Raven Thrall

by J Elizabeth Vincent

  More harried murmurs followed. The next moment stretched on in silence. Xae had told them that when his family was captured, his sisters had been caught because they had no control. They had clung to their mother and refused to shift. They were all counting on the fact that among the blueberry bushes, Simone had insisted that she could get them to change this time. Apparently, control had been part of their new training. Mariah didn’t even want to contemplate how the guards had managed that. So, now, in the darkness of the camp, she waited for either the sounds of flapping or the sounds of running footsteps, her body tight and ready to spring back into flight.

  Mariah heard the thrum of wings in the air. It was too loud to be only one pair and too loud not to be heard. The sound called to her, and she saw the trio of ravens lift above the tents. She longed to fly with them, but first, she had to stay and make sure that Simone, Shira, and Ruby, hopefully with Faylan, got out. And she had to hope that the waxing moon would provide enough light for them all without allowing them to be caught.

  “The gods be with you,” she heard the children’s mother whisper, and one of the ravens croaked in reply, momentarily flapping in place above her head. It was not a particularly loud croak, but in the quiet night, it felt like a thunderclap.

  A deep-voiced cry suddenly erupted from between tents to the left. The guard. “Alert! Alert! All swords!”

  After an impossibly short interval, the call was followed by the thump of running footsteps. A whimper escaped from Simone, but she was already sprinting for the gate. Sound filled the camp. The night, which had been filled with silence only a few moments before, was suddenly filled with the clanking of armor plus a cacophony of cries and mutters, some strong and commanding, others soft and shushed. Mariah’s sharp ears, hidden in the feathers along the sides of her head, heard it all. The slide of a sword against leather rose above it.

  Panic rose in her. Ruby was slithering along the wall toward the cages. Mariah tried to stay calm, shifting her head from side to side, trying to gauge where the nearest threat was coming from, where the armed soldiers were.

  In the same moment that Simone began running, Shira raised her great body upright and stood on her hind legs. Mariah lifted off again and flew in a narrow circle, never straying far from her friend and Xae’s mother. She passed above the three ravens as they flew over the barricade and disappeared into the trees beyond. At some point in the last twelve hours, Mariah knew that all three women had commanded Xae to keep flying once his sisters were with him. He was not to wait for them under any circumstances. She hoped he listened and got his sisters away to safety. The three of them, ungrounded, had the best chance of escaping.

  Mariah’s gaze returned to the gate. Simone had passed through to the other side. Two guards ran up to the gate to go after her, but the darkness hid Shira’s massive body, which was camouflaged against the dark logs. The Trappers stopped just short of her as they caught sight of her eyes glowing above them, but it was too late. After two quick, powerful swipes of her paws, the guards lay sprawled in the dirt, unmoving.

  Mariah called to Shira, urging her to move. The bear woman fell onto all fours and began pushing her way through the narrow gate.

  She was almost through when Mariah heard the zing of an arrow slicing through the air. Her heart stopped, and time seemed to freeze. Then, a great roar filled the night. It was the sound of Shira’s pain, and it was frightening beyond measure. But it didn’t stop the soldiers who were running toward the bear, swords at the ready. The woman with the bow—Mariah spotted her between the tents—was drawing back her bowstring again, a new arrow nocked.

  On pure instinct, Mariah flew down with a screech. As a loud crashing sound exploded behind her, she raked her talons across the Trapper’s face before swooping back up and doubling back toward the gate, leaving the woman screaming behind her. Two more guards appeared, their golden breastplates glinting sporadically from reflected torchlight, but Shira was already through the gate—in fact, she seemed to have torn through the opening—disappearing into the shadows of the trees beyond.

  Mariah flew toward the soldiers. She needed to distract them from Simone and Shira and give Ruby a little more time.

  As she drew close to the Trappers, she cried again, splitting their attention between herself and the destroyed gate. Once they were looking at her, Mariah transformed midair and came down with her feet planted squarely into the chest of the nearest one. They were close enough that the fall of the first knocked the other guard off his feet as well. Mariah lifted off, transforming again, and came in for another attack, talons extended. She managed to clip the back of the head of the first Trapper, who was trying to stumble to his feet. Her sharp claws raked through his hair and came away wet. The man grabbed at his head with a surprised scream. Mariah was fiercely glad that they had come unprepared, helmets probably left beside their bunks. However, the second guard was ready for her, the flat of his blade held above his head in a blocking gesture, one hand on the hilt, ready to swing.

  She sailed above him and out of the sword’s path. Howling filled the night air, and Ruby, another wolf at her side, came around the corner at a sprint, each of them tackling one of the guards. Did she also hear the growl of a mountain cat? Chaos erupted from the area of the camp where the cages had been.

  Mariah could have flown away then, up over the top of the barricade and out of the camp, but she had promised to see Faylan safely out of the camp and back to his people. She didn’t even give the alternative—killing him—more than a passing thought. Her promise and Ruby’s command had been the only things convincing Shira to stay with Simone. Mariah called to the wolves, and they moved off the now still guards and headed for the gate.

  Mariah lifted off to follow them. She never saw what knocked her out of the sky.

  PART III

  GODS

  CHAPTER 29

  TRAPPED

  Mariah dreamed. She struggled to climb into consciousness, but the weight holding her down was too much. A deep ache gnawed at her belly, and she could feel the strain of her arms being forcibly held above her head, but that was as far as she could get before she was driven back under by an overpowering need to sleep, to let everything go.

  Her whole body twitched as images came to her in a mix of memory and nightmare.

  Xae and the two little ravens flying next to him, arrows piercing their hearts and sending them tumbling, head over tail, to the ground where they remained, red blood spreading in a muted spider web on their black feathers and then onto the dirt between them.

  Simone running to them, only to be the next victim of the invisible archer. Ruby and her uncle eating the dead guards in savage fury.

  Shira, rising powerfully up onto her hind legs, fighting off faceless Trappers. Then small and human, cut down as she was overwhelmed by their sheer numbers.

  Mariah had no form. She couldn’t help the ones who needed her. She screamed, but no sound came out, only mute sobs as the darkness of her dream surrounded her and dragged her back down into dreamless unconsciousness.

  It was a relief of sorts. She no longer had to watch as she failed her friends again and again, as they died because of her paralysis.

  * * *

  The cycle of semiconsciousness and dreaming repeated itself several times until Mariah found herself, quite by surprise, fully awake, her eyes open in a darkness that was broken only by a tiny, barely visible square of light high above her. The first thing that registered was the cold, hard stone surrounding her.

  Her arms were above her head, just as she’d dreamed, and her shoulders ached. Something heavy surrounded her wrists, holding them in place, and the backs of her arms were pressed against the hard, unforgiving wall. Her wings were gone, and she wondered when and how she had changed. Had the soldiers done something to her? Or had it been automatic, like it had been with the owl man? Did it mean she was going to die?

  There was more stone under her backside and legs, but its
coldness was interrupted by scattered bits of straw, which poked through her breeches and into her skin. She shifted her hips, trying to move out of its path and make her back more comfortable, but with every movement, the straw seemed to stick her even more.

  Mariah’s stomach growled and twisted in protest at its emptiness. It almost overcame the persistent pain deep in her gut. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, willing the pain away, but it only made her situation worse as the smell of excrement filled her nostrils. She leaned to the side, quickly, awkwardly coming up to her knees as she wretched. She gasped for breath between heaves, trying to control her stomach, but although there was nothing in it to add to the foul odor around her, it seemed determined to make absolutely sure of that fact. She felt a warm, wet heat spread on the skin beneath her tunic, but all of her attention was on making the convulsions stop.

  “Better you get used to the smell now,” a tremulous voice came out of the darkness directly across from her, and she skittered back on her bottom, her knees drawn up in front of her. “I’m guessing you’re going to be here a while.”

  “Who are you? Where are we?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Accept it now, and you’ll be better off.”

  “What?”

  “The king’s Trappers have caught you, girl. Once that happens, you don’t matter. You’re just his pawn now. Your life is over.” The bitterness in his voice suggested that he wasn’t just talking about her. Before she could answer, he wheezed and launched into a grating cough. The more he coughed, the more her heart sped up as she considered the implications of what he had just said and as her memories filtered back to her.

  The last place she remembered being was in the children’s camp. She had been trying to help her friends escape. Then pain had sliced through her, and everything had gone black.

  Oh, gods! She had been captured by Rothgar’s Trappers. The beat of her heart increased even further until it felt like it was going to fly right out of her chest, and her breath came in small gasps. She had to get out. She couldn’t become a slave. Why, oh, why had she left Cillian? Xae and the others had probably been chased down and caught or killed. It had all been for nothing. “I have to get out!” She was talking to herself, but she didn’t care this time. She was in some sort of dungeon. What did it matter? “I have to get out! Fly away! Just like daddy said.”

  Her body shimmered at the thought, the cold and warmth washing over it in a flash.

  And she found herself swinging upside-down from her hawk legs, which were now hanging from the shackles. Her beak crashed into the stone wall before she could turn her head.

  The coughing from across the room quieted to almost nothing. The man there, she guessed from his voice that he was old or terribly sick, cleared his throat and spoke. “Guess I should have told you. Does you no good to change here. Shackles are enchanted. Change size with you, find a way to hold on, no matter how small you get.”

  The scream she directed his way came out more like one of Xae’s croaks.

  She hung there, frozen with fear. What if she transformed again? Would she be left hanging upside-down? Why had her legs become trapped when her arms were before? Well, she had no arms now, of course, but it still didn’t make sense. She couldn’t stay hanging like this all day, or she’d pass out. At least in her human form, she’d have legs and feet with which to maneuver, she convinced herself.

  Closing her eyes, she saw herself sitting back against the wall, exactly as she had been before, with no wings. She sent a little prayer up to the gods for good luck. She wasn’t used to doing so, but she figured that in her current straits, it couldn’t hurt. She let herself hang there for several breaths until the image of her human form was firmly set in her mind before she let the magic flow across her.

  Once again, she felt the stone under her backside and against her back. Once again, the strain in her shoulders was almost unbearable, her wrists locked in iron. She was still trapped. She sobbed until the pain in her belly rose up again and left her gasping.

  “Clever. You got it on the first try,” her companion said.

  Mariah looked up. Through her tears, she could see a pair of eyes glowing in the darkness across from her. “What are you?” she whispered. It came out matter-of-factly, with only a hint of tears left in her voice.

  “I suppose it doesn’t hurt to tell her. She’s just as trapped as you, you know. Not like she’s going to run off and tell everyone.” He seemed to be arguing with himself, and it went on in a series of mutters for several minutes. It looked like she was in good company.

  If she sat very still, the pain subsided somewhat. She listened to him babble and was beginning to doubt she would ever get an answer from the other prisoner when he suddenly stopped.

  Out of the darkness, he said. “I’m the Fox. Good night vision. I figure it’s only fair to tell you since I can see you’re the Hawk.”

  “The Hawk?” she asked. When he didn’t respond, she spoke up again, suddenly hating the quiet. It reminded her of where she was and of the uncertainty of what would come next. “I’m Mariah. What’s your name?”

  She hoped that her question wouldn’t cause another long self-argument and sighed in relief when he said, “Tibbot. Name’s Tibbot. Been in here so long I almost forgot.”

  “Why?” she asked. “I thought the king put all of … our kind … into service.” She realized that she didn’t know that much. All she knew came from rumor, the man in the marketplace, the owl man, and the drudge camp. It was a far sight better than what she had known before she returned to Varidian, but she had no idea what happened between the time an adult Ceo San was trapped and the time they appeared chained to a Trapper or other soldier. Were those on the chain all adults who had been trapped as children? What if all of the Ceo San captured as adults were thrown into a dungeon like she had been? Left to rot, to hang until their bone-thin arms fell out of whatever held them, and they died?

  “Service? Is that what you call it?” He cleared his throat and spit loudly before he began coughing again. He hadn’t even finished when he began muttering again between hacks. “Slavery. Blackmail. Heresy. Blasphemy.” He finally quieted for half a minute before finishing. “Anything but … service.”

  Mariah blinked and realized that she had been staring wide-eyed at Tibbot’s shadow on the wall opposite her. It had become visible as her eyes adjusted.

  “How … how long have you been here?” she asked.

  “Don’t know. I stopped keeping track after I counted a year’s worth of nights pass by that window up there.”

  Mariah swallowed hard.

  “Did they just leave you here?”

  “Once his majesty”—Tibbot sneered the words—”figured out that I wouldn’t serve him—that I would tell the world what he was, even if that vile Trapper woman beat me and threatened to kill me—he tossed me back in here, where I’ll die. Eventually.

  “Oh, others have come and gone, like you. Sometimes, when the idiots remember, they bring a few scraps of food or send a scullery maid in to sweep everything down the grating and put down more filthy straw. If you’re lucky.” His last words were soft, and after them, he quieted, coughing once in a while but no longer responding to her questions. He eventually started to snore softly. It was the most peaceful he had been since he had first spoken.

  * * *

  So Mariah had to come up with her own answers.

  She couldn’t answer the question of how long she had been unconscious, only that it must have been long enough to have been brought to the city. She was obviously injured. She had scouted the drudge camp and the area around it well and knew that there had been no buildings so tall there. Of course, part of the structure she was in could have been underground. Relying on what she knew for sure, she decided that she must be in Glenley somewhere. Beyond that, she couldn’t decide whether she was in that infernal city wall somewhere or in the famed Draydon Keep, where the king and his courtiers resided. S
he hadn’t gotten close enough to see it during her scouting mission, but she imagined it was grand and probably had towers like this one.

  Mariah tried to keep her mind on figuring out where she was and what she would do if … no, when she escaped. But other possibilities kept creeping into her thoughts. “Others have come and gone.” Had the king put Ayla and Nya in this dungeon or another one like it? Other children? What about Simone? Her demeanor suggested that it was definitely possible. She had seemed worn down, almost broken, hopeless until she had seen her son. But children? Would Rothgar keep them chained up, living in their own filth like … like animals?

  “Tibbot, Tibbot, please wake up.” She tried and tried. She needed answers. She needed to know if he had seen them. The answers wouldn’t change anything, but her mind screamed with the need to know. Tibbot didn’t wake up. He continued to snore until her voice was hoarse, and finally, she also quieted.

  Her face was wet with tears when the quiet, rhythmic snore of the other prisoner lulled her into sleep.

  CHAPTER 30

  A MESSAGE

  In her dreams, the voice came.

  It whispered her name and called to her. It was deep and melodic, and it soothed her raw nerves. With the voice came images, illusions. She walked in a field of waving grass, long and green. The blades brushed her calves, and the breeze ruffled her short silver hair, making it flutter above her head like the grass did at her feet. Her wings dragged along, parting the softness behind her.