by Vonna Harper
“You came armed,” she told him. “I will never expose my people to your weapons.”
At first she couldn’t read his reaction. Then he shrugged and turned toward his companions. “You heard her,” he said.
Farajj grumbled that Tau and Sakima would be less than pleased, but Ohanko only nodded. “Her loyalty for other Wildings is no less than ours is for the Ekewoko,” Ohanko said. “Can we expect it to be any different?”
“If he”—Farajj indicated Nakos—“had turned her into a sex slave as our leaders wanted him to, she’d be on her knees before him and eager to do whatever he commands.”
Jola scrambled to her feet. “I’m not a beaten animal.”
“That’s not what I said,” Farajj insisted. He planted himself in front of her. “I never called you an animal. But you’re female. A slave to your sex.”
Sometimes. And only around Nakos.
“If that’s what you think of all females,” she told him, “then you know nothing.”
Farajj looked as if he’d like nothing better than to backhand her, but before he could make a move—if indeed that had been his intention—Nakos grabbed her arm and pulled her behind him. Furious, she stepped around him only to be forced to stop as Nakos extended his arm in front of her. “Enough,” he said. “Do what you believe you must, Farajj. Are you going to join Ohanko and me or—”
“I’m with you,” Farajj said. “I’ve always been. I just need to know what’s going on inside you.”
Wondering what Farajj would think if he knew the man he considered a close friend had spent years keeping something from him, she nevertheless envied the relationship between the three. Long seasons in each other’s company and acknowledging that their lives depended on each other had forged close ties. In contrast, all she and Nakos had was mutual physical need. She loved Falcon Land while he considered it worthless.
As the men set about arming themselves, another thought struck her. Since waking to find Nakos’s bonds on her and lake water coating her body the other day, her mind had only briefly and occasionally turned to her family. Granted, as an adult, she no longer lived with her parents and didn’t see them every day. But since Raci’s death, she’d felt the need for their company. In Falcon form, she’d flown to the outcropping where they lived almost every day, and if she didn’t make the short trip, one or both of her parents would fly to the nest she’d set up with Raci.
Undoubtedly they’d been looking for her. When whichever Falcon had been keeping an eye on her told the others what he or she had seen, they would have gathered as many Falcons as possible around them and maybe tried to plan her rescue. Whatever their decision, she’d be surprised if keen predator eyes weren’t on her and the men right now.
As for why the Falcons hadn’t attacked Nakos before now, the answer lay in what it meant to be a Falcon. Although they all shared a common bond, Falcons were by nature solitary creatures. They came together to mate, breed, and raise their young, but Falcons hunted alone. Flew alone. Not only that, never before had their existence been threatened. Even if the Falcons understood the danger, they might not know how to respond.
She tried to study the sky without drawing attention to what she was doing, but between the bright morning sun and her weaker human eyes, she couldn’t make out a single dark speck in the heavens. However, thinking about how much more she could see when in raptor form filled her with sharp longing. She’d never occupied her human body this long before meeting Nakos and needed the swoop and sway of freedom, the reckless dive through hundreds of feet of air. Needed freedom.
Forcing her thoughts off what made her want to cry out, she focused on Nakos and his friends. Yes, his form was still familiar to her, but he stood across the campfire from her, dressed in the trappings that proclaimed him as Ekewoko. He was here because he and the others believed they could claim Falcon Land and rob the Falcons of their future. He was wrong, of course; none of them had that right!
She wanted him gone.
“What are you staring at?” Nakos asked, startling her.
She met his gaze. “I’m trying to understand what makes you so arrogant.”
“Arrogant?”
“You and your companions, you’re all strangers to this land. Just because you’ve been forced to leave Ekew, that gives you no right to claim mine.”
“Yours?” Walking around the campfire, he stopped a few feet away. She should have prepared herself for his impact, but maybe that would never be possible. “Why is this”—he pointed up at Raptor’s Craig—“any more yours than mine? If the birds Tau is after are up there, what do you care?”
Steeling herself against his body’s draw, she stood her ground. “Your shaman is wrong. He has no right to—do you agree with him? Falcons are necessary if you’re ever going to go home?”
“We have to try something.”
“Nakos?”
Recognizing Ohanko’s voice, she reluctantly acknowledged the other warrior who’d joined them.
“What?” Nakos asked.
“We’re ready.”
“I know.” Turning back toward her, Nakos brushed his fingers over her forearm. At the touch, she jumped. It took all her strength not to touch him in return. “You’re not coming with us, are you?”
She shook her head.
“What if I forced you?”
“You won’t.”
She was still where Nakos had left her that morning when he and his companions returned. In her own way, she’d already told him good-bye and could have slipped off to a secluded place where she could become Falcon, but she’d wanted to know if they’d come to the only conclusion they could. Not only that, if they told her what they’d found, or rather what they hadn’t found, she might be able to tell her kind that they were truly safe. As for how Nakos would deal with his discovery—no. That wasn’t her concern.
“You knew, didn’t you?” Nakos said as he drew close.
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t say anything. Why not?”
“Would you have believed me?”
His eyes were weary, his expression sober. At the same time, a spark flamed inside him, prompting her to wonder if it was a flame she’d ignited. Maybe, even if they never saw each other again, they’d always feed off that unique heat. Her body hummed the way the earth sometimes did when a thunderstorm was approaching, and she didn’t dare get any closer to him. Neither did she risk a downward glance.
“No,” he said. It took her a moment to recall what she’d asked him. “I wouldn’t have believed you. I had to see it for myself.”
“Tau is wrong.” Farajj’s voice was heavy with disbelief. “The Ekewoko can never reach where falcons nest.”
A glance in Farajj’s direction left her feeling sorry for the young man. He’d always believed his shaman. His entire life revolved around Tau’s visions, dreams, and wisdom. It was Tau who’d helped Lord Sakima decide where the Ekewoko would go and what they needed to do after invaders forced them from their home, but now Farajj and certainly Ohanko and soon everyone else would question Tau’s guidance.
What would that leave them with?
“We looked everywhere.” After dropping to his knees, Ohanko sat cross-legged on the ground. He stared at the bits of ash that were all that remained of the morning’s fire. “There’s no trail up, not the smallest path. Nothing but sheer rock.”
Which was why Falcons had chosen Raptor’s Craig to raise their young.
“What are you going to do?” She wasn’t sure whom she was asking her question. “Will you return to—”
“To camp, yes. We have no choice,” Nakos said wearily. He was looking at her, yet she doubted that he actually saw her. Maybe his eyes had been just as unfocused last night when he’d told her about his grandparents. A wave of sympathy threatened to swamp her. “Our warriors are waiting for us.”
“And once you’ve told them everything?”
Nakos glanced at his companions, then shook his head. “I want to say tha
t Tau will find a new direction to guide us, but I don’t know.”
“All Tau’s visions and dreams,” Ohanko interjected. “How could they have been so wrong?”
Strangely, she wanted to offer an explanation, but what would it be?
“A dark spirit maybe,” Farajj offered. “If one has stolen Tau’s soul—”
“Then maybe the Ekewoko are doomed,” Nakos said.
Doomed? With no future? Knowing Raci’s life was over had devastated her, but the rest of her world had remained the same. But what if everything she’d always believed turned out to be a lie and she couldn’t even return to the land of her birth?
Hurting, not just for Nakos but all Ekewoko, she searched her mind for something to say, but no words filled her throat. Even offering her body to Nakos wouldn’t shelter him from reality.
“I should not have said that,” Nakos said. “I won’t accept that we’re doomed. I can’t. As long as strength remains in him, a warrior doesn’t surrender.”
“I agree,” Ohanko said after a too-long silence. “But what are we fighting? Not the Outsiders; they aren’t here.”
Studying the men’s somber expressions, she guessed that the argument, if that’s what it was, wouldn’t go on much longer because no words could erase the reality of what they’d discovered about Raptor’s Craig. One thing she’d learned while watching them: they were barely aware of her presence. She should, could leave. Now, before the walking away became even harder than it was.
“Tell Tau what you found,” she suggested. “The rest is up to him and Sakima, not you.”
Nakos stared at her from under thick lashes. The silence between them stretched out and became heavy. Then a mist slid into place, blocking him off from her. Much as she ached to tear it apart, she was grateful for it. Turning toward the wilderness, she took her first step. Her legs trembled, forcing her to fill her lungs before going on. Her feet thudded dully on the packed ground, and her arms hummed in anticipation of becoming wings.
“Listen,” Ohanko said, the unexpected word spinning her back around. “Something’s coming.”
22
From what she could tell, the entire Ekewoko warrior camp had followed them to Raptor’s Craig. Even the slave Lamuka was there. Other than exchanging puzzled looks, Nakos and his friends hadn’t said anything as the group approached. Tau and Lord Sakima walked slightly ahead of the others, each man wearing bright capes she assumed signified the importance of today’s events. Every warrior was armed.
Studying their somber expressions, she wondered if she should have run the moment she’d heard them, but if she had, what would she have been able to tell the Falcons? Much as she wanted to take strength and courage from Nakos’s presence, she refused to get closer to him. For his part, he acted as if she didn’t exist.
“My lord,” Nakos said when the newcomers were close enough that he could speak without raising his voice. “We didn’t expect you.”
“When you left, I didn’t know we’d be doing this,” Lord Sakima explained as the others gathered around. “But a decision has been made.” He looked pointedly at Tau, who was glaring at her.
Instead of immediately speaking as Sakima obviously expected him to, Tau came to within a few feet of her. He folded his arms over his chest and stood as tall as he could, but she refused to shrink back from him. “I was right,” he announced. “She has cast a spell over him.” He pointed at Nakos.
If there were any spells, Nakos was the one who’d spun one over her, not the other way around. With an effort, she managed not to look at the man who’d changed what she’d always believed about humans.
Tau cleared his throat. “What further proof do we need? A true warrior would have already obeyed his lord. He would be up there.” He jabbed a long, bony finger at the top of Raptor’s Craig. “Instead this warrior who has surrendered his manhood to a Wilding is with her.”
“It isn’t—” Ohanko started. Then his voice trailed off.
“What?” Tau insisted. “Has she poisoned your mind as well, taken you into her body and made you equally weak?”
“Is that why you’re here?” Nakos demanded. “To accuse her of—”
“Accuse?” Tau interrupted. “You are proof. You shouldn’t be here. You should be—”
“How?”
At Nakos’s question, Tau’s mouth sagged, and he blinked repeatedly. “How? What do you mean?”
“What are you saying?” Sakima demanded before Nakos could respond.
“That I have no choice but to ask my shaman something.” Nakos’s tone was measured. “He expects us to have already reached the top of that peak, maybe have gathered up every falcon egg we found, but how is that possible when there’s no trail?”
“No—trail?”
The others, who’d remained at a respectful distance from their lord and shaman, now pressed close. Male gazes darted from one figure to another, with most staring at either Jola or Nakos. Feeding off the tension, she recalled a winter afternoon last year when the sky had filled with black angry clouds and thunder rolled. Any moment now the first lightning bolt might strike.
And when that happened—
“I have to ask this,” Nakos said to Tau, his voice loud in contrast to the silence. “I have no choice. Your visions convinced you that we would regain Ekew once we’d turned falcons into our personal war weapons. Instead of allowing the Outsiders to keep us from Ekew, we would return with our new allies flying beside us. Those allies would chase the Outsiders from the land of our ancestors, killing anyone who resisted. But how is that possible if there’s no way to reach the nests?”
Jola couldn’t say what was happening to Tau. The shaman seemed to be shrinking and expanding at the same time, his features darkening while his gaze darted here and there. She’d heard of shamen who went into trances and wondered if that was what she was seeing.
“This is not possible!” Tau’s voice echoed off the nearby rock. “You haven’t—instead of fulfilling your mission, you let her, a witch, capture your body and soul.”
“There was no spell,” Nakos retorted. “She’s a woman, only a woman.”
“Ha!” Spinning away from Nakos, Tau planted himself in front of her. The shaman wasn’t much taller than her, but the years and his position within the tribe had given him a powerful presence. Even she felt his confidence, his arrogance.
“Only a woman?” Tau continued. “Then why didn’t she drown that first day? How did she recover so quickly after you’d paralyzed her?” His eyes widened, then narrowed. What little she could see of his pupils chilled her.
“I don’t know,” Nakos answered. “All I can speak to is the truth. No human can climb that damnable craig.”
“What have you done, witch?” Tau took another step toward her, forcing her to curl her toes against the ground to keep from backing away. “I know what my visions revealed. How can you, a simple creature, steal what was there?”
Tau’s refusal to believe Nakos so angered her that her fingers burned. Perhaps another word from Tau and she’d bury her nails—or even better, her claws—in his throat. “Maybe I’m not as simple as you want to believe,” she taunted. “A witch, you say. Perhaps.”
Fury contorted the shaman’s features. “Grab her! Bind her.”
A glance assured her that no one had moved, but these warriors were accustomed to obeying their shaman. “Do it yourself.” The moment she’d spoken, she wondered if she’d made a mistake by challenging Tau.
“You are nothing, nothing! A witch perhaps, but one whose so-called powers will shatter before mine.”
“Tau,” Lord Sakima said warningly. “Today isn’t about her. You told us—”
“That we have one destiny, and it is up there.” Tau pointed to where Jola had once believed she’d be raising her and Raci’s offspring. “Nothing has changed. As soon as I’ve removed the threat she represents, our destiny will be fulfilled.”
Because she’d been focusing on what the shaman was saying, she
’d been slow to realize he’d unfastened his cape and was drawing it off his shoulders. The moment he exposed his chest, her heart began pounding. Around his neck he wore a simple necklace made from a narrow leather cord. The cord held a single feather.
“What?” Tau demanded when her gaze riveted on the long, narrow, bluish black feather distinguished by thin black bars.
“You!” she managed. “You killed him?”
“Him?” Nakos echoed. “Jola, what are you talking about?”
Until this moment, every time she heard Nakos’s voice, her body had responded. Now, however, she had room for only one emotion. One thought. “Where did you get that feather?” She spat out each word.
“This?” Tau held it up as if taunting her with it. “From a falcon carcass after I’d shot it.”
Not long ago something had reminded her of a fierce winter storm about to explode. Now, staring at what she had no doubt had been Raci’s tail feather, the storm raged around her. “Why?”
“Why did I take—”
“No! Why did you send an arrow through him?”
“Him? The bird was on the ground, feeding. I knew I’d never be able to kill the predator while it was in the air.” Tau’s expression had been tentative, even guilty maybe. Now, holding up the feather as if it represented an honor, his features hardened. “This is proof of my power, of how much the spirits favor me. Only a great shaman could send an arrow into such a creature’s heart. Other falcons will see what I have done and bow before me.”
She couldn’t listen to him, couldn’t! Not with her body now shaking as if in a blizzard’s grip. Maybe she should be relieved knowing Nakos hadn’t killed Raci, but in some ways this was worse. Realizing that Tau had ripped the feather from Raci’s still-warm body sickened her.
“You’re surprised?” Tau went on. “Ah, I understand you believed I have no more power than you do, but now you know how wrong you were.”
