by Kate Elliott
Just as they reached the top the crowd bled away, leaving them alone with the eagles.
Slip had lost his hood and broken his jess. He had launched off the perch and landed on top of a soldier, pinning the man to the dirt with his talons. The man was still alive, foot twitching, gulping down screams of pain as he tried to play dead. Stink and a wet stain spread around him.
Slip’s fierce gaze burned the air. He was clearly agitated by the crowd’s anger, and when the hood had slipped off he must have struck in a panic.
What if he attacked Terror and Surly, who were blinded by their hoods?
Curse it! She looked around but could not see Auri, the fucking coward.
The girl gasped. “No! Runt! Stay back!”
A silver-gray dog about knee-high came racing through the open gates of the assizes enclosure as if late to the party. It spotted the girl and ran with all the oblivious excitement of a youngster who believes it has been left behind. Too late it ran in under the shadow of the eagle; too late it felt the monstrous beast fix its golden glare on this tidy morsel. Cowering to a stop it began to bark furiously as Slip lowered his massive head to confront the noisy intruder.
In her youth Dannarah could have grabbed the girl and stopped her, but now she was too cursed slow, for the girl was already past her, running toward the dog. Dannarah coldly hoped the girl’s father was still stuck down in the docket so he would not witness the ugly death about to come.
“Hush, you runt!” snapped the girl, striding in under the eagle’s shadow and scooping up the dog, which was of a size to fit along her forearm. It ceased barking at once, ears down, quivering.
Slip released the injured guard and raised a talon, poised clumsily on one foot. The guard moaned as he tried to drag himself away; one of his legs was twisted at an awful angle, broken almost in two. The girl stood her ground, not moving, not ducking, not shouting. With the dog tucked under one arm and her staff clutched in the other, the girl stared down the eagle.
In a calm voice Dannarah said, “Take one very slow step back. Don’t move fast.”
The eagle lowered his raised talon and lowered his head even farther, then gave the girl a look from each eye, examining her with the uncanny stare that brought more criminals to justice than any reeve’s training or experience. The girl responded by dropping her staff and clamping a hand over the dog’s muzzle as if she feared the dog might try to bite the huge raptor!
Dannarah finally spotted Auri backing away, mouth white with fear.
“May the Shining Lord act to show His righteousness,” the prince exclaimed, coming up beside her with his priest’s staff. He had more courage than Auri; she had to give him that.
“The eagles have lived in the Hundred long before our family came, Prince Tavahosh,” she said, irritated by his pious excitement.
“It shall be as the god wills. The slave was rude and rebellious! The god will judge her!”
“A quieter voice serves best not to draw the raptor’s attention,” added Dannarah, and Tavahosh took a prudent step back.
Yet Slip settled his feathers, calming, and the young woman took a cautious step forward and grasped the harness, exactly the right thing to do. Only then did she look toward Dannarah, meeting her gaze across the gap between them as she wordlessly asked for advice.
“The hells,” Dannarah muttered. “She might join the reeve halls as a fawkner. That would count for her service, would it not, Prince Tavahosh?”
“Can’t you control your eagle?” he demanded.
“That’s not my eagle. That is your chief marshal’s eagle. There he is!” She pointed with her elbow to where Auri had slunk behind the front rank of soldiers, trying to keep out of sight. Over by Surly, Reyad moved into view holding a spare jess, gaze fixed on Slip and the girl just as if he meant to go in and help secure the raptor. Good lad!
“Chief Marshal Auri!” The prince’s voice carried easily. “This is outrageous. Control your eagle at once or I will command you be stripped of your position!”
Reyad’s gaze met Dannarah’s. Cursed if the nice young man didn’t smile like a knife, so busy enjoying the chief marshal’s humiliation that he ignored the soldier trying to drag himself out of reach of the eagle. She gestured. Reyad saw the injured man and his expression darkened to a look of horror. He eased in on the eagle’s blind side, grabbed the wounded man’s wrists, and at a steady but not hasty speed dragged him back. But Reyad’s gaze flicked up to watch as, stung by the prince’s scolding words, Auri strode forward to Slip.
Flushed and perspiring, the chief marshal cringed as he came into the eagle’s shadow. His hunched shoulders made him look like a rat caught out in the open. Movement rippled along Slip’s wings; his talons shifted. Dannarah shoved Tavahosh out of the way.
Slip ripped the harness out of the girl’s hands and pounced.
Auri screamed as talons unfurled and Slip pinned him to the earth. His chest and right arm were caught. He waved his left arm frantically, shrieking.
Thank all the gods the girl was too stunned to move, staring in shock.
Slip tumbled Auri over in his talons and squeezed again. The chief marshal’s head lolled back as his body went limp.
It happened so fast.
Auri’s face was scuffed with dirt from the tumble. Blood spattered the ground. The crushing grip of Slip’s talons had killed the reeve more mercifully than many a criminal condemned to be whipped and then hog-tied to a pole to die of thirst and suppurating wounds. That had been her father’s favored punishment for those he considered irredeemable criminals.
Behind her the prince hissed, “Why did you not stop the eagle from attacking?”
She wanted to smack him in the face with her baton but she murmured instead, “Every reeve lives with the knowledge that their eagle can at any time kill them.”
The raptor shook the corpse loose.
Reyad had pulled the wounded soldier out of reach. His grimace flashed into a grin of ugly triumph, quickly erased.
Slip raised his head and examined the silent onlookers as if deciding whom to kill next.
The prince cried, “Captain! Have your men shoot to kill.”
Just like that, the young woman stepped up and grasped the harness again as boldly as if Auri did not lie dead on the dirt. Slip lowered his head and stared at her for the longest time, not one person in the courtyard moving or speaking. Dannarah held her breath.
Slip nudged the girl with his beak, then relaxed as abruptly as if he had not just killed a man.
“Hold your weapons!” cried Dannarah. “You have been answered, Prince Tavahosh. Her service is no longer yours to claim. She’s a reeve now. The eagle has jessed her.”
16
It wasn’t the eagle’s attention fixed on her that rooted Lifka to the ground. Nor was it the Runt’s quivering fear or the bloody body of the man that held her steady, for she knew better than to look at the dead man. The cursed raptor loomed monstrously over her. Common sense told her that if she ran, it would pounce.
She met its golden-amber gaze.
A feather-light touch tickled down her spine. Pain burned in her bones. Yet when she opened her mouth to exhale, a shiver sprouted like icy feathers in the heart of her being.
The courtyard faded from her sight. Around her, seen as through glass, lay the clear air of a cloudless sky. Everywhere within view rose steep mountains patched with white growths that she had once had a name for. Snow. She glided above. She had been here before, up on this frigid wind, alive in the heavens, flying.
Then her thoughts cleared, and she found herself back standing in the assizes courtyard in front of a huge and deadly eagle. With the first intake of breath she knew she was not the same person who had stood here a moment before.
A leash had tangled in her gut and heart and throat. She could not have stepped away from the eagle if she’d wanted to, and in truth she no longer wanted to although she could not have said why. The eagle had a stunning head, fierce and proud. Its b
eautiful feathers settled in a way she hoped meant calm.
The Runt whined low in his throat, and the eagle shifted closer to get a better look at the shaking dog. The bird made a funny chirp, odd coming from such a massive creature. Lifka tightened a hand over the Runt’s muzzle before he could begin barking in sheer terror.
“Hush, you two,” she said sternly. “I expect you to get along.”
She tugged down on the dangling harness. There were leashes and buckles. Was that its own reeve it had just killed? Best not to think.
A whistling scald of notes surprised her. The eagle folded its wings. She glanced around and saw the older reeve approach. It was the bravest thing she had ever seen anyone do except the day when Aunt Ediko had confronted the soldiers. The day Ediko had died.
“Lifka, stay holding the harness,” said the woman in a tone that made Lifka realize how easy it would be for the raptor to puncture her flesh with its vicious talons as it had the two men. “The hood is caught in the harness. Pull it out and drag it over the eagle’s head.”
“I can’t,” said Lifka. “I’ve not got a free hand.”
“You have to put down the dog.”
“I can’t put down the dog. What if the eagle kills him?”
Papa appeared, curse him. He walked right up beside the old reeve, too close. He should have run and gotten away during the trouble. “Lifka, put down the dog. I’ll call him over.”
“If he runs the eagle will strike, thinking he’s prey!”
“Daughter! Do as I say!”
On the rare occasions Papa snapped, no one disobeyed him. Before she knew she meant to she set the Runt on the ground. Papa whistled, but the Runt cowered on top of her feet, trembling so hard that her heart melted.
She winkled the hood loose. The old reeve whistled an odd and repetitive melody and by the grace of all the seven gods the eagle waited patiently while she figured out how to pull the cloth over its head. The moment its eyes were covered the eagle went quiescent.
“Stay back, ver.” The reeve strode in. “Reeve Lifka, I am Marshal Dannarah. You will have to come with me.”
Lifka gaped at her. The light was so bright all of a sudden. Everything seemed sharper, stronger: her vision more clear, her hearing more keen.
“Come along.”
Lifka allowed the woman to lead her away from the eagle. The Runt crowded her steps, unwilling to let even a handbreadth separate them so that she kept stumbling over him.
Papa grabbed her in a tight embrace as she began to shake. “I thought you’d be killed.”
The reeve turned to the prince. “Release Geron the Carter from his sentence.”
“So will I, Lady Dannarah.” The prince spoke poorly, as if he were a foreigner even though he had been born and raised in the Hundred. “This girl’s labor will serve the sentence against blasphemy. The man must still serve three years’ labor for not having the slave inked.”
Papa released her. He turned on the priest.
“Papa, don’t—” Lifka began.
“Your words insult Five Roads Clan as well as my daughter!”
“She must be given the slave mark.”
Marshal Dannarah stepped between the two men. Older than Papa, she had a brisk authority that Lifka admired even as her thoughts stumbled in confusion.
“Prince Tavahosh, any fledgling reeve chosen by an eagle must immediately begin training. She has no time to recover from being inked, not even a few days. The eagle’s needs preclude anything else. If you do not believe me, you may ask the chief marshal…” Was the woman gloating over a man’s death? “But you can’t ask him, can you? Because his eagle has killed him due to his own incompetence. So you must take the truth from me. This young woman cannot be a slave because she is a reeve.”
The prince gave the old woman a long look that might as well have shouted his disdain. Then he stamped away for all the world like a boy who cannot accept a rightful scolding.
“As the gods speak, so do we hear.” Papa grasped Lifka’s hand. “I pray you, Marshal, may she at least come home to gather a few things and say a private good-bye to those who cherish her?”
For the first time Lifka saw Mum and Uncle and two of her girl cousins—Darit and Nonit—pushing up against the soldiers who held back the crowd of gawking and horrified onlookers. Alon and Denas and Nanni had not been able to come to the assizes because they needed work; the clan needed coin that badly. Uncle was teary and Mum looked ready to slap every soldier in her way.
“Of course you may,” said Marshal Dannarah, her expression softening. “It is traditional for a newly jessed reeve to take leave of her clan. But I fear the exalted prince has not been satisfied in the matter of the slave mark. You will need to go to court to make sure there is no further trouble for your clan, ver.”
“We can’t afford to go to court, verea,” Papa said. “Anyone who wishes to bring a case to the assizes must pay fees.”
“The reeve halls pay a clan for the loss of the new reeve’s labor and prospects. I will personally take responsibility to see a fair sum is brought to you as soon as can be. With your permission I would like to accompany you and your daughter to your clan’s compound so I can speak to your family of what she can expect. It is a hard thing to give a child to the reeves, but I promise you, you will be proud of her.”
“We are already proud of her,” said Papa in a voice husky with emotion.
The marshal walked away to where the other reeve waited between the two hooded eagles. They were so big.
“Oh, Papa, I don’t want to leave home.” She burst into tears.
“Here now, Lifka. Are you sure you have to go? We can find a way to take it to the assizes.”
She sucked down the tears, wiping her cheeks with the back of a hand. “I couldn’t walk away from that eagle if I tried, Papa. It’s like a hook in me, whatever I might want. I can’t explain it.”
“The Runt will miss you.” He rubbed the dog’s back as the Runt’s quavering growl faded. “But if you’re a reeve surely you can come and see us now and again.”
“I’ll have to, to make sure that awful prince doesn’t plague you and the family.”
“Not so loud, girl. Best you work a little harder to keep your voice down.”
“Folk see me even if I’m quiet.”
“True enough. They take you for someone you’re not just because they think they can judge you. Well, then, Lifka. Do what is right. That’s all I can say.”
“Papa.” For the first time in years she examined how different they were: she long and powerfully built, taller now than he was, and he short and stocky. The pecan-brown color of his skin had an entirely different tone from her black complexion. He kept his black hair shorn short; her coils would never go straight like his.
He frowned, waiting as if he knew what she meant to say, and probably he did.
“Should I have had the slave ink?”
“The gods brought you, Lifka. The moment I saw you, and you saw me, I knew you were meant to come home to us. You are our child and you always will be.”
She wiped her streaming eyes, too choked up to speak.
Papa touched her elbow. “Be strong so your mother does not cry.”
He looked at the sky, eyes going wide. Guards and onlookers scattered as another eagle plummeted recklessly down only to brake with wings spread and come to land on the last empty perch. Her mouth dropped open. How splendid and exciting!
She thought, I will learn how to do that. I will fly.
She kept a strong face all the way home and through a meal of rice porridge and radish, the best they could put on for their visitor.
She kept a strong face as Mum tucked the silk length of her own wedding taloos into an embroidered pouch made by Aunt Ediko.
“You must take the cloth, Lifka,” Mum said in her scolding voice. “You will not go to a distant place and have them thinking your clan hasn’t even a decent length of silk to its name.”
The necessities the clan
could spare were sparse enough to break her heart: her sandals, a work kilt, and an extra sleeveless vest; a spoon, a metal cup, a wooden bowl, a knife, and a hatchet so she wouldn’t have to beg such implements from strangers; a broad-toothed comb specially carved for her by Uncle. Such things the family could scarcely afford to let go, but they insisted.
She kept a strong face as she made farewells and made Nonit and Darit promise a hundred times to get word to Ailia. She kissed Darit’s baby and Nonit’s two little ones. The young men came running home, having heard the news, and she had to make farewells all over again.
At last she walked away with the reeve while the family sang from the gate the traditional song for children leaving home to make their way in the world:
The road runs to the hills, to the city, to the sea,
but when you pause to look back
your tracks in the dirt lead your eye to home.
Her feet thudded on the path like rocks. Voices drifted after her; she could not look back because her neck got so stiff it wouldn’t turn. A cold blindness seized her as the dry rice fields and the crowns of the forest seemed to fade into mist.
Shards of memory burst like sparks in the haze.
All she could see was that terrible march through the mountains when she was a child. The bitter cold ached in her bones, stiffened her tiny hands, and stung her cracked lips and pus-encrusted eyes. The lash of a whip fell on her narrow back. Her belly ached with hunger. She stumbled along on her stick-thin legs trying to keep up with the other children for she was the smallest left after so many captives had died on the road. The soldiers had called her the Runt.
Out of this skein of twisted misery arose Papa’s gentle face, but he was younger, less lined, no white in his hair. He had the eyes of a man who saw her when for an endless time no one had seen her. She remembered seeing Papa like she had seen the eagle, knowing an unseen leash bound her to him. She had seen him, and he had seen her, and he had taken her home.
A frantic yapping bark-bark-bark tugged her back to the earth.