The Eye of the Falcon (6 page)

F
rom a distance, Hylas scanned the farmhouse for signs of Plague. No white handprints, no stumpy little pus-eaters. Should he risk looking inside for food, or press on into the foothills?

She's in the mountains at Taka Zimi,
Gorgo had said. But
where
? Above him the peaks were covered in snow and riven by deep forested gorges. Pirra could be anywhere. If she was still alive. And if the Plague could kill High Priestess Yassassara, what hope was there for her daughter?

But he had to keep trying. He had sent Pirra to Keftiu. It was his fault that she was shut up in Taka Zimi.

For three days he had made his way across the haunted plain. Once it had been rich and populous, but the ash-gray settlements were deserted—except for half-seen ghosts, angrily seeking what was lost.

He couldn't always see them. At times, a bird or a fox would flee in terror from something unseen; but at others, he would get that ache in his temple, like a warning, and fear would clutch at his heart, and he would glimpse a shadow at the corner of his eye. Why him? Was it because he was here on Keftiu? Was it because of the Plague? All he knew was that it happened, and he hated it.

And he dreaded the Plague. For three days he'd kept to the woods, making shelters out of branches and waking often and checking himself for the black swarm of sickness. To ward it off, he dusted his face with Gorgo's fleabane and sulfur, and scoured his fingertips with a lump of pumice Periphas had given him. “Plague gets in through the whorls on your fingertips,” Periphas had said. “You'll increase your chances if you rub them off.”

Sometimes, Hylas had spotted other ragged wanderers, but when he'd tried to ask about Taka Zimi, they'd fled. Maybe they thought
he
was a ghost. It was hard to tell in this twilight, because ghosts have no shadow, and without the Sun, neither did anyone else.

He kept stumbling upon tombs. Many had been hastily sealed, and foxes had broken in and scavenged the dead. To stop the ghosts from following him, he'd made wristbands with strips cut from his food pouch, and stained them red with ochre he'd dug from a hill.

His food was getting low. In the few farmhouses that weren't stricken, the fleeing peasants had left little behind. He'd survived on Periphas' bag of barley meal, with milk from a lonely and very sooty goat, which had been so glad to be milked that he hadn't had the heart to kill it. It had repaid him by uprooting its tether and sneaking off while he slept.

It was achingly cold. By now it should be spring, with bees buzzing in the almond blossom; but the trees and vineyards stood silent and black. If the Sun didn't return soon, nothing would grow and everyone would starve. Gorgo was right. The gods had abandoned Keftiu.

The farmhouse door creaked dismally in the wind.
Could
he risk going inside?

He was too hungry to care, and headed for the door.

He was in luck. Whoever had lived here had forgotten two smoke-blackened pig's legs, hanging from a crossbeam.

As he reached to unhook them, a pigeon burst from the rafters with a clatter of wings, and he caught movement in the shadows. Whipping out his knife, he leaped sideways. A pitchfork skewered the wall where he'd stood a moment before.

His attacker jabbed at him again, yelling in Keftian.

Again Hylas dodged. “I don't want to fight!” he shouted.

Still yelling, the Keftian lunged. He was a ragged young man with a grimy, desperate face: clearly a wanderer like Hylas, also after that meat.

“I don't want to
fight
!” repeated Hylas, yanking his axe from his belt.

Shouting and brandishing weapons, they glared at each other.

“This is
stupid
!” panted Hylas. “There's enough for both of us!”

The Keftian scowled and shook his pitchfork. For all he knew, Hylas was threatening to gut him like a pig.

With his knife, Hylas pointed at a pig leg, then at his own chest. “That one for me and that one”—he pointed at the other—“for you.”

With a snarl, the Keftian stood his ground.

To prove his good faith, Hylas tossed over his waterskin. “Have a drink. It's milk.” He uttered
ug-ug
noises, then pulled imaginary teats, made the
ffft-ffft
sound of milk hitting a pail, and bleated like a goat.

Fear and hunger warred in the Keftian's face. Without taking his eyes off Hylas, he snatched the waterskin and sniffed. He took a gulp.

“
Ug-ug
,” urged Hylas as he slowly sheathed his knife.

The Keftian set down the waterskin and stared at him.

Hylas laid his axe on the floor, then raised his hands, palms outward. “See? No weapons.”

A long, taut silence. Still with his eyes on Hylas, the Keftian propped his pitchfork against the wall. Then he put his fist to his forehead, bowed—and broke into a grin.

Some time later, after they'd eaten their fill and made rope slings to carry their pig's legs, Hylas and the Keftian went outside and gazed at the mountains.

Keftian mountains were nothing like the ones where Hylas had grown up. Lykonian mountains were jagged, but Keftian peaks were rounded; they made Hylas think of gods lying on their backs and staring at the sky.

“
Dikti
,” said the Keftian, pointing at the top of the highest mountain. “
Taka Zimi, Dikti
.”

“That's the mountain's name?” said Hylas. “Dikti?”

The Keftian nodded. “
Taka Zimi. Dikti
.”

Hylas put his fist to his forehead and bowed. “Thank you.”

The Keftian indicated that he intended to stay in the farmhouse, and after more bowing, Hylas headed off.

He hadn't gone far when the Keftian called to him again. “
Rauko!
” he shouted. Then he stamped one foot, raised both outstretched arms to his ears, and pointed forward. “
Rauko, rauko!
”

Puzzled, Hylas shook his head.
What do you mean
?

The Keftian did it again. When Hylas still didn't understand, the Keftian gave up and bowed. That looked suspiciously like
Good luck, you're going to need it
—and as Hylas headed for the mountains, he sensed that he'd been given a warning.

They say there's Plague up that way,
Gorgo had told him,
and some monster stalking the forest
.

Was that what the Keftian had been trying to tell him?
Beware of monsters
?

Hylas encountered no monsters, but as he climbed higher, every hut and farmhouse bore the marks of Plague.

He wondered if Pirra had been with her mother when she'd died. Pirra had hated her mother, but how would she feel now? Hylas had never known his own mother, who'd left him and Issi on Mount Lykas when they were little, and he'd envied Pirra hers. She'd always found that hard to understand.

He found a trail that followed a stream up a gully, and came to a grove of ash-crusted olive trees. Near one, he found a muddy wallow, and at about the height of his head, a patch of bark rubbed off the trunk. What creature had done this? A bear would have left claw marks, but there were none. A deer? Hylas didn't know any that big.

A monster?

At the head of the gully, he made out a derelict farm: a dung heap, a stone cistern, a mud-brick hut. From thirty paces, the white handprint on the door of the hut shouted “Plague.”

But the stream looked clear, and its banks were thick with willows; Hylas even spotted a few patches of green grass. It was such a relief to see green after the endless gray that he took this as a good omen, and kneeled to refill his waterskin.

He stiffened. Beside his knee was a hoof print bigger than his head.

Quietly, he rose to his feet. Near a clump of boulders a few paces off, he saw a vast mound of steaming droppings.

At that moment, he heard a snort, and from behind the boulders stepped an enormous cow and her giant calf.

His belly turned over. The cow had the vicious forward-pointing horns of wild cattle. He'd encountered them in the mountains where he'd grown up. They were twice as big as tame cattle, and twice as mean. And this one had seen him.

“It's all right,” he told the cow quietly. “I'm not going to bother you or your calf.”

The cow lifted her huge blunt muzzle and tasted his scent.

“I'm going to move slowly away from you,” said Hylas, doing just that. “I—I can't climb out of the gully on this side, it's too steep, so I'm going to cross the stream and climb out over there, see? Where it's not so steep? I'm not coming anywhere near you.”

The cow decided he was no threat, and put down her head to drink.

Hylas was halfway across the stream when he heard a rustling directly ahead, and from the willows stepped the biggest bull he'd ever seen.

Its horns were over an arm span wide and its hide was matted with foul-smelling ash; it had been rolling in its own urine. Bulls do that when their blood is up, and they're spoiling for a fight.

In horror, Hylas took in its flaring nostrils and hot red-rimmed eyes.
This
was what the Keftian had been trying to tell him, pawing the earth with his foot and pointing his arms:
Like horns. Rauko, rauko.
Bull.

All this flashed through his mind in a heartbeat. He couldn't climb out of the gully, the bull was blocking his way, and—which was much, much worse—
he
was in
its
way.

Without meaning to, he'd put himself between the bull and its mate.

T
he bull didn't paw the earth as the Keftian had done. It just charged.

Dropping his waterskin, Hylas raced for the hut with the bull thundering after him. He made for the cistern, hoping to leap from there to the roof. It was too far, he'd never do it. He grabbed a pitchfork lying on the ground, took a run at the hut, jammed the butt of the pitchfork in the earth, and tried to vault onto the roof.

He didn't quite make it and clung to the edge, scrabbling with his feet. Moments before the bull struck, he hauled himself up. One horn missed his boot by a hand's breadth and gouged a furrow in the wall.

Thatch came out in handfuls as Hylas crawled farther up the roof. He saw the bull swing around for another attempt. Surely it wouldn't attack a
house
?

The great beast's head slammed into the wall, scattering chunks of mud-brick and sending a shudder through the roof.

Shaken and out of breath, Hylas watched it trot off for another attack. He still had his axe, knife, slingshot, and the pig's leg slung across his back. None of these would be much good against an angry bull.

The hut on which he perched was close to the steep side of the gully, which was sheer rock, impossible to climb. He
had
to reach the other side across the stream—but to do that, he had to get past the bull.

Another crash shook the hut, and the bull bellowed, furious that it couldn't reach its foe.

Hylas crawled higher. If he could distract the beast, he
might
have time to make it across the stream.

Below him, on the side of the hut the bull couldn't see, he spotted an abandoned cart. Its two shafts pointed downward, like the horns of a grazing beast. That gave him an idea.

While the bull cantered away for another charge, Hylas slid off the roof and swiftly tied one of his red wristbands to the cart-shaft, then propped both shafts on a log, so that they pointed forward, like a bull leveling its head to attack.

The earth shook with the thunder of hooves, and Hylas jumped from cart to roof. Yanking out a handful of thatch, he leaned down and waved it at the bull. “Hey you!” he yelled.

The bull jolted to a halt and glared up at him.

“There's another bull round the back!” shouted Hylas, trailing the thatch. “He's after your female!”

The bull swung its massive head from side to side. Then it charged Hylas' handful of thatch—and chased it around the corner of the hut.

The bull saw the cart and again jolted to a halt. It saw the red wristband flapping in the wind. It snorted, pawed the earth—and charged.

Praying it would be too busy to notice him, Hylas slid off the other side and splashed across the stream, snatching his waterskin as he went, then scrambled up the side of the gully to safety.

He glanced back once, and saw the cow and her calf solemnly watching their master savage the cart to splinters.

Two days later, Hylas found a cave and made camp for the night.

At a frozen stream he broke the ice with his axe and filled his waterskin; then he woke a fire inside the cave and huddled over it, chewing a chunk of pig's leg.

He was exhausted, and he missed Periphas. In some ways, the Messenian reminded him of Akastos, the mysterious wanderer he'd encountered in the past. Both had fled homelands invaded by the Crows; both could be harsh and withdrawn, but they had been roughly kind to Hylas.

He was cold too. The mountains were deep in snow. His legs ached from laboring up snowbound gorges and through steep forests of silent pines.

And he was frightened. He'd come upon few huts and fewer ghosts, and yet a sense of dread had been growing on him all day. He dreaded the monster Gorgo had warned him about. It couldn't have been the bull, she must know about wild bulls, and she wouldn't have called it a monster. So what was it?

He feared the Crows too. Gorgo had mistaken him for a Crow spy—so she must regard them as a threat. The Crows' stronghold was far away across the Sea, but they were a mighty clan, and now that they had their dagger back, they would be even stronger.

Was it possible that they were here, on Keftiu?

The fire cast leaping shadows on the cave wall. Sleepily, Hylas made a shadow-rabbit with his hand. He used to do that for Issi, especially in winter, when the nights were long. They used to play at warriors with icicles as swords, and Issi had been a lethal shot with a snowball.

But most of all, she loved water. The summer she'd turned six, he'd taught her to swim with a blown-up goat bladder for a float. In half a day, she'd been better than him, and after that she was always in any stream or lake they came upon. He used to tease her that she'd grow webbed feet, like her beloved frogs . . .

He woke with a start to the chill certainty that he wasn't alone.

He heard harsh, panting breath. In the dark at the back of the cave, something moved.

Drawing his knife and seizing a burning brand, Hylas swept the shadows. He caught the gleam of eyes. His blood ran cold. Wolf? Bear?
Monster?

Suddenly the creature sped past him. Hylas flung himself against the wall. As the creature fled the cave, it glanced back, and he glimpsed matted fur, huge golden eyes—and a scar across its nose.

His heart lurched. “
Havoc?
” he cried.