped out on the hard ground, which turned slippery with blood and brain.

Finnadro lost himself in the mad song of mayhem. Close combat was no place for a bow, so he kept his strapped on his back with his quiver. He gripped a flint dagger in each hand, and the blades moved as if they were a part of him—stone claws—that he raked over the throats of his enemies with abandon. He shoved one flint up through the nose and on into the skull of one opponent, swung the body around, and smashed the head against the head of another warrior who had sought to attack Finn from behind. He pulled his knife free, and, on the return stroke, sliced the throat of the stunned man.

Overhead, the moon took the first bite out of the sun.

The defense mounted by the Drover Caste had allowed their Tavaedies time to rally. The Raptor Riders lifted into the sky on their giant birds. Riders shot arrows from the sky; the Raptors swooped down on the Green Woods warriors to snatch up men in their talons. Though there were only thirteen of them—Hawk was missing from their ranks—they reversed the tide of the battle.

The Eagle Lords had entered the fray as well. These Tavaedi warriors were not on wing, but they had trained since childhood to hunt and kill, and they swept through their enemies with arrogant ease. Despite the chaos of battle, they maintained their formation, a diamond, which drove into the heart of the fight. Harcho the Bone Breaker headed the pinnacle of the diamond. He whirled a huge spear, barbed at both ends, with a razor back of talons ascending into each tip. This weapon was deadly, whether used to thrust, to slice, or even to sweep, and Harcho slew any who dared step into his reach.

In the face of the counterassault, the Green Woods forces gave ground they had taken in the initial charge. They were at the added disadvantage of fighting uphill.

Finnadro cleared the space around him of challengers, then whistled to a nearby wildling, a wolf, who came to him and touched his snout to Finnadro’s feet.

“Go forward and stop at nothing!” Finn commanded, leaping on the wolf’s back.

The wolf loped through the carnage. Finnadro shouted to his own side, “Let the Sylfae pass! Let the Sylfae pass!”

His own people backed away respectfully, while the enemy panicked and fled. For the Sylfae were coming up the final stretch of the mountain at last, slow but immense. The arrows and talons of the Raptors didn’t faze them; the giant tree fae knocked three birds out of the sky. Finnadro waved at the Sylfae, and they followed him as he rode the wolf.

Harcho the Bone Breaker stepped into Finnadro’s path, but Finn drew the Singing Bow from his back, notched an arrow, and let it fly. Harcho dove out of the way, and the wolfling leaped over him where he fell. Harcho scrambled back to his feet…and ran. Even Harcho fled from the Sylfae as they crashed behind in Finn’s wake.

Finnadro lead them all the way to the chasm between the summits. On the other side, he saw Vio and the Rainbow Labyrinth warriors.