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“Not exactly,” he admitted with an embarrassed snort. “You see, I promised your father I’d keep an eye on you. So I looked in on you when you were a kit, pink and noisy. Then when I looked for you again, you were gone. I forgot time passes differently in the Human Realms.”
If she had been her waking self, his saying he knew her father would have made her unbearably excited. Now, though, her dream self asked—as if it weren’t too important—“Have you met my da, then?”
“Yes, yes, of course. Now, see here—I’m not coming to the Human Realms any more than I have to. If you’re going to wander, we must be connected in some way.” He looked at a paw and sighed. “I know it barely hurts and it grows back and all, but I still hate it. So messy.” He began to chew at the base of one of his claws.
“No, don’t—please!” she protested. “I can’t think—”
The claw came off. He spat it into her lap. “There. Hang on to it no matter what. This way I won’t lose track of time, and I’ll be able to find you. Understand?”
She nodded, then gulped. A silvery mist gathered around his paw, and vanished. A new claw had appeared in the bed of the old one.
“Now go back to sleep.”
Cold air on her feet woke Daine in the morning. Her guest, working earlier to leave the bedroll, had pulled it apart entirely. She sat up with a yawn and a smile. To think she’d dreamed of a badger who knew her father . . .
Her hand was locked around something—a large animal’s claw, or a semblance of one. Complete and perfect, it was made of shiny silver.
“Goddess,” she whispered.
“Daine?” Onua was dressed and cooking breakfast. “Let’s go.”
No time to think about it now, she told herself, and scrambled out of her bedroll. Because if I do, I won’t know what to think.
Later that day, she wove a thong to grip the base of the claw tightly, and hung it around her neck. Just because she wasn’t entirely sure of where it came from was no reason not to keep it close by—just in case.
TWO
THE HAWK
A week later they crossed the River Drell into Tortall on a ferryboat. Watching the Gallan shore pull away, Daine searched her soul. I should tell Onua all the truth, she thought. (By then she had given her new friend the less painful details of her life, and had come to see Onua was right—it felt better to talk.) I should tell the rest—but won’t she turn on me, like they did? Maybe it’s best to keep shut. The madness, the scandal—it’s all back there. Maybe that’s where it should stay.
She went forward to look at Tortall as it moved closer. I could start fresh. It can’t be worse than home, with folk calling me “bastard” and scorning me. Nobody here knows I’ve no father, and they don’t know about the other thing—the bad thing. They don’t need to know.
“You worry too much.” Onua ruffled the girl’s hair. “It’ll work out. You’ll see.”
Cloud butted Daine’s shoulder; Tahoi pawed her leg. Their concern and Onua’s gave her comfort. I’ll manage, she told herself as the ferry bumped the landing dock on the Tortallan shore. Silence is best.
The country beyond the crossing was a mixture of hills and wide valleys, some of it farmed and grazed, but most left to the woods. Towns here were back from the road, and traffic this early in the spring was thin. There was little to keep them from their usual routine of camp and march, riding the ponies, hunting for game birds or fishing for their supper.
The third day from the river brought rain, slowing them and the animals down before the sky cleared at day’s end. Both women were up late, getting mud out of shaggy coats and off their own skins and clothes.
It was the first time on that trip that no animal crawled in with Daine overnight. She slept badly, flipping back and forth, never quite waking or sleeping. Her dreams were thin and worrisome. She remembered only one:
The badger was in his lair, neatening up. “There you are. I’m glad to see the claw works so well.”
“Excuse me, sir—” she began.
“No questions. Kits must listen, not ask. Pay attention.” He squinted at her to make sure she was listening. “If you look hard and long, you can find us. If you listen hard and long, you can hear any of us, call any of us, that you want.” Rolling onto his back, he added, “The madness was to teach you something. You should mind the lesson.”
She woke a little before dawn. The sky was gray and damp, the air sour.
“Onua.” When the woman only stirred and muttered, she went over and shook her. “I think trouble’s coming. Last time I felt this way, a rabid bear came out of the woods and killed the blacksmith.”
“A rabid bear?” The K’mir yanked on her clothes and Daine followed suit. “Goddess, how many of those do you see in a lifetime?”
“One’s more than enough.” She rolled up her bed and fixed it to her pack. The animals were restless and ill tempered. Tahoi paced the camp, his hackles up. He stopped often to look down the road, only to resume pacing.
“Maybe it’s another storm?” Onua suggested over breakfast.
“I don’t think so.” Daine gave her barely touched porridge to Cloud. “My head aches—not aches, exactly. It’s—itchy.” She sniffed the breeze, but picked up only the scent of water and plants. “The wind’s not right, either.”
Onua looked at her thoughtfully, then doused the fire. “Let’s go.” She hitched the ponies to lead reins while Daine secured the packs. “There’s a fief on the other side of this next valley, near a marsh. If need be, we’ll ask for shelter. I’d prefer not to.” She strung her curved bow. “Lord Sinthya doesn’t like the queen; he loathes the Riders. Still, we can wait a storm out in his barns, particularly if no one tells him we’re there. If we’re caught in the marsh, we’re in trouble. I don’t have any marsh craft.”
Daine warmed her longbow and strung it. The quiver’s weight on her back made her feel better as they took the road. Past the next ridge she saw a wide, shallow valley filled with reeds and water, with nowhere to hide.
By the time they reached the center of the green expanse, the hair was standing straight out on the back of her neck. Where are the frogs, and the birds? she wondered when they stopped for a breather. I don’t even see dragonflies.
Something made her glance at the wood that bordered the far edge of the marsh. “Onua!” She pointed as a bird shot from the cover of the trees. It was black and hawk-shaped, flying crazily, as if drunk.
Shrieks, metallic and shrill, tore the air. Eight giant things—they looked like birds at first—chased the hawk out of the cover of the trees. Immense wings beat the air that reached the women and ponies, filling their noses with a stink so foul it made Daine retch. The ponies screamed in panic.
Daine tried to soothe them, though she wanted to scream too. These were monsters. No animal combined a human head and chest with a bird’s legs and wings. Sunlight bounded off talons and feathers that shone like steel. She counted five males, three females: one female wore a crown of black glass.
Onua gave a two-fingered whistle that could be heard the length of the valley. When the monsters turned to find the source of the noise, their quarry dropped into the cover of the reeds and v
anished. The monsters swept the area, over and over, trying to find the black hawk, without success.
“Look at them,” Onua whispered. “They use a grid pattern to search by—they’re working that part of the marsh in squares. They’re intelligent.”
“And they can’t land easy on level ground,” Daine pointed out. “Those claws aren’t meant to flatten out. They have to fly—they can’t walk.”
When the creatures gave up, they turned on the women.
Daine watched them come, her bow—like Onua’s—ready to fire. The attackers were smeared with filth. When they spoke or smiled, she saw razor-sharp teeth caked with what she knew was old blood. Halting over the road, they fanned their wings to stay aloft. Their smell was suffocating.
“We almost had the motherless spy,” one of them snarled.
“But you had to interfere,” another said. “Never interfere with us.” It lifted its wings above its head and stooped. The others followed.
“Daine, fire!” Onua shot: her arrow struck the first, hitting a wing with a sound of metal on metal, and bounced off. Daine struck a man-thing square in the throat. He dropped with a cry that brought sweat to her face.
Onua and Daine fired steadily, aiming for the flesh of heads and chests. A female almost grabbed Daine by the hair before Onua killed her. Cloud got one by a leg, and Tahoi seized its other foot. Together pony and dog tore the monster apart. Birds—herons, bitterns, plovers, larks—rose from hiding places to fight the creatures, blinding some, pecking others, clogging the air so the enemy couldn’t see. Many paid for their help with their lives.
The glass-crowned one was finally the only monster alive. She hovered just out of Onua’s range, one of the K’mir’s arrows lodged in her shoulder.
“Pink pigs!” she snarled. “How dare you defy me, maggots! You filth!”
“Look who’s talking,” Daine shouted, sliding an arrow onto her string. She lowered her bow, wanting the creature to think she was done. “Your ma was a leech with bad teeth,” she taunted. Onua laughed in spite of herself. “Your da was a peahen. I know chickens with more brains than you!”
