Falcon Heart: Chronicle I an epic young adult fantasy series set in medieval times

by Azalea Dabill

  She swung up on Lilith, readied her bow, and cast about. No tracks but those of one camel running down the wadi before her. It would take a while for her to circle the outcrop and find the rest of the herd.

  Cicero’s sharp bark brought her bow arm up.

  High at the other end of the wadi he walked stiffly around something she could not see. Many things might lie there. Kyrin urged Lilith forward.

  13

  Hunter

  Be not far from me, for trouble is near,

  and there is none to help. ~Psalm 22:11

  Near the top of the slope only blurred camel tracks met Kyrin’s roving eyes. The dry dread growing in her throat eased. But there was something odd about the tracks. She slid off Lilith and knelt.

  The single camel had run down the wadi with the weight of a rider. Six other camels faced it here. Camels with riders, for their prints showed the depth and spacing to brace their rider’s weight. She traced another print with one hand. Here the fleeing one skidded to a stop and its rider fell, leaving a long hollow.

  It might have been a body. Kyrin rose from her knees. There was no sign of blood, or of the burden being dragged away.

  Cicero bounded past her, growling, and stood on his hind legs to sniff the stone wall where a scrape marred it. Probably a sandal. The weight was back on the camel, rider or burden or body?

  The camel’s prints mingled with the horses’ again, swallowed by a horde of camel tracks that swerved deeper and higher among the rocks. Kyrin followed, arrow ready, Lilith’s rope in her other hand.

  She rounded a boulder, jerked aside and fell back, barking her elbow. A man lay on the sand on his back within the circle of towering stones. Blood spread around a hole in his chest and crusted on his blue thawb. A blue the blue of Faisal’s kaffiyeh.

  Dust dimmed the man’s thin black beard, and his motionless hands dug into the earth. Raiders. The bloody hole filled her vision. Faisal might be facing a blade.

  She knew the fear and the hope, watching that edge approach . . . the blood ran. Kyrin turned her head, swallowed hard, and pushed back the vision, filling it with the empty sand below her. There was no sound over the wind, no blue, forlorn body among the bushes. Nothing stirred.

  Warm breath blasted the back of her neck. Kyrin squealed, whirling as she leaped, yanking Lilith’s rope. Her kick struck Lilith’s nose.

  Lilith pulled back and snorted again, peppering Kyrin with spit. Shoving her furry head aside, Kyrin wiped her wet face. Laughter wanted to bubble up, but she didn’t know if she could stop. Then she wanted to cry, and felt sick. She blew out a few deep breaths. There was nothing near them but the wind.

  It whispered to itself, blowing dust among the towers. Thorn branches touched the man’s bare, callused foot, rustling against his skin. Cicero sniffed around the man’s head then shoved his muzzle under Kyrin’s hand, his eyes a little closed, his ears folded back. Knowing there was wrong in the world, he waited, his moist nose touching her palm.

  She could tell him that Faisal carried a lance, that it could make such a hole. Ali had sent no one with Faisal—he was alone. And except for the Master of the stars, the Master of all—so was she. Kyrin could not swallow past the thickening in her throat. If she left, Faisal would be gone. He would plague her no more. But raiders . . . and he had not killed her mother.

  She must run for Tae. He would know what to do. Kyrin turned.

  Her tracks and Lilith’s blurred under riffles of whispering sand. In places the wadi looked as if she had not walked there. Beyond the wadi mouth all was blank, dry earth blowing a finger’s depth above the ground.

  No—she stepped forward—and hit something hard. It tilted out of the sand. A camel stick, a snake etched in coal on the end. Faisal’s stick. The one that woke her, certain her death was near.

  She stumbled to the edge of the circle of rocks. Cicero was a wavering heat shadow far out on the open sand, his nose to the scent, gathering what the wind scattered. She could follow him and Faisal. She could not go back.

  Kyrin pulled off her kaffiyeh, caught hair, and yanked. She tied Faisal’s stick in the cloth and ran back through the wadi to the nearest camel, and fastened the bundle to its neck. Faisal would not leave his stick with her things. Anyone from the caravan would know it meant trouble. She prayed Tae could persuade Ali that she and Faisal had not stolen his horses. But first they must live.

  The last two camels followed her back to the rocks, and snorted at the blood-smell. Kyrin gathered their ropes, tugging Lilith’s head around after Cicero. She glanced back at the man, sand drifting about him, glad Faisal did not lie there.

  Her eyes on the tracks below so she would miss nothing, she caught up to her saluki. Cicero stopped, a faint questioning noise in his throat.

  “Go!” Her tight voice startled them both. He lunged forward, a satisfied smile about his slim jaws.

  The sun gave a general direction—northwest—and she fastened the landmarks in her mind as she could. She did not know how long they would remain in sight. They left the rocks.

  The sandy plain unrolled beneath her, encased in silence. With every step they were more alone. Kyrin searched the horizon under the slate blue sky. Nothing moved.

  The sun and silence burned. Winter never touched this land but at night. Her head was on fire. She should have saved her kaffiyeh.

  She lifted her hot hair from her neck. She could make a kaffiyeh, but better to keep her bisht whole. The wind had died, but she would not stop to get down.

  Kyrin cut a long piece from the bottom of her thawb with her dagger. It took frustrating ages, keeping her eyes on the trail enough to make sure no rider left the others, and yet watch that she cut only the material she wished from her thawb. At last, with fumbling fingers, she arranged the ragged bit she had hacked free over her head. She felt cooler at once, dizzy with it.

  Then Cicero began to mince his steps, lifting each paw from the ground. She got him to the saddle, where he sprawled, panting, and licked his hot paws.

  A wide hill with a dimple in the middle edged the plain where it embraced the sky. Kyrin had no idea if it was a mirage or how distant it was. Tae or Kentar would know. The raiders’ trail curved toward it. Cicero scrabbled at Lilith’s side, and Kyrin let him down. He trotted on.

  Small noises grew loud in her ears. She muffled a rattling arrow in her quiver. For several hours her dry eyes blinked at grit; she took her hand from the waterskin yet again. The water needed to last.

  Hot camel and hot self and hot, empty desert. Pace and sway, pace and sway. Warm, wiggling dog, up in the saddle and down. No movement but heat squiggles in the air.

  Kyrin settled into the saddle-pad, into Lilith’s stride. The heat struck deeper. The ground softened to her eyes.

  She woke sprawled over Lilith, a memory of loud noise or danger ringing behind her eyes. The front of the saddle dug a hole in her stomach as she clawed in her sash for the falcon and snatched the blade free.

  Lilith groaned. The other camels crowded into her rear, and Lilith spun and snapped. Falcon in hand, Kyrin calmed enough to see past Lilith’s weaving head.

  Cicero sat bolt upright in the middle of the trail, his tongue hanging out of his mouth. The raiders’ tracks were sharp-shadowed, the sun low. Cicero reared, pawing at her leg. She sighed, her fear draining away. He stopped Lilith, for he was thirsty.

  She needed to stop, too. She had not thought she drank so much this morn, keeping an eye on Faisal over the top of her waterskin as she clutched her bow to her, wishing she could feather him with an arrow.

  She ran her dry tongue over dryer lips and clucked to Lilith to kneel. Her eyes were afire. What signs had she missed? She was no fit warrior. She did not move when she ought, did not sense danger, or slept and did not pay mind to tracks. Maybe she did bear the evil eye. Or evil watched her.

  Well, that was certain. The evil on
e always wished destruction, death, and stealing of joy. She left the falcon free of its sheath and slid it through her sash, where it bumped comfortingly against her ribs. Stamping stiff legs, she worked at the thongs behind her saddle-pad that held her waterskin. After two thirsty gulps she held a third in her mouth. Bliss.

  She bent and dripped a few drops in Cicero’s wide jaws, who sat at her feet begging, silent, brown eyes pleading. He did not waste a sparkling gem drop. She had taught him the trick three days ago. It seemed another moon, when she was sure of water and the caravan.

  She slid the stopper into the bottle, and her pale sleeve glowed in the evening light. Should she chance a fire? It might not be safe, later. Kyrin worried it over and finally took out the fuel Tae insisted she carry.

  When the sticks charred, she smothered the flame with sand and scraped the charcoal into her rabbit skin pouch with some soft cheese she spared from her dinner. She was spoiling her neck pouch, but she had enough rabbit skins. What she did not have was a spare skin of her own.

  She ground the sticky mess to paste, eyeing the purple and red dregs of cloud in the sky. Shafts of golden-red shot over the plain, gilding the shadowed prints before her. The raiders might not stop before dawn.

  Kyrin urged Lilith up again. Grey swallowed the ground ahead, dimming a hill on the horizon, a darkening, strangely dimpled mound.

  When she could not see Cicero seventy paces ahead, Kyrin called him and got down. With a hand on his wiry neck, and Lilith beside them, she trotted on, evening pressing close. The mound would be shelter of a sort. The raiders might seek it. If they did not, and the wind came up in the night or they crossed a large gravel plain, she would lose the trail.

  The mound was large and strangely shaped. Kyrin’s feet slowed. Still, she felt better for the mound’s nearness with the creeping shadows and raiders about. Her feet shushed on solid rock and a sifting of sand. In places Cicero’s nails clicked where the sand thinned.

  The raiders’ tracks dissipated in gravel and scattered boulders upon a hard, bubbled surface that skirted the foot of the mound.

  Its rock wall curved in front of her, two camels high. Where had the raiders gone? Kyrin walked cautiously, a hand on the wall’s sloping, sandpaper surface. Rocks caught at her feet. She kicked a small one, and it sailed away as if it were a bit of empty honeycomb, landing with a dry rustle. What was this place, where rocks were light as air?

  Staring up the mound, she tripped over another rock. She rubbed her shin, which stung fiercely. Enough. She climbed a broken section of wall and peered over. Into a channel of stone.

  The inner walls rippled like stacked mud pies whose edges ran together. It had a sandy floor and roughly followed the edge of the desert. There were more walls and channels beyond, a confusing maze roughly circling the heart of the mound.

  She could walk easier inside the channel. Seven camels wide, it would protect her from unfriendly eyes. But camels and horses could not climb, and where did the maze lead? The sands lay behind her and the channel. The raiders must be ahead, and the light was going.

  “No,” she whispered, as if to keep the last spark of sun-fire in the sky. She stared at the darkening land until the first star winked in the purple above. She heard not a falling stone, an insect, or the wind. The cooling air smelled of bitter herbs. She shivered. Frost would come soon.

  She slid down and sank to her knees, gathering Cicero to her. He licked her chin with his warm tongue. Sun-hot rock smell tickled her nose. She’d burn here when her water ran out, like the caravan they passed once. The men and beasts lay alone, skins black and shrunk to their bones, cracked lips drawn back over their skulls.

  But she had known the danger of death before she began. If she found Faisal . . . He could not fall—she would not let him. Not because of her would he lie on the sand, his blood drying on his body. He deserved a beating—but not death. She snorted and rubbed her nose. A tear ran down her cheek. Was Tae trying to find her this moment? No doubt he was.

  Cicero nuzzled her. He whuffed through his nose and walked a few steps and came back and pressed against her knees, staring into the dark. Eager. She must do something.

  Kyrin sighed and released a frayed curl of hair. Faisal knew this desert. And the raiders might camp close; the abrasive rock would be bad for camels’ feet.

  “All right.” She hugged Cicero. “But we have to eat.” She made her way back to the camels in the starlight and rolled a rock onto their ropes. When she returned there would be no time to loose hobbles.

  She dug her midday meal out of her saddlebag and sat at Lilith’s feet, listening to the wind explore the channel, chuckle, and trail into mournful cries. Lilith and Cicero whuffled over her shoulder for tidbits. “No, later.” She rubbed each camel’s nose, with a hug for Lilith. Faisal might need the bread and dates.

  The wind died. Kyrin packed her food and fire-stones in her flattened sash and gathered it into a bag. If something happened, she would need fire first. Water she could do nothing about—unless some of the raiders’ came handy.

  She laid her thawb on the rock, took her charcoal paste and rubbed it in until the thawb blended with the dark stone. The last of the charcoal she smeared on her face, arms, and legs. She sniffed and paused. The cheese was strong after the day’s sun. Another detail a warrior would not get wrong. She bit her lip. She could but hope the raiders ate cheese in their night camp. Or days old milk.

  Kyrin looped her pouch back around her neck, slipped out of her bisht, and wrapped it about her middle to free her limbs. She looked down herself, satisfied. The darkened shadows of color in the cloak confused the eye. She tore her make-shift kaffiyeh and wrapped her feet with the pieces, pulled back her hair and tied it with a stray thread.

  She straightened. Her stomach cramped. How many raiders were there? Askar, my Father. Warrior. Her father would go if he had no weapon at all. She pulled her shoulders back and her mouth firmed. Daughter of Cierheld she was.

  She tightened her hand about the falcon dagger, felt the open beak, heard its sharp cry of defiance. And slung her sash bag around her waist, slid one end through her quiver strap, and tied it in front, where it anchored the bag to her hips and her hide quiver to her back. Her bow she hung over her shoulder.

  She laid her hand on the falcon’s head. It called her on, higher up and further in. Master of all, help me.

  They set out along the edge of the mound, Kyrin grasping a piece of leather looped around Cicero’s neck. Counting her steps, she tried to avoid rocks and holes. The sky was full of stars before a thick shroud of cloud in the west; she wished them brighter, so she could see the holes before her feet. She smiled a little. The raiders could not ride far here even if they tried.

  One thousand ninety-two steps, one thousand ninety-three . . .

  Cicero snorted. Kyrin jumped, banging her sore shin, and a rock rattled away from them. She hopped on one leg, teeth clenched, straining to hear anything or anyone the noise might have alerted. A faint tearing sound came to her ears. She froze.

  After a long motionless moment she laid her bow on the ground. Grasping the rock wall, she inched upward, Cicero’s nails scraping faint against the pitted surface beside her. She reached the top. Her elbow bumped a section of wall that jutted over her head. The wind tugged at her, colder, and the clouds unsheathed a half moon.

  A bowshot below, pale light blanketed silver sand spotted with stark shrubs covering the channel bottom. Near the far wall something moved. A man knelt by a bed of coals in the moonlight. Seven shapes lay behind him in the shadow of the wall. He scooped ash over the fire, dimming its heart.

  Kyrin bit her tongue and reached slow to grab Cicero’s muzzle. She was perched on the outer wall, her head fully visible. But movement gave one away more than the light of day. If she held still . . .

  Cicero was mercifully motionless, as if he sensed the need. Another cloud, outrider of the adva
ncing host, crept toward the moon. It would hide her.

  Lack wit—where was Faisal?

  One bundle lay near the fire, a little apart from the others. It could be Faisal, lying on his side. He would be bound. The raider’s belongings lay scattered up and down the channel. No animals.

  She frowned. Bedu slept with their most valuable property, their mounts, both for warmth and for safekeeping. The coals blinked out under more ash, the clouds closed in, and the night made the bundle by the fire its own.

  First, get down, quiet and slow. Kyrin reached for a handhold. Again the faint tearing sound. It drew her gaze to the far wall.

  Behind the raiders a second wall of pocked stone swooped lower than the wall she clung too. She thought it bordered an open place beyond, and caught a dim shadow of a third wall. Judging by the expanse of curving rim, the crater might be two hundred paces across.

  Camels moved in the moon-gleam among grass clumps, their teeth tearing the stillness and grass and camel-thorn. A few were lame. There were no horses among those she could see.

  Back at the bottom of the outer wall, Kyrin wiggled her sore toes and laid her head against the stone wearily. She might shoot at the raiders once or thrice before they caught her—the closer she crept before they noticed her the sooner she would fall. That would not help Faisal.

  The stars wheeled for an age across the sky, cut by the hardened guts of the earth. She fingered her neck, tracing the sword scar. She must wait for them to sleep, and think. Should she put her necklace in her pouch that smelled of cheese and char? It would be safe there. But the fish . . . she felt bare without it covering her scar. Her fingers chilled about the falcon’s haft. The fish would stay to face the moon, and all else.

  The shadows grew. They seemed to move with life of their own. If the tiger stalked her—but no tiger lived here—no, it would be a lion—but wouldn’t the raiders hunt a beast with a valuable hide? Kyrin sucked in a sudden breath.