The Tower of Ravens

by Kate Forsyth

  ‘Lassie!’

  One-Horn’s daughter heard his anguished whisper but drew her smelly furs closer about her, curling up like some small animal, instinctively trying to protect the deep, hidden parts of her body that had betrayed her so bitterly.

  She slept badly. Her dreams were stained with blood and shadowed with dark wings. Her mind kept trying to come up with ways to capture a winged horse even while her exhausted body craved unconsciousness. Nets, she kept thinking. Ropes. Though I must not injure it … they were so beautiful, so free …

  She came awake at some point in the hours before dawn, suddenly thinking of the saddle and bridle the herd had torn off the horse before cutting its throat. Surely if the prisoner had used such devices to ride his steed, they would help in retaining control of a winged horse? If she could just hide them before anyone woke, the herd might never realise they were gone. The satyricorn were in general rather self-absorbed, and paid little attention to anything outside their immediate concerns of hunting, eating, sleeping and fighting.

  At once the girl rolled out of her skins and looked about her. All was quiet and dark. Mist hung across the steep, green hills. It was light enough for her to see the shape of her hands but dark enough that none were stirring. Cautiously she stood up. She saw the saddle lying in the dust to one side of the clearing, near the limp, discarded boots, but there was no sign of the bridle.

  Swiftly she bent and picked the saddle up, settling it on her arm. It had a long, dangling girth and two small saddlebags hanging on either side. Many of the prisoner’s belongings lay spilled out from the bags, as the herd had only taken those things they perceived to be of value. She stuffed everything back into the saddlebags, managing to work out how to fasten the buckles so they would not spill out again. There was a blue saddlecloth nearby, embroidered with gold. She picked that up as well, and then seized the boots on impulse. She knew well how much harder it was for her to run with her soft-fleshed feet. The boots could be of use.

  As she hurried into the shelter of the forest, she cast a quick glance behind to make sure no-one was watching. The sight of the prisoner’s intent blue gaze was like a lash across her nerves. It drove her forward, stumbling, hoping she was not betraying herself to danger.

  She hid the saddle and boots in a fallen log she knew, and hurried back to the clearing, her pulse hammering with fear. Still no-one stirred, all satiated by the feast of horse meat and pine-cone ale the night before. Only the prisoner was awake, and he was busy sawing the leather that bound his hands against a sharp-edged rock he had somehow managed to prop upright behind him. She watched him for a while from the shelter of the trees. There was quiet desperation in every move he made. She wondered how he thought he could possibly escape, with his horse rounding the bellies of the herd, and blood still leaking from the wound on his temple. He would be better, she knew, to accept his fate and make the best of it, as Reamon had done ten years earlier. Yet she could not help a stirring of empathy. She too was desperate to escape.

  Slowly the mist melted away and the sky grew lighter, while she stood there and hesitated, wondering if she should call the alarm. Then she realised the leather straps wrapping his arms were the reins of his bridle. He could never cut himself free in time, yet he could damage the reins given long enough and she did not want that to happen. The bridle could be of use to her.

  Quickly she came up behind him. He heard her step and went quiet, every muscle tense. She bent over him, quickly unknotting the leather and unwinding his arms, whispering fiercely, ‘Quiet, else me cut your throat.’

  Once he understood that she was freeing him, he said hoarsely, ‘The Rìgh will be grateful, he’ll reward ye …’

  ‘What use he to me?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ll tell him what ye did …’

  ‘If ye no’ get catched again.’

  ‘They will no’ catch me!’

  ‘They better no’,’ she said and stood back from him, holding the metal bits of the bridle so they would not betray her by jangling. She did not dare take the time to hide the bridle in the hollow log, thrusting it instead in the bushes and covering it with old leaves. Then she returned hurriedly to her skins, covering her head and trying to control the pounding of her heart. If anyone had seen, or if they guessed! She knew the prisoner had run stumbling towards the lake and had begun to make his faltering way across the thin, uneven ice. She was disappointed in him, if relieved. A drowned man could tell no tales. She heard the crack of ice and a splash a few minutes later and was surprised at how sorry she was.

  The sound must have penetrated the drunken mists of some of those who slumbered nearby, for she heard a slow stirring and groaning, and a bad-tempered grumble as someone rolled over and tried to get comfortable again. Under the shelter of her skins the girl held her breath and waited for the sounds to die away. Instead, she heard someone get up and begin to lurch towards the latrine. For a minute or two there was silence and then came the inevitable cry of alarm.

  Immediately the camp was in uproar. No matter how bad the hangover, a satyricorn would never allow a handsome young man to escape. Boys were rarely born to satyricorns and so were very highly prized. Once their horns grew, showing they were old enough to mate, their favours had to be shared among the many women of the herd, which led to many quarrels. It also, in time, led to the birth of weak and deformed babies. The satyricorns were therefore always eager to mate with males not of blood-kin.

  Once, when there had been many herds of satyricorns in the mountains and forests, boy children had been exchanged between the herds. With few satyricorns left now, the males of the species were more respected and esteemed than ever. There were only a few of them, though, and the herd needed to raise children that were not too closely related to each other if they were to survive. Consequently, the women were always looking for men of other races with which to mate. There were few contenders for this honour. Ogres sufficed at times, though they were so ugly there was no pleasure to be had in the act, and the birthing of a half-ogre child was always painful and difficult due to their enormous size. Occasionally a seelie or Celestine was seized in a raid into the forest, but they never thrived in captivity. The herd would be lucky if they sired a child or two before they wasted away.

  Most sought after of all were the horned men of the snowy heights, for they were lusty and strong and their children rarely failed to grow horns as they reached maturity. But the Children of the White Gods were fierce warriors, and it was very difficult to capture them or to keep them once they were caught, and so the satyricorn women would only seek to seize one in desperate circumstances.

  A human male, however, was considered a fine prize. They often lived in captivity for many years and fathered many children, and usually they brought forged metal weapons and tools with them which the herd found very useful. Once it had been easy to catch a human male, but now they rarely rode alone into satyricorn territory. To have a young, strong, comely man come galloping through their valley had been the best thing that had happened to the herd in many years and no-one would allow him to escape easily.

  One-Horn’s daughter was dragged out of her skins by the hair, her mother screaming, ‘Why you not hear? Where he gone?’

  ‘Me sleep,’ she responded, in the harsh, guttural language of the satyricorns. ‘Me hear nothing. No-one hear nothing.’

  Her mother dropped her and ran down the beach, her nostrils flaring wide as she snuffed the air, her eyes darting over the ground. ‘Here! And here! He run here! In water.’

  Everyone howled in dismay. Satyricorns hated water. It confused their senses and none of the herd could swim.

  Beyond the lake, the river ran fast over sharp rocks. A shout went up as the man’s head broke through the foam. He had flung one arm over a branch and was being swept along at breakneck speed.

  One-Horn shrieked: ‘Hunt!’

  Quickly the women of the herd seized their weapons and began to run, circling round either side of the lake. Most ha
d rough clubs of stone lashed to wood; one or two had metal-forged daggers which had once belonged to Reamon or other past prisoners. One-Horn’s daughter hesitated for only a moment. She bent and picked up the curved bow that was her only legacy of her unknown father. He had not lived long enough to teach his daughter how to use the bow, but Reamon had had some knowledge of the weapon, enough to teach her the rudimentary skills. The rest she had taught herself, in the lonely meadows and forests around the lake, hewing herself arrows with the steel blade she had won gambling. Most of the girl’s few possessions had been won gambling, for in feats of strength and speed she would always be the loser.

  Fast as deer, the satyricorns leapt through the trees, howling and shouting with excitement. There were fourteen of them, led by the woman with the rapier horn, and they all carried crude weapons – clubs and stone axes and slingshots. Not one of the satyricorns was the same. Some had antlers like a stag, others thin twisting horns. One had ten stumpy horns like a goat’s all over her head; another had two long, outward-curving horns above her ears and two small, curving horns above her eyebrows; yet another had three sets of down-curving tusks framing her face.

  They had all discarded their long hide cloaks, some running naked, some wearing short skirts of animal skins. All of them were tall and muscular, with a ridge of coarse, wiry hair running down their backs and ending in a long, tufted tail. Necklaces of bones and teeth bounced on their six bare breasts. Their hooves rattled on the rocks and their bloodcurdling shrieks echoed round the valley. The girl ran after them, though the sharp stones cut her bare feet. She dared not fall too far behind, for that would draw attention to her, and might make them suspect she felt sympathy for the escaped prisoner. It was hard to keep up, though, for the satyricorn women were long-legged and swift.

  The river began to force its way down the hill in a series of gushing rapids. They saw the man’s head go under again and again, but he clung valiantly to his branch, fending himself off the rocks with his free arm. The branch spun round and round and at times was completely submerged. The river was swollen with melting snow, and flowing so fast the satyricorn were unable to keep up. They howled with rage and frustration, some coming to a halt on the ridge so they could shake their weapons. The girl came up behind them, panting, holding her side, her feet bruised and cut. For a moment she thought the prisoner was actually going to make it.

  Then One-Horn took a dramatic flying leap down the ridge, landing on all fours on the pebbly shore below. With that one leap, she had cut across the curve of the river and got ahead of the man. She seized the end of a fallen log and heaved it into the water with one of the spectacular feats of strength that had won her the leadership of the herd. The effort obviously cost her. She rested her arms on her knees, her head hanging.

  The man in the water tried desperately to swim round the obstacle, but the momentum of the river was too strong. It swept him up hard against the fallen log and pinned him there. One-Horn drew her dagger and walked out along the log, bending down to seize the man’s hair and twist his face up towards her. One-Horn’s daughter could only watch, struggling to catch her breath. She felt an odd mixture of regret and relief. At least the knowledge of her treachery would die with him.

  But One-Horn only menaced the escaped prisoner with her knife, before dragging the sodden, exhausted man out of the water. He was too valuable to kill. The girl’s heart sank. Her mother would find out how he had escaped. The prisoner may not mean to betray her, but in the end, he would. Even a guilty glance at her would fire her mother’s suspicions. She gripped her bow with shaking fingers and wondered if she dared kill him, to keep her secret safe. She dared not. One-Horn would kill her for snatching away her prey. They would suspect …

  One-Horn was hauling the man along the log to the beach. Suddenly he spun and kicked out with one foot, sending her dagger flying out of her hand and into the river. Then he slammed his foot into the back of her knee, knocking One-Horn to the ground. Before anyone had time to react, he was kneeling on her back, his arm about her throat, bending her spine to breaking point.

  Time seemed to slow. The satyricorn were leaping up and down on the ridge, howling and throwing rocks and spears, all of which clattered harmlessly on the stones below. One-Horn was fighting for breath, trying desperately to wrench the man’s arm away from her throat. He was too strong. Any moment now he would snap her spine and she would be dead.

  The girl fitted an arrow to her bow and lifted it. It seemed she gazed along the line of her arrow forever, its point aimed directly at the prisoner’s straining back. For a moment she teetered on that moment of decision, seeing with a strange anguish all the possible ramifications of letting the arrow fly. The prisoner would be dead but her mother would be alive and perhaps even grateful. Her own prestige among the herd would be immeasurably enhanced. She would be able to add the prisoner’s teeth and finger-bone to the necklace that hung down between her breasts, and she could claim with impunity whatever of his belongings she cared for. Secretly she would be sorry, though. He was young and fair and he had fought well for his freedom.

  She let the string go. With a twang that caused her nerves to jolt, the arrow leapt free. She watched its pure and perfect arc, flying out from her taut bowstring, down, down, down through the clear morning air and deep into the back of the prisoner. He jerked upright, crying aloud, and then he fell. The girl stepped back, feeling sudden inexplicable nausea rising in her throat. Beside her, the satyricorns howled with blood-lust and the pleasure of the kill. On the beach below, One-Horn thrust the man’s dead body away from her and leapt to her feet, her face twisted in a snarl of fury. She kicked the fallen body and then turned and looked up at her daughter. Begrudgingly she lifted one fist in acknowledgement.

  One-Horn’s daughter had to clench her hands together to hide their shaking. The herd was slapping her on the back, congratulating her for a fine shot, teasing her for stealing such a fine prize from her mother. They all bounded down along the curve of the ridge and onto the beach, where they hailed One-Horn with malicious glee.

  ‘Why kill him?’ One-Horn demanded furiously. ‘No use dead. Can’t mate a dead man. I would have thrown him off.’

  ‘He too strong, he got you good,’ Five-Horns chortled. ‘You dead but for daughter. You owe daughter blood-debt. Kiss her feet.’

  ‘No kiss anyone’s feet,’ One-Horn snarled. She cast her daughter a look of seething dislike and kicked the young man over so he lay on his back with his arms askew, staring blankly at the sky. The arrow protruded through his breast, clotted with blood. One-Horn’s daughter averted her gaze.

  But then Five-Horns began to rip off the man’s clothes, and One-Horn angrily seized his other arm, shouting, ‘Get off, he’s mine!’ The girl saw that she would lose everything if she was not careful. She wanted his clothes. They were beautiful, blue as the sky and white and soft as clouds. They would be warmer than her rough uncured skins, and would not smell so bad. Besides, if she followed the river east as she planned she would no doubt come in contact with other men and it would be best if she did not draw too much attention to herself. The man’s clothes would be camouflage. So she lifted her dagger and leapt between One-Horn and Five-Horns, saying angrily, ‘Get off! Me kill him, he mine.’

  The two horned women looked at her in rage and surprise. One-Horn made a move as if to strike her daughter but the girl thrust her away, staring up into her mother’s yellow eyes.

  ‘Blood-right,’ Seven-Horns said. ‘She kill him, he hers.’

  Five-Horns began to laugh. She stepped back mockingly. ‘All yours, No-Horn.’

  The name was an insult, but One-Horn’s daughter could do nothing about it. Like a child, she had no horns and so the name was warranted. Besides, she had no desire to challenge Five-Horns to a duel, for the other woman was almost a foot taller and very strong. She swallowed the insult and bent to strip the man, trying not to let her fingers touch his clammy skin. She could not understand her revulsion and hoped n
o-one else would notice it. She had killed before, but never a creature that walked on two legs as she did, and spoke to her in a language she could understand. It seemed to make a difference.

  It took a while to strip him naked, for he was heavy and his clothes were drenched. Then she had to cut off his finger and hack out his teeth, a task which made her feel utterly sick and wretched. By the time she had finished, the rest of the herd had lost interest and headed back to the camp. She did not know what to do with the body. It seemed wrong to leave him lying on the stones for the wolves and eagles to feast upon, so after a moment of indecision and anxiety she heaved him up and slid his body into the river. Then she toiled back up the hillside to the camp.

  There One-Horn’s daughter arrogantly demanded the return of all the dead man’s belongings: the blue hat, the stag brooch and silver goblet, the golden medal, the music-box, the silver dagger he wore at his belt and the little black dagger he had worn inside his boot, and the warm hooded cloak, blue on one side, grey on the other. Angrily they were relinquished to her, for she had the blood-right and this was one law sacred to the satyricorn. She washed the white shirt and did her clumsy best to sew up the jagged rent, front and back, where her arrow had torn through the material. She sponged the blood and mud from the coat and breeches, then discarded her own smelly hides to dress herself in the dead man’s clothes. Everything fitted her well, for she was as tall as the prisoner had been. She enjoyed the feel of the soft clothes against her skin.

  She dusted off the soles of her filthy feet and pulled on the stockings and boots, slipped the double-edged black knife into its sheath inside the left boot, and twisted the tangled mass of her hair into a knot at the base of her neck. Then she pulled the cockaded blue hat onto her head, and strapped the silver dagger to her belt, feeling stronger and prouder than she had ever felt before. She wished she could look at herself. Was she as handsome as he had been, the young man whose clothes she wore with such satisfaction?