The battle paused, all eyes looking up at her in amazement, elven bright and dar dark. In the elves she could see a sudden tension, an instinctive mistrust of this martial music. In the dar, though, she saw exactly what she had expected. Wonder. Longing. Awe. Rage.
She sought out Dagii. The brass half-mask of his helm was raised to her-then he thrust his sword in the air. “Attack!” he roared. “Attack!”
The battle crashed back into motion. Dagii urged his tiger at Seach Torainar, but a ripple in the currents of fighting forced the two leaders apart. Quick-thinking elves launched a volley of arrows up at Ekhaas but the angle of the hill and a fold of the earthworks offered her protection. Or perhaps the song itself deflected the arrows. Ekhaas’s voice soared.
In her mind’s eye, she saw the glories of Dhakaan portrayed in the stories and artifacts that had come down through the ages to the Kech Volaar.
Carved cities and mighty fortresses.
Vast armies sweeping enemies before them-gnolls, elves, the dread daelkyr and their foul minions. Works of staggering majesty.
The magical songs of duur’kala and the wondrous creations of daashor.
The deeds of emperors and generals and warriors-heroes of the dar.
She channeled what she saw into what she sang, and her song was the song of the Empire of Dhakaan.
The beat of Uukam’s drum became the beat played by all the drums that had survived on the battlefield. The rhythm anchored Ekhaas to the fighting soldiers of Darguun. It carried her vision into living hearts, bringing a renewed energy to the goblin who rode his leopard against a Valenar horse, to the bugbear who laid about him with a steel mace that reaped lives as a scythe reaped grain, to the hobgoblin warcaster who beat his broken staff against the bleeding head of a staggering elf wizard. Ekhaas watched the reserve regiment at the base of the hill gather itself and throw back the Valaes Tairn. She watched the fragments of Darguul companies flow together, form themselves into wedges and force their way through their enemies to reach each other. She watched the Iron Fox Company, under Dagii’s command, take a position at the heart of the swirling battle.
And Valaes Tairn died-but so did Darguuls. Slowly, in spite of the valor of the dar, the battle turned back to the favor of the elves. A newly reformed company collapsed. A rush of elven cavalry drove the reserve company back to the base of the hill and shattered their lines. Beneath the swallow-tailed banner of stars, Seach Torainar whirled his double scimitar around his head and gathered elves for a rush on the Iron Fox. Dagii shouted and roared, urging his warriors into stronger lines to meet the attack.
“Maabet!” Biiri cried from behind her. “They’re through. They’re coming-the elves are climbing!”
The beat of Uukam’s drum faltered, then faded, and Ekhaas knew he had gone to aid in whatever defense Biiri could muster.
She sang alone. Her throat was raw. Her jaw and chest ached. She knew that the veins and muscles of her neck must be standing out, straining like the rigging on a ship in a storm. She looked down on the defeat of Dagii’s army and almost-almost-the sorrow of a dirge, of the fall of Dhakaan and the beginning of the hard Desperate Times, crept into her song.
No. She wouldn’t let Darguuls die with the sounds of mourning in their ears. She wouldn’t sing defeat before the Valaes Tairn.
Ekhaas reached deep into herself, flung her arms wide, and sang defiance. Her song soared again as she built on the old music, weaving a new vision into it. A vision of a homeland for an ancient people, restored to pride after long millennia. A vision of a red tower above a sprawling, bustling city; of clan chiefs and warlords gathered in unity to take back the land that belonged to the dar; of a new age for hobgoblins, goblins, and bugbears. Haruuc’s vision.
She threw back her head and howled Darguun’s pride to the sky.
Another howl answered her.
And another.
And another.
And the elves of the Sulliel warclan were shouting in alarm and fear. Ekhaas’s gaze snapped back to the battlefield.
From the hills and woods on the northern side of the plain poured a river of black and gray and white. Small, lithe forms hunched over powerful shoulders that bunched and surged beneath thick fur. Goblins and wolves, the larger shapes of worgs among them as well. Taarka’khesh. The Silent Wolves, silent no longer.
Hope gripped her and her song rose, wild and triumphant. She howled and wolves howled back. Ekhaas heard startled shouts from Biiri and Uukam and elven screams from the backside of the hill, and she knew that the Valenar who had sought to capture them had new problems. Across the battlefield, the taarka’khesh crashed into the elves, throwing them into disarray. Teeth snapped at the legs of horses. Short blades and crossbows bit into elf flesh.
Another rider joined Keraal at Dagii’s side. Dressed in black, he was all but invisible against the black fur of the great worg he rode, but Ekhaas knew him. Chetiin-and Marrow-had returned.
The double scimitar of Seach Torainar dipped and spun, gutting a goblin with one blade and piercing his wolf mount with the other. Then the weapon rose high and whirled. The high warleader raised a slim horn to his lips and blew a long, wailing note-and he wheeled his mount and raced from the battlefield. Everywhere, elves broke off their fighting to follow his retreat. Ekhaas might have been standing at the ocean’s edge, watching the tide turn. Victory had turned into a rout.
Those Valenar who were still mounted offered a hand to comrades on foot, or else turned to cover their escape. The taarka’khesh didn’t pause. Elves who stood to fight and horses too slow in their flight were overwhelmed by snapping, tearing jaws and stabbing blades. The retreat was a flurry of red robes and white flanks galloping away along the plain; the pursuit was a rushing shadow, night chasing day into the east instead of the west.
The desolation of the battlefield was revealed. Corpses of elf and dar, horse and great cat and wolf. Of the proud Darguul army, only the Iron Fox Company remained in any numbers.
Ekhaas’s song swirled to a final ringing note that filled the sky in triumph. The power of it faded from her body and left her trembling. Her right hand found a shoulder of the earthwork for support. Her left found the Riis Shaarii’mal. She plucked the banner from the ground and thrust it high.
A cheer rose from the survivors of the battle, muted and small amid the carnage, yet deafening in its own way. A rider turned his tiger, racing it across torn corpses and churned grass, and urging it up the steep slope of the hill’s front in mighty bounds. When the beast reached the earthworks, Dagii slid from the saddle, pulled his helmet from sweat-drenched hair, and dropped to his knees in front of Ekhaas. His ears stood tall. His shadow-gray eyes were wide with pride and adoration.
“Taarka’nu,” he rasped. Wolf woman.
Ekhaas’s strained throat could barely work but she forced her voice through it. “Ruuska’te,” she whispered. Tiger man.
He rose, put his hand over hers on the shaft of the Riis Shaarii’mal, and they turned to face the battlefield together. The survivors roared again, even louder than before.
The long shadows of late afternoon reached along the plain. The survivors of Dagii’s army gathered dar corpses. A pit would be dug and a cairn built over it. Later a proper monument might be erected to the heroes who had expected only to slow an attacking army and had instead defeated it.
The bodies of elves and their horses were left where they lay. Carrion eaters were already circling in the sky and gathering in the woods.
Most of the taarkakhesh and a number of the surviving great cat cavalry still pursued the fleeing Valenar. The howls of wolves and worgs echoed out of the east, relayed over great distances. “The elves make no stand,” Chetiin said, listening to the howls along with Marrow. “They may run all the way to the Mournland. Horses can outpace cats and wolves over long distance but the taarka’khesh will patrol the border for a time to make sure they don’t try to come back.”
“They’ll find their way back to Valenar,” said Dagii. He sat on a log, one bandaged leg thrust out before him. A scimitar had pierced a weak point in his armor. One of the taarka’khesh had offered him magic to heal it, but Dagii had directed him to chant his spells over Ekhaas’s wounded back instead. “Through the Mournland or down to
