The vibration in the ground was so strong it brought dust drifting down into his hair and eyes. The music made the air itself shake. Both vibration and music built until Geth wanted to curl up into a ball and scream-then, like a wave, they crested and broke. Dirt came pouring past the hole, the roots of the great tree seemed to shake under repeated impacts, and the moonlight flickered like a silver flame as the orcs of the horde flowed over and down the bluff.
This time, their passing seemed to go on for half the night. Falling dirt made a heap across the hole and on top of Geth’s head, but he didn’t move. He watched the shadowy forms that broke the moonlight, half hoping that among them he might spot Orshok or Krepis or Batul. For all that he could see of them, though, the forms might have been goblins instead of orcs.
Eventually the flood began to slow. The flickering passage of forms past the hole eased. The strange music of the horde began to fade-though as it did, he became aware of another music, as quiet as the falling dust. He glanced at Ekhaas. Her ears twitched back, but she fell silent. They all lay still and quiet in the hole long after the last trace of the horde’s chanting vanished from the air and the last hint of vibration from the ground. Finally, Breff crept up to the hole and peered out.
Geth looked at Ekhaas. “Grandfather Rat, what were you doing?” he hissed at her.
“Trying to find the countersong,” she said. “Any tone can be countered by another tone, any magical song by a countersong.”
“Medala’s power isn’t exactly a magical song.”
“It’s still has a kind of music about it,” said Ekhaas stubbornly. “My songs can block Medala’s power where Gatekeeper magic can’t. Maybe they can do more. Would you rather I didn’t try?”
Geth bared his teeth and looked to Breff. The huntmaster was watching them with barely concealed annoyance. “It’s good the orcs are gone. You two would have brought them down on us.” He jerked his head toward the hole. “Come. It’s safe.”
Emerging from their hiding place felt almost like emerging into a new world. So long in the gloom made the moonlight seem brighter to Geth’s eyes. The cool air was thick with the fresh odors of disturbed earth and crushed plants. Geth bounded back up the torn slope of the bluff and looked after the orcs. Under the light of the moons, the broken trail of their passage seemed like the wake of a ship on the ocean.
He slid back down to join the others. “Let’s go,” he told Breff.
The rise on which they lay two days later, looking down on the Bonetree mound, was the same one on which Geth and Batul had lain to plan their rescue of Singe and Dandra from Dah’mir’s grasp. Geth remembered vividly the scene that had spread out before him then. The members of the clan and Dah’mir’s dolgrims had been gathered together before the mound, waiting for the duel between Hruucan and Singe. In the gathering light of evening, the grass that covered the mound had bent in waves before the wind.
Only the grass and the mound were unchanged. The place where the Bonetree had gathered had turned into a battlefield that night, but except for a few scars where nothing grew, the grass had come back to hide even that. The light was lazy and golden, the light of late afternoon.
Where there had been hunters and dolgrims, there were orcs, bundled up into blankets and sleeping through the day.
Geth narrowed his eyes and studied the sleeping horde. They weren’t clustered together. Groups of orcs were spread out before the mound and even behind it. The groups made lines of battle, as if an army had been put into place then sent to sleep. The orcs were ready to wake and fight.
As they’d followed the horde’s trail over the last day, Geth and the others had come across a strange sight. A small plain about half a day’s travel back bore the scars of harvest, as if an army of reapers had passed through and cut down every stalk of long grass. Now they knew where that grass had gone: beside each orc warrior lay a stack of cut grass. It would take only moments for the warriors to pull the grass over themselves and vanish into the landscape.
“They prepare for an ambush,” said Breff, studying the horde as well. He looked up at Geth suspiciously. “But they face outward, as if they defend the ancestor mound. Who do they expect to come to the ancestor mound?”
Geth clenched his teeth. Over the last two days of travel, he’d managed to avoid the hunter’s questions about what they’d find at the mound. A few hints had convinced him that the orcs were going to root out the dolgrims, but the strategic positioning of the horde made that an obvious lie. Geth let out his breath and told Breff the truth. “Dah’mir,” he said. “Medala believes he will come to the mound tonight when the blue moon rises full at dusk. She says she wants to take her revenge on him.”
The huntmaster’s face tensed, but to Geth’s surprise he looked eager rather than frightened. “If we could, we would show Dah’mir our anger as well.” He paused as if in thought, then asked, “If she intends to take revenge on Dah’mir, why try to stop her?”
“For the orcs,” said Geth. “She’s tricked them into coming here. She used her powers to make sure they’d be here tonight. I think she’s after more than just revenge.”
It wasn’t difficult to figure out where Medala was. There was only one tent set up before the mound, the same symbol-painted tent the kalashtar had occupied among the horde on the Sharvat Vvaraak. A full third of the horde was clustered together before the dark tunnel that pierced the side of the mound and the tent was set up in the middle of it like a commander’s quarters.
“She’s not even trying to conceal her control any more,” Ekhaas said. “Those are the senior Gatekeepers sleeping around her tent!”
She was right. Geth could see Batul among the sleepers outside Medala’s tent. His heart rose and he drew a sharp breath. The amulet of Vvaraak that hung around his neck-the amulet that should have hung around Batul’s neck-felt suddenly light. “When the time is right,” the old druid had said, “you will bring it back and wake me from sleep.”
He glanced at the sun. It was settling down toward the western horizon. Dusk would come very soon, and they had to assume that the orcs would rise before then. They didn’t have much time. “Breff, I need you to get us down there.” He pointed out Batul. “I need you to take us to him.”
Breff’s eyes narrowed in thought and he studied the orcs below, but Ekhaas looked at Geth. “You’re thinking of what Batul said,” she murmured. “Are you certain this is the right time?”
“He’s asleep, isn’t he? He said I would bring the amulet back and wake him from sleep.”
“He might not have meant something so literal. He might have meant you’d free him from Medala’s control.” Ekhaas nodded toward the mound. “If we go down there now, it might be too soon. You can’t depend on prophecy and visions, Geth.”
“Medala is.” He met her amber gaze. “If we don’t go now, when are we going to go? When is the right time? If Medala’s right, Dah’mir will appear soon. This might be our only chance to even get close to Batul. Do you have a better idea?”
Her face tightened, but she made no reply.
Geth turned to Breff. “Can you do it?”
“We’ll need to move like ghosts-but yes.” He slithered backward down from the rise. “Come.”
Not all of the orcs were asleep. Each cluster of orcs had one or two sentries standing watch. Fortunately, not all of the sentries were as alert as they should have been. Breff exchanged quiet words with his hunters, then said to Geth and Ekhaas, “We can kill two of them without a sound. That will give us the opening-”
“No,” Geth said harshly. “We kill no orcs.”
Breff’s lips peeled back to bare his teeth. “It is the safest way and the quickest.”
“No.”