The Beast of Noor

by Janet Lee Carey

  More seeds, and she must plant them for Brother Adolpho. She reached into the little sack. Behind her, wind sang through the branches of the apple tree—a strange sound like a woman moaning. Hanna looked up. Hadn’t her dreamwalk begun something like this, with a low, keening wind just before the Shriker came?

  THE FALCONER’S WARNING

  Ezryeah could not speak for nine years after swallowing the fire.

  —THE BOOK OF EOWEY

  LEAVES FLUTTERED IN THE APPLE TREE. THE WIND picked up, and the song grew louder through the twisted branches, until it became shrill as a wolf’s call Hanna fought off a shiver as she plunged her spade into the ground. A long shadow came up behind her. She felt its coming with a rush of cold as the light disappeared. Leaping to her feet, she spun around and saw the tall, gray-caped figure of the Falconer.

  Hanna gripped her seed basket and peered up at the old man. He was her brother’s teacher, and a healer, but she’d always feared him, and whenever he came to visit their cottage, she stood apart.

  “Daughter,” he said. “You’re all a-shiver.”

  “I’m all right,” said Hanna, not letting on how unsettled she was. She straightened up as best she could, but the man was so tall her head still reached only to just above his middle. “I have a deal of work to do.” She hoped these words would send the Falconer away, but he leaned against his walking stick, looking now and again up at the sky as if in watch for something.

  “It’s not the cold makes you shiver,” said the Falconer, “but the nearness of these graves.”

  Hanna stood silent, unsure of what to make of his words. The Falconer raised his eyes to the sky once more. Then he lifted his forearm, which was wrapped in a thick brown leather band. A falcon soared from behind a spray of clouds. The bird slowly circled downward, growing larger as it flew closer to them. Then, with a flap of wings, Aetwan landed on his master’s arm. She’d seen falconer and falcon together before, but never so close by, for Mother never let the bird inside the cottage. With the falcon sitting level to the old man’s face, she saw now how alike they were. Both man and bird had dark eyes ringed in fiery gold, and both had heads that went from stillness to swiftness when they looked about, as if they saw invisible things moving all around them.

  Hanna wanted to continue planting, but Aetwan stared at her with such wild eyes she couldn’t move. Wind blew against the falcon’s feathers and troubled the old man’s hair. Both tipped their heads as if listening to a speech, though no one was speaking.

  The Falconer leaned forward so close that his long nose nearly touched Hanna’s brow. “You’ve heard the Shriker’s call.”

  “I haven’t.” Hanna stepped back.

  He kept her in his steady gaze. “Well, it’s revenge he’s after, and Sheens he’s after more than most,” he said. “You’re to come to me when you hear the call.”

  Never, thought Hanna as the old man stood up tall again.

  “Aye, you’ll come to my place in the woods,” said the Falconer, “I can see that much at least.”

  Hanna hoped he wasn’t right, though some said he was a seer and could read the future. “I don’t even know the way,” said Hanna with a shrug.

  “Your brother can show you, but not at night, mind. Make sure Miles brings you in daylight, when it’s safe.”

  “Miles is busy most days,” argued Hanna.

  The Falconer laughed, then turned heel and disappeared faster than any old man had a right to. A cloud passed overhead, shadowing the grass at the old man’s feet as he climbed the hill. Hanna felt a rush of anger. She swung her hands to and fro to rid herself of it. What right did he have to frighten her so? Why should he take it on himself to tell her what to do? he didn’t have to go. She wouldn’t go.

  Lunging too quickly for the watering can beside the fence, she tore a long hole in her skirt on a rusty nail. “Oh, now look!” she cried to no one at all. Her best skirt torn, and she had only two. She couldn’t risk walking past the teasing village boys in a torn skirt. She’d have to take the long way back to the road, where Miles would meet her with the horse and cart.

  Hanna looked along the fence in the direction she would have to walk. It was the one way she didn’t want to go, for it passed by the oldest part of the graveyard, and she could see it was a shadowed place.

  WILD WOLF

  The demons that followed them were as their own shadows.

  —THE BOOK OF EOWEY

  AT SUNSET MILES HEADED DOWN MOUNTAIN TO MEET Hanna at the byway. His hands felt raw from his day’s work trying to mend the broken cartwheel with Da. Hanna would be disappointed to see no cart to pick her up. It would be a long walk home.

  High in a nearby fir tree a spinney bird sang out. It was a gentle tune, like one the Falconer played on his ervay. Miles stopped to listen. Spinney birds were rare, and each sang a slightly different song. The notes the male bird sang were clear and drawn out; they started high, then fell slowly, and as the notes cascaded down, Miles’s heart fell with them. Then up they sprang again, the tune ending higher than it had begun. If he’d played a song like that for the Sylth Queen, what magic would she have given him then?

  The bird’s tune was left behind as the dirt road parted company with the forest and took him along the rolling foothills. Miles jammed his hands in his pockets. The full-moon had come and gone last night. There’d been no death in Shalem Wood. At least, he’d heard of none. In the deeps he’d seen the tunnel pulsing red, heard the Shriker’s stark howl before Queen Shaleedyn slammed the passage shut. Her power and the magic flowing out on Breal’s Moon must have kept the Shriker from his kill this once.

  Granda had said Polly would be the first of many victims this time around if it was anything like before. But the Sylth Queen’s power had bought Miles some time to gather the magic he needed to overcome the Shriker before his next return. He was grateful to the queen for that.

  Miles quickened his pace, feeling the coil of power at the base of his spine the way he’d felt it in the deeps. Shape-shifting was a great gift, but he didn’t see how it could be used to overcome the Shriker. He’d still have to sail to Othlore and learn more powerful magic to wield a breaking spell, but how? He couldn’t impress the Falconer with his magical skill if he had to keep his power secret.

  He was still puzzling over that when he rounded the bend and stopped to gaze down the broad dirt road. Hanna was at the byway, just as she’d promised to be, but there were others with her Mic and Cully, he guessed, though only one boy held a torch. He was still too far away to be sure.

  Miles started down the final hill. Mic and Cully were always after Hanna. Last spring they’d bound her to a tree, but he’d caught them in their game and beaten them hard till they both ran off screaming. He’d left the fight with a black eye, and he was proud enough to show it to Da, though it made his mother cry.

  Near the north side of the high kirk wall Cully waved his torch. In the pale golden light Miles saw Hanna clinging to her skirt. The village boys had gone too far this time and torn it!

  Mic danced around her, taunting. “A cape! The witch girl has a cape!” He came in closer. “Give us a kiss, witch girl!”

  “Watch out, or she’ll hex you with her evil eye!” Cully said.

  “Ah,” shouted Mic. “I’ll have my kiss. She’s a pretty enough witch.” Hanna backed away, but he grabbed her torn skirt. “It’s a cape. Take it off and wear it on your back!”

  “Aye,” called Cully, holding up his torch. “Take it off! It’s not a skirt at all!”

  Miles started running. He would pound them to the earth for this! He’d give them more than the evil eye! He’d blacken their eyes with his fists! He flew down the road, head throbbing, stomach churning. Skidding past a puddle, he fell, leaped up, regained his footing, and flung himself onward. Arms pumping, he raced till his skin began to burn.

  Hot needles pricked his flesh. The strange feeling made him glance down. What he saw filled him with exhilaration and terror. Thick fur was grow
ing along his forearms.

  Miles sped up. More hot needles. Fur sprouted across his chest, his neck, his face. His jaw ached, as if a strong hand were tugging his teeth outward. His mouth grew longer and longer, forming a narrow snout.

  Unable to run upright any longer, Miles hunched over. His hands curled to paws, and he fell on all fours. He should turn and run the other way before anyone saw him shape-shift. But anger drove him down the hill, and as he ran, he let out a warning snarl. Rounding a sharp curve, he pounded down the road toward Mic and Cully.

  “Wolf!” screamed Hanna. The boys parted as if sliced by a knife.

  Miles’s nostrils filled with the thick, stark odor of their fear as he raced toward them. Cully waved his torch to frighten him off, but Miles ran fearless past the fire, heading straight for Mic, his brilliant, bounding muscles taut with speed. He leaped at the boy, knocking him to the ground. Planting his paws on Mic’s chest, he went for him.

  “Stop him!” Hanna screamed. “He’s killing Mic!”

  Miles tasted the blood in his mouth. He drew back, suddenly confused. Beneath him Mic was flattened on the road, clutching his bloody arm and moaning. He hadn’t meant … This wasn’t how …

  A rock soared past.

  “Get away!” screamed Cully. “Get away from him now!” More rocks cascaded down, from Cully’s hand, from Hanna’s. One hit his back, another cut his neck.

  “Hanna!” he cried, but it came out a yowl Miles turned tail and ran back across the road, the long grass slapping his forelegs as he bounded uphill and down.

  Cully tore after him, throwing more stones. “I’ll kill you, monster!” he screamed. “Come back and see if I don’t!” He chased Miles up to the tree line. Miles leaped over the bracken and bounded through the gorse bushes.

  Feet pounded the forest floor behind him. Then from the road below he heard Hanna screaming. “Cully! Come back! Come help me with Mic”

  Miles kept running, one mile, two, though he knew by the silence in the woods behind that Cully had turned back long ago to help Hanna with Mic. He slowed his pace at last and sought cold comfort at Senowey River. Chest heaving, head bent, he lapped up the water, looking at his own wolf’s eyes. His strange, long snout and shiny black nose. He drank again, washing the taste of blood from his mouth, then left the shore and waded out into the tumbling water.

  He went in deep and deeper, until he was up to his neck in the slow current. The heated wolf flesh slowly cooled in the swirling water. His arms and legs lengthened. His face softened. He stretched out his spine. Another moment in the rushing river and he knew he had changed back.

  Rising up to a stand in the waist-high current, Miles touched his arms. He ran his hand along his smooth-skinned face and washed the blood from his wounded neck. The cut from Cully’s rock stung, but it wasn’t deep. He waded to a small pool near the shore, lay faceup in the shallows, then let himself sink down a second time. Through the water’s surface the winking stars above wobbled like tiny chicks on unsure feet. Miles lay still a long while, as one dead. Finally, lungs aching, he burst through the surface and sucked in big gulps of air.

  Back on shore he stood trembling. His legs felt thin. His knees wobbled with the strangeness of what had happened. Still, Mic had deserved the scare, hadn’t he? He’d torn Hanna’s skirt and called her a witch and … he’d been cruel. Cruel and stupid!

  Miles shook the water from his hair the way he’d seen dogs do. Hanna always laughed when he did that. But she wasn’t here to laugh at him now. She was likely home with Mother and Da. At least, he hoped she was. He didn’t dare go back down to the crossway to see.

  The weight of the water clung to his clothes. On the rocky bank he pulled off his shirt and wrung the dense cloth, twisting harder and harder till the last drops stained the ground. He was dressing again when he heard a sound coming from a stand of copper beeches.

  Miles pivoted, fear creeping up his back. It had been only one day since the queen gifted him with magic, and already he’d broken the first promise. He was to use his power only in great need. A torn skirt and teasing village boys couldn’t be considered “great need.” He knew they couldn’t. But then, he hadn’t willed the change. It wasn’t so much that he’d used the power, but that the power had used him.

  Looking to his left and right, he turned and retraced his steps, covering his paw tracks with the familiar shape of his own boot prints. He was all for the road now and with good reason. He remembered the look on Enoch’s face there in the twisted oak, the terror in his eyes and his mouth torn in a scream. It was all that was left of a man who’d angered the Sylth Queen.

  COVERING THE TRACKS

  In the end all Rory could ever hear were the pad, pad sounds of the hound’s great paws everywhere he went.

  —THE LEGEND OF THE SHRIKER

  TYMM RAN DOWN THE MOONLIT ROAD, WAVING HIS ARMS in warning. “Oh, you’re in a deal of trouble!” he shouted. He ran once around Miles, as a puppy would, then tugged his arm to pull him toward the cottage. “Da’s angry, and Mother’s crying,” he panted. “Hanna was attacked by a wolf while she waited for you at the byway.”

  Miles wanted to shout, “Not Hanna! I didn’t touch her!” But he held his tongue.

  “Da will likely whip you with the switch for being late to fetch her.” Tymm skipped along happily. As the one who most often got a lashing, he seemed to welcome the idea of sharing the attention with his brother.

  Miles entered the cottage and found Mother, crying, just as Tymm had said. “Where’s Hanna?” he asked.

  “Where indeed!” boomed Da. “You were sent to meet your sister at the byway. What happened to you, boy?”

  “I … I took a fall,” said Miles.

  “Look,” said Mother, rising from her chair “He’s cut!”

  “It’s nothing,” said Miles, reaching for his neck. “I washed the blood off in the river.”

  “And while you were having a little bath, your sister was attacked!” growled Da.

  “And she was nearly kilt, wasn’t she!” said Tymm, who now sat halfway up the ladder to the loft.

  “Now, don’t be saying that,” scolded Mother. “The wolf only tore her skirt, but oh, to think what that creature might have done.” She wiped a tear from her damp cheek.

  Da crossed his arms and looked down at Miles, his face furrowed like a field before the planting. “I’ve told you time and again you’re to care for your sister.”

  Miles wanted to shout, “But I was taking care of her. It was Mic and Cully who tore her skirt, and I ran down to help her.” But he managed to clamp his mouth shut until the hot words cooled. Da turned his face away as if he was ashamed to look at him, and that hurt far more than a slap would have, or any stinging lashes with the willow switch, for that matter.

  “Is Hanna in her room?” asked Miles.

  “Aye,” said Mother. “but she’s likely sleeping now. I gave her some tamalla herb to calm her soul.”

  “I’ll Just go see.” Miles took a candle from the table and went down the hall.

  “Hanna?” he whispered, setting the candle down on the table by her cot.

  Hanna turned over. “Oh, Miles. It was terrible. Where were you?” She blinked up at him, her eyes nearly matching colors in the candle’s glow.

  “I was on my way to you. But … the hour was late.”

  “Aye. Late. Did Da tell you about the wolf?”

  Miles sat down on the edge of her cot. “He did. And more than told me.”

  “Aye, Da was terrible angry when Cully brought me home in the cart and told him what had happened.”

  “Cully?”

  “He drove me home.” She shook her head, “Poor Mic’s arm was torn open, and broken besides. Oh, there was so much blood. His da had to send for the Falconer to medicine him. The Falconer had spent the night in Brim to tend little Effie’s burns. He was only just on his way home when he turned back for Mic.”

  Miles put his head in his hands, trying to take it all in. He’d b
roken Mic’s arm, and his teacher, his own teacher, had been called upon to cure him.

  “How could you let Cully bring you home when he’d torn your skirt?” he asked hoarsely.

  “He never did!” said Hanna. “Is that what Mother said? I tore it myself on the kirkyard fence.”

  “So Mic and Cully—”

  “They were teasing me, as they ever do. I’d have kicked them in the shins if I could, but there were two of them.” She frowned. Her face twitched, then she suddenly brightened, “But Cully was brave as ever in helping me stone the wolf.”

  “Oh, Hanna,” sighed Miles.

  She reached up and touched his arm. “I know you’re sorry you weren’t there to help me fight off the wolf, but Cully was there, so you needn’t …”

  Miles drew away from her touch and lurched toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” asked Hanna. “I told you it’s all right.”

  He half stumbled into the narrow hall, then shut his sister’s door.

  SPELL SONG

  In the deeps of sbalem Wood be bowls.

  —THE LEGEND OF THE SHRIKER

  HANNA ADDED BOILING WATER TO THE COLD WATER IN the basin, dipped a bowl in, and started to scrub. The water was too hot, but she dropped in the spoons with a clatter, working the suds to wash another bowl.

  “Look now,” said Da, scooting his chair closer to Miles. “My son’s becoming a man.”

  “Whatever do you mean?” said Mother.

  “Show her your neck, son.” ordered Da.

  “Ah,” said Mother. “A beard’s beginning. Come see, Hanna.”

  “Me first,” shouted Tymm, leaping from his chair. He put his hand up to his brother’s neck.

  “Get back,” warned Miles, slapping his hand away.

  “Oh, let him see,” said Mother. “It’s not every day a boy gets a beard.”

  Hanna wiped her wet, raw hands on her apron and peered at Miles.