Shadows on the Stars (34 page)

Who had done this? he wondered. It was one thing to be killed, another to be mauled so viciously. Had she been attacked in revenge for one of the clan’s raids?

Queen bent over the corpse for a moment, inspecting it, even as several bystanders grumbled angrily. Then, with all the authority of the clan’s leader, she straightened and raised her hand for silence.

“Kree-ella betrayed us all,” she declared. Waving at the crowd, she shouted, “Every last one of us! Traitor that she was, she slipped away last night to warn another clan of our attack. And if she had succeeded, it could have cost the Bram Kaie many lives, and many valuables. That is why I commanded that she be captured and killed.”

And tortured
, thought Scree grimly.

As another wrathful murmur rose from the crowd, he suddenly realized something that made him catch his breath. All this anger wasn’t directed at the dead eaglewoman, but at Queen herself! Heads shook, faces scowled, and people pointed accusing fingers at their leader.

But Queen hardly seemed to notice. Utterly unmoved, she showed not even a trace of fear or remorse. Strong, hard, and unforgiving, she stood before her people. Then, raising her hand again, she continued speaking.

“Kree-ella was the mother of some of you, I know. And the teacher of many more, who learned the skills of flight under her care. But she deserved to be killed! As does anyone who betrays our clan.”

She swung around and pointed at a pair of warriors. “Guards! Light this torch, then hang her body there for all to see.”

As one warrior struck a flame and ignited the torch, the other thrust Kree-ella’s body upward, roughly impaling it on the torch’s decorative copper spikes. Meanwhile, the crowd’s angry murmurs swelled louder than ever. Fists clenched; feet scraped against the blackened ground. Yet for all the discontent, no one dared to challenge Queen directly.

“Just look around you,” the leader intoned. “Everything our clan has gained in these years, all the riches you see, are here because I, Quenaykha, taught you about loyalty. To your clan, your cause, and your ruler.”

A few heads bowed, though the angry chatter did not go away. “This woman,” she said with a final wave at the dangling corpse, “brought this punishment on herself, by her own disloyalty. And so she shall hang here, under this torch that will blaze day and night, as an example to all.”

She gazed at the crowd, her face rigid. Finally, she started to turn away, when a tall young man stepped out of the crowd. Bare chested, in the custom of eaglemen in their human form, he looked lean but strong. He bowed to Queen—then abruptly whirled on her, drawing a dagger from his leggings.

Queen clearly hadn’t expected the attack. She spun to the side, but the young man’s dagger plunged straight at her chest. Just when the blade was about to penetrate her flesh—

Ffffffttt.
An arrow pierced his neck. He gasped as blood spurted from his severed artery. Twisting, he collapsed and fell dead at Queen’s feet.

As the crowd fell silent, another young man stepped boldly forward. Still holding the heavy wooden bow that he had just used, he faced Queen, his expression as grim as her own. Like the attacker, he was around seven years old, but fully grown as an eagleman, the equivalent of a human in his twenties. And he was powerfully built: Although shorter than the other young man, he was much broader in the shoulders and more thickly muscled. His mouth seemed twisted into a permanent, haughty sneer.

Scree knew him at once.
The brutal warrior.

Crouching lower behind the boulder, Scree debated what to do next, his fingers drumming on the anklet of Arc-kaya’s hair. Should he attack both of them at once? Or wait for a chance to catch Queen alone? But what if that chance never came? He kneaded the sore muscles of his thigh. Already he felt stiffer than he should, to succeed at swooping down from this ridge in a surprise attack.

Better wait and watch a little longer,
he decided at last, shifting his weight impatiently.
But not much longer.
He turned his attention back to the scene below.

“Thank you, good Maulkee,” declared Queen. “You have shown once again your loyalty to your ruler.”

His broad back straightened. To the astonishment of many in the crowd, as well as Scree, he answered her in a rough voice: “Not to my ruler, but to my clan.”

Queen stiffened. The light from the torch that burned above them was no brighter than her savage yellow eyes. “So,” she growled, “do you dare to challenge me?”

“I do,” he declared. “Not in the cowardly way of an assassin,” he said with a kick at the body of the man he’d just killed, “but in the long-standing tradition of our people. Talon-to-talon combat.”

So,
Scree thought to himself,
the tradition has survived.

“To the death,” she snarled.

He dropped his bow and tore off his quiver, facing her squarely. “To the death.”

Queen’s eyes blazed. “I expected that someday I would face a challenge from you, Maulkee. But not so soon! How convenient for you that the people are so angered by Kree-ella’s death. They’ll be less likely to see this as the raw treachery that it is.”

“The way
you
gained power,” he spat back at her. Then, his sneer broadening, he added, “You taught me long ago to surprise my prey, didn’t you? Just like a good mother.”

Scree pushed back from the boulder, astonished. His mother? He would actually kill
his own mother?

Below Scree’s hiding place, the crowd buzzed with anticipation. Eaglefolk called to others, still in their nests, that a battle for the clan’s leadership was about to begin. People hurried down stairways and dashed through the obsidian streets, eager to witness the fight.

A swirling spiral of dust lifted off the ridge, sped through the village, then died. Above, rusty red clouds rolled across the sky, seeming to darken steadily.

Queen, meanwhile, put her hands on her hips and scowled at her challenger. “You may be my son, but you were never any smarter than a cliff hare.”

“Is that so?” he said, starting to circle her.

“At least,” she taunted, “you won’t live long enough to do much damage. Today, in fact, will be your last.”

“We’ll see,” he retorted.

All at once, they leaped upward, instantly transforming into winged warriors. The villagers fell back, leaving plenty of room for the battle. Talons slashed the air, and the shrieking cry of eaglefolk—half human, half eagle—echoed across the volcanic ridge.

Several people’s height above the ground, they flew straight into each other, swiping wildly with their talons. As their powerful wings collided, several black-tipped feathers tore loose and drifted slowly downward.

Queen suddenly flipped over in midair. Her talons raked Maulkee’s ribs, drawing first blood. But in that same instant he rolled aside, spinning through the air, and bashed her jaw with the bony edge of his wing. She screeched and fell back to the ground, sending up a cloud of soot and ash.

With a cry of vengeance, he followed. Swiftly, he plunged out of the sky and landed right on top of her. Pinning her with his weight, he raised a deadly talon to swipe at her throat—when she unexpectedly arched her back and rolled, throwing him off. He slid across the rocks, barely missing a pit of bubbling, steaming lava. Instead, he slammed into the post of the flaming torch. The dangling corpse broke loose and fell on top of his chest.

In the split second the warrior needed to hurl the corpse aside, Queen pounced. She slashed his face, trying to cut his throat. But he caught her leg with his powerful wing and jerked down with such force that her limb snapped. She hobbled backward, wincing in pain, trying desperately to stand on her one unbroken leg.

Maulkee made short work of her. Throwing her to the ground, he brutally stomped on her wings, breaking them under his weight. With a savage slash, he cut her neck, severing muscles and tendons so that her head drooped helplessly. Then, with a mighty kick in the chest, he sent her hurtling outside the awestruck ring of villagers.

Queen lay in a heap of bloodied feathers on the ground. Unable to move, bleeding profusely, she couldn’t even lift her head in defiance. Maulkee kicked some ashes into her eyes, then walked away, leaving her to die in slow agony.

“So much for the reign of Quenaykha,” he sneered as he strode away.

Scree watched, his heart pounding. He waited as Maulkee, followed by most of the villagers, moved off, quickly disappearing into the maze of nests. Of those who didn’t follow, nobody—not a single one of her former subjects—went to tend to the fallen ruler. Cautiously, Scree stepped out of the shadow of the boulder and clambered down the ridge, avoiding flame vents, pits of molten lava, and fire plants along the way. A moment later, he was kneeling over Queen’s broken body.

Now that he saw her like this, dying before his eyes, his old rage and hurt seemed less overwhelming. In fact, despite himself, he felt a stirring of something close to sadness. He gently turned her head, looked into her stricken face, and said simply: “Hello, Queen.”

For a long moment, she tried to focus. Then, in a flash, her bloodshot eyes widened in astonishment. In a hoarse voice, she whispered, “You?”

“Yes, me. I came back.”

“To kill me, no doubt.” She tried to swallow, but ended up coughing. “Well, that worthless upstart saved you the trouble.”

“So he did,” said Scree grimly. “Now I just have him left to kill.”

She looked at him with an unreadable expression. At last, she asked in her rough whisper, “You still have the staff?”

His old anger suddenly surged. “That’s all you ever really wanted, isn’t it? No, I don’t have it anymore! If you really must know, I gave it away. To its rightful keeper.”

Her face tightened; its harshness returned. “Then you are even stupider than I thought.”

“And you must have thought me pretty stupid to think I’d fall for . . .” He turned away, his hooked nose angled upward.

A touch of softness came back to her gaze. “Scree,” she said weakly. “There’s something I must tell you. Something important.”

Surprised by her tone, he turned back to her. “What is it?”

“You need to know this. Your—”

“Look there !” someone over by the nests shouted. “A stranger.”

“Get him!”

Scree leaped to his feet. But before he could even begin to transform into his eagle shape, two sentries had drawn their bows, nocked with deadly arrows aimed straight at his chest. “Move and you die,” one of them barked.

Scree could only glare at them.

Two more sentries came running over. With a nod from one of the bowmen, they shoved Scree toward the village. One of them held the point of a spear at his back.

“Let’s take him to Maulkee.”

“That’ll be fun to watch.”

Scree glanced back at the bloody heap that was Queen. Their eyes met for barely an instant, then the sentries started marching their prisoner into the village.

32
•
Precious to Have, Painful to Lose

Surrounded by four well-muscled sentries armed with arrows and spears, Scree was marched past the still-flaming torch—and toward the fortified nests of the Bram Kaie clan. Overhead, the bloodstained sky of Fireroot cast a reddish light on the village, and on the prisoner.

Scree’s sharp toenails scraped against the pumice and ash that covered the ground. What a troll-brained dolt he was! Instead of remaining in hiding, waiting to pounce on the clan’s new leader, he had gone over to speak with Queen. Such a foolish, stupid, sentimental thing to do! Now he’d lost the best chance he’d ever have to take control of this clan, and to change their treacherous ways forever.

At that instant, Maulkee himself came striding toward them, his feet slapping the obsidian street and then the bare ground by the torch. As he approached, his sneering face looked Scree up and down. “Well, well,” he declared. “A spy!”

He stepped closer to Scree, glowering at him. “Where did you come from, spy?”

“From Iye Kalakya,” came the reply. “The last village you plundered.”

Maulkee spat on his prisoner’s face, then watched as the spittle dripped slowly down the stern jaw. “Not very bright, are you? And tell me now, why did you come?”

“To kill you,” answered Scree through clenched teeth, his whole body quaking with rage.

Maulkee started to turn away, then suddenly spun around and punched Scree hard in the abdomen. As the prisoner groaned and doubled over, the four sentries grinned at each other. Their new leader knew how to handle this sort of rubbish, all right.

A few other eaglefolk drifted over, hoping to see some more excitement. Meanwhile, Scree straightened up again. He stood as tall as ever, just as if he’d never been punched. And looked Maulkee squarely in the eye.

In that instant, an odd feeling struck him. Beyond that hateful sneer, beyond the violence in that gaze, there was something in Maulkee’s face that looked strangely . . . familiar. That he’d seen somewhere before—even before the slaying of Arc-kaya. Yet he knew that wasn’t possible.

Scree just brushed the feeling aside. No doubt he was just picking up on the young warrior’s resemblance to his mother—the same woman whom the warrior had just mutilated and left to die.

“Well then,” Maulkee said haughtily, “I’ve wasted enough of my time on you.” He shot a glance at the helpless form that was all that remained of Quenaykha. “And her.”

As he turned to leave, he flicked his hand casually at Scree. “Kill him,” he ordered the sentries. “I don’t care how, just do it. Then hang what’s left of him to that torch, as a warning to any other spies.”

Maulkee started to stride back toward the nests.

“Wait,” commanded Scree. His voice rang out with such authority that even the new leader of the Bram Kaie clan could not ignore it.

He whirled around and faced Scree again. Impatiently, he snapped, “You waste my time. Why?”

Scree’s eyes narrowed. “Because I
challenge
you, Maulkee. Here and now.”

Astounded, the young eagleman exclaimed, “You
what
?”

“I challenge you! Talon-to-talon combat to the death.”