Catt nodded, understanding, and kicked the braids into a small doeskin pouch. Returning Paxina’s smile, she turned and walked to the top of the stairs. Giffel took her hand, and together they descended into the tunnels.
Paxina listened to them go until the sound of their footsteps faded away. Then she turned to the others, her war-painted face hard with determination, and nodded.
“Let’s get ready,” she said.
On the second day of the new year, and Kendermore’s last, Kurthak stood just within the tree line, watching the sun rise. He shifted his gaze to the city across the meadow. Apart from a few sentries atop her walls, the town slumbered complacently. The Black-Gazer’s mouth curled into a malicious smile.
“Send out messengers,” he said. “Wake the horde.”
Tragor looked up. He was sitting on a tree stump behind Kurthak, scraping a whetstone alone the blade of his massive sword. He dropped the stone immediately, rising from his seat. “Is it time?”
“Not yet,” the Black-Gazer answered. “But I want everyone ready when Malystryx gives the order. Move.”
Grunting, Tragor headed off into the woods. A few minutes later he was back at Kurthak’s side, and a dozen ogres ran around the edges of the meadow, spreading the word to prepare for the attack. Kurthak watched in satisfaction as his army came to life.
They gathered at the edge of the barren, parched waste that had once been the meadow surrounding Kendermore, buckling on armor of leather and bronze and slamming crude iron helmets onto their heads. Their massive fists clenched the hafts of axes and clubs, spear shafts and sword hilts. Others gathered armfuls of javelins and handed them to their fellows. They gnawed cold, gristly meat from the bones of last night’s meal and took deep swigs from skins of skunky ale. Here and there they raised their voices in droning war chants, accompanied by the rumble of massive drums. Standard-bearers appeared at the tree line, raising the emblems of their war bands-crude leather flags, poles hung with bones and animal skulls, and stakes mounted with the severed, withered heads of kender, around which buzzed clouds of black, stinging, flies. A great cheer went up as these gruesome trophies appeared, and the standard-bearers shook them wildly, the sallow, foul-smelling heads knocking against one another as they swung by their topknots.
As the sun cleared the eastern horizon, a low, angry rumble began to build among the ogres, swiftly growing into a chorus of furious roars and vicious snarls. A forest of weapons and horny fists raised in the air, pumping up and down in time with the clamor. Those from the more savage war bands slashed their flesh with stone knives, smearing themselves with their own blood as they whipped themselves into a frenzy of battlelust. In many places, Kurthak’s officers had to physically restrain the shrieking, frothing ogres to keep them from charging onto the field. Ogres from rival tribes growled and spat on one another. The horde-nearly ten thousand ogres in all, completely encircling the clearing and the city within-grew more and more rabid as Kurthak watched. If the signal to attack didn’t come soon, he knew, the crazed brutes would turn on one another in their rage. Despite this, however, he did nothing-only waited as his horde seethed around him. Anticipation scorched the air.
Time passed. The shadows of the city walls grew steadily shorter. Then, an hour after dawn, Kurthak felt a dark stirring inside his mind. Recognizing the feeling, he fought back the instinct to resist. His eyes lost focus as the stirring became a presence, and the presence became a voice.
Black-Gazer, it said.
“Malystryx,” he whispered. Tragor looked at him sharply. “Your egg?”
Is safe. Are your people ready?
“Yes.”
Good. It is time.
The voice faded, but the presence remained. Kurthak looked at Tragor and nodded. “Sound the attack,” he said.
With a sanguine leer, the Black-Gazer’s champion pulled a long, curving horn from his belt. He raised it to his lips and blew a single, blaring note.
Chapter 24
Catt and Giffel were a league west of the city, walking through the tunnels at the end of a line of kender that stretched ahead for dozens of miles, when the call of the ogres’ war horns echoed faintly down the passage behind them. Hearing the noise, many of the kender stopped and looked back. Catt was one of them.
“That’s it,” she whispered. “It’s started.”
Giffel squeezed her hand. “You can’t go back,” he said, and nodded down the kender-filled tunnel. “We have to get them out of here.”
She looked at him, hurt, then breathed a small, helpless sigh. Swallowing tears, she turned back to the kender who had halted in their march. They were all looking at her.
“All right,” she told them. “Let’s keep moving. We’ve got a long way ahead of us.”
Reluctantly, the kender began to move again. Sliding her arm around Giffel’s waist, Catt followed. For a few minutes she was silent, but then she drew a breath and began to sing.
The song was an old one, older than Kendermore itself. It was a trailsong, a tune Catt’s people whistled to pass the time during their wanderings. Its melody was cheerful and lively, with a brisk, steady rhythm fit for walking. Every kender alive learned it as a child, and knew it by heart:
Old Danilo Twill had a hundred bags o’
gold,
And a dozen times more
silver than he could ever hold,
But he lost it all at knucklebones, till he didn’t have a crumb,
Still, there’ll always be more where that came from.
There’s always more where that came from,
So strike up
the pipes and bang on the drum,
Now don’t be
cross, lads, and don’t be glum,
‘Cause there’s always more where that came from.
Giffel picked up the melody, singing along with her. Then the kender in front of them joined in, snapping their fingers in time with the second verse:
Before a year was done, good old Dan was rich again,
Shipping mead, wine and
grog out across the salty main,
Then all his ships went down with their holds all
full o’ rum,
Still, there’ll always be more where that came from.
Old Dan built himself a mansion, with twenty-seven floors,
Four-and-sixty windows, and twice as many doors,
But it burned right down to the ground and he moved into the slum,
Still, there’ll always be more where that came from.
Swiftly, the trail song spread forward, through the tunnels. The kender whistled and hummed, clapped their hands and stomped their feet. Some whirred their hoopaks in the air; others took apart chapaks and played them as flutes. Dozens of melodies wove together in complex harmonies-and occasional cacophonies. Every voice embellished on the song in some way, making up new verses about Danilo Twill and his resilience in the face of misfortune. And there were thousands of voices.
So, surrounded with music, the kender left their homes behind, bound once more for the road.
Now some folk, they might say old Dan’s luck is running black,
But no matter what he loses, one day soon he’ll win it back,
‘Cause all you need’s a hoopak and a merry tune to hum,
And there’ll always be more where that came from.