It seemed even without trying to intimidate the other inhabitant, he’d done so – he watched Samuel jump back at his sharp, cutting whistle, but continued nonetheless, so familiar with the rhythm of the song he could probably conduct the damned thing in his sleep. Apparently it’d done something, because Samuel’s shout burst through the mainframe of marching stanzas and carrying on refrains, and he ceased momentarily to stare across the horizon.
There it was – the slightest glimmer of blue, unnatural and ethereal, dotted across the plain. Had he managed to lure it here? By whistling? Or had it been Samuel’s presence too, made only possible because there was so much more lightness and innocence in the opposing man’s entity than there would ever be in the Reaper’s? Perhaps they were entranced by the gentler outreach – and Deimos had simply been here, a fleck of dust and bone they could easily ignore or glide by.
But it’s working and do you have any words? fell upon his ears too, and as much as he didn’t want to pry open his mouth further and proclaim shades of the past, he was too far gone, too fascinated, stare completely beguiled by the fact that he’d been marginally successful in his hunt, to negate the inquiry again. It seemed if he wanted them to reach any closer, he’d have to relinquish those bits and pieces of humiliation; and besides, if Samuel ever thought to thwart or blackmail him with information on his poor singing habits, maybe Deimos could scare him to death.
He didn’t give any explanation to the lyrics uncoiling from his throat. They were call to arms from across the wide-open range of Isilme, where kings could unravel and laugh, holler their latest pursuits, and get anyone free, able-bodied man to join him, where they could dine as victors in the night and keel over as dead infidels in the morning, where they’d been promised titles, lands, and riches, if they were successful, where they gained loss, loss, and loss before the days were through. His tone was gruff and guttural, deep again, rough-hewned, never adequately trained. “They were summoned from the hillside, they were called in from the glen, and the country found them ready, at the stirring call for men.”
(Lyrics are from “Keep The Home Fires Burning”)
