It was incredible, the level of control the players had. Elissa had never seen anything like it. Even Arlen’s stories of Halfgrip the fiddle wizard paled in comparison.
“We must take this power to Miln,” Elissa said.
“Ay,” Ragen said.
“Halfgrip wrote music on paper,” Briar said. “Seen Jongleurs with it.”
Elissa nodded. “I’ll find the Jongleurs’ Guildmaster and pay whatever it takes to get a copy.”
“Ent s’posed to charge,” Briar said. “Halfgrip said all could share.”
“You don’t suppose…” Elissa’s eyes flicked to the pall, seeing a crossed fiddle and bow embroidered on the cloth.
“Night,” she whispered.
—
Leesha’s eyes were drawn by the sound of thundering footfalls. A twenty-foot rock demon appeared on the far side of the clearing, brushing winter-barren trees aside like reeds as it stepped from the woods.
The Cutters closed ranks behind the demon, trapping the seven demons in the clearing and preventing others from entering. Their warded cutting tools hung over their shoulders, unused this night. They stood guard with voices alone.
The song was Keep the Hearthfire Burning, an old woodcutting chantey every Hollower knew. Hearthfire was meant to keep cutters’ tools in sync while they worked. Leesha remembered the night Rojer first heard it. He hummed the tune for days after, working the melody on his fiddle. The changes he made were subtle, but somehow her friend worked his special magic into the music.
Now the first verse of Keep the Hearthfire Burning kept the Cutters marching in step while keeping demons at bay. The second drew the enemy in close, and the third disoriented corelings as the axes fell upon them.
“Still keeping us safe,” Leesha whispered.
“What’s that, mistress?” Wonda asked.
“Rojer’s protecting us, even now,” Leesha said.
“Course he is,” Wonda said. “Creator wouldn’t have taken Rojer if his work wern’t done.”
Leesha had never been comfortable with the idea of a Creator so involved in who lived and who died. What was the point of Gathering if it were so? Nevertheless, the thought of Rojer in Heaven was a comforting one.
There were seven demons in all, one for each pillar in the Krasian Heaven. A flame demon danced around the rock’s feet. There was a spindly-armed bog demon and a long-limbed wood demon. A field demon, sleek and low to the ground. A squat stone demon lumbered, and above in the sky a wind demon circled.
Amanvah and Sikvah ceased their singing, and Kendall lowered her fiddle. The priestess raised a hand. “Jaddah.”
“That’s my cue.” Wonda passed Leesha her bow, rolling her loose sleeves as she strode to the center of the clearing. The wards stained onto her arms glowed softly.
Wonda chose the bog demon, skittering in before it could snatch her in its arms. The demon was not flexible enough to strike in close, and she landed a series of blows, accentuated by the impact wards on her fists and elbows. A warded boot heel sent the demon stumbling back, and she moved in quick, stomping the demon’s knee and putting it on its back.
She moved in close again, falling atop the coreling and pinning it, raining blows down upon its head. The demon flailed, but after a time its movements were only reflex responses to her continuing blows. Her wards glowed brighter and brighter until the demon’s head cracked open.
“Avash,” Amanvah said when Wonda at last stepped back, covered in ichor that sizzled on her wards.
Gared stepped forward then. His axe was slung, but he wore his great warded gauntlets, and he chose the ten-foot-tall wood demon as his gift to Heaven. He wasn’t as graceful and quick as Wonda, but the demon was immediately on the defensive, stumbling back under his thunderous blows. It lasted less time than the bog demon.
“Umas.” Amanvah named the third pillar of Heaven as she called Rojer’s apprentices, led by Hary Roller, into the clearing. The Jongleurs chose the field demon, driving the coreling into a frenzy with their music before setting it on the stone demon.
The field demon leapt upon the stone demon, claws raking, but they could not penetrate the heavy armor. The stone demon batted the field demon to the ground and smashed its skull with a heavy talon.
Amanvah caught Leesha’s eye. “Rahvees.”
Leesha drew a breath, stepping forward and raising her hora wand at the stone demon. She drew silver wards in the air with quick, sharp script. Cold wards froze it in place, ichor turning solid in the demon’s veins. Lectricity wards shocked through the beast, racking it with pain.
“For you, Rojer.” Leesha drew impact wards, and the demon shattered.
“Kenji.”
Kendall stepped forward, raising bow to string. She drew the flame demon to her effortlessly, coaxing the beast to draw firespit into its mouth. Then she changed her song, forcing the demon to swallow it.
Flame demon scales were impervious to heat, but the same could not be said of their insides. The demon choked and fell onto its back, thrashing as its insides burned.
Kendall picked up the tempo as she circled the coreling, notes becoming hard and discordant. The flamer whined and cried, curling into a protective ball as Kendall played faster and faster. Her bow became a blur as she raised her head away from the fiddle’s chinrest. The music grew so loud, Leesha’s eardrums throbbed even beneath the wax she and the other mourners wore.
At last the flame demon gave a final throe and lay still. Kendall let her music die away as Amanvah pointed to the wind demon in the sky. “Ghanith.”
Sikvah took her turn, calling to the demon. It circled down, talons leading to snatch the tiny girl up and sweep away into the sky with her.
But as it drew close, Sikvah touched her throat and gave such a cry the demon pulled up short, flapped wildly, and then fell to the ground, dead. Sikvah turned to her sister-wife, bowing. “Horzha.”
Amanvah’s colored silks billowed in the breeze as she sauntered up to the rock demon, beginning to sing the Song of Waning. Her voice rose alone in the night, holding the rock demon in its grip.
Louder and louder she sang as she circled the rock. She had a hand to her throat, working the magic of her choker. It grew so loud that Leesha had to cover her ears, and she saw folk half a mile up the road doing likewise as they watched. Leesha felt she could almost see the vibration in the air as the resonance grew.
And then, abruptly, there was a great crack, and the rock demon fell, striking the ground with a boom.
“Honored husband, Rojer asu Jessum am’Inn am’Hollow.” Amanvah’s voice carried unnaturally far. “Rojer of the Half Grip, disciple of Arrick of the Sweetest Song, let our sacrifice summon a seraph to guide you on the lonely path to Everam, where you shall sup at His table until there is need for your spirit to return to Ala once more.”
—
Leesha walked beside Amanvah as they entered the Corelings’ Graveyard. Sikvah and Kendall were two steps behind them, followed by Tender Jona and Cutters bearing Rojer to the pyre.
The Straw Gatherers had done their work well. Rojer’s handsome face was serene, showing nothing of the violence of his death. He was clad in bright silk motley and looked as if he might leap to his feet at any moment and begin playing a reel.
He lay on a bed of axe handles crossed over the broad shoulders of Gared, Wonda, and half a dozen handpicked Hollowers. Dug and Merrem Butcher. Smitt. Darsy. Jow and Evin Cutter.
Folk filled the Graveyard, packing the cobbles before the pyre and stretching down the road in every direction. All roads in Cutter’s Hollow led here, to the center of the greatward.
The pyre had been built in front of the bandshell that had been Rojer’s place of power. Gared and Wonda were weeping openly as they laid Rojer on the great platform over the pile of kindling.
Amanvah, Sikvah, and Kendall fell to their knees on the stage, wailing and sobbing with dramatic flair as young Krasian girls scraped the tears from their cheeks into tiny bottles of warded glass.
Leesha wanted to weep. She had often sought solace in tears, and wept over Rojer many times in private over the last few weeks. But now, before all the gathered people of the Hollow, she felt as if she had nothing left to give. Thamos, dead. Arlen gone, and Ahmann’s fate uncertain. And now Rojer. Would it be her fate to bury every man she loved?