Black Wings Beating

by Alex London

  Beneath the cloaks they wore thick-feathered robes cinched with leather belts from which hung blades and climbing gear. They had black-and-white sable scarves wrapped around their necks and fabric for climbing wrapped around their wrists and palms. All of them had snow-fox-silver hair worn short, and their faces were rugged as the mountain itself.

  Two of them held beautiful walnut crossbows. The other three simply raised their left fists, and the silent owls returned to them.

  Owl Mothers.

  This was their ridge. This had always been their ridge. The Altari feared them, the Uztari avoided them, and only a fool disrespected them.

  Brysen had veered off the known routes through the mountains and walked straight into them. It was a deadly reckless thing to do, but it might have just saved their lives.

  The woman who looked to be eldest crossed the ground to Kylee, removed a sharp dagger from her belt with her right hand, and extended it, handle-first. Her face was tanned and windburned, broad and flat as her owl’s, watching Kylee just as impassively. Two of the younger women looked just like her, while the other two had hawk-sharp features and skin as dark as Nyall’s. All five of them stood solid as stone.

  Kylee wasn’t sure what was expected of her now. Should she take the blade? Bow? In the Six Villages she might give the winged salute, but that didn’t seem to be what was expected of her here.

  Under the net, Shara returned to screeching, red eyes darting with her whole head from owl to owl. This was not a position a hawk preferred. Brysen’s face was etched with pain for his trapped bird, but he didn’t dare move to set her free.

  The Owl Mother nodded, and Kylee took the knife.

  Then the woman pointed at the kneeling long-hauler. “They’d’ve taken yours,” she said. Kylee understood the words if not their meaning. “Yours,” the woman repeated, waving one hand at Brysen and Nyall. “Your men.” She snorted, reconsidered. “Boys.”

  “They’re not mine,” Kylee explained, but in a way, they were all bound to one another. Did that make them hers?

  The woman helped Kylee up from the ground and guided her in front of the long-hauler, who knelt in a growing pool of his own blood. The woman gestured again to the blade and to the man. “Take him. He deserves it.”

  She hesitated. The blade shook in her hands. She’d never had another soul so fully at her mercy. She was used to violence but only in flashes, like a hawk in a dive: the sudden screeching terror and then quiet, maybe a whine, maybe a tear. But this? The man was no danger anymore. This wasn’t the quick clash of a falcon and a hare, or even the ale-lit cruelty of her father’s brutal nights. This was cold-eyed murder.

  “I’ll do it,” Brysen said, rising to his feet. The man had nearly cut his soul off from the sky and buried his head in the dirt, but her brother had never killed anyone before, either, not as far as Kylee knew.

  “No!” the Owl Mother shouted, and raised her left arm. Her owl rose from it and flew over Brysen, hovering with silent wingbeats. He stopped moving. “Life and death aren’t yours.” She looked again at Kylee. Her eyes were black and cold but gentle, like a deep mountain lake. “Blood belongs to us.”

  Us.

  “Man can’t take what he can’t give,” the Owl Mother explained. “Only we shed man’s blood here.”

  Kylee’s blade hand didn’t move, and the woman reached out, wrapped her fingers around Kylee’s, and took back her knife. She smiled; the skin around her eyes crinkled with it and Kylee felt the fear leave her chest. The Owl Mother radiated warmth and power, her face a fortress wall and her smile a hearth behind it.

  And with the same empty silence as an owl hunting over a snowy meadow, the Owl Mother swiped the blade across the long-hauler’s throat and kicked him backward down the slope to the cliff’s edge. The Orphan Maker plummeted over the side and was gone. The great gray owl circled back from Brysen and settled silently on the Owl Mother’s fist again, wide yellow eyes blinking one at a time at Kylee.

  “You come with us,” she said. “We’ll hear what breeze brought you; we’ll see what wind will carry you on.”

  Two of the women started walking up the mountain single file, two more gesturing for Nyall and Brysen to walk between them, with the last waiting for Kylee to go in front of her.

  “Ky,” Brysen whispered with pure, desperate terror. He didn’t move to his place in line. He looked at Shara beneath her net.

  Kylee understood. He would never leave his bird.

  “Excuse me? Um … uh…?” Kylee called.

  The Owl Mother who had killed the long-hauler turned her head but not her body. “My name is Üku.”

  “Mem Üku.” Kylee bowed her head and gave the winged salute across her chest. “May my brother bring his hawk with us? They are … dear to each other.” She looked at the desperate goshawk in the net. “Her name is Shara.”

  The Owl Mother smiled, realizing surely that Kylee had mentioned the female hawk because she understood something of the Owl Mothers: Men and boys had their uses, but it was women who ruled here.

  “Nothing’s dear to a raptor but its own life,” Üku said. She touched her index finger to the cheekbone just below her eye, a gesture Kylee didn’t understand. “But he can bring her.”

  Brysen scrambled to cut Shara free, cradling the hawk against his chest and whispering comforting words but tying her onto the leash on his belt quickly as he did. He knew she’d fly away the moment he let her go. There was only so much punishment a hawk would take before it abandoned you. A strong knot was a more reliable bond than affection.

  “Don’t worry,” Brysen whispered at Kylee as he passed her to take his place in line. “All part of the plan.”

  He nodded briskly over the mountain, and Kylee saw a line of climbers far below them, no larger than ants, marching single file toward Blue Sheep Pass, which was slow and long and avoided the Owl Mothers’ territory completely. At least Vyvian had spread the right rumors back in the Villages. She’d bought their little expedition time.

  There were over a dozen figures making their way up—trappers and porters together. Even from this far, she could see the weapons they carried—long bows and heavy swords. These weren’t mountaineers or Six Villages trappers. These were mercenaries, and someone had hired them.

  “Let’s go.” Üku nudged Kylee forward, and they began their own single-file march up into the blood birch forest.

  THE DIRT’S MERCY

  The morning mist over the grassland plain had already burned away, and there wasn’t much game for the hunt. Sylas’s peregrine had bagged a grass hen early, while his son Victyr’s little desert falcon had nearly taken a sand weasel but lost it down a hole and caught only a footful of dirt instead.

  The boy had complained all morning of boredom, and neither the servants nor their work dogs could flush much game out from the low scrub. He’d hoped to take larger prey to teach the boy how to dress it, but at this point he’d settle for as much as a vole in the boy’s game bag.

  The desert falcon sat hooded on the T-perch his son’s valet carried. Victyr wanted to stop for an early lunch.

  “It’s like all the game’s run off, Kyrg Sylas,” one of the guides apologized, mopping his forehead where the sweat was beading over angry, red sun blisters. “Might be good to take a rest and travel on after we’re fed. Maybe some migrating river gulls will make good sport later. It’s the season for it.”

  “Please, please, please,” Victyr begged, hopping up and down. Windblown sand speckled the boy’s rich brown skin. One of the valets rushed over with a cloth to wipe his arms and legs off before they began to itch.

  Sylas exhaled but couldn’t refuse his son’s pleading little face. His own parents had never given in to a single one of his pleas, and he’d vowed not to be so hard on his own children.

  His mothers’ harshness had, of course, been born of their positions on the Council of Forty. They were both kyrgs, each busy with official duties, which meant he’d hardly known them. He’d been raised
by servants and sent away for study and training. Yes, that had prepared him for his own service as one of the Forty—how many men could claim to have had both parents serve?—but it hadn’t done much for his enjoyment of childhood. He meant to be warmer to his son, and besides, what harm could an early lunch do? They would hunt gulls later. That’d be far more exciting for hunter and falcon alike.

  At least the boy would know a thing or two when they got to the Six Villages, and maybe those schemers wouldn’t be able to rip him off so easily. Sylas had lost his fair share of pocket money as a boy visiting the Six Villages Hawkers’ Market. Once, he bought racing pigeons that were hardly more than flying rats. He suspected his own boyhood valet had been in on the scam.

  No valet would raise his son. He and Victyr would hunt together, eat together, and talk together. Victyr would grow up strong, but he’d grow up loved, and that would be a fine inheritance to leave him in addition to a position on the Council.

  He rested his hand on his son’s back, watching the servants set up the picnic. There was a basket of flatbreads, cardamom rice with barberries and chili, and cold roasted rabbit with saffron oil. Honey cakes and sweetroot pies for desert. The boy would have hearty goat’s milk, while the servants had brought a low mountain wine for Sylas and the two minor nobles who’d joined him for the hunt. They scurried over, leaving their falcons on the square carrying frame with their own valets.

  “My proctor has decided it’s lunchtime”—Sylas grinned at Victyr—“and I am sworn to obey his commands.” He pretended not to see the eye roll that passed between the two nobles. He could scold them for the disrespect of their betters, but that would make for a long remainder of the journey. He let the slight go and invited them to sit with him for the meal.

  “The guides think we’ll have more luck hunting gulls this afternoon,” he said. “Better sport in the air, anyway.”

  “Humph,” one of the nobles grunted, tucking into a rabbit leg and getting grease all over his wispy red beard.

  “I think we might have a flock to take right now!” The other noble stood, excited. He pointed toward the horizon, where, indeed, they could make out the dark shapes of a vast flock sweeping toward them. The noble smiled from ear to ear and ran to get his falcon.

  “Lunchtime’s over, kid! It’s time to hunt!” The other noble dropped his rabbit leg on the basket and nearly toppled the whole picnic running after his friend.

  “Da!” Victyr whined. “I haven’t eaten anything yet!”

  Sylas hadn’t moved. He and his servants looked at the approaching flock in awe. There were hundreds of dark shapes in the sky, moving in a formation like geese … but they looked far too large to be geese. They were coming much faster than geese, too.

  “What birds do you think those are, Kyrg Sylas?” one of the nobles shouted back, nudging his lanner falcon to the fist and taking off its hood.

  “Those aren’t birds…” Sylas’s voice was no louder than the creak of a bedroom door.

  The ground below the massive flock was a cloud, like the sort of nuisance dust storm one dealt with in the deeper desert but not here in the grasslands. There wasn’t enough dust, especially at this time of year.

  In the heart of the cloud, Sylas saw the shadowy shapes of war barrows rolling, two figures standing on the back of each, clutching guidelines in one hand and in the other, blades. The guidelines rose from each barrow to a dark shape in the sky above: a large kite hung with straps.

  “Kartami,” Sylas said aloud, his voice breaking. “Kartami!” he shouted now, at full volume.

  As the horde of kite warriors sped in, each barrow driver released a line, and the other line furled upward, carrying the second warrior aloft. They rose on their lines like spiders to a web, and before Sylas could take another breath, each kite had a warrior strapped under it, clutching a bow or double spears, and the speed of the wind pulled the barrows they were tied to straight at the hunting party.

  “Arms!” one of the guides shouted before Sylas could find the words. “To arms!”

  Sylas grabbed Victyr and hauled him to his feet, spilling wine all over the picnic rug’s pattern of songbirds in a garden. He shoved a dagger into the boy’s belt and hung two skins filled with milk over his shoulders.

  “Run, Victyr!” he commanded. “Do not look back. Run straight for the convoy and warn them. Tell them the Kartami are here. Tell them…” He looked up and saw that the two nobles had already unleashed their falcons to fly at the kite warriors and try to harry as many as they could from the sky. “Tell them we’ve been overtaken.”

  “But—” Victyr objected.

  “No.” He cut him off, hugging him close. “We will hold them off as long as we can. But you must not be taken yourself, you hear me? No matter what. Do not let them take you. You’re my sky, understand? My soul flies to you. Don’t let it be lost.”

  Victyr nodded, and Sylas turned him around. He couldn’t look into the boy’s eyes, couldn’t bear the good-bye. He nudged him and Victyr ran, straight away toward the far horizon. He just hoped the convoy could outrun the oncoming horde. It was up to Sylas to give them time.

  He turned away from his son, took his falcon on the fist, and faced the rolling attack.

  “Utch!” he shouted, tossing his peregrine skyward as he drew a blade from the sheath his valet presented him.

  The valet’s hand shook. “They say the Kartami bury the heads of any who won’t submit.”

  Sylas nodded. “They do say that.”

  “And they spare any who pledge to join them without resistance,” the valet added.

  Sylas didn’t look at him, though he’d heard such rumors, too. “Those are lies,” he told the frightened man, and assessed the cloud of dust that seemed to span the entire horizon. “Surrender is death to us and to the others back in the convoy. We fight. We give them time. Draw your blade.”

  “There’s no hope in this fight,” the valet said, going pale.

  Sylas didn’t have a chance to look at him before the valet’s blade plunged into his spine. His knees gave out and he dropped, eyes forward, as the horde of kite warriors slashed through the first two falcons. They’d been trained for hunting but not for combat. His own peregrine had gone up and taken a stoop, diving straight and fast for a kite in the middle of the line—just as he’d trained her.

  The silk ripped around the bird, and the weight of the warrior immediately pulled the kite twirling to the earth. The barrow driver lost control, spinning and flipping. It took two other barrows out in the crash, rolling over their warriors.

  Only two. One of the survivors looked to the body of her dead kite warrior, then drove a sword into her own belly.

  The others steered around the dying woman as smoothly as water around a stone. They raised two fingers at her as they passed.

  A servant had flown Victyr’s little raptor up, and it’d made for the face of another kite warrior. A crossbow bolt from the barrow driver below snatched it out of the air, and when it hit the ground, the wheels smashed its tiny body without slowing.

  Sylas felt nothing. There was no pain when the valet’s knife slid out of his back again. The valet’s arm wrapped around him. He couldn’t move.

  “Sorry, Kyrg Sylas,” the valet said. “They have to see what I’ll do for them. They have to see. I swear it will be painless for you.”

  “If Victyr is caught,” Sylas pleaded, “protect him. Please.”

  “He will not suffer,” the valet assured him as he held Sylas in place.

  He watched from his knees as his falcon rose again, then dove and clipped a kite warrior, but it wasn’t hard enough to shake the warrior loose or break his kite. When the bird turned to make another pass, the warrior hurled his spear, a direct hit. Even from this distance, Sylas heard his bird’s shriek when the spear point broke its body and it fell.

  He’d lost falcons before; they’d flown off or been killed by crows or mountain cats. One even died in a lightning storm. This was not the first he’d
seen die, but a tear fell from his eye because he knew it would be the last.

  The warriors reached the men of the hunting party. One noble caught a kite warrior’s spear through the top of his head. It went straight through and into the ground, holding his lifeless body upright as a bird feeder. The barrow driver below the kite sped past with his blade out and took the noble’s head off without slowing.

  The other noble and two of his servants dodged the first volley of spears and arrows, but the second came on them immediately after the first, and they all went down. Sylas saw the entire hunting party slain in the space of a dozen breaths. Soon they reached him where he knelt in front of his valet.

  Still they didn’t stop.

  “I surrender!” his valet cried over the din of their wheels. “I’ll join you!”

  The rolling barrows didn’t slow. They clamored past him by the hundreds, pulled on by the unrelenting high wind over the plain.

  He waved his blade up in the air. “I renounce Uztar! Look what I will do for you!” He lowered the blade back to Sylas’s neck, but before he could deliver the killing slice, a spear from the sky pierced his chest and knocked him off his feet. The kite’s barrow driver rolled past without slowing and tore the spear out of the valet’s chest with a wet crunch. He left Sylas on his knees to choke on the dust.

  The cold sweat that had broken the moment the kite warriors appeared on the horizon hadn’t even raced all the way down his back yet, and they were gone. He could still hear their rolling wheels, the groan of their ropes, and the snap of the wind against their silk kites, but he couldn’t turn to see them leaving.

  His vision narrowed to a pinprick and he wanted desperately to turn. He didn’t know how far his son would run before they caught him.

  He did not want to see. He wanted to see.