Warrior Bronze

by Michelle Paver

  Pirra noticed with alarm that despite the heat of the afternoon, the falcon had fluffed up her feathers to keep warm, and that instead of roosting on one leg as she always did, she was clutching her perch with both feet. She was panting, too; as if flying even that short distance had exhausted her.

  ‘Echo, what’s wrong?’

  Weasel glanced at the falcon over his shoulder. ‘Marsh fever,’ he muttered.

  ‘What?’ cried Pirra. ‘You mean she’s sick?’

  He nodded.

  Stone approached, holding out something in his hand: a small lump of blackish powder.

  ‘What’s that?’ Pirra said suspiciously.

  Mutely, Stone shoved it in her face. Weasel answered for him. ‘Medicine. For the bird.’

  Pirra was surprised. ‘Thanks,’ she said.

  Stone scowled, waiting for her to take the pellet.

  After dusting off the meat which Echo had discarded, Pirra slit it and stuffed a little of the medicine inside. Then she coaxed the falcon back down again, and – after much persuasion – she got Echo to swallow a tiny shred of meat coated in the powder.

  ‘We need to go uphill,’ said Weasel, startling her. ‘We need to show you the way to Dentra.’

  ‘What, now?’ she snapped. ‘It’ll be dark soon, and Echo –’

  ‘Now.’

  She blew out a long breath.

  ‘That trail there,’ said Weasel when they’d crested the hill above camp.

  ‘Where?’ panted Pirra. After several uncommunicative replies, she gathered that Dentra could be reached by following this stream to its source. The shrine itself was just below an arrow-shaped peak, itself overshadowed by the highest mountain of all – which Pirra could now see glaring down at her in the setting Sun: Mount Lykas.

  That’s where Hylas grew up, she thought. She wondered where he was and what he was doing. What if some peasant had spotted his fair hair and betrayed him to the Crows? What if he’d had a vision and collapsed, and there was no one to look after him?

  The Marsh Dwellers had wandered off, and she returned to camp alone. They weren’t there either, and neither was Havoc. Maybe at last she’d gone off to hunt.

  Echo hadn’t moved from her perch, and she was blinking and shivering. It seemed that the Marsh Dwellers’ medicine didn’t work on falcons.

  The Dark came, and still the falcon kept checking her perch for ants.

  Normally, a glance was enough before she settled to roost, but not now; and it was frightening to know that if she did spot an ant and had to fly off, she would tire after a few wingbeats, and have to alight in some other, perhaps even more ant-infested tree.

  Why was she so frightened and so weak? Why were her eyes all scratchy? Why did she keep sneezing? She hated this, it was the worst thing that had ever happened to her. It was so humiliating, so un-falcon-like, having to clutch her perch with both feet and cower like a pigeon.

  The she-lion hadn’t seen any of this, as she’d gone hunting when the Dark had come; but the falcon would have felt a lot safer if she’d stayed – and that was even more humiliating. No falcon needs a lion. No falcon needs anyone. A falcon merely chooses to be with another creature for a while, but she’s always free to fly off whenever she likes.

  The Dark wore on. The smelly little mud-people had left, and below her, the girl sat staring into the fire, missing the boy. The falcon missed him too. She hated that they’d all split up. They ought to have stayed together.

  A shadow blotted out the stars, and the falcon cringed. The shadow passed. It was only a cloud: not the terrible spirits she’d sensed a few Lights ago.

  Those terrible spirits were another thing to be afraid of in this awful place. They moved so fast, and They came without warning. If They came now, the falcon would be too weak to escape.

  Below her, the girl was muttering in her deep, slow human speech. Now she was taking a burning stick from the fire and rising to her feet, and moving to the edge of the light.

  Fearfully, the falcon shifted from foot to foot. Why couldn’t the girl stay here and be safe?

  Echo seemed ashamed of her weakness, and had refused to come down. She didn’t understand that she was sick, and Pirra didn’t know how to comfort her.

  Pirra wasn’t hungry, but she’d made herself eat half a rock partridge, and saved the rest for Weasel and Stone. They hadn’t appeared, and now she’d realized that they weren’t going to. That was why Weasel had insisted on showing her the way to Dentra: because he and Stone had left her and gone back to the marshes. From now on, she was on her own.

  And her waterskin was empty. This made her annoyed with herself; she ought to have refilled it before it got dark. It also emphasized the fact that she was still learning how to survive in the wild – unlike Hylas, who’d been doing it all his life.

  Muttering, she took a burning stick from the fire, and shouldered the waterskin.

  It was very dark beyond the firelight, and the forest was full of noises: shrieks, rustlings, the distant howls of wolves. From the sound of it, the wolves were far away in the mountains – but that was where she’d be heading at daybreak: deeper into this harsh, forbidding land, where Hylas felt at home, and she did not.

  She thought of the huge, almost man-like prints she’d found yesterday, and which Weasel had said were bear. She’d never seen a bear. And today she’d spotted a gigantic boar snuffling around in the undergrowth. His tusks had been longer than her knife, and he’d cast her an irritable glance as he rooted for acorns.

  All these wild creatures … And she couldn’t rely on Havoc and Echo to warn her of danger, because Havoc was off hunting, and Echo was sick.

  ‘Come on, Pirra,’ she said out loud. ‘No point feeling sorry for yourself!’

  The pool glinted in the fitful moonlight, and the pine-scented air rang with the song of night crickets. A fish plopped. The waterskin gurgled as Pirra held it under.

  She spotted movement on the other side of the pool, and broke into a smile. Two great moon-silvered eyes were gazing at her from among the reeds.

  ‘There you are, Havoc!’ she called softly. ‘I’m so glad you’re back! Did you have a successful hunt?’

  Like all lions, Havoc appeared grey by night, and had an uncanny ability to melt into her surroundings: Pirra could hardly make her out. But instead of splashing across the pool and giving her a boisterous greeting, the lioness kept her head low between her shoulder blades, as if she was play-hunting.

  Pirra yawned. ‘Sorry, Havoc, but I’m far too tired to play.’

  The night wind stirred the reeds, but Havoc went on staring.

  Pirra’s belly turned over. There was nothing playful about those eyes. They were colder than any she’d ever seen.

  And this wasn’t play-stalking, this was in deadly earnest.

  Because this lion wasn’t Havoc.

  The two warriors on the riverbank looked dusty and fed up: they were a long way from camp, and lord Telamon would not be pleased that they hadn’t found Hylas’ trail. One was swatting midges and glaring at the noonday Sun, while the other used his helmet to douse himself with water.

  ‘Over here!’ shouted their comrades further downriver.

  ‘At last,’ grumbled the one with the helmet, and the pair moved off to join their companions, pushing through the giant fennel on the bank – and quite unaware of Hylas, hiding on the other side.

  Their voices drifted towards him. ‘It’s the Outsider’s tracks, all right.’

  ‘By the look of them, heading downstream.’

  Yes, you go on thinking that, Hylas told them silently. When it came to tracking, Crows were no match for an Outsider; they hadn’t spotted that he’d set a false trail.

  He waited till they were long gone, then started upstream. The important thing now was to shake the Crows off his trail. Once he was rid of them for sure, he would think about the dagger.

  After climbing for a bit, he came to a rocky stretch where the river went crashing and foaming over rap
ids. Tamarisk and walnut trees gave good cover, but beneath them it was hot and airless, and swarming with midges.

  Hylas felt battered after his fight with Telamon, and the cut on his forearm throbbed. His head was throbbing too, although he couldn’t remember bumping it on his way down the gully, and despite the heat of the Sun, he felt slightly shivery.

  He was also angry with himself. He’d had Telamon at his mercy, on his knees and half stunned. If it had been the other way around, Telamon would have killed him without hesitation.

  So why couldn’t I kill him? thought Hylas. Because I’ve never killed anyone? Or because he was once my best friend?

  Or was I scared? Is that what stopped me? Am I a coward, like my father?

  Above the rapids, he came to a green meadow, noisy with crickets, and spiked with purple thistles as tall as men. Thick woods hid the river, echoing with birdsong.

  Hylas had no idea where he was. All he knew was that the mountains rearing above him marked the border between Messenia and Lykonia – and that the highest mountain of all, Mount Lykas, was somewhere to the east – although out of sight. He’d grown up on Mount Lykas. He knew every goat trail, every ravine and secret pass, every lightning-blasted tree. If he could climb high enough, maybe he could see it; then he’d know where he was.

  Of course, Telamon might guess that this was exactly what he would do, but that was a risk he’d have to take.

  He had his knife, slingshot, waterskin, and the Marsh Dwellers’ bag of provisions. Sitting under a tree, he ate a chunk of dried eel and half a reed-pollen cake. The eel was rancid, the cake gritty and dry, he had to wash them down with a drink – although as the waterskin was made of trout hide, that tasted fishy, too.

  The Marsh Dwellers had also given him medicines: a little wovengrass pouch containing a slimy yellow salve, and a smaller one full of black powder.

  ‘The salve is for your jellyfish stings,’ they’d said. ‘The powder is poppy-seed tea, good for marsh fever; but you need to take it as soon as you feel it coming on.’

  Like everything else, the salve smelt fishy, but it had helped with his jellyfish blisters, so Hylas smeared some on his grazes and on the cut on his arm, and it eased the pain a bit.

  When he got to his feet, his blood soughed in his ears and his head throbbed; but it wasn’t the ache he got before a vision, it felt like too much Sun, so he ignored it and started upriver.

  He nearly walked straight past the hoofprints in the mud.

  They were bigger than a donkey’s, and had clearly been made by a horse: a horse who’d stopped to drink, spreading its forelegs wide to reach the water, as horses do. After that it had cropped some fennel, then headed upstream, as Hylas was doing now. As it went, it had dragged its tether behind it: at one point in its trail, Hylas spotted faint drag-marks.

  He found Jinx around the next bend in the river. The rope attached to his bridle had snagged in a thorn bush, and the stallion was making it worse by attacking the bush. He kept lunging at it, then sidling round and lunging again. He seemed not to have realized that by going in a circle around it, he was shortening the tether and thus restricting himself even more.

  Hylas waited till the tether was wound so short that Jinx was well and truly stuck; then he stepped slowly into the open.

  ‘Steady there, Jinx,’ he said quietly, so that the horse wouldn’t think he was sneaking up.

  Jinx flattened his ears and tried to rear – but the tether held him fast.

  ‘Steady,’ repeated Hylas, approaching the horse from the other side of the thorn bush and holding up his hands, so that Jinx could see that he wasn’t holding a stick.

  After tugging so long at his tether, the stallion’s mouth was raw and bleeding. His flanks bore scars from old beatings, as well as fresh, oozing weals: it seemed that despite the horse’s value, Telamon hadn’t spared the whip. No wonder Jinx hated and feared all men.

  ‘Steady, Jinx.’ Hylas put out his hand to let the horse catch his scent.

  Jinx showed the whites of his eyes, flattening his ears and flaring his large round nostrils.

  ‘Remember me? I rode you once, two summers ago.’ As he talked, Hylas started disentangling the rope, careful not to look Jinx in the eye or get too close, which would make him feel trapped. ‘I gave you food, remember? You stomped on the cheese, but you ate the olives. Then you ran away.’

  Again, Hylas extended his hand. Jinx tensed. Hylas waited. Then he laid his palm very lightly on the horse’s shoulder. Jinx shuddered and snorted, shifting from foot to foot. ‘That’s good,’ murmured Hylas, gently stroking the hot, sweaty muscles. ‘You know I won’t hurt you, don’t you, Jinx?’

  Again the stallion’s nostrils flared; but he was listening. Hylas thought he might be getting somewhere.

  All at once, Jinx jerked up his head and set his ears right back, rolling his eyes and snorting with alarm. The next instant, Hylas heard it too: men’s voices, somewhere downriver. The Crows were better at tracking than he’d thought: it hadn’t taken them long to find the right trail.

  ‘Sorry, Jinx,’ muttered Hylas, ‘but I’ve got to get out of here fast!’ Wrenching the tether free of the thorns, he scrambled on to the stallion’s back, grabbed a handful of mane, and dug in his heels.

  Jinx hated the Crows as much as Hylas did, and after his first outraged squeal at having a man on his back, he shot off across the meadow. Hylas clung on, bending low against the horse’s straining neck, and praying that he could manage to stay on.

  Shouts behind him, and an arrow hissed past his thigh. Another thudded into the grass by Jinx’s foreleg.

  Galloping round a spur, they plunged into a thicket of willows. Branches whipped Hylas’ limbs. He clung on grimly. If he fell off now, he was finished.

  Now they were bursting out of the willows and lurching up a hillside thick with bracken and pines, then skittering down a steep, densely wooded slope. At the bottom, a fallen sapling blocked the way. Hylas tugged on the tether to guide Jinx around it, but the rope was only attached to one side of the bridle and the stallion ignored him, leaping over the sapling and coming down with a thud that nearly threw Hylas off his back.

  On and on they went, up hills and gullies, around spurs, while the shouts of the Crows faded behind them. Hylas’ arms and legs were screaming for rest, he couldn’t stay on much longer. Jinx was also tiring. And he seemed to have decided that he’d had enough of this infuriating human, for suddenly he swerved and made straight for a low-hanging branch, to scrape Hylas off.

  He’d tried that trick two summers ago, and Hylas ducked just in time.

  Jinx tried another trick, jolting to a sudden halt, to pitch Hylas over his neck. Again Hylas was ready, and managed to cling on.

  Finally, Jinx seemed to realize that the simplest way was the best: he put down his head and bucked.

  Hylas went flying, and landed in a juniper bush.

  Painfully, Hylas got to his feet and started plodding up the valley. No broken bones, but lots of bruises and an aching head.

  Jinx was long gone. The immediate threat of the Crows was gone, too, but Hylas was still lost. He decided his best chance was to keep climbing, in the hopes that he could get a glimpse of Mount Lykas.

  And after that, what?

  He knew now that the dagger was at Lapithos, the Crows’ ancestral stronghold on the lower slopes of Mount Lykas, which had once been Telamon’s home, and had been taken over by Koronos. But Lapithos was said to be impregnable, with walls ten cubits thick – and with Koronos and the dagger inside, it would be bristling with guards. Even if he found his way there, he couldn’t steal the dagger on his own.

  Maybe he should try to find what remained of the rebels, and see if he could persuade them to help?

  Pondering this, he rounded a spur.

  It turned out that Jinx hadn’t gone far, after all. He’d found himself a shady spot in a ravine, and was quietly cropping the grass.

  Catching Hylas’ scent, the stallion jerked up his head a
nd stared at him.

  Hylas wondered what to do. The ravine was steep-sided and narrow, and behind Jinx, it had been blocked by a rockfall; it should be possible to trap the stallion by closing off this end with dead wood. But getting Jinx to trust him would take time, and it might prove impossible – not to mention dangerous: those hooves could split his skull like an eggshell.

  And yet. He could cover more ground and find the rebels faster on horseback – as well as escape the Crows.

  There was something else, too. If he left Jinx now, then sooner or later, the stallion would be recaptured. More whips, more beatings. Jinx needed Hylas as much as Hylas needed Jinx.

  Hylas also had a strange feeling that if he helped Jinx, then the Lady of the Wild Things might help Issi. He’d felt something like this before, when he’d first found Havoc on Thalakrea: a small, frightened lion cub in danger of starving to death. Jinx was neither small nor starving; but the feeling was the same.

  Slowly, with no sudden moves, Hylas picked up one end of a fallen sapling, and dragged it across the mouth of the ravine.

  ‘The hardest thing about taming a horse,’ a fellow slave called Zan had once told Hylas, ‘is taming your own feelings. If you’re scared, the horse will know it in a heartbeat, and he’ll use it against you.’

  Hylas clearly wasn’t doing a very good job of concealing his alarm, because as he tried for the tenth time to approach Jinx, the stallion tossed his head and stamped one hoof, flaring those nostrils as big as plums; then he lunged at Hylas, baring his yellow teeth.

  For the tenth time, Hylas raised his long bendy stick, to the end of which he’d tied a scrap of his tunic: not to strike, merely to block the horse’s attack.

  Jinx shied away from the rag, snorting and side-stepping. Foam flecked his chestnut flanks: he was trembling with anger and fear. Mostly fear. He knew he was trapped, and he hated the smell of the human who’d done this. He hated all humans.

  Hylas lowered the stick and waited. The Sun beat down on his head, and he longed to cool off in the little brook he heard chattering among the rocks.