As Nallo shouldered one of the heavy sacks, she caught a glimpse of the old man looking her way with a grimace so ugly a spark of anger flared and she found herself taking a step toward him. There was a man who needed a few blunt words shouted in his griping face.
'Nallo,' said Pil in his soft way.
With a sigh, she followed him. Toskala could not wait. He was just one cranky, selfish, old, and very rich man. Maybe all Silvers were like him, or maybe he was an unpleasant old coot whose wealth had purchased him the right to bully those within reach of his cane. She'd been mean to those in her care a time or two, just because she let her temper and her resentment get the better of her. Who was to say she couldn't become like him, if she wasn't careful?
It was a sobering thought.
Up!
Nessumara and the delta fell away behind and below as streaming air wicked away the stench of brackish water and too
many people crammed onto too many islets. The smithy had smelled a cursed lot fresher, nothing fetid or decomposing where metal was forged. Nallo kept seeing the delving in her mind's eye, the way its head had turned at the sound of their voices. You could tell if someone was looking at you across a distance; eyes had a way of holding and meeting, or maybe it was jvist the way bodies tensed and shoulders straightened or dropped. It had heard every word.
About forty mey separated Nessumara from Toskala, as the eagle flew. It was difficult to get used to flying in half a day a journey that by river or road might take as many as eight days. The huge river wound a convoluted course, with the wide roadbed of Istri Walk cutting a course more or less parallel to the main channel of the river. The road below was clogged with traffic: people in wagons, pushing carts, trudging with children hoisted on their shoulders. Folk were fleeing from the army that had betrayed and conquered Toskala.
At the sight of those cursed helpless refugees, it was as if a hand reached right into her heart and squeezed until tears like blood oozed up out of her eyes, she who prided herself on being too tough to cry no matter what was thrown at her. She'd had plenty of cause to cry, growing up as a daughter more tolerated than liked in a large clan that couldn't afford to keep so many children, especially one burdened with such a foul temper. They'd been thrilled to marry her off to a much older man she'd never met. For her part, she felt the gods had been kind in sending her to a gentle man whose patience had been as wide as sky and as steady as earth. Her clan hadn't cared what manner of man he was; they'd gotten a better bride-price than they expected.
Now he was dead, killed by the Star of Life army, and she was a reeve, safe up here while others trudged vulnerably down there, not knowing who might clatter up from behind and rip the breath out of their bodies. Wasn't the entire point of being a reeve to be able to help those in need? In the tale, hadn't the orphaned girl begged the gods for a way to restore justice?
The hells! She'd lost track of both Kesta and Pil. She didn't know how to hasten Tumna along, and the cursed lumpy sack of nai was bumping her knees to bruises. Tumna did not like the extra weight, and she was not a raptor to cooperate when she was disgruntled.
As they got closer to Toskala, the traffic fell off to a trickle.
Soon, no movement stirred at all, although hamlets and villages lay everywhere on this rich land. Paddies lay close to harvest, un-tended. No one was turning the fallow fields for the dry season.
An orange flag flashed to her left. Pil and Sweet hung above the river. She tugged on a jess — the wrong one — and cursed as she corrected. Tumna beat in a long curve toward the river. As they flashed over the muddy gray- green current, a barge was being poled away from the west bank while a gang of men pursued it along the shore with swords and bows.-jCargo in tidy rows took up much of the barge, and passengers — children! — cowered among the sacks, barrels, and chests as arrows rained over them.
The river fell behind as she overshot. She tugged until Tumna with the greatest reluctance began a sweep back around while Nallo could not even twist to get a look because of the heavy sack of nai. By the time she got the river back in view, Pil had vanished. But then Sweet appeared from downriver, beating straight up the central current. Pil was loosing arrows, and at least one man on the bank went down. The barge had caught the current; men on its deck had their own bows at the ready. A man clad all in black loosed, his arrow flew, and a man on the shore staggered and fell into the river, the waters taking him as his companions grabbed hopelessly after him.
Pil and Sweet cut hard around as the black-clad man, below, raised a hand in acknowledgment. The enemy dropped away, no longer a threat. Tumna set her head north, following the river and, perhaps, Kesta's Arkest, by now out of Nallo's sight.
'Cursed bird,' muttered Nallo, but it wasn't Tumna she was angry at. She knew what it was like to flee on the roads as a refugee. Months ago she'd walked homeless and hungry and scared, and sold herself into debt slavery besides in order to get a meal. She had rejected the reeves once, but in the end, as that cursed handsome Marshal Joss had warned her, the eagle had gotten what it wanted: it had wanted Nallo. She had come to Clan Hall to be trained as a reeve, but there'd been no time or thought for arms training in the confused days after Toskala's fall. Without training, she was useless.
'You're going to have to help me out, you ill-tempered beast.' Her knuckles were white as she gripped her baton, surveying the earth for any sign of enemy whether on the march or sent out as strike forces to harry the countryside south of Toskala. Maybe they saw her from their hiding places; she did not spot them.
This region of lower Haldia was rolling plain, and soon the distinctive rock marking the prow of Toskala like an upthrust fist came into view and grew until it loomed huge as Tumna glided in, extended her wings, and pulled up short for the landing. The sack whumped down so hard Nallo feared it might burst, but it had been bound with heavy leather belts in a doubled sacking.
Fawkners came running together with stewards to carry the sack to the storehouse, but as soon as her harness was shucked, Tumna warbled her wings and walked in her clumsy way over to a rope-wrapped perch to preen, ignoring the fawkners.
'I like the bloom on her feathers,' said one of the fawkners. 'She's beginning to grow out those fret marks. Have you coped her beak? Or talons?'
'I have not. I don't know how to do anything!'
'Aui! No need to snap at me! It was just a question.'
'My apologies. I'm hungry.'
'If you're sharp set, then go eat.'
Still no sign of Pil. The promontory of Law Rock was an astounding physical formation, with its sheer cliffs and flat crown wide enough for an assizes court, a militia and firefighters barracks and administration compound, and four grain storehouses and the city rations office. Clan Hall was built along the northern rim. Beyond the reeve hall lay a tumble of boulders surrounding a string of ponds running the curve of the northeastern rim, where raptors liked to bowse and feak.
Law Rock, the actual stele, stood near the prow under a humble thatched-roof shelter. The rest of the space was dusty, open ground suitable for drilling, assemblies, festival games, or eagles landing in waves. Four new perches had been erected in the last eight days, the logs hauled up from distant forest by the most experienced reeves and strongest eagles. The fresh-cut smell, the litter of wood chips from shaping and sawing, lingered as Nallo raced past the newest one and headed for the promontory's prow, where she could scan for Pil.
'Heya!'
Nallo turned as Kesta ran up.
'Where's Pil?' the other reeve asked, wiping sweat from her neck and brow.
'He must have turned back. I saw soldiers — an enemy strike force — attacking a barge. It was so far behind the main flow of
refugees that I'm thinking they were folk who escaped Toskala after the siege was set. There was a Qin soldier on that barge.'
'What would a Qin soldier be doing all the way here? They're all with their captain in Olossi, aren't they?'
'Except for Pil.'
'Pil's a reeve. He's no longer one of them.'
A reeve who knew what he was doing. Who could sweep and turn and yank on the right jess to go the right direction; who could shoot arrows and kill men from harness. Who could actually do something.
