The Good Hawk

by Joseph Elliott

  Straight to bed for you

  And don’t come out until you’re ready to say sorry

  We used to eat all the food

  Cow cheese and porridge and biscuits and honey

  Yummy yummy honey in my tummy

  I told them bring me some

  I don’t want dead animal

  Too gristly

  Gets stuck in my teeth

  Why can’t you bring me honey for a change

  When Mummy and Daddy and Calum come back we’ll eat it every day

  I’ll make sure of it

  I’ll eat it from the jar with my hands until I’m sick

  No more dead meat for me

  “IT WAS YOU, WASN’T IT?”

  “Agatha? Are you okay?”

  “Stay where you are. Don’t stand up.”

  “How did you do it?”

  “Give her some space.”

  Too many people are talking and I can’t see any of them. My head hurts the worst ever. That is the only thing I know. I am sitting but I don’t remember sitting. I blink a lot to see more and the blurry goes. There is a not-nice smell.

  “Are you okay?” someone asks, and I blink again and it is Jaime. The terror beasts didn’t get him! That is the best news.

  “Where did you g-go?” I ask him.

  “I got stuck on a rock,” he says, and his face goes red. “There were wildwolves all around, but Cray helped me escape. By the time we got back, the wildwolves were all running away.”

  Standing near me is Mór as well and someone else who I don’t know who it is. Crayton is not here which is the big shame. What about Milkwort? I put my hand into my pocket and he licks my fingers. He did not get squashed and dead. That is a big phew.

  “My head — hurts,” I say.

  “Here, drink this, it’ll help,” says the person who I don’t know who it is, and he gives me a mug with something in it that is brown.

  “Who are you?” I say, and he laughs but it wasn’t funny.

  “I’m Finn,” he says. “That really will help.” He means the drink in the mug. Finn has big arms and his face is nice. His hair is dark like the same color as mine. He smiles at me and I like it, but Crayton is still my favorite.

  I drink the drink and it tastes disgusting.

  “That was — disgusting,” I say, and Finn laughs again. I don’t know why he’s always laughing.

  “I didn’t say it would taste nice,” he says. That is true.

  “What happened?” I ask. “The — the terror beasts?”

  “You mean the wildwolves?” says Mór. “Something spooked them and they all bolted. The scouts followed them, and they just kept going south. It was you, wasn’t it? You made them go?”

  The tent opens which is when I realize I am in a tent. It is Murdina who walks in.

  “I thought I heard you,” she says. “How are you feeling?” She does not smile.

  “My head hurts,” I say and, “I drank a drink and it was disgusting.”

  “You should be feeling better soon. You’re lucky to be alive, and not to have broken any bones. You fell a long way.” She pauses and then says, “Do you know why the wildwolves left?”

  Of course I know. I’m the one who did it.

  “I screamed,” I say.

  “You screamed?”

  “In their — heads. They didn’t — didn’t like it,” I say.

  “I knew it was you,” says Mór, and she looks happy.

  “That was clever,” says Murdina.

  I smile the biggest ever. No one has called me clever before.

  “Thanks to you, the number of deaths was kept to a minimum,” Murdina says as well. “Many people were injured, but we lost few lives. It could have been a lot worse. It would have been a lot worse without your help.”

  “We can’t believe how many of them there were,” says Mór. “Wildwolves usually only hunt in packs of about ten, and they never used to come near the bulls. We’ve never seen anything like the number there was today. We were lucky you were here.”

  “The Bó Riders will forever be indebted to you,” says Murdina. “As a sign of our gratitude, we will escort you to your destination in the east. And you may have your deamhan prisoner.”

  That is very good news. That is what we wanted.

  “It’s too late for us to leave tonight,” Jaime says to me, “so we’ll go first thing in the morning.”

  “Are you hungry?” Finn asks me. “We saved you some food.”

  I nod my head because yes I am hungry.

  “Follow me,” says Finn.

  I stand up and blackness rushes behind my eyes and my knees go floppy.

  “Whoa!” Finn catches me and helps me stand back up.

  “What happened?” says Jaime. “Is she all right?” It is because he cares.

  “She’s fine,” says Finn. “Just a little weak. Food ought to sort her out.”

  He helps me walk out of the tent. I like him holding me and I hug him a little bit. It is dark outside because it is nighttime. It is cold which makes my head nicer. Some of the tents are broken from the terror beasts but the other ones are fixed. All the bull people are sitting around a big fire, like when we do the meeting circle. When they see me, they clap their hands together and are cheering and I know they are doing it for me and they are smiling and I am smiling too.

  “Good to see you awake,” says Hendry. He stands up and holds my hand, which is what I wish he didn’t do so I pull it away. He is nodding his head with a smile and makes his beard wobble wobble.

  Someone gives me a bowl with food in it and Hendry shows me where to sit. I sit down and Jaime sits next to me. Crayton is on the other side of the fire. I wave to him and he waves back at me and it makes me warm inside and the best. I eat the food. I am very hungry and I eat a lot. It has meat in it and it tastes good. When I am finished eating I look up and lots of people are looking at me still.

  “You don’t have to all l-look at me, you know,” I say. “It is rude to do it.”

  Some people laugh and I don’t know why.

  “Forgive them,” says Hendry. “They are simply eager to hear what happened. Our tribe is going to be talking about you for many generations to come. You are a great teanga-bèist, just like Tòmas, the first Bó Rider. As you can imagine, we are all fascinated by what you can do.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Okay.”

  They want to know about the terror beasts that are called wildwolves and what happened so I tell them about being on the bull with Murdina and how I had the plan so I got down and did the running and then about the terror beast with the broken mouth who tried to hurt me so I hit it with a horn and it died I think. I tell them I was sad to do it because it was only hungry. Then I say about my plan and how I climbed the tree and did the screaming. There is lots of cheering when I say that and I am happy again.

  After I have eaten there is singing. Singing is not dùth so it is a big surprise to hear it. I have never heard people doing it together before. It is a nice thing to hear. I want to join in and do the singing too. I look at Jaime and he shrugs. I do some of the singing. It is fun. I like the bull people a lot and they like me too.

  After the singing is finished I say to Jaime, “Do you want to see s-something?” I think it will be okay now.

  “Sure,” says Jaime.

  I reach into my pocket and take out Milkwort.

  “This is Milkwort,” I say, and I hold him on my hand. “He is a vole and my friend.”

  “Hello, Milkwort,” says Jaime, and he looks at him. “Wait, did you bring him all the way from Skye?” he asks me. I nod yes. “Wow, he’s had quite an adventure. Can you talk to him as well?”

  “Of course,” I say.

  “Amazing.” He puts his hand in his pocket and takes out some nuts. “Ask him if he wants a cobnut,” he says.

  “I don’t need to ask him that — he always wants food!”

  Jaime gives him the nut and Milkwort eats it and he’s happy.

  “
I’m sleepy now,” I say to Jaime. “I want to go to s-sleep.”

  “Of course,” he says.

  He stands up and so do I. The black rushes up me again and this time I can’t stop from falling. Jaime tries to catch me but he doesn’t. I hit the ground. All people are talking around me. I can’t hear them. I can’t move. All I can see is the fire. It’s the wrong way. Inside my head is wrong too. This is bad bad bad.

  Daddy made the shadows

  Mummy wasn’t happy

  It’s okay Mummy they won’t hurt us.

  Daddy said so

  The magic man made sure of it

  He doesn’t have a name

  Badhbh Badhbh Badhbh Badhbh Badhbh

  That’s not a real name

  It’s a stupid name is what it is

  Where are you now Badhbh man

  Did you go away with everyone else

  Or did the shadows pull out your eyes

  Ha ha ha

  Serves you right

  Mummy told you not to make them

  No no they can’t hurt us

  Daddy promised

  They’ll only kill the other people

  Far away in Ingland

  And the wicked man King Edmund

  He wants to hurt us but we’re not going to let him

  If you’re the first to throw the dirt you’ll only end up getting hurt

  Goodbye people

  The shadows are going to get you

  The shadows are going to kill you all

  I WALK AROUND THE OUTSIDE OF THE TENT SHE’S IN, three times one way, three times the other way, over and over again. Finn is in there with her, trying to find out what’s wrong. I stayed with her all night, watching her fall in and out of fitful dreams. As soon as she woke up, Finn asked me to wait outside. The sun is up; we’re supposed to be leaving. What if she’s too ill to travel? What if the sickness doesn’t go away? What if she gets worse and worse until —

  “You’re going to make yourself dizzy.”

  Cray. I pause for a moment, then keep walking. He falls into step beside me.

  “She’s going to be all right,” he says.

  “You don’t know that,” I reply.

  “She’s a fighter. I can tell.”

  We walk in silence for a bit. Why is he here? I should have thanked him for rescuing me from the rock yesterday, but I haven’t. I don’t know why.

  “I came to tell you I’m ready to leave when you are. I’m not sure if anyone’s told you, but it’s me who’ll be taking the two of you east.” Great. “You don’t look very happy about that.” He laughs.

  “Sorry, no, I’m grateful,” I say. “I’m just worried about Agatha. And my clan. We’ve been here too long. We have to leave. We have to get Knútr to them before they get hurt.”

  I stop walking, struck by a new wave of futility. I squat by the entrance to the tent. Cray sits down next to me.

  “I was going to ask about that. So your plan is to drag that deamhan all the way to Norveg, and then hope his people free your clan in exchange for his life. Is that right?” He raises his eyebrows, making me feel like a naive child. I could really do without him picking holes in my plan. I found out he’s sixteen — only a year and a bit older than I am — but his self-assurance makes him seem much older.

  “He’s a prince,” I say, tugging up blades of grass from the ground. “They need him to continue their bloodline. At least, that’s what he told us.”

  “He was telling the truth. We examined his blood tattoo — it’s an authentic insignia.”

  Relief floods through me. At least there’s one thing I can cross off my current list of worries. It’s still a very long list.

  “Good,” I say.

  “Even so . . . Have you considered handing him over to his enemies instead? And asking them to help rescue your clan in return? That might be a better plan.”

  “Who are his enemies?”

  “No idea. But everyone has enemies. It’s the way the world works. Always has been. People want more than they have: more land, more possessions, more power. And in trying to obtain those things, they make enemies. We’re an inherently greedy race. That’s the reason your clan was taken away in the first place, I’m guessing.”

  “What about your people?”

  “What about them?”

  “Do they want more than they have?”

  “You’re astute; I like that.” I can’t tell if he’s mocking me. “Not to the same extent. We pride ourselves on only taking as much from the land as we need, but that’s not to say there aren’t days when we struggle against our own beliefs. And we still have enemies, like everyone else.”

  “The wildwolves?”

  “Since everyone else in the country died, they’re the main ones, yes.”

  A large cow lumbers past us without a care in the world.

  “Why are you alive?” I ask.

  “Now, there’s a question!” He does that annoying side smile of his.

  “No, I mean your tribe. How did they survive the plague when everyone else died?”

  “We were lucky. Or, I should say, they were lucky. It was before I was born, of course. Once a year our tribe travels to the northernmost tip of Scotia. It’s a sort of pilgrimage. We have a ceremony there on the first day of spring to welcome in the new year. That’s where my tribe was when the plague struck. They realized something bad was happening when they saw huge fires in the distance. The fires burned for many months, filling the sky with thick red smoke. They stayed north for over a year, until the sky returned to normal. When they came back down, everyone was dead. Can you imagine?”

  “No one else survived?”

  “There are pockets of people here and there. And a few settlers have come over from the islands in the years since, but our paths rarely cross. That’s why it was such a surprise when we stumbled across the two of you.”

  The tent flap opens and Finn comes out. I spring to my feet. Apparently, he’s the best healer they have, even though he looks quite young, maybe early twenties. His broad smile offsets his dark features and his messy black hair.

  “She’s doing well,” he says. He crosses his arms, which makes his muscles look huge. “I think she must have hit her head when she fell out of the tree, which is what’s causing the dizziness and the fainting, but I’ve done lots of checks and I can’t see there being any long-term effects.”

  “Thank goodness.”

  “However,” Finn continues, “she needs rest. The time immediately following an injury such as this is when we need to be most cautious. We can’t risk her doing anything active — including traveling — for at least a day or two.”

  “What? But we need to leave now. We’ve already been here too long. Can I speak to her?”

  Finn holds up his hand. “She’s asleep again, and I’d rather you didn’t wake her. She needs time to heal.”

  Cray sees my face. “The two of us could leave now,” he says. “We could scout ahead and then Finn can bring Agatha once she’s feeling better?”

  Leave Agatha behind? I can’t. She needs me. And I need her. But every day our clan is slipping farther away, and so is my feeble plan to rescue them. I don’t even know if the boat we need is where Knútr said it would be. If I go ahead, it could save us time. And from what I saw of Agatha last night, she really is too ill to travel.

  “Wait, you’re not planning on keeping her because she’s a teanga-bèist, are you?” I ask.

  Cray laughs. “She’d turn our bulls against us if we tried. Don’t worry; we made a promise to take you both east, and the Bó Riders always keep their promises.”

  I ROCK FORWARD AND BACKWARD IN RHYTHM WITH THE bull’s gait. Cray sits in front of me, his legs occasionally knocking into mine. My legs are so weedy compared to his. Knútr is tied to a cow, which lopes along on one side of us. It’s not attached to us in any way, yet it stays close at all times. Every now and then, it breaks the calm with big, wet sneezes.

  “Enjoying the ride?” as
ks Cray. He half-turns his head to speak to me, making our faces very close. It’s strange talking to someone you’re pressed so tightly against.

  “Not particularly,” I say. I’ve decided Highland bulls are my least favorite way to travel. Perhaps second least favorite, after boats.

  “Well, the good news is you have at least another two days of this. Let’s hope Dunnottar lives up to your expectations.”

  Knútr sniggers. He has been staring at me all day, mocking me with his presence. On the one occasion I made the mistake of looking over at him, he flashed me a carnivorous grin. Thoughts of Lileas came flooding back. I bit the inside of my cheek and turned away.

  A flock of geese flies above us in the shape of an arrowhead, honking as they pass.

  “You are not afraid of the killing shadows?” Knútr calls across to me.

  “Ignore him,” says Cray. “He’s just trying to scare you.”

  “People say there is killing shadows at Dunnottar,” says Knútr.

  “Be quiet,” says Cray.

  “He’s talking about sgàilean?” I ask.

  “You’ve heard of them?” says Cray.

  “Yes, but they’re not real, are they?”

  “I don’t know. It is true that King Balfour was obsessed with the idea of making them. And Dunnottar Castle was where he carried out his experiments.”

  A familiar feeling creeps over me. I try to swallow the fear, but it won’t go away. Fear is weakness. Clann-a-Tuath does not feel fear. Although I’d rather not admit it, a part of me is glad that Cray is with me.

  “We only need the harbor,” I say. “We’ll stay well clear of the castle.”

  I look out to the left, at the wide expanse of the sea. We’ve been following the same coastal path for ages. From this distance, the waves lose all of their brutality. They’re actually quite beautiful. They toy with the light, throwing it this way and that.

  We’ve made good progress so far, according to Cray. We traveled southeast this morning, over misshapen hills and around soulless lochs. Around midafternoon we rode through the ruins of a town called Inbherness. What a grim place that was. There were hundreds of bothans there, all crammed together. They gaped at us with their empty windows and broken doors. The clan that used to live there must have been massive. It’s given me a whole new perspective on just how many people died during the plague. Gnawed bones littered the streets, and rats ran across our path without the slightest hint of fear. The town belongs to them now.