Protector of the Small Quartet

by Tamora Pierce

  Bone enjoyed his roll, its ground-up bits disappearing into the power that was his belly. Once finished, he swooped to one of many fountains to drink and bathe. His arrival caused several maids who had come to fill buckets with water to flee, squealing at the sight of him. Bone croaked an insult at them. He meant no harm. He wasn’t dirtying the water. If only they had given him a proper look, they would have seen that he was a perfectly clean skeleton.

  His feelings hurt, he flew again until he found a rooftop and a patch of sunlight. There he dozed until all of the human shops were open and interesting. Soaring above the city, he saw the Palace Way. This was the principal north-south street of the capital, a broad cobblestone affair. At one end lived the monarchs and their children, all good friends to Bone.

  Along its bottom third stood the finest stores of the area called the Daymarket, where the wealthy shopped. Bone did not know this, nor would he have cared. What had caught his eye on his last trip, before his traitor friend Numair had netted him with magic and handed him over to Lindhall, were the shops that sold the sparkly things.

  Some were made of glass. Some were metal, many of them large objects that Bone couldn’t lift. And some of them were easily inspected by such as he. They were draped over cushions, displayed in pretty boxes on shelves in front of the shops, or hung like glittering ropes from a rod secured to awnings. He did like the sight of those gold-and-silver ropes. They would look very fine threaded through his skeleton.

  He swooped with a gleeful cackle. The moment he grabbed a pawful of shining adornment, he was in difficulties. The claw on his right wing joint, his right paw, and the talons on his right foot, all three tangled in the links of chains he didn’t even want. Worse still, he saw now that all of the chains were threaded onto a rod, and that rod was nailed to hooks secured to the heavy awning. Pulling any chain free would be a struggle, if he could even manage it.

  Next to the display stood a big man with a sword. He gaped as the lizard-bird fought his entanglements. The bearded man at his side grabbed the big man’s arm and shrieked, “A monster! You idiot bullock, kill that thing!”

  Bone arched his back and raised his free claws so he could fight, tangled or no. He balanced himself on the swinging chains, stiffened his neck, and hissed at the swordsman. The big man faltered back a step.

  “I on’y signed up fer thieves,” he told the shopkeeper. “Not dead things.”

  “My good fools, stop this noise at once. You frighten him.” The speaker came through the gathering crowd. She sparkled with human magic and the gemstones that adorned her body and clothes. Bone cocked his head as he observed her. Even if she had not worn jewels from her head to her shoes, he had been among humans long enough to know her clothes were finer than those of university people, more like those of the nobles at court.

  “There, there, my friend,” she said, her voice low and sweet. She stepped up to the jewelry display, ignoring the guard and the shopkeeper. Slowly she extended a slender, elegant hand heavy with opal rings. “I shall free you of those trumpery chains,” she told him kindly. “And as my fee, I shall keep you for myself.”

  Her voice was very pretty. Did she know there was magic in it? Bone wondered. Obviously she believed that he could not understand her.

  She reached for the chains that trapped him.

  “It was trying to steal my wares,” the jewelry seller told her. “It belongs to me.”

  “And will you disentangle him, my good man?” the woman—the mage—asked, her hands gently undoing a chain from one of Bone’s right claws. “You ordered your guard to smash this lovely creature.” She took her hand away from Bone. “But if you insist, I shall leave him to you.”

  Bone would have liked to listen to her all day, but first he would have told her, if he could, that he belonged to no one, not even Lindhall. Seeing the telltale sparkle of magic on the woman’s fingers, Bone gave voice to one of his small arsenal of croaks.

  Birds did not like him near their nests because he was too alien, but they also knew he was an Ancestor. When he called, they obeyed. And so the market’s flocks came in their hundreds. They descended on that small part of the Palace Way, tearing the humans with their beaks and claws. Shrieking, the people covered their heads or flailed at their winged persecutors. Even the mage was too busy to tend to Bone.

  A peregrine dived at Bone, caught the last chain that held the lizard-bird’s hind claws, and yanked. Bone yanked, too. They pulled again. A third pull tore the rod free of its moorings. The chain slipped from the rod, together with all of the other necklaces that hung on it.

  Bone lunged away from the stall and into the air. It was hard for him to climb; a weight dragged on his right foot. The chain was tangled around his right claws worse than ever. He grabbed at the metal with his beak and nearly flew into a building.

  Below, the humans saw his mishap. The woman threw magic at him. Bone hissed. Her spell turned and flew uphill, to the university where someone would do something about it. The mage woman did not take the hint; she threw more magic, running down the street so she could get closer to him. The jewelry seller and his swordsman followed her.

  Some of the mage’s power clung to the chain as Bone struggled to rise. Magic stuck to his spine and skull, making him very cross. He could not rid himself of it. His claws had gone through openings in the links and jammed, while loops of the thing had knotted around his right leg. Worse, the heavy gold kept him from flying high enough to escape these humans. More of them were beginning to follow his three principal foes, calling their friends to watch the fun.

  Bone noticed the woman and the two men did not always watch where they stepped. Glancing around, he saw an opportunity. Down he dropped until he swooped low over the head of a carter who drove a load of melons. He slapped the human’s face with the chain.

  “What was that?” the man cried, half-blinded. Yanking his reins, he tried to pull his wagon to the side of the street. Unfortunately, when he yanked, his horse collided with a barrow loaded with crates of chickens.

  The crates tumbled into the street and broke open. The chickens saw freedom and scrambled for it, fleeing in all directions. The melon carter, startled twice, sawed at his horse’s reins. The animal backed and reared, tipping the cart. The driver fell out, as did the melons. The horse, free of the rude fellow who kept yanking on his mouth, took off with the cart. The onlookers raced in to help themselves to free melons and chickens.

  Bone sat on a rooftop and cawed with glee at the mess. For a moment, he forgot why he had made it. Then the mage woman melted the gold that still clung to him. Now it coated his left foot and began to form a clump around his right. The hot metal hurt.

  Bone dropped to land on a statue near the woman. He wobbled as he perched on the stone carving’s outstretched hand. The mage walked toward him, grim-faced. Bone recognized the look in her eyes. She would not give up until she had him or he had cost her much, much more.

  He could not allow one human, particularly not a human who thought an Ancestor could be owned, to ruin his day out. It was time to ruin her day. If he made enough trouble, perhaps other mages would come and place her in a cage.

  The mage raised her hand again. Bone flew directly at her. She stumbled backward into a shopkeeper’s display of fine cloth. There she flailed, fighting her way out of billows of costly silk as the clerks who watched over the display tried to help her. Bone darted over, gripped a fold of brocade in his paws, and yanked it over them all.

  “Thief!” The jewelry shop owner had freed himself of the chickens and spotted Bone. “There’s the monster that stole my gold chain! Provost’s man! That thing robbed me of a hundred nobles’ worth of gold!”

  Two men in the black uniform of the city’s lawkeepers ran at Bone. Hard on their heels came the jewelry salesman’s guard, covered with chicken feathers and bits of melon.

  Bone flew at roof height down the street, away from the expensive shops, toward the many stalls that sold to those with less money and lar
ger families. On his way, he passed a building where more Provost’s Guards laired. He glanced back to see if the ones chasing him had called for their comrades to help, but they remained silent. They seemed to think they could catch him themselves.

  He skimmed over the greater market and its many stalls until he found a row where baked goods were sold. Bone helped himself to a couple of meat rolls before the girls who sold them caught him at it. They screamed, taking him by surprise. He flew up with alarm, straight into the canvas awning over their stall.

  For a second time that day, he was caught. He thrashed and squawked, the girls shrieking and punching at him from below. At last he saw an opening and struggled through it. For a brief moment, he delighted in his view of the open sky.

  Then the mage woman, who had caught up with him, seized Bone in her hands and held him before her face. “There you are,” she said with pleasure. “I think the emperor of the Yamani Islands will pay a fortune for you.”

  Apparently she was not aware that Bone’s neck was longer than it seemed. He stretched out and bit her on the nose.

  She screeched and released him to clap her hands to her face. Bone flew. He just missed being cut in half by the jewelry salesman’s guard. Instead the man’s sword chopped into a post that held up several stalls’ worth of canvas sides and coverings. When he yanked his blade free, the cloth fell onto the merchants.

  Bone sped through the aisles of the market with a growing mob in pursuit. There were so many humans chasing him now that they bumbled into trays of used buttons, clothes, shoes, and knives. Bone had found the part of the big market that sold to those with less coin to pay. These sellers were not at all inclined to let the growing mob run over their places of business. They picked up the sticks that supported the awnings over their stalls and turned them into weapons, smacking Bone’s pursuers to get their attention.

  Bone flew on. Smaller magics tried to grip him from below. These were the spells of lesser mages who weren’t strong enough to work for the rich. They were also eager to get their hands on a prize like him.

  Suddenly a burst of very strong magic blew past him. It splattered on a statue of a female lawkeeper carved in black stone and strangely clean of pigeon droppings. The magic turned into a blue net that melted from the lawkeeper’s right side. Bone decided it was time to hide, pry this molten gold from his feet, and find his way home. Things were getting far too dangerous down here.

  He flapped slowly up above the stalls. Big and little spells groped for him, tugging him down toward the market. Bone shrieked and threw them off. He’d lost all patience with these humans! Furious, he darted through a gap between two big warehouses just off the market square. He glimpsed an open window to his right and darted inside.

  A living bird would have been in trouble once inside the place, dark as it was. Having no eyes to adjust to the loss of sunlight, Bone saw very well. He had entered the building on an upper gallery. It formed an open square around the center of the warehouse and brought air up from the floor below like a chimney. Bone smelled mold, age, wood, stone, human dung, and old blood.

  He also heard—and understood—the guttural language of the speakers below. They would be responsible for the blood. Bone perched carefully on the gallery rail and looked down. Below him stood three spidrens: fur-covered spiders three to four feet in height, with human heads and steel teeth. Empty spidren webs hung in every corner of the gallery and from every post down below. They glowed yellow-green in the darkness. The floor around the webs was cluttered with remains of every sort: human, dog, rat, and goat.

  Bone dug his claws into the railing. Even for spidrens this home was a mess.

  “What we have down below is just to train the young,” the biggest of the three spidrens told the other two as she turned away from one open hall. Bone knew she was female by the way she wore her long hair looped and bound on her head with small bones and ties made of web. A very junior spidren would have done that work. “We haven’t any meat for us adults,” the female continued. “I won’t let you waste these, not when they’re fearful enough to give the young a good feast once they bite in. You’ll have to call a hunting party and fetch more for the rest of us.”

  “But you heard what Fastspin said,” the one who was smallest whined. “The mortals are scouring these abandoned buildings. They’re hunting us! What if we’re caught?”

  The big one lashed the smallest spidren with a rope of green web. The one that had not spoken leaped out of the way just in time: the rope nearly struck its forelegs. The small one shrieked, then clapped two feet over its silver-bleeding mouth.

  The one that had been nimble said calmly, “The mortals only search by the river. They’ll find Weedweb and her brood. They will think they have us all, and we can feast.”

  The big spidren nodded. “Take this idiot to hunt with you before I send him to Weedweb as a thank-you gift. Find some fat mortals and we’ll live on their blood until the young are hatched and trained. I’m off to add to the new nest. Grandmother grows impatient.”

  The calm one looked around the big room. Bone held still. The monster didn’t notice him. “I will miss this place,” she said, inhaling. “All these air currents bring such tasty smells. But the grandmother is right. Once all of our nests are far below the streets, we will be able to hunt throughout the city. We will hear the mortals coming to trap us long before they are close.”

  The biggest spidren left through another hall. Only when she was well away did the calm spidren strike the little one, knocking it end over end. “Idiot,” it said, its voice as even as ever. “You know how irritable she is when she spins new web. You’re lucky she didn’t poison you and toss you in the river.”

  The two spidrens left through a door that the calm spidren closed behind it. Bone waited on the balcony, listening as quiet returned to the hollow chamber. He should have realized something was not right here, he told himself. Any building without shutters on its windows had its population of pigeons, but not this one. They were too smart to nest where spidrens lingered. Baby spidrens would be happy to feast on pigeon until they learned the tricks of a richer diet of human fear and blood.

  Bone cocked an ear toward the open doorway. The sound of weeping reached his keen, invisible ears. Spidrens liked to keep a larder close to the webs if they could.

  Carefully he gripped the remaining loops of chain tight in his foreclaws to keep them from clinking and glided to the ground floor. Another sharp listen told him that no spidrens clicked along the other corridors. The children’s sounds came from a cellar level. Bone flew toward their voices, through a corridor and down a flight of stairs. The sound of weeping led him to the right, to a large, windowless room walled in stone.

  This was not the larder: it was a hatching chamber. Glowing nets of web hung from two sides and lit the room. Bone did a count: seven eggs in all, each as big as a foal and almost ready to hatch. The eggs were silver and so close to transparent that he could see the infant spidrens inside. One was already nudging the flexible shell with its feet. More than once Bone had heard Lindhall and Numair thank their gods that spidrens had only as many young as dogs and cats, not mortal spiders. Now he understood. Even he would be hard put to do something with fifty near-to-hatching spidrens.

  On the other two walls, five dirty, skinny human children were bound by single ankle shackles. Like the egg nets, there were more shackles of varying size than there were occupants. The spidrens either hadn’t needed anyone else, or they had gotten all they wanted from the other missing captives.

  Having made certain that no adult spidrens were in the cellar, Bone landed, closer to the humans than to the eggs.

  The children screamed.

  Bone flew. He did not know how far the monsters had gone, but spidrens had very good hearing. They needed it, to hunt and to hear the thin, shrill cries of their newly hatched young. He dared not risk that they would hear these silly humans scream.

  With the gold still dragging on his poor claws,
he pumped his wing bones until he reached the gallery window that had given him entrance to the building. A few more pumps took him outside into the honest stink of the slums. Flapping hard, he rose up onto the roof and sat. He was safe there: no spidren would try to chase anything up into the noonday sun, even if it could track a living lizard-bird skeleton.

  He thought fast. If the spidrens learned about him from the children and feared he was a hunter, they might shift their young right away. Bone wasn’t certain if these creatures were that clever, but from the tales that Numair had told him and Lindhall, some spidrens were very crafty. These were certainly like those of the stories. They had entered the city of their enemies, found dark hiding places, and were creating dens even deeper under the streets. Bone had to fetch help for those children before they were moved, or killed.

  First he called his descendants. It took just a few commands for Bone to send the market’s birds for Numair. Every animal in the city knew that tall, powerful mage. Their search might take time, though.

  Until Numair came, Bone would have to work with what was available.

  Back he flew to the market. More lawkeepers had come to stop the fight between those who sold, those who bought, and those who stole. With their presence, the mages were also better behaved. There were laws about the reckless use of magic, and they were not just for the university students.

  Best of all, the jewelry shop owner, who claimed the gold as his; the mage woman, who claimed Bone as hers; and the owners of the cart of melons and the crate of chickens sat together. How they had gathered by the fountain at the market’s center Bone had no way of knowing, but there they were, fanning themselves, talking to other humans, and listening to lawkeepers who seemed very cross.

  Bone sat on the knob at the fountain’s peak and croaked down at them all. Then he leaped backward, off the knob, and not a moment too soon. The mage woman threw fire at him without even taking a moment to aim. She left scorch marks on the fountain. Bone squawked in glee and flew a spiral around the humans, keeping well out of their reach.