by Kate Elliott
“Could you recognize a Guardian if you saw one?” Kesta asked with a sharp laugh.
“Excuse me, if you will.” Anji shifted to look down the road, back the way he had come. The front rank of his company rode into view. “We have little enough time. What do I need to know about winged horses, and these creatures you call ‘guardians’?”
Joss nodded. “Kesta is right. According to our tales, the nine Guardians served as judges at the assizes for many generations. Then, they vanished. No one alive today has met a Guardian. We have good reason to believe they’re all dead. Remains have been found. Bones. I think they’re gone. But, according to the tale, among the gifts given them by the gods were winged horses, ‘formed out of the elements so that they could travel swiftly and across the rivers and mountains without obstacle.’ ”
“A useful skill,” said Anji, indicating the resting eagles. “As we have seen.”
“We’ve got a flag,” said Volias suddenly.
Joss looked over his shoulder to see all three eagles staring at the sky, but not at the two reeves circling overhead. After a moment, he saw a speck in the southern sky that quickly grew until he could make out an eagle and reeve moving in fast.
Joss turned to Anji. “Remember that no eagle can descend on you if you and your men and horses take cover in woods. And at night, eagles are blind.”
Pari and Killer landed at a prudent distance, and the reeve unhooked and ran over to them. He was panting as he came up.
“The eagles are flaring,” he said. “There’s at least two flights approaching out of the north. It must be Argent Hall.”
Joss looked at Volias, and Volias looked at Captain Anji. The Qin troop had halted on the road behind him. They waited in neat ranks, with their remounts and grooms in the center of the marching order.
“If we draw them off,” said Volias, “these have a hope of getting to Olossi before the army catches up. Or of scattering, without the Argent reeves marking their movement.”
“What will you do?” asked Joss. “What meeting place will we arrange?”
Anji looked toward Pari. “This man wears different markings than the others. What does that mean?”
Volias said, “Pari, back aloft. Alert Ulon that we’ll be drawing the Argent Hall reeves off toward the escarpment. We’ll meet up with you shortly.”
“Don’t you trust me?” demanded Pari. In the distance, Killer gave a twitter of anger, seeing a change in Pari’s stance. The feathers were rising on the back of Scar’s neck as he swiveled his head to stare at the smaller eagle.
“Best go,” said Joss. “I don’t want a confrontation between those two eagles.”
Pari gave way.
As the young reeve walked off, Anji, rather like the fierce-eyed eagles, watched him go. “Can you explain that?” he asked.
“He came to us from Argent Hall,” said Joss, “with troubling stories of their marshal and their activities. He claims to be on our side, and I believe him. But I think it best not to discuss our plans in front of him.”
Anji nodded. “Best move quickly, then. If you can, let Argent Hall’s reeves see us riding for Olossi. Afterward, draw them off and keep them busy. We’ll resupply in Olossi this afternoon and scatter at nightfall. By tomorrow, the army will come. It’s most likely they will trample the countryside and invest a siege. Were they hauling the makings of siegeworks?”
Joss shrugged. “How could I tell? There are accounts of sieges in the old tales, but I’ve never seen such a thing. They had wagons carting supplies.”
“If they believe the gates will be opened from within by their allies within the Greater Houses, they won’t be prepared for a drawn-out ordeal. That is what we must hope for.”
Kesta and Volias walked away toward their eagles, but Joss lingered. “What happened to Zubaidit? I don’t see her with you.”
“She took her brother and went her way at dawn. She said she had fulfilled her obligations, and meant to walk her own path.” Anji grinned at Chief Tuvi, and around the group of seven they shared smiles. “Nor did I think to stop her, fearing she might take her revenge on me someday when I least expect it.”
“If these eagles are come in their numbers from Argent Hall,” said Chief Tuvi, “then it seems she set free the pig and he went running to his mire!”
Their laughter annoyed Joss, and he did not even know why. As the other eagles took off, Scar called to him, an eager chirp. The raptor knew something was afoot. He didn’t want to miss the action. As Joss hustled back to the eagle and hooked in, he worked through what was bothering him so much: that Zubaidit had just run away like that, when he had some things left to say to her. Yet she was free to go and come as she wished. She had no bond to him, no obligation. He might wish otherwise, but he knew when to give up the dance.
There was more to his irritation, hard to point to, subtle but rankling.
The Qin were not demonstrative men. In truth, they had about them a fastidious air of superiority; it was well hidden for the most part, but so pervasive was this quality to the fabric of their personalities that it seemed woven into them. Their laughter had shown no scorn. By any measure, it was clear they admired the Devouring woman, as if they thought her worthy in a way no one else they had met in the Hundred was. Not even Joss.
48
The worst came just after dawn when he heard thrashing in the trees. By then, he could not feel either hands or feet. He could not protect himself. And he looked like such a damned fool idiot. Sometimes death was better than shame.
But, after all, the impulse to live was stronger.
A man beat a path through the woods. He had a knife out, and the remains of a soldier’s kit, leather scale coat, empty sword sheath, sturdy boots, baggy trousers sewn of stiff cloth, all torn and bloodied. Seeing Horas, he stopped dead, and like an eagle he gaped, showing his tongue.
“What are you?” he asked.
“A reeve from Argent Hall. Cut me loose.”
The man looked at the trussing, and the clothes, and he scratched his chin in a puzzled way, trying to work it out. He had worn a helm once; a leather strap, sliced clean, dangled where one end had gotten caught in the neck of his coat.
“Cut me loose!”
He shrugged, and cut him down.
Horas collapsed.
The man pawed through the pile. “No offense, reeve, but I’ll be taking this string in exchange for my trouble.” He tucked the string of vey into his sleeve. “And this knife.”
Horas groaned. Hands and feet came alive with a flaming agony that made him weep. He could do nothing to stop the other man, who finished his theft with a satisfied smile. Back within the trees, a branch snapped, and the man’s eyes flared with fear. He cursed under his breath and took a step.
“Wait,” Horas said, his voice a croak. “Before you run—what happened?”
“We were attacked at dawn. They weren’t taking prisoners, I can tell you. I haven’t an eagle to fly away like you do, just my own two feet.” He spat on the ground, the old country tradition of expelling bad fortune. Without a spare glance, he took off into the woods.
Horas soon lost track of the crash and rustle of the man’s flight. He lay there, teeth gritted and eyes watering. In the end, he crawled to his clothing, and he dressed. In the end, he staggered to a clearing, and set the whistle to his lips. In the end, Tumna came for him. Together they circled until they found the carnage left on the road and saw the company—the very mercenary company that had marched away yesterday!—marching double-time on West Track back toward Olossi. The council had lied to him! They had betrayed their own allies!
That Devouring woman had used him, lured him, shamed him, and then hadn’t even had the stomach to kill him afterward.
Furious, fuming, and still hurting like the hells, Horas set his course for Argent Hall.
MIDMORNING HE CIRCLED a leaden-winged Tumna over Argent Hall, and landed. Leaving the eagle for the hall’s fawkners, he shouted at some stray lagabout to ring t
he alert before walking to the marshal’s cote, where he was refused entry. The alarm bell jangled twice, but quit after that. He was just about to push past the old slave who blocked the steps and shove the door aside himself, when the senior reeves hurried into the garden.
“Are you insane, Horas?” whined Toban. “You’ll get us all punished.”
“Too late. The strike force was attacked at dawn and wiped out.”
“Why didn’t you warn them?” demanded Weda. The bitch.
“Nothing I could do,” he said, “you cursed fool ass-lickers. While you sit here and feast and the marshal pokes his merry pigs, Olossi’s council is betraying us. I flew past on my way back here. The whole population is afoot, fleeing into the walls. They know what’s coming, and they’re making ready to fight.”
The door slid open. Marshal Yordenas appeared, looking weary but composed. His cold gaze made the reeve suddenly wish he were an ant, beneath notice. He wiped sweat from his neck.
“Why did you not return last night?” asked the marshal in that dull, quiet voice.
The lot of them were fools twice over, and all his shame and anger boiled up just thinking of it. “Captured, that’s what! They’re a damned sight cleverer than any of you are. It’s mere fortunate chance I escaped and got back here to warn you.”
The gang of four watched the marshal carefully. It struck Horas for the first time that they watched the marshal in the same way they would keep their gaze fixed on a poisonous snake.
“Best you gather two flights and rid us of these troublesome gnats.”
“You going to fly with us?” Horas demanded.
Toban gasped, and Weda flinched. They cowered, waiting for the marshal to bite. They were all afraid of him, but he was only an opportunist who had moved in and worked promises and threats to get himself elevated to a position he did not deserve and had not earned.
Those blank eyes were turned on him. “Did you know, Horas, that I never sleep? I am burdened by such dreams as would drive a sane man into madness.”
Horas stepped back, anything to get farther away from him. For obviously, the dreams had already done their work. Why hadn’t he seen that before? Toban grabbed his arm and yanked him another few steps back.
“Nay, make it three flights.”
“Uh, uh.”
“Speak up, Toban. I can’t hear you.”
“Marshal, we’re sorely understrength. Three flights aloft will leave us only one to cover Argent Hall.”
“Three flights,” said the marshal as if he were discussing the night’s menu. “It will be three flights. Olossi’s Greater Houses must not be allowed to betray the agreement they sealed with us. And there is a rumor—she is looking for the one who escaped her—she’ll be angry—”
He broke off, and went back into the cote without explaining who “she” was, who the one who escaped her was, and why she would be angry or her anger matter to anyone.
“Three flights,” said Toban. “You’ll lead them, Horas. Time you had a command.”
He looked at them, who had cosseted and praised him. They were all rotten. They hated him, just as he hated them and everyone.
“Three flights,” he said. Why not? A man with the knack for command could win the loyalty of reeves who might then join him when, as in the Tale of Change, it was time for new leadership.
THREE FLIGHTS TOOK time to launch, and they struggled once in the air to find a formation. The eagles did not like to fly so close together, nor had Master Yordenas flown them in drills as often as he ought, given so many were eagles who had migrated into new territory. He had preferred to send constant small patrols into the Barrens.
Looking for what? For the nest of my missing eagle, he’d said, but also, for signs of habitation in high isolated reaches. Any place, it seemed, a person might hide where only eagles could reach. Maybe what she was looking for, the person who had escaped her, whoever she was. For some reason, he thought of that mild clerk who had interviewed him at the army camp, of the way her gaze had burned right down to his cringing heart, curse her.
Enough! Circling above Argent Hall, he fixed his attention on the landscape below. He didn’t love the sight of the land unrolling beneath, not as many reeves claimed to. The people were too small, reminding him of bugs, and perhaps it was best most folk be squashed for they would be gnawing and biting at him, ill-tempered as they all seemed to be. Paths and roads threaded through dry fields. The irrigation canals were emptied, nothing more than scars scratched into the dirt. Yet there was a smell in the air, a taste like a kiss of spice on a Devouring girl’s tongue: the rains were coming soon. The new year would green out of the withered stalks of the one passing away. The Year of the Red Goat was waiting to germinate, bloody and stubborn. Jealous, passionate, fickle, like that damned Devouring girl. If he ever got his hands on her again, she’d not be laughing at him afterward.
At length, his flights were assembled in the air. Flanks stretched far out to either side. With the first flight, he took the lead, striking out for Olossi and West Track. Fields poured away below them. Soon enough he saw people on paths hauling carts and wagons piled high with possessions. From out of the walls rose the clangor of a bell. They had been warned. They were running for the safety of the walls, curse them.
The wind was hot, and the afternoon sun hotter yet. They circled Olossi a pair of times just for the pleasure of seeing so many faces upturned, so many pointing, shouting, weeping. It was good that the crawlers were frightened of reeves. They ought to be.
A flag flashed off to the left south flank, forward of his position. He banked, and the lead flight followed, with the other two keeping a prudent distance. Villagers hurried down the road, all in a jumble, some clots passing others, some resting, some splitting into two while others joined up. These were no threat. The flag whipped its signal again. His gaze caught on a distant group that, like ants, crept along the road in something resembling order. An eagle circled high aloft, watching over that company.
He slipped loose a flag and signaled to the rest to “stay back.” He beat higher. The company on the road sparkled in their ranks. They were armed with swords and spears, although their dress was dark. What seemed at a height to be creeping was in truth a brisk march, eating up the mey.
As he banked, he got a good look at the reeve who was guarding the troop, and damned if it wasn’t the very reeve who should have been dead. Joss, his name was. The other reeve’s eagle was a big, old, experienced bird, and Tumna clamped down her feathers, not wanting to approach.
The other raptor pulled in close enough that that damned smug reeve could shout across the distance. “What do you intend?”
“Go back! Go back! This is our place!” Then he saw what waited to the south.
Two flights of reeves, in tight formation, seen as specks over the escarpment where the thermals were strongest.
“Reeves do not war on other reeves!” called Legate Joss. “Let us make an alliance.”
Three flights, to the enemy’s two.
His bow was strung, clipped to his chest harness. He got it into his hands, pressed to the end of its tether, and nocked an arrow. Swinging wide, he released the arrow, but what would have been a fair shot on the land went astray in the currents and missed wide. The other eagle beat its wings, calling a challenge, and swung talons up as though to close and grapple in midair.
Horas tugged on the upper jesses, and Tumna dove out of the way. They twisted back and returned, flying hard, to their flight.
Reeves had no signal for attack. They were not soldiers. Using two flags, he gave two signals.
Crime in progress.
No quarter.
Perhaps the reeves of Argent Hall had simply been waiting for action. Still, it surprised him how they bent with a will, eagles ready to defend their territory and reeves eager to take out their frustration on Clan Hall’s enforcers. Many of the Argent Hall reeves had, like him, been driven from their original places by the spite and envy of others. No
w they could get their revenge.
They flew over West Track and, continuing south, grabbed height as they could, but Clan Hall had already taken advantage of the good updrafts along the high ground. As Horas and his flights moved in, Clan Hall’s eagles shifted, in disciplined ranks, toward the west. He turned his group to follow, but at once the glare of the westering sun got in their eyes and made it difficult to aim.
Again, he signaled. No quarter.
Numbers would tell. Seeing what they were up against, Clan Hall would break and flee.
That’s what he would do, in their situation. He wasn’t a fool.
The lead flights closed. Some were too high and some too low; all the lines were staggered at irregular intervals. They almost seemed to be flying through each other, as the chanters in talking lines may shift places by weaving in between their comrades. A few arrows flew harmlessly. Some reeves grabbed an updraft, while others stooped to get out of the way.
The escarpment was a jumbled blanket of gray stone outcrops and grass dried almost white by the heat of Furnace Sky. Far to the south, a trickle of dust rose, marking movement, but the high plains were otherwise empty except for the eagles circling here along the spot where the earth thrust up from the river plain.
Horas found himself beyond the fray. He cursed at Tumna and turned her, although she protested. They banked steeply, losing altitude but getting back around where he could see the wheel of raptors in the sky above him in a silent gyre so beautiful that you might believe, for the space of a breath, that the gods had intended it exactly that way.
Then it happened.
An eagle faltered. Bated. Plunged.
It was difficult to imagine that the arrow in the eagle’s eye was a carefully aimed shot, but it proved lethal. Everyone watched as the reeve struggled, trying to get his eagle to respond to his frantic pulls on the jesses, but they tumbled regardless. There was no sound when they hit. They merely became a motionless discoloration on the earth.
