Word of Traitors_ Legacy of Dhakaan - Don Bassingthwaite [162]
“Maabet,” cursed Daavn, then shouted orders. “Move in! All of you, move in!”
Ekhaas slashed her sword at his throat.
He blocked her with the ease of a practiced swordsman and forced her back across the ridge with a series of powerful, hammering blows. He smiled the next time they crossed swords.
“Did you know your friend Midian betrayed Ashi and Geth to save his own life?”
She felt him relax a little in anticipation of her surprise. She turned it against him.
“Yes,” she said and jerked her knee up into his groin.
He wore an armored codpiece that left her knee aching, but the force of the blow was still enough to make his ears droop and his eyes open wide. Ekhaas shoved hard against his chest with her free hand and he reeled back.
Right over the edge of a crevice in the ridge. He didn’t even teeter, but just went over. Ekhaas heard his armor strike rock twice as he fell. She whirled and ran to the aid of Ashi and Aruget.
She’d taken perhaps four paces when a dull drone filled the air. She looked around, trying to pinpoint the source of the sound, but it seemed to come from everywhere. Aruget, Ashi, and the guards and workers who had pinned them down broke off their attacks, looking around in confusion.
The brown body of an insect—a locust—landed on her arm. Its eyes were the same milky white as Pradoor’s. The drone turned into a thrum that reverberated in Ekhaas’s belly. The horses picketed before the tomb whinnied and shifted in fright.
And a vast swarm of the white-eyed locusts rose up from behind the ridge.
They came whirring down like a blizzard, only a few at first, then more and more. Daavn’s bugbears and hobgoblins shouted and fled, dropping tools and weapons. Ekhaas sprinted to Ashi and Aruget. “Makka has gone into the tomb!” she shouted over the thrumming of the locusts’ wings. Daylight was growing dim as the swarm clustered around them.
“I saw him,” said Ashi, “and I saw Pradoor chanting. I think this swarm is—” She broke off with a hiss of pain and plucked a locust away from the thin bloody scratch across her belly. “It bit me!” She hissed again.
So did Aruget. Blood matted Geth’s thick hair. The locusts seemed to be settling on it like leeches. The changeling could have been doing a bizarre dance as he swatted at them. Another locust settled on Ekhaas but this time it brought with it a stinging pain. She slapped it away and it left a smear of red blood behind. Her blood.
Two more locusts landed on the same spot. The thrumming of the swarm rose in pitch. Ekhaas’s fear rose with it. She grabbed for Aruget and Ashi and pulled them close, ignoring the bites of the locusts as they settled on her. “Cover your ears!” she ordered, then drew a breath through barely parted lips and sang a burst of sound directly on top of them.
The song blew back the swarm like a stone thrown into a pond. Ekhaas felt the sound pulse through her body but it did more damage to the locusts than to her. The brown insects dropped in drifts all around them. For a moment, daylight returned and the thrumming vanished.
Only for a moment. Pradoor’s shrill voice rose. “Devourer, aid your servant! Let your hunger be manifest!” The thrumming returned, and the sun dimmed as a new swarm settled over them.
“Ekhaas, we have to get into the tomb!” said Ashi. “Geth and Chetiin need us!”
“We’d never make it,” Aruget said, and spat as a locust crawled into his mouth.
Ekhaas held tight to both human and changeling and drew them down into a tight huddle. Forcing her voice deep into her throat, she started to hum with the same pitch and resonance as the swarm. It was hardly a song, but when she drew up magic from deep inside herself, it took on strength and substance.
The thrum of the swarm became a roar, but no locusts landed on them. Ekhaas felt Ashi raise her head and look around. “Rond betch,” she said in amazement.
Aruget—shifter’s features melting back into a hobgoblin’s—raised his head, too, but he looked at Ekhaas. She could guess what he was thinking because