The Eye of the Falcon (9 page)

“You hit it!” cried Ilarkos.

Men came running with torches, but when they went to investigate, all they found was a spatter of blood in the snow.

“I did hit it,” said Telamon in triumph, “there's the proof!” Snatching a torch, he peered at the trail of paw prints leading up the mountain.

“Good shot, my lord,” said Ilarkos. “Will we track it and finish it off?”

Telamon hesitated. “No. The men are tired, and the beast will die without our help, we can go after it in the morning.”

Ilarkos bowed. “As you wish, my lord.”

Trying to appear calm, Telamon handed him back his bow, but inside, his heart was bursting with pride.
See that, Pirra?
he told her in his head.
I shot a lion. Not so weak now, am I?

P
irra was too weak to open her eyes, but she knew at once that she was better. She wasn't burning up and her head didn't hurt.

Snuggling into her sheepskins, she lay luxuriating in the absence of pain. I'm not dead, she thought hazily. I'm not dead . . .

Later, she woke again. Her mouth was so dry, she could hardly swallow, and she was hollow with hunger. “Userref?” she called. “Silea!”

No answer. Her chamber was dark and cold: The fire in the brazier had been allowed to die. Oh,
Silea!

Pirra called again, but the slave girl still didn't come—and the water jug was empty. Silea was always “forgetting” to refill it because the cistern was down in the cellar, and she was scared of spirits.

“Oh,
really
!” muttered Pirra, swinging her legs to the floor. Spots swam before her eyes and her blood soughed in her ears. As she waited for it to subside, she saw Userref's
wedjat
amulet hanging from the bedpost. He must have left it to reassure her, in case she woke before he got back. Putting it around her neck, Pirra grasped the bedpost and hauled herself to her feet.

More soughing in her ears—and something rattled under her heel. A wave of desolation swept over her. It was Echo's water bowl.

“Oh, Echo,” she said. “Please come back to me.
Please
.” But she felt in her heart that Echo was far away.

It took ages to pull on her tunic, leggings, and boots, and as she did, snatches of memory returned. Userref holding her down while she thrashed with fever, and barking orders at Silea with uncharacteristic harshness. “What are you waiting for, girl? She needs water!”

“I
c-can't,
” stammered Silea. “If I touch her, I'll die!”

Userref had sworn at the slave girl in Egyptian—something Pirra had never heard him do—then ordered her to go and fetch wood for the fire.

After she'd gone, he'd dripped ice water into Pirra's scorching mouth. “Pirra, can you hear me? I have to fetch dittany, it's the only thing that'll save you. There's none in the village, I'll be gone some time. I'll be back as soon as I can—”

“Userref, wait!” With feverish strength she'd clutched his wrist. “If I die—”

“You won't die,” he'd cut in.

“
Listen
to me, you must hear this! The dagger of Koronos—”

“Pirra, hush—”

“I took it! On Thalakrea. I brought it to Keftiu.”

“That's the fever talking—”

“It's
true
! I swear by the Eye of
Heru
 . . .” Still clutching his wrist, she'd raised herself on one elbow. “If I die,
fetch
it. Take it somewhere the Crows can't find it. Guard it with your
life,
Userref—then destroy it!”

“You won't die,” he'd repeated fiercely.

“
Swear
. That's an order.”

At last it had dawned on him that she was telling the truth. Astonishment and even pride had flitted across his face; then he'd grasped his eye amulet and taken his oath.

Just before she'd slid back into the fever, she'd told him where the dagger was hidden. “Remember,” she'd gasped, “it can only be destroyed by a god . . .”

Beyond the sanctuary walls, the waterfall thundered, but inside, all was deathly still. Wrapping her fox-fur cloak around her, Pirra groped to the door of her chamber.

The shrine was in darkness. As she padded past, she felt the Watchers following her with blind bronze eyes.

Userref's chamber was also empty and dark. She began to be uneasy. He should be back by now. Had something happened to him?

Silea's chamber too was dark and cold.

“Oh, you
wretch,
” muttered Pirra. “If you're in the guardhouse again . . . Silea? Silea!” That ended in a fit of coughing. She decided that scolding could wait, she needed water.

All the jugs were empty. Cursing Silea, Pirra went back to the slave girl's chamber and kicked aside the mat that covered the hatch to the cellar, then climbed shakily down the ladder into the freezing, dank, earth-smelling dark.

Water gurgled in the pipe that led from the stream to the cistern. Fumbling for the rope, she hauled up the pail, a feat that left her sweating and floppy. The icy springwater set her teeth on edge, but the strength of Taka Zimi coursed through her. She found a sack of almonds and crammed a handful in her mouth, then some dried figs from a basket. Clutching more figs, she struggled up the ladder.

As an offering, she left one fig in the shrine. Munching the rest, she went out onto the steps.

It was night, and except for the dim snowglow, the courtyard was dark. The only sounds were the muffled thunder of the waterfall and the stream rushing past the walls.

A crow lit onto one of the bull's horns and cawed at her.

“Go 'way,” she cried. The crow flew off; but her voice sounded reedy, and the stillness seemed deeper than before.

Pirra blinked.

The courtyard was dark.
No torches on the walls.
No torches—no guards.

A terrifying thought occurred to her. She hurried across the courtyard. The guardhouse door creaked as she pushed it open, and she felt the dead chill of a place that has stood empty for some time.

She ran to the gates. They were barred. “Let me out!” she shouted.
Out, out
 . . . The walls flung back her words. She tried to lift the crossbeam, but it took two strong men to do that: impossible for one fever-weakened girl.

In disbelief she blinked at the mess of footprints near the gates. Whoever had barred them had then climbed over them and pulled up the ladder, leaving her inside.

The crow returned, mocking her with harsh laughter. Still laughing, it flew off into the night.

Slowly, Pirra crossed the courtyard and climbed the steps. She stared at what she'd missed before. Chalked on the door of her chamber was a white handprint:
Plague
.

Silea and the guards had fled Taka Zimi. They had sealed her inside so that her ghost couldn't come after them—and left her for dead.

H
ylas watched a crow fly past, and wondered if it was an omen. Since leaving the hut, he'd been nagged by a feeling that bad things were afoot on Mount Dikti.

All afternoon he'd been following Akastos' directions, climbing the ridge through the snowbound forest. He'd found the lightning-struck pine, but the clouds had closed in, and he could see no cloven crag or waterfall. Where was Taka Zimi?

And he was worried about Havoc. He'd last seen her when he'd collapsed outside the hut, and since then he'd found no tracks. Had she survived the blizzard? Would he ever see her again?

Ahead of him, a falcon swooped down to attack the crow. The falcon didn't seem to have noticed that the crow was a fledgling, and its parents were rushing to its defense. Now they were mobbing the would-be hunter with a furious onslaught of beaks and claws. The startled falcon took refuge in a pine tree, and the crows flew off with indignant caws.

Hylas peered up at the falcon, who huddled on a branch, wide-eyed and gaping with alarm. He could tell from her speckled plumage that she was young. “That'll teach you to attack crows,” he told her drily. “Next time, try pigeons.”

Shaking out her feathers, the falcon flew off with a ringing
eck-eck eck
.

As Hylas watched her go, he thought of Pirra's sealstone, with its tiny engraved falcon. He remembered her fierce need for freedom, and his spirits plunged. He was no closer to finding her
or
Havoc.

Where
was Taka Zimi?

The falcon was furious with herself. She'd failed
again
—and was reduced to scavenging a pitiful scrap of rotten hare that she'd found on a crag. When was she going to make a kill?

She missed the girl too. This was odd. After all, the girl was earthbound and human. But the falcon still missed her. She missed the girl's brilliant colors and her soft, slow breath. She missed the food she carried at her hip. Above all, she missed the way that when she flew, the girl's spirit seemed to fly with her.

Lifting onto the Wind, the falcon wheeled across the mountainside. Far below, she saw a vole burrowing in the snow and a boy toiling along a ridge. Up ahead, she glimpsed the eyrie with the juniper tree where she'd gotten stuck.

Suddenly, the falcon faltered in her flight. Something was wrong. She didn't know what, but she felt it to the roots of her feathers.

Something to do with the girl.

The trees thinned and the ground fell away in a dizzying drop. Hylas' heart sank.
Stay as high as you can for as long as you can and avoid the gorge,
Akastos had warned. But here was the gorge yawning before him.

Three ropes had been strung across it. People made bridges like this back on Mount Lykas: one rope to stand on, and two at shoulder height to hold on to. Hylas hadn't trusted them then and he wasn't going to now. He must have left the ridge too soon. He had to go back and climb even higher.

He hadn't been long on the ridge when the clouds parted, and he saw a sheer crag of naked gray stone towering over him. It was cloven in two, and though he couldn't see the waterfall, he could hear its muffled roar. He quickened his pace. He still couldn't see Taka Zimi itself, but he knew he had found it.

A few paces on, he came to a line of big round paw prints in the snow. His belly turned over. Havoc's tracks were spattered with blood. Nightmare images flashed through his mind. Havoc gored by a bull or speared by a hunter . . .

The blood in the prints hadn't had time to freeze, which meant they were fresh. They led down to a clump of huge boulders on the eastern slope of the ridge.

Hylas hesitated. Should he track Havoc, or continue to Taka Zimi? Havoc or Pirra?

“Both,” he said out loud. But it had to be Havoc first. Those tracks zigzagged, as if she'd been staggering, and the print of her left forepaw blurred: she'd been dragging her leg.

Dreading what he might find, Hylas followed the trail to a low cave hidden among the boulders. No tracks led out. Havoc was still inside.

“Havoc?” he called softly.

Silence. Snow fell from a branch, making him jump. He drew his knife. A wounded lion is one of the most dangerous creatures you can meet. And he wasn't even sure if Havoc had recognized him, let alone remembered that they'd once been friends.

Then it occurred to him that she would be wary of weapons. If she saw his knife, he wouldn't stand a chance. Shakily, he untied the sheath from his belt and set it in the snow by the cave mouth, along with his axe. What he was about to do was mad. It might be the last mistake he would ever make. But he couldn't abandon Havoc. Not again.

Dropping to his knees, he crawled inside the cave.

A deep, shuddering growl warned him back.

The lion cub lashed her tail and hissed—but the boy crawled
closer
. He was talking to her. She heard the fear in his voice and smelled it on his flesh, but still he came on.

Again she bared her teeth and hissed.
Go away!

The boy halted. But he went on talking.

The pain bit her shoulder, and she panted and clawed the earth. The boy went on talking.

She would never trust a human again—and yet for the twitch of a tail, she remembered how he'd talked to her long ago, when she was little. His voice was deeper now, but it had the same gentleness and strength, and he was making the same sound he used to make when he called to her. Was it possible that he'd come to find her?

Again pain savaged her flesh, and she raked the earth with her claws.

The boy edged closer. His voice shook, but he kept talking.

Pain, fear, and hope fought within her. Surely he was just another human like all the rest . . .

Baring her teeth, she snarled at him.
Go—or I will strike!

Hylas halted. Havoc's furious snarls filled the cave.

In the gloom, he saw the arrow shaft jutting from her shoulder. “Who shot you, Havoc?” he said as steadily as he could.

Havoc flattened her ears and gave him a murderous stare. Her eyes were black and cold. No trace of recognition.

“But you do remember me, don't you?” he faltered. “That's why you led me to Akastos in the blizzard. That's why you came and sniffed my face . . .”

Her throaty hiss blasted him back, and he caught the gleam of her huge white fangs.

Flattening himself against the cave wall so that she wouldn't feel trapped, he edged toward her. “Remember when you were a cub, and I made that wicker ball? And—when I pulled that thorn from your pad?”

Quicker than lightning, she lashed out with one paw, swiping the air a finger's-breadth from his cheek.

Sweat streamed down his flanks. “It hurt when I pulled out the thorn—but I made it better. Didn't I, Havoc?”

He was so close that he caught her musty lion smell and the coppery tang of blood. He saw her huge black claws flex in and out. One strike and she would snap his neck.

“B-but you don't want to hurt me, do you, Havoc?” he stammered.

With horrifying speed she lunged at him, clashing her fangs a whisker from his face.

“You d-don't want to hurt me,” he repeated. “I'm your friend, I want to help.”

For a moment they locked gazes. It was too dark to see if memories stirred in those slitted, pain-crazed eyes.

Hylas took a breath. He stretched one trembling hand toward the arrow shaft . . .

Then everything happened at once. He grabbed the shaft and pulled. Havoc's forepaw lashed out. Pain flared in his side as she flung him against the wall and sped from the cave.

The silence after she'd gone was deafening.

Wincing, Hylas probed his ribs. Sore, but not broken. Havoc had sheathed her claws. If she hadn't, she would have ripped him open from heart to hip.

Dazed and shaken, Hylas crawled to the mouth of the cave. He could see no sign of Havoc on the slope, apart from her blood-spattered trail disappearing into the trees. Would her wound heal? Would she understand that he'd done it to help her?

As his heartbeats slowed, he realized that he was still clutching the arrow.

He blinked at it. The arrowhead was shaped like a poplar leaf, and made of black obsidian.

His blood roared in his ears. Obsidian, like the arrowhead he had once dug out of his arm.

This could only mean one thing.

Crows.