The Unfinished Song (Book 5): Wing

by Tara Maya

  Vio made other proclamations as well. He declared amnesty to all Morvae who swore to respect a return to the old laws. He freed all slaves (most of whom were war captives) in the tribehold and declared no new slaves would be taken. (He paid for the slaves he freed from the personal treasure amassed by the Bone Whistler.) He negotiated terms with each individual clan, from great to small. Vessia could help him in none of this.

  Not that he asked.

  Vio took over the Bone Whistler’s home. It was commodious by human standards, but it still reminded Vessia of a cave. There were three levels, with a room for housing goats and aurochsen on the semi-subterranean level, a kitchen and eating room that opened on a balcony on the next level and above, a sleeping room with a ladder to a flat roof. The narrow clay throats of two ovens opened into a large hearth in one corner of the kitchen. Near this was a raised platform covered with rugs where guests could be entertained and fed. In hot weather, the heat from the ovens was overwhelming, and dining moved to the balcony.

  Vessia was familiar with the arrangement because a similar, if less elaborate, system was used in Yellow Bear. She had never baked for herself, however. In her time as a “human” she had lived first with Old Man and Old Woman, who took care of her, and then as an independent Tavaedi, dancing spells for people in exchange for food and goods. Much of the time, she had hunted and picked her own food in the forest. If she happened not to earn or catch a meal on a given day, she had simply let her tummy rumble.

  As Vio’s wife, this was not an option. Every day, he had guests to the house that had to be fed. At first, the slaves who came with the house prepared the feasts, but then Vio freed the slaves (though they left sullenly, having nowhere else to go), rather than look like a hypocrite.

  “I made others free their war captives,” he told Vessia. “I cannot keep slaves myself.”

  She agreed; except she, not Vio, now had to do all the tasks the slaves had done. Baking human food took an unbelievable amount of labor. If she began pounding corn at dawn, she was lucky if she had a loaf of cornbread by middle meal, when the guests arrived.

  One of the clans who had sworn loyalty to Vio tried to assassinate him, not from fidelity to the Bone Whistler, but in an attempt to put forward one of their own as the new War Chief. Vessia’s first feeling when she heard the news was relief; they had been invited to middle meal that day, and now she would only have to feed Vio and his brother.

  “More clans will use violence to seize the Chiefhood unless we make a show of returning to the old ways,” Vio said to his brother Vumo over the meal. “We must assemble the patriarchs, matriarchs and Tavaedies and have them cast stones for a new War Chief.”

  “What’s the point?” Vumo asked sourly. “Why not just take the Rain Stick and proclaim it yourself?”

  Vio frowned. “We don’t know they would choose me. That’s the purpose of the selection process.”

  “Fa! Who else would they choose? They know you command the hearts of the warriors.” Vumo glanced at Vessia, who sat in the corner near the hearth. “Among other dangerous allies. You’ve moved into the War Chief’s house. Could there be any clearer signal of your intentions?”

  “I would leave if another were selected,” said Vio. “But I admit, there are not many men I would trust in the position.”

  “Not even me?” asked Vumo.

  “You?”

  “Don’t look so surprised. I was as close to the Bone Whistler as you. It would reassure the Morvae to have a Morvae War Chief.”

  “And would it reassure the Imorvae?”

  “The Imorvae are nothing but a scattered remnant, Vio.”

  “Many more survived than even I had dared hope. They are angry. They want a guarantee the massacres will never happen again.”

  “The Morvae will never go back to being lesser Tavaedies, as we were before the Bone Whistler.”

  “We?”

  “I’m Morvae, aren’t I?”

  Vio shifted on the rug. “Wife?” he asked. “How then for our food?”

  Wife. She whacked the hot coals with a stick. The flat circles of corn bread she had placed in the oven had bubbled black on one side, but seemed doughy on the other.

  Good enough. She pulled them out, squished bean mash into them, and rolled them up. She brought the plate of pishas to the men. They each took one without acknowledging her.

  “I think we should wait for the elders to make their choice,” said Vio. “And respect whatever choice they make.”

  Vumo chewed his pisha. He made a face. “Did this fall in the fire?”

  He started to put the pisha back in the bowl.

  “Finish it,” ordered Vio.

  Vumo finished the pisha. But he made his excuses and left as quickly as he could afterward.

  Vio ate alone. Vessia had no desire to eat the food she had cooked. After sunset, she would go flying, hunt a rabbit and roast it over an open fire in the woods until the juices dripped and hissed in the flames. Back in the days when she had led the Eight Uncursed, a band of fearless Aelfae warriors, in the skirmishes against humans, her friend Hest would have rubbed herbs into the kill. As much as she had adored Hest’s concoctions, she had never minded the meat simply roasted, or even raw. Wind and birdsong were flavor enough.

  One could not hear birdsong in the tribehold, nor frogs croaking; only crickets. Two aurochsen, milch cows, lived on the level below, and their lowing groaned through the walls. Always, though, Vessia could hear the mutter of human voices, other families in adjoining houses, bartering, gossiping, rutting, fighting. Usually the muttered words were indistinguishable. Sometimes she heard snatches of phrases.

  Next door to the left, lived Vumo and Nangi. Nangi’s screechy nagging pierced walls. Every night she berated Vumo for not spending enough time with her and their baby. Vumo’s replies could not be heard until the end of the fight, when he would explode, throw something, and storm out of the house. The baby girl, Amdra, would wail, “Dada! Da! Daaaa Da!” Next door to the right, lived Gideo, a Morvae, the Bone Whistler’s former Red Tavaedi. Gideo was their ally now, and he was always polite to Vessia. But in his own home, his temper flared, and he often beat his wife. Every sunset, the woman’s pleas for mercy rang out clearly, then degraded into gargles of pain. Usually around the same time, Vessia felt the overwhelming need to fly free of the tribehold.

  “Why did you make so many?” Vio asked. He was still launching a lone and doomed assault on the pishas.

  “I was expecting more people.”

  He grunted.

  She stood up.

  “Sit,” he ordered. “Eat. We have to finish these.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “It’s not a request.”

  “I don’t take orders from you, Skull Stomper.”

  He set down his pisha. “If you shoot arrows, you had better choose your prey with care. I’m in a foul mood today, pretty Corn Maiden. It makes me grumpy when men try to kill me. Maybe your woman’s moon is waxing, or maybe you have a fight to pick. I’ve been neglecting you. I’m sorry. But I suggest you choose a different day to defy me. Today you will obey me, or you will spend the night in a cage.”

  He shoved the bowl to the edge of the dais, in front of her. “You sabotaged this food. You will eat it, every last piece. I won’t let good corn be wasted on your petty whims. And one other thing: Never call me the Skull Stomper again.”

  Vessia, who still stood, whirled suddenly and kicked the bowl. It smashed into the far wall. The wood shattered, the pishas plastered the wall. She pulled out the Bone Flute, which, for safety’s sake, she always kept on her. She waved it like a spear.

  “No, Vio,” she said. “I will not spend one more night in a cage. And one other thing: Never call me the Corn Maiden again.

  “You fell in love with a girl you held captive, a girl you could order into a cage or into your tent as you pleased. That girl died. She died when you threw a stone at her head and killed her. Perhaps you remember. The woman who awake
ned in her place is no captive, no blushing maiden, but a warrior thousands of years older than you, powerful beyond your petty human dreams, and with the blood of many of your kind on her hands.

  “You fell in love with the Corn Maiden. But you married the White Lady. You must deal with me now. If you want this marriage to work, there are three vows you must make.

  “One. You will never cage me. Never leash me, bind me, tie me or trap me. I will be free to come and go as I please, always, by my own whim and not yours.

  “Two. You will never force me, neither to bed nor to bread.

  “Three. You will never hit me, with stick or stone or fire or flesh. You killed me once. This is already your second chance, more than most killers get. There will be no third.”

  He sat with arms crossed, hard as stone, grim and giving nothing away during her declaration.

  Vessia patted the small leather bag tied to her belt. It only held a dull grey stone, but he didn’t know that. She delivered her ultimatum. “If you will not abide, I will fly free of you, Vio. I have wings. I can leave any time I wish, will you or nil you.”

  If he rebuffed her, she knew something would break inside her. Yet she would be true to her word and leave. She would not let Xerpen’s prophecy come true.

  “You give me three rules, White Lady,” said Vio. “I deserve three rules in turn.”

  This gave her pause. “Very well. Name them and I will tell you if I can abide them.”

  “One,” he said, “Never give yourself to another man.

  “Two. Never aid my enemies.

  “Three—and this above all—never lie to me.”

  “I can abide by your rules. Can you, by mine?”

  “Yes.” He spread his arms. “Can you forgive me for being a fool? I did not suspect the depth of your unhappiness. When I realized you were a faery, I thought only of what it would mean to my cause, not what it meant for you. You have your memories back then?”

  “Yes.”

  “You really fought in the War between the humans and the Aelfae?”

  “Yes.”

  He looked impressed more than horrified.

  She still held the Bone Flute in her hands. “I must take this to the Kiva Beneath the World. If you cannot come with me, I must find a way to complete the task alone.”

  “Give me more time.”

  “It’s been half a moon!”

  “Half a moon is precious little time to rebuild what the Bone Whistler despoiled for fourteen years. The Morvae who refuse to follow me have been raiding us from the hills. I cannot lead the assault to clear them out until I am War Chief in name as well as practice. I could do as Vumo says: take the Rain Stick, declare myself War Chief and have all who oppose me stoned as traitors. I could be another Bone Whistler. That’s not what I want. Let all the others doubt me, Vessia, but I beg you not to doubt me. If the elders declare another War Chief in my stead, I will not fight. I will step aside and obey the law. Overthrowing the tyrant means nothing to me if we do not put the law of light and shadows back in its place.”

  “How long will it take?”

  “As long as it takes.”

  “I don’t like it,” she said. “But I trust you on this. I will wait. As long as you trust me that hiding the Bone Flute is of utmost importance.”

  “I do.” He slipped his arms around her, stroked her hair and kissed her neck. “Do I dare ask a faery to my bed?”

  She melted in his arms. They did not bother to climb the ladder to the bedroom, but tumbled together on the rug-piled dais. He fell asleep as soon as they finished, as was his wont, but Vessia could not sleep.

  The oven fires shed an inconstant red glow on the walls. The cattle moaned in the room below. In the house on the other side of the wall, their neighbor bellowed at his wife, flesh smacked on flesh, and weeping followed. Vessia tensed in her husband’s arms.

  She had promised to abide by his rules in good faith. Don’t give yourself to another man, don’t aid an enemy, above all, don’t lie. Only now did the obvious occur to her, that she had already broken all three vows.

  Dindi

  “What did you see?” Umbral asked as soon as she finished her dance and emerged from the Vision. “Which route did they choose?”

  “I… it wasn’t as clear this time,” Dindi lied. Umbral frowned at her, so Dindi floundered to make her excuse sound plausible. “The White Lady is trying to…to mislead her captors, so it’s harder to see her.”

  “Visions are often fragmentary, but any piece, any word, any flash of an image could be important. Anything at all.”

  “She wants her freedom.”

  “Anything beyond the blitheringly obvious.”

  “Wings,” Dindi blurted. “Something about wings.”

  “Wings.”

  “Right.”

  “Just…’wings.’”

  “Just wings.”

  “Not terribly helpful. We know the White Lady has wings, but her captors aren’t likely to let her fly.”

  “I’m sorry, that’s all I saw.”

  He studied her for a several thumping heartbeats. Then he shrugged.

  “We’ll make for the Ottermark Ford. You will ride Shadow,” he said in a flat voice. “I will walk. Maybe if I don’t physically touch you, my Penumbra will not affect you as much. In your previous Vision, you saw the Orange Canyon warriors were on horseback, so we cannot afford to dally. The forest will rob them of some advantage. We must try and overtake them before they reach the Boglands.”

  He gestured to Shadow. “I would lift you up, but it seems it would only discomfort you, so you’ll have to manage on your own.”

  She climbed onto the strange black horse. Umbral took off at a brisk jog and Shadow trotted after. Over his shoulder, he tossed, “Let’s hope your Vision still holds true.”

  Her Vision. Vivid. Disturbing. Completely irrelevant. Dindi had no idea if the White Lady’s Orange Canyon captors were still on horseback. They could have turned into fish and jumped into the river for all Dindi knew. What would he do if he discovered her lie? Would he consider their bargain broken? Would he deem her a pledge-breaker? Was she a pledge-breaker? Did honor demand that she be honest with a man who lived by lies?

  Finnadro

  Finnadro kept low. The tree line had ended a short distance back. Between here and the Ottermark River was nothing but waving grass.

  Hawk was ahead, almost to the ford. Finnadro would let him cross, then start to close the distance. He was fairly sure that Hawk couldn’t fly with his injury, and Amdra and Vumo had been spotted riding horses. As long as they were on foot, or on horseback, Finnadro could track them. If they flew, he was lost.

  As if in mocking response to his thoughts, a raptor swept out of the sky. It was a hawk, and at first Finnadro thought it was his Hawk, before he realized it was larger than a usual raptor. It was a female.

  The giant female hawk already bore two riders, but she swept low over where Hawk ran in the grass.

  Finnadro abandoned stealth. He raced across the plain. He knew he had only one chance left: stop Hawk before he could climb onto the back of the raptor.

  “Don’t go back to them, Hawk!” Finnadro shouted. “Don’t give up your freedom!”

  “I have no choice, Wolf Hunter!” Hawk shouted back. “I must return to my nest!”

  The raptor screeched at Finnadro. She did not land; she simply grabbed Hawk in her talons and lifted away.

  Finnadro skidded in the dirt and swung his bow into position. He launched one, two, three arrows, knowing already it was futile. She soared out of his range.

  She flew high over the river, diminishing to a speck in the clear skies over the Boglands.

  Umbral

  Umbral and Dindi reached the Ottermark River near sunset, just in time to see a huge raptor sweep out of the sky and pick up a man running through a field toward the ford. Umbral knew it would be useless to try to catch the man or the raptor. Interesting that it was a female raptor.

  “Amd
ra, you sly toad,” he murmured. “Who knew.”

  Dindi looked confused.

  “Your Vision is clear enough now,” Umbral said. “Wings indeed. It seems Amdra is also a shapeshifter.”

  “That bird was Amdra?”

  “I suspect so. It was probably Vumo the One Horned Aurochs, her father, and the White Lady riding on her back. I believe it was Hawk she saved. It’s odd, though, that she would risk revealing her talent to save a slave. I don’t think Orange Canyon wants it known that their Riders as well as their Raptors can change shape.”

  A hunter had been tracking the man picked up by the raptor. There was no mistaking the figure: tall, rangy, dressed in fur and leaves, painted in green and brown, with the distinct silhouette of the Singing Bow in his hands.

  Umbral had tangled with Finnadro the Wolf Hunter, Henchman of the Green Lady once before. At the time, Umbral had been still new to being Deathsworn, and not as adept with the Obsidian Mirror. Umbral had made a foolish mistake, and let the other man see his real face. It would be dangerous to cross paths with the Green Lady’s Henchman again. Fortunately, when Finnadro saw his prey had escaped, he trotted back to the woods and disappeared. Presumably he would return to his tribehold and prepare to lead his people in a retaliatory raid into Orange Canyon tribelands in a few days. By then, Umbral planned to be long gone.

  First, though, he needed to decide which route to take. Straight across the Boglands would be fastest, which would be fine, if they could fly. He frowned at Shadow. The black energy shaped into a horse seemed strong enough for the moment, but the other dark beasts ridden by his fellow Deathsworn had already dwindled away to nothingness. His Shadow would last longer if Umbral did not push it. Not to mention, it would be deadly if Shadow were to fail while they were in the air.