The Raven Warrior

by Alice Borchardt

  Then the rain became a blinding flood, and she found herself clinging to his almost iron-seeming body. Her nails lacerated his flesh, her face pressed against his chest, as she tried to escape the ice pellets and the rapidly dropping temperature as the storm sucked the raw heat from the land into violent updrafts, which carried the moisture so high it froze. Then it sent down a surge of hail over them, and the barren hills and mountains beyond.

  As quickly as the storm had arisen, it was gone, and they stood together, looking out over the sea as the squall moved inland to freshen the coast.

  It rested on the sand near the water, a crystal bowl not large but beautiful, with an endless play of rainbows in its substance. She let go of his arms and walked toward it as though hypnotized, and lifted it in her hands, holding it to the light, its unchanging yet ever-changing rainbows and kaleidoscopic beauty a splendor and a delight to the eye. So fragile was it that when the wind struck it, the glass sang, telling in a multiplicity of notes the strength of the wind and its direction.

  My mind was still filled with the flight I had seen when we started down the trail to the city gates. I wasn’t watching the road, until Albe spoke in my ear.

  “I don’t like this.”

  She was right. The road dipped down the hillside and was a prime place for an ambush. The hexagonal blocks ran between high walls of broken rocks and through occasional ravines, washes, and pour-offs.

  “Cat country,” Albe said.

  “How would you know cat country?” I asked.

  “My family had flocks of sheep. I brought them from the island to the mainland to graze in the winter when the islands are scoured by wind and rain. There were cats in the rocks among the sheltered valleys where there is grass no matter how bad the weather gets. Cat,” she said. “Small cat, sometimes large cat.”

  Meth was still leading the party, but armor isn’t the most comfortable thing to walk in, and I caught up to him easily.

  “Cat?” I asked.

  He jumped. “Oh, yes,” he said. “Why do you think it isn’t safe to go out at night? Can’t you smell it?”

  Then I found I could. When the sea—the Dead Sea wind—slowed (it never really stopped), the rocks around us reeked of male cat musk.

  I drew my sword. He cringed at the blade cry when it slipped the sheath.

  “I didn’t do . . .”

  “I know . . . I know,” I reassured him. “I just want to take point.”

  He dropped back gratefully, actually a little too far back. And I knew Meth’s heroism wouldn’t extend to trying to protect me against any type of attacker.

  I tried to remember what Maeniel taught me about cats—big and little. They love broken country filled with rocky jumbles, cliffs, and mountain trails. They are elusive, seldom seen unless you come across their sign on sand or in low, muddy places.

  Yes, there were yet a few big ones. The clouded leopard once roamed all of Europe, but they have become increasingly rare, since their pelts are much sought after; their depredations against livestock in the high summer pastures are even more serious than those of wolves. But there was something about them that had—

  The weight hit my neck like a sack of sand, flattening me belly-down on the trail. My elbow hit a rock, numbing my hand to the wrist. I felt the fangs slide on my armor at the neck, and I remembered what I had forgotten—the cat’s death bite. The most dangerous part of the cat’s attack is its killing bite.

  I did as Maeniel taught me: I snapped to my hands and knees and bucked like a horse. The claws on my breast and arm slid on the armor, and I tore free. I spun around, sword in hand to confront my enemy.

  He was a white, marked with clouded semicircles. He stood his ground and screamed in fury. He was as large as a full-grown male wolf. The screech he gave echoed throughout the rocks around us.

  “Nooooo! I had you! You have armor! You had no armor when I jumped! NO FAIR!”

  “Fair enough for me, you sneaky young killer!”

  “I’ll have you yet!”

  He lunged forward, inside my guard. I swung the sword hilt and my fist at his nose. He let out another eerie scream as the blow landed hard.

  “Ouch! That hurt!”

  I laughed and jumped back so I could get a clear swing at him with my sword. Another voice intruded into my consciousness.

  “You young fool! Get out of there now! Can’t you see you’re overmatched? Run!”

  But he didn’t get a chance. Albe was there, and she had her sling. The lead shot landed with an audible thud at the base of the cat’s skull where the neck joins it. He went down, a sprawl of furry limbs, deeply unconscious.

  Meth and Cateyrin ran up. Meth drew his knife, and I knew he meant to cut the cat’s throat.

  “No,” I said. I had talked to the thing and I wasn’t going to kill anything I could talk to. Not right away, at least.

  “No!” Cateyrin shouted also. “This is a young one. They can be enslaved. Some of the houses do it.”

  “Even then they’re dangerous,” Meth said. “Besides, he may have friends about.”

  “He does,” I answered.

  Albe drew her sword and glanced around.

  I shouted, “You! Show yourself! What are you? His father?”

  From a distance, I heard, “Oh, Christ. No! A shapeling.” This was followed by a scrabbling in the rocks, then silence.

  Then I realized Meth, Cateyrin, and Albe were all staring at me in astonishment.

  “Albe?” I asked.

  “You made a sound, just like the cat did,” she explained.

  Yes, it was true. I did talk to Mother and the dragons as I had to the Faun.

  “I want it,” I said, pointing to the cat. “Tie it up, Albe.”

  I never found her at a loss about anything. She managed to tie the cat up in such a way that I could throw its furry body over my shoulders like a big scarf. I had a few scratches, and a trickle of blood found its way down the cat’s neck from the bruise at the base of its skull, but otherwise, both of us were uninjured.

  Cateyrin and Meth began quarreling about the cat, one wanting to kill and skin it, the other castrate it, then sell the neutered male to one of the great families. I didn’t feel any desire to do either. The impetuous half-grown male seemed to be a troublemaker, and I felt very likely he would try to ambush us again. But we soon walked out of ambush country and the rock walls towered over us above.

  The rocks walls and the city grew bigger and more impressive by the moment. The cat woke up. He began to struggle.

  “I told you,” Meth said. “Kill and skin him.”

  The cat let out a yell of rage.

  “You stop that,” I said.

  “If you cut his balls off now,” Cateyrin said, drawing her knife, “he won’t . . .”

  This time the cat let out a yowl of sheer terror, then a series of really lethal-sounding screeches and hisses.

  Albe had made him a crude muzzle with a strip of rawhide. His head was hanging next to my neck. I brought my armor up and dropped him to the ground hard. Then I drew my sword.

  The cat really began to wiggle and scream then.

  “Mooooootherrrrr!”

  “Mother?” Albe said.

  This surprised me. “Cateyrin said it is a young one,” I said.

  Since cats don’t talk the way humans do, the muzzle didn’t keep him especially quiet.

  “You can understand him?” I asked.

  “Most times. I think it’s the shoes. Talorcan’s shoes.”

  “Stop screeching for your mother,” she told the cat. “She—” Albe indicated me—“isn’t going to harm you.”

  “Mooootherrrr!” from the cat. He was damn near deafening.

  “You keep that up,” Albe told him, “I’ll skin and gut you all right . . . then I’ll kill you.”

  “Oh!” Meth said.

  “That sounds horrible,” Cateyrin said, sounding awed.

  The cat was shocked silent.

  “Good!” I said. “K
eep quiet and keep still while I cut you loose.”

  Maeniel taught me the sword. I could have freed the cat even while he was in full writhe, but it was easier this way. He sat up and began licking himself to put his fur in order. And between swipes, he glared murderously at Albe, Meth, and Cateyrin.

  “Now,” I said. “You’ve got your dignity and your freedom back. Go away and trouble us no more.”

  He didn’t leave. He threw another glare at the rest, then studied me with narrowed, green eyes.

  “You are a Daughter of the Danae,” he said.

  “A mortal Daughter of the Danae,” I corrected him.

  “Nonetheless, a Daughter of the Danae.”

  “I suppose so,” I answered. “Why?”

  “What an opportunity!” he said.

  “What opportunity?” I asked. “A minute ago, you were yelling for your mother. Get out of here.”

  “Don’t remind me.” Then he rose and began to pace back and forth, lashing his tail.

  “Friend,” I said, pointing to the city towering above us with my sword, “I have business at the city. And you are in my way. . . .”

  “I would . . . I would . . .” He was still pacing. Then he stopped and faced me and got the rest out. “Enter your service!”

  “What?” I said. I was flabbergasted. “You tried to—”

  “I know. I know.” He continued pacing. “I know all that stuff about your being mortal . . . but see, I know I’ll never be as big as some of the rest. I probably won’t get laid till I’m fifteen, if then,” he told me dourly. “The male clans are very status conscious. And hell, I’m the runt of my litter. The girls beat up on me all the time. I need an edge. You could be it.”

  “I don’t know what you need,” I told him. “I do know what you’ve got: nerve! You tried a kill-bite on me. Given any choice at all, I would have been your dinner. Now, get out of here!”

  He laid his ears back. “Hey, listen! I can do things for you. If you’re traveling with one of us, we can usually help keep the rest off. And we’re the ones who make it so dangerous out here at night. Besides, why do you think they cut the nuts off the ones the city people catch? A big male is a high-status possession. People pay attention when one of us strolls by.

  “Boy,” he continued, “when I tell the male clans I was in service with one of the Danae—”

  “I’m a mortal Daughter of the Danae,” I told him.

  He laid his ears back again, his eyes slitted. “I know that, but they don’t have to. Besides, I don’t know if it matters. Anything. Anything, babe, that has to do with the Danae is very high muck-a-muck. Believe me . . .”

  “Why should I believe you about anything when you just told me you’d lie to your own people?”

  He looked nonplussed, then indignant. “I expect to take an oath. I haven’t taken any oath not to string along the clans. Maybe just a little bit. So don’t get so hoity-toity with me!”

  “You’re letting him talk too much,” Albe said. “If you let him keep on talking, he’ll convince you.”

  “What do you think?” I asked her.

  “He’s so . . . motivated.”

  “You bet!” the cat answered. “What say?”

  “Yes. And it’s got to be a solid oath. And no biting.”

  He jumped up and placed his paws on my shoulders, then butted his forehead between my breasts. “I promise to obey orders, be faithful, and only bite dead food unless otherwise instructed. Want that more flowery? I’m up to a lyric, some blank verse, maybe.”

  “No!” I said. “But there is one thing I do want to know. Your name.”

  He had dropped back down and was looking up at me. “I don’t know,” he temporized.

  “I do. The name!” I repeated. “Now!”

  “Akeru,” he said.

  “No!” I said. “That’s your people.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’m not sure.” I wasn’t. Knowing the right name when given is part of power. I hadn’t realized before I had it, but I did.

  “Tuau,” he said in a low voice. “And don’t spread it around.”

  “Take point,” I said.

  He hissed viciously.

  “No arguments—point. Now!”

  He lashed his tail and marched ahead of me down the narrow defile. It opened into a rather wide valley. It once must have been a lake that emptied into the sea. Now it was farmland or pastureland, irrigated by branches of the river that flowed through the city.

  A city has to feed itself, and this was how this one did. Seven branches of the river were diverted into canals that irrigated the lake bed. It stretched away on either side as far as the eye could see until the edges were lost among the jagged tree-clad mountain slopes surrounding it. A fertile oasis in a barren land. A causeway ran along each canal to a separate city gate.

  “I take it no other family would allow us to use their entrance to the city?”

  “We’d be killed on the spot if we tried,” Meth said.

  “I don’t know,” Cateyrin said. “We could try to bribe our way in using the mariglobes.”

  “That’s not a good idea,” Meth said. “Once they had the jewels, none would feel any obligation to protect us.”

  “Huh. How much obligation do you think the Fursa will feel toward us when he finds his ewe lamb among us dead and you wearing his armor?”

  “Hush,” I said. The sun was westering, and the valley was filled with shadows and golden light. “We will take the devils we know in place of the devils we don’t.”

  Tuau was beside Albe, rubbing his face on the laces of Talorcan’s sandals. “Purrrrr . . . humm . . . purrr. You’re gorgeous, you know that?” he told Albe.

  She studied him cynically as she scratched his neck and ears.

  “Oh, God.” He sighed. “This is so good. Gooood.” Then he caught sight of the knife in her other hand. She must have palmed it. He froze.

  “You thinking of usssing that?” he hissed.

  “No,” Albe said. “My lady approved you, but I’m not a trusting soul.”

  “Ummmmm.” He rubbed some more against her hand. “Oh, God, I’m such a sucker for that.” He went down on his back, wallowed, and let her scratch his stomach, while he emitted purrs of ecstasy. “They told me your kind could be wonderful. Sensual to the most.” His eyes rolled back in his head.

  “Hup!” Albe shouted.

  He twisted in the air like a snake and came up with her left wrist in his mouth, fangs denting the skin. However, her knife point was just about an inch from his eye.

  “We aren’t going to hurt each other, are we?” Albe asked.

  He released her wrist with an apologetic sound. “Sometimes it just gets too intense. We lose control.” He hunkered down, crouched at her feet, and sighed.

  “We’ll get along,” Albe said reassuringly.

  “Good,” I said. “Because I need the two of you to back us up when we talk to the man Meth has to see to get past the gate. Soon as he knows Amrun is dead, the Fursa’s going to order an attack. Meth said we’re going to have to fight.”

  “We can get past them if we take them by surprise,” Cateyrin insisted stubbornly.

  “Let’s hope,” Meth replied.

  “The streets near the gates are a maze,” Cateyrin said. “If we can slip past them and run in among the buildings, they won’t dare follow.”

  Rather ruefully, I wondered, Why? But I didn’t ask. Cateyrin and Meth would only get into another quarrel and delay us still more. If the Akeru infested the valley after dark, it certainly wasn’t safe here. He said he was a runt, but I had my doubts. He weighed about ninety pounds and carried a full complement of teeth and claws. I might be able to hole up and beat off an attack by his kind, but how could I protect the rest?

  “Lead on,” I told Meth. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  “That’s not consoling,” Meth said.

  “It wasn’t meant to be. Albe, Tuau, you stay back. Cateyrin, take care of the con
tents of those boxes. You say they’re valuable. We may need to pay bribes.”

  “Let’s give them to the Fursa,” Meth said. “I feel we owe him something for . . .”

  “Bullshit!” Albe said. “Cateyrin, you hang onto those boxes. Hear me, girl. You, dreadcat, walk in front of me.”

  “Dreadcat. I like that,” Tuau said.

  “Now march!” I said.

  We did.

  The valley was as intensively cultivated as any place I’ve ever seen. As we walked along the causeway, I saw a lot of the lake remained. But it was covered with floating rafts that were made of poles and matting, then covered with dirt and intensively farmed. Many grew cereal crops, wheat, the low, hard wheat that makes such good dumplings and flat bread. But I saw others covered with rye, barley, and even oats.

  Many had root crops with large arrowhead-shaped leaves wonderfully colored in red, gold, silver, and shiny dark green. Those were tethered at the center of the lake, where the sun was brightest, with canals between them that could be traveled by boat. But even the canals must have been a source of food, for they were choked with cattails, water lilies, and water hyacinths.

  Tethered near the causeway were larger islands covered with trees: plum, peach, quince, medlar, and even fig, and others I didn’t recognize. On both sides of us, the lake stretched out into the distance as far as the eye could see; blue, green, gold, russet, covered by the richly cropped, floating islands. Its very lushness was in contrast to the barren hills and even more ferociously bare mountain slopes that cradled it. Close to the edges of the lake, greenery flourished. But even a hundred or so feet beyond the water, the plants thinned out into occasional islands of vegetation that dotted the slopes on the hillsides all around.

  A lean place, I thought. Leaner even than the sea-pounded, fissured shores where the Painted People struggled to get a living.

  Just then, behind me, I heard a sound like thunder. The causeway was narrow, as I said.

  “You women get in the mud.” He—the voice was male—spoke of the shallows and islands of farmland tethered beside the causeway.

  I leaped out onto one covered with a low growth of barley. The rest followed, and the herd, in a double line tethered to each other neck to neck, thundered past.