“Oh yeah, wouldn’t want to run into any bandits,” Twig said, clutching his chest.
“Just go,” said Nox through his teeth, and it seemed some unspoken words passed between them that Ellie couldn’t make out.
“Fine, fine, you got it, boss.” With a sloppy salute, Twig leaped into the air. His bicolored wings made almost no noise at all.
Once he was out of sight, Ellie leaned toward Gussie and asked, “What’s with all the animals?”
Gussie had two little cogs in her hands and was idly locking their teeth together like puzzle pieces.
“If it slithers, crawls, scurries, or climbs,” she explained, “then Twig falls in love with it and it falls in love with Twig. We had to stop twice on the way here, once so he could free a penned-up dog, and then so he could loose a donkey some farmer had been starving. He’s part Mockingbird, and you know how their clan is with languages—they pick them them up easy as I read a book.”
She chewed her lip a moment, then added, “His parents sold him to a circus when he was little. His knack for learning languages somehow makes it easy for him to communicate with animals, so the circus made him train bears and pigs and things for shows. At least, until he could no longer stand how cruelly they treated them and he set all the animals free. They whipped him badly for it. He’s got scars still, but he doesn’t like to show them.”
“His parents sold him?” Ellie said, horrified. “Why?”
“It happens to piebalds,” said Gussie quietly. “People are superstitious about them—say they’re bad omens who attract gargols and stuff like that. So they get rid of the children as quick as they can. Not that I, as a student of science, believe in any of that nonsense.”
Ellie shuddered as, above, a strong wind rattled the treetops. Twig returned, landing lightly and assuring them the road was clear; they hadn’t been followed by any would-be robbers. She averted her eyes, not wanting him to know they’d been discussing his past.
“Gussie,” Nox said, eyeing the windy branches worriedly, “how’s the weather?”
“Just a minute, I’ll check.” She rummaged in her satchel, then pulled out a round glass tube set in a bronze case. Inside the glass sloshed a dark blue liquid.
“What is that thing?” asked Ellie.
“I call it a predicterator,” said Gussie. “Or maybe storm glass. I haven’t decided yet.” She peered at the glass tube. “It’s clear, Nox. We’re good.”
“Can’t you just fly up and take a look?” asked Ellie. The trees obscured most of the sky, but just a few seconds’ flying would take one above their highest branches.
“The glass shows the weather to come, not just the weather that is,” Gussie explained as she packed it away again.
“Really? But that’s—amazing! I’ve never seen such a thing before.”
“Of course you haven’t.” Gussie grinned, a bit shyly. “I invented it.”
“You’re an inventor? But you’re …” Ellie glanced at Gussie’s wings.
“What?” Gussie’s tone hardened a little. “I’m from Falcon clan, is that it? So I’m meant to be a brick-headed brawler and nothing else, just punching and stabbing my way through life?”
Ellie winced. She of all people knew one’s clan didn’t—or shouldn’t—determine one’s fate.
“No,” she said quietly. “I don’t think that at all.”
Her stomach growled. The conversation lulled, and she dug in her knapsack for food. First, she had to take out her copy of The King’s Ladder, which she carefully set on a stone so it wouldn’t get dirty.
Gussie glanced at the book and gave a short laugh. “You’re really going to fly all the way to Thelantis with ten pounds of silly bedtime stories?”
Ellie’s ears began to burn. “They’re true stories, and anyway, anyone who wants to be a Goldwing knight must first study the Ladder.”
“The what?” said Twig.
“The King’s Ladder. It’s like the list of qualities a person has to learn in order to become a knight. There are twelve stories about historical knights, each one representing one of the twelve virtues that make up the Ladder’s steps. You know, honor, courage, discipline, stuff like that.” She opened the book to a page creased from use. “It says right here: Anyone who climbs each rung in the Ladder will prove worthy of the Goldwing’s cloak.”
“Huh,” said Nox. “Why would you need a ladder when you have wings?”
Ellie blinked. “That’s not the point. It’s not literal.”
Gussie lit the fire with a clever little contraption that sparked flame when she clicked a button.
“Did you invent that too?” asked Ellie, eager to change the subject. Her mother had given her The King’s Ladder, had read its stories to her, and she didn’t like them making fun of it.
Gussie nodded. “I call it a flinter.”
“Can I see?”
Gussie handed it over and Ellie clicked the button, delighted when a little flame sprang out of the metal case. “This is ingenious!”
“Careful with that,” said Nox, eyeing the device. “You’ll set the forest on fire.”
“Pff. I’ll have you know I was the chief bonfire lighter at every Sparrow clan solstice festival for the last three years.” Ellie picked up a branch bristling with dried, dead leaves and held the flinter to it, then whooped as it caught flame. “I know how to handle a flame.”
But when she swung the burning branch in Nox’s direction, he shouted and lunged away as if it were a striking snake.
Ellie started to laugh, then stopped herself.
His terror was real. He was panting hard, the color drained from his face. For a moment, no one spoke.
“Are you all right?” asked Ellie, dropping the branch into the campfire.
“It’s fine,” Nox rasped. “I just … it nearly burned me, is all. But I’m fine.”
Ellie could practically still hear Nox’s terrified shout echoing through the trees. It reminded her of her own screams in the nights right after her parents had died. She’d suffered from terrible nightmares, always waking with a bloodcurdling shout that had brought Mother Rosemarie running. So Ellie knew the sound of pure fear when she heard it.
Nox, she realized, was deathly afraid of fire.
Why? Had he been burned badly before? Had his house burned down? What had happened?
But she wasn’t about to ask. Instead, she pretended she hadn’t noticed anything unusual and sat down.
“It’s getting dark,” said Nox stiffly. “We should take turns keeping watch.”
They set up a schedule, and Ellie drew first duty. She flew up and found a perch on a tall oak tree, which gave her a view of both the sky and the forest floor. Below, the others fell asleep wrapped in the downy warmth of their own wings. Twig and Gussie lay on either side of the fire, near the hot coals, while Nox settled down a short distance away. Ellie watched him and wondered what his story was. Were his parents dead or alive? How had he come to work for a lord?
As night fell and the stars came out, Ellie unfolded her wings and enclosed herself in them, her long primary feathers brushing the tops of her feet. Her stomach was a tumbling beehive, nerves and excitement tangled together. This was the first night she’d ever spent outside. Every noise was strange, every star brighter and closer than before. By now, the rest of her clan would know she’d left. How long would it take before they realized she’d flown off, or would they assume a gargol had gotten her?
But as Ellie stared up at the stars, she found her thoughts wandering further, like fireflies that had escaped their jar. She saw the faces of her parents as clearly as she saw the stars above her, and a surge of uncertainty coursed through her.
Am I doing the right thing? she asked them. Are you proud of me?
Shivering, Ellie closed her wings tighter around herself, drew her feet beneath the curtain of her feathers.
I will make you proud, she promised. Just watch and see.
When the moon had completed a third of its cir
cuit in the sky, she woke Gussie for her turn, then curled up by the warm remains of the fire. For a few minutes, she found it impossible to shut her eyes.
She traced her finger in the dirt beside her head, outlining an ashmark but getting no comfort from it. She’d never heard of an ashmark protecting against gargols without walls to keep them out.
The day had been one of the longest in her life. Her wings were warmer and softer than any blanket, and with one crooked under her head and the other draped over her body, she was as comfortable as she could possibly be. And so it didn’t take long at all for her to fall asleep, and to dream of a thousand would-be knights racing through stormy skies, all intent on knocking Ellie from the air, back down to the ground where they thought she belonged.
“You didn’t tell me you were delivering this box to a castle,” said Ellie.
“Not a castle,” Nox pointed out. “More like … a fortress.”
The enormous building sat atop a high, stony cliff, with the great Aeries Mountains at its back. Its walls were made of large stone bricks, with a turreted tower rearing upward. Sure enough, there was no path leading up to it. The only way up was by wing.
Ellie and her new companions stood at the edge of the forest, steps away from the sheer cliff face. She, Twig, and Gussie were dressed in page uniforms Nox had pulled from his knapsack—blue coats with shiny brass buttons and matching pants with white stripes down the seams. On her head, Ellie wore a blue cap with a pair of flight goggles attached. She itched all over.
“No guards,” commented Gussie, studying the fortress.
“Yeah,” said Nox, pressing a hand to his injured shoulder and wincing.
“Who lives up there?” asked Ellie.
“It’s under the command of a General Torsten,” said Nox.
“They call him the Stoneslayer,” whispered Twig. “He killed a gargol.”
“Something few living people have ever done,” added Gussie.
“Really!” Ellie gasped. “Is he a Goldwing?”
Nox shrugged. “Who cares? Time to use those warrior muscles, Sparrow.”
“You’ll have to stay here,” Twig said to Lirri, handing the marten to Nox. “Sorry, but I just couldn’t get a uniform in your size.”
Lirri chattered her teeth indignantly, then burrowed into Nox’s pocket.
“I’ll keep an eye on her,” the Crow boy assured Twig.
Together, Ellie, Twig, and Gussie lifted off the ground, hauling the box between them. They heaved and fluttered their wings and groaned, slowly making their way up the cliff’s face. Ellie had to keep reminding herself of the seventh step in the King’s Ladder—strength—the whole way up. She tried to see every ache in her arm and wing muscles as another chance to prove herself, but it got harder the higher they flew.
“What …” gasped out Twig, “are you … muttering about … Sparrow?”
“Nothing,” she returned. She hadn’t realized she’d been chanting the word aloud.
Finally, they made it to the large front door of the fortress, accessible by a wide stone portico, and set the box down with gasps of relief. Ellie took in the massive structure, with its many turrets and crenellations. Large ashmarks were drawn in soot over the doors and windows.
The lone Hawk clan guard posted at the front entrance frowned. He didn’t look much older than Zain. In fact, he could easily have been one of Zain’s innumerable cousins. He was dressed in the dark blue uniform of a soldier, complete with a spear and a knee-length cape with slits cut for his wings. “What’s this? Who’re you kids?”
“We have orders to deliver this directly to General Torsten,” said Gussie, patting the box. “It’s from Lord Bandersly, in Thelantis.”
The guard frowned. “I’m not sure …”
“Look,” said Gussie. “You don’t get paid enough to decide whether or not a delivery from Lord Bandersly, the war minister of all the Clandoms, is important enough to let us in.”
The guard shrugged. “Whatever. I’ll fetch the general. Bring it inside.”
He opened the door and hustled in, leaving them to haul their cargo.
“Rude,” muttered Gussie. “He could’ve at least given us a cart or something.”
“Lord Bandersly’s the guy you work for?” asked Ellie, while they dragged the box through the doorway. Inside was a square room of stone, with banners hung on the walls depicting the crest of the Eagle king—laurels around crossed white feathers tipped in black.
Gussie and Twig exchanged a brief, unreadable look, then Twig said, “Absolutely.”
“Lord Bandersly’s the head of the king’s military council,” said Gussie. “There’s not a man in the army, not even the Stoneslayer, who’d ignore a delivery from him.”
“And we’re wearing his house’s costumes,” said Twig, polishing one of his buttons.
“Livery,” Gussie corrected him.
Moments later, a man in a gray uniform with lots of medals pinned to it came into the room, his brow furrowed. He was speaking to a soldier behind him. “Keep searching, then. That little miscreant couldn’t have got far with an arrow in his shoul—what’s this now?”
He barely glanced at Ellie, Twig, or Gussie but peered dubiously at the box.
“General Torsten?” asked Gussie.
“Yes, but I wasn’t expecting a delivery,” he said. “Who are you kids?”
“I’m sure you’ll see what all this is about,” said Gussie. “Just allow me to open—”
“Wait,” said the general. “I don’t like this. Stop!”
But Gussie, ignoring him, sprang forward and unclasped the box. The lid flew open with a bang, and suddenly, the air filled with an acrid green smoke that stank like skunk spray. Ellie gasped and stepped back, just as Twig reached up and pulled her flight goggles down and over her eyes. Gussie’s were already in place.
Ellie pressed herself against the wall, holding her breath instinctively. The smell was nauseatingly strong, but it seemed to be more than just a bad odor in the air. She made out the dim shapes of the general and his soldiers, all howling and pressing their hands to their eyes.
“Go, Twig!” Gussie cried. “Ellie, split off! Find an exit and get out—meet up back at the campsite!”
She shoved Ellie toward a doorway. Bewildered and disoriented, Ellie stumbled through it. When she looked back, Twig and Gussie had both vanished.
What in the skies?
What was happening?
She realized the smoke, which was apparently burning the eyes of the soldiers, couldn’t affect her through her goggles. Ellie stumbled back to help, but when she laid a hand on one, the man grabbed her wrist and held her fast.
“I got one, General!” he cried, still coughing from the smoke. His eyes were pressed shut, the skin around them red. “They must be spies!”
“Spies!” Ellie gasped. “No, I—”
The soldier shook her by her shoulder. “You’ll hang for this, you little rat!”
That shocked Ellie into motion. She twisted away, ramming her elbow into the soldier’s ribs. He yelped and released her, and she sprinted out of the cloud of smoke and to the nearest window, as Gussie had told her. Whatever had just happened, it was clear to Ellie that she’d better get as far away from this place as possible.
She threw herself out of the window and, spreading her wings, tore back to the forest.
Nox wasn’t where she’d left him. Ellie saw no sign of Gussie or Twig either. Ripping off the flight goggles, she winged into the trees, seething.
They’d lied to her.
She wasn’t sure why, or what their true purpose had been, but something was definitely off about her new so-called companions. And she was sure the general had been talking about Nox when he’d come into the room. Who else could the “young miscreant” be, with an arrow in his shoulder?
“Nox!” she called. “Twig!”
No one answered. She landed clumsily on the broad branch of an oak to catch her breath and cough the rest of the smoke f
rom her lungs. Her face burned with anger and confusion.
Were they spies? She couldn’t imagine who they’d work for. It wasn’t as if the Clandoms were at war with anyone.
But they’d been prepared for the smoke, with their goggles and their escape plans. Clearly there was something deeper and far more nefarious going on, and now they’d dragged Ellie into their crime.
What Ellie really wanted right now was an explanation. Who were these three kids, what had they involved her in, and why?
Remembering Gussie’s last words to her, Ellie set her jaw and flew to track down their campsite.
She arrived to find it empty. In a fury, she set about kicking rocks and clumps of moss, sure they’d intentionally left her high and dry. Used and then dumped, like the country naïf she was. Ellie was just about to take off again, for only the sky knew where, when she heard the crackle of footsteps on dry leaves.
Nox stepped out of the trees, and behind him walked Gussie, carrying her goggles.
“Oh, look!” Gussie said, lifting an eyebrow at the sight of Ellie. “She didn’t fly away after all.”
“We thought you’d be halfway home by now,” Nox said, grinning.
Ellie rushed forward in a blur of wings, shoving Nox against the nearest tree and pinning him to it with an arm across his throat.
“Yow!” Nox cried. “Watch the shoulder, you crazy Sparrow!”
Lirri scrabbled out of his pocket and screeched at Ellie, her fur bristling.
“What,” Ellie ground out, “was that?”
His eyes shone with maddening smugness. “You were brilliant. Really, we could never have delivered our little package without you.”
“Tell me what’s going on or I swear—”
“What?” he said. “What’ll you do? Look, if I’d told you what our real errand was, you’d never have gone along with it, Miss I Never Lie.”
“You’re right about that! What was that poison smoke? Did we—” She paused to swallow. Hard. “Did we—those soldiers, are they—?”
“Oh, they’re fine,” said Gussie. “It was just a little mix I concocted to sting the eyes. Well, Twig helped. He’s probably the only person in the Clandoms who can bottle skunk spray without getting sprayed. That, combined with my special hot-pepper serum and spring-operated explosive device, makes for one nasty eye burn. But they’ll be perfectly all right by nightfall, if they wash their eyes out thoroughly.”
Sparrow Rising Page 5