“But Karada—”
He laughed. “Are you scared of a scarred old woman? I’m not! She bleeds and dies like anyone. Ungrah has sworn to take her head home to his mountain lair. Anyone here want to wager against the ogre chief?”
No one spoke. Zannian laughed again.
“What did you think your lives would be like?” he went on, walking round the fire. When he found a raider nodding with drink or sleep, he kicked the man awake. “Did you think you would grow old riding the plains, fighting and taking the land’s bounty in your hands? Idiots! Any of us, any day, could stop a lucky spear thrust. So what if we die tomorrow? What does it matter, so long as you’ve lived as a true warrior?”
The chief dragged a burning limb out of the fire and held it up. “Better to see death coming than let it sneak up on you,” he declared.
Their leader’s words began to sink in. The raiders lost their slouch and regained some of their confidence.
Hoten asked quietly, “Have you any regrets about the way things have gone, Zan?”
Zannian’s wild grin fled. He tossed the flaming brand back on the fire. “Only one—the black-haired girl. I would’ve liked to have had her, at least a while.” He shrugged broadly, then said, with another grin, “Will you let the ogres outshine us? Listen to them rant and roar! Can’t the Raiders of Almurk do better than that?”
Two of the captains stood, a little unsteady from minor wounds and raw brew. Arms linked around each other’s shoulders, they began to sing. Their voices were ragged as they wove their way through “The Endless
Plain,” but Zannian circled around the fire and joined them. One by one, raiders still sober enough stood and joined in. In the rest of the camp, sleeping men awoke to the sound and crawled out of their bedrolls to lend their voices. Soon all the remaining raiders were bellowing out the old song—all but one.
Hoten had no voice left. He stared into the fire and nourished his nerve with dreams of his own death. It could not come too soon.
From the walls of Yala-tene, restless Amero heard loud singing rising from the raiders’ camp. It drowned out the inhuman rumble of the ogres and echoed weirdly off the cliffs behind the village.
Alone on a hillock outside her camp, Karada heard it too. She’d gone out alone to prepare herself for battle. Stripped to the skin, she washed in cold spring water. While her hair was still damp, she applied spirit marks to her face, stomach, thighs, and feet. Without realizing it, she hummed along with the song the raiders were singing. The strangeness of it struck her as she finished applying the last of the marks to her feet. “The Endless Plain” was a song her mother, Kinar, used to sing to her children to cheer them on their wanderings. Strange she should hear it now, after so long.
Her damp skin dimpled with gooseflesh. Donning her buckskins, Karada sat down to await the rising sun.
12
Beramun woke slowly. The small tent, normally stifling in the summer, was pleasantly cool. She turned her head and saw the top flap waving in a stiff breeze. Clouds were rushing past in the patch of sky she could see.
She got up, disentangling herself from Mara. The girl had crept in silently late last night, lain down beside Beramun, and gone to sleep. She remained huddled against Beramun’s back all night and did not wake even when Beramun pushed her aside.
Her left shoulder twinged when she stood, and Beramun drew in breath sharply at the sudden discomfort. She must have strained her muscles during the hard ride here, or perhaps she’d slept awkwardly on her arm. She’d hardly been able to move at all, so close to her had Mara slept. With a glare at Mara, Beramun worked her arm in slow circles and walked outside.
The whole camp was stirring. Dawn was breaking, and the nomads were on their feet, grooming horses and gathering their weapons.
As she looked around for Karada, Beramun noticed the nomads weren’t preparing their bows and arrows as they usually did. A chilly, damp gust of wind swirled past her, and she realized why. A storm was coming. Rain made bowstaves soft, strings stretch, and warped arrows, rendering the weapons useless. Karada’s band would have to fight the old way, with spear and sword.
A stronger gust of wind rattled tents and snuffed cooking fires. The peaks south of the waterfall were partially obscured by low, white clouds. In their wake came heavier plumes of gray, gravid with rain. The cold wind made Beramun’s aching shoulder throb. She made a disgusted face. The old folks always complained of pains when the weather changed.
North of the nomads’ camp, the Silvanesti had finished their preparations for battle. Armed and ready, they stood in a neat line behind their lord. The elves had made a banner from a scrap of white doeskin. Tacked to the skin was the starburst crest from Balif’s helmet. Though fighting under Karada’s command, they would go into battle under the standard of their sovereign, Silvanos, Speaker of the Stars.
Beramun saw the elves arrayed and was struck by their calm manner. Behind her the nomads fairly boiled with activity, and she was sure the raider camp was in a similar state. These elves were curious folk.
Pakito’s voice sounded, booming orders. Where the amiable giant was, Karada was sure to be near, so Beramun headed in that direction.
Amero arrived with a small group of villagers to fight beside his sister. Though he looked bone-weary, he walked confidently at the head of his little troop. With him were Lyopi, Hekani, and forty-eight villagers still willing and able to lend their lives to the final battle. They were raggedly dressed and armed with a motley collection of weapons, but one glance at their determined faces told the nomads the villagers were not to be discounted.
Amero led them to the high ground west of Karada’s camp, a stony knoll formed by years of rain washing gravel down the valley. Once the villagers were in place, the Silvanesti marched out, taking up a position on the north side of the same hill. The two groups looked at each other across open ground, awkward and curious at the same time. Still, it was comforting to have the ordered ranks of Silvanesti standing with and not against them.
“I will speak to Balif,” Amero said. “Stay here, Hekani, and keep watch for the raiders.”
He started toward the Silvanesti position, feet crunching in the loose gravel. He heard someone behind him. It was Lyopi. She’d already told him in a tone that brooked no discussion that she would not leave his side this day.
He smiled and took her hand. “Let us greet the elf lord.”
The lightness of Balif’s arms and armor surprised the Arkuden. He’d assumed a noble Silvanesti would fight encased in costly bronze, but all Balif wore was a modest breastplate, helmet, sword, and shield. After greeting him, Amero commented on the elf lord’s light armor.
Balif explained mildly that he’d been on a hunting expedition and hadn’t come prepared for war. He looked past Amero to Lyopi.
“The females of your settlement fight, too? Are most human females warlike?”
“No more nor less than men,” Lyopi replied sharply. “Courage is not determined by sex.”
He bowed his head. “As one who has fought and pursued Karada for twenty years, I know the truth of that.”
The first roll of thunder broke over the valley. It was far away and only barely made itself heard over the intervening mountains, but it was an unsettling portent of things to come.
Balif eyed the darkening sky with a frown as he drew on a pair of leather gauntlets. “I dislike fighting in the rain,” he said. “My lord Silvanos used to bring priests with him when he traveled to insure fine weather by their art. I wouldn’t mind having one or two with us now.”
“Like Vedvedsica?” said Amero.
Recognition flickered across Balif’s face. “You know him, do you?”
“Only by his deeds. My sister met him once.”
“A talented fellow, but unreliable. He no longer serves my house.”