Galdar did as he was told. He lay down and closed his eyes, and the road was ahead of him, and he was running, running for his life...
Mina began to sing. Her voice was low, untrained, raw and yet there was a sweetness and a clarity that struck through to the soul.
Galdar felt a lethargy steal over him, a languor similar to that experienced by those who bleed to death. His limbs grew heavy, his body was dead weight, so heavy that he was sinking into the ground. Sinking into the soft dirt and the ash of the dead plants and the leaves that drifted down upon him, settling over him like a blanket of dirt thrown into his grave.
He was at peace. He knew no fear. Consciousness drained away from him.
Gamashinoch, the dwarves called it. The Song of Death.
Targonne’s dragon riders were up with the gray dawn, flying low over the forests of the ogre land of Blade. They had watched from the heavens yesterday, watched the small army run before the ogre raiding party. The soldiers had fled before the ogres in near panic, so far as the dragon riders could see, abandoning their supply wagons, leaving them for the ogres. One of the riders noted grimly that Targonne would not be pleased to hear that several hundred steel worth of equipment was now adorning ogre bodies.
The ragtag army had run blindly, although they had managed to keep in formation. But their mad dash to safety had taken them nowhere. The army had run headlong into the magical shield surrounding Silvanesti. The army had come to a halt here at sundown. They were spent, they could go no farther, even if there had been any place for them to go, which there wasn’t.
Looting the wagons had occupied the ogre raiding party for a couple of hours, but when there was nothing more to eat and they had stolen all there was to steal, the ogres moved south, following the trail of the humans, following their hated scent that drove them to fury and battle madness.
The dragon riders could have dealt with the ogres. The blues would have made short work of the raiding party. But the riders had their orders. They were to keep watch on this rebellious Knight and her army of fanatics. The dragon riders were not to interfere. Targonne could not be blamed if ogres destroyed the Silvanesti invasion force. He had told Malys many times that the ogres should be driven out of Blade, exterminated like the kender. Maybe next time she would listen to him.
“There they are, “said one of the riders, as his dragon circled low. “In the Dead Land. The same place where we left them last night. They haven’t moved. Maybe they’re dead themselves. They look it.”
“If not, they soon will be,” said his commander.
The ogres were a black mass, moving like sludge along the road that ran alongside what the Knight had termed the Dead Land, the gray zone of death that marked the edge of the shield, the border of Silvanesti.
The dragon riders watched with interest, looking forward with anticipation to the battle that would finally bring an end to this tiresome duty and allow them to return to their barracks in Khur.
The Knights settled themselves comfortably to watch.
“Do you see that?” said one suddenly, sitting forward.
“Circle lower,” the commander ordered.
The dragons flew lower, wings making a gentle sweep, catching the pre-dawn breeze. The riders stared down at the astonishing sight below.
“I think, gentlemen,” said the commander, after a moment spent watching in gaping wonder, “that we should fly to Jelek and report this to Targonne ourselves. Otherwise, we might not be believed.”
A horn blast woke Galdar, brought him to his feet before he was fully conscious, fumbling for his sword.
“Ogres attacking! Fall in, men! Fall in!” Captain Samuval was shouting himself hoarse, kicking at the men of his company to rouse them from their slumbers.
“Mina!” Galdar searched for her, determined to protect her, or, if he could not do that, to kill her so that she should not fall alive into ogre hands. “Mina!”
He found her in the same place he had left her. Mina sat in the curl of the dead oak’s arm. Her weapon, the morning star, lay across her lap.
“Mina,” said Galdar, plunging through the gray ash and trampling the dead leaves, “hurry! There may yet be a chance for you to escape—”
Mina looked at him and began to laugh.
He stared, appalled. He had never heard her laugh. The laughter was sweet and merry, the laughter of a girl running to meet a lover. Mina climbed upon the stump of a dead tree.
“Put your weapons away, men!” she called out. “The ogres cannot touch us.”
“She has gone mad!” Samuval said.
“No,” said Galdar, staring, unbelieving. “Look.”
Ogres had formed a battle line not ten feet away from them.
The ogres danced along this line. They clamored, roared, gnashed their teeth, gibbered, and cursed. They were so close that their foul stench made his nostrils twitch. The ogres jumped up and down, kicked and hammered with their fists, wielded their weapons in murderous rage.
Murderous, frustrated rage. The enemy was in clear sight, yet he might as well have been playing among the stars in some distant part of the universe. The trees that stood between Galdar and the ogres shimmered in the half-light, rippled as Mina’s laughter rippled through the gray dawn. The ogres beat their heads against a shield, an invisible shield, a magical shield. They could not pass.
Galdar watched the ogres, watched to make certain that they could not reach him or his comrades. It seemed impossible to him that they could not enter through this strange and unseen barrier, but at last he had to admit that what his mind at first disbelieved was true. Many of the ogres fell back away from the barrier, alarmed and frightened of the magic. A few seemed to have simply grown weary of beating their heads against nothing but air. One by the one, the ogres turned their hairy backs upon the human army that they could see, but could not reach. Their clamor began to die down. With threats and rude gestures, the ogres straggled off, disappeared into the forest.
“We are inside the shield, men!” Mina called out in triumph.
“You stand safe within the borders of the Silvanesti! Witness the might and power of the One True God!”
The men stood staring, unable at first to comprehend the miracle that had befallen them. They blinked and gaped, reminding Galdar of prisoners who have been locked in dark cells for most of their lives, suddenly released to walk in the bright sunshine. A few exclaimed, but they did so softly, as if fearful to break the spell. Some rubbed their eyes, some doubted their own sanity, but there was the unmistakable sight of ogre backsides—ogres in retreat—to tell the soldiers that they were in their right minds, that they were not seeing things. One by one, the men fell to their knees before Mina and pressed their faces into the gray ash. They did not chant her name in triumph, not this time. This moment was too holy, too sacred. They paid Mina homage in silent awe and reverence.