Gold Wings Rising, page 12
“Good,” Aalish said. “Because I need you focused on what is important here, not on petty squabbles from the past.”
“I wouldn’t call laying siege to our villages and murdering falconers by the thousands a petty squabble,” Nyck cut in. “I seem to remember going to war against your army.”
“That was before,” Aalish said. “You need to think about the future.”
“What about this morning?” Nyck replied.
“That was a mob surrounding you,” Aalish calmly told him. “I won’t pretend to apologize for any discomfort they caused, and I won’t pretend your well-being is any concern of mine. I will, however, tell you that it will not happen again. I can also promise that it is in all of your interests to cooperate with us.”
“I’m listening,” Kylee said. She’d learned that the most powerful weapon wasn’t a sharpened blade or a keen falcon; it was knowing what your opponent wanted.
Previously she had thought she understood what everyone around her wanted. She thought Birgund wanted to clear out the Mutes to exert stronger control on the Six Villages. She thought the Redfist rabble in the Mutes wanted to rise up and kill every Uztari they found, seizing the dwindling resources of the Six Villages for themselves in the process. And she thought the ghost eagles just wanted them all dead by whatever means necessary.
But the ghost eagles’ egg changed everything. Now everyone wanted it.
“We want to know what’s going to happen when this egg hatches,” Aalish said.
“How should we know?” Kylee told the woman.
“Brysen?” Aalish turned to him. “Where were you going with the egg?”
“On a quiet walk in the fresh mountain air,” he said back to her.
Aalish wasn’t going to accept his sarcasm this time. Another muffled scream from Ryven made them all flinch, and then Aalish lifted Jowyn from the floor.
“I suppose Dhona would like a chat with this boy next,” she said. “I hear that the longer these exiles from the Owl Mothers go without the sap of the blood birch, the more acute their pain response becomes. I wonder if that’s true?”
“Don’t you dare,” Brysen told her, though his voice was about as menacing as a vole’s squeak.
“Tell us where you were going,” Aalish replied.
“To the Owl Mothers,” Brysen answered before Kylee could stop him. “I saw a vision of the blood birch forest.”
Kylee closed her eyes, disappointed. She’d seen it, too. Right after they’d left Kyrg Birgund, while she and Grazim were walking back to their cave, she heard the eagles’ distant shrieks. She’d seen the blood birch forest from above, its many thin white branches swaying slightly in the wind, the whisper of its leaves, the creak of branches like arthritic bones. She’d been hit with a wave a sadness at the image, but she hadn’t known why. The world was so full of sadness these days. Who could parse one cause from another?
But this sadness, she now knew, belonged to the ghost eagles. Something about the blood birches made them mourn.
The door opened and in came Dhona, followed by Ryven, who looked completely unscathed. Of course his screams had been lies. Ryven was, to his core, a deceiver. But why would he help the Redfists when he’d been with Birgund that morning?
“If we try to take the egg to the blood birch forest ourselves,” he told them all, “the ghost eagles will tear us apart before sunrise, right?”
Brysen shrugged. “Find out for yourself.”
Ryven grabbed Jowyn’s jaw in his palm, turned the boy’s head to the side, looked at the tattoos on his neck, and pursed his lips. “I always wanted to understand these images the Owl Mothers make,” he said. “Perhaps I should take off the boy’s skin so I can bind them into a book for later study.”
Brysen whimpered, which made Ryven smile. “Relax,” he said. “I’m not a monster. I simply want your cooperation.” He let go of Jowyn and looked at Kylee. “Birgund doesn’t care whether or not you massacre the people living in Mutes,” he told her. “He wants to keep you all busy while he dismantles the nets and takes them to cover his army on a march to the Sky Castle. He figures the ghost eagles will be so focused on the slaughter here that he can get some distance before they catch on. I don’t think he even cares about the egg.”
“You’re lying,” Kylee said flatly. “Birgund wants power. He wouldn’t just let it slip through his fingers.”
“He’s stuck in the past,” Ryven said. “He still thinks power comes from the Sky Castle. He wants to go home. He’s packing at this very moment.”
“But not you?” Kylee asked. “Don’t you want to go home?”
“That egg is everything,” Ryven said. “I want to unlock its secrets.”
“Like my brother said.” Kylee shrugged. “Go for it.”
Ryven pulled the egg from a satchel and raised it between his hands, turning it this way and that. Kylee was mesmerized by the swirls of black on black, and she felt her heartbeat pick up as the egg moved in his hands.
“I’ve studied the talorum for a long time,” he said. “Do you know how their eggs are made?” He didn’t wait for a reply. He wasn’t really asking. “We have ancient texts that describe how an egg knit itself from the shadows of a torture chamber. Another says they rise from the mud beneath a mourner’s processional. One says an egg was found in the arms of a frozen child on the slopes of a high mountain in the ice-wind season.” He snorted, considering the grim image. “There’s some truth to all those accounts,” he said, “but to get the whole truth, one must go to the source: the eagles themselves.”
“You asked them?” Kylee wondered.
Ryven cleared his throat. “Not exactly. But I see the same dreams you do. I, however, have a lifetime of study to add context to their meaning. The eggs, I believe, are born from pain. While it is true, as far as we know, that ghost eagles kill their mates, they don’t do it after the act of creation; they do it as the act of creation. A ghost eagle’s grief creates the egg, and what could be sadder than killing your own mate?” Kylee tried to keep her face blank, but Ryven knew he had her attention. This was just like when he’d given her lessons in the Hollow Tongue. He used her hunger for knowledge like a falconer uses morsels of meat. He was keeping her keen, perched on his every word. “Perhaps, I suppose, being tortured by your own parents?”
Kylee sucked in a breath. She saw the darkness on the eggshell swirl, waves of deeper darkness roiling over one another. The shell itself was a kind of living thing, and it responded to her mind and to her brother’s. Ryven looked down at the egg in his hands and a smile brightened his face. He was getting the reaction he wanted. He was provoking them.
“I’ve come to believe,” he continued, “that this egg called to you both because of your pain, Kylee. Your family’s pain. I think this egg was created just for you, from your grief. The eagles couldn’t help it. Like a tether binds an untrained falcon to the fist, this egg binds them to you, and you to them. It’s as much yours as theirs.” He held it out toward her, as if offering it, though her hands were still bound behind her back. The surface was swirling with her anger, but she saw flecks of gold in it, too.
She looked at Brysen, and his eyes were wide and damp. He wasn’t angry. He didn’t even look surprised. The corners of his mouth twitched, and no one else might’ve noticed, but she knew her twin’s face better than her own. He was delighted.
“It’s ours,” Brysen whispered, like Ryven had just granted his greatest wish in the world.
“It’s bound to you,” Ryven clarified. “But it is very much their egg, and they want it back.”
“Are you going to…,” Brysen began to ask, the same whimper in his voice as when Aalish had hoisted up Jowyn. “Are you going to give it back to them?”
Ryven took a deep breath, thinking. “Not yet,” he said, and nodded at Aalish.
“First,” she said. “We had to pick a fight.”
He grinned at Kylee. “You’re right, of course. I was lying about Birgund running away. He’d never leave unfinished business behind, and you, little chickadees, are his unfinished business.”
At that very moment a chorus of shouts and whistles erupted outside as Kyrg Birgund’s soldiers stormed the Mutes. Thanks to Ryven’s treachery, the Redfists were ready for them.
17
At the first war cries from the battle outside, the shell shuddered in Ryven’s hands, the tiny flecks of gold that Brysen’s excitement had created vanishing at once. The ghost eagles had wanted a bloody fight between people, and they’d gotten it. From the sounds that made their way through the thin walls of the shed, it was an ugly encounter, and Kylee just knew that if Ryven was telling the truth, this would be the moment the eagles would try to retrieve their egg, even though it was now full daylight.
Dhona and Aalish stepped outside to check on the fighting, and Ryven moved to peek through the doorway, the egg still in his hands.
Grazim had removed the gag from her mouth, and she whispered to Kylee, “We can’t fall back into Birgund’s hands. He’ll kill us.”
“I know,” Kylee said.
“We can’t just sit here and wait for Ryven to use us, either,” she said.
“I know,” Kylee repeated.
“We need to do something,” Grazim insisted.
“I. Know!” Kylee shouted, and sprang to her feet with her arms still tied behind her back. The violent motion loosened her restraints, but it wasn’t enough, and she fell back onto her behind again, landing with a painful thud. It was enough to bring Ryven and a guard back over to her.
“Secure her,” Ryven ordered. “Whatever happens, keep the twins safe and in our control.” He looked Kylee and Grazim up and down, then added, “And restore the gags. Birgund will have brought birds with him.”
“Smart,” Kylee told him, as the guard took a stinking piece of reddish-brown cloth—it looked to be dyed with some kind of animal blood—and shoved it into her mouth.
In order to tie it, however, the guard had to put his back to Kheryn. The strong battle boy used their knee to knock the guard forward, into Kylee’s lap. The force of his fall loosened the stake in the ground behind Kylee, and she was able to wriggle her hands free.
“Guards!” Ryven called out the door, keeping his distance with the egg still in his hands. “Help!”
Two more Redfists burst in, but Kylee rolled on her side, kicking one’s legs out from under him and then kicking over Kheryn’s post. They slid their hands from behind their back and went to work.
The best fighter the battle boys had went up against all three Redfists at once. It wouldn’t be long before they made short work of the opponents.
With Kheryn’s release, Ryven realized that the fight had turned against him, and he rushed out the door. Kylee let him run with the egg while she untied Nyck and Lyra, then Grazim and Brysen and Jowyn.
Before the fight with Kheryn was over, Nyck leapt onto the back of one Redfist and used the gag from his mouth to choke her out. He didn’t like to miss a brawl, even if his violent contribution wasn’t fully necessary.
“Miscreants,” Grazim muttered. She was just as committed to violence as the battle boys were, but only when she thought it was necessary.
“We have to get the egg back,” Brysen said, a desperation in his voice. “It’s ours.”
“Ryven’s a liar,” Kylee said. “We don’t know he was telling us the truth, or the whole truth, at least.”
“You saw the egg change,” Brysen said. “You know. When I first found it, the eagles were angry and scared, but they couldn’t just take it from me. It was like something was stopping them. If they get through the nets, I have the feeling nothing will stop them taking it from Ryven.”
“I mean … so what?” Nyck asked. “They’ll kill him and get their egg back. What’s one more ghost eagle when we’re already up against hundreds? Let’s just get out of here while we can.”
“No,” Kylee said. “My brother’s right. That egg needs to be with us. It’s the only leverage we have.”
She could tell Brysen didn’t like hearing the egg referred to as leverage, but he didn’t complain. The others agreed, and Nyck accepted the consensus and bounced on the balls of his feet, eager for the fight. “Well, okay then, we hunt down that scuzzard. Let’s do it.”
Kheryn pushed open the door.
The narrow streets were overrun with people fleeing. Fighters rushed against them, heading in the opposite direction. Ryven was wending his way through the torrent of bodies, toward the entrance to another narrow street.
“Them!” someone yelled from the other direction. Dhona and three of her Redfists were pushing their way back toward the shack. “Get them!” Dhona shouted.
“Nyck?” Kylee asked.
“On it!” The battle boy grinned and turned to face Dhona and her guards, whistling a little birdsong to taunt them. He was shifting from side to side like a bowerbird looking for a mate. “Let’s play.”
Overhead, three red-tailed hawks flapped just below the nets and then dove at the first red-wrapped fists they saw, attacking with talon and beak.
“Clever,” Grazim noted. “Birgund trained their birds to attack anyone wearing red cloth on their fists.”
“What happens when the Redfists figure that out?” Kylee wondered, even as she saw fighters untying the cloth and letting it fall to the ground, then targeting the birds of prey with arrows and spears as the birds dove on their less astute compatriots.
Dhona and her guards were far better fighters than Nyck and Kheryn and Lyra, and far stronger. Lyra had already taken a punch to the teeth without landing a single blow back, while Nyck was doing his best just to dodge Dhona’s blades. He was tiring.
“Must I do everything?” Grazim sighed, and then called out to the nearest bird of prey, a black-shouldered kite. These birds were known for their dexterity when near the ground—a good choice for fighting in narrow lanes below netting, and an even better choice for Grazim to command. “Pleu-wiit,” she whispered to it, and it turned from harrying a bloody-faced man with red cloth wrapped around both his fists—missing the point of the symbolism, Kylee thought—to fly straight for Dhona. Its talons raked through her short hair, tearing at her scalp.
“Let’s go!” Kylee yelled at the battle boys, who used the moment to retreat and rejoin the group, all of them chasing after Ryven, Brysen faster than any of them. Brysen took a turn too early in his haste, though, bumping into a corner, which saved him from a spear. Clearly aimed for him, the weapon slammed into the wall just before him, at the turn he would’ve taken had he not misjudged the distance. He stopped short to stare at it, shocked. Jowyn pulled him down and under it, dragging him around the turn just as the Redfist who’d thrown the spear charged.
Kylee was on the Redfist first, tackling them into the wall and trying to throw them to the ground. They fought back, though, and flipped her with her own momentum, then pressed their knee into her throat. She gasped, saw stars. She felt like her windpipe might collapse, but a bird suddenly alighted on the hazy face of her attacker, screeching. A pigeon hawk, the brass anklet of the Uztari army around its ankle catching the late afternoon light with a gorgeous gleam. The bird flew away as the attacker fell off Kylee—Lyra and Nyck had dispatched the Redfist without even slowing their run.
“This way,” they said.
“Nice work,” Kylee said to Grazim as they ran, nodding at the three birds following them. Grazim had commanded them to cover the group.
“I’ve discovered a real love for the language,” she replied, a kind of focused glee in her eyes. The blond girl had a gift for battle that Kylee never would. They’d only been on the run for a few moments and Grazim had already commanded half a dozen birds of prey from the Uztari falconers. Kylee hadn’t called down a single bird. But there was a flaw in their plan: The moment a bird didn’t follow its falconer’s command, the soldiers would figure out they were under control of the Hollow Tongue. The soldiers could just watch the bird’s path to determine where Kylee and Grazim were headed. She had no doubt Birgund sent these birds deliberately, to find them out.
“They’ll notice the birds and follow us … How do you say ‘confuse them’?” she asked Grazim.
“Shaalit! Shaalit!” Grazim chirped, and several Uztari birds broke in different directions over the Mutes, weaving and flapping in no discernable pattern. This bought them time before Birgund would be able to tell which birds were with his targets and which were leading him on a wild-hawk chase.
They followed Ryven down an alley. The path ended in a fork, and Ryven disappeared into a triangular shack set right at the split, Brysen just behind him. They piled in. It was one of the gin counters that bought thirdhand gin from the black market at ridiculous prices; its shelves were mostly bare. Ryven stood behind the counter, holding a sharp hammer over the ghost eagle egg.
Brysen stood in front of him, arms up, begging the kyrg not to harm the egg.
Except Brysen had already seen Kylee fail to hurt the egg back in the cave. He knew it couldn’t be broken with a hammer. Her brother was stalling, waiting for the rest of them. He was also, it appeared, trying to avoid more violence.
“Please,” Brysen pleaded. “That egg isn’t even hatched. It’s not a ghost eagle yet. It hasn’t done anything. Let it go. Let me take care of it.”
As Brysen spoke, flecks of gold floated through the black swirls on the shell.
“Not one move, or I crack this thing and swallow the animal inside,” Ryven threatened, and the gold faded. Brysen glanced over his shoulder at Kylee. Kylee’s anger was turning it black.
“He’s lying,” she said. “He loves the ghost eagles more than anything. He doesn’t want to hurt this one.”
“Of course I don’t, Kylee,” Ryven said. “But I do want to survive. So we all get out of here together. Me carrying the egg, and you protecting me from them, or I will crack it.”
“And then?” Kylee asked him.
“I come with you to the blood birches,” he said. “I’ve reached the limits of what I know, and I need to know more. I want to discover what this egg means along with you.”
