The Doom of Kings_ Legacy of Dhakaan - Don Bassingthwaite [89]
Her heels found the steep slope of the valley, and hands reached up to help her keep her balance. Ekhaas took a few more paces backward before crouching below the valley’s rim. The camp and the guards disappeared from sight. On her left, Geth nodded. Ekhaas let her song fade. Quiet descended on the afternoon once more. She, Geth, and Dagii on her other side waited, listening.
A loud snore broke the silence. It was followed by a curse and a reprimand for sleeping on duty. There were a few grumbles of discontent, a muttered comment about snoring loud enough to scare birds on the mountain, then the guards were silent again. Geth grinned at her before creeping down the slope. Dagii touched her hand lightly, and she glanced at him.
For a moment she stared directly into his shadow gray eyes, then he lowered his gaze and dipped his ears in recognition. She gave him a brief nod in return before hurrying after Geth as quickly as the slick grass that covered the slope would permit.
Ashi, Chetiin, and Midian were waiting just a little farther down, close enough to come charging to their aid if the guards had woken from the song with any suspicion that intruders had come past them. No one said anything, though, until they were all well down the slope and out of sight of the camp, then everyone clustered around her to murmur congratulations. Ekhaas accepted their praise with nods, but reserved a sharp glance for Chetiin. “How did you know I was able to do that?” she asked him.
His ears twitched. “There’s an old saying among the Silent Clans: Know your friends as you know your enemies. I’ve heard stories of duur’kala singing their way across battlefields.”
“Do you believe all the stories you hear?”
“I heard that!” said Midian. The gnome gave Ekhaas a crooked smile. “I knew the duur’kala had to have a bit of sense when it came to stories.”
“I know a story about a gnome, a duur’kala, and a dull knife that I’d believe,” Ekhaas said. Through their journeys she’d found Midian to be a better companion than she had expected when he’d joined them at Sterngate, but the researcher could still grate on her.
Dagii put an end to the conversation. “Enough. Let’s get out of the open. If one of those guards happens to look into the valley, we could still be seen.”
The steep grassy slope that led into the valley gave way to thick bushes where the valley floor grew level and broad. Bushes quickly turned into trees. Ashi, looking far more like the hunter Ekhaas had first encountered nearly a year before than the scion of Deneith she’d found in Karrlakton, led the way. The bushes were dense and thorny, difficult and painful to squeeze past. Ashi slipped through easily, Chetiin and Midian with only a little less difficulty. Ekhaas, Dagii, and Geth had to pick their way carefully, always trying to be quiet. They weren’t far enough away from the bugbear camp that thrashing about in the bushes wouldn’t attract the attention of the guards. At least Dagii had armor to protect him from the thorns. Ekhaas wished she could sing the plants aside.
The bushes continued under the first ranks of trees at the forest’s edge, where light from above was still plentiful. The farther they went, however, the taller the trees became and the denser the canopy that their branches formed. When the brambles finally fell away, the gloom under the trees was deep enough that Ekhaas was grateful for the sensitive eyesight of her people.
“These trees are old,” said Midian. He touched the trunk of one that was easily half again as wide as he was tall.