Shahin sat in the tent door, and the platter was eased to the rug before him. More rugs were spread. The tea, which could stand on its own, went round again. Shahin dipped into the mutton and rice, and with a grin, invited his guests to join him.
Faisal bowed, and elbowed Kyrin when she reached for the platter. She frowned, for she knew her manners. If her right arm had been hit, would they have let her eat with her left, the unclean hand, or would Mey have had to feed her? She balled a bit of hot, fragrant rice and tossed it inside her mouth without touching her lips, trying not to jar her arm.
§
Faisal grunted and stretched. He was full for the first time since the raider knocked him off Waleed and he drove his lance through him. His enemy had been strong, his eyes full of hate.
Kyrin. Her name held strength, though apparent only to one with wisdom to see it. She bent over her food, hiding her pain, her good hand twisting and pulling at her evil mud-and-moss colored bisht. What father bestowed such a strong name on a girl child? But he could not ask her of her father, for it could not be that she ask after his.
Faisal scrubbed his hands clean in sand and discarded his cushion close to Kyrin’s side as if weary of it. After a doubtful glance, she propped her arm on it. He pretended not to see.
Shahin stood. “My people, the Aneza gather now to find wisdom.”
Faisal whispered the meaning of the sheyk’s words to Kyrin. She bent her head, listening, the dark earring winking darker against her skin.
On the far side of the circle a wrinkled man stood, his black eyes bright, his hair white as his cloak and tunic, his voice a calm river. “The Twilkets will come for the Nur-ed-Dam, though the trader’s punishment was most just. They have looked long on our herds and wells with a jealous eye. We must call our people to the mountains to fight. So have I spoken—it may be, with wisdom from the spirit above.”
A young man rose, tense, his kaffiyeh quivering with his indignation. “Are the Aneza to run like the reem? We are a lion on his ground! The Aneza lances are a thicket, our swords, thorns, pricking to the heart! We will fight under the shaheen’s wings and win our enemies’ herds for our own!”
“Yes!” Another leaped up. “We should seek the mountains, but divide so the Twilkets do not know who protects the taker of blood. We can seek peace with them when their anger cools! I will gift five camels to any who need them.”
“No! We should fight. The blood of our son, Rashid, whom they sought, will stain them until the moon fails over the sands!”
Kyrin tightened her hand on her cushion. An endless circle of Nur-ed-Dam—blood sinking into the sand, calling blood after it. Why? She had done the only thing she could—she could not have let Rashid fall. Her lip parted in brief pain under her teeth. Why did they not end it in the way that cost the least blood?
“Are you going to cry?” Faisal’s eyes were wide.
“No,” She gritted, and gripped the falcon hard, blinking swiftly and again. The council ended in favor of the elder speaker. The Aneza would move camp and ready for war.
When she lay down on her rug, Kyrin tossed. At last she fell into uneasy dream, between the tiger’s paws. His claws were sheathed. Did he play with her, a sand-cat with a desert mouse?
She woke early to a chill dawn, a thought fuzzy in her mind. Faisal was gone. Kyrin got up awkwardly and walked out of the tent. Her arm did not ache so much. The sky was covered with puffy crimson and apricot clouds against blue. The air was fresh and dry over the mountains of sand.
A few fires crackled, new-fed with dry camel dung. A tent-flap was thrust back here and there, a child cried for food, or for its mother. A man spoke soothingly to his camels. Kyrin picked her way toward the center of camp. None seemed to see her.
Shahin’s new tent was the largest. Faisal stroked a stallion tied beside the sheyk’s door. The horse tossed its small brown head, ears pricked and regal, soft eyes wide. A group of young warriors murmured together nearby. Kyrin touched Faisal’s sleeve.
He leaned close to hear her whisper then shook his head. “I cannot!”
“But I must speak to him!” She kept her voice low.
The warriors paid no mind to her. One of them, the fiery youth from the council, said something sharp and spat toward the tent.
“A way to find swift death without glory!” Faisal snapped back.
“What did he say?” Kyrin asked.
“Youbib says they will kill the Twilket dogs on their own ground.”
Shahin lifted the side of his tent, and Mey propped it with a pole. The young warriors without straightened. Shahin tested their restless glances with his own. He motioned with his hand, listened to the fiery youth from the council, then in common said, “Youbib, you will fight at my side.”
“With the women?” Youbib choked, thrusting out his chin.
Shahin’s eyes glinted with steel. “It is not only fear that makes a warrior run; courage does not always bid him fight.” A tendon flexed on the back of Shahin’s hand on his sword hilt. “The Aneza will defend, and attack, when the moment is right.” His stern words left no room for mockery.
Youbib’s fists whitened. Frowning thunderously, he turned and stamped away. Shahin said a short word to the others, and they dispersed, arguing among themselves.
Shahin turned back toward his tent, caught Kyrin’s gaze, and smiled. “Shaheen! This morn is bright.”
“Sheyk Shahin, I think I can help.” Please. She reached out to him.
His smile fell away and his brown gaze sharpened. A lump blocked Kyrin’s throat. He reminded her of her father, looking at her with that regard that would protect her at all cost. This sheyk’s heart was open, looking for good things—like her father. Ali’s heart was an open waste-pool, full of himself. She rubbed her damp hand over her thawb.
“Yes, Shaheen?” He stepped closer, speaking slowly as if to make sure she understood.
She took the plunge. “Sheyk Shahin, if I go, and you tell the Twilkets what happened and give them the camels you gifted me—except the one I ride—will they leave you in peace?”
“What do you think would happen to you, Shaheen?” He peered into her face. Faisal’s lips thinned, no doubt for his camels that she gifted to Shahin. What did the sheyk mean, calling her Shaheen?
“I—I know they might follow me, but I cannot stand for you to die because of me. I know that,” she said, welcoming the pain in her arm that excused her pricking tears.
“We must fight them, if not now, then later,” Shahin said, “and I will not break my word to you and Faisal.”
At her feet an ant crawled around a fist-sized rock, as powerless to move it as she was to help. But—
“My Lord Shahin, I know a man who can help!”
“Who do you speak of?”
“My teacher—he is a high askar, though also a slave to my master. He defended his land against many.” Name Tae her husband, no. Tae could tell the sheyk, after Shahin found the caravan. Faisal’s face gave away nothing.
“Hmm. This is well.” Shahin sent his black slave for three messengers who would search out Ali Ben Aidon’s caravan. “Now,” he said with a grin, “we will have a falcon hunt in the mountains a sun’s journey from here—to keep Youbib from rashness. Let our enemies wonder whether we seek the favor of the falcon or whether we have nothing to fear.”
§
With the tents of his people huddled at the foot of the mountains, Shahin set watchers in the tamarisk scrub as night fell. Every Aneza in camp and without kept his weapons close.
Kyrin woke; her stomach fluttered. Something had woken her. It was not the tiger. All was still. Above her head the tent poles met in indistinct angles of the felt. Turning on her back, biting back a groan, she sniffed the damp scent of greenery.
It had rained last night, the fifth since the arrow struck her. There were mountains above the slopes j
ust without. The bit of sky parting the tent flap was silver-blue. She rose and tiptoed past Faisal’s snoring length.
She saw nothing but couched camels chewing their cud, and wandered up the gentle tree-clad slope. The guards saw her but did not call, doubtless thinking her about the common business of early morning.
In the trees, Kyrin touched a trunk. They grew thick, and greener than in any place she had yet seen in Araby. Shorter than her great oaks, they were furred with moss. Stubby evergreen needles graced towering junipers, their invigorating sharp-sweet scent drifting with the coolness. One tree had intricate branches covered with the narrow silver-grey and green.
Olive leaves. The figs’ canopy and leaf shape reminded Kyrin of the oaks of Cierheld. Here she saw no leafless skeletons. Here, at the edge of the desert, the trees lived.
Grass grew at their feet. Wiry and rough, still it was grass. Not too many Eagle miles from the mountains that reared north and south, the sands began, down in the pastel haze of distance. She could not see the top of the mountain for the trees above her.
A parrot squawked. The air was warm and damp. Some distance off a band of creatures with the furry face of a dog and the figure of a dwarf broke the morning stillness with squalling barks.
One of them crouched in the limbs of a nearby wild fig, busily eating a green fruit. The baboon paused to watch Kyrin, his earthy coat blending with bark and ground better than her bisht. His teeth were dangerous as a wolf-hound’s, and his hand-like paws were quick. He studied her, his gaze sand-colored with hints of green, deep with the curious vibrancy of life. He reached over his head for another fruit, his paw sure, and leaped to a branch. His long arms and short bowed legs seemed awkward to move so gracefully.
The parrot swooped in on wind-brushed feathers and snatched the baboon’s fig, gliding out of reach to a clump of olives. The emerald bird gave the baboon a cheeky glance from one shiny eye, a foot clutching sweet spoil. It opened its beak and squawked such a lighthearted string of noise that Kyrin felt her mouth pulling up.
The bird jeered and laughed, its rosy feather collar about its throat pulsing in joyous abandon. The baboon halfheartedly bared its fangs, picked another fig, and ate it in one bite.
“Shaheen!” The call echoed through the trees. After a moment Kyrin recognized her new name. The sheyk called her Shaheen once, then all the Aneza did. She had not thought anyone heard. Mey must have good ears. Faisal had not offered to tell Kyrin what Shaheen meant.
Questioner, over-bold one, meddler, or bringer of change? Did they have tales of old blood here, or gifted ones, or djinn? She would ask Mey. Kyrin walked toward the tents, picking her way through the trees. Her changeable amber eyes, the fish necklace, the falcon dagger, Ali’s jet earring; they did not seem to bother Shahin. Her brow furrowed. The falcon dagger had nothing to do with spirits. The Master of the world created the falcon’s heart to ride the wind.
Mey met her at the edge of the trees, pushing a low-hanging juniper branch out of her way. With a little common she asked Kyrin if she was ready for the falcon hunt.
“Yes, oh yes!” Dates and milk and her questions could wait.
The hunting party set out, climbing one of several wadis that descended the mountain. The group included everyone but the Aneza sentries, nursing women, and the old. Kyrin left Cicero with a pat and a promise of a later hunt for rabbits.
They rode out through the thick trees, and Kyrin nudged Lilith closer to Mey, staring at the craggy mountainside. It was nothing like the misty, rounded mountains and green valleys of Cierheld.
Cierheld, where she learned to care for her stronghold when she was four summers old. She’d spent hours with the cook, and cleaning and mending; even if it was only stirring the stew, sweeping the flags, or holding the yarn. Father had commanded she inherit Cierheld whether she married or no.
Lord Dain Cieri might be a dangerous, austere figure to some, but never to her. His warmth and strength had no end, enfolding her with the smell of the cinnamon he liked. Over the seasons, he took her to watch the guardsmen at their weapons training and showed her how the fields were planted and harvested and which insects harmed or helped.
One harvest-time she told him harvesting seemed a great lark, and he let her come to the fields. By vespers, hot and tired, they walked down the ruts of the cart track toward Cierheld.
“Do you still think it a lark, daughter?”
She had smiled in proud satisfaction. “It was hard, but I did it. And the lark that sang for us was a true lark.”
Lord Dain laughed until he wiped tears from his face, and carried her home on his shoulders. When her days grew long, she escaped to the hills for a walk or to the woods for a ride with Samson on her fist. Kyrin leaned forward and rubbed Lilith’s dirty-mustard coat. In those years her mother taught her numbers, reading, and writing. She allowed her forays so long as Kyrin learned. They picked flowers in the woods and looked at cloud shapes and talked of the ways of plants and trees.
Mother had had a soft spot for Uncle Ulf. Did he yet have long conversations with Father, now that she was gone? Uncle Ulf had made her smile with his gentle teasing, but she always feared his arguments. He had sternly insisted to her father that one’s sin must be forgiven by a priest. Lord Dain smiled and said he could not agree.
She did not fear Uncle Ulf’s tongue now, after Ali. Kyrin picked at her bandage. Her arm was beginning to itch. Uncle Ulf might respect her as he did her father. But he would be curious about the Aneza, their worship, their tales, and their tongue. She grinned. He would cool Youbib’s hot blood with learning.
Lilith’s head bobbed as she climbed. Accompanied by fragrant juniper, the hunters followed the wadi higher, toward the water-and-wind gouged heights, past clumps of twisted wild plum and persimmon. The slope clambered to stark ledges folded above the mountain’s foot. The hunters turned the last rising bend and scrambled out of the wadi onto a lower ledge, Youbib in the lead. Kyrin stared at the nearest crag—almost an elongated, bony head and shoulders of stone—rising above empty air.
Juniper trees filled vertical crevices in the towering neck and gave the melancholy face a tumble of grey-green hair. Around the stone features the sky held a gossamer overcast. The riders paused and squinted up. Wind whistled around the rocks.
“Shaheen!” The call rose, echoing. Many arms pointed to the shelf and the face’s jutting chin. From a mounded stick-tangle beard, a falcon dropped into a gliding spiral, screaming at her unwelcome guests.
A grin stretched Kyrin’s mouth. “Shaheen” meant falcon. The bird caught a draft and tilted higher. Kyrin watched. How often she had longed to follow Samson’s wings into the sky, away from the looks of pity her plain gowns had earned her from Esther.
Did Samson hunt now—for her father? Kyrin closed her eyes and touched her necklace. The pouch dangling below it yet smelled of charcoal and cheese. She fingered the leather and glanced back. Faisal trailed behind, near the end of the cavalcade, head down.
The Aneza shouted as Youbib and another young warrior trotted to the base of the chosen crag. Forearms wrapped in cloth, their kaffiyehs tucked into turbans, they bagan to climb. Encouraged by jokes and catcalls, the lithe warriors pulled themselves toward the small shelf of the mountain’s chin far above. Once Youbib stopped, a lizard spread-eagled before a rock bulging below the vigilant falcon’s nest. She swung toward him on the wind—and dived, a blur.
Youbib’s companion waved her off vigorously. The men below shook their lances in admiration, and a ululating cry of encouragement rose from the women. The falcon’s shrieks rang between the crags.Youbib inched around the bulge and his companion followed. Kyrin shuddered at the eighty feet of air beneath their feet. The waiting Aneza fell silent. Then the two above crawled over the edge of the shelf.
Youbib rose from a crouch, a dim ball of feathers in his cupped hands. He called something that was lost among wild Aneza yells.
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The falcon lifted and dived again, her angry cry echoing down the mountainside. Youbib rocked back and ducked, flailing his free arm around his head to keep off the furious mother. She beat her wings for height so she could stoop again. And Youbib and his brother turned to descend.
Could not the falcon keep one of her children? Kyrin looked down, but a gasp from Mey brought her gaze up.
Partway down, Youbib’s foot had slipped. There was a roar of ridicule from the Aneza men, and Kyrin’s arm flared at her sudden twitch. She held her breath.
Youbib cast about for a hold, his arms straining. His toes found a dark crack. He hung a moment. His companion went on, and thumped to the ground. At last Youbib found another hold, and reached the ground.
Sweaty and scratched, the young Aneza shook their daggers in the air, triumphant, and were pushed and patted by the crowd, which opened toward Shahin and Mey. Kyrin felt the laughter and relief around her. Lilith crowded into Mey’s beast with the Aneza hunters’ sudden surge to get a glimpse of the prize.
Youbib’s face shone with joy and pride, and he took a cloth-wrapped eyas from inside his thawb and lifted it before Shahin. The young falcon screamed, a stray bit of baby-white feathers ruffled among the plumage on her head. Youbib’s companion took a second bird from his sash.
Shahin looked the eyases over carefully. He gave Youbib’s to Mey and set the other in a covered container on his saddle. The second bird’s screaming and hissing quieted.
With a last shriek, the mother falcon flapped back to her nest above the Anezas’ heads. Kyrin smiled at the hungry hisses and interrupted shrieks that drifted down. Youbib had not raked the nest of all the young.
She had last seen an eyas at Esther’s stronghold and had dreamed of flying a falcon in her woods. But Esther had said her eyases were not ready. Kyrin sobered. Instead, her Samson had conquered Cierheld’s winds, surging up in swift power from her glove, all the world his in storm or calm. It did not matter that he was a tiercel, smaller than his female kin. Her throat tightened.
Falcon Heart: Chronicle I an epic young adult fantasy series set in medieval times Page 18
