The Tyranny of Ghosts_ Legacy of Dhakaan - Don Bassingthwaite [38]
“Defilers,” said the ghost again, and this time the others echoed her in a hiss like a bow drawn across the strings of some otherworldly instrument. “Defilers! Defilers!”
The word rose into a crashing wave of song so powerful it almost drove Ekhaas back down to her knees. With it came a wave of shame and despair. She was a thief and a violator of these sacred vaults. She was a traitor to her clan. To her race. To all of the dar.
Somewhere behind her, Tenquis cried out, and Geth shouted her name. Ekhaas squeezed her hands into fists and ground her teeth together. No, she was neither thief nor traitor; none of them were. Face down as if she were walking into a blizzard, she breathed in through her teeth, then raised her head, and sang back at the ghosts.
She chose an anthem of Dhakaan, a song that spoke of need and valor. Her voice clashed with the chorus of the ghosts like a lone warrior taking on a squad of swordsmen. For a moment, the two songs struggled against each other, then the song of the ghosts rose in strength and volume, pushing Ekhaas back. She staggered under the power of it. The glowing figures drifted forward, shrouded feet not quite touching the ground. Ekhaas clenched her fists, laid her ears back, and focused both her will and her voice.
Her song rose over the ghosts’, hung in the air, then slashed down.
The ghosts’ song vanished into silence. The spirits went with it, like a candle snuffed out or a chime muffled. The Vault of the Eye was still and—except for the heaving of her breath—silent once more.
It was so sudden that Ekhaas almost stumbled. Could she really have defeated the phantoms so easily?
Then, far off, she heard their song rise again. The ghosts had been dispersed but not destroyed.
“Horns of Ohr Kaluun,” said Tenquis. “What are they?”
An idea had sprung into Ekhaas’s head as she sang against the ghosts. “Duur’kala,” she said, her voice rough from the effort she’d put into her song. “Long ago, we were buried in the vaults. But I had no idea …” She turned. “Chetiin—the inscription?”
The goblin was helping Geth to his feet, but one hand dipped into the front of his shirt and produced a piece of paper that was dark with charcoal. Ekhaas slid back down the slope of the hollow and snatched it from him. The paper was badly creased and the charcoal had been rubbed over it in haste, but it carried a clear imprint: part of the description of the reward given to Tasaam Draet, two of the three notched rings, half of another, and the words that had been inscribed beneath them.
THE NOBLES OF DHAKAAN NO LONGER HAVE A SHIELD TO HIDE BEHIND, FOR MUUT IS IN THE KEEPING OF TASAAM DRAET.
Her heart leaped. References to the shattering of muut and to a shield for nobles couldn’t be a coincidence.
“What does it say?” demanded Geth.
Ekhaas read the inscription aloud. The shifter looked confused, then understanding flashed in his eyes. “The shattered pieces of the Shield of Nobles,” he said. “Tasaam Draet had them. His fortress—you said the ruins still stood. It could still be there.”
Ekhaas nodded. “It’s the best hope we’ve had so far!” Her ears twitched with the desire to climb back up the stela and see if anything else was recorded on it—
Another voice joined the ghostly chorus, this time from a different direction in the darkness. Far more than six ancient duur’kala had been buried in the vaults. Ekhaas swallowed her curiosity, roughly folded the paper once more, and stuffed it into a pouch on her belt. “We have to go.”
They circled the stela and climbed up the side of the hollow closest to the path through the Vault of the Eye. Ekhaas paused briefly on the edge, watching and listening, then gestured for the others to follow. The echoing chorus of the ghosts was drawing slowly closer, and, she suspected, in greater numbers than they’d initially confronted. Would the ghosts follow them? She hoped not—they’d seemed attracted to her songs,