by Maya, Tara
Wild beasts recognized her as one of their own, even without her wings, and she did not fear them, but she did avoid humans. However, one day as she was drinking at the stream, sniffing the air, darting nervous looks upstream and down, she smelled humans. She took off running. A human warrior chased her, caught her up in his arms. He jogged along, still carrying her, all the way back to the human settlement. He brought her inside a dim, squarish hut, where he threw her onto the hard mud floor, in front of a woman.
“Look at this little wolfling I found,” he said. “Half-starved. Her parents must have been killed by the Aelfae before we finally finished off the bastards.”
“Mercy, the poor dear,” cooed the woman. Mayara flinched from the woman’s upraised hand, but the human woman only wanted to untangle the swan feather from Mayara’s hair. “More a lost cygnet than a wolfling. You poor, poor thing. Don’t worry. We’ll take care of you as if you were our own daughter.”
The woman gave her food, which Mayara devoured. But she couldn’t understand why the humans weren’t killing her. Why would they slaughter all her people, then spare her? Finally, listening them speculate about her past, it hit her. She had no wings, as other Aelfae did. She looked like a human child. They thought she was one of them.
She must never, never tell them the truth. If they knew, they would kill her. As soon as she had her strength back, she would escape this human house, find her wings, and escape to the others, to the last Aelfae settlement her Mommy had often mentioned, on the far side of the world.
Dindi
After the Vision faded, Dindi put away the doll. She swallowed her disappointment. Another useless Vision. She had not been able to suppress her sense of loss over Kavio, so the doll had found the memory of someone else suffering a sense of loss and fed it to her. Unfortunately, Mayara’s story brought Dindi no closer to understanding the hex on her family. Another day, another empty bird-trap. And thanks to Tamio’s strange behavior, she would have no more chances to search today.
Tomorrow. She would try again tomorrow.
One day, though, the faeries would demand an answer to their riddle and she would be all out of excuses and all out of tomorrows.
Tamio
Tamio prepared for every Quail Hunt with a simple ritual. He kept two engraved staves wrapped in leather in an alcove in his house. The knob of one staff resembled a bull, the other a stallion. Each staff had been notched a number of times. The bull staff recorded the number of men he had killed in battle: eight. He had not added any notches to that stick since the war between Yellow Bear and Blue waters. Each notch on the stallion staff represented a woman bedded. Here, he had continued to rack up new victories since his return from Yellow Bear. Lonely widows and bored wives had welcomed his youth and persistence. As he told his fellow quail hunters, the half-dozen cousins and friends who envied and emulated him: Stale quail is still tail, but just hatched has no match. Unmarried girls were harder prey, but maybe it was time he challenged himself again.
He planted the stallion staff in the earth behind his hut, and fed the ground an offering of corn beer, saving the last swig for himself.
“Green Lady, guide my arrow to the heart of my prey,” he said.
Rules governed the hunt. He stalked his quail for many days before attempting any direct contact. He had known Dindi since childhood, but now that she was prey, he studied her with fresh awareness. Every day, after the Tavaedi troop dispersed from practice, Dindi, instead of returning to her own clanhold, climbed higher into the woods with her baskets. There, under the soft green light that filtered through the pines, she darned, beaded and sewed the costumes she’d been given to fix. Odd, he thought, he had never noticed before the slender grace of her legs, the soft curve of her small breasts. When he’d accepted the challenge to seduce Dindi, he had done so only as part of his ongoing game with Kemla. Not that he expected Kemla to honor her half of the bargain—on, no, that treacherous vixen would find some way to squirm out of her promise, he was sure. Luring Kemla into his kraal would take all his hunting skill.
But Dindi? What prey could be easier? She had no reason to think highly of herself. She was just a serving maid, almost a slave. Her own clan laughed at her, and even now she was officially a Tavaedi, had not given her a house of her own, only a ramshackle shed. Most in his favor, she had already spread her thighs for a man once before. He knew her secret. She had been Kavio’s dalliance last year, as an Initiate. Tamio had stayed clear of her then, for Kavio was not a man to trifle with, but Kavio was long gone. Dindi was probably aching for another man to take her.
Poor, lonely girl. I should have accepted her into my bed months ago.
Really, he’d be doing her a favor.
Vessia
Vessia lay down on the stone niche carved out of a wall as a crude bed, but she could not sleep. She had not been permitted to see her husband Vio since the first night of her incarceration… or ‘protection’ as Zumo insisted on calling it. Zumo had come by to visit her several times, always solicitous of her health and always claiming her imprisonment was for her own good. Behind his smile, she sensed he was hiding something dark.
Was Vio right? Did her nephew plan to kill them both?
A scratch sounded somewhere above her.
She had memorized the footsteps and squeakings of Mouse and his extensive family. This sound was different.
She sat up. Without making a sound of her own, she moved pillows under her blanket to leave the shape of a sleeping woman, while she crept against the wall. She stayed out of the pale beam of moonlight from the skylight.
A shadow blocked out the moonbeam.
Someone was climbing down the airshaft.
With her sharp faery sight, Vessia could see nearly as well in the dark as in the day. Hopefully, the assassin did not share her talent.
A man dropped to the floor. He was good, she had to admit. He hardly made a sound in the drop, and none at all as he moved to where he imagined she lay sleeping. He wore a hood and tight leather, with daggers lashed around his arms and thighs and a large bow strapped across his back. His bare face and arms had been painted so they reflected no more light than his dark clothes.
When he reached the bed, he paused. He did not draw his weapons—perhaps he been ordered to smother her with a pillow, to make it look as if she had died in her sleep.
No doubt he imagined she would be an easy kill, a defenseless old woman.
She would teach him otherwise.
As he lifted his hands over the pile of blankets, Vessia whirled and kicked the back of his head.
He fell into a roll. His hands found the weapons on his thighs. Instantly, two daggers sailed through the air at her. She spread her wings and flew up, over the stone blades. The daggers clattered against the wall.
“The White Lady!” He did not shout, but exhaled the words in awe.
He fell to his knees, arms spread out in surrender. “My Lady! Please forgive me! I did not know it was you behind me.”
She didn’t land at once, but floated above him, arms crossed and brow arched. “You did not know whom you had been sent to murder?”
“I was not sent here to murder you, but to rescue you,” he said. “I thought you were asleep and a warrior attacked me from behind. Forgive me for throwing weapons at you.”
“Why should I believe you?” she asked. However, she settled back on the ground and folded her wings back behind her. “I do not know you. Why should you help me?”
“My name is Finnadro the Wolf Hunter, son of Obran and Finna, of the Green Woods tribe,” he said. He bowed his head. His voice was low and gravelly, yet pleasing, like wind over autumn leaves. “Since the day I was born, I have owed you a lifedebt, for saving me from being killed at birth by the Bone Whistler. I also have been graced, by the love of the Green Lady, with the Singing Bow. One moon ago, the Singing Bow told me that the time had come to repay my lifedebt, and to proceed with all haste to the Rainbow Labyrinth, where I would find you a prisoner
. All has transpired just as the Bow sang to me.” He smiled wryly. “Though the Bow did not warn me that you would be so spry.”
“Does my husband know you are here?”
“It was he who advised me where you were imprisoned, and that I might get in through the airshaft, if the stone grate and warriors guarding it were removed.”
“Did you remove them?”
“Exposure to certain mushroom powder renders men insensible to their surroundings for several hours. They will recover by dawn, though they may fall asleep first and not wake until noon.”
“If I know my nephew—and I’ve known him since birth—Zumo will not tolerate inebriated guards. They will be discovered before that. We should leave at once.”
“Then hold on to me, my Lady.”
He swung himself up onto the rope dangling from the airshaft. She clasped her arms around him and he hauled them both up the narrow stone shaft.
Even before they reached ground level, they could hear shouts of alarm from above.
“I think your mushroom drunks have been discovered,” Vessia said.
They emerged from the airshaft. They were in the middle of a street of baked clay, with tall, squarish three story adobe houses on either side. Vessia saw why the guards had aroused suspicion. One was shouting at a wall, the other was singing very loudly and off-key. Their noise had awakened families asleep on the balconies of nearby houses, who were shouting back at the guards. This in turn had brought other warriors to the street.
Finnadro set Vessia down and pulled out his bow.
“Stay behind me, my Lady,” he warned as he notched an arrow. “I promised your husband I would not kill any of your tribesfolk if I could help it, but I fear it can no longer be helped.”
Over a dozen warriors closed in on them…including Zumo himself. Finnadro unloosed his arrows, but all his barbs hit men in the legs, tangling them up and making them howl, but not killing them. Some clutched their bloody thighs in pain, but others ignored their wounds and drew their own weapons.
“Someone is trying to kidnap the White Lady!” cried Zumo. “Kill him and save the Lady!”
Even more warriors answered the call. Finnadro did not have enough arrows to fight the whole of the Rainbow Labyrinth tribehold by himself.
Vessia grabbed Finnadro. “Now it is your turn to hold on to me!”
She spread her wings and lifted them both into the air. They soared over the heads of the astonished warriors. The fresh night air tasted delicious.
“Aunt Vessia!” shouted Zumo. “Come back! Come back at once!”
Vessia laughed.
“A lesson for you, Zumo!” she called down. “Never cage a woman with wings!”
Chapter Two
Shelter
Umbral
The raw heave of power that crashed into Umbral, stolen from more than eighty auras, hit him like an avalanche. He fell to his knees. A roar clanged in his ears and he felt such intense nausea that he vomited. The pain had never been so bad since the first time, during his conversion. Even the torments of his rebirth ceremony paled by comparison.
For a long while, he lay curled up on the floor, insensible to the world. Gradually the ache in his head subsided. The stitch in his side eased.
He stood up. The power he had gained would devour him if he held it overlong, but for the moment, now that the initial bite had passed, he felt glorious. He unfurled black wings of pure shadow-fire behind him and flew to the hole in the top of the kiva.
He dissolved the wings when he crawled out. The other Deathsworn had busied themselves in his absence with burning the first pile of corpses.
“You took your pretty time,” Ash groused. “How many corpses are below?”
“About eighty.”
“Were you able to draw their power first?”
“Yes.”
“Of how many?”
“All of them.”
“All! Eighty auras worth!” She licked her lips enviously. “But you can’t keep it. Too much is as bad as too little. It will tear you apart. You have to share it.”
“Not with you,” said Umbral. “I may have a better use for it. But I need to think first. We’ll finish here, rest for the night, and I’ll decide in the morning.”
Umbral found a torch and dropped it into the kiva onto the pile of bodies he’d left below. Oily black smoke soon roiled out of the hole. The sun reddened the sky. The Deathsworn decided that since the bodies were burnt, they might as well enjoy the hospitality of the dead. They each found huts for the night.
Umbral did not sleep. He watched the moon through the open door. Dark energy electrified his body. He could hear the flapping of bats chasing gnats, but all else was still until the middle of the night. Then he heard a man moving outside.
It was Masher. The oaf entered Ash’s hut.
A moment later, a scream rent the air.
Masher again, running for his life. He was the one screaming. Ash barreled out of the hut with an ax raised over her head.
Mad Eye and Stoneheart ran out of their huts. They tackled Ash, who fought them both like a banshee. Masher rejoined the melee now that the odds were more to his liking. Ash chopped her flint ax halfway into Masher’s forearm. He roared and pulled a dagger to thrust into her stomach, shouting, “How dare you cut me, you ugly bi—”
Masher’s blow never connected to Ash’s face. In one smooth motion, Umbral intercepted Masher’s fist and torqued his arm to flip him to the ground flat on his back.
“No!” shouted Owlhawker. He and Pox arrived on the scene. It was hard to guess what they thought was happening, but that didn’t stop them from fighting. Mad Eye, Stoneheart and Owlhawker all rushed Umbral, while Pox clubbed Ash in the head from behind.
Umbral’s obsidian blade hissed as he drew it from the leather sheath strapped to his thigh. He barreled into the nearest assailant, Stoneheart, ducked the blow aimed at his chest and sent Stoneheart rolling over his back. Without a pause, Umbral already had twin kicks for Mad Eye and Masher, who was just getting back to his feet before Umbral’s foot shoved him down again. Rather than rush forward, Owlhawker drew back from the fight in order to pick up a spear and throw it at Umbral while the others distracted him.
Umbral vaulted backward into the air in a full-twisting double back leap. He caught the spear between his legs as he twisted in the air, and he transferred the weapon to his hands on the final backflip, landing directly in front of Owlhawker with the obsidian spear tip to his throat.
Behind them, Umbral heard Masher struggle to rise one more time. Without looking back, and without letting the spear tip move an inch from Owlhawker’s throat, Umbral tossed his black dagger so that it pinned Masher’s leather tunic to the ground.
Mad Eye hadn’t even bothered to try to move from where he’d fallen.
Ash, who had not been knocked unconscious by Pox’s insufficiently hard blow, had also turned her corner of the fight around quickly enough. First, she knocked down Pox. She knocked back Stoneheart with a kick to his throat that made him retreat, gagging.
Still lost to blood rage, Ash raised her ax over Masher to behead him.
“That’s enough, Ash,” Umbral said.
“Shut up, Umbral! I’m going to kill him!”
“No. You will not.”
Umbral did not shout but dark energy amplified his voice over the whole mountain. Echoes rippled back.
Umbral extended the strands of black fire to every Deathsworn he had touched during the fight. All of them collapsed and writhed on the ground at the ends of his leashes. Ash resisted longer than the others, but even she dropped the ax and fell to her knees.
“I am the leader of this mission,” he said in a cold and terrible voice. “Acknowledge it.”
Bad Eye whimpered. Pox, the only one who was not directly in Umbral’s power, lowered herself to her knees. Umbral released everyone from the lightning ropes of pain, except Ash.
“You are leader, Umbral,” said Pox.
“Yo
u are leader,” said Bad Eye.
“You are leader,” said Owlhawker.
Stoneheart cleared his throat, which had a bruise from Ash’s kick. “You are leader, Umbral,” he croaked.
“Ash, I will let you up if you promise to behave,” Umbral said.
She glared at him. She nodded once. Umbral stopped feeding pain into the leash and she almost fell over. When she stood, her hands were still shaking.
She kicked Masher. “If I must follow him, you damn well better submit too.”
Masher said sullenly, “You are leader, Umbral.”
“Since you all have so much vigor, we might as well begin our next mission,” said Umbral. “I have decided how I will use the power I drew today.”
“So, leader,” Ash demanded sarcastically. “What are your orders?”
“Before I killed them all, the clanholders hiding in the kiva told me that Raptor Riders from the Orange Canyon tribe raided this clanhold for slaves. It was not a plague that decimated these people, but the Riders’ inept use of Deathsworn magic.”
Ash scowled. “One day we are going to have to put them in their place.”
“No doubt,” said Umbral. “But in the meantime, they might be useful. They are after the White Lady, perhaps for the same reason we are. We will follow them to the White Lady, and follow the White Lady to the new Vaedi.”
He began to dance. Through the movements and thrusts of his limbs he expelled the shadow fire. The molten darkness coalesced into huge, winged shapes.
The huge bats were unlike any natural beast: larger than horses, with wings wider than the houses, and utterly, impossibly black. Even their eyes reflected no color except a throbbing red glint.
